"I shall not slander the fair State of Massachusetts, nor the State of New York, by saying that when its citizens are confronted with the proposition, 'Is this nation able to attend to its own business?'--I will not slander either one by saying that the people of those States will declare our helpless impotency as a nation to attend to our own business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but 3,000,000, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to 70,000,000, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers? No, my friends, it will never be the judgment of this people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but we cannot have it till some nation helps us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States have. "If they dare to come out and in the open defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the Nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." The record of the convention states that "the conclusion of Mr. Bryan's speech was the signal for a tremendous outburst of noise, cheers, etc. The standards of many states were carried from their places and gathered about the Nebraska delegation." Never in the history of convention oratory had a speaker so swayed the passions of his auditors and so quickly made himself unquestionably "the man of the hour."