From History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web:
M Oct 6: Depressions and Panics:
"Certain Fundamental Truths": The AFL Protests Unemployment:
The spreading economic depression of 1893 stirred the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which was sometimes guilty of focusing primarily on the needs of its own members, to call for broad measures that would benefit all working people. The AFL urged the unemployed to hold mass demonstrations. The federation also organized “federal labor unions” of the jobless. New York’s organized labor movement also protested, as seen in this September 1893 appeal signed by local and national labor leaders, including Samuel Gompers. Although the resolution primarily called on the city to provide “immediate relief and public employment,” it also suggested that the state and federal governments should provide for the unemployed. This claim was part of a long-term shift in which working people and others came to see the needs of the jobless as more than a local obligation (in the manner of traditional poor relief). Only with the New Deal of the 1930s were such demands realized.
A hundred thousand men, women, and children are nearing the verge of starvation in this rich metropolis of these free United States. Hundreds of thousands of others are within but a short distance from want and its attendant suffering, misery and crime. From all the manufacturing and commercial centres there comes the anxious demand for work, soon we fear to be followed by the despairing cry for bread.
The fields of our matchless domain have blossomed with promise of an abundant harvest and beneath our feet is stored the wealth of ages, of metals and of minerals for the needs of men. The cattle reed upon a thousand hills and our forests covering empires of states crown the earth with glory. All nature smiles with the abundance of prosperous peace. The sword of war is sheathed and pestilence has withdrawn its destroying hand. Invention has quickened production and lessened cost. Electricity and steam have conquered time and space. The North and South, the East and remotest West are one, a grand indissoluble union of independent states. The hands of labor, skilled in every craft, answer the will of an intelligent, industrious, peace-loving people. The untaught, foreign born, oppressed for ages beneath the heel of usurping power, have come to these shores, as our fathers came, to seek a higher and a happier life. The forces of nature and the right good will of millions of workers on farm and sea, in mill and mine, and in all the enterprises of this new world of free men, are united to make this country the home of plenty—the garden and forum of the world.
A few thousand men and women enjoy the opulence of eastern potentates, while abject millions grovel in the dust begging for work and bread. This is the industrial and social exhibit of our Columbian year.
Against these conditions and their inevitable results and against the underlying causes that make poverty the normal condition of the wage-laborer, we, the organized workers of the city of New York, voicing as we do believe the organized labor of the world, enter our serious and determined protest and warning.
In this hour of distress and danger we call upon all citizens of all religious and political faiths, to give their most careful consideration to our appeal, and to the methods and measures herein set forth. The authors of the Declaration of Independence before severing the colonies from the mother country wisely set forth certain fundamental truths and upon the basis of these eternal verities erected the temple of political freedom.
So, we, mindful of the power of error and prejudice against any seeming departure from the beaten paths of human experience as in duty bound, make this declaration of the reasons that prompt our action and justify the methods and measures proposed.
We do not believe that the industrial and social system so firmly entrenched, can be changed for the better by declaration or demand, by edict of rulers, by laws of legislative assemblies, by individual or corporate experiments by riot or by the deadly anger of class hate.
We believe that so radical a change as we contemplate must be obtained by the slow process of evolutionary development.
That the methods and measures by which the world of workers to-day enjoy better conditions than those of other times and the greater purchasing power of a day’s work in the United States over that enjoyed by the laborers of other countries are the methods by and through which labor will receive its full measure of justice and equity.
We believe that the organization of wage-workers in trade unions is the purest guarantee of a peaceful solution of the world-wide problem: “How to abolish poverty.”
That the wage system of labor can be succeeded by a better one only through the increase of the purchasing power of a day’s work.
That increased wages (or increased purchasing power) reduces profit upon labor.
That a constant increase in wages and in reduction of profits will make a capitalistic or employing class unprofitable and unnecessary, thus eliminating classes and establishing equity.
That the reduction of the hours of labor increases wages without increasing the cost of production, and is a measure upon which the full power of the labor movement should be directed.
We also believe that in times of great distress, whether caused by the upheavals of nature, by earthquakes, floods, or cyclones, or when caused by man’s folly, ignorance, or avarice, as in the case of pestilence, fire, financial panics, and periods of industrial stagnation, it is the duty of all men to give relief to the suffering, to care for the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the houseless. We, therefore, call upon all to contribute funds for the unemployed, who wait for work in vain, and whose wives and little ones are starving in our streets.
That as a city is a co-operative corporation in which all citizens are shareholders, and all other residents guests or sojourners, no one citizen has the right to live in extravagant luxury while the other wants for the needs of life. We therefore call upon the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen of the city of New York to convene in special session and there devise ways and means in the same manner, and to the same effect, as they would in the case of flood, fire, or pestilence.
