laboring men who had assembled. The hour was late and the speech was not long.

Here and on several other occasions I referred to the Bismarck letter, which was widely circulated, especially among the German speaking portion of our people. As there has been some discussion in regard to the English version of it, I give below the translation which appeared in the Cincinnati Weekly Enquirer of October 8th. The letter, which was drawn out by an inquiry addressed to him by Governor Charles A. Culberson, of Texas, July 1, reads as follows:

The Bismarck Letter.

Friedrichsruhe, August 24, 1896.

To His Excellency, Mr. Charles A. Culberson, Governor of Texas, Austin, Texas, U. S. A.-Honored Sir: Your esteemed writing of July 1, of this year, I have received.

I have always had a preference for bimetallism, without considering myself infallible over against experts on the subject, while I was in office, and I believe today it is commendable to bring about an agreement between the nations chiefly engaged in the world's commerce in the direction of bimetallism.

The United States are commercially freer in their movements than any single one of the European nations, and if North America should find it compatible with its interests to take an independent step in the direction of bimetallism I do believe it would have appreciable influence upon the establishment of international agreement and the conjunction of the European States. With the assurance of my most distinguished esteem, I am Your Excellency's most devoted servant.

V. Bismarck.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

T

IN NEW ENGLAND.

HURSDAY a committee consisting of Editor Alexander Troop and Mr. C. S. Bennett, of New Haven, William Kennedy and other representatives from the Nutmeg State took our party in charge, and the journey through New England began.

The first stop was made at Bridgeport, where a brief speech was delivered in the public square. Here we were met by Hon. John B. Sargent of New Haven, late Democratic candidate for Governor.

We arrived at New Haven shortly after noon. The Yale incident made this the best advertised meeting held in New England. A number of the college boys insisted on showing their disapproval, beginning before I had a chance to say anything. I give the speech, with interruptions, as it appeared in the New York Journal of the next morning:

Yale College Incident.

I am glad that there are students here, because I want to say a word to students. Your college has helped to add fame to your city, and those who assemble here are supposed to come in order that they may better equip themselves for the duties of life. I am glad to talk to students, because, my friends, we have a cause which appeals to students. If the syndicates and corporations rule this country, then no young man has a fair show unless he is the favorite of a corporation. (Applause-and yells for McKinley by a cordon of the students.) If the people have a right to govern themselves and exercise that right, then every citizen has an equal chance and every man may achieve what he desires. We wish to leave all the avenues open so that the son of the humblest citizen may aspire to the highest position within the gift of the people. (Applause and yells repeated.)

I am not speaking now to the sons who are sent to college on the proceeds of ill-gotten gains. (Enthusiastic applause.) I wil wait until these sons have exhausted what their fathers have left them and then appeal to their chlidren who will have to commence life where their grandfathers commenced. (Great applause.) My friends, a just government is best for the great masses of the people. Equal laws and equal opportunities are best for nine out of every ten of us. (Yells again repeated.) Therefore, our cause appeals to every young man who wants to make this Government so good as to deserve the love, confidence and the support of every citizen in this land.

We appeal not only to the students; we appeal to business men who have been terrorized by the financial-what may I call it? (Applause.) People

have been tyrannized over by financial institutions until in some instances it is more dangerous to raise your voice against the ruling power than it is in an absolute monarchy. (Great applause and yelis.) If there is anybody who

loves this sort of thing then I shall offend him by speaking of it, but I shall not offend any man who loves liberty and the right of free speech in this country. (Great applause.)

The business men have been told that the free coinage of silver would ruin them. If it can ruin them with more rapidity than the gold standard has ruined them, then, my friends, it will be bad, indeed, because the gold standard has increased the number of failures among business men, and every step that has been taken has been followed (Yells from the students.) I have been so used to talking to young men who earn their own living that I do not know (Great applause and cheering.) I say, I have been so used to talking to young men who earn their own living that I hardly know what language to use to address myself to those who desire to be known, not as creators of wealth, but as the distributers of wealth which somebody else created. (Great applause and cheering.) If you will show me a young man who has been taught to believe (More yells and cries of "McKinley.")

In all my travels I have not found a crowd that needed talking to so much as this crowd does. (Cries of "That's right.") I came to this city something more than a year ago, and I then learned something of the domination of your financial classes. I have seen it elsewhere, but, my friends, the great mass of the people even of this city, will be better off under bimetallism that permits the nation to grow, than under a gold standard which starves everybody except the money changer and the money owner.

We sometimes out West are instructed by your insurance companies. I carry insurance in old line companies and in what are known as the mutual or assessment companies. I carry insurance in fraternal organizations like the United Workmen and the Modern Woodmen, as well as in the old line companies, and I am glad that my assessment companies are satisfied to take my money and give me insurance without attempting to tell me how I must vote. Your old line companies have seen fit to insult the intelligence of the people by attempting to exercise a guardian care, notwithstanding the fact that we are able to look after ourselves without their instructions.

