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Show Bourke Cochran Out Tor Bryan Indianapolis, Ind., Aug. 15.--VV. Bourke Cockran, one of the most brilliant bril-liant orators of today, and one of the leading Gold Democrats to support Palmer Pal-mer and Buckner in 1S96, has come out strongly for Bryan. One of the principal princi-pal features of the first day's session of' the liberty congress of the National ! Anti-Imperialistie league was the reading of a letter from Mr! Cockran.' He. had been asked to address the congress. con-gress. Finding himself unable to fulfill ful-fill the engagement, he wrote this letter, eulogizing Bryan as a sincere statesman who' refused to be swerved from his be-lie's, be-lie's, and declaring -that,, the safety, of. 1 the nation demanded his election. The letter is addressed to Chairman Edwin Barrett Smith, and is as follows: j "New York, Aug. 14, 1900. "M!y Dear Sir: "I . regret - very much- that owing to , business engagements here I will be unable to attend the liberty convention conven-tion at Indianapolis on the 15th. "The attitude of anti-imperialist to imperialism cannot be open to debate and therefore I assume the object of the convention is not to express oiio-sition, oiio-sition, but to devise a method of making mak-ing that opposition effective. The issue of imperialism having been squarely raised between the two great parties, it must be plain that the only way in which a citizen can exercise any direct influence upon the result is by voting for the Republican candidate who supports, sup-ports, or the Democratic candidate, who opposes it. "Nothing can be accomplished by the nomination of a third candidate that cannot be accomplished equally by ab-stentation ab-stentation from the polls, except that the citizen who remains at home on election day passes unnoticed, while he who votes a third ticket attracts all the difference between a silent and a vociferous refusal to exercise the suffrage. suf-frage. Abstention fom civic duty is never commendable. "When the republic i in danger the only place for the patriot is in the ranks of its executive defenders. Absence- from the field of contest, or shooting in the air, can never be justified, jus-tified, "It cannot be denied that while anti-imperialists- unanimously approve Mr. Bryan's position on imperialism, many of " them hesitate to vote for his elec tion to the presidency because they regard re-gard his views on other questions with distrust and apprehension. "We cannot hope to deal intelligently with the issues of this campaign until we liberate ourselves from the. domination domina-tion of the questions, discussions and passions of the last campaign. Within four years political conditions have changed decisively and as .conditions change, issues change with them. The question which the people must decide. now is radically different from that" submitted to them in 1896. Then the election of Mr. Bryan would have placed . the Democratic party in complete com-plete control of the legislature, as well as that of the executive branch of the government with full power to enact all its beliefs into law, while now his election elec-tion will result, not in placing the control con-trol of the go"ernment in the hands of the Democri-r 1 party, but in dividing its control be.veen the two parties. Whatever, may be the result of this election, the senate will remain Republican Repub-lican for two years certainly and probably prob-ably for four. Even if the people raised Mir. Bryan to the presidency in November, Novem-ber, the Democratic party cannot possibly pos-sibly achieve any power of legislation during the existence of the next congress, con-gress, and without legislative sanction sanc-tion no change in the standard of value, no reorganization of the supreme court, no modification whatever of our financial, industrial or political systems could be accomplished. "There is one issue which the popular pop-ular verdict will settle irrevocably, and that is the issue of imperialism. If the Republican party be successful its control of judicial, as well as of the executive ex-ecutive and legislative departments of the government will be absolute and its disposition to exercise all its power for the enforcement of an imperialistic policy pol-icy cannot be doubted. At the end of four years imperialism will be so firmly imbedded in our political life that it can never be exe!!e;:. "Mr. Bryan's election of itself would put "a quietus upon the imperialistic adventure. No policy specifically condemned con-demned by the people has ever been adopted into our system, and im- perialism would prove no exception to I the rule. Mr. Hoar's suggestion that the f'enate would refuse to follow a 'Deni'ocratic president in a policy of huma'nity approved by the people does faint justice to his own patriotic capacity when liberated from the exigencies of a campaigr. for re-elecr I tioh his intellect and his conscience would be restored to harmonious and effective co-operation. Imperialism, rebuked at the polls and shown to be unprofitable, would not have a single supporter in the country. "Within a month after election, ; Sen- ator Hoar could alter his . able conceptions con-ceptions of freedom and duty to definite defi-nite proposals of pacification which both parties would accept. The country having