That as food obtained by work is more enjoyable than food obtained, even as a right, without work, we ask the city authorities to provide ways and means for the commencement and continuance of public works, and the employment of the new unemployed directly and not by contract.
That the same reasons that prompt us to call upon the officers of our city for appropriations for immediate relief and public employment, also prompt us to call upon the Governor of the State, and the President of the United States, to call attention by public proclamation and by legislative action to the same end, and in such manner as the fundamental law will permit.
In that immortal document that sounded the death-knell of kingcraft, the signers there to set forth a challenge and defiance to that social and industrial system, that rests upon the same foundation and upholds the theory of the divine rights of kings.
In the declaration: “That all men are born possessed with certain inalienable rights, among which are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” will be found the keynote to a new and yet grander declaration of labor’s independence from the monarchical control of the industrial system
The right to life carries with it the right to means of life.
The right to liberty carries with it the right to that economic independence without which political liberty is void.
The right to the pursuit of happiness carries with it the right to all the opportunities and privileges that are necessary to the securing of happiness.
The administrative, executive and legislative acts herein called for are in line with precedents heretofore established. From its earliest days to these closing years of the century all the functions of government have been used not only for the security of property, but for the increase of capital. Bonuses for the establishment of new industries, and for the continuance of profitable investments, had been frequent. Appropriations had been made and the credit of municipalities, of states and of the United States Government had been granted and leased to capitalistic corporate and private enterprises, and the tariff costs have been placed upon the product of foreign manufactures. All and several of these have been granted under the plea that such bonuses, credits, appropriations and tariffs were granted and loaned for the good of all the people.
The confidence of all the people in the peaceful methods of agitation, organization and action, is worth more to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of the people, and for the protection of property than the confidence of bankers in any financial system.
As humane men and women we entreat you to listen to the cry of labor for work and bread. As patriotic citizens we proclaim that those who control the industries and the finance of the United States are responsible for the employment and non-employment of labor, and we demand of them immediate relief for the victims of a system inherited from the ages of wrong with which the poor have been oppressed.
Source: Samuel Gompers, Chris Evans, Andrew J. Smith, Thos. C . Walsh, Henry Weismann, Jos. Barondess, Henry White, The American Federation of Labor, “To the People of the United States,” New York, August 21, 1893 in The Carpenter, 13 (September 1893): 9.
Yale Professor William Graham Sumner Prescribes Laissez-Faire for Depression Woes:
With depression looming as a continual threat to the U.S. economy in the late 19th century, Americans debated how the government should respond to hard times—a question still unanswered today. Manufacturers—then as now—usually took the position that government should not interfere with the workings of the “free market.” Manufacturers found support for their laissez-faire positions in the speeches and writings of the leading academic experts of the day. On August 22, 1878, Yale faculty member William Graham Sumner testified before a select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives charged with investigating the Causes of the General Depression in Labor and Business. Sumner preached a strict “hands-off” approach to ameliorating the widespread economic dislocations then plaguing the country.
Mr. SUMNER appeared before the committee by invitation.
The CHAIRMAN: Please to state your occupation.
Mr. SUMNER: I am professor of political and social science in Yale College.
The CHAIRMAN: How long have you held that position?
Mr. SUMNER: I have been in that chair for six years.
The CHAIRMAN: Of course, you have made the relations of capital and labor a study in the performance of your regular duties?
Mr. SUMNER: Yes, sir; that is my professional duty.
The CHAIRMAN: Have you given any special attention to the condition of labor and of business generally at the present time in the United States?
Mr. SUMNER: That is within the range of my professional studies. I have studied it and given all the attention I could to it, and I have availed myself of all the means that I know of for forming ideas about it. I should like to say that the means of forming ideas about it on the part of professional economists are very meager and unsatisfactory. It is exceedingly difficult for any person, however well trained he may be, to embrace this whole subject of the causes of the present depression in the United States; and he would be a very bold man indeed who should claim that he had sounded the whole question. I am certainly not in that position before this committee. I should think that that question ought to be carefully considered in two different points of view. There has been very great industrial reaction over the whole world during the last five or six years, and the United States have, of course, participated in the general state of industry and commerce over the whole world. They have had their share of it. There have been other local and peculiar circumstances in the United States which should be considered by themselves as combining with and intensifying here the effects produced by general causes the world over. Now, I do not know any one in the world who has undertaken to study the whole question of the present commercial crisis over the world in all its bearings, or who has ventured to publish his opinion as to what the cause of this general depression may be, because I am sure that any professional economist would regard that as a subject of enormous magnitude, and would be very timid about any of his conclusions in regard to it. I do not care to enter into that. . . .
Mr. RlCE: What is the effect of machinery on those laborers whom for the time being it turns out of employment?
