July 16

Jefferson City, MO

William Jennings Bryan, The First Battle: A Story of the Campaign of 1896 (Chicago: W.B. Conkey Company, 1896), 236.

"I have just been wondering whether I could find in all this country a combination of circumstances which would make a speech so pleasant. I am in a city named for the greatest Democrat who ever lived, Thomas Jefferson; in the Congressional District of- one of the most gallant leaders that the Democracy has ever known, Richard P. Bland; in a State presided over by one of the most courageous defenders of the interests of the common people that any State ever had, Governor William J. Stone, and, to leave nothing more to be- desired, I am in a city whose Mayor is named Silver. Now can you think of any combination that beats that? Thomas Jefferson, Dick Bland, Bill Stone and Mayor Silver-I feel at home here.

My friends, I am glad to learn that there is no opposition in the Democratic party to the nomination of Mr. Bland for Congress. We need him there, and if it is not to be his privilege to sign a bill which will restore silver to its ancient place by the side of gold, it may be his higher honor to introduce and give his name to a bill which, when it becomes a law, will open the mints of the United States to the free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1."