CHAPTER XXIX.

I

NOMINATION OF SILVER PARTY ACCEPTED.

ARRIVED in Lincoln the morning of September 8, the day set

for receiving formal notification of the silver party nomination.

I spoke at a large meeting in the capital grounds in the afternoon and discussed "a government by banks." In the evening Hon. George A. Groot, of Cleveland, O., delivered an elaborate address in defense of bimetallism, and concluded his remarks with the following:

Mr. Groot's Speech.

Hon. William Jennings Bryan: The National Silver Convention with an unanimity unexampled in the history of national conventions in this country nominated you as the candidate of the National Silver party for the distinguished office of President of the United States. You are now the candidate for the great office of President of three great political parties of which the Silver party is not the least.

The convention selected a committee to formally notify you of its action and that committee conferred upon me the distinguished honor of advising you of your nomination as the candidate of the National Silver party for office of President of the United States. We are met, therefore, at this time and place for the purpose of performing the pleasant duty imposed upon us by the convention. I therefore, in obedience to the wishes of the committee and of the convention, hereby formally notify you that you have been nominated by the National Silver party as its candidate for President, and request that you accept that nomination in the same spirit in which it has been tendered you.

You are now the chosen commander of a grand army, composed of three grand divisions, which is now mobilizing for the purpose of fighting in behalf of humanity on November 3, 1896, the most important political battle of this or of any other age; a battle which is to determine whether this nation shall be a province of Great Britain and be governed and controlled as that nation is by the money barons of Europe, or whether it shall be, as the fathers intended it to be, a free and independent and sovereign nation!

The people who constitute that grand army, inspired as they are by the noblest sentiments of patriotism, under your leadership will, there can be no doubt, on that day lift high their banners in triumph over the defeated allied hosts of plutocracy!

I regret that I have not been able to secure an authentic report of the Silver Convention, giving the names of the Notification Committee. My reply was brief and is as follows:

Speech Accepting Nomination of National Silver Party.

Hon. George A. Groot, Chairman, and others, members of the Notification Committee of the National Silver Party: Gentlemen-I beg to reply at this time without the formality of a letter. The platform of the National Silver Convention contains but one plank and that plank, the plank upon the silver question, is identical in substance with the silver plank of the Chicago platform. As I have already discussed the subject at length in accepting the Democratic nomination it will not be necessary at this time to enter upon any argument in defense of bimetallism. I beg to assure the committee that I accept the nomination tendered on behalf of the National Silver Party in the spirit in which it is tendered. I can appreciate the feelings which animated those who assembled in the Silver Convention and turned their backs upon the party with which they had formerly been associated.

I know something of the strength of party ties because I was once in a position where I looked forward to the possibility of like action upon my own part. I can appreciate the depth of conviction which led the members of that convention to place the interests of their country above the welfare of a party. More than a year ago when we were engaged in a struggle to bring the Democratic party to the indorsement of free coinage, the question was put to me whether, in case of failure, I would support the Democratic nominee, if he were a gold standard advocate running upon a gold standard platform. I never believed that the Democratic party would indorse the gold standard, but when those who questioned me were not content with probabilities, and asked again whether, in the possible event of the Democratic party declaring for gold, I would support the nominee, I said, as you will remember, that under no circumstances would my vote be given to a man who would use the influence of the executive to fasten the gold standard upon the American people. I stood in anticipation where the members of the Silver Party Convention stood in fact. I, like them, preferred the approval of my conscience to the approval of all others. My convictions upon this subject are not shallow convictions. I may be in error-none of us can claim infallibility-but I believe that the gold standard is a conspiracy against the human race. I would no more join the ranks of those who propose to fasten it upon the American people than I would enlist in an army which was marching to attack my home and destroy my family. I repeat, therefore, that I appreciate the spirit which animated those who have just tendered me this second nomination, and I can accept it in the spirit in which it is tendered. I pledge you that, if elected, you shall never have occasion to accuse me of being false to that platform.

When I declared that I would not support a gold standard candidate, I was standing upon the record of the Democratic party; I was defending its principles as well as the interests of the country at large. And when the Republicans who assembled in the Silver Convention at St. Louis refused to worship the golden image which their party had set up, they were standing upon the record of the Republican party. The Republican national platform of 1888 denounced the Democratic administration for having attempted to degrade silver. At the Lincoln day banquet, in Memorial Hall at Toledo, Ohio, on February 12, 1891, the present candidate for president upon the Republican ticket used the words which I shall now read to you. I have found these words

reproduced in a Toledo paper, and they have stood so long without correction that I may safely quote them. If their correctness is hereafter denied I shall hasten to do justice to the Republican candidate by retracting them. These are the words which he is said to have used:

During all of Grover Cleveland's years at the head of the Government he was dishonoring one of our precious metals, one of our own great products, discrediting silver and enhancing the price of gold. He endeavored even before his inauguration to office to stop the coinage of silver dollars, and afterwards, and to the end of his administration, persistently used his power to that end. He was determined to contract the circulating medium and demonetize one of the coins of commerce, limit the value of money among the people, make money scarce, and, therefore, dear. He would have increased the value of money and diminished the value of everything elsemoney the master, everything else the servant.

Following these same lines, the Republican National Convention, in 1892, declared, at Minneapolis, that the American people were, from tradition and interest, in favor of bimetallism. Have traditions changed in four years? Have interests changed in four years? No, my friends; but, forgetting the platform of 1880, forgetting the denunciation uttered by their distinguished leader in 1891, forgetting the platform of 1892, the Republican party, in national convention assembled, declared in 1896 that the American people must forego the advantages of the bimetallic system, to which tradition and interests endear them, until foreign nations shall bring these advantages to them.