Mr. SUMNER: Of course, a loss of income and a loss of comfort. There are plenty of people in the United States to-day whose fathers were displaced from their labor in some of the old countries by the introduction of machinery, and who suffered very great poverty, and who were forced to emigrate to this country by the pressure of necessity, poverty, and famine. When they came to this country they entered on a new soil and a new system of industry, and their children to-day may look back on the temporary distress through which their parents went as a great family blessing.
Mr. RICE: But the fathers had to suffer from it?
Mr. SUMNER: They had to suffer from it.
Mr. RICE: Is there any way to help it?
Mr. SUMNER: Not at all. There is no way on this earth to help it. The only way is to meet it bravely, go ahead, make the best of circumstances: and if you cannot go on in the way you were going, try another way, and still another, until you work yourself out as an individual.
The CHAIRMAN: Your idea is that the introduction of machinery has improved the condition of a great many people, although individuals have had hard times in the transition?
Mr. SUMNER: Individuals and classes have had to go through it. What is the reason anybody ever came to America originally? A few came because they had some religious ideas which they wanted to carry out, but they were an insignificant part of the migration to America. The people who came to America came because they were uncomfortable in the old countries, because there was distress and pressure upon them, because they were mostly at the bottom and worst off, and the chance for them was to get to a new soil where it would be easier to get a living and to struggle forward. That is what they all came to this country for. They never abandoned their old homes because they liked to do so. They disliked it very much.
Mr. RICE: Then the pressure of necessity is one of the prime elements in the progress and civilization of mankind?
Mr. SUMNER: Yes; we have been forced to progress, and that is the reason why we have made it. . . .
The CHAIRMAN: You said just now that we had a sparse population on a very productive soil, and therefore that if there is distress here there must be some artificial causes for it. Do you admit that there is what you call distress among the laboring classes of this country?
Mr. SUMNER: No, sir; I do not admit any such thing. I cannot get any evidence of it. There is only one single fact before the public, so far as I know (and I have been looking for facts), with reference to the number of unemployed persons, and that is the report of Mr. Wright, of Massachusetts, in which he puts down the number of unemployed persons in that State as 28,000, men and women (21,000 men). Whatever may be said in the way of using figures one way or the other, I do not know practically of any evidence that is before the people of the United States to-day except that statement. That statement was carefully made by a trained man who understands his business in that line, and who took all the care he could to collect the data which are given to us. Now the State of Massachusetts is perhaps quite as badly off as any State in the Union, perhaps worse off. When you go into the agricultural communities you find that they are not in any such condition at all. If there is any State worse off than Massachusetts it is Pennsylvania, on account of the coal and iron depression, and I should not wonder if they were worse off there. But there is another thing. A vast number of these people have, of course, family connections, and those people who are supposed to be unemployed are not in a condition bordering either upon starvation or crime. They do not take to the road as tramps, they do not beg, and they do not steal; that is, they do not beg publicly. The chief centers of distress, I should think, from any observation, were the large cities. In all the large cities there are vast numbers of persons who have no regular and steady means of support, who live by irregular occupations and in nondescript ways. These people do not like to leave the cities; they will not leave the cities. In times of slack industry and commerce, of course they find it harder to get a living than at other times; and I suppose that there are in all our cities great numbers of these persons. Furthermore, I should say that this kind of distress where it exists is a great deal deeper and more widespread among clerks, salesmen, bookkeepers, office men, and all that range of occupations than among any other class . . . .
Mr. SUMNER: That brings right on another point which I want to speak about. Up to the time that the crisis of 1873 came, the general opinion of all persons acquainted with business here at that time would be this: that nobody wanted to pay and wind up; nobody wanted to liquidate; everybody wanted to renew his obligations, to extend his operations, because he expected a rise in the market still further. Everybody’s confidence in the market was such that he did not want to pay his debt. He thought he was sure to be able to pay his interest on it, and he wanted to make every transaction, as far as possible, the basis for another transaction, so as to extend his operations and get profit on his larger capital. When the crisis of 1873 came, it just shook that confidence, and everybody turned around and began to ask himself whether his inventory figures were good or not—whether the figures at which he had rated his property were correct. He knew that he had debts, and then he had to ask himself whether he was solvent, if he did not pay his debts very soon. He found that prices began to fall, and he found that it was all in vain for him to inventory his property at so much, and then his debts at so much, and his margin at so much. By and by the question was, whether his margin was not wiped out. Everybody, I think, set to work immediately, with the natural good sense of every individual, to discharge his obligations and to reduce his debts, and to pay up and bring his affairs into close order again just as fast and steadily as he could; and the establish and solidify the credit transactions which had been opened up to that time. A great many people found themselves insolvent, and have failed and have gone out of the account. But the natural good sense of every man simply showed him what he ought to do. Every individual had to reduce his expenditures, to economize as much as he could, and to turn in his capital as rapidly as he could to the liquidation of his obligations. In other words, the people of the United States have been, within the last five years, accumulating capital with great rapidity, in order to turn it in to pay their debts. But they have been saving money. Every man has reduced his expenditures, and has contracted his obligations in that way. That, of course, is one great reason for the slackness in trade. When people are not buying goods, if they can possibly help it, of course, trade is dull. That runs through everything. It runs through manufactures and everything else. When people are all avoiding expenses as much as possible, a dullness of trade is produced.
