The Project Gutenberg eBook, William Jennings Bryan, by Harvey Ellsworth Newbranch

William Jennings Bryan
A CONCISE BUT COMPLETE STORY OF HIS LIFE AND SERVICES

BY

HARVEY E. NEWBRANCH

LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

THE UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING CO.

1900

Copyrighted, 1900, by Harvey E. Newbranch. All rights reserved.

JACOB NORTH & CO., PRINTERS

LINCOLN, NEB.

DEDICATED

TO

THE BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC LEADER

OF

AN HONEST AND INTELLIGENT ELECTORATE

William Jennings Bryan

OF

NEBRASKA

PREFACE

The author of this little volume, in giving it to the reading public, feels called on for a few words by way of explanation and apology.

The book is written because there seems to be a field for it. Within the last few months hundreds of thousands of American citizens have come to see William Jennings Bryan in a new light. As a result, while they no longer believe him a demagogue, some still hesitate to accept him as a statesman. While they have ceased to denounce him as an anarchist, some are slow to realize that he stands with Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln as one of the great conservators of American institutions.

Especially for the benefit of this class of his fellow citizens this little “life” of Mr. Bryan is published. For it is claimed no literary merit other than a conscientious attempt at clearness, and no historical excellence save a strict adherence to the truth in the statement of facts. The work has had to be hurriedly done and at irregular intervals, and the one object aimed at has been to acquaint the reader with Mr. Bryan’s character through a narration of his life work.

It is candidly admitted that the book is written in a friendly and sympathetic vein. To the author’s thinking Mr. Bryan’s personality is one of the most beautiful and well-rounded in American history, and his noble characteristics are dwelt on only because they exist and deserve to be understood.

To many of Mr. Bryan’s old-time friends in Lincoln the author is under obligations for valuable assistance. Among these may be especially mentioned Mr. Harry T. Dobbins, Judge J. H. Broady, Mr. T. S. Allen, and Mr. W. F. Schwind. Others have contributed to a greater or less degree, and to all due thanks and acknowledgements are hereby rendered.

Harvey E. Newbranch.

Lincoln, Neb., August 29, 1900.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY

About the life and services of William Jennings Bryan will be centered the labors of those who, in future time, shall contribute to the pages of history the story of American states-craft and political tendencies of the dying days of the nineteenth century and the opening decade of the twentieth. The historian who has to do with Bryan and his times will deal not only with one of the most momentous and important periods of American history, but with one of the most remarkable and interesting characters whose name adorns its pages.

It is not generally while the battle of ideas and ideals is on, it is but rarely during the developing period of great political and social movements, that their relative and ultimate importance may be judged; and it is as seldom, during the lifetime of a public man, whose name is identified and whose services are associated with the great issues which constitute the line of demarcation in the field of political thought, that his true character, his strength, and his weaknesses, may be appreciated or understood.

In the study of man and of history a proper sense of perspective is as all-essential as in the limner’s art. The warrior who, with heart aflame, strives on a great battlefield, can know but little of the terrible grandeur of the whole, and still less of the import of the movements of battalions, regiments, and corps. It remains for him who, from an eminence of distance or of time, surveys impartially the entire field, to comprehend its sublimities and horrors, and to appreciate the full significance of its waging and its outcome. And even so, of necessity, it is most difficult for us who live in the American republic, at this century’s sunset, to be able or even willing rightly to appreciate the full import of movements in the advancement or retarding of which each bears howsoever humble a part. Too frequently in politics, as in battle, men do fiercely strive with blinded eyes and deafened ears, and they sometimes wildly strike at him who is their friend.

And yet there are many things in the life of a public man which his neighbors and associates can not fail of knowing, and which, when interpreted, permit his contemporaries to estimate the quality of his character, even though they may not know the full value of his public services. In every man, of whatever station, there are elements and traits which prominently stand forth. These, with such things as he has done and the words which he has spoken, constitute the material from which we may form our concepts of his worth.

In William Jennings Bryan are certain traits so prominent and unmistakable that he who runs may read. They have been well revealed, in few words, by Judge Edgar Howard, of Papillion, Neb. In a speech delivered before the Jacksonian Club of Omaha, on July 15, 1900, Judge Howard said:

“Reverently I say it, that while I do not worship the man, I do worship those traits in him that, as I read the book, stand unparalleled in politics. There is not a man of you here or anywhere to be found who has the nerve to speak a profane or vulgar word in the presence of our candidate for President. Nor does a man dare suggest a move on the political chess-board that honor will not approve. He brightens and betters all those who come in contact with him, no matter who they be. Then why should we not go before the world and preach this man—the personification of purity, clean in all things—as well as his principles?”

In this little volume it will be attempted to tell briefly the story of this American’s life and the movements with which he has been associated. The tale must be hurriedly moulded into form, and we fear its rough lines and its crudities will be all too apparent. And yet, withal, it will be the result of sincere endeavor to aid his fellow-citizens to know William Jennings Bryan even as he is. It is, we believe, a laudable design, however poorly executed. For here, on the farther side of the brown and swift Missouri, there dwells a man of virile and rugged qualities, typically American and truly Western, the story of whose life is a wondrous inspiration to every citizen of the Republic and a monument to the uplifting force of right living and high ideals. For it tells that even in the politics of to-day, honeycombed with cant, hypocrisy, and insincerity, absolute honesty of motive and candor of statement is still no bar to the truest leadership and the highest advancement. It tells further of the marvelous opportunities of humble American citizenship, demonstrating once more, as in Abraham Lincoln’s time, that to the man of conscience, brains, and courage, the highest walks of life are open; to which neither poverty nor obscurity is a bar. And finally it tells of the great potential power of the idea, unaided and even bitterly opposed, when forcefully and sincerely stated, to win its way to the hearts of humankind.

And so it is that to such as will honestly study William Jennings Bryan’s career, and learn the lesson that it teaches, must come hope and inspiration and promise of the dawn. For whether he ever hold high political office or not; whether or not, in the crucible of time, his political faith prove true or prove fallacious; his life still teaches that courage and plain honesty may win for a public man such following and support, such exalted place in the hearts of his countrymen, as has never yet rewarded the tricks and wiles of even the most brilliant of opportunists.

EARLY LIFE

William Bryan, the great-grandfather of the presidential nominee, the first of the Bryans known to the present generation, lived in Culpepper county, Va. In his family there were three children. One of these, John Bryan, was the grandfather of William Jennings Bryan. In 1807 John married Nancy Lillard. To this couple ten children were born. One of these was Silas L. Bryan, the father of William Jennings Bryan.

He was born in Sperryville, Culpepper county, Va., in 1822. In 1834 he came west, working his way through the public schools, finally entering McKendree College, at Lebanon, Ill., and graduating with honors in 1849. After graduating, he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began his practice in Salem, Marion county, Ill. In 1852 he was married to Mariah Elizabeth Jennings. In 1860, he was elected to the circuit bench, where he served twelve years. In 1872 he was nominated for Congress on the Democratic ticket, receiving the endorsement of the Greenback party. He died March 30, 1880, and was buried in the cemetery of his much beloved town, Salem.

The union of Silas Bryan and Mariah Jennings was blessed on March 19, 1860, by the birth of William Jennings Bryan, twice the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

When William Jennings Bryan was six years old, his parents moved to their farm in the vicinity of Salem. Until he was ten years of age his parents taught him at home, hoping thus to mould his young mind to better advantage. At ten years of age William entered the public schools of Salem. There he attended until he was fifteen, when he entered Whipple Academy, Jacksonville, Ill., in the fall of 1875. Two years later he entered Illinois College, and with this step a new life began.

His parents wished him to take a classical course with its Latin, Greek, mathematics, and geometry. This he did. He was, too, an earnest student of political economy. During his first year at the Academy, he delivered Patrick Henry’s masterpiece, and was ranked well down toward the “foot.” Again in the second year, nothing daunted by his failure to be at the “head,” he selected “The Palmetto and the Pine” as his subject. This time he was third, with a large number following. Later in his second year he delivered “Bernado del Carpio” and gained second prize. In his sophomore and junior years, his essays upon “Labor” and “Individual Powers” were each awarded first prize. The winning of the junior prize entitled him to represent Illinois College in the intercollegiate oratorical contest, which was held at Galesburg, Ill., in the fall of 1880. His oration was upon “Justice,” which received the second prize of fifty dollars. At the time of graduation, he was elected class orator, and delivered the valedictory.

It was here, in his junior year that he first met his wife, Miss Mary Baird, of Perry, Ill., and she, speaking of her first impression, says, “I saw him first in the parlors of the young ladies’ school which I attended in Jacksonville. He entered the room with several other students, was taller than the rest, and attracted my attention at once. His face was pale and thin; a pair of keen, dark eyes looked out from beneath heavy eyebrows; his nose was prominent—too large to look well, I thought; a broad, thin-lipped mouth and a square chin completed the contour of his face. I noted particularly his hair and smile. The former, black in color, fine in quality, and parted distressingly straight. In later years his smile has been the subject of considerable comment. Upon one occasion a heartless observer was heard to remark, ‘That man can whisper in his own ear,’ but this was cruel exaggeration.”

The graduating exercises of Illinois College were in June, 1881. The valedictory is given below, not because it possesses great merit, but in order to show his style and the turn of his mind at the time.

“Beloved instructors, it is character not less than intellect that you have striven to develop. As we stand at the end of our college course, and turn our eyes toward the scenes forever past, as our memories linger on the words of wisdom which have fallen from your lips, we are more and more deeply impressed with the true conception of duty which you have ever shown. You have sought not to trim the lamp of genius until the light of morality is paled by its dazzling brilliance, but to encourage and strengthen both. These days are over. No longer shall we listen to your warning voices, no more meet you in these familiar classrooms, yet on our hearts ‘deeply has sunk the lesson’ you have given, and it shall not soon depart.

“We thank you for your kind and watchful care, and shall ever cherish your teachings with that devotion which sincere gratitude inspires.

“It is fitting that we express to you also, honored trustees, our gratitude for the privileges which you have permitted us to enjoy.

“The name of the institution whose interest you guard will ever be dear to us as the schoolroom, to whose influence we shall trace whatever success coming years may bring.

“Dear classmates, my lips refuse to bid you a last good-bye; we have so long been joined together in a community of aims and interests; so often met and mingled our thoughts in confidential friendship; so often planned and worked together, that it seems like rending asunder the very tissues of a heart to separate us now.

“But this long and happy association is at an end, and now as we go forth in sorrow, as each one must, to begin alone the work which lies before us, let us encourage each other with strengthening words.

“Success is brought by continued labor and continued watchfulness. We must struggle on, not for one moment hesitate, nor take one backward step; for in the language of the poet:

MRS. BRYAN

‘The gates of hell are open night and day,

Smooth the descent and easy is the way;

But to return and view the cheerful skies,

In this, the past and mighty labor lies.’

We launch our vessels upon the uncertain sea of life alone, yet not alone, for around us are friends who anxiously and prayerfully watch our course. They will rejoice if we arrive safely at our respective havens, or weep with bitter tears if, one by one, our weather-beaten barks are lost forever in the surges of the deep.

“We have esteemed each other, loved each other, and now must with each other part. God grant that we may all so live as to meet in the better world, where parting is unknown.

“Halls of learning, fond Alma Mater, farewell. We turn to take our ‘last, long, lingering look’ at the receding walls. We leave thee now to be ushered out into the varied duties of an active life.

“However high our names may be inscribed upon the gilded scroll of fame, to thee we all the honor give, to thee all the praises bring. And when, in after years, we’re wearied by the bustle of the busy world, our hearts will often long to turn and seek repose beneath thy sheltering shade.”

In September, 1881, William Jennings Bryan entered the Union College of Law at Chicago. Out of school hours his time was spent in the office of ex-Senator Lyman Trumbull, who had been a great friend of young Bryan’s father. His vacation and summer months were spent on the farm, and it was these years of rugged, outdoor life which gave to his manhood that vigor, stability, and splendid physique so helpful to him in his life as a student and in his work since he has left college.

