It does not require that distant historical perspective, which is supposed to be necessary for final judgments, to warrant the assertion that the campaign of 1896 marks a turning point in the course of American politics. The monetary issue, on which events ostensibly revolved, was, it is true, an ancient one, but the real conflict was not over the remonetization of silver or the gold standard. Deep, underlying class feeling found its expression in the conventions of both parties, and particularly that of the Democrats, and forced upon the attention of the country, in a dramatic manner, a conflict between great wealth and the lower middle and working classes, which had hitherto been recognized only in obscure circles. The sectional or vertical cleavage of American politics was definitely cut by new lines running horizontally through society, and was also crossed at right angles by another line running north and south, representing the western protest against eastern creditors and the objectionable methods of great corporations which had been rapidly unfolded to public view by merciless criticism and many legislative investigations.

Even the Republican party, whose convention had been largely prepared in advance by the vigorous labors of Mr. Marcus A. Hanna,[41] was not untouched by the divisions which later rent the Democratic party in twain. When the platform was reported to the duly assembled Republican delegates by Mr. Foraker, of Ohio, its firm declaration of opposition to free silver, except by international agreement, was greeted by a divided house, although, as the record runs, there was a "demonstration of approval on the part of a large majority of the delegates which lasted several minutes." When a vote was taken on the financial plank, it was discovered that 110 delegates favored silver as against 812 in support of the proposition submitted by the platform committee. The defeated contingent then withdrew from the convention after having presented a statement in which they declared that "the people cry aloud for relief; they are bending under a burden growing heavier with the passing hours; endeavour no longer brings its just reward ... and unless the laws of the country and the policies of political parties shall be converted into mediums of redress, the effect of human desperation may sometime be witnessed here as in other lands and in other ages."

This threat was firmly met by the body of the convention which remained. In nominating Mr. Thomas B. Reed, Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts, declared: "Against the Republican party are arrayed not only that organized failure, the Democratic party, but all the wandering forces of political chaos and social disorder.... Such a man we want for our great office in these bitter times when the forces of disorder are loose and the wreckers with their false lights gather at the shore to lure the ship of state upon the rocks." Mr. Depew, in nominating Mr. Levi P. Morton, decried all of the current criticism of capital. Mr. Foraker, in presenting the name of Mr. McKinley, was more conciliatory: distress and misery were abroad in the land and bond issues and bond syndicates had discredited and scandalized the country; but McKinley was the man to redeem the nation.

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.In his speech of acceptance, McKinley deprecated and sought to smooth over the class lines which had been drawn. "It is a cause for painful regret and solicitude," he said, "that an effort is being made by those high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the people of this country into classes and create distinctions among us which in fact do not exist and are repugnant to our form of government.... Every attempt made to array class against class, 'the classes against the masses,' section against section, labor against capital, 'the poor against the rich,' or interest against interest in the United States is in the highest degree reprehensible." In the Populist features of the Democratic platform he saw a grave menace to our institutions, but he accepted the challenge. "We avoid no issues. We meet the sudden, dangerous, and revolutionary assault upon law and order and upon those to whom is confided by the Constitution and laws the authority to uphold and maintain them, which our opponents have made, with the same courage that we have faced every emergency since our organization as a party more than forty years ago."

The Democratic Convention

No doubt the decisive action of the Republican convention helped to consolidate the silver forces in the Democratic party; but even if the Republicans had obscured the silver question by a vague declaration, their opponents would have come out definitely against the gold standard. This was so apparent weeks before the Democratic national assembly met, that conservatives in the party talked of refusing to participate in the party councils, called at Chicago on July 7. They were aware also that other and deeper sources of discontent were bound to manifest themselves when the proceedings got under way.

The storm which broke over the party had long been gathering. The Grange and Greenback movements did not disappear with the disappearance of the outward signs of organization; they only merged into the Populist movement with cumulative effect. The election of 1892 was ominous, for the agrarian party had polled a million votes. It had elected members of Congress and presidential electors; it was organized and determined. It arose from a mass of discontent which was justified, if misdirected. It was no temporary wave, as superficial observers have imagined. It had elements of solidity which neither of the old parties could ignore or cover up. No one was more conscious of this than the western and southern leaders in the Democratic party. They had been near the base of action, and they thought that what the eastern leaders called a riot was in fact the beginning of a revolution. Unwilling to desert their traditional party, they decided to make the party desert its traditions, and they came to the Democratic convention in Chicago prepared for war to the hilt.