The CHAIRMAN: And all that leads necessarily to a slack demand for labor?
Mr. SUMNER: Of course.
The CHAIRMAN: And the laborer suffers?
Mr. SUMNER: Certainly.
The CHAIRMAN: I do not know whether you are ready to take up the question of remedies. Do you think that there is any remedy that may be applied by legislation or otherwise to relieve labor from the consequences of this speculative era?
Mr. SUMNER: And every one must do the best he can.
The CHAIRMAN: Can legislation do anything toward relieving this accumulation of labor by transferring it to some other place where labor is in request or can be utilized?
Mr. SUMNER: Legislation might do a great deal of mischief, but nothing else. There is one other point which I would like to bring on in this connection because it bears on that point. I have not said as much as I want to yet about the protective tariff.
The CHAIRMAN: Do you want to go on with it at this point?
Mr. SUMNER: Yes. Of course we have had to put up with very heavy taxation since the war. That could not be helped, and taxation is nothing but a burden. We have got to carry it and to make the best of it. It is one of the inevitable hardships of life. But, then, there is the entirely different question of paying in taxes for protection; that is, taxes that are paid by the people, not for the government, but for the protection of manufacturers. In the first place, any taxes of that kind (and we have had frightful ones laid on in this country, unexampled ones) that are laid on for that purpose are a dead burden to the people, coming out of the war with all their other difficulties upon them. In the second place, if you protect anybody, you have got to undertake to decide what things ought to be done in this country. As you [to Mr. Rice] suggested a while ago, some people think it necessary that we should work iron in this country, whether it is profitable or not; that is to say whether it is as profitable as something else that could be done or not (for that is the real question). Now, if the legislature makes up its mind that there are some things that ought to be done here, and sets to work to lay protective duties, in order to force those things to be done, there will be some other consequences which we must take into account. One of them will be, right away, that you will force the industry of the country into disproportionate development.
We have heard a good deal within a few years past about over-production. I do not know what in the world over-production can mean. You cannot give any intelligible definition of it. The only thing that is possible in that direction is not over-production in any sense at all, but disproportionate production. To illustrate that: If you want to build houses, you have got to have wood and brick and lime and nails, &c. (the component materials), to go into the building. If you have wood and nails and lime enough to build 1,000 houses, and you have brick enough to build 2,000 houses, you have a disproportionate production; and the bricks for 1,000 houses have got to lie idle until you can bring up the production of lumber and nails and plaster to the limit of 2,000 houses, in order to fill out the necessary composition with the bricks, and to use them up. That disproportionate production is the only kind of over-production that I know anything about. Now, when you lay on a protective tariff for the purpose of developing certain industries, one great trouble is, that you bring about that disproportionate production. Is such a disproportionate production possible in a natural state of things? Not at all. The law of supply and demand makes it utterly impossible. You cannot produce brick for 2,000 houses when the other materials are only sufficient for 1,000 houses, because the bricks would immediately begin to be reduced in their market price. You would have your warning. But, when you have this protective system in force, the first thing you know is that you have brought out a disproportionate production of commodities in those particular lines.
The next result that you must look out for is that you will draw your population to the particular localities which you have artificially decided on by law. You have invited the population and encouraged them, as it is called, to come to places, and to occupy themselves in occupations into which they would not have gone naturally if things had been left to take their own course. For instance, you can produce a congestion of population in the iron districts (they have got it now in Pennsylvania, and perhaps would like to get rid of it) by deciding that you want to force iron production whether the circumstances of the country call for it or not; but because it is a good thing to have, you gather your population together there where they would not have gone had they been left to distribute themselves just where the greatest profit called them . . . .
Mr. SUMNER: . . . I suppose that the only other question which you want to ask me is the one which you did ask; that is, about the remedies. Of course, I have not any remedy to offer for such a state of things as this. The only answer I can give to a question like that would be the application of simple sound doctrine and sound principles to the case in point. I do not know of anything that the government can do that is at all specific to assist labor—to assist non-capitalists. The only things that the government can do are general things, such as are in the province of a government. The general things that a government can do to assist the non-capitalist in the accumulation of capital (for that is what he wants) are two things. The first thing is to give him the greatest possible measure of liberty in the directing of his own energies for his own development, and the second is to give him the greatest possible security in the possession and use of the products of his own industry. I do not see anything more than that that a government can do in the premises. . . .
