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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 1912)
Tf t wm'f-'-' -n -w ni"yy nr'y - 'l?,TSrww5P"iK'',el'Bri??W' "TWjir . n luininpi..' The Commoner. WILLIAM J.- BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR A. VOL. 12, NO. 2 Lincoln, Nebraska, January 19 1912 Whole Number 574 Money Trust at Work The Wall Street financiers are attempting to terrorize a democratic congress in order to prevent an investigation. Some of the democratic members are already working and expressing fear that an investigation will cause a panic. What must be the rottenness if publicity will disturb business. The party i3 fortunate in having a courageous man like Robert L. Henry at the head of the committee on rules. Strength to his arm. If he has difficulty in investigating Wall Street he ought at least be able to smoke out the Wall Street democrats in congress and enable their constituents to brand them. Turn on the light! A Guffeyite National Committee tr0n another pago -yill be found a report of the. vote by which"1 Mr. Guffey of Pennsylvania was given a place on the democratic national com mittee. Mr. Bryan represented Nebraska At tho committee meeting, holding" the proxy of Dr. P. L. Hall. There were two contests, ono from Tennessee, the other from Pennsylvania. The Tennessee contest was decided in favor of Mountcastle, the sitting member, without a roll 'call; and, in passing, it may be added that in judging the action of Mr. Mountcastle and Sena tor Lea, who held a proxy, in voting with the Gjuffeyites, weight must be given to the fact that the unseating of Guffey might have been used as a precedent for unseating Mountcastle. Neither of them could have any possible sym pathy with Mr. Guffey or his methods. When Alabama was" reached on roll call tho secretary announced that Mr. Weatherly had been selected by the democratic state committee of Alabama to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Tomlinson. Mr. Bryan moved that the credentials be accepted and' that Mr. CONTENTS t. MONEY TRUST AT WORK A GUFFEYITE NATIONAL COMMITTEE MR. BRYAN'S SPEECHES AT WASH INGTON THE THIRD TERM SENATOR HITCHCOCK'S SPEECH ON THE ARBITRATION TREATIES FALSE ECONOMY , "GATHER IN THE SCHOOL HOUSES" THE SITUATION IN OHIO MR. CARNEGIE'S TESTIMONY HARMON'S RECORD THE DISBARMENT OF THATCHER HOME DEPARTMENT WHETHER COMMON OR NOT A PICTURE OF BROTHERHOOD MR. BRYAN IN NORTH CAROLINA NEWS OF THE WEEK WASHINGTON NEWS Weatherly bo declared a member. A point of order was raised that no motion was necessary because a resolution adopted at Denver gave the state committee the power to fill vacancies. The. chairman sustained the point. Mr. Bryan, seeing that the point was raised as a part of the Guffeyite program, appealed from the do cision of the chair and insisted that while the state committee had, and very wisely, too, been given the power to fill vacancies the national committee must take some affirmative action in passing upon the credentials before the one selected became a member, citing the case of Senator Lorimer, whose right' to sit in the senate is being investigated, although the state of Illinois is not contesting his title to a Beat. The committee, however, sustained the chair by a vote of 33 to IS. The reader can decide the merits of the case for himself. Mr. Bryan regards the decision as absurd and believes that it will be reversed as soon as Mr. Guffey's retirement makes it possible to consider the subject on its merits. When the Pennsylvania contest was reached the parties were given a half hour each to pro Bent their respective sides. Mr. Palmer gave the history of the contest. At the Denver'coii ventlon Mr. Kerr was made national committee man, as a result of the throwing out of a num ber of Guffey delegates. After Mr. Kerr's death the state committee, a Guffey organization, selected Mr. Guffey to fill the vacancy and the credentials were forwarded to the national com mittee. No meeting had been held since then" and the credentials had not been passed upon by the committee, although the secretary had entered Mr. Guffey's name on the roll. Later an election was held in Pennsylvania and the Guffey ticket polled 129,000 votes as against nearly 400,000 for Mr. Berry, a democrat who ran on an independent ticket put up by demo crats in the belief that the Guffey ticket was nominated and the campaign conducted in the interest of the republican machine. The demo crats of Pennsylvania were so indignant at the conduct of Mr. Guffey and the state committee the democratic vote having been reduced from more than 400,000 in 1908 to 129,000 in 1910 that a movement began to reorganize the party. As a result the state committee tho very com mittee that selected Mr. Guffey to succeed Mr. Kerr removed its chairman and rescinded its action in selecting Mr. Guffey as national com mitteeman. Tho reorganization represents about two-thirds of the committee and is in dorsed by all the democratic congressmen of Pennsylvania, thirty-seven out of forty-five of the democratic members of the Pennsylvania legislature and, as shown by tho vote for Berry, by some three-fourths of tho democratic voters of .Pennsylvania. Mr. Guffey's representative did not attempt to deny that Mr. Guffey had been repudiated by his party but contended that the committee, hav ing selected him, could not rescind its action or remove him. This was the issue presented. On one side the undisputed desire of the party to get rid of Mr. Guffey expressed in every possible way and on the other side the desire of Mr. Guffey to stand upon a technicality and continue to misrepresent his state. It will doubtless seem strange to the readers that any body of men with any sense of responsi bility for the party's welfare would decide the issue in favor of Mr. Guffey and yet, on roll call, the request of the democrats of Pennsyl vania was refused and Mr. Guffey was seated by a vote of 30 to 18. When the reader calmly reviews the history of this contest he will not bo surprised that the party finds some difficulty in conducting a suc cessful national campaign under the leadership of a committee that can insult the democrats of Pennsylvania by forcing upon them against their expressed wishes such a man as Col. Guffey. The democrats of each state should examine the roll call and see how their members voted. If they voted for Mr. Guffey their records should be scrutinized with care and they should be retired from the committee If their consti tuents believe that they are in sympathy with Mr. Guffey and his methods. There is no doubt that some of the committeemen were misled by tho arguments presented in support of a techni cal case and some, like the Tennessee men, were coerced by conditions, but some of Mr. Guffey's strength came from members who represent the same predatory influences that are back of Mr. Guffey and these members are a menace to the party's success. r 'I 'H ..tmmiimtM aiiAAJiiAMt 4u'XalfttJiWv!a. &' y