From the opening to the close, the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1896 was vibrant with class feeling. Even in the prayer with which the proceedings began, the clergyman pleaded: "May the hearts of all be filled with profound respect and sympathy for our toiling multitudes, oppressed with burdens too heavy for them to bear—heavier than we should allow them to bear,"—a prayer that might have been an echo of some of the speeches made in behalf of the income tax in Congress.

The struggle began immediately after the prayer, when the presiding officer, on behalf of the retiring national committee, reported as temporary chairman of the convention, David B. Hill, of New York, the unrelenting opponent of the income tax and everything that savored of it. Immediately afterward, Mr. Clayton, speaking in behalf of twenty-three members of the national committee as opposed to twenty-seven, presented a minority report which proposed the Honorable John W. Daniel, of Virginia, as chairman. Pleas were made that the traditions of the party ought not to be violated by a refusal to accept the recommendations of the national committee.

After a stormy debate, the minority report of the national committee, proposing Mr. Daniel for chairman, was carried by a vote of 556 to 349. The states which voted solidly or principally for Mr. Hill were Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Alaska—all of the New England and Central seaboard states, which represented the accumulated wealth of the country. The official proceedings of the convention state, "When the result of this vote was announced, there was a period of nearly twenty minutes during which no business could be transacted, on account of the applause, cheers, noise and confusion."

In his opening speech as chairman, Mr. Daniel declared that they were witnessing "an uprising of the people for American emancipation from the conspiracies of European kings led by Great Britain, which seek to destroy one half of the money of the world." He declared in favor of bimetallism and devoted most of his speech to the monetary question and to repeated declarations of financial independence in behalf of the United States. He also attacked, however, the tax system which the Democrats inherited from the Republicans in 1893, and in speaking of the deficit which was incurred under the Democratic tariff act he declared that it would have been met by the income tax incorporated in the tariff bill "had not the Supreme Court of the United States reversed its settled doctrines of a hundred years." On the second day of the convention, while the committees were preparing their reports, Governor Hogg, of Texas, Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, Governor Altgeld, of Illinois, and other gentlemen were invited to address the convention.

The first of these speakers denounced the Republican party as a "great class maker and mass smasher"; he scorned that "farcical practice" which had given governmental protection to the wealthy and left the laborer to protect himself. "This protected class of Republicans," he exclaimed, "proposes now to destroy labor organizations. To that end it has organized syndicates, pools, and trusts, and proposes through the Federal courts, in the exercise of their unconstitutional powers by the issuance of extraordinary unconstitutional writs, to strike down, to suppress, and to overawe those organizations, backed by the Federal bayonet.... Men who lived there in their mansions and rolled in luxuries were the only ones to get the benefit of this Republican [sugar] bounty called protection." Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, exclaimed that "Christ with a lash drove from the temple a better set of men than those who for twenty years have shaped the financial policy of this country." Governor Altgeld declared: "We have seen the streets of our cities filled with idle men, with hungry women, and with ragged children. The country to-day looks to the deliberations of this convention to promise some form of relief." This relief was to be secured by the remonetization of silver and the emancipation of the country from English capitalists and eastern financiers.

On the third day of the convention, Senator Jones, of Arkansas, chairman of the committee on platform, reported the conclusions of the majority of his committee. In the platform, as reported, there were many expressions of class feeling. It declared that the act of 1873 demonetizing silver caused a fall in the price of commodities produced by the people, a heavy increase in the public taxation and in all debts, public and private, the enrichment of the money-lending class at home and abroad, the prostration of industry, and the impoverishment of the people. The McKinley tariff was denounced as "a prolific breeder of trusts and monopolies" which had "enriched the few at the expense of the many."

The platform made the money question, however, the paramount issue, and declared for "the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at the present legal ratio of sixteen to one without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation." It stated that, until the monetary question was settled, no changes should be made in the tariff laws except for the purpose of meeting the deficit caused by the adverse decision of the Supreme Court in the income tax cases. The platform at this point turned upon the Court and asserted that the income tax law had been passed "by a Democratic Congress in strict pursuance of the uniform decisions of that Court for nearly a hundred years." It then hinted at a reconstruction of the Court, declaring that, "it is the duty of Congress to use all the constitutional power which remains after that decision or which may come from its reversal by the Court, as it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burden of taxation may be equally and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may bear its due proportion of the expense of the government."