The CHAIRMAN: The grievance complained of is that, in the operations of society, certain persons, who are just as deserving as others, find it impossible to get any employment at all. They say that society owes them a living; that, if they cannot get work at private hands, the public should intervene for the time being and provide some place where their labor could be employed, and where they could get a livelihood. They claim that they are just as industrious and meritorious as other citizens; and the proposition is for government to intervene and provide them with employment. What have you got to say tothat? Can that be done?
Mr. SUMNER: Sir. The moment that government provided work for one, it would have to provide work for all, and there would be no end whatever possible. Society does not owe any man a living. In all the cases that I have ever known of young men who claimed that society owed them a living, it has turned out that society paid them—in the State prison. I do not see any other result. Society does not owe any man a living. The fact that a man is here is no demand upon other people that they shall keep him alive and sustain him. He has got to fight the battle with nature as every other man has; and if he fights it with the same energy and enterprise and skill and industry as any other man, I cannot imagine his failing—that is, misfortune apart.
Source: U.S. Congress, House, Investigation by a Select Committee of the House of Representatives relative to the Causes of the General Depression in Labor and Business etc, 45th Cong.3d. Session, Mis. Doc. No. 29 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1879).
Bryan's "Cross of Gold" Speech: Mesmerizing the Masses:
The most famous speech in American political history was delivered by William Jennings Bryan on July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The issue was whether to endorse the free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1. (This inflationary measure would have increased the amount of money in circulation and aided cash-poor and debt-burdened farmers.) After speeches on the subject by several U.S. Senators, Bryan rose to speak. The thirty-six-year-old former Congressman from Nebraska aspired to be the Democratic nominee for president, and he had been skillfully, but quietly, building support for himself among the delegates. His dramatic speaking style and rhetoric roused the crowd to a frenzy. The response, wrote one reporter, “came like one great burst of artillery.” Men and women screamed and waved their hats and canes. “Some,” wrote another reporter, “like demented things, divested themselves of their coats and flung them high in the air.” The next day the convention nominated Bryan for President on the fifth ballot. The full text of William Jenning Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech appears below. The audio portion is an excerpt. [Note on the recording: In 1896 recording technology was in its infancy, and recording a political convention would have been impossible. But in the early 20th century, the fame of Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech led him to repeat it numerous times on the Chautauqua lecture circuit where he was an enormously popular speaker. In 1921 (25 years after the original speech), he recorded portions of the speech for Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana. Although the recording does not capture the power and drama of the original address, it does allow us to hear Bryan delivering this famous speech.]
I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were but a measuring of ability; but this is not a contest among persons. The humblest citizen in all the land when clad in the armor of a righteous cause is stronger than all the whole hosts of error that they can bring. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity. When this debate is concluded, a motion will be made to lay upon the table the resolution offered in commendation of the administration and also the resolution in condemnation of the administration. I shall object to bringing this question down to a level of persons. The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest of principle.
Never before in the history of this country has there been witnessed such a contest as that through which we have passed. Never before in the history of American politics has a great issue been fought out as this issue has been by the voters themselves.
On the 4th of March, 1895, a few Democrats, most of them members of Congress, issued an address to the Democrats of the nation asserting that the money question was the paramount issue of the hour; asserting also the right of a majority of the Democratic Party to control the position of the party on this paramount issue; concluding with the request that all believers in free coinage of silver in the Democratic Party should organize and take charge of and control the policy of the Democratic Party. Three months later, at Memphis, an organization was perfected, and the silver Democrats went forth openly and boldly and courageously proclaiming their belief and declaring that if successful they would crystallize in a platform the declaration which they had made; and then began the conflict with a zeal approaching the zeal which inspired the crusaders who followed Peter the Hermit. Our silver Democrats went forth from victory unto victory, until they are assembled now, not to discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the judgment rendered by the plain people of this country.
But in this contest, brother has been arrayed against brother, and father against son. The warmest ties of love and acquaintance and association have been disregarded. Old leaders have been cast aside when they refused to give expression to the sentiments of those whom they would lead, and new leaders have sprung up to give direction to this cause of freedom. Thus has the contest been waged, and we have assembled here under as binding and solemn instructions as were ever fastened upon the representatives of a people.
