Weekly independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1887-1914, 1904-05-20
REPUBLICAN ANXIETY ABOUT Sill
YER.

Many Nevada Republicans profess
great anxiety lest the Democra:ic'Siiver
PARTY deviate from its devotion to the
silver cause. Their attitude Is so sing.
ular upon this point that one scarcely
Knows whether to sscri5e it to the re-
morse OF conscience or to that less CON-
merdable feeling which sometimes
rrourtsI wrong-doers to endeavor to
prove that there are others Just as bad
or worse.
4 little reflection though. will lead
most disiuterested thinkers to conclude
,hst the question Of conscience must be
denied all consideration for during re-
cent years, neither at home nor abroad
has the Republican party given the
slightest token Of having any con-
science, With that party whether a GER
tain policy Is right or wro1g Is a matter
OF supreme indifference, and no one but
ALI antediluvian fossil would ever think
OF raising such a question. -Wih II
pay!- as thefe money in the job!
Can the party win on the propositions:
These are the queries and the only ones
that the Republican leaders ever think
Of asking themselves.
II will be understood this utter lack
OF conscience is ascribed to the leaders
and those who think they are, OF whom
we can always find some IN every COM
munity, however small. No one cares
to deny that in the Republican party
there are many houest men who cling to
il. some through habit, some through
prejudice, and some through ignorance.
But it is perfectly clear that those who
are leading or trying to lead Nevada
Republican thought are not troubled by
conscience. Had they been they would
all have committed suicide long ago on
the tomb Of murdered silver.
The real motive for their pretended
anxiety respecting the attitude OF their
opponents on the silver question must,
therefore, be the second n referred
to. They are laboring to make 1t APP
pear that those who murdered silver
and those who are now nesting on the
political bosoms OF the murderers, are
no worse on this head than those who
fought with unflinching courage to pre-
tent the crime and who still have SUI
ticient self-respect to refuse to fawn and
lick the boots of those who perpetratcd
the crime.
These Republicans, nearly all OF
whom at one time claimed to be silver
men, are shouting themselves hoarse
over Roosevelt, who is on record with
the declaration that free silver coinage
is financial dishonesty. At the same
time they profess to be shocked at the
idea OF a Nevada Silver man being ask
cd to vote for Judge Parker, n man who
voted FOR Bryan and free silver-thus
showing that whether he believed in the
doctrine or not, he was at least willing
to give it n trial. And while Parker
was thus voting for free silver, Roose.
welt was, in effect d~enouncing his pres.
ent Republican worshippers in Nevada,
rs dishonest wretches who were trying
TO swindle the widow and the orphan
md the gray.haired veteran pensiOner
with 'fifty.ceut dollars"
And SD with our local political affairs.
In every incident, however trivial, the
Republican press pretends to sec evi-
dence Of treason TO the silver cause.
And all the while the claim is persist.
emily made th:at SILVER is dead" The
name in which the Republican press
deals with silver II suggestive OF a muir
dercr who has committed n iiendish
homicide and then seeks to excuse it by
the plea that the friends and relatives of
the victim have not shown proper at
tcntiOn to the details OF the funeral.
Perhaps we ought not to be too severe
Oh our Republican contemporaries. be.
cause it is quite likely that they are
doing their best: They are not to he
blamed for the weakness OF their "argu.
ments when they have no arguments to
offer. They are blamablc merely for
being Republicans when they have not
n scintilla OF eouDd political argument
to sustain their RcpublicaniRm, Reno
Star.