The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1896-08-11
MI. STERLING. KENTUCKY. TUESDAY. AUGUST H. 1896

eouiu say 10 bryan ana Sewall q
they entered the great fight upon tn,
various questions that enter into tn.
campaign, provided they should b,
elected, is:
"Woodmap, spare that tree!
Touch not single bough.
In youth 1t sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now"
My impression is those gentlemen
will as safely guard the great trusts
confided to them as have Lincoln,
Grant and Cleveland in the past. /
am aware that Mr.. Bryan has been
called, time and again, an anarchist,
which is as foolish and untenable in
my opinion, as the charges made in
the past against Mr. Jefferson, who was
as frequently charged with being an
anarchist by the Federalists, when he
launched the Democratic party into
existence, as Bryan is now by the glib
tongued orators and papers of the day.
Even some of the old women, the
old Puritan mothers were so alarmed
by the charges of infidelity made
against Mr.. Jefferson that they con-
cealed their old treasured family bibles
in wells, in order to escape his des-
tructive grasp. Will not do to believe
everything you hear and see these
days, especially in politics, from either
side or against either side.
Mr.. Bryan has the crime charged
against him of being a young man.
Those making the charge forget that
Alexander Hamilton was famous at
%; Jefferson was great at 33, at which
age he wrote the Declaration of hide
pendence; Madison was prominent
at %, and Monroe was historic char
acter at 30. So the charge of youth
tulness is a foolish one. In a nation
OF young men, as John Russell Young
said in a letter to the New York Her.
aid of July Is, at is dangerous 10
assail a candidate because of his
years. Bryan is a young man of
great ability and force of character.
In this canvas there is no middle
ground ; it is either Mckinley or Bry
an for the Presidency. They repre-
sent extreme ideas on certain ques-
tions, and each is the antithesis of the
other as politician. The intensity
of the canvass, Its freedom from per-
sonal abuse, which is commendable,
will burn out any third party it one
is in the field leaving only a few old
stock actors beating the air. Bryan
and "his craze" as they derisively call
il, will sweep over them as a cyclone
does a country village, leaving head
here, a leg yonder, and an old theory
in mid-air. Men, whether Democrats
or Republicans, should be brave
enough and true enough to vote for
either Mckinley or Bryan, and not
dodge the question by any third party
movement in the name of Democracy.
There is no room for third party in
this great national canvass. ''None
will be so poor as to do it reverence"
during or after the real battle. In a |
quiet and conservative way, my dear
general, L have written to you as an
old friend of forty years standing
Within that time you wandered of |
for four years after dream and after
a shadow, under the noblest impulse
that ever inspired brave, true man,
and now let me entreat you not to
wander again into the wilderness of
unrest and uncertainty for four years.
In making this request know am
in the face of what you have
already said. From a long personal
knowledge of you, I know you never
retreat after having once taken your
stand, from principle or from a bat
tie field, unless convinced that you are
In error or driven by dominant forces.
The old home with which you are
30 familiar, and the old friends, are
best. In reading between the lines i
10 not see that you have left the
ranks of your own party, except on
certain conditions. 1 do not think
hose conditions will be OF such a
character as to force you from your
I'D Democratic home and from your
I'D associates. 1t is no easy matter
o leave your old party ranks, bul
when done, it is far more difficult to
'eturn than to depart. If I believed
hat Bryan and the Democratic party
meant harm to our form of govern
nent, to any one of its coordinate
branches, or to the high financial
IN nd Of |