THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896
It does not require that distant historical perspective, which is
supposed to be necessary for final judgments, to warrant the assertion
that the campaign of 1896 marks a turning point in the course of
American politics. The monetary issue, on which events ostensibly
revolved, was, it is true, an ancient one, but the real conflict was not
over the remonetization of silver or the gold standard. Deep, underlying
class feeling found its expression in the conventions of both parties,
and particularly that of the Democrats, and forced upon the attention of
the country, in a dramatic manner, a conflict between great wealth and
the lower middle and working classes, which had hitherto been recognized
only in obscure circles. The sectional or vertical cleavage of American
politics was definitely cut by new lines running horizontally through
society, and was also crossed at right angles by another line running
north and south, representing the western protest against eastern
creditors and the objectionable methods of great corporations which had
been rapidly unfolded to public view by merciless criticism and many
legislative investigations.
Even the Republican party, whose convention had been largely prepared in
advance by the vigorous labors of Mr. Marcus A. Hanna,[41] was not
untouched by the divisions which later rent the Democratic party in
twain. When the platform was reported to the duly assembled Republican
delegates by Mr. Foraker, of Ohio, its firm declaration of opposition to
free silver, except by international agreement, was greeted by a divided
house, although, as the record runs, there was a "demonstration of
approval on the part of a large majority of the delegates which lasted
several minutes." When a vote was taken on the financial plank, it was
discovered that 110 delegates favored silver as against 812 in support
of the proposition submitted by the platform committee. The defeated
contingent then withdrew from the convention after having presented a
statement in which they declared that "the people cry aloud for relief;
they are bending under a burden growing heavier with the passing hours;
endeavour no longer brings its just reward ... and unless the laws of
the country and the policies of political parties shall be converted
into mediums of redress, the effect of human desperation may sometime be
witnessed here as in other lands and in other ages."
This threat was firmly met by the body of the convention which remained.
In nominating Mr. Thomas B. Reed, Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts, declared:
"Against the Republican party are arrayed not only that organized
failure, the Democratic party, but all the wandering forces of political
chaos and social disorder.... Such a man we want for our great office in
these bitter times when the forces of disorder are loose and the
wreckers with their false lights gather at the shore to lure the ship
of state upon the rocks." Mr. Depew, in nominating Mr. Levi P. Morton,
decried all of the current criticism of capital. Mr. Foraker, in
presenting the name of Mr. McKinley, was more conciliatory: distress and
misery were abroad in the land and bond issues and bond syndicates had
discredited and scandalized the country; but McKinley was the man to
redeem the nation.
This conciliatory attitude was hardly necessary, for there were no
radical elements in the Republican assembly after the withdrawal of the
silver faction. The proceedings of the convention were in fact then
extraordinarily harmonious, brief, and colorless. The platform, apart
from the sound money plank, contained no sign of the social conflict
which was being waged in the world outside. Tariff, pensions, civil
service, temperance, and the usual formalities of party programs were
treated after the fashion consecrated by time. Railway and trust
problems were overlooked entirely. Even the money plank was not put
first, and it was not so phrased as to constitute the significant
challenge which it became in the campaign. "The Republican party," it
ran, "is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the
law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then
every dollar has been good as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every
measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our
country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver except
by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the
world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such an agreement
can be obtained the existing gold standard must be maintained."
This clear declaration on the financial issue was apparently not a part
of the drama as Mr. Hanna and Mr. McKinley had staged it. The former was
in favor of the gold standard so far as he understood it, but he was not
a student of finance, and he was more interested "in getting what we
got," to use his phrase, than in any very fine distinctions in the gold
plank. Mr. McKinley, on the other hand, was widely known as a
bimetallist; but his reputation throughout the country rested
principally upon his high protective doctrines. He, therefore, wished to
avoid the monetary issue by straddling it in such a way as not to
alienate the large silver faction in the West. Mr. Hanna's biographer
tells us that Mr. Kohlsaat claims to have spent hours on Sunday, June 7,
"trying to convince Mr. McKinley of the necessity of inserting the word
'gold' in the platform. The latter argued in opposition that 90 per cent
of his mail and his callers were against such decisive action, and he
asserted emphatically that thirty days after the convention was over the
currency question would drop out of sight and the tariff would become
the sole issue. The currency plank, tentatively drawn by Mr. McKinley
and his immediate advisers, embodied his resolution to keep the currency
issue subordinate and vague."[42] The leaders in the convention,
however, refused to accept Mr. McKinley's view and forced him to take
the step which he had hoped to avoid.
