mentous they may appear, to sunder, if need be, all former party ties and affiliations, and unite in one supreme effort to free themselves and their children from the domination of the money power-a power more destructive than any which has ever been fastened upon the civilized men of any race or in any age. And upon the consummation of our desires and efforts we evoke the gracious favor of Divine Providence.

The nominations were next taken up. My name was presented by Hon. Edward C. Little, of Kansas, who spoke as follows:

Mr. Little's Speech.

By the gracious favor of our neighbor Nebraska, the State of Kansas is accorded the privilege of placing before this convention for your nomination, the next President of the United States. A long generation ago, the twin Territories of Kansas and Nebraska were cast adrift upon the waves of politics, to return to a redeemed and regenerated nation, the bread of human freedom on the waters of human life. In that great epoch Kansas stood first. Her proud history is written yonder in your stars. Nebraska's day and Nebraska's man have come. The ark of the covenant of human freedom which John Brown of Osawatomie pitched at the foot of Mount Oread, we now resign to the Valley of the Platte. Again the doors of the nation's theater are open. The curtain rises and Nebraska takes the stage. The scene has shifted, gentlemen, from the historic, but cabined, cribbed and confined walls of Faneuil Hall, to that vaster arena in which the Father of Waters rolls unfettered to the sea. Through a long term of years the world has experienced a depression in business, such as was never before known, touching every department of human industry, reaching every quarter of the civilized globe, and involving every Christian land. For twenty-three years our people have suffered a financial system which divided all we own and doubled all we owe. Recent events have not reassured those who are interested in maintaining the rights of average men. Within the last twelve months we have been told that we hold the right of trial by jury at the option of Federal judges. From Runnymede till now no man of Anglo-Saxon blood has ever dreamed that such was the law. Within the last twelve months our highest tribunal has reversed a decision which John Marshall respected and to which Roger Taney bowed, and has annulled a law that was made when the foundations of the Republic were laid. Therefore the incomes of the great fortunes accumulated during the last thirty years pay no tribute to support the government which protects them. That great convention which recently assembled in this city raised no voice of protest, but abandoning the interests and deserting the traditions of the American people for the first time committed the Republican party to the maintenance of a single gold standard. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the rate of $262,000,000 per annum? They would cover the American flag with dollar marks bigger than the spots on the sun. They put William McKinley on the platform but they put Grover Cleveland in the platform. The hand was the hand of Esau, but the voice was the voice of Jacob. The St. Louis Convention may have changed its mind but the American people have not altered their opinions. They have thrown down the gauntlet and we cannot honorably avoid the conflict.

Self respect will not permit us longer to defer to the arrogant assumptions of those whose financial policy leaves the Treasury unarmed, unguarded, unpicketed against the raids of Wall street highwaymen, and brings the farmer so low that his products go like salvation, without money and without price. After the rank incompetence manifested by our financiers during recent years that they should still presume to instruct anybody is the very impudence of arrogant audacity. Columbia has reached her majority. We now propose that she conduct her own affairs without dictation from foreign financiers or suggestion from foreign parliament. We intend to enforce every sentence, every clause, every word, which Thomas Jefferson put in the Declaration of Independence. We hoped for better things from the Republican party. Long enough has humanity walked through the fiery furnace. Soon or never must God's poor be led by stiller waters and into greener pastures. In spite of Confucius and Buddha, of Socrates in prison, of Jesus of Nazareth on the Cross, power is still arrogant, greed is still impudent, and talent is still selfish. The time has come to determine whether this nation is ruled by an Almighty Dollar or by an Almighty God.

