The age-herald., 1898-09-07
O[D STORY OF
 POPUL|ST SPLIT Smallest Convention and Longest Platform in PaIty's History W. BARKER FOR PRESIDENT Delegates Came With Self-Con-
 stituted CredentiaIs.l DONNELLY FOR ! VICE.PRESIDENT Butler Bitterly Denounced as Traitor
 to His Party. EIGHT STATES LEFT GATHERING Issued Long Preamble Imploring Popu- lists to Pay no Heed to Sloughing of of Populist Timber-Preserve
 State Organizations.
Butler Bitterly Denounced as Traitor
 to His Party.
EIGHT STATES LEFT GATHERING

Cincinnati, O., September b.-Ihe mludle- of-the-road populsts today reorganized the peoples party, renewed its former declara- tion of principles and nominated its na- tional ticket two years and two months in advance of the date of the election. The object of this early action was to head off any such fusion as that of 1896. While the radicals controlled the convention they could not have carried out their programme without bolting from northern delegates. The western and southern delegates nomi- mated Wharton Barker and Ignatius Don nelly and declared the principles of the re- organized party.
 The eastern states were not represented. It was the smallest national ,Alvention on record, and 1t adopted the longest platform on record, of over 1000 words Most of the usual rules of conventions were ig- nored, as most of the delegates came with self-consttuted credentials. owing to the confusion over the call. It vas very noisy convention, and no connected report of the proceedings will ever be recorded. While the peoples party was heretofore divided on the issue of fusion, it has now been found that even the anti-fusionists are badly divided and that the fighting among the lucluSGlNcS has just begun.
 The second days session was called to order at an early hour when the temporary organization was made permanent, and Chairman Ignatus Donnelly made another radical speech denouncing all those who had co-operated with fusion movements and strongly advocating the reorganization of the party not only for an independent tial inE mi candidates for congress, state offices, etc.
 Denouncing Butler
 A letter was read from Ex-Governor Waite, of Colorado, in which he denounced Senator Butler as a treacherous chairman and false leader, and advocated the nomi- nation of straight populistic candidates for president and other offices.
 An elaborate address to the people of the United States was adopted. It reaffirms the previous platform of the populists, and covers many additional questions, and in referring to the present situation 1t says:
 "The peoples pary vote in 1894 and 1895 rose to nearly 100000, and everything in- dicated it's speedy national triumph. In this emergency the democratic party saw that it had no recourse but to steal one of the principles of the despised populists. In the Chicago convention of 1S96 in a pre- arranged theatrical scene of great uproar and enthusiasm, it moved to the front the devoted and lifelong champion of that which it had always opposed
 Senator Butler, who is chairman of our national committee preached disintegra- tion and demoralzation just as Benedict Arnold stipulated for the scattering of the American forces that the British might the more readily overthrow the young re- public.
 Poor old Butler
 'Mr Butler taught our forces that the first duty of a soldier was to break ranks and go over to the enemy. All efforts to chain the boundess subtlety of this cum ming man have been in vain. Our chief battle is not against the demonetization of one metal for the benefit of another but against the chainlng of the worlds pro- gress to the car wheels of a prehistoric su- perstition in the shape of both metals. The whole world today is held in check by system of gold barter, while enterprise lan- guishes, industry suffers and the cemeteries are populous with bodies of bankrupts and suicides.
 "We will end the tricks of the office- seekers by putting our national ticket in the field at once. We believe the soul is bigger than the pocketbook. We have nothing but kind words of republicans and democrats individually. Our hearts go out to the wretched and oppressed of the whole world While we demand that If either gold or silver is to be used as money both
 
 currency this country ever possesessed was the full legal tender greenbacks of the civil war And we look forward with hope to the day when gold shall be relegated to the diseased teeth of the people and the human family possess free of tribute to bankers a governmental full legal tender measure of values made of paper that will expand side by. side with the growth of wealth and population.
 eve call attention to the public school system and the postal service as exempli- fled of beneficent state socialism and to similar institutions for the improvement of the conditions of the people,"
 A digest of the resolutions adopted to- night show that those who controlled the convention were prompted by some purpose provoking them to override every effort made to promote the interests of the party.
 Referendum System
 The convention proceeded properly to es-