Cleveland  on  the  silver  question.  He  was  raised  east  of
the  Alleghany  Mountains,  and  he  gets  his  ideas  from  that
region.  He  never  has  been  west  of  Buffalo,  and  has  not
any  more  idea  of  the  great  west  .  .  .  than  the  mere
schoolboy  who  learns  it  from  studying  geography.  He
gets  his  ideas  on  finance  from  the  gold  bugs  of  Wall  Street,
who  once  demonetized  silver  and  had  it — the  dollar —
stricken  from  the  coinage  act  clandestinely.  .  .  .  He
learns  his  financial  theories  from  Wall  Street,  the  leeches
that  suck  the  blood  of  the  honest  yeomanry  of  the  west,
like  vampires."  In  view  of  such  facts  it  is  clear  that  Mr.
Cleveland's  mistake  was  not  in  refusing  to  restore  Stone,
but  in  restoring  Benton  without  first  making  certain  that
he  had  been  "decent  and  fair."

That  this  was  a  mistake  is  beyond  question,  and  it
shook  the  ranks  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  Mugwump  followers.
At  the  suggestion  of  a  number  of  Cleveland  Independent
leaders,  Carl  Schurz  wrote  to  the  President,  with  brutal
frankness :  "Until  recently  .  .  .  the  worst  things  tied  to
your  charge  were  construed  as  mere  errors  of  judgment,
and  occasionally  a  certain  stubbornness  of  temper  in  stick-
ing to  an  error  once  committed.  But  .  .  .  this  confiding
belief  has  been  seriously  shaken  by  your  action  in  .  ..
