The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-01-17
Bryan's Strength in
Official Democracy.

Official Democracy.
The Hearst News service can not
be expected to color it's news in favor
of William Jennings Bryan. which
fact makes the more significant it's
dissemination of the result of Wash
ington Post poll OF the Democrats in
the lower house of congress. OF ISL
who were asked. 50, or nearly two
thirds, expressed themselves az per
sonally in favor of the Nebraskan's
nomination for president. Gov. John
son of Minnesota was the preference
OF 81, Judge Gray receiving 10 votes,
Harmon and Culberson each, and
Hoke Smith, Mr.. Justice White, John
Sharp Williams and Tom Johnson
vote each.
That the Missouri delegation-afterI
her republican experience on reversal
Of form-should be solid for Bryan,
Is to be expected of a lot of sensible
men. Mississippi's delegation in the
house was all but solid, giving one
"a favorite son" was not unnatural,
and the practical solidity for Bryan
was also 10 be expected of men rep
resentative of a state which has few
peers for simple, genuine democracy.
Louisiana was among the "weak"
brethren-but that is no matter for
surprise, for Louisiana's party affairs
are only now emerging in violent fac
tiOnalism from a bureaucracy and
feudalism that has not permitted Mr..
Bryan to appeal very strongly to ''Of-
fciaT' democracy in the pelican state.
The whole south is still. to an ex
tent, under the spell of the feudalis-
tic atmosphere of the ante-bellum
regime. This fact, and this alone.
really explains Mr.. Bryan's relative
lack of strength with the south in
both the conventions by which he was
nominated and in the one by which
Parker was nominated. And that this
explanation is the truth-.a truth not
widely recognized in the south-is at
tested by the persistence with which
to play-on the south, under one pre-
text or another, against Bryan's domi-
nance and the real welfare of the
party and the people
We are prepared to admit that JEFF
ferson's democracy was a minimizing
of government of the masses by the
classes-and it was New England de-
mocracy rather than southern democ-
racy, though he was Virginian; and
we are prepared to admit that Bryan
democracy borders on the maximum
of regulation. But the public condi- |
tions of Jefferson's day and Bryan's |
day are very widely divergent, and |
the need OF the masses in political |
method looking ever to the same end |
have inevitably altered corresponding |
ly to changed conditions
In Jefferson's day, Democracy's |
duty was to prevent the enactment
of laws, and the growth of customs,
that tended 10 subjugate the masses
and the individual to classes, cliques,
coteries and caste. The king Power"
VI Inc OAU WI III, grew
der another name in this country,
and the "prerogatives'' of royalty
for which France found her cure in
the bloody evolution-developed in
this country under various Industrial
guises and DISCUSSES, until the duty /
of democracy under our constitutional |
form of government has become, not
q minimum of government as ex-
pressing personal political freedom.
but a very extensive regulation of the !
industrial system in order 70 prevent /
the industrial-and therefore actual |
political-en of all but the
very masters of the industrial systeh.
A good many really sincere, honest, /
well-meaning democrats have at
times lost sight of the essential spirit
of Jeffersonian democracy-the great
est good of the greatest number-in
rather Obsequious observance of max
inns which, however well they fit the
exigencies of the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries, do not
necessarily fit the present changed
NANTES tations OF the unchanged
clash of interests between class and.l