Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-06-05
Miseeltaneolls 8eadina.
DEFEAT OF GONZALES.
Shrewd New York Newspaper Size
Up South Carolina Incident.

Shrewd New York Newspaper Size
Up South Carolina Incident.
Not a ray Of light has been thrown
upon the great Gonzales mystery o
Columbia, S. C. The state convention
has met, resolved, chosen delegate!
to Denver instructed for the Nebras
ka prophet and done other more Of
less futile and foolish things; but no
body knows to this day how the Hon
/ William E. Gonzales, editor of the
Columbia State and fugleman in or
dinary to the peerless one, came tt
be beaten for delegate in a Bryan
convention which he had done more
to create than any twenty men ir
South Carolina put together.
| There is something very odd behind
it all, as odd almost as the domina-
ton by Roger Sullivan of the Illinois
delegation, also instructed for Bryan
but presided over by man whom the
latter denounced less than two years
ago as a highwayman, demanding his
election from the party. There Is
difference Of detail; to be sure, be-
cause Sullivan has successfully tri-
umphed over Bryan's anathemas and
ROW personally conducts a Denver
| delegation apparently pledged to thai
gentleman's aspirations and apparent
| ly with his condial consent, whereas the
faithful Gonzales, whom Bryan has
| lalways loved as a brother and con-
cerning whose moral character he
has always expressed the most touch
ing sentiments, was rejected by the
body which he had devotedly help
ed to inspire to noblest pro-Bryan at
titudes.
For months past Gonzales has wag-
ed almost single-handed a holy wal
on behalf of the Nebraska chieftain
In full-faced type, italics and untime-
ly capitals he has launched impreca-
tions against reactionaries. Even cor
respondents of northern papers who
ventured into South Carolina last
summer appraising the political situ-
alton and consulting friends fell be-
fore his deadly fire of special display
Typography. A majority of the i'm
portant papers of the state, led by the
Charleston News and Courier, were
hostile to Mr.. Bryan's use of the
southern democracy as an annex to
his newspaper and lecture platform
activities. They wanted the party to
go into fight for political success
not to maintain the Commoners cir
culation and provide paying audi
ences for Bryan's sermons. The district
conventions assembled, one after the
other, and the result was anything
but favorable to the peerless one. A
careful estimate made by The News
and Courier indicated anything but a
victorious upshot for the perpetual
claimant. Nevertheless, when the
state convention met the effect of Mr.
Gonzales's uninterrupted fusillade re-
vealed itself. The convention was
Gonzales convention out and out. AL
opposition was scattered to the winds
and hard and fast resolutions pledg-
ed the South Carolina delegation to
Bryan first, last and all the time.
Gonzales had done 1t all, with his
energy, his persistency and his judi
ciously applied upper case expedients
Everybody in South Carolina under
stood that it was the crownine
achievement Of long course of more
or less hysterical vociferation. Every
body understood that it was Con
Zales rather than a Bryan convention
And vet in all that list Of delegates
of which he should have been facile
princeps, the name Of Gonzales was
conspicuous by reason of its absence
The whole thing was q tribute to his
leadership. Resolutions, instructions
hide-bound specificatiOns-all the rest
of II bore the Gonzales impress inc
radically stamped in the bottle. But
Gonzales, the genius Of the whole af-
fair, the contriver of every act and
the breastworks, a lifeless and neg
lected form. The noise and stress and
fury of the occasion has subsidized
The shouting of the captains dies
upon a languid air. But there are the
remains with gaping wounds and
| none to celebrate them.
How different in Illinois, where
Roger Sullivan, so very recently de-
nounced and execrated by the peer
less one, is now a loving and trusted
| lieutenant! There is an explanation
of course, but who knows it? And
what a fruitful magazine of astonish-
ment seems to lie beneath the sur
face of this pervasve Bryan har.
mony.-New York Sun.