Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-11-05
Albert Griffin on Bryan.
SOME FRIENDLY SUGGESTIONS.
"A Few Sensible Remarks" by Silver Re-
publican.

For while last summer, the name of VIM
]. Bryan was kept in the columns of the To-
peka Independent, as its candidate for Pres
dent i'll 1900, but, a couple of months ago, il
was dropped. This did not mean that we had
decided to oppose Mr. Bryan-for we have moi
but it was prompted by growing fear that
he may not be the best man for the reform
cause and our doubts have grown stronger since
Mr.. Bryan is pursuing policy which, if per
sisted in, may prove fatal He is too big man
to be elected by "artful dodging," or by any
of the arts of the politician. 1t may be pos
sible for him to secure Democratic nomina-
ton in that way-but not All election.
If President Mckinley fails of reelection,
nearly, if not quite, half of the votes that de-
feat him will be cast by Republican Republic
ans, Populists, moderate Socialists and Inde-
pendents-and these men will accept no candi-
date whose attitude great public questions
has to be guessed at the more especially if he
be Democrat, for that man is Democrat
creates presumption that he is conservative,
if not reactionist, which he alone can dispel.
That Mr.. Bryan was far in advance of his
party year ago is we'll known, and there is no
other man who could have polled so many Dem
ocratic votes OH such platform. He lifted a
large part of his party to the level of the Chi
cago platform. But many Democrats fatty re-
pudiated it, and large number accepted i. un-
willingly and still banker for the flesh pots
from which which they had been accustomed to
feed.
Most unbiased reformers lean strongly toward
Mr.. Bryan at this time-but they do not wor-
ship him. They will gladly make him their
standard bearer in 1900, provided they feel sure
he will be a real eader-but not otherwise.
They will not be content with him as the Dem
ocratic candidate on the Chicago platform.
That is, the candidate must be something more
than Democrat and the platform must be
clearer and stronger than the adopted at
Chicago. There are the two rocks upon which
Mr. Bryan's Presidential bark is in danger of
going to pieces.
Mr. Bryan's great. effort now appears to be to
retain his hold upon the Democratic party with
out alternating its anti-reform elements. To
this end, he sticks to the Chicago platform and
the silver question and ignores some vital prob
lens in which multitude of people are more
deeply interested than they in the remone-
tization of silver. Millions of Democrats are
also interested in these questions, and some of
them think that, if they can keep their party
together and get into power on the Chicago
platform, they will then be in shape to advance
to niger ground.
Mr.. Bryan apparently takes this view and is
working to that end, but he and his Democratic
friends should remember that the other reform
forces have reason to fear the result of accept
ing subordinate place in a combination in
which the managers of the leading factor are
willing to take an equivocal attitude in order to
retain the support of enemies. They know
that victories won by such methods generally
prove to be apples of Sodom to reformers. This
is because candidates that occupy equivocal po-
sitions really secnre their election by deceiving
voters, as to their intentions. 1t goes without
saying that this is not honest, and experience
that, from motives of policy, deceive one set of
voters before election are liable to betray others
afterward.
Just what ch ,nges will be made in the Chica-
60 platform in order to make it satisfactory to
reforners is not possible now to say-nor is it
advisable to attempt to do so. But, no man