and as freely forgive. I desire to present to you in remembrance of these pleasant meetings, this little volume, because it contains "Gray's Elegy," in the perusal of which I trust you will find as much pleasure and profit as I have. It is one of the most beautiful and touching tributes to humble life that literature contains. Grand in its sentiment and sublime in its simplicity, we can both find in it a solace in victory or defeat. If success should crown your efforts in this campaign and it should be your lot

"The applause of listening senates to command," And I am left

"A youth to fortune and to fame unknown,"

Forget not us, who in the common walks of life perform our part, but in the hour of your triumph recall the verse: "Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys and destinies obscure,
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor."

If, on the other hand, by the verdict of my countrymen I should be made your successor, let it not be said of you"And melancholy marked him for her own,”

But find sweet consolation in the thought

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

But whether the palm of victory is given to you or to me, let us remember those of whom the poet says:

"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;

Along the cool, sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."

These are the ones most likely to be forgotten by government. When they cry out for relief they too often hear no answer but the "echo of their cry," while the rich, the strong, the powerful are given an attentive ear.

For this reason is class legislation dangerous and deadly; it takes from the least able to give and gives to those who are least in need. The safety of our farmers and our laborers is not in special legislation, but in equal and just laws, that bear alike on every man. The great mass of our people are interested, not in getting their hands into other people's pockets, but in keeping the hands of other people out of their pockets.

Let me in parting express the hope that you and I may

be instrumental in bringing our government back to better
laws, which will treat every man in all our land alike
without regard to creed or condition. I bid you a friendly
farewell.

RENOMINATION DECLINED.

As the end of his second congressional term approached, in the fall of 1894, Mr. Bryan declined to be a candidate for re-election, and was announced as a candidate for United States Senator, according to a provision of the constitution of Nebraska. Having been endorsed by a Free-Silver Democratic State Convention, which also adopted the Populist candidate for Governor, he entered upon the campaign with all his accustomed zeal and power. Had the Populists and Democrats elected a majority of the legis lature his election to the Senate was generally conceded.

Of joint debates, with the Hon. John M. Thurston, who was elected to the Senate by a Republican legislature, it is safe to say, that no such wild enthusiasm ever before possessed Nebraska audiences; and no greater display of forensic eloquence ever repaid their devoted attention.

HONORABLE PROMOTION.

On his first election, as the second Democrat from the State, and predicated on his splendid canvass, party papers at once demanded for him unusual recognition upon the committees of the House. In addition to this, his Illinois friend, Mr. Springer, was made chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and knowing of the ability and acquirements of the young member from the West desired him as a colleague. But to the members, generally, he was only a legislative novice from a purely agricultural state. On the 16th of March, 1892, he delivered a tariff speech of which a correspondent said:

When William Jennings Bryan arose in his.seat in the House last week to address that body on the tariff question those who knew him best did not doubt that he would do himself and his party credit, but even his most sanguine friends were unprepared for the sensation that his speech created. It is no stretch of the imagination to say that this speech was a sensation, for rarely before in the history of

Congress has a new man been accorded the attention or
awarded the praise that has fallen to the rising young
statesman from Nebraska. When he began to speak the Re-
publicans looked on with something of curiosity, but curi-
osity soon gave way to interest, and interest developed into
admiration as the conviction became apparent that it was
not the argument of a novice that was being delivered.

When the next morning's sun arose Mr. Bryan found that
he was famous and that his political sun was already high in
the heavens. Without exception the papers all over the
country spoke in the most glowing terms of this new light
in the Democratic party, and predicted a brilliant future
for him.

GEMS.

In presenting a summary of this "maiden effort," an admission of failure on the part of the compiler need not humiliate, considering how far disjointed parts fall beneath a harmonious whole. As a compiler, however, I will give a pen picture of him, in colors of his own compounding, as he stands out on the plane of the Congressional Record.

FIRST, AS A FEARLESS, SELF-POISED ANTAGONIST.

In his opening sentence he accepted the protection challenge of Mr. Dingley, of Maine, and waiving all conventional formalities, as a new member, thrust a javelin at once in the side of the opposition party, whom he described as occupying the "wedge shaped space on what used to be called the Republican side." Said he:

I consider myself fortunate that I am permitted to hear protection doctrine from its highest source. Out in Nebraska we are so far away from the beneficiaries of a tariff that the argument, namely, justification of protection, in traveling that long distance, becomes somewhat diluted and often polluted, so that I am glad to be permitted to drink the water, fresh from its fountains in Maine and Massachusetts, and I will assure the gentleman that those of us who believe in tariff reform are willing to meet him on the principles involved not only here, but everywhere.

At the end of an hour, having revealed himself as a sound, logical debater, Mr. Burrows (Republican) moved that he be