The platform contained many expressions of sympathy with labor. "As labor creates the wealth of the country," ran one plank, "we demand the passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect it in all its rights." It favored arbitration for labor conflicts in interstate commerce. Referring to the recent Pullman strike and the labor war in Chicago, it denounced "arbitrary interference by Federal authorities in local affairs as a violation of the Constitution of the United States and a crime against free institutions, and we specially object to government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of oppression by which Federal judges, in contempt of the laws of the states and rights of citizens, become at once legislators, judges, and executioners; and we approve the bill passed by the last session of the United States Senate, and now pending in the House of Representatives, relative to contempt in Federal courts and providing for trials by jury in certain cases of contempt."

The platform did not expressly attack the administration of President Cleveland, but the criticism of the intervention by Federal authorities in local affairs was directed particularly to his interference in the Chicago strike. The departure from the ordinary practice of praising the administration of the party's former leader itself revealed the feeling of the majority of the convention.

A minority of the platform committee composed of sixteen delegates presented objections to the platform as reported by Senator Jones and offered amendments. In their report the minority asserted that many declarations in the majority report were "ill-considered and ambiguously phrased, while others are extreme and revolutionary of the well-recognized principles of the party." The free coinage of silver independently of other nations, the minority claimed, would place the United States at once "upon a silver basis, impair contracts, disturb business, diminish the purchasing powers of the wages of labor, and inflict irreparable evils upon our nation's commerce and industry." The minority, therefore, proposed the maintenance of the existing gold standard; and concluded by criticizing the report of the majority as "defective in failing to make any recognition of the honesty, economy, courage, and fidelity of the present Democratic administration." This minority report was supplemented by two amendments proposed by Senator Hill, one to the effect that any change in the monetary standard should not apply to existing contracts and the other pledging the party to suspend, within one year from its enactment, the law providing for the independent free coinage of silver, in case that coinage did not realize the expectation of the party to secure a parity between gold and silver at the ratio of sixteen to one.

After the presentation of the platform and the proposed changes, an exciting and disorderly debate followed. The discussion was opened by Mr. Tillman, who exclaimed that the Civil War had emancipated the black slaves and that they were now in convention to head a fight for the emancipation of the white slaves, even if it disrupted the Democratic party as the Civil War had disrupted it. Without any equivocation and amid loud and prolonged hissing, he declared that the new issue like the old one was sectional—a declaration of political war on the part of the hewers of wood and the drawers of water in the southern and western states against the East. He compared the growth of fifteen southern states in wealth and population with the growth of Pennsylvania; he compared Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri with Massachusetts; to these five western states he added Kentucky, Tennessee, Kansas, and Nebraska, and compared them all with the state of New York. The upshot of his comparison was that the twenty-five southern and western states were in economic bondage to the East and that we now had a money oligarchy more insolent than the slave oligarchy which the Civil War had overthrown.

Mr. Tillman could scarcely contain his wrath when he came to a consideration of the proposal to indorse Cleveland's administration. He denounced the Democratic President as "a tool of Wall Street"; and declared that they could not indorse him without writing themselves down as "asses and liars." "They ask us to indorse his courage," exclaimed Mr. Tillman. "Well, now, no one disputes the man's boldness and obstinacy, because he had the courage to ignore his oath of office, and redeem, in gold, paper obligations of the government, which were payable in coin—both gold and silver, and, furthermore, he had the courage to override the Constitution of the United States and invaded the state of Illinois with the United States army and undertook to override the rights and liberties of his fellow citizens. They ask us to indorse his fidelity. He has been faithful unto death, or rather unto the death of the Democratic party, so far as he represents it, through the policy of the friends that he had in New York and ignored the entire balance of the Union." Mr. Tillman was dissatisfied with the platform because it did not attack Mr. Cleveland's policies, and, amid great confusion throughout the hall, he proposed that the platform should "denounce the administration of President Cleveland as undemocratic and tyrannical." He warned the convention that, "If this Democratic ship goes to sea on storm-tossed waves without fumigating itself, without express repudiation of this man who has sought to destroy his party, then the Republican ship goes into port and you go down in disgrace, defeated in November." In his proposed amendment to the platform, he asserted that Cleveland had used the veto power to thwart the will of the people, and the appointive power to subsidize the press and debauch Congress. The issue of bonds to purchase gold, to discharge obligations payable in coin at the option of the government, and the use of the proceeds for ordinary expenses, he denounced as "unlawful and usurpations of authority deserving of impeachment."

