for Hill, it was some time before order was obtained, and the regular business of the convention proceeded with. At this juncture a bust of William J. Bryan was unveiled on the platform, and the perspiring delegates yelled themselves hoarse. When quiet had been secured, Temporary Chairman Thomas advanced to the edge of the platform, and spoke as follows:

"Mr. Chairman: We meet under most auspicious influences. On the nation's birthday, in a great central city of the Republic, at the close and opening of a century, we come together to reaffirm our allegiance to the principles of Thomas Jefferson and our loyalty to their greatest living exponent. We have been selected by the farmer and the artisan, the miner and the mechanic, the producers of wealth in every State and Territory of this mighty nation to register a decree they have already determined, to proclaim a candidate they have already chosen.

"We come not with the pomp and circumstance of consolidated wealth, but as the delegates of the plain people, who believe that all men were created equal and that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We are not here as the representatives of the vast interests which dominate every industrial life, but as the champion of the individual citizen who stands helpless in their presence.

"We speak not for those who would pivot the finances of the world upon a single metal, supplementing its inadequacy by a paper currency issued by a private monopoly at the expense of the people, but for the millions who believe in the money of the constitution and in the ability of their countrymen to legislate for themselves, without the previous permission of foreign parliaments, potentates, or princes.

"The line of division between political forces became, therefore, sharply defined in 1896 upon what was called the money question. That question involved, as we then asserted, and as we now know, every other economic problem. It embraced within its wide limitations the issues of labor and capital, of combination and competition, of production, transportation, and distribution.

"It was predicted that the defeat of bimetallism would be followed by the retirement of all forms of government currency, by the dedication of the power of note issue to the holders of the national obligation, the practical consolidation of all lines of transportation, and the consequent domination of every commercial pursuit by a score of colossal monopolies. These predictions have in general been verified.

"Democratic defeat had scarcely been recorded when the march of consolidation was resumed. Every pursuit that engages the attention of man has been exploited, capitalized, and appropriated. The earth and the water round about it have been explored for sub

jects of monopoly, and those who have thundered against unsound money have used the printing press and the engravers' art to turn out thousands of millions of fictitious values, to whose profit the toilers and consumers pay constant tribute.

"Hence the crisis in our commercial affairs, whose issue, presented in acute form to the voters of 1900, is that of industrial despotism, as against the liberty of the citizen.

"Democracy wages no war against wealth. Under her beneficent rule its creation and amassment have ever been among the most worthy objects of human effort. The desire for material comfort and well-being is the mainspring of progress. The wealth that comes as the reward of honest industry and thrift commands and must receive the encouragement and protection of all.

"But the wealth that comes through partnership with the government, which usurps its prerogatives and perverts its agencies, which absorbs the resources and blasts the opportunities of the individual, crushes competition, levies tribute on the producer, and corrupts and poisons all branches of official life, and reduces the citizen to dependence upon its will, excites our just apprehensions.

"Modern monopoly is the offspring of the Republican party. It is the genius of organized commercialism. It has neither conscience, sentiment, nor patriotism. It knows neither justice nor morality. It blacklists the workingman and sets him adrift to starve in the midst of plenty. It is the enemy of democracy, which has accepted its gage of battle. Either the trust or the government must disappear.

"At the demand of the so-called financial interests the present Congress has enacted a new currency law. By its terms the government has presented to the national banks twenty-five millions of dollars, given them control of our circulation, provided for the payment in cash of the premium values of the greater part of its bonds, and created a perpetual national debt. It has declared for the payment of all obligations in gold, stricken from its contracts the reserved right of the government to use its own money for the payment of debts, and delegated to private interest the power to supplement all deficiencies in the circulation medium by the paper money whose volume they shall regulate and which the people are taxed to support.

"The greenback and the Treasury note are retired, an inert mass of $150,000,000 in gold is to be kept in the Treasury by the issue of bonds whenever necessary, the currency must shrink and swell as the judgment of selfishness shall dictate, and the pretended menace of bimetallism against 'sound money' and the national honor has been evaded.

"Against this iniquitous scheme of finance democracy protests. We will have no money system founded upon the public debt and dictated by those who hold it. We stand for the gold and silver of the constitution. For a paper currency founded upon them and issued by the Government as the embodiment of our sovereignty.

"Those who assert that the money question is dead have given but little heed to the lessons of experience. It can never die until it shall receive the righteous solution,

"The prevailing sentiment of Democratic sympathy for all people struggling for the blessings of liberty compelled the administration two years ago to interfere with the despotic tyranny of Spain over Cuba and secured to the oppressed people of that island the right of self-government. Our ultimatum delivered, we solemnly and officially declared them to be free and independent, and disclaimed to the world any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over the island except for the pacifi. cation thereof, and asserted our determination when that was accomplished to leave the government and control of the island to its people.

"The conditions of the ensuing war sent Admiral Dewey to the distant Philippines, where another people, engaged in the same struggle with the same oppressor, appealed to the same impulses of our nature. There he broke the power of Spain, which, suing for peace, submitted to the liberation of Cuba and the cession of Porto Rico.

"Our Government disdained the spirit of its manifesto of April, and became the purchaser of the Philippines in January. Since then we have given Cuba the benefit of our civic institutions by governing her through the War department.

