The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-12-01

Hearst was one reason why the DEM
ocrats failed to carry New York state.
but he had supposed that he was too
busy upsetting his own apple cart in
New York to trouble himself to upset
the democratic apple cart all over the
country. Mr.. Edwards takes less
cheerful view of the result than Mr..
Bryan, who could see the triumph of
ideas" and democratic trends" and
signal victories" amid results which
kept the champions of the people in
private life.
Mr.. Edwards says in his letter to
the weekly democratic press:
The man principally responsible for
this condition, not only in New York,
but in Illinois and California. is the
William Randolph Hearst. His defeat
in New York and the election Of every
other democratic candidate on the
ticket on which he ran is proof posi-
tive that the people do not want that
kind of independence which throws
down" the nominees of the party cal,
culated to do what he advocates.
1t is the great misfortune of the
democratic party that the man who is
its most conspicuous figure always is
responsible for it's defeat. Bryan has
twice been responsible for the public
rejection of his party. Parker has
once been the occasion of its receiving
4 tremendous adverse majority. Nov
it is Hearst, who, running only in one
state. invited, according to Mr.. Ed
wards, the rebuke of the voters all ov-
er the country.
Mr.. Edwards is not without hope,
however. The recent election points a
moral, and that is for the democrats
TO nominate in 1908 man like Chas.
a. Culberson, of Texas, or John Sharp
Williams, of Mississippi, for the pres
idency." Then will they win VIC
tory that will 'reverberate from Tad
NOR in the wilderness to Yubadam.'
We think 1t was Mr.. Bryan himself
who offered a handsome prize once to
anyone who could draw up in the form
. Of platform set of democratic doc
trines on which the leaders of his par
ty would agree. No one ever attemp-
ted, so far as we have learned, to win
this handsome prize. The problem
has passed among the ''posers" of the
ages. the classic problems with which
the human intellect has wrestled in
vain and abandoned in despair. We
should give some words of encourage.
ment to the hopeful person who is try
ing to hit upon perpetual motion If
such an endeavor were an alternative
to his wrecking his mind in an effort
to win Mr.. Bryan's prize. We have
known of men OF intellect who spent
their leisure trying to square the cir
cle.' They were aware of the mathe-
NAUTICAL demonstration that it could
not be done, but they kept pegging
away at it just for luck. Nobody has
sufficient faith in luck to seek for
doctrinal unanimity in the democratic
party The pursuit of the impossible
is ever an engaging occupation, but
the human mind recoils from certain
insurmounta bilities and so Mr. Bry-
ans old puzzle has never attained the
favor of perpetual motion or squaring
the circle as an intellectual gymnas-
tic.
Now every democratic candidate is
an tmpersonation of this intellectual
impasse. He is a mechanism desper-
ately offered to the public as a solu-
ton of the perpetual motion problem.
In him you see the circle squared or
that graver problem, that puzzle which
Mr.. Bryan in one OF his moments of
airy gaietiy tossed down to the ages
the doctrinal unanimity of the dem
ocracy' worked out to universal salts
faction. Doubtless Mr.. Bryan would
like to solve his own problem and win
his own prize and the greater prize
which awaits it's solver. After a trip
around the world it looked easier to
him, but Babel was convention of
'unanimity and nomination by accla-
nation compared to what his sugges-
tons evoked. Only he who squares
the circle may "reverberate from Tad
NOR in the wilderness to Yubadam."
DID, Il a. d.