begged and pleaded with the delegates. He urged them not to do anything that would injure the chances of the success of Mr. Bryan. "Don't, gentlemen," he pleaded; "be moderate." With his voice betraying deep emotion, Senator Teller said, "I am going to support Mr. Bryan, and the ticket in every way I can, not for Mr. Bryan, but for the country which I so love," and then Mr. Teller, with tears streaming from his eyes, took his seat.

W. T. Foster gained the floor, and insisted upon the chair putting the question. During the confusion that resulted Mr. Towne entered the hall, and in an instant there was pandemonium. Mr. Towne finally took the platform and said: "I don't want you to nominate me for vice-president. I understand what my duty is in this matter. The silver republicans have made a good fight. They have been defeated, but it is your duty to support the ticket nominated by the national democratic convention."

He insisted there was an issue in the coming election which towers above men, and implored the convention to look at it as he did. Finally, after many hours of wrangling, a motion was made by Senator Dubois that the whole question of the vice-presidency be left to the national committee with power to report at a later date, and this was agreed to. The convention then adjourned.

On July 7, 1900, the Silver Republican National Committee issued the following address:

"To the Silver Republicans of the United States: The democratic national convention of 1900 has nominated William J. Bryan for president and Adlai E. Stevenson for vice-president. The silver republican national convention of 1900 has nominated William J. Bryan for president and referred the matter of a candidate for vicepresident to its national committee, with power to act. Your committee has carefully considered the whole matter. It met in conference with representatives of the democratic and of the people's party national committees, and went over the ground fully.

"Your committee found itself face to face with these facts:

"In 1896 thousands of voters who had heretofore voted the republican ticket found themselves so widely at variance with their party's platform that they could not, without self-stultification, longer act with the republican party. In that year they found in the democratic candidate for president and in the platform upon which he stood a complete and sufficient justification for giving him their hearty support. With him they went down to defeat, but in that defeat won a victory for manhood and patriotic independence for which they have no apology to offer, and in which they feel a just pride. They retain and preserve their right to vote as their conscience and their judgment dictate. They bow to no party boss, and have not abdicated their right to think.

"In 1896 the republican party made a profound departure from the traditions and interests of the American people, and of that party, by rejecting the free coinage of silver along with gold and placing itself in a position to adopt the gold standard. This year it has declared itself unreservedly for the gold standard. This continues the controversy of 1896. But, in addition to its departure from the advocacy of bimetallism, it has now still more profoundly departed from the traditions and interests of the American people by becoming the apologist for and the champion of trusts and monopolies, and has introduced such imperialistic practices and theories into the administration of the affairs of government that, for the first time in the history of that party, its national convention could not even refer to the declaration of independence, and this, although its convention of 1900 met in such a place and within such environment that the great declaration would have peculiarly appealed to the party had it still listened to the voice that, in that earlier and better day, pleaded for a government 'of the people, for the people, and by the people.' In the face of such profound departures from the traditions and interests of the American people, we cannot return to the republican party.

"On the other hand, we find the democratic party has again placed itself right on the money question, right on the question of trusts and monopolies, right as the champion of the declaration of independence, and of constitutional government, right in expressing its sympathy for other nations who only ask 'that which you would that others should do unto you, do ye even so unto them."

"The democratic candidate for president is ours; our convention named him. Upon the fundamental propositions above stated we are one with the democratic and the people's party. Our common candidate for president is enlisted heart and soul in this great cause. We know he has the high courage of his convictions. His triumph is necessary if we are to hand down to our children and our children's children a government founded in the wisdom of the fathers, maintained by the blood and treasure of its citizens, and perpetuated as a priceless heritage.

"Impelled by these considerations, your national committee has determined that its duty in this hour is to indorse the Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson as our candidate for vice-president in order that the opposition to the gold standard, trusts and monopolies, imperialism and

all its attendant evils may concentrate its votes at the danger point and accomplish the triumph of those principles so dear to us.

"It is but simple justice to say that in taking this action we are following the advice of our distinguished leader, the Hon. Charles A. Towne.

"Let us express the hope that our friends will lay aside whatever of disappointment they may feel and join in a united effort to secure the triumph of our principles at the coming election.

