The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-06
Delegates to Nebraska State Convention Do HORG fO
 Their Leader
VIGOROUS ADDRESS ON
 CAMPAIGN ISSUES
complete Harmony Pervades the United Democratic Party at the Omaha Convention and the
 Leader Wildly cheered.

Omaha, Neb., March 5.-Instructing
 tneir delegates to vote as a unit" for
 the presidential nomination of William I.
 Bryan at Denver next July, the members
 of the Nebraska democratic convention to
 day made clear officially that his home
 state will support Bryan principles
 throughout the national convention of the
 party. They followed this action by turn
 ing out en masse tonight to cheer A plat
 form which. admittedly reflects Bryans
 views on national affairs. and to greet
 their leader with an outburst of cheering
 that brought flush of pleasure to the eountenance of the recipient. All the pro- ceedings of the day were planned with
 an ascending scale of enthusiasm in view. How well this worked out was evidenced by the scenes in the convention hall to- night. Close on to 1000 delegates. hum l dreds of other active party members and 1 thousands of private citizens hailed Mir. l Bryan as "the next President of the Uni-
 ted States"
 Applause that quickly changed to cheers l then instantly turned Into wild wells l greeted him when he appeared to begin 1 the speech which wound up the day Dur ] ing his remarks this demonstration was renewed frequently and at the end was repeated with renewed vigor. Two sig nihcant points were noticed in Mir. Bryans speech. In one he acknowledged
 his debt to the populist party. and in the other he replied to a criticism of his poli- efes which Secretary Taft is reported to have uttered in recent speech in Okla homa.
 My creed is 'extermnate the private I monopoly A legitimate corporation can | be regulated but a criminal corporation l Is beyond the reach of remedy" said l MT. Bryan. | MT. Taft said that l wish to annlhiiats
 business eoInbinaEiens.s w'hlIe he declared l himself willing to regulate the great cor l poratons. l accept this issue. And n l reply l will call attention to the fact that l the trusts have regulated the republicans, l not the republicans the trusts.'' Concerning the populsts, he said: If any democrat has a prejudice against populists. I would admonish him that q populist who crosses the road to vote for a democrat is not to be despsed by d democrat who has merely to vote the ticket of his own party
 Mr. Bryan in splendid form. Az he warmed to his subject he emphasized his points with cenched fists and stamp ing foot, and drove his arguments home with a vocal Vigor that carried his tones to the farthest corners of the big audi torium
 He began his address at 9:30 D. m. and l for nearly two hours preached democratic l doctrines to a willing audience. After a. review of his early political struggles in l Nebraska, he thanked the delegates for their action in indorsing him for the pres l idency. Then came his reference to the 1 populsts and thanks for the indorsement 1 by their state convention here today. 1 MT. Bryan entitled his speech "A Word 1 of Encouragement" and devoted his re-
 marks to the producing of evidence to | show the growth of democratic policies ;, and principles and the basis for democrat l ic hope He spoke in part as follows: Our troubles used to be to persuade l the republicans to accept democratic poli- 1 cies, our work is to expose the mita- l tion by them. of democratic ideas, and to 1 point out wherein they come short n | their effort to appropriate democratic doc- 1 trines.
 Take for instance, the trust question. l We had definitely convinced the repub- 1 licans that there were trusts. Now they admit trusts exist; we had difficulty con- l vincing them the criminal law should be l enforced against trusts; now they admit l it should be enforced but fail to enforce | it. Insofar as they have acted against | the trusts at all they have acted along
  the trust magnates are still at large, tho trusts are still fourishing and even the supporters of MT. Taft have no specific remedies to offer for relief, and trusts arise while republicans are boasting of their crusade against them. They pros pose regulation of monopolies instead oc extermination, although they have reason. to know that regulation has failed andj that any one of number of trusts canJ afford to contribute 10 times as much to a campaign fund as can be collected fronli all the voters who are outside the priv<s ileged circle.
 Reform of the Tariff.
 "On the tarif question the republican, leaders now admit that tariff reform s now necessary, but a careful reading of their promises show that they use lan-
 guage identical with that employed in for-
 mer platforms, which have been the basis
 for the present extortionate rate. The
 advocates of the Mckinley tariff and of
 the Dingley tariff never asked for more
 than tough to cover the difference of tho
 cost of labor here and abroad, but under the pretense of protecting labor they built up the present oppressive schedue4 What reason. then. have we to beleva
 their promises are worth any more nov than they have been in the past 20 yearov Surely the people will not trust tariff re- form to those who have stubbornly re- fused to reduce tarin rates when they had full power to do so. and then asked to be
 returned to power that they may do what they have failed to do.
 "The republicans now admit that rail-
 road regulation has been needed, and yet for 10 years the republican party allowed itself to be overawed by the railroad lobby
 at Washington and having. with the aid
 of the democrats, secured little relief. the republican leaders now rely upon
 what has been done and outline no pro-
 gramme for further legislation. The re-
 publican leaders have watched few
 railroad magnates strangle competition
 and combine great systems into greater
 ones. without raising hand for the pro-
 lection of the public, and now they ask