“If elected, I shall convene Congress in extraordinary session as soon as I am inaugurated and recommend an immediate declaration of the nation’s purpose, first, to establish a stable form of government in the Philippine Islands, just as we are now establishing a stable form of government in Cuba; second, to give independence to the Filipinos, just as we have promised to give independence to the Cubans; third, to protect the Filipinos from outside interference while they work out their destiny, just as we have protected the republics of Central and South America and are, by the Monroe Doctrine, pledged to protect Cuba. A European protectorate often results in the exploitation of the ward by the guardian. An American protectorate gives to the nation protected the advantage of our strength without making it the victim of our greed. For three-quarters of a century the Monroe Doctrine has been a shield to neighboring republics, and yet it has imposed no pecuniary burden upon us.”
So is the issue drawn in the important campaign in which, for a second time, William J. Bryan and William McKinley are the opposing candidates for the highest elective office in the world. For weal or for woe, who can doubt that the outcome will be of serious and far-reaching import to the people of the United States and to their children and children’s children who shall live after them?
THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH
Mr. Bryan was notified of his second nomination for the Presidency by the Democratic party at Indianapolis, Ind., on August 8, 1900. The ceremonies took place in the presence of an immense multitude of people, the number being conservatively estimated at fifty thousand, among whom were included many of the most distinguished members of the party. In formally accepting the nomination Mr. Bryan delivered a speech which will not only rank as incomparably the best of his numerous public utterances, but which is destined to immortality in the brief list of the world’s great orations.
For purity and simplicity of style, and beauty and strength of structure, as well as for its masterful logic and sublimity of sentiment, this speech has never been excelled. While it has not the stately sweep of Demosthenes’ Philippics, the incisiveness of Cicero’s invectives, or the grandeur of Burke’s sonorous periods, in its every sentence lives such honesty, sincerity, ardent patriotism, and lofty purpose that it thrills the hearts and stirs the consciences of men as no other speech, save only Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, has ever done before.
This speech, not only because of its wondrous effect on the American people and its direct bearing on the great issue with which Mr. Bryan’s life has become wedded, but as much because of the glowing light it sheds upon the character of the man, his ideals, and his motives, is here reproduced in full:
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Notification Committee—I shall, at an early day, and in a more formal manner accept the nomination which you tender, and I shall at that time discuss the various questions covered by the Democratic platform. It may not be out of place, however, to submit a few observations at this time upon the general character of the contest before us and upon the question which is declared to be of paramount importance in this campaign.
When I say that the contest of 1900 is a contest between democracy on the one hand and plutocracy on the other, I do not mean to say that all our opponents have deliberately chosen to give to organized wealth a predominating influence in the affairs of the government, but I do assert that, on the important issues of the day, the Republican party is dominated by those influences which constantly tend to substitute the worship of mammon for the protection of the rights of man.
In 1859 Lincoln said that the Republican party believed in the man and the dollar, but that in case of conflict it believed in the man before the dollar. This is the proper relation which should exist between the two. Man, the handiwork of God, comes first; money, the handiwork of man, is of inferior importance. Man is the master, money the servant, but upon all important questions to-day Republican legislation tends to make money the master and man the servant.
The maxim of Jefferson, “Equal rights to all and special privileges to none,” and the doctrine of Lincoln that this should be a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” are being disregarded and the instrumentalities of government are being used to advance the interests of those who are in a position to secure favors from the government.