Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1897-01-08
BRYAN'S BUOYANCY.

The late Popocratic candidate for
president appears to be getting the most
of his buoyancy nowadays from the re-
ports of bank and business failures.
Financial and business concerns that
have been on the ragged edge OF dis
sion got fairly settled down upon the
country have been going down grad
ually, and those of them that managed
to survive until after election, but with
no chance of surviving until the new
order of things could be established, are
succumbing to the inevitable.
1t is over these, not over the hundreds
of failures prior to the November cleo
ton, that Mr.. Bryan gloats He tells
his Popocratic admirers, who love to
hear him talk, that the election of Nc
kinley did not restore prosperity. He
evidently proposes to hold the Republi-
C an PARTY and the Mckinley admins
tration responsible for the damaging
effect of vicious cause which he him
man in the country. The wonder is that
any man of intelligence can be so
blinded by his prejudices to the true in
wardness of the situation.
The victory for sound money saved
many a bank and business concern from
failure, but could not possibly save those
that were beyond all possible hope Of re-
covery before election. They were
started on the road to disaster by the
very thing which Mr.. Bryan himself
was one of the most active and rabid
free trade members of the house ways
and means committee that framed the
industry-wrecking, destroying
Wilson bill. The blow that was aimed
at industry and labor struck banks and
business of all kinds. 1t was an all
around paralyzer, and he who denies it
denies the truth of history from 1893 up
to date.
Yet this boy orator has just been tell
ing a crowd of Popocrats at Lincoln
that McKinley's election has not re-
stored prosperity, and amid rapturous
applause he smiles and bows his ac-
acknowledgement of their appreciation of
his telling hit AS if the election itself
could remove the curse which free trade
legislation, framed and enacted by the
Bryanites of the Fifty-third congre SIS,
brought upon the country Mr. Bryan
cannot wait for the Republican party to
come into power before pronouncing
judgment upon its policy. He cannot
wait until after Mr.. Mckinley is inaug-
urated and the next congress has had
time to undo the mischief which an
anti-protective congress did. He must
lift up his voice on every possible occa-
sion in condemnation of the Republican
party's failure to restore good times,
months before the party that plunged
the country into trouble goes out of
power.
Such ranting as his is that Of COM
mon demagogue. There can be no sin
cerity in it. He knows that the destruc-
tive policy now in force cannot possibly
be supplanted by another until after the
fourth Of March, and he knows that it
will take some time after a new tariff
law is enacted for the country to begin
TO realize its benefits. Every man of
intelligence knows this and no honest
man will deny it,
But the worst of it is that Mr.. Bryan
seems to gloat with ghoulish glee over
the misfortunes of men who cannot out
live financially the hard times resulting
from the enforcement of Mr.. Bryan's
own tariff policy. Every failure now
recorded under the wrecking power Of
that policy, he charges up to Mckinley
and the Republican party, and exults
over his joke while fools applaud IT,