"D. C. TILLOTSON, Kansas,

"Chairman National Convention.

"E. S. CORSER, Minnesota,

"Secretary and Treasurer.

"FRED. T. DUBOIS, Idaho,

"Chairman Executive Committee.

"JOHN F. SHAFROTH, Colorado.
"S. W. BROWN, Ohio.

"D. FRANK POWELL, Wisconsin.
"NATHAN COLE, JR.

"All of Executive Committee."

CHAPTER IX.

UNCONDITIONAL REPEAL.

On February 9, 1893, the House having under consideration the following resolution:

Resolved, That immediately upon the adoption of this resolution the House proceed to consider H. R. 10143, “A bill to increase the circulation of national banks and for other purposes," and if such bill shall not be disposed of on said day, then the consideration thereof shall be continued during the next legislative day.

Mr. Bryan made his first speech against unconditional repeal. It is given below:

FIRST SPEECH AGAINST UNCONDITIONAL REPEAL.

Mr. Speaker: We oppose the consideration of this bill because we oppose the bill, and we oppose the cloture which is asked in order to secure its passage, because the Democratic party dare not go before the people and tell them they refused cloture for free coinage-which is consistent with the history of the party; for the tariff bills which we promised to pass, and for the bill for the election of United States Senators by the people, and only yielded to it at the dictation of the moneyed institutions of this country and those who want to appreciate the value of a dollar.

I call attention to the fact that there is not in this bill a single line or sentence which is not opposed to the whole history of the Democratic party. We have opposed the principle of the national bank on all occasions, and yet you give them by this bill an increased currency of $15,000,000. You have pledged the party to reduce the taxation upon the people, and yet, before you attempt to lighten this burden, you seek to take off one-half million of dollars annually from the national banks of the country; and even after declaring in your national platform that the Sherman act was a "cowardly makeshift," you attempt to take away the "makeshift" before you give us the real thing for which the makeshift was substituted.

What is a makeshift? It is a temporary expedient. And yet you tell us you will take away our temporary expedient

us.

before you give us the permanent good. You tell a man who is fighting with a club that it is a miserable makeshift and that he ought to have a repeating rifle; and yet you tell him to throw away his club and wait until his enemy gives him the rifle. We do not like the present law. It did not come from The Sherman law is the child of the opponents of free coinage. But they have given it to us, and we will hold it as a hostage until they return to us our own child, "the gold and silver coinage of the Constitution." They kidnaped it twenty years ago, and we shall hold their child, ugly and deformed as it is, until they bring ours back or give us something better than the makeshift which we now have.

Mr. Speaker, consider the effect of this bill. It means that by suspending the purchase of silver we will throw 54,000,000 ounces on the market annually and reduce the price of silver bullion. It means that we will widen the difference between the coinage and bullion value of silver, and raise a greater obstacle in the way of bimetallism. It means to increase by billions of dollars the debts of our people. It means a reduction in the price of our wheat and our cotton. You have garbled the platform of the Democratic party. You have taken up one clause of it and refuse to give us a fulfillment of the other and more important clause, which demands that gold and silver shall be coined on equal terms without charge for mintage.

Mr. Speaker, this cannot be done. A man who murders another shortens by a few brief years the life of a human being; but he who votes to increase the burden of debts upon the people of the United States assumes a graver responsibility. If we who represent them consent to rob our people, the cotton-growers of the South and the wheat-growers of the West, we will be criminals whose guilt cannot be measured by words, for we will bring distress and disaster to our people. In many cases such a vote would simply be a summons to the sheriff to take possession of their property.

PRINCIPAL SPEECH AGAINST UNCONDITIONAL

REPEAL.

The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. 1) to repeal the purchasing clause of the Sherman act.

Mr. Speaker: I shall accomplish my full purpose if I am able to impress upon the members of the House the far-reaching consequences which may follow our action and quicken their appreciation of the grave responsibility which presses upon us. Historians tell us that the victory of Charles Martel at Tours determined the history of all Europe for centuries. It was a contest "between the Crescent and the Cross," and when, on that fateful day, the Frankish prince drove back the followers of Abderrahman he rescued the West from "the alldestroying grasp of Islam," and saved to Europe its Christian civilization. A greater than Tours is here! In my humble judg.