The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1896-10-08
HOW THINGS ARE PROGRESSING
IN DALLAS. TEXAS' POLITI-
CAL MECCA
BRYAN IS ANSWERING FAR TOO LATE.
The Popuists Are Hot in the Collar.
McDonald's Desertion Does Not
Trouble the Leaders Particle.
He 'Cut Very Little lee

Dallas, Tex, Oct. 6-(Special.) THE
bouquet that Billie Bryan threw at the
populsts Saturday in st. Louis, in ac-
cepting their nomination, has utterly fail
ed of its purpose. To the average popu-
list it smells more like bouquet of cab
bage leaves than roses.
1t is given out that Bllies silver bosses
read the riot act to him, and told him that
down in Texas, as well as other states,
the popuists were going to knock him
unless he did something, and so, after
much kicking, Billie decided to throw a
bouquet. This all looks very well in print
but it doesn't answer the purpose in
reality.
Last July the populist party tender
ed Bryan their nomination in good faith
and, forsooth, he Loesn't see fit to accept
it until forced by his bosses to do it, and
even then he doesn't do it until October 3,
just thirty days before the election.
Like the man in the little school book,
the populists want little here below, but
they want that little very bad. Thus is
the situation CLEANED as to Bryan. They
wanted him in July and August. He gave
them the cold shoulder, to use u slang ex-
preston. In September their liking for
Bryan began to change to something
else-that something else was not love,
either-until now the populists are trav-
| cling a different road entirely from that
on which Bryan is trotting along. They
see that he has no use for them, and has
if possible, to save himself few south
crn states. They realize that if, by
chance-which is only one in thousand
he should be elected he will pay no more
attention to their desires ard policies than
| if they had no existence. They realize
now that they made n grievous error in
| not following "the middle of the road
men" at st. Louis. 1t is not too late to
remedy their mistake, however, and they
| propose to do it. 1t is too late for them
to get out another man, but they do not
propose to swallow Bryan. That fact is
settled once for all.
Many pOpuists in this district and in
the northern as well as the central and
southern portions of the state, are not
at all reticent about expressing their anti
Organism. The Texas populists recog-
nize that serious error was made at st.
Louis in not getting out Il proper run
ming mate for Watson, but now that the
error has been made they propose to do
the best they can to remedy it, and to that
extent they propose to confine their at
tenton to their state ticket and do that
which will further its interests.
They are through with Bryan and
Sewall ct al, and they are for Kearby
and the state ticket. 1t is not the lead
ers who are thus so actively engaged in
working for their state ticket as it is
the rank and file. The organs of the sill
verites delight to harp on the old hack
neyed song that the bosses are delivering
the populists, rank and file. to the republi-
cans. The bosses, if there ever were
any, have long since been relegated. The
leaders and the rank and file are doing
the talking now.
Every day the popuiist headquarters
here are thronged with the boys from the
forks of the creek. In case they cant
come they write, or tell those who do
come to tell Chairman Bradley that you
saw me-" From every section of the
state the news is drifting in. Its trend
is for the state populist ticket above
everything. and Bryan under no circum-
stances. It's not "the bosses," but the
people, and they mean what they say.
Many of them say that they are agreeable
to any fusion that will better the success
of their state ticket. They are welded
to it's success now and nothing else. They
are willing to go through Mckinley to
get it, and that is no mistake. That they
will go through him to get it is manifest,
and the reader can thus draw his own
conclusions as to the result.
Letters received and callers given audi
ence at the republican headquarters be-
token a similar state of activity. The re-
publicans, almost to man, are in favor of
fusion, and will support the populist state
ticket They claim that the republicans
will, by concentrating their strength on
the popuist ticket elect it and defeat the
statehouse ticket, and they propose to
see to it that it is done.
The republicans here are sanguine that
the fusion electoral ticket and the popu-
list state ticket will be a dead sure winner
this year. They base their talk, not on
glittering generalities, but on good. hard
facts. They are confident that the re-
publicans and populists can consolidate
their forces this year, and every thinking
man in this state knows what such con-
solidation means to the statehouse ticket.
The number Of letters received daily at
the republican headquarters will fill two
big hampers and they are as unit in
their approval of fusion and their belief
in the success Of the pOpulist state ticket
and the fusion electoral ticket.
The populist headquarters are daily in
receipt of similar assurances as outlined
above.
In view Of this concerted action on the
part of the republicans and populists, the