1 62 The Campaign of 1896 



moneyed tyrants who lend money to persons who 

 insist upon borrowing, or who have put their ill- 

 gotten gains in savings banks and kindred wicked in- 

 stitutions for the encouragement of the vice of thrift. 

 These pleasurable associations quite outweigh, with 

 the Populist, the fact that the silver man himself is 

 rich. He is even for the moment blind to the further 

 fact that these pro-silver men, like Senator Stewart, 

 Governor Altgeld, and their compeers, strenuously 

 insist that the obligations to themselves shall be 

 liquidated in gold; indeed this particular idiosyn- 

 crasy of the silver leaders is not much frowned upon 

 by the bulk of the Populists, because it has at least 

 the merit of savoring strongly of "doing" one's 

 creditors. Not even the fact that rich silver mine 

 owners may have earned their money honestly can 

 outweigh the other fact that they champion a species 

 of currency which will make most thrifty and hon- 

 est men poorer, in the minds of the truly logical 

 Populist. 



But Mr. Sewall has no fictitious advantage in the 

 way of owing his wealth to silver. He has made 

 his money precisely as the most loathed reprobate of 

 Wall Street or of New York, which the average 

 Populist regards as synonymous with Wall Street 

 has made his. The average Populist does not draw 

 fine distinctions. There are in New York, as in other 

 large cities, scoundrels of great wealth who have 

 made their money by means skilfully calculated to 

 come just outside the line of criminality. There are 

 other men who have made their money exactly as 



