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Show "BRYAN'S OGDEN SPEECH. Bryan, in his theater speech in Ogden, wavS not very complimentary compli-mentary of Roosevelt, in fact he was quite uncomplimentary. He conveyed the ida that, while Taft is a good-meaning, - blundering fellow, Roosevelt is dangerous, because the former President only within the last few years has championed the great reforms proposed by the Progressive party. Wo were not pleased with Bryan's speech and, to be candid, perhaps the fault was with us and not with Bryan, owing to our firm belief in the causo of the third party. You know when one becomes a partisan he loses his ability to weigh men and meastires just in the degrco that his political mind is closed to the other side. And yet, allowing liberally for our devotion to the Progressive principles, we are forced to say that Bryan was disappointing. First, he proved disappointing in that he had no great message to convey, though what he said was eloquently said. In 1896 he had a ringing appeal to the manhood and womanhood of America. Last Friday he was talking for the Democratic party, one-half of which is a southern aristocracy which kept out of the Democratic platform at Baltimore, a plank declaring against child labor in the southern cotton mills, and the other half a boss-manipulated organization, made up of Tammany Hall politicians, Taggarts, Sullivans, Belraonts and others of their kind, and this we say in the face of the fact that Bryan gained a temporary victory over Belmont and Murphy in the Baltimore convention. The rank and file of Democracy, like tho rank and file of all parties, is laboring for the good of the country, but the party as a whole is directed by the same mercenary, scheming schem-ing gang of bosses that for years has resisted all demands for progressive pro-gressive legislation. Second, Bryan proved unequal to his better-self when he so gingerly touched on the questions which the Standard had asked him, as to Taft's conduct in the Ballinger case. The questions had been submitted to him by local Democrats and this is his answer: I bellevo some friend of Mr. Roosevelt's has asked me to explain how some things could have been done by Mr. Taft, If he Is honest and well meaning. It Is not a safe question for a friend of Mr. Roosevelt's to ask, because 1 would havo Just as much difficulty In explaining some of Mr." Roosevelt's conduct as I would have In explaining Mr. Taft's conduct. When I say that Mr. Taft Is honest and well meaning, I do not mean that he has never made mistakes I think ho has mado many . I do not mean that he has not yielded to temptation I think he has, but I say Mr Roosevelt is honest and well meaning, and I think he has made mistakes and I think ho has yielded to temptation, and I put them both in tho same class and I discard them both on the same grounds. After having singled Taft out, in his Salt Lake speech, as an honest man, and having denounced Roosevelt with a very suggestive omission as to Roosevelt's honesty, and after having had his attention atten-tion directed to Taft's trickery and deceit in the Ballinger case and the open offer of a bribe to the Progressive senators in the fainourt Beverly letter, Bryan made answer by a rank evasion a platform trick. Bryan, had he been at his best, would have analyzed Taft's eon-duct eon-duct as bearing on those two great lapses from rectitude, and he would have exonerated Taft from wrong-doing or branded him with disgrace, ne choso rather to dismiss the subject by a wave of the hand. Bryan has been going over the country praising Taft and criticising crit-icising Roosevelt, notwithstanding that Bryan, writing to the syndicate syndi-cate of papers which he represented at the Chicago convention, on Saurday, June 22, sent the following message to those papers: In spite of patronago. In spite of the powerful organization of the dominant party and In spite of great commercial influences he ((Roosevelt) ((Roose-velt) actually secures an undisputed majority of tho Republican vote Contrary to all precedent, he goes to the convention city and conducts his own fight. Ho finds himself hedged about by forces with which he cannot cope. If he may be likened to a caged lion confined In a cage constructed con-structed of regularity formality and orderly procedure, It must be admitted admit-ted that he was unable with all hiB Sanisonllke strength to bend a single bar. But here the simile onds. Man Is more than animal; he laughs at tho limitations of the flesh. Ho can appeal to a power greater than tho politician, poli-tician, and Mr. Roosevelt has made that appeal. He brings against tho convention such an Indictment as no party has ever had to meet beforo. He appeals from leaders inebriated bv prolonged power to the votora who can dispassionately weigh policies and measure methods from Philip drunk to Philip sober And Taft, the beneficial of this debauchery in politics, is receiving re-ceiving Brj-an's laudation as an honest man, while Roosevelt, who had the courage to break from his party as a pro'test, is odiously compared ! That, vre say, Ls not characteristic of Bryan and is a source of regret to third party men at least, who have held Bryan in high regard. Bryan on the stump today gives one the impression of an attorney attor-ney pleading a case -without merit. One of Bryan's great objections to Roosevelt is that Roosevelt was not one of the original advocates of the referendum and recall and other reforms. "Well, the old Populists like Jerry Simpson might have said that of Bryan when the Great Commoner first found himself him-self out of harmony with the gold element of his party. But how about "Wilson? How long is it since Wilson declared the initiative and referendum to be impractical and visionary, and how long is it sinco Wilson, in a baccalaureate sermon to the members mem-bers of the Princeton graduating class, said : "You know "what tho usual standard of tho employe Is in our day. It is to give as little as he may for wages. Labor Is standardized by the trades unions and ihla is the standard to which It is mado to conform. No one Is suffered to do more than the average workman can do; in some trades and handicrafts no ono ls suffered to do more than tho least skillful of his follows can do within the hours allotted to a day's labor, and no one may work out of hours at all or volunteer any thing beyond tho minimum. I need not point out how economically disastrous dis-astrous such a rogulatlon of labor is. It Is so unprofitable to the employer em-ployer that in Borne trades It will presently not be worth his while to attempt at-tempt anything at all. He had hotter atop altogether than to operate at an Inevitable and invariable loss. The labor of Amorlca Ib rapidly becoming becom-ing unprofitable under the present regulation by those who havo determined determin-ed to reduce it to a minimum. Our economic supremacy may be lost because the country grows more and more full of unprofitable servants. On October 7, 1910, the Trades Unions Advocate of Trenton, New Jersey, commenting on the foregoing address, said: "Therefore, the wage-earner will accept them as his tnio sentiments which they evidently are, because they wero delivered in a sermon to tho graduating clasn of the university, after careful preparation, and were intended in-tended to bo guiding words to the members of the class after thoy left the university and went out Into the world as employers of labor; Intended to instill in tholr minds a hatred for aud contempt of waco-carnors and especially es-pecially organized wage-earners." That was less than two years ago. Still Mr. Bryan led his audience audi-ence to believe the one belated convert to progressivism was any one but Woodrow Wilson. We ask if Bryan, in his Ogden speech, was fair in his treatment of Roosevelt? And again, we repeat, he had no thrilling message to convey. |