In his speech of acceptance, McKinley deprecated and sought to smooth
over the class lines which had been drawn. "It is a cause for painful
regret and solicitude," he said, "that an effort is being made by those
high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the people of this
country into classes and create distinctions among us which in fact do
not exist and are repugnant to our form of government.... Every attempt
made to array class against class, 'the classes against the masses,'
section against section, labor against capital, 'the poor against the
rich,' or interest against interest in the United States is in the
highest degree reprehensible." In the Populist features of the
Democratic platform he saw a grave menace to our institutions, but he
accepted the challenge. "We avoid no issues. We meet the sudden,
dangerous, and revolutionary assault upon law and order and upon those
to whom is confided by the Constitution and laws the authority to uphold
and maintain them, which our opponents have made, with the same courage
that we have faced every emergency since our organization as a party
more than forty years ago."
_The Democratic Convention_
No doubt the decisive action of the Republican convention helped to
consolidate the silver forces in the Democratic party; but even if the
Republicans had obscured the silver question by a vague declaration,
their opponents would have come out definitely against the gold
standard. This was so apparent weeks before the Democratic national
assembly met, that conservatives in the party talked of refusing to
participate in the party councils, called at Chicago on July 7. They
were aware also that other and deeper sources of discontent were bound
to manifest themselves when the proceedings got under way.
The storm which broke over the party had long been gathering. The Grange
and Greenback movements did not disappear with the disappearance of the
outward signs of organization; they only merged into the Populist
movement with cumulative effect. The election of 1892 was ominous, for
the agrarian party had polled a million votes. It had elected members of
Congress and presidential electors; it was organized and determined. It
arose from a mass of discontent which was justified, if misdirected. It
was no temporary wave, as superficial observers have imagined. It had
elements of solidity which neither of the old parties could ignore or
cover up. No one was more conscious of this than the western and
southern leaders in the Democratic party. They had been near the base of
action, and they thought that what the eastern leaders called a riot was
in fact the beginning of a revolution. Unwilling to desert their
traditional party, they decided to make the party desert its traditions,
and they came to the Democratic convention in Chicago prepared for war
to the hilt.
From the opening to the close, the Democratic convention in Chicago in
1896 was vibrant with class feeling. Even in the prayer with which the
proceedings began, the clergyman pleaded: "May the hearts of all be
filled with profound respect and sympathy for our toiling multitudes,
oppressed with burdens too heavy for them to bear--heavier than we
should allow them to bear,"--a prayer that might have been an echo of
some of the speeches made in behalf of the income tax in Congress.
The struggle began immediately after the prayer, when the presiding
officer, on behalf of the retiring national committee, reported as
temporary chairman of the convention, David B. Hill, of New York, the
unrelenting opponent of the income tax and everything that savored of
it. Immediately afterward, Mr. Clayton, speaking in behalf of
twenty-three members of the national committee as opposed to
twenty-seven, presented a minority report which proposed the Honorable
John W. Daniel, of Virginia, as chairman. Pleas were made that the
traditions of the party ought not to be violated by a refusal to accept
the recommendations of the national committee.
After a stormy debate, the minority report of the national committee,
proposing Mr. Daniel for chairman, was carried by a vote of 556 to 349.
The states which voted solidly or principally for Mr. Hill were
Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont,
Wisconsin, and Alaska--all of the New England and Central seaboard
states, which represented the accumulated wealth of the country. The
official proceedings of the convention state, "When the result of this
vote was announced, there was a period of nearly twenty minutes during
which no business could be transacted, on account of the applause,
cheers, noise and confusion."
In his opening speech as chairman, Mr. Daniel declared that they were
witnessing "an uprising of the people for American emancipation from the
conspiracies of European kings led by Great Britain, which seek to
destroy one half of the money of the world." He declared in favor of
bimetallism and devoted most of his speech to the monetary question and
to repeated declarations of financial independence in behalf of the
United States. He also attacked, however, the tax system which the
Democrats inherited from the Republicans in 1893, and in speaking of the
deficit which was incurred under the Democratic tariff act he declared
that it would have been met by the income tax incorporated in the tariff
bill "had not the Supreme Court of the United States reversed its
settled doctrines of a hundred years." On the second day of the
convention, while the committees were preparing their reports, Governor
Hogg, of Texas, Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, Governor Altgeld, of
Illinois, and other gentlemen were invited to address the convention.
The first of these speakers denounced the Republican party as a "great
class maker and mass smasher"; he scorned that "farcical practice" which
had given governmental protection to the wealthy and left the laborer to
protect himself. "This protected class of Republicans," he exclaimed,
"proposes now to destroy labor organizations. To that end it has
organized syndicates, pools, and trusts, and proposes through the
Federal courts, in the exercise of their unconstitutional powers by the
issuance of extraordinary unconstitutional writs, to strike down, to
suppress, and to overawe those organizations, backed by the Federal
bayonet.... Men who lived there in their mansions and rolled in luxuries
were the only ones to get the benefit of this Republican [sugar] bounty
called protection." Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, exclaimed that
"Christ with a lash drove from the temple a better set of men than those
who for twenty years have shaped the financial policy of this country."
Governor Altgeld declared: "We have seen the streets of our cities
filled with idle men, with hungry women, and with ragged children. The
country to-day looks to the deliberations of this convention to promise
some form of relief." This relief was to be secured by the
remonetization of silver and the emancipation of the country from
English capitalists and eastern financiers.
