of the country. It is the duty of conservative men, even though they have shrunk from the idea of assuming any share of the responsibility for the Chicago platform, with its possibilities, at least, of immense disaster to the country, to endeavor to understand the spirit and purpose behind the radical political programme which has now been put forward, to appreciate the strength of the forces back of it, and especially to do whatever may be possible during the coming campaign to prevent political division from running on sectional or class lines.

In the first place, as to the presidential candidate of the Chicago Convention. However weak the nomination of Mr. Bryan might be under other conditions, or upon a different platform, there is every reason to believe that he is the best possible nominee for the Democratic party in its present situation, from the mere standpoint of success at the coming election. Candidate and platform are in complete accord. On such a radical platform there would have been no appreciable advantage in nominating a man of more conservative views and instincts. If success with such a programme be possible, it needs a man with the enthusiasm and audacity of youth to achieve it. Ordinarily, it would not be good policy for a great political party to nominate for the presidency, chiefly upon his ability as an orator, a man of Mr. Bryan's youth, comparative lack of experience in public affairs, and radicalism of views. But in the face of the present situation, the very boldness of the nomination gives it a certain strength. The exigency called for a candidate possessed of personal magnetism, able to give eloquent expression before a popular audience to the sentiments underlying the movement. The sort of warfare which may be expected from him may prove more effective than is now anticipated in some quarters. The instinct of the Convention in selecting the presidential nominee, for the first time in the history of American politics, from a State west of the Mississippi, was a sound one from the standpoint of political expediency. A Western candidate will win far more support in that section of the country than a Southern candidate could do, while he will probably hold the South about as well as a Southern man. Upon the platform adopted, the obvious policy of the party was to play for the Populist vote; to make an entirely new departure, creating a new party under an old name. The nomination of Mr. Bryan is more consistent with this policy than any

other which could have been made, unless indeed Senator Teller could have been taken up, and the unwisdom of nominating him was recognized by nearly everybody in the Convention. The past political course of the candidate commends him at least as much to Populists as to Democrats. Before these lines can be read the action of the Populist Convention at St. Louis will have been taken; the writer thinks it safe to assume that either Mr. Bryan will be endorsed, or that some arrangement will be made, then or later, by which he can secure the Populist votes.

The nomination of Mr. Sewall, of Maine, for Vice-President, while made in the Convention upon the spur of the moment, and chiefly for the purpose of avoiding possible mistakes in other directions, is mainly significant as indicating a desire to refute the idea that the new movement is a sectional one of the South and the farther West against the East; probably it was also intended to afford a conspicuous demonstration of the fact that every successful business man will not necessarily be opposed to the Democratic party in its new policy.

Looking first at the coming presidential contest merely from the standpoint of the popular vote, the one fact of prime significance, which must not be overlooked, is that 1,041,000 votes were cast in 1892 for Weaver, the Populist candidate for President, or nearly nineteen per cent. as many votes as were given to Cleveland. To be sure, this vote practically includes the whole Democratic vote in the States of Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, and Wyoming, where no Democratic electors were placed in nomination. Deducting a fair estimate of the Democratic vote in these States, the straight Populist vote still amounts to over 900,000, or over one-sixth of the vote cast for Cleveland.

Nor should it be forgotten, if we try to do justice to the political acumen of the new leaders, that owing to the irreconcilable conflict of opinion existing within the ranks of the Democratic party upon the money question, they were obliged to take one horn or the other of a dilemma. While free-silver coinage at 16 to 1 invited a formidable bolt on the part of Eastern Democrats, a great body of Democratic voters in the South and West were no longer willing to give their support to the party candidate unless upon a platform either declaring directly for free silver, or at least giving the certain assurance of financial legislation securing

an enlargement of the circulating medium of the country. The South had accepted the platform of 1892 partly because of the pronounced views of the candidate who was to stand upon it, partly because it specifically promised the repeal of the tax on state bank issues, partly because the currency plank could easily be construed to favor the free coinage of silver at a new ratio, in accordance with its market price. The failure of the Democratic party to support in Congress the repeal of the state bank tax, the construction placed by the administration upon the plank relating to silver, the repeal of the Sherman law without the enactment of any legislation in its place, and finally the issue of $262,000,000 of bonds, primarily and ostensibly for the purpose of purchasing gold to maintain the reserve of that metal, however commendable from the standpoint of Eastern sound-money men this course of action may have been, nevertheless led naturally and inevitably to the position assumed by the delegates of the South and West at Chicago. Their attitude there should have occasioned no surprise to any close observer of recent political tendencies.

