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seeking homes and opportunities among us, than to admit one unruly agitator who could not only read and write, but could by speech influence the passions of the discontented and incite them. to violence and disorder.

A memorable event of a non-political character during Cleveland's second term was the World's Columbian Exposition held at Chicago in the summer and autumn of 1893. As the four hundredth anniversity of the discovery of America by Columbus approached, the idea was conceived of commemorating the event by a gigantic exposition, under national auspices, which should exhibit the industrial progress and resources of the United States on a scale which had never before been attempted. Congress approved the plan, and after a spirited contest selected Chicago as the city in which the exposition should be held. As a national aid to the exposition Congress also appropriated two million dollars in the form of souvenir coins, and expended as much more for the erection of a government building and for the preparation and installation of exhibits. The city government of Chicago made the exposition a loan of $5,000,000, while many millions more were raised by private subscription among the citizens of that enterprising municipality. Ten or twelve millions were also appropriated by the individual States and by foreign nations. Jackson Park, an unimproved region of marsh and morass on the lower lake front, was selected as the cite of the Fair, and through the skill of the landscape gardener it was quickly transformed into a garden of unsurpassed beauty, interspersed with lagoons, canals, bridges, beds of flowers, and shrubbery. On the site thus selected was erected a vast group of buildings for the most part of a cheap but durable material which resembled white marble. On account of the dazzling effect which it presented the entire group was given the name of the "White City." The largest structure was the Manufactures building, which covered forty-four acres. Besides this mammoth structure were the Administration, Agricultural, Horticultural, Transportation, Mining, Fisheries, Electricity, Art, Machinery, and Woman's buildings. Then there were the United States Government building, the various State buildings, and the foreign buildings. It being found impossible to complete the preparations in time to open the Fair in the anniversary year, 1892, the opening was postponed until May 1, 1893. The ceremonies of the opening day were elaborate and were participated in by many distinguished per

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sons, among others, President Cleveland and the Duke of Veragua, the latter a lineal descendant of Christopher Columbus. President Cleveland delivered an address, and, after he had concluded, touched an electric button which set the machinery moving, the fountains playing, the flags flying, and the chimes ringing. The great exposition was then officially declared open to the public. Never before had so many rare and varied exhibits been collected in one place. The criticism of the Philadelphia Centennial, that the art exhibit was its poorest feature, could not be applied to the Chicago Fair. The latter, in fact, had a spacious building devoted wholly to works of art, and the collection there exhibited was by far the largest and best ever seen in this country. From the first day of May until the last day of October the exposition was open to visitors, and from the first to last over 10,000,000 persons are estimated to have entered its gates. The paid-up admissions were over 21,000,000, while the total attendance was over 27,000,000. On "Chicago Day," Ocotober 9, the anniversary of the great fire, over 716,000 persons passed through the gates.22 The total receipts exceeded $15,000,000. Fortunately few of the buildings were designed to be permanent, for shortly after the close of the exposition a fire broke out and, as a result of the highly combustible character of the material of which the buildings were constructed, it proved impossible to stay the flames. One after another of the great structures quickly succumbed, and in less than an hour the White City, which had been the Mecca of millions from all corners of the earth, was only a memory.

Two years later, in 1895, a successful exposition surpassed among its predecessors in the United States only by those at Chicago and Philadelphia, was held at Atlanta, Georgia. Its buildings and grounds were beautiful and in good taste, and the exhibits interesting and creditable. They revealed, as no former exposition had done, the industrial progress of the South since the War. A notable feature was the Negro building, filled with varied exhibits showing the progress of the negro as a farmer, artisan, and educator. An incident of the opening ceremonies, on September 18, not without significance, was an address by Booker T. Washington, the colored educator, containing an eloquent and sensible plea for kindly relations between the white and black races of the South. The address attracted wide attention throughout the country, and revealed Professor Washington as the coming leader of his race. 22 " Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia," 1893, p. 762.