* * * * *
On the third day of the convention, Senator Jones, of Arkansas, chairman
of the committee on platform, reported the conclusions of the majority
of his committee. In the platform, as reported, there were many
expressions of class feeling. It declared that the act of 1873
demonetizing silver caused a fall in the price of commodities produced
by the people, a heavy increase in the public taxation and in all debts,
public and private, the enrichment of the money-lending class at home
and abroad, the prostration of industry, and the impoverishment of the
people. The McKinley tariff was denounced as "a prolific breeder of
trusts and monopolies" which had "enriched the few at the expense of
the many."
The platform made the money question, however, the paramount issue, and
declared for "the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at
the present legal ratio of sixteen to one without waiting for the aid or
consent of any other nation." It stated that, until the monetary
question was settled, no changes should be made in the tariff laws
except for the purpose of meeting the deficit caused by the adverse
decision of the Supreme Court in the income tax cases. The platform at
this point turned upon the Court and asserted that the income tax law
had been passed "by a Democratic Congress in strict pursuance of the
uniform decisions of that Court for nearly a hundred years." It then
hinted at a reconstruction of the Court, declaring that, "it is the duty
of Congress to use all the constitutional power which remains after that
decision or which may come from its reversal by the Court, as it may
hereafter be constituted, so that the burden of taxation may be equally
and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may bear its due proportion
of the expense of the government."
The platform contained many expressions of sympathy with labor. "As
labor creates the wealth of the country," ran one plank, "we demand the
passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect it in all its
rights." It favored arbitration for labor conflicts in interstate
commerce. Referring to the recent Pullman strike and the labor war in
Chicago, it denounced "arbitrary interference by Federal authorities in
local affairs as a violation of the Constitution of the United States
and a crime against free institutions, and we specially object to
government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of
oppression by which Federal judges, in contempt of the laws of the
states and rights of citizens, become at once legislators, judges, and
executioners; and we approve the bill passed by the last session of the
United States Senate, and now pending in the House of Representatives,
relative to contempt in Federal courts and providing for trials by jury
in certain cases of contempt."
The platform did not expressly attack the administration of President
Cleveland, but the criticism of the intervention by Federal authorities
in local affairs was directed particularly to his interference in the
Chicago strike. The departure from the ordinary practice of praising the
administration of the party's former leader itself revealed the feeling
of the majority of the convention.
A minority of the platform committee composed of sixteen delegates
presented objections to the platform as reported by Senator Jones and
offered amendments. In their report the minority asserted that many
declarations in the majority report were "ill-considered and ambiguously
phrased, while others are extreme and revolutionary of the
well-recognized principles of the party." The free coinage of silver
independently of other nations, the minority claimed, would place the
United States at once "upon a silver basis, impair contracts, disturb
business, diminish the purchasing powers of the wages of labor, and
inflict irreparable evils upon our nation's commerce and industry." The
minority, therefore, proposed the maintenance of the existing gold
standard; and concluded by criticizing the report of the majority as
"defective in failing to make any recognition of the honesty, economy,
courage, and fidelity of the present Democratic administration." This
minority report was supplemented by two amendments proposed by Senator
Hill, one to the effect that any change in the monetary standard should
not apply to existing contracts and the other pledging the party to
suspend, within one year from its enactment, the law providing for the
independent free coinage of silver, in case that coinage did not realize
the expectation of the party to secure a parity between gold and silver
at the ratio of sixteen to one.
After the presentation of the platform and the proposed changes, an
exciting and disorderly debate followed. The discussion was opened by
Mr. Tillman, who exclaimed that the Civil War had emancipated the black
slaves and that they were now in convention to head a fight for the
emancipation of the white slaves, even if it disrupted the Democratic
party as the Civil War had disrupted it. Without any equivocation and
amid loud and prolonged hissing, he declared that the new issue like the
old one was sectional--a declaration of political war on the part of the
hewers of wood and the drawers of water in the southern and western
states against the East. He compared the growth of fifteen southern
states in wealth and population with the growth of Pennsylvania; he
compared Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri with Massachusetts;
to these five western states he added Kentucky, Tennessee, Kansas, and
Nebraska, and compared them all with the state of New York. The upshot
of his comparison was that the twenty-five southern and western states
were in economic bondage to the East and that we now had a money
oligarchy more insolent than the slave oligarchy which the Civil War had
overthrown.
