Manchester, NH Speech, 1896-09-26

Speech by William Jennings Bryan.

Speech by William Jennings Bryan
Monday, September 26, 1896
Merrimac Park, Manchester, NH

Source: VISITS MR. SEWALL, Mr. Bryan at the Home Town of His Colleague Is Given a Royal Welcome., Omaha World-Herald (Sunday Edition), Sunday, September 27, 1896; The First Battle: A Story of the Campaign of 1896, 1896

"Fellow citizens: We have been accused of raising a sectional issue. The best evidence that we have not raised a sectional issue is that our opponents advocate a double standard. The time was when our opponents said that the gold standard was satisfactory to the people. Now they are content to say that it is satisfactory to a few northeastern states and in a little while will not be able to find anybody to whom it will be satisfactory."

EASTERN MEN INVESTIGATE

"Your daily papers have been telling you that the silver sentiment is a craze and is dying out, and you have felt that it was not necessary to waste time in considering a craze, but when a great national party declared in favor of bimetallism and especially pointed out the means by which it could be restored and came out openly for the immediate 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, (applause) you began to investigate, and that has led to a change of conviction on the part of hundreds of thousands, who live east of the Allegheny mountains. (Applause.)

...We are told that the free coinage of silver will be detrimental to those who have deposits in savings banks. I want you who have money deposited in savings banks to remember that your deposits are secure only when the banks can collect the money which they have loaned. If you loan money on Western lands and then drive down the value of Western lands, you are destroying the securities which the banks hold for what they owe you.

...My friends, the best evidence that we are right in our position is that when our cause is presented to disinterested people they are convinced of its soundness. No recent campaign has given much conclusive evidence of the capacity of the people for self-government as this. With all the great corporations and syndicates and trusts and money combines on one side, the people themselves are going into politics this year and they are indifferent to all the opposition that is arrayed against them." (Applause.)