Great as has been the world’s wonder at the uprising of Mr. Bryan’s “struggling masses” in the city by the sea, and the narrow escape of its magnificent homes from fire and brand, yet greater still was the wonderment when the news was flashed across the land that Chicago did not stand in need of a single Federal soldier. “Chicago is mad, but it is the madness of joy. Chicago is in the hands of a mob, but it is a mob made up of her own people—noisy, rude and boisterous, the natural exultation of a suddenly enfranchised class; but bent on no other mischief than glorying over the villainous and self-seeking souls who have ground the faces of the poor and turned the pitiless screw of social and political power into the hearts of the ‘common people’ until its last thread had been reached, and despair pressed its lupine visage hard against the door of the laboring man.” And yet, at this moment when the night air quivered with the mad vociferations of the “common people,” that the Lord had been good to them; that the wicked money-changers had been driven from the temple, that the stony-hearted usurers were beaten at last, that the “People’s William” was at the helm now, that peace and plenty would in a few moons come back to the poor man’s cottage, that Silver was King, aye, King at last, the world still went Why was it thus? Look and you shall know why white robed peace kept step with this turbulent band and turned its thought from red handed pillage. He was there. The master spirit to hold them in leash. He, and he alone, had lifted Bryan to his great eminence. Without these twenty-four electoral votes, Bryan had been doomed, hopelessly doomed. He, and he alone, held the great Commonwealth of the West hard and fast in the Democratic line; hence he came as conqueror, as King-maker, and the very walls of the sky-touching edifices trembled as he was dragged through the crowded streets by this orderly mob, and ten times ten thousand of his creatures bellowed his name and shook their hats aloft in mad exultation: “You’re our Saviour, you’ve cleaned the Temple of Liberty of its foul horde of usurers. We salute you. We call you King-maker. Bryan shall call you Master too. You shall have your reward. You shall stand behind the throne. Your wisdom shall make us whole. You shall purge the land of this unlawful crowd of money-lenders. You shall save the Republic. You are greater than Washington. You’re a better friend of ours than Lincoln. You’ll do more for us than Grant. We’re your slaves. We salute you. We thank you. We bless you. Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” But yet this vast throng of tamed monsters, this mighty mob of momentarily good-natured haters of And so Chicago celebrated the election of the new President who was to free the land from the grasp of the money-lenders, and undo the bad business of years of unholy union between barterers and sellers of human toil and the law makers of the land. Throughout the length and breadth of the South, and beyond the Great Divide, the news struck hamlet and village like the glad tidings of a new evangel, almost as potent for human happiness as the heavenly message of two thousand years ago. Bells rang out in joyful acclaim, and the very stars trembled at the telling, and the telling over and over of what had been done for the poor man by his brethren of the North, and around the blazing pine knots of the Southern cabin and in front of the mining camp fires of the Far West, the cry went up: “Silver is King! Silver is King!” Black palms and white were |