ests cannot affect them. Why is it, my friends? I will tell you why. If a man believes that a proposed law is good for himself and also good for others, he will admit that it is good for himself; but if he thinks a law is good for himself and bad for others, he will not admit that it is good for him. Now, that is a rule which you can examine and apply in everyday life, and you will find that men never deny that a thing is good for them so long as they can show that others share the benefit. It is only when they believe that they prosper by the adversity of others that you find them denying the benefit to themselves.

There is one thing that I like about the advocates of free coinage, and that is that they do not pose as "holier than thou" people. Ask a silver man why he wants bimetallism, and he says that he wants it because it is good for him and he believes that it is good for others also. He knows that the gold standard destroys opportunity for work and increases the number of idle men, and he knows that idle men are a menace to his own employment. Ask a farmer why he wants bimetallism and he will tell you that he believes it is good for him and for others also. He tells you that he suffers from falling prices, and that he believes the only way to stop falling prices is to increase the volume of standard money, and he knows that that can only be done by restoring silver to its ancient position by the side of gold. Ask a business man why he wants bimetallism, and he will tell you that he believes bimetallism will be good for him and for others also. He will tell you that he makes a living out of those to whom he sells, not out of those from whom he borrows. He will tell you that he can sell more goods when people are able to buy, and that, therefore, he believes bimetallism will bring prosperity. But ask one of the great financiers why he is in favor of the gold standard. Will he say that it is because it is good for him? You never heard one of them say that. Some of them even say that free coinage will be good for them but that they do not want anything which will help them. They pretend to want the gold standard because it will be good for the laboring man. Yes, my friends, those financiers are so concerned about those who toil, that whenever one of them is troubled with sleeplessness, his physician never asks him the cause of the trouble but just tells him that his sleep will be restored if he will quit worrying about the laboring man. The financier says that he is in favor of the gold standard because it will help the farmer, the laborer, and the business man. When you tell him that the laboring men, the farmers and the business men are willing to risk bimetallism, he rises to the full height of his moral stature and exclaims:

But shall I let them hurt themselves?

No, he will cram the gold standard down their throats whether they want it or not, and he will justify his conduct on the ground that he loves them better than he loves himself. Do you believe it, my friends? I do not. I say that the financier is just as good as anybody else, but I deny that he is better. I am willing to admit that he is as unselfish as others, but I deny that he is more unselfish. I challenge you to find in six thousand years of recorded history a single page which proves that the owning and loaning of money purges mankind from the dross of selfishness.

Is Mr. Washburn, "like others, dominated by human selfishness?" Are all people dominated by human selfishness? If so, does it not explain why the heads of the trusts are against our ticket? But why don't they say that it is

because they are dominated by human selfishness and know that the election of the Chicago ticket will hurt the trusts? Why is it that the bond syndicates are against us? Is it because they are dominated by human selfishness? Why don't these men come out and openly declare that they are opposed to our platform because it interferes with their business of bleeding the government? But no, we are told that these financiers are unselfish, and that in spite of all the good that free coinage would bring to them, they have the moral courage to turn their backs upon their own welfare and plead for the welfare of the common people.

But there is another thing which I wish you would notice. I believe Mr. Washburn is a large employer of labor. Now if he is dominated by human selfishness, why is he worrying so much about the possibility of having to pay his employes in fifty-three cent dollars? If his employes are to be paid in cheap dollars, then Mr. Washburn will make a larger profit out of their labor, and he ought to rejoice over it if he, "like others, is dominated by human selfishness;" but no, he desires to pose before his employes as one who is willing to deny himself the advantage of paying in cheap dollars in order that the employes may not lose by free coinage. What reason have you to believe that he is less selfish than his employes? Now, my friends, I want to say to you that you cannot suffer if you are his employes, because any man who is interested enough in his employes to warn them of the evil effects of free coinage before the election, will love his employes well enough after the election to take care of them. If under free coinage the dollar will be a fifty-three cent dollar, then Mr. Washburn can get nearly twice as many of such dollars for his product, and he can, therefore, pay wages which will buy as much as the wages paid today and still make as much profit as he does now. If he loves you, therefore, he will not let you suffer, and if he does not love you well enough to protect you after the election, then you have reason to doubt the love which he pretends before the election, when he tries to make you vote as he votes.

