flew back and forth. The
question-begging phrase "sound money"--both parties professed to wish
"sound money"--did effective partisan service. Neither party's deepest
principles were much discussed. Many gold people assumed as beyond
controversy that free coinage would drive gold from the country and
wreck public credit. Advocates of silver too little heeded the
consequences which the mere fear of those evils must entail, impatiently
classing such as mentioned them among bond-servants to the money power.

So great was the fear of free silver in financial circles, corporations
voted money to the huge Republican campaign fund. The opposition could
tap no such mine. Never before had a national campaign seen the
Democratic party so abandoned by Democrats of wealth, or with so slender
a purse.

Nor was this the worst. Had Mr. Bryan been able through the campaign to
maintain the passionate eloquence of his Chicago speech, or the lucid
logic of that with which at Madison Square Garden he opened the
campaign, he would still not have succeeded in sustaining "more hard
money" ardor at its mid-summer pitch. His eloquence, indeed, in good
degree continued, but the level of his argument sank. Instead of
championing the cause of producers, whether rich or poor, against mere
money-changers, which he might have done with telling effect, he more
and more fell to the tone of one speaking simply against all the rich,
an attitude which repelled multitudes who possessed neither wealth nor
much sympathy for the wealthy.

Save for one short trip to Cleveland the Republican candidate did not,
during the campaign, leave Canton, though from his doorstep he spoke to
visiting hordes. His opponent, in the course of the most remarkable
campaigning tour ever made by a candidate, preached free coinage to
millions. The immense number of his addresses; their effectiveness,
notwithstanding the slender preparation possible for most of them
severally; the abstract nature of his subject when argued on its merits,
as it usually was by him; and the strain of his incessant journeys
evinced a power in the man which was the amazement of everyone.

Spite of all this, as election day drew near, the feeling rose that it
post-dated by at least two months all possibility of a Democratic
victory. Republicans' limitless resources, steady discipline, and
ceaseless work told day by day. They polled, of the popular vote,
7,104,244; the combined Bryan forces, 6,506,853;