Mr. Bryan stood well in the law school, taking an especial interest in constitutional law. He was also connected with the debating society of the college and took an active part in its meetings.

At the age of twenty-three Mr. Bryan finished a collegiate course and started in life for himself, leaving the farm, robust and ambitious, to grow in the knowledge of his profession. His parents were devout Christians and members of the Baptist Church. So Mr. Bryan was early taught those principles of right and wrong, justice, equality, and the advantages of a pure life. His father’s example convinced him that the old saying that “no honest man can become a lawyer” was a myth and a mistake. And on July 4, 1883, William Jennings Bryan began the practice of his profession in Jacksonville, Ill.

Stocked with a liberal education, a conscience void of offense, a character unsullied, and an ambition to know the law, and to apply this knowledge for the benefit of the people, he began at the very bottom of the ladder. The drudgery and disappointments, the hardships and jokes common to a beginner without means and alone, in competition with men of gray hairs and wisdom that come from years of toil and practice, was the portion of Mr. Bryan. But he was a courageous man; Napoleon-like he knew no such word as fail, and with that force and enthusiasm so characteristic of the man, he labored on, believing that each disappointment contained its lesson, and that every hardship endured had its counterpart in a triumph. His early practice was not unlike that of other beginners, taking such cases as usually come to the young lawyer.

At the close of the first year, and during the fall of 1884, his income was such that he could support a wife; a modest home was planned and built, and in October, 1884, he was married. During the next three years he lived comfortably, though economically, and laid by a small amount. Politics lost none of its charms, and each campaign found Mr. Bryan speaking, usually in his own county.

Three years after graduation he attended the commencement at Illinois College, delivered the Master’s oration, and received the degree, his subject being “American Citizenship.” From that time until he entered Congress in 1891, his only support for himself and his wife was from his profession. Mr. Bryan continued in a growing practice of law in Jacksonville until October, 1887. In July of that year, while on a western trip, he passed through Lincoln, Neb., to visit friends, and in two days was so impressed with the city and its possibilities that he disposed of his business in Jacksonville, and located in Lincoln. Political ambitions did not enter into this change, as the city, county, and state were strongly Republican. Mr. Bryan began his lot as a lawyer in Lincoln by forming a partnership, the style of the firm being “Talbot & Bryan.” He at once applied himself vigorously to the details of the practice in his new field, and was soon recognized as a lawyer of unusual strength.

In the few years of practice at the bar of Lincoln before he was elected to Congress, Mr. Bryan became somewhat celebrated as the champion of the anti-sugar-bounty doctrine, and as the pleader for equal rights, under the law, for all classes of men. In the spring of 1896, the city proposed to issue $500,000 of its refunding bonds in gold. A number of citizens believing such a contract unjust to the tax-payers, consulted Mr. Bryan and secured his services in their behalf. Without compensation, he at once devoted his energies to restrain the city of Lincoln from issuing and selling such bonds. A temporary restraining order was issued by the court, and after a vigorous contest an injunction against the city, preventing such contract, was granted. In these cases was shown Mr. Bryan’s genuine interest in public matters, and in the general welfare of the people. Aside from many of these cases involving public interest, his work as a lawyer was the usual practice of the profession.

Mr. Bryan is a man of great physical endurance. As a lawyer as well as a legislator, he is a man of great deliberation. Before acting, he believes in being fully advised as to the subject upon which he is to act. He was never known to champion a cause, accept a case, or make a statement to a jury or elsewhere that did not present the honest conviction of his mind, always having a sincere belief in the correctness of the position assumed. In explaining a proposition of law, he seeks the reason for the law, which he is always able to present with peculiar clearness.

In his method of argument he is never emotional, but makes strong applications of law and fact by the statement of his case and proof, without any effort at embellishment or oratory. His ability to crowd a great deal in a few words and sentences is very marked. The weakness of his opponents he easily detects, and readily points out the fallacy. Mr. Bryan is an ardent believer in the American jury system. When in Congress, he introduced a bill providing that a verdict agreed to by three-fourths of the members of a jury should be a verdict of the jury in civil cases, and he made an argument before the Congressional Judiciary Committee in its support.

“Mr. Bryan did not distinguish himself as a lawyer.” Those who thus complain should consider that he entered the practice at the age of twenty-three, and left it at thirty, and in that period began twice, and twice became more than self-supporting. He has not had the time and opportunity in which to establish the reputation at the bar which gives to many American jurists the illustrious positions which they occupy. However, at the time of his election to Congress, his practice was in a thriving condition and fully equal to that of any man of his age in the city.

Whatever may be said of Mr. Bryan by friend or foe, it must be conceded that his convictions control his actions on all questions, either as a lawyer or as a public man, and when employed in a case involving great interests, he would, without question, acquit himself with that distinction which has characterized him as a leader in public affairs.

IN CONGRESS

Mr. Bryan’s first political speech of importance was made at Seward in the spring of 1888. At that time Lincoln was known to be as strong as the rock of Gibraltar in the Republican faith. On this occasion of his first public appearance as a political orator in Nebraska, he drew men to him by the power of the orator, and held them there in subsequent years by the virtue of the man. His extraordinary popularity with the masses of his followers was universally acknowledged. After his first few speeches, it did not take long for his reputation to spread over the state, and when he was elected as a delegate from Lancaster county to the Democratic State convention in 1888 he was in great demand. The sources of this popularity, though less clear, were of profound significance, being only in part personal. In fact, it seemed to be this man’s fortune to embody a fresh democratic impulse, which in time would make him the leader of a new democratic movement.

The reports as to Mr. Bryan’s first speech in the convention, say in part: “Mr. Bryan, of Lancaster county, was then called. He came forward and delivered a spirited address, in the course of which he said that if the platform laid down by the President in his message upon the tariff question were carried out and vigorously fought upon in the state, it would, in the course of a short time, give Nebraska to the Democracy. He thought if the Democrats went out to the farmers and people who lived in Nebraska and showed them the iniquity of the tariff system, they would rally round the cause which their noble leader, Grover Cleveland, had championed.” This short, but pointed speech created the greatest amount of enthusiasm, and the young orator impressed his personality upon the public mind of his adopted state.

In the fall of 1888, Mr. Bryan made a canvass of the First Congressional District, in behalf of Hon. J. Sterling Morton, and also visited some thirty counties throughout the state. Mr. Morton was defeated by three thousand four hundred, the district being normally Republican.

When the campaign of 1890 opened, a few Democrats who came to appreciate Mr. Bryan’s real ability believed that with him as the nominee the Republicans could be defeated. So when the Democratic convention met at Lincoln, July 31, 1890, Mr. Bryan was selected without opposition, and at once began a vigorous campaign. He began a thorough canvass, speaking about eighty times, and visiting every city and village in the district. At the close of the last debate, he presented to Mr. Connell (his opponent) a copy of Gray’s Elegy, with the following remarks: “Mr. Connell: We now bring to a close the series of debates which was arranged by our committees. I am glad we have been able to conduct these discussions in a courteous and friendly manner. If I have in any way offended you in word or deed, I offer apology and regret; and as freely forgive. I desire to present to you, in remembrance of these pleasant meetings, this little volume, because it contains ‘Gray’s Elegy,’ in perusing which I trust you will find as much pleasure and profit as I have found. It is one of the most beautiful and touching tributes to human life that literature contains. Grand in its sentiments and sublime in its simplicity, we may both find in it a solace in victory or defeat. If success crowns your efforts in this campaign, and it should be your lot

‘The applause of listening senates to command’

and I am left

‘A youth to fortune and to fame unknown,’

forget not us who in the common walks of life perform our part, but in the hour of your triumph recall the verse:

‘Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys and destiny obscure;

Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

The short and simple annals of the poor.’

“If on the other hand, by the verdict of my countrymen, I should be made your successor, let it not be said of you

‘And melancholy marked him for her own’,

but find sweet consolation in the thought:

‘Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.’

“But when the palm of victory is given to you or to me, let us remember those of whom the poet says:

‘Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learned to stray,

Along the cool, sequestered vale of life.

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.’

“These are the ones most likely to be forgotten by the Government. When the poor and weak cry out for relief, they too often hear no answer but ‘the echo of their cry,’ while the rich, the strong, the powerful are given an attentive ear. For this reason is class legislation dangerous and deadly; it takes from those least able to lose, and gives to those who are least in need. The safety of our farmers and our laborers is not in special legislation, but in equal and just laws that bear alike on every man. The great masses of our people are interested, not in getting their hands into other people’s pockets, but in keeping the hands of other people out of their pockets. Let me, in parting, express the hope that you and I may be instrumental in bringing our Government back to better laws which will give equal treatment without regard to creed or condition. I bid you a friendly farewell.”

Mr. Bryan closed his campaign at the city of Lincoln, and was elected by a plurality of six thousand seven hundred in the same district which two years before had defeated Mr. Morton by a plurality of three thousand four hundred. He was elected in one of the fairest and most brilliant campaigns ever fought; and became one of the most prominent members of the lower House from the West.

The explanation of Mr. Bryan’s popularity must be sought in a cause which lies deeper than a political issue.

When he entered Congress he gave his support in caucus to Mr. Springer, for Speaker of the House, in whose district he had lived when at Jacksonville. In the House, he voted for Mr. Crisp, the caucus nominee. Mr. Springer was made chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and although it was unprecedented to give to a first term member a position on the all-important Ways and Means Committee, Speaker Crisp conferred that unprecedented honor upon Bryan of Nebraska. One of the first bills introduced by Mr. Bryan was that providing for the election of senators by the people, at the option of each state.

In supporting this bill Mr. Bryan said: “Mr. Speaker—I desire to call the attention of the House to what I consider a very important question involved in this joint resolution. I shall not consume time in discussing the general principle of electing senators by the people. If the people of a state have enough intelligence to choose their representatives in the state legislature, their executive officers, judges, and their officials in all the departments of the state and country, they have enough intelligence to choose the men who shall represent them in the United States Senate.

“And now, sirs, if we want to secure the election of senators by the people, we must submit a proposition free from the Republican idea of Federal interference, and free from the Democratic idea of non-interference. We may just as well cease the attempt to secure this reform if we are going to tie it to Federal election laws. I appeal to members of both sides of the House, members who in their hearts desire this reform, members who in their own judgment believe that the time has come to give the people a chance to vote for the senators, Democrats, Republicans, and Populists alike, to join in a proposition which will eliminate the political question and leave us simply the question of election by the people or not.”

The bill attracted much attention through the country, although it failed of final passage.

On March 16, 1892, Mr. Bryan made his great tariff speech in the House, which is considered in another chapter of this work. In the spring of 1892, the silver sentiment began to show itself among the leaders of the Nebraska Democracy. The state convention to elect delegates to the National Democratic convention was called for April 15, 1892, and found Mr. Bryan back in Lincoln, by the consent of the House, making a determined effort for the adoption of a plank favoring the free coinage of silver. The fight was a hard and bitter one. In supporting this part of the platform Mr. Bryan said in part:

“Gentlemen—I do not believe it is noble to dodge any issue. If, as has been indicated, this may have an effect on my campaign, then no bridegroom went with gladder heart to greet his bride that I shall welcome defeat. Vote this down if you will, but do not dodge it; for that is not democratic.” The convention went wild in a body, a vote was called, which brought defeat to the Bryan silver plank. By this act Mr. Bryan incurred the hatred of the Cleveland administration.

Upon the return of Mr. Bryan to Nebraska at the close of the 52d Congress, a series of debates had been arranged with the Republican party nominee, Allen W. Field, then judge of the district court. This was even a more bitter contest than the first. Mr. McKinley, Mr. Foraker, and others were called to Nebraska to aid the Republican cause. They made desperate efforts to “down” Bryan, but in spite of all he was reelected by a majority of one hundred fifty-two.

As a congressman William Jennings Bryan was a success. From the moment he entered Congress, he was a leader. To those who knew him intimately, it was no surprise that during the first term he sprang suddenly into prominence. His speech on the tariff question stamped him not only as an orator, but a man who had made a deep political study of economic questions.

