One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed Part 24

In all my travels I have not found a crowd that needed talking to so much as this crowd does. (Cries of "That's right.") I came to this city something more than a year ago, and I then learned something of the domination of your financial cla.s.ses. I have seen it elsewhere, but, my friends, the great ma.s.s of the people even of this city, will be better off under bimetallism that permits the nation to grow, than under a gold standard which starves everybody except the money changer and the money owner.

We sometimes out West are instructed by your insurance companies. I carry insurance in old line companies and in what are known as the mutual or a.s.sessment companies. I carry insurance in fraternal organizations like the United Workmen and the Modern Woodmen, as well as in the old line companies, and I am glad that my a.s.sessment companies are satisfied to take my money and give me insurance without attempting to tell me how I must vote. Your old line companies have seen fit to insult the intelligence of the people by attempting to exercise a guardian care, notwithstanding the fact that we are able to look after ourselves without their instructions.

You have laboring men also in large numbers in this city. I do not know whether the advocates of the gold standard here who employ men in the shops insist upon telling their employes how to vote. I have in other places found employers who would put in envelopes the pay for the day's work or week's work, and then print on the outside of the envelopes some instructions to the employes. If the manufacturer, employer, or railroad president feels that there must be something on the outside of the envelope as well as upon the inside, let him write on the outside: "You will find within your wages. They are to cover your work. We recognize that the men who have sense enough to do the work we want done have sense enough to vote right, without our telling them how to vote."

I notice that in some places they have been organizing sound money clubs, and they have the applicant sign a statement, saying that the free coinage of silver would hurt him in his business as a wage earner.

I have wondered why our great financial magnates do not put in their application a statement similar to that. Why don't the heads of these syndicates which have been bleeding the Government make application to sound money clubs and write in their application that the free coinage of silver would hurt them in their business as heads of syndicates?

They want people to believe that they are entirely benevolent, that they are philanthropists, and that what they do is done merely because they believe that the people will be benefited by having them run the Government, and they submit to the inconvenience of running the Government in order to help the people, who, they say, will be benefited. (More confusion and applause by the students.)

Why is it that the broker or the bond buyer does not write in his application that he has a personal interest in the gold standard? Why is it that these men want to throw upon the wage earners whatever odium there may be in using his vote to protect his personal interests? I believe the wage earner, and the farmer, and the business man, and the professional man, all of these will be benefited by a volume of money sufficient to do business with. If you make money scarce you make money dear. If you make money dear you drive down the value of everything, and when you have falling prices you have hard times. And who prosper by hard times? There are but few, and those few are not willing to admit that they get any benefit from hard times. No party ever declared in its platform that it was in favor of hard times, and yet the party that declares for a gold standard in substance declares for a continuation of hard times.

Here a band which had been playing for a drill in another part of the square came nearer and made talking more difficult, and my voice not being in good condition I concluded my remarks by saying:

It is hard to talk when all the conditions are favorable, and I must ask you to excuse me from talking any further in the presence of the noises against which we have to contend today.

I have since learned that some misunderstood my closing words, and thought I again referred to the students, but this is an error. They were making no disturbance when I finished speaking. I did not even mean to criticize the band, because I was sure that the interruption was not intentional, but my voice being hoa.r.s.e and the crowd large, it was difficult to make myself heard even when there was perfect quiet.

The incident gave rise to a good deal of public discussion.

A few papers criticised my language on that occasion and declared that my words provoked the hostile demonstration. As a matter of fact, the hostility was manifested before I began to speak, and it was some minutes before I could obtain a hearing. This is the only speech in which I have inserted the applause, and it is only done here because the interruptions are also quoted. The report is reproduced exactly as it appeared at the time in order that the reader may form his own opinion upon the subject.

The following press dispatch appeared in the morning papers of September 3:

YALE STUDENTS CRITICISED.

Muskogee, I.T., Sept. 29.--At a ma.s.s meeting of the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws and Seminoles, held here yesterday, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, that we contemplate with deep regret the recent insulting treatment of William J. Bryan by students of a college in the land of the boasted white man's civilization, and we admonish all Indians who think of sending their sons to Yale that a.s.sociation with such students could but prove hurtful alike to their morals and their progress toward the higher standard of civilization.

