I must be pardoned for directing the attention of Senators on this
side of the Chamber to a short declaration of the last Republican
National Convention:
The Republican party is in favor of the use of both gold and
silver as money.
If party platforms mean anything that clause meant that the Republican
party went before the country pledged to the use and to the equal and
non-discriminating use of both silver and gold as money. It was well
known that throughout the entire West the question of the
remonetization of silver was deemed of vital importance, and party
orators and the party press, throughout that entire section were severe
in their denunciation of the prior administration of its unfriendly
attitude toward silver.
I wish in all solicitude and sincerity to advise my Republican friends
of the East that this plank in the party platform was construed by the
Republicans of the West to mean precisely what it says. They are looking
with confidence to this Congress for such action as will fittingly
embody in the statutes the principle laid down by the party now in the
responsible direction of the Government.