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 masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its
way up through every class 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 grass 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 Massachusetts 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 masses of this 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[38] From a speech delivered in the city of Chicago before the
Democratic National Convention of 1896.

DEATH OF CONGRESSMAN BURNES

J. J. INGALLS

At this crisis and juncture, w