After Senator Jones was given the floor for a few moments to repudiate the charge brought by Mr. Tillman that the fight was sectional in character, Senator Hill, of New York, began the real attack upon the platform proposed by the majority. The Senator opened by saying that he was a Democrat, but not a revolutionist, that the question before them was one of business and finance, not of bravery and loyalty, and that the first step toward monetary reform should be a statement in favor of international bimetallism. He followed this by a special criticism of the declaration in favor of the ratio of sixteen to one which was, in his opinion, not only an unwise and unnecessary thing, but destined to return to plague them in the future.

Senator Hill then turned to the income tax which he had so vigorously denounced on the floor of the Senate two years before. "What was the necessity," he asked, "for putting into the platform other questions which have never been made the tests of Democratic loyalty before? Why revive the disputed question of the policy and constitutionality of an income tax?... Why, I say, should it be left to this convention to make as a tenet of Democratic faith belief in the propriety and constitutionality of an income tax law?

"Why was it wise to assail the Supreme Court of your country? Will some one tell what that clause means in this platform? 'If you meant what you said and said what you meant,' will some one explain that provision? That provision, if it means anything, means that it is the duty of Congress to reconstruct the Supreme Court of the country. It means, and such purpose was openly avowed, it means the adding of additional members to the Court or the turning out of office and reconstructing the whole Court. I said I will not follow any such revolutionary step as that. Whenever before in the history of this country has devotion to an income tax been made the test of Democratic loyalty? Never! Have you not undertaken enough, my good friends, now without seeking to put in this platform these unnecessary, foolish, and ridiculous things?"

"What further have you done?" continued the Senator. "In this platform you have declared, for the first time in the history of this country, that you are opposed to any life tenure whatever for office. Our fathers before us, our Democratic fathers, whom we revere, in the establishment of this government, gave our Federal judges a life tenure of office. What necessity was there for reviving this question? How foolish and how unnecessary, in my opinion. Democrats, whose whole lives have been devoted to the service of the party, men whose hopes, whose ambitions, whose aspirations, all lie within party lines, are to be driven out of the party upon this new question of life tenure for the great judges of our Federal courts. No, no; this is a revolutionary step, this is an unwise step, this is an unprecedented step in our party history."

Senator Hill then turned to a defense of President Cleveland's policy, denouncing the attempt to bring in the bond issue as foolish and calculated to put them on the defensive in every school district in the country. He closed by begging the convention not "to drive old Democrats out of the party who have grown gray in the service, to make room for a lot of Republicans and Populists, and political nondescripts."

Senator Hill's protest was supported by Senator Vilas from Wisconsin, who saw in the proposed free coinage of silver no difference, except in degree, between "the confiscation of one half of the credits of the nation for the benefit of debtors," and "a universal distribution of property." In this radical scheme there was nothing short of "the beginning of the overthrow of all law, of all justice, of all security and repose in the social order." He warned the convention that the American people would not tolerate the first steps toward the atrocities of the French Revolution, although "in the vastness of this country there may be some Marat unknown, some Danton or Robespierre." He asked the members of the convention when and where robbery by law had come to be a Democratic doctrine, and with solemn earnestness he pleaded with them not to launch the old party out on a wild career or to "pull down the pillars of the temple and crush us all beneath the ruins." He declared that the gold standard was not responsible for falling prices; that any stable standard had "no more to do with prices than a yard stick or a pair of scales." He begged them to adopt the proposed amendment which would limit the effect of the change of standards to future contracts and thus deliver the platform from an imputation of a purpose to plunder.

The closing speech for the platform was then made by Mr. William Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska, who clothed his plea in the armor of righteousness, announcing that he had come to speak "in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity." The spirit and zeal of a crusader ran through his speech. Indeed, when speaking of the campaign which the Silver Democrats had made to capture the party, he referred to that frenzy which inspired the crusaders under the leadership of Peter the Hermit. He spoke in defense of the wage earner, the lawyer in the country town, the merchant at the crossroads store, the farmer and the miner,—naming them one after the other and ranging himself on their side. "We stand here," he said, "representing people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made too limited in its application the definition of a business man. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go a thousand feet into the earth or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade, are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world.

"We come to speak for this broader class of business men. Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic coast; but those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose—those pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature's heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds—out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead—are as deserving of the consideration of this party as any people in this country.

"It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came.

"We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!"

