New-York tribune., 1908-09-24
THE HASKELL ENIGMA.

The more the record of Governor Charles y.
Haskell of Oklahoma is studied the more the
wonder grows that he should have been able
to pose for the last twelve months as one OF
the chief exponents in politics of unaduterated
Bryanism. In the public mind he figured as
frontier statesman of the aboriginal type. he
was supposed to have grown up among the
untutored wards of the nation and TO share
their economic and political theories. Nobody
ever suspected that his hands had been pol
luted by the touch of stocks, bonds or trust
certificates He seemed to be an otfshoot or
the virgin prairie. to whom the political teach
ings of William ]. Bryan had come as revela-
ton and appealed the compendium OF all
political wisdom His Organism was so intense
and perfervid that he was picked out for sig
nal advancement in the Democratic party as
soon as Mr.. Bryan's control of that organlZa-
ton was again firmly riveted As compli-
ment TO him Oklahoma's representation i'll the
Democratic National Convention was increased
beyond the normal ratio He was the Pooh
Bah at Denver. having the last say in the COM
mittee on resolutions and in the committee on
credentials, and consuming more time on the
convention platform than any other four dele
gates.
The convention could hardly have known that
in honoring and following this eXempar
of peerless craftsmanship it was honoring
and following a former Wall Street promoter,
with a long record of disastrous railroad ex-
ploitations 1t could hardly have suspected
that the ardent Bryanite of 1908. the chief con-
structor of the ultra-radical Oklahoma con
stitution. was associated in 1896 with the
Wall Street operators whom Mr.. Bryan charged
with crucifying mankind - themselves ex-
cepted-on a cross of gold 1t could not have
dreamed that the Oklahoma Gracious was
reformed plutocrat exiied from Wall Street by
the miscarriage of his high and quick finance
schemes.
1t now appears that few of Mr.. Haskells as
sociates at Denver knew anything about his
antecedents. They took him on primG fGcie
evidence for an ingenious practitioner of
Bryanism from Muscogee. They assumed that
he had never visited Wall Street except on
the top of a ''rubberneck' coach. They are
naturally alarmed and indignant at discovering
that the chief stage manager at Denver, now
the treasurer of the Democratic National Com
mittee. is financial promoter and adventurer
who has left a trail of failure and losses to
others wherever he has gone.
Was Mr.. Bryan aware of this record? If he
was he will find it hard to defend his par
tiality for Mr.. Haskell Mr.. Bryan says that
the Governor Of Oklahoma has been condemned
on insufficient evidence But the evidence
which has been unearthed in the last few DAYS
! Is certainly sufficient to dscredit Mr.. Bryan's
judgment in selecting Mr.. Haskell as campaign
treasurer and manager. What are the Gov
ernors real relations to the Standard Oil Com
pany? II is suspicious that he should have
quashed without explanation a proceeding be-
gun in Oklahoma against a subsidiary Stand
ard Oil Company by his own Attorney Gen
eral. Could the Attorney General also have
thought he was serving under an altogether
different type of statesman? The Haskell
enigma is not yet solved. Until it is solved
the Bryan campaign will halt; for the reveIa-
tions so far made are too serious TO be ex-
planned away on the good old comedy theory
of mistaken identity.