Los Angeles herald., 1906-06-17
Why BRYAN

The deluge Of Endorsements Of VIII
liam Jennings Bryan as the Democratic
nominee for president in 1908 appears
to surprise and shock certain Republi-
can leaders who had assumed that Bry-
an by his two campaigns had been
politically buried beyond all hope of
resurrection. They do not stop to con-
slider that the Time and the Man have
met.
Conditions are calling loudly for the
Nebraska statesman. 1t was so when
Abraham Lincoln was summoned from
his little law ohice to Washington. 1t
was so when Ulysses S. Grant came
forward as the natural leader OF tho
Union forces at period when just such
a man was necessary.
Consider, for a moment the political
situation. In Roosevelt the country has
drifted away from all its old moorings.
He Is runaway automobile that
occupies both sides Of the road
interchangeably and without warn
ing. He is governed by few laws
and no advice. Impetuous impul-
sive and erratic, he is a law unto
himself, imagining that all power CEN
ters in the federal government and he
is the government. His remedy for the
stomachache in Chicago or for a bad
corn in Minneapolis is a federal enact
ment which he will write. He takes
no cognizance of the people or their
representatives: he does not recognize
state government or municipal
authority as being anything more than
a temporary makeshift that will do
until he gets there.
The people elected Roosevelt because
they rightly thought him to be cour-
ageous. They have found that his cour-
age has no balance, and that he Is rails
ing UP government at Washington so
completely centralized that if we con-
tinlie in this path we must needs go to
congress to have our streets improved.
On the other hand the people demand,
even more than they did in 1904, a
president who is in sympathy with
them; who is known by them to be op-
posed to every form of capitalistic
greed and the power of money in poll
tics; who is recognized by them as a
man of courage, determination and
sterling honesty. But, after all these
qualifications, they require also a presi-
dent who knows and can appreciate
the spirit of our institutions and will
use the weapons of constitutional law
or nf n
beat down the enemies of liberty and
re-enthrone government of, by and
for the people.
They want the unlawful trusts
busted but they want the job done
decently and in order. They want a re-
adjustment of conditions, but it must
be done in conformity with the theory
of American government, so that they
may not swap the oligarchy of unlaw-
full business for the reign Of terror, or
dethroned king of trusts.
Who so thoroughly answers this re-
quirement as William Jennings Bryan?
Who so qualified as he to meet the
exigencies Of the times and restore to
the people the government which their
forefathers established?
Eastern Democrats are for him be-
cause the tenets of their faith have
swung around to him. There is no
longer any difference of opinion on the
tions they have been in harmony with
him. Western Democrats are for him
because he represents to them the
dauntless spirit of the west, with its
great necessities and its pride of su-
premacy. Southern Democrats are for
him because he stands for law and
order, for the establishment Of liberty
under the constitution and for pure
Democracy undefiled.
That Bryan will be nominated is a
elected is almost certainty. For who
is there that can defeat him? Surely
not Roosevelt, of whom the people are
as tired as a weary child with a broken
toy Certainly not Cannon, whose
senility is already becoming apparent.
Surely not Fairbanks, an iceberg whose
corporation connections have been
plentiful in the past and who doesn't
know the political game as such men
as Lincoln did.
No, not either of these And who
else is on the horizon?
Bryan represents in a great measure
the present popular demand for a truly
representative president, one who be-
lieves in the common people as he does
in God, and who also believes in the
spirit of law and in the preservation of
our Institutions.
That's why Bryan.