The River Falls times. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1894-1933, 1898-09-13

crank" would never be heard of again.
1T this point of the proceedings
William J. Bryan enlisted
His secret opponents, who sat in
luxuriously appointed offices and club
parlors, conspiring to fatten them
selves on the pickings of practical poll
tics, have a thousand tricks, but this
one act of his will be enough against
them.
Men who were to be put forward as
Democratic candidates against him in
the West or South remained at home
after plotting the war. And, after
speeches urging our gallant and sus-
ceptible youths to go and die where
glory waits them, they went them
selves back to their offices to pick up
whatever dollars there are loose as the
rewards Of politics. But William J.
Bryan, taking his gun and Offering his
body as a target for Mauser bullets
said this to his countrymen:
AS long as the oppressor is deaf to
the voice of reason, SO long must the
citizen accustom his shoulder to the
musket and his hand to the sabre"
With that addition to the declaration
of the Chicago platform he asked to be
sent to the front, and though Presi-
dent Mckinley will of course never
allow him to do anything but garrison
duty, yet in the trenches where ''They
also serve who only stand and wait"
he will not appear in the eyes of
honest and sane men to deserve less
glory than attaches to Mr. Hanna and
to Mr.. Mckinley in Washington, as
commanders in chief of the army and
navy of the United States.
Of course, when he enlisted, Mr.. Bry-
an knew that he would be kept in
the background as much as possible.
But he was not after military glory.
He was merely accustoming his Shout
der to the musket and his hands to the
sabre. He has nothing of the lingo
and still less of the imperialist about
him. While bank attorneys, secure in
their back Offices, were effervescing for
gore and glory, Mr. Bryan, in his
Omaha speech against imperialism,
spoke of war with something of the
sadness of Milton and the sternness
of Cromwell
''War is harsh; it is attended by
hardship and suffering; it means vast
expenditure Of men and money. We
may pray for the coming of the time,
promised in holy writ, when the spears
shall be beaten into pruning hooks and
the swords into plowshares; but uni
versal peace cannot come until justice
is enthroned throughout the world.
Jehovah deals with nations as He deals
with men, and for both DEGREES that
the wages Of sin is death. Until the
right has triumphed in every land and
love reigns in every heart, government
must, as a last resort, appeal to force.
AS long as the oppressor is deaf to the
voice of reason so long must the citi-
zen acolstom his shoulder to the
musket and his hand to the saber.
When the combination against Bry-
an begins operating in thee southwest,
it finds the Democratic sentiment in
his favor so strong that nothing can
be done against him at all except by
beginning with an ostentatious en-
dorsement of him and the principles he
stands for.
This is very great gain Six
months ago these conspirators believed
the Chicago platform effete, and BIZ
metallism dead issue. They were
ready to set Bryan aside as a back
number They did not do it then. They
have not done it yet. And to do it at
all, they will have to demonstrate that
plutocracy is able to afford a better
quality of political brains than those
of the peanut" statesmen it can buy
here and there as coadjutors of Croker
and the professional corruptionists
who live as bloodsucking parasites,
William j. Bryan is not beaten yet,
and he will not be. In Missouri, in
Illinois and throughout the country
generally, the banks and their attor-
neys, the railroads and their "cow
coroners" are using every imaginable
trick and device to get rid of him and
what he stands for; but if they we're
to give Hanna the war power a hun
dred times over, and to endorse his use
of it in every convention they can
pack from New York to San Francisco,
they would still have to face every is
sue Bryan represents when, in protest
against oppression, he begins accus-
toming his hand to the saber and his
shoulder to the musket.
Therefore the Democrats of Missouri
are to be most earnestly congratulated
that the state platform adopted at
Springfield opens with the unqualified
L L. L. IL.