Evening Journal

PLATT DEFIES MILLER.

Chieftain's Reply to the Herkimer Republican.

CHARGES HIM WITH BAD FAITH

New York Delegation, Mr. Platt Says, Will Support Morton and the Gold Standard to the End—Reasons Given Opposing McKinley.

NEW YORK, May 25.—Ex-Senator Platt gives out the following statement:

It is now plain that the McKinley managers propose to continue to the end their plan of claiming everything and conceding nothing without regard for facts or the calumny they have persisted in for weeks. Their lieutenants here are by determined to aid them just as strenuously for ends and purposes essentially different—ends and purposes with which Major McKinley and his managers have no concern whatever—and without slightest consideration for any one but themselves, and this, too, without a thought for the welfare of the business interests of the nation.

The business men of the country everywhere may confidently rely upon it their views will be expressed at the St. Louis convention, both as to the maintenance of the gold standard and as to the nomination of a candidate who can appropriately stand on a gold platform.

New York will present such a candidate and the vote of this state will be cast for him almost unanimously.

Observe that ex-Senator Miller in an interview says that I have no commission to speak for our delegation on this point. It is a small matter whether I have or not. The important thing is the fact, and Mr. Miller will scarcely deny the fact. He, for instance, having been elected a delegate at Governor Morton's request, having attended the conference at which it was resolved to place Governor Morton in the field, having been the first man there to advocate that action, the first man to proclaim it to the world by a formal interview when the conference adjourned—he, of course, will be Governor's staunchest supporter in convention. He says I must not speak for him, but I can certainly recall his words in the matter and can at least express enough confidence in his character and manhood to say that he will keep faith with himself and make good his promises.

"So Much Empty Sound."

That is true of Mr. Miller in this respect is similarly true of the other delegates, whether they represent districts or the state at large. It should be plain to the public that all this McKinley hullabaloo in New York is simply so much empty sound. It will not affect the vote at St. Louis of a single New York delegate.

It is a familiar noise. We hear it spring and fall. It proceeds from the same old crowd of 'antis' who have been performing in this way these many years. And there is not an intelligent Republican who does not know that if the regular organization today were advocating McKinley, all these people would be denouncing McKinley and declaring him unfit for public station. They don't care about McKinley; they simply make use of his name and position to aid their conspiracy for the overthrow of the Republican organization.

They are now at work getting up one of their newspaper organizations in their usual fantastic way, with which they expect to deluge the country in the event of McKinley's nomination, to displace the regular organization. As their excuse for this folly they are giving it out that my friends and I are preparing to bolt the McKinley ticket.

They will permit me to remark that my friends and I have no great reputation as bolters. In the history of the Republican party of this state it is they, not we, who have had a monopoly of the bolting.

Morton's Candidacy

Meanwhile the Republican organization of New York, standing in the interests of the business community and of a sound public sentiment throughout the country, will loyally support the nomination of Levi P. Morton and the adoption at St. Louis of a plain, unequivocal, direct pledge to the people that the gold standard will be maintained and our currency system reformed on that basis. It will oppose the nomination of Major McKinley on the ground that he is a dangerous and misleading candidate, whose votes and speeches show that he has no settled convictions on the money question, and whose managers have endeavored to secure support for him in one part of the country by declaring that he is in favor of the gold standard and in other parts by declaring that he is in favor of silver, producing in each of such parts of the country those particular portions of his record as seemed to sustain the impression they desired to create in that particular locality. The regular Republican organization believes that the money question is by all odds the most important issue in the campaign. I saw in the newspapers the other day a statement that the savings banks deposits in this state alone amounted to over $700,000,000, the savings of nearly 2,000,000 depositors.

Nothing can supersede in the minds of those depositors the question whether their $700,000,000 is really $700,000,000, or only in the neighborhood of $350,000,000. If the opponents of the regular organization think they can make any more progress in their effort to smash things by splitting this question than they have made during the last year by assailing the Republican legislature by arraying themselves against every important piece of legislation that it has undertaken, by denouncing the wise and intelligent administration of Governor Morton and by opposing their party and its work, not upon any just ground, nor upon any intelligible principle, nor for any other purpose than simply to seize control of the organization and to 'down' Platt—why, let them go ahead.

We, for our part, are fighting for a principle than which, as we conceive, there is none so important to the people in their daily struggle for life, and we are quite satisfied to abide the issue. We have a principle to fight for, and we are entirely content to take our chances as against a group of grotesque politicians who can find no more inspiring battlecry than 'Get on the band wagon.'