The Campaign of 1896 163 



the successful miner or farmer makes his, that is, 

 by the exercise of shrewdness, business daring, en- 

 ergy and thrift. But the Populist draws no line of 

 division between these two classes. They have made 

 money, and that is enough. One may have built 

 railroads and the other have wrecked them, but they 

 are both railroad men in his eyes, and that is all. 

 One may have swindled his creditors, and the other 

 built up a bank which has been of incalculable bene- 

 fit to all who have had dealings with it, but to the 

 Populist they- are both gold bugs, and as such nox- 

 ious. Mr. Sewall* is the type of man the contempla- 

 tion of which usually throws a Populist orator into 

 spasms. But it happens that he believes in free sil- 

 ver, just as other very respectable men believe in 

 spirit rapping, or the faith-cure, or Buddhism, or 

 pilgrimages to Lourdes, or the foot of a graveyard 

 rabbit. There are very able men and very lovely 

 women who believe in each or all of these, and there 

 are a much larger number who believe in free sil- 

 ver. Had they lived in the days of Sparta they 

 would have believed in free iron, iron coin being at 

 that time the cheapest circulating medium, the adop- 

 tion of which would give the greatest expansion of 

 the currency. But they have been dragged on by 

 the slow procession of the centuries, and now they 

 only believe in free silver. It is a belief which is 

 compatible with all the domestic virtues, and even 

 occasionally with very good capacities as a public 

 servant. Mr. Sewall doubtless stands as one of these 

 men. He can hardly be happy, planted firmly as he 