Mr. Bryan then took up the income tax. He repudiated the idea that the proposed platform contained a criticism of the Supreme Court. He said, "We have simply called attention to what you know. If you want criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the court." He denied that the income tax law was unconstitutional when it was passed, or even when it went before the Supreme Court for the first time. "It did not become unconstitutional," he exclaimed, "until one judge changed his mind; and we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind."

The monetary question was the great paramount issue. But Mr. Bryan did not stop to discuss any of the technical points involved in it. Protection had slain its thousands, and the gold standard had slain its tens of thousands; the people of the United States did not surrender their rights of self-government to foreign potentates and powers. The common people of no land had ever declared in favor of the gold standard, but bondholders had. If the gold standard was a good thing, international bimetallism was wrong; if the gold standard was a bad thing, the United States ought not to wait for the help of other nations in righting a wrong—this was the line of Mr. Bryan's attack. And he concluded by saying: "Mr. Carlisle said, in 1878, that this was a struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and, my friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side shall the Democratic party fight? Upon the side of the idle holders of idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? That is the question that the party must answer first; and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party.

"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.

"You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in this country.

"My friends, we shall declare that this nation is able to legislate for its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth, and upon that issue we expect to carry every single State in this Union."I shall not slander the fair State of Massachusetts, nor the State of New York, by saying that when its citizens are confronted with the proposition, 'Is this nation able to attend to its own business?'—I will not slander either one by saying that the people of those States will declare our helpless impotency as a nation to attend to our own business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but 3,000,000, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to 70,000,000, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers? No, my friends, it will never be the judgment of this people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but we cannot have it till some nation helps us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States have.

"If they dare to come out and in the open defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the Nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

The record of the convention states that "the conclusion of Mr. Bryan's speech was the signal for a tremendous outburst of noise, cheers, etc. The standards of many states were carried from their places and gathered about the Nebraska delegation." Never in the history of convention oratory had a speaker so swayed the passions of his auditors and so quickly made himself unquestionably "the man of the hour."

After some parliamentary skirmishing, Mr. Hill succeeded in securing from the convention a vote on the proposition of the minority in favor of the maintenance of the gold standard, "until international coÖperation among the leading nations in the coinage of silver can be secured." For this proposition the eastern states voted almost solidly, with some help from the western states. Connecticut gave her twelve votes for the substitute amendment; Delaware, five of her six votes; Maine, ten out of twelve; Maryland, twelve out of sixteen; Massachusetts, twenty-seven out of thirty; New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont gave their entire vote for the gold standard. The eastern states secured a little support in the West and South. Minnesota gave eleven out of seventeen votes for the amendment; Wisconsin voted solidly for it; Florida gave three out of eight votes; Washington gave three out of eight; Alaska voted solidly for it; the District of Columbia and New Mexico each cast two out of the six votes allotted to them in the convention. Out of a total of 929 votes cast, 303 were for the minority amendment and 626 against it.

The minority proposition to commend "the honesty, economy, courage, and fidelity of the present Democratic administration" was then put to the convention and received a vote of 357 to 564—nine not voting. The additional support to the eastern states came this time principally from California, Michigan, and Minnesota; but the division between the Northeast and the West and South was sharply maintained. The adoption of the platform as reported by the majority of the committee was then effected by a vote of 628 to 301.

In the evening the convention turned to the selection of candidates. In the nominating speeches, the character of the revolution in American politics came out even more clearly than in the debates on the platform. The enemy had been routed, and the convention was in the hands of the radicals, and they did not have to compromise and pick phrases in the hope of harmony.

Richard Bland, of Missouri, was the first man put before the convention, and he was represented as "the living, breathing embodiment of the silver cause"—a candidate chosen "not from the usurer's den, nor temple of Mammon where the clink of gold drowns the voice of patriotism; but from the farm, the workshop, the mine—from the hearts and homes of the people." Mr. Overmeyer, of Kansas, seconded the nomination of Mr. Bland—"that Tiberius Gracchus"—"in the name of the farmers of the United States; in the name of the homeless wanderers who throng your streets in quest of bread; in the name of that mighty army of the unemployed; in the name of that mightier army which has risen in insurrection against every form of despotism."

Mr. Bryan was presented as that young giant of the West, that friend of the people, that champion of the lowly, that apostle and prophet of this great crusade for financial reform—a new Cicero to meet the new Catilines of to-day—to lead the Democratic party, the defender of the poor, and the protector of the oppressed, which this day sent forth "tidings of great joy to all the toiling millions of this overburdened land."

