This conciliatory attitude was hardly necessary, for there were no radical elements in the Republican assembly after the withdrawal of the silver faction. The proceedings of the convention were in fact then extraordinarily harmonious, brief, and colorless. The platform, apart from the sound money plank, contained no sign of the social conflict which was being waged in the world outside. Tariff, pensions, civil service, temperance, and the usual formalities of party programs were treated after the fashion consecrated by time. Railway and trust problems were overlooked entirely. Even the money plank was not put first, and it was not so phrased as to constitute the significant challenge which it became in the campaign. "The Republican party," it ran, "is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then every dollar has been good as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such an agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard must be maintained." This clear declaration on the financial issue was apparently not a part of the drama as Mr. Hanna and Mr. McKinley had staged it. The former was in favor of the gold standard so far as he understood it, but he was not a student of finance, and he was more interested "in getting what we got," to use his phrase, than in any very fine distinctions in the gold plank. Mr. McKinley, on the other hand, was widely known as a bimetallist; but his reputation throughout the country rested principally upon his high protective doctrines. He, therefore, wished to avoid the monetary issue by straddling it in such a way as not to alienate the large silver faction in the West. Mr. Hanna's biographer tells us that Mr. Kohlsaat claims to have spent hours on Sunday, June 7, "trying to convince Mr. McKinley of the necessity of inserting the word 'gold' in the platform. The latter argued in opposition that 90 per cent of his mail and his callers were against such decisive action, and he asserted emphatically that thirty days after the convention was over the currency question would drop out of sight and the tariff would become the sole issue. The currency plank, tentatively drawn by Mr. McKinley and his immediate advisers, embodied his resolution to keep the currency issue subordinate and vague."[42] The leaders in the convention, however, refused to accept Mr. McKinley's view and forced him to take the step which he had hoped to avoid.