Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-08-20
Discarded Bryan Issues.


can people with all the indications
pointing to a more decisive defeat than
ever before.
In 1896, his hobby was the free and
unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio
of 16 to /. In those days the Nebra ska
leader and his friends, so strangely
silent on the subject at this time, had
a great deal to say about the Crime
if 49, when they asserted that the dol
wheel-had been cruelty slain. All this
was vociferously set forth in a widely
circulated Democratic campaign docu-
ment known as Coins Financial
School" Mr.. Bryan went about the
country arguing that the prices of
wheat and silver rose and fell togeth-
or. He assured the farmers that they
could never again hope to secure more
than so cents bushel for their wheat
era of inflated and debased currency
by opening its minis to the free and
unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio
Of 16 to land yet only a few months
later this ridiculous fallacy was given
it's final quietus when the price of
wheat went to dollar a bushel and
the value of the silver in a dollar fell
to Al cents.
Today Mr.. Bryan and his friends
get very red in the face if any one
has the temerity to so much as men,
ton to them the former paramount
issue" of the free and unlimited coin
age of silver at a ratio of 16 to l.
1t has gone to the same graveyard
where hundreds OF other former Demo-
cratic issues sleep their last sleep, and
even Mr.. Bryan would like to forget
tiff it We're possible. We hear no
more about the "crOwn of thorns' and
the cross of gold" they too have gone
glimmering among the things that
We're.
But it was not only as to the price
of wheat that Mr.. Bryan INDUCED in
prophecy in the campaign of 1896
He told the wage earners and farm
ers that if Mckinley were elected they
would not be able to educate their
children because they wouldn't have
sufficient means with which to pur-
chase school books and clothing for
them!
He assured the farmers that, if Nc
kinley were elected the price of agri-
cultural products would fall so low
as the result of the adoption of the
gold standard-that no man could
make a living by farming!
Let the prices paid for agricultural
products then, and the much higher
prices paid today, show how false and
shallow was that prophecy
But Mr. Bryan made other prophe-
cies in that campaign of the awful
things that would happen to the Amer
lean people in the event of his defeat
He asserted that interest rates
would become so high that no man in
debt could borrow money; that the
wages of labor would be reduced to
starvation basis; that our foreign ex-
ports would fall off; and that our inter-
state commerce would dwindle to such
an extent that many of our railroads
would become mere streaks of rust!
Did any of these dire predictions
come true after the election of Mr..
Mckinney NO Precisely the reverse
of them happened in every instance.
In the campaign of 1900 Mr.. Bryan
promptly dropped his paramount is
sues of 1856. He had declared four
years before that no question was ever
finally settled until it was settled
right The very fact therefore, that he
was then willing to drop his issues of
1896. was tacit admission on his part
that the questions he then raised, "a
settled by the Republican party, had
been settled right.
1t became necessary therefore in
1900 for Mr.. Bryan to present new
paramount issues. This he did in
what he called neutrality-suspicious.. He
assured the American people that the
very foundations of our government
We're slipping away-William McKin-
lev, the gentle, loving, gracious Nc
Kiney, who in the dark days that
tried mems souls. gave practical proof
of his patriotic love of country, and
whose every heartbeat was in sympa-
thy with the oppressed of all man
kind" was charged with being ty
rant and with cherishing the purpose
of establishing a monarchy" on the
ruins of the republic! Nonsensical
enough now it looks. in retrospect, to
the sensible men of all parties, and yet
in 1900 Mr.. Bryan and his followers
urged it with dramatic righteousness
and it may be said in passing. that Mr..
Bryan, if he had not decided to devote