On the first ballot, fourteen candidates were voted for, but Mr. Bland and Mr. Bryan were clearly in the lead. On the fifth ballot, Mr. Bryan was declared nominated by a vote of 652 out of 930. Throughout the balloting, most of the eastern states abstained from voting. Ten delegates from Connecticut, seventeen or eighteen from Massachusetts, a majority from New Jersey, all of the delegates from New York, and a majority of the delegates from Wisconsin refused to take any part at all. Pennsylvania remained loyal throughout to the nominee from that state, Pattison, although it was a forlorn hope. Thus in the balloting for candidates, we discover the same alignment of the East against the West and South which was evident in the vote on the platform. In the vote on the Vice President which followed, the eastern states refused to participate—from 250 to 260 delegates abstaining during the five ballots which resulted in the nomination of Sewall. New York consistently abstained; so did New Jersey; while a majority of the delegates from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts refused to take part.

In the notification speech delivered by Mr. Stone at Madison Square Garden in New York on August 12, the Democratic party was represented as the champion of the masses and their leader as "a plain man of the people." He defended the men of the Chicago convention against the charge of being cranks, anarchists, and socialists, declaring them to be the representatives of the industrial and producing classes who constituted "the solid strength and safety of the state" against the combined aggressions of foreign money changers and Anglicized American millionaires—"English toadies and the pampered minions of corporate rapacity." Against the selfish control of the privileged classes, he placed the sovereignty of the people, declaring that within both of the old parties there was a mighty struggle for supremacy between those who stood for the sovereignty of the people and those who believed in "the divinity of pelf." He took pride in the fact that the convention represented "the masses of the people, the great industrial and producing masses of the people. It represented the men who plow and plant, who fatten herds, who toil in shops, who fell forests, and delve in mines. But are these to be regarded with contumely and addressed in terms of contempt? Why, sir, these are the men who feed and clothe the nation; whose products make up the sum of our exports; who produce the wealth of the republic; who bear the heaviest burdens in times of peace; who are ready always to give their lifeblood for their country's flag—in short, these are the men whose sturdy arms and faithful hands uphold the stupendous fabric of our civilization."

Mr. Bryan's speech of acceptance was almost entirely devoted to a discussion of the silver question. But he could not ignore the charge, which had then become widespread throughout the country, that his party meditated an attack upon the rights of property and was the foe of social order and national honor. He repudiated the idea that his party believed that equality of talents and wealth could be produced by human institutions; he declared his belief in private property as the stimulus to endeavor and compensation for toil; but he took his stand upon the principle that all should be equal before the law. Among his foes he discovered "those who find a pecuniary advantage in advocating the doctrines of non-interference when great aggregations of wealth are trespassing upon the rights of individuals." The government should enforce the laws against all enemies of the public weal, not only the highwayman who robs the unsuspecting traveler, but also the transgressors who "through the more polite and less hazardous means of legislation appropriate to their own use the proceeds of the toil of others."

In his opinion, the Democratic income tax was not based upon hostility to the rich, but was simply designed to apportion the burdens of government more equitably among those who enjoyed its protection. As to the matter of the Supreme Court, there was no suggestion in the platform of a dispute with that tribunal. For a hundred years the Court had upheld the underlying principle of the income tax, and twenty years before "this same Court sustained without a dissenting voice an income tax law almost identical with the one recently overthrown." The platform did not propose an attack on the Supreme Court; some future Court had as much right "to return to the judicial precedents of a century as the present Court had to depart from them. When Courts allow rehearings they admit that error is possible; the late decision against the income tax was rendered by a majority of one after a rehearing."

Discussing the monetary question, Mr. Bryan confined his argument to a few principles which he deemed fundamental. He disposed of international bimetallism by questioning the good faith of those who advocated it and declaring that there was an impassable gulf between a universal gold standard and bimetallism, whether independent or international. He rejected the proposition that any metal represented an absolutely just standard of value, but he argued that bimetallism was better than monometallism because it made a nearer approach to stability, honesty, and justice than a gold standard possibly could. Any legislation lessening the stock of standard money increased the purchasing power of money and lowered the monetary value of all other forms of property. He endeavored to show the advantages to be derived from bimetallism by farmers, wage earners, and the professional classes, and asked whether the mass of the people did not have the right to use the ballot to protect themselves from the disastrous consequences of a rising standard, particularly in view of the fact that the relatively few whose wealth consisted largely in fixed investments had not hesitated to use the ballot to enhance the value of their investments.

