nding 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 invective
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 current of their own excitement. He might as
well have tried to dam Niagara.

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 majority group of the committee on resolutions, failed
equally with Tillman to give satisfactory expression 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 whom 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 doctrine 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 education, 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
Lyman Trumbull, one of the stanchest representatives of independence
in politics--an independence which had caused him to break with the
Democratic party over the slavery issue, and which, as expressed in his
vote against the impeachment of President Johnson, had resulted in his
retirement to private life. To the young law student Trumbull took a
particular fancy, and his dominating personality exerted an abiding
influence over the character and career of his protege.

After a brief period of law practice in Jacksonville, Illinois, Bryan
removed with his