=The Heated Campaign.=—­The campaign which ensued outrivaled in the range of its educational activities and the bitterness of its tone all other political conflicts in American history, not excepting the fateful struggle of 1860.  Immense sums of money were contributed to the funds of both parties.  Railway, banking, and other corporations gave generously to the Republicans; the silver miners, less lavishly but with the same anxiety, supported the Democrats.  The country was flooded with pamphlets, posters, and handbills.  Every public forum, from the great auditoriums of the cities to the “red schoolhouses” on the countryside, was occupied by the opposing forces.

Mr. Bryan took the stump himself, visiting all parts of the country in special trains and addressing literally millions of people in the open air.  Mr. McKinley chose the older and more formal plan.  He received delegations at his home in Canton and discussed the issues of the campaign from his front porch, leaving to an army of well-organized orators the task of reaching the people in their home towns.  Parades, processions, and monster demonstrations filled the land with politics.  Whole states were polled in advance by the Republicans and the doubtful voters personally visited by men equipped with arguments and literature.  Manufacturers, frightened at the possibility of disordered public credit, announced that they would close their doors if the Democrats won the election.  Men were dismissed from public and private places on account of their political views, one eminent college president being forced out for advocating free silver.  The language employed by impassioned and embittered speakers on both sides roused the public to a state of frenzy, once more showing the lengths to which men could go in personal and political abuse.

=The Republican Victory.=—­The verdict of the nation was decisive.  McKinley received 271 of the 447 electoral votes, and 7,111,000 popular votes as against Bryan’s 6,509,000.  The congressional elections were equally positive although, on account of the composition of the Senate, the “hold-over” Democrats and Populists still enjoyed a power out of proportion to their strength as measured at the polls.  Even as it was, the Republicans got full control of both houses—­a dominion of the entire government which they were to hold for fourteen years—­until the second half of Mr. Taft’s administration, when they lost possession of the House of Representatives.  The yoke of indecision was broken.  The party of sound finance and protective tariffs set out upon its lease of power with untroubled assurance.

REPUBLICAN MEASURES AND RESULTS