Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-08-09
aHiseellaneuus 8sadins.
BRYAN AT BALTIMORE.
How the Commoner Brought About
tho Wilson Nomination.

the Southern Confederacy. Had
Buckner been in chief command al
Donelson, had Johnson not been
stricken at Shiloh, had Jackson not
been wounded at Charlottesville
had Longstreet not been tardy at
Gettysburg, had Buckner not been
I halted at Chickamauga, had Forrest
been given a rowing commission as
early as the spring Of 1864-these
were unfortuitious casualties that
clinched it a lost cause, and change
of any one might have changed the
ultimate result.
And we may say that many things
conspired to compass the nomination
Of Woodrow Wilson at Baltimore
one the presence and activeness OF
William Jennings Bryan. From the in
ception of the campaign 1t was Will
son against the field, but that Is his
tory. AS in all the ceremonies Of hu-
man life, there were two opposing
forces at Baltimore-the liberals and
the conservatives. those who would
adventure and those who would be
stationary, those who would test nov
city and those who would have none
Of 1t.
The one serious charge that was
brought against Wilson was that he
had changed his opinions on public
questions. Since parliamentary gov
ernment was made paramount by the
Anglo-Saxon 1t has produced no great
er names than the two Pitts, father
and son, and both Of them changed.
Burke himself did not view the
French revolution with the same eyes
he saw the American revolution, and
Burke changed his party along with
his convictions. Fox, the greatest
parliamentary debater the world ever
saw, changed. So did Gladstone, and
so did Disraeli, the latter the one
statesman of the time who might have
been a match for Bismarck had they
clashed.
In our own country nearly every
body changed-certainly Clay and
Jackson, Calhoun and Webster,
changed. 1t is only to the mind of
the vulgar that honest change Of po-
litical opinion Is criminal.
At Baltimore the reactionaries had
two main purposes in view-one to.
defeat Wilson for the nomination and
the other to rebuke William ]. Bryan
and depose him as a leader Of the,
party. It was formidable combina-
tion-New York, Illinois, Indiana,
most Of Ohio, most Of Maryland, most
of the Virginias, most Of Michigan,
most Of New England, most Of Ken
lucky, Jim Smith, William r. Hearst,
and some others. The thing would
have succeeded IL Democratic pub
lie opinion had not rushed to the
spot and throttled it.
The defeat of Mr.. Bryan for tenn
porary chairman awoke this public
opinion and started 1t on the road to
Baltimore, where it arrived before the
first ballot for the nomination was
taken and where 1t remained till Mar
shall was named for vice president
and the platform adopted.
I had not heard Bryan since he left
congress except on one occasion
when he lectured on Abraham Lincoln.
In congress Mr.. Bryan was thrilling.
theatrical, dramatic, fervid. He made
no argument. He declaimed and made
whirlwind whenever he got the
floor. 1t was a tuneful and a re-
sounding voice, commanding and
captivating. I am sure Matt Carpen-
ter was the greatest orator I ever
heard, but it were impossible to make
comparison of the two. Bourke
Cochran, rather, was in Bryan's class,
a far more cultivated mind, far more
rhythmic vocabulary and an equally
tuneful voice, but there was a some
thing that made Bryan far more
influential man than the brilliant
Irishman, both in congress and on the
stump. I doubt not it was the quail
ity Of earnestness, so abuntantly nee
essary to the advocate Of any cause,
whether with sword, or pen, or
tongue.
At Baltimore, Bryan was different
orator from the congressman OF
20 years earlier. The voice had lost
much Of its richness; 1t was not 80
musical, but it was a grand voice yet
and the earnestness was there and
there abundantly. But that was not
all-nor the half Of 1t. Here was a
debater, and there never was a
clearer statement than he made of
the case. Everybody understood the
question before he had been on his
legs five minutes. 1t was this: Shall
the convention be the instrument OF
the bosses, or shall it be responsive
to the yearnings Of the people? There
was the issue defined and it burned
itself into the heart and stamped
itself upon the mind Of every delegate
in that great body. Nay, 1t was not
confined to those walls. 1t penetrated
to the remotest recesses of the repub-
lie, from ocean to ocean, and its echo
was waited across the waters to for
eign parts.
Talk about Bryan's eloquence at
Chicago in 1896 and elsewhere! 1t
was at Baltimore that he smote error
like a Titan and gained the greatest
victory for the Democratic party and
the American people in our entire
political history.
When Bryan took the platform that
day the bosses had the convention
in a basket end they were confident
of over 900 votes. When he closed,
though beaten on the ballot, but by
less than 100. William ]. Bryan was
master of the convention and the
bosses were completely demoralized.
This struggle afforded Woodrow Will