s the party
might see fit to make. Even after the convention had opened, McKinley
and Hanna were reticent on the silver question. Finally, fearing
that some kind of compromise would be made, the advocates of the
gold standard went to Mr. Hanna and demanded that a gold plank be
incorporated in the platform. Hanna gracefully acceded to their demands
and thus put them under obligation to repay him by supporting McKinley
for the nomination. The platform which was forthwith reported to the
convention contained the unequivocal gold plank, as Hanna had long
before planned. Immediately thereafter a minority of thirty-four
delegates, led by Senator Teller of Colorado, left the convention, later
to send out an address advising all Republicans who believed in free
coinage of silver to support the Democratic ticket. The nomination
of William McKinley and Garret A. Hobart followed with very little
opposition.

There was nothing cut and dried about the Democratic convention which
assembled three weeks later in Chicago. The Northeastern States and
a few others sent delegations in favor of the gold standard, but free
silver and the West were in the saddle. This was demonstrated when, in
the face of all precedent, the nominee of the national committee for
temporary chairman was rejected in favor of Senator John W. Daniel of
Virginia, a strong silver man. The second day of the convention saw
the advantage pushed further: each Territory had its representation
increased threefold; of contesting delegations those who represented the
gold element in their respective States were unseated to make way for
silverites; and Stephen M. White, one of the California senators, was
made permanent chairman.

On the third day of the convention the platform, devoted largely to the
money question, was the subject of bitter debate. "We are unalterably
opposed to monometallism, which has locked fast the prosperity of an
industrial people in the paralysis 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 consent of any other nation." A minority of the
committee on resolutions proposed two amendments to the report, one
pronouncing in favor of a gold standard, and the other comme