It was not until his second term that he really focussed public attention upon himself. When Congress was convened in extraordinary session, he went to Washington prepared to resist the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman act. He knew the feeling of his constituents, and being thoroughly familiar with every phase of the question, he entered upon the fight like a gladiator. His conspicuous record as an orator in the previous session was sufficient to get him a place in the great debate, and, when the opportunity came, Bryan was prepared for it. For several days it was known that he was to speak, and the galleries of the House were crowded at each session. Finally he was recognized by the Speaker, and he began the most effective speech that had been heard in Congress in years. Everybody was quiet and listened. The oldest member could not remember when a man had received such marked attention and such spontaneous applause as Bryan got that day. As he stood there, the picture of health, a physical giant, his voice falling in easy cadence, he impressed upon his hearers the thought that he meant every word he was saying. He had every one in his grasp. As he continued, the audience became worked up to a high pitch, and when he concluded with a magnificent peroration, quiet reigned for a moment, then suddenly every one joined in tumultuous applause. Bryan had finished; he had made a speech that for thought, logic, and sentiment, to say nothing of its matchless delivery, had few equals in the records of Congress. For two hours and fifty minutes the young Nebraska orator held the close attention of a full house and crowded galleries. Instead of members leaving the hall as usual, they crowded in, and every man was in his seat. This speech made him famous. Occasionally a single standard man would interrupt, but none did it without subsequent regret. He knew his case too well.

From that day to this, Bryan has been in the public eye everywhere. Many who heard his tariff speech predicted that it was a flash light, and would soon grow dim, and its author be forgotten; but after he made his silver speech those who thought his first an accident were compelled to admit that he possessed all the qualifications of a statesman and that he was bound to be a leader in his party.

Besides his silver and tariff speeches, Mr. Bryan spoke briefly upon several other questions, namely, in favor of foreclosure of Government liens on all Pacific railways, and in favor of the anti-option bill. He favored the application of the principle of arbitration as far as Federal authority extends. On January 30, 1894, Mr. Bryan, in a speech in favor of the income tax, brilliantly and successfully replied to the speech of Bourke Cockran delivered in opposition to that measure.

His record in Congress did not consist entirely of speech-making. He was a tireless worker for his constituents, and he secured more pensions for old soldiers living in his district than all the Republican congressmen who had preceded him. He personally attended to the wants of every constituent, and no man ever wrote a letter asking his assistance that he did not at once enlist Bryan’s active support. He was vigilant and watchful, and never missed an opportunity to do a favor.

He was exceedingly active in Congress, dodging nothing, and often speaking on the current questions. Yet nothing that he did or said in Congress comes back to plague him. It was then thought, and it has since been hoped, that in the fulness of his record something would come back to trip him. But what he said then only makes him stronger now.

It may not be amiss at this point to quote from Mrs. Bryan, who said: “Quoting from a eulogy which Mr. Bryan delivered upon a colleague in the 53d Congress, this extract will serve a double purpose, in that it gives his views upon immortality, and, at the same time, presents a passage which I think may, without impropriety, be called a finished bit of English. Mr. Bryan said ‘I shall not believe that even now his light is extinguished. If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the cold and pulseless heart of the buried acorn, and make it burst forth from its buried walls, will He leave neglected in the earth, the soul of man, who was made in the image of his Creator? If he stoops to give to the rosebush, whose withered blossoms float upon the breeze, the sweet assurance of another springtime, will he withhold the words of hope from the sons of man when the frosts of winter come? If matter, mute and inanimate, though changed by the forces of Nature into a multitude of forms, can never die, will the imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation after it has paid a brief visit, like a royal guest, to this tenement of clay? Rather let us believe that He, who, in His apparent prodigality, makes the blade of grass or the evening’s sighing zephyr, but makes them to carry out His eternal plan, has given immortality to the mortal, and gathered to Himself the generous spirit of our friend. Instead of mourning, let us look up and address him in the words of the poet:

“’The day has come, not gone;

The sun has risen, not set;

Thy life is now beyond

The reach of death or change,

Not ended—but begun

O, noble soul! O, gentle heart! Hail, and farewell.’”

Mr. Bryan was singularly free from egotism, affectation, or envy of the fame of others. That he was brilliant goes without saying, but his brilliancy was as natural and easy as to be like Shakespeare’s description of mercy:

“The quality of mercy is not strained,

It dropped as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the places beneath. It is twice blessed;

It blesses him that gives and him that takes.”

THE TARIFF

For twenty years prior to 1896 the chief tangible point of difference between the Democratic and Republican parties was the tariff question. It was, in truth, a question on which the two great parties had always differed since the days when they were known as Federalists and Anti-Federalists.

The Democratic party, in true accord with the principles of Thomas Jefferson, has always held that government to be best which interferes least with the liberty of the individual. The purpose of government, it has held, is to protect man in his personal rights against the unjust encroachments of his neighbors. But, according to the Democratic idea, government should not interfere to arbitrarily promote the interests of any class of its citizens at the expense of any other class. All should be left, protected against illegal encroachment, but otherwise unmolested, to work out their own salvation. In other words, Democracy believes that government to be best which governs least.

The Republican theory, on the other hand, has inclined toward the exactly opposite point of view; that that government is best which governs most. It has acted consistently on the principle that it is not only permissible but advisable for government to be made an instrument for advancing the pecuniary or business interests of such of its citizens as seem most deserving or are most fortunate in winning its ear. It was this radical difference between the two parties, involving, as it did, a basic and fundamental principle, that lay at the root of the controversy regarding tariff duties.

The Democratic party, adhering to the strict letter of the Constitution, held that the tariff should be levied for one simple purpose, and that the purpose contemplated by the Constitution—to raise revenue. With this end in view, the party contended, tariff duties should be levied mostly on such articles as are not produced in this country, and, in order to equalize the burden of taxation, be imposed rather on luxuries than the strict necessities of life.

The Republican party took a more radical position. It advocated the levying of tariff duties, not primarily for the purpose of raising revenue,—that was made a secondary consideration,—but to protect from foreign competition the manufacturing and industrial enterprises of the United States. Then, it argued, these establishments, protected by the fostering arm of government, would grow great and strong, furnishing at once employment for labor at high wages, and a “home market” for the products of the American farm and mine.

Controverting this alluring argument, the Democratic party held that government had no right to compel citizens of one class or section to contribute involuntarily to the support of citizens of some other class or section of the country. The only manner in which a protective tariff could protect, it pointed out, was by enabling the home manufacturer to charge a higher price because of the duty on foreign goods. This added price, it showed, must be paid into the pocket of the American manufacturer by the American consumer. Moreover, it declared, the farmer could only share the burden without receiving any of the benefits of a high protective tariff, the price of his products being fixed in the world’s markets at Liverpool and London. And the same thing, it held, was true of the laboring man, as the rate of his remuneration was fixed mainly by “the iron law of wages.”

When Mr. Bryan was elected to Congress for his first term this question of tariff was the all-absorbing one before the people. The Republican party, in the zenith of its power, had enacted the McKinley tariff law, the embodiment of its views on this question, levying tariff duties so high as almost to exclude foreign competition. It was in this law, undoubtedly, that most of the great trusts and monopolies since formed read their birthright.

Mr. Bryan, naturally, as a Democrat and a firm believer in the principles of government laid down by Thomas Jefferson, was vigorously opposed to the theory of a high protective tariff. The Congress in which he served his first term was Democratic, the result of the enactment of the trust-breeding McKinley tariff law. The Ways and Means Committee, of which Mr. Springer of Illinois was chairman, decided that relief might best be effected by the introduction of a series of bills, transferring certain commodities to the free list.

It was in support of one of these—a bill placing wool on the free list and reducing the duties on woolen goods—that Mr. Bryan delivered his maiden speech in the House. This was on Wednesday, March 16, 1892. Like Byron, he awoke the next morning and found himself famous. The speech had attracted the admiring attention of the whole country. The young orator’s logic, acute reasoning, powers of broad generalization, and apt and homely illustration, not less than his genuine eloquence, incisive wit, and brilliant repartee, had, in one speech, won him a place at the head of the list of American parliamentary orators.

In his speech Mr. Bryan thus effectually punctured with his ridicule the Republican argument generally advanced that a high tariff makes low prices:

“Now, there are two arguments which I have never heard advanced in favor of protection; but they are the best arguments. They admit a fact and justify it, and I think that is the best way to argue, if you have a fact to meet. Why not say to the farmer, ‘Yes, of course you lose; but does not the Bible say, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”—[laughter]—and if you suffer some inconvenience, just look back over your life and you will find that your happiest moments were enjoyed when you were giving something to somebody, and the most unpleasant moments were when you were receiving.’ These manufacturers are self-sacrificing. They are willing to take the lesser part, and the more unpleasant business of receiving, and leave to you the greater joy of giving. [Loud laughter and applause on the Democratic side.]

“Why do they not take the other theory, which is borne out by history—that all nations which have grown strong, powerful, and influential, just as individuals, have done it through hardship, toil, and sacrifice, and that after they have become wealthy they have been enervated, they have gone to decay through the enjoyment of luxury, and that the great advantage of the protective system is that it goes around among the people and gathers up their surplus earnings so that they will not be enervated or weakened, so that no legacy of evil will be left to their children. Their surplus earnings are collected up, and the great mass of our people are left strong, robust, and hearty. These earnings are garnered and put into the hands of just as few people as possible, so that the injury will be limited in extent. [Great laughter and applause on the Democratic side.] And they say, ‘Yes, of course, of course; it makes dudes of our sons, and it does, perhaps, compel us to buy foreign titles for our daughters [laughter], but of course if the great body of the people are benefited, as good, patriotic citizens we ought not to refuse to bear the burden.’ [Laughter.]

“Why do they not do that? They simply come to you and tell you that they want a high tariff to make low prices, so that the manufacturer will be able to pay large wages to his employees. [Laughter.] And then, they want a high tariff on agricultural products so that they will have to buy what they buy at the highest possible price. They tell you that a tariff on wool is for the benefit of the farmer, and goes into his pocket, but that the tariff on manufactured products goes into the farmer’s pocket, too, ‘and really hurts us, but we will stand it if we must.’ They are much like a certain maiden lady of uncertain age, who said, ‘This being the third time that my beau has called, he might make some affectionate demonstration’; and, summing up all her courage, she added, ‘I have made up my mind that if he does I will bear it with fortitude.’” [Great laughter and applause.]

He thus pleaded for the protection of the greatest of “home industries,”—the home-building of the common people:

“I desire to say, Mr. Chairman, that this Republican party, which is responsible for the present system, has stolen from the vocabulary one of its dearest words and debased its use. Its orators have prated about home industries while they have neglected the most important of home industries—the home of the citizen. The Democratic party, so far from being hostile to the home industries, is the only champion, unless our friends here, the Independents, will join with us, of the real home industry of this country.

“When some young man selects a young woman who is willing to trust her future to his strong right arm, and they start to build a little home, that home which is the unit of society and upon which our Government and our prosperity must rest—when they start to build this little home, and the man who sells the lumber reaches out his hand to collect a tariff upon that; the man who sells paints and oils wants a tariff upon them; the man who furnishes the carpets, tablecloths, knives, forks, dishes, furniture, spoons, everything that enters into the construction and operation of that home—when all these hands, I say, are stretched out from every direction to lay their blighting weight upon that cottage, and the Democratic party says, ‘Hands off, and let that home industry live,’ it is protecting the grandest home industry that this or any other nation ever had. [Loud applause on the Democratic side.]

“And I am willing that you, our friends on the other side, shall have what consolation you may gain from the protection of those ‘home industries’ which have crowned with palatial residences the hills of New England, if you will simply give us the credit of being the champions of the homes of this land. [Applause on the Democratic side.] It would seem that if any appeal could find a listening ear in this legislative hall it ought to be the appeal that comes up from those co-tenants of earth’s only paradise; but your party has neglected them; more, it has spurned and spit upon them. When they asked for bread you gave them a stone, and when they asked for a fish you gave them a serpent. You have laid upon them burdens grievous to be borne. You have filled their days with toil and their nights with anxious care, and when they cried aloud for relief you were deaf to their entreaties.”

