Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-17
MR.. BRYAN'S EMERGENcE
FROM A FlvE-YEAR ECLIPSE
Other Democratic Leaders Must Reckon
With the Man Who Usually Senses
Current Evils, Even Though He
Prescrlbes Wrong Remedies

in the region of palm trees and
orange groves, where the well-to-do es-
cape the cold season of the North in the
balmy atmosphere Of the far South, Mr..
Bryan has given out the synopsis of what
he regards as the proper platform for
the Democratic party to adopt in San
Francisco in June.
Consideration of the merits of the
synopsis may be postponed for moment
in order that attention may first be con-
centrated on Mr.. Bryan himself.
Who and what is he that he should tell
the Democratic party what its platform
should be?
The Miami winter residence suggests
| part of what he is. but only part. In
order to get complete picture one must
recall that Mr.. Bryan also has resi-
! dence on a large farm in the suburbs of
Lincoln, Neb.
Mr.. Bryans ownership of a ranch III
Texas must also be kept in mind if one
would get material picture Of the man
whose landed estates occupy the three
angles of a triangle, the base of which
stretches two-thirds of the way across
the continent, while its apex is in the
heart of the Middle West.
There is here political strategy Of a
very subtle kind. And there is also evil
dence in it Of the accumulation of con-
siderable fortune in the period between
the year when Mr.. Bryan went to Chi
cago to report the proceedings of the
Democratic National Convention in 1896
for an Omaha newspaper and left that
convention as the presidential candidate
of his party, and the time when he was
able to cash in on his political prominence
and invest the proceeds in landed prop
erty. The man who owns the three
widely separated residences, grew up
among people of such modest wealth that
an income Of $4,000 4 year seemed to him
to be riches beyond the widest dream of
avarice, and the owner Of q fortune of
81 100000 became prima facie criminal;
for, according TO Mr.. Bryan's expressed
opinion while he was still poor. it was
impossible for any man to accumulate so
much money honestly.
In these views of his will be found the
whole secret of Mr.. Bryan. They were
the views of hundreds of thousands of
worthy men and women Of modest means
in the Middle West. In expressing them
Mr.. Bryan merely put in words what the
people among whom he had grown up
were thinking His strength from that
day to this has lain in his ability to sense
the feeling of the silent masses. He did
this when he protested against the none
tary system of the country in 1896. His
cross of gold and crown Of thorns speech,
bombastic and fallacous as it seems
when read today, carried the convention
off its feet because it made vocal the
feeling that the country was controlled
bv the bugaboo known as "the money
power"
His attack on Imperialism" was in
spired by his knowledge that the average
American was opposed to the entrance
of the nation on any adventures of en-
pire beyond the seas. His demand for
government ownership of railroads came
at time when people were protesting
against the abuses of power by the capi-
talists who controlled the transportation
lines.
1t may be argued that the success of
constitutional prohibition, after his ad-
vocacy Of it for years, proves the con-
trary. But it does so only apparently.
The reasons which Mr.. Bryan ALWAYS
urged for prohibition were moral. It was
not moral but economic reasons that car
ried the constitutional amendment. The
South is for prohibition because it had
been discovered that liquor was so de-
moralizing the negroes that they We're a
menace to the safety of the whites. So
the South prohibited the sale of LIQUOR in
order to keep it from the negroes. In
the North excessive drinking was rapidly
disappearing because it had been discov-
cred that it incapactatcd men for work.
The man who wished to keep his job had
TO remain sober or a man who did not
drink would displace him. Great cOrpo-
I rations declined to hire men who were
, known to drink to excess and some of
I them refused to hire men who drank at
all. Intelligent self-interest abolished
the liquor traffic in both the North and
| the South. But Mr.. Bryan sensed the
| feeling Of the country when he aligned
! himself with the prohibitionists.
A recent instance of his power to read
! the minds Of his countrymen is found in
his Jackson Day dinner speech in Wash
| ington, when he protested against making
lne peace treaty al issue III Cne preSl-
| Dental campaign and demanded it's early
| ratification by the Senate. The speech
in which he made this protest raised him
in an hour from his five-year eclipse and
made him the spokesman for that wing
| of his party which wishes to fight the
| presidential campaign on issues which do
not cut across party lines SO confusingly
! as the treaty. question, and consequently