Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell Page A
Authors: John A. Farrell
Ads: Link
“Can anything be done … before liberty is dead?” Darrow wrote to Lloyd. “This is one of the days I feel blue.”
Lloyd tried to cheer him up. “Where the plutes are wrong is in their folly of supposing that they can cure … by force. They are as blind as the fools of power have always been,” he told Darrow. “The radicalism of the fanatics of wealth fills me with hope.” The 1894 contest had shown a way for the “Popucrats”—a coalition of the common man that would wrestle the Democratic Party from Cleveland and Wall Street and return it to the masses. “The revolution,” Lloyd said, “has come.” 15
Altgeld, too, was undeterred. He decided that the vehicle to crush Cleveland was the “free silver” issue—the demand that the United States base its currency on silver as well as gold. Because tight-money policies favored banks and creditors, Altgeld “always believed that … the demonetization of silver was a crime against the debtor and the poor,” said Darrow. As an economic prescription, Altgeld knew “that this question was magnified out of its true importance,” Darrow acknowledged, but as a potent political tool, thesilver issue had no rival. It became a vessel for a wide range of class and regional grievances. It was West versus East, and poor versus rich, and farmer versus banker. Tugged each way were workers and shopkeepers and middle-class professionals, whoseyearning for stability warred with their resentment against the commercial oligarchs.
In the middle, as well, was Illinois. The two electoral giants, New York and Pennsylvania, were reliably for gold andGrover Cleveland, but if Altgeld could turn Illinois and the Midwest to silver, he could make his revolution. So Altgeld labored. So did Darrow, who shook off his blues and chaired the Chicago’s People’s Party 1895 convention, where he was chosen by acclamation to run for mayor. He had declined the nomination, citing the burden of his law practice.
The Illinois Democrats now split in two. Altgeld called for a Democratic “silver convention” to swing the party to the cause. Cleveland’s supporters, known as “gold bugs,” organized the “Honest Money League” in response.
TheIroquois Club was shattered. Altgeld “is a good hater, and hates Mr. Cleveland so bitterly I am satisfied he started this agitation,” federal postmasterWashington Hesing, a gold bug, declared at a meeting. When Darrow stood to defend the silver movement, hecklers interrupted him, demanding to know if he was still a Democrat.
“Find one word or one line which Thomas Jefferson ever wrote in favor of a gold standard,” Darrow challenged them, “or which any Democratic President ever uttered or supported up to the days of King Grover.”
His foes cried, “Shame! Shame!”
“A fig for your cries of ‘Shame!’ It is true,” said Darrow. “No person disputes the historical proposition that gold and silver were the constitutional legal money of the United States, that the mass of indebtedness that exists today, private, municipal and national, was contracted to be paid in gold and silver alike.”
The meeting ended in tumult. Postmaster Hesing and former mayorJohn Hopkins almost came to blows in the club dining room, and might have had not Hesing grown so angry that he lapsed into his native German, mystifying Hopkins, who understood that he was being insulted but did not know exactly how.
The 1896 presidential election now commanded Darrow’s attention. Altgeld set out to seize control of the party at the Democratic national convention in Chicago that July, with a platform that called for a gold-and-silver-backed currency, safeguards for the right to strike, enactmentof an income tax, and other Populist planks. “It was a great revolutionary document,” said Darrow, which “breathed a spirit of defiance to the tyranny of the rich.” Never had a political party so repudiated its own incumbent president.
Yet Altgeld lacked a
Lloyd tried to cheer him up. “Where the plutes are wrong is in their folly of supposing that they can cure … by force. They are as blind as the fools of power have always been,” he told Darrow. “The radicalism of the fanatics of wealth fills me with hope.” The 1894 contest had shown a way for the “Popucrats”—a coalition of the common man that would wrestle the Democratic Party from Cleveland and Wall Street and return it to the masses. “The revolution,” Lloyd said, “has come.” 15
Altgeld, too, was undeterred. He decided that the vehicle to crush Cleveland was the “free silver” issue—the demand that the United States base its currency on silver as well as gold. Because tight-money policies favored banks and creditors, Altgeld “always believed that … the demonetization of silver was a crime against the debtor and the poor,” said Darrow. As an economic prescription, Altgeld knew “that this question was magnified out of its true importance,” Darrow acknowledged, but as a potent political tool, thesilver issue had no rival. It became a vessel for a wide range of class and regional grievances. It was West versus East, and poor versus rich, and farmer versus banker. Tugged each way were workers and shopkeepers and middle-class professionals, whoseyearning for stability warred with their resentment against the commercial oligarchs.
In the middle, as well, was Illinois. The two electoral giants, New York and Pennsylvania, were reliably for gold andGrover Cleveland, but if Altgeld could turn Illinois and the Midwest to silver, he could make his revolution. So Altgeld labored. So did Darrow, who shook off his blues and chaired the Chicago’s People’s Party 1895 convention, where he was chosen by acclamation to run for mayor. He had declined the nomination, citing the burden of his law practice.
The Illinois Democrats now split in two. Altgeld called for a Democratic “silver convention” to swing the party to the cause. Cleveland’s supporters, known as “gold bugs,” organized the “Honest Money League” in response.
TheIroquois Club was shattered. Altgeld “is a good hater, and hates Mr. Cleveland so bitterly I am satisfied he started this agitation,” federal postmasterWashington Hesing, a gold bug, declared at a meeting. When Darrow stood to defend the silver movement, hecklers interrupted him, demanding to know if he was still a Democrat.
“Find one word or one line which Thomas Jefferson ever wrote in favor of a gold standard,” Darrow challenged them, “or which any Democratic President ever uttered or supported up to the days of King Grover.”
His foes cried, “Shame! Shame!”
“A fig for your cries of ‘Shame!’ It is true,” said Darrow. “No person disputes the historical proposition that gold and silver were the constitutional legal money of the United States, that the mass of indebtedness that exists today, private, municipal and national, was contracted to be paid in gold and silver alike.”
The meeting ended in tumult. Postmaster Hesing and former mayorJohn Hopkins almost came to blows in the club dining room, and might have had not Hesing grown so angry that he lapsed into his native German, mystifying Hopkins, who understood that he was being insulted but did not know exactly how.
The 1896 presidential election now commanded Darrow’s attention. Altgeld set out to seize control of the party at the Democratic national convention in Chicago that July, with a platform that called for a gold-and-silver-backed currency, safeguards for the right to strike, enactmentof an income tax, and other Populist planks. “It was a great revolutionary document,” said Darrow, which “breathed a spirit of defiance to the tyranny of the rich.” Never had a political party so repudiated its own incumbent president.
Yet Altgeld lacked a
Similar Books
