The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-28
WEDNESDAY, JUNE %, 1899.
TWELVE PAGES,


1 was said on this page two or
I three days ago, the effort of
those who propose to keep the
present incumbent in the presidency
until 1905 Is, really, to fight out the bat
Tie this year instead of waiting until
next years campaign. formanties are
undertaken. That is to say, the Hanna
forces, realizing that they have Bryan.
and no other candidate, to fear, are
putting forth every effort to break
Bryan down, in anticipation of next
years nominating convention.
This Hanna machine is a power; one
can see that, in instances, it is getting
its work in. For instance, it is making
an active anti-Bryan agency out of
the renegade democratic forces that
We're turned to account for Mckinley in
1896. OF course, expressions come now
and then from individuals who were for
Bryan in 1856 and who now insist that
he is not the man for next year, and
that is not to be wondered at The
fact remains that these are individual
expressions. They are not consensus
of opinion representative of sentiment
try; and we believe these lapses from
Bryan to be offset, a dozen times over
by the silver sentiment that has de-
veloped in recent times in constituent
caes that were essentially anti-Bryan
three years ago when, in these constit-
uencies, the free coinage question was
not nearly SO well understood as it is
fn-H1 70 he iSy ta 1,a
ically true, for instance, of the voting
masses right in the state of New York
where the trusts are feared and where
the logic of the coming campaign is to
impress the indisputable truth that the
way to fight the trusts is to fight the
biggest trust of them all, the gold trust,
the father and sponsor of all the trusts.
Certain it is that there is immeasura-
bly, more general informat ton and gen
eral intelligence respecting the silver
question, taking the country at large,
than there was three and four years
ago. The hackers of the Mckinley adj
ministration know this. They are the
people who are raising the shout that
Bryan won't do; they are using, for the
spread of this notion, the so-called
democrats who bolted Bryan three
years ago; their whole plan of cam
paign is that, if they can manage to
use Bryan up in 1899, their campaign
for 1900 is probably won in advance
In sections where silver had good
strength in l896-outside of the silver
mining regions-all that recently has
happened is in evidence of a marked
strengthening of silvers side. For in
stance, in Kentucky, the democratic
state convention has recently adopted
the strongest possible declaration for
free coinage at sixteen to one as the is
sue for next year, and it declared for
Bryan. 1t Is an assertion that cannot
be successfully controverted that, under
continuance of present conditions,
Kentucky will score an Overwhelming
majority for Bryan, if it has an op-
portunity to vote for him next year.
Bear in mind the fact that Mckinley
carried Kentucky in 1896. so potent were
then the gold-democratic influences
that are powerless now in Kentucky.
If Bryan has lost strength, you can
not prove it by appeal to any of the
constituencies where he was strong ir
1896. The lot talk against him. imput-
ing loss of democratic strength, comes
notably from those whose support he
cannot lose because, in very large
measure. that is support he never had
U--