"The Cross of Gold" Speech
Delivered by William Jennings Bryan
at the National Democratic Convention,
July 9, 1896

I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present
myself against the distinguished gentlemen to
whom you have listened if this were but a
measuring of ability; but this is not a contest
among persons. The humblest citizen in all the
land when clad in the armor of a righteous cause is
stronger than all the whole hosts of error that they
can bring. I come to speak to you in defense of a
cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause
of humanity. When this debate is concluded, a
motion will be made to lay upon the table the
resolution offered in commendation of the
administration and also the resolution in
condemnation of the administration. I shall object
to bringing this question down to a level of persons.
The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts,
he dies; but principles are eternal; and this has
been a contest of principle.

Never before in the history of this country has
there been witnessed such a contest as that
through which we have passed. Never before in the
history of American politics has a great issue been
fought out as this issue has been by the voters
themselves.

On the 4th of March, 1895, a few Democrats, most
of them members of Congress, issued an address to
the Democrats of the nation asserting that the
money question was the paramount issue of the
hour; asserting also the right of a majority of the
Democratic Party to control the position of the
party on this paramount issue; concluding with the
request that all believers in free coinage of silver in
the Democratic Party should organize and take
charge of and control the policy of the Democratic
Party. Three months later, at Memphis, an
organization was perfected, and the silver Democrats
went forth openly and boldly and courageously
proclaiming their belief and declaring that if
successful they would crystallize in a platform the
declaration which they had made; and then began
the conflict with a zeal approaching the zeal which
inspired the crusaders who followed Peter the
Hermit. Our silver Democrats went forth from
victory unto victory, until they are assembled now,
not to discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the
judgment rendered by the plain people of this
country.

But in this contest, brother has been arrayed against
brother, and father against son. The warmest ties of
love and acquaintance and association have been
disregarded. Old leaders have been cast aside when
they refused to give expression to the sentiments of
those whom they would lead, and new leaders have
sprung up to give direction to this cause of freedom.
Thus has the contest been waged, and we have
assembled here under as binding and solemn
instructions as were ever fastened upon the
representatives of a people.

We do not come as individuals. Why, as individuals
we might have been glad to compliment the
gentleman from New York [Senator Hill], but we
knew that the people for whom we speak would
never be willing to put him in a position where he
could thwart the will of the Democratic Party. I
say it was not a question of persons; it was a
question of principle; and it is not with gladness,
my friends, that we find ourselves brought into
conflict with those who are now arrayed on the
other side. The gentleman who just preceded me
[Governor Russell] spoke of the old state of
Massachusetts. Let me assure him that not one
person in all this convention entertains the least
hostility to the people of the state of Massachusetts.

But we stand here representing people who are the
equals before the law of the largest cities in the
state of Massachusetts. When you come before us
and tell us that we shall disturb your business
interests, we reply that you have disturbed our
business interests by your action. We say to you
that you have made too limited in its application
the definition of a businessman. The man who is
employed for wages is as much a businessman as
his employer. The attorney in a country town is as
much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a
great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads
store is as much a businessman as the merchant of
New York. The farmer who goes forth in the
morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and
toils all summer, and by the application of brain
and muscle to the natural resources of this country
creates wealth, is as much a businessman as the
man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets
upon the price of grain. The miners who go 1,000
feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs
and bring forth from their hiding places the precious
metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as
much businessmen as the few financial magnates who
in a backroom corner the money of the world.

We come to speak for this broader class of
businessmen. Ah. my friends, we say not one word
against those who live upon the Atlantic Coast; but
those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of
the wilderness, who have made the desert to
blossom as the rose—those pioneers away out there,
rearing their children near to nature’s heart, where
they can mingle their voices with the voices of the
birds—out there where they have erected
schoolhouses for the education of their children and
churches where they praise their Creator, and the
cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead—
are as deserving of the consideration of this party
as any people in this country.

It is for these that we speak. 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!

The gentleman from Wisconsin has said he fears a
Robespierre. My friend, in this land of the free
you need fear no tyrant who will spring up from
among the people. What we need is an Andrew
Jackson to stand as Jackson stood, against the
encroachments of aggregated wealth.