Mr. Tillman could scarcely contain his wrath when he came to a
consideration of the proposal to indorse Cleveland's administration. He
denounced the Democratic President as "a tool of Wall Street"; and
declared that they could not indorse him without writing themselves down
as "asses and liars." "They ask us to indorse his courage," exclaimed
Mr. Tillman. "Well, now, no one disputes the man's boldness and
obstinacy, because he had the courage to ignore his oath of office, and
redeem, in gold, paper obligations of the government, which were payable
in coin--both gold and silver, and, furthermore, he had the courage to
override the Constitution of the United States and invaded the state of
Illinois with the United States army and undertook to override the
rights and liberties of his fellow citizens. They ask us to indorse his
fidelity. He has been faithful unto death, or rather unto the death of
the Democratic party, so far as he represents it, through the policy of
the friends that he had in New York and ignored the entire balance of
the Union." Mr. Tillman was dissatisfied with the platform because it
did not attack Mr. Cleveland's policies, and, amid great confusion
throughout the hall, he proposed that the platform should "denounce the
administration of President Cleveland as undemocratic and tyrannical."
He warned the convention that, "If this Democratic ship goes to sea on
storm-tossed waves without fumigating itself, without express
repudiation of this man who has sought to destroy his party, then the
Republican ship goes into port and you go down in disgrace, defeated in
November." In his proposed amendment to the platform, he asserted that
Cleveland had used the veto power to thwart the will of the people, and
the appointive power to subsidize the press and debauch Congress. The
issue of bonds to purchase gold, to discharge obligations payable in
coin at the option of the government, and the use of the proceeds for
ordinary expenses, he denounced as "unlawful and usurpations of
authority deserving of impeachment."
After Senator Jones was given the floor for a few moments to repudiate
the charge brought by Mr. Tillman that the fight was sectional in
character, Senator Hill, of New York, began the real attack upon the
platform proposed by the majority. The Senator opened by saying that he
was a Democrat, but not a revolutionist, that the question before them
was one of business and finance, not of bravery and loyalty, and that
the first step toward monetary reform should be a statement in favor of
international bimetallism. He followed this by a special criticism of
the declaration in favor of the ratio of sixteen to one which was, in
his opinion, not only an unwise and unnecessary thing, but destined to
return to plague them in the future.
Senator Hill then turned to the income tax which he had so vigorously
denounced on the floor of the Senate two years before. "What was the
necessity," he asked, "for putting into the platform other questions
which have never been made the tests of Democratic loyalty before? Why
revive the disputed question of the policy and constitutionality of an
income tax?... Why, I say, should it be left to this convention to make
as a tenet of Democratic faith belief in the propriety and
constitutionality of an income tax law?
"Why was it wise to assail the Supreme Court of your country? Will some
one tell what that clause means in this platform? 'If you meant what you
said and said what you meant,' will some one explain that provision?
That provision, if it means anything, means that it is the duty of
Congress to reconstruct the Supreme Court of the country. It means, and
such purpose was openly avowed, it means the adding of additional
members to the Court or the turning out of office and reconstructing the
whole Court. I said I will not follow any such revolutionary step as
that. Whenever before in the history of this country has devotion to an
income tax been made the test of Democratic loyalty? Never! Have you not
undertaken enough, my good friends, now without seeking to put in this
platform these unnecessary, foolish, and ridiculous things?"
"What further have you done?" continued the Senator. "In this platform
you have declared, for the first time in the history of this country,
that you are opposed to any life tenure whatever for office. Our fathers
before us, our Democratic fathers, whom we revere, in the establishment
of this government, gave our Federal judges a life tenure of office.
What necessity was there for reviving this question? How foolish and how
unnecessary, in my opinion. Democrats, whose whole lives have been
devoted to the service of the party, men whose hopes, whose ambitions,
whose aspirations, all lie within party lines, are to be driven out of
the party upon this new question of life tenure for the great judges of
our Federal courts. No, no; this is a revolutionary step, this is an
unwise step, this is an unprecedented step in our party history."
Senator Hill then turned to a defense of President Cleveland's policy,
denouncing the attempt to bring in the bond issue as foolish and
calculated to put them on the defensive in every school district in the
country. He closed by begging the convention not "to drive old Democrats
out of the party who have grown gray in the service, to make room for a
lot of Republicans and Populists, and political nondescripts."
Senator Hill's protest was supported by Senator Vilas from Wisconsin,
who saw in the proposed free coinage of silver no difference, except in
degree, between "the confiscation of one half of the credits of the
nation for the benefit of debtors," and "a universal distribution of
property." In this radical scheme there was nothing short of "the
beginning of the overthrow of all law, of all justice, of all security
and repose in the social order." He warned the convention that the
American people would not tolerate the first steps toward the atrocities
of the French Revolution, although "in the vastness of this country
there may be some Marat unknown, some Danton or Robespierre." He asked
the members of the convention when and where robbery by law had come to
be a Democratic doctrine, and with solemn earnestness he pleaded with
them not to launch the old party out on a wild career or to "pull down
the pillars of the temple and crush us all beneath the ruins." He
declared that the gold standard was not responsible for falling prices;
that any stable standard had "no more to do with prices than a yard
stick or a pair of scales." He begged them to adopt the proposed
amendment which would limit the effect of the change of standards to
future contracts and thus deliver the platform from an imputation of a
purpose to plunder.
