THE GREAT CAMPAIGN OF 1896.
Long before the National Convention of 1896 was held, the issues which
were to be paramount in the campaign had begun to crystallize.
Throughout the country there was a wail of distress growing out of the
depression of 1893, and the people were thinking, thinking, as to the
cause of the trouble which oppressed them. No nation was ever better
equipped to intelligently discuss matters pertaining to its welfare than
the United States at that period. Theorists had conceived numerous
remedies for the economic depression, and right or wrong, had found many
adherents.
The Republican National Convention had declared for the first time in
the history of the party in favor of establishing the financial system
of the country on a gold basis. Protection to American interests, which
had long been a cherished principle of the party, also had its place in
the platform. The Democrats, on the other hand, adopted a platform
demanding the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, and a
tariff for revenue only.
As before stated, however, the issues had already been firmly fixed in
the public mind. The advocates of the free coinage of silver had been
preaching their doctrines for months, and as their arguments were easily
comprehended, the masses took to them with avidity. The cry was that the
Republicans intended to destroy silver except as a subsidiary coin, and
make gold the basic money of the country. It was asserted that there was
not gold enough in the world to provide a currency for the wants of
trade, hence the volume of money would be contracted, if the policy of
the Republicans prevailed. Prices of commodities, already extremely low,
would fall lower, because there would be less money for the people to
purchase them with, hence the distress would grow apace.
These arguments had been disseminated in a small book the writer of
which pretended to hold a “financial school,” and to expound for the
benefit of the people, and for the benefit of capitalists especially,
the true gospel of finance. Millions of copies of this book had been
sold, and people throughout the length and breadth of the land were
familiar with its arguments. Those of opposite beliefs had not been
asleep during this period. They had formulated arguments in
contradiction, and four or five books had been written and printed to
offset the influence of the silver campaign document.
The Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska, as their
standard bearer. Mr. Bryan was an ex-member of Congress, and prior to
the Convention had not been regarded as a prominent candidate for the
Presidency. He was young, and there were wheel-horses in the party to be
rewarded. “Silver Dick,” as the Hon. Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, was
called, because of his long defence of silver in the House of
Representatives as a money metal, was one of the most formidable
candidates, and Governor Horace Boies, who had succeeded in winning the
Republican State of Iowa for the Democrats, also had a large following.
Mr. Bryan came to the Convention as a delegate, a pronounced champion of
the silver theory, and a representative of the producing classes of the
country. He had already achieved fame as an orator, and during the
Convention he took the platform and made a most brilliant speech in
favor of the free coinage of silver. The address so electrified the
Convention that delegation after delegation voted for Mr. Bryan when the
balloting began, and before the roll call was finished it was seen that
he was nominated.
Neither the Republican nor the Democratic party committed itself to the
money question without a serious fight within its own ranks. When the
Republicans declared against silver, an influential section of the
delegates, led by United States Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado,
bolted the Convention, and were, perforce, compelled to support Mr.
Bryan as a Presidential candidate. A faction of the Democratic party,
led by Senator Hill, of New York, refused absolutely to subscribe to the
silver doctrine enumerated by their party, and as a result the Gold
Democrats nominated a ticket for President, headed by United States
Senator Palmer, of Illinois, and S. B. Buckner, of Kentucky. Mr. Bryan
was also the candidate of the Populistic party.
Following the nomination of Mr. Bryan began a campaign the like of which
has perhaps never been seen in any country. It was full of spectacular
features, and there was more eloquence to the square inch than had ever
been known before. Everybody turned speech-maker, and few places were
regarded as too sacred, and few moments as improper, in which to discuss
the momentous questions. On the streets, in railway cars, on steamboats,
in hotels, stores, factories, and at the family board the great question
was threshed out. The excitement was intense. On both sides the people
believed a crisis had arrived. The Republicans declared the election of
Mr. Bryan meant repudiation of obligations, ruin and national dishonor.
The Democrats retorted that there could be no repudiation in sticking to
the money of the Constitution and the argument was so apparently
conclusive that the Republicans became alarmed. It was found that the
silver belief was fully grounded—the people of the great West seemed
impressed with the idea that more money would make times better, and
more money could easily be coined. The Government had practically ceased
under the Cleveland Administration to purchase silver bullion. The mines
of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, and other sections,
could produce the metal in abundance, and for the Government to coin it
into money would produce the supply of money necessary to relieve the
stringency.
