Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1899-08-03
CHAMP QARK.S LETTER
Gold Democrats Fail to
Bury Bryan.
KEEPS ALIVE AID ON TOP.
Meanwhile Harvests a Crop Of
Delegates.
FIRM AS EVER FOR FREE SILVER.


FIRM AS EVER FOR FREE SILVER.
Genuine Democrats Everywhere
United In support of the Chicago
Platform and the Standard bearer
of 1898 - Many ProdigaIs Are Re-
turning-The East No Longer Con-
troIs-ChandIer's Fight With Gall
Iinger-AIger,s Retirement.
Especial Washington letter.
| As model Of patience the man Of
Uz was not in it with those goldbug
Democrats who have been waiting pa
tiently for three years to get a good op-
portunity to screw the lid fast and tight
on to the coffin of Bryan and Organism.
They are certainly the most active and
pestiferous corpses ever known among
men. Bryan's friends in Washington,
where they do nothing but talk politics
from years end to years end. have
ciphered it out that he has more
than two-thirds of the delegates to the
next national convention safe in hand
already For something like three years
the goldbugs have been shouting that
Bryan was merely gimcrack orator,
persistent spOuter of exploded plati-
tudes, with certain knack of deliver
ing glittering generalities, but that he
knew nothing of real politics that is,
such politics as the Hon Richard Gro
ker and the Hon Arthur Pue German
understand.
In his palmy days in the senate the
Hon. John James Ingalls,, the vitriolic
orator of Kansas, saw one of his grave
senatorial brethren pacing solemnly up
and down with his hands behind his
back in the senatorial lobby and sarcas-
tically remarked, "There goes man
who thinks he is thinking Now, for
three years these goldbugs have thought
they were thinking these aforesaid
things about Bryan, and they had kept
up this process of ratiocination until
they had come to believe that what they
so much wished had come true Now,
however, so many signs have accumu-
lated that at last they have concluded
that as a practical politician the Hon.
William jennings Bryan from the wild
and woolly west can give cards and
spades to veteran gamesters of the east
and beat them out of their boots For
a long time they have asserted that he
speeches for the love of the thing and
was wasting his sweetness on the desert
air Finally it has percolated through
their heads slowly but nevertheless
surely, that there is method in his per-
ordinations, and that the net result of
his oratorical tour is a bountiful har-
vest of delegates to the next national
convention. They would be perfectly
willing themselves to take Bryan as a
candidate provided he would recant any
portion of his silver faith.
Opening of the Campaign.
The campaign of 1900 really was
| formally opened on the 25th of May at
the great antitrust banquet in st.
Louis. | was selected by the managers
to deliver the first set speech. In stat
ing what the next platform would be /
said inter ala, First, we will not only
reaffirm, but readopt, the Chicago plat
form of 1896, word for word, syllable
| by syllable, abating neither jot nor tit
tie of that second declaration of indie
pendence And, if do say it myself,
| that statement was taken and accepted
as genuine Democracy from the Atlantic
to the Pacific by the hosts Of Democrats
who in 1895 voted for Bryan but, in
asmuch as more was said that night
about trusts than about anything else,
even by Mr.. Bryan himself, the goldbug
organ grinders, with one accord, de-
clared that silver was being side tracked,
and they congratulated themselves and
incidentally the country upon this hap
py event. They were hardly through
with these congratulations, however.
when they were thrown into the dumps
by the irrepressible and incorrigible
Bryan himself. In his speech before
the Ohio Democratic clubs at Columbus
July he made this unequivocal decla-
ration:
81 congratulate the club upon hav-
/ ing declared in emphatic terms that
there shall be no retreat from the posi-
tion taken by the Democratic party in
1895 Every plank in that platform was
a Democratic plank, and not one plank
could be taken from the platform with
out injury to the party's chances of
success. Sometimes we hear sugges-
tion that the silver plank should be
dropped or amended; but, as rule,
those who threaten to get off the plat
form are really the persons who were
never on the platform.
How the Wind Is Blowing.
A man would have to be tremen-
dous fool to mistake the meaning of
that paragraph, nor are Bryan's utter
ances and actions the only straws indi-
eating which way the wind is blowing.
The Pennsylvania Democratic conven-
tion, under the leadership Of the Hon.
Chauncey F. Black. declared for Bryan
and Organism, SO called really, for
genuine Democracy Again, when the
| Democratic convention of Kentucky
met recently, they had great historic
wool pulling about candidates. The
only things upon which they seemed to
be agreed were that Bryan should be
renominated and that the Chicago plat
form should be readopted Even that
great orator, statesman, publicist, edi
tor historian and lecturer, Marse Henry
Watterson, recognizes the inevitable.
and in an interview which he thought
cf sufficient consequence to give to the
Associated Press in advance declares
that Bryan is the predestined candidate
of the Democracy in 1900. OF course
Marse Henry is very fearful ON account
of this great calamity, as he sees it, but
the fact remains that he does see i and
has sense enough to say 50. As Marse
Henry is now supporting tooth and nail
the Hon William Goebel and the entire
Democratic ticket in Kentucky, the
chances are that in 1900 he will wipe
his weeping eyes and jump from the
humble position Of private In the rear
rank Of the Democratic army. which
he voluntarily assumed in 1898, 70 the
very head Of the Bryan hosts in 1900.
Return of the Proaigals.
We expect Marse Henry to be the
drum major Of that great procession to-