New-York tribune., 1900-09-20
DESERVING "IMPERIALIsM"i

After six weeks of fruitess hippodroming
Colonel Bryan shows signs of wearying Of the
campaign issue which he so agerly acclaimed as
paramount" in his Indianapolis speech. What
other Interpretation can be put on his attempt
last Saturday at st. Louis to cashier the disap-
pointing spectres of Militarism and Empire and
TO carry his hearers bodily over into the bogie
world Of industrial monopoly and economic in
Justice? To give place in his St Louis address
to the trust issue as conspicuous and exclusive
as that allotted at Indianapolis to the para
mount" duty Of forestalling Empire and re-estab-
fishing the Republic in itself to confess a de-
rangement Of the tactics which he had laid down
six weeks ago for guidance in his second Presi-
Dental canvass At Topeka on August % Colo
mel Bryan had told the Notification Committee
Of the Populist National Convention that though
the failure Of the Republican party to secure
International bimetalsm still kept the money
question In politics, yet no economic question
could compare in Importance with a question
1.-THE Republic versus Empire) which concerns
the principle and structure of government"
Beside such an issue, he had also said at Mil
waukee, even the Full Dinner Pail versus the
Empty Dinner Pail lost its immediate and over
towering significance. The slave always had
fill dinner pail" the Democratic candidate
exclaimed with lofty impatence; "the full din
"ner pail argument is an insult to the man who
"is complaining that there are forces at work
(which mean the overthrow of the government
he loves
In suspending his fight against "the forces
at work to overthrow the Republic" In order
| TO concentrate attention on the merely eco
Ionic" evils Of the Trust system, as he is
pleased to describe IT, Colonel Bryan yielded no
doubt, to party pressure OF an authoritative
sort. It is not too much to say that average
hon, Ito
| followed the "anti-imperiallstic" crusade with
visible hesitation and reluctance, and on a six
weeks trial the issue which the Kansas City
platform makers declared paramount" has
proved itself, in the minds of both Eastern and
Western campaign managers, an unrelieved fail
ure. Even Colonel Bryan's extraordinary skill
as a ThetOTician was unequal to clothing the
Democratic protest against government with
ouJ the consent of the governed Gin the Philip
pines only of cOurse) with any shadow of sin
ccrity conviction. The South, from which
the Nebraska candidate must draw perhaps
three-fourths of his support In the Electoral Col
legc, has given the paramount issue" launched
at indianapolis only n sardonc and contemptu-
Gus tolerance. AS the leading organs of South
ern opinion have said In n hundred varied
forms: There is no Southern white man who
Goes not in his heart repudiate the consent of
"the governed humbug far II concerns
ANY other race than the Caucasian who will
agree that any colored man Is capable of self
government; and on Colonel Bryan's easy
honest and honorable" solution of the Philippine
problem proposed at indianapolis no comment
has been more candidly destructive than that
offered by critics within the Democratic ranks
Only a day or two ago, for instance, "'The Mem
phis Evening scmitar" condemned it as Ito say
the least, the most visionary and perilous
project ever set forth for sensible men TO sup
! port"
| Forced to admit tho hollowness of his first
| campaign cry, the Fusion candidate conven-
iently forgot his protests about the superior