Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1901-05-09
Republican Party.
Tspecial Washington Letter. I

lSpeclal washington Letter.
For the benefit of all whom it may
concern-and there are several of them
it may be well to suggest that jubila-
tions over the political demise of Will
liam Jennings Bryan are premature
and that some who are engaged in that
harmless but malicious diversion may
live to rue it. He is not dead political
ly and won't be till he is dead physic-
ally, an event which in the natural
course of things lies in the distant fu-
ture. These too previous jubilators
would do well to read 'Ivanhoe," par
ticularly that portion telling the won
drous story as to how Athelstone sud
denly came to life after being laid out
on the cooling board for three days and
dressed in the cerements of the grave,
to the utter amazement of those who
were holding a wake over him. Bryan
received hard jolt in 1896 and hard
er one in 1900, but he was not nearly
so hard hit as was Athelstone. He has
a vast deal of life in him, as sundry
persons are liable to discover, very
much to their sorrow.
1 have not seen Bryan since the mel
ancholy days of November and have
had no private tip from him as to his
plans or ambitions. | am not posing as
a Warwick, but like a fair fight and
never like to see man jumped on too
promiscuously when he is down. Then
there is always this danger imminent
to the jumpers on-the fellow who is
down today may rise tomorrow. Then
what? And it is this "what' that | am
suggesting to the jubilating jumpers
on of Bryan. He is considerable of a
jumper himself, and when he gets into
the jumping hunor he may not wear
pumps or felt slippers, but hobnailed
shoes, which may somewhat disfigure
the glowing and rubicund countenances
of the jubilating jumpers on aforesaid,
and he will have much encouragement
in his jumping on, for he is the bien
Anne (the well beloveO of millions.
He may never be president, may not
even receive another nomination, may
not want it. am not arguing that or
prognosticating about it. | am, as q
sort of amicus curin, suggesting in a
friendly way that jumping on him may
not prove to be safe and hilarious
performance Au contraire, as the
French would say, it is full of hazards.
Error.
Homer sometimes mods, so we are
told; ditto even so great journal of
civilization as the Washington Post. 1t
recently contained this amazing squib:
1t is appalling to think of the amount of space
the rural editor wastes in thanking his member
of congress for useless public documents.
The word amazing is used adyis-
edly when the general opinion of The
Post ON current matters is taken into
consideration. For instance, The Con-
gessional Record, at which SO much
fun is poked, is padded too much. There
is precious little sense in publishing
any large number of the presidents
messages, as they are published in near
ly all the newspapers in the country;
but, as a rule, public documents are
valuable provided they can be put In
the right hands. | will give one or
two of my own experiences in this re-
gard, which, will undertake to say,
are by no means exceptional except in
the fact that the district which have
the honor to represent is one of the
richest agricultural districts in the
United States.
Before going to congress | had never
read an agricultural report in my life,
and | had seen so much fun poked at
them in the newspapers that | didn't
suppose any one else read them to any
great extent. Consequently when ! was
notified that my first quota was ready
for distribution | sent them out fndis-
criminately to the first 994 farmers
could think of. not even keeping one for
myself. A few weeks after that be-
gan to get requests for them Not hav-
ing any, bought copies at the second
hand bookstores to supply the requests.
This kept up until ! paid for some 200
that year simply because | had enter
tained as poor an opinion of agricul-
tural reports in particular as The Post
has for pubDic documents in general.
This experience surprised me so that