In a few days William J. Bryan of Nebraska will stand in Madison Square Garden the champion of Lazarus at the gates of Dives. Both will be present. The Roman ambassador stood before the Carthaginian Senate and said: "I hold peace and war in the folds of my toga. Which shall I shake out to you?" The Carthaginians cried, "War, war," and were swept from the earth. The eloquent Senator Vilas of Wisconsin said at Chicago: "Perhaps somewhere in this country there lurks a Robespierre, a Danton, a Marat." I will eliminate the perhaps for the distinguished senator. Always in the swamps of want, in the jungles of poverty there lurks a Robespierre, a Danton, a Marat. There be men in this country who will do well to listen to Mirabeau that Danton shall never come. Christ forgave the thief and pardoned the courtesan, but the money changers he scourged from the temple. Long enough has selfish and greedy thrift dominated the councils of the Republic. Washington never fought, Warren never fell to establish an oligarchy of baronial millionaires. Eighteen centuries have passed away, but it is not yet too late to crucify Barabbas. The people have accepted the challenge Wall street issued at St. Louis. Pleasant it is for the Little Tin Gods,

When the Great Jove nods.

But the Little Tin Gods make their mistakes,

That they miss the hour when the Great Jove wakes.

The sophistical logic of "business" argument cannot avoid, the enticing glitter of Lombard gold cannot disguise, the sonorous periods of rounded eloquence cannot disprove the simple proposition that for a long term of years our property has diminished in value, while our liabilities make greater demands than are named in the stipulation. The honest dollar is the dollar of the contract. We stand ready to endure the due and forfeit of our bond-no more, no less. "If you deny it fie upon your law." Therefore we have assembled in the assured conviction of the ultimate and I believe the immediate triumph of the people's cause. To doubt it is to impeach the intelligence of the American people. To deny it is to question the justice of the Great Creator. Therefore I present to you no Moses to lead the people forty years in the wilderness,

but a gifted young Joshua who shall bid the golden sun and the silver moon stand still while he fights the battle of human freedom.

The nation cried out in her hour of peril and the West gave her Abraham Lincoln:

The land that loves him guards his rest,
The West, the West, the Rowdy West.

Again the nation calls and the West gives her a man sprung from the same soil, inspired by the same motives, loved by the same neighbors, and blessed we fondly believe by the same God. He is by ancestry, birth, education and experience, instinctively and distinctively an American-the very flower of the nation's purest life.

Civilization oscillates like a pendulum, from Solon the law-giver to Alexander the Conqueror, from wolf-nursed Romulus to Imperial Caesar, from Alfred the Liberator to Charles the Tyrant, from Charles Martel who saved, to Louis Capet who squandered Christendom, from Oliver Cromwell to George the Third, from George Washington to Jefferson Davis, from Abraham Lincoln to Grover Cleveland. At the termination of each oscillation, at the close of each epoch, there stands a Demosthenes, a Brutus, a John Hampden, a Mirabeau, a Patrick Henry or a John Brown of Kansas. The pendulum of human liberty has reached the end of the arc. We are at the conclusion of an epoch. The hour has come, the man appeared, the hero has been found. Worthy to stand by Demosthenes and Brutus and Hampden and Mirabeau and Henry and Brown is this most typical product of our Western civilization. Him I name to you for your suffrages for the highest office within the gift of the American Republic-William J. Bryan of Nebraska.

The nomination was seconded by Hon. L. C. Pace of Nebraska, Messrs. McGinley of Michigan, Basher of Iowa, Turner of Ohio, Baker of California, Wedderburn of Virginia, Doniphan of Missouri, McBride of Washington, Towne of Minnesota, Clarno of Oregon, and Mrs. Stansberry of Colorado. No other name being placed before the convention, the nomination was made by acclamation.

The convention then proceeded to the nomination of a candidate for Vice-President, but no speeches were delivered. Mr. Alexander Troop, of Connecticut, presented the name of Hon. Arthur Sewall, of Maine; the nomination was seconded by Mr. H. T. Niles, of Ohio. Mr. Sewall was made the nominee by acclamation.

In mentioning those who participated in the Silver Convention, I have been compelled to rely upon newspaper accounts of the convention and, therefore, much to my regret, have been sometimes unable to give the initials of persons referred to.