Omaha, NE Speech 7, 1896-11-02

Speech by William Jennings Bryan.

Speech by William Jennings Bryan
Monday, November 2, 1896 at 11:00pm
Creighton Theater, Omaha, NE

Source: LAST SPEECH OF THE DAY., Enthusiastic Crowd Greets Him at Creighton Theater., Omaha World-Herald (Morning Edition), Wednesday, November 3, 1896; TOUR OF NEBRASKA TOWNS, Bryan Runs the Gauntlet of Yellow Ribbons in His Home State, Nebraska State Journal, Tuesday, November 3, 1896

"If we had begun this fight ten years ago, we should not have won, but thank God for the Australian ballot system and our secret manner of voting, the laboring man has a right to cast his unquestioned ballot and victory is possible. We have not had money to buy literature to educate the people, but when we cast about us at the beginning of the campaign to find the means, the people themselves came to our aid and supplemented our work, and if the victory is ours, it will be the people's victory.

My friends, if the gold party wins this fight, you may sink as low as you can into the deepest depths below, and when you think all of the human misery of the world is coined into dollars, you can but faintly imagine the suffering of the people wrought by the financial system.

...Do you wonder that we have been able to conduct this campaign? My friends, we have been able to conduct it by the unselfish devotion of that multitude of men, Democrats, Populists, Republicans, who see what the gold standard means, and seeing it have been willing to fight it, in order to save their children and their children's children from this curse of gold. They tell us that we must bow down and worship the golden calf. I say, my friends, that the American people will not bow down. They will vote to restore the gold and silver coinage of the constitution, and lead in the restoration of bimetallism throughout the world."