The conclusion of Mr. Bryan’s speech is here reproduced. It is of greater length than would ordinarily justify its incorporation in a volume of this size, but the objection is outweighed by the fact, that, in most beautiful English, it outlines the idea of government which has since been the beacon light that has guided Mr. Bryan’s career:

“We can not afford to destroy the peasantry of this country. We can not afford to degrade the common people of this land, for they are the people who in time of prosperity and peace produce the wealth of the country, and they are also the people who in time of war bare their breasts to a hostile fire in defense of the flag. Go to Arlington or to any of the national cemeteries, see there the plain white monuments which mark the place ‘where rest the ashes of the nation’s countless dead,’ those of whom the poet has so beautifully written:

‘On Fame’s eternal camping ground

Their silent tents are spread.’

Who were they? Were they the beneficiaries of special legislation? Were they the people who are ever clamoring for privileges? No, my friends; those who come here and obtain from Government its aid and help find in time of war too great a chance to increase their wealth to give much attention to military duties. A nation’s extremity is their opportunity. They are the ones who make contracts, carefully drawn, providing for the payment of their money in coin, while the government goes out, if necessary, and drafts the people and makes them lay down upon the altar of their country all they have. No; the people who fight the battles are largely the poor, the common people of the country; those who have little to save but their honor, and little to lose but their lives. These are the ones, and I say to you, sir, that the country can not afford to lose them. I quote the language of Pericles in his great funeral oration. He says:

‘It was for such a country, then, that these men, nobly resolving not to have it taken from them, fell fighting; and every one of their survivors may well be willing to suffer in its behalf.’

That, Mr. Chairman, is a noble sentiment and points the direction to the true policy for a free people. It must be by beneficent laws; it must be by a just government which a free people can love and upon which they can rely that the nation is to be preserved. We can not put our safety in a great navy; we can not put our safety in expensive fortifications along a seacoast thousands of miles in extent, nor can we put our safety in a great standing army that would absorb in idleness the toil of the men it protects. A free government must find its safety in happy and contented citizens, who, protected in their rights and free from unnecessary burdens, will be willing to die that the blessings which they enjoy may be transmitted to their posterity.

“Thomas Jefferson, that greatest of statesmen and most successful of politicians, tersely expressed the true purpose of government when he said:

“’With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens: a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another; shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.’

“That is the inspiration of the Democratic party; that is its aim and object. If it comes, Mr. Chairman, into power in all of the departments of this government it will not destroy industry; it will not injure labor; but it will save to the men who produce the wealth of the country a larger portion of that wealth. It will bring prosperity and joy and happiness, not to a few, but to every one without regard to station or condition. The day will come, Mr. Chairman—the day will come when those who annually gather about this Congress seeking to use the taxing power for private purposes will find their occupation gone, and the members of Congress will meet here to pass laws for the benefit of all the people. That day will come, and in that day, to use the language of another, ‘Democracy will be king! Long live the king!’” [Prolonged applause on the Democratic side.]

THE RISE OF THE SILVER ISSUE

In every national campaign since the time silver was demonetized in 1873 the demand for bimetallism has been a platform plank always of one and frequently of both of the two great political parties. The first unequivocal renunciation of the policy and theory of bimetallism on the part of any important national convention occurred in June, 1900, at Philadelphia. In 1896 the Republican party, in its platform adopted at St. Louis, pledged itself to the promotion of bimetallism by international agreement. The Democratic party, both in 1896 and 1900, expressed its conviction that bimetallism could be secured by the independent action of the United States, and to that end demanded “the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver, at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation.”

Previous to 1896 each of the great political parties made quadrennial expressions of faith in the bimetallic theory, frequently demanded its enactment into law, and generally condemned the opposing party for “hostility to silver.” And yet, despite the universal belief in bimetallism on the part of the American people; despite the general demands for bimetallism made by both political parties; despite the many and eloquent speeches for bimetallism delivered in Congress and out of it by party leaders of all complexions, the hope of its becoming an actuality seemed to wither and wane in inverse ratio to the fervency of the expressions of friendship on the part of the politicians. Sometimes those who were most vehement in their demands were most instrumental in the passage of that series of legislative enactments that inevitably broadened and deepened the gulf between gold and silver.

In explanation of this phenomenon it may be said that of all the functions of government none is more important than the power to regulate the quality and quantity of its circulating medium; none more freighted either with prosperity or disaster to its people; and none more liable to make demagogues of statesmen and knaves and hypocrites of those in authority.

The first overt act in the fight against bimetallism, which theretofore had been insidious, was the demand of the Cleveland administration and the powers that were behind it for the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman Act. The clause which was aimed at provided for the purchase by the government of bar silver sufficient for the annual coinage of $54,000,000. With its repeal would disappear from the Federal statute books the last vestige of authority for the coinage of silver money other than subsidiary coins.

In the fight against the administration over this measure Mr. Bryan took a leading part. He was one of the public men whose professions and practices in the matter of financial legislation were not at variance. In his first campaign for Congress, in 1890, he had inserted in his platform this plank, written by himself:

“We demand the free coinage of silver on equal terms with gold and denounce the efforts of the Republican party to serve the interest of Wall Street as against the rights of the people.”

In 1891 he had secured the adoption of a free silver plank in the Nebraska Democratic platform. In 1892 he made a hard fight for a similar plank in the state platform, but lost by a very close vote. On the day before the national convention which nominated Mr. Cleveland for president, Mr. Bryan was renominated for Congress on a platform in which free coinage was made the paramount issue, and throughout the campaign he devoted to it the major portion of his time. In this way, from free choice and impelling conviction, Mr. Bryan had committed himself to the doctrine of bimetallism and had declared his plan for putting it into practice.

Mr. Bryan made his first speech in Congress against unconstitutional repeal on February 9, 1893. In it he said:

“I call attention to the fact that there is not in this bill a single line or sentence which is not opposed to the whole history of the Democratic party. We have opposed the principle of the national bank on all occasions, and yet you give them by this bill an increased currency of $15,000,000. You have pledged the party to reduce the taxation upon the people, and yet, before you attempt to lighten this burden, you take off one-half million of dollars annually from the national banks of the country; and even after declaring in your national platform that the Sherman act was a ‘cowardly makeshift’ you attempt to take away the ‘makeshift’ before you give us the real thing for which the makeshift was substituted.... Mr. Speaker, consider the effect of this bill. It means that by suspending the purchase of silver we will throw fifty-four million ounces on the market annually and reduce the price of silver bullion. It means that we will widen the difference between the coinage and bullion value of silver and raise a greater obstacle in the way of bimetallism. It means to increase by billions of dollars the debts of our people. It means a reduction in the price of our wheat and our cotton. You have garbled the platform of the Democratic party. You have taken up one clause of it, and refused to give us a fulfilment of the other and more important clause, which demands that gold and silver shall be coined on equal terms without charge for mintage.

“Mr. Speaker, this can not be done. A man who murders another shortens by a few brief years the life of a human being; but he who votes to increase the burden of debts upon the people of the United States assumes a graver responsibility. If we who represent them consent to rob our people, the cotton-growers of the South and the wheat-growers of the West, we will be criminals whose guilt can not be measured by words, for we will bring distress and disaster to our people.”

In thus boldly and positively aligning himself against the policy of the dominant wing of his own party, which would soon be backed by the incoming Cleveland administration, Mr. Bryan acted with his characteristic devotion to principle. He could not help seeing that all the odds were apparently against that faction of his party with which he threw in his fortunes. Mr. Cleveland and most of the old, honored, and powerful leaders of democracy, it was known, would join in the fight against silver. They would have the powerful aid of the great Republican leaders and be backed by the almost united influence of the hundreds of daily newspapers in all the large cities. Wealth, influence, experience, and so-called “respectability” were all to be the property of the Cleveland wing. Many trusted leaders of the old-time fight for silver succumbed to the temptation and identified themselves with the dominant faction. Not so Mr. Bryan. On the failure of the bill to pass he returned home and devoted all his time to a thorough study of finance and of money, making the most careful and complete preparation for the fight which he saw impending.

The great struggle, which Mr. Bryan has termed “the most important economic discussion which ever took place in our Congress” was precipitated by President Cleveland when he called Congress to meet in special session on August 7, 1893. Mr. Wilson, of West Virginia, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, introduced in the House the administration measure for the unconditional repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman Act.

CHAS. A. TOWNE

The debate that ensued was one of the most brilliantly and ably conducted in the annals of Congress. On August 16, near the close of the debate, Mr. Bryan delivered an extended argument against the bill. His speech in point of profound reasoning and moving oratory stands prominent in the list of congressional deliverances. It concluded with the following magnificent appeal:

“To-day the Democratic party stands between two great forces, each inviting its support. On the one side stand the corporate interests of the nation, its moneyed institutions, its aggregations of wealth and capital, imperious, arrogant, compassionless. They demand special legislation, favors, privileges, and immunities. They can subscribe magnificently to campaign funds; they can strike down opposition with their all-pervading influence, and, to those who fawn and flatter, bring ease and plenty. They demand that the Democratic party shall become their agent to execute their merciless decrees.

“On the other side stands that unnumbered throng which gave a name to the Democratic party, and for which it has assumed to speak. Work-worn and dust-begrimed they make their sad appeal. They hear of average wealth increased on every side and feel the inequality of its distribution. They see an overproduction of everything desired because of an underproduction of the ability to buy. They can not pay for loyalty except with their suffrages, and can only punish betrayal with their condemnation. Although the ones who most deserve the fostering care of Government, their cries for help too often beat in vain against the outer wall, while others less deserving find ready access to legislative halls.

“This army, vast and daily growing, begs the party to be its champion in the present conflict. It can not press its claims mid sounds of revelry. Its phalanxes do not form in grand parade, nor has it gaudy banners floating on the breeze. Its battle hymn is ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ its war cry ‘equality before the law.’ To the Democratic party, standing between these two irreconcilable forces, uncertain to which side to turn, and conscious that upon its choice its fate depends, come the words of Israel’s second law-giver: ‘Choose you this day whom ye will serve.’ What will the answer be? Let me invoke the memory of him whose dust made sacred the soil of Monticello when he joined

‘The dead but sceptered sovereigns who still rule

Our spirits from their urns.’

“He was called a demagogue and his followers a mob, but the immortal Jefferson dared to follow the best promptings of his heart. He placed man above matter, humanity above property, and, spurning the bribes of wealth and power, pleaded the cause of the common people. It was this devotion to their interests which made his party invincible while he lived, and will make his name revered while history endures.

“And what message comes to us from the Hermitage? When a crisis like the present arose and the national bank of the day sought to control the politics of the nation, God raised up an Andrew Jackson, who had the courage to grapple with that great enemy, and by overthrowing it he made himself the idol of the people and reinstated the Democratic party in public confidence. What will the decision be to-day?

“The Democratic party has won the greatest success in its history. Standing upon this victory-crowned summit, will it turn its face to the rising or the setting sun? Will it choose blessings or cursings—life or death—Which? Which?”

The bill passed the House by a considerable majority and went to the Senate. In two months it came back with Senate amendments. So earnest and determined was Mr. Bryan in his opposition to the measure that he resorted to dilatory tactics, employing every legitimate parliamentary weapon to obstruct its progress. When finally even the enemies of the bill would no longer assist him in the fight for delay, Mr. Bryan determined to abandon the fight in Congress to carry it before the Democracy of the nation. In concluding his last speech on the bill he said:

“You may think that you have buried the cause of bimetallism; you may congratulate yourselves that you have laid the free coinage of silver away in a sepulchre, newly made since the election, and before the door rolled the veto stone. But, sirs, if our cause is just, as I believe it is, your labor has been in vain: no tomb was ever made so strong that it could imprison a righteous cause. Silver will lay aside its grave clothes and its shroud. It will yet rise and in its rising and its reign will bless mankind.”

