Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-07-28
Bryan's Trip to Maine.

| eral hurting of invective at the gov
eminent and an outlook through blue
glasses at the country's future; an
adroit phrasing of half truths and a
careful lodging of Democratic records
a vigorous thrashing of the straw bogy
of imperialism; the startling dis
covery of an awful danger in bank
ing bill which Congress did not pass;
a merry chase of the trust octopus
around the hall; the framing of a few
bright, though somewhat time worn.
heavy platitudes; some enthusiastic
eulogy of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence; all this,-and Bryan has
come TO Maine and gone again. The
crowds that turned out to see and hear
him were surprisingly small and were
plainly animated by curiosity rather
| than by any other motive. The en-
| thusiasm beggered description-there
was 50 little of it. But the Nebraskan
probably got stronger hold on the
| Maine delegation to the next Demo-
| cratic national convention, and that
| was what he came for.
1t was the same William ]. Bryan
| that some of us heard when he visited
Maine in 1896, and of whom all of us
have read so much ever since. His
mead is little more bald, but his ar
guments are no more so for that is
impossible. a remarkable man he is
in many ways. If for nothing else,
the country is grateful to him
for having twice led the Demo-
cratic party to overwhelming de-
feat. He is the same Populist
who stampeded Democracy in 1896 and
ever since has held it hypnotized SO
that it is helpless and hopeless in his
candidate in 1904 is not to be doubted.
Certain it is that the Republican party
hopes he will be, and certain it is that
millions of Democrats fear he will be.
Twice discredited and rebuked at the
poles, he still holds to his views and
believes that he is right and the coun-
try wrong. No political leader was ever
more thoroughly repudiated, and yet
the once great Democratic party can
not shake his grasp from it's throat.
He stands for Democratic harmony,
only as others in the party will agree
with him. He declared with emphasis
in his speech of Saturday afternoon
that he was glad to come to Maine be-
cause the Democrats here still stand by
the Kansas City platform, the platform
of 16 to / and all those folles and
fallacies that the country has rejected.
What did he say of a constructive
Democratic policy in his speeches in
Maine? Not a word, for he is not
that kind of leader or statesman.
Not a word on Democratic records of
the past. His talk was anti-every-
thing. Do away with the tariff,
destroy the financial system, smash
all combinations of capital, scut-
tie from the Philippines; these
were his texts. He did not bother
to mention his many direful prophe-
cies of 1896 and 1900, all of
which have proven false. He did not
refer to the unprecedented prosperity
which the country has enjoyed under
Republican rule. This prosperity is,
in fact, the one great issue of the day.
The country knows whom to thank for
it and is resolved to keep on letting
we'll enough alone But Democratic
spellbinders no more refer to it than
they do to the record of the party on
the slavery question. He lamebasted
the trusts but for reasons which we
pointed out in these columns, Satur-
day morning, he did not touch upon
the Democratic record on this is
sue. He shouted against an i'm
perialism'' that has not exist and
never will exist in this country, but
made no allusion to his own activity III
Washington among Democratic sena-
tors which resulted in the ratification
of the treaty of Paris.
With tears in his voice and with a
beautiful apostrophe to the flag at the
close of every paragraph, he mourned
the awful fate of the Filipinos under
American rule. But Mr.. Bryan knows,
and every intelligent citizen knows,
that military rule in the Philippines
| is over, that civil government has
been established and that every resi-
dent of that great archipelago is as
| free as are the citizens of New England.
| He paid n splendid tribute to our work
in Cuba and to the Republican party
! for the redemption of it's pledge there,
and urged that the flag be hauled
down in Manila as it has been in Ha-
vana. But he is too intelligent a man
not to know that there is no parallel
between the cases, and the American
people know that we are doing our
duty in the Philippines as truly as we