ing firmness. They called things by their right names. They took the bull by the horns. They loudly proclaimed their determination never to yield to what they deemed wrong no matter what the consequences might be to their party standing. And thus they extorted respect from their very opponents. Thus they demonstrated how such a fight can be won even against apparently overwhelming odds.
I think I am not exaggerating when I say that, thanks to them, the fight is actually won. I believe the defeat the free-coinage fallacy has suffered in the House of Representatives has been decisive. That movement may attempt a few more demonstrations of strength, but they will be only the spasms of its death struggle. The paper inflation mania, some years ago, died in the same manner.
Now the time is coming for a vigorous assault on the vicious features of the silver law of 1890, and I trust Mr. Williams will appear again on the same field in the front rank of the champions of the public interest.[1]
TO EX-PRESIDENT CLEVELAND
I congratulate you most heartily upon your nomination. You have won a triumph of extraordinary significance. It is the triumph of the healthiest kind of public opinion. You have been nominated by the people over the heads of the politicians; and the people have preferred you for those very qualities which in the eyes of the machine politicians disqualified you. And for the same qualities the people are going to elect you too. The more the people
- ↑ In 1896 Mr. Williams became an advocate of the free coinage of silver, at the ratio of sixteen to one.
