Life — July 23, 1908 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“While there is Life there's Hope.” No, 1343 VOL. LIL JULY 2, 198 Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY SA MITCHELL, Pert, AL MILLER, See'y and Trear, West Thirty-first Street, New York. 2 Republican party is strong for centralization \ nowadays, and the Democratic party ought to be repre- senting the opposite ten- dency. Maybe it will some Pap. time. At present it repre- YS, sents little that is of value 4 to national government except an alternative to be considered and avoided, and the possibility of regencration. A foolish man who is living and behaving unwisely is better than no man at all because * there is life, at least, in him, and he may come to a better mind and a more profitable line of conduct. So in the Democratic party there is abundant life, and some day it will be useful again to ey the count And, we dare say, the renomina- tion of Bryan is about as good medi- cine as the Democratic party could take this year. Before it can do the country much good it has got to de velop new leadership, and apparently it cannot do that until its infatuation with Brother Bryan comes to an end. If it must elope with him once more before it can finally shift its affections, it is best, no doubt, to have it over We can get along very well with and to now. aft for another four years, have Bryan run against him simplifies political action very much for voters whose propensity to vote Democratic is not yet quite extinct, but who would like to see what sort of work Taft will be able to make of the White House job, and in particular what he will be able to get done about revising the if. So let us try to be reconciled this time again to Brother Bryan’s ascen- dency, considering that extraordinary eles: phenomenon with the philosophical ad- mission that whatever-is, is right, and that Bryan could not have captured the Democratic party if it had not been ripe to be captured by him. He got the nomination fairly enough. When he says it was “as purely from the people as can be,” that is doubtless true. It does not mean that he has not been working: for it for all he was worth for the last four years; has not dickered and plead and bullied and schemed and wrestled for it. It only means that he got it him- self; that it was not bought with money, nor given to him by any one else, nor acquired by the efforts of organized and disciplined office hold- ers, but that he himself went out and grabbed it, beating off all competitors with what violence was necessary, but using no means more censurable than persuasion, objurgation and the hope of office. A nomination so acquired comes, no doubt, about “as purely from the peo- ple” as can be. It is asserted that a majority of the Denver delegates, in their hearts, did not want Bryan. If that is so, he did a great feat to make them choose him, in spite of the two- thirds rule, on the first ballot. He is a great hand with conventions, how- ever he may lag at the polls, and he should have full credit for success in his specialty. us, indeed, in all particulars, try to give Brother Bryan the credit that is his due. After all, in his way he has been useful to the country. He has kept the Democratic party from getting into power when it was not fit to have power. When it was silver- crazy he led it to defeat, which was a useful service. The next time, its sanity being only partially recovered, he led it to defeat again. Next time he prudently stood aside while Parker was thrown to Roosevelt like Daniel to the lions, ex- cept that Roosevelt ate Parker. And now that the party is Bryan crazy, Bryan will lead it again. And is he not the man, and the only fit man, to lead a Bryan-crazy party? No doubt he is, and no doubt he will lead it to a destination that accords with its deserts. The only choice the Demo- crats have had in twelve years has been the choice of nominating a man like Cleveland, whom the bulk of the party did not want, and who must inevitably have quarrelled with his party if elected, and-a man like Bryan, who was quite as crazy as his party was, and, therefore, could not be elected. Bryan certainly has stood in his previous can- didacies for things which the majority of the Democrats wanted. ‘The trouble has been that, as a rule, they have been things that belonged to somebody else, and which a sufficiently large division of the Democrats have been squeamish about taking. In one way or another, ever since the free-silver years, Bryan has been the leader of the Have-nots against the Haves. So he is still, but with great modification. Roosevelt has banged the Haves so hard during the last three years that the novelty has pretty much gone out of that form of sport, and a great many of the original Have-nots have begun to wonder how much farther it will be profitable to pursue it. So, thanks to Roosevelt, the Democratic party, Bryan-crazy though it is, is a much safer party this year than it was twelve or eight or even four years ago. That is not saying much, but it is something. R. BRYAN is not silver-crazy any longer. Indeed, he does not seem to be crazy on any subject. But having had large experience of the usefulness to him of political manias, he keeps a full set of them in his cabinet, and is ready at any moment to bring out and assume any one of them which the Democratic party shows signs of an in- clination to be demented with, Can he be elected? To us it looks as if the desire for Bryan had diminished even more than the fear of him. The country needs, desires, tranquility. It has taken all the medicine it can stand, except a moderate dose of Tariff re- vision. If it can get that from Taft it can get from him everything it needs, at less cost than from Bryan. There~ fore, if the Tariff doesn’t beat Taft he ought to comicbooks.com