The closing speech for the platform was then made by Mr. William
Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska, who clothed his plea in the armor of
righteousness, announcing that he had come to speak "in defense of a
cause as holy as the cause of liberty--the cause of humanity." The
spirit and zeal of a crusader ran through his speech. Indeed, when
speaking of the campaign which the Silver Democrats had made to capture
the party, he referred to that frenzy which inspired the crusaders under
the leadership of Peter the Hermit. He spoke in defense of the wage
earner, the lawyer in the country town, the merchant at the crossroads
store, the farmer and the miner,--naming them one after the other and
ranging himself on their side. "We stand here," he said, "representing
people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the
state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we
shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed
our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made
too limited in its application the definition of a business man. 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 the crossroads 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, begins in the spring and toils
all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural
resources of this 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 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 in 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 those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the
wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose--those
pioneers away out there, rearing 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
children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the
cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead--are as deserving of the
consideration of this 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 the 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!"
Mr. Bryan then took up the income tax. He repudiated the idea that the
proposed platform contained a criticism of the Supreme Court. He said,
"We have simply called attention to what you know. If you want
criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the court." He denied that
the income tax law was unconstitutional when it was passed, or even when
it went before the Supreme Court for the first time. "It did not become
unconstitutional," he exclaimed, "until one judge changed his mind; and
we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind."
The monetary question was the great paramount issue. But Mr. Bryan did
not stop to discuss any of the technical points involved in it.
Protection had slain its thousands, and the gold standard had slain its
tens of thousands; the people of the United States did not surrender
their rights of self-government to foreign potentates and powers. The
common people of no land had ever declared in favor of the gold
standard, but bondholders had. If the gold standard was a good thing,
international bimetallism was wrong; if the gold standard was a bad
thing, the United States ought not to wait for the help of other nations
in righting a wrong--this was the line of Mr. Bryan's attack. And he
concluded by saying: "Mr. Carlisle said, in 1878, that this was a
struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling
masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and, my
friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side
shall the Democratic party fight? Upon the side of the idle holders of
idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? That is the
question that the party must answer first; and then it must be answered
by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as
described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who
have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party.
"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if
you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity
will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if
you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find
its way up and through every class that rests upon it.
"You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the
gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these 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 this country.
"My friends, we shall 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, and upon that issue we expect to carry
every single State in this Union.
"I shall not slander the fair State of Massachusetts, nor the State of
New York, by saying that when its citizens are confronted with the
proposition, 'Is this nation able to attend to its own business?'--I
will not slander either one by saying that the people of those States
will declare our helpless impotency as a nation to attend to our own
business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but
3,000,000, had the courage to declare their political independence of
every other nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants, when we have
grown to 70,000,000, declare that we are less independent than our
forefathers? No, my friends, it will never be the judgment of this
people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If
they say bimetallism is good, but we cannot have it till some nation
helps us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because
England has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then let England have
bimetallism because the United States have.
"If they dare to come out and in the open defend the gold standard as a
good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the
producing masses of the Nation and the world. Having behind us the
commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling
masses, we shall answer their demands 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."
The record of the convention states that "the conclusion of Mr. Bryan's
speech was the signal for a tremendous outburst of noise, cheers, etc.
The standards of many states were carried from their places and
gathered about the Nebraska delegation." Never in the history of
convention oratory had a speaker so swayed the passions of his auditors
and so quickly made himself unquestionably "the man of the hour."
After some parliamentary skirmishing, Mr. Hill succeeded in securing
from the convention a vote on the proposition of the minority in favor
of the maintenance of the gold standard, "until international
cooperation among the leading nations in the coinage of silver can be
secured." For this proposition the eastern states voted almost solidly,
with some help from the western states. Connecticut gave her twelve
votes for the substitute amendment; Delaware, five of her six votes;
Maine, ten out of twelve; Maryland, twelve out of sixteen;
Massachusetts, twenty-seven out of thirty; New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont gave their entire vote
for the gold standard. The eastern states secured a little support in
the West and South. Minnesota gave eleven out of seventeen votes for the
amendment; Wisconsin voted solidly for it; Florida gave three out of
eight votes; Washington gave three out of eight; Alaska voted solidly
for it; the District of Columbia and New Mexico each cast two out of the
six votes allotted to them in the convention. Out of a total of 929
votes cast, 303 were for the minority amendment and 626 against it.
The minority proposition to commend "the honesty, economy, courage, and
fidelity of the present Democratic administration" was then put to the
convention and received a vote of 357 to 564--nine not voting. The
additional support to the eastern states came this time principally from
California, Michigan, and Minnesota; but the division between the
Northeast and the West and South was sharply maintained. The adoption of
the platform as reported by the majority of the committee was then
effected by a vote of 628 to 301.
* * * * *
In the evening the convention turned to the selection of candidates. In
the nominating speeches, the character of the revolution in American
politics came out even more clearly than in the debates on the platform.