Though defeated in the first great contest, the silver advocates were far from dismayed. They began at once a systematic fight to wrest from the administration the control of the party organization. The factional fight within the ranks of Democracy gave early promise of becoming exceedingly bitter. The feeling was accentuated from the start by the personal efforts of President Cleveland in behalf of the repeal bill. In the Senate the silver men had what was considered a safe majority, and it was to overcome this and secure the passage of the bill that the President had directed his energies. His great weapon was Federal patronage, and he used it as a club. Never before in the history of popular government in the United States had the executive so boldly and so openly exerted the tremendous influence of his position in an attempt to force a coordinate branch of government into unwilling compliance with his wishes. Mr. Cleveland’s interference, which finally accomplished its purpose, was angrily resented by the Silver Democrats, and the lines between administration and anti-administration were early closely drawn.

Mr. Bryan, while the repeal bill was still under discussion in the Senate, attended the Nebraska State Democratic convention as a delegate, on October 4, 1893. In the convention the administration wing of the party was regnant, imperious, and arrogant. A platform endorsing the President and his fight against silver was adopted by a large majority. Bryan was even denied a place on the resolutions committee, although endorsed therefor by his Congressional district, which almost alone had sent silver delegates. His course in Congress was repudiated and himself personally received with but scant courtesy or consideration on the part of the great majority of the delegates. When the gold men, flushed with victory, were about to complete their conquest, the discredited young Congressman sprang to the platform to address the convention. His whole person was quivering with emotion, and as he spoke he strode up and down the platform with a mien of unconcealed anger and defiance. Never was he more truly the orator, and never was tame beast so abject and so pitiful under the scourge of the master as was that convention, mute and defenseless, under his scathing excoriation. The following extract will give an idea of the substance of the speech, though the flashing eyes of the orator, the tense and quivering frame, the voice now ringing with defiance, now trembling with emotion,—these may never be described.

“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention—We are confronted to-day by as important a question as ever came before the Democracy of the state of Nebraska. It is not a personal question. It is a question that rises above individuals. So far as I am personally concerned it matters nothing whether you vote this amendment up or down; it matters nothing to me whether you pass resolutions censuring my course or endorsing it. If I am wrong in the position I have taken on this great financial question, I shall fall though you heap your praises upon me; if I am right, and in my heart, so help me God, I believe I am, I shall triumph yet, although you condemn me in your convention a hundred times. Gentlemen, you are playing in the basement of politics; there is a higher plane. You think you can pass resolutions censuring a man, and that you can humiliate him. I want to tell you that I still ‘more true joy in exile feel’ than those delegates who are afraid to vote their own sentiments or represent the wishes of the people, lest they may not get Federal office. Gentlemen, I know not what others may do, but duty to country is above duty to party, and if you represent your constituents in what you have done and will do—for I do not entertain the fond hope that you who have voted as you have to-day will change upon this vote—if you as delegates properly represent the sentiment of the Democratic party which sent you here; if the resolutions which have been proposed and which you will adopt express the sentiments of the party in this state; if the party declares in favor of a gold standard, as you will if you pass this resolution; if you declare in favor of the impoverishment of the people of Nebraska; if you intend to make more galling than the slavery of the blacks the slavery of the debtors of this country; if the Democratic party, after you go home, endorses your action and makes your position its permanent policy, I promise you that I will go out and serve my country and my God under some other name, even if I must go alone.”

But Mr. Bryan was not destined to be driven from the Democratic party. He returned to Washington to persistently fight the financial policy of the administration until the Fifty-third Congress had adjourned. The withdrawal of the greenbacks, the granting of additional privileges to national banks, the Rothschild-Morgan gold-bond contract—these he opposed with the full measure of his mental and physical powers. In the meantime the Silver Democrats began the work of organization and propaganda in every state in the Union. In 1894 Bryan triumphed over his enemies in Nebraska in a convention whose platform declared, “We favor the immediate restoration of the free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver at the present ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth.” The Gold Democrats bolted the platform and the ticket. And until the last delegate was elected to the National convention which was to meet at Chicago in July, 1896, the Silver Democrats continued everywhere their efforts. They fought boldly and outspokenly against the administration they had helped to elect, and which was nominally Democratic. The result of their fight was the instruction of almost two-thirds of the delegates for an unambiguous free silver plank, with a certainty that the Gold Democrats, headed by President Cleveland, Secretary of the Treasury Carlisle, and hundreds of the leaders of the party, would bolt the action of the convention.

Thus torn and rent by dissentions, with little hope or prospect for success, the Democracy faced that remarkable convention which was to repudiate the administration itself had placed in power.

THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
(1896)

In the fall of 1896, within the period of one hundred days, William J. Bryan traveled eighteen thousand miles. He delivered over six hundred speeches to crowds aggregating five millions of people. Reduced to figures more readily comprehended, he averaged each day one hundred and eighty miles of railroad travel, interrupted by the stops necessary for the delivery of six speeches to crowds of over eight thousand each and fifty thousand in all. This was his personal service in the “first battle” for the restoration of bimetallism, acting as the standard bearer of three political parties.

The great presidential campaign of 1896 was in many respects the most remarkable in the history of the United States. It turned upon an issue which was felt to be of transcending importance, and which aroused the elemental passions of the people in a manner probably never before witnessed in this country save in time of war. It was an issue forced by the voters themselves despite the unceasing efforts of the leading politicians of both great parties to keep it in the background. Beneath its shadow old party war cries died into silence; old party differences were forgotten; old party lines were obliterated. As it existed in the hearts of men the issue had no name. Bimetallism was discussed; monometallism was discussed; these were the themes of public speakers, editors, and street corner gatherings when recourse was had to facts and argument. But when one partisan called his friend the enemy an “Anarchist!” and when the latter retorted with the cry of “Plutocrat,” then there spoke in epithets the feelings which were stirring the American people, and which made the campaign significant. For the terms indicated that for the first time in the Republic founded on the doctrine of equality, Lazarus at Dives’ gate had raised the cry of injustice, whereat the rich man trembled.

The Republican National convention met at St. Louis on June 16. William McKinley, of Ohio, was nominated for President and Garret A. Hobart, of New Jersey, for Vice-President. A platform was adopted declaring for the maintenance of “the existing gold standard” until bimetallism could be secured by international agreement, which the party was pledged to promote. The doctrine of a high protective tariff was strongly insisted on.

Against the financial plank of the platform there was waged a bitter, if hopeless, fight by the silver men of the West, under the honored leadership of United States Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado. On the adoption of the platform Senators Teller, Dubois, of Idaho, Pettigrew, of South Dakota, Cannon, of Utah, and Mantle, of Montana, with three congressmen and fifteen other delegates, walked out of the convention. They issued an address to the people declaring monetary reform to be imperative, that the deadly curse of falling prices might be averted. The dominant figure of this convention was Marcus A. Hanna, of Ohio, a millionaire coal and shipping magnate with large industrial and commercial interests in various sections of the country. In taking charge of the campaign that resulted in McKinley’s nomination he introduced his business methods into politics. He had conducted the canvass throughout along commercial lines. “He has been as smooth as olive oil and as stiff as Plymouth Rock,” said the New York Sun, since recognized as President McKinley’s personal organ. “He is a manager of men, a manipulator of events, such as you more frequently encounter in the back offices of the headquarters of financial and commercial centers than at district primaries or in the lobbies of convention halls. There is no color or pretense of statesmanship in his efforts; he seems utterly indifferent to political principles, and color-blind to policies, except as they figure as counters in his game. He can be extremely plausible and innocently deferential in his intercourse with others, or can flame out on proper occasion in an outburst of well-studied indignation. He is by turns a bluffer, a compromiser, a conciliator, and an immovable tyrant. Such men do not enter and revolutionize national politics for nothing. Now, what is Mark Hanna after?”

The question was soon answered. Mark Hanna became chairman of the National Republican committee, United States senator from Ohio, and the most powerful, if not the all-powerful, influence behind the McKinley administration. His rapid rise to commanding position and the unyielding manner in which he has utilized his power have furnished much argument to such as are inclined to be pessimistic regarding the enduring qualities of republics.

Early in July the Democratic National convention assembled in Chicago. Mr. Bryan, who had attended the St. Louis convention as editor-in-chief of the Omaha World-Herald, was here present as a delegate-at-large from Nebraska. Since the expiration of his second congressional term he had been active and unwearying in the fight to capture the convention for free silver. As editor of the World-Herald he had contributed numerous utterances that were widely quoted by the silver press, and much of his time had been devoted to delivering speeches and lectures in the interests of bimetallism in almost every section of the country. He came to Chicago fresh from a Fourth of July debate at the Crete, Neb., Chautauqua, with Hon. John P. Irish, of California, Cleveland’s collector of the port at San Francisco. Except a few intimate friends in Nebraska, who knew Bryan’s capacities and ambitions, no man dreamed of the possibility of his nomination for the presidency. There were available, tried, and time-honored silver leaders, men who had been fighting the white metal’s battles for a score of years, notable among whom were Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, and Henry M. Teller, of Colorado. One of these, it was generally believed, would be chosen to lead the forlorn hopes of a regenerated but disrupted democracy.

Mr. Bryan’s nomination was the spontaneous tribute of the convention to those qualities that since have made him not famous only, but well-beloved. These qualities are honesty, courage, frankness, and sincerity. They had veritable life in every line and paragraph of his great speech defending the free silver plank of the platform, delivered in reply to the crafty-wise David B. Hill, of New York. Hill, skilled and experienced practical politician, had pleaded with the convention that it pay the usual tribute at the shrine of Janus. He had begged that the ignus fatuus “international bimetallism” be used to lure the friends of silver into voting the Democratic ticket. Nurtured and trained in the same school of politics as William McKinley,—the school whose graduates had for many years dominated all party conventions,—Hill started back in affright from the prospect of going before the people on a platform that was straightforward and unequivocal, with its various planks capable of but one construction.

Mr. Bryan’s speech was as bold and ringing as the platform which he spoke to defend, with its plank, written by himself, and twice utilized in Nebraska, demanding “the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation.”

The letter and spirit of that plank were such as the great majority of the convention were thoroughly in sympathy with. The result of the great silver propaganda of the two years preceding had been to send to the convention honest and sincere men with profound convictions and the courage to express them. To do this, they knew, would be revolutionary, even as had been the platforms on which the Pathfinder, Fremont, and the Liberator, Lincoln, ran. But the spirit of revolution from cant and equivoque was rife in that convention. Of that spirit William Jennings Bryan was the prophet. In a speech that thrilled into men’s minds and hearts his defiance and contempt of the opportunists’ policy, his own fearless confidence in the all-conquering power of truth, he stirred into an unrestrained tempest the long pent emotions of the delegates. When he had finished not only was the adoption of the platform by a vote of two to one assured, but the convention had found its leader whom it would commission to go forth to preach the old, old gospel of democracy, rescued from its years of sleep. The nature of Mr. Bryan’s speech may be gained from these brief extracts:

“When you (turning to the gold delegates) come before us and tell us we are about to disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your course. We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. 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 a cross-roads 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, who begins in the spring and toils all summer, and who, by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the 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 down 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 into 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 the hardy pioneers who have braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose,—the pioneers away out there (pointing to the west), who rear 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 young, churches where they praise their Creator, and cemeteries where rest the ashes of their dead—these people, we say, are as deserving of the consideration of our 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 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....

“You come and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our 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 the country....

“My friends, we 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.... It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but three millions in number, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation. Shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to seventy millions, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers? No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but that we can not have it until other nations help us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States has it. If they dare come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interest, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand 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.”

SENATOR J. K. JONES

Mr. Bryan was nominated for President on the fifth ballot by a well-nigh unanimous vote, save for the 162 eastern delegates who, while holding their seats, sullenly refused to take any part in the proceedings. The demonstration following the nomination was even wilder and more prolonged than the memorable scene that marked the conclusion of his speech.

