Governor McGraw Refuses to March for Free Silver

Governor J. H. Rickards of Montana recently sent a circular letter to the governors of the Western states inviting them to send three delegates each to a conference at Salt Lake City on May 15, for the purpose of perfecting an organization for an educational campaign in favor of free silver. Rickards stipulated that the conference be composed wholly of men who favor free coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 to 1, without reference to an international conference. He sent a copy to Governor McGraw of Washington.

To that letter Governor McGraw replied from Olympia:

'Your favor of the 4th inst., inclosing an article from the pen of Hon. Thomas G. Merrill of your city, and inviting me to name three gentlemen to represent this state at a conference to be held at Salt Lake City May 15, 1896, for the purpose of perfecting an organization for an educational campaign on the money question, was received in due course of mail and acknowledged by my private secretary.

My answer to your courteous invitation has been delayed by reason of a temporary absence from the capital, as well as by my desire to give careful consideration to your proposed plan of campaign before deciding for myself whether the organization you favor is indeed for the common good. In the meantime, I have carefully read the copy of Coin's Financial School which you so kindly sent to me.

I am not able to convince or persuade myself that I should appoint delegates to represent this state at the conference to be held at Salt Lake City for the purpose of providing for the dissemination of free silver literature—that is to say, for the purpose of devising ways and means for the education of the American people to the belief that sunshine for all the ills of commerce, trade and industry depends upon the free and unlimited coinage by the government of the United States of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1.

The reasons which prompt my declination to make the appointments you have suggested are as follows:

First—Executive activity or action in the matter of naming men to participate in such a conference, when not authorized by legislative direction, should imply on the one hand sanction by the public opinion of the commonwealth, or, on the other, the justification of a virtually avowed prejudice of the party of which the chief magistrate is a member.

Second—The free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 is not a popular doctrine in this state. The approximate plurality of the Republican vote at the last state election was ... The people were everywhere on the stump and in the press apprised of that fact. Yet the ... ballot ... was a determination of disapproval of the unlimited coinage....

Third—It is with great deference that I venture to express my view on this financial question. Opinion among gentlemen who have made a study of silver is not unified.... I am a bimetalist ... but ...'

The article also reprinted Thomas G. Merrill's letter to the Helena Tribune, in which Merrill urged that copies of Coin's Financial School be purchased and mailed to voters throughout the Eastern, Central and Southern states before the election of 1896.