The enemy had been routed, and the convention was in the hands of the
radicals, and they did not have to compromise and pick phrases in the
hope of harmony.
Richard Bland, of Missouri, was the first man put before the convention,
and he was represented as "the living, breathing embodiment of the
silver cause"--a candidate chosen "not from the usurer's den, nor temple
of Mammon where the clink of gold drowns the voice of patriotism; but
from the farm, the workshop, the mine--from the hearts and homes of the
people." Mr. Overmeyer, of Kansas, seconded the nomination of Mr.
Bland--"that Tiberius Gracchus"--"in the name of the farmers of the
United States; in the name of the homeless wanderers who throng your
streets in quest of bread; in the name of that mighty army of the
unemployed; in the name of that mightier army which has risen in
insurrection against every form of despotism."
Mr. Bryan was presented as that young giant of the West, that friend of
the people, that champion of the lowly, that apostle and prophet of
this great crusade for financial reform--a new Cicero to meet the new
Catilines of to-day--to lead the Democratic party, the defender of the
poor, and the protector of the oppressed, which this day sent forth
"tidings of great joy to all the toiling millions of this overburdened
land."
On the first ballot, fourteen candidates were voted for, but Mr. Bland
and Mr. Bryan were clearly in the lead. On the fifth ballot, Mr. Bryan
was declared nominated by a vote of 652 out of 930. Throughout the
balloting, most of the eastern states abstained from voting. Ten
delegates from Connecticut, seventeen or eighteen from Massachusetts, a
majority from New Jersey, all of the delegates from New York, and a
majority of the delegates from Wisconsin refused to take any part at
all. Pennsylvania remained loyal throughout to the nominee from that
state, Pattison, although it was a forlorn hope. Thus in the balloting
for candidates, we discover the same alignment of the East against the
West and South which was evident in the vote on the platform. In the
vote on the Vice President which followed, the eastern states refused to
participate--from 250 to 260 delegates abstaining during the five
ballots which resulted in the nomination of Sewall. New York
consistently abstained; so did New Jersey; while a majority of the
delegates from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts refused to take part.
In the notification speech delivered by Mr. Stone at Madison Square
Garden in New York on August 12, the Democratic party was represented as
the champion of the masses and their leader as "a plain man of the
people." He defended the men of the Chicago convention against the
charge of being cranks, anarchists, and socialists, declaring them to be
the representatives of the industrial and producing classes who
constituted "the solid strength and safety of the state" against the
combined aggressions of foreign money changers and Anglicized American
millionaires--"English toadies and the pampered minions of corporate
rapacity." Against the selfish control of the privileged classes, he
placed the sovereignty of the people, declaring that within both of the
old parties there was a mighty struggle for supremacy between those who
stood for the sovereignty of the people and those who believed in "the
divinity of pelf." He took pride in the fact that the convention
represented "the masses of the people, the great industrial and
producing masses of the people. It represented the men who plow and
plant, who fatten herds, who toil in shops, who fell forests, and delve
in mines. But are these to be regarded with contumely and addressed in
terms of contempt? Why, sir, these are the men who feed and clothe the
nation; whose products make up the sum of our exports; who produce the
wealth of the republic; who bear the heaviest burdens in times of peace;
who are ready always to give their lifeblood for their country's
flag--in short, these are the men whose sturdy arms and faithful hands
uphold the stupendous fabric of our civilization."
Mr. Bryan's speech of acceptance was almost entirely devoted to a
discussion of the silver question. But he could not ignore the charge,
which had then become widespread throughout the country, that his party
meditated an attack upon the rights of property and was the foe of
social order and national honor. He repudiated the idea that his party
believed that equality of talents and wealth could be produced by human
institutions; he declared his belief in private property as the stimulus
to endeavor and compensation for toil; but he took his stand upon the
principle that all should be equal before the law. Among his foes he
discovered "those who find a pecuniary advantage in advocating the
doctrines of non-interference when great aggregations of wealth are
trespassing upon the rights of individuals." The government should
enforce the laws against all enemies of the public weal, not only the
highwayman who robs the unsuspecting traveler, but also the
transgressors who "through the more polite and less hazardous means of
legislation appropriate to their own use the proceeds of the toil of
others."
In his opinion, the Democratic income tax was not based upon hostility
to the rich, but was simply designed to apportion the burdens of
government more equitably among those who enjoyed its protection. As to
the matter of the Supreme Court, there was no suggestion in the platform
of a dispute with that tribunal. For a hundred years the Court had
upheld the underlying principle of the income tax, and twenty years
before "this same Court sustained without a dissenting voice an income
tax law almost identical with the one recently overthrown." The platform
did not propose an attack on the Supreme Court; some future Court had as
much right "to return to the judicial precedents of a century as the
present Court had to depart from them. When Courts allow rehearings
they admit that error is possible; the late decision against the income
tax was rendered by a majority of one after a rehearing."
