1900; or, The last President
swift but sure impoverishment only served to transform the dark and
dismal drama of revolution and disintegration into a side-splitting
farce, and they greeted the prospective loss of their millions with loud
guffaws and indescribable antics of horseplay and unseemly mirth.
As the day wore on, the news became worse and worse. It was only too
apparent that the House of Representatives of the Fifty-fifth Congress
would be controlled by the combined vote of the Populists and Free
Silver men, while the wild joy with which the entire South welcomed the
election of Bryan and Sewall left little doubt in the minds of the
Northern people that the Southern Senators would, to a man, range
themselves on the Administration side of the great conflict into which
the Republic was soon to be precipitated. Add to these the twenty
Senators of the Free Silver States of the North, and the new President
would have the Congress of the Republic at his back. There would be
nothing to stand between him and the realization of those schemes which
an exuberant fancy, untamed by the hand of experience, and scornful of
the leading-strings of wisdom, can conjure up.
Did we say nothing? Nay, not so; for the Supreme Court was still there.
And yet Justice Field had come fully up to the eightieth milestone in
the journey of life and Justice Gray was nearly seventy, while one or
two other members of this High Court of Judicature held to their lives
with feeble grasp. Even in due and orderly course of events, why might
there not come vacancies and then?...
In spite of the nameless dread that rested upon so many of our people,
and chilled the very blood of the country’s industries, the new year ’97
came hopefully, serenely, almost defiantly in. There was an
indescribable something in the air, a spirit of political devil-me-care,
a feeling that the old order had passed away and that the Republic had
entered into the womb of Time and been born again. This sentiment began
to give outward and visible signs of its existence and growth in the
remote agricultural districts of the South and Far West. They threw
aside their working implements, loitered about, gathered in groups and
the words Washington, White House, Silver, Bryan, Offices, Two for One,
the South’s Day, Reign of the Common People, Taxes, Incomes, Year of
Jubilee, Free Coinage, Wall Street, Altgeld, Tillman, Peffer, Coxey,
were whispered in a mysterious way with head noddings and pursing up of
mouths.
As January wore away and February, slipping by, brought Bryan’s
Inauguration nearer and nearer, the groups melted into groups, and it
was only too apparent that from a dozen different points in the South
and North West “Coxey Armies” were forming for an advance on Washington.
In some instances they were well clad and well provisioned; in others,
they were little better than great bands of hungry and restless men,
demoralized by idleness and wrought up to a strange degree of mental
excitement by the extravagant harangues of their leaders, who were
animated with but one thought, namely, to make use of these vast crowds
of Silver Pilgrims, as they called themselves, to back up their claims
for public office.
These crowds of deluded people were well named “Silver Pilgrims,” for
hundreds of them carried in hempen bags, pieces of silverware, in
ninety-nine cases of a hundred, plated stuff of little value, which
unscrupulous dealers and peddlers had palmed off upon them as sterling,
with the promises that once in Washington, the United States Mint would
coin their metal into “Bryan Dollars” giving “two for one” in payment
for it.
While these motley “armies” marched upon the capitol of the Republic,
the railway trains night and day brought vast crowds of “new men,”
politicians of low degree, men out of employment, drunken and
disgruntled mechanics, farmer’s sons, to seek their fortunes under the
Reign of the People, heelers and hangers-on of ward bosses, old men who
had not tasted office for thirty years and more, all inspired by Mr.
Bryan’s declaration that “The American people are not in favor of life
tenure in the Civil Service, that a permanent office holding class is
not in harmony with our institutions, that a fixed term in appointive
offices would open the public service to a larger number of citizens,
without impairing its efficiency,” all bearing new besoms in their hands
or across their shoulders, each and every one of them supremely
confident that in the distribution of the spoils something would surely
fall to his share, since they were the “Common People” who were so dear
to Mr. Bryan, and who had made him President in the very face of the
prodigious opposition of the rich men, whose coffers had been thrown
wide open all to no purpose, and in spite too of the satanic and truly
devilish power of that hell upon earth known as Wall Street, which had
sweated gold in vain in its desperate efforts to fasten the chains of
trusts and the claws of soulless monsters known as corporations upon
these very “Common People,” soon to march in triumph before the silver
chariot of the young Conqueror from the West.
CHAPTER IV.
There had been a strange prophecy put forth by some one, and it had made
its way into the daily journals, and had been laughingly or seriously
commented upon, according to the political tone of the paper, or the
passing humor of the writer, that the 4th of March, 1897, would never
dawn upon the American people. There was something very curious and
uncanny about the prediction, and what actually happened was not
qualified to loosen the fearful tension of public anxiety, for the day
literally and truly never dawned upon the City of Washington, and well
deserves its historical name, the “Dawnless Day.” At six o’clock, the
hour of daybreak, such an impenetrable pall of clouds overhung the city
that there came no signs of day. The gathering crowds could plainly hear
the plaintive cries and lamentations put up in the negro quarters of the
city. Not until nearly nine o’clock did the light cease to “shine in
darkness” and the darkness begin to comprehend it.
