do you invite it to come? Instead of being inactive do you help to fasten it upon yourselves and upon your children? That is what the Republican party asks you to do. The Republican party tells you that the gold standard must be maintained until the leading commercial nations will join you in abandoning it. I can appeal to Democrats as the regular nominee of the Democratic party; I can appeal to Populists as the regular nominee of that party; I can appeal to the Silver Republicans as the regular nominee of the Silver party; but I can appeal to you all on a higher ground than mere party regularity; I can urge a higher claim than mere party regularity can give-I am the only presidential candidate prominently before the people who believes that the American people are able to attend to their own financial business. Do you say that we must wait for foreign help? I reply that we have waited for twenty years. We have sent three commissions abroad and they have come back to us empty handed. Three national parties have now declared that the time for waiting has past. Three parties have declared that we shall wait no longer, and that the people of the United States, rising in their strength, shall declare for the free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation. You ask, "Can we do it?" Upon that question we are ready to meet the opposition. We are ready to state our reasons. There is only one way to find out and that way is by trying; our opponents will never find out by waiting. If you tell me that there is danger in our system, I reply that the worst thing which you can prophesy as a result of free coinage is better than the best thing that you can hope for under the gold standard; and more than that, we not only believe we have the strength and ability to furnish a use for silver that will take all the surplus silver upon the market and maintain the parity at 16 to 1, but we believe that the action of the United States instead of discouraging other nations, will compel them to join with us. So long as our foreign creditors can drive down the price of our products and drive up the value of the money which we pay them, they will have a selfish interest in maintaining the gold standard and depressing prices, and if-to follow up Mr. Washburn's suggestion-they are dominated by human selfishness, they will do it. What will be the result when we open our mints to the free coinage of silver? Do you say that foreign creditors will draw all their money out of this country? If they try that, how far would they go before they got all the gold? We have not gold enough in this country to pay one-tenth of our foreign indebtedness, and if our foreign creditors attempted to collect all their debts they would have to take nine-tenths of it in silver or in products. When our foreign creditors find that the American people have opened the mints to the free and unlimited coinage of silver and made silver a legal tender equal with gold, so that all coin obligations can be discharged in silver, then they will become interested with us in making the silver dollar as good as the gold dollar. We have their selfishness against us and we have suffered from it. Open the mints to the free and unlimited coinage of silver, and we will bring their selfish interests over to our side of the question. Open our mints, give us the double standard, and then we stand as the mistress of the world's commerce. We will then invite the trade of the gold standard countries and the trade of the silver standard countries also, and the other commercial nations would have to come to the double standard or be

outstripped in the race. Washington, in his farewell address, not only warned our people against foreign influence in our domestic affairs, but stated what everybody must know to be true, that disinterested favors are not to be expected between nations. One nation cannot be expected to help another merely out of philanthropy, but nations will join together in the promotion of those things which are mutually beneficial. As soon as we have shown our determination to act alone and to protect ourselves against the degrading influences of a gold standard, you will find that other nations will be willing to act with us, but they will not act with us so long as they can run our finances and attend to our business for us. I believe that nothing good can come to our people until we have turned over a new leaf in our financial policy. Instead of having the financiers of Wall street call the Secretary of the Treasury before them and tell him what he must do, I believe the time has come when the Secretary, standing as the representative of seventy millions of people, ought to call the financiers before him and tell them what they must do, and then make them do it. When you know my views on this subject, you will know why I am not considered a safe man by the Wall street financiers. For twenty years the great financial influences have dominated the national conventions of the two great parties. The same financial influences have written the platforms and have nominated the candidates. Those platforms have been substantially similar, and have held out the hope of international bimetallism, while those elected have been known as "safe men." The financiers have nominated candidates entertaining similar views on the financial question, and then have been able to sit back and say, "They are both good men." The only trouble in this campaign was that they only got one good man; only one candidate for the presidency who was a safe man in the opinion of the New York financiers.

We do not expect the support of the men who have made a profit out of the disasters of the Government after they have brought those disasters upon the Government. We do not expect the support of those financiers who have been saving the honor of the nation at so much per save for the last twenty years, but when we lose them, I think, my friends, we have a right to appeal to the great majority of the people who are tired of wearing the yoke which has been fastened upon them.