THE "SUN" DEFENDS THE YALE STUDENTS.

The New York Sun came to the defense of the boys in an editorial, from which the following is an extract:

What did these students really do? On the day that Yale University opened its new college year, Bryan came to New Haven and prepared to address a great crowd at the green adjacent to which are the college buildings of the center of university life, in a town of which the university is the great and distinguis.h.i.+ng feature. The students gathered in strong force, as was natural. Practically they were on their own ground. They expressed their feelings against repudiation with the vigor and vociferousness of youth; and they had a right to do it.

They ought to have done it; and the sentiment to which they gave utterance was honorable to them. The boys made a great noise, cheering for McKinley and yelling and jeering at repudiation, so that Mr. Bryan could not be heard for several minutes. If they had applauded him incessantly for even a full half hour, would there have been any complaint of their preventing him from starting out in his speech? Has not a crowd in the open air as much right to hiss as to cheer? At what period in our history was that privilege taken from Americans? These dissenting students, the reports agree, did not offer any personal violence to Mr. Bryan or anybody else.

They did not throw rotten eggs at him or otherwise a.s.sail his dignity, but merely shouted their college cry and yelled derisively. They did not like the cause the speaker represented.

They detested and despised both it and him, and they made known their feelings noisily.

Speech Concluding Debate on the Chicago Platform.

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention: I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen of the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty--the cause of humanity.

When this debate is concluded, a motion will be made to lay upon the table the resolution offered in commendation of the administration, and also the resolution offered in condemnation of the administration. We object to bringing this question down to the level of persons. The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest over a principle.

Never before in the history of this country has there been witnessed such a contest as that through which we have just pa.s.sed. Never before in the history of American politics has a great issue been fought out as this issue has been, by the voters of a great party. On the fourth of March, 1895, a few Democrats, most of them members of Congress, issued an address to the Democrats of the nation, a.s.serting that the money question was the paramount issue of the hour; declaring that a majority of the Democratic party had the right to control the action of the party on this paramount issue; and concluding with the request that the believers of free coinage of silver in the Democratic party should organize, take charge of, and control the policy of the Democratic party. Three months later, at Memphis, an organization was perfected and the silver Democrats went forth openly and courageously proclaiming their belief, and declaring that, if successful, they would crystallize into a platform the declaration they had made. Then began the conflict.

With a zeal approaching the zeal which inspired the crusaders who followed Peter the Hermit, our silver Democrats went forth from victory unto victory until they are now a.s.sembled, not to discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the judgment already rendered by the plain people of this country. In this contest brother has been arrayed against brother, father against son. The warmest ties of love, acquaintance and a.s.sociation have been disregarded; old leaders have been cast aside when they have refused to give expression to the sentiments of those whom they would lead, and new leaders have sprung up to give direction to this cause of truth. Thus has the contest been waged, and we have a.s.sembled here under as binding and solemn instructions as were ever imposed upon representatives of the people.

We do not come as individuals. As individuals we might have been glad to compliment the gentleman from New York (Senator Hill,) but we know that the people for whom we speak would never be willing to put him in a position where he could thwart the will of the Democratic party. I say it was not a question of persons; it was a question of principle, and it is not with gladness, my friends, that we find ourselves brought into conflict with those who are now arrayed on the other side.

The gentleman who preceded me (ex-Governor Russell) spoke of the State of Ma.s.sachusetts; let me a.s.sure him that not one present in all this convention entertains the least hostility to the people of the State of Ma.s.sachusetts, but we stand here representing people who are the equals, before the law, of the greatest citizens in the State of Ma.s.sachusetts. When you (turning to the gold delegates) come before us and tell us that we are about to disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your course.

We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day--who begins in the spring and toils all summer--and who by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak for this broader cla.s.s of business men.

Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic coast, but the hardy pioneers who have braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose--the pioneers away out there (pointing to the West), who rear their children near to Nature's heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds--out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their young, churches where they praise their Creator, and cemeteries where rest the ashes of their dead--these people, we say, are as deserving of the consideration of our party as any people in this country. It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have pet.i.tioned, and our pet.i.tions 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 pet.i.tion no more. We defy them.

