The Columbus journal., 1908-04-22
ASJNINITY VS.. REGULARITY.

it in that way.
ASJMNITY VS.. REGULARITY
In his address at Omaha, after hay
ing received the Endorsement Of the
democratic and of the populist state
convention for the presidency, Mr..
Bryan said:
Democracy faces the future with
hope. Our party is united, while the
republican party is divided. =
As the republicans used one faction of
the democratic party to defeat US
in 1896, We shall return the compli-
ment this year and use one part Of the
republican party to defeat the other"
Taking into consideration the per-
sonality of the speaker and the time,
place and circumstances under which
it was made, that utterance may be
fifty described as the most asinine in
the history of recent oratory.
If the statement was the candid ex-
preston of sincere belief on his part,
it reveals in the mind of Mr.. Bryan .
most childish credulity. If it was .
piece Of rhetoric designed to delude
the democratic rank and fle into q
further acceptance of his leadership, it
shows an impudent contempt for the
stupidity of his followers and brazen
disregard of the plainest facts of the
political situation.
Call it egotism or call it hypocrisy,
it will be equally silly and equally
false. ..ss
The democratic party is not united.
It never will be united under Mr..
Bryan. Not only it is divided, but it
is discredited and demoralized. In
some states it has almost ceased to
exist. Even in the south its continued
Conference is due to stagnation rather
than vitality; and should Mr.. Bryan
be renominated there will be many
states where it will hardly be worth
while for the party to make q contest
at all.
The republican party, on the other
hand, was never at any time more
united, more vigorous, more sure of
its purposes and its leaders or more
confident of success. Out of the splen.
did traditions of the past republicans
have drawn not only fidelity to party
principles, but a genuine loyalty to
strict party discipline. If they err it
is on the side of blind devotion to party
rather than of division and desertion.
When such leaders as Seward,
Cameron and Chase were defeated BY
Lincoln in the Chicago convention of
1860 all factions of the party rallied
to the support Of the nominee. The
cry Of loyalty was spontaneous:
Stand by the ticket" It was a
united republicanism against a divided
democracy, and the result was q
triumph for discipline and regularity.
So it has been ever since. When
the great republican statesmen were
set aside in 1868 for Grant, who had
been a proslavery democrat, they gave
him an unbroken support. In the
long series of contests between Blaine
and his opponents in the party, when
in convention after convention the
favorites were defeated and Hayes,
Garfield and Harrison were nominal
ed, the party discipline was never re-
laxed save in one instance, and in
that the detection was 80 slight that the
change of a few hundred votes in New
York would have elected the ticket.
As it was in the past 80 it Is now.
If Mr.. Bryan be nominated the demo-
cratic party will be more disordered
and disintegrated than ever, while the
candidate, whoever he
may be, will receive the full vote Of
his confident and aspiring party.
1t will be q contest between or
gained political intelligence and dis
organized asininity.-New York
World (dem).
MR.. Observation-Disclosures