member_of_political_party richard p. bland
Richard Parks Bland ( August 19 , 1835 -- June 15 , 1899 ) was an American politician , lawyer , and educator from Missouri . A Democrat , Bland served in the United States Congress a total of twenty - four years between 1873 and 1899 , representing at various times the Missouri 5th , 8th and 11th congressional districts . Nicknamed `` Silver Dick '' for his efforts to promote a United States return to bimetallism and an advocate of the ___MASK79___ movement , Bland is best known for the Bland -- Allison Act . The act , passed over President Rutherford B . Hayes veto in 1878 , required the U . S . Treasury to buy a certain amount of silver and put it into circulation as silver dollars . Bland was a U . S . Presidential candidate in 1896 , seeking the Democratic presidential nomination but lost to William Jennings Bryan . Rutherford Birchard Hayes ( October 4 , 1822  January 17 , 1893 ) was the 19th President of the United States ( 1877  81 ). He became President at the end of the Reconstruction Era of the United States through a complex Compromise of 1877 . As President he ended Army support for Republican state governments in the South , promoted civil service reform , and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War and Reconstruction . Thomas Woodrow Wilson ( December 28 , 1856  February 3 , 1924 ) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921 . Born in Staunton , Virginia , he spent his early years in Augusta , Georgia and Columbia , South Carolina . Wilson earned a PhD in political science at Johns Hopkins University , and served as a professor and scholar at various institutions before being selected as President of Princeton University , a position he held from 1902 to 1910 . In 1910 , he was the New Jersey ___MASK88___ ' s gubernatorial candidate and was elected the 34th Governor of New Jersey , serving from 1911 to 1913 . In the 1912 presidential election , Wilson benefited from a split in the Republican Party to win the presidency , gaining a large majority in the Electoral College and a 42 % plurality of the popular vote in a four  candidate field . He was the first Southerner elected as president since Zachary Taylor in 1848 , and Wilson was a leading force in the Progressive Movement , bolstered by his ___MASK88___ ' s winning control of both the White House and Congress in 1912 . The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent . Flowing entirely in the United States ( although its drainage basin reaches into Canada ), it rises in northern Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico . With its many tributaries , the Mississippi ' s watershed drains all or parts of 31 U . S . states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains . The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge . ___MASK54___ either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Illinois , Missouri , Kentucky , Tennessee , Arkansas , Mississippi , and Louisiana . The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers : the Senate and the House of Representatives . The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington , D . C . Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election , though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment . Members are usually affiliated to the ___MASK92___ or to the ___MASK88___ , and only rarely to a third party or as independents . Congress has 535 voting members : 435 Representatives and 100 Senators . The House of Representatives has six non - voting members in addition to its 435 voting members . These members can , however , sit on congressional committees and introduce legislation . These members represent Washington , D . C ., Puerto Rico , American Samoa , Guam , the Northern Mariana Islands and the U . S . Virgin Islands . ___MASK79___ was a major policy issue in late 19th - century American politics . Its advocates were in favor of an inflationary monetary policy using the " free coinage of silver " as opposed to the deflationary gold standard . Its supporters were " Silverites ". The Silverites promoted bimetallism , the use of both silver and gold as currency at the ratio of 16 to 1 ( 16 ounces of silver would be worth 1 ounce of gold ). Because the actual value ratio was about 32 to 1 at the time , most economists warned that the cheaper silver would drive the more expensive gold out of circulation . Everyone agreed that ___MASK79___ would raise prices ; the question was whether or not this inflationary measure would be beneficial . The issue peaked from 1893 to 1896 , when the economy was in a severe depression  called the Panic of 1893  characterized by falling prices ( deflation ), high unemployment in industrial areas , and severe distress for farmers . The Silverites were members of a political movement in the United States in the late - 19th century that advocated that silver should continue to be a monetary standard along with gold , as authorized under the Coinage Act of 1792 . The Silverite coalition ' s famous slogan was " 16 to 1 "  that is , the ratio of sixteen ounces of silver equal in value to one ounce of gold , a ratio similar to that established in the Coinage Act of 1834 . Silverites belonged to a number of political parties , including the ___MASK21___ , Populist Party , ___MASK88___ , and the Silver Republican Party . Popular democracy is a notion of direct democracy based on