Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1900-09-21
BRYAN AND HIS BOGIEs.


Eight years ago William Jennings
Bryan, then just earning his proud
sobriquet of boy Orator of the
Platte" rose in the house of represen-
tatives and declared:
Protection has been our cannibal
tree, and one after another our farm
ers have been driven by the force of
circumstances upon that tree, and has
been crushed within it's folds, his COM
panions have stood around and
shouted, Great is Protection" But
the dream has passed, the night has
gone, and in the east we see more than
the light of coming day. A marvellous
change has taken place, and. rising
from the political mourners' benches
throughout the northwest, their faces
radiant with a new-found joy, multi
tudes are ready to declare their allie
glance to the cause of tariff reform"
In part the prophecy came true.
Turning their backs on assured pros
perity, the multitudes did face the mir
age of the coming day, but the new
found JOY was short, the morning
never dawned. Four years of depres-
sion, panic, business chaos and failure
followed. Tariff tinkering, aided by
the growing agitation for free silver,
shut down the mills, cut off employ
ment, lowered wages and deprived the
farmer of his markets.
Did the orator and prophet stick to
his guns? asks the New York Tribune.
No. The Chicago convention declared
that free silver was the paramount"
issue, and the leader of the new demo-
popracy obediently discovered that
it was the wicked gold standard
which was enslaving the human race.
The tariff could wait. Until this
money question is fully and finally set
tied" he wrote in his letter of accept
ance, 1.-The people will not consent to
the consideration of any other import
ant question"
Then the line of prophecy changed
also, and is epitomized in the following
from n of the candidates numerous
speeches:
If you throw a stone in the air you
know that it will come down. The
law upon which we base our fight is as
sure as the law of gravitation. If we
have the gold standard, prices are as
certain to fall as the stone thrown in
the air.
This prophecy was uttered after it's
falsity had been proved by sixty years
of experience with the gold standard in
the United States, and the people went
ahead and voted for the gold standard,
and congress subsequently reafirmed
the gold standard. Did prices fall?
No. They went up. Farm products
went up. Manufactured products
went up. Wages went up. Business
revived. Employment increased. Ac-
tivity succeeded depression, and in the
four years that have since passed the
United States has enjoyed the most
marvellous prosperity in it's history.
And now, in 1900, the situation has
changed again. Both the protection
bogie and the gold boyle have outliyeG
their usefulness, and a new bog. must
be found. The Kansas City conyen-
ton said it was imperialism. ard, nat
urally enough, the oracle is therefore
prophesying the destruction of the re-
lublic because of the consistent appli-
cation of a policy in the Philippines
which he himself made effective by in
fluencing the ratification of the Paris
treaty. 1t is just possible that a man
who was so grossly mistaken on the
tariff and on the money question may
be mistaken on what is pleases him to
call Imperialism.