The morning journal-courier., 1908-03-07
MIR. BRYAN's PLATFORM.

upon the Democratic noinlildlloH TUT the presidency by the platform adopt ed by his political party at Omaha Thursday. It is confessedly his plat form. He wrote it, the convention to which it was submitted adopted it and then declared its preference for him above all Democratic claimants for the presidential nomination. It is further stated that while the platform sets forth in more or less detail his views upon the needs of the day they | are subject to possible expansion or modification by the Denver national Democratic convention. But as they | stand to-day they represent his atti- tude towards the campaign issues to be discussed throughout the struggle | this summer and fall.
 The new Bryan platform is con- servative one. viewed from the popu- lar state of mind as developed by po- litical conditions during the past four years. The country has been fed on Ifighly-spiced food, but it is not asked in this connection to swallow an addi- tional amount of hot condiments. Nor is the spirit of the Omaha platform strange in its approval of aggressive ideas. It has in fact familiar ring. There is lacking in 1t fanciful ideas of government ownership and of popu- lar initiative and referendum. but one can find lively endorsement of the policies which are so intimately con- nected with the administration of Theodore Roosevelt We are not at- tempting to discuss the character of those policies. This is obviously not the time for, that. The campaign Is not yet shaped. We are calling atten- tion to the remarkable fact that the gentleman from the State of Nebraska is deliberately standing on Roose-
 Ncit pidtlollii, cNeil tiouSil ile dSserlS
 in more ways than one that those
 policies were originally conceived in
 his own mind. There are here and
 there slight differences of opinion as
 to how the big tasks shall be pulled : off. but there is nevertheless a general
 agreement as to the usefulness and
 timeliness of radical methods of re-
 form. It is entirely conceivable in fact that if MT. Bryan were not himself the lidol of his party and a receptive can ldidate for the nomination of President lat the hands of that party he could
 without making himself liable to the
 charge of partisan treachery take the letump for President Roosevelt, if that gentleman had not declared his un- Willingness to run again. They are, in peas in their view of the political es- 'sentials of the hour. Their methods ipf attack are practically the same.
 We are not quite sure what either of these gentlemen mean when they speak of the indefensibility of pri- lvate monopoly. It is to be taken for granted that only those who are them iBelves the benefciaries of a private monopoly approve of them. The Morning Journal. Courier certainly yields to no one one in Its dislike of lall monopoly, but in it's consideration spf them, it is obliged to meet certain lpractical conditions which obscure the meaning of MT. Bryan's or MT.
 Roosevelt's words. A private monopo-
 ay, for example, may be "indefensible land intolerable." which the Omaha
 platform declares 1t to be literally, but may it not be, too, unavoidable?
 What under this definition, for exam pie, would the situation be in the State of Connecticut if the natural
 monopoly rights given public service
 corporations were taken from them :? Would the public be better off under a lsystem of competitive corporations
 each paralleling the other at will?
 Would there not follow either business
 failure or ultimate consolidation on
 fhe ground of self-nreserva tior ?
 Would men invest their money in cor
 poration stock and bonds under such
 helter-skelter policy of free-fo for-al
 entry? Would the State of Connecti- cut dare to admit the securities of
 euch feverishly managed concerns as
 legal investment for savings banks and trusts funds? Would not in fact that very condition provoke government
 ownership as the only escape from an
 intolerable service? We ask these
 questions. not for the purpose of com
 batting the moral strength of the an-
 ti-monopoly argument, but for the
 purpose of aseertaining if possible
 how far that argument has been
 thought out by those who make it.
 With the light thus far shed it would
 appear that the battle is one of words
 rather than one of ideas, but if we
 are mistaken we pledge ourselves to