People's party paper. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, 1896-07-10


from his bayfield, coatless and with
his broad brimmed hat a-tilt on the
back of his massive head.
AS he stood there in the shade of
an old apple tree he looked the in
carnation of strength and honesty.
A wide sunlit stretch OF the Ozark
plateau, cleared by his own hands,
stretched out behind him to a green
rim of scrub oaks on the Southern
horizon.
The master of the farm had been
hard at work since daybreak. From the
distant pasture came the whirr OF the
mower and the sound of his sons
voice urging the horses on.
When last saw Mr.. Bland he was
in the House of Representatives lead
ing the silver men in their last stand
against the bill repeating the pur
chasing clause of the Sherman act
the supreme figure in one of the most
remarkable of our Congressional
struggles over the currency.
After serving for twenty-five years
in Congress this remarkable man,
defeated by the Republican landslide
of 1894, retired patiently and cheer
fully to his 160.acre farm, and, sur.
rounded by his large family, has
earned his living from the not too
generous soil of Southwestern Mis-
souri,.
A TYPICAL FARMER CANDIDATE.
1t was an impressive thing to see
him in his working clothes, with the
stains of toll on his hands, and to
realize that State after State was
wheeling INTO line to support him for
the greatest political office on earth.
He seemed SO simple, SO plain and so
unconscious of his leadership.
Mr.. BANDS greeting was hearty and
unaffected. He speaks in hoarse
voice, and looks straight into your
eyes. There is something of the
frontier oliDging to him-something
of his old Indian fighting days in
Colorado; and yet his speech is that
of scholar and man of the world
-terse, keen, and epigrammatic.
He led the way to his trim, sub
stantial brick house, and presently
we were seated in the little parlor,
where two hugo Bibles lay close to.
gether on the table under picture
OF Pixies Peak and the Garden of the
Gods.
AS the leader sprawled in an cas-
chair and set his spectaoles on the
bridge of his nose, he looked for all
the world like Henry George.
His yelow-haired, four-year-old
daughter, Virginia, strummed vio-
lently on an old-fashioned piano in
the rear of the room and laughed
when she saw that her performance
interrupted her fathers conversation
A sweet faced matron glided by the
door. 1t was Mrs. Bland.
NOT ANXIOUS TO BE PRESIDENT.
Mr.. Bland talked about the Presi-
denoy and the coming struggle with
great earnestness. He is not con-
sumed by desire to be president.
His whole life has been devoted to
the free silver cause, and now that
he sees the light of what he believes
to be the dawn of a new financial
era, he is willing to lay aside his
claims for thoss of any leader accept
able to the Democratic party.
Letters and kilograms to him have
been pouring in from every part of
the country day and night. His
friends assure him that his nomiua.
ton at Chicago is almost certain.
But his pulse is calm. The Western
Union Telegraph Company offered to
run a wire free of cost to his farm,
that he might not be kept in the
dark about what the men who are
trying to make him President ARE
doing in Chicago. Bat Mr.. Bland
declined, and answered that he could
ride into town every day for his tele-
grams aud mail just as we'll as not,
and there the matter ended.
How unlike Mr.. Mckinley, whose
library at Canton was connected by
wire with the room at St. Louie,
where Mark Hanna hourly issued
mortgages on the White House 1t
would take page of The World to
tell how much Mr., Bland is unlike