But although it was a cheerless gray day, even at high noon, its
heaviness set no weight upon the spirits of the jubilant tens of
thousands which completely filled the city and its public parks, and ran
over into camps and hastily improvised shelters outside the city limits.
Not until the day previous had the President announced the names of
those selected for his Cabinet. The South and Far West were fairly
beside themselves with joy, for there had been from their standpoint
ugly rumors abroad for several days. It had even been hinted that Bryan
had surrendered to the “money-changers,” and that the selection of his
constitutional advisers would prove him recreant to the glorious cause
of popular government, and that the Reign of the Common People would
remain but a dream of the “struggling masses.”
But these apprehensions were short lived. The young President stood firm
and fast on the platform of the parties which had raised him to his
proud eminence. And what better proof of his thorough belief in himself
and in his mission could he have given than the following:
Secretary of State—William M. Stewart, of Nevada.
Secretary of Treasury—Richard P. Bland, of Missouri.
Secretary of War—John P. Altgeld, of Illinois.
Attorney General—Roger Q. Mills, of Texas.
Postmaster General—Henry George, of New York.
Secretary Navy—John Gary Evans, of South Carolina.
Secretary Interior—William A. Peffer, of Kansas.
Secretary Agriculture—Lafe Pence, of Colorado.
The first thing that flashed across the minds of many upon glancing over
this list of names was the omission therefrom of Tillman’s. What did it
mean? Could the young President have quarreled with his best friend, his
most powerful coadjutor? But the wiser ones only shook their heads and
made answer that it was Tillman’s hand that filled the blank for
Secretary of the Navy, left there by the new ruler after the people’s
own heart. Evans was but a creation of this great Commoner of the South,
an image graven with his hands.
The inaugural address was not a disappointment to those who had come to
hear it. It was like the man who delivered it—bold, outspoken,
unmistakable in its terms, promising much, impatient of precedent,
reckless of result; a double confirmation that this was to be the Reign
of the Common People, that much should be unmade and much made over, and
no matter how the rich man might cry out in anger or amazement, the
nation must march on to the fulfillment of a higher and nobler mission
than the impoverishment and degradation of the millions for the
enrichment and elevation of the few.
Scarcely had the young President—his large eyes filled with a strange
light, and his smooth, hairless visage radiant as a cloudless sky, his
wife’s arm twined around his, and their hands linked in those of their
children—passed within the lofty portal of the White House, than he
threw himself into a chair, and seizing a sheet of official paper penned
the following order, and directed its immediate promulgation:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C., March 4th, 1897.
Executive Order No. 1.
In order that there may be immediate relief in the terrible financial
depression now weighing upon our beloved country, consequent upon and
resulting from the unlawful combination of capitalists and money-lenders
both in this Republic and in England, and that the ruinous and
inevitable progress toward a universal gold standard may be stayed, the
President orders and directs the immediate abandonment of the so-called
“gold reserve,” and that on and after the promulgation of this order,
the gold and silver standard of the Constitution be resumed and strictly
maintained in all the business transactions of the Government.
It was two o’clock in the afternoon when news of this now world-famous
Executive Order was flashed into the great banking centres of the
country. Its effect in Wall street beggars description. On the floor of
the Stock Exchange men yelled and shrieked like painted savages, and, in
their mad struggles, tore and trampled each other. Many dropped in
fainting fits, or fell exhausted from their wild and senseless efforts
to say what none would listen to. Ashen pallor crept over the faces of
some, while the blood threatened to burst the swollen arteries that
spread in purple network over the brows of others. When silence came at
last, it was a silence broken by sobs and groans. Some wept, while
others stood dumb-stricken as if it was all a bad dream, and they were
awaiting the return of their poor distraught senses to set them right
again. Ambulances were hastily summoned and fainting and exhausted forms
were borne through hushed and whispering masses wedged into Wall street,
to be whirled away uptown to their residences, there to come into full
possession of their senses only to cry out in their anguish that ruin,
black ruin, stared them in the face if this news from Washington should
prove true.
CHAPTER V.
By proclamation bearing date the 5th day of March 1897, the President
summoned both houses of Congress to convene in extraordinary session
“for the consideration of the general welfare of the United States, and
to take such action as might seem necessary and expedient to them on
certain measures which he should recommend to their consideration,
measures of vital import to the welfare and happiness of the people, if
not to the very existence of the Union and the continuance of their
enjoyment of the liberties achieved by the fathers of the Republic.”
While awaiting the day set for the coming together of the Congress, the