referendums and other devices of empowerment and concretization of ___MASK84___ . The concept evolved out of the political philosophy of Populism , as a fully democratic version of this popular empowerment ideology , but since it has become ___MASK15___ of it , and some even discuss if they are antagonistic or unrelated now ( see Values ). Though the expression has been used since the 19th century and may be applied to English Civil War politics , at least the notion ( or the notion in its current form ) is deemed recent and has only recently been fully developed . Missouri ( see pronunciations ) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States , achieving statehood in 1821 . With over six million residents , it is the eighteenth most populous state and host to the mean center of United States population . The largest urban areas are St . Louis , Kansas City , Springfield , and Columbia . The capitol is in Jefferson City on the Missouri River . The state is the twenty - first most extensive by area and is geographically diverse . The Northern Plains were once covered by glaciers , then tallgrass prairie , and now the deep soils yield great agricultural productivity . In the South are the Ozarks , a forested highland , providing timber , minerals , and recreation . The Mississippi River forms the eastern border of the state , eventually flowing into the swampy Missouri Bootheel . Kansas is a U . S . state located in the Midwestern United States . Its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita . Kansas is named after the Kansa Native American tribe , which inhabited the area . The tribe ' s name ( natively "") is often said to mean " people of the wind " or " people of the south wind ", although this was probably not the term ' s original meaning . For thousands of years , what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes . Tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along ___MASK54___ valleys . Tribes in the western part of the state were semi - nomadic and hunted large herds of bison . William Jennings Bryan ( March 19 , 1860  July 26 , 1925 ) was an American orator and politician from Nebraska , and a dominant force in the populist wing of the ___MASK88___ , standing three times as the Party ' s nominee for President of the United States ( 1896 , 1900 , and 1908 ). He served two terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Nebraska and was United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson ( 1913  1915 ). He resigned because of his pacifist position on World War I . Bryan was a devout Presbyterian , a strong advocate of popular democracy , and an enemy of the banks and the gold standard . He demanded " Free Silver " because he believed it undermined the evil " Money Power " and put more cash in the hands of the common people . He was a peace advocate , a supporter of Prohibition , and an opponent of Darwinism on religious and humanitarian grounds . With his deep , commanding voice and wide travels , he was perhaps the best - known orator and lecturer of the era . Because of his faith in the wisdom of the common people , he was called " The Great Commoner ". St . Louis is an ___MASK15___ city and major U . S . port in the State of Missouri , built along the western bank of the Mississippi River , on the border with Illinois . The city has an estimated 2015 population of 315 , 685 , and is the cultural and economic center of the Greater St . Louis area ( home to 2 , 916 , 447 people ), making it the largest metropolitan area in Missouri and the 19th - largest in the United States . The Missouri River is the longest river in North America . Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana , the Missouri flows east and south for before entering the Mississippi River north of St . Louis , Missouri . ___MASK54___ takes drainage from a sparsely populated , semi - arid watershed of more than half a million square miles ( 1 , 300 , 000 km ), which includes parts of ten U . S . states and two Canadian provinces . When combined with the lower Mississippi River , it forms the world ' s fourth longest river system . The Compromise of 1877 was a purported informal , unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U . S . presidential election . It resulted in the national government pulling the last federal troops out of the South , and formally ended the Reconstruction Era . Through the Compromise , Republican Rutherford B . Hayes was awarded the White House over Democrat Samuel J . Tilden on the understanding that Hayes would remove the federal troops whose support was essential for the survival of Republican state governments in South Carolina , Florida and Louisiana . The compromise involved ___MASK43___ who controlled the House of Representatives allowing the decision of the Electoral Commission to take effect . The outgoing president , Republican Ulysses S . Grant , removed the soldiers from Florida . As president , Hayes removed the remaining troops from South Carolina and Louisiana . As soon as the troops left , many white Republicans also left , and the " Redeemer " ___MASK43___ took control . They already dominated most other state governments in the South . What was exactly agreed is somewhat contested as the documentation is scanty . A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different nations , constituent states , ___MASK15___ organizations ( such as trade unions ), or groups .