Omaha daily bee., 1896-09-02
BRYAN'S CANNIDAL TREE.
what Billy Regarded as the Great
EVIL -Four Years Ago.
New York Sun.

New York Sun.
In Mr. Bryans first speech in congress,
delivered on March 16, 1892. he drew a
picture of the condition of the western
farmer quite as dismal as any that he is
producing now for campaign effect. He is
not using any deeper indigo in his present
professional tour than that with which he
painted the distress of the oppressed and
mortgaged agriculturist then. But then
for the distress, the oppression and the
mortgage he had only one simple, comprc-
hensive explanation: The western farmer
the victim of the protective tariff
Not ono word do find in Mr. Bryan s
original plea for Justice to the western
farmer of the gold standard or the 100
cent dollar as the cause of all the woe. Pro-
lection was a good enough octopus for that
occasion.
Mr. Bryan told the following story about a
man-killng tree in Australia and compared
it to the protective tariff:
There is in Australia what is known as
the cannihal tree. IT grows not very high
and spreads out it's leaves like great arms
until they touch the ground In the top is
a little cup and in that cup mysterious
kind of honey Some of the natives wor-
ship the tree, and on their festive days
they gather around it. singing and DANCING,
select one from their number and at
the point of spears, drive him over the the
honey, he becomes intoxicated as 1t Were.
and then those arms, as if instinct with
life; rise up; they emclrGle him in in their sil
companions stand around shouting and
singing for joy.
Protection has been our cannibal tree
and as one after another of our farmers
has been driven by the force of circum-
Crushed crushed With Within ITS its folds, his his comoanions @
have stood around and shouted, Great is
protectionI"
Then this glib debutant from Nebraska
proceeded to show by statistics that in Kan
sas between 1850 and 1890 the percentage of
farmers merely renting their farms instead
of owning them had increased from 1873
to 1925, while more than GA per cent OF the
farms were mortgaged; that in Ohio the
proportion of renters had increased in the
ten years from 2i.9G to 3710 per cent; in
Virginia from 1920 to 20.20 per cent. and
so on, all on account Of protection. Your
system" he shouted to the protectonists
amid the applause of the free traders, has
driven the farm owner from his land and
substituted the farm tenant"
Not one word about the gold standard or
the 10O-cent dollar as an agent OF oppression
and suffering. Protection was the devil
for that emergency.
How four years and a nomination for the
presidency have changed Mr. Bryan's ideas
of the source of all evil! Now his cannibal
tree is the ne-hundred-cent- dollar, the hon
est dollar, worth it's face value in purchas
ing power. 1t is the gold standard that is
running the agriculturist The same rhe-
toric, the same illustrations, the same fig |
ures of speech. the same mouthings of |
phrase and gestures of denunciation which |
at the outset of his career he used in ascrib- |
ing the nations ills to the protective tariff |
IAN attack" he announces in that first |
speech of his, which will be continued as
long as there is anything to remedy'-are
now made to do service in proving that the
cannibal tree is not protection, but the gold
standard And concerning protection, the
tree of 1892 Mr.. Bryan is as
dumb in this campaign the brown and
shrlvelled mummy of Rameses.