4.
The Commoner,
FEBRUARY 1'4, 1908
ROB
now disposed to Investigate tb ethics of money
making. " 'The time will surely come when the men
of Influence and authority in our churches will
no longer sell respectability to great criminals
by helping them spend their ill-gotten gains.'
"Here the audience broke into applause and
cheers, which interrupted the address at fre
quent intervals.
" 'It will be a great step in advance, and
will have a tremendous influence in stopping
crime, when wo can say to them: 'Your money -has
blood upon it. Keep it, and learn how lone
ly a man can be without peace, without con
science, and without friends '
"It was after 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon
when Mr. Bryan returned from Burlington whore
he had been entertained by James II. Birch, an
old friend, and he was taken in an automobile
from the ferry to, the theatre, where hundreds
of men were fighting for admission.
" 'America' was sung by the great audience
as an opener, and after a Scripture lesson, read
by the Rev. Dr. G. II. Bickley, and prayer by
the Rev. Dr. Charlr-j Wood, Bishop Mackay
Smith introduced Mr. Bryan.
"Every man arose to his feet in salutation
as the Nebraskan stepped to the center of tho
stage and prefaced his address by saying that
he has been a Y. M. C. A. member for twenty
five years.
"Hardly had the Rev. A. Pohlman pro
nounced the benediction after Mr. Bryan conclud
ed, when the crowd began clambering on the
stage. Caught in the press there was no escape,
and an informal levee was held."
Leigh Mitchell Hodges, political correspon
dent for the Philadelphia North American (rep.)
prints in his paper the following:
"William Jennings Bryan of Lincoln, Neb.,
may never be president of the United States,
and, again, he may be. Time alone can tell,
and we can't make time give advance informa
tion. But whether or not he is ever president,
or fills ofllce of any sort, he is our most remark
able private citizen, and his political record is
without parallel in the history of our nation.
Aside from its partisan features and its public
significance, it has a moral meaning which should
be deep-planted in the mind of his fellow
countrymen, young and old, so that the number
of his kind may be increased.
"William Jennings Bryan is a shining ex
emplar of the success that lies in defeat. From
the time he used to debate with the other stu
dents at Illinois college to the present day he
has known every form of public defeat, from the
smallest to the greatest, and as if to doubly
test him, he was twice subjected to the greatest.
When he went out to Lincoln as a young lawyer,
he didn't get much practice in his profession.
So, whenever committees from county fairs or
'grand picnics' came to the city for oratory and
applied for the same at some lawyer's office they
were referred to Bryan. And Bryan usually ac
cepted and thundered at them just what he
thought, whether they thought that way or not,
and pretty soon he ran for congress in a repub
lican district ran because no other democrat
wanted to be defeated! and was elected! And
the busy lawyers who referred committees to
him are still as little known as busy lawyers in
thousands of little cities, while he is known
the world around as no other lawyer, busy or
otherwise, in any city, big or little.
"His congressional successes were just ex
ceptions to prove his rule of defeat. But every
time he went down he came up fresher and
stronger, until now he has a greater hold on the
masses than he ever had. And he's a bigger
man than he ever was, for the simple reason
that he has known how to use defeat. In the
first place, he was never defeated because of
nny faults of character. So there was no reason
why he should despair, and he didn't. In the
second place, he never went ahead until he felt
sure he was right, so he accepted his defeats
as mainly a difference of opinion between him
self and the majority of voters, and no man
need be discouraged because he honestly dis
agrees with the masses. This usually means that
he Is right, and In the case of Bryan it has been
so proven. For many of his 'revolutionary rad
icalisms' of a dozen years ago are now being
advocated by the very ones who then stood
aghaat at their mere mention!
"But back of all his defeats and buffets
Is a man who believes in himself, which is the
first requisite for any sort of success. And back
of this belief in self is a character that will stand
tho most searching rays of calcium carbide.
And when you reinforce self-confidence with
character you can defy defeat, for there is no
defeating this combination. To you, young man
or old man, I say this study William Jennings
Bryan. It doesn't matter whether you'ro a dem
ocrat or a republican, a prohibitionist or a so
cialist. There is something far more Important
to you than politics and parties. It is manhood.
And Bryan is a man, of whom it may be said
he has never known defeat, although ho "has met
it often, for his sort of manhood can't bo de
feated. And it's tho sort we need right now."
oooo
MR. BRYAN IN WASHINGTON
The Washington Star prints the following
editorial:
"Let no man in future declare Mr. Bryan
deficient in humor. He seems to have tho live
liest sense of that article. Who could have treat
ed the story about a movement to forco him
out of tho presidential field with a keener appre
ciation of its absurdity? Who, with the pos
sible exception of Mark Twain, could have in
quired about tho committee of notification in
droller terms? He has, indeed, treated tho mat
ter delightfully and given just tho proper space
to it.
"The author of that yarn should have a
modal. He succeeded in making something out
of nothing. He started quite a little talk on
what a moment's reflection on nnybody's part
should have punctured. It was not difficult to
believe that one of Pierpont Morgan's 'confiden
tial men' might be found with cheek enough to
advise Mr. Bryan to quit the race, but who could
suppose that anybody else would? What au
thority was there to Imagine that any democratic
politician of position and influence would do
such a thing, or, if so, that his suggestion would
be met with other than contemptuous silence?
"This is not to say that there are no demo
crats of influence of the feeling that Mr. Bryan
should retire. In the east there are many such,
and here and there in the south, where New
York capital is invested, men of the same stamp
may be found. But between feeling this way and
seeking Mr. Bryan for a personal interview and
'saying it to his face' Is a difference a wide
difference. Considerable importance hedges Mr.
