The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1908-08-27
what Then Would Bryan Do?

what Then Would Bryan Do?
II whim or sense OF duty should impel
Mr.. ROOSEVELT to plunge into the CAM
paign, to animate Mr.. TAFT's sedate and
jovial canvass, to feed the appetite for
fedhot stuff that will oon display its
fervor beyond the Alleghanies, to rum-
pie things and throw a shrek into the
proceedings, what then will Mr.. BRYAN
do? What will MIR. BRYAN have to say?
Mr.. BRYAN and his policies will cut no
figure alongside Of Mr.. ROOSEVELT and
his policies. Mr.. BRYAN has already
embraced the Roosevelt ideas as his own.
He has claimed precedence in some
osses, but that doesn't matter. The
things Mr.. ROOSEVELT wants to do he
says he wants also. Suppose Mr.. RoosE-
vKIr has appropriated his sheet iron
thunder, he has made 1t all his own and
the West looks to him as its author and
inventor. II Mr.. ROOSEVELT sets out
upon q raging tour, to prod class preju-
dice, array the poor against the rich,
declaim of predatory wealth and picture
the Ill gotten millions that belong OF
right to the loafer and the drone, what
can Mr.. BRYAN answer? He has paid
Difference to Mr.. RoosEvRLr's finest
~ecstecies, approved his most tempestu-
GUS appeals and lauded all his purposes.
What can he do but find a seat well to
the rear and applaud with the rest OF
the audience?
Nobody will listen to Mr.. BRYAN when
the greater tribune begins to roar. The
latter may have borrowed all his parallels,
but he Is identified with them as Mr..
BRYAN never was. He has kept the
country in a turmoil, destroyed con-
fidenoe, smashed business, dislooated
society and set men by the ears Is Mr..
BRYAN never did and never viii, hard as
he may try; and in the eyes Of the null
titude he Is the prophet Of disorder, the
arch enemy Of peace, the inspiration Of
an agitation he cannot and does not care
to gauge. When he takes up the storm
all lesser petrels fold their wings.
Mr.. BRYAN can deny nothing. he has
already certified it all. He may assail
and gibe the amiable TAFT and the null
titudes will listen with all their yawning
ears; but what will he, what can he say
when the explosive and rambunctious
ROOSEVELT bounds into the ring with
eyes afame and crashing teeth and q
vocabulary at once strident and immeas-
uSable1 Who has tortured the corpora
lions, who has paralyzed the railroads,
who has held up predatory wealth to exc
grafton, who has done everything butspot
and prosecute q criminal2 He had the
win, he had the power; and the vast wrack
Of shsttered industries and the dark
bank Of frightened capital still lowering
upon horizon testiaes to his malien
efficiency.
win he burst the ignominious bonds
that now confine him and plunge into
Tho fray? VIII he emerge from the pleas
ant Uutumn boskage Of Sycamore Hill
and shower upon the reluctant TAFT
That support he does not wanti That
ID O secret held by the now impenetrable
future. But IL he does, II, chatting under
the unwonted and inglorious case Of his
vacation, abandoned to his " devices
by the politicians, the bosses and tho
associations, he comes boiling down the
stsge with eye dishevelled and hair In
nne frenzy rolling. what then win BRYAN
dof
Tho Peerless One should think Of this.
Perhaps the jackass may know a thing
or two.