Politics between the gold and silver factions resembled negotiations between two armies at war, conducted at arm's length and with only so much trust as might be engendered by the harm they could inflict on one another. Because they were the smaller of those armies, the gold men were going to lose that struggle. And that fact brought with it the very real threat of civil war within their own ranks. That threat was a major reason why the internal politics of the gold wing at the convention was almost entirely independent of the decisions and strategies pursued by the dominant silver wing.

The basic problem facing the gold men emerged from the contradiction between the need for unity at the convention and the reality that, once the convention ended, their personal interests were going to produce different responses to the triumph of the silver faction. The challenge facing the gold generals was to preserve discipline in the face of a much larger enemy until the all but inevitable point was reached when all their soldiers would rout. When this situation of “every man for himself” emerged, each gold man would have to make one of four choices: (1) swallow his medicine and endorse the silver platform and candidate; (2) do nothing, endorsing no platform or candidate in the presidential race; (3) back an independent platform with a gold Democrat as the candidate; or (4) endorse William McKinley and the Republican platform.