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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1900)
'Cbc Conservative. abnormal that it causes him to make the unfortunate . , , * , , . mistake of believ ing that the workingmen of the coun try are chaffing with impatience to vote for him and that they can bo kept from so doing only by the use of forceful and coercive measures. Mr. Bryan is \ altogether too confident of the effect iveness of his kind of campaigning. Perhaps after a few more unsuccessful "battles" Mr. Bryan will know that the sympathy and support of those who labor cannot bo obtained by preaching the doctrine of hostility , hatred and envy between these who employ and the employed. The intelligent workingmen - men know that there is a mutuality of interest between themselves and their employer. They realize that they can prosper only as their employer prospers ; that it is impossible for them to enrich themselves and at the same time to im poverish those who pay them wages. They are conscious of the fact that their interests can be best promoted by aid ing to promote the interests of the in dustries in which they are employed. They are well aware that when politi cians interfere in business and threaten its destruction , they will be the first to suffer by being left in idleness. So it is quite natural and reasonable that in the campaign this year the laboring - ing men of the llHtru t of liryiiu. , , , , country should ar ray themselves upon the side of those who are carrying on the great industries and against the wordy demagogues who would destroy these industries. ' They doubt the genuineness of the friendship that would give them words instead of work ; that would take from them the employment they have and secure none in return. They doubt whetker the perennial presidential aspirant who so glibly talks in their behalf is really and 'truly ' their friend. They marvel at the wealth he has accumulated during the last four years until today he stands as one among the well-to-do of his home city , and this too without the expendi ture of a single dollar in the employ ment of labor. The workingmen , who think , know that they and their fami lies are better clothed and better fed when employed than when in idleness. When these workingmen consider the manner in which their self-appointed protector acquired his worldly goods they wonder and speculate as to who is in truth , their best friend , those who build and operate factories and pay good wages or this man who never turned a wheel or built a factory but has used his every energy to destroy and tear down those which others have built , whose ambition is to be a de stroyer rather than a builder , the prophet and forerunner of calamity rather than the emissary of prosperity. They conclude that the builder and nol thex destroyer is their , friend , Hence we , find them working on the aide of in dustry and thrift and against idleness and poverty bnt it is this co-operation hat Mr. Bryan says is brought about by coercion. In short he calls this en- ightened selfishness coercion. WILLIAM L. WILSON. Nothing could be better adapted to mpress upon the serious part of the Am erican public the decay of the democra- ; io party than the death of William L. Wilson , coming as it does in the midst of the manifestations of the cheapness and shallowness of the demagogue whom an ironical fate has permitted to put liimself forward as the representative and organ of that historic organization. No two men could be , as public men , more exactly antipodean than William L. Wilson and William J. Bryan. It would not be possible to mention a man who more completely and creditably represented the best type of public men who have been developed in the south by the conditions following the civil war than the chairman of the ways and means committee in the tariff reform congress. In the north the standard of statesmanship was by no means so much lowered as in the south by the results of the war. In the south one result was to displace the members of the slave-holding aristoc racy , except such of them as hung on by mere dint of survivorship , and even of these many tragically closed their political careers before the end of their natural lives. This was a pity because they were succeeded by a less able and a less honest class of men. Before the war the south owed a great part of its disproportionate ascendency in the national councils to the fact that poli tics were much more industriously cul tivated at the south than at the north , and absorbed much more of the energy and ambition of the population. More over , among the old school of southern politicians , there was very little of the commercial spirit which has crept into our recent politics , and very few cases of pecuniary scandal. In this respect there has been a distinct falling off in southern politics and in other respects also. It is true that Mr. Wilson was born and bred in a part of the south in which the traditions of the slave hold ing aristocracy had not taken much root. Bnt he was a good enough southerner to have served through the war in the con federate army , and when , fifteen years after its close , he entered public life , it was recognized that one such man was a fair offset , as a representative of the "New South , " for a good many of the "scalawags" who had been thrown to the surface by the social disturbances of their section. The first national recog nition of the importance of Mr. Wilson in spite of his useful and even brilliant previous service in congress , was com manded by his speech as the presiding officer of the democratic convention o : 1892. That speech was really a "key note" of the campaign which followed it , and gave precision as well as vigor to the platform it amplified. To oompaie it with the tawdry rhetoric by which Mr. Bryan undertook , four years later , to "save the faces" of the delegates who had assembled to demand a viola tion of public and private faith is to measure the degeneration which the party had undergone in the interval. And , as chairman of- ways and means in the ensuing congress , the author of the speech did his utmost to make it good. He labored , with uuweariable energy , ample knowledge , and clear and forcible speech , to redeem the promises of the party. And when these promises were broken by "the senators from Have- meyer , " by the combination of greed and perfidy that wrecked the democratic party and began the history of its de cline , his grief and indignation rose to the height of genuine eloquence and expressed memorably what every re former felt. It id to bo hoped and to be believed that the time may come again when a Wilson and not a Bryan will bo the representative of the reclaimed demo cratic party. It is of consequence to every American citizen of whichever party that the opposition to it may bo strong and respectable , and that party divisions shall not be made unless some thing plausible shall be pleadable on each side. But in the meantime the death of the presiding officer of the democratic convention of 1802 and chairman of ways and means in the fifty-third congress strongly emphasizes the present degradation of the demo cratic party. New York Times. In one of his recent CROKANISM. cent outbreaks the gnnless warrior and matchless mega phone declared : "I cannot believe that the American people , intelligent and patriotic , can give their support to policies for which the republican party now stands. " The American people will not support all the republican policies but they will vote for republican candidates this year as a fitting and just rebuke to "Orokanism. " PROPHETS.The spectacle of FALSE PROPHETS. Oarl Sohurz and Eliot F. Shepard speaking from the same platform with Colonels Oroker and Bryan , suggests the fulfillment of the prophecy : "For false prophets shall rise , and shall show signs and wonders , to seduce , if it were possible , even the elect. " The Savior when he uttered these words must have looked ahead and , with prophetic foresight , anticipated the coming of Bryan and the credulity of Sohurz and Shepurd.
