On the morning of March 4, 1901, when Mr. McKinley took the oath of office to succeed himself as President, it appeared to the superficial observer that the Populist movement had spent its strength and disappeared. Such was the common remark of the time. To discredit a new proposition it was only necessary to observe that it was as dead as Populism. Twice had the country repudiated Mr. Bryan and his works, the second time even more emphatically than the first; and the radical ideas which had been associated with his name, often quite erroneously, seemed to be permanently laid to rest. The country was prosperous; it congratulated itself on the successful outcome of the war with Spain and accepted the imperialist policies which followed with evident satisfaction. Industries under the protection of the Dingley Act and undisturbed by threats of legislative interference went forward with renewed vigor. Capital began to reach out for foreign markets and investments as never before. Statesmen of Mr. Hanna's school looked upon their work and pronounced it good. But Populism was not dead. Defeated in the field of national politics, it began to work from the ground upward, attacking one piece of political machinery after another and pressing upon unwilling state legislatures new forms of agrarian legislation. The People's party, at its convention in 1896, had declared in favor of "a system of direct legislation through the initiative and referendum, under proper constitutional safeguards"; and Mr. Bryan two years later announced his belief in the system, saying: "The principle of the initiative and referendum is democratic. It will not be opposed by any Democrat who indorses the declaration of Jefferson that the people are capable of self-government; nor will it be opposed by any Republican who holds to Lincoln's idea that this should be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."[70]