Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1896-11-19
Tom Watson Tells Il.
ASSERTS THAT BRYAN AND WAT
SON WOULD HAVE Sue
CEEDED.
He Gives Out His Own Letter of Ac-
ceptance-Wail of the Nominee is
Misanthropic Excoriation-
Says Sewal Did 1t All.
Tom Watson Tells Il.

lettef sees tne llght OF DAY througn nle
official organ, the Peoples party
paper. Tom Is back to his old stand
as editor, and he begins by devoting
seven columns to his letter and four
columns of T. E. w. editorials, in
which he claims that the fusionists
who sacrificed him brought on the de-
feat of Bryan.
He says the Populists would GER
tainly have elected Bryan if Watson
had been on the ticket. His letter is
for the most part long review of the
circumstances of his nomination. 81
accept" he says, ssimply because
promised to do So"
He declared that the Populists scared
Democracy into taking the silver eide
of the financial question. The Demo
Gratis, with brazen effrontery, re-
nounced the Republican principles
they had been holding and boldly
swallowed the Populist creeds. After
the st. Louis Populist convention some
of the Populist leaders, he declares,
developed a wonderful tenderness to-
ward the national banking system and
the national bankers whom their party
had from policy assailed. He blames
Senator Butler with preventing such
arrangements as would rebound to the
benefit of him (Watson), saying:
"Dear Sir: Your letter giving me
formal notice of my nomination by
the people for the Office of Vice-Pres-
ident has been received.
"It is solely because of my promise
to do so that I accept the nomination.
The unusual conditions confronting US
must be my excuse for submitting to
the public fair statement of the facts
touching this remarkable campaign,
in order that all unpreJudiced minds
may reach just conclusions.
GAS the time for beginning the
Presidential campaign Of 1896 ap-
preached, the Democratic party found
itself in dying condition, and it re-
sorted to desperate remedy to save
itself from dissolution. 1t publicly re-
nounced the Republican policies which
it had already enacted into law, and
professed the Populist creed which it
had bitterly assailed."
Speaking of the Democratic condi-
ton, he says: "During the dreary
years of 1892, 1913, '94 and '95, when
Republicans and Democrats alike were
falling over each other in the effort to
be first at Wall streets feet, and low
| est in the dust of political self-abase-
ment to the trusts, the national self
| abasement to the railways, the bond
holders and the gold spectators, the
Peoples party was the one champion
of the people.
TALKS OF IT'S RECORD.
''It stood fearlessly against the
hungry hordes of class legislation. 1t
proclaimed constantly its undying an
tagonism to Wall street and its poll
cies. 1t held aloft the sacred banner
of peoples right and called for pat
riots to rise and defend the republic.
Since the bugle note of Rhoderic woke
the highlands, the fiery cross sped
from mountain to glen and from glen
to hamlet, there has been no such
spontaneous outburst of popular en-
thusiasm as marked the growth of the
Peoples party. One crsed, one pur-
pose, one hope, one inspiration moved
us all, and had we sternly put tempta-
ton aside and nominated a straight
Populist ticket at St. Louis, one man
from the West and one from the
South, we would have swept this land
from sea to sea.
"At Chicago the Democratic man
ayers, having adopted the leading
Populist principles, nominated for the
first place on the ticket candidate
who indorses those principles. But
there was a powerful minority pres
ent, which protested against the plat
form. To pacify this anti Bryan ele-
ment in Bryan's own party they
named for the second place on the
ticket a candidate who represents the
minority element OF the Chicago con-
vention as thoroughly as Bryan repre-
sents the majority. In the delirium
of joy among the free silver men,
which followed their victory, the rep
resentatives of the Eastern corpora
tion interests, railroad interests and
manufacturing interests shrewdly ma
nipulated the nomination of Mr.. Sew
all, and thus, before the Bryan men
knew we'll what had been done, they
had been check-mated in the very
hour of their rejoicing.
"The Democrats seem to resent as q
strange piece of impertinence the fact
that the Populists dared to nominate
ticket differing at the rear end from
theirs, coming to them with the 2, ,000,-
600 votes they were begging for and
n;taauaIy uaadiuU