apital,
'the poor against the rich,' or interest against interest." Such was the
language of his acceptance speech. The whole program of Populism he now
viewed as a "sudden, dangerous, and revolutionary assault upon law and
order."

=The Democratic Convention at Chicago.=--Never, save at the great
disruption on the eve of the Civil War, did a Democratic national
convention display more feeling than at Chicago in 1896. From the
opening prayer to the last motion before the house, every act, every
speech, every scene, every resolution evoked passions and sowed
dissensions. Departing from long party custom, it voted down in anger a
proposal to praise the administration of the Democratic President,
Cleveland. When the platform with its radical planks, including free
silver, was reported, a veritable storm broke. Senator Hill, trembling
with emotion, protested against the departure from old tests of
Democratic allegiance; against principles that must drive out of the
party men who had grown gray in its service; against revolutionary,
unwise, and unprecedented steps in the history of the party. Senator
Vilas of Wisconsin, in great fervor, avowed that there was no difference
in principle between the free coinage of silver--"the confiscation of
one-half of the credits of the nation for the benefit of debtors"--and
communism itself--"a universal distribution of property." In the triumph
of that cause he saw the beginning of "the overthrow of all law, all
justice, all security and repose in the social order."

[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y._

WILLIAM J. BRYAN IN 1898]

=The Crown of Thorns Speech.=--The champions of free silver replied in
strident tones. They accused the gold advocates of being the aggressors
who had assailed the labor and the homes of the people. William Jennings
Bryan, of Nebraska, voiced their sentiments in a memorable oration. He
declared that their cause "was as holy as the cause of liberty--the
cause of humanity." He exclaimed that the contest was between the idle
holders of idle capital and the toiling millions. Then he named those
for whom he spoke--the wage-earner, the country lawyer, the small
merchant, the farmer, and the miner. "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
m