hurricane swept over Apia, removing in its course the possibility of immediate trouble. After the usual amount of negotiation the three powers concerned recognized the independence of Samoa, but gave real authority to some officials appointed by the United States, Great Britain, and Germany.

More important than Samoa was Hawaii, in which the United States acquired a deep and lasting interest. Even before the Civil War there had been talk of annexation, and this prospect was kept alive by Seward. In 1873 Hamilton Fish pointed out the desirability of bringing the islands under the control of the United States. In 1884 the Hawaiian Government gave to the United States exclusive rights in Pearl Harbor, for a coaling and repair station. By 1892 it was becoming apparent that Great Britain was dangerously close to annexing the islands herself.

In January 1893, the Hawaiian queen, Liliuokalani, abolished the constitution and proclaimed a new one, founded upon the principle of native rule. Under this arrangement the powers formerly exercised by the United States would have been brought to an end. Two days after the queen's coup d'Etat, American residents there organized a committee of safety, and United States forces were landed. Then a provisional government was organized, and the queen surrendered. In February a treaty providing for annexation was drawn up in Washington. In March President Cleveland withdrew the treaty from the Senate, where it was still pending. The matter rested there, until the summer of 1898, during the Spanish-American War; in July Hawaii was duly annexed, in spite of the protest of the Japanese Government. By 1896 there were various indications that the process of American growth had not come to an end, and that further ventures in "imperialism" might be expected.

CHAPTER LVIII

THE FREE SILVER CRUSADE

Except for the Venezuela episode, in which for a time the public displayed an intense and lively concern, the people generally were more interested in domestic politics than in foreign affairs. As the presidential campaign of 1896 approached, the nation was aroused as it had rarely been before. To the discontent produced by farmers' troubles, the panic, and "hard times" was added the conviction that the whole financial and industrial structure must be made over, if the traditions of American life were to be preserved. In the campaign were reflected the social and economic issues which had arisen within the preceding twenty-five years, and because of their variety and importance this "first battle," as Bryan described it, occupies a unique position in American history.

WESTERN GRIEVANCES

In the background of this electoral contest was the mass of western discontent-typified in the rise of the Populists-due partly to the rapid settlement of the newer sections, and to the consequent increase in agricultural production. The complaints of the farmers about high interest rates, high prices for manufactured goods, unfair railroad practices, and low prices for farm produce, prevalent enough before 1893, had been made sharper by the panic. With wheat at sixty-three cents or lower and cotton at six, the farmers were naturally ready for an explosion.

In addition to these specific grievances there was a widespread belief that the business men of the East with their "trusts" not only were unmindful of the public interest, but were inimical to it. "Big Business" was accused of using its wealth to control government for the promotion of its own ends. The spokesmen of the farmers were demanding protection from the menace of the great industrial and railroad combinations. Arguing, with the facts on their side, that neither the Interstate Commerce Act nor the Sherman AntiTrust Act had been of any appreciable service in checking the evils

of which they complained, they were determined to take control of the federal government themselves, and use it to protect the people from those who would despoil them.

"SIXTEEN TO ONE"

"Sixteen to

While the reformers were insisting upon more adequate measures for the control of corporations, they focused their efforts on one particular demand: "free silver," always at the ratio of sixteen to one, and this too while the market ratio stood at approximately thirty-two to one. Economists and financial experts talked gravely of the dangers of inflation, but the ordinary western farmer who cried for free silver was not bothered about inflation. one" and "free silver" were verbal short cuts, or campaign slogans, symbols which expressed at the same time the farmers' deep dissatisfaction with prevailing conditions and their hope of better days. Back of those slogans was a vast expanse of emotional feeling, which filled the words themselves with a hot, burning significance almost entirely lost upon the business interests in the East.

