Arizona republican., 1908-07-11
PHOENIX, ARIZONA, JULY Il, 1908
THE CAMPAIGN.

 a presidential campaign which will surpass in interest and warmth any within the last twenty-four years, or since the Blaine Cleveland contest. That it will end in a republican vic tory is more generally believed, yet it is admitted that stranger things have happened than the election of Bryan would be.
 On the republican side there is the long record of the party, the per sonal popularity of MT. Taft and his achievements, proof-ofa training for the presidential office superior to that of any predecessor within half a century.
 Against this is the failure of the democratic party whenever it has had control of the government since the civil war And there, too, is the curious career of MT Bryan, who came into prominence in the advo- cacy of a doctrine which all are now agreed was a wild fallacy and would have been ruinous to the country if it had been adopted. The demo- cratic party, and Mir. Bryan by their silence on the subject of free silver admit their error of twelve years ago.
 Those who have watched the course of Mir. Bryan and have not been dag zled by the brilliancy of his ora tory must conclude that he is lack ing in steadfastness of purpose, and that he is therefore unsafe. Other doctrines than that of free coinage which he has urged from time to time as essential to the highest wei fare of the country have been aban- doned by him. Anti-imperialism and government ownership of the rail- roads have no place in the platform which he dictated and which is not in the slightest degree a compromise of varying democratic opinions.
 His panegyrist, MT. Dunn, at the Denver convention credited him with great constructive statesmanship and pointed to the fact that the policies which MT. Bryan promulgated a dog en years ago have been recently adopted and put in force by the re- publican party.
 In this MT. Dunn falls into a com mon error of the minimizing. The republican party has enacted into laws none of the recommendations of MT Bryan but has resolutely re- fused to do so. The fear, howevr, that it might do so as well as the fact that the legislatures Of many of the states have done so. are, it is generally believed, responsible for the panic which overlook the country a year ago.
 Whatever Mir. Bryan may turn out to be in the future, he cannot now be regarded in any sense as a con- structive statesman; only, as a mere theorist. Added to his record, which is worse than none at all, there is the fact that he has twice led his party to defeat and Is charged with having destroyed it.
 On this comparison of the candi- dates, the third defeat of Mir. Bryan might seem inevitable and crushing and to those who regard only the past it must seem so. But there is the present and the immediate future to be considered. It is curiously but undoubtedly true that MT. Bryan is stronger than ever. His party was more thoroughly unit ed when the convention closed yes terday than at any moment since he began to dominate it. In 1896 it was badly divided yet his defeat was not overwhelming. In 1900 the great popularity of Mckinley and the fruits of his administration, together with l the adoption by Bryan of the foolish and unpopular issue of anti-impe- | rialism, made it appear that he was losing his grip upon the country.
 The defeat of Parker in 1904 turn ed all democratic eyes again to | Bryan as the redeemer Of the party. | In his world tour he loomed more | conspicuously than ever and on his | return to this country on August 2S, | 1906, he was the accepted and un- disputed leader of the democracy. Factions which had held out against him came in and surrendered and