Is it strange that men who have looked for bimetallism in the Republican party should at last give up hope and turn elsewhere for relief? These Republicans cannot be criticised for leaving the Republican party. They have done what every American citizen has a right to do. They have done better than our Democratic advocates of the gold standard, because these Republicans, when they left their former party, openly joined with those who had a chance to succeed, while our Democratic advocates of the gold standard sought to secure the election of the Republican candidates by nominating separate candidates.

To show you that the action taken by these Republicans is defended by experience and example, let me carry you back to the period just preceding the war. If you will turn to a book recently published entitled “John Sherman's Recollections," you will find, on page 112 of the first volume, a portion of a speech which he delivered in Congress in 1856. Let me read this extract:

I am willing to stand by the compromises of 1820 and 1850, but when our Whig brethren of the South allow this administration to lead them off from their principles, when they abandon the position which Henry Clay would have taken, forget his name and achievements, and decline any longer to carry his banner-they lose all their claims on me. And I say now, that until this wrong is righted, until Kansas is admitted as a free State, I cannot act in party association with them.

There the distinguished Senator from Ohio asserted upon the floor of Congress that he was willing to accept compromise after compromise, but that the time had at last come when he could go with his party associates no further; that until certain things were accomplished he could not act with them. The situation today is but a repetition of history. Compromises have been submitted to by these silver Republicans in the hope that the party of their choice and love would at last bring to the people the relief which they desired. But the Republican party, like the Whig party in 1856, has been led off by an administration until it has deserted its traditions and its platforms,

and these silver Republicans have a right to say to their former associates: "We will act with you no longer until this nation is redeemed."

We do not ask those who present this nomination to pledge their future support to the Democratic party. The same intelligence which directs them today in the discharge of duty will be with them four years from now to direct them in the discharge of the duties which will then arise. The same patriotism which leads them today in what they do will be with them four years from now to guide and direct them then. We trust them now; we shall trust them then. The Democratic party has proven itself worthy of their confidence this year, and it receives their support. If four years from now it proves unworthy of their confidence, it will not then deserve their support.

The chairman of the notification committee has said that we have today to meet a great money trust. He is right. We are now confronted by the most gigantic trust that has ever been formed among men. Do we talk about trusts formed to control the prices of the various articles which we use? My friends, all these trusts combined become insignificant when compared with the money trust which has its hands upon our country. Place the control of the standard money of the world in the hands of a few financiers, and times will always be good with them no matter what distress may overtake the rest of mankind. I believe that Mr. Carlisle did not exaggerate when he said, "The consummation of this scheme (to destroy silver as a standard money throughout the world) means more of misery to the human race than all the wars pestilences, and famine that have ever occurred in the history of the world.' Who does not stand appalled before such misery? Who among you is willing to be a partner in such a conspiracy, in the consummation of such a scheme: It is against the consummation of this scheme so eloquently and so forcibly described by Mr. Carlisle, that the silver Republicans have risen in protest. 1 respect their convictions. And through you, gentlemen of the committee, I thank them for the nomination tendered. All that I can promise is that I shall endeavor, to the best of my ability, to prove worthy of their confidence. Mr. E. Harrington, of Kansas, and Mr. M. F. Dowd, of Missouri, announced Mr. Sewall's nomination and he, being unavoidably absent, I, at his request, accepted for him.

CHAPTER XXX.

S

POPULIST NOMINATION TENDERED AND ACCEPTED.

ENATOR WILLIAM V. ALLEN, of Nebraska, chairman of the Notification Committee appointed by the Populist Convention, tendered the Populist nomination in a letter, which will be found below.

Populist Notification.

Madison, Neb., September 15, 1896.

Hon. William J. Bryan, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Dear Sir: At a convention of the People's party, held at St. Louis from July 22d to 25th, of the current year, you were unanimously nominated for President of the United States, to be voted for at the approaching general election. It was known at the time that you had been nominated by the Democratic party at its convention held at Chicago a few days before that time, and that you would, in all probability, accept the same in a formal manner. Your nomination by the People's party, was not, therefore, made with any thought that you were a Populist, or that you accepted all the doctrines declared by the St. Louis platform. It was due largely to the fact that the money question is the overshadowing political issue of the age, and because you have at all times been an unswerving, able, and fearless advocate of the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold, on terms of equality, at the mints of the United States, at the ratio of sixteen to one.

It was thought also that the observance of a patriotic duty required a union of all reform forces, and the convention took the liberty without solicitation or consulting you, of placing your name before the people as its standard bearer. The convention was in doing so guided by deep solicitude for the common welfare, acting on its own motion, prompted alone by a desire to bring about the best attainable results.

So much has been said respecting the rehabilitation of silver by again placing it in our coinage acts in the position it occupied when stealthily demonetized by the act of 1873, that it would be idle for us to discuss the question. You will observe by the closing language of the St. Louis platform, that the convention recognized the money question as the great issue of the day, and because Populists believe that you are in accord with them on this question, you will receive their ballots in November.

It has at no time been expected, nor is it now, that you will abandon your adhesion to the Chicago platform, nor that you will accept all that is declared in the People's party platform, however gratifying the latter would be to all Populists. It must be understood that the party does not abate one jot or tittle of loyalty to its principles. We have declared ourselves in favor of many important reforms, and go farther than you or your party have gone. These reforms