t in favoring free coinage. Recent
Republican and Democratic platforms had been phrased with Delphic genius
to suit the East and West at once. The best known statesmen of both
parties had "wobbled" upon the question. The Republican party contained
a large element favorable to silver, while the Democratic President, at
least, had boldly and steadfastly exerted himself to establish the gold
standard.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
Senator Teller of Colorado.

Realignment of forces begot queer alliances between party foes, lasting
bitterness between party fellows. Even the Prohibitionists, who held the
first convention, were riven into "narrow-gauge" and "broad-gauge," the
latter in a rump convention incorporating a free-coinage plank into
their creed. If the Republicans kept their ranks closed better than the
Democrats, this was largely due to the prominence they gave to
protection, attacked by the Wilson-Gorman Act.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
Senator Cannon.

Their convention sat at St. Louis, June 16th. It was an eminently
business-like body, even its enthusiasm and applause wearing the air of
discipline. In making the platform, powerful efforts for a
catch-as-catch-could declaration upon the silver question succumbed to
New England's and New York's demand for an unequivocal statement. The
party "opposed the free coinage of silver except by international
agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world." . . .
"Until such agreement can be obtained, the existing gold standard must
be preserved." Senator Teller, of Colorado, moved a substitute favoring
"the free, unrestricted, and independent coinage of gold and silver at
our mints at the ratio of 16 parts of silver to 1 of gold." It was at
once tabled by a vote of 818-1/2 to 105-1/2. The rest of the platform
having been adopted, Senator Cannon, of Utah, read a protest against the
money plank, which recited the evils of falling prices as discouraging
industry and threatening perpetual servitude of American producers to
consumers in creditor nations.

Then occurred a dramatic scene, the first important bolt from a
Republican convention since 1872. "Accepting the present fiat of the
convention as the present purpose of the party," Teller shook hands with
the chairman, and, tears streaming down his face, left the convention,
accompanied by Cannon and twenty other delegates, among them two entire
State delegations. Senators Mantle, of Montana, and Brown,