Bisbee daily review., 1908-09-03
AMERICAN LABOR FEDERATION APPEALS FUR W. ]. BRYAN.

NEW YORK, Sept. 1-Labor organ izations throughout the country have received an appeal from Samuel GOmpers and the legislative commit tee of the American Federation of La bor. It reads in part:
 We believe that the time has now arrived when the working people of our country and their friends should arouse themselves from the lethargy that has surrounded them for years and place the responsibility for the lack of remedial legislation where it rightfully belongs.
 Those responsible will strain every effort to beguile the people because congress begrudgingly passed a make shift of law giving government en- ployes engaged in hazardous occupa- tions some semblance of relief in cases of injury or death. This act was fairly wrung from the sixtieth con gress in the closing hours of the ses- sion in order that some labor cam paign thunder might be manufactured
 Questions of personal rights, hu- man liberty and economic righteous ness were ignored by the dominant party in the session of congress just closed.
 "The time has arrived when the toll CTS of our country should rise to the occasion; to meet the momentous con- ditions which confront not only them but all our people, and exercise their full rights as workers, as men and as citizens of our common country"
 During ten years. from 1896 to 1906, no one rejected MT. Bryan for a leader more resolutely than myself. If I could finally reach him and accept him. any good democrat can. It may help the yet undecided if l relate how l did.
 In the early part of 1907 I began a discussion having for its purpose some agreement among the Bryan men and the anti-Bryan men touching a presidential nominee other than Mir. Bryan. During ten months this en- countered from the anti-Bryan men either indifference or detraction.~ 1 got no second to my motion. Emu lating the frontier presiding officer who said, Second your own motion. you son of a gun," they would none of 1t. So I went to Florida, leavin 2 them to go to thunder, or words to that effect, and the entire winter passed, the nomination of Mir. Bryan being either openly accepted or silent ly conceded by every public man sug. gested as an alternative Finally. in the early spring, two facts, sufficient ly ascertained to be conclusive de cided me; first, that an overwhelmi n ~ majority of the democrats of the south and west were for Mir. Bryan, in spite Of the argument I had made against his availability as a candidate: and second, that the belated movement to defeat his nomination appeared under equivocal patronage and involved the use of money which emanatei from doubtful sources. This latter, boding party disruption, impelled me actively to take hand, urging a refusal to re. main silent whilst a scheme. danger. ous and unworthy in character, Der colated beneath the surface
 A Friendly Conference.
 The result was a friendly confer. ence with Mir Bryan. Intelligent peo- pie will not need to be told that there is all the difference in the world be. tween sympathy and agreement though tentative-and opposition and antagonism. though resting upon questions only of expediency. There was of course, a reverse side of the shield. Mir. Bryan had his story to tell, and this embraced very strong case. What authority had he to name a successor in case he stepped aside? What power had he. conceding the will, to transfer his following to an other? Not one, but half a dozen, as pirants would take the field immedi- ately on his withdrawal. If major ity of the party was for him, what had made it so? Surely neither organiza- ton nor money, nor other effort of his than the constant preaching of democratic gospels. If he agreed to stand down and out, designating an heir-apparent, would he not become a dictator, an autocrat, and what differ ence would there be in his naming a successor and attempting to foist him upon the party, and Roosevelts nam ing and forcing Taft upon the republi- cans? He did not stand upon his rights at all; upon his claims; upon