We do not come as individuals. Why, as individuals we might have been glad to compliment the gentleman from New York [Senator Hill], but we knew that the people for whom we speak would never be willing to put him in a position where he could thwart the will of the Democratic Party. I say it was not a question of persons; it was a question of principle; and it is not with gladness, my friends, that we find ourselves brought into conflict with those who are now arrayed on the other side. The gentleman who just preceded me [Governor Russell] spoke of the old state of Massachusetts. Let me assure him that not one person in all this convention entertains the least hostility to the people of the state of Massachusetts.
But we stand here representing people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made too limited in its application the definition of a businessman. The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go 1,000 feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who in a backroom corner the money of the world.
We come to speak for this broader class of businessmen. Ah. my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic Coast; but those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose—those pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature’s heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds—out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead—are as deserving of the consideration of this party as any people in this country.
It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came.
We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!
The gentleman from Wisconsin has said he fears a Robespierre. My friend, in this land of the free you need fear no tyrant who will spring up from among the people. What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of aggregated wealth.
They tell us that this platform was made to catch votes. We reply to them that changing conditions make new issues; that the principles upon which rest Democracy are as everlasting as the hills; but that they must be applied to new conditions as they arise. Conditions have arisen and we are attempting to meet those conditions. They tell us that the income tax ought not to be brought in here; that is not a new idea. They criticize us for our criticism of the Supreme Court of the United States. My friends, we have made no criticism. We have simply called attention to what you know. If you want criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the Court. That will give you criticisms.
They say we passed an unconstitutional law. I deny it. The income tax was not unconstitutional when it was passed. It was not unconstitutional when it went before the Supreme Court for the first time. It did not become unconstitutional until one judge changed his mind; and we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind.
The income tax is a just law. It simply intends to put the burdens of government justly upon the backs of the people. I am in favor of an income tax. When I find a man who is not willing to pay his share of the burden of the government which protects him, I find a man who is unworthy to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.
He says that we are opposing the national bank currency. It is true. If you will read what Thomas Benton said, you will find that he said that in searching history he could find but one parallel to Andrew Jackson. That was Cicero, who destroyed the conspiracies of Cataline and saved Rome. He did for Rome what Jackson did when he destroyed the bank conspiracy and saved America.
We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe it is a part of sovereignty and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than can the power to make penal statutes or levy laws for taxation.
Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to have a different opinion from the gentleman who has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business.
They complain about the plank which declares against the life tenure in office. They have tried to strain it to mean that which it does not mean. What we oppose in that plank is the life tenure that is being built up in Washington which establishes an office-holding class and excludes from participation in the benefits the humbler members of our society. . . .
Let me call attention to two or three great things. The gentleman from New York says that he will propose an amendment providing that this change in our law shall not affect contracts which, according to the present laws, are made payable in gold. But if he means to say that we cannot change our monetary system without protecting those who have loaned money before the change was made, I want to ask him where, in law or in morals, he can find authority for not protecting the debtors when the act of 1873 was passed when he now insists that we must protect the creditor. He says he also wants to amend this platform so as to provide that if we fail to maintain the parity within a year that we will then suspend the coinage of silver. We reply that when we advocate a thing which we believe will be successful we are not compelled to raise a doubt as to our own sincerity by trying to show what we will do if we are wrong.
I ask him, if he will apply his logic to us, why he does not apply it to himself. He says that he wants this country to try to secure an international agreement. Why doesn’t he tell us what he is going to do if they fail to secure an international agreement. There is more reason for him to do that than for us to expect to fail to maintain the parity. They have tried for thirty years—thirty years—to secure an international agreement, and those are waiting for it most patiently who don’t want it at all.
Now, my friends, let me come to the great paramount issue. If they ask us here why it is we say more on the money question than we say upon the tariff question, I reply that if protection has slain its thousands the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands. If they ask us why we did not embody all these things in our platform which we believe, we reply to them that when we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other necessary reforms will be possible, and that until that is done there is no reform that can be accomplished.
Why is it that within three months such a change has come over the sentiments of the country? Three months ago, when it was confidently asserted that those who believed in the gold standard would frame our platforms and nominate our candidates, even the advocates of the gold standard did not think that we could elect a President; but they had good reasons for the suspicion, because there is scarcely a state here today asking for the gold standard that is not within the absolute control of the Republican Party.
But note the change. Mr. McKinley was nominated at St. Louis upon a platform that declared for the maintenance of the gold standard until it should be changed into bimetallism by an international agreement. Mr. McKinley was the most popular man among the Republicans ; and everybody three months ago in the Republican Party prophesied his election. How is it today? Why, that man who used to boast that he looked like Napoleon, that man shudders today when he thinks that he was nominated on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Not only that, but as he listens he can hear with ever increasing distinctness the sound of the waves as they beat upon the lonely shores of St. Helena.
