Washington Letter

Washington-, Oct. 25, 1897. Further evidence from Ohio corroborates tlie statements that the silver question has ven alisolutely eliminated from the diseussions there in the carapaign. And silver was practically the only plank of tlie democratie platform adopted but hree raonths ao. Mr, Bryan proposed o Kanvass the state throughly in the in,erest oí silver andspeak from the stump. Sx-CongréSRtnan Towne entered the state with un ideaof peakíng for free silvef many times, butfor some reason Mr. Sryan has not kept faith with his asserions and Mr. Towne has been peremp;orily ordered off the stump by Alian O'Myers, MeLean's manager, with this action sustained by Mel.ean. Bryán, Fowne and others, who have been for ;he past two years laboring in the in;erests of the silver trust, view this "turning down" with nothing less than iismay, beeause t meana to them that the democratie party is abandoning the iree-coinage talk in every state where its managers see any real hope of success at the polls this fall. This general program me has been adopted in all states where there are cainpaigns, as is shown by the various reports. When it carne to a direct clash, as was the case the otlier day between democracy and Bryan, democracy won and Biyau was snubbed. The New Yorkers were about entering on th'eir campaign and Jlr. Bryan wrote urging them to keep free silver to the front in their fight; Chairman Jones, however, advised them to elimínate free silver and Jones' adviee was followed. Silver is practically tabooed iu this fall's cainpaigns and the 'ree-silver men are excluded from participation in them. This seems nothing short of wonderful, in view of the fact ;hat only three months have elapsed since the democratie leaders determined ;hat free silver should be the leading issue of this year where state and local cainpaigns were to be fought. In Ohio, [oiva, and Kentucky, as well as inother states, it was made the chief, and in some cases, practically the only plank of the platforms. The Marylanders, under Senator Gorman's shrewd leadership, mauaged to save themselves from jeing obliged later to run away from the platform, by straddling it at their conveution, but in almost every other case 'ree coinage was the watchword of the ocal committees as mach as it was of the Democratie National Committee of last year. In Massachusetts, the George Fred Williams element adopted ït; in New York a segment of the democracy declared for it, and in Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, Iowa, Peuusylvania, Nebraska, and other states it was to be the leading issue of the cainpaigns. THE CilAXGE. But all this happened within the last three or four months, and all these ratilications of free silver by various conventions were before the passage of the Dingley law and the signing of that measure by the President. This occurred later, and what was the effect? Irnmediately the wheels of industrv began to revolve. It is useless for calamity bowlers to say íbey did not or that prosperity has notreturned to thousands of homes throughout the land. Immediatel)' with tlie passage of that law, and in some cases in anticipation of its passage, faetones began to resume and to increase tlieir number of employees, and thousands of men who had been looking vainly for work suddenly found it,, and at good wages too. The lium of industry was heard on all sides, and the factory smoke began to roll out in black volumes. Employers began paying out nioney to labor which they had been previously hoarding, afraid to etnbark in business ventures, aud the employés begau to demand the necessities of life from the farmers. Farm producís rose in price and laborera had the money with which to buy them. Xot only wheat went up, in which there is a "shortage" abroad, but all other farm products ad vaneed likewise. And, strange to say, simultaneously with these advances the price of silver steadily feil, reachiug a low-water mark never dreamed of by the democrats who were proposing last year to supply the country with 53-cent dollars. Things reached such a state - silver down to nothing, and everything else up and going up - that there remained nothing to do but to drop the silver issue and forget it, although it had been made the leading plank in most of the platforms, and the advices from all the states where there are campaigns beingfought show that this plan has been adopted with singular unanimity. As stated, Messrs. Bryan and Towne, and others of that school, are rigidly excluded from all the important campaigns and only allowed to edúcate the people in those sections where they can't do any harin, while the democrats are casting about for other issues, making their campaign on a variety of misleading and so-called issues, personal abuses, and the like. Such "principies" as the single tax, the "government-by-injunction" idea, socialism, and anarchism are substituted for the semi-iiat-mouey scheme which was the leading and almost only issue three months ago. Last year the democracy had to abandon its old and timehonored principie of free trade for the new and attractive one of free silver, and now, all its promises broken, and all its prognostications of a year ago unfulfilled and shown false, it iscompelled to abandon that new idol for other "principies." The outlook for the democracy cannot be a pleasing one.