Omaha daily bee., 1909-05-09
Why Not Apply It AZ Home.


Why Not Apply It At Home.
The latest issue of Mr.. Bryan's Com
mone commends one OF the judges of
the Cincinnati court of common pleas
for dissenting from the reappoint-
ment as a democrat of one of the jury
commissioners, who admits that he is
an anti-Bryan man. but insists that,
although he has been opposed to Bryan
at all times. he is still 'as good a dem
ocrat as the Judge ever dare be-"
Commenting for itself, the Commoner
continues:
How Is a mans democracy to be deter
mined? or course, a man can for his own
satisfaction call himself a democrat and
yet support the republican ticket at every
opportunity. While no one can legally de-
prive him OF the satisfaction he obtains
from the use of the party name, he is GER
tainly not entitled to receive the honors
that come with party service. A law re-
quiring bipartisan appointments is a farce
II Il permits the appointment Of men who
represent the minority in name only.
Since 1896 the democratic party has suf-
fered a great deal by the appointment Of
s~o-called democrats on bipartisan boards,
but in nearly every case the so-called
democrats are as a~nti-democratic as their
republican associates. Where republican
officials reward the democrats for their
apostacy they not only deprive the demo-
cratic party Of representation, but make
It responsible for those who are neither In
the party nor of the party.
All this reads very we'll from Mr..
Bryan's standpoint, but why not apply
it at home? Is there any difference
between a man voting the republican
ticket and continuing to call himself a
democrat and a man voting the demo-
cratic ticket and continuing to call
himself a populist?
II uppor of the party nominee for
president is the test which Mr.. Bryan
would enforce upon so-called demo-
Gratis, why is not the support of the
presidential nominee of the populists
a test which ought to be applied to So
called populists?
In the recent election In this state
Mr.. Bryan not only c~ountenanced, but
backed up, a deliberate fraud upon
the voters by which his democratic
candidates for presidential electors
we're put upon the Official ballot mis-
branded as populists, when not one of
them was supporting, or intended to
support, the populist nominee for pres
ident. Mr.. Bryan's democratic presi-
Dental electors in Nebraska may ave
had a legal right to call themselves
populists, but they had no more moral
right to take advantage of the popu-
list name than had the Cincinnati jury
commissioner who bolted Bryan three
times to receive an appointment as a
democrat.
The very farce" against which Mr..
Bryan now rails has been played here
In Nebraska under his personal super
vision and approval I've since the
fusion game was made a permanent
institution, and the laws requiring the
bipartisan appointments were never
SO fiagrantly evaded as by the demo-
Gratis and populists helped into office
by Mr.. Bryan in his own state. At
times this farce" went so far as to
constitute a board supposed to be
composed of three members, each of
different political affliation, OF one
Bryan democrat, n Bryan populist
and one Bryan silver republican. Even
party representation on election
boards was for years nullihed in the
same way.
After his long success in m~asquerad-
ing his partisans as populists in order
to get by false pretenses the votes of
old-line populists who would not &C
cept the democratic label, it i'll BELTS
Mr.. Bryan to complain when some
anti-Bryan democrat misuses the party
name.