By February, 1895, the treasury found itself confronted with a reserve of only $41,000,000. It seemed useless to attempt borrowing under the usual conditions, and Cleveland therefore resorted to a new device. A contract was made with J.P. Morgan and a group of bankers for the purchase of 3,500,000 ounces of gold to be paid for with United States four per cent. bonds. In order to protect the reserve from a renewed drain, the bankers agreed that at least half the gold should be obtained abroad, and they promised to exert all their influence to prevent withdrawals of gold from the treasury while the contract was being filled. The terms of the contract were favorable to the bankers, but the President defended the agreement on the ground that the promise to protect the reserve entitled the bankers to a favorable bargain. The fact, however, that the Morgan Company was able to market the bonds with the public and make a large profit, increased the demand that the administration sell directly to the people and make the profit itself. In January, 1896, occurred a fourth sale--to the public, this time--and 4,640 bids were received, for a total several times greater than the $100,000,000 called for. By this time, business conditions were improving, confidence was restored among the financial classes and gold again began to flow out of hiding and into the treasury. The endless chain was broken. The denunciation which Cleveland received for the untoward monetary and industrial events of his administration was unusual even for American politics in the middle nineties. Such extreme silver men as Senator Stewart of Nevada declared that Cleveland's second administration was probably the worst administration that ever occurred in this or any other country; that he was a bold and unscrupulous stock-jobber; that he deliberately caused the panic of 1893 and that he sent the Venezuela message in order to divert the attention of the people from the silver question. The New York _World_ described the transaction between the government and the Morgan Company as a "bunco" game, and charged that Cleveland had dishonest, dishonorable and immoral reasons for bringing about the transaction and that he did it for a "consideration." Representative W.J. Bryan, who belonged to the President's party and who ordinarily was chivalrous to his opponents, declared that Cleveland could no more escape unharmed from association with the Morgan syndicate than he could expect to escape asphyxiation if he locked himself up in a room and turned on the gas. The Democratic party, he thought, should feel toward its leader as a confiding ward would feel toward a guardian who had squandered a rich estate, or as a passenger would feel toward a trainman who opened a switch and precipitated a wreck. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE