Los Angeles herald., 1908-09-11
BRYAN STILL IS
COMPARATIVELY
MONEYLESS MAN
ESTIMATES EARTHLY POSSES
SI0NS AT S150,000
COMPLETELY ANSWERS sLuRs
OF JOE CANNON
Invites Speaker of the House to Be
Equally Frank with Public and
Tell How "He Got 1t" on
Official Salary
Rv Associated Press.

BY Associated Press.
OLNEY. Ill, Sept. 1O.--Giving a de-
tailed statement of the amount Oh
property owned by him which ne
placed at s150,000 at the outside, VIII
liam J. Bryan, Democratic candidate
for president, in a speech here today
declared as false the accusation OF
Speaker Joseph G. Cannon, made yes
ferday in Springfield, ILL.,, that he was
worth a million dollars, and called
upon the speaker to be as frank IN
making known to the world the
amount of his own earthly possessions,
In the course of his remarks Speaker
Cannon is credited with saying that
Mr.. Bryan had accumulated million
dollars selling wind and ink to the
II was worth about $4,000 when was
elected to congress-" said Mr.. Bryan:
81 served four years and by careful
economy l saved between $S00O ana
$4,000. or about $1,000 a year, so that
when I went out of congress in the
spring of 1895 ] was worth about $4,000
or $1,000 During the period that
ELAPSED between the end of my con-
gressional terms and my nomination
for the presidency, about year ana
four months, l was engaged In speak
ing and in lecturing and added put
a small sum to my savings Attersthe
a lecturer was largely enhanced by
the prominence which the campaign
had given me- My book, 1.-THE First
Battle" brought me $4,000, and l gave
an equal amount of the profits to the
various committees that had carried
on the campaign of 1896. My lectures
have been profitable and my writings
have paid me well, but no one attends
the lectures unless he wants to do so
and no one buys what l write unless he
is interested in reading it. More than
half of my time since 1896 has been
given to gratuitous work, and yet L
have been able to support myself and
accumulate property which | would
estimate at about $125,000, but as one
can never accurately say what prop
erty is worth until he sells it l Will
fix $150,000 as the outside limit, the
maximum of my wealth, and l am
willing to leave the public to determine
whether that is more than l ought to
have earned, or whether / have earned
it honestly.
How About Cannon?
And now, having answered the crit
icism of Mr.. Cannon and shown that
his accusation is false, 1 think / am
justified in asking him to be as frank
with the public as j have been.
''He began holding Office in 1861, when
I was a year old, and during the last
forty-seven years he has held office
more than forty years of the time, and
about shirty-five years of that time, he
has been a member of congress and
has been drawing a salary that the
members of congress thought so made
quate that the salary has recently been
increased.
"Will he tell us what he has been
selling, to whom he has sold it, and
how much he got for it? He ought to
tell us whether he has made any
money by lecturing or writing-that is,
by selling wind and ink, to choose his
own language. He has been greatly
hampered in the accumulation of mon
ey by the strict attention to public
duties, and yet he is reputed to be
wealthy. If he will tell us just how
much he is worth we can then guess
how much he might have been worth
had he been free to devote his talents
to money making. Being the third man
in influence in our government, coming
next to the vice president, if not even
above the vice president, in his power
to influence legislation, is 1t not fair
that he should apply to himself the
same rule that he applies to me, and
take the public into his confidence?
Let him tell us what he has been SELL
ing, to whom he sold it, and how much
he got for it. If he thinks that the
wealth of a presidential candidate and
the source of such candidates income
shall be known, will he deny that the
speakers wealth and his sources of in
come should be known?