Such arguments appealed to those who felt the pinch of poverty, and the
Republicans found it necessary to send their best and most eloquent
speakers into the field, in order to counteract the influence of the
silver advocates. Printing presses throughout the land were set to work
to print pamphlets and tracts exploded the Democratic doctrine, and
great discs of base metal were cast to show how much silver at the
prevailing price would have to go into a dollar, to make it the
equivalent of a gold dollar. The bullion value of the silver in a dollar
was at that time about 50 cents, and the object lesson had its effect
upon certain minds.
As indicative of the arguments used by the leading orators during the
campaign, the following examples are given:
Congressman Joseph C. Sibley, of Pennsylvania, one of the prominent
Eastern men who supported the doctrine of free coinage of silver, said
in one of his speeches:
“Silver is the only stable standard of values maintaining at all times
its parity with every article of production except gold. The ounce of
silver, degraded by infamous legislation from its normal mintage value
of 1.2929 an ounce to about 60 cents, has kept its parity with the ton
of pig iron, the pound of nails, and all the products of our iron mills.
The ounce of silver has maintained its parity with the barrel of
petroleum, with granite blocks, with kiln-burnt bricks. With lumber
growing scarcer year by year it still keeps its parity. It is at parity
with the ton of coal; with the mower, reaper, thresher, the grain drill,
the hoe, and the spade. Silver at 1.2929 and beef at 7 cents per pound
in the farmer’s field has kept its parity, and the ounce of silver at 60
cents buys to-day beef at 2 cents per pound on foot. The pound of cotton
and the ounce of silver have never lost their level. No surer has the
sun indicated on the dial the hour of the day than has the ounce of
silver shown the value of the pound of cotton. As surely as the moon has
given high tide or low tide, just so surely has the ounce of silver
given the high and low tide prices of wheat. The ounce of silver has
maintained its parity with your railway dividends, with the earnings in
your shops and factories, in all departments of effort.
“If parity with gold is demanded, and the Secretary of the Treasury
construes the law to mean whenever demanded to pay gold, then let us
maintain the parity by reducing the number of grains in the gold dollar
from 23.22 grains pure gold to 15 grains, or to such number of grains as
will keep it at parity. While we may wrong by so doing the creditor
class, through the increased value of the products of human industry, we
much remember that for every one creditor there are a thousand debtors;
and we should remember that the aim of the Government is the greatest
good to the greatest number, and also the minimum amount of evil. But no
such drastic measure is necessary. Parity may be maintained and every
declaration of governmental policy fully met by accepting for all dues,
public and private, including duties upon imports, silver and paper
issues of the Nation of every description whatsoever.
“In all the gold-standard nations destitution and misery prevail. With
great standing armies in Europe outbreaks are not of frequent
occurrence, and yet one rarely peruses his paper without reading of
these outbreaks. In Nebraska and Kansas, the land of wheat and corn, we
read of starving households; even in Ohio appeals are sent out for the
relief of thousands of starving miners, and yet men have the temerity to
tell us that the evils arise from overproduction.
“Men tell us that there is an overproduction of silver, and that its
price had diminished in comparison with gold because of its great
relative increase. Such statements are not only misleading, but
absolutely false. Figures show that in 1600 we produced 27 tons of
silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1700, 34 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; in
1800, 32 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1848, 31 tons of silver to
1 ton of gold; while in 1880 the production of silver had declined until
we produced 18 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; and in 1890 but 18 tons
of silver to 1 ton of gold; and that, instead of the ratio of coinage
being increased above 16 to 1, if relative production of the two metals
is to determine the ratio, then the ratio should have been diminished
rather than increased, and confirms the fact that merely the denial of
mintage upon terms of equality with gold is responsible for all
depreciation in the value of silver bullion.
“All the silver in the world to-day can be put in a room 66 feet in each
dimension, and all the gold can be melted into a cube of 18 or 20 feet.
There are to-day less than twenty-five millions of bar silver in all
Europe. Mr. St. John, the eminent banker of New York, had stated that
there was not over five millions of silver that could be made available
to send to our mints. Begin to coin silver to the full capacity of our
mints, and we would have to coin it for twenty years before giving to
each inhabitant a per capita circulation that France, the most
prosperous nation in the world to-day, possesses.
