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Show i" .----$---f-s-----?---'f -'-?-. -i - i -.i-..- -,?-.---- milAm INTERESTED t I IN THE GREAT I PRESIDENTIAL STRUGGLE ! An Impartial View By a Brilliant Irish Writer on the Fight Between the McKinley and Bryan Forces The Ne-braskan Ne-braskan the Cincinnatus of the American Democracy Jefferson's Pride in State Rights. iW. J. Purcell in the Dublin Freeman's Journal.) 1 The crowded mass meetings of laborers la-borers and those who comprise the work-a-day population of the States, and that we read of as attending the Bryanite gatherings, are in themselves reminders that the Democratic candi- date for the American Presidency is democratic both by party affiliations and by social instinct. It is this fact that makps the present electoral struggle strug-gle of such interest to the student ot social problems. In the long history of Democratic candidates Bryan stands alone as a Socialistic reformer. Cleveland. Cleve-land. Hancock. Tilden. even Horace Greely, the Democratic candidate in 1872. differed in nowise from the social platform of their Republican rivals. Apart from the imperialism issue, which in itself would be sufficient to make the approaching American Presidential Pres-idential election memorable in New World annals, the personality of the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Jen-nings Bryan, attaches to the Columbian Colum-bian electoral struggle some stirringly novel feature.?. To us on thes Old World shores it will come as somewhat peculiar nows to be told that Democracy, Democ-racy, as a mere party name in America, has nothing of the meaning that we attach to it. It is not the badge of the oi polloi. or the seething masses of the nation, in an effort for social and political po-litical supremacy. The origin of Democracy De-mocracy as a partisan - title in the States is not due to class or social strife. Carrying history's memory -back to the infant days of the great western republic, we find Jefferson applying the Democratic title to the efforts of hi3 party in proclaiming States' rights as the heritage of each individual State. Jefferson and his followers distrusted Congress, or the United States National Nation-al Assembly. He was essentially a State's man. Believing that each individual indi-vidual State was sovereign, he imparted impart-ed to his following a fanatic belief in the supremacy of the State over the nation, or States aggregation. Here there was no plebian championing of the masses, no talk of a class secession secess-ion such as in the early days shook the political foundations of republican Rome when the lower classes of the citizens withdrew to the historic mount. The democracy, then, of Jefferson, the predecessor of the present Democratic Demo-cratic party, had its origin in pride of State. It took root, strange to say, on aristocratic soil Virginia. Carolina and the Southern States, the homes of the cavalier and the French gentry, adopted adopt-ed this peculiar democracy. They would as soon have thought of attaching attach-ing and leveling ideas to their conceptions concep-tions of democracy as of admitting their niggers to social eauality. The South, then, the aristocratic South, has ben "rfmocratie" by tradition and pride of State. To uphold it they fought and bled in the war of the re--hellion, where thev seceded from the Republican Northern States, which were as a fact more democratic in the real sense of tho word than the blue-blooded blue-blooded slave owners and the plantation planta-tion masters of the South. Though the Southern States have given so-failed so-failed Democratic Presidents to the Federal Union, they in no material sense differed from the social views of their Republican rivals. By a peculiar 3- perversion of title for upwards of half I a century, till the great 'slavery ques- j tion was settled by the sword, the word ! "democrat" was synonymous in the j States with "slave owner." while the word "republican" was applied to those J who believed in Congress and slave 1 liberation. When this great question was settled other issues took the field. 1 but they were never social ones. Free I trade, gold versus silver, and other 1 problems vexed the national mind, but no thought or heed was paid, till Bry- an's time, of the ever-widening gulf ' j that sundered the American Dives for J the squalid I.azarus. The eternal cry from the sweat simps and the factory, 5 and the sight of luxury, unrivaled since 1 the clays of YitelHus. formed sounds and spectacles unheeded. i Kpcognizing that if these terrible so- 1 cial irregularities are not speedily rem- edied the splendid experiment of "grv- t ernment by, with, and from the peo- pie" must perish from the earth. Bryan I comes into the arena anew, as the first socialistic reformer, to be awarded the nomination for Presidency at the j hands of a great party. From his pred- j ecessors in this candidacy he differs as the Nadir from the Zenith. In his pos of his old slouch hat and rusty black tie we perceive a leaning even in the matter of attire towards a Cincinnatus-Iike Cincinnatus-Iike Democracy. In his bitter hatred of Trusts, the commercial swells club; in hi3 distrust of armaments abroad and in his love for the cheaper metal . as a monetary medium of exchange Bryan is inriuenc-el by his affection for the toiling millions. He is indeed a Democrat in the social sense, and as a candidate for the American Presidency he is the first of his kind. In the little, lit-tle, town of Lincoln, in the Western, State of Nebraska. Ilryan's home, the Democratic candidate gives stalwart, evidences of his leveling tendencies. To his neighbors he is plain "Billy" Bryan, Bry-an, and though thoy are mostly of the other political creed they respect Bryan Bry-an for his traBSDarent sincerity. In the great fight which he made for the Presidency in 1-Sfitj against odds even creater than those which confront con-front him today, the power and magnetism mag-netism which Bryan holds over the workingmen. was everywhere evidenced. evidenc-ed. In the great factories of the huge cities in such centers as Xew York. Illinois, and Ohio the workers were even warned that "they need'nt come to work next morning" after Bryan's election. The Trusts had shown their teeth with a vengeance, and, when In the face of such fierce opposition as i this, the ."Boy Orator" received the j votes of over six millions of people, the Republicans can rely that they have a tough fight on their hands to ;. retain the spoils of National office. Viewing him, as the writer has. on his entry into the great city of Chicago Chi-cago during the heat of the struggle of '9fi. when the surging masses, like some mighty sea in a stormy gale, received him with a roar of welcome that was taken up far and wide across the Chi- j cago river and deep into the heat of ; that great, throbbing city, one could not help thinking that he was a man of ; ; destiny. Grimy and stained with I travel, his loyal wife at his side, he ; seemed a living impersonation of i?-i i?-i mos triumphant. The widening social ; conditions caused by. lavish wealth and I ' bitter poverty had made this man a : necessity. Just as Lincoln appeared i I (Continued on page 2.) IRELAND INTERESTED. (Continued from page 1.) to rescue what Washington had achiev ed, so it would seem that the advent of a mastering- personality was no.r necessary to save the great RepuMiij from the ravage:; caused by a concentration concen-tration of gold. The tight which thM Nebraska Tribune i.-i waging on behalf ' of toil is of consuming interest. Other struggles have been carried on before on American soil, but they were not along social linos affecting the white man's race. Slavery had gone down before the "mailed fist" of humanity. Free Trade had yielded to Protection. Silver hiid failed before the onset of the rarer metal: hut the nnht which, Bryan now wages is that of a man combatting com-batting against forces the limits of whose moneyed power is a matter of difficulty to circumscribe. When the victorious lesions of Mr-Kinley Mr-Kinley triumphantly proclaimed in ls; that Bryan anil his cause was a thini-of thini-of the past, his answer was in the publication pub-lication of "The First Battle." It win typical of his courage and dauntless grit, and though he may again go down to defeat at the polls in November, i; is safe to say that he will continue fight on, firmly believing that gian: combinations of wealth cannot liv-; side by side under Democratic institutions. institu-tions. W. J. PURCELL. |