Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-04-14
Billy has been reading the Anaconda

Standard.
Mr.. Bryan is an able a and his cam
is large enough to unity the silver forces
of this nation on any platform that omits
the ratio of 16 to 1, however vociferously
it may declare for the abstract principle
of bimetallism. Democratic sympathy
for the double standard idea is not we'll
enough established for that party to
waive any of the fundamental principles
of free coinage and expect a following of
silver men.
A great deal of tact and skill was
shown in the speeches delivered at the
Croker %ten-dollar banquet in New York
city last night. AS anticipated by the
Inter Mountain, the policy of that wing
Of the party was outlined between the
lines. The objective point of the New
York democrats is to prevent the adop-
ton of a free coinage plank by the ma
tional convention in 1900. They will not
insist upon a gold plank, but upon a COM
promise that may declare for bimetallism
on general principles, whatever that may
mean, with the free coinage ratio left
out.
They will go to the convention as the
champions of party harmony, placing
upon Mr.. Bryan and his friends the re-
sponsibility of forcing a division should
division come. They will show that the
united democracy elected a president in
1892 without the help of silver republicans
or populists, and that a divided democ-
racy in 1896 made possible the election of
the republican candidate, even though
1000. 900 of non-communicants voted the
democratic ticket. They will appeal to
those democrats who want Office more
imam tneS 90 MI. bryan ~ IAN INV ii~
for party harmony and democratic peace.
| No doubt Mr.. Jefferson will be literally
quoted to that end.
All these deductions can be draw from
the flow of oratory at the Croker banquet.
| They stand out prominently between the
| lines. Had the New Workers any other
purpose in view than to push the COM
promise proposition, they would have
made war on the other wing of the party
with a directness that could not have
been misunderstood. They talked about
the credit of the government, the honest
payment of honest debts, and all that sort
of thing, but no speaker discussed the
relative merits of the single and double
standard. To have done so would have
! been to share with Mr.. Bryan the respon-
sibility of the friction that will arise in
the financial question.
They prefer to carry an olive branch,
so that in case of defeat it is the olive
branch that has been trampled under foot
by the silver democrats, and party
division will be justiiable. They are
planning to make the convention contest
a struggle between free coinage and
! party unior-not between free coinage
and the single gold standard. Shrewd
politicians, those New Workers.
Judge Van Wyck wore his presidential
aspirations quite mcdestly last night. He
dealt with the canal proposition and
other local issues at some length, to align
the state democracy with his candidacy.
He knows that the first step to the presi-
dental nomination is to secure a delega-
| ton from the state of New York, and he
governed himself accordingly. He said
nothing that will prevent the Bryan
democrats from voting for him in case he
should become the nominee of his party
on a compromise platform. No man could
have been more circumspect han he.
The speeches breathed a spirit of party
harmony, not only in what was said but
in what was left unsaid, that foreshadows
beyond a doubt the compromise plans
! which the eastern wing of the democracy
will lay before the national democratic