PCARCH 24, 1S1I
5
The Commoner.
What Dreamers Have Ddne
Patrick Henry, Wendell Phillips and their Kind tat
Necessay and They Won in the End
Senator Boveridgo give us the following u
lila estimate of Mr. Bryan:
"Let no man denounce Mr. Bryan. Such men
are necessary to human progresa. Always auch
men have been the voico of a protest, but never
the statesman of a cause. Always they have
been the urgers of reform, but never the doera
of the work.
"Mr. Bryan is an Aaron, but not a Moses; a
Henry, but not a Washington ; a Wendell Phil
lips, but not an Abraham Lincoln. He is the
storm of unrest which clears the atmosphere,
but riot the trade winds that carry to port the
freighted ships of a people's hope.
"Four years ago, in his own home, paying
tribute to his character and mind, I called him
a dreamer who beholds happy visions but
achieves no useful deed. His is the mind that
thinks of the barren field bending with grain;
but his is not the plowman's hand, the sower's
craft or the gleaner's husbandry. The poet's
dream of an undiscovered Utopia has cheered
us all, but the Pilgrims, actually landing on
Plymouth Rock, planted the real tree of liberty,
beneath whose real shade wo rest and by whose
real fruits we live."
The distinguished senator does well to liken
Mr. Bryan to a man who looks upon a barren
waste of land and dreams of fields of golden
grain. Some dreamer on beholding the barren
wastes at the foothills of the Rocky mountains
dreamed of mighty dams in the mountain fast
nesses above, holding back the waters furnished
by the melting of the eternal snows, and of
thence conducting these waters through miles
of canals to the arid plains below, there to make
the parched earth into fields of waving golden
grain. But the "dreamer" did more than dream
he aroused the American congress and today
his dream of mountain dam, canal and fields
of waving grain is realized ftnd the American
desert is desert no longer.
What but a barren waste of insufferable op
pression aroused Patrick Henry to supreme
flights of oratory! What but the barren waste
of "man's inhumanity to man" aToused Phillips
so that he went forth a sower of good seed a
power unto salvation for the colored race. Verily
the "wrongs of man did make the love of God
more plain," who sent forth both sower and
reaper and the harvest was a' save free America.
"He that soweth the good seed is the Son of
Man" and that man lists through the ages and
this world of men he his name Him whom I
may not mention here, a Washington or Henry,
Phillips or Lincoln.
Senator Beveridge has not read history aright
when he forgets that Patrick Henry's eloquence
aroused the Virginians to a sense of their danger
and placed armies at the command of Washing
ton; that Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Gar
rison and Mrs. Stdwe, were not unimportant
factors, but were the only factors who aroused
the American people to the conviction that the
enslavement of man by man was a crime against
humanity and that their ''thirty years war" alone
made Lincoln and the emancipation proclama
tion possible. For thirty years they were de
nounced as impractical theorists, dreamers, and
reviled and hated as Mr. Bryan only has been
denounced, reviled and hated; but truth and
justice finally prevailed; John Brown died on
the scaffold, saying in spirit at least,
"As He died to make men Holy,
Let us die to make men free."
But that scaffold "swayed the future" and Lin
coln became president and the negro free.
Phillips, Garrison and Mrs. Stowe kept the faith
With brave, true hearts, and never faltered,
through dark fortune and through bright, as
has Mr. Bryan, with a courage that Senator
Beveridge may well emulate.
Patrick Henry, in his way, no less than Wash
ington, was necessary to the success of the
revolution; Phillips, Garrison, Lowell and Mrs.
Stowe alone made Lincoln possible; these were
the men and the one woman who dominated the
pioneer period of the movement for personal and
political freedom; these were the ones who
swayed the minds and aroused the patriotism
and conscience of the men and women of their
flay, as JMr. Bryan has in ours. These were the
dominating pioneer forces which culminated in
taa Declaration of Independence and the omancl
putSon proclamation.