pronounced for justice, politicians politi-cians of evpry shape and description will be eager to do justice, and when the desire for justice is sincere the way to justice is soon discovered. "Since the election of Mr. Bryan is certain to deliver the country from the imminent peril of imperialism, can the liberty convention hesitate to support him because of impalpable danger, arising aris-ing from his opinions on subjects with which, as president, he cannot possibly deal? I confess it is hard to understand under-stand the attitude of those gentlemen i ; ! who would have supported him if the - convention had been silent or evasive f i on the free coinage of silver but who j hesitate to support him on a platform - f which excludes that question from the t I serious discussions of the contest by j" relegating it to a subordinate position. ? x I The Democratic platform declares that imperialism is the paramount issue of f the campaign and Mr. Bryan's speech j j at Indianapolis accepts this conception I of the issue, emphasizes it and vindi- j cates it. i "But a declaration that imperialism is a paramount issue is equivalent to a declaration that it is the sole issue, (Continued on page 3.) ( ji COCKRAN COMES i out for era ; . (Continued from page 1.) , for no presidential election ever de cided more than one question. In my judgment the platform actually adopt- 1 f ,b,y , the Democratic convention mould be much more satisfactory t V I sound money men than any of the sub-j1 sub-j1 ' stitutes suggested by older and more is conservative managers. Since nobodv H M-etends that Mr. Bryan's opinions on ,he f)U-stions raised by the Chicago y Matform of 18 have been changed t refusal to disguise thm in any U V'a-V is" highly creditable to his honestv f; illms nonesty is the first essential of f patriotic presidential service, f "-yfr- Bryan's conversion to a belief Sn sound money would, in niv opinion ! 1)" a reason for national rejoicing, but j "iv abandonment or abasement of the I ; frankness and sincerity which have al-, al-, 5 M:i"K -listinguished him. would be lit- tie short of a national calaniity j 1 not wPl Mr. Bryan as , j an infallible, or even as a sound j authority on economics, to acknowledge ' I that his integrity, his truthfulness and I absolute sincerity have been among the most salutary inrtuences of this genera's genera-'s lion on ur political life. It is certain j that this country is indebted to him .' f'"r the gold standard law. which I j though it has the defects of its party 'ijrin. k the best contribution to our national stability since the resumption H specie payments. If the Demo-; Demo-; ; era tie j.latform of 1K had been eva- tion of independence, all who would perceive the supremacy of the constitution, consti-tution, all whb with Abraham Lincoln, would repulse the 'vanguard, the miners min-ers and sappers of returning despotism' should in the coming election withhold their votes from McKinley. ""We propose to disregard all minor questions and issues while we drive from the temple those who have betrayed be-trayed the law of the nation's life." -After a short recess for lunch the convention met again at 2:30. Chairman Chair-man Smith called for short addresses from delegates. Dr. V. M. Ooffut of Washington said he had long been a Republican but should this year give his support to Bryan. He presented to the convention conven-tion the regrets of William O. Birney and ex-Senator J. B. Henderson of Washington and Senator George 11. Wellington of Maryland. General John.Beatty of Columbus, O., aroused much enthusiasm in his remarks. re-marks. "I have been a Republican for fifty years," he said, "and I propose to continue con-tinue a Republican until J die. I pray that God will forgive me for voting for McKinley in 18. I did not think that he would turn his back upon the eternal eter-nal peace of the republic. If Cleveland I or Beed or Bryan had been nresident there would have been no war in the I Philippines: no butchery of inoffensive Christian jeople: no deaths of brave American soldiers there: but our flag would now have been hailed with acclaim ac-claim by a new republic." Judge Moses Hallet of Colorado said his state was sure to go for Bryan, whatever the action of the convention. Gamaliel Bradford said he had taken the long journey from Boston especially to avert what he thought would be a W. BOURKE COCKE AN. I Mve, as unquestionably it would have '"'(n if the so called conservatives had j controlled the convention, can anybody f doubt that the Republicans would' have I i't evasion with evasion and that the financial issue would be still unsettled, I hanging like a sinister shadow over our industrial system. Mr. Bryan's frank. sincere and unequivocal advocacy of : the free coinage of silver forced the , Republican party reluctantly to de- dare in favor of the gold standard, j The result was not that which Mr. Bryan sought; none the less it was j! produced by him. Because he was sin- cerely wrong, he forced the Repub- jl lican politicians to become insincerely j right. To this sincerity of Mr. Bryan the country is indebted for the oppor- ; tunity to pass squarely and decisively upon the issue of imperialism. If the . ! republic is to be overthrown, the as- i Siuilt must now be made in the open I liahf of day. It is no longer possible H to