The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1898-12-03
THE FUTURE OF SILVER.
A Lesson for Cheap Money Advocates
In the Late Elec-
lions.

There is no installing the Significance
of the fall election in its relation to tho
democratic party as national organs
cation which will not participate in am
other general election for congressman
and legislative or state officers general
ly until the presidential battle OF 1900,
| The results oi the voting tend, greatly
| TO strengthen. consolidate and enforce
the power Of the radical free silver
element, predominant in Chicago in
| 1896. and now certain to be in control
at the national convention of 1900
Briefly summarized, the results in the
south were more dccisivcly favorable to
democratic candidates than any similar
elections have been since populism
threatened democratic local supremacy
in many southern states. The ropu-
! lists are again voting the democratic
ticket, and the price of their continued
alliance Is adhesion TO the radical prin-
| ciples enumerated in the presidential
election in tIc Chicago platform-rh the
crime of 'GG.
! In those O. thc eastern states which
Y
I Connecticut. 10 attract the honest
money candidates to the party whose
allegiance they forcsworc two years
ago. il has fai d utterly. In the states
lin which the policy of evasion Of ma
tional issues has been followed Now
York, New Jersey and Maryland there
has been no gain in consequence. IN
Massachusetts and Illinois, whyrc the
Bryan democracy reiterated It's pur-
poses MS declared at Chicago, its c@Gdj-
dates did better than they did
year ago. In the far west, in Colorado.
Utah and Idaho what measure of sgc-
cess the democratic candidatCSattuiucd
was due chiefly TO the aid of silver re-
publicans: and il does not appear from
the returns from any state that the sill
yeritrs. whether democrats populiSts
or republicans. have any mistriIst Of the
sincerity Of the democratic organiZa-
ton in its temporary mutllcd advocacy
of radical policies, or that the honest
money voters of the country, demo-
Gratis, republicans or independents
there are no hCncst-money popu!ists--
had, or have, Il particle Of confidence
| in the professions made by some DEM
ocratic orators Of their disavowal Of
silveritc predictions and purposes.
The effect of the elections has been,
briefly, to tighten party lines with even
greater tirmness than was the case two
years ago. The national democrats.
so called. have been eliminated entirely.
They now vote the republican ticket or
they vote the democratic ticket. The
middlc-of-the-roaG populists and there
were nearly 100000 of them in 1896, are
again in the Gold Of the fusonstS. In
the south, the southwest and in the
mountain states, the populists and
democrats preponGerate; in the east
crn, middle. middle western and Pacific
states. the republican party is the party
of the ma iority. There are no visible
recruits to the democratic standard to
he secured by Abandonment of the prin-
ciples TO which the party, asa national
organization. is committed; there is
the certainty of serious and positive
losses in any attempted abandonment
of the Issues of two years ago.
Unquestionably the present eco
nomic conditions, as well as the polit-
ical relations OF the two parties toward
each other. the prestige of republican
victory and the decentralization of the
opposing forces, make almost hopeless
for the democracy the renewal of the
battle of two years ago; but, be the out
look propitious or discouraging, the
lesson of the late election is unmistak-
ably clear: The democratic party is
committed irrcvocably to the issues OF
1S96.--N. Y. Sun.