The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (24 page)

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Authors: Kenneth Whyte

BOOK: The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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The convention itself was held in the Chicago Coliseum, a building that would burn to the ground the following year, but in the meantime it was the most impressive structure of its kind anywhere and another powerful symbol of America’s emerging mass culture. Reporters marveled at its capacity—“so great that, although less than three-quarters of its floor space is utilized for this convention, there has been found place for 14,000 people, seated in comfortable chairs.”
21
 
The fight between the rival currency factions for control of the convention was over early. On the first night, July 7, one
Journal
contributor, silver senator John W. Daniel of Virginia, easily out-polled another
Journal
contributor, gold senator David B. Hill of New York, for the position of temporary chair of the Democratic National Committee, and the rout was on. The Democratic old guard, led by the pro-gold New York delegation, sat silent and grim as Daniel’s triumph was greeted by flying hats, waving handkerchiefs, and a long, noisy demonstration. It was the first of several wild displays. The silver forces, having grabbed the convention’s reins, struggled to marshal their numbers and advance their business—the
Journal
’s Chambers reported a spirit of “political anarchy” in the hall. After a procedural vote on the second evening that admitted more silver delegates at the expense of the gold forces, fourteen thousand voices exploded at once and the scene again dissolved into chaos. “[No] efforts of the presiding officer were sufficient to quell the tumult until the great gathering had yelled itself to hoarseness and finally voicelessness,” wrote Chambers. The roar “was like that of a blast furnace a hundred times multiplied.” It was only when the band was cued and had played through “Yankee Doodle” two or three times that the proceedings resumed. Gold-friendly newspapers complained that delegates resembled a revolutionary mob.
22
 
The excitability of delegates notwithstanding, a platform was hammered out and read from the podium on the morning of July 9. It called for smaller government, restrictions on federal authority, fixed terms of public office, merit-based appointments, an income tax, and an end to railway loan extensions, among other measures. It was short on foreign policy, but it did object to the Spanish presence in the Western Hemisphere, extending “sympathy to the people of Cuba in their heroic struggle for liberty and independence.”
23
 
The heroism of Cuban rebels was not seriously disputed in American public life; the Populists would also offer hearty support in their platform, and the Republicans were the most aggressive of all, calling for more military and naval spending, an expansionist foreign policy, and a full application of the Monroe Doctrine to bring peace and independence to the Cuban people. The unanimity on Cuba kept it from becoming an issue in the campaign, but with help from Hearst and other editors it would rise with a vengeance the moment the currency debate was decided.
24
 
The centerpiece of the Democratic platform was its monetary plank, a full-out endorsement of free silver:
We are unalterably opposed to the single gold standard, which has locked fast the prosperity of an industrial people in the paralysis of hard times. . . .
 
It is not only un-American, but anti-American, and it can be fastened on the United States only by the stifling of what indomitable spirit and love of liberty which proclaimed our political independence in 1776 and won it in the War of the Revolution.
 
. . . We demand the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation.
25
 
 
 
Hearst’s friend William C. Whitney called the platform “the worst I ever heard.”
26
New York’s Senator Hill, asked if he would join the gold delegates who had walked out of the Coliseum, replied that he was “a Democrat still; very still.”
27
But Nebraska congressman William Jennings Bryan judged it “the strongest platform upon which any party has gone to the country in recent years.”
28
Hearst’s editorial page sought to bridge the unbridgeable. Financial matters were but one plank of the platform, it argued. On everything else, the party was united in its fierce protest against a “corrupt and selfish plutocracy,” against “the injustice of class privileges, which make stepping stones of the many for the profit of the few.”
29
 
That night, in the stifling, smoke-filled Coliseum, a series of prominent Democrats spoke for and against the platform. Senator Hill made one last attempt to pierce the silver line.
Journal
commentator Amos Cummings called it “a gallant effort carefully prepared and manfully executed against overwhelming numbers.” Hill calmly explained to the delegates that all Democrats supported bimetallism: they differed only on how to implement it. “Those whom I represent, and for whom I speak,” declared Hill, “insist that we should not attempt the experiment of the free and unlimited coinage of silver without the cooperation of other great nations.” The only safe and prudent path to monetary reform was a multilateral one: “In this great day, when we are connected with all portions of the earth by our ships, by our telegraph cables and by all the methods of intercourse, we think it unwise to attempt this alone.”
30
 
Hill’s compromise was consistent with the
Journal
’s proposals. The paper admired his performance, noting that a dozen sparrows flew into the great hall while he was speaking to chirp a musical accompaniment: “It was conciliatory in tone and brotherly in feeling. It sparkled with patriotism and glowed with the spirit of true Democracy. Indeed, some of [Hill’s] friends began to whisper that even yet he might become the nominee of his party for the Presidency.” But, as Amos Cummings admitted, Hill’s pitch “utterly failed” to move the convention. He was driven back at every point by the wild cheers of the silver corps.
31
 
