The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-11
A Ten Strike for Bryan.

Il LII this jangling over rival Jee-
I ferson dinners serves usefu.
purpose. All told, the number
of people who will sit down at these
banquets-even if there be a dozen Of
them in rivalry-must in any event be
comparatively small But the CORES
pondence that deals with the banquet
the refusals, is reaching millions of
people, and some of it is putting on the
quality of campaign literature.
There is the most recent Bryan let
ter to Belmont, for instance-it has
its value. Belmont had taken offense
at Bryans refusal to sit down at din
ner with company of New Workers
who proposed to eat and drink in jeff
erson's name. Belmont's tactics led
Bryan to rewrtte brief chapter CT
modern political history; he refreshed
the public memory respecting certain
little incidents which the public may
have forgotten, and which, apparently,
Mr.. Belmont himself would be glad to
have forgotten.
For instance, as Bryan declines to
break bread with Belmont now, so Bel
mont declined to stand by Bryan
when, as the candidate of the demo-
cratic party for the presidency, he,
Bryan. appeared at a ratification meet
ing in the city that is Belmonts home.
More than that, when Bryan's cam
paign was getting it's start, Belmont
addressed a Madison-Square Garden
meeting, and he pictured Bryan as the
spokesman for a "betrayal' of the dem
ocratic party. If Belmont was right at
that time, then he is not warranted now
in inviting Bryan to sit at a banquet
of democrats: Bryan, If he was a trait
or to democracy in 1896, is not less a
traitor to-day. So that, to say the
least, Mr.. Belmont cannot reconcile his
invitation of Bryan with his. Belmont's,
notions of loyalty or disloyalty to
democracy. To be consistent Belmont
should not have invited Bryan, because
Belmonts testimony is that Bryan is
not a democrat-and this was to be,
mind you, exclusively a democratic din
ner.
1t did not please Belmont that his
democratic orthodoxy should be called
in question by Bryan. He demanded
the test; he was foolish enough to ask
a question that let Bryan right in. And
we think it will be the Judgment of
every candid reader of the correspond
ence that, in his answer, Bryan went
Belmont a good deal more than one
better. Here is what Bryan wrote:
The right to determine what is demo-
cratic in party sense belongs to the
democratic party. The Chicago conven-
ton was more purely representative than
any other convention held in recent years,
because the rank and file of the party
spoke on public questions through in
structed delegates. The Chicago platform
is the latest authoritative definition of de-
mooracy as applied to existing conditions.
If minority of delegates to a national
convention representing minority of the
members of the democratic party has
right to determine what is democratic,
then each member of the party has
right to define democracy for himself and
to assert that he Is better democrat than
any one else.
The Standard does not remember to
have seen anywhere a more terse state
ment of the function or the domain of
political parties, or better rule where
by you may measure the loyalty of the
individual to the party in which he
claims membership and in whose name
he processes to speak. It is a state
ment which, as it seems to us, gives
Bryan altogether the best of 1t in the
controversy into which Belmont drew
him. For the rest, the latest of the
Bryan letters, assuming the party test
to be fairly stated in the words we
have quoted, measures Belmont by that
test and proves him to be utterly lack
ing. Indeed, by the testimony of Bel
mont's own words and acts, he has mo
CALI to raise a question respecting any
mans democracy, but he is put in a
position where he will have all he
wants to undertake-and more than ne
can successfully accomplish-when he
tries to make it appear that he answers
the description of a true democrat.
The Standard hopes that all of its
| patrons read the Bryan letter, printed
| yesterday morning. The man who ad-
| mits that, in this letter Bryan is wrong
| must go much farther-he must also
admit that If in this Bryan is wrong
he was wrong In representing himself
to be the chosen standard-bearer Of the
democratic party in 1896. You'll have
to travel a long way before you will get
| that unwarranted confession out of
many of the 6,502, 1926 citizens who voted
for Bryan for president.
% ERRY BELMONT is said to be