Chapter XLIII

WILLIAM MCKINLEY-THE WAR WITH SPAIN

1897-1901

I

ELECTION OF 1896

N the presidential campaign of 1896 the question of the free

IN

coinage of silver was the paramount issue, although the discon

tent and hard times, which the Republicans attributed to the Wilson Bill, gave great force to the Republican demand for a true protective tariff. For years the project of throwing the mints of the United States open to the free and unlimited coinage of silver had been steadily growing in favor with the masses, especially in those sections of the country which lay remote from the great money and industrial centers of the country. The owners of silver mines in the West naturally favored it, because of the demand which such a policy would create for the product of their mines. The farmers wanted it because they believed it would increase the volume of money in circulation and thus restore prosperity in place of the hard times then existing. Finally, there were a large number of intelligent men of all occupations and professions who believed that the "discrimination" of the government against silver in favor of gold operated in the interests of the money power to the detriment of the masses of the people. They believed that a return to the policy of the "fathers," by which the two metals were treated alike at the mints, would mean a return to sound financial conditions. Nor were the advocates of free coinage wholly confined to the ranks of any particular political party. An important minority of the Republicans, most of the Democrats, and all the Populists had been carried away by the idea. It was only President Cleveland's determined stand in 1892, backed, as he was, by the Eastern Democrats, which kept his party from then making the question of free coinage, instead of the tariff, the dominant issue. Now, he was no longer able to control, or even in

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fluence, his party and the Democrats made silver the issue, and thereby absorbed the Populists.

The first of the great national conventions to assemble for the purpose of nominating candidates and formulating issues was that of the Republicans, which met at St. Louis on June 16. Public sentiment in the party had already agreed upon William McKinley, of Ohio, as the nominee for President, although Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, had a strong and influential following. Mr. McKinley was nominated on the first ballot, receiving more than two-thirds of the votes of the convention, while Garrett A. Hobart, of New Jersey, was chosen for Vice President. The Republican platform characterized Cleveland's administration as one of " unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and disaster." It eulogized protection and reciprocity as "twin measures of Republican policy," and declared in favor of sugar bounties, legislative encouragement for the merchant marine, American "control" of Hawaii, the purchase of the Danish West India Islands, and the construction by the United States of the Nicaragua Canal; reaffirmed the Monroe Doctrine in "its full extent "; and demanded that the government of the United States should use its influence and good offices to restore peace in, and give independence to, Cuba. On the all important question of the currency the platform pronounced as follows: "We are 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." This emphatic pronouncement in favor of the gold standard was opposed by the free silver delegates, and a determined effort was made by Senator Teller of Colorado, the leader of this element, to secure the adoption of a free silver plank as a substitute. Being defeated by an overwhelming vote of the convention, Senator Teller, followed by some thirty free silver delegates, formally withdrew from the convention and refused to support the ticket and platform thus put forward.

The Democratic national convention met at Chicago July 7. Its position on the money question had already been determined by the action of the various State conventions, no less than thirty of which had pronounced emphatically in favor of free and unlimited coinage. It was plain from the moment the convention assembled that the free silver delegates were in the majority. The na

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tional committee, however, was made up of a majority of gold standard delegates, and it recommended David B. Hill, of New York for temporary chairman; but he was not acceptable to the convention, and a staunch friend of silver, Senator Daniel of Virginia, was chosen instead. The increased representation of the Territories in the convention and the unseating of the "gold" delegation from Nebraska gave the silver men the two-thirds majority necessary to nominate the candidates. The platform adopted was unusually long and full of severe denunciation of the opposite party. It criticised the McKinley tariff as a "prolific breeder of trusts and monopolies," and denounced railroad "mergers," the "profligate waste and lavish appropriations of recent Congresses," government by injunction, and "arbitrary interference by the Federal authorities in local affairs as a violation of the Constitution and a crime against free institutions." It demanded an enlargement of the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission, a "return to simplicity and economy" in the administration of the government, and contained a declaration of sympathy for the Cuban insurgents. Over one-half the platform was devoted to the money question, which was declared to be "paramount to all others." "Until this question is settled," the declaration affirmed, "we are opposed to any agitation for further changes in our tariff laws, except such as may be necessary to meet the deficit in revenue caused by the adverse decision of the Supreme Court in the income tax case."

Silver was eulogized as the money of the Constitution equally with gold; its demonetization in 1873 was denounced as a “crime,' responsible alike for the prostration of industry, the impoverishment of the people and the enrichment of the capitalistic classes at home and abroad. Gold monometalism was stigmatized as a British policy, not only un-American, but anti-American, and “totally destructive of the liberty and spirit of '76." Finally, the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 16 to I, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation, was imperatively demanded. President Cleveland's whole financial policy, his issuing bonds in time of peace, his "trafficking with banking syndicates," all his efforts to maintain the gold reserve, were bitterly denounced as though they were the crimes and blunders of the opposing party. Mr. Cleveland's friends exerted themselves to secure the adoption of the customary resolution endorsing the