Discussing the monetary question, Mr. Bryan confined his argument to a
few principles which he deemed fundamental. He disposed of international
bimetallism by questioning the good faith of those who advocated it and
declaring that there was an impassable gulf between a universal gold
standard and bimetallism, whether independent or international. He
rejected the proposition that any metal represented an absolutely just
standard of value, but he argued that bimetallism was better than
monometallism because it made a nearer approach to stability, honesty,
and justice than a gold standard possibly could. Any legislation
lessening the stock of standard money increased the purchasing power of
money and lowered the monetary value of all other forms of property. He
endeavored to show the advantages to be derived from bimetallism by
farmers, wage earners, and the professional classes, and asked whether
the mass of the people did not have the right to use the ballot to
protect themselves from the disastrous consequences of a rising
standard, particularly in view of the fact that the relatively few whose
wealth consisted largely in fixed investments had not hesitated to use
the ballot to enhance the value of their investments.
On the question of the ratio, sixteen to one, Mr. Bryan declared that,
because gold and silver were limited in the quantities then in hand and
in annual production, legislation could fix the ratio between them,
simply following the law of supply and demand. The charge of
repudiation he met with an argument in kind, declaring it to come "with
poor grace from those who are seeking to add to the weight of existing
debts by legislation which makes money dearer, and who conceal their
designs against the general welfare under the euphonious pretense that
they are upholding public credit and national honor." He concluded with
a warning to his hearers that they could not afford to join the money
changers in supporting a financial policy which destroyed the purchasing
power of the product of toil and ended with discouraging the creation of
wealth.
In a letter of acceptance of September 9, 1896, Mr. Bryan added little
to the speeches he had made in the convention and in accepting the
nomination. He attacked the bond policy of President Cleveland and
declared that to assert that "the government is dependent upon the good
will or assistance of any portion of the people other than a
constitutional majority is to assert that we have a government in form
but without vital force." Capital, he urged, was created by labor, and
"since the producers of wealth create the nation's prosperity in time of
peace and defend the nation's flag in time of peril, their interests
ought at all times to be considered by those who stand in official
positions." He criticized the abuses in injunction proceedings and
favored the principle of trial by jury in such cases. He declared that
it was not necessary to discuss the tariff at that time because the
money question was the overshadowing issue, and all minor matters must
be laid aside in favor of united action on that moot point.
A few of the advocates of the gold standard in the Democratic party, who
could not accept the Chicago platform and were yet unwilling to go over
to the Republicans, held a convention at Indianapolis in September, and
nominated a ticket, headed by John M. Palmer for President, and Simon
Buckner for Vice President. This party, through the address of its
executive committee calling the convention, declared that Democrats were
absolved from all obligations to support the Chicago platform because
the convention had departed from the recognized Democratic faith and had
announced doctrines which were "destructive of national honor and
private obligation and tend to create sectional and class distinctions
and engender discord and strife among the people." The address
repudiated the doctrine of majority rule in the party, declaring that
when a Democratic convention departed from the principles of the party,
no Democrat was under any moral obligation to support its action.
The principles of the party which, the address declared, had been
adhered to from Jefferson to Cleveland "without variableness or a shadow
of turning" were summed up in a policy of _laissez faire_. A true
Democrat, ran the address, "believes, and this is the cardinal doctrine
of his political faith, in the ability of every individual unassisted,
if unfettered by law, to achieve his own happiness, and therefore that
to every citizen there should be secured the right and opportunity
peaceably to pursue whatever course of conduct he would, provided such
conduct deprived no other individual of the equal enjoyment of the same
right and opportunity. He stood for freedom of speech, freedom of
conscience, freedom of trade, and freedom of contract, all of which are
implied by the century-old battle cry of the Democratic party
'Individual Liberty!' ... Every true Democrat ... profoundly disbelieves
in the ability of the government, through paternal legislation, or
supervision, to increase the happiness of the nation."
In the platform adopted at the convention, the "National Democratic
party" was pledged to the general principles enunciated in the address
and went on record as "opposed to all paternalism and all class
legislation." It declared that the Chicago convention had attacked
"individual freedom, the right of private contract, the independence of
the judiciary, and the authority of the President to enforce Federal
laws." It denounced protection and the free coinage of silver as two
schemes designed for the personal profit of the few at the expense of
the masses; it declared in favor of the gold standard, indorsed
President Cleveland's administration, and went to the support of the
Supreme Court by condemning "all efforts to degrade that tribunal or to
impair the confidence and respect which it has deservedly held."
This platform received the support of President Cleveland, who, in
response to an invitation to attend the meeting at which the candidates
were to be notified, said: "As a Democrat, devoted to the principles and
integrity of my party, I should be delighted to be present on an
occasion so significant and to mingle with those who are determined that
the voice of true Democracy shall not be smothered and who insist that
the glorious standard shall be borne aloft as of old in faithful
hands."
