Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1899-05-11
BRYAN OR " BUST"
Inside Facts Concerning the Jones'
Bryan Conferences.
Pressure on Bryan to Oust AItgeld-
Jones Flies to Europe for "a Rest
Sam Cook In Danger-The st.
Louis Two Dollar Dinner.


democrats in particular, concerning John
p. Altgeld Democratic leaders of this
city and state, and most of those so fire.
quenty to be met here from all parts of
the country, are at a loss to know whether
Altgeld will stay in the party and hope
against hope to retrieve his lost leadership,
or whether he will go out and train with
the new party which the Joneses and Pm
srees are to get up at Buffalo. The i'm
preston of most of them is that Altgeld's
6esertion would destroy whatever chance
of success the democrats might have in
the next campaign. Next to Bryan, there
is no man in the democratic party of the
present day with so large following
The National Committee.
Events are conspiring to force Altgeld
out OF the democratic party. There is
story behind the recent visit of Bryan to
Senator Jones, the chairman of the ma
tional democratic committee, which rests
upon the fact that the Bryanites are in
large majority in that body, and in a
position to dictate it's course. Stories have
come out of the east to the effect that
the antl-Bryantes in the committee have
decided to reorganize the committee and
put in the place of Senator Jones as chair
man somebody who would use the machine
against Bryan's denomination. The
Bryanites can control more than two
thirds of the men now in the committee,
and ii is the Bryanites who have threat
ened to reorganize the committee and leave
Senator Jones out of the chair That is
as near the eastern story has got to
the truth of the situation in the national
democratic committee.
Immediately after the triumph of Har-
rson and the elimination of AltSeld in
the Chicago municipal campaign, the
braves and sachems of the Chicago Tam
many began camor for either the de-
struCtion of the committee on ways and
means, of which Altgeld is a member, or
Altgelds removal from that committee.
Tom Gahan, a power behind the Harrison
throne and the Illinois member of the ma
tional democratic committee, was lead
er of this demand which, however, he in
spired rather than expressed. Ga nan has
always resented the appointment of Alt
geld in preference to himself as the resi-
dent member of the committee He, and
the Harrison machine with him, have re-
earded that act of gross discrimination as
being conclusive of Chairman Jones' alli-
ance with Altgeld against Harrison, and
Indirectly against Bryan, Jones and Alt
geld serving each others ends in thi
rangement. AS the committee got to work,
and the municipal campaign progressed,
1t became clearer that the committee was
to be used in more ways than one to serve
the purposes of the men controlling it.
OF this more will doubtless be made known
in course of time. The official announce
ment of the committees support of Altgeld
in the closing days of the struggle was
not therefore, a surprise to the machine
leaders, although they We're hardly pre-
pared for such a bold and defiant avOwal
of such an unprecedented action in party
organization.
The demand for radical action came to
Bryan as the one most interested, as well
as the one who had a standing with the
national committee, enabling him to bring
it 20 the work of either disbandng the com
mittee of ways and means or getting Alt
geld out of it. At first this demand in
cluded such sweeping reorganization as
would put Jones out of the craftsmanship
of the main body, but Bryan, in the con-
ference where this was proposed, pointed
out that it would be unfortunate for the
party in accentuating the too general opin-
ion that it already has more feuds than
1t can well carry. He answered the asser-
tion that Jones would use the committee
against him as he had used it against Har-
rison with the statement that Jones could
be brought to a realizing sense of his pO-
sition without going to the extremity of
making an open breach. He had, he said,
never failed to maiTan friendly personal
relations with the national chairman, as
he had with Altgeld. 1t might become nee
essary to terminate such relations, but
there was no necessity of doing it until it
was no longer unavoidable.
An interesting piece of inside history IS
that after Bryan had taken this attitude
he was brought to abandon 1t through rep
resentations of how powerful Altgeld
might become as a dsturber in the nett
state convention and the next national
democratic convention if he is left in a
position of authority in the party organi-
zation and work. Once out of all official
or prominent personal connection with the
national committee, the machine leaders
said to Bryan, Altgeld would become a
quantity easy to deal with If left in such
connections he might even unseat a Bryan
delegation from Illinois,
Bryan Goes to Jones.
Bryan has been long convinced of the
loyalty Of Harrison and his men. With a
f. n he ms Io6 61N- mt with
democratic politics, he felt that the defeat
of Harrison would be a calamity to him.
The sense of personal obligation he felt to
the machine, added to the representa- tons
of what a menace to the Bryan programme
Altgeld might become if left in prominent
position, brought him to the point of un-
dertaking to at least get assurances from
Chairman Jones that neither the national
democratic committee nor the ways and
means committee, of which Altgeld is a
part, should be used against him or gain .,
his friends, for a large part of the Har-
rison dread is that the ghost of Altgeld
will appear on the Illinois hustings next
year as an independent candidate for gov
ernor. Bryan appears not to have liked
overmuch this attitude of tentative hos
tility to Altgeld but he was given to Un-
derstand, and certainly had every reason
to believe, that Altgeld had abandoned
him.
1t is understood here that Jones denied
when the complaints of Gahan and the
other Chicago democrats We're made
known to him through Bryan, that the
ways and means committee had been or
ganiZCd for or against any candidate OF
candida tes and insisted that if it had been
so used it was without any authority OF
his This admission Bryan is unGe RS ooG
to have used as an argument for the re.
organization of the committee, on ba SIS
of an entirely new membership, at leas
as to those members over whose appoint.
ment or removal any friction has arisen
He made an emphatic protest against the
treatment accorded to Coin Harvey
which, he understood, was administered
punishment to Harvey for no greatel
onense than failing to oppose the nominee
of a democratic convention. Bryan die
not insist upon the reappointment of Har
vey, but he Urged the reorganization OF
the committee in a way to remove every
source Of personal feeling and promote
the ends of party harmony.
Jones, who Is so far out Of touch will
things that he was actually expecting, un
I'll the day Of election, that Harrison would
be defeated, met the advances of Bryan