The Alaska citizen., 1912-04-29

own conscience, but with the over whelming defeat of the ill-starred misbegotten Parker, Bryan swept for ward, growing in courage. statesman. ship and vision.
 He thought 1908 the psychological time. but in his pursuit of truth, his incursions into the ideal he had forgotten that the great mass of the people move slowly and are in finitely cautious In most of his ideas he was years ahead of his time. and the people. while they lev ed and honored him, could not quite make up their minds to follow
 Today there is different story to tell. We have caught up with the Bryan of 1908, and while he is still ahead of us = still pioneering and path blazing we are come to l see that he is not visionary to be I feared. but a prophet to be followed. The dead hand of the past no long er weights down - the superstitions of tradition have lost their ancient l power 10 alright and on every hand there is evidence of the Open Mind, and general eagerness to ac- l cept the new when it is true.
 l And here is the pathos of it. By far and away the greatest man in the l Democratic party idol of the South and West and respected even by these of the North and East that once held him in abhorrence-Will- fam J. Bryan is barred from the nomination by his three defeats He himself feels it-even those who most love him feel it. With the ex- l ception of silver, everything that he stood fer has been adopted, and l whatever advancements the nation has made are due to his courage and vision, and yet he enters this campaign of 1912 weighted down with the memory of past failures Had he not run in 1908. who knows? | In this bitter hour of what might have been," he shows his essential bigness. Putting himself to one side, he attacks the Underwoods and the baileys who were once his support CTS, and gives himself enthusias- l ucally to Wilson without thought of the Joline letter, for he sees growing honesty and increasing purpose in this college professor who is un- learning from experience what he learned in books.
 1 Robert La Toilette, i'll, exhausted, deep and sombre note of tragedy. l More than any other man in public life he has struggled, suffered and sacrificed for his belief in democ- racy and equal justice, and now 1t is his fate to see another reap what he himself has sown.
 1 Bryan has his disappointments and l regrets, but his feet have walked no such bitter ways as La Follettes l From first to last, the Wisconsin man has grappled with hatreds and malignances, and has been called upon to stand ostracism, loneliness and furious misunderstanding. As a youth be bucked the boss of his county, in congress he broke the neck-yoke that was offered. and in exposing old Philetus Sawyer for bribe-giving, he bowed to the weight of his party's loathing and the male dictions of a people.
 No one but his wife will ever know just what those years of loneliness meant to him, or the courage 1t took to face it and fight it. Three times he ran for governor, not that he might have the cffice, but that he could awake the people to a realization of corruptions and in equalities. He won at last, and Wisconsin stands today as the Unions great model to construc- tive reform and bread statesmanship.
 He went to the senate, and not in history has such desperate ef- fort been made to humilate and ob- literate man. The senators re. fused to listen to him, making him talk to empty chairs, and in a thousand petty ways they sought to break his spirit and keep him in obscurity. He beat them down as he had whipped the forces of Spec ial Privilege in Wisconsin, and out of his triumph came the hopes and dreams of the Progressive Repub- lican movement
 Last winter, at conference in Washington, it was decided that some man of standing must take the open against Taft as best means of exposing the iniquities of the system for which the fat, easy-going con- servative stood LaFollette was the unanimous choice. He shrank from it, and for the first time in his life tried to beg off from a fight.
 How eminently understandable were his reasons! He was worn out with grappling-somewhat broken in health and purse-and before him there hunR the hoD, of tho Dreai-