The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1897-01-02
THE PASSING OF BRYAN.

Mr.. Bryan failed in November to achieve
success as a Presidential candidate he sim
iarly failed in December as public lee
turer. 4 fair inference from his dual
failure would seem to be that his country
men have tried the chief of the free silver
hosts, found him wanting and relegated
him to private station. The passing OF
Mr. Bryan seems to have been completed
by his lack of success in the last part he
played as an instructor of the people on the
platform During the long months of the
Presidential campaign that he held the
stump in his own as well as in the EN-
emy's country" the electorate to whom he
made his multitudinous appeals listened
to or read what he had to say in support
OF the principles, policies, vagares and
hereses of the Chicago platform, and hav-
ing considered his statements and argu-
ments went to the polls and cast majority
of their votes against him. On the lecture
stand he told the story of his failure as
candidate and urged that the cause for
which he had contended should not be for
gotten or neglected during the next four
years, but that in 1900 the battle of the
ballots should be fought over again. What
he said as a lecturer was a brief chronicle
of the campaign and an abstract of the free
silver speeches he had made during the
contest. The one was an old, inconsequent
legend-the other the mere refreshing of
often and extensively threshed-out straw.
His subjects were fiat stale and unproft
able to his hearers and by their reception
of his presentation of them they so declared.
The passing of Mr.. Bryan has been vir
tually accomplished, and as an important
factor in active politics he need be neither
feared nor considered. Twice he appealed
to the people and twice the people rejected
him.
But it is not to be too hastily or lightly
assumed that because the leader in the
late free silver crusade has heen retired, the
declarations of faith set forth in the Chicago
platform have been heard of for the last
time, or that their dangerous vitality has
been sapped or their potency destroyed by
the defeat of November. Their supporters,
of whom there were nearly six and half
millions, maintain that they suffered no
defeat, but, instead, mere temporary
repulse, and that during the ensuing four
years they will arm and equip themselves
for certain victory in 1900. A 81, nifcant
indication of this purpose is to be found in
the recently adopted resolution of that
numerically powerful organization, the
| Knights of Labor, to theoretically continue
what they call their Campaign of Educa-
tion," in exploiting the Chicago platform.
Tho vast multitudes who maintained
Mr.. Bryan's candidacy with their votes
were not all advocates of the free silver
policy. Many were opposed to it, and a
greater number Indifferent regarding it,
Largely the upholders of his candidacy
were those who were dissatisfied with their
condition. A vast body of them repre-
sented discomfort, unrest and antagonsm
to existing economic and social conditions
These latter were not wholly Or in dominat-
ing numbers the ignorant, idle or vicious.
Among them were numerous earnest,
thoughtful, intelligent, industrious men,
whose votes for Nh. Bryan were cast be-
cause of dissatisfaction with physical en-
vironments, to change which is one Of the
most difficult of all problems. A large
proportion of those who supported Mr..
Bryan sincerely believe that the triumph of