For Vice-President Arthur Sewall, of Maine, was nominated. With this ticket, on a platform declaring for free silver, opposing the issue of bonds and national bank currency, denouncing “government by injunction,” declaring for a low tariff, the Monroe doctrine, an income tax, and election of senators by a direct vote of the people, the democracy went before the country with a confidence and exuberance little anticipated before the convention met, and scarcely justified, as later proven, by the outcome.

The Populist and Silver Republican conventions met in St. Louis late in July. The latter endorsed the nominees of the Chicago platform and made them their own. The populists, however, while nominating Mr. Bryan, refused to nominate Mr. Sewall, naming for vice-president Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia.

The gold democrats met at Indianapolis on September 2, and nominated John M. Palmer, of Illinois, and Simon Buckner, of Kentucky, adopting the first gold standard platform ever presented to the people of the United States for endorsement. They called themselves “National Democrats,” but in the outcome carried but one voting precinct in the nation, and that in Kansas. Four votes were cast in the precinct, two for Palmer, and one each for Bryan and McKinley. In the precinct in Illinois where Mr. Palmer himself, with his son and coachman, voted, not a single ballot was cast for the nominee of the “National Democracy.” The fact was that a new party alignment was the inevitable result of the Chicago convention, the reorganized democracy gaining largely beyond the Missouri, but losing heavily east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio. Hundreds of thousands of gold Democrats in the populous states, under the leadership of Grover Cleveland and John G. Carlisle, while pretending to support Palmer and Buckner, voted secretly for McKinley, whose platform was a virtual endorsement of the Cleveland administration, as Bryan’s platform repudiated and condemned it.

The campaign was remarkable not only for Bryan’s wonderful campaigning, but for the bitter feeling that pervaded both organizations. The Republicans particularly excelled in vituperative abuse. They began the use of billingsgate immediately after the Chicago convention had adjourned, applying to it such terms as “rabble,” “wild Jacobins,” “anarchists” and “repudiators,” while Bryan was characterized as a “boy orator” “a demagogue” and “an ass.” The Cleveland Leader said:

“Bryan, with all his ignorance, his cheap demagogy, his intolerable gabble, his utter lack of common sense, and his general incapacity in every direction, is a typical Democrat of the new school. His weapon is wind. His stock in trade is his mouth. Mr. McKinley’s election—and we apologize to Mr. McKinley for printing his name in the same column with that of Bryan—is no longer in any doubt whatever. We salute the next President. As for Bryan, he is a candidate for the political ash-heap.”

For efficient campaigning the two party organizations were most unevenly matched. The Republican National committee, under the directing genius of Mark Hanna, assisted liberally by the thoroughly affrighted financial and corporation magnates of the East, had at its disposal millions of dollars with which to organize, pay for speakers and literature, reward the efforts of newspapers and party workers, and debauch the electorate in states thought to be doubtful. It had the assistance of almost the entire metropolitan press—with the notable exception of the New York Journal—and the nearly united influence of the large employers of labor. And even further, it had the pulpit and the religious press. As the ministers of Christ’s gospel, in 1856, denounced and vilified Garrison and Phillips, so in 1896 they hurled anathema maranatha at Bryan and Altgeld. Grave and reverend preachers of national fame fulminated from their pulpits against “the accursed and treasonable aims” of Bryan and his supporters, and denounced them as “enemies of mankind.” Bishop John P. Newman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, denounced Bryan as an “anarchist,” and in the church conferences over which he presided urged the clergy to use their influence to defeat the Democratic nominees. The Rev. Cortland Myers, in the Baptist Temple at Brooklyn, said that “the Chicago platform was made in hell.” Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., at the Academy of Music, New York, called Bryan “a mouthing, slobbering demagogue, whose patriotism is all in his jaw bone.”

Such were the cultured and scholarly contributions made by the noblest of professions to the discussion of an academic question of finance in the year of our Lord 1896.

The Democratic committee had little money. It had the support of but few large newspapers. It was fighting the battles of a party that had been disrupted and rent in twain at the Chicago convention. In every state and almost every county of the Union the old local and national leaders of the party had deserted, and the faithful but disorganized followers of Bryan had to be moulded anew into the likeness of an army.

The one inspiration of the party was in its leader. The embodiment of faith, hope, and courage, tireless, indomitable, undismayed by the fearful odds against him, with the zeal of a crusader he undertook his mission of spreading the message of democracy through the length and breadth of the land. For three months, accompanied most of the time by Mrs. Bryan, he sped to and fro across the American continent, an army of newspaper correspondents in his train, resting little and sleeping less, preaching the Chicago platform. His earnestness, his candor, his boldness, the simplicity of his style, the homeliness of his illustrations, the convincing power of his argument, the eloquence of his flights of oratory, and, above all, the pure and lovable character of the man as it impressed itself on those who met with him—these were the sparks that fired the hearts of men and left in his wake conviction fanned into enthusiasm all aflame.

Yet, with all his efforts, despite a record of personal campaigning such as never before was seen in the recorded history of man, Mr. Bryan was defeated. The tremendous influence wielded by the great corporate interests, both by persuasion and by coercion, were such as no man and no idea could overcome.

The popular vote stood 7,107,822 for McKinley and 6,511,073 for Bryan. Of the electoral votes McKinley received 271 and Bryan 176, the solid South and almost solid West going Democratic, while every state north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi went Republican.

Immediately after the result was assured Mr. Bryan telegraphed Mr. McKinley as follows: “Hon. Wm. McKinley, Canton, Ohio—Senator Jones has just informed me that the returns indicate your election, and I hasten to extend my congratulations. We have submitted the issue to the American people and their will is law.—W. J. Bryan.”

Mr. McKinley responded: “Hon. W. J. Bryan, Lincoln, Neb.—I acknowledge the receipt of your courteous message of congratulation with thanks, and beg you will receive my best wishes for your health and happiness.—William McKinley.”

While Mr. Bryan and his party accepted defeat thus gracefully, victory seemed to have redoubled the venom of the opposition. This post-election utterance of the New York Tribune, founded by Horace Greeley, and then and now edited by ex-Vice-President Whitelaw Reid, will serve to close this chapter in the same gentle spirit which marked the close of that memorable campaign:

“GOOD RIDDANCE

“There are some movements so base, some causes so depraved, that neither victory can justify them nor defeat entitle them to commiseration. Such a cause was that which was vanquished yesterday, by the favor of God and the ballots of the American people. While it was active and menacing, it was unsparingly denounced and revealed as what it was, in all its hideous deformity. Now that it is crushed out of the very semblance of being, there is no reason why such judgment of it should be revised. The thing was conceived in iniquity and was brought forth in sin. It had its origin in a malicious conspiracy against the honor and integrity of the nation. It gained such monstrous growth as it enjoyed from an assiduous culture of the basest passions of the least worthy members of the community. It has been defeated and destroyed, because right is right and God is God. 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 desperados of that stripe. But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was, willing and eager. Not one of his masters was more apt at lies and forgeries and blasphemies and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign against the Ten Commandments. He goes down with the cause, and must abide with it in the history of infamy. He had less provocation than Benedict Arnold, less intellectual force than Aaron Burr, less manliness and courage than Jefferson Davis. He was the rival of them all in deliberate wickedness and treason to the Republic. His name belongs with theirs, neither the most brilliant nor the least hateful in the list.

“Good riddance to it all, to conspiracy and conspirators, and to the foul menace of repudiation and anarchy against the honor and life of the Republic. The people have dismissed it with no uncertain tones. Hereafter let there be whatever controversies men may please about the tariff, about the currency, about the Monroe doctrine, and all the rest. But let there never again be a proposition to repeal the moral law, to garble the Constitution, and to replace the Stars and Stripes with the red rag of anarchy. On those other topics honest men may honestly differ, in full loyalty to the Republic. On these latter there is no room for two opinions, save in the minds of traitors, knaves, and fools.”

NEW ISSUES

The half decade between 1895 and 1900 may justly be considered one of the most important in American history. It witnessed the fiercest battle between political parties ever fought over the question of finance,—a contest exceeding in bitterness and the general participation of the people of the United States therein even the great struggle in which Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle were the opposing leaders. And, further, as the outcome of the war with Spain, it saw the birth and growth of an issue theretofore alien to American soil and portentous for its ultimate influence over the form and structure of our government. It was at once recognized as an issue overshadowing in its importance, and in the face of the greater danger the mutual fears of the friends of gold and the friends of silver were laid away in one common sepulchre.

On the part of the Democratic party the wraith of imperialism hovering over the Republic was recognized as the hideous and supreme exhalation from the poison swamp of plutocracy from which high tariff, trusts, and a gold standard had already sprung. Through all these policies, asserted the Democracy, through its recognized leader, Mr. Bryan, ran the common purpose of exalting the dollar and debasing the man. The Republican party hesitated long to recognize and admit the new issue, and when it finally took up the gage of battle it was on the declaration that a colonial policy, with alien and subject races under its dominion, had become the “manifest destiny” of the United States.

The cruelties and severities of General Weyler, the commander of the Spanish forces in Cuba, toward the insurrectionists who were in arms against Spain’s authority, early in Mr. McKinley’s administration aroused the indignation of the American people. The fact that the Cubans were bravely fighting for liberty, that their rebellion was against the exactions of an old world monarchy, even as ours had been, won them an instinctive sympathy that grew stronger each day and that finally swept like a tidal wave into the cabinet meetings at Washington, bearing the demands of the people of the United States for the intervention of our government in Cuba’s behalf.

On December 6, 1897, in his message to Congress, the President discussed the Cuban question at some length, arguing against any interference by the United States, on the ground that “a hopeful change has supervened in the policy of Spain toward Cuba.” Speaking of the possible future relations between this country and Cuba, the President used the words since so widely quoted against his subsequent policy in the Philippines: “I speak not of forcible annexation, for that is not to be thought of. That, by our code of morality, would be criminal aggression.”

The evident reluctance of the administration to recognize Cuban independence was shortly after forced to give way to the compelling power of public opinion. On February 15, 1898, by the explosion of a submarine mine, the Maine, a first-class United States battleship, was destroyed in Havana harbor, with a loss of 248 officers and men. A fierce hatred for Spain was thereby added to the sympathy for Cuba, and war, or the abandonment of Cuba by Spain, became inevitable. A month after the destruction of the Maine Congress voted the President $50,000,000 to be used in the National defense. On April 11, President McKinley, in a message to Congress exhaustively reviewed the Cuban complications, disclaiming a policy of annexation and arguing for neutral intervention to enforce peace and secure for the Cubans a stable government. On the 20th, Congress declared Cuba to be free and independent, demanded that Spain relinquish her claim of authority, and authorized the President to use the land and naval forces of the United States to enforce the demand.

Congress expressly declared: “The United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people.”

From such a lofty plane the United States entered into that brief but glorious combat with Spain that has rightly been called “the war for humanity.” On April 23, the President called for 125,000 volunteers. One of the first who offered the President his services in the war for “Cuba libre” was William J. Bryan. Long before, Mr. Bryan had declared for intervention, saying, “Humanity demands that we shall act. Cuba lies within sight of our shores and the sufferings of her people can not be ignored unless we, as a nation, have become so engrossed in money-making as to be indifferent to distress.” Mr. Bryan’s proffer was ignored by the President. He was later commissioned by Governor Holcomb, of Nebraska, to raise the Third Nebraska regiment of volunteers. This he did, becoming the colonel of the regiment. General Victor Vifquain, of Lincoln, a gallant and distinguished veteran of the Civil war was made lieutenant-colonel.

In the meantime Admiral George Dewey commanding the United States Asiatic fleet, had set forth from Hong Kong, engaged the Spanish fleet in Manila bay on May 1, and completely demolished it. Manila was the capital of the entire Philippine archipelago, with its eight to ten million inhabitants, then nominally under Spanish sovereignty. The Filipinos themselves, of whom Admiral Dewey said, “these people are far superior in their intelligence and more capable of self-government than the natives of Cuba,” were already in successful revolt against Spain, battling bravely for their independence. Under the leadership of General Aguinaldo, and at the invitation of Dewey and the representatives of the United States state department, the insurgents cooperated as allies with the American forces from the time of Dewey’s victory until the surrender of Manila. They were furnished arms and ammunition by Dewey, and were led to believe that their own independence would be assured on the expulsion of Spain from the archipelago. During this time they established a successful and orderly civil government throughout the greater part of the islands. But at home the United States government was already beginning to indicate its intention not to grant to the Filipinos, at the conclusion of the war, the same liberty and self-government as had been promised the Cubans. Rather, it was becoming evident it was the purpose of Mr. McKinley and his advisers to hold the islands as tributary territory, subject to United States’ jurisdiction, while, at the same time, the inhabitants should be denied the “inalienable rights” proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by our Constitution.