In their acceptance speeches, Palmer and Buckner devoted more attention
to condemning the Chicago platform than to explaining the principles for
which they stood. General Buckner said: "The Chicago Convention would
wipe virtually out of existence the Supreme Court which interprets the
law, forgetting that our ancestors in England fought for hundreds of
years to obtain a tribunal of justice which was free from executive
control. They would wipe that out of existence and subject it to the
control of party leaders to carry out the dictates of the party--they
would paralyze the arm of the general government and forbid the powers
to protect the lives and property of its citizens. That convention in
terms almost placed a lighted torch in the hands of the incendiary and
urged the mob to proceed without restraint to pillage and murder at
their discretion."
_The Campaign_
The campaign which followed the conventions was the most remarkable in
the long history of our quadrennial spectacles. Terror is always a
powerful instrument in politics, and it was never used with greater
effect than in the summer and autumn of 1896. Some of Mr. Bryan's
utterances, particularly on the income tax, frightened the rich into
believing, or pretending to believe, that his election would be the
beginning of a wholesale confiscation. The Republicans replied to Mr.
Bryan's threats by using the greatest of all terrors, the terror of
unemployment, with tremendous effect. Everywhere they let the country
understand that the defeat of Mr. McKinley would close factories and
throw thousands of workingmen out of employment, and manufacturers and
railways were accused by Mr. Bryan of exercising coercion on a large
scale.
To this terror from above, the Democrats responded by creating terror
below, by stirring deep-seated class feeling against the Republican
candidate and his managers. In a letter given out from the Democratic
headquarters in Chicago, on September 12, 1896, Mr. Jones, chairman of
the Democratic national committee, said: "Against the people in this
campaign are arrayed the consolidated forces of wealth and corporate
power. The classes which have grown fat by reason of Federal legislation
and the single gold standard have combined to fasten their fetters still
more firmly upon the people and are organizing every precinct of every
county of every state in the Union with this purpose in view. To meet
and defeat this corrupt and unholy alliance the people themselves must
organize and be organized.... It will minimize the effect of the
millions of dollars that are being used against us, and defeat those
influences which wealth and corporate power are endeavoring to use to
override the will of the people and corrupt the integrity of free
institutions."
Owing to the nature of the conflict enormous campaign funds were
secured. The silver miners helped to finance Mr. Bryan, but their
contributions were trivial compared with the immense sums raised by Mr.
Hanna from protected interests, bankers, and financiers. With this great
fund, speakers were employed by the thousands, newspapers were
subsidized, party literature circulated by the ton, whole states polled
in advance, and workers employed to carry the Republican fight into
every important precinct in the country. The God of battles was on the
side of the heaviest battalions. With all the most powerful engines for
creating public sentiment against him, Mr. Bryan, in spite of his
tremendous popular appeal, was doomed to defeat.
Undoubtedly, as was said at the time, most of the leading thinkers in
finance and politics were against Mr. Bryan, and if there is anything in
the verdict of history, the silver issue could not stand the test of
logic and understanding. But it must not be presumed that it was merely
a battle of wits, and that demagogic appeals to passions which were
supposed to be associated with Mr. Bryan's campaign were confined to his
partisans. On the contrary, the Republicans employed all of the forms of
personal vituperation. For example, that staid journal of Republicanism,
the _New York Tribune_, attributed the growth of Bryanism to the
"assiduous culture of the basest passions of the least worthy member of
the community.... 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 desperadoes of that
stripe. But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was,--willing and eager. None
of his masters was more apt than he at lies and forgeries and
blasphemies and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign against
the Ten Commandments." That such high talk by those who constituted
themselves the guardians of public credit, patriotism, and the Ten
Commandments was not calculated to sooth the angry passions of their
opponents needs no demonstration here.
* * * * *
Argument, party organization and machinery, the lavish use of money, and
terror won the day for the Republicans. The solid East and Middle West
overwhelmed Mr. Bryan, giving Mr. McKinley 271 electoral votes and
7,111,607 popular votes, as against 176 electoral and 6,509,052 popular
votes cast for the Democratic candidate.
The decisive defeat of Mr. Bryan put an end to the silver issue for
practical purposes, although, as we shall see, it was again raised in
1900. The Republicans, however, delayed action for political reasons,
and it was not until almost four years had elapsed that they made the
gold dollar the standard by an act of Congress approved on March 4,
1900. Thus the war of the standards was closed, but the question of the
currency was not settled, and the old issue of inflation and contraction
continued to haunt the paths of the politicians. From time to time, the
prerogatives of the national banks, organized under the law of 1863
(modified in 1901), were questioned in political circles, and in 1908 an
attempt was made by act of Congress to give the currency more elasticity
by authorizing the banks to form associations and issue notes on the
basis of certain securities. Nevertheless, no serious changes were made
in the financial or banking systems before the close of the year 1912.
The attention of the country, shortly after the campaign of 1896, was
diverted to the spectacular events of the Spanish War, and for a time
appeals to patriotism subdued the passions of the radicals.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] See below, p. 239.
[42] H. Croly, _M. A. Hanna_, p. 195.