THE BATTLE OF THE STANDARDS 177 



Others tried to stem the onrushing tide but with 

 no better success. It seemed to be impossible for 

 any one to command the attention and respect of 

 that tumultuous gathering. Even Senator James 

 K. Jones of Arkansas, a member of the major- 

 ity group of the committee on resolutions, failed 

 equally with Tillman to give satisfactory expres- 

 sion to the sentiments of that convention, which 

 felt inchoately what it desired but which still needed 

 a leader to voice its aspirations. This spokesman 

 the convention now found in William Jennings 

 Bryan, to w r hom after a few sentences Senator 

 Jones yielded the floor. 



Bryan appeared in Chicago as a member of 

 the contesting silver delegation from Nebraska. A 

 young man, barely thirty-six years old, he had 

 already become a well-known figure in the West, 

 where for years he had been expounding the doc- 

 trine of free silver. A native of Illinois, whither his 

 father had come from Culpeper County, Virginia, 

 Bryan had grown up on a farm. His father's 

 means had been ample to afford him a good educa- 

 tion, which he completed, so far as schooling was 

 concerned, at Illinois College, Jacksonville, and at 

 the Union College of Law in Chicago. While in 

 Chicago Bryan was employed in the law office of 



