New-York tribune., 1900-08-10
wAyrrNG-A SENSE OF HUMoR.

An unprecedented reading of Colonel Bryan's
speech of acceptance at Indianapolis enforces
the conviction that humor is not to he rated
conspcuously among his intellectual gifts. NO
sense of the incongruous seems to have dis
turbed the even and solemn flow of platitudes
with which the Democratic Presidential Candi-
date sought to cloak his partys hypocrisy in
making consent of the governed" the para
mount" issue of this campaign. Glorifcation of
the Filipno's right to and capacity for self
government may have been n mandate from
which the letter and spirit of the Kansas City
platform left the Nebraska leader no escape.
But the irony Of his protest before such gath
ering as faced him at Indianapolis against the
political vassalage" in which the Tagals and
Visayans are now said to be held must have
appealed to every hearer in his audience not
blinded TO that sense of the ridiculous which in
politics, as in every other field of effort, is the
saving grace Of the American mind.
Colonel Bryan went to Indianapolis to receive
official notice Of his nomination from a commit
tee representing the States and Territories
which participated in the Kansas City Conven-
ton. On that committee were delegates repre-
senting North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida Mississippi Louisiana and Virginia
States which in 1896 gave Colonel Bryan &c Of
his 176 electoral votes and lacking whose solid
support this year his canvass would be abso-
lutely without hope. What fervent sympathy
must Colonel Bryan's picture of the horrors of
government without consent have kindled in
the breast of the committeeman from Missis
sippi-a State which took the lead of all its
neighbors nine years ago in imposing govern
"ment without consent and taxation without
suffrage" on over half its native citizenship!
To what sincere adherence of the denial of full
riO 4O
pinos must the candidates eoquence have
stirred the delegates from Louisiana and North
Carolina-States which through the grand
father clauses of their new constitutions have
expressly violated the Federal injunction that
the American negros franchise is not to be
abridged because of race, color or previous
condition cf servitude! What tenderness for
brown men" held in "the darkness of vassal-
age" must have been instilled in the hearts of
the committeeman from South Carolina Vir-
gnia Georgia and Florida-South Carolina hav-
ing already thrust her black voters back into
that outer darkness! And Virginia, Georgia and
Florida showing unmistakable signs of a pur-
pose to do the same! 1t may be that instead Of
being moved TO sympathy and indignation these
particular Southern Democrats, like augurs in
the Roman College, merely exchanged smiles
with their sympathetic colleagues from Ala
Bdndb AEkdHSdS, leAdS, tennessee anu MIS-
souri,, while the Nebraska leader expounded
with unmoved gravity the harmless doctrine
that men Of all skins and colors were created
political equals If they did not their appre
citation of travesty in politics fell much below
the natural American level
Colonel Bryan has shown from time to time
an eager desire to model his political career on
that of Abraham Lincoln. Lncoln's speeches are
the arsenal from which he is always keenest to
draw his weapons. But of Lncoln's infinite
sense of humor there seems to be scarcely a
trace in the Colonels makeup. For who could
imagine a statesman with Lincoln's sense of the
inept and the ridiculous accepting a nomination
from a political party the controlling element in
which believed slavery TO be the very keystone
of the Union. and then making a speech to
demonstrate that the Nation could no longer
exist half slave and half free?