0 William Jennings Bryan in his advocacy of
the past twelve years has alone made it posslblo
to, in some small measure, "write conscienco and
humanity on our statute books." For all these
reforms Bryan and Bryan alone has done the
pioneer work; he has led the way and has made
plain to the people as has no other man tho
dangers of our times. His was the clarion voico
calling in tho midnight darkness, in the morn
ing light, at high noon and at even tide, "Watch
man what of the night?" Without the aid of
his "disciples" in congress not one of the ro
forms of which the senator is so proud could
have been enacted into law.
"Let no man denounce Mr. Bryan," says Sen
ator Beveridge, and he might well have added,
"but let all men hail him as tho ploneor, tho one
only earnest, sincere man, who for twelve years
has patiently done his work amid a world of
vlllification and abuse and who now stands out
in bold relief as one among all, the dominating
mind in this new onward movement for tho bet
terment of tho social condition of mankind
everywhere.
I said at Alliance:
Every movement that has marked an epoch
in tho uplift of man and extension of representa
tive government has been marked by the in
dividuality of some great dominant mind. Crom
well easily became the head of the English revo
lution which freed England from tho tyranny of
her kings; Washington left his impress on tho
conflict that rescued America from European
domination; Napoleon restored order out of an
archy and rescued France from tho horrors of
her revolution; while Lincoln was the command-
ing spirit in the days of the anti-slavery struggle.
' So today this great onward social movement,
wider in its sweep than any other in our history,
and greater than any other In Its union of moral
and intellectual forces, and destined to bo more
effective than any other, Is dominated by tho
superb personality of William Jennings Bryan.
Emerson said of some one that he not merely
wrote his impress on the thought of his day
and generation, but he ploughed it in. So it
may be said of Bryan and this new movement
that ho has not simply written his name in tho
history of our time, but he has ploughed it in.
Bryan a dreamer says the senator, but he
should remember that all of the great men who
have left their impress on the world's history
were at times viewed with distrust and received
as impracticable dreamers and fanatics. This
is true of tho leaders of men in every avenue
of human activity. It is said that when the
inventor of the locomotive engine appeared be
fore a committee of parliament to explain his
invention, that he, proposed to place wooden
cross ties on the graded earth, with securely
bolted iron rail on these cross ties, and to
place his engine on this prepared track and
thus draw heavily laden coaches from point to
point at the rate of ten miles per hour. Ques
tioned if ho thought it would be possible to in
crease this speed to twelve miles per hour he
answered yes; fifteen miles per hour was sug
gested and again the answer came yes; twenty
miles an hour was asked and again came the
answer yes; though this time with some hesi
tation. Thereupon it is said the committee re
ported they could have nothing to do with such
an impracticable scheme of such a dreamer. So
with tho electric telegraph, the ocean cable, the
telephone, and in our day the wireless telegraph,
and so has every man been received who has
thought in advance of his time. You remember
the story of how Joseph was regarded by his
brethren, and received with the remark, "Hero
comes the dreamer," and they sold him. into
Egyptian slavery. But the bondman of Egypt
came to sit at the right hand of the king and
his brethren who sold him into bondage came
to crawl at his feet begging bread that they
might have the wherewithal to live. So today
the one time reviled and despised theorist, the
"Boy Orator of the Platte," has come to be the
foremost private citizen of the world, and those
who spat upon him a decade ago aTo now steal
ing political bread from his political table that
they may have the wherewithal to continue their
political existence. Surely the man who adheres
to the truth and sincerity comes in time to his
own reward. JOHN J. WHITACRE.
Waynesburg, O.
interests. Tho second relates to regularity, that
ho shall havo supported tho presidential ticket
of tho democratic party, not merely In 1904 but
also in 1396 and 1900 and 1908. Tho third
relates to tho kind of politico-business company
he keeps, tho character of his chief sponsors.
