This shows an increase for the year of 76 per cent. in the number of institutions and of 60 per cent. in stock and bonded debt. But it shows more than this. According to the census of 1890 the entire capital employed in manufacturing and mechanical industries was $6,525,000,000. A comparison of this figure with the stock and bonds of trusts for 1899 shows that the capitalization of these gigantic combines was equal to 90 per cent. of the entire manufacturing investments of 1890. It was such significant figures as these that woke the country to a realization of the imminence and great importance of the trust problem. It was felt that the most stupendous industrial revolution in the history of the world was on, because it was realized how closely our industrial system had approached to complete absorption under monopolistic control. Industry at large was becoming organized into a system of feudalized corporations. Each was stifling competition, discouraging enterprise, and padlocking the gates of opportunity. Together they were in absolute mastery of the industrial field. The menacing danger of the situation was early realized, and the “anti-trust” movement progressed side by side with the opposition to imperialism. The fight was to be one of individualism against a gigantic and arrogant plutocracy, the forces of individualism contending for the doctrines of liberty and equal opportunity as against the reactionary tendencies of which trusts and imperialism were the supremest manifestations. In this Titanic struggle it was but fitting that the Jeffersonian hosts should be marshaled under the leadership of the brave, aggressive, eloquent, and inspired evangel of the doctrines of the Fathers—William J. Bryan. [Illustration: DAVID B. HILL] RENOMINATION When the result of the great presidential contest of 1896 was made known, Mr. Bryan’s political enemies, both in and out of the Democratic party, loudly proclaimed that “Bryanism”—or “Bryanarchy,” as a green-eyed relict of Mr. Cleveland’s second cabinet terms it—was dead and buried. Some said it was “too dead to bury.” And Bryan himself, they gleefully asserted, had died with the death of ideas to which he was wedded. Doubtless many of them believed this. The fierce and determined onslaught of the silver men in that memorable campaign had so wrought upon the fears of the class of Americans of whom Marcus A. Hanna and Pierpont Morgan are representative, that, in their nervous hysteria after their narrow escape, they were in a frame of mind where but little evidence was required to induce great faith. And, moreover, the decisive defeat which Bryan had suffered, considered in its probable effect on his disorganized following, was such as naturally gave birth to the hope that to the outstretched palms of the repudiated and disowned leaders of the party, such as Mr. Cleveland, might soon be restored in contrition the insignia of power and authority.