The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1904-09-23
NOTHING TO TAKE BACK
How Will Bryan Explain His Hostility
to Parker?


How Will Bryan Explain His Hostility
to Parker?
William Jennings Bryan has BEEN
officially engaged by the Democratic
national committee to make speeches
in New York. Indiana and other
places. The former candidate for the
presidency has something of reputa-
ton as an agile political contortionist,
but he will have the time of his life
explaining his record during the pres
ent campaign. Mr.. Bryan has been
on a good many sides of good many
different questions, and yet he lives to
tell the tale. But just how he proposes
to advocate the election of Parker is
a mystery.
Bryan was opposed to Parker before
the convention met at st. Louis. He
was opposed to Parker every day dur
ing the sessions of that inharmonious
gathering. When Parker sent his tele-
gram supplemeEting the Democratic
platform Mr. Bryan rose from bed of
sickness to denounce the nominee as
traitor and dictator, and his dra-
matte appearance on that Saturday
night was one of the most extra
ordinary episodes of an extraordinary
convention. Bryan dashed Parker and
he dared the convention to send Il tele-
gram to the nominee demanding his
honest opinion on other Well-known
Democratic principles
Later on Mr. Bryan, in his paper
The COmmOner, While the events il
the convention were fresh before him.
openly charged that Judge Parker was
party to corrupt attempt to deceive
the convention and that his nominal
ton had been secured by improper
means. 1t was then that the former
candidate for the presidency put him
self on record by saying in The Com
moner of July IS, less than a week
after the nomination: Il have moth
ing to take back"
1t seems a curious thing to find
man who has nothing to take back"
appearing on the stump favoring the
election of Alton B. Parker for the
presidency. If Mr.. Bryan has moth
ing to take back" he should in COM
mon honesty when he appears on the
stump in Indiana, and elsewhere, re-
peat to his audiences exactly what
he said in The CommOner of July Is,
which was printed exactly one week
after the Democratic convention was
called to order and only four days
after Judge Parker was nominated for
the presidency and had sent has tele-
gram repudiating the Democratic plat
form.
In this issue of The Commoner Mr..
Bryan said:
cit was a plain and deliberate at
tempt to deceive the party The New
York platform was vague and purpose
ly SO; because the advocates of Judge
Parker were trying to secure votes
from among the people who would
have opposed his views had they
known them. The nomination was
secured, therefore, by crooked and in
defensible Methods
AS an exhibition of political gymnas-
tics Bryan's campaign speech for Par
ker ought to be worth going miles to
hear. If. as he says, he has nothing
to take back" how will be explain
matters to the people? What did he
mean when he said in The Commoner:
''The nomination of Judge Parker
virtually nullifies the antitrust
plank?" Was it true on July 13 that
Parkers nomination had been secured
'by crooked means" If it was true
then is it not true now?
Mr.. Bryan in The Commoner said:
Il shall lot appeal for votes for the
ticket on false grounds How can he
appear on the stump, therefore, and
seriously ask the workingmen of the
nominee after The Commoner had de-
clared that ''The labor plank as pre-
pared by Judge Parkers friends on
the subcommittee was a straddling,
meaningless plank?"
Was Mr.. Bryan lying when he said
in his paper, "a Democratic victory
will mean very little, if any, progress
SO long as the party is under control
of the Wall street element?'
If the party was under the control
of the Wall street element when Mr.
Bryan wrote that editorial, is it not
just as much under the same control
while he is on the stump?
Perhaps Mr. Bryan can explain
away these things. Perhaps he can
answer these questions.