On the question of the ratio, sixteen to one, Mr. Bryan declared that, because gold and silver were limited in the quantities then in hand and in annual production, legislation could fix the ratio between them, simply following the law of supply and demand. The charge of repudiation he met with an argument in kind, declaring it to come "with poor grace from those who are seeking to add to the weight of existing debts by legislation which makes money dearer, and who conceal their designs against the general welfare under the euphonious pretense that they are upholding public credit and national honor." He concluded with a warning to his hearers that they could not afford to join the money changers in supporting a financial policy which destroyed the purchasing power of the product of toil and ended with discouraging the creation of wealth.

In a letter of acceptance of September 9, 1896, Mr. Bryan added little to the speeches he had made in the convention and in accepting the nomination. He attacked the bond policy of President Cleveland and declared that to assert that "the government is dependent upon the good will or assistance of any portion of the people other than a constitutional majority is to assert that we have a government in form but without vital force." Capital, he urged, was created by labor, and "since the producers of wealth create the nation's prosperity in time of peace and defend the nation's flag in time of peril, their interests ought at all times to be considered by those who stand in official positions." He criticized the abuses in injunction proceedings and favored the principle of trial by jury in such cases. He declared that it was not necessary to discuss the tariff at that time because the money question was the overshadowing issue, and all minor matters must be laid aside in favor of united action on that moot point.A few of the advocates of the gold standard in the Democratic party, who could not accept the Chicago platform and were yet unwilling to go over to the Republicans, held a convention at Indianapolis in September, and nominated a ticket, headed by John M. Palmer for President, and Simon Buckner for Vice President. This party, through the address of its executive committee calling the convention, declared that Democrats were absolved from all obligations to support the Chicago platform because the convention had departed from the recognized Democratic faith and had announced doctrines which were "destructive of national honor and private obligation and tend to create sectional and class distinctions and engender discord and strife among the people." The address repudiated the doctrine of majority rule in the party, declaring that when a Democratic convention departed from the principles of the party, no Democrat was under any moral obligation to support its action.

The principles of the party which, the address declared, had been adhered to from Jefferson to Cleveland "without variableness or a shadow of turning" were summed up in a policy of laissez faire. A true Democrat, ran the address, "believes, and this is the cardinal doctrine of his political faith, in the ability of every individual unassisted, if unfettered by law, to achieve his own happiness, and therefore that to every citizen there should be secured the right and opportunity peaceably to pursue whatever course of conduct he would, provided such conduct deprived no other individual of the equal enjoyment of the same right and opportunity. He stood for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of trade, and freedom of contract, all of which are implied by the century-old battle cry of the Democratic party 'Individual Liberty!' ... Every true Democrat ... profoundly disbelieves in the ability of the government, through paternal legislation, or supervision, to increase the happiness of the nation."

In the platform adopted at the convention, the "National Democratic party" was pledged to the general principles enunciated in the address and went on record as "opposed to all paternalism and all class legislation." It declared that the Chicago convention had attacked "individual freedom, the right of private contract, the independence of the judiciary, and the authority of the President to enforce Federal laws." It denounced protection and the free coinage of silver as two schemes designed for the personal profit of the few at the expense of the masses; it declared in favor of the gold standard, indorsed President Cleveland's administration, and went to the support of the Supreme Court by condemning "all efforts to degrade that tribunal or to impair the confidence and respect which it has deservedly held."

This platform received the support of President Cleveland, who, in response to an invitation to attend the meeting at which the candidates were to be notified, said: "As a Democrat, devoted to the principles and integrity of my party, I should be delighted to be present on an occasion so significant and to mingle with those who are determined that the voice of true Democracy shall not be smothered and who insist that the glorious standard shall be borne aloft as of old in faithful hands."In their acceptance speeches, Palmer and Buckner devoted more attention to condemning the Chicago platform than to explaining the principles for which they stood. General Buckner said: "The Chicago Convention would wipe virtually out of existence the Supreme Court which interprets the law, forgetting that our ancestors in England fought for hundreds of years to obtain a tribunal of justice which was free from executive control. They would wipe that out of existence and subject it to the control of party leaders to carry out the dictates of the party—they would paralyze the arm of the general government and forbid the powers to protect the lives and property of its citizens. That convention in terms almost placed a lighted torch in the hands of the incendiary and urged the mob to proceed without restraint to pillage and murder at their discretion."

