Moline, IL Speech, 1896-08-08

Speech by William Jennings Bryan.

Speech by William Jennings Bryan
Saturday, August 8, 1896
Depot, Moline, IL

Source: TRIP ACROSS ILLINOIS., Crowds at Every Station to Greet the Nominee., Omaha World-Herald (Sunday Edition), Sunday, August 9, 1896

"I am very much gratified that so many people have assembled to manifest their interest in the campaign upon which we are entering and I am especially gratified to find those people assembled in a manufacturing town where so large a proportion of the population are what are known as laboring men. If our cause does not benefit those who toil, then we have no right to ask for its adoption by the American people, because no policy which does not in the beginning benefit the producers of wealth, the men who bring permanent prosperity to the people of this country, is good. I believe with all my heart that the restoration of the free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth, will be of benefit to all the common people of the United States. (Cheers.) And when our opponents come and speak to the laboring men and try to warn them against the restoration of silver, I want the laboring man to submit this suggestion to them that they let the laboring men themselves tell what is good for them and not have others speak for them." (Cheers.)