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Show - HOW THEY "HANDLE" BRYAN. By H. h. D. Washington, D. C, Jan. 29, 1908. Thoy had it ell framed up, but the glue was bad. Bryan was to bo notified on his visit hero last week that he wouldn't do at all, no matter what obsession he had on the subject. Most of the Democratic Senators and Congressman Con-gressman hero have two views on the Bryan question one for publication, and the other for confidential conversation. Tire fact is the most carefully phrased and the most ornate in oratorical orator-ical architecture. The second is more forceful. A public poll of the House by a New York newspaper news-paper recently showed almost every Democratic member hopeful and certain of Bryan's nomlnn-t'on. nomlnn-t'on. "Yes," said one (publicly) enthusiastic Bryan shouter, "but take a secret poll." A newspaper man did so. Ho was astonished tc find that there were not more than ten Bryan men in the House. He couldn't print the story because his paper said that an anonymous poll meant nothing. In this instance it meant the truth. When it was learned that Mr. Bryan would return re-turn to Washington again last week that's about all Bryan has been doing lately; returning to Washington from somewhere the "real leaders of the- party," self-named, got together and tossed coins to see who should tell Bryan that they had decided he'should withdraw. But whenever any one of them lost lie pointed out that the coin was a double header, or didn't have "In God we trust" on it, or that in some other way he had been buncoed. Finally, one of them had a happy thought. They would get James K. Jones todo it. Jones usod to be of Arkansas, but he's from there now, and trying to forget it. Jones lives in Washington, among the elite, and has learned how to pronounce the word. Besides, Jones is cut of politics, so what did he care? Jones said, sure, he'd do it. Jones yaw Bryan Sunday, at his hotel. Bryan had just got back from lecturing at one church, where the contribution had been counted before the lecture began, and was in a hurry to get to the other church, where he could watch the count. Jones came out of the room and smiled apologetically apologeti-cally to the Inquiring faces. "Lot's put it over till tomorrow," ho said. "1 don't think it's the right thing to talk politics on Sunday.' Senator Newlands arranged a dinner for Monday Mon-day night, and invited as many of the conspirators conspira-tors as his dining room would hold. Wine flowed fieely in the hope thft some one would imbibe enough courage to put the ultimatum up to Biyan. Many a man started to say it, but when he looked at Bryan's turned down glass and his placidly smiling face, he realized his disadvantage. Newlands is a far-sighted man and had seen the possibility of failure th.e first night, and so he had issued invitations for a dinner Tuesday night, to meet Mr. Bryan. Same result. "Nobody said nothing." "Why," said Mr. Bryan, Wednesday, to a bunch of newspaper men, "I haven't thought of retiring. I haven't been asked to do so." He's right. The Senatorial and Congressional bunch was bluffed. Secretary Taft knows that Bryan will be nominated, nom-inated, and expects that he will give the Republican Repub-lican nominee the closest race of the last four elections. It is the opinion of President Roosevelt Roose-velt that he (the president) or Taft can beat Bryan in an exciting finish, but that no other man now mentioned for Republican nominee can win over the NeTjraskan. They do not believe that the Republican party is weaker than it has hoeri, but that Mr. Bryan Is stronger. Bryan was painted in '1896 as an anarchist. In 1906 he had been modified in the minds of "conservatives" to a socialist. Now, from a shadow of disaster, he has grown to be a man of substance pleasing substance "The old scare about Roosevelt will not go with the people again," said a close friend of Mr. Taft to me. "The people know him now. Wo Republicans do not agree with him, and, besides, we are out to win for our party. But the light this time will be on strictly party lines. Bryan then was a poor man and was regarded as an adventurer. Today ho is more than a millionaire. He's not putting any dynamite on the track now. He's riding in a Pullman car, with a pilot engine out in front. Those so-called gold Democrats know human nature. They know that a man with aN million dollars Is not going to blow up the government. "It will be a beautiful light. I expect Taft to win, but I've been looking around foj a good, comfortable commercial berth on which- to get an option." Mr. Bryan himself is taking the situation in a humorous vein when he will discuss it at all. At the Gridiron dinner he was introduced in a song that asked what he would do if nominated a third time and for a third time defeated. He replied that it reminded him of a prominent promi-nent citizen who appeared at a dance in an intoxicated in-toxicated condition. The man's friends put him out gently and urged him to go home. He reappeared re-appeared in the ball room at once. He was put out again, in a forcible manner. He again appeared. ap-peared. Tfcis time his exasperated friends threw him down stairs. When he had picked himself up at the bottom, he remarked to interested bystanders: by-standers: "They can't fool me any longer. They don't Svnnt me in there." "But," Mr. Bryan continued, "it is not at all certain that I shall be defeated. A man on hla 85th birthday said that ho felt comparatively safe. He had been studying the obituary columns and found that very few of those who died wero over 85 years of age. I have been studying history, his-tory, and have found that very few men who ran for the presidency three times have been defeated. de-feated. "Besides," said Mr. Bryan, "another . point gives mo hope, If I am a candidate up to the age of Uncle Joe Cannon, I have six more candidacies can-didacies coming to mo. That, added to the two times I have run, makes eight. It is a well-known well-known law of averages that one cannot lose eight times." In the Mirror. |