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merchants will not long suffer themselves
ought not to suffer themselves to be placed at
gucli a disadvantage. Our industries have ex
panded to such a point that they will burst their
Jackets, if they can not find a free outlet to the
markets of tho world; and they can not find
such an outlet unless they be given ships of
their own to carry their goods ships that will
go to tho routes they want them to go and pre
fer tho interests of America in their sailing
ordors and their equipment. Our domestic mar
kets no longer suffice. We need foreign mar
kets. That is another force that is going to
break tho tariff down. Tho tariff was once a
bulwark now it is a dam. For trade is recip
rocal; wo can not sell unless we also buy.
"Tho very fact that we have at last taken the
Panana canal seriously in hand and are vigor
ously pushing it towards completion is eloquent
of our re-awakened interest in international
trade. We are not building tho canal and pour
ing out million upon million of money upon its
construction merely to establish a water con
nection between the two coasts of tho continent,
important and desirable as that may be, par
ticularly from the point of view of naval defense.
It is meant to be a great International high
way. It would be a little ridiculous if-we
should build it and then have no ships to send
through it. There have been years when not
a single ton of freight passed through the great
Suez canal in an American bottom, so empty
are the seas of our ships and seamen. We must
mean to put an end to that kind of thing or
wo would not be cutting a new canal at our
very doors merely for the use of our men-of-war.
We shall not manage the revival by tho
mere paltry device of tolls. We must build
and buy ships in competition with the world.
We can do it if we will but give ourselves
leave.
DEBT IS DUB AGRICULTURE
There is another duty which the democratic
party has shown itself great and close enough
to the people to perceive, tho duty of govern
ment to share In promoting agricultural, indus
trial, vocational education in every way possible
within its constitutional powers. No other plat
form has given this intimate vision of a party's
fluty. The nation can not enjoy its deserved su
premacy in the markets and enterprises of tho
world unless its people are given the ease and
effectiveness that come only with knowledge
and training. Education is part of the great
task of conservation, part of the task of renewal
nd of perfected power.
"We have set ourselves a great program, and
It will bo a great party that carries it out. It
must bo a party without entangling alliances
with any special interest whatever. It must
have the spirit and the point of. view of tho new
ago. Men are turning away from the republi
can party, as organized under its old leaders,
because they found that it waB not free, that it
Was entangled; and they are turning to us
The Commoner.
because they deem us free to serve them. They
are immensely interested, as we are, as every
man who reads the signs of the time and feels
the spirit of the new age is, in the new program.
It is solidly based on the facts of our national
life; its items are items of present business; it
is what every man should wish to see done who
wishes to see our present distempers mado an
end of and our old free, co-operative life re
stored. "We should go into this campaign confident
of only one thing -confident of what we want to
do if entrusted with the government. It is not
a partisan fight we are entering upon. We are
happily excused from personal attacks upon op
ponents and from all general indictments
against the men opposed to us. The facts are
patent to everybody; we do not have to prove
them; the more frank among our opponents ad
mit them. Our thinking must be constructive
from start to finish. We must show that we
understand the problems that confront us, and
that we are soberly minded to deal with them,
applying to them, not nostrums and notions, but
hard sense and good courage.
PLEDGED TO PEOPLE'S CAUSE
"A presidential campaign may easily degene
rate into a mere personal contest and so lose
its real dignity and significance. There is no
indispensable man. The government will not
collapse and go to pieces if any one of the
gentlemen who are seeking to be entrusted with
its guidance should bo left at home. But men
are instruments. We are as important as the
cause wo represent, and in order to be important
must really represent a cause. What is our
cause? The people's cause? That is easy to
say, but what does it mean? The common as
against any particular interest whatever? Yes,
but that, too, needs translation into acts .and
policies. We represent the desire to set up an
untangled government, a government that can
not be used for private purposes, either in the
field of business or in the field of politics; a
government that will not tolerate the use of tho
organization of a great party to serve the per
sonal aims and ambitions of any individual, and
that will not permit legislation to be employed
to further any private interest. It is a great
conception, but I am free to serve it, as you also
are. I could not have accepted a nomination
which left me bound to any man or any group
of men. No man can be just who is not free;
and no man who has to show favors ought to
undertake the solemn responsibility of govern
ment in any rank or post whatever, least of all
in the supreme post of president of the United
States.
"To be free is not necessarily to be wise. But
wisdom comes with counsel, with the frank and
free conference of untrammeled men united in
the common Interest. Should I be entrusted
with the great office of president, I would seek
counsel wherever it could be had upon free
Form a Commoner Club in Your Precinct
Special Rate of 25c Secures The Commoner from Now Until Campaign Closes, or 4 for $1
The time is ripe for the forward nroerGSRlvn
movement, and every worker should get in line.
The predatory interests will make a desporato
effort to beat the democratic party because they
recognize in it the greatest foe of special privi
lege. There is work for everyone in this fight.
