Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-07-30

| ARENAS Ward, and so positive q force
M Vnser swner uncontroHefs that a
| teit many ofsus put lightningarods on
| Our houses to keep it from destroying
them. The lightning rod against the
uncontrolled force of Organism is the
| ballot l putting that upon my house
| and | come to you today for the sole
| purpose of acting as a lightning rod
agent to beg you to do the same. and
| for reasons which | hope to make clear
| to you before l leave the platform.
Now why do l think the lightning of
| Organism to be an uncontrolled force
granting that it is an electric force, and
| not that brand of lightning that Is
known as Jersey lightning. which inc
brlates but does not cheer. | think So
because | have carefully followed Mr.
| Bryan'S career from it's beginning and
| has been my observation of the uncor-
trol!ed operation of Mr.. Bryan's own
| mind as evidenced in his public utter
anccs that leads me inevitably to the
conclusion. What has he stood for In
| the. y years that we have kncwn him :?
Anything permanently thus shown
that his convictions We're permanent I?
NOT at IN. Mr.. Rryan's public career
has been like That of the blind beg2ar
! re, entity told Of in 4 colloquy between
the sufferer and the sympathiZcr.
Poor man said the sympathetic old
LADY. Have You always been blnd?"
'No ma am" replied the beggar, up
to last week | was cripple but there
wasn't enough in it,
To begin with he asked us, as you
are well aware, for cheap dollars. His
dollar was to be made up like some of
those quarts Of milk we occasionally
get from cows that, with the assist
ance Of the middleman, cooperate
with the old oaken bucket. Mr. Bryan
had an idea that by mixing a large
percentage of heated legislative air
with an equal proportion of silver
bullion that he could obtain q dollar
which you and / could buy perhaps
| for $4 a bushel and spend for 81
peck. Well, suppose we should grant
for an instance that our dollars could
be made cheap. Are we who work
and are paid in dollars going to be
satisfied with a payment for that
work which cuts the value of our labor
in halves? Are we going to accept
fifty cents as proper payment for one
hundred cents worth of labor? No,
your Bryanite, replies, that is not the
intention of it. We shall receive what
the United States guarantees to be a
hundred cents for our toll. Very well
then let us grant that the United
States government can by Legislative
enactment create Il dollar which shall
be fifty per cent. metal and fifty per
cent hot air. What are we going to
buy with it? A dollars worth of
labor or a dollars worth of value? Yes
of course. they tell us. Then our
proposition is thiS--the producing
classes Of the country to which | hope
we all belong must accept a de-
preciated dollar for real dollars
worth of product. In other words
with Mr.. Bryan as manager of our
business the purchasing power of a
dollar was to be increased one
hundred per cent at the expense of
the producing classes of the country
This is an economic fact and the rea-
son why Mr.. Bryan cannot see it is that
his mental apparatus is so constituted
that he cannot recognize an economic
fact when it comes his way. Mr..
Bryan knows as much about
the moon knows about astronomy.
This was the first Of the zig gags Of
this uncontrolled force of Bryan
lightning and we find another in that
same period of his meteoric flight in
his attacks on the Courts of this land. |
There are some signs that | have
found it in my heart to forgive the
Democratic party 1t has been a use
full old sinner in the past and some of
its crimes against the country have
been due to the influence of the |
environment and of passion in dark
hours when it was difficult for the
best men to see the light. We may
look with Il forgiving eye upon the
errors of passion but we should
frown eternally upon him who with
opportunity to think deliberately
thinks wrong, reasons his way from
the truth into the error of a perverted |
conclusion. Now in my judgment a |
political party that will lend itself to
wild denunciation of our system of
Courts attacks the staunchest bulwark
of our American institutions, and up
on this occasion the Democratic party
did this as We know, and as they We're
the leadership of the Boy. Orator of
Nebraska at the time they did it for
no other purpose than to ponder to
the lowest element of public disorder
in this country. Judges, like the rest
of us are human and liable to error,
but because one justice errs in hisl
decision is no more reason for the
Wholesale denunciation of our Judicial
system than an offence against morals
upon the part of a single clergyman
in the face of temptation is just
cause for the denunciation of the
whole church. Yet this is what the
Democratic party under the uncon-
trolled control of this Boy Talker of
Nebraska, a man utterly unknown in
its councils up to that time, without a
known political pedigree, allowed it.
self to be stampeded into doing. /
shall not mince words in regard to this
blot upon the escutcheon of once
noble party But shall state it to have
been what / think it to have BEEN a
crime, a crime against itself. crime
against the law abiding citizens of
this Republic, a crime against the in