A

prostration of industry and impoverishment of the people.” Fifteen candidates received votes on the first ballot for the nomination, while 178 delegates who disapproved the William platform refused to vote at all. Of the leading J. Bryan candidates, two possessed the prominence that belonged to men who had been Democratic governors of Republican States, Robert E. Pattison, of Pennsylvania, and Horace Boies, of Iowa. A third, who was a leader on the first ballot, was Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, who had been sponsor of free silver for nearly twenty years. fourth was the leader of the victorious Nebraska free-silver delegation, William J. Bryan. In his four years in Congress, 1891-95, Bryan had become known as an effective and persuasive speaker. He had early supported free silver as a measure of social reform, and after the expiration of his term in Congress he had led in the organized movement to convert his party to free silver. He had supported the program of the People's Party without admitting that he ceased to be a Democrat. When his delegation was finally seated in the Chicago Convention, it fell to him to close the debate upon a plank offered by a minority of the Committee on Resolutions that repudiated free silver and commended "the honesty, the economy, courage, and fidelity of the present Democratic Administration." This was on the third day of the convention with the delegates hot and weary, with the old party leaders hopelessly outvoted, and the headless minority bewildered by the possession of power without leadership. "An opportunity to close such a debate had never come to me before," wrote Bryan when he described the contest, "and I doubt if as good an opportunity had ever come to any other person during this generation." The voice of the young orator, for he was only thirty-six years of age, penetrated every corner of the convention hall, while his stage presence captured the attention of the weary delegations and held it throughout his repetition of the substance of a glowing speech that he had for years been making on the stump. It was new to the delegates and was as new to national politics as were Bryan's

name and face. It ended with a peroration now famous in campaign oratory: "If they dare to 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 interests, 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." On the fourth ballot Bryan took the lead; on the fifth he was within twelve votes of the requisite two thirds to nominate him; and these were secured by transfer without another roll-call. Arthur Sewall, of Maine, was nominated as his companion on the ticket.

The hopes of Populism to become a new great party were destroyed by the action of the major parties in accepting the silver issue. On July 22 two conventions Populism met at St. Louis, one calling itself a National Silver Party, and the other the People's Party. There was no need for the former body to do anything but concur in the Democratic stand, and to endorse its nominations. The Populists, however, were faced with problems affecting the future of the party. "If we fuse, we are sunk," wrote one of the Populist leaders, who added, "If we don't fuse, all the silver men will leave us for the more powerful Democrats." For the real leaders of the party, who sought an extensive program of reform, this was a tragedy. The majority of the convention, drawing their inspiration from the single measure of free silver, voted for fusion with the Democrats and concurrence in their nomination. A middleof-the-road movement of genuine Populists opposed fusion of any sort in the hope of maintaining party existence. The platform, repeating and elaborating that of 1892, was carried first. The Vice-President was nominated next, for even the fusion Populists opposed Sewall, who was a wealthy Maine shipbuilder. Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia, was chosen for this post after the first ballot, and

subsequently Bryan was nominated for the presidency over four minor candidates, Norton, Debs, Donnelly, and Coxey.

The campaign of 1896 was fought upon the clear issue of the gold standard as against free silver with the forces of The Gold class and section arrayed against each other as Democrats in no other canvass except 1860. Party lines were abandoned. Even the Prohibitionists split and placed gold and silver tickets in the field. The bolt of the mining delegates from the Republican Party was followed by that of the advocates of gold from the Democratic Party. On September 2 there convened at Indianapolis a hastily assembled convention of Democrats who would neither support a Republican candidate nor accept the regular Democratic ticket. "The declarations of the Chicago convention," it declared, "attack individual freedom, the right of private contract, the independence of the judiciary, and the authority of the President to enforce Federal laws. They advocate a reckless attempt to increase the price of silver by legislation, to the debasement of our monetary standard, and threaten unlimited issues of paper money by the Government. They abandon for Republican allies the Democratic cause of tariff reform, to court the favor of protectionists to their fiscal heresy." The Gold Democratic Convention endorsed the "Fidelity, patriotism, and courage" of Cleveland, and nominated a ticket consisting of John M. Palmer, of Illinois, and Simon B. Buckner, of Kentucky. Cleveland and members of his Cabinet supported this ticket.

Election

of McKinley

The fight of classes in the campaign was intensified by education and the use of funds. The decision about free silver turned in the last analysis upon an economic argument, the technicalities of which were too stubborn to be removed by ordinary platform oratory. The class appeal in favor of free silver was met by class appeal against it. Both party organizations sought to secure the deciding votes from the minority susceptible of being reached by better arguments. Hanna was made chairman of the Republican National

Committee and utilized the large funds made available by his old allies, the manufacturers, and by new allies in the form of banks and insurance companies who feared repudiation. Campaign speakers were for the first time deliberately trained to carry an argument to the people and to gain a victory based upon conviction. Bryan was himself the most persuasive speaker for his party and spread panic in Republican centers, which he invaded on his speaking tour. "Probably no man in civil life has succeeded in inspiring so much terror, without taking life," said the Nation, when the vote was in. McKinley, on the contrary, remained quietly at his Canton home, receiving visiting delegations from week to week, while his managers bore the gospel of sound money to the people. He was elected by an absolute majority of the vote cast, and with an electoral vote of 271 to 176.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States, vol. VIII (1919), comes to an end with this election, and there is no compendious history that continues his story. Biographical materials on the campaign can be found in William J. Bryan, The First Battle (1896); William V. Byers, An American Commoner. The Life and Times of Richard Parks Bland (1900); Tom L. Johnson, My Story (1913); Herbert Croly, Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1912); Charles S. Olcott, Life of William McKinley (1916); David Magie, Life of Garrett A. Hobart (1910); William Dana Orcutt, Burrows of Michigan and the Republican Party (1917); and L. J. Lang (ed.) Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt (1910).

CHAPTER XXIII

THE "G.O.P."

THE Republican Party that was returned to power on March 4, 1897, possessed a definiteness of purpose and a Property closely knit organization that make it stand out and politics among national parties in their periods of ascendancy. Its record in the Civil War, still an asset in any campaign, entitled its spokesmen to refer to it in glowing terms as the "Grand Old Party." The initial letters of the nickname, "G.O.P.," now possessed a connotation that had reference to the present in addition to the past. The purpose of the party organization was to advance the interests of its members and thereby the interests of the nation. Under the impact of two great issues in a single decade, one aspect of those interests had been forged into a keen and weighted determination. The demands for tariff reform and free silver had driven into the Republican organization nearly all citizens who were in a position to suffer from European competition or domestic inflation. The holders of property as a body were Republican, and it is impossible to disentangle the complex of motives, selfish and patriotic, that held them there. The best judgment of history and economics has approved the fight for the maintenance of the gold standard. It has been less certain upon the elemental merits of the tariff. But whatever the motives in individual cases, the result of the long fight over these two issues was to bring to power in the G.O.P. strong-willed men of financial power and political resource who felt themselves vindicated and approved by the defeat of Bryan.

The bitterness of the campaign disappeared so rapidly as to arouse suspicion that it was only stage play. Explanations for the subsidence of passion are to be found in the assurance that the currency would not be depreciated, and