West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1904-02-04
THE COMING CAMPAIGN.
The Trusts the Maia Issue Says Con-
gresham Hearst.
But Bryan sticks to the Money Ques-
tion as the Leading One.


The late speech of the Hon. viii
liam j. Bryan, in the city of Lin
coin, Nebraska, in which he outlined
his position on the next Democratic
platform and advocated the ratifca-.
ton and reafiirmation OF the Chica.
60 and Kansas City platforms,
thereby making the money issue
again the leading issue In the cam
paign or at least one of the leading
issues, has attracted much attention
among the leaders Of the party in
Congress.
A careful poll of the Democrats
in Congress fails to reveal any con-
siderable number of them who agree
with Mr.. Bryan. More than nine
tenths of them are opposed to
making the money issue prominent
in the platform or even mentioning
il at all.
They say that the money issue for
the present is closed issue. That
the influx of gold to this country on
account of the new gold strikes In
the Klondike and other places, the
failure of crops in the older coun-
tries and the money dumped into
II
circulation on account of the late
Spanish-American war, has proved
conclusively the Democratic con-
tention in those two platforms:-
that there was not enough metallic
money in circulation to do the bus
mess of the country on, that this
increase of the gold has supplied
the place of the silver for which
they contended, that the conse-
quence was what they contended it
would be, viz.-prosperity.
This refusal to agree with Mr..
Bryan in his idea of what the next
platform should be has attracted
widespread attention to the recent
interview with Hon. William Ran
dolph Hearst published in the Chi
cago Tribune of January 10. In
that interview Mr.. Hearst outlined
what he believed to be the vital
issues of the next campaign and he
struck note of sympathy in the
minds and hearts of the majority of
the Democratic leaders, when he
said; ''The main issue of party
of the people is to attend to the
business before the people.
Gin this country of sudden trust
development the one dominating
issue-made SO by the trusts them
selyes--is the trust ISSUE"
Those two sentences struck the
majority of the Democratic leaders
as the very essence of good sense,
and when they were accompanied
by an exhaustive outline of the con-
ditions that exist and the issues that
should grow outof those conditions,
the interview, in its entirety, made
up comprehensive Democratic
platform of live issues upon which
the party could go before the people
and win. That is the way in which
his interview, which in reality is a
national platform struck the major
ity II the leaders of the party in the
national capital. They want man
for the nominee who stands for
something definite in the shape OF
Jeffersonian and Jacksonian Demo
cracy and who not only is aggressive
but progressive. Therefore, they
now are contrasting his wide open
aggressive and progressive Demo-
cratic policy with the Fabian and
hide and seek politics of some
others who have been mentioned
for the Democratic nomination and
he is daily growing in the estimation
of many who, a few months ago,
were inclined to give his candidacy
the ''hoarse boot" The Hearst
movement is serious factor in the
Democratic presidential equation
and is now so recognized in Wash
ington.