New Iberia enterprise and independent observer. (New Iberia, La.) 1902-1944, 1907-06-22
BRYAN AND THF ISSUES.

bkfAN Rl'b 'fI i1H1f6,
A short time ago wide currency
was given by the Northeru pres,
to an alleged interview with vii
liam J. Bryan in which he was
made to slur the tariff issue as oI
little Interest Or Importance to the
people, aud to declare that tn,
railroad question should be th,
paramount issue set forth IN the
next Democratic national platfornl
This bogus interview has given the
corporation newspapers IN the
South another opportunity to at
tack Mr., Bryan, to assert his alb
suiute unlituess for the leadership
aud to predict dire and overwhel-
ming disaster unless it at oGce re
uounced him and his policies.
This bogus interview was rolled as
u aweet morsel under their tongues
by the Charleston News aud Con-
rier, the Louisville Courier Journ-
al, the Macon Telegraph and the
other agents aud manufacturers of
the memorable Palmer Buckner
fake aud bolt.
1t happens, however, that Mr.
Willis J Abbott, the well known
Washington newspapermau, has
written to the New York World
challenging the accuracy of the in
terview IN question, and stating
that the only pronouneement Mr..
| Bryan has made as TO the issues
upon which the Democracy should
enter the presidential campaign,
was in the form of a statement for
the Washington Star dictated and
approved by Mr. Bryan in the pres
ence of Abbott and other friends.
In that statement the Nebraskan
said.
"Men defer as to which one of
these questions is OF greatest i'm
portance, aud | do not think 1t
necessary for the party to designate
either of the questions as para
mount. / have no doubt the trust
question, tbs tariff question and
the railroad question will all oe
cupy= public attention, and the
Democratic party will favor the ex
termination of the trusts, advocate
tariff reform and insist upon strict
regulation of the railroads A
number Of other issues will doubt
less be included, but these three
questions are cloaely connected and
are likely to be considered as real
ly parts of the same great issue" :"
1t is safe to say that this state
ment of his views which Mr.. Byran
authorized aud was published by
the Washington Star, will not be
sound by the newspapers we have
referred to so palatable morsel as
the fake interview which inspired
their philippics against Mr.. Bryan,
for there is not the least dobt that
it expresses exactly the Democratic
doctrines of today aud which will
be preached by the party in the
approaching presidential campaign.
The statement dictated by Mr..
Bryan to correct certain deliberate
misrepresentation published in
the New York papers.
However, the enemies of the
Nebraskan rho are ambushed in
the Democratic party aud whose
hatred of him they have nursed
ever since his excoriations of their
allegiance to the corporations in
1896, preserved the misrepresenta-
tions of the New York papers to
Mr.. Bryan's own views because
the latter did not afford any ground
for attacking him without assail.
ing the Democracy as a whole, and
thus smoking themselves out as
we'll as disclosing in the treacher.
Gus part they intend to play in the
battle of 1908 should he again be
nominated for president. But as
these newspapers and the interests
they stand for are already very
much in the open, and their mo.
tives quite well understood, there
are good reasons for believing that
their power for effective mischief
will be limited, If not altogether
destroyed. That they DO not reflect
the views of the people who read
them will be striklngly demonstra-
ted when the States in which they