The second meeting was the first of a series of meetings exclusively for ladies. Mrs. Frank A. Valesh was the presiding officer at this, the first women's meeting. So far as I have been able to learn, this was an innovation in campaigning. These ladies were not voters, but, as wives, sisters and mothers, they took a deep interest in the campaign, and I was glad to defend bimetallism in their presence. give in full the speech delivered here:

Minneapolis Speech-To the Ladies.

I

Ladies: I believe this is the first political campaign in which a presidential candidate has addressed his remarks to an audience composed entirely of ladies and discussed an economic question before those who do not vote upon it, and yet I offer no apology. On the contrary, I deem it not only a great privilege

but a great honor. My experience teaches me that the mother and the wife are important members of the family. In fact, if I could only have one I would rather have the wife on my side in the beginning of the campaign than the husband. I will tell you why: if I have the wife I am almost sure to have the husband before the campaign is over, and if I only have the husband I am never sure of keeping him.

Another thing: Some of the best arguments which have been advanced on this subject have been advanced by the women. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention, and it is certainly true that the best arguments arise from our own experiences. The women have been learning from experience what the gold standard means. A lady who was canvassing in Nebraska gave utterance the other day to one of the best things which this campaign has thus far produced. She called at our house to secure some literature on the silver question to circulate as she went from place to place, and while there remarked that she had a brother who was a gold man without any gold. She said that she could understand how a man could be a gold man if he had the gold, but that she could only pity a gold man without any gold.

And yet, this is the condition in which a large majority of gold men find themselves-they are gold men without any gold. When you find a gold man without the gold you find one whom you can convert. He has simply been misled. While the gold standard is a good thing for a few, it is a bad thing for the great majority of the American people. Our cause grows from day to day, and the reason for the growth is found in the fact that the arguments in behalf of bimetallism appeal to the heads of those who think and to the hearts of those who feel, while the gold standard appeals only to the heartless. The wives and mothers are taking a deeper interest than usual in this campaign because they are becoming acquainted with the effects of the gold standard. They know that instead of being a just measure of deferred payments, the gold standard has become a measure of deferred hope-and hope deferred maketh the heart sick.

The money question is not too deep to be understood by the American people. The great questions of state are, after all, simple in their last analysis. Every great political question is first a great economic question, and every great economic question is in reality a great moral question. Questions are not settled until the right and wrong of the questions are determined. Questions are not settled by a discussion of the details; they are not settled until the people grasp the fundamental principles, and when these principles are fully comprehended, then the people settle the question and they settle it for a generation. The people are studying the money question, studying it as they have not studied it before; aye, studying it as they have been studying no economic question before in your lifetime or mine; and studying means understanding. To study we must commence at the foundation and reason upward.

I remember hearing a sermon preached once, in the course of which the preacher illustrated the difficulty which people sometimes encounter in the study of a great question. He said that if one attempted to draw a tree through a narrow gate by taking hold of one of the branches, he would find that the other branches would spread out so that he could not get the tree through the gate; but that if he would take the stem or trunk of the tree and pull that

through first, then he would have no difficulty. I often think of that illustration. A study of the details without a knowledge of the principles involved is only confusing, but a study of principles makes the details plain. I was out in the West about a year ago, and I noticed their great systems of irrigation, and as I watched those canals wending their way through the valleys, this thought came to me: Upon what principle is irrigation based? And then it occurred to me that the principle was a very simple one, namely, that water runs down hill. Now the person who does not understand that water runs down hill can never make a success of irrigation; but when a person understands that water runs down hill, then all he has to do is to dig a ditch with a slight fall and he can carry water anywhere. So in the study of the money question. If you fail to understand the fundamental principles, you study in vain.

