Henderson, KY Speech, 1896-09-14

Speech by William Jennings Bryan.

Speech by William Jennings Bryan
Monday, September 14, 1896 at 2:00pm
Courthouse, Henderson, KY

Source: PASSING THROUGH ILLINOIS., Democratic Nominee Gets Ovations All Along the Line., Omaha World-Herald (Morning Edition), Tuesday, September 15, 1896

"I do not come to the state of Kentucky to preach a new gospel. I come to defend those principles which have been Democratic from the time that Jefferson organized the Democratic party. (Great applause.) The platform adopted at Chicago is no innovation. It is no departure from tradition. It is simply the application of principles as old as the hills to the conditions which have risen in our time. There is not a word in the Chicago platform that is undemocratic; there is not a sentence there that would have been inconsistent with the teachings of the fathers of the Democratic party, and when men tell you that they are standing by the true Democracy and get off of the Chicago platform, you can tell them that they are trying to galvanize Republican principles with a Democratic name. (Great applause.)

We have made the money question the paramount issue of the campaign; no, we did not make it so. I will take back those words. We have simply recognized what other have made. (Cries of "That's right.") We not only denounce it as a system injurious to the American people, but we denounce the gold standard and those who advocate it as people who have never fought an open battle in their lives. (Great applause.) We ask for silver simply the same privileges which gold now has. We want the unlimited coinage of silver; we now have the unlimited coinage of gold."