They tell us that this platform was made to catch
votes. We reply to them that changing conditions
make new issues; that the principles upon which
rest Democracy are as everlasting as the hills; but
that they must be applied to new conditions as
they arise. Conditions have arisen and we are
attempting to meet those conditions. They tell us
that the income tax ought not to be brought in
here; that is not a new idea. They criticize us for
our criticism of the Supreme Court of the United
States. My friends, we have made no criticism. We
have simply called attention to what you know. If
you want criticisms, read the dissenting opinions
of the Court. That will give you criticisms.

They say we passed an unconstitutional law. I
deny it. The income tax was not unconstitutional
when it was passed. It was not unconstitutional
when it went before the Supreme Court for the first
time. It did not become unconstitutional until one
judge changed his mind; and we cannot be expected
to know when a judge will change his mind.

The income tax is a just law. It simply intends to
put the burdens of government justly upon the
backs of the people. I am in favor of an income tax.
When I find a man who is not willing to pay his
share of the burden of the government which
protects him, I find a man who is unworthy to
enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.

He says that we are opposing the national bank
currency. It is true. If you will read what Thomas
Benton said, you will find that he said that in
searching history he could find but one parallel
to Andrew Jackson. That was Cicero, who
destroyed the conspiracies of Cataline and saved
Rome. He did for Rome what Jackson did when
he destroyed the bank conspiracy and saved
America.

We say in our platform that we believe that the
right to coin money and issue money is a function
of government. We believe it. We believe it is a
part of sovereignty and can no more with safety
be delegated to private individuals than can the
power to make penal statutes or levy laws for
taxation.

Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good
Democratic authority, seems to have a different
opinion from the gentleman who has addressed us
on the part of the minority. Those who are
opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue
of paper money is a function of the bank and that
the government ought to go out of the banking
business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with
them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of
money is a function of the government and that
the banks should go out of the governing business.

They complain about the plank which declares
against the life tenure in office. They have tried to
strain it to mean that which it does not mean.
What we oppose in that plank is the life tenure
that is being built up in Washington which
establishes an office-holding class and excludes
from participation in the benefits the humbler
members of our society. . . .

Let me call attention to two or three great things.
The gentleman from New York says that he will
propose an amendment providing that this change
in our law shall not affect contracts which, according
to the present laws, are made payable in gold. But if
he means to say that we cannot change our monetary
system without protecting those who have loaned
money before the change was made, I want to ask
him where, in law or in morals, he can find authority
for not protecting the debtors when the act of
1873 was passed when he now insists that we must
protect the creditor. He says he also wants to
amend this platform so as to provide that if we fail
to maintain the parity within a year that we will
then suspend the coinage of silver. We reply that
when we advocate a thing which we believe will be
successful we are not compelled to raise a doubt as
to our own sincerity by trying to show what we
will do if we are wrong.

I ask him, if he will apply his logic to us, why he
does not apply it to himself. He says that he wants
this country to try to secure an international
agreement. Why doesn’t he tell us what he is going
to do if they fail to secure an international
agreement. There is more reason for him to do that
than for us to expect to fail to maintain the parity.
They have tried for thirty years—thirty years—to
secure an international agreement, and those are
waiting for it most patiently who don’t want it at
all.

Now, my friends, let me come to the great
paramount issue. If they ask us here why it is we
say more on the money question than we say upon
the tariff question, I reply that if protection has
slain its thousands the gold standard has slain its
tens of thousands. If they ask us why we did not
embody all these things in our platform which we
believe, we reply to them that when we have
restored the money of the Constitution, all other
necessary reforms will be possible, and that until
that is done there is no reform that can be
accomplished.

Why is it that within three months such a change
has come over the sentiments of the country?
Three months ago, when it was confidently asserted
that those who believed in the gold standard would
frame our platforms and nominate our candidates,
even the advocates of the gold standard did not
think that we could elect a President; but they had
good reasons for the suspicion, because there is
scarcely a state here today asking for the gold
standard that is not within the absolute control of
the Republican Party.

