Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/131

Rh Samuel L. Hayden; fourth district, Charles F. Lord; fifth district, T. J. Cleeton; sixth district, H. J. Bean; seventh district, A. A. Jayne; eighth district, H. F. Courtney, and ninth district, Charles W. Parrish.

At the fall presidential election McKinley and Hobart carried the state, and John F. Caples, T. T. Geer, E. L. Smith, and S. M. Yoran were chosen as presidential electors.

The legislature in January, 1897, became involved in a political wrangle and failed to even organize.

During this year, 1897, on the death of T. A. Stephens, circuit judge, Governor William P. Lord appointed M. C. George to fill the vacancy, and later on, Judge L. B. Stearns, having resigned on account of ill health, the governor appointed John B. Cleland to fill the unexpired term.

In 1898 the republican state platform declared unmistakably for the maintenance of the single gold standard and "unqualifiedly opposed the free coinage of silver and all other schemes looking to the debasement of the currency and the repudiation of debt." While it deplored imminence of the war with Spain, it recognized that the country was on the eve of a war undertaken for the vindication of the national honor and the performance of a work dictated by every instinct of humanity. It recognized that representative government is one of the principles of the federal constitution and oppose any change in law or constitution which would abrogate this time honored principle.

The question of the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one was the practical issue, and the democrats and the people's party men (except the middle-of-the-roaders), along with free silver republicans, united on a state ticket, as follows: For governor, William R. King, people's party; congressman, first district,