xt7tx921cw1r https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7tx921cw1r/data/mets.xml Democratic National Convention (1904 : St. Louis, Mo.) 1904 books b92-77-27211776 English Press of the Publishers' Printing Co., : [New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Blumenberg, Milton W. Official report of the proceedings of the Democratic national convention held in St. Louis, Mo., July 6, 7, 8, and 9, 1904 : resulting in the nomination of Hon. Alton B. Parker (of New York) for president and Hon. Henry G. Davis (of West Virginia) for vice-president / reported by Milton W. Blumenberg. text Official report of the proceedings of the Democratic national convention held in St. Louis, Mo., July 6, 7, 8, and 9, 1904 : resulting in the nomination of Hon. Alton B. Parker (of New York) for president and Hon. Henry G. Davis (of West Virginia) for vice-president / reported by Milton W. Blumenberg. 1904 2002 true xt7tx921cw1r section xt7tx921cw1r

OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE
PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
Democratic National
Convention

This page in the original text is blank.

OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE
PROCEEDINGS
OF THE

Democratic National

Convention

HELD IN
St. Louis, Mo., July 6, 7, 8, and 9, 1904

Resulting in the Nomination of
HON. ALTON B. PARKER
(OF NEW YORK)
FOR PRESIDENT
AND
HON. HENRY G. DAVIS
(OF WEST VIRGINIA)
FOR VICE-PRESIDENT

0i)

REPORTED BY
MILTON W. BLUMENBERG
OFFICIAL REPORTER

PRESS 0o
THE PUBLISFRS' PRINTING COMPANY

32-34 Lafayette Place
New York

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

FIRST DAY.

ST. Louis, Mo., Wednesday, July 6, i904.

Pursuant to the call of the Democratic National Committee,
the Democratic National Convention assembled in the Coliseum
this day at 12 o'clock noon.
The Chairman (Mr. James K. Jones, of Arkansas, Chair-
man of the Democratic National Committee): The Convention
will come to order. The Secretary will read the call for the
Convention.

The Secretary read as follows:

WASHINGTON, D. C., January i8, i904.
The Democratic National Committee, having met in the
City of Washington on the 12th day of January, i904, has
appointed Wednesday, July 6, i904, as the time, and chosen St.
Louis, Missouri, as the place for holding the Democratic Na-
tional Convention.
Each State is entitled to representation therein equal to
double the number of its Senators and Representatives in the
Congress of the United States, and each Territory, Alaska,
Indian Territory and the District of Columbia shall have six
delegates. All Democratic citizens of the United States who
can unite with us in the effort for a pure and economical con-
stitutional government are cordially invited to join us in sending
delegates to the Convention.
JAMESK. JONES, Chairman.
C. A. WALSH, Secretary.

OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE

THE CHAIRMAN: Prayer will now be offered by the Rev.
John F. Cannon, pastor of the Grand Avenue Presbyterian
Church of this city.

PRAYER OF THE REV. JOHN F. CANNON, D.D.
The Rev. John F. Cannon, D.D., offered the following
prayer:

Almighty God, our Father which art in Heaven, in all our
ways we would acknowledge Thee in order that Thou mayest
direct our paths. We bow ourselves in Thy presence and ac-
knowledge Thee as the God in whose hands our breath is and
Whose are all our ways. Lift Thou up the light of Thy counte-
nance upon us, and bless us first of all in the forgiveness of all
our sins. Turn our hearts from every evil way and incline us
to the way of Thy statutes.
Humbly and gratefully we acknowledge Thee as the source
of all our blessings, the Giver of every good and every perfect
gift. We thank Thee for Thy unfailing goodness to us as a
people. Thou hast dealt kindly and well with Thy servants.
Thou hast cast our lot in a pleasant land, and we have a goodly
heritage. May we possess it in Thy fear. May we have the
blessedness of that people whose God is the Lord.
Give us that righteousness which exalteth a nation and save
us from sin, which is a reproach to any people. Let peace and
plenty prevail within all our borders, and let righteousness and
justice be our sure defense. Let the wickedness of the wicked
come to an end. Cause strife and oppression to cease out of our
land. Drive evil men from places of honor and power, and let
the righteous be exalted in their stead. God of our fathers,
bless us as a people and make us a blessing to all the nations of
the earth.
O Thou Master of assemblies, let Thy blessing come upon
this Convention. Guide these representatives of the people by
Thy counsel. Replenish them with the wisdom which is from
above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be
entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and
without hypocrisy.

