Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-07-06

action the democracy would not consent,
for it had in mind the placing OF silver III
the background whenever it became APP
parent that some other question might
be seized upon with greater advantage to
the hungry seekers for the spoils of office.
Nc sooner had the fires cooled down on
the camping grounds of 90 than the de-
mocracy began casting about for some
new issue to take the place of free COIN
age in the forthcoming contest of 1900.
The country was forced into a war with
Spain before it was prepared for the con-
flict. in the hope that the administration
might commit some errors of Judgment
| that would give the democratic party a
foothold in the next presidential election.
| Failing to accomplish the desired end,
| the war in the Philippines was greedily
| seized upon as a political pretext. and
the cry of 'anti-imperialism' was raised.
1t was announced. with a flourish of
trumpets, that the paramount issue OF
| 1900 would be the imperialistic tendencies
of the republican party! Then came a
pusillanimous fusilade from all the big
and little copperheads in the country
against the war policy of the government.
The reaction was prompt, clear-cut and
incisive. The American people are patri-
otto.
But the democratic leaders did not re-
lax their efforts to find some issue that
would displace free coinage as the lead
ing question. Fearing that the cry of
"anti-imperialism" would fall of it's
weight, they met at ST. Louis and de-
cided that the leading issue in 1900 should
be "an]ti-trusts.'' And that is the situa-
ton today.
In the silver states. where it is polite
for them to do so, the democrats will yell
for silver in the hope that the prestige
; of 1896 may enable them to delude the
people into a belief in their sincerity of
purpose, but as a national party they will
| refuse to subordinate other questions to
the issue of free coinage, as in the late
Bryan campaign. Cleveland was elected
on a silver platform in 1892, but it was
not the paramount issue of the natlonal
campaign, and the democratic part!
ignored that plank in their platform wher
successful at the polls. To even hope fol
free coinage, as the outcome of a demo
cratic victory in 1900, it must be made tn;
,.,,o nc - vyo in 1908 anl
not be subordinated to other questions.
But all the leading democrats in tn
country, from Bryan down to the janlto
of the Butte Miners editorial columns
are against making free coinage the lead
ing issue in 1900. Not one of them ha
come out in favor of forcing the time
honored ratio of 16 to / to the front an
keeping it there. On the contrary, all tn
whales and all the minnows that ar
foundering around in the uncertain Sc
of democracy, waiting to be harpooned o
nibbling at pin fish-hooks, declare ting
for the present. the free coinage ques
ton is overshadowed by greater issues
o all of which means that the democrat!
- party does not intend to deal hOnestl
with that question, whatever may be i
line of campaigning in the silver states.
/, To the silver republicans and the pop,
~, lists the friends of silver must look f.
an honest advocacy of the claims of II
~ white metal, ever though the democra
have succeeded in forcing that issue ter
p~orarily into the background to ma
NJ room for paramount issues of a differe