Now brace yourselves, brethren, for ponderous
editorial homilies in plutocratic papers on the
"selfishness of Bryan." They will tell you that
the first of Bryan's reuulsltos Is good. Tho
democratic aspirant must not ropresent tho In
terests; no indeed, and indeedy! But thoy will
also toll you to beware, lest you judge with the
improper severity which the third Bryan
requisite demands; and thoy will "tut-tut" tho
notion that a candidate Is a representative of
.the interests merely because ho keopB company
with "safe and sane" business men. Dollars to
doughnuts, O gentle reader, that tho plutocratic
editorial will chide tho "selfish Bryan" as to
those two points, tho first and the third, not
for demanding that tho candidate bo no repre
sentative of the interests, but for narrowness In
insisting that he must not bo a work-a-day chum
and a presidential protege of high priests of tho
interests.
It is for his demand for a record of regularity,
however, that "Bryan's selfishness" will bo made
to shine liko a revolving light on a dangerous
reef. But Bryan is right. That second requisite
is tho best of nil, insofar as any of three essential
parts of a wholo can bo better than tho others.
Tho second is tho practical test. An aspirant
for the democratic nomination might bo all right
on points one and three; but point two gives
tho significant reaction. Tho democrat who
shrinks from that test may bo trustworthy, but
unless his record otherwise Is so markedly dem
ocratic as to bo convincing, It will bo prudent
to let him drop by tho test of Bryan's second
requisite.
What! Reject a democratic democrat because
he bolted Bryan In 1896? Precisely. It Is in
contestlbly true that tho campaign of 1896 was
the first great battle at the polls between democ
racy and plutocracy. Gonuino democratic demo
crats who failed to see tho signs of tho times
high up in the political heavens then, may bo
forgiven for their error; but presidential timber
is not so scarce as to necessitate recourse to
any of their number for the democratic nominee
for president. If thoy bolted democracy or
sulked in 1896, because they liked plutocracy,
they cannot bo trusted now. The episode of
the. repentant thief? Yes, wo acknowledge that
as good religious- doctrine; but as a precedent
for presidential politics it is too risky. So much
for those who know what they were doing when
they bolted or sulked. If they didn't know, if
they only failed to recognize democracy as de
mocracy by its strange "silver" shibboleth of
tho passing moment, it comes In tho end to tho
same thing as if they did know; for then they
are intellectually unfit for the presidential nom
ination of a democratic democracy. The gen
uine democrat who In 1896 could not see what
the forces really were that fought each other,
lacked political perceptive power then and ho
may lack it yet. He is just as likely to get
muddled over misleading names and superficial
appearances In the future, as he was in 1896.
This is not to say that such men aTe intellectu
ally deficient In a general way. They may bo
able enough. They may be excellent for politi
cal fellowship and secondary political places.
Tho point is that, judged by their past, thoy
probably do not possess the kind of ability a
democratic democrat must havo as president in
these days of struggle between democracy and
plutocracy. Better presidential timber of tho
fundamentally democratic variety Is to be found
in tho republican party. And mark it well, a
goodly number of democratic voters will prefer
a republican nominee of this kind to a demo
cratic nominee of the other kind.
PRESIDENTIAL TESTS
(Louis F. Post, in The Public)
William J. Bryan has announced a test for
the democratic nomination for president in 1912.
He mentions three requisites. The first Is nega
tive, that the aspirant shall not represent the
IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE
Tho western railroads have decided to accept
tho decision of tho inter-state commerce com
mission prohibiting an increase in rates. Tho
eastern roads are considering the matter,
but several eastern lines have already accepted
tho decision. The patrons of tho roads thus
save somo twenty-seven millions annually
quite a snug sum that would havo gone to
the roads under the old plan of allowing the
roads to decide these questions for themselves.
Regulation is vindicated. And what about the
now exploded theory that the railroad managers
are the only people who are wise enough to
fix railroad rates? It looks as if tho members
of tho commission had somo sense, too. As
The Commoner baa had occasion to say before,
tho world moves forward.
rf JT"W.T.
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