Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-12-18

issue before the people. the republicans
gave, expression to their pledges through
the Mckinley bill. and later through the
Dingley bill, while the democrats passed
the Wilson bill. Subordinate issues,
outlined in the platforms of each party,
| were sacrificed when necessary to ensure
the success of the paramount question
upon which the fortunes of the respective
campaigns turned.
-
The same rule applies to silver. II was
the paramount issue in 1896. and had the
democratic party been successful it would
have been under the most solemn obliga-
tons to enact free coinage Legislation
if within it's power so to do. even if it
become necessary to forego all considera-
ton of minor questions to that end. Next
year. With anti-imperialism as the para
mount issue, the democratic party, if
successful at the polls, will be under
equal obligations to enact legislation
along that line, sacrificing the interests
of silver and other subordinate questions
to the main proposition of the campaign.
The distinction between a paramount
issue and a subordinate question cannot
be too fully appreciated, when practical
results are aimed at by thinking men.
The enormity of willfully and design
edly robbing silver of it's place as the
paramount issue of the campaign of 1900
cannot be too vigorously condemned. The
abstract recognition of bimetallism by the
democratic party. after having accord
1896, will be more of an insult to silver
men than a compliment. for it will be
nothing more nor less than a bid for the
votes of the gnllible. In 1892 the DEM
such a platform, in the person of Mr..
Cleveland, and it will give promise of no
better results in the line of legislation in
1900. There is ar abyssmal gulf etwee
free coinage at a ratio of 16 to 1, by the
independent action of this nation, and a
general indefinite declaration in favor OF
b%imetallism.
-
One does not have to go a thousand
miles from Butte to find democratic BIZ
metallic organs willing to forego the ra-
ito. for the sake Of party harmony. and
conceda that the relative values of silver
exchanges. Free coinage men have had
altogether too much of that sort of nom
sense from the professed representatives
If a silver democracy. Yet one of these
Arnalgamated Copper trust.-a journal
has never had the courage to COM
nent on the public utterances of Mr.. Bry-
an and other prominent democrats rela-
i've to the pushing to the front of a new
paramount ~issue-comes out this morning
n a column editorial rejoinder to the Inter
Mountain of Saturday, in which it resorts
to such magnificent logic as this:
1t is barely possible that somewhere
and at some time in the great field of Am
ertcan journalism, a tWo-column editor
iai has appeared which contained less of
truth than does the one referred to, but
happily we have never seen it. 1t has
been our misfortune to note some other
in the same newspape that We're
just as bad as the one in Question, but We
freely admit that none of them was
worse.
The foregoing is a fair sample of the
Anaconda Standards argumentative abil-
ity, and is as logical and conclusive as
anything one can hope to find in its edi-
torial columns. The Inter Mountains
editorial, to which reference is made. was
based not on deductions but upon state
ments made by leading democrats and
leading democratic newspapers, hereto
fore given at length in these columns.
In no Instance has the Standard uues-
toned the correctness of these statements
When made by prominent D%ourbons, nor
has it ever attempted to defend silver
from the logical results of such a course
on the part of democratic leaders, but
when it is pointed out that the men who
are trying to create a new is
sue, to take the place of free coinage.
should be taken at their word and ac-
credited with sincerity, the organ of the
~Amalganlated Copper trust gives birth
to such irresistible logic as the above
aragraph.
sumned up, the import of the stand
ards article is that the republicans are
farther away from free coinage than are
the democrats. 1t fails to point out where
in any statement made in These COLUMNS
is Incorrect, either as quotations from
prominent democratic sources or as con-
illusions that are logically daducihla