New-York tribune., 1900-08-02
THE RIVAL PROPHETS.

Chairman Mcguire of the Democratic State
Executive Committee is developing powers as
a rainbow chaser that bid fair to threaten the
laurels of Chairman Jones of the National Com
mittee and Daniel ]. Campau. the Michigan
member He hasn't yet included Vermont or
Pennsylvania in the Bryan tidal wave with
which he is going to sweep New-York in No
vember. but he has discovered what is almost
as startling. He finds that the Gold Democrats
are becoming convinced Of the claptrap charac-
ter Of the 16 to l plank In the Kansas City
platform and are "rallying nobly'' to its sup
port. The campaign is to be conducted on lines
that will satisfy the opponents of free silver,
and even Bryan in his acceptance speech is to
deliver himself in a way that will reassure
all Gold T .locrats'
This is very interesting, but fails to carry
conviction. Mr. Mcguire bases his "understanu-
ing with the party managers on the theory that
the country is in more immediate danger from
imperialism than from the fancied evils of free
silver, for it is generally understood that the
complexion of the United States Senate pre-
vents any radical change in the monetary sit
'uaton for some time to come" man who is
ostensby working for harmony in his party
should be more careful not to cast reflections on
the word of his fellow workers How does Mr..
Mcclure intend to preserve the political COM
possibility of financial disaster while Jones and
Campau are busy carrying all the States where
retiring Republican Senators must be succeeded
by Republicans If the Senate is not to become
a silver body? Nothing is more certain than
that the realization of the Jones-Campau pro-
gramme would leave the gold element in the
United States Senate in hopeless minority and
open wide the way for the enactment of the
16 to idea into law. Both the Arkansas and
the Michigan prophet are cocksure of carrying
these Republican States for Bryan. 16 TO and
ALL and yet Mcclure calmly invites the Gold
Democrats to swallow the Chicago platform ON
the promise that such visions of Republican
obteratiOn are pipe dreams Verify there
should he honor, even among fellow smokers
Not every one however. is prepared to accept
prophecies from either of the rival camps and
it requires no great strain on the memory to
recall the intense and spectacular struggle for
the insertion of a specific 16 to I plank in the
Kansas City platform. Bryan is the candidate
not only of the new Democracy but of the Silver
Republicans and the POpulists, with whom free
silver is still pet hobby. No matter how con-
spicuously the triple vote catcher may parade
an apparent change of heart on the money
question oy emphasizing tho so-cRied imperial
istlc issue in his Democratic acceptance the
creduity needs to be large that will trust to its
sincerity. II the miracle of Bryan's election
should come to pass at all, it would not be be-
yOnd the range of possibility or even probabil-
ity that the tidal wave would sweep away every
obstacle to a complete reversal of our monetary
policy. Gold Democrats as we'll as all other
benefciaries of the country's present unparal.
leled prosperity will be likely to think twice be.
fore inviting that cataclysm