Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/697

1892] Cleveland elected President. The Populists. 665 the fifty-first Congress was popularly referred to as the " billion dollars Congress," that sum representing a rough estimate of the total amount appropriated during the two sessions. In 1892 President Harrison was renominated by the Republicans; while Cleveland, in spite of the fact that during the preceding year he had publicly proclaimed his hostility to the free coinage of silver, was again put forward by the Democrats. In each case the renomination was attended with a certain dramatic interest. The Republican National Convention met at Minneapolis on June 7. Four days earlier Elaine, who had previously declared that he was not a candidate for the nomination, suddenly resigned the office of Secretary of State; and his name was presented to the Convention. President Harrison was renominated on the first ballot ; but 369 votes were cast for other persons. In the Democratic Convention, the nomination of Cleveland was strenuously opposed by the delegates from his own State, that of New York; but the effect of their opposition was broken by the belief that, by reason of the manner in which they were chosen, they failed to represent the will of the Democratic voters of the commonwealth. Ex-President Cleveland there- fore was nominated on the first ballot by a majority larger than that which President Harrison had received in the Republican Convention. The elections resulted in an overwhelming Republican defeat. Even States such as Illinois and Wisconsin, which had usually given large Republican majorities, were found in the Democratic column, so that the vote in the electoral college stood 277 to 145 in favour of Cleveland. Another striking feature of the result was the casting of 22 electoral votes for General Weaver, the candidate of what was commonly called the Populist party. This party, originating in the Farmers' Alliance movement, was officially known as the People's party. It declared in its platform that the nation was on "the verge of moral, political, and material ruin." The burden of its complaint was the oppression of society by the money-power. Of this a signal proof was found in the demonetisation of silver through the machinations of "a vast conspiracy," which was declared to have been " organised on the two continents," and to be "rapidly taking possession of the world." The contest over the tariff was pronounced a "sham battle." The Populist platform therefore demanded the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, the speedy increase of circulating money to not less than $50 per head of the population, a graduated income-tax, a reduction of revenues, the establishment of postal savings-banks, government ownership and management of railways and telegraphs, and the distribution of money by loans directly to the people without the intervention of banking corporations. So considerable was the strength exhibited by this party that fusions were made with it in various States by one or the other of the regular political parties. Owing to this fact, it is impossible to say precisely what was the Populist strength ; but the vote nominally cast CH. XXI.