The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1908-08-05

united States.
Flashed to the remotest reaches
OF the nation, the news was the most
sensational political titbit that ever
| look the wires. Bryan was but one
year above the minimum age re-
CURED by the constitution of the
united States for president. While
some OF his speeches in congress a
few years before had given him a
momentary reputation he was practi-
cally unknown to the nation at large.
and particularly so to the great east
ern section of the country. Never
before had a great party nominated
for president man living west of
the Mississippi river. Never before
had so young a man been nominated.
| Never before had an orator won the
great prize by a single speech
Democrats, republicans, populists,
everybody wondered how the new
conner would conduct himself in the
campaign.
Presently the wonder turned to
amazement. Young Mr.. Bryan was
a campaigner-there was no doubt
as to that He injected into Ameri-
can politics a presidential campaign
such as the nation never knew be-
fore. Men called it whirlwind
campaign, and such it was. The
whirlwind road was the railroad
and it carried the candidate up and
down and across the land upon an
| amazing schedule of travelling and
talking. Mr.. Bryan travelled in that
campaign more than $4,000 miles,
and delivered considerably more
than 1000 speeches. He made
fOrty-nine speeches in one day in
New York state. Thirty-fve ad-
dresses, short and long, were deliv-
cred by him on several days, while
it was an ordinary thing for him to
address twenty crowds at twenty
different towns in twenty hours.
The candidate showed a physique
and a voice that stood the tremen-
dOus strain with marvellous endur-
ance. AS the campaign progressed
and the fame of Bryan spread people
got to sitting up all night and travel
| ing many miles just to hear the phe-
nOmenOn speak.
Bryan's first appearance in the
east was on the 18th of August,
when he delivered his speech of &C
ceptance of the nomination Madi-
son Square Garden was packed with
suffOcatihg mass of men and wO-
men, though it was one of the hot
| test days ever known in New York
and a dozen persons had died from
sunstroke during the day Bryan
read that speech from manuscript,
[ ~ Il
ed greatly from his eloQuence. But
| the candidate was we'll aware that
great issues hinged upon his utter
ances on that important occasion,
and he did not care to trust himself
to the uncurbed enthusiasm of the
moment.
: With Arthur Sewall of Maine, the
vice president candidate, Bryan went
| down to defeat at the November cleo
ton, though he had been nominated
also by the populist party, with
Thomas E. Watson of Georgia as the
lvice-presidential candidate on that
ticket Mckinley and Hobart went
into office, and there were those who
predicted that Bryan was forever
eliminated from the democracy.
Four years later at the democratic
national convention in Kansas City
| Mr.. Bryan was renOminated by aCCla-
nation. There was absolutely no
other candidate suggested for the
nomination. For viCe-president Ad-
| lai E. Stevenson of Bloomington, H.,
who had been vice-president during
Clevelands second term, was named.
The war with Spain and our COnse-
quent acquisition of the Philippine
Islands had brought new issues into
politics, but the silver plank was re-
inserted into the democratic plat
form, Mr.. Bryan declining to stand
for the nomination without it. 1t
was expressly declared in the plat
form, however, that Imperialism was
the paramount issue of the campaign.
The democracy opposed the forcible
subjugation of the FilipinOs and the
control of the archipelago in the CO.
lOnial style of the British empire.
/ Mr.. Bryan made another whirl-
wind campaign, even breaking his
own record for travelling and speech
making. He was forty years OF age
and in the full flush of magnificent
manhood. During the four years
since 1896 he had done much pOliti-
cal speaking and writing, he had
lectured many times on other topics,
he had travelled abroad and studied
other governments and conditions of
people; also he had become Colonel
the Spanish war with a Nebraska
regiment
Again the great east dashed and
smashed the western candidate with
demoniac denunciatiOn, though that
time there was a very large increase
in personal respect for Mr.. Bryan.
He had proved himself to be by no
means the wild visionary, the an
archistic revolutionist, the danger
Gus fanatic, which the opposition in
his own party had pictured him as
being in 1896, when the democracy
split open and the lesser section
thereof nominated a gold demo-
cratic" ticket, with General John
NJ. Palmer of Illinois and General
Simon B. Buckner of Kentucky as