Life — July 11, 1912 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

TER all, Mr. Bryan has his uses, But for him we might know at this writ- ing who was nominated at Baltimore. We don't, and that is awkw but, never mind! harbor no grudge against Brother Bill on that ac- count. Let the brethren at Baltimore take their time and have it out. Five days, as we write, the Demo- cratic convention has been sitting, off and on. The labors of the convention have been directed towards an adjust- ment of distrusts. There are two great on The distrust of Mr. Bryan's resolution not to be a can- didate, and the distrust of the disposi- tion of that wing of the party which nominated Judge Parker cight years ago, to switch the convention off the Progressive rails on to some side track of conservatism. Both these distrusts seem important and well founded. The habit of not voting for Mr. Bryan is so firmly fixed on so many thousands of sincere Democrats that to nominate him has seemed a calam- ity, and one which a large group of delegates have been determined to avert. To go before the country with a ticket of which it could be charged that it was endorsed as “safe” by Ryan and Murphy, and started gyved with obligations to those persons, would have been another calamity. Mr! Bryan was as firmly resolved to avert that, as Murphy was to avert Mr. Bryan. So far at the time of this writing, both of these calamities have been suc- cessiully averted. Mr. Murphy’s serv- ices in averting Mr. Bryan have not yet been’ conspicvous because Mr. Bryan has not yet fig © ed at Baltimore as a candidate. He has :.cured as the Bull Moose of the conven:ion, and “While there is Life there's Hope” has made a show not matched in any faunal exhibition held anywhere else this summer. He seems to have set out to do nothing | than to pur, the Democratic party of Thomas Ryan and Tammany Hall. Of course, that is a big job; a much more ambitious undertaking than Murphy (and Ryan) have seemed to have in mind, They have not wanted to drive out Mr. Bryan. They have wanted the party to win; to win with his help and with any candidate except Bryan himsel or perhaps Wilson; and with any platform that suited the convention. So they joined so cheerfully in passing Mr. Bryan’s remarkable resolution that the convention was opposed to the nomination of any candidate who rep- resented, or was. under obligation to, Mr. Morgan, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Belmont, “or any other member of the priv lege, or favor, seeking class,” that Mr. Bryan found it expedient to withdraw the impracticable second clause of his resolution that called for the with- drawal of individual delegates. And then the convention went on and sat all night and cast a fruitless ballot. early Friday morning, and twenty-five more of them that day and the next. But during the thirteenth ballot Mr. Bryan, shifting his vote as a delegate from Clark to Wilson, ad- dressed the convention to explain that he did so because New York had shifted to Clark, and announced: “If the nominee of this convention has to have New York's ninety votes, I will not support him.” UR readers will probably know what was finally accomplished at Baltimore. To us the situation looks hopeful. Mr. Bryan’s great sur- VOL. LX. JULY 11, 1912 Published by LIFE PUBLISHLN MPANY Je A. Meroe, Pres't, No, 1850 v West T gical aspiration—the excision of Tam- many, Ryan and Mr. Morgan's friends from the Democratic body—is proba- bly too bold to be realized. The pa- tient would lose too much good blood. One of Mr. Morgan's friends, for ex- ample, is Mr. Stetson, one of the best Democrats living, and lately a tower of strength in the fight to prevent Ryan and Murphy from sending Sheehan to the Senate. And, of course, there are lots of good men in Tammany—Senator O'Gorman, Judge O'Brien, and plenty more. But all the same there must be five or six million Democratic hearts that throb with passionate sympathy with Mr. Bryan's desire, Tammany is a millstone around the donkey's neck. It is in business first, and in politics as a de- tail of busine: It has no political beliefs, no political principles. It cares nothing for the Democratic party ex- cept as a means of perpetuating own profitable powers. It is marked for death, but it will dic fighting, and meanwhile it goes to every convention with the same single purpose—to make such a bargain for itself as may best prolong its sordid life. Doubtless Mr. Bryan is selfish, but Tammany, in spite of all the good men in it, is one great yawning mouth. New York, a great stimulating metropolis, abounding in able men in the top of mental training, might give to the Democratic party the sort of leadership it has a right to expect from the representatives of the Democratic stronghold. Might, but for Tammany, which, faithful to its Roman affiliations, bends every indi- vidual to the uses of organization, and then consecrates organization to provision of its own bread and butter. The weakest candidate who can get the votes is Tammany’s choice. “ The worst for the people is the best for us” its practise. And Ryan! Ryan? Ryan of the Metropolitan railroad? What has he to do in Democratic councils to be comicbookskeom