The American people were at a loss what to make of the situation. Their eyes dazzled by the glories of war and conquest, their cupidity appealed to by the vaunted richness of the “new possessions,” there still was latent in their hearts the love for liberty as “the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere,” and an unspoken fear of incorporating the government of alien and subject races as an integral portion of the scheme of American democracy.

Such was the situation when, at Omaha, Neb., on June 14, 1898, Colonel W. J. Bryan, shortly before the muster-in of his regiment into the service of the government, sounded the first note of warning against the insidious dangers of imperialism; the first ringing appeal to the Republic to remain true to its principles, its traditions, and its high ideals. In taking his stand on this great question Mr. Bryan acted with the boldness that has ever characterized him when matters of principle were at stake. He spoke against the earnest advice of numerous political friends, who warned him he was taking the unpopular side, and that his mistake would cost him his political life. Mr. Bryan, because he believed the policy of the administration to be radically wrong, paid no heed to all the well-meant protestations, but earnestly warned the people against the abandonment of the doctrines of the fathers of the Republic. These were his words:

“History will vindicate the position taken by the United States in the war with Spain. In saying this I assume that the principles which were invoked in the inauguration of the war will be observed in its prosecution and conclusion. If a war undertaken for the sake of humanity degenerates into a war of conquest we shall find it difficult to meet the charge of having added hypocrisy to greed. Is our national character so weak that we can not withstand the temptation to appropriate the first piece of land that comes within our reach?

“To inflict upon the enemy all possible harm is legitimate warfare, but shall we contemplate a scheme for the colonization of the Orient merely because our fleet won a remarkable victory in the harbor at Manila?

“Our guns destroyed a Spanish fleet, but can they destroy that self-evident truth that governments derive their just powers—not from force—but from the consent of the governed?

“Shall we abandon a just resistance to European encroachment upon the western hemisphere, in order to mingle in the controversies of Europe and Asia?

“Nebraska, standing midway between the oceans, will contribute her full share toward the protection of our sea coast; her sons will support the flag at home and abroad, wherever the honor and the interests of the nation may require. Nebraska will hold up the hands of the government while the battle rages, and when the war clouds roll away her voice will be heard pleading for the maintenance of those ideas which inspired the founders of our government and gave the nation its proud eminence among the nations of the earth.

“If others turn to thoughts of aggrandizement, and yield allegiance to those who clothe land covetousness in the attractive garb of ‘national destiny,’ the people of Nebraska will, if I mistake not their sentiments, plant themselves upon the disclaimer entered by Congress, and expect that good faith shall characterize the making of peace as it did the beginning of war.

“Goldsmith calls upon statesmen:

‘To judge how wide the limits stand

Betwixt a splendid and a happy land.’

If some dream of the splendors of a heterogeneous empire encircling the globe, we shall be content to aid in bringing enduring happiness to a homogeneous people, consecrated to the purpose of maintaining ‘a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’”

Shortly after this speech Colonel Bryan left Nebraska with his regiment to go into camp at Tampa, Florida, awaiting orders to Cuba or Porto Rico. Like most of the other regiments called out by President McKinley, Colonel Bryan’s was not destined ever to come in sight of a battlefield. The amazing fact is that while the enormous number of 274,717 soldiers were mustered into service, only 54,000 ever left American soil up to the time the protocol was signed, August 12, 1898. The 220,000 were left through the sweltering summer months in unsanitary camps to broil under a southern sun. From May 1 to September 30, but 280 American soldiers were killed in battle, while 2,565 died in fever-stricken camps pitched in malarial swamps. The entire nation was aroused to the highest pitch of indignation, and the press, without regard to party, joined in denouncing the careless, cruel, and incompetent treatment of the volunteer soldier.

The New York Herald voiced the general feeling when it said: “’Infamous’ is the only word to describe the treatment that has been inflicted upon our patriotic soldiers, and under which, despite the indignant outbursts of a horror-stricken people, thousands of them are still suffering to-day.” The Herald further declared the soldiers to be “the victims of job-and-rob politicians and contractors, and of criminally incompetent and heartlessly indifferent officials.”

For almost six months Colonel Bryan remained with his regiment in camp. The quarters, the sanitative conditions, and the general arrangements of the “Third Nebraska” were the pride of the army. Colonel Bryan was at once “guide, counselor, and friend” to his men, winning the almost idolatrous love of each and all of them. He gave lavishly of his meager funds to secure the comfort of the sick and maintain the health of the strong. His days and nights were devoted to the service of the regiment, and more than one poor boy, dying of fever far from the wind-swept Nebraska prairies, passed away holding his Colonel’s hand and breathing into his Colonel’s ear the last faltering message of farewell to loved ones at home.

CHAS. POYNTER       SENATOR ALLEN       ADLAI STEVENSON       MRS. POYNTER       MISS POYNTER       C. A. TOWNE

LEWIS G. STEVENSON       WEBSTER DAVIS       MRS. W. C. POYNTER       W. J. BRYAN       GOV. POYNTER

AT THE GOVERNOR’S MANSION, LINCOLN

In joining the volunteer army, as when he delivered the first anti-imperialist speech, Colonel Bryan had acted against the advice of many of his closest personal and political friends. Despite his decisive defeat for the presidency in 1896, he had not only maintained but even strengthened his position as the recognized leader of the Democratic party and its allies. Undaunted by the result of the campaign, he had almost immediately resumed the fight for bimetallism. He had published a book reviewing the contest under the suggestive and defiant title “The First Battle.” He had taken to the lecture platform and to the political hustings, vigorously, hopefully, and earnestly propagating the principles of democracy, unwavering, unwearying, and undisturbed by the general depression of his followers and as general exultation of his opponents. He was the incarnation of the spirit of conservative reform, and all parties had come to regard him as the prophet and supreme leader of the new movement back to Jeffersonian principles. His friends feared to have him accept a commission, not only on the ground that his doing so might later compel his silence at a time when his voice ought to be heard, but more largely because they dreaded the possibility of having his motive impugned. It was evident to them, as to Colonel Bryan himself, that by taking up the role of colonel of a volunteer regiment, he had much to risk and lose, and little, if anything, to gain. But the Democratic leader was not to be dissuaded. Content in his own knowledge that his motive was worthy and patriotic, he assumed and bore unostentatiously and yet with dignity the office of military leader of 1,300 of his Nebraska friends and neighbors. He remained faithfully with his regiment, living the slow and tedious life of the camp, until the treaty of peace was signed with Spain in December, 1898. That treaty provided not only for the cession of Porto Rico to the United States and Spanish relinquishment of all claim to sovereignty over Cuba, but further for the turning over of the Philippine Islands to the United States on the payment of $20,000,000. This last concession was wrung from Spain by the insistent and uncompromising demand of the American Peace Commissioners, under instructions from the state department at Washington.

Shortly after the treaty was signed, President McKinley blasted the fond hopes for independence that had been planted in the Filipinos’ breasts by issuing this proclamation:

“With the signature of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain by their respective plenipotentiaries at Paris on the tenth instant, and as the result of the victories of American arms, the future control, disposition, and government of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States. In fulfilment of the rights of sovereignty thus acquired, and the responsible obligations of government thus assumed, the actual occupation and administration of the entire group of the Philippine Islands become immediately necessary, and the military government heretofore maintained by the United States in the city, harbor, and bay of Manila is to be extended with all possible dispatch to the whole of the ceded territory.”

Prior to this time, and later, the President explained his position on the Philippine question, and we quote from him at some length.

At Chicago, in October, 1898, he said: “My countrymen, the currents of destiny flow through the hearts of the people. Who will check them? Who will divert them? Who will stop them? And the movements of men, planned and designed by the Master of men, will never be interrupted by the American people.”

At the Atlanta (Ga.) Peace Jubilee in December of the same year, he said: “That [the American] flag has been planted in two hemispheres, and there it remains, the symbol of liberty and law, of peace and progress. Who will withhold it from the people over whom it floats its protecting folds? Who will haul it down?”

At Savannah, a day or two later he said: “If, following the clear precepts of duty, territory falls to us, and the welfare of an alien people requires our guidance and protection, who will shrink from the responsibility, grave though it may be? Can we leave these people who, by the fortunes of war and our own acts, are helpless and without government, to chaos and anarchy after we have destroyed the only government that they had?”

At the Home Market Club, in Boston, on February 16, 1899, he explained himself more fully, saying: “Our concern was not for territory or trade or empire, but for the people whose interests and destiny, without our willing it, had been put in our hands. It was with this feeling that from the first day to the last not one word or line went from the Executive in Washington to our military and naval commanders at Manila or to our Peace Commissioners at Paris that did not put as the sole purpose to be kept in mind, first, after the success of our arms and the maintenance of our own honor, the welfare and happiness and the rights of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. Did we need their consent to perform a great act for humanity? If we can benefit these remote peoples, who will object? If, in the years of the future, they are established in government under law and liberty, who will regret our perils and sacrifices? Who will not rejoice in our heroism and humanity?”

One more quotation. At Minneapolis, October 12, 1899, President McKinley delivered himself of this utterance: “That Congress will provide for them [the Filipinos] a government which will bring them blessings, which will promote their material interests, as well as advance their people in the paths of civilization and intelligence, I confidently believe.”

With such phrase-making as this, concealing in sonorous periods the most un-American of sentiments, Colonel Bryan’s utterance, delivered immediately after he had resigned his commission, stands out in bold and pleasing relief: “I may be in error, but in my judgment our nation is in greater danger just now than Cuba. Our people defended Cuba against foreign arms; now they must defend themselves and their country against a foreign idea—the colonial idea of European nations. Heretofore greed has perverted the government and used its instrumentalities for private gains, but now the very foundation principles of our government are assaulted. Our nation must give up any intention of entering upon a colonial policy, such as is now pursued by European countries, or it must abandon the doctrine that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. To borrow a Bible quotation ‘A house divided against itself can not stand.’ Paraphrasing Lincoln’s declaration, I may add that this nation can not endure half republic and half colony, half free and half vassal. Our form of government, our traditions, our present interests, and our future welfare, all forbid our entering upon a career of conquest....

“Some think the fight should be made against ratification of the treaty, but I would prefer another plan. If the treaty is rejected, negotiations must be renewed, and instead of settling the question according to our ideas we must settle it by diplomacy, with the possibility of international complications. It will be easier, I think, to end the war at once by ratifying the treaty and then deal with the subject in our own way. The issue can be presented directly by a resolution of Congress declaring the policy of the nation upon this subject. The President in his message says that our only purpose in taking possession of Cuba is to establish a stable government and then turn that government over to the people of Cuba. Congress could reaffirm this purpose in regard to Cuba, and assert the same purpose in regard to the Philippines and Porto Rico. Such a resolution would make a clear-cut issue between the doctrine of self-government and the doctrine of imperialism. We should reserve a harbor and coaling station in Porto Rico and the Philippines in return for services rendered, and I think we would be justified in asking the same concession from Cuba.

“In the case of Porto Rico, where the people have as yet expressed no desire for independent government, we might with propriety declare our willingness to annex the island, if the citizens desire annexation, but the Philippines are too far away and their people too different from ours to be annexed to the United States, even if they desired it.”

In making this statement, and in his subsequent active support of the treaty, Mr. Bryan’s course was again opposed to the wishes and advice of many of his close political friends. In fact, before Mr. Bryan took his firm stand probably the majority of Democratic leaders in and out of Congress were opposed to the ratification of the treaty because of its Philippine clause. But Mr. Bryan, while as strongly opposed to this clause as anyone, was anxious to see the war finally ended. He knew that for the Senate to reject the treaty would prolong the war perhaps a year or more, and, further, that it might lead to endless and unpleasant complications. Once the war was ended, he held, the American people themselves could dispose of the Philippine question.

