176 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



the prosperity of an industrial people in the pa- 

 ralysis of hard times," proclaimed the report of the 

 committee on resolutions. "Gold monometallism 

 is a British policy, and its adoption has brought 

 other nations into financial servitude to London. 

 . . . We demand the free and unlimited coinage of 

 both gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 

 sixteen to one without waiting for the aid or con- 

 sent of any other nation." A minority of the com- 

 mittee on resolutions proposed two amendments 

 to the report, one pronouncing in favor of a gold 

 standard, and the other commending the record of 

 Grover Cleveland, a courtesy always extended to a 

 presidential incumbent of the same party. At the 

 name of Cleveland, Senator Tillman leaped to his 

 feet and delivered himself of characteristic in- 

 vective against the President, the "tool of Wall 

 Street," the abject slave of gold. Senator David 

 B. Hill of New York, who had been rejected for 

 temporary chairman, defended the gold plank in 

 a logical analysis of monetary principles. But 

 logical analysis could not prevail against emotion; 

 that clamorous mass of men was past reasoning 

 now, borne they hardly knew whither on the cur- 

 rent of their own excitement. He might as well 

 have tried to dam Niagara. 



