The letter and spirit of that plank were such as the great majority of the convention were thoroughly in sympathy with. The result of the great silver propaganda of the two years preceding had been to send to the convention honest and sincere men with profound convictions and the courage to express them. To do this, they knew, would be revolutionary, even as had been the platforms on which the Pathfinder, Fremont, and the Liberator, Lincoln, ran. But the spirit of revolution from cant and equivoque was rife in that convention. Of that spirit William Jennings Bryan was the prophet. In a speech that thrilled into men’s minds and hearts his defiance and contempt of the opportunists’ policy, his own fearless confidence in the all-conquering power of truth, he stirred into an unrestrained tempest the long pent emotions of the delegates. When he had finished not only was the adoption of the platform by a vote of two to one assured, but the convention had found its leader whom it would commission to go forth to preach the old, old gospel of democracy, rescued from its years of sleep. The nature of Mr. Bryan’s speech may be gained from these brief extracts: “When you (turning to the gold delegates) come before us and tell us we are about to disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your course. We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at a cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, who begins in the spring and toils all summer, and who, by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country, creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain: the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak for this broader class of business men.