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The roll call was had, and the vote to lay the substitute on the table was as follows-the gold standard men voting yea, and the silver standard men, nay:

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The motion to table the substitute thus prevailed.

Mr. Foraker moved the previous question on the adoption of the platform, and was seconded by Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

Senator Dubois, of Idaho, demanded a separate vote on the adoption of the financial plank of the platform, and was seconded by North Carolina and Montana.

The vote to adopt the financial plank of the platform was as follows, the gold men voting yea and the silver men nay:

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The financial plank of the platform was thus adopted. The Platform Then the whole platform was adopted by a viva voce vote.

Adopted.

The climax was now at hand. Senator Teller went to the platform, followed by Senator Cannon, of Utah. Chairman Thurston asked the Convention to allow Senator Cannon, as a matter of personal privilege, to read the statement prepared by the silver men. There was no dissent, and the Senator read it, as follows:

Appeal to the
Platform of

1892.

The Platform

of 1896 in Conflict With It.

THE SILVER MEN'S STATEMENT.

TO THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE UNITED STATES: In announcing the purpose asserted in this paper it is due to our constituents and to ourselves that there shall be a public showing of vindicating facts. The sole authorized expression of national Republican faith from June 9, 1892, until the present date has been the platform adopted in National Convention at Minneapolis. Neither the utterances of the State Conventions nor the attitude of the individuals could change the tenor of that platform, or abate the sanctity of its binding force. Every delegate to this Convention was elected as its adherent and its advocate.

True, one of its most important paragraphs has been subjected to such a divergence of construction as to make its language unsatisfactory during the intervening time, and dangerous if continued in the future; but of the intent contained within the language there has never been a doubt. It is the rightful province of this Convention to revise the party tenets, and to announce anew the party purpose.

The majority of this Convention in the exercise of such authority has this day made official enunciation of Republican law and gospel. With much of the platform we agree; believing that it in many essential particulars compasses the needs of humanity, affirms the maintenance of rights, and proposes the just remedy for wrong. But it declares one elemental principle, not only in direct contravention of the expression of party faith in 1892, but in radical opposition to our solemn conviction. We recognize that in all matters of mere method it is but just and helpful that the minority shall yield to the will of the majority, lest we have chaos in parties and in government.

But as no pronouncement by majorities can change opposing knowledge or belief sincerely entertained, so it cannot oblige minorities to abandon or disavow their principles. Assuredly, as it is requisite for peace and progress that minorities shall yield to majorities in matters of mere method, just so surely is it necessary for that same peace and progress that minorities shall not yield in matters of fundamental truth. The Republican platform of 1892 affirmed that the American people Meant Bimet from tradition and interest favored bimetallism and demanded the use of both gold and silver as standard money. This was accepted by us as a

The Deliver

ance of 1892

allism.

declaration in behalf of the principle upon which rests the interest of every citizen and the safety of the United States. In such terms the platform was then satisfactory to the believers in bimetallism within our party. Only because of equivocal construction and evasion has it since been demonstrated to be insufficient.

The platform this day adopted in the National Republican Convention at St. Louis, says: The Republican party is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then every dollar has been as good as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver, except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote; and until such an agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard must be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained at parity with gold, and we favor all measures designed to maintain inviolably these obligations of the United States and all our money, either coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the most enlightened nations of the earth.

As the declaration of 1892 has been, by a majority of the party, construed to justify a single gold standard for our monetary basis, and as the recent trend of the official power of the party has been in that direction, we can but assume that the money plank of the new platform, being much more favorable to perpetual gold monometallism, will be determinedly used in behalf of that idea. The Republican party has won its power and renown by pursuing its purposes courageously and relentlessly; it is, therefore, only in accordance with the party's history to assume that if it shall come to present authority in the United States it will crystallize into law and administration, under this tempting platform, the perpetual single gold standard in our finances. This, if long continued, will mean the absolute ruin of the producer of the country, and finally of the nation itself.

The American people not only favor bimetallism from tradition and interest, but from that wise instinct which has always been manifest in the affairs of a people destined for the world's leadership. Under the operation of our great demand for advancement, we have become to other nations the greatest debtor nation of the world. We pay the vast charges which every year accumulate against us in the clearing-house of the world, with the money of the world procured by the disposal of our commodities in the markets of the world. We are a nation of producers. Our creditors are nations of consumers. Any system of international or national finance which elevates the price of human product makes our burden lighter, and gives promise of that day when it shall be entirely lifted and our country freed financially, as it is politically, from the domination of monarchy and foreign autocracy.

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The Silverites

Any system of finance which tends to depreciate the price of human productions, which we must sell abroad, so far adds to the burden of our debt, and conveys a threat of the perpetual servitude of the producers of our debtor nation to the consumers of creditor nations.

History, philosophy, morals, all join with the commonest instinct of self-preservation in demanding that the United States shall have a just and substantially unvarying standard composed of all available gold and silver, and with it our country will progress to financial enfranchisement. But with a single gold standard the country will go on to the worst destruction; to continued falling prices; until our people would become the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the consumers in creditor nations of the earth.

To such an unholy end we will not lend ourselves. Dear as has been the Republican name to us, adherence to that name is not so dear as the faith itself, and we do not sacrifice one jot or tittle of the mighty principles by which Republicanism has uplifted the world when we say that at the parting of the ways we cling to the faith, let the name go where it will. We hold that this Convention has seceded from the truth; Cling to the that the triumph of such secession would be the eventual destruction of our freedom and our civilization. To that end the people will not knowingly follow any political party; and we choose to take our place in the ranks of the great mass of citizens who realize that the hour has come for justice.

Discard the
Name But

Faith.

They With

draw From the Convention.

Did we deem this issue less important to humanity we would yield, since the associations of all our political lives have been intertwined with. the men and the measures of this party of past mighty achievements. But the people cry aloud for relief; they are bending beneath a burden growing heavier with the passing hours; endeavor no longer brings its just reward; fearfulness takes the place of courage, and despair usurps the throne of hope, and unless the laws of the country and the policies of political parties shall be converted into mediums of redress, the effect of human desperation may some time be witnessed here as in other lands and in other ages.

Accepting the fiat of this Convention as the present purpose of the party, we withdraw from this Convention to return to our constituents the authority with which they invested us, believing that we have better discharged their trust by this action, which restores to them authority. unsullied, than by giving cowardly and insincere endorsement to the greatest wrong ever wilfully attempted within the Republican partyonce redeemer of the people, but now about to become their oppressor, unless providentially restrained by votes of free men.

The statement was signed by Senator Teller, of Colorado; Senator Dubois, of Idaho; Senator Cannon, of Utah; Representative Hartman, of Montana, and Mr. A. C. Cleveland, of

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