Davenport.

JOURNAL'S" ARTIST

HON. JOHN BOYD THACHER,

Democratic Nominee for Governor of New York. Chicago, had effaced itself, and that all its former adherents were to be won over again and rallied about a new standard which had only the free silver mark to distinguish it. The Chicago convention was as fair and frank a political assembly as was ever held in this country, and its candidates and platform have the fullest right to hold the Democratic party name. But although the name has been fairly captured and is rightfully held, the fact cannot be disguised that the success of free silver at Chicago meant the birth of a new party. It is not the old traditional Democracy that the Republicans are meeting in this contest, but an entirely different opposing force. This new force is not as yet definitely organized; and inasmuch as it has found no way to compute its own strength, it is not strange that its opponents are unable to measure its possibilities. Almost the only link which connects it traditionally with the old Democratic party is the candidate for the Vice-Presidency, Mr. Sewall of Maine. The Populists, ever since their convention at St. Louis, have been trying, as the price of their support of Mr. Bryan, to secure the withdrawal of Mr. Sewall from the Democratic ticket and the substitution of the Populist candidate for Vice President, Mr. Tom Watson of Georgia. Mr. Watson himself has made the country ring with his oft repeated demands for Mr. Sewall's retirement. If Mr. Watson had maintained a calmer exterior and assumed a more conservative and dignified position, his object would have been more likely of attainment. With Mr.

Watson substituted for Mr. Sewall, the fusion between the Bryan Democrats and the Populists would be complete enough to give some promise of permanency; and thus the emergence of that great radical party which the newspapers are already barbarously calling the "Popocracy" would be followed by a general break-up and re-alignment of party forces.

Are Appearances Deceitful in New York ?

The situation lends itself to ordinary calculations almost as little as did that of 1860, when the approach of the war crisis was obliterating old party lines. The general opinion is that the state of New York will give a large Republican majority, and that New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio will follow the example of the New England states and increase their Republican votes. But for the simple reason that the banks, the capitalists and the representatives in general of property interests in these eastern states are almost unanimous in supporting the gold standard, it is the more difficult to estimate how many workingmen may conclude to array themselves on the other side. It has not been popular in New York to be recognized as a silver man; and it is undoubtedly true that great numbers of workingmen, rightly or wrongly, would think themselves in danger of injuring their standing with their employers and imperilling their permanence of tenure if they should wear the Bryan badges. Enormous flags by the hundreds, with the names McKinley and Hobart attached to them, are suspended from wires stretched across the streets of

New York City, while, so far as we are aware, there is not a Bryan and Sewall flag in any prominent place in New York except at the headquarters of Mr. William P. St. John, who is treasurer of the party's campaign committee. To the casual observer everything would seem one way; and yet those who know how to find out the real sentiment of the workingmen report an apparently general intention to vote for Bryan.

The Railroad

Among the men who work for wages, Sound-Money the strongest organized movement that Clubs. has arisen against the free coinage of silver is that of the railroad employees of the coun try. Many of Mr. Bryan's supporters have been taking the ground that the railroad men's sound money clubs are the outcome of intimidation on the part of railway managers. But the facts do not seem to sustain such a charge. The movement has grown out of the plain presentation to railway employees of a very clear and simple argument They are told that all the railway properties of the country are covered by huge mortgages, and that the interest for this vast volume of bonded indebtedness is for the most part payable in gold. If the gold standard is abandoned by the United States, the railroads will still have to provide gold or its equivalent to meet their fixed charges. The rates which the railroads are permitted to charge for carrying passengers and freight are in many of the States so fixed or

controlled by law that the companies would practically be compelled to continue doing business at the old rates, even though prices in general had greatly advanced, as measured in terms of the standard silver dollars. A much larger proportion, therefore, of the earnings of the roads would be required to meet interest charges. Our railroads would then be in the position in which the Mexican roads have recently found themselves, -with one important difference. The Mexican roads receive Mexican silver dollars in payment for the carrying of passengers and freight. But they are obliged to pay the interest on their bonded indebtedness in American or English gold. And it takes nearly two dollars of their Mexican receipts to pay one dollar of interest in Boston. This has made a difficult financial situation for the Mexican railroads. The difference to which we refer lies in the fact that the Mexican roads, unlike most of those in the United States, are not strictly held down by law as to their maximum scale of charges. Consequently, as silver depreciates they are able in some measure to recoup themselves by increasing their freight rates. Since the American railroads could not readily equalize the situation by advancing their rates to compensate for the loss incurred by the premium on gold, they would have to economize in some other way. And they have notified their employees that in all likelihood they might be forced to a régime of economy which would reduce the number of men employed, even if it did not scale down nominal wages. Real wages, they assert, would inevitably be scaled down; because the adoption of a silver standard would greatly diminish the purchasing power of money, so that a given number of dollars would not go nearly so far, in paying for necessary and desirable articles, as at the present time. The sum total of the argument, therefore, is that railway employees have nothing to gain and much to lose by any change in the currency system which would substitute a cheaper dollar for the present gold standard.