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

Drive out of every breast all unworthy passions and preju-
dices and ambitions, and let all be controlled by a holy passion
for the right. And may such conclusions be reached and such
action taken as shall be in harmony with Thy will, for the glory
of Thy name and our country's good. We humbly ask in the
name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

TEMPORARY OFFICERS.
THE CHAIRMAN: I am directed by the National Committee
to nominate as temporary officers of this organization the fol-
lowing gentlemen:
Temporary Chairman-Hon. John Sharp Williams, of
Mississippi.
Temporary Secretary-Hon. Charles A. Walsh, of Iowa.
Temporary Sergeant-at-Arms-Hon. John I. Martin, of
Missouri.
Official Reporter-Milton W. Blumenberg, of Illinois.
First Assistant Secretary-W. A. Deford, of Kansas.
Assistant Secretaries-G. C. Smith, of Kansas; Lee A. Day,
of California; Walter Butler, of Iowa; Charles M. McCabe, of
Tennessee; W. E. Longnecker, of Missouri; Thomas F. Smith,
of New York.

Are there any other nominations If there are none, the
question is on agreeing to the recommendation of the National
Committee.
The recommendation was agreed to.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair appoints two Democrats who
have grown old in the service of the party and whose presence
in this Convention gives us earnest of great success hereafter-
Col. James M. Guffey, of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Michael F.
Tarpey, of California-a committee to escort 'XIr. Williams to
the chair.
The Committee appointed for the purpose escorted Mr.
Williams to the platform.

OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE

THIE CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen of the Convention, I have the
honor to present to you your Temporary Chairman, Hon. John
Sharp Williams, of Mississippi. [Applause.]

SPEECH OF THE TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN.

THE TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Mr. John Sharp Williams, of
Mississippi):
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an appropriate place and an
appropriate time for a great Democratic National Convention.
The place is St. Louis, the chief city of the most populous
State carved out of the Louisiana Territory, acquired by the
Father of Democracy. The time is the centennial anniversary
celebration of the acquisition of that territory. It was a vast
area of contiguous territory, whose possession was necessary
for our self defense and which was fitted in climate and soil for
home-making by the sons and daughters of the Republic. It
was a real and not a pseudo expansion. It was not a step in
British colonization, but the first step in American expansion-
an expansion of our population, our industrial life and our free
institutions over uninhabited lands, or lands sparsely settled by
savages whose tribal independence we recognized by treating
with them, or settled in spots by white men easily and willingly
assimilated; not a so-called expansion by mere superimposition
of our flag and our military authority. [Applause.]
The Democratic party afterwards guided the country to
further expansions of this real, free and American character,
in the acquisition of Florida, the admission of Texas as a State,
and in the acquisition from Mexico of the magnificent " Far
West," all fit to be made States in the Union and governed
under the Constitution.
The most important quadrennial event in the world is the
election by the American people of their Chief Executive.
[Applause.] Before the great election takes place, at which
all men are supposed to arrive at a choice by ways of honesty
and intelligence-would to God they did-at least two minor
elections of a different character are held. There have always
been at least two great parties which. since the first National

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

political convention, have elected delegates to conventions for
the purpose of selecting candidates and promulgating a plat-
form. One of these parties has gone through its party election
of delegates, has selected a candidate and announced a platform.
It was one of the quietest and " most unanimous " occasions
that the muses of history have recorded. [Applause.] Every-
thing seemed fixed beforehand. There are some conveniences
about a convention of that sort. One of them is that the tem-
porary chairman knows six or nine months beforehand that he
is going to be temporary chairman. He also knows what he is
wanted to say, and can compare it with what he wants to say.
I could appreciate that I assure you. [Laughter.] The per-
manent chairman also knows half a year beforehand what is
expected of him. The platform comes ready written-no dis-
cussion about it-and is perhaps revised by the candidate him-
self, who has also been agreed upon.
The address of the Temporary Chairman of the Republican
National Convention was, in one sense, historical; in this sense
that it dealt much in history at any rate-most of it ancient
history, and a great deal of it false history. [Applause.] There
was a labored argument to prove that the party of Roosevelt
must, by something like evolutionary process, I suppose, act as
the party of Lincoln and McKinley. This was necessary in
order to disguise the palpable fact that it is not so acting. Not
without reason, then, this labored argument by this great, and
ingenious lawyer! It was to draw away attention from
" Rooseveltism "-its volcanic, eruptive, and reckless character
-that lie dwelt so lingeringly upon the fact that at some
period of its history the Republican party had been " a party
which did things " and did them safely. The orator hoped to
have the country lose sight of the fact that it is now, in both of
its legislative branches, a party of passivity, of non-action, of
obstruction to reform and progress; a party whose only sacred
precept is a shibboleth which maketh known one of its members
to the other-a shibboleth drawn from the gamblers' table,
" stand pat "; a precept born of cowardice and fear to move.
[Applause.]
I shall not pay undue attention to the temporary chairman of

OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE

the Republican Convention. After interrogating in the light
of reason a few of his utterances, I shall pass on to the authori-
tative voice of his party, which is its platform. His speech
was principally notable for containing the proof of the fact
that Mr. Root knew how to pay a debt. The country has not
yet forgotten that Mr. Roosevelt not long since paid a glowing
tribute to his cabinet, which wound up substantially with the
sentiment, " and the greatest of these is Root." But let us read
first what the President did say of the junior member of the
mutual admiration society. I find it in the American Review of
Reviews, from the pen of Walter Wellman:

" Ordinarily the President of the United States is not to be
interviewed, but there are exceptions to all rules. When I
asked President Roosevelt for an expression of his opinion of
the character and public services of Elihu Root, who within a
few weeks is to retire from the Secretaryship of War, the
President replied: 'I am very glad to do that. In John Hay
I have a great Secretary of State.' "
Mark these I's; not " the United States," but " I " have a
great Secretary of State!

"'In Philander Knox I have a great Attorney-General; in
other cabinet posts I have great men. Elihu Root could take
any one of these places and fill it as well as the man who is now
in it, and in addition, he is probably what none of those other
gentlemen could be, a great Secretary of War. Elihu Root
is the ablest man I have known in our governmental service.
I will go further-he is the greatest man that has appeared in
the public life of any country in any position on either side of
the ocean in my time.' This is praise indeed," adds Wellman.
Well, what of it I have never heard that Secretary Root
has "denied the soft impeachment." [Laughter.] "Praise
indeed;" yes! And what praise in return could be adequate
repayment In this wonderful mutual admiration society of
"Me, too, Teddy, and Me, too, 'Lihu," is the return rhapsody
of Mr. Root's peroration at all extravagant, considered solely
from the standpoint of repayment, of course

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

Is it any wonder that he was the man selected by the Repub-
lican candidate to " lay it on strong " [Laughter.] A man of
ability, too, is Mr. Root. He had already defended Tweed.
Why, then, not defend the Republican party in its hour of non-
action, passivity, negation and mere obstruction Indeed, he
and the President have had minds so much alike that they have
been suspected of "unconscious identical cerebration"-Of
thinking the same thoughts in the same words. [Laughter.]
I have heard that in October, I902, Mr. Root made a politi-
cal speech in Cooper Union, in which he used this language:
'"If a tariff law has on the whole worked well, and if busi-
ness has prospered under it and is prospering, it is better to
endure some slight inconveniences and inequalities for a time
than to incur the uncertainty and disturbance of business which
necessarily result from the process of making changes. The
mere fact that a different rate of duty would be better than the
rate fixed in the statute does not settle the question whether
the change should be made now or should be.deferred. Every
tariff deals with duties on a vast number of articles, and involves
a vast number of interests, often conflicting. Whenever the
law is taken up by Congress for consideration with reference
to one change, every schedule in that law is going to find some
one urging a change in that schedule; and all the business inter-
ests of the country are going to be left during a long continued
discussion in a state of uncertainty as to what will be the out-
come of duties upon the things they are producing, and there-
fore in uncertainty as to what competition from abroad they
will be obliged to meet."
And that the President, in his political tour through the
West in the spring of i903, made a speech in which he used
this language:
" If a tariff law has on the whole worked well and busi-
ness has prospered under it, and is prospering, it may be better
to endure some inconveniences and inequalities for a time than
by making changes to risk causing a disturbance and perhaps
paralysis in the industries and business of the country. The
fact that a change in a given rate of duty may be thought
desirable, does not settle the question whether it is advisable

OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE

to make the change immediately. Every tariff deals with
duties on thousands of articles, arranged in hundreds of para-
graphs and in many schedules. These duties affect a vast
number of interests, which are often conflicting. If necessary
for our welfare, then, of course, Congress must consider the
question of changing the law as a whole or changing any given
rate of duty. But we must remember that whenever a single
schedule is considered, some interest will appear to demand a
change in almost every schedule in the law; and when it comes
to upsetting the schedules generally, the effect upon the coun-
try would be ruinous."
Verily, " Two souls with but a single thought; two
speeches that read as one." [Laughter and applause.] And
that single thought so harmoniously expressed is that we must
not force one special interest to take its lips from the public
breast for fear that the public, finding the suckling process
unnecessary, might deem others so, and shake them all off.
[Applause.]
It is not to be wondered at that the peroration of the
" greatest of these " was a sort of deification of him who had
dubbed him the " greatest of these." It was almost as natural
as self-appreciation. If I may be permitted to use some bad
Latin, it was only alter-egotism after all. That peroration was
a regular rhapsody ! What a magnificent piece of humor is this
unbounded adulation of our fellow-citizen in the White House
by the "chief of these!" How humorous to praise sQ highly
this, our fellow-citizen in the White House, who in the long
line of great men who have filled the seat he now occupies has
himself, as a historian, found only about three in his opinion
worthy of anything like unstinted praise, George Washington,
Abraham Lincoln and himself! [Applause.] Verily, the
other humorists will have to retire from business! "The
chief of these" is Mr. Root.
The Temporary Chairman, speaking of the Republican
party, said: " Through it more than any other party, the moral
sentiment of the American people finds expression."
Then God save us! Where Shall we find it some years
back in the credit mobilier; in the De Golyar, Ames Colfax

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

scandal; in the Whisky Ring Frauds; in the Star Route Steals;
in the long saturnalia of carpet baggery instituted in the South
and protected and maintained by the Republican party there
until all over Dixieland Robbery and Corruption were stalking
naked, to the disgust of all men Shall we find it in more
recent years Where again In the Post-Office Department
In the Public Lands Bureau In the full swav of bosses, for-
merly so bitterly cursed, and now taken so fondly to his bosom
by the President In the pitiable telegrams from Washing-
ton inquiring just when the patriotic and "unassisted revolu-
tion " of fifty or one hundred men was expected unexpectedly
to come off in Panama [Applause.] In the celebrated order
of " Hell-roaring Jake " Smith prescribing ten as the age above
which children were to be killed in one of the islands of the
Philippines In the honey-combing of our national life with
the corruption of legislation-bought special privileges Time
fails me to ask where.
Mr. Root says, " Offenders have been relentlessly prose-
cuted, and sternly punished." Is this not remarkable " thun-
dering in the index" for you, when compared with actual
Republican accomplishments, especially when compared with
the refusal of the Republican House of Representatives to make
culprits face even so much as a Congressional investigation;
when compared with the absolute and constant refusal of the
Republican Speaker even to recognize any member of the
House for the purpose of making a motion of this character.
If there ever was a determination fully entertained and finally
carried out, it was the determination of the Republican admin-
istration and the Republican legislative body to see to it that
nobody except their colleagues in the executive branch of the
Government should investigate the alleged culprits in the Post-
Office Department. There was more than a suspicion that the
tariff was not the only thing that the Republicans wanted inves-
tigated only by its friends. Surely the ingenious ex-Secre-
tary does not expect to be taken seriously. [Applause.]
There follows something, however, which will be taken
seriously. The Secretary boasts that the per capita circulation
of money among the people of the United States increased

OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE

from 23.14 in March, i897, to 31.02 in May last, and that the
credit for that increase and the consequent prosperity follow-
ing it was due to the Republican party! What a curious boast
this is, for those lately denying so strenuously that the quantity
of money has anything to do with the value of money, with the
price of other things, as measured in money, with an ascending
scale of prices or with national prosperity. This was all
denied but yesterday. Now it is asserted that the volume of
metallic money has been increased immensely; that it has con-
tributed to prosperity by producing a scale of rising prices, and
that this is all due to Republican legislation! Due to what act
of Congress passed by them Was Republican legislation
operative in South Africa and the Klondyke, and did it cause
the discoveries of gold there [Applause.] Did it cause the
new inventions for the easiest and more profitable extraction of
gold from refractory gold ore Did it cause the addition of two
billions in gold to the world's stock of money metal in the
last eight years Was it Republican legislation which grew
and harvested immense crops of wheat, cotton, corn, etc.,
thereby enabling these United States to draw more than their
pro rata share of the world's stock of money metals, increas-
ing their stock of gold by 7oo,ooo,ooo What partnership is
this between God, human industry and ingenuity, and the
Republican party, of which the Republican party is the self-
assertive senior member What monumental effrontery is
this which enables Republicans to boast of the benefits of the
increased volume of standard metallic money and the conse-
quent prosperity by necessary operation of the quantitative
theory of money, which theory they found no language strong
enough to deny and ridicule but yesterday [Applause.]
The ex-Secretary next boasted that the Secretary of the
Treasury can and does contract and expand the country's
currency at his will, and illustrated this by occurrences in i902,
which he quoted. Remember, he boasts that this is a fact. If
so, what a magnificent one-man-power it is! [Applause.] It
is almost as great as that lately wielded by the ex-Secretary of
War himself, when he was " ex-officio Emperor of the Philip-
pine archipelago," when, as he himself subsequently said in a

