his antisilver policy had made him appear to the discontented farmers and miners. In 1894 the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives was lost, further party legislation was blocked, and the President was at odds with most of his party.

in 1896.

Under these circumstances the campaign of 1896 began. Nominations The Republican convention met first. It nominated for the presidency William McKinley, the author of the tariff bill of 1890 and at the time governor of Ohio. The managers hoped to make the fight hinge once more on the tariff question. The convention, by a vote of 812 to 110, declared in favor of the gold standard. This led to a bolt from the party. Many of the Republican advocates of free coinage followed Senator Teller of Colorado in a secession whose goal depended on the result of the Democratic convention. That convention was strongly divided on the currency question. A vigorous minority supported the gold policy of the Cleveland administration. If the gold advocates had won, there would undoubtedly have been formed a powerful third party, for the currency question was the one of paramount public interest, and was bound to force itself into politics as had the Texas question in 1844. It happened, however, that the silver advocates captured the convention, which declared in favor of the free coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. With a platform radically new, a new leader was desirable, and was found in William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, who captivated the convention by a remarkably dramatic speech closing with an appeal not to "crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." This convention, also, was followed by a party split, certain leaders known as the "Gold-Democrats" nominating General Palmer of Illinois and General Buckner of Kentucky on an independent ticket. This loss was fully made up by the accession of Senator Teller and his followers, while the Populists also fused with the Democrats.

The election of 1896.

The net result was that the issue on the currency ques tion was plainly presented to the people. From the seventeenth century it had been a potent factor in American politics, but never before had an opportunity been given for a contest on it so devoid of complications. The campaign was distinctly educational. Mr. Bryan made a vigorous campaign, speaking all over the country, and the Republican campaign was admirably organized by Mr. McKinley's friend, Mark Hanna of Ohio. The result of the campaign

was a complete change in the party alignment of the sections. Bryan carried all those states which could be considered as still showing frontier characteristics. He carried all the states voting for Weaver in 1892, he won from the Republicans Nebraska, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming. In the region west of the Missouri and excepting the older communities of California, Oregon, and North Dakota, he carried the entire forty-five electoral votes, where in 1892 the Democrats had not obtained a single one. In addition he carried the Solid South and the single border state of

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Missouri, where the conditions producing the silver movement were still powerful. The Republicans, on the other hand, swept the entire North above the Missouri River, winning sixty-four votes Democratic in 1892, besides California, with Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky, border states solidly allied with the South and with Democracy since 1872. The popular vote was enormous, reflecting the immense popular interest. Mr. Bryan received nearly a million more votes than any candidate had obtained at any previous election, and his success in uniting for the first time the agricultural and mining interests of the West with the labor interests of the East marked him as a force to reckon with in the future. Nevertheless McKinley defeated him by six hundred thousand in the popular vote, and 271 to 176 in the electoral vote.

of currency

The excessive representation of the thinly populated The end western states in the Senate left the silver element still agitation. powerful, and the Republicans promptly revived the coinage of silver, though to the extent of a million and a half a month, only. The rapid rise of prosperity, however, speedily contracted the area of financial discontent, and unparalleled discoveries of gold mines and the increase in gold production throughout the world caused that metal to be sufficiently abundant. By 1900, therefore, it was found possible to put the country definitely upon a gold basis by act of Congress. In the same year a slight readjustment of the national banking law resulted in an increase in bank note circulation.

tariff.

With still greater promptness the Republicans proceeded Dingley to the reëstablishment of their tariff system. Under the direction of Nelson Dingley, chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, a tariff bill was presented to Congress at an extra session. Mr. Reed hastened its passage, and it was adopted in 1897. This returned with emphasis to the highly protective features of the McKinley tariff, but revenue needs

Sources.

Historical accounts.

led to the imposition of a duty on sugar. There was provision for reciprocity, but, except within narrow limits, the assent of both houses of Congress was made necessary. In practice this provision proved sufficient to enable the administration to prevent retaliation because of the Dingley duties, but not to obtain the opening of new markets.

The Republican program of 1890 was once more in effect, but before the end of the century arrived it had become evident that a new era was at hand, and that both parties must adjust themselves to new conditions and attack new problems.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Cleveland's Message, Richardson, Messages, VIII, 580-591. Wallace, Harrison and Morton, 278–295.

D. R. Dewey, National Problems. Croly, H., Marcus Hanna. E. E. Sparks, National Development. Stanwood, E., American Tariff Controversies, vol. II. Taussig, F. W., Tariff History, 155283. Dewey, D. R., Financial History, chs. XIX, XX. Paxson, F. L., The Last American Frontier. Turner, F. J., The Contributions to the West of American Democracy, Atlantic Monthly, Jan., 1903. U. S. Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1902, 109–113. Buck, S. J., Granger Movement. Ringwalt, J. L., Transportation Systems, 229-233, 265-269. Ripley, W. Z., Railway Problems: Rates and Regulation. Coman, K., Industrial History (rev. ed.), 354-374Adams, T., and Sumner, H. L., Labor Problems.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SPANISH WAR AND DIPLOMACY

isolation.

WHEN McKinley was inaugurated few persons imagined International that the chief concern of his administration would be foreign affairs. Since the Napoleonic wars the United States had been so isolated from European complications that separation was thought of as normal and permanent. The Monroe Doctrine had for seventy-five years represented an actual condition. The annexations of the forties and fifties, moreover, had rounded out American territory, and seemed to quiet the intrigues and disputes which up to the Civil War had unsettled our relations with other American powers. Nevertheless, powerful influences were at work to draw us out of this quietude.

the Monroe Doctrine.

While the better known aspects of the Monroe Doc- Blaine and trine, refraining from interference with European affairs and preventing European interference in America, had become well-accepted public policy, one side of it was far from realization. The United States had not become in any sense the leader of the American republics. England had sustained Canning's policy better than this country had supported that of Adams and Clay. England held the greater portion of Spanish-American trade, and exerted more influence than the United States. Germany, too, by trade everywhere and by colonization in Brazil, was taking second place. Mr. Blaine, as Secretary of State in 1881 and 1889 to 1892, had sought to change this condition. His policy was to make the United States the arbiter in Spanish-American disputes, whether they were between different American powers, or between any of them and European countries.