“The struggle to-day is between the debtor and creditor classes. With
one-half the world’s money of final account destroyed, the creditor can
demand twice as much of the products of your field, your shop, and your
enterprise and labor for his dues. In this struggle between debtor and
creditor the latter has taken undue advantage and by legislation doubled
and trebled the volume of the debt. For example, suppose you had given a
note to your neighbor promising to pay, one year after date, 1,500
bushels of wheat. You thresh the grain, measure it into the bin, and
notify your creditor that the wheat is at his disposal. He goes to the
granary, sacks the wheat, and then brings up your note and states, ‘I
have taken 500 bushels, which I have endorsed on your note. I will call
on you for the balance when next year’s crop is harvested.’ You say,
‘Why did you not take all the wheat and let me make full payment?’ The
note-holder answers, ‘I did take all the wheat, and there were only 500
bushels in the bin instead of 1,500.’
“You fail to understand how that can be possible. You know that you
threshed out and measured into that bin 1,500 bushels of wheat. You go
to the granary and find that it is true. No wheat is there, but there
appears to be an enormous lot of wheat upon those wagons for 500
bushels, and you ask the note-holder, ‘Who measured this wheat? and let
me see how you measured it.’ You see something in the form of a measure
about as large as a washtub, and you ask him what that is. He tells you
that is the half-bushel measure which he measured your wheat; but you
reply, ‘My dear sir, that holds more than half a bushel; that measure
will hold 6 pecks.’ He answers, ‘Correct, it does hold six pecks, but it
now takes 12 pecks to make a bushel, instead of four pecks. Together
with other friends who had wheat coming to us we went before the
Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures and secured the passage of a
legislative enactment, that it should require 12 pecks instead of 4
pecks to make a bushel. We have secured this legislation for the proper
protection of the holders of wheat obligations, for our own security,
and for fear that we should become timid and lose confidence in your
ability to pay unless we changed the standard of measure.’ But you
reply, ‘Sir, we who have obligations maturing, contracts long standing,
have never asked or consented to the enactment of such legislation. Our
representatives in Congress never permitted us to understand that any
such legislation was pending,’ He replies, ‘Sir, you might have known it
had you desired to do so, or had you kept yourself as well posted in
legislative affairs as do the holders of obligations calling for
products of the soil for payment. We have our representatives in
Congress. We reward them for their fidelity to our interests; we punish
them for fidelity to yours.’
“This, in my judgment, is not a far-fetched illustration, but depicts
the exact condition against which production to-day protests. The
debtor’s obligation, true, does not call for wheat in specific terms. It
calls for dollars, but by legislation we have made the dollar three
times as large in purchasing power or in measuring values as it was
before. We talk about gold being the only money of intrinsic value, and
attempt to befog and mystify the masses by telling them that it has
intrinsic value, when its value is merely the artificial product of
legislation.
“Enact a law, to be rigidly enforced, providing that no meat of any
kind, whether ‘fish, flesh or fowl,’ except mutton, shall be used for
food. What will be the intrinsic value of your beef cattle, of your
swine, your poultry, and your fish to-morrow? The mutton-headed
monometallists would tell you that the great increase in the value of
mutton was because of its intrinsic worth. Let this Nation and the
commercial nations of the globe enact a law to-morrow, that neither
cotton, nor silk, nor fabric should be used for clothing or covering,
forbid the factories of the world to spin or weave aught but wool, and
what will be the intrinsic value of cotton or silk thereafter? Wool will
be king; its value will be enhanced, but cotton, hemp, and silk will be
as valueless as weeds or as gossamer webs.
“With the mints open to free and unlimited coinage of both gold and
silver there has never been a moment when silver has not maintained its
parity with gold, and a ratio of 16 to 1 commanded a premium of more
than 3 per cent over gold. And if, by some fortunate discoveries
to-morrow, gold should be found in great quantities sufficient to lessen
the income of the annuitant, the bondholding, or the fixed-income class,
there would arise a demand for the demonetization of gold and the
establishment of the pearl, ruby, or diamond standard of values.