Why this change? Ah, my friends. is not the change evident to anyone who will look at the matter? It is because no private character, however pure, no personal popularity, however great, can protect from the avenging wrath of an indignant people the man who will either declare that he is in favor of fastening the gold standard upon this people, or who is willing to surrender the right of self-government and place legislative control in the hands of foreign potentates and powers. . . .
We go forth confident that we shall win. Why? Because upon the paramount issue in this campaign there is not a spot of ground upon which the enemy will dare to challenge battle. Why, if they tell us that the gold standard is a good thing, we point to their platform and tell them that their platform pledges the party to get rid of a gold standard and substitute bimetallism. If the gold standard is a good thing, why try to get rid of it? If the gold standard, and I might call your attention to the fact that some of the very people who are in this convention today and who tell you that we ought to declare in favor of international bimetallism and thereby declare that the gold standard is wrong and that the principles of bimetallism are better—these very people four months ago were open and avowed advocates of the gold standard and telling us that we could not legislate two metals together even with all the world.
I want to suggest this truth, that if the gold standard is a good thing we ought to declare in favor of its retention and not in favor of abandoning it; and if the gold standard is a bad thing, why should we wait until some other nations are willing to help us to let it go?
Here is the line of battle. We care not upon which issue they force the fight. We are prepared to meet them on either issue or on both. If they tell us that the gold standard is the standard of civilization, we reply to them that this, the most enlightened of all nations of the earth, has never declared for a gold standard, and both the parties this year are declaring against it. If the gold standard is the standard of civilization, why, my friends, should we not have it? So if they come to meet us on that, we can present the history of our nation. More than that, we can tell them this, that they will search the pages of history in vain to find a single instance in which the common people of any land ever declared themselves in favor of a gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed investments have.
Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and my friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side shall the Democratic Party fight. Upon the side of the idle holders of idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? That is the question that the party must answer first; and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic Party, as described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic Party.
There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.
You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these 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 shall 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 single state in the Union.
I shall not slander the fair state of Massachusetts nor the state of New York by saying that when citizens are confronted with the proposition, “Is this nation able to attend to its own business?”—I will not slander either one by saying that the people of those states will declare our helpless impotency as a nation to attend to our own business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but 3 million, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to 70 million, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers? No, my friends, it will never be the judgment of this people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good but we cannot have it till some nation helps us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States have.
If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands 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.
Source: Official Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention Held in Chicago, Illinois, July 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, 1896, (Logansport, Indiana, 1896), 226–234. Reprinted in The Annals of America, Vol. 12, 1895–1904: Populism, Imperialism, and Reform (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1968), 100–105.
"I Am a Democrat and not a Revolutionist": Senator David Bennett Hill Defends the Gold Standard:
The most famous speech in American political history was delivered by William Jennings Bryan on July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but it was preceded by two other significant speeches. The subject under debate was the currency plank in the Democratic platform. The majority of members of the resolutions committee had endorsed the free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1. (This inflationary measure would have increased the amount of money in circulation and aided cash-poor and debt-burdened farmers.) In the ensuing debate, Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina spoke for the majority, framing the silver issue as a sectional one. His disastrous performance dashed his hopes to be the silverite candidate for the U.S. presidency. The speakers for the minority position, including Senator David Bennett Hill of New York—whose speech is excerpted here—defended President Cleveland and the gold standard.
I am a Democrat, but I am not a revolutionist. My mission here today is to unite, not to divide—to build up, not to destroy—to plan for victory, not to plot for defeat. The question which this convention is to decide is: What is the best position to take at this time on the financial question? In a word, the question presented is between international bimetallism and local bimetallism. If there are any different points in it, they are not represented either in the majority or in the minority report. I therefore start out with this proposition, that the Democratic Party stands today in favor of gold and silver as the money of the country; that it stands in favor neither of a silver standard nor of a gold standard, but that we differ as to the means to bring about the result. Those whom I represent and for whom I speak—the sixteen minority members of the committee—insist that we should not attempt the experiment of the free and unlimited coinage of silver without cooperation of other great nations. It is not a question of patriotism, it is not a question of courage, it is not a question of loyalty, as the majority platform speaks of it. The minority has thought it was simply a question as to whether we were able to enter on this experiment. It is a question of business. It is a question of finance. It is a question of economics. It is not a question which men, ever so brave, can solve. I think, Mr. President, that the safest and best course for this convention to have pursued was to take the first step forward in the great cause of monetary reform by declaring in favor of international bimetallism. I know that it is said by enthusiastic friends that America can mark out a course for herself. I know that that idea appeals to the pride of the average American, but I beg to remind you that if that suggestion be carried out to its legitimate conclusion, you might as well do away with our international treaties.
