I appreciate, too, the kindly feeling which has prompted the presentation of this badge by the Hebrew Democrats. Our opponents have sometimes tried to make it appear that we are attacking a race when we denounce the financial policy advocated by the Rothschilds. But we are not; we are as much opposed to the financial policy of J. Pierpont Morgan as we are to the financial policy of the Rothschilds. We are not attacking a race; we are attacking greed and avarice, which know neither race nor religion. I do not know of any class of our people who, by reason of their history, can better sympathize with the struggling masses in this campaign than can the Hebrew race.

The Bible tells us that when the children of Israel were in bondage and asked for a lightening of their burdens, the Pharaoh of their time said that they were idle, and recommended more work. He compelled them to make bricks without straw. Pharaoh has been the same in all ages. No matter to what race he belongs, no matter when or where he lives, Pharaoh lives on the toil of others and always wants to silence complaint by making the load heavier.

In presenting this badge my Hebrew friends have referred to David and Goliath. Whenever we have a great contest in which right is arrayed against might, the contest between David and Goliath is always cited to give inspiration to those who fight for the truth. David conquered, not because he was stronger, but because he was on the right side; and if in this contest I am likened to David, let me reply that as David triumphed because he was right, so my only hope of victory is in the righteousness of my cause.

I may be wrong-I have never claimed infallibility-but when I examine a question and reach a conclusion, I am willing to stand by what I believe, I care not what may happen. In this struggle for the restoration of bimetallism there was a time when I had less company than I have now.

Some of the Chicago papers have called me a demagogue. If there is one thing which I am not, it is a demagogue. A demagogue is a man who advocates a thing which he does not believe in order to conciliate those who differ from him. A demagogue is a man who is willing to advocate anything, whether he believes it or not, which will be advantageous to him and gain him popularity. Now, my friends, I have never advocated, during my public life, a single thing which I did not myself believe. I have proven my willingness to go down in defeat when I was in a minority rather than surrender my convictions, and I have always been willing to accept defeat when it came. I say this here because in this city most of the papers are against us, and I must defend myself.

If there is anybody in this city who believes that the free coinage of silver will be injurious to this country, he has a reason for voting against those who stand for free coinage, but I do not want any person who is in favor of the money of the Constitution to be deterred from voting for those who stand for that money by any abuse which our opponents may use against us between now and election day. I shall be in this city for a few days, and shall see as many of your people as it is possible to see in that time, and I shall defend before these people the principles for which I stand. And more than that, I am going to talk to the people themselves; I shall not go to the employers and bargain with them for the delivery of the votes of their employes. I have been taught

to believe that the ballot was given to the individual for his own use, and that the person who has the right to vote has also the ability to determine how he ought to vote. Therefore in this campaign I shall address my arguments to the individual voters, not to the head of a firm, or to the president of a corporation, or to the boss of a railroad.

Three political parties have declared that the money question is the paramount issue and the bolting Democrats-who are helping the Republican ticket without the courage to openly support it-have declared that this money question is the paramount issue. The leading Republicans also have admitted it, and yet when our opponents are driven to the wall on the money question and have failed in their attempt to defend themselves before the American people, they have attempted to turn the discussion off from the money question onto other questions; but I give them notice that for one week more they must face the money question.

In the past, the gold standard has gained every victory under cover and in the dark; and in this campaign the gold standard, having failed before the people, is seeking to secure its hold upon the American people under cover of the pretense that the nation is in danger if those who believe in the Chicago platform are successful.

I am willing to trust to the intelligence of the American people to decide whether this Government is safer in the hands of those who believe in the ability of the people to govern themselves, or in the hands of the trusts and syndicates which have been bleeding the people.

I am willing to let the American people decide whether our affairs are safer in the hands of those who believe in our form of government and who would, if necessary, die to perpetuate it, or whether they are safer in the hands of a few financiers who cannot think on the money question until they have cabled to London to find out what to think.

That evening meetings were held in some nine different places, the last one at Tattersall's, where floral devices were presented by the horseshoers and by the Hebrew organizations.