Bryan about. The man who has dominated his
party for years and is still dreaming of the presi
dency Is not to be advised or lectured after tho
blunt fashion of the everyday.
"Moreover, tho whole business is simply a
matter of opinion. Wall street says that Mr.
Bryan can not bo elected, but how does Wall
Street know? It says that any one of a dozen
men it names can be elected, but how does it
know? Opposed to these opinions are the opin
ions of Mr. Bryan and his friends, who declare
that Mr. Bryan can be elected; that this is a
democratic year, and because of his long service
to the party as its leader he is entitled to his
reward. In the battle of opinions, whose should
prevail? Those of the men who slaughtered
Mr. Bryan in 1896 and 1900, or those who car
ried the flag in those two campaigns. Mr. Bryan
refuses to take orders from Wall Street, and so
Wall Street will have to take orders from Mr.
Bryan. That is to say, after the Denver conven
tion it can take him or leave him, as it pleases."
oooo
Washington Letter
Washington, D. C, Feb. 10. These are
great days for democratic principles. What
effect the president's message and Governor
Hughes' recent speech will have on the result
of the next election, as far as party candidates
are concerned, Is problematical. That their
statements are great concessions to the position
maintained by the democratic party for a dozen
years is clear. Moreover, whoever the next
president may be, these utterances will tend to
aid, rather than delay, the onward march of
democratic principles. The day of laissez falre
attitude to American national problems is over.
The message has perceptibly lengthened
what Is known as the Roosevelt road. It is
now up to Governor Hughes to say whether he
wiW PtW follow wfcfve the president hs led. It is
evident that the great mass of republicans in con-"
gress will not. A prominent rcix:feI5cs.s ea4d to rae
today: "Roosevelt has gone too far. He has
destroyed the republican party." This Is not
the opinion of republicans alone, but of demo
crats who now see clearly the impossibility of
the republican party getting together harmoni
ously on national questions In their noxt conven
tion. Champ Clark expressed it when ho said:
"Tho republicans aro more disorganized than wo
were in 1890. Any democrat can bo elected
president in 1908." Whether these statements
aro true or not, ono fact remains and in uni
versally attested by tho preiis namely, that
tho president's message waH roccived with wild
est enthusiasm by democrat In both Ijoujjo and
senato, while republicans sat sullon and silent
until taunted into faint praise by democratic
colleagues.
The best evidence of tho varying reception
with which tho message was received can bo
found in tho statements of three men. Tho
reactionaries, conservatives and standpatters find
voice In tho words of Chancellor Day "It roads
llko the ravings of a disordered mind." Tho
great majority of republicans in congress would
endorse Day's opinion If they dared. Tho pro
gressive republicans, who aro fow, find expres
sion of tholr views In tho statement of Senator
LaFollette: "I thoroughly endorse all tho presi
dent says." The democratic attitude Is best
expressed by Mr. Bryan: "The president has
issued a call to arms. His warnings aro entirely
in harmony with tho warnings which democrats
have been tittering for inoro than a decado, and
I hope the democrats In congress will promptly
challenge the republicans to moot tho issuos
presented. There ought to bo enough Roosevelt
republicans In the two houses to join with tho
democrats and insure some remedial legislation
at this session. If thero is not, the public ought
to know it, so that when tho next republican
national convention endorses tho present admin
istration, the hypocrisy of tho endorsement will
bo understood."
Monday was a flold day in the houso of
representatives. Any who sat in any of tho
galleries with knowledge of the men on the floor
below, and of their political affiliations could not
fall to bo impressed by tho fact that the demo
crats woro animated by a spirit of perfect unity
and a purposo of attack upon their political
enemies. The house had seldom been so crowd
ed as It was when Bourko Cockraa
commented upon the president's messago and
challenged tho republicans In no uncertain
phrase to say whether they stood for what
Roosevelt preached, or for what their party had
practiced. Mr. Cockran's speech rose at times
to the highest flights of oratory, but in tho
main it was devoted to pointing out the fact, and
to emphasizing it, that the men on the republi
can side of the house whom ho addressed would
not, and dared not, accept tho Roosevelt prin
ciples as those of their party. What ho had
to say about the necessity of breaking down tho
oligarchy of wealth, or destroying tho combina
tion between over-capitalized railroads and trac
tion lines, gambling shops In Wall Street and
tho great financial institutions which gathered
in the savings of the people in order to furnish
tho money for the traction lines and for the
gambling shops, met with riotous applause, even
cheers on the democratic side of the houso, but
cold silence on tho republican side. Yet with
the single exception, and this a most important
one, of pointing out that a republican congress
and senate was discarding tho Roosevelt theories,
Representative Cockran did nothing more than
to applaud in the main the Roosevelt messago.
To tho observer his speech, and the rather futile
reply of Mr. Hepburn which followed It, Indi
cated this, the democratic party in tho coming
campaign will have to fight tho republican party
as a party, because tho republicans as repre
sented in house and senate give only grudging
acquiescence to tho democratic policies which
Mr. Roosevelt has enunciated, and will give to
him or any candidate he may name only a per
functory support.
WILLIS J. AB.BOT.
FOR EVERY WEST VIRGINIA HOME
Here's a valuable suggestion from
West Virginia:
"Williamson, W. Va., January 31,
1908. Editor Commoner: Please find en
closed New York exchange for $63.00 In
settlement for 101 new subscriptions and
five renewals as per certificates enclosed.
We heartily endorse Mr. Bryan's policies
and believe that with him as our leader
victory is sure. Wo hope, before the
campaign Is over, to see The Commoner In
every home especially In West Virginia.
Will send you more certificates next week.
"Yours truly,
"W. A. HURST,
. "HI WILLIAMSON."
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