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The Commoner
DECEMBER, 1916
years will prove too short. Still, he has set
himself the task, and has begun operations with
the best wishes of a great many people.
This visit of Mr. Bryan to Washington has
been a veritable personal triumph. Ho divided
honors with the President in the chamber of the
house Tuesday. He was the President's guest
at luncheon yesterday. At last night's dinner
the President in a letter paid tribute to Mr. Bry
an's part in the recent campaign. It was read
to a large and distinguished company of demo
cratic office-holders and politicians. Seated at
table were both Bryanites and Wilsonites, hob
nobbing in admiration of the man who has his
lance in rest against the saloon. In all his
twenty-one years af national life, Mr. Bryan can
recall no occasion, numerous as such occasions
have been, of a heartier character than that of
last night in testimony of his influence as a pub
lic force.
Will the politicians associate this demonstra
tion with 1920? Has it any bearing on that
important year? Mr. Bryan is still a young
man. He has taken no resolution against stand
ing for another presidential nomination. There
are Bryan men galore who think he will ulti
mately reach the White house, and are at his
service at all times. He and they think that New
York has been permanently eliminated from the
national democratic question, and that In future
the west and the south, where he has already
found his strength, will dominate the democratic
party. A new Bryan boom may have been re
leased; and, if so, its. progress will be watched
with much interest by both democrats and republicans.
BRYAN LAUNCHES DRY CAMPAIGN
From The Indianapolis, Ind., Star, Nov. .19.
William Jennings Bryan launched a move
ment in Indianapolis yesterday to force the dem
ocratic national convention of 1920 to declare
in its platform in favor of prohibition.
The new prohibition movement within . the
democratic party was started on its way at a
conference of 125 dry democrats which Mr. Bry
an addressed, at the Claypool hotel. James H.
McGill of Valparaiso presided. The democrats
attending the conference, after listening, to Mr.
Bryan's message, adopted a resolution which
declared in favor of obtaining state and national
prohibition "through the democratic party at the
earliest possible time," and arranged for a state
meeting of democrats favoring prohibition, to
bo held late in December or early in January
and to be addressed by Mr. Bryan. The Com
moner gave his promise to return for the meet
ing, providing a satisfactory date can be ar
ranged. Mr. Bryan declared his opposition to the dem
ocratic party "being buried in a drunkard's
grave" and predicted that prohibition will be a
prominent, if not the dominant, issue of the 1920
campaign. He urged that democrats "beat the
republicans to the prohibition issue." He said
that neither side can avoid the prohibition issue;
that the issue is here and the parties must de
cide whether they are for or against it.
Mr. Bryan scored Indiana democracy for hav
ing been represented on the resolutions com
mittee at the democratic national convention last
June by a brewer. His reference was to Stephen
B. Fleming of Fort Wayne.
After having recalled that seventeen of the
twenty-three dry states gave democratic majori
ties in the recent election, Mr. Bryan lamented
that Indiana had not come up to democratic ex
pectations. "I remember that Indiana put on the resolu
tions committee a brewer who was one of four
to sign a minority report against woman suf
frage," said Mr. Bryan.
"That brewer took the position that a bar
tender and a bar bum are more fit to votethan
the democratic wives. His action was a dis-N
grace and an. insult to every woman of Indiana."
Political party organizations that- have been
deriving their principal sustenance at the busi
ness end of a beer barrel will have hard sledding
in future years, with the barrel gone and the
pipe line connection rusting away.
The republicans are endeavoring to extract a
measure of joy over the belief that they have se
cured control of the lower house of congress by
a narrow margin. When a man's determined to
be happy, why try to minimize His opportunities?
Prohibition in 1920
From Tho Christian Sclonco Monitor.
In Denver, throe days after tho national oleo
tlon in tho United States, William Jonnlngs
Bryan made this statomont: "Prohibition la
sweeping the country. It will bo a presidential
campaign issu In 1920 if i constitutional
amendment is not submitted by 2ongress to tho
states by that time. Tho political supremacy
of the east, especially New York, is broken. Tho
west can, elect a President; it has dono so." If
this means anything, it means that, in tho event
of the failure of congress to submit an amend
ment to the federal constitution prohibiting tho
liquor traffic In all tho states, or in tho event of
the submitted amendment being defeated or hold
up by a bare third of tho states, the western and
southern democracy in control of the national
convention of that party, will probably make
prohibition its paramount issue.
What support is there for Mr. Bryan's posi
tion? The south and west are almost solid pro
hibition sections today. With tho flvo states
added last Tuesday to tho seventeen in the list
when Virginia became "dry," on November 1,
the total number of prohibition states at pros
ent is 23, as follows:
Alabama Montana
Arizona Nebraska
Arkansas . North Carolina
Colorado ' ' North Dakota
Georgia -" Oklahoma
Idaho . ..., Oregon
Iowa . . , , South Carolina
Kansas . ,- South Dakota
Maine . Tennessee
Michigan Virginia
Mississippi Washington
West Virginia
The territory of Alaska also is under pro
hibition law. Utah and Florida, in addition to
extending widely their prohibition territory, on
Tuesday, elected "dry" governors. In at least
a dozen other states, "local option" and "high
license" operate to exclude tho liquor traffic
over wide areas. Restrictions difficult for deal
ers in intoxicants to meet are in force in the
District of Columbia, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico,
Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. One of tho
most hotly-contested prohibition campaigns that
have ever been carried on in tho United States
was that which ended in Maryland on the 7th
BRYAN
From the Chicago Tribune.