On the next day, the most important meeting of the series was held -namely, the business men's meeting at Battery D, at twelve o'clock. The speech delivered on that occasion will be found below:

Chicago Speech to Business Men.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am glad that this meeting is presided over by one who until this time has been a Republican and by one who has been a soldier, because in this double character of ex-Republican and exsoldier, he illustrates the depth to which society is stirred by the issues now before us. As an ex-Republican, he stands as a representative of that large and increasing number of our citizens who are willing to break asunder party ties and leave party associates in order to make their party affiliations suit their convictions; and as a former soldier he stands as the representative of those, who, having willingly offered their services to make this nation one,

are willing to engage in this great contest which is to determine whether the nation which they helped to save shall remain an independent nation or become a province of a foreign empire.

I am glad to talk to business men. I have said that those who so often assume to be the only business men sometimes make a great mistake in supposing that the prosperity of a nation rests upon them. I am going to talk today to business men, and I want to say to you that in pleading the cause of the farmer and the laborer I am trying to lay a substantial foundation upon which the business of this country can be done. If you engage in merchandise and in the exchange of wealth, and suppose that the prosperity of the producer depends upon you, you deceive yourseives. Wealth must be created before it can be distributed. Those who create wealth could live although you should go out of business, but you cannot live if the producers of wealth go out of business. I believe that that policy is best for this country which brings prosperity first to those who toil; give them first the inspiration to work and then protect them in the enjoyment of their rightful share of the proceeds of their toil, and their prosperity will find its way up to the other classes of society which rest upon them. I challenge you to find in the pages of recorded history a single instance where prosperity came from the upper crust of society; it always comes from the masses,-the foundation of society. I desire to talk to you who are business men for another reason. I believe that many of you are being tyrannized over by financial influences. My friends, you need not point back to times of war to find heroes. The year 1896 has developed heroes in this nation. I know business men who have been summoned before their bankers and told that their notes would not be extended if they insisted on talking for free silver; I know one man who was called into the bank and told that he would have to look elsewhere for accommodation if he did not stop talking for free silver, and that man replied that he realized that the banker had him in his power; that if the banker had a mind to, he could call for the payment of his notes, close up his store and wipe out all the accumulation of years of industry, but he added: "I believe that humanity is involved in this question, and I shall continue to oppose the gold standard. You can take my property if you like, but you cannot have my soul." It requires heroism for a man to stand in the presence of a financial despot and bid him do his worst. I believe that the mercantile classes have suffered as much as any other class of people from a government by banks, and when I preach to the common people deliverance from the money changer, I preach to the business men deliverance from the tyranny of the bank. I assert that the man who loans you money has no right to control your vote, and that the man who, because he loans you money, attempts to rob you of your citizenship, should be made to feel the contempt of an injured and indignant people. I know it is not polite to say anything against these financiers who think so well of themselves. But if they do not want to have hard things said about them, let them cease to be despots and learn to be just.

I ask you business men to think over this proposition from now until election day: If the gold standard is a good thing, why is it that those who

advocate it resort to deception? Are you compelled to resort to deception when you are selling something whose qualities are good? Are you compelled to resort to deception when you are selling goods upon their merits? Now, when you are selling something which has merits, you present its merits, and when you see a man resort to deception, it is a confession that the thing which he advocates is not able to stand upon its own merits. I assert that the platform adopted by the Republican party this year is a fraud. I assert that it was intended as a fraud, and that the men who wrote it, so wrote it as to deceive the people and to secure an advantage by deception which they could not obtain otherwise. If you desire my proof, I will read you a few editorials. I am going to speak of a distinguished editor of your city, for whom, as an individual, I have the highest respect, and I believe that he entertains for me the same kindly feeling that I entertain for him, but he believes that my election would be dangerous to the country, and I believe that his action on the money question has been hostile to the best interests of our people. I shall cite him and his words as an evidence of the attempt of the Republican party to deceive the American people.