American Railway Indebtedness.

The railroads of the United States are mortgaged to the extent of about $6,000,000,000, and they have other indebtedness (which it costs them as much or more to carry, and which must sooner or later be covered by bonds) to the extent of nearly $1,000,000,000 more. It must cost them at least $300,000,000 a year to pay interest on their indebtedness. There is no way to escape any of this burden of debt, except through the door of bankruptcy, with the sequel of receiverships and reorganizations. Already, within a few years, a great part of the railway systems of the United States have gotten rid of portions of their indebtedness by this very process. Otherwise, the total volume of railway bonds mentioned above would be considerably greater than it now stands. At present, the railroad companies of the United States are obliged to make each mile of road in the whole country earn and pay interest on an average fixed debt of about $40,000,-wages and other oper

ating expenses having been met,-before anything can be given to the stockholders. The obligations to which we have been referring of course do not include the voluminous issues of stock, which represent the ownership rather than the indebtedness of the roads. It is hardly to be wondered at that the stock market has been agitated during these past weeks, and that the common shares of railways have been selling at the lowest panic prices, while bonds and preferred securities, even those usually listed exceedingly high, have suffered unheard-of declines. The world of investment and finance is not talking for political effect. Undoubtedly it is the opinion of a majority of the ablest railway financiers that the election of Mr. Bryan, followed by the withdrawal of gold from circulation and a drop to the silver basis, would not only precipitate the most fearful panic of the century as its immediate consequence, but would also lead to the inevitable bankruptcy and complete reorganization of the greater part of the railway companies of the United States.

Forecast.

On the other hand, the silver men of the A Gloomy West take the ground that these railroads must go into bankruptcy sooner or later anyhow. They declare that our American railways were extravagantly built and corruptly financiered, and that the volume of bonds and stocks upon which they are trying to earn interest aggregate a sum several times as large as would suffice to-day to construct anew the entire railway system of the nation. These men hold that a huge volume of indebtedness has been piled up,-in these railway enterprises chiefly, but also in other directions,—that can never be repaid. The process of liquidation must, therefore, inevitably be faced. Some of the more thoughtful of these men admit in private if not in public that the triumph of their own free-silver party would be followed by a great panic; but they declare that in any case the panic must come, and that the victory of silver would make the revolutionary readjustment of securities and values a quicker and easier process for the nation at large. Neither horn of the dilemma affords a very com. fortable resting place.

The Campaign

Votes.

Whatever the facts may be, the for Wage-Earners' arguments presented by the railway managers seem likely to be effectual with a majority of the railway employees. These men constitute a very influential and superior class of workmen, and they are distributed through every part of the country. The general argument in favor of a dollar of high purchasing power is being used among wage-earners of all classes, particularly in the large cities, with apparent success. There is, however, so strong an undercurrent of sentiment in favor of the Bryan movement as representing the cause of the people against the money power, that it is doubtless true that many a workingman will gratify his feelings by voting for Bryan, even

though more or less strongly convinced that his own interests would be furthered by the retention of the gold standard. The attempt throughout the West to drive the wedge between the farmer and the wage-earner (including the farm laborer), is bound to have some important results, though no one can say how completely effective it will be. From this time to the end of the campaign, each side will devote itself chiefly to the task of persuad ing the wage-earner that he has everything to expect in the end from its success, and that the triumph of the other side would be his destruction.

The Battle

in the

South and West.