The gentleman from Wisconsin has said that he fears a Robespierre. My friends, in this land of the free you need not fear that a tyrant will spring up from among the people. What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand, as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of organized wealth.

They tell us that this platform was made to catch votes. We reply to them that changing conditions make new issues; that the principles upon which Democracy rests are as everlasting as the hills, but that they must be applied to new conditions as they arise. Conditions have arisen, and we are here to meet those conditions. They tell us that the income tax ought not to be brought in here; that it is a new idea. They criticize us for the criticism of the Supreme Court of the United States. My friends, we have not criticized; we have simply called attention to what you already know. If you want criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the court. There you will find criticisms. They say that we have pa.s.sed an unconst.i.tutional law; we deny it. The income tax law was not unconst.i.tutional when it was pa.s.sed; it was not unconst.i.tutional when it went before the Supreme Court for the first time; it did not become unconst.i.tutional until one of the judges changed his mind, and we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind. The income tax is just. It simply intends to put the burden of government justly upon the backs of the people. I am in favor of an income tax. When I find a man who is not willing to bear his share of the burdens of the government which protects him, I find a man who is unworthy to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.

They say that we are opposing national bank currency; it is true. If you will read what Thomas Benton said, you will find he said that, in searching history, he could find but one parallel to Andrew Jackson; that was Cicero, who destroyed the conspiracy of Cataline and saved Rome. Benton said that Cicero only did for Rome what Jackson did for us when he destroyed the bank conspiracy and saved America. We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe that it is a part of sovereignty, and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than we could afford to delegate to private individuals the power to make penal statutes or levy taxes. Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to have differed in opinion from the gentleman who has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank, and that the Government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the banks ought to go out of the governing business.

They complain about the plank which declares against life tenure in office. They have tried to strain it to mean that which is does not mean. What we oppose by that plank is the life tenure which is being built up in Was.h.i.+ngton, and which excludes from partic.i.p.ation in official benefits the humbler members of society.

Let me call your attention to two or three important things. The gentleman from New York says that he will propose an amendment to the platform providing that the proposed change in our monetary system shall not affect contracts already made. Let me remind you that there is no intention of affecting those contracts which according to present laws are made payable in gold; but if he means to say that we cannot change our monetary system without protecting those who have loaned money before the change was made, I desire to ask him where, in law or in morals, he can find justification for not protecting the debtors when the act of 1873 was pa.s.sed, if he now insists that we must protect the creditors.

He says he will also propose an amendment which will provide for the suspension of free coinage if we fail to maintain the parity within a year. We reply that when we advocate a policy which we believe will be successful, we are not compelled to raise a doubt as to our own sincerity by suggesting what we shall do if we fail. I ask him, if he would apply his logic to us, why he does not apply it to himself. He says he wants the country to try to secure an international agreement.

Why does he not tell us what he is going to do if he fails to secure an international agreement? There is more reason for him to do that than there is for us to provide against the failure to maintain the parity.

Our opponents have tried for twenty years to secure an international agreement, and those are waiting for it most patiently who do not want it at all.

And now, my friends, let me come to the paramount issue. If they ask us why it is that we say more on the money question than we say upon the tariff question, I reply that, if protection has slain its thousands, the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands. If they ask us why we do not embody in our platform all the things that we believe in, we reply that when we have restored the money of the Const.i.tution all other necessary reforms will be possible; but that until this is done there is no other reform that can be accomplished.

Why is it that within three months such a change has come over the country? Three months ago, when it was confidently a.s.serted that those who believe in the gold standard would frame our platform and nominate our candidates, even the advocates of the gold standard did not think that we could elect a president. And they had good reason for their doubt, because there is scarcely a State here today asking for the gold standard which is not in the absolute control of the Republican party.

But note the change. Mr. McKinley was nominated at St. Louis upon a platform which declared for the maintenance of the gold standard until it can be changed into bimetallism by international agreement. Mr.

McKinley was the most popular man among the Republicans, and three months ago everybody in the Republican party prophesied his election.

How is it today? Why, the man who was once pleased to think that he looked like Napoleon--that man shudders today when he remembers that he was nominated on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. Not only that, but as he listens he can hear with ever-increasing distinctness the sound of the waves as they beat upon the lonely sh.o.r.es of St.