strangle it under cover of mislead- ! ins and hypocritical phrases, j.s "In this open fisht for liberty surely , I every anti-imperialist should be ready !; to bear his part. Hesitation to avail j ourselves of the leadership under j which alone opposition to imperialism I; van be made effective, through distrust j' of the leader's views on an economic :i question not now in issue, would be as senseless as hesitation to employ a - surgeon on whose skill depended the j sole prospect of life, through dislike of I his religious beliefs. j "It can hardly be necessary to say f that we, who four years ago sacrificed our political prospects and personal as- sociations rather than lend even a Passive support of silence to declarations declara-tions which we believed to be subversive subver-sive of order, will pursue the same course again if these questions should ev r recur., "The best evidence of our capacity ji to d al with the issues of lf02 or 1901 ; I whatever they may be is to deal intelli- ; i gfMitly now wih the issues of 1900. On : that issue. Mr. Bryan stands for ju.s- :J tie. liberty and the constitution, and. ;i simc all these would be imperiled by i his defeat, it is to be hoped that the s . liberty convention will not be swerved J from supporting him by prejudices .1 springing from past antagonisms or by j groundless apprehensions of the future, if "Yours very sincei-ely. 'i "W. BOl'RKE COCKRAN. I "To KDWIX Bl'RRITT SMITH, KSQ." i The first day's session of the liberty I congress was somewhat disappointing J far as the attendance of delegates i w:is -oncerned. About 300 accredited f delegates wre. present and more are 'j promised for tomorrow. In spite of i tli'' small attendance, the speeches of J Kdwin B. Smith, the tfmj-orary chair- j man and Georg" S. flout well, the : Permanent ir"sii2"nt. brought forth ( r much enthusiasm. Th" public meeting I in the evening was much better at- teiid"d. and the reading of Bourke ! Cockran's letter was the signal for I tremendous applause. But the greatest demonstration of I the session came this evening when 1 George Boutwell. ex-governor of Mas- I sa husetts an'd secretary of the treas- 1 ury in the cabinet under President I Grant, concluded his address as chair man with the d'-claration that he had turned his back on the Republican party and should support Bryan for president. The delegates rose in their seats and tendered the ey-governor an ovation that lasted several minutes. Tomlinsoii hall w as elaborately decorated decor-ated with American Hags, pictures of Washington. Lincoln. Jefferson. Thomas A. Hendricks and Oliver P. Morton. Swung directly over the speakers' i platform was an immense banner with j the following inscription: I "I speak not of forcible annexation. 1 for that cannot be thought of. That by our code of morals weuld be criminal aggression. "WILLIAM M'KIN'LEY." "Behold a republic standing erect with empires all around her bowed beneath be-neath the weight of their armaments a republic whose flag is loved while other flags are only feared. "WM. J. BRYAN." General George Mercer of Philadelphia, Philadel-phia, called the convention to order at 11 o'clock, presenting Edwin Burritt Smith of Chicago, as temporary chairman. chair-man. Professor A. H. Tolman . of Chicapo read the declaration of independence. inde-pendence. Rev. Herbert Bigelow of Cincinnati, invoked the divine blessing on the deliberations of the body, after which Mr. Smith delivered his address in which he said: "All who cherish American liberty, all Who believe in the universal appli-c-Hoi of the principles of the declara- preat mistake the nomination of a ; third ticket. j "This election." he said, "is not going j to be settled by the newspapers nor by j the politicians nor by the capitalists, I but by the people. Now, if we are go-i go-i ing to defeat McKinley we must all j throw our solid support in behalf of i William Jennings Bryan. (Great applause.) ap-plause.) Then, when he sits in the presidential chair, which he will, we will have some influence with the administration; ad-ministration; we will be able to say that we were with him from the beginning. be-ginning. I think the first consideration is to defeat McKinley, but I think it is just as important to elect Mr. Bryan. "I did not vote for him four years ago: I am a strong advocate of the gold standard and I think he is mistaken about the money question, but I also think he is thoroughly honest and sincere. sin-cere. 1 believed his advocacy of the i ratification of the treaty of peace with Spain was perfectly right and logical, I and that was what first determined me ! to vote for him. 1 don't believe any j candidate for president ever before had j the courage to say to a convention that if it did not nut inro it nktfni- a thing which he believed to be right, it would have to. look for some other candidate. can-didate. (Great applause.) I want to see that kind of a man in the nresidential chair. Since the time of Lincoln f don't believe such a speech has been made as Mr. Bryan made here one week ago. There is no mincing matters in that speech; you know just what he would do." By a standing vote the convention adopted a resolution expressing sym-I sym-I pathy with Carl Schurz, in the death of i his son. D. C. Tillotson of Kansas, chairman of the committee on permanent