 Dawes had known Bryan in Nebraska and predicted that if Bryan got to address the convention , he would use his skills as a speaker to stampede it to a nomination . McKinley and Hanna mocked Dawes , telling him that Bland would be the Democratic choice . The 1896 Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago on July 7 , with the silverites in full control ; they drafted a platform supporting free silver . The final speaker during the debate on the platform was former congressman Bryan , who with Dawes in the gallery delivered a speech decrying the gold standard that to Democrats , according to Phillips , was " messianic — a call to arms " . Dawes deemed his friend 's Cross of Gold speech magnificent , though with " <unk> weak " logic , but it won Bryan the presidential nomination , and Phillips noted that the address " unnerved Midwestern Republicans , mindful of their own distrust of the East , and threw a weighty stone into the quiet pool of June GOP electoral assumptions " . 