[Senator Hill continued at considerable length, criticizing in great detail the platform reported by the majority, and stating the attitude of the minority. He said that the platform had been loaded with irrelevant issues, and that it was ill considered. He closed with the following words:]
I oppose this platform because I think it makes our success more difficult. I want the grand old party with which I have been associated from boyhood to live. And I have looked forward to the time when it shall be securely intrenched in the affections of the American people. I dislike the Republican party. I dislike all their tenets. I have no sympathy with their general principles, but I do think that we are here to-day making a mistake in the venture which we are about to make. Be not deceived. Do not attempt to drive those Democrats out of the party who have grown gray in its service, in order to make room for a lot of Republicans and Populists who will not vote your ticket at all. My friends, I speak more in sorrow than in anger. You know what this platform means to the East. But bad as it may be to us, it will be more calamitous to you if, after taking all these risks, you do not win the fight. My friends we want the Democratic party to live. We want to build it up, not to tear it down. We want the principles of Jefferson and Jackson to win. We want no greenback currency on our pledges. We want no paper currency issued by the government. We want to stand by the principles to which we have clung during the history of the country. If we keep in the good old paths of the party we shall win, but if we depart from them we shall be lost.
[As Senator Hill concluded there was a demonstration of enthusiasm exceeding any previous outbreak.]
Source: Public Opinion, Vol. 21 (16 July 1896): 70.
"Pitchfork Ben" Tillman Addresses the 1896 Democratic Convention:
The most famous speech in American political history was delivered by William Jennings Bryan on July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but it was preceded by two other significant speeches. The subject under debate was currency, a central issue in the 1896 presidential election. The issue was whether to endorse the free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1. (This inflationary measure would have increased the amount of money in circulation and aided cash-poor and debt-burdened farmers.) Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina supported the measure, but misjudged his audience by framing the silver issue as a sectional one. Tillman’s fiery and strange appearance only reinforced the belief of some delegates that he was a madman. His disastrous performance dashed his hopes to be the silverite candidate for the U.S. presidency.
When this convention disperses, I hope my fellow citizens will have a different opinion of the man with the pitchfork from South Carolina. I am from South Carolina, which was the home of secession. [Great hissing.] Oh, hiss if you like. There are only three things on earth which can hiss—a goose, a serpent, and a man, and the man who hisses the name of South Carolina has no knowledge whatever of its grand history. But I tell you I do not come from the South Carolina of 1860, which you charge brought about the disruption of the Democratic Party. The war there declared was for the emancipation of the black slaves. I come now from a South Carolina which demands the emancipation of the white slaves. You charge that in 1860 South Carolina brought about the disruption of the Democratic Party. I say to you now that I am willing to see the Democratic Party disrupted again to accomplish the emancipation of the white slaves. New York for twenty years or more has been the one dominant factor and dictator of the National Democratic Party. While we want to thank New York and Connecticut and New Jersey for the aid extended to us in the past, I want to say to you here that we have at last recognized in the South that we are mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, while the great states I have named have eaten up our substance. My friends say this is not a sectional issue. I say it is.
[Great scenes of disorder then ensued, and quiet was restored with difficulty. Many times the senator was interrupted, but he went on:]
I deny utterly that there is any sectional feeling over this silver issue. I have been in the East ten days, and nine-tenths of the voters in those States are for silver. The Democratic and Republican political machines, by the use of money, have stifled the sentiments of the people on this money question.
[References by the speaker to Senator Hill brought a renewal of the storm, and Senator Tillman was obliged to raise his voice to a shout as he ended:]
As Grover Cleveland stands for gold monometallism, we have repudiated him. We are diametrically opposed to his policy, and why should we write ourselves down as asses and liars? They ask us to say that he is honest. Well, in reply I say he signed a contract for bonds in secret, with one of his partners as a witness. Nobody disputes his boldness or obstinacy. He had the courage to overthrow the Constitution of the United States when he overrode the rights of the citizens of Illinois and sent federal troops into this state. You ask us to indorse his fidelity. In reply, I say he has been faithful unto death—the death of the Democratic Party. We have denounced him in South Carolina as a tool of Wall Street, and what was prophecy then is history now. Senator John Sherman’s speech in the Senate in support of the Administration’s money policy was but the certificate of a Cleveland Republican. I tell you that the Democratic Party of the United States will turn out the party in this fall’s election if it dares indorse Grover Cleveland here. I tell you you dare not go before this country after indorsing the Cleveland administration. We of the South have burned our bridges behind us so far as the Eastern Democrats are concerned. We have turned our faces to the West and they have responded. I have only a few more words to say, and I know that you will be asked to do this by time-serving politicians, the men who follow and never lead public opinion. Once again I say to you that we must refuse to indorse the Cleveland Administration or go before the country stultified.
Source: Public Opinion, Vol. 21 (16 July 1896): 69–71.