“Bryan, with all his ignorance, his cheap demagogy, his intolerable gabble, his utter lack of common sense, and his general incapacity in every direction, is a typical Democrat of the new school. His weapon is wind. His stock in trade is his mouth. Mr. McKinley’s election—and we apologize to Mr. McKinley for printing his name in the same column with that of Bryan—is no longer in any doubt whatever. We salute the next President. As for Bryan, he is a candidate for the political ash-heap.” For efficient campaigning the two party organizations were most unevenly matched. The Republican National committee, under the directing genius of Mark Hanna, assisted liberally by the thoroughly affrighted financial and corporation magnates of the East, had at its disposal millions of dollars with which to organize, pay for speakers and literature, reward the efforts of newspapers and party workers, and debauch the electorate in states thought to be doubtful. It had the assistance of almost the entire metropolitan press—with the notable exception of the New York _Journal_—and the nearly united influence of the large employers of labor. And even further, it had the pulpit and the religious press. As the ministers of Christ’s gospel, in 1856, denounced and vilified Garrison and Phillips, so in 1896 they hurled anathema maranatha at Bryan and Altgeld. Grave and reverend preachers of national fame fulminated from their pulpits against “the accursed and treasonable aims” of Bryan and his supporters, and denounced them as “enemies of mankind.” Bishop John P. Newman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, denounced Bryan as an “anarchist,” and in the church conferences over which he presided urged the clergy to use their influence to defeat the Democratic nominees. The Rev. Cortland Myers, in the Baptist Temple at Brooklyn, said that “the Chicago platform was made in hell.” Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., at the Academy of Music, New York, called Bryan “a mouthing, slobbering demagogue, whose patriotism is all in his jaw bone.” Such were the cultured and scholarly contributions made by the noblest of professions to the discussion of an academic question of finance in the year of our Lord 1896. The Democratic committee had little money. It had the support of but few large newspapers. It was fighting the battles of a party that had been disrupted and rent in twain at the Chicago convention. In every state and almost every county of the Union the old local and national leaders of the party had deserted, and the faithful but disorganized followers of Bryan had to be moulded anew into the likeness of an army.