The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1903-08-06


cratic party, all the voters OF whlcn
advocated these views there would pc
Hc place for any ether party ASIDE
from the republican party which OPP
poses these principles. Then there
could be fair contest and there would
be no doubt about the result. Dem
ocracy would win.
But that is not the case at all. The
shrewd politicians Of the Hamiitonian
school have seen to it that the people
should not be lined up in that way.
They have injected into the demo-
cratic party a large mass OF men,
mostly very wealthy, who entertain
practically the same views or gov
eminent that the Hamiltonians them
selves hold Bryan has made the
most gallant fight that any man ever
made for any cause to bring the dem
ocratic party back to Jeffersonlan
principles. 1t is impossible for him
to succeed. There will be a sufficient
number left who will not come, to
defeat the party just as they have in
the last two national elections. The
populists are the most enthusiastic ad-
mirers of Bryan and the men who
have supported him in his effort to re-
deem democracy from Clevelandism.
They have voted for him here in Ne
Eraska every time for twelve years.
Populists believe that it was demo-
Gratis who have defeated Bryan and
not Mark Hanna and the republicans.
They believe that those same demo-
Gratis will continue to defeat him or
any other man representing the same
principles, and that makes the demo-
cratic party utterly useless as a re-
form party
If Mr. Bryan should think that it
was wise to openly declare now, and
from this time on, that he would stand
for the principles of the Kansas City
platform and would support no party
and no man who was not known to be
an advocate of those principles, many
populists believe that the reorganizers
could be so thoroughly whipped and
driven out, and that the democratic
party of the nation. In that case
there would be no place for another
reform party. Hundreds of democrats,
some of them high in the councils of
the party, have declared to the editor
Of The Independent that they would
never again vote the democratic ticket
if the principles of the Kansas City
platform were abandoned. If these
democrats would in some official way
make the same declaration it would
destroy the force of the declaration of
hn MI vrysv,
They then would be placed in their
true position as a republican annex
Many of the staunchest democrats in
Nebraska have said to tie editor of
The Independent that the position as
sumed by the populists at Denver is
the first decisive action yet taken to
strengthen the fight against Cleveland
ism in the democratic party and will
be of vast benefit to Bryan as we'll
as to all true Jeffersonian democrats
everywhere.
At Denver the editor of The indie
pendent was pelted with questions con-
corning what Mr.. Bryan would do if
the next democratic national conven-
ton should repudiate the Kansas City
Platform or should nominate strad-
ole candidate on a straddle platform.
Some times the question was varied
and it would be: What will Mr..
Bryan do if the democratic convention
should nominate Bryan democrat on
a reOrganizer platform" or "a strad-
die candidate On good platform. To
all these questions the only reply
could be that Mr.. Bryan had never
made any public statement on any of
those questions. Some of these men
had trusted Mr.. Bryan and sacrificed
and worked for him as no other mai
was ever trusted, sacrificed and
worked for before, and they felt that
they should have an answer to their
questions. There was not an hour
during all the two days of that con-
ference in which some man did not
deliver an eulogy upon Mr.. Bryan and
these eulogists came from the south
| as well as the north and from mid
readers as we'll as from fusionists In
their heart of hearts they did not be-
lieve that Mr.. Bryan could make a re-
form party out of the democratic par
ty, Notwithstanding all the genius
| they believed him to possess, and they
thought 1t wise to keep up an organi-
cation where all true reformers could
find home and where they could all
work together.
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