When Silver was struck down and the Gold Standard forced upon us, it took the joint action of both the old parties to do it.
When our National Bank System was enthroned, and that terribly unjust system was chartered to prey upon the people, it required the joint action of both the old parties to do it.
When Congress, over the protest of Thaddeus Stevens and others, obeyed the command of the Rothschilds (delivered at Washington personally by August Belmont, the father of the present Boss of the Democratic Party), and declared by legislative enactment that the banks should be paid in gold while the soldier at the front should be paid in greenbacks, it required the joint action of both the old parties to do it.
There has never been a necessary act of Congress—necessary to the rule of the few, necessary to carry out the Hamiltonian ideal—that did not rest for support one foot on the Republican Party and the other on the Democratic Party.
The man who does not know this to be true is unfamiliar with official records.
The time has been when Mr. Bryan held the same opinions which I am expressing now. The time has been when he declared, in speech and writing, that there was no hope for reform in the Democratic Party.
In 1896 Mr. Bryan, in the Omaha World-Herald, editorially asked:
“Can a National Convention harmonize the discordant elements of the Democratic Party? Impossible.
“Suppose the advocates of bimetallism control the National Convention and nominate a Free Silver Democrat upon a free coinage platform, will Cleveland, Carlisle, Olney, Morton, et al. support the ticket? Of course not. They say that the free coinage of silver means individual dishonesty, commercial disaster and national dishonor, and if they believe what they say they ought not to support the ticket, because their duty to their country is higher than their duty to their party organization. If, on the other hand, the convention nominates a Gold Standard Democrat on a platform indorsing the gold standard, gold bonds and national bank currency, should the nominee be supported by those who believe the gold standard to be a conspiracy of the capitalistic classes against the producers of wealth—a crime against mankind? Who says they should?
“If to continue Mr. Cleveland’s financial policy is to declare war against the common people, what friend of the common people would be willing to enlist in such a warfare, even at the command of his party?