As already said, all attainable evidence points to the strong dominance of the gold sentiment in the New England states, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and it may be added that the great manufacturing state of Ohio also promises to give a large majority for McKinley and the gold standard. Up to date, there is nothing on the other hand to indicate any serious break in the solidity of the South for free silver, and in the dominance of the silver sentiment throughout a vast area of the far West. The battle must be fought out-lost and won-in the great states of the middle West, that is to say, in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. The Pacific coast may be set down as doubtful. There is held to be some fighting chance for the Republicans in Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri; but Illinois is in the very centre of the real debatable ground the capture of which must decide the issue. Several recent elections in the far South have only served to make it clear that the free silver majority will hold its own in that section without fail. The state election of Alabama on August 3d resulted in the election of the free-silver Democratic candidate for Governor, Mr. Joseph F. Johnston, by a majority of 30,000. In Arkansas on September 7th the state election resulted in a majority of about 45,000 for Mr. D. W. Jones, the free silver candidate for Governor. An interesting contest in the Democratic primaries of South Carolina has settled the question as to who will be Mr. Tillman's colleague as United States senator. Tillman desired the selection of his friend and supporter, Governor Evans, and it was believed that Mr. Tillman's will would still be as good as law in his province of South Caro lina. But the people have successfully rebelled against the dictation of the fiery Benjamin, and the choice for senator has fallen upon Judge Earle, who belongs to the conservative wing of the Democracy. Practically everybody in that state is for free silver, including Judge Earle himself; so that the contest did not turn primarily upon the money issue. Nevertheless in the long run the decline of Tillmanism in South Carolina will be likely to make for the revival of conservative monetary views; for it should be borne in mind that the different wings of the Democratic party in the South adhere to the silver doctrine with very different degrees of devotion.

The Fourth National Convention.

HON. DANIEL W. JONES, Governor-elect of Arkansas.

The most significant turn in the political situation since our last month's number went to press has been the emergence of the National Democracy, so called, as a distinct party movement with a sound money platform and a strong ticket of its own. The Indianapolis convention proved to be a brilliant assemblage, and everything connected with it evinced a high type> of intelligent, disinterested citizenship. Whatever hard things the political speakers and writers may find themselves tempted to say about their opponents in the heat of the campaign, it is nevertheless true that the historian of the future will pronounce all four of the political conventions of the present season as remarkable for their comparative freedom from the office-jobbing, spoils-getting spirit, and for their exhibition of candor, their freedom from the dictation of bosses, and their deference to the prevailing opinion of the masses of people represented by the delegates. The Republican convention at St. Louis, in its methods and results, was thoroughly creditable to the great, constructive party of high tariffs and strong federal policies. The Chicago convention was dominated by sentiment and enthusiasm rather than by logic and cool reason, but it was magnificent in its sincerity and directness, and in its freedom from the sway of machine politics. The Populist convention at St. Louis, derided though it has been in some quarters, was, as Mr. Henry D. Lloyd described it in our issue of last month, a very remarkable body of plain and sincere

men of intense earnestness, willing to endure much buffeting and tribulation for the sake of cherished convictions. But in some respects the Indianapolis convention was the most noteworthy of the four, considered as a sign of the times. It contained a remarkable number of men of high culture and attainments who are versed in politics and affairs, whose motives are above suspicion, and whose political action is free from any taint of self-seeking. The sound money Democratic movement is described at length in this number of the REVIEW by a contributor whose knowledge has been exceptionally intimate from the beginning. Senator Palmer of Illinois, who heads the presidential ticket, is in his eightieth year, while his colleague, Mr. Buckner of Kentucky, is well along in the seventies. They have spent their whole lives in the very heart of the region where the campaign strife is thickest. They will of course poll no enormous vote, but it is confidently believed by their supporters that the movement will divert enough Democratic votes from the Bryan ticket in several of the doubtful states to turn the balance and give a plurality to McKinley. If by any chance the Republicans should carry Kentucky or Missouri, it would probably be due to the fact of the Palmer and Buckner ticket, while it is not impossible that the balance may be turned in Indiana and Illinois, possibly in other states, by virtue of this movement alone.

GEN. S. B. BUCKNER OF KENTUCKY.

From a drawing for the Journal.

GEN. JOHN M. PALMER OF ILLINOIS.

The Career of General Palmer.

General John McAuley Palmer's four score years have been crowded with interesting events, and the story of his career as a typical American would make a fascinating volume. He was born in Kentucky, and went with his family to Illinois while still a lad. He worked his way partially through a western college course, and then pursued various temporary vocations in pursuit of a livelihood. Finally he became acquainted with Stephen A. Douglas, afterwards so eminent in the politics of Illinois and the country, and Douglas persuaded him to study law. One of the first acquaintances he made at the bar when he began practicing was Abraham Lincoln, with whom, through many long years, he was closely associated. For a while he was a political opponent of Lincoln in the Illinois legislature; but subsequently, after the birth of the Republican party, he became Lincoln's loyal supporter. Mr Palmer participated in the National Republican convention