In 1896, it cost the Republicans six million dollars to defeat Bryan;
in 1900, it cost them four millions; in 1908, they “beat him to a
frazzle” with less than two millions.
In 1896, every chance was in his favor; he was young, handsome,
magnetic, eloquent, without a stain on his record. In the general
enthusiasm aroused by his “crown-of-thorns, cross-of-gold” speech,
people did not give heed to the craftiness and selfishness of the
Bland delegate who used Bland’s name as a stalking horse to get the
nomination for himself. For twenty years Richard P. Bland had labored
for Bi-metallism. He had won the fight by sheer bulldog pluck. The
Bland-Allison act of 1878 was a Bland triumph. The Sherman law of 1890
was a Bland victory, for Sherman himself said it must be passed to head
off a free-coinage act. When the Congress of 1892 convened, the Bland
forces had an overwhelming majority. Why then could we not make a law
restoring the white metal to its constitutional place as the equal
of gold? Because, in the contest for the Speakership, the Northern
Congressmen _got control of the Committees as an exchange for the
office of Speaker_.
But the tide of public feeling in favor of “Constitutional money” kept
on rising, and there is no doubt whatever that a majority of our people
in 1896, favored Bi-metallism. But Bryan, cunning and ambitious, used
his opportunities as a Bland delegate to undermine Bland, and at the
psychological moment treated Bland to what Garfield had treated Sherman.
What had Bryan done for Bi-metallism? Nothing. He did not even
understand the true meaning of it. As for Bland, he had fought the
battle of “Constitutional money” while Bryan was at school, and when,
in the hour of Silver’s triumph, the hero of its struggle was cast
aside by his ungrateful party, it broke the old man’s heart and he died.
When I think of the long series of years during which Mr. Bland was the
unflinching, untiring leader of the forces of Bi-metallism, and when I
think of the very substantial fruits of his labors, the manner in which
Bryan and the Democratic party flung him aside—the old horse turned
out to graze till he should drop—seems to me to be one of the most
convincing illustrations of the fact that “_politics is hell_.”
Having captured the Democratic nomination, Bryan turned his attention
to the Populists. They had proved that they could poll nearly two
million votes. Bryan wanted them. Through Allen of Nebraska and Jones
of Arkansas he laid his plans to get them. By as foul a trick as ever
was played in American politics, the Populist Convention was inveigled
into giving its Presidential nomination to Bryan. Having got what
he sought, he broke the contract, turned a deaf ear to all appeals,
underrated the measure of Mid-road Populist resentment, invaded “the
enemy’s country,” cherished the delusion that he could win New England,
hung on to the impossible Sewall, and so lost the Presidency.
It is a fact that the Republicans had no hope of success, after the
action of the Populist Convention, until Bryan himself adopted the
insane policy of making the race with two Vice-Presidential candidates
swinging on to the ticket.
In that campaign, the whole money question was dwarfed to the
discussion of “Free Silver.” The great issue of Constitutional,
scientific Bi-metallism was shunted on to the spur track of Free
Silver. In that campaign he lost the East and the North, irrevocably.
Instead of making a strong, broad, easily understood plea for a
restoration of the financial system of Jefferson, of Madison, of
Monroe, of Jackson, of Benton, of Calhoun, he selected that detail
of the money question which was of the least consequence, which was
the most difficult to explain to the ordinary voter, and which,—on
account of the selfish interests of the Silver Kings—lent itself most
favorably to Republican assault.
This error was Bryan’s own folly, for the Greenbacker and the Populist
had already demonstrated the advantage of treating the question in the
broad, fundamental way. To this day, Mr. Bryan pays the penalty. To the
business world, of every section of the Union, he is known as the “Free
Silver” crank, and the business world is dead against him.
In 1900, the Spanish war had temporarily engulfed economic questions.
Bryan was astute enough to feel this; consequently, he discovered a
new Paramount Issue. It was Imperialism. But Bryan was not the man to
derive any benefit from it, for the simple reason that he was as much
responsible for it as the Republicans themselves. Tired of camp life
at Tampa, Mr. Bryan hurried to Washington City, exerted his personal
influence with certain Democratic Senators, and prevailed upon Senator
Clay and others to vote with the Republicans to ratify the Treaty of
Paris.
As our Imperialism grows out of this Treaty, Mr. Bryan’s political
dishonesty in raising such an issue against the Republicans was so
glaring that they had very much less trouble in defeating him in 1900
than they had had in 1896.
Then came the ugly affair of the Bennett will; of Bryan’s acceptance of
gifts of money aggregating $12,000; of his efforts to secure, secretly,
a legacy of $50,000; of his astonishing lack of delicacy in drawing
up, in his home, a will for a doting old man who was Bryan’s guest; of
his mercenary persistence in his struggle against Bennett’s widow; of
his claim for a large fee as Executor of a will which he had drawn and
which the courts had set aside.
Then came the revelation that while appearing to the public as the
devoted, unselfish, patriotic champion of Free Silver, he had been in
the pay of the Silvre Kings all the time. _Then_ we could understand
why he had narrowed the money question to that pitiful detail.
