Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1900-12-06
HOPELESS SOPHrSTRY.
Bryan's DolefuI UtteraBces Regard
ing the Result of the Late
Election.

Mr.. Bryan seems to be hopeIessly
joined to his idols of sophistry and
evasion. He clung closely to them be-
fore election. of course, in futile hope
of thus winning the campaign. But
not even crushing defeat can part
him from them or cause him to see
straight and to speak frankly. After
election he remains as specious and
sophistical as before. In his formal
post-election address, for example, he
says: "The prosperity argument was
probably the most potent one used by
the republicans. They compared pres
ent conditions with the panic times
of '93 to '96, and this argument had
weight with those who did not stop to
consider the reasons for the change"
That means, il anything, that Mr..
Bryan thinks the republican party and
it's policy have received undue and
undeserved credit for the restored and
enhanced prosperity of the country.
Four years ago, however, Mr.. Bryan
said: IF Mckinley and the repub-
lican party are successful and put in
power for the next four years, wages
will be decreased, hard times will
come upon us, mortgages upon our
homes will be foreclosed by the
money lenders, shops and factories
will close. We will export no goods,
and we will import from foreign lands
all the goods we use. Thus will ruin,
want and misery be with u.s." That
meant, if anything that these dread
full things would come upon the ma
ton because of republican success,
and there can be no doubt that if
they had come upon us Mr.. Bryan
would have declared they were the di-
rect effects and results of republican
policy.
His argument appears to be, then,
something like this: 'If the country
suffers hard times under republican
government the republican party is to
be held responsible for it; but if the
country is prosperous the republican
party is not to receive credit for it,"
We are not trying to maintain that
republican policy is to be credited
with all the good the nation has en-
joyed in the last three or four years.
y
made short crops in Europe and Asia
and at the same time full crops in the
United States. That the republican
policies of honest money and protec-
ton have wonderfully contributed to
the restoration of business confidence
and prosperity and the extension of
trade is, however, confidently to be
maintained. And in any case credit
and blame must stand upon the same
ground. The party is to be credited
for good times as much as it would
have been blamed for hard times.
Mr. Bryan's present sophistry is moth
ing more than a paraphrase of "heads
I win. tails you lose"
There is one thing which, in spite
of Mr.. Bryan's disclaimer, people did
stop to consider. That is, that Mr..
Bryan's doleful forebodings in 1896,
which we have just quoted, and which
he made unconditionally were not
realized, but that. on the contrary,
exactly the opposite in every detail
came to pass. People considered that
if he was so false a prophet in 1896
his prophecies in 1900 were of little
worth. And they took him at his
word. too, and considered that if the
republican party was to have been
held responsible for the evils that
happened it was also in common JUS
tice to be credited with the good.
That is sound common sense. and Mr..
Bryan's inability to appreciate it, or
his unwillingness to acknowledge it,
must be regarded as of little credit to
him in his defeat-N. Y. Tribune.