The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-10-28

The campaign of 1895 has scarcely
become sufficiently connected with an
cient history to require a chronology.
In fact the campaign of 1896 is still
discussed in connection with the cam
paign of 1908, because of the fact that
many of the principal actors in one are
still the principal actors in the other.
AS is we'll remembered. the question
of the free coinage of silver was the
paramount issue, although the discon-
tent and hard times, which the Repub-
licans attributed to the Wilson bill,
gave great force to the Republican de-
mand for a true protective tariff. The
advocates of free coinage of silver were
sufficiently legion to bring the money
problem into first concern. All of the
Populists had been carried away by
this idea four years before, and now
that the Democratic party was TO make
free silver the dominent issue, the
Populists Immediately joined forces
and supported the Democratic candi-
date.
The first of the great national con-
ventions to assemble was that of the
Republicans. which met at St. Louis
on June Is. Public sentiment had
already agreed upon William McKin-
ley of Ohio as the nominee for presi-
dent. although Thomas B. Reed of
Maine had strong and influential fol-
lowing. Mr.. Mckinley was nominated
on the first ballot, receiving more than
two-tnirds of the votes of the conven-
ton, while Garrett A. Hobart of New
Jersey was chosen for vice president.
The Republican platform characteriz-
ed Cleveland's administration as one
of unparalleled incapacity, dishonor
and disaster. 1t eulogized protection
and RECIPROCITY and opposed the free
coinage of silver, with a demand for
the preservation of the existing gold
standard. The adoption of the plank
favoring gold-standard was opposed by
many free silver Republican delegates.
Being defeated by an overwhelming
vote of the convention. Senator Teller
OF Colorado, the leader of the free sill
yer faction, followed by some thirty
free silver delegates, formally with
drew from the convention and refused
TO support the ticket. The Democratic
national convention met at Chicago
July Z. 1t was plain from the moment
the convention assembled that free sill
yer delegates were in the ascendency,
and that free silver was to be the rule
OF the assembly. The convention re-
fused to endorse the administration of
Mr.. Cleveland despite the strenuous
efforts of his friends, and probably
this can be traced directly to the fact
that the convention was free silver in
sentiment, while Mr.. Cleveland had
strongly opposed free silver through
out his public career. Public senti-
ment had not been fixed upon any one
man to bear the party banner, and a
spirited contest was held for the nomi-
nation. Richard p Bland of Missouri
Governor Patterson of PENNSYLVANIA
and Governor Boise Of Iowa. were
recognized as the leading candidates
at the time of the assembling of the
convention. But in the course of the
debate on the free silver plank a new
leader was discovered. This man was
William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska,
who championed the cause of silver on
the floor Of the convention in a bril-
liant speech of SURPRISING eloquence.
which so far swept the convention off
its feet that he was nominated for the
presidency on the fifth ballot Arthur
Sewell, a wealthy ship builder of
Maine, was nominated for vice presi-