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turo. It has not boon my good fortune
to read all of his speeches in the present
campaign. It may be , therefore , in
some speech which I have not read that
he has explained how it is that a doc-
triue is true in Luzon which is not
true in North Carolina.
HARRY PRATT JUDSON.
THE SAI/T TRUST.
Speaking of the charge that the salt
trust is a monopoly , Mr. Joy Morton of
Chicago , who is one of its principal offi
cers , said last night.
"Any one of twenty-six states in this
union has enough salt to supply the
world , and there is no reason why any
man or company should not commence
the manufacture of salt in any one of
these states at any moment that he de
sires to do so. Salt is as plentiful as
water. Its value dspends entirely upon
its location with reference to a market ,
because two thirds of the price paid by
the consumer represents the transporta-
tation. The value of the salt in the
mine is merely nominal 1 cent , 2
cents or 8 cents a hundred pounds. As
raw material it is worth no more than
scrubbing sand , or the sand of which
glass is made. Outside the mine , ready
for shipment , salt is worth from 10 to
15 cents a hundred weight , according to
the location. Half of that amount repre
sents the cost of the fuel consumed in
mining and purifying it ; the rest rep
resents labor. Salt sells at wholesale
by the barrel at from 25 to 85 cents a
hundred pounds , according to the dis
tance it has been transported. The re
tailers get very little profit on the ordin
ary salt , but the finer qualities of table
salt , which are refined by various pro
cesses , sell at fancy prices. This fine
salt bears the same relation to ordinary
commercial salt that confectionery
bears to sugar , and the price depends
tfpon the manner and style in which it
is put up , the name of the refiner and
the man who sells it. " W. E. Curtis in
the Chicago Record.
GEN. BRAGG REPUDIATES BRYAN.
EDITOR CONSERVATIVE :
I have delayed , as I ought not to have
done , answering your note , which came
in my absence from home a good while
since , requesting me to express my
opinion as a democrat on the present
political situation.
Yon made no mistake in thinking
that I adhered to the doctrines of the
old party to which we both belong , and
was not liable to be side-tracked by any
false lights that might be hung out on
either side. My delay was the result ,
largely , of an undetermined question in
my mind , whether it were better for mete
to write or to speak. I have now deter
mined , upon the request of a large num
ber of national gold democrats , in Mil
waukee , to speak in that city during the
next week , in which I shall proclaim
my faith in the fathers of the democra
tic party and their doctrines , and my
refusal to be seduced by any specious
pretense or promise , into the support of
the populistic doctrines , which I
thoroughly abhor , and regard as de
structive of the great party which you
and I have insisted all our lives , not
withstanding any errors it may have
committed , as being the rock of salva
tion for the perpetuity of the Republic.
ED. S. BRAGG.
Fond du Lao , Wis. , Oot 8,1900.
A GOOD DESCRIPTION OF BRYAN.
William M. Ivins , a New York gold
democrat , intends to vote for McKinley.
In the letter in which he says he is
going to do so he states with much force
the reasons why Bryan is unfit for the
presidency. The only credentials of
this man , who is seeking the highest
place in the gift of the people , are , says
Mr. Ivins :
"The credentials of the agitator ; of the
man without practical experience ,
either in business or in government ;
the credentials of fanaticism ; of disre
gard of all our great national traditions ,
and of the great determining factors
of our national history. His letter of
acceptance is not the letter of the states
man , but the letter of the agitator. In
every line it is apparent that the man
is misled by lack of experience , of train
ing , of accurate information , of well-
founded convictions. "
The letter of acceptance , says Mr.
Ivins , is not the letter of a man of char
acter and of honesty , though Mr.
Bryan's friends say he has both those
virtues. "The man who wrote that let
ter is politically insincere and intellec
tually dishonest , though his life may be
clean and all his bills may be paid. " If
Mr. Bryan had written no letter of
acceptance the campaign he has made
would convict him of political insin
cerity and intellectual dishonesty. He
has shown that he has no principles. He
has discussed a question until he dis
covered the people were sick of it.
Then he has dropped it to take up
another , to be discarded in its turn. He
has abandoned free silver. He has
talked himself out about "imperialism. "
At present he is trying to make capital
out of the question of "trusts. " How
long it will be before he drops that no
one can tell. Probably Chairman Jones
of the Democratic National committee ,
who is under fire in Texas for his con
nection with a "private monopoly , "
has already informed Mr. Bryan that
the "trust" question is a "two-edged
sword. "
Mr. Ivins contrasts the character of
the two candidates. He says : '
"Mr. McKinley is precisely the last
man in the world who has the imper
ial quality. Mr. Bryan is far and away
more the sort of stuff out of which dic
tators are made. Mr. MoKinley is a
listener ; Mr. Bryan is a talker. Mr.
McKinley is interested in the opinions
of others ; Mr. Bryan in his own alone.
For Mr. Bryan the dictates of history
and the decrees of science are as nothing
compared with his own judgment and
the dictates of his own will. "
The imperial strain in Mr. Bryan is
illustrated in his dictation of a platform
to the National Democratic convention.
Mr. Cleveland was something of a dictator
tater in his time , but the national con
vention of 1802 refused to adopt the
tariff plank he wished it to. A large
majority of the delegates to this year's
convention were opposed to the free
silver plank which is in the platform , .
but Mr. Bryan jammed it down their
throats. A man who is thus imperious
in dealing with his party before election
will be even more imperious if elected ,
not merely in party affairs but in all
govermental affairs.
At Nebraska
* Oifcyou S8Ptem-
ber20th , 1900 , W.
J. Bryan , candidate of a combine for the
presidency nominated by the free silver
democratic incorporationthe republican
free silver incorporation and the popu
list fiat money incorporation , all in a
"trust" said :
"I want to remind yon that the at
torney general who is enforcing this
law [ the same officer having ignored
this law for three years ] is not trying to
destroy a factory ; he is trying to pre
vent a trust from absorbing that fac
tory. "
But the same peerless prophet of evil
and disaster said in the same speech :
"I learned the other day that there
was a reason why I should hold a meet
ing here. I learned that the action of
the attorney general in beginning suit
against the starch trust had aroused the
people of this community. "
How could the action begin against
the starch trust ? Did not Colonel
Bryan just declare he was here , then
and there , and a-talkiug "to prevent a
trust from absorbing that factory"
i. e. the Argo factory at Nebraska
City.
Smyth's action then , with Bryan's
concurrence and inspiration , was
against Nebraska City's starch factory ,
its wage-earners , its owners , its capital
and its existence. And Bryan boasted
himself the ally , assistant , associate
counsel of Smyth in this wicked raid
upon the best and largest starch manu
facturing plant west of the Mississippi
river.
Every vote for Bryan for the state
ticket of Bryanarohy , headed by Poyn-
ter , and for its local , legislative ticket
is a vote to put down starch making in
Nebraska City ; to kick capital out of
Nebraska when it attempts to come in ,
and to throttle and destroy all incor
porated money everywhere within Ne
braska when it antagonizes Bryanarohy.