Millionaire Silver Mine-owners, like Marcus Daly and William A. Clark,
didn’t care a rap about Constitutional money. What they wanted was the
personal profit to be gained by them in carrying fifty cents’ worth
of the white metal to the U. S. Mints and having it turned into a
dollar. Free Silver meant millions of dollars to these Silver Kings.
Therefore they paid Bryan big prices to make speeches for Free Silver.
And the Peerless orator stuck to his text. And when the Silver Kings
discontinued the pay, Mr. Bryan discontinued the speeches.
Afterwards came the campaign against Parker’s nomination in 1904.
Pretty much everything that could be said to prove that such a
nomination would be a base betrayal of the Jeffersonian element of the
Democratic party, Bryan said. In Chicago, notably, he hired a hall,
collected the faithful around him, made an impassioned speech setting
forth the shame of such a Ryan-Belmont candidacy as that of Parker, and
said that a Democrat ought to be ready and willing to die rather than
submit to such a surrender of principle as would be involved in the
nomination of Parker.
Similar heroic declarations Mr. Bryan made against the Clevelandites,
the Wall Street element of his party, the undemocratic advocates of the
British gold standard which had chained the world to London. In his
book, in his paper, in his speeches,—particularly at Birmingham,—he
vowed that he would never support a gold standard candidate and that he
would quit the Democrats if the party adopted a gold standard platform.
“_Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?_” That was the
tone of Bryan’s indignant reply whenever he was asked whether he would
follow his party if it deserted its principles.
Alas! The heroics sounded well—but where was the hero?
We admit that Bryan made a great fight against the Ryan-Belmont
hirelings in the Democratic National Convention of 1904. His forensic
powers are of a high order, and they were magnificently displayed in
that debate. But he wasn’t true grit, wasn’t dead game,—did not prove
himself a thoroughbred. No, he is not the kind of bird that dies in the
cock-pit; he showed the “dominecker.”
Had he met Parker’s gold telegram with a defiant, “I accept the
challenge! Let those who are true to Democratic principles follow me
out of this Convention!” he would have smashed the Ryan-Belmont slate,
forced Parker out of the lists, won the nomination for himself, and
_might_ have been President.
But he sunk the popular hero into the party hack,—let them put the
harness on, hitch him up and drive him in a direction that his record,
his vows and his convictions made it a disgrace for him to travel.
Then came the speeches in which he said as much in favor of Parker as
he had said against him,—and Parker had not changed a bit. The change
was _there_, and it was vast,—but it was in Bryan.
Then came the swing backwards to radicalism again. Bryan spoke at
the Jefferson Day banquet in Chicago in 1906 and said that the time
had come for the Democratic party to declare itself in favor of the
Government Ownership of the railroads. He advanced the proposition that
the states should own the local lines while Uncle Sam ran the trunk
lines. This absurd plan was the burden of the Bryan talk and Bryan
editorials for more than a year,—long enough for the whole country to
realize what an impractical “statesman” he is. So ludicrous a “break”
queered him still further with the men of the business world, and told
heavily against him in the campaign of this year.
Then, after his home-coming speech in Madison Square Garden, he made
his final declaration in favor of Government Ownership. Having toured
Europe and witnessed the advantages of State-owned public utilities,
his own convictions in favor of that system had been strengthened.
But Democratic editors and politicians raised a Bourbon outcry against
Government Ownership, and Bryan, after shuffling about awhile, took to
the woods.
Then he fell in love with the Initiative and Referendum. Mightily
in favor of giving Direct Legislation to the people was Bryan. But
again the Bourbons raised their hands in holy horror, and again Bryan
flunked. “Willing to teach the children that the earth is flat, or that
it is round, whichever a majority of the School Board prefer”;—that’s
the kind of pedagogue partisan politics has made out of W. J. B.
Then we heard him endorse Roosevelt, and agree with the President
that Congress ought to pay the campaign expenses of the two old
twins,—Chang and Eng,—and that honest bankers should be punished
for crimes _they_ didn’t commit, and that the Government should not
establish Postal savings banks but should perpetuate the National banks!
Then we saw him dictate the Denver platform which is more Hamiltonian
than the Parker platform of 1904, and less favorable to the masses
than the platform of Mr. Taft. We saw him choose a Standard Oil tool
for the Chairmanship of his Finance Committee; we saw the Tobacco
represented on the same Committee; we saw him courting David B. Hill,
Judge Parker, Charles Murphy, Pat McCarren and “Fingy” Conners; we
saw him yoke up with the liquor interests in Maine, Indiana and Ohio;
we saw him change his whole political creed until Ryan, Belmont,
Harriman and Rockefeller had nothing to fear from him, and we saw him
conduct a campaign in which he stood for no distinct vital _democratic
principle_, whatever. Then we saw him dodge when the President asked
him, through the newspapers, how he stood on the Pearre bill which
seeks to have Congress declare that a man’s business is not entitled to
the same protection as his property. Impaled on that point, Bryan could
do nothing but squirm.
Then indeed, he lost out with level-headed men of all parties.