The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-10-04

incident to speech in to
of Vincennes. Short speech
made to large crowds at Lawre..
and Olney.
The most enthusiastic meeting the day
had yet seen was ut Flora, where many
of Mr.. Bryan's boyhood friends helped to
make up the crowd that received him. 1t
was n continual ovation from the time.
the train entered the city until it left
He was taken to the bandstand of the
City Park, and when he assembled the
platform there were three minutes of con-
tinual cheering, which caused Mr.. Bryan
to remark:
81 believe that by the time the cam
paign gets opened up you will be enthu-
siastic down here.''
1t was n great crowd at Salem, the
town where Mr.. Bryan was born. Old
men who knew him in his boyhood and
young manhood wished to shake hands
with Billy Old acuuaintances
crowded about the car, all eager to grasp
the hand of u Presidential nominee who
was born in their midst. Many of Mr.
Bryan's relatives were at the depot, and
these he met at the forward end of the
car, after he had addressed the crowd at
the back platform. He was deeply
affected by the earnestness and express
sions of affection of the people.
After short speech Mr.. Bryan intro
duccd Congressman McMillin, of Tennes-
see, who also made short talk
The special bearing the Bryan party
arrived in East ST. Louis at 6:30 this af-
ternoon, and Mr.. Bryan was taken in a
carriage to the grounds. He was intro
duced to an audience which contained
more people than he could make hear,
and spoke at some length OH the finan-
cial question.
eve believe that the paramount issue
OF this campaign is the money question: "
Mr.. Bryan said, "we believe that the
great question to be settled now is
whether the American people are to have
financial system forced upon us by for
eign nations. Upon this question the line
is clearly divided The Republican plat
form declares in favor of the maintenance
OF the present gold standard for an in
definite period. The Republican platform
declares that we must maintain the gold
standard until the foreign nations come
to us and join in it's abandon ment The
platform upon which l stand declares in
favor of the restoration of bimetallism,
and they point out the only means by
which bimetallism can be restored, viz
the immediate restoration of the free and
unlimited coinage of gold and silver at
the present legal ratio of 16 to / without
waiting for the aid or consent of any
other nation. If the Republican party
had presented some system approved by
the members of that party we might then
have discussed the merits of the proposed
system. But they propose nothing. They
offer no plan. They give no prospect of
relief. They simply say to the people
who are dissatsfed: You must still be
dissatisfied TO those who are suffering
they simply say: you must suffer on
until relief comes from abroad
II am not willing, my friends, that the
Anne rican people and their great destiny
shall be transferred from the hands of the
American people and deposited with for
eign nations, l care not what nations they
may be. We propose something; our OPP
ponents propose nothing. If you are sat
isfied with present financial conditions
then' my friends, the Republican party
proposes to continue present financial
conditions. My friends, you have the
gold standard. Our legislation has been
suggested. 1t has been devised. 1t has
been carried out by The advocates of the
gold standard and yet, after twenty years
of successful application of their ideas
we find such an uprising of the people
/ against the gold standard rs this country
has never seen before. Here is the argu-
ment which they can't meet.
1t is the argument of conditions.
They may talk if they like about theories,
but, my friends, here are the stubborn
facts, they have run this Government ac-
cording to their ideas, and the longer
they have run it the logger the people
have suffered from their management.
Whenever we ask them to put more
money into circulation they tell us to
just have more confidence and we will
need less money. My friends, we have
run on confidence too long now. Men
can be too confident. Men can have more
confidence when they have food. but when
they do they get hungry in spite of their
continued on page four)