into the labor of political campaigning for the benefit of others, becom ing known as one of the most scholarly, logical and convincing of stump speakers while at the same time he commanded the qualities which make an orator popular. His oratory is not cyclonic, but argumentative, incisive and convincing. Of a judicial and deliberative cast of thought, he takes great pains to be sure that he is right on a given subject before he expresses himself on it.

In 1894, having firmly established himself in the popular esteem, Mr Towne was given the nomination for congressman by the Repub licans and was elected by an enormous majority. In Congress he sprang into public notice by a free silver speech, surprised the House of Representatives and fixed the attention even of the old-timers in the press galleries. At once he became one of the noted orators of Congress. Mr. Towne always had been a Republican until he fell into disagree ment with the party on the currency question. He consistently stood for the free coinage of silver. In the St. Louis convention of 1896, which nominated Mr. McKinley for the Presidency, Mr. Towne was a delegate from Minnesota. When his opposition failed and the convention adopted a plank standing for gold, he accompanied Senator Teller, of Colorado, in his famous bolt from the convention.

In 1896, as a result of his abandonment of the Republican party, the Democrat-Populist fusion party nominated him for Congress, but he was defeated. Mr. Towne so reduced the normal Republican majority of the district that the result was a veritable triumph for him. Again in 1898 he was defeated as a result of a second fusion candidacy. He has called himself not a Democrat, but a Silver Republican, and in 1898 was elected national chairman of the Silver Republicans. However, Mr. Towne's earnest advocacy of free silver coinage has not been the only point at which he differed from his former party friends, the Republicans. He is in full sympathy with many of the principles of Democracy, and now leans strongly toward that party, as it is exemplified in Mr. Bryan's personality and views. He was nominated by the Popu lists at Sioux Falls by acclamation. The Democratic convention in Kansas City considered him a strong possibility for the vice-presidency on their own ticket, but finally he was defeated for that nomination.

quences had been felt and measured. The sentiment of dissent took on new energy demanding expression. On May 17, 1876, a convention assembled at Indianapolis, Indiana, and organized as

THE INDEPENDENT GREENBACK PARTY.

The platform adopted presented the following principles:

1. The immediate and unconditional repeal of the Specie Resumption Act.

2. Full legal tender, greenback money to be issued directly to the people, convertible into U. S. bonds bearing interest at the rate of one cent a day upon each $100.

3. Legislation impartially for all legitimate business, agricultural, mining, manufacturing and commercial.

4. Protests against any further issue of gold bonds.

5. Protests against selling bonds to buy silver wherewith to displace fractional currency.

Upon this platform the convention nominated for President Peter Cooper, of New York, and for Vice-President Samuel F. Cary, of Ohio. This ticket at the election in the following November (1876) polled a popular vote of 81,740.

In the presidential contest of 1880, with a platform but little changed, the "Greenbackers" came to the polls with Gen. James B. Weaver, of Iowa, for President, and B. J. Chambers, of Texas, for Vice-President, casting 307,306 votes for their candidates.

In 1884 they presented Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, for President, and A. M. West, of Mississippi, for Vice-President. Popular vote, 175,370.

The National Greenback party disappeared after the presidential election of 1884. In its last effort at the polls its vote had been notably diminished; and, although in certain districts, the movement continued for some time to preserve an organization, it was plain to all that as a national party it had culminated. But it had achieved a great purpose. It had created a literature, diffused intelligence and powerfully directed attention to the new aspects of the old "money question." It had also obtained important governmental action. In February, 1878, the BlandAllison Act, preventing any further retirement of greenbacks and partially remonetizing silver, became a law. In March of the same year Congress passed an act reissuing forty-four millions of dollars in green

backs, previously retired; and in October, following, Mr. Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, announced the willingness of the government to receive greenbacks at par in payment of customs duties. The Supreme Court of the United States had, also, handed down a decision affirming the constitutionality of the greenback as a legal tender, thus removing all doubt as to the value of that kind of currency. As a consequence of these measures, the currency of the country began to increase in volume and, most of all, the bank hoards that had been in hiding through the long period of depression, 1872-8, now scenting a period of rising prices and increasing business activity, began to pour forth into the channels of trade.

It is worthy of note that during the discussion of the Bland-Allison Bill the advocates of the gold standard, both in and out of Congress, confidently predicted that the bill, if suffered to become a law, would ruin credit, destroy confidence, drive gold away, and increase the then existing commercial distress. No such results followed. On the contrary, a moderate degree of prosperity gradually returned; and, immersed in reviving business and industry, the Greenbackers without surrendering their views ceased to press them with their former vigor. The Democrats, too, very generally took up the Greenback doctrines, fusion became the political policy of both organizations, and, while the ideas of the Greenbackers survived, the party that gave them their earliest and most powerful momentum gradually disappeared from the national forum.

During the four years following, 1884-8, the masterful hand of President Cleveland drew the Democratic party quite away from its Greenbacker allies; and, toward the close of that period, the aggressive movements of the gold standard forces aroused, again, the Greenbacker sentiment. Added to this the unrest of the laboring classes, steadily growing under increasing provocations, had come to the point of political party action. Accordingly came the

UNION LABOR PARTY.

This party, largely composed of Knights of Labor and members of The Agricultural Wheel, Farmers' Alliance, Grangers, Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association, Single Taxers, etc., was quite dominated by the oldline Greenbackers. It met in national convention at Cincinnati, Ohio, May 16, 1888, and nominated A. J. Streator, of Illinois, for President,