In considering the readiness which the Southern Democrats have shown to accept the programme of a union with the Populists, with Mr. Bryan for the common candidate, it should be noted that the Populist party has shown strength enough to make it a factor in politics, on account of the size of its vote or of the closeness of the contest between the two old parties, in almost every State of the South. The Populist vote in Kentucky and Tennessee is so large that both of these States would probably be in doubt at the coming election upon a platform not in sympathy with Populist views. In Arkansas the Populist vote increased from 11,000 in 1892 to 24,000 in 1894; in Georgia, from 42,000 in the former year to 96,000, by means of fusion with the Republicans, in the latter. In North Carolina, Weaver's vote of 44,000 in 1892 became, through fusion with the Republicans, 148,000 in 1894, carrying the State. In Texas the Populist vote grew from 99,000 in 1892 to 159,000 in 1894; in Virginia, from 12,000 in the former year to 81,000 in 1893. In 1892 Weaver received 13,000 votes in Louisiana and 10,000 in Mississippi. At the State elections of 1894, the Populist vote in Alabama was 83,000, and in Missouri 42,000. A little consideration of these figures may enable Eastern men to

understand better the desire even of the leading politicians of the South to commit the Democratic party to a close alliance with Populism. The plain fact is that the South is honeycombed with Populism, and has been ready for a number of years for the formal alliance with the Populists beyond the Mississippi which has now been consummated at Chicago.

The South has given up, deliberately and probably for an indefinite period of time, its old political alliance in the Northeast, and has entered into a new alliance with the States beyond the Mississippi; it has exchanged the States of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, with their 52 doubtful or Democratic electoral votes, for the 83 electoral votes of the farther West, or such of them as it may be able to secure. Indiana, lying half way between the old political allies and the new ones, is doubtless expected by the South to enter into the new combination; but the chances that this State will remain Democratic on the new basis are hardly as good as was the prospect that she would continue Democratic in association with the Eastern States. The new lines of alliance also seek to include the great State of Illinois, and it now seems probable that the chances of placing her in the Democratic column as newly formed are better than the chances that she would have joined Indiana in her political course upon the old basis.

In the South itself the new alliance with Western Populism probably tends to hold Kentucky and Tennessee, which have been becoming doubtful States, more firmly in the Democratic column, to bring North Carolina back into the fold of Democracy, and to hold South Carolina within it, thus tending to make 43 electoral votes more secure for the Democratic party. It would certainly seem that this alliance will, on the other hand, tend to throw Delaware, Maryland, and probably West Virginia also, with their 17 electoral votes, into political affiliation with the North Atlantic States. However unwise future events may show this policy to be from a political standpoint, or however serious may be the results which the success of the new combination may bring to the country, there is certainly no great cause for surprise in the fact that it has commended itself from the standpoint of political expediency, or even necessity, to the judgment of old and tried Southern leaders, such as Senator Jones, of Arkansas.

The Chicago Convention furnished a striking demonstration of the fact that the centre of political power in this country has passed away from the East. The new conditions have already clearly manifested themselves in the Senate, though few have awakened to the permanent character of the change, or to the far-reaching influence upon the policies of the country which will inevitably result from it. The majority of the Senate, it must be remembered, can not only exert a considerable influence by its example over the House of Representatives, and through its power of confirmation of appointments over the President himself, but it has an absolute veto power over all legislation. However necessary financial legislation of some sort may be to secure the redeemability of all forms of our currency in gold, or even to protect the very solvency of the Treasury, no measure in this direction can become a law without the consent of a majority of the States of the Union, as represented in the Senate. One of the cardinal points of the present political situation is that the section of the country west of the Mississippi River, which for convenience will hereafter be referred to in this article as the West, has in recent years made an immense gain in votes in the Senate. By the admission since 1889 of the seven new States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah, having together fourteen votes, the sixteen votes which the West possessed before that year have been nearly doubled. The transMississippi section now has just one-third of the total votes in the Senate; and even this representation will doubtless be increased in the near future by the admission of New Mexico and Arizona into the Union. The sixteen Southern States are represented by thirty-two Senators, so that the South and West together have to-day more than a two-thirds vote in the Senate. With the admission of two new Western States, the South could lose the political control entirely, as it has already lost it partly, of the three States of Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia, and yet, with the West, control just two-thirds of the Senate. It is, therefore, obvious that with any reasonable concert of action between the South and the West, these two sections of the country together can control the action of the Senate, and can thereby at least prevent the passage of any legislation not in harmony with the views of their people.