But note the change. Mr. McKinley was nominated
at St. Louis upon a platform that declared for the
maintenance of the gold standard until it should be
changed into bimetallism by an international
agreement. Mr. McKinley was the most popular
man among the Republicans ; and everybody three
months ago in the Republican Party prophesied
his election. How is it today? Why, that man who
used to boast that he looked like Napoleon, that
man shudders today when he thinks that he was
nominated on the anniversary of the Battle of
Waterloo. Not only that, but as he listens he can
hear with ever increasing distinctness the sound
of the waves as they beat upon the lonely shores
of St. Helena.

Why this change? Ah, my friends. is not the change
evident to anyone who will look at the matter? It
is because no private character, however pure, no
personal popularity, however great, can protect
from the avenging wrath of an indignant people
the man who will either declare that he is in favor
of fastening the gold standard upon this people, or
who is willing to surrender the right of self-
government and place legislative control in the hands
of foreign potentates and powers. . . .

We go forth confident that we shall win. Why?
Because upon the paramount issue in this campaign
there is not a spot of ground upon which the enemy
will dare to challenge battle. Why, if they tell us that
the gold standard is a good thing, we point to their
platform and tell them that their platform pledges the
party to get rid of a gold standard and substitute
bimetallism. If the gold standard is a good thing, why
try to get rid of it? If the gold standard, and I might
call your attention to the fact that some of the very
people who are in this convention today and who
tell you that we ought to declare in favor of
international bimetallism and thereby declare that
the gold standard is wrong and that the principles
of bimetallism are better—these very people four
months ago were open and avowed advocates of
the gold standard and telling us that we could not
legislate two metals together even with all the world.

I want to suggest this truth, that if the gold
standard is a good thing we ought to declare in
favor of its retention and not in favor of abandoning
it; and if the gold standard is a bad thing, why
should we wait until some other nations are
willing to help us to let it go?

Here is the line of battle. We care not upon which
issue they force the fight. We are prepared to meet
them on either issue or on both. If they tell us
that the gold standard is the standard of civilization,
we reply to them that this, the most enlightened of
all nations of the earth, has never declared for a
gold standard, and both the parties this year are
declaring against it. If the gold standard is the
standard of civilization, why, my friends, should
we not have it? So if they come to meet us on
that, we can present the history of our nation.
More than that, we can tell them this, that they
will search the pages of history in vain to find a
single instance in which the common people of
any land ever declared themselves in favor of a
gold standard. They can find where the holders
of fixed investments have.

Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle
between the idle holders of idle capital and the
struggling masses who produce the wealth and
pay the taxes of the country; and my friends, it is
simply a question that we shall decide upon
which side shall the Democratic Party fight. Upon
the side of the idle holders of idle capital, or upon
the side of the struggling masses? That is the
question that the party must answer first; and
then it must be answered by each individual
hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic
Party, as described by the platform, are on the
side of the struggling masses, who have ever
been the foundation of the Democratic Party.

There are two ideas of government. There are
those who believe that if you just legislate to
make the well-to-do prosperous, that their
prosperity will leak through on those below.
The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate
to make the masses prosperous their prosperity
will find its way up and through every class that
rests upon it.

You come to us and tell us that the great cities are
in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the
great cities rest upon these broad and fertile
prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms,
and your cities will spring up again as if by magic.
But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in
the streets of every city in the country.

My friends, we shall declare that this nation is able
to legislate for its own people on every question
without waiting for the aid or consent of any other
nation on earth, and upon that issue we expect to
carry every single state in the Union.

I shall not slander the fair state of Massachusetts
nor the state of New York by saying that when
citizens are confronted with the proposition, “Is
this nation able to attend to its own business?”—
I will not slander either one by saying that the
people of those states will declare our helpless
impotency as a nation to attend to our own
business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our
ancestors, when but 3 million, had the courage to
declare their political independence of every other
nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants,
when we have grown to 70 million, declare that we
are less independent than our forefathers? No, my
friends, it will never be the judgment of this people.
Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle
is fought. If they say bimetallism is good but we
cannot have it till some nation helps us, we reply
that, instead of having a gold standard because
England has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then
let England have bimetallism because the United
States have.

If they dare to come out in the open field and
defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall
fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the
producing masses of the nation and the world.
Having behind us the commercial interests and the
laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we
shall answer their demands 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.