tightset mouth, but as a grotesque frock-coated figure with the sombrero
of a cow-puncher and the hair of a poet. If the delegates at the
convention noticed any of these peculiarities as Bryan arose to speak,
they soon forgot them. His undoubted power to carry an audience with
him was never better demonstrated than on that sweltering July day in
Chicago when he stilled the tumult of a seething mass of 15,000 people
with his announcement that he came to speak "in defense of a cause
as holy as the cause of liberty--the cause of humanity," and when he
stirred the same audience to frenzy with his closing defiance of the
opponents of free silver:

"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."

Meeting Senator Hill's careful arguments with a clever retort, blunting
the keenness of his logic with a well-turned period, polished to
perfection by numerous repetitions before all sorts of audiences during
the previous three or four years, Bryan held the convention in the
hollow of his hand. The leadership which had hitherto been lacking was
now found. The platform as reported by the committee was adopted by a
vote of more than two to one; and the convention, but for the opposition
of Bryan himself, would have nominated him on the spot. The next day it
took but five ballots to set aside all the favorite sons, including the
"Father of Free Silver" himself, Richard P. Bland, and to make Bryan the
standard bearer of the party. Far different in character and appearance
from the Republican group which had assembled in the same building a few
weeks before, was the Populist convention which met in St. Louis late in
July. Many of the 1300 delegates were white-haired and had grown old in
the service of reform in the various independent movements of preceding
yea