organization, organ-ization, reported in favor of George S. Boutwell for permanent chairman. Governor Boutwell was accorded a great demonstration when he took the gavel. He said: "Having in mind many of the honors hon-ors that I have received from my countrymen coun-trymen in times past, I shall, when this day is gone, have no more favorable recollection of any one of them than I shall of this. This is a historic occasion. occa-sion. If the peril of this country is what we think it is: if the ouestion he- lore you and your countrymen is the question of the continuance of the republic, re-public, then no greater question has ever been committed to an assembly of men or to the country. We are opposed op-posed to imperialism. We are in favor of a reiublican form of government. We respect the teachings of our ancestry, an-cestry, the glory of the history they' have left to us; and, standing between the past and the future, it is our duty to transmit to posterity the peace of the fathers and the institutions that they founded. That is your mission today to-day as the representatives of forty-five states of this Union. It may be a representation rep-resentation without an organized constituency, con-stituency, but it is a representation that speaks for itself and for the people of the country and for the generations that are advancing to take our places, and it is a representation that has a right to speak; a representation that will be heard at Washington today; heard over the world: speaking as we do for the preservation of republican institutions: representing the American republic, the light of which, if St shall go out. win never be reKindled on the surface of the earth. "I charge that the policy upon which this administration has entered will mean the abandonment of the peace upon which our government was founded; found-ed; that it will change the republic into an empire. The first of the means before us for the preservation of the Union, if our allegation is true, is the overthrow of the administration. "I am not disposed to make issues with men, but my former friend and fellow citizen, Mr. Long, the secretary of the navy, has made a remark which of itself may not appear very significant, signifi-cant, but, nevertheless, I choose to make some comment upon it. Mr. Long says what we call imperialism is only a cry, and that the anti-imperialists are few in number and of no considerable importance. That may be true; a census cen-sus has not been taken, and we don't boast of numbers. But nineteen centuries cen-turies ago a crv was heard in the wilderness wil-derness of Judea heard by only a few: but now we are crying for an open path of justice for all people, repentance repent-ance for the wrong that has been done in the past and reformation in the future." fu-ture." . "We have accomplished something. The anti-imperialistic leagues have made the name and the characteristics of imperialism known and spoken in every palace, every log cabin, ai -every prairie camp on this continent." Governor Boutwell then turned the attention of his audience to the condition condi-tion of affairs in China, declaring his belief that it is the intention of the powers to partition China. He added: "If we had treated China in the monthof June as we w ould have treated Great Britain under similar circumstances circum-stances there would have been no I peril. If a rebellion should occur in London and our minister should be in peril of his life, would we send a force up the Thames river to bombard London? No! We would appeal to the diplomats before beginning a military mili-tary undertaking. Was it not a declaration dec-laration of war, when we trained our guns upon the citadels of the Chinese empire? Who authorized it? Under the constitution, congress alone can declare de-clare war. Can the chief magistrate make war in the absence of a congressional congres-sional declaration of war? "Who does not see that the delivery of England's downfall is approaching? And we are" asked to follow her example ex-ample and tread in the imperial footsteps foot-steps of Great Britain, knowing that these steps are leading the British empire em-pire to destruction. Now is the time for the people to quit this progress to ! ruin, and the laboring men of this country are the men to whom I appeal. ap-peal. "In my youth I had no disguises. I turned aside and left the Democratic party when it surrendered to slavery. In my age I leave the Republican party, now that it has surrendered itself it-self to despotic and tyrannical motives. mo-tives. (Great applause.) "I helped create the Republican party, a party at that time of justice and principle and honesty. I now believe be-lieve it is a party of injustice and despotism, des-potism, and I will help to destroy it. And how? There is but one available means and you know what that is. I am for Bryan. (Tremendous applause.) ap-plause.) At the conclusion of Governor Rout-well's Rout-well's address the committee on resolutions reso-lutions was announced, among the membrs being Louis EIrich ot Colorado and D. C. Tillotson of Kansas. A well-attended public meeting was held tonight at Tomlinson hall, at which addresses 'were delivered bv Morefield Storey of Boston. Siermund Zeisler of Chicago. Rev. Herbert S. Bigelow of Cincinnati, and Capt. Patrick Pat-rick O'Farrill of Washington. |