We are in favor of bimetallism, and we support our claim by logic which cannot be overcome, and our opponents prove their inability to meet us on this question when they attempt to turn the discussion to some other question. Mr. Washburn complains of the Wilson bill. I arrived in town late this afternoon, and was handed an envelope containing an extract from a speech which Mr. Washburn delivered in the Senate of the United States on the 11th day of July, 1892. I have not had an opportunity to verify this speech by the Congressional Record. I make this explanation because I am careful not to do any one an injustice, and when I read this I will ask Mr. Washburn, if he is in the room, to say whether I am quoting him correctly. (After a pause.) He does not seem to be here. I will read this, and if when I am gone you learn that it is an incorrect quotation, I ask you to give it no further consideration. In this extract I find that Mr. Washburn gives the price of wheat beginning with the year 1865 and continuing to 1890, and in speaking of the price he uses these words:

The hopes of the producer have been turned to ashes, the grain dealer and miller and the business men have been disappointed. The balance of trade in favor of this country that everyone looked to with so much assurance, has been much below the general estimate, probably due to the depreciation of the prices in agriculture and fruit exports of $200,000,000. Gold is still leaving the country, and there is but little left

to support general business, and I think there is a with the tariff of 1890 we do not see better times.

general disappointment that

If this quotation is correct, then Senator Washburn tells you that there was general disappointment that the tariff of 1890 was not followed by better times. And again he says:

The people of the country were startled, I certainly was, when the statement was made in one of the magazines a few weeks since, that one-half of the volume of wealth of this country is owned by thirty-six thousand persons.

And still again he says:

The millionaires, and the tens of millionaires, and the hundreds of millionaires have never created nor earned their wealth, and the royal road to wealth has been through illegitimate speculation, stock exchanges and grain gambling, railroad wrecking and trusts, and the whole volume of iniquities that have developed in the nefarious methods of the stock exchanges of this country.

Now then, my friends, this Senator has expressed his alarm over the fact that over half of the wealth of the country is owned by only thirty-six thousand persons, that the millionaires have neither created nor earned their wealth, and that the royal road to wealth has been through illegitimate speculations, stock and grain gambling, railroad wrecking, trusts, etc. Ought the Senator to be surprised if we are alarmed now at the same thing which scared him four years ago? And ought he not to be alarmed now when he finds that nearly every man whom he described there, and nearly every class which he denounced there, unite in supporting of the same ticket which he is supporting? If it is alarming that thirty-six thousand people own half the wealth of the country, is it not also alarming that these same people are uniting to control legislation in order that they may continue to dominate the politics of this country? Is it not alarming that all the great trusts of this country have gathered together behind the bulwark which the Republican party has thrown up, and have contributed to a corruption fund which has no parallel in the political history of this country? Is it not alarming that these combinations are seeking to control the election in order that they may get back out of the people more than they spent in trying to overcome the people?

Now, my friends, a cause is known, like an individual, by the company it keeps, and if you will only look for a moment at the company it is keeping, you will get a good idea of the gold standard. Show me those who have preyed upon the public, show me those who have used the instrumentalities of government for private gain, and I will show you the men who think my election will be dangerous to this country. I am not surprised that in Minnesota and elsewhere Republicans are leaving the Republican party when they find that it is drawing to it all those Democrats whom the Republicans in the past have been in the habit of denouncing. I am glad that we have the support of these Republicans. I am glad that, when some of our political leaders are deserting us, so many Republicans are coming forward to fill up the ranks and carry on this fight. The Republican who is near by in such a fight as this is better than the Democrat who is afar off.

The Republicans who are joining with us in this campaign have the consolation of knowing that in doing so they are not compelled to abandon the convictions which they have followed in times past. There is a wide difference between the Republicans who come to us and the Democrats who go

from us. The Democrats who go from us must fall upon their knees and beg pardon to Senator Sherman for all the bad words the Democratic party has spoken against him, while the Republicans who come to us can come bringing in their hands the Republican platform which was adopted in this very hall four years ago. That platform said, "The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bimetallism." Do traditions change in four years? No, my friends, you cannot change traditions in so short a time, neither can you forget them. Do the interests of the people change in four years? No, their interests are the same now that they were four years ago, and if the Republican party declared four years ago that the American people, from tradition and interest, favor bimetallism, the Republican bimetallists have a right to stand on the same declaration today even though the Republican party may retreat from its position and go across the ocean to find its inspiration.

