Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-04-24
NORMAN E. MACK ON WILLIAM ]. BRYAN.
Nebraskan His Party's Leader,
 Says Buffalo Editor
CLAIMS REAL ISSUES ARE NEEDED


 Opinion Radical Campaign Against
 Special Privileges Could Succeed.
 No Room For Two Trust Parties.
 Norman E. Mack, the editor 'and owner of the Buffalo Times, who is the Democratic national committeeman of New York state and member of the executive committee, spoke as follows about William J. Bryan when he was recently interviewed by James Creel- man for the New York World:
 T recognize William J. Bryan as the national leader of the Democratic par ty. Mr. Bryan has polled more votes than any other living Democrat. He has boiled million more votes than MT. Cleveland or MT. Parker. Until some other Democrat &eceives larger number of votes MT. Bryan will con tinue to be the national leader of his party"
 MT. Mack was not anxious to talk about politics, but when the divided condition of the Democratic party was mentioned he spoke with frankness.
 "The Democratic party at this time reminds me of the boy baby in the ad- vertisement reaching for a cake of soap and labeled He won't be happy till he gets it, The people who make up the rank and file of the Democracy will never be satisfied till the men who have been engaged in securing and making money out of special govern mental privileges have been sent to the rear of the party. The party just now seems to be made up of two elements Ninety eight per cent of it consists of men who seeh to be in favor of pro gressive Democracy, which says what it means and Is honestly opposed to the use of the party or the government for private advantage Those who make up the remaining per cent seem to ba convinced that they are the real Demo- crats, but-we might as we'll be honest, they call themselves conservative Dem- ocrats-with the exception of very few who have been misled you will find that in nearly every case the so called conservative Democrats who have opposed the party most of the time for the past ten years are either at the head of big corporations looking for special privileges or are attorneys hired by such corporations to secure special privileges for large money con- alterations.
 "The Democrats of the country might as well understand clearly that they can never win by the use of poodle. I intend to speak frankly. Take my own oeunty, Erie, for instance. In 1900 we had a fund of about $4,70O In that county. We lost 1t by about 4,S0O votes. Last year we had a fund of more than $50000 We lost the county by more than 13,0O0 votes.
 "Now, in 1896 1t is a well known fact that there was not county in the Union in which we had money enough to buy the necessary postage stamps, and yet we came within 6O1, ,S54 votes of electing president. Last year we had plenty of money. I don't believe that the public should be misled, and I will speak plainly. Last year we had all the money we could use in this (New York; or any other state. Yet we lost the election by 2,542,062, a defeat, in spite of our abundance of money, more than four times as great as in 1896, when We were so hard up for funds. If it had not been for the strength furnished by local issues and local candidates in states like New York, Michigan, Massachusetts and Minnesota we would have come out of the campaign stripped bare.
 "The truth is that the Democratic party must stand for something def mite if it hopes to win at the polls. You don't need any better evidence than that last fall Chicago went 10000 Re publican, while this year. indeed with in the past few days, when the muni- cipal fight was made on straight out and out issues, Chicago went 25.0O0 Democratic. These things ought to be a lesson all Democratic leaders. "It is given out constantly that the leadership of the so called progressive or radical Democrat is opposed to big business interests That is not true. It Is not opposed to legitimate private en- terprise on however large a scale. I have never heard of any Democrat be- ing opposed to Mir. wanamakers es- tablishments or to any other of the great dry goods stores or similar busi- nesses. The things that progressive and radical Democrats object to are the policies of men advocating special legislation and engaged in bribery and so consolidating and watering corpora tions as to menace the business of the country. The legitimate merchant has to buy land. to build on 1t and to pay taxes. He gets no special privilege from the government"
 Whom do you recognize as the na- tional leader of the Democratic party todayT'
 "The man who received a million more votes than any other living Dem ocrat and will remain leader until some other Democrat can show a larger vote-
 "You meen Mir. Bryan?'
 T mean Mir Bryan. He rolled . mil lion more votes than either Mir. Cleve- land or Mir. Parker. look upon him as the national leader of the party