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

public address, questions affecting the interests and lives of
millions of people had to be decided by him upon not much
more than a moment's notice and entirely within his own dis-
cretion. [Applause.]
What do the men who believe the Government ought to go
out of the banking business, and the men who believe that the
banks ought to go out of the governing business, think of this
remarkable, this boastful assertion that one man in the United
States can at his own sweet will and does contract and expand
the currency, which furnishes the life-blood of commerce
[Applause.]
The Temporary Chairman then told the country that the
act to expedite hearings of trust cases, namely, the act of Feb-
ruary II, 1903, was "Republican legislation." He forgot to
tell you that every Democrat voted for it. And yet, that is
my recollection. I have never known a more ingenious mind
than that of ex-Secretary Root. His ingenuity is never so
marvelous as when its power is illustrated by the things which
he forgets to mention. [Applause.] Verily, he is " the Root
of all evil " when it comes to making " the worse appear the
better side of reason." [Applause.]
The ex-Secretary then tells us, in a burst of eloquence,
"That the fatal I4th of September, i9oI, marked no change
of policy ;" that when the kindly and fraternal soul of McKinley
wended its way from the earth, he left behind him no break-
his policy was continued in spirit by his successor. Who is
there of common sense in America who does not know better
[Applause.] Changes in the spirit of the policy of the admin-
istration with regard to reciprocity with foreign nations, with
regard to local self-government in the South, and in twenty
respects which it would take too much time to particularize,
will suggest themselves to your minds at once. But enough of
this ex-cabinet officer. [Applause.]
To go on to the authoritative utterances of the Republican
party in convention assembled. The platform, like the Tem-
porary Chairman's speech, deals chiefly in boasts that the
Republican party is the cause of everything good which has
happened. [Applause.] It deals much also in ancient his-

I I

OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE

tory. It did well to go back fifty years ago for a beginning.
[Applause.] The present Republican party needs a running
start of fully fifty years to enable the imagination of the
American people to vault over the fact of its present obstruct-
iveness and its chronic evasion of the live issues which lie in
its pathway in this year of our Lord's Grace i904.
[Applause.]
The platform speaking of the access of the Republican party
to power after Mr. Cleveland's second administration had
expired, uses this language:
" We then found the country, after four years of Democratic
rule, in evil plight, oppressed with misfortunes and doubtful
of the future. Public credit had been lowered; revenues were
declining; the debt was growing; the administration's attitude
toward Spain was feeble and mortifying; its standard of values
was threatened and uncertain; labor was unemployed; business
was sunk in the depression which succeeded the panic of 1893;
hope was faint and confidence was gone."
Suppose I paraphrase that utterance by saying that " when
Mr. Cleveland succeeded to the Presidency in March, 1893,
after four years of Republican administration under Mr. Har-
rison, the Democratic party found the country, after a long
period of misrule and extravagance, in evil plight; oppressed
with misfortunes and doubtful of the future. The public credit
had been lowered; the revenues were declining.
" The outgoing administration was preparing to issue bonds.
A governmental deficit was confessed. The panic which had
devastated the world was relentlessly approaching our shores.
A long saturnalia of extravagance, public and private, and of
reckless speculation, had been already followed by depression.
Corn was burned for fuel in Kansas and elsewhere in the West
in i890 and after. Cotton was at or below the price of pro-
duction." The acute reaction which we call panic was inevi-
tably approaching even before Mr. Cleveland was elected,
because the first bubble which had burst in that world -panic was
the failure of Baring Brothers in I890.
" Business was sunk in the depression which preceded with
UtS the panic of i893. Labor was unemployed or poorly remu-

