The Campaign of 1896 161 



tion with him exceedingly painful, not merely to Mr. 

 Watson, but to Mr. Bryan himself. He is a well-to- 

 do man. Indeed in many communities he would be 

 called a rich man. He is a banker, a railroad man, 

 a shipbuilder, and has been successful in business. 

 Now if Mr. Bryan and Mr. Watson really stand for 

 any principle it is hostility to this kind of success. 

 Thrift, industry, and business energy are qualities 

 quite incompatible with true Populistic feeling ; pay- 

 ment of debts, like the suppression of riots, is ab- 

 horrent to the Populistic mind. Such conduct strikes 

 the Populist as immoral. Mr. Bryan made his ap- 

 pearance in Congress with two colleagues elected on 

 the same ticket, one of whom stated to the present 

 writer that no honest man ever earned $5,000 a 

 year; that whoever got that amount stole it. Mr. 

 Sewall has earned many times $5,000 a year. He 

 is a prosperous capitalist. Populism never prospers 

 save where men are unprosperous, and your true 

 Populist is especially intolerant of business success. 

 If a man is a successful business man he at once 

 calls him a plutocrat. 



He makes only one exception. 'A miner or specu- 

 lator in mines may be many times a millionaire and 

 yet remain in good standing in the Populist party. 

 The Populist has ineradicably fixed in his mind the 

 belief that silver is a cheap metal, and that silver 

 money is, while not fiat money, still a long step to- 

 ward it. Silver is connected in his mind with scal- 

 ing down debts, the partial repudiation of obliga- 

 tions, and other measures aimed at those odious 