Helena.

Why this change? Ah, my friends, is not the reason for the change evident to any one who will look at the matter? No private character, however pure, no personal popularity, however great, can protect from the avenging wrath of an indignant people a man who will declare that he is in favor of fastening the gold standard upon this country, or who is willing to surrender the right of self-government and place the legislative control of our affairs in the hands of foreign potentates and powers.

We go forth confident that we shall win. Why? Because upon the paramount issue of this campaign there is not a spot of ground upon which the enemy will dare to challenge battle. If they tell us that the gold standard is a good thing, we shall point to their platform and tell them that their platform pledges the party to get rid of the gold standard and subst.i.tute bimetallism. If the gold standard is a good thing, why try to get rid of it? I call your attention to the fact that some of the very people who are in this convention today and who tell us that we ought to declare in favor of international bimetallism--thereby declaring that the gold standard is wrong and that the principle of bimetallism is better--these very people four months ago were open and avowed advocates of the gold standard, and were then telling us that we could not legislate two metals together, even with the aid of all the world. If the gold standard is a good thing, we ought to declare in favor of its retention and not in favor of abandoning it; and if the gold standard is a bad thing why should we wait until other nations are willing to help us to let go? Here is the line of battle, and we care not upon which issue they force the fight; we are prepared to meet them on either issue or on both. If they tell us that the gold standard is the standard of civilization, we reply to them that this, the most enlightened of all the nations of the earth, has never declared for a gold standard and that both the great parties this year are declaring against it. If the gold standard is the standard of civilization, why, my friends, should we not have it. If they come to meet us on that issue we can tell them that they will search the pages of history in vain to find a single instance where the common people of any land have ever declared themselves in favor of the gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed investments have declared for a gold standard, but not where the ma.s.ses have.

Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between "the idle holders of idle capital" and "the struggling ma.s.ses, who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country"; and, my friends, the question we are to decide is: Upon which side will the Democratic party fight; upon the side of "the idle holders of idle capital" or upon the side of "the struggling ma.s.ses?" That is the question which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as shown by the platform, are on the side of the struggling ma.s.ses who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party. There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however has been that if you legislate to make the ma.s.ses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every cla.s.s which rests upon them.

You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the gra.s.s will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

My friends, we declare that this nation is able to legislate for its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth; and upon that issue we expect to carry every State in the Union. I shall not slander the inhabitants of the fair State of Ma.s.sachusetts nor the inhabitants of the State of New York by saying that, when they are confronted with the proposition, they will declare that this nation is not able to attend to its own business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but three millions in number, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation; shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to seventy millions, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers? No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but that we cannot have it until other nations help us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing ma.s.ses of the nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

SPEECHES OF C. A. BOGARDUS.

"I don't know much about the tariff | "I don't know much about the question, but I think I know enough | money question, but it appears to know that if we buy $20.00 worth | to me that if under the gold of rails of a foreigner, the | standard we borrow $20,000,000 foreigner will have the money and | of a foreigner, when we pay it we will have the rails, but if we | back the foreigner will have the make the rails in America and buy | money and the interest, too, but them of an American, America will | if we coin the silver (which have the money and the rails, too." | is an American product) into | American dollars, borrow ABRAHAM LINCOLN. | $20,000,000 of an American, | when we pay it back America will | have the money and the interest, | too."

| | C. A. BOGARDUS.

| | "Nothing should ever tempt | "I hope nothing ever will tempt us--nothing will ever tempt us | us to scale the debt of the to scale down the sacred debt | nation through a legal of the nation through a | technicality. Whatever may legal technicality. Whatever may | be the language of the contract be the language of the contract | the United States should the United States will discharge | discharge its obligations all its obligations in the | according to the contract."

currency recognized as the best | throughout the civilized world | C. A. BOGARDUS.

at the time of payment." | | WM. MCKINLEY. | | | "This word to all when I am dead, | "This word to all while we are Be sure you are right, then go | alive, ahead." | Be sure we are right, then let | drive."

DAVID CROCKETT. | | C. A. BOGARDUS.