mount issue. A Populist leader of this State well expressed the idea when he said, "While I believe in Populist doctrines, and, among other things, in the Government ownership of railroads, I do not want the Government to own the railroads so long as Rothschild owns the Government." It is this willingness to lay aside minor differences in hours of danger that gives us the surest proof that our people are able to rise to the requirements of any emergency.

There were meetings at several other places, the tour of the State ending at Rocky Mount, where I met ex-Congressman Bunn, another colleague in the House.

The tour through North Carolina was very well arranged, and in its management there was perfect harmony between the leading Democrats, Populists and silver Republicans.

This State is credited with the largest contribution to my assortment of rabbits' feet. Total number received nearly thirty-North Carolina's quota about ten. The first foot was presented to me as I left the Chicago convention, just after my speech in support of the platform, donor unknown. These were all declared to be of the "left hind foot" variety, but even with the aid of horseshoes and four-leaf clover stalks, they were impotent to secure for me the Presidency.

Our party entered Virginia on the afternoon of the 18th, and after a short stop at Petersburg, where I met Hon. Mann Page, whose name was discussed as a Vice-Presidential candidate in the Populist convention, reached Richmond for an evening meeting. I was driven from the depot to the home of Hon. J. Taylor Ellyson, chairman of the State committee, where Senator Daniel and Senator Martin were also guests.

The meeting at Richmond was held in the Auditorium, which was packed to its fullest capacity. I was glad to speak in Virginia, not because campaigning there was necessary, but because, it being the birthplace of my father, I had from my boyhood heard much of Virginia hospitality. Then, too, I was glad to be among the constituents of Senator Daniel, who has contributed so much of eloquence and learning to the cause of bimetallism. His speech delivered during the first session of the Fifty-fourth Congress was an unanswerable argument in favor of the money of the Constitution. He presided at the Richmond meeting, and in his introduction made use of a figure which was afterward illustrated in some of our silver papers. He said: "We love him most because he has rolled away the stone from the golden sepulchre in which Democracy was buried."

The day ended with a meeting in front of the Jefferson Hotel, where I spoke briefly and Senator Daniel spoke more at length. Early the next morning we took the train for Fredericksburg, passing through the country in which both Patrick Henry and Henry Clay were born. The visit to Fredericksburg is remembered with much pleasure. I was entertained at the home of Mayor White, and there met another colleague, Congressman W. A. Jones, of that district. Below will be found a portion of my Fredericksburg speech:

Fredericksburg Speech.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: Fredericksburg is not a large city and yet it is rich in incidents of great historic value. Here the women of America have reared a monument to Mary the mother of Washington. I am glad to stand on this spot; I am glad to feel the influences which surround her grave. In a campaign, especially in a campaign like this, there is much of bitterness, and sometimes of abuse spoken against the candidates for public office, but, my friends, there is one character, the mother—a candidate for the affections of all mankind-against whom no true man ever uttered a word of abuse. There is one name, mother, which is never found upon the tongue of the slanderer-in her presence all criticism is silenced. The painter has, with his brush, transferred the landscape to the canvas with such fidelity that the trees and grasses seem almost real; he has even made the face of a maiden seem instinct with life, but there is one picture so beautiful that no painter has ever been able to perfectly reproduce it, and that is the picture of the mother holding in her arms her babe. Within the shadow of this monument, reared to the memory of her who in her love and loyalty represents the mother of each one of us, I bow in humble reverence to motherhood.

I am told that in this county were fought more battles than in any county of like size in the world, and that upon the earth within the limits of this county there fell more dead and wounded than ever fell on a similar space in all the history of the world. Here opposing lines were drawn up face to face; here opposing armies met and stared at each other and then sought to take each other's lives. But all these scenes have passed away and those who once met in deadly array now meet and commingle here as friends. Here the swords have been turned into plowshares, here the spears have been converted into pruning hooks, and people learn war no more. Here the bands on either side once stirred up the flagging zeal with notes that thrilled the hearts of men. These two bands are now component parts of one great band, and as that band marches on in the lead playing "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie" too, the warscarred veterans who wore the blue and the war-scarred veterans who wore the gray follow, side by side, each vying with the other in the effort to make this the greatest and the best of all the nations on God's footstool.

I am glad to visit this historic place. They say that here George Washington once threw a silver dollar across the river; but remember, my friends, that when he threw that silver dollar across the river it fell and remained on American soil. They thought that it was a great feat then, but we have devel

oped so rapidly in the last hundred years that we have financiers who can leave George Washington's achievement far behind. We have financiers who have been able to throw gold dollars all the way across the Atlantic, and then bring them back by an issue of bonds.

Would you believe, my friends, that a silver dollar which was good enough to be handled by the father of his country is so mean a thing as to excite the contempt of many of our so-called financiers? Well, it is. It is so mean that they do not like it. Why, our opponents tell us that they want a dollar that will go all over the world. We have had dollars which have gone over the world so rapidly that we want a dollar that will stay at home without a curfew law.

