As the presidential campaign of 1896 approached I had given up all thoughts of politics, and had again resumed the historical work to which I proposed to devote, mainly, the rest of my life--the preparation of a biographical history of modern Germany, for which I had brought together a large amount of material and had prepared much manuscript.
I also hoped to live long enough to put into shape for publication a series of lectures, on which I had obtained a mass of original material in France, upon ``The Causes of the French Revolution''; and had the new campaign been like any of those during the previous twenty years, it would not have interested me. But suddenly news came of the nomination by the Democrats of Mr. Bryan.
The circumstances attending this showed clearly that the coming contest involved, distinctly, the question between the forces of virtual repudiation, supporting a policy which meant not merely national disaster but generations of dishonor on the one side, and, on the other, Mr. McKinley, supporting a policy of financial honesty. Having then been called upon to preside over a Republican meeting at Ithaca, I made a speech which was published and widely circulated, giving the reasons why all thinking men of both parties ought to rally in support of the Republican candidate, and this I followed with an open letter to many leading Democrats in the State. It was begun as a private letter to a valued Democratic friend, Mr. Oscar S. Straus, who has twice proved himself a most useful and patriotic minister of the United States at Constantinople. But, as my pen was moving, another Democratic friend came into my mind, then another, and again another, until finally my views were given in an open letter to them all;and this having been submitted to a friend in New York, with permission to use it as he thought best, he published it. The result seemed fortunate. It was at once caught up by the press and republished in all parts of the country.
I cannot claim that the gentlemen to whom I wrote were influenced by it, but certain it is that in spite of their earnest differences from President McKinley on very important questions, their feeling that this campaign involved issues superior to any of those which had hitherto existed, led all of them, either directly or indirectly, to support him.
At the suggestion of various friends, I also republished in a more extended form my pamphlet on ``Paper Money Inflation in France: How it Came, What it Brought, and How it Ended,'' which had first been published at the suggestion of General Garfield and others, as throwing light on the results of a debased currency, and it was now widely circulated in all parts of the country.
Mr. McKinley was elected, and thus, in my judgment, was averted the greatest peril which our Republic has encountered since the beginning of the Civil War. Having now some time for myself, I accepted sundry invitations to address the students of two of the greater State universities of the West. It gave me pleasure to visit them, on many accounts, and above all for the purpose of realizing the magnificent advance that has been made by them in becoming universities worthy of our country.
My anticipations were far more than met. My old student and successor at the University of Michigan as professor and at Cornell University as president, Dr. Charles Kendall Adams, welcomed me to the institution over which he so worthily presided--the State University of Wisconsin;and having visited it a quarter of a century before, I was now amazed at its progress. The subject of my address, in the presence of the whole body of students was ``Evolution versus Revolution in Politics,'' and never have I spoken with more faith and hope. Looking into the faces of that immense assembly of students, in training for the best work of their time, lifted me above all doubts as the future of that commonwealth.
From Madison I went to Minneapolis under an invitation to address the students at the State University of Minnesota, and again my faith and hope were renewed as I looked into the faces of those great audiences of young men and young women. They filled me with confidence in the future of the country. At Minneapolis I also met various notable men, among them Archbishop Ireland, who had interested me much at a former meeting in Philadelphia. I became sure that whatever ecclesiastics of his church generally might feel toward the United States, he was truly patriotic. Alas for both church and state that such prelates as Gibbons, Ireland, Keane, Spalding, and the like, should be in a minority!
