But the contractionists looked with alarm upon the improving conditions of the country. Something must be done to discredit silver, or by and by there might arise such a demand for the full restoration of its mint privileges and money powers as could not be balked, as every similar demand had been balked since 1873; and in that event the slow villany of many years would have been fruitless and the contractionists' occupation would be gone. Then was formed the deep design to compel the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman law. The gigantic forces that had been behind Mr. Cleveland in the memorable campaign of 1892 had not lost their cunning or their power. They knew their implements, and they had had much experience. Their strategy was customary and it was effective. To-day Mr. Cleveland complains because the Republican party, having won the contest of last November on the money question, should have hurried into the current extra session on the tariff question. Let him recall his own course when, having carried the country in 1892 on the tariff question, he summoned the extra session of 1893 to consider the money question. Such a reflection might possibly assist him in fathoming the present motives of the men who won in 1892 to achieve the gold standard and in 1896 to preserve it. For the election of Mr. Cleveland was a carefully executed move in an elaborate and merciless programme. The president of a national bank in North Dakota, a man of character and thorough reliability, has recently made public a conversation between himself and a prominent New York bank president, held not long after that election, in which the latter, whose institution was a member of the Associated National Banks, declared in substance as follows: "We have just elected Grover Cleveland President of the United States upon the express understanding with us that the policy of the administration shall be to uphold and advance the gold standard"; and he foretold, with startlingly faithful prevision, the repeal of the Sherman purchase law, the successive bond-issues, and the general and ruinous fall of prices, which seem to have evidenced the strict performance of the agreement by the party of the second part.