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

nerated in factory and field, especially in the latter." Indeed,
business depression, especially in agriculture, and the lack of
adequate remuneration for labor, taken together with the high
prices of manufactured articles under the McKinley Act, high
prices especially accentuated in the public realization by con-
trasting them with the starvation prices of agricultural products
which had begun to prevail in i890-these two conditions con-
stituted the chief industrial reasons in the public mind for turn-
ing out Mr. Harrison and the Republicans and putting in Mr.
Cleveland and the Democrats. [Applause.]
To go on with the paraphrase; "Under Mr. Harrison's
administration for three years hope was faint and confidence
gone." The " plight of the people " was so desperate that, like
drowning men, they were " catching at straws." Many nos-
trums were being suggested. Agrarianism, State Socialism in
the shape of sub-treasury and other schemes, were rife from
i8qo and thence on. The " two old parties," as they were
called, were blamed for it all, but the one in power was blamed
the more; hence the one out of power got in. Men advocat-
ing these nostrums in the state of public desperation then exist-
ing, counted their audiences throughout the suffering West
and the depressed South no longer by numbers, but by the
acre. Who will deny the historical truth of a single sentence
of this paraphrase Why pretend to have forgotten all this
Why not be honest with the people as men ought to be
It is true that after the election of Mr. Cleveland the chronic
business depression continued. It is true that it became acute,
in a word, reached the banks and that then the fright stage or
panic of i893 came. It was not a local or American condition
which thus culminated, but one which had existed from where
Vienna nestles on the Danube to where Buenos Ayres com-
mands its bay-one whose foundation had been laid long before
it reached us, almost the last among the nations. Then, with
the panic upon us, more nostrums of a national character were
suggested to cure an evil of a world character.
One of them, as you will all remember, was the repeal of
the purchasing clause of the Sherman act. This nostrum was
suggested by wise men, and it was administered to the patient.

OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE

It did no good, of course. [Applause.] The panic went on
-went on until when Until the boil upon the body commer-
cial burst and the poison of speculation, boom values and credit
operations was released from the system. It went on until
agriculture, the basic industry, revived.
In the midst of the panic all the wise men, and chief among
them the Republican leaders, told us that " it was lack of con-
fidence in the money of the country " which had brought on
the panic. The Democratic administration, supported by a
sufficient number of votes of both parties in the two Houses,
took that view of the situation and demanded and secured the
passage of the act repealing the purchasing clause of the Sher-
man act, thereby, for the first time, practically establishing the
gold standard in the United States. For, without either free,
or limited, coinage of " standard " silver money, the country
was, immediately after the passage of that act, necessarily and
actually, as it has been since, and as it is now, and as it is
destined to remain for a length of time beyond my power of
computation, on a gold basis.
I was not one of those who thought the legislation adopted
was wise; but wise or unwise, the result-the gold basis-was
and is an accomplished fact-" plain, palpable and obvious " to
all men who have common sense-and like many another step
in history it is beyond recall, or fear, or hope of recall. This
fact of a gold basis was accomplished then not by the Repub-
lican party, but by the dogged persistency and indomitable will
of Grover Cleveland [applause], aided, it is true, by Republi-
can legislators, who thought they saw in it the final disruption
of the Democratic party. [Applause.] That was in the main
their motive. Now they would " steal his thunder" in this
Republican platform boast that it was " the Republican party
which " established the gold basis."
Moreover, they would now eat their words and their votes,
as well, of i893, and tell us that the panic was not brought
about as they then said by " lack of confidence in our money
and too much silver," but, forsooth, by a tariff act which was
not passed until about a year after, to wit: in I894, when the
panic-that is, the fright-stage of the industrial depression, was

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

virtually over. [Applause.] Do not misunderstand me; a
panic, of course, is not succeeded all at once by the golden hues
of prosperity. Industrial depression must follow for a while,
as industrial depression must precede it. So depression con-
tinued after the panic-stage had passed. As I have said, when
the boil bursts and the poison is eliminated from the body com-
mercial, the flesh begins to heal. It cannot begin to heal one
minute earlier.
The process of recovery was aided by many, for us, for-
tuitous circumstances. The first of these was the famine in
India-no Indian wheat to compete in the European market
with ours. Simultaneously with it, an immense American
crop of wheat, and small crops elsewhere. Wheat rose from
about forty-eight to about seventy cents in a few weeks during
the Bryan-McKinley campaign, while Cleveland was yet Presi-
dent. [Applause.] There is not a man within the sound of
my voice who does not remember that. My friend, Mr. Kerr,
who sits in front of me, who was the Secretarv of the Demo-
cratic Congressional Campaign Committee, that year, will
remember it. My friend, Mr.