You have laboring men also in large numbers in this city. I do not know whether the advocates of the gold standard here who employ men in the shops insist upon telling their employes how to vote. I have in other places found employers who would put in envelopes the pay for the day's work or week's work, and then print on the outside of the envelopes some instructions to the employes. If the manufacturer, employer, or railroad president feels that there must be something on the outside of the envelope as well as upon the inside, let him write on the outside: "You will find within your wages. They are to cover your work. We recognize that the men who have sense enough to do the work we want done have sense enough to vote right, without our telling them how to vote."

I notice that in some places they have been organizing sound money clubs, and they have the applicant sign a statement, saying that the free coinage of silver would hurt him in his business as a wage earner. I have wondered

why our great financial magnates do not put in their application a statement similar to that. Why don't the heads of these syndicates which have been bleeding the Government make application to sound money clubs and write in the application that the free coinage of silver would hurt them in their business as heads of syndicates? They want people to believe that they are entirely benevolent, that they are philanthropists, and that what they do is done merely because they believe that the people will be benefitted by having them run the Government, and they submit to the inconvenience of running the Government in order to help the people, who, they say, will be benefited. (More confusion and applause by the students.)

Why is it that the broker or the bond buyer does not write in his application that he has a personal interest in the gold standard? Why is it that these men want to throw upon the wage earners whatever odium there may be in using his vote to protect his personal interests? I believe the wage earner, and the farmer, and the business man, and the professional man, all of these will be benefited by a volume of money sufficient to do business with. If you make money scarce you make money dear. If you make money dear you drive down the value of everything, and when you have falling prices you have hard times. And who prosper by hard times? There are but few, and those few are not willing to admit that they get any benefit from hard times. No party ever declared in its platform that it was in favor of hard times, and yet the party that declares for a gold standard in substance declares for a continuation of hard times.

Here a band which had been playing for a drill in another part of the square came nearer and made talking more difficult, and my voice not being in good condition I concluded my remarks by saying:

It is hard to talk when all the conditions are favorable, and I must ask you to excuse me from talking any further in the presence of the noises against which we have to contend today.

I have since learned that some misunderstood my closing words, and thought I again referred to the students, but this is an error. They were making no disturbance when I finished speaking. I did not even mean to criticise the band, because I was sure that the interruption was not intentional, but my voice being hoarse and the crowd large, it was difficult to make myself heard even when there was perfect quiet.

The incident gave rise to a good deal of public discussion.

A few papers criticised my language on that occasion and declared that my words provoked the hostile demonstration. As a matter of fact, the hostility was manifested before I began to speak, and it was some minutes before I could obtain a hearing. This is the only speech in which I have inserted the applause, and it is only done here because the interruptions are also quoted. The report is reproduced exactly as it appeared at the time in order that the reader may form his own opinion upon the subject.

The following press dispatch appeared in the morning papers of September 30:

Yale Students Criticised.

Muskogee, I. T., Sept. 29.-At a mass meeting of the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws and Seminoles, held here yesterday, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, that we contemplate with deep regret the recent insulting treatment of William J. Bryan by students of a college in the land of the boasted white man's civilization, and we admonish all Indians who think of sending their sons to Yale that association with such students could but prove hurtful alike to their morals and their progress toward the higher standard of civilization.

The Sun Defends the Yale Students.

The New York Sun came to the defense of the boys in an editorial, from which the following is an extract:

What did these students really do? On the day that Yale University opened its new college year, Bryan came to New Haven and prepared to address a great crowd at the green adjacent to which are the college buildings of the center of university life, in a town of which the university is the great and distinguishing feature. The students gathered in strong force, as was natural. Practically they were on their own ground. They expressed their feelings against repudiation with the vigor and vociferousness of youth; and they had a right to do it.

They ought to have done it; and the sentiment to which they gave utterance was honorable to them. The boys made a great noise, cheering for McKinley and yelling and jeering at repudiation, so that Mr. Bryan could not be heard for several minutes. If they had applauded him incessantly for even a full half hour, would there have been any complaint of their preventing him from starting out in his speech? Has not a crowd in the open air as much right to hiss as to cheer? At what period in our history was that privilege taken from Americans? These dissenting students, the reports agree, did not offer any personal violence to Mr. Bryan or anybody else. They did not throw rotten eggs at him or otherwise assail his dignity, but merely shouted their college cry and yelled derisively. They did not like the cause the speaker represented. They detested and despised both it and him, and they made known their feelings noisily.

Acting President Wright's Opinion.

Prof. Henry P. Wright, acting president of the university, in a statement the next day, speaking of the matter, said:

I do not regard the matter seriously, because I am sure it was not premeditated. Boys will be boys, you know, and it was really nothing more than a boyish outbreak. Students are forever doing such things, thoughtlessly enough I am sure. I am very sorry indeed that it should have happened, for it places the university in a false light, where the antics of college boys are not understood.