William J.Bryan of Nebraska was then displaying in the House the oratorical accomplishments and dauntless energy of character which soon thereafter gained him the party leadership.

With prolific rhetoric, he likened President Cleveland to a guardian who had squandered the estate of a confiding ward and to a trainman who opened a switch and caused a wreck, and he declared that the President in trying to inoculate the Democratic party with Republican virus had poisoned its blood.
Shortly after the last Democratic Congress--the last for many years--the Supreme Court undid one of the few successful achievements of this party when it was in power.

The Tariff Bill contained a section imposing a tax of two per cent on incomes in excess of $4000.

A case was framed attacking the constitutionality of the tax,* the parties on both sides aiming to defeat the law and framing the issues with that purpose in view.

On April 8, 1895, the Supreme Court rendered a judgment which showed that the Court was evenly divided on some points.