I have been accused, sometimes, of want of sincerity, and,
by one leading New England paper, with having an imperfect
and confused understanding of the subject. Perhaps I may
be pardoned, therefore, for quoting two testimonials to the
value of my personal contribution to this debate. One came
from Senator Clay of Georgia, one of the ablest of the Democratic
leaders. After I had stated my doctrine in a brief speech
in the Senate one day, he crossed the chamber and said to
me that, while he did not accept it, he thought I had made
the ablest and most powerful statement of it he had ever heard
or read. The other came from Charles Emory Smith, afterward
a member of President McKinley's Cabinet and editor of the
_Press,_ a leading paper in Philadelphia. I have his letter
in which he says that he think an edition of at least a million
copies of my speech on gold and silver should be published
and circulated through the country. He also said, in an article
in the _Saturday Evening Post,_ June 14, 1902:
"In the great contest over the repeal of the Silver Purchase
Act he made the most luminous exposition, both of what had
been done, and the reasons for it; and what ought to be done,
and the grounds for it, that was heard in the Senate.
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