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he was perfectly right in his diagnosis of the financial situation few will now deny. But that his proposed remedy was perilous in the extreme remains the opinion of the ablest students of financial problems. The dangers which it seemed to threaten finally rallied to the support of Mr. McKinley that mass of thoughtful citizens who in effect always hold the balance of political power. Mr. Bryan's definition of a debtor class was, indeed, too limited to be convincing. His thought was mainly of the farmers of the West who had mortgaged their lands to Eastern creditors. But the true debtor class was a much larger one than this. To it in reality belonged every person who had deposited his savings in a bank, or who had taken out a policy of life insurance, or who had made any small investment as a provision against illness or old age. These persons dreaded the possibility of receiving in place of their hard-earned money some form of depreciated currency; and they did not draw any fine distinctions between the so-called "fiat paper money" of the old Greenback Party and the fiat silver money of the new Democracy. And so, in the end, the prudence, or caution, or timidity of this large class turned the scale against the party of free silver.35

The excitement which marked this whole extraordinary contest increased in its intensity until the very end. An imposing demonstration in New York City signalised the close of the campaign on the Saturday before election day. More than 150,000 voters marched up Broadway, under a forest of flags and vivid decorations which covered nearly every building on that famous thoroughfare. Thou

35 For a brief criticism of both the gold and the silver arguments from the standpoint of one who accepted neither as convincing, see Fonda, Honest Money, ch. viii. (New York, 1895).

sands of them were men who had never, perhaps, taken part in a political parade before. Lawyers, merchants, clergymen, bankers, university professors, authors—all marched shoulder to shoulder, cheering lustily for "sound " and incidentally for the Republican candidates. The demonstration had no great political significance, for New York was known to be safely Republican; yet the outpouring was one of the most picturesque as well as one of the most impressive incidents in a contest that was full of life and colour.

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The election was unexpectedly decisive. Before midnight on November 3d, it was known that Mr. Bryan had been defeated and that he would receive in the Electoral College only 176 votes to 271 for Mr. McKinley. He had carried all the Southern States except West Virginia; and had also received the votes of Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, while California and Kentucky had each given him one electoral vote. But the solid opposition of the East, the Northwest and the Middle West had overborne his loyal following in the more thinly settled mining and agricultural States.36 Yet Mr. Bryan had given the Republican party a shock of extreme severity. The extent of its fright may be measured by the ferocity with which its newspaper organs referred to Mr. Bryan even after the election. The following passage from the New York Tribune is sufficiently illustrative to deserve citation:

36 In the popular vote, Mr. McKinley received 7,111,607 votes, and Mr. Bryan, 6,509,052-a majority for Mr. McKinley of 602,555. General Palmer, the candidate of the Gold Democrats, received 134,645 votes.

"The thing was conceived in iniquity and was brought forth in sin. It had its origin in a malicious conspiracy against the honour and integrity of the nation. It gained such monstrous growth as it enjoyed from an assiduous culture of the basest passions of the least worthy members of the community. It has been defeated and destroyed because right is right and God is God. 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. Not one 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. He goes down with the cause, and must abide with it in the history of infamy. He had less provocation than Benedict Arnold, less intellectual force than Aaron Burr, less manliness and courage than Jefferson Davis. He was the rival of them all in delib,rate wickedness, and treason to the Republic. His name belongs with theirs, neither the most brilliant nor the most hateful in the list. Good riddance to it all, to conspiracy and conspirators, and to the foul menace of repudiation and anarchy against the honour and life of the Republic."

Mr. Bryan himself set an example of dignity and generous feeling which his newspaper assailants might well have tried to emulate. No sooner was the result of the election a certainty than he telegraphed to his successful rival a message of cordial congratulation, to which Mr. McKinley at once replied in terms of equal courtesy and personal good will.

Thus terminated the most eventful political struggle which the people of the United States had witnessed since

THE ELECTION OF 1896

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that which ended in the first election of Abraham Lincoln.80 Looking back upon it with a true perception of its significance, one finds in it the temporary failure of a noble cause through a faulty adaptation of means to end. For the underlying issue was not that of the money question at all. The money question served only to obscure. the vital question and to postpone its ultimate decision. The people of the West, and indeed the people of the whole country, were suffering from the innumerable abuses which the lawlessness of corporate wealth had brought upon them. Unwisely they sought a remedy through an attempt to establish an unsound economic principle. The result was their defeat, and for a time the defeat of the cause for which they were contending. The way to deliverance was not to be opened to them through the door of the national finances. Mr. Bryan resembled a champion who rushes forth to meet a powerful antagonist, and who has armed himself with a sword of which the blade is flawed. At the very crisis of the combat, his, weapon was shattered in his grasp, and the victory was. given to his adversary.

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CHAPTER XII

PRESIDENT M'KINLEY AND THE

NEO-REPUBLICANISM

THERE was something symbolically significant in the pageant which accompanied the inauguration of President McKinley. Such displays in other years had exhibited the haphazard easy-going lack of management with which Americans are wont to improvise their public ceremonials. But on the fourth of March, 1897, the scene in Washington was one that might have fitly graced a European capital. Every detail had been studied carefully beforehand, and was carried out with absolute precision. The great avenues were well policed. The crowds were efficiently controlled. There were no delays, no moments of embarrassment, no awkward pauses. The military review was especially effective. Instead of masses of raw militiamen, marching often awkwardly and producing a bizarre effect by the diversity of their motley uniforms, there now defiled before the President, column after column of regular troops, whose perfect discipline and training made the sight of them a splendid spectacle. The finest cavalry regiments in the service had been drawn upon to render this inaugural review exceptionally brilliant; while the artillery and infantry were not inferior in the precision of their evolutions. The civic part of the parade was subordinated to the military; but even the "marching clubs " swung by the presidential stand with something of the élan of veteran troops. The Republican party was coming back to power as the party of organisation, of discipline, of unquestioning obedience to leadership; and the

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