"We have kept faith with Porto Rico by substituting the sugar baron for the Castillian Duke, and confirmed the Philippine estimate of the white man by prolonging the Spaniards' method of colonial government in those islands of the far-off seas.

"The national sympathy for all who seek self-government has been made the instrument by which cupidity and greed hold a feeble nation in thraldom. The right of purchase is invoked to justify the adoption of a so-called colonial policy by the great Western republic, and her glorious institutions are declared to be for home consumption, with prohibitive duties against their exportation.

"Imperialism has become a favorite word in the national vocabulary. Destiny is the name of its fateful brother. Trade expansion is the mystic verbal tie that binds them.

"We have cheerfully submitted to a burdensome taxation that Cuba might be free; that Porto Rico might enjoy the heritage of our constitution. We have consecrated our sons to the cause of liberty and sent them freely forth to extinguish the last vestige of despotism in our hemisphere. We protest against payment of tribute or the devotion of life to the cause of empire.

"We realize that a standing army is the attendant of imperialism. We would avoid the latter, because once avowed as a national policy, it must undermine our domestic institutions. We would have no colonial system. It cannot live in the atmosphere of freedom. It is an asylum of dishonesty and incompetency. Our national standard has a stripe for every State that forms the Union, a star for every commonwealth of the sisterhood. It has neither place nor emblem for subject people or colonial systems.

"We would form political alliances with no countries whatever. We neither need nor desire them. For a century and a quarter we have survived the envies and the enmities of Europe. We have

flourished notwithstanding the civil and foreign conflicts of that eventful period.

"When we were weak, confronted with the embarrassments of distracting internal dissensions, with a government of ill defined authority, with undeveloped resources and a sparse population, our friendship was scorned, our strength despised.

"To-day we are sought by the nations which would utilize our strength and profit by our association. We are reminded of the difference between blood and water, of the identity of mere speech and origin, of the tremendous advantages that must accrue to us through an alliance with kin beyond the sea.

"These and other considerations, continually suggested and favorably received, justify our protest against any bond of international union. It is as true now as ever that 'It is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.'

"We would relieve the people of the burden of taxation. The Treasury is bursting with a plethoric revenue, millions whereof are deposited with favorite banks and the taxation goes on although the Spanish-American conflict ended eight months ago. Notwithstanding these conditions there is no surcease of taxation.

"We would have for our Chief Magistrate a man sprung from the loins of the people, rock-ribbed in his convictions and controlled by the admonitions of his conscience. A man of lofty ideals and steadfast courage. A man to whom his country's constitution appears as a living and sacred reality. A man who exalts the duties, the rights, and the welfare of his fellow-citizens above the sinister and corroding influences of centralized commercialisms. A man whose ear is untuned to the pulsations of the pocketbook, but responsive to the heart-throbs of the masses.

"We want no man of plastic mold, conforming his opinions to passing impressions of popular sentiment, as facile in their abandonment as in their advocacy. We want a man to whom right is greater than expediency, who postpones no duty to the demand of privilege, who is loved by the multitude, respected by the world, and feared only by those who distrust the people.

"The Republican party boast of almost unbroken rule for nearly forty years. The emancipator of the negro, it has fostered those commercial conditions which are fast establishing a system of industrial slavery. More recently declaring for Cuban independence it scarcely disguises its present purpose to absorb that island.

"There was a time when it put its trusts in the people. Since then it has put the people in its trusts.

"Its battle cry years ago was 'Freedom and the Union. If due credit be given to one of its modern leaders its motto for 1900 is 'Gold and Glory.'

"Against the continuance of this party in power we enter protest. With the man exalted above the dollar, the constitution against

the combination, the equality of all before the law, with solemn promises to correct the abuses of administration, and to enforce those fundamentals of government which secure exact justice to all, we shall not appeal in vain to the wisdom, the intelligence, and the patriotism of the American people.”

The call of States began for naming the members of the various committees. The Chairman announced that the Committee on Credentials was not ready yet to report and the convention adjourned until 8:30 p. m.

At 8:30 p. m., Chairman Thomas rapped the convention to order and there was scarcely two-thirds of the delegates in attendance.

As the committees were not prepared to report the Chairman announced that ex Governor Altgeld of Illinois would address the convention. Mr. Altgeld spoke with great earnestness and his speech was intended to stiffen the backbone of the radical faction and offset the Hill demonstration. Just at his peroration someone mentioned Hill. That was a signal. In two seconds the convention was a fine imitation of Donnybrook all over the hall. Everybody was shouting Hill, Hill. The Chairman was very angry, and finally when there was a lull in the hilarity he rushed through the report of the Committee on Rules. The Committee on Permanent Organization reported in favor of Hon. John D. Richardson of Tennessee, as permanent chairman; and that the officers of the temporary organization be made perma

nent.

The Chair appointed Messrs. McCreary of Kentucky, Daniel Campau of Michigan and Mayor Phelan of San Francisco to escort the permanent Chairman to the platform. After being introduced Mr. Richardson repeatedly bowed his acknowledgments of the cheers that swept in wave after wave through the great Convention

Hall.