Clubs should and must be. organized in every
precinct. Voters should be supplied with good
campaign literature, and for this purpose noth
ing will servo better than a good democratic
weekly paper sent to tho voter personally during
the campaign. The Commoner makes a special
rate for this purpose 25c for single subscrip
tions from now until tho close of tho campaign
-or four for $1. Everyone can form a club in
their precinct making a special effort to place
The Commoner in the hands of new Totors and
those who have formerly voted the republican
ticket. Use tho attached coupon, or blank sheet
where larger club is formed.
FOUR FOR $1.00 CLUB
THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Nob.:
Gentlemen Enclosed find $1.00 for which please send The Commoner to the follow
ing four new subscribers under your special campaign offer FOUR FOR $1.00 from now
until the close of tho presidential campaign.
Name P. O.
Name '. ' p o
Name ". , .".. i . .f. '.,, p. o.
,
Narao i . . P. O.
.r
VOLUME 12 NUMBER 32
terms. I know the temper of the great conven
tion which nominated me; I know the temper of
the country that lay back of that convention and
spoko through it I heed with deep thankful
ness the message you bring me from it. I feel
that I am surrounded by men whose principles
and ambitions are those of true servants of the
people. I thank God, and will take courage."
"LONG DOUBTING THOMASES"
Editorial in New York Tribune: It requires
courage to abandon a long treasured prejudice,
and the completeness with which the New York
World and the Evening Post, have waived their
former contention that nothing of saving value
to the democracy could possibly come out of
Lincoln, Neb., requires appropriate record and
commendation. The World retracted a misap
preciation of many years when it said enthusias
tically recently:
"Mr. Bryan was the hero of the Baltimore
convention. There can bo no doubt of that.
Whether in all things wisely, whether
in all things unselfishly, whether in all things
loyally devoted to Governor Wilson, it was his
courage, his clearness of vision, his knowledge of
the forces with which he had to contend and
his splendid mental and physical endurance
that gained tho day."
The Evening Post is equally generous in its
admission of Mr. Bryan's controlling part in
the Wilson victory. It said:
"What is certain is that Mr. Bryan had the
political genius and the personal boldness, first
to detect and then to shatter the plans of
Murphy and his fellow cozzeners, and so to free
the convention from the dead hand of manipu
lators and traders, and open the way to the
triumph of Governor Wilson."
The example of the World and the Evening
Post shines nobly in contrast with the grudging
comments of two of their former associates in
the effort to deny Mr. Bryan any capacity what
ever for intelligent leadership or -valuable party
service. The Times feebly insisted that Mr.
Wilson did not "owe his nomination to Mr.
Bryan," and the Sun bluntly asserted that "Gov
ernor Wilson enters the campaign owing not one
copper's worth of political debt to Mr. Bryan,
who with a preconceived programme of domina
tion or destruction played his own viperish game
with consummate skill until it was detected."
Of course, that Is an obvious misconstruction of
the facts, inasmuch as whatever game of his own
Mr. Bryan was playing he had at the same time
to play Governor Wilson's game, and play it so
strongly as to lead to Wilson's nomination.
Any impartial study of the proceedings of the
Baltimore convention will show that Mr. Bryan
was tho single dominating personal influence
there. Its work was largely his work, and that
conclusion stands out so plainly that even long
doubting Thomases like the World and the
Evening Post have felt impelled to recognize and
applaud the indubitable results of the "peer
less commoner's" leadership.
MR. BRYAN'S GREAT VITALITY
New York Herald: "How does Bryan stand
the strain?" This was the question uppermost
in the minds of those who saw the journeyman
presidential candidate dashing along West
Thirty-fourth street the other day. Fresh from
the most terrific political struggle in the history
of the democratic party, a struggle in which he
played the leading part, he looked as fit as a
man 'returning from a month's vacation. Most
of the politicians and newspaper men who took
part in. the siege of Baltimore came back in
wretched physical condition, the sizzling heat,
Irregular meals and all night sessions playing
havoc with the strongest constitutions. Bryan
alone came through with unimpaired vitality.
Bryan is a remarkable physical machine," said
a reporter who had campaigned almost 100,
000 miles with the Nebraskan. "To begin with,
he has a powerful frame. It has never been
-weakened by riotous living. He has a tremen
dous appetite, and can eat at any hour of tho
day or night. Eggs, a small steak, some chops,
dessert and coffee is an ordinary meal for him.
He can sleep to order. I've seen, him sleep like a
Dapy in. the fifteen and twenty-minute intervals
between speeches from the 'back piazza' of his
u hIs abilItv t0 sleep under any condi
tions that enables him to keep up his high rate
of speed."
All roads lead to Seagirt save one and that
leads from Seagirt to the White House.
iAew,more trust dissolutions of the Taft
orana and the people are undone.
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