If you will read the Times-Herald of June 17, you will find these words in the dispatch from St. Louis:

It is only a matter of simple justice to Mr. Kohlsaat for me to report what everybody in St. Louis who is familiar with the facts is saying tonight, that the credit of having secured the adoption of this straight and unmistakable money plank by the Republican National Convention is due more to him than to anyone else.

There in his own paper he has published a statement from his own correspondent that he, more than anyone else, is responsible for the money plank adopted by the St. Louis convention. Now what does this plank say:

We are therefore opposed to the free coinage of silver except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote; and until such agreement can be obtained, the existing gold standard must be preserved.

Now note the words. The platform declares that until the leading commercial nations of the world will join in bimetallism, the gold standard must be preserved, and the platform contains this promise, “which we pledge ourselves to promote."

Now there is the declaration that we must maintain the gold standard until we can get international bimetallism, but that the Republican party is pledged to promote international bimetallism. Now what else do we find in that paper? The correspondent, speaking of the platform, says:

The qualifying words used by the committee pledging the party to endeavor to promote an international agreement, are intended to strengthen the platform from the political point of view without in any way weakening it as a frank and fearless declaration for the gold standard. As it is and has been, the Republican policy to promote international bimetallism, and as such bimetallism is earnestly desired by almost everyone in the country of both parties, nothing is lost and something is gained by giving the western Republicans a ray of hope in the future.

Now, my friends, if you will look in the 6th of June issue of the same paper -only a few days before-you will find this editorial:

Any reference to an international agreement is shifty and futile. It deceives nobody, because everyone knows, first, that there is not the slightest possibility of an international agreement at any ratio; and, second, that if such an agreement were formally entered into, no government could be bound to abide by it a day longer than its own industrial and commercial interests would appear to warrant.

In the paper owned by the man who wrote the platform you find a declaration only ten days before the convention that any reference to an international agreement is shifty and futile; that it deceives nobody because every one knows that there is not the slightest possibility of international agreement at any ratio. Within ten days after that editorial appears in the Times-Herald, the editor writes a plank which pledges the Republican party to every effort to promote international bimetallism, and then the same paper reports in its dispatches from St. Louis that this pledge is put in there to give a ray of hope to the Republicans of the West.

Now, my friends, I want you to remember that that phrase pledging the Republican party to promote bimetallism was meant as a sop to the Republicans of the West, and that it was not the intention that the Republican party would put forth any effort to change the gold standard. I have asserted in the past, and I reassert that if the gold standard has been a blessing to the American people, we ought to maintain the gold standard; but when a man tells you that the gold standard is good, I want you to tell him that its blessings have been so mysteriously concealed from the American people that no party has ever dared to declare that the gold standard is good. Now, some of the newspapers tell you that I appeal to prejudice; that I try to stir up discontent. I want to present a plain and simple proposition which you can put before your intelligent friends, and it is this: If the gold standard has merits, no party would be pledging itself to get rid of it, and if it has no merits, no party ought to pledge itself to maintain it.

Now, why is it that Republicans in speaking of their financial policy always talk about "sound money" instead of the gold standard? I asked the question last night, I have asked it time and again. Go into their parades, look upon their banners; you do not find "gold;" you always find "sound money." My friends, we want sound money; we are advocating a sounder money than the gold standard can give. But when we talk about sound money we tell you what we mean by it, and how we are going to get it. When they talk about sound Another thing, if a man money they leave you to guess what they mean. comes to you with a business proposition you expect him to be able to point out to you the advantages; you ask him the details, and if he tells you that he does not know just how it is going to work you do not have any confidence in his plan, or if he tells you that his plan has great merits but says: "I am not going to tell you anything about it until you invest your money in the plan,” you would not pay any attention to that sort of a man, and yet I want you to understand that in this campaign the Republican party is not elaborating any financial policy.

It is opposing us but it is not proposing anything. Now, if the Republican party knows what is best, why doesn't it tell the American people? If the Republican party has a plan which will relieve our present condition, why doesn't the Republican party submit that plan to the American people for their