New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-07-31
THE SITUATION IN MISSOURI.

Too much Importance can easily be attached
to the reaffirmation by the Missouri Democrats
OF the Chicago and Kansas City platforms As
the pioneer among the greater Democratic
States in the agitation which forced free silver
coinage on the party as fits paramount issue.
Missouri could naturally do no less than show
a lingering devotion to the cause which failed
in 1896 and 1900. "Silver Dollar" Bland is dead
and buried; but the voices which clamored six
years ago at Chicago
Give us Silver Dick and silver quick.
And we Will make Mckinley sick.
are still potent enough in Missouri councils to
force at least n show of reverence for outgrown
errors and departed enthusiasms.
Crowding on the heels OF Colonel Bryan's
challenge at Nantasket Beach TO the Eastern
reorganizers Missouris apparent obduracy may
be unwisely taken as a serious protest against
party unifcation on any basis which sacrifices
the paramount issue of the last two Presidential
campaigns. 1t is more reasonable to suppose.
however, that the perfunctory reimbursement
written into the st. Joseph platform was meant
to have no crucial influence in national politics.
The Democratic machine In Missouri. under the
reckless and arbitrary management Of ex Gov
ernor Stone and Governor Dockery, has aroused
the bitterest and most widespread antagonsms
--antagonisms which now threaten an actual
breach within the Democratic ranks. Certain
"insurgent' Democratic leaders who were rid
den over rough shod in the St Joseph conven-
ton, have already been holding meetings to
plan an organized fight against the State
House ring; and 1t was doubtless the well
grounded fear that any failure to indorse free
coinage might be used as a telling weapon
against it in the backwoods counties that led
the Stone Dockery machine TO acquiesce with
such alacrity IN the declaration of loyalty to
Organism which this years State platform
carries. That either Mr. Stone or Mr. Dockery
is at heart opposed to party reorganization on
any basis which offers the slightest hope Of
national success is, however, not credited by
politicians in Missouri or beyond her borders
who know the methods and purposes of these
two statesmen best
Mr.. Stones long deferred ambition to sue
coed Mr.. Vest in the United States Senate is to
be gratitied II the next legislature shows a
Democratic majority. Mr. Vest is out of the
race by his own resolution, frequently repeated
TO retire after March next to private life, and
the st. Joseph convention has put the ex-Gov-
ernor forward as the party's choice for the
vacant place. Governor Dockery is understood
to be preparing to supplant Francis NJ Cockrell
in the Senate when the latter's fifth successive
term expires, In 1905. In a sense, then, interest
in the st. Joseph convention properly centres far
less in any rafting of the dry bones of buried
party issues than in the shifting it foreshadows
of leadership from older and more conservative
TO newer and more venturesome hands. But in
this respect Missouri is only about to undergo
that uprooting and levelling process which has
already changed the face of politics in almost
every other oldtime Southern State