him against it. President Cleveland now availed himself of
a common Senate practice to discomfit Senator Hill. He nominated Senator
White of Louisiana, who was immediately confirmed as is the custom of
the Senate when one of its own members is nominated to office. Senator
Hill was thus left with the doubtful credit of having prevented the
appointment of a New Yorker to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court.
But this incident did not seriously affect his control of the Democratic
party organization in New York. His adherents extolled him as a New York
candidate for the Presidency who would restore and maintain the regular
party system without which, it was contended, no administration could be
successful in framing and carrying out a definite policy. Hill's action,
in again presenting himself as a candidate for Governor in the fall of
1894, is intelligible only in the light of this ambition. He had already
served two terms as Governor and was now only midway in his senatorial
term; but if he again showed that he could carry New York he would
have demonstrated, so it was thought, that he was the most eligible
Democratic candidate for the Presidency. But he was defeated by a
plurality of about 156,000.

The fall elections of 1894, indeed, made havoc in the Democratic party.
In twenty-four States, the Democrats failed to return a single member,
and in each of six others, only a single district failed to elect
a Republican. The Republican majority in the House was 140, and the
Republican party also gained control of the Senate. The Democrats who
had swept the country two years before were now completely routed.

Under the peculiar American system which allows a defeated party to
carry on its work for another session of Congress as if nothing had
happened, the Democratic party remained in actual possession of Congress
for some months but could do nothing to better its record. The leading
occupation of its members now seemed to be the advocacy of free silver
and the denunciation of President Cleveland. William J. Bryan of
Nebraska was then displaying in the House the oratorical accomplishments
and dauntless energy of character which soon thereafter gained him the
party leadership. With prolific rhetoric, he likened President Cleveland
to a guardian who had squandered the estate of a confiding ward and to
a trainman who opened a switch and caused a wreck, and he declared
that the President in trying to inoculate the Democratic