Danville intelligencer. [volume] (Danville, Pa.) 1859-1907, 1906-06-15
THE MOST
CONSERVATIVE

An English writer recently said
that the Americans were the most
conservative of people, but if he had
visited the United States during
Bryan's first campaign in 1896, and
then gone back not to return until
this year of grace, what would or
could he think of the Bryan revival ?
In 1896 Organism was a scare
word, but now Mr.. bryan Is consIu-
cred the greatest conservative force in
American public life. Gold Demo-
Gratis, Cleveland Democrats, and some
of the most undoubted conservatives
indorse Bryan's candidacy, and are
sending their greetings across the sea
to that wise and conservative states
man, Bryan : prospects are discuss
ed seriously in the most staid and re-
spectacle quarters. His name is every
where mentioned with great respect,
and politicians believe that if the
present demand for Bryan continues
and gathers in force nothing can stop
the movement to have the whilom
radical for the presidential nominee.
OF course, the silver question is
dead. Americans will from time to
time be misled by delusions, but there
is no more likelihood of the resurrec-
tion Of the fiat money craze within a
generation than there is that we shall
fall into violent dispute as to the
number of spirits that can balance
themselves at one time on a pin
point.
But with the silver question buried,
why is it that Bryan stands forth so
prominently as conservative inhu-
ence? He is older and wiser and
more conservative, no doubt.
Assuming that he is as conservative
as his champions declare him to be,
yet the real Bryan of today would
have been considered ten years ago,
or even six years ago, a radical and a
candidate of the most radical elements
in the United States.
The explanation of the Bryan
''boom" is to be found in the fact,
first, that the Democrats recoil in af-
fright before the possibility of control
of the party by the demagogues of the
Hearst wing, who mean trouble for
the Republic; and, second, in the
fact-one of the strangest in political
history-that the people of the United
States, or the political parties, seem
to have changed a good deal more
than has Mr.. Bryan.
In 1904 the tremendous vote for
Roosevelt was due to the fact that his
supporters included not only almost
the full Republican strength, but the
vote Of nearly all the radicals of every
kind in the country. On the East
Side of New York, where the poor
foreigners live, the "bottom fell out
of the Democratic party" In Chi.
cago the radicals of every degree,
who had maintained Carter Harrison,
father and son, in power, Aocked to
Roosevelt Senator Marion But
Ter, of North Carolina, who was chair
man Of the National Populist party in
1896, was an ardent supporter of
Roosevelt; and ex-senator PETER, of
Kansas, who was long the typical
Popuiist statesman of the extreme
wing, after expressing the opinion that
Roosevelt was a thoroughly good
Populist, supported the Republican
ticket.
North, South, East and West the
Populists and radicals of every degree
rallied to the Roosevelt ticket. How
many are there of them? A million ?
Nobody knows, but they are numer-
Gus enough to swing an election, and
shrewd observers incline to believe
that their numbers are increasing very
rapidly.
In general way, the broad senti-
ment and platform which appeal to
them are summed up in Bryan's own
words; Iou must not put the dol