New-York tribune., 1908-07-07
municipal debt is nearly 81 ,oo0,Oo0,oo0 and that
the city has little to show for IT.
Gf1FFEy ON "GRATTTUDE."

Colonel Jim Guffeys retort to Mr.. Bryans
criticisms would have produced a better effect
If it had been calmer In tone and had not
betrayed too openly the Coionels peculiar
theory of the paramount Importance III poitics
of the sense of gratitude" 1t would have
been easy enough to make out a charge OF IN
consistency against Mr.. Bryan. for, in spite of
what he said at Lincoln. he has more than
once interfered with the management of party
affairs within state, and he has also SHOWN
more than once a willingness TO accept sup
port from bosses just open to criticism as
Colonel Guffey is. He welcomed aid from
William Goebel in Kentucky and helped the
Goebel machine to fight its battles, although
that machine not only de1ed the expressed
will of the party, but obtained power ps re-
versing a popular verdict lawfully given at
the polls. Mr. Bryan gladly accepted assist
ance from Richard Croker at the Democratic
National Convention in 1900, and Crokers IN
fiuence kept David B. Hill off the committee
on resolutions and thereby secured a majority
of one on that committee for the reiterat1on
of the free silver coinage declaration OF the
1896 platform. In Missouri Mr.. Bryan mas
worked hand in hand with the stone hachine,
and in Illinois, after announcing that ne Wouid
drive Roger Sullivan out of the party, he struck
a truce with Sullivan and is now Fronting al
Denver by the Illinois "boss's" tainted sup
port.
Colonel Guffey is right in asserting that
Mr.. BRYAN can get along with bosses" il
it suits him TO do So He cannot get along
with them naturally, when they try to thwart
him and work persistently to overthrow his
leadership A boss is good or bad In MT.
Rryan's ewes as he stands for or against the
Bryan policies. Yet Colonel Guffey dlo hot
help his case by calling Mr.. Bryan the most
.lmpudent. domineering, devastating boss the
Democratic party has ever known; for IL MT.
Bryan is all that, he is entitled TO Colonei
Guffey's sincere though somewhat envlous ad-
miratiop. A great boss" should always respect
q greater.
Nor does 1t help matters to charge the Ne
braska leader with lack of gratitude" as
Colonel Guffey loves to define that all compel
ling motive In politics. The Pennsylvania ma
tionaI committeeman seems to hold that all
the motions of the political planets can be cal
culated ten twenty or forty years In advance
bv reference to the notations In some STEADY
campaign contributors check book. II he, the
Colonel happened to contribute In 1896 or
1900 10 Mr. Bryan's campaign fund, then MT.
BRYAN should be bound for the rest OF his
natural life to consider Mr. Guffeys polltlcal
activities as immune from attack or even critl-
cism According to the Guffey philosophy
subscrintion TO aid candidate for office
makes tlfat candidate perpetual debtor, and
he must never presume thereafter to dlHer
from his benefactor any party issue
Colonel Guffey has practised this philosophy
so long in Pennsylvania that it is now second
nature 10 him. The Philadelphia Record is
as strong an anti-Bryan Democratic news
naper as there is in the country. But thougn
it sympathizes with Colonel Guffeys hostility
TO the Nebraska leader, it is not blind TO the
weaknesses of the Colonel's theory of eternal
Ioru 90 M
cal state convention at which delegates sup
posed to be for Bryan and elected as his sup
norters were overcome by appeals to their
sense of higher loyalty:
When Colonel Guffey was able to back up his
Harrisburg argument against instructions for
delegates -at-large to Denver by reminder OF
past financial obligation and or future hnahcldl
inducenent he simply irresistible.
There were relatively few ''ingrates' at
Harrisburg. Why? Because, as THE Record
put il yesterday:
AS a matter Of fact there is in Pennsylvania
to-day no Democratic party organization. What
passes as such in newspaper reports ana court
records has long been nothing more than trad
ing agency used to serve the personal ends or
a few designing individuals. The so-caled state
organization is-and has been for at least ten
years-the personal political asset or Colonel
Guffey while the so-caed Philadelphia Demo-
cratic organization, long the personal political
asset of Charles P. Donnelly and Thomas j.
RYAN is now under the operation of the new
primary election law, part of the Philadelphla
Republican machine
AS we understand it, Mr.. Bryan holds that
the Democratic party in Pennsylvania should
not be operated as an asset of Colonel Guffey.
The Nebraskan has made the party at large
his own asset. and he wants no insubordinate
division superintendents or agents. Why
should he be estopped from doing to the party
at large what Colonel Guffey has done to 1t
in Pennsylvania? Should he be restrained by
gratitude" by the remembrance that Colonel
Guffey once contril nted to his campaign chest!
BY no means. The gratitude" theory is sub
iect. as are all other political theories, to the
statute of limitations The great law OF
gratitude was suspended when Colonel Cuff
fey interfered nopportunely last May and
spoiled Mr. Bryan's well laid plans for captur-
ing the delegation from Pennsylvania.