The nomination was a happy one. No other could have done so much to unite the party. Not only had Mr. McKinley’s political career been honorable, he had the genius of manly affability, drawing people to him instead of antagonizing them. Republicans who could not support the platform, in numbers gave fealty to the candidate as a true man, devoted to their protective tenets, and a “friend of silver.”
The Democratic convention sat at Chicago July 7th to 10th. Though Administration and Eastern Democratic leaders had long been working to stem free coinage sentiment, this seemed rather to increase. By July 1st, in thirty-three of the fifty States and Territories, Democratic platforms had declared for free coinage. The first test of strength in the convention overruled the National Committee’s choice of David B. Hill for temporary chairman, electing Senator Daniel, of Virginia, by nearly a two-thirds vote. The silver side was then added to by unseating and seating.
Hot fights took place over planks which the minority thought unjust to the Administration or revolutionary. The income-tax plank drew the heaviest fire, but was nailed to the platform in spite of this. It attacked the Supreme Court for reversing precedents in order to declare that tax unconstitutional, and suggested the possibility of another reversal by the same court “as it may hereafter be constituted.”
The platform assailed “government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of oppression, by which federal judges in contempt of the laws of the States and the rights of citizens become at once legislators, judges, and executioners.”
Attention having been called to the demonetization of silver in 1873 and to the consequent fall of prices and the growing onerousness of debts and fixed charges, gold monometallism was indicted as the cause “which had locked fast the prosperity of an industrial people in the paralysis of hard times” and brought the United States into financial servitude to London. Demand was therefore made for “the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation.” Practically the entire management of the Treasury under Mr. Cleveland was condemned.
The McKinley-Hobart Parade Passing the Reviewing Stand, New York, October 31, 1896.
The platform being read, Hill, of New York, Vilas, of Wisconsin, and ex-Governor Russell, of Massachusetts, spoke. William J. Bryan, of Nebraska, was called upon to reply. In doing so he made the memorable “cross of gold” speech, which more than aught else determined his nomination. In a musical but penetrating voice, that chained the attention of all listeners, he sketched the growth of the free-silver belief and prophesied its triumph. While, shortly before, the Democratic cause was desperate, now McKinley, famed for his resemblance to Napoleon, and nominated on the anniversary of Waterloo, seemed already to hear the waves lashing the lonely shores of St. Helena. The gold standard, he said, not any “threat” of silver, disturbed business. The wage-worker, the farmer, and the miner were as truly business men as “the few financial magnates who in a dark room corner the money of the world.” “We answer the demand for the gold standard by saying, ‘You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!’”
Bryan Speaking from the Rear End of a Train.