Months before the nominating conventions met everybody in the South and West was talking "free silver," so much so that the demand almost assumed the proportions of an approaching crusade. Gold and silver were personified. Gold was the symbol of heartless greed and snobbish wealth, silver of "honest democracy." Gold had deserted the country during the panic; silver loyally stood by to aid the stricken people. The cause of silver was championed all over the West by speakers and writers. One of the most famous of the silver arguments was a book by W. H. Harvey entitled Coin's Financial School. Coin was represented as a shrewd young financial expert in Chicago, who conducted a school to teach the advantages of free silver. His students were Senators, university presidents, professors, bankers, and economists. Every attempt which they made to refute Coin's arguments always failed, and in the end the experts were all converted to Coin's gospel. The book was a curious mixture of argument, fallacy, and nonsense, but it sold by the hundred thousand. Silver men considered it not only true, but inspired. Farmers studied it in the evening, and chapters from it were read aloud at country gatherings. For the benefit of those who could not read, the book was liberally illustrated. One picture showed a one-legged man, struggling along on crutches. Two legs are better than one, therefore two

metals are better than one. Another pictured silver as a beautiful woman, whose head had been cut off by Senator Sherman. Another showed Sherman and Cleveland dressed as burglars, digging the foundation (silver) out of the house. There was a good deal in the book to give point to Mr. Dooley's concluding remark in a debate on silver: "Th' whole currency question is a matter iv lungs.”

When the time for the conventions approached, the political situation was more perplexing than it had been at any time since 1860. Both parties, threatened with disruption by the silver problem, were anxious and excited. Of the old parties, the Democrats were the worse off. Cleveland's insistence upon the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act had hurt him and the whole party in the West. At the same time popular opinion laid the blame for the panic upon the Democrats, and the Republicans did all that they could to foster that belief. Cleveland's use of federal troops in the Pullman strike hurt him in labor circles. His "deal" with the J. P. Morgan Company made him intensely unpopular wherever men favored silver.

After 1895, the President had practically no supporters in Congress; in fact some Senators hated him so vehemently that they would vote against legislation which they personally wanted, merely because Cleveland was known to favor it. The old type of leader from the South had given way to more active champions of the farmer and free silver, men like Tillman of South Carolina, who had been elected partly on the strength of his threat to stick his pitchfork into Cleveland's ribs. Tillman was a coarse demagogue, with an uncontrollable temper and a missing eye. The Democrats had no national leaders. Of the two who had developed after the Civil War, one, Tilden, was dead, and Cleveland, the other, had lost all traces of support.

THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION

The Republicans were more fortunate than their opponents. Having been out of office during the panic, they could reap whatever advantages that fact would bring to them, and they were well supplied with leaders. Among the more promising presidential possibilities was Thomas B. Reed, the portly Speaker of the House in Harrison's time. He was a man of intellect and determination, with all the qualities necessary to make a good executive. But he was conservative by temperament, known to favor a high tariff, and openly opposed to free silver. On that account he would have been

unacceptable to the great majority of Republicans in the West, who were leaning strongly toward silver and Populism.

In looking for a more "available" candidate, one whose views on the money question were neither too well known nor too firmly fixed, the Republicans bethought themselves of William McKinley of Ohio, the former chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. He had called himself a "Bimetallist," an appellation that found favor in the West. Personally McKinley was a genial, kindly, mild-tempered man, one who could be depended upon "to swim with the tide,” a harmonizer. He was a good party man, anxious to shape his own views so that they would accord with those of his following. His record in connection with the Republican tariff of 1890 would have been a positive liability before 1893, but after the panic protectionism was restored to favor.

McKinley himself, alone and unaided, would probably have had no more chance of a nomination for the presidency than any one of the thousands of other Congressmen, from 1789 to 1896. But he had the good fortune to be a friend and protégé of Marcus Alonzo Hanna, a prominent citizen of Cleveland, Ohio. Hanna liked and admired McKinley, and determined to do what he could to make him President.

MARK HANNA

Born in 1837, the son of a wholesale grocer, "Mark" Hanna developed into a keen business man. He dealt in coal, iron, and in oil, making liberal profits on his ventures. Then he became interested in shipping on the Great Lakes, and in banking. Finding that his capacities were equal to all these activities, he branched out still more, and bought a newspaper, then a theater. He saw the possibilities in street railway transportation, so he plunged into that business, with his customary perseverance and success. To develop his lines he needed franchises, which were to be secured as favors from politicians. Hanna was the sort of man who could see straight through a problem from beginning to end, and he concluded that the easiest way to secure franchises was to buy up the city government, just as he bought steamboats and theaters. This he did openly, with no thought of anything unethical in the proceeding. Before he had finished with his purchases, he controlled the whole city government of Cleveland, from the mayor down. Like other business men of the time, he had small regard for the public. "You have been in politics