Our opponents tell us that they want a dollar which they can see anywhere in the world if they travel abroad. I am not so much worried about our dollars which travel abroad. I want a dollar that will not be ashamed to look a farmer in the face.

During the speech here a gentleman in the audience, in an outburst of enthusiasm, shouted: "Bryan, I am not a Christian, but I am praying for you." This gave me an opportunity to suggest that the people of that community had an additional reason for desiring my election, because, if they could convince the gentleman of the efficacy of prayer, they might make a Christian out of him.

The Washington committee took our party in charge at Fredericksburg, and landed us safely at the nation's capital about the middle of the afternoon.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

T

FROM WASHINGTON TO WILMINGTON.

HE Washington meeting was held September 19th, the one hundredth anniversary of Washington's farewell address.

Hon. James L. Norris, Hon. Lawrence Gardner, and other prominent Democrats residing in Washington had exerted themselves to make this meeting a success, but a storm of rain and wind, the most severe of the campaign, was a serious embarrassment. I give below my speech at this place:

Washington Speech.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am grateful to you for the very cordial welcome which you extend to me as I return to the city in which four years of official life were spent. I see before me the faces of a great many who are young men, and I am glad to speak to the young, because we who are young, and who in the course of nature must live under our Government for many years, are especially interested in making that government good enough to live under.

I desire to call your attention to two planks in the platform adopted at Chicago, before touching on other matters connected with the campaign. I speak of these two planks because they directly concern the people who live in the District of Columbia. The Chicago platform contains this plank: "We favor the admission of the Territories of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Arizona into the Union as States. We favor the early admission of all the Territories having the necessary population and resources to be entitled to Statehood; and while they remain Territories we hold that the officials appointed to administer the government of any Territory, together with the District of Columbia and Alaska, should be bona fide residents of the Territory or District in which the duties are to be performed. The Democratic party believes in home rule and that all public lands of the United States should be appropriated for the establishment of free homes for American citizens."

I desire to emphasize these words: "The Democratic party believes in home rule." I believe in the platform, in that plank of the platform and in that portion of the plank which I have emphasized. When I say I believe in home rule, I do not mean that officials appointed shall have a home in the District and in the Territories after they commence to rule, but that they shall have lived there before their appointment to office.

Let me read another plank: "We are opposed to life tenure in the public service. We favor appointments based upon merit, fixed terms of office, and such an administration of the civil service law as shall afford equal opportuni

ties to all citizens of ascertained fitness, except as otherwise provided by the Constitution of the United States."

My friends, we are in favor of a civil service reform that means something, not a civil service reform that permits one President to suspend the civil service until he can get his friends into office and permits another President to extend the civil service just as he is going out.

We believe in appointments based upon merit, and we believe in examinations which will open the offices to those of ascertained fitness. We are in favor of fixed terms of office in the civil departments of the Government. We want it so that when a man goes into office he will know how long he is going to stay and when he is going out. We do not want to build up an office-holding class and fill our offices for life, because men appointed under these conditions are likely to have no concern except to draw their salaries. We believe that a life tenure which relieves a man from all further care, is destructive of the highest form of citizenship and ought not to be tolerated in a country like ours. Now, my friends, I desire to call your attention to another subject. Our opponents are doing as much for us in this campaign as we are able to do for ourselves, and of all the campaign documents recently issued the most important one, in my judgment, is a letter written by the Secretary of the Treasury and just given to the public. I desire to quote from it the following words: "It is the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury and of all other public officials to execute in good faith the policy declared by Congress. And whenever he shall be satisfied that tl.e silver dollar cannot be kept equal in purchasing power with the gold dollar except by receiving it in exchange for the gold dollar when such exchange is demanded, it will be his duty to adopt that course." I want you to mark these words, because the Secretary of the Treasury tells you that whenever he is satisfied that it is necessary he will at once redeem silver dollars in gold. I call your attention to the words because I want to emphasize the deception which has been practiced by this administration in its course upon the money question.

When this administration advised the repeal of the Sherman law you were told that the repeal of that act would remedy the difficulty. Yet as soon as the Sherman law was repealed the same authority, which promised relief as soon as it was repealed, came to Congress with the demand that the greenbacks and Treasury notes be retired by an issue of gold bonds in order to stop the drain upon the Treasury's gold. But now the Secretary of the Treasury informs you that, even if the greenbacks and Treasury notes were all retired so that there would not be a dollar of paper money to be presented for gold, yet it would be his duty (whenever in his opinion it became necessary) to redeem silver dollars in gold and start another endless chain and drain upon the Treasury. According to the doctrine laid down in Mr. Carlisle's letter you cannot stop the drain of gold from the Treasury until you retire all the silver dollars and silver certificates, and leave nothing but gold as the money of the country.

I am glad that this declaration has been made. I am glad that our opponents are, step by step, revealing to the public eye this heartless, merciless, criminal policy. I am glad that they have told the public that we must have gold alone after having confessed to the public that we are in the hands of two banking syndicates and must pay them for that gold whatever they want.