CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN THE SOUTH.

M

ONDAY was another busy day. Leaving East St. Louis early in the morning I spoke, among other places, at Belleville, Nashville, Mt. Vernon, McLeansboro and Carmi, all in Illinois, at Mt. Vernon and Evansville, in Indiana, and at Henderson, Owensboro, Hawesville and Louisville, in Kentucky. Hon. W. H. Cantrell, of Chicago, and Hon. A. G. Bentley, of Pike county, were in charge of the train through Illinois, while Hon. Urey Woodson, of Owensboro, Ky., National Committeeman, and Hon. H. A. Sommers, of Elizabethtown, Ky., chairman of the State committee, were in charge in Kentucky. The Evansville meeting was presided over by Hon. J. G. Shanklin, the veteran editor and silver advocate.

We entered the Southern States at Henderson, and were accorded a welcome which left nothing to be desired. In fact, the entire journey through Kentucky impressed me with the belief that the electoral vote of the State was safe beyond a peradventure. At Owensboro I met Hon. William T. Ellis, with whom I served in the House of Representatives, and others whose acquaintance I had formed when I visited Owensboro more than a year before.

Three meetings were held at Louisville, the first one at Phoenix Hill Park, the second at the Haymarket, and the third in front of the Willard Hotel. The following extract is from the first speech:

Louisville Speech.

As the regular nominee of the Democratic party I might appeal to you on the ground of the regularity of my nomination. I might call your attention to the fact that the Chicago convention was regularly called by the regular authority; that all over this Union Democrats assembled in the regular way to select their delegates to that convention. I might call your attention to the fact that no convention ever held in this country more accurately reflected the sentiment of the party which elected the delegates than did the Chicago convention. In no convention within this generation have the voters themselves taken so active and so influential a part as the voters of the Democratic party took in the Chicago convention. If you have regard for the will of the majority of the party, regularly expressed, then, my friends, I can appeal to you on the ground that I am the regular nominee of the Democratic party. But I shall appeal for your support on higher grounds than party regularity. I

expressly release, so far as I am concerned, from the support of the Chicago ticket every Democrat who believes that the success of that ticket will imperil the country. I shall ask no man to violate his judgment or be deaf to the voice of his conscience. I shall ask no one to place fealty to party above love of country. I would not do so myself; I shall ask no one to do what I would not be willing to do. I believe, my friends, that the Chicago platform resents the policies which will be best for the people of this country; I believe that these policies, crystallized into law, will bring blessings to the American people, and I call your attention to the fact that in this campaign the lines are drawn between Plutocracy and Democracy. In such a fight there is no middle ground; those who are not for us are against us. More than that, I beg you to remember that the ballot is not given to the individual as a matter of personal compliment. It is given to him as a sacred trust to be used as he thinks best, for the protection of himself, for the advancement of the welfare of his fellows, and for the good of his country; and no man has a right to throw that ballot away in time of danger. The Bible tells us of the man who hid his talents in the earth, and we read that he was condemned. Why? Because he neglected to improve his opportunities. I say to you, my friends, that in a campaign like this, where the syndicates, the trusts, and the "combinations of money grabbers in this country and Europe" are on one side, and the "struggling masses" on the other, no man has a right to throw away his ballot. If you think that the success of the Chicago ticket would be an injury to this country, you ought to vote the Republican ticket and save your country from distress. If you think that the election of the Republican ticket would be a bad thing for the country, then you ought to vote for the Chicago ticket and save your country from distress.

The Chicago platform does not present new doctrines; it presents to the American people the principles and policies which have received the support of the leaders of the Democratic party from the beginning down to this time. Now living Republicans seem to have more influence with some of our Democratic leaders than do the dead Democrats of the past.

Our platform declares against the issue of bonds in time of peace, and against trafficking with the syndicates, which, for the last few years, have been saving our country, at so much per save. Let me quote to you what a citizen of your own State once said upon this subject. Hon. John G. Carlisle, in 1878, used the words which I am about to read to you. He said:

"The struggle now going on cannot cease, and ought not to cease until all the industrial interests of this country are fully and finally emancipated from the heartless domination of syndicates, stock exchanges, and other great combinations of money grabbers in this country and Europe."

That, my friends, is the language used by Mr. Carlisle in 1878. I repeat that language now, and if I am wrong I have seven years to find out my mistake before I am as old as he was when he used the words. Has that heartless domination ceased? No. Instead of having ceased, it has grown more heartless every year. Have the industrial classes been fully and finally emancipated? No. In this campaign they intend to rivet permanently upon the industrial classes the shackles which they have been preparing for twenty years. This speech from which I read denounced the syndicates. The Democratic party

denounces those syndicates today, and I thank God that the party has driven out of its ranks the representatives of those syndicates. Mr. Carlisle's speech denounced the stock exchanges, and I rejoice that the stock exchanges are against us in the fight which we are making, because their opposition gives assurance that we are doing our duty to our country. That speech denounced the great combinations of money grabbers in this country and Europe. I denounce the Rothschild contract entered into by the present administration as the most infamous contract ever entered into by the United States with a private individual. I call it infamous, not so much because of the amount of money made by the syndicate, but because the Government in that contract bought the good will of two banking firms. Has it come to this, that seventy millions of people must purchase their right to exist from "the combinations of money grabbers in this country and Europe"?

