The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1900-10-05
He Touches Briefly on Several Issues, In
Guiding the Trusts and the Philippine
Question.
SHOWS HIMSELF TO BE A FRIEND OF AGUINALDo
Gov. Lind C0ngrafuEafes the People That
Ruin Has Not Resulted From
His Administration.

Bryan has come and gone. In some
respects his visit was disappiont-
ment. In the first place, the heavy
rain Monday night andthreatening sky
Tuesday prevented great many people
from coming to the city who other
wise would have come, and made it
necessary to change from the adver-
tised location. Secondly, the special
train was late and Bryan consequently
did not speak more than twenty
minutes, whereas it had been con-
fdently expected that he would speak
for forty-fve minutes. Even with his
stay in Mankato thus reduced, he did
not take the entire time, but let Gov.
Lind have the first five minutes.
Then, again, the brief speech of Bryan
was not satisfactory to a great many,
and he failed completely to electrify
the crowd. Several feeble attempts
at applause were started, but they were
very shOrtlived. This may have been
in some measure due to the fact that
large proportion of the crowd was
composed of Republicans, while hun
dreds of ladies and young school boys
and girls helped to swell the numbers.
AS it was, a good many strangers
were in the city, probably several
hundred. The Bryan and Lind 81 ub
of Window to the number of % came
in pretty white uniforms, with red
and blue trimmings. More would
have come had the weather not been so
threatening. Thousands of city people
turned out to see the Democratic
leader, mostly attracted by curiosity
to see the man and hear a. little of the
oratory that has made him famous
and helped bring him his first nomi-
nation. The word was passed around
that the meeting would be held on the
Chicago !. & Northwestern depot
grounds, and thither several thousand
people fiocked as the hour when the
train was to arrive approached The
meeting was advertised to occur on
the court house grounds if the weather
was favorable or in the opera house
if it raineds The weather was neither
Favorable nor rainy, and there was
much confusion in the morning as to
WHERE. the meeting would be held, and
many. gathered Tin front Of the opera
house. ile.the clouds threatened to
drop their stores of moisture at any
time, fortunately no rain fell and the
open air meeting was not interfered
Nth. -
: The meetingsswas called to order at
about 10 20 a. m. by Judge Buck, who
presided. The G. A. R. band was
present and played several selections
in commendable manner. Several
banners were stretched across the side
of the depot, welcoming Bryan, Lind
and Matthews, but. they were hung SO
low as to be partly hidden by the
peolpe.. : Probably 1000 to 5, 600 peo-
pie were..present, filling in a large
part Of the grounds and extending
back to the street, which was roped
off for block to prevent the noise of
traffic: : All elevated places were taken
possession of by people who cared more
for good view of the scene than for
the--words of the speakers. The kodak
fiend was also there. -. -. -, -
&C. N.sAndrews was the only one pre-
sent of the list of speakers promised
for the opening of the meeting. He
supposed that others were to follow,
and cut his remarks short ON this &C
count, and this left a long interim,
during which the crowd began to get
weary of standing. Mr.. Andrews gave
an excellent speech from Democratic
standpoint. He is a fluent talker and
always interesting. He went over the
issues in a general way, and wound up
by saying that the Democratic party,
if given the power, would take the
flag of the country and carry it to
further honors, and would plant and
maintain it wherever it was the sense
of the American people that it should
be. This did not set well with the
anti-expansion element, but the Re
publicans and progressive Democrats
cheered.
The special train came in about
twenty minutes late, coming in over
the Omaha road, with the engine re-
splendent with flags. Mr.. Bryan and
Gov. Lind were escorted to hack and
driven to the depot grounds, where
Mr. Jessup's dray wagon served as a
platform, no preparation whatever
having been made for better one
There was scarcely room on it for the
speakers to turn around. AS soon as
the hack arrived, it was seen that
there was a lack of enthusiasm that
was most painful. In fact, it was a
frost from this point of view. There
were no spontaneous outbursts, throw
ing of hats wild huzzahs, old time
rebel yells. or anything of the sort
There was simply craning of necks