Now what is the first great principle? It is that the value of the dollar depends upon the number of dollars. Dollars can be made dear or cheap by changing the quantity of them. This is a simple proposition, it is fundamental and when you understand it you understand the most important thing about the money question. When you understand that the value of a dollar depends upon the number of dollars, then you not only understand what a change in the volume of money means, but you understand who is benefited by it, and why those who are benefited by it desire it. Let me illustrate the principle. Let us suppose ourselves walled in here with just enough wheat within the enclosure to last us a year; and let us suppose that, taking the supply and demand into consideration, wheat is worth a dollar a bushel. Now suppose the wheat to be gathered into two great piles and that one man owns one pile-or to suit the illustration to this audience, suppose that one woman owns one pile and that another woman owns the other pile; and suppose that the owner of one pile should read in the morning paper that the other pile had been destroyed by fire. Now instead of the people having both piles for the year's supply, all would have to be fed from one pile, and what would be the result? Every bushel of wheat in the unburned pile would rise in value. Why? Because the demand for wheat would remain the same and the supply of wheat would be reduced one-half. Now what is the second thing you learn? That the woman who owns the pile not burned will profit by the rise in wheat. And what is the third? She would be glad that it was the other pile of wheat that burned instead of hers. Now that is a simple illustration. Let me apply it to the silver question. According to statistics we have about four billions of silver money in the world and about four billions of gold money. Suppose we destroy the silver pile and make the gold pile do the work of both, what is the result? The demand for money would remain the same, and the supply of standard money would be reduced one-half. The result must be a rise in the value of each dollar. When wheat rises in value a bushel of wheat buys more money; when money rises in value a dollar in money buys more wheat. What is the second result? The people who own the money, or who own contracts payable in dollars, profit by the rise. And third? They are glad that they make the profit. Now is that an unfair application of the illustration? What I illustrate by argument I can enforce by authority. Senator Sherman stated in 1869 that a contraction of the currency would bring disaster, bankruptcy, etc., to all the people except the capitalists out of debt,

the salaried officer and the annuitant. These are exempt from the evil effects of a rising dollar, because, standing in the position of those who own money or money contracts and having no debts, they profit when their propertymoney-increases in value. If I tell you that the owner of land profits when his land rises in value, you believe me. If I tell you that the owner of any kind of property profits when that property rises in value, you believe me. When I tell you that the owner of money profits when money rises in value, you cannot refuse to believe me.

Mr. Blaine spoke on the same subject in 1878, and said that the destruction of silver as money and the establishment of gold as the sole unit of value would have a ruinous effect on all forms of property except those investments which yield a fixed return in money. These, he said, would be enormously enhanced in value, and would be given a disproportionate and unfair advantage over every other species of property.

Others have spoken along the same line. In 1891 the present Republican candidate for the Presidency, speaking at Toledo, Ohio, condemned Mr. Cleveland for his efforts to degrade silver and to contract the currency. He said in that denunciation that Mr. Cleveland was making money dearer by making it scarcer; that he was making money the master-all things else the servant. My friends, these principles have long been understood, and it is only recently that our opponents have been compelled to repudiate history and reject the teachings of experience in order to defend a system which has nothing to commend it except the misery which has followed wherever it has been tried. The gold standard means dearer money; dearer money means cheaper property; cheaper property means harder times; harder times means more people out of work; more people out of work means more people destitute; more people destitute means more people desperate; more people desperate means more crime.

My friends, you are charitable; you willingly give of your abundance to help those who are in distress, but remember that the poor people of this country are not now asking charity of you so much as they are demanding justice.

It has been said that woman is the conscience of the human race, and I endorse the proposition. I believe that women can grasp the great principles of justice and can detect right from wrong probably with more clearness and with more distinctness than men, because they are not surrounded by so many of the influences, personal and political, which may prevent a real understanding of the issues involved. I therefore appeal to you, who are interested in your sons and daughters, to look well before you throw your influence on the side of the gold standard, which means more wealth for the few, but more poverty and misery for the many.

And remember this, you cannot live for yourselves alone; nor can you control the destinies of those whom you leave. If you could provide against all future contingencies; if you could leave your money to your children and be sure that, to the remotest generation, it would protect them from want and misery, you might feel indifferent; but you cannot do this. You cannot guard them after you are gone and you cannot make your wealth stay with them. Even if you leave it to them it may injure rather than aid them. You can