Largely owing to the aid extended the administration by Mr. Bryan, the treaty was ratified by the Senate. Those senators who were opposed to the imperial policy of President McKinley supported the “Bacon resolution” as a declaration of this nation’s purpose toward the Philippines and Filipinos. This resolution declared:

“The United States hereby disclaim any disposition or intention to exercise permanent sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said islands, and assert their determination, when a stable and independent government shall have been erected therein, entitled in the judgment of the government of the United States to recognition as such, to transfer to said government, upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, all rights secured under the cession by Spain, and to thereupon leave the government and control of the islands to their people.”

The Democratic policy, as outlined by Mr. Bryan, was the support of the treaty and of the foregoing resolution. The treaty was ratified, but the resolution, though supported by practically the solid Democratic, Populist, and Silver Republican strength in the Senate, and by a number of Republican senators who were opposed to the imperial policy, was defeated by the deciding vote of Vice-President Hobart. Had the resolution been adopted, and the Philippines been given the same promise of independence and self-government as had already been given Cuba, it is believed that the long, bloody, and costly war in the Philippine Islands might have been averted, and the abandoned old-world heresy of the right of one man to rule another without that other’s consent would not now have regained a footing on the soil of the great American Republic.

In the meantime the President’s proclamation of December 21, 1898, to the Filipinos, asserting the sovereignty of the United States over them and theirs had provoked a veritable hurricane of indignation among that people.

The characteristic that distinguishes the Filipinos from all other Asiatic races is their fierce, inherent love for liberty. For three hundred years they had been intermittently battling with the Spaniard to regain what they had lost, and the palm of victory was within their eager reach on the day that Dewey’s guns first thundered across Manila bay. Knowing as they did that the United States had gone to war to secure liberty for the Cubans, why should they doubt the securing of their own liberty as well?

The President’s proclamation came like a thunder clap. General Otis, who was commander-in-chief of the American forces in the Philippines, reported its effect as follows:

“Aguinaldo met the proclamation by a counter one in which he indignantly protested against the claim of sovereignty by the United States in the islands, which really had been conquered from the Spaniards through the blood and treasure of his countrymen, and abused me for my assumption of the title of military governor. Even the women of Cavite province, in a document numerously signed by them, gave me to understand that after all the men are killed off they are prepared to shed their patriotic blood for the liberty and independence of their country.”

The revulsion was complete. Before the proclamation was issued, it is true, there had been growing among the Filipinos a feeling of distrust of the Americans, and of doubt whether, after all, they were to be conceded their independence. For, at the surrender of Manila, although its capture had been impossible without the aid of the insurgents, they were studiously excluded from any share of the honor, and thus given the first intimation of the final treachery of the administration. Later the Filipinos were refused a hearing at Washington, and again before the Peace Commission which was to dispose of them like chattels.

Actual hostilities broke out February 4, 1899, and are thus referred to by President McKinley in his message to Congress December 4, 1899: “The aggression of the Filipinos continually increased, until finally, just before the time set by the Senate of the United States for a vote upon the treaty, an attack, evidently prepared in advance, was made all along the American lines, which resulted in a terribly destructive and sanguinary repulse of the insurgents.”

The report of General Otis, reads as follows (page [96]): “The battle of Manila commenced at half past eight o’clock, on the evening of February 4 (1899), and continued until five o’clock the next evening. The engagement was strictly defensive on the part of the insurgents, and one of vigorous attack by our forces.”

Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, in a letter to the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, January 11, 1900, is responsible for this statement regarding the first battle: “The outbreak of hostilities was not their fault, but ours. We fired upon them first. The fire was returned from their lines. Thereupon it was returned again from us, and several Filipinos were killed. As soon as Aguinaldo heard of it he sent a message to General Otis saying that the firing was without his knowledge and against his will; that he deplored it, and that he desired hostilities to cease, and would withdraw his troops to any distance General Otis should desire. To which the American general replied that, as the firing had begun, it must go on.”

Thus began the War in the Philippine Islands. It has cost thousands of lives and millions of treasure. It has burned the homes and uprooted the fields of a frugal, intelligent, and industrious people in whose minds and hearts have been seared the ringing words of Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death!” It has not brought to the United States either riches or glory, but, on the contrary, lost to us much in taxes on our people, more in the death of our youth, and most of all in the sullying of the noble and lofty ideals which animated the Fathers of the Republic and made their lives sublime. An American soldier writing to the Minneapolis Times, in describing a captured city, thus simply sets forth the enormity of our national offense:

“Every inhabitant had left Norzagaray, and no article of value remained behind. The place had probably been the home of fifteen hundred or two thousand people, and was pleasantly situated on a clear mountain stream in which a bath was most refreshing. It was not a city of apparent wealth, but in many houses were found evidences of education. In a building which probably had been used as a schoolhouse were found a number of books, and a variety of exercises written by childish hands. Pinned to a crucifix was a paper upon which was written the following in Spanish: ‘American soldiers—How can you hope mercy from Him when you are slaughtering a people fighting for their liberty, and driving us from the homes which are justly ours?’ On a table was a large globe which did not give Minneapolis, but had San Pablo (St. Paul) as the capital of Minnesota. On a rude blackboard were a number of sentences, which indicated that the teacher had recently been giving lessons in the history of the American revolution.”

The demoralizing effect of this war against liberty on the American conscience became early apparent. If it were permissible to make war on the Filipinos because they would not yield to our government, it was no far cry to withhold from the Porto Ricans the protecting aegis of the Constitution, to levy a discriminating tariff against them, and to tax them without their consent. And it of course became impossible for the United States to express sympathy for the Boers in their war against British aggression, or even to maintain neutrality between the two. As a consequence horses, mules, arms, and ammunition were permitted to be freely shipped from our ports for the use of British soldiers, while British ships were permitted to intercept and capture American ships laden with American breadstuffs, when consigned to the Boers. In fact, an “Anglo-Saxon alliance” was more than hinted at by John Hay, then United States Ambassador to Great Britain, and later Secretary of State, when he said at London, on April 20, 1898, speaking of England and the United States:

“The good understanding between us is based on something deeper than mere expediency. All who think can not but see that there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world. We are bound by ties we did not forge, and that we can not break. We are joint ministers in the sacred work of freedom and progress, charged with duties we can not evade by the imposition of irresistible hands.”

To this sentiment Joseph Chamberlain, the British Secretary of the Colonies, replied in kind on May 13, at Birmingham, saying:

“I would go so far as to say that, terrible as war may be, even war itself would be cheaply purchased if, in a great and noble cause, the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack should wave together over an Anglo-Saxon alliance. At the present time these two great nations understand each other better than they ever have done, since, over a century ago, they were separated by the blunder of a British government.”

So we come to the close of the recital of the most salient events which gave rise to the greatest issue save that of independence, and later, of slavery, with which the American people have ever stood face to face.

Contemporaneous with the growth of the question of imperialism, and allied to it, another great issue arose,—the problem of the trusts.

A “trust” may be defined as an industrial combination of such huge proportions as to enable it not only arbitrarily to fix the price of the finished product in which it deals, through the stifling of competition, but frequently to determine alone the price of the raw material it uses and to fix the rate of wages of those whom it employs. Of these great and dangerous combinations there were formed, during the years 1897 to 1900, a number exceeding all those already in existence. That this was permitted to be done with the Sherman anti-trust law on the Federal statute books has puzzled many. Its explanation may be found in the following candid admission made by Dr. Albert Shaw in the Review of Reviews for February, 1897:

“The great sound-money campaign of 1896 was carried on by money contributed by corporations—money voted by the directors out of the funds held by them in trust for the stockholders. Nobody, probably, would even care to deny that this is literally the truth.”

When the “great sound money campaign” was concluded, it was but fair, of course, that those who had given so lavishly should be allowed to replenish their depleted coffers. And so neither anti-trust laws, supreme court decisions, nor the cry of protest rising from the people was allowed to stand in the way of those generous corporations to whom President McKinley owed so much.

In the last six months of 1898 the movement toward centralization that meant monopoly was most alarmingly pronounced. During this time there were filed articles of incorporation by more than one hundred companies of abnormal capitalization. The most important trusts were:

Among those classed as “miscellaneous” were trusts in leather, starch, lumber, rubber, dressed beef, lead, knit goods, window glass, crockery, furniture, crackers, sheet copper, paper, acids and chemicals, wall paper, typewriters, axes, bolts and nuts, salt, saws, rope, twine, thread, stock yards, matches, refrigerators, potteries, marbles, packing and provisions.

After the formation of each trust the first step was almost invariably to limit production by shutting down a portion of the mills controlled by the combination, thus reducing the number of wage earners. And almost as invariably the next step was to increase prices. By thus reducing expenses and increasing receipts the result was, though much of the trust property had been put in at an enormously inflated valuation, the watered stock yet earned exceedingly large dividends. The evil was not only that these unnatural dividends were earned at the expense of the laborer and the consumer, but that concentration of profits was leading to congestion of capital in certain sections of the country at the expense of other sections.

The great friend and helper of the trust-promoter was, of course, the high protective tariff. Without the tariff, to shut out competition from abroad, it would be impossible for the domestic concerns to form a close corporation and arbitrarily to fix prices. But Congress, instead of attempting to remedy the evil by lowering the tariff, deliberately raised it, being particularly careful to see that the percentage on trust-controlled goods was made sufficiently high to render foreign competition impossible. This led the Philadelphia Ledger, a Republican newspaper, to remark:

“If Congress had any genuine regard for the interests of the people, or if it were sincere of purpose respecting their common welfare, or in regard to the proper protection of labor, it would promptly transfer to the free list every product controlled by a conscienceless and predatory trust which reduces production, cuts off working people from work and wages, and increases prices to the tens of millions of consumers.” The correctness of this view was testified to, before the United States Industrial Commission, in June, 1899, by no less a personage than Henry O. Havemeyer, president of the sugar trust, who said:

“The existing [tariff] bill and the preceding one have been the occasion of the formation of all the large trusts with very few exceptions, inasmuch as they provide for an inordinate protection to all the interests of the country—sugar refining excepted. All this agitation against trusts is against merely the business machinery employed to take from the public what the government in its tariff laws says it is proper and suitable they should have. It is the government, through its tariff laws, which plunders the people, and the trusts, etc., are merely the machinery for doing it.”

The showing regarding trusts made in the “Commercial Year Book” for 1899 was startling. Its salient features may be thus tabulated:

This shows an increase for the year of 76 per cent. in the number of institutions and of 60 per cent. in stock and bonded debt. But it shows more than this. According to the census of 1890 the entire capital employed in manufacturing and mechanical industries was $6,525,000,000. A comparison of this figure with the stock and bonds of trusts for 1899 shows that the capitalization of these gigantic combines was equal to 90 per cent. of the entire manufacturing investments of 1890.

It was such significant figures as these that woke the country to a realization of the imminence and great importance of the trust problem. It was felt that the most stupendous industrial revolution in the history of the world was on, because it was realized how closely our industrial system had approached to complete absorption under monopolistic control. Industry at large was becoming organized into a system of feudalized corporations. Each was stifling competition, discouraging enterprise, and padlocking the gates of opportunity. Together they were in absolute mastery of the industrial field.

The menacing danger of the situation was early realized, and the “anti-trust” movement progressed side by side with the opposition to imperialism. The fight was to be one of individualism against a gigantic and arrogant plutocracy, the forces of individualism contending for the doctrines of liberty and equal opportunity as against the reactionary tendencies of which trusts and imperialism were the supremest manifestations. In this Titanic struggle it was but fitting that the Jeffersonian hosts should be marshaled under the leadership of the brave, aggressive, eloquent, and inspired evangel of the doctrines of the Fathers—William J. Bryan.

DAVID B. HILL

RENOMINATION