The last orator, taking the stage just before midnight, was William Jennings Bryan. He had been assigned to speak for the silver plank as a consolation prize, having lost his bid for the chair of the convention earlier in the week. “He tripped lightly up the steps of the platform,” reported the
Journal
:
As he stood before the convention, pale, modest and unassuming, he looked the perfect picture of [the late Philadelphia congressman] Samuel J. Randall, a real tribune of the people. His voice filled the hall, apparently without effort. His gestures were the acme of grace as he paced backward and forward in easy familiarity with his hearers. There was no self-consciousness in either action or utterance. The words poured forth in rhythmical volume, burnishing his ideas and facts until they shone like diamonds. His topics, similes and metaphors were marvelous. The whole speech was iridescent. The delegates sat as if enchanted, breaking into applause at odd moments as though touched by electric wires. It was a display of eloquence pure and undefiled.
32
 
 
 
Bryan, like Hill, regretted the fracture in the Democratic Party over the silver issue and disavowed any hostility to his opponents. He paid tribute to the abilities and reputations of the gold advocates who had spoken earlier. He doubted that he could match their stature as individuals but hoped to carry the day by his ideas: “The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty, the cause of humanity.”
 
The humanity that concerned Bryan most particularly were the common folk—small merchants and farmers who lived close to the land and who had been hardest hit by the recent depression. These people, as deserving as any in America, had seen their homes, families, and livelihoods threatened by economic injustice. Their interests, Bryan argued, could no longer be subordinated to those of the eastern monied classes. Turning to address the gold delegates directly, he challenged their claim that unilateral abandonment of the gold standard would be ruinous to U.S. business:
When you come before us and tell us that we are about to disturb your business, we say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the crossroads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day . . . is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain. . . . We come to speak for this broader class of business men. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them.
33
 
 
 
Invoking Cicero and the twin Democratic icons Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson, Bryan rolled on to defend the income tax and other aspects of the party’s platform before taking issue with the gold corps’ plea for international bimetallism. Leading Democrats, he argued, had been talking of international agreements for twenty years, but all efforts had been fruitless. He noted that not even the Republicans defended the gold standard any longer—they had pledged themselves to bimetallism by international agreement. If the gold standard was so discredited that not even Republicans would speak for it, why did America need the permission of the great powers to abandon it? Why were Americans surrendering their sovereignty and ceding legislative control of their affairs to foreign powers? With that, Bryan arrived at his startling conclusion:
If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
 
 
 
Bryan raked his fingers down the sides of his face at “crown of thorns” and stood with arms outstretched for “cross of gold.” He held the pose for a moment. There was a stunned silence in the stadium and Bryan began walking off stage as the delegates absorbed his words. He was almost lost in the crowd before a great furor erupted. “Pale and exhausted,” reported the
Journal,
“but with flashing eyes and a smiling face, he was raised to the shoulders of the Nebraska delegation, while the guidons of three-fourths of the states were dancing around him. There was an ocean of applause while it lasted, those bearing the guidons marched in procession around the delegates, shouting choruses of satisfaction. It was a tribute never before paid to a living orator.” The demonstration lasted the better part of an hour. The next day’s
Journal
ran Bryan’s speech in full (along with Hill’s).
34
 
The
Journal
was the only New York paper to remain in Bryan’s presence throughout the nomination voting. The candidate and his wife were lodged at the modest Clifton House hotel. According to the paper’s anonymous correspondent, Bryan was confident and buoyant from the first ballot: “He read the bulletins as they were brought to him from the little telegraph office downstairs. His comments at first were few and short. As his vote gradually kept increasing there was no change in his countenance. Rather, he became more solemn, and once or twice his brow was knit for a moment, as though he already felt the responsibilities of a candidate.”
35
 
Bryan gained momentum through the third ballot and was beginning to look like the eventual winner. His rooms began to fill with supporters and onlookers eager to witness the birth of a presidential nominee. When the results of the fourth ballot were brought, they showed Bryan ahead of the other contender, Richard “Silver” Bland of Missouri, for the first time. His win was now inevitable:
For a second Bryan’s face was pale and had a sad, anxious look. It was a moment for him to reflect on the sudden honors which came to him in the days of his youth. He looked out on the street. There were the usual crowds of people going and coming. They looked up at the window and saw a black-haired, smooth-faced man, but no one on the street, perhaps, knew that this man was then nearing the greatest moment, the most eventful period of his thirty-six years of life.
 
The candidate began to look furtively and anxiously at the door. He was awaiting the messengers with white bulletins. Friendly chaffing ceased. There was growing feeling of awe. So satisfying was the fourth ballot that the suspense became intense when the bulletin came announcing the order for the fifth.
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