The Colfax gazette. [volume] (Colfax, Wash.) 1893-1932, 1900-09-21
What Baseness Deserves


offered by one of the dominant
parties within the memory of living
man, AYERS the Oregonian. We have
had candidates with mistaken views, We
have had men with dangerous policies
But we have never had a man whose
perversion of truth was so shameless,
whose stock in trade consisted of ap-
peals to class prejudice, whose hopes of
success lay wholly in ministering to the
basest passions of human nature. 1t is
past comprehension how any man who
values truth before falsehOod and sets
law before anarchy can ally himself with
this most cOnscienceless of demagOgues
and most perncous of agitators.
We printed the other day letter that
showed irrefutably that Bryan had
taken a message of Abraham LincOIn's,
written to rebuke the ownership of CAPT
tai in human labor, and so perverted it
ment of Bryan's senseless rawlings
against capital in its relations with free
labor. 1t was an act palpably and I'M
mitigatedly dishonest, that should find,
as it has found, no defenders, and that
should forever debar Bryan from the
confidence and support of men of prin-
ciple.
Why did Bryan urge ratifca ton OF
the peace treaty? For the purpose of
putting the republicans in a hole 1t is
the act of a cheap politician, it is not
the act of a statesman.
Bryan went about the country in 1896
predicting all manner OF catastrOphes if
we kept the gold standard If he knew
better, he is a knave. If he didn't know
better, he is a fool.
He talks silver at the west, anti-im-
perialism at the east, anti trusts at the
south. He is for anything that will get
votes.
He wants us to return to the simple
dignity of the fathers, yet he scurries
about the country to receive superfuous
nominations, and spouts his speeches in
to monograph,
He denounces autocratic rule, vet he
is himself the most dictatorial of living
politicians.
He holds up Washington and Lincoln
as examples, and vet he has done moth
ing for four years but pursue with IN
blushing and unwearied ambition the
democratic nomination for president.
Now, man may be cheap politician
and an arrant demagOgue and still be
sound at heart. But the baseness OF
Bryan's purpose is clearly apparent
from the nature of his appeal
If a man is cOntented, Bryan will DO
his best to make him disconnected. If a
man defies the law with riot, Bryan pats
him on the back. If man is poor,
Bryan tells him the government is to
blame, Bryan encourages him to call
down imprecations on the rich.
Here is man who goes about the
country stirring up the poor against the
rich, the broken against the successful
the idle against the busy, the laborer
against the employer, the riOter against
the courts, the propertyless against
property, the disorderly against order,
the lawless against law.
Every man that is enraged at the ex-
listing order; every man that is envious
OF his neighbours progress; every man
that blameS society for his OWL incOm-
petence; every man that feels like tax
ing the law into his own hands to re-
dress his grievances against capital:
every socialist, communist, anarchist
and riOter; every enemy of progress and
prosperity; every croaking raven of
calamity; every apostle Of discomfort;
every prophet OF despair, recognizes a
friend in Bryan, and recognizes truly,
because his whole appeal, overt or CO.
vert, is addressed to these basest ele-
ments and most dangerous foes of our
civilization.
Such man is out of place in the
United States. Such a man is at yari-
ance with American ideals of liberty and
law, individual enterprise and response
bllity. He is the enemy of the doctrine
OF lair play, which insures to each the
fruits OF his labor. He offers us despair
for hope, discomfort for determine ton,
bitterness for ambition, dependency for
courage. Such man is dangerous, rot
only and not so grievously because he
perverts history, palms off humbug as
philosophy and menaces business and
order, but because he seeks to poison at
its very source the fountain of our ma
tional life. He seeks to substitute for
yirile self-reliance, obedience to law and
resolution to press forward, a spirit of
anarchistic rage and bitter complaint
that belongs only in the decadent ciyiliz-
ations of the old world.
The difference between Bryan and all
his predecessors is not one of degree. but
OF kind. We have never had a man he
fare who sought to build himself IN on
the ruins OF prosperity, and not onlv
that Int on tho urooI 80 ;5::ll