Mr. Bryan, we suspect, is the most powerful
single individual in the United States. J. P.
Morgan, Billy Sunday, and Theodore Roosevelt
might be thought of as challenging his pre
eminence, but we doubt that they are to be con
sidered as serious rivals.
Morgan can break eggs for a million people
and carry off the omelet, leaving them the shells,
but he could not make a Chautauqua address.
Whatever power he has will die with him. Bry
an's will live twenty years after he is dead. He
will have directed the thoughts of men and wo
men and their children. It will take at least
twenty years to eliminate Bryan. Twenty days
may eliminate Morgan.
Exasperated American patriots will be encoun
tering tho Bryan sirup of life at least twenty
years after this amiable man has been gathered
to his fathers. Billy Sunday operates violently
on a restricted area. He stands a community on
its head. Boston now offers the spectacle of the
Brahmins on theirs. The bean not being the
natural resting place of the human race, there
Is a gradual resumption of the normal business
of standing on the feet, but while Mr. Sunday is
effective he is very effective.
Ho has no such influence as Bryan. He is no
such power. People can not always be running
to a fire, as Charles Eliot Norton (or was it he?)
said of- rolding Carlyle. Bryan does not turn
out the fire department. He uses a sausage
stuffer, fills it full of sirup, and fills the people
so full of sweetness that they are ready to burst.
The business of beating folks over the head
with a good solid club is Roosevelt's. The more
the sound indicates solid bone or protected va-
of this month. Prohibition was dofcatcd, but
tho voting showed tromondous gains for the
anti-liquor olomont. Tho contest may properly
bo regarded as a preliminary skirmish. All the
indications tond to show that tho liquor Interests
will bo routed in tho next battlo.
As tho situation stands at present, nearly half
the states of tho American Union nro In tho pro
hibition column, and, at tho present ratio of
increase, the time when two-thirds of tho states,
or tho number necessary to ratification of a pro
hibition amendment to tho federal constitution
through their respective legislatures, will be
reached. Tho present congress is in harmony
with the administration, and tho administration
owes its success in tho recent election very large
ly to tho prohibition states. Policy would scorn
to dictate recognition of this fact by tho Pres
ident and his party supportora, even if no high
er motive should Impel thorn to tako sides with
the prohibitionists. The administration, as a
matter of fact, may not, during tho torm of Us
now lease, have an opportunity of gotting
through a mcasuro submitting an nmondment
if it neglects to do so in tho congress that ex
pires on March 5, 1917. It can not now be defin
itely stated that tho next Iioubo will bo demo
cratic; even if so it may not have a free work
ing majority, and, if tho rule that applies to the
second congress In nearly all administrations
holds good in President Wilson's second terra,
it Is not at all likely that tho Sixty-sixth congress
will do for prohibition what its predecessors
failed to do.
Numerous contingencies are posslblo which
might prevent tho submission of a prohibition
amendment before the next presidential election.
Mr. Bryan has a long-range political vision. Ho
is often credited, oven by his enemies, with be
ing ahead of his times, lie has seen for a long
time that prohibition was one of the moat im
portant questions before the people of the United
States. He advocated prohibition throughout
tho northwest in tho recent campaign. "Tho flvo
stages, that have just been added to tho prohibi
tion, roll were unquestionably influenced by his
speeches.
In view of the widespread growth of anti
liquor sentiment, in and out of prohibition states,
it seems well within reasonable bounds to say
that Mr. Bryan's comprehension of the 1920 Is
sue is in harmony with the public opinion of tho
nation.
cuity the more enraged tho colonel becomes and
tho stouter his raps.
Peopie will stand on their heads for a while,
but they never like to be pounded on them.
Therefore Bryan with his sirup squirt Is more
deadly than Roosevelt with his club.
It is no accident that now while Colonel Roose
velt considers himself in the position of the mate
of the New Bedford whaler whose skipper want
ed silence, and d little of that, Colonel
Bryan is the cock of the walk In Washington.
He is talking, as always, without thinking.
He typifies the impulse to talk without think
ing. We have nothing but admiration for this
amiable man, but the damage ho does is enor
mous. Ho has permeated the west. His mood
is the mood of the west. He Is more responsible
for President Wilson now than he was four years
ago. He is tho most powerful living American,
and our only wish Is that he had been a German
or a Jap, or even a Canadian or a.Mex!can.
Twenty years after his last word has been
uttered the effect of what he has said will have
to be combated by Americans who wish their
country well.
One explanation of the result In California Is
that the women out there who can vote resented
the attempt of a crowd pt eastern women whose
husbands don't think them competent to mark
a -ballot to Instruct the'western women as to -their
duty. It sounds reasonable, too.
So far as our observation wept there did not
seem to be. any disposition on the part of the
voters of Nebraska to confuse the Prosperity
league with the republican party in the cam
paign. ' ,