the gold standard through the sale of bonds and the agreement made in February, 1895, with J. P. Morgan to protect the gold reserve in the treasury against further raids, caused him to be denounced in the harshest possible terms by the silver wing of his party.

In 1892 the Democratic and Republican parties had both tried to dodge the silver issue. In the preconvention campaign of 1896 the Republicans again tried to avoid The silver committing themselves on this issue. Their princi- issue pal candidate, William McKinley of Ohio, had openly advocated free silver, but as he was also the author of the tariff bill of 1890 and as the Republicans intended to make the tariff the main issue of the campaign, he seemed to be the strongest candidate. His campaign for the nomination was managed by Marcus A. Hanna, a successful business man of Cleveland, who now introduced effective business methods into politics. During the preceding winter Hanna had gone South and through the free use of money among the negroes had secured for McKinley the Southern delegates to the Republican convention. He did his work so thoroughly and systematically that when the convention met at St. Louis, June 16, the nomination of McKinley was secured on the first ballot. The question of the platform was not so easily decided. The advocates of

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.

the gold standard finally prevailed and thirty-four silver Republicans withdrew from the convention.

The Democratic party met in Chicago early in July. No candidate had the lead and the attention of the whole country was centered on the question as to whether the convention would pronounce in favor of free silver or not. The Silverites controlled from the start and the platform demanded "the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation."

In the debate on the silver plank William J. Bryan of Nebraska captivated the convention by a brilliant speech Nomination in advocacy of free silver, closing with the now of Bryan famous words: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." He was nominated on the fifth ballot. At this time he was only thirty-six years of age and, although he had been a member of Congress, his name was unknown in the East. The Populists met in St. Louis a few days later and indorsed Bryan. This fusion with the Democrats was the deathblow to the People's party, which had been launched under such favorable auspices in 1892. The Gold Democrats repudiated Bryan and placed a second ticket in the field with John M. Palmer of Illinois as their candidate for president and Simon B. Buckner of Kentucky for vice-president. Bryan, a young and vigorous speaker, introduced a new method of campaigning. He traveled all over the country preaching the gospel of free silver to hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens.

McKinley, on the other hand, remained quietly at his home at Canton, Ohio, receiving delegates on his front porch, The election but leaving the conduct of the campaign to his of McKinley friend Hanna. Old political lines seemed to have disappeared; the old parties were, for the time being, replaced by a gold party and a silver party. Hanna succeeded

in firmly cementing the alliance between business and the Republicans, and McKinley, who was loudly proclaimed "as the advance agent of prosperity," was elected. Bryan carried the solid South and a number of States in the West, but all the States north of the Potomac and east of the Mississippi went for McKinley. The vote was the heaviest that had ever been cast; Bryan received 6,500,000 and McKinley over 7,000,000 votes.

The Dingley
Tariff and

the gold

standard

Shortly after the inauguration of McKinley, Congress was convened in extra session and enacted the Dingley Tariff, which was signed July 24, 1897. The duties imposed by this measure were higher than those of the McKinley bill. As an excuse for these excessive rates the act authorized the president to negotiate reciprocity treaties with foreign nations, by which it was claimed that many of the duties would be lowered. A number of such treaties were negotiated by John A. Kasson and submitted by the president to the Senate, but that body failed to ratify them.

Before the next presidential election the Gold Standard Act was put through Congress by the Republicans, committing them unequivocally to the policy of maintaining a sufficient gold reserve in the treasury to keep the country on a gold basis. The alliance between the Republican party and big business was thus firmly cemented, and the Spanish War with the new questions that it raised obscured for several years the radical tendencies that had come to light in the campaigns of 1892 and 1896.

TOPICAL REFERENCES

1. Financial Readjustment after the Civil War: E. E. Sparks, National Development, pp. 137-147; F. L. Paxson, The New Nation, Chaps. II, IV, V; D. R. Dewey, Financial History of the United States, Chap. XV.

2. Civil Service Reform: Sparks, Chaps. X, XII; D. R. Dewey,

National Problems, Chap. II; E. B. Andrews, The United States in Our Own Time, Chap. IX.

3. The Election of Cleveland in 1884: Sparks, Chap. XIX; Paxson, Chap. VIII; Andrews, Chap. XVII; Stanwood, History of the Presidency, Chap. XXVII.

4. The Far West: Paxson, Chap. IX; Sparks, Chap. XV; Dewey, National Problems, Chap. I.

5. The New South: Paxson, Chap. XII; Sparks, Chaps. VI, VIII; Dewey, National Problems, Chap. X; Andrews, Chap. XXV; P. A. Bruce, Rise of the New South.

6. The Tariff Issue: Dewey, National Problems, Chaps. IV, VIII, XI, XVII, Financial History, Chaps. XVIII-XX; F. W. Taussig, Tariff History of the United States, Part II, Chaps. II-VII.

7. The Trusts: Dewey, National Problems, Chap. XII; Paxson, Chap. X; E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States, Chap. XXVII.

8. The Rise of the Populists: Paxson, Chaps. XI, XIII; C. A. Beard, Contemporary American History, Chap. VI; Stanwood, History of the Presidency, pp. 508-518.

9. Financial Depression and Labor Disturbances: Dewey, National Problems, Chaps. XVI, XVIII; Andrews, Chap. XXIV.

10. The Silver Question: Dewey, Financial History, Chaps. XVII, XIX, National Problems, Chaps. XIV, XX; Paxson, Chap. XIV; Andrews, Chap. XXVI; Beard, Chap. VII; Stanwood, Chap. XXXI.

CHAPTER XXVII

FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1865-1897

French from

Mexico

THE Civil War left standing two serious disputes with foreign powers, the one with France over the presence of her troops in Mexico and the other with England over Withdrawal the "Alabama Claims." As the Civil War drew to of the a successful conclusion Secretary Seward's protests against the continued intervention of France in Mexico became more and more emphatic. Finally in December, 1865, he declared to France that friendly relations would be seriously jeopardized by a continuance of her Mexican policy and a little later he demanded to know when the military occupation would come to an end.

The Emperor Louis Napoleon finally decided that he could not risk a war with the United States and on April 5, 1866, announced that the French troops would evacuate Mexico in three detachments, covering a period of eighteen months. When the time came for the first detachment to withdraw, no action was taken, but Napoleon explained to the United States that he had decided to withdraw all his troops in a body the following spring. The success of Prussia in the Austrian War of 1866 was a serious blow to Napoleon's prestige and in order to prepare for the conflict with that power, which he now regarded as inevitable, he decided to leave Maximilian to his fate. That unhappy prince was soon overthrown by Juarez and summarily shot.

When the United States first demanded reparation for the damage inflicted on American commerce by the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers the British government dis