The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-03-28
WHY BRYAN is RIGHT.

Lie N6W 1OTh ouu cOllnl6uUS
Bryan's declination to attend the Tam
many banquet. 1t says that. under the
the silver champion
could have taken no other course with
out stultifying himself and making his
party ridiculous.
THE invitation came" says the Sun,
from man who opposed openly his
candidacy for president in 1896 and
secuted the platform of the national
Democratic convention which nominat-
ed him in strict accordance with all the
requirements of party regularity. That
platform, moreover, has been reaffirmed
since as the true standard of Democ-
racy by nearly all the state conventions
of the Democratic party and has been
rejected by none. If, then, there is any
distinctive Democratic creed, it is, that
creed, and Mr.. Bryan is right, therefore,
in making loyalty to it test of loyalty
to the party.
mo Democratic candidate for presi-
dent and no Democratic platform ever
received so great a number of votes as
Mr. Bryan and the Chicago platform
obtained in 1896. Look at them as COM
pared with the number cast for Mr.
Cleveland when he was elected in 1884
and 1892 and when he was defeated in
1888:
Cleveland, 1884 ...................4,91 81, OF
Cleveland, 1883 ..................5,53 S, 233
Cleveland, 1892 ...................5.55 800, 91S
7oQc zoo 00-
Since the election of 1896 the Demo-
cratic party has had both excuse and
opportunity to repudiate both the plat
form and candidate, for it was defeated
on the issues raised but in no state has
the party rejected them, not even in
the states where they We're most siren
ously opposed by individual Democrats,
and. as a rule, they have been formally
and repeatedly approved during the
last two years. In this state they have
been accepted by the consent of silence.
and that silence was justified on the
ground that a Democratic convention
accepts a national Democratic standard
presumptively, even if it does not so de-
clare in form of words, for otherwise
it would not be Democratic, since the
test of Democracy, of course, is the
doctrine declared by the national con-
vention.
MI Bryan, therefore, was compelled
by simple self-respect to refuse an in
vitation to a dinner to be given by a
nominally Democratic club whose pres
ident rejected the Democratic standard
and fought against it bitterly two years
ago as dangerous to the welfare of the
nation Moreover, as the leader of his
party he could not have accepted the
invitation without casting an imputa-
ton ON it's policy and principles as an
nounced authoritatively by the only
body competent to proclaim them. He
could give no countenance to a club
which persists in calling itself Demo-
cratic. though it chooses for its Dresi-
dent a man who opposed the Demo-
cratic party in 1896 as a foe to its coun-
try, and has never since recanted his
political heresy or shown any DISPOSE
ton to abandon it.
Very naturally Mr.. Perry Belmont
dIiu llAo cioSOt4cNlSo NeNiAI ~ Sc AAu VI
the Chicago platform, for thefh opposi-
ton to it is radical and irreconcilable
and this dinner of the Tammany club
was devised obviously to assist them in
accomplishing that end; but for them
to ask the cooperation in their under
taking of the chief representative OF
that platform was a proceeding which
he was justified in looking on as an in
suit to the sincerity of his conviction.
1T is manifest that if Mr.. Belmont
and his friends want Democratic par
ty which shall agree with them in their
hostility to the standard of the existing
Democratic party they will have to gel
it up ON their own account"
Those who criticise Mr. Bryans re.
fusal to attend the Croker banquet
merely look upon it as a social affair
1t is, however, unless the custom has
been recently changed, political gath
ering. 1t has always been made g
party function and, with Bryan's pres
ence it would have taken on that i'm.
portance this year. From a party stand.
point, as an honest friend of free coin.
age, Bryan did exactly right.