546 Chapter 20 From Smoke-Filled Rooms to Prairie Wildfire: 1877–1896
to bolster the reserve, but the gold reserve contin-
ued to melt away. Early in 1895 it touched a low
point of $41 million.
At this juncture a syndicate of bankers headed
by J. P. Morgan turned the tide by underwriting a
$62 million bond issue, guaranteeing that half the
gold would come from Europe. This caused a great
public outcry; the spectacle of the nation being
saved from bankruptcy by a private banker infuri-
ated millions.
As the presidential election of 1896 approached,
with the Populists demanding unlimited coinage of sil-
ver, the major parties found it impossible to continue
straddling the money question. The Populist vote had
increased by 42 percent in the 1894 congressional
elections. Southern and western Democratic leaders
feared that they would lose their following unless
Cleveland was repudiated. Western Republicans, led by
Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado, were threaten-
ing to bolt to the Populists unless their party came out
for silver coinage. After a generation of political equiv-
ocation, the major parties had to face an important
issue squarely.
The Republicans, meeting to choose a candidate
at St. Louis in June 1896, announced for the gold
standard. “We are unalterably opposed to every mea-
sure calculated to debase our currency or impair the
credit of our country,” the platform declared. “We
are therefore opposed to the free coinage of silver....
The existing gold standard must be maintained.” The
party then nominated Ohio’s William McKinley for
president. McKinley, best known for his staunch
advocacy of the protective tariff yet highly regarded
by labor, was expected to run strongly in the Midwest
and the East.
The Democratic convention met in July in
Chicago. The pro-gold Cleveland element made a
hard fight, but the silverites swept them aside. The
high point came when a youthful Nebraskan named
William Jennings Bryan spoke for silver against gold,
for western farmers against the industrial East. Bryan’s
every sentence provoked ear-shattering applause:
We have petitioned and our petitions have been
scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have
been disregarded; we have begged, and they have
mocked when our calamity came. We beg no
longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more.
We defy them!The crowd responded like a great choir to Bryan’s
oratorical cues. “Burn down your cities and leave our
farms,” he said, “and your cities will spring up again as
if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will
grow in the streets of every city in the country.” He
ended with a marvelous figure of speech that set the
tone for the coming campaign. “You shall not press
down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns,”
he warned, bringing his hands down suggestively to
his temples. “You shall not crucify mankind upon a
cross of gold!” Dramatically, he extended his arms to
the side, the very figure of the crucified Christ.
The convention promptly adopted a platform call-
ing for “the free and unlimited coinage of both silver
and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1” and
went on to nominate Bryan, who was barely thirty-six,
for president.
This action put tremendous pressure on the
Populists. If they supported the Democrat Bryan, they
risked losing their party identity; if they nominated
another candidate, they would ensure McKinley’s
election. In part because the delegates could not find a
person of stature willing to become a candidate
against Bryan, the Populist convention nominated
him, seeking to preserve the party identity by substi-
tuting Watson for the Democratic vice-presidential
nominee, Arthur Sewall of Maine.
William Jennings Bryan, Cross of Gold
Speech at http://www.myhistorylab.comThe Election of 1896
Never did a presidential campaign raise such intense
emotions. The Republicans from the silver-mining
states swung solidly behind Bryan. But many solid-
money Democrats, especially in the Northeast,
refused to accept the decision of the Chicago con-
vention. Cleveland professed to be “so dazed by the
political situation that I am in no condition for
speech or thought on the subject.” Many others
adopted the policy of Governor David B. Hill of
New York, who said, “I am a Democrat still—very
still.” The extreme gold bugs, calling themselves
National Democrats, nominated their own candi-
date, seventy-nine-year-old Senator John M. Palmer
of Illinois. Palmer ran only to injure Bryan. “Fellow
Democrats,” he announced, “I will not consider it
any great fault if you decide to cast your vote for
William McKinley.”
At the start the Republicans seemed to have
everything in their favor. Bryan’s youth and relative
lack of political experience—two terms in the
House—contrasted unfavorably with McKinley’s dis-
tinguished war record, his long service in Congress
and as governor of Ohio, and his reputation for hon-
esty and good judgment. The severe depression
operated in favor of the party out of power, althoughReadtheDocument