In his speech of acceptance, McKinley deprecated and sought to smooth over the class lines which had been drawn. "It is a cause for painful regret and solicitude," he said, "that an effort is being made by those high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the people of this country into classes and create distinctions among us which in fact do not exist and are repugnant to our form of government.... Every attempt made to array class against class, 'the classes against the masses,' section against section, labor against capital, 'the poor against the rich,' or interest against interest in the United States is in the highest degree reprehensible." In the Populist features of the Democratic platform he saw a grave menace to our institutions, but he accepted the challenge. "We avoid no issues. We meet the sudden, dangerous, and revolutionary assault upon law and order and upon those to whom is confided by the Constitution and laws the authority to uphold and maintain them, which our opponents have made, with the same courage that we have faced every emergency since our organization as a party more than forty years ago." _The Democratic Convention_ No doubt the decisive action of the Republican convention helped to consolidate the silver forces in the Democratic party; but even if the Republicans had obscured the silver question by a vague declaration, their opponents would have come out definitely against the gold standard. This was so apparent weeks before the Democratic national assembly met, that conservatives in the party talked of refusing to participate in the party councils, called at Chicago on July 7. They were aware also that other and deeper sources of discontent were bound to manifest themselves when the proceedings got under way. The storm which broke over the party had long been gathering. The Grange and Greenback movements did not disappear with the disappearance of the outward signs of organization; they only merged into the Populist movement with cumulative effect. The election of 1892 was ominous, for the agrarian party had polled a million votes. It had elected members of Congress and presidential electors; it was organized and determined. It arose from a mass of discontent which was justified, if misdirected. It was no temporary wave, as superficial observers have imagined. It had elements of solidity which neither of the old parties could ignore or cover up. No one was more conscious of this than the western and southern leaders in the Democratic party. They had been near the base of action, and they thought that what the eastern leaders called a riot was in fact the beginning of a revolution. Unwilling to desert their traditional party, they decided to make the party desert its traditions, and they came to the Democratic convention in Chicago prepared for war to the hilt.