The Campaign

The campaign which followed the conventions was the most remarkable in the long history of our quadrennial spectacles. Terror is always a powerful instrument in politics, and it was never used with greater effect than in the summer and autumn of 1896. Some of Mr. Bryan's utterances, particularly on the income tax, frightened the rich into believing, or pretending to believe, that his election would be the beginning of a wholesale confiscation. The Republicans replied to Mr. Bryan's threats by using the greatest of all terrors, the terror of unemployment, with tremendous effect. Everywhere they let the country understand that the defeat of Mr. McKinley would close factories and throw thousands of workingmen out of employment, and manufacturers and railways were accused by Mr. Bryan of exercising coercion on a large scale.

To this terror from above, the Democrats responded by creating terror below, by stirring deep-seated class feeling against the Republican candidate and his managers. In a letter given out from the Democratic headquarters in Chicago, on September 12, 1896, Mr. Jones, chairman of the Democratic national committee, said: "Against the people in this campaign are arrayed the consolidated forces of wealth and corporate power. The classes which have grown fat by reason of Federal legislation and the single gold standard have combined to fasten their fetters still more firmly upon the people and are organizing every precinct of every county of every state in the Union with this purpose in view. To meet and defeat this corrupt and unholy alliance the people themselves must organize and be organized.... It will minimize the effect of the millions of dollars that are being used against us, and defeat those influences which wealth and corporate power are endeavoring to use to override the will of the people and corrupt the integrity of free institutions."

Owing to the nature of the conflict enormous campaign funds were secured. The silver miners helped to finance Mr. Bryan, but their contributions were trivial compared with the immense sums raised by Mr. Hanna from protected interests, bankers, and financiers. With this great fund, speakers were employed by the thousands, newspapers were subsidized, party literature circulated by the ton, whole states polled in advance, and workers employed to carry the Republican fight into every important precinct in the country. The God of battles was on the side of the heaviest battalions. With all the most powerful engines for creating public sentiment against him, Mr. Bryan, in spite of his tremendous popular appeal, was doomed to defeat.

Undoubtedly, as was said at the time, most of the leading thinkers in finance and politics were against Mr. Bryan, and if there is anything in the verdict of history, the silver issue could not stand the test of logic and understanding. But it must not be presumed that it was merely a battle of wits, and that demagogic appeals to passions which were supposed to be associated with Mr. Bryan's campaign were confined to his partisans. On the contrary, the Republicans employed all of the forms of personal vituperation. For example, that staid journal of Republicanism, the New York Tribune, attributed the growth of Bryanism to the "assiduous culture of the basest passions of the least worthy member of the community.... Its nominal head was worthy of the cause. Nominal because the wretched, rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid vanity and mouthing resounding rottenness, was not the real leader of that league of hell. He was only a puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld, the anarchist, and Debs, the revolutionist, and other desperadoes of that stripe. But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was,—willing and eager. None of his masters was more apt than he at lies and forgeries and blasphemies and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign against the Ten Commandments." That such high talk by those who constituted themselves the guardians of public credit, patriotism, and the Ten Commandments was not calculated to sooth the angry passions of their opponents needs no demonstration here.

Argument, party organization and machinery, the lavish use of money, and terror won the day for the Republicans. The solid East and Middle West overwhelmed Mr. Bryan, giving Mr. McKinley 271 electoral votes and 7,111,607 popular votes, as against 176 electoral and 6,509,052 popular votes cast for the Democratic candidate.

The decisive defeat of Mr. Bryan put an end to the silver issue for practical purposes, although, as we shall see, it was again raised in 1900. The Republicans, however, delayed action for political reasons, and it was not until almost four years had elapsed that they made the gold dollar the standard by an act of Congress approved on March 4, 1900. Thus the war of the standards was closed, but the question of the currency was not settled, and the old issue of inflation and contraction continued to haunt the paths of the politicians. From time to time, the prerogatives of the national banks, organized under the law of 1863 (modified in 1901), were questioned in political circles, and in 1908 an attempt was made by act of Congress to give the currency more elasticity by authorizing the banks to form associations and issue notes on the basis of certain securities. Nevertheless, no serious changes were made in the financial or banking systems before the close of the year 1912. The attention of the country, shortly after the campaign of 1896, was diverted to the spectacular events of the Spanish War, and for a time appeals to patriotism subdued the passions of the radicals.

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