Whatever standard can bring to grasping hands and greedy hearts the most
of the toil, the sweat, and unrequited efforts of his fellowman, this
standard will be demanded by the representatives of greed, and must be
resisted by those who represent humanity and Christianity.”
United States Senator Julius C. Burrows, of Michigan, in replying to
free coinage argument, said:
“Coin silver dollars at the ratio of 16 to 1 or 20 to 1 and you have a
dollar intrinsically worth less than the gold dollar, and coin such a
dollar as that—permit the owners of silver bullion to bring to the mints
of the United States, and have manufactured into dollars, a certain
number of grains, worth in bullion much less than after they are coined,
is a proposition to which I cannot give my assent.
“But it has been stated and repeatedly asserted that the present silver
dollar is the ‘dollar of the fathers.’ That statement is not true. It is
not the ‘dollars of the fathers,’ and the fathers if living would
repudiate such an assumption as a reflection upon their integrity and
sagacity. The silver dollar of the fathers was intended to be and was in
fact practically equal to the gold dollar in intrinsic value.
“This contest for the free coinage of silver began in 1874, and it has
been prosecuted with unceasing vigor ever since. Why? Up to that time
the silver dollar was worth more, intrinsically, than the gold dollar,
being worth in 1873 $1.03 as compared with gold.
“Up to that time the coinage of silver dollars in this country had been
very limited. One would think from the tenor of this discussion that all
at once a great outrage had been perpetrated upon silver, that it had
been stricken from our monetary system at a blow, by the force of law,
when the fact is that from 1793 to 1805, a period of twelve years, we
coined but 1,439,517 silver dollars. From 1806 to 1836, a period of
thirty years, we did not coin a single silver dollar. From 1836 to 1873,
a period of thirty-seven years, we coined only 6,606,321 silver dollars.
In eighty years we only coined a total of 8,045,838 silver dollars. So
long as silver remained more valuable than gold there was no clamor for
the free coinage of silver, but in 1878, when resumption was an assured
fact, and the people had decreed that they would keep faith with their
creditors and pay their unredeemed promises, then the champions of cheap
money turned their attention to silver finding it had declined in value
from $1.03 in 1873 to $0.89 in 1878.
“The battle is now renewed under the plea of bimetallism, and the
advocates of the free coinage of silver seek to delude the people by
asserting that they are in favor of bimetallism while its opponents are
not. We have bimetallism to-day.
“The free and unlimited coinage of silver at any of the ratios named
will destroy bimetallism and will reduce this country to a single
standard, that of silver, and that depreciated, and I am suspicious that
for this very reason some gentlemen are anxious for its triumph. The
opening of the mints of the United States to the unrestricted minting
for individuals of silver into legal dollars at any ratio to gold less
than the commercial value of both metals, under the pretense of aiding
the cause of bimetallism or for the purpose of establishing or
maintaining bimetallism in the United States, is simply playing upon the
sentiment and credulity of the American people.
Mr. Bryan toured the country during the campaign, and spoke in all
sections of the country. He went into the eastern States, where the
opponents of the free silver doctrine were strongest and made numerous
speeches, but did the most of his work in the South and West. His fame
as an orator drew thousands to hear him, and under the spell of his
eloquence millions were brought to believe with him. When the campaign
was well under way, and the Republican leaders had in a measure checked
the spread of the free silver doctrine, they put forward again the
doctrine of a protective tariff, and declared it to be the real issue
before the people, and its maintenance necessary to the renewed
prosperity of the nation.
During this stirring period the calm equipoise and splendid
intellectuality of Governor McKinley stood him in good stead. He kept to
his modest home in Canton, Ohio, and there received millions of people
who called upon him. They came from all walks in life—manufacturers,
business men, professional men, teachers, mechanics and laborers—and to
each delegation he made an apt address, always broad-minded, always
touching the peculiar concerns of his hearers, and always breathing a
high note of patriotism and fidelity to principle. The speeches made by
Governor McKinley on the lawn at Canton during the memorable summer of
1896 rank him as one of the most thoroughly informed men of his
generation, and as possessing all the elements of highest statecraft.
When election day came, McKinley was triumphant, receiving 7,061,142
votes, against 6,460,677 for Bryan. In the electoral college, Mr.
McKinley had 271 votes, and Mr. Bryan, 176.