an as the merchant of New York. The farmer ... 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 a thousand feet into the earth or climb two
thousand feet upon the cliffs ... are as much business men as the few
financial magnates who in a back room corner the money of the world....
It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Ours is not
a war of conquest. We are fighting in defense of our homes, our
families, and our posterity. We have petitioned and our petitions 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 petition no more. We defy
them.... We shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to
them, 'You shall not press upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns.
You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.'"

=Bryan Nominated.=--In all the history of national conventions never had
an orator so completely swayed a multitude; not even Yancey in his
memorable plea in the Charleston convention of 1860 when, with grave and
moving eloquence, he espoused the Southern cause against the impending
fates. The delegates, after cheering Mr. Bryan until they could cheer no
more, tore the standards from the floor and gathered around the Nebraska
delegation to renew the deafening applause. The platform as reported was
carried by a vote of two to one and the young orator from the West,
hailed as America's Tiberius Gracchus, was nominated as the Democratic
candidate for President. The South and West had triumphed over the East.
The division was sectional, admittedly sectional--the old combination of
power which Calhoun had so anxiously labored to build up a century
earlier. The Gold Democrats were repudiated in terms which were clear to
all. A few, unable to endure the thought of voting the Republican
ticket, held a convention at Indianapolis where, with the sanction of
Cleveland, they nominated candidates of their own and endorsed the gold
standard in a forlorn hope.

=The Democratic Platform.=--It was to the call from Chicago that the
Democrats gave heed and the Republicans made answer. The platform on
which Mr. Bryan stood, unlike most party manifestoes, was explicit in
its language and its appeal. It denounced the practice of allowing
national banks to issue notes intended to circulate as money