There is an important difference between those who espouse the cause of bimetallism and those who desert bimetallism. The man who comes to us is always willing to rise before any audience and describe the road by which he came and the arguments which converted him, but the Democrat who goes from us never states the real cause which dragged him out of the Democratic party. I think it was Senator Morgan who stated that there are two kinds of conversion. He mentioned Saul of Tarsus as illustrating one kind. Saul at first persecuted the Christians and afterward became a preacher of the Christian faith. Aaron was cited as an illustration of the second kind of conversion. He started out a worshiper of the true God and afterward set up a golden calf. Now, if you will remember, Saul, when he became Paul the apostle, gloried in relating his experience. He told how he was stricken with blindness, and how at last the scales fell from his eyes and he saw, but Aaron always was ashamed of that calf business. And so, my friends, with those who come to us they have nothing to conceal; they are perfectly willing to tell where they stand and why they stand there; they are among the most zealous of our recruits. I used to think it might be well to have a mourners' bench for those who were coming to us, but they do not come mourning; they come rejoicing. They are not sorry at all, they are happy. They come with the enthusiasm of missionaries who go forth to preach the gospel to others, while those who go from us are only able to say in explanation of their conduct that if we had the free coinage of silver, it would be awful. Some of them are so under the control of the financiers that we have reason to doubt whether their change is found in the head or is merely a device for extending their notes at the bank.

There are reasons for bimetallism, and those reasons are so plain and simple that they can be easily understood, and when we preach bimetallism we are able to give a reason for our faith.

We are told that all we need is confidence. This confidence idea, my friends, is not a new one; it is at least eighteen hundred years old. I find in the Bible a rebuke of the same kind of confidence which is being preached today. I read there these words, "If a brother or sister be naked or destitute and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be ye warmed and fed, notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit?" If you tell our opponents that laborers, who are idle in the streets because the gold standard has made it more profitable to hoard money than

to employ labor in the development of the resources of the country, are naked and hungry, their only answer is, "Be ye clothed and fed;" but they give them nothing to eat or to wear. Tell these financiers that the farmer has found his prices falling when he sold his products, without his taxes, debts and fixed charges falling; tell them that the farmer has reached a point where the income from his farm is not more than sufficient to pay his debts, his taxes and his fixed charges; tell them that falling prices have about extinguished the farmer's living expenses, and that he is needing food and clothing, and they say to the farmer, "Be ye clothed and fed" without giving him anything to eat or wear. They are preaching the same doctrine that was rebuked eighteen hundred years ago, and it should be rebuked now. It is a confidence game, my friends. If you ask them to have confidence in you, you will find that confidence is very one sided in this game. If you say to the men who have accumulated their money among you, "Can't you trust us to make laws? Can't you trust those who produce wealth to have a voice in the Government?" and some of them will reply to you that the people are a rabble, and that they doubt their capacity to make laws. If you have a farm which is worth half what it used to be and try to borrow on it, the banker will tell you that it is not worth as much as it used to be; and if you ask him to have confidence that the price will go up, what will he say? He will reply, "Wait until the price goes up and then I will have confidence." If you ask the financier to loan you money on the prospect of better times, he will tell you to wait until the good times come. He will compel you to wait until you have some security. They are asserting that the restoration of confidence is the only belief that can come to this country, while we are trying to secure a foundation for confidence to rest upon.

When money goes up, property goes down. A dollar cannot buy more unless property sells for less. You can make a dollar buy as much as you like. If the dollar does not buy enough now, you can make it buy more. A dollar is a creature of law. When we talk about legislation in regard to money, cur opponents tell us that commerce regulates money. I ask them why they did not trust commerce to demonetize silver in 1873? Why was it that they invoked the law to strike silver down at that time? We have as much right to invoke the law to restore silver as they had to degrade it. The silver dollar was worth three cents more than the gold dollar in 1873, and if you ask our opponents why they demonetized silver, they will probably tell you that it was because silver was worth too much, and if you ask them why they do not remonetize it, they will tell you that it is not now worth enough. They will tell you that they demonetized silver because it was going abroad, and they refuse to remonetize it for fear it will come back again. The opponents of silver have invoked the law at every opportunity, but they always dispute the efficacy of law when we desire to legislate. They invoked the law in 1893 when they wanted to repeal the purchasing clause of the Sherman law, and what reason did they give? They said that the purchase of silver was making gold go abroad, and yet, after they repealed the Sherman law, gold went abroad faster than it did before. When gold went abroad before 1893 we were issuing paper money in its place, but when they repealed the law and stopped the issue of money, gold still went abroad and we had nothing to take its place. According to the Treasury report we have $150,000,000 less in actual circulation than we had two years ago,