Speaking of newspaper opposition, I said:

We do not have all the newspapers with us in this fight, but an editor only votes once, and I have known some editors who have had so little influence that they could not even control the one vote which the law gave them. We would be glad to have the newspapers with us, but while we would like to have the newspapers with us, we would far rather have the people with us at the polls than to have the support of all the newspapers. We would like to have the newspapers with us because we hate to have our people get mad every morning when they read them. I do not know of any one thing which causes so many people to forget their resolution not to swear again as the gold standard editorials which appear from day to day. Our opponents say that the advocates of free coinage do not think; that is too bad. I am sure that if the Creator had had the same opinion of the majority of the people that the average advocate of the gold standard has, He would not have wasted time giving brains to the people in general. He would have given a larger share to those who were predestined to write gold standard editorials, and then He would have given to all of the rest of the people backs strong enough to bear the increasing load which the gold standard editors would place upon them. They say that the advocates of free coinage do not think. I affirm that the advocates of free coinage are the only people who, in this campaign, apply natural laws to the money question and carry into the discussion of finance the same intelligence which is used in ordinary business. Our opponents refuse to apply the law of supply and demand to money. We affirm that a decrease in the number of dollars increases the purchasing power of the dollar. We affirm that the only way to stop the rise in the value of dollars is to make more dollars. Our opponents do not apply the law of supply and demand to silver. We assert that the opening of our mints to the free coinage of silver will create a new demand for silver, and that that new demand will raise the price. Our opponents dispute this, and, ignoring the effect of increased demand, talk about a fifty-three cent dollar, because the bullion in a dollar, when it cannot find its way to the mint, is worth less than the coinage price. We assert that when every man who holds silver bullion can find a place to coin that bullion into dollar at $1.29 an ounce, he will not sell the bullion to any one else for less than $1.29 an ounce. We believe that seventy millions of people are able to

use every ounce of silver that will be brought to our mints. We state our position and are able to give a reason for our belief.

At the Phoenix Hill Park meeting I met ex-Congressman A. G. Caruth and I. H. Goodnight, and later in the evening Senator Blackburn and Hon. Watt Hardin, both of whom spoke during the evening.

Early the next morning we went to Frankfort, passing through LaGrange and Eminence. The speeches at these places were brief, and at Frankfort the rain was falling heavily. We took dinner with Senator Blackburn at Versailles. A public meeting at that place gave me an opportunity to testify to my appreciation of Mr. Blackburn as a Democrat and as a fighter. Few members of the party have had to contend against such hostile influences, and none have manifested a higher order of moral courage.

From Versailles we went to Lexington, where we were warmly greeted. The rival clubs at this place presented to me handsome silver badges as souvenirs of the occasion. The horseback parade here was the finest that I ever saw; some of those who participated in it had ridden a hundred miles to attend the meeting. The horses in line sustained the reputation of the "Bluegrass" State. Below will be found an extract from the speech delivered here:

Lexington Speech.

I have been interrupted in the midst of speeches before, but I want to say to you that, of all the interruptions, this is the most pleasant of which I have any recollection. I shall remember this as the speech which was cut in two by the most remarkable horseback parade which it has ever been my good fortune to witness.

They bore banners and presented mottoes which make any further speaking unnecessary. If I were to talk to you from now until night, I could not more than emphasize the mottoes which have passed in procession before you. I noticed one motto, which, though written in letter not altogether according to the latest pattern, presented a truth which ought to find a lodgment in the memories of all. It was "High money-Low times."

I challenge you to find in any of the speeches that will be made this year by the opponents of free silver, a single sentence which contains as much of political economy and common sense as is contained in that phrase, "High money-Low times."

I saw another motto: "Our barns are full, but our pockets are empty." In that sentence is epitomized twenty years of farming history in the United States. Nature smiles upon your husbandry; your soil gives forth in rich abundance, but, according to the experience of the farmer, with all his industry, economy, and patient toil, he finds that the lot of the American farmer grows harder every year.

In the olden times under the rule of those who wielded the scepter, as they

said, by right divine, complaint was answered with the lash, but now the just complaint of the toiling millions of the United States is answered by the charge that they are anarchists.

I protest against the use of that name for a purpose which deprives it of all its terrors. Those who are opposed to us cannot afford to place the farmers and laborers of this country in the position of enemies of the government, because they are the only friends the government has ever had.

There is another motto that impressed me deeply. It is a short motto, and reads: "We mean business." The humble business men scattered all over our land have as much right to the use of the name "business men" as those who, having large business in the great centers, assume the right to be considered the only business men of this country. I want you to prove my statement true by showing that you are not only business men, but that you understand that election day is the most important business day in all the year.

From Lexington we made a flying trip to Maysville and return, with brief stops at Paris and Carlisle. During the day I met two more acquaintances, Congressman McCreary, who attended the Lexington meeting, and Congressman Berry, who was at Maysville.

I left Lexington near midnight, got up about 2 o'clock to give a word of encouragement to the silverites of Somerset, Ky., and reached. Knoxville, Tenn., early in the morning. The meeting at Knoxville was a very large one, and ex-Governor Taylor, since Governor-elect, shared in the honors of the occasion.

The ride from Knoxville to Asheville, N. C., was, owing to the heat, a very uncomfortable one. After a dinner at the Battery Park Hotel and a view of the surrounding mountains we proceeded to the speaker's stand, which had been erected in the center of a natural amphitheater. The meeting was largely attended and enthusiastic. This county, Buncombe, was the home of Senator Vance, and he is still the political idol of the people. The following is an extract from the speech made here:

Asheville Speech.

I have a reason for coming to North Carolina which is personal, aside from my interest in the electoral vote of this State. It was the State of North Carolina which at Chicago, before I became a candidate, before my own State had taken any formal part in presenting my name-it was the State of North Carolina which, by resolution, decided to give me the unanimous vote of the North Carolina delegation in the National Convention. I appreciate the honor which the delegates were willing to do me and therefore it gives me great pleasure to come among the people whom they represented, and give what assistance I can, if any assistance be needed, to secure the electoral vote of this State for the free coinage of silver at 16 to I. I am glad the canvass of this State opens in this county, which was the home