Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1896-07-16
WILLIAM y. BRYAN.

Chicago in very complimentary term
and since then another clause or TIVE
was added which considerably strength
eEed it. We have especially in mini
the plank which calls for an enlarge
ment of the powers Of the Interstate
commerce commission and a strictel
control over railroads.
But, as warm as were our congratula-
lions on the platform they were not
might in excess of those we may give
for the candidate. VIM. ]. Bryan is
the one man in the democratic party
for whom populist refOrmers have u
warmer feeling than any other. While
Richard Parks Bland has been firm and
unhinching in his advocacy Of free sill
YER against the pressure of the admin
istratiOn OF the party to which he be-
longed and the powers which dOmi-
nate and saturate the atmosphere &C
the capitol, yet the early, independent
and unCeasing vigor of the campaign
against mammOn in the democratic
party during the last three years has
come, more of it, from W. j. Bryan
than any other one man, Bland not ex-
cepted. This is not all. He was one
of the champions of the income tax and
it is due to his unremitted efforts in
conjunction with few pOpulists that
it was incorporated in.o law. To be
sure it was annuled, but as Bryan says
1t was done by one judge changing his
mind, and Congress cannot be expected
to know when a judge is going to change
his mind.
Bryan was also one of those who CO.
operated with ex. COngressman-at.large
Harris, in the opposition affecting
the Pacific railroads, and If our mem
DRY serves us right, he was favorable
to the building of the Nicaragua canal
and ownership Of it by the govern
ment.
But further than this, Bryan was not
one of those men who said that the de-
monetization of silver had caused more
misery than pestilence aud famine and
then euIogized the democratic party
and declared they would follow it and
stay in it, whether it declared for gold
standard or not. He was courageous
and fearless enough to place patriot
ism before partylsm and said that if
the party upheld President Cleveland's
gold standard, hond issuing policy, he
would not support it,
The character of the man nominated
at Chicago indicates very clearly the
extent of the revolution which old
rOck-ribbed democracy underwent az
Chicago last week. In any ordinary
time such declaration or even intima-
tion would not only exclude man
from the list of eligibles for presiden-
tial lightning but would place him IN
peril Of his political life.
Rock ribbed democracy has needed
the scriptural injunction to be born
again; and as in the theological dogma
the new birth is supposed to bring the
sinner back to the state of Edenic peace
ard purity of the father Adam, so this
brought democracy back to the purity
and character Of the fathers when JEFF
ferson and Jackson made their fights
against the bank powers and money
monOpOlies, which even then threat
ened the nation.
With such platform and such IL
candidate, if the peoples party does
not endorse Bryan when its delegates
assemble at st. Louis, it will commit
not only one of the greatest mistakes
but one of the graYest political wrongs
of recent years. 1t is no compromise,
to ratify another party's candidate,
when the candidate and the party have
ratified pOpulist principles. 1t is fool
ish to say they are not honest in it.
When men break with a national ad-
ministration and fight against all the
allied powers of patronage, pie and
plumber as these men have done, the
charge of dishonesty or insincerity
falls with mighty small effect. 1t is a
revolution wrought by patriotic and
terribly earnest people, which history
will record as one of the onward move
ments of an onward moving century.
This nomination of William j. Bryan
is something without precedent in
American history. A man with but
year between himself and the age of
eligibility, entering the convention
with but the support of a contested
delegation, not CHASING himself as a
candidate, he took the platform to de-
fend his principles and made such a
speech that it brought him the nomin-
alton. The Office sought the man.
The convention had not been pricked
and primed by standard oil msgnates
and stocked with parasites and claquers
1t was congregation of American
people who were met for a purpose