October 31

Council Bluffs, IA (Excerpt)

"While the friends of free silver have been working hard, I want to say to you, my friends, that the time for work has not yet passed. There is one day whose work counts for more than that of all other days and if you are in earnest I want to ask you to be up early the morning of election day and give all the day to free silver. It is not asking too much. Years have been devoted to a war and there are issues in times of peace as important as those in times of war. We have to decide next Tuesday whether we are to have a financial policy for the American people or to bow the knee to foreign powers and accept a policy we should never have. We owe now more to foreign nations than we did ten years ago, and if this policy continues, we shall owe foreign nations more ten years hence than we do now. When shall we assert our independence?"

(Cries of "Next Tuesday—Tuesday is a good day.")

Mr. Bryan added that free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 and independent action are not new or untried. We have also tried the gold standard and we know it is not a good thing.

His speech was punctured by his enthusiastic hearers with "He's our Abraham Lincoln," "Bryan's the man," "That's American principles," and the like.