146 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



of the Populist leaders: "Mr. Weaver has be- 

 longed to the group of third-party ' come-outers ' 

 for so many years that his name is not one to 

 conjure with in either of the old camps; ... his 

 name suggests too strongly the abortive third- 

 party movements of the. past to excite much hope 

 or enthusiasm. He is not exactly the sort of a 

 Moses who can frighten Pharaoh into fits or bring 

 convincing plagues upon the monopolistic oppres- 

 sors of Israel. The wicked politicians of the Re- 

 publican and Democratic parties breathed easier 

 and ate with better appetites when the Gresham 

 bogie disappeared and they found their familiar 

 old enemy, General Weaver, in the lead of the 

 People's movement. " 



It may be suspected, however, that even with 

 Weaver at its head this party, which claimed to 

 control from two to three million votes, and which 

 expected to draw heavily from the discontented 

 ranks of the old-line organizations, was not viewed 

 with absolute equanimity by the campaign man- 

 agers of Cleveland and of Harrison. Some little evi- 

 dence of the perturbation appeared in the equivo- 

 cal attitude of both the old parties with respect 

 to the silver question. Said the Democratic plat- 

 form : " We hold to the use of both gold and silver 



