Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1906 — BRYAN ON “DREAMS” [ARTICLE]

BRYAN ON “DREAMS”

A Large Indianapolis Audience Hears Him Answer Republican Complaints. Before an audience at Indianapolis last week that was estimated at from 12,000 to 20,000 people, William J. Bryan referred to the Republican charge that he is a dreamer, and took occasion to show what he and the Democratic party have been dreaming about. Extracts from the speech are given below: “1 find the bible speaks of dreams. Yes. the bible speaks of dreams and of dreamers, and I have made a careful investigation, and so far as I have been able to find, the most prominent dreamer mentioned in the Bible was Joseph. His brothers called him a dreamer. When one day his father sent u !m to visit his brothers while they kept their flocks in Dothan they saw him coming and they said, ‘Here comes tne dreamer.’ and they plotted to kill him. And then they decided that they would put him in a pit and say that some animal slew him, and then, when some merchants came along, they said, ‘We will sell him to the merchants,’ and the merchants took him down into Egypt, and after a while his brothers went down and got corn of the dreamer.” • • • “Some fourteen years ago the Democrats dreamed of the election of senators by direct vote of the people. They saw a vision of a senate resting not upon corporations, but upon the people’s will, and they started to realise the dream for the benefit of the people. And they put It in the form of a resolution, submitting the necessary constitutional amendment, and it passed the fifty-second congress, a Democratic congress. And then they put It in the form of a resolution again and it passed the fifty-third congress, a Democratic congress, but the next congress was Republican, and they didn’t dream any on that subject. And the next congress was also Republican, and it didn't dream, either, on the subject, "but after a while they had a Republican congress and that dream had become so vivid that even a Republican congress passed the same resolution that the Democrats had.” • * a “What else? Well, years ago the Democrats dreamed that there ought to be tariff reform, and they told the Republicans about it and the Republicans said it wasn’t a dream —it was a nightmare. But the Republicans said you could trust them to reform the tariff through its friends. Well, my friends, that was ten years ago that they made this promise. No, it was longer than that. I remember that they promised it eighteen years ago—l think I might go back twentysix years—for that was the first time I ever made a political speech, and

the Republicans were promising then that the tariff would be reformed by Its friends.” • a a “Why can’t the Republicans reform the tariff? Why? Because every time the Republicans attempt to reduce a schedule some man says, ‘Not that, not that; we bought and paid for that schedule with a contribution to your campaign fund.’ They are helpless. They can’t reform anything on the tariff. Why, my. friends. If you want to know when the tariff is going to be reformed by its friends, I will give you the sign—a sign that will not fail. It would be an awful thing to have these friends of the tariff reform it without giving the people any warning. But I am going to give you something that you can tell the day beforehand that it is going to be done. When all the money loaners in the United States get together in convention and demand a reduction in the rate of interest, you watch the papers next day and the tariff will be reformed by its friends. And then the next day will be the millennium.” • • • “Well, the Democrats had another dream. ' They dreamed that the trust was an evil, and that it ought to be remedied, and when they told their dream the Republican leaders scoffed at them. I remember that one Republican made three defenses of the trusts within a few months. He first said there were no trusts. But that defense didn’t last long. Then he said the trust was a natural thing, an economic development, and had come to stay, but that didn’t last as long as the other. And then he made a third defense. He says: ‘Don’t worry; if the trusts are bad we Republicans will take care of them.” • * • "My friends. President Roosevelt has been reading about our dream on this subject, and he has made up his mind that there is something in it, and he started out to enforce the law against the trusts. At first he tried injunction. If the trusts got too bad he told the attorney general to go and ask some judge to tell the trusts to stop. Of course, you don’t do that in horse stealing. You don’t enjoin a man from stealing a horse. You put him in the penitentiary, after you take the horse away from him, and let him stay long enough to let him reflect on horse stealing.” a • a “But even the president is talking of putting trust magnates in the penitentiary. I am glad that the president is doing something. I only wish he would do more. But, my friends, if you will look where he has put his foot forward on this subject you will find he has put his foot in the track made by a Democrat and that his foot does not fit the track. So you see they have done all they could. Well, my friends, they have been in power for ten years, and we have just as many trusts now as we had ten years ago. Do you expect reform from them? No, my friends, if anybody tells you of reforms that the Republican party has brought about, I wish you would tell them a story I heard

the other day. An old colored man married a second time, and, unfortunately got an extravagant wife. He w'as complaining to one of his friends about his wife, and be said, ‘That woman wants money all the time. She wants a dollar today, fifty cents tomorrow, and a quarter the next day, then another fifty cents, and then a quarter, and it is just a dollar, fifty cents and a quarter, ’round and ’round and ’round all the time,’ ‘Well,’ his friend said, ‘what can she do with so much money?’ And the old man replied, ‘I don’t know; I hain’t gin her none yet.’ No, my friends, they hain’t gin us any reforms yet. And why don’t they? Because they dare not lay the ax at the roots of the tree.” • • • “The Democrats say that a private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable, The Democrats say that God never made a man good enough to stand at the head of a monopoly and decide arbitrarily what others should pay him for what they had to have and for what he alone could sell. That is the Democratic position. Now what do the Republicans say? Why they say, regulate, restrain and restrict. Well, they have been regulating for ten years, and what is the result? Why, the trusts elect the regulators. That is the trouble. You can regulate a legitimate business, but you cannot regulate a criminal business. And, my friends, the trust, the monopoly, has been an outlaw for thousand* of years.” • • a “Now, why don’t you try to regulate burglary? For instance, why not enact a law providing that no more than two burglars may enter a house at one time? Now a great deal of harm may be done by allowing a large number of burglars to go in together, but if you limit it to two I don’t think it would be so bad. And then these burglars take everything they find in the house. Of course, that isn’t fair. Why not limit them to one-half of what they find? That will be so much better. Why don't you regulate burglars? Because, my frelnd, you have always known that when crime constituted the element of it it must be not regulation but prohibition. And so, you say, ’Thou shalt not steal.’ That Is the old-fashioned way of saying it, and it was good until the Republicans amended the commandment to read. ‘Thou shalt not steal on a small scale.’ ” • • • “Now, everybody knows what the purpose of the trust is. The younger Rockefeller has been kind enough to take the world into his confidence, and he gives a beautiful illustration: He says, ‘as the American Beauty rose can only be brought to Its present perfection by pinching off ninetynine buds that the strength of the bush may go into the other bud, so great industrial enterprises can only be brought to perfection by pinching off the smaller and weaker ones.’ You understand It now. Just pinch them off. Just bankrupt them. Just drive them out of business, and when you have destroyed competition raise the price and make the people pay it back. It is so simple and easy. Well,

I am just old-fashioned enough to beHave that it is better to have a tiundred roses giving perfume to a hundred homes than to have just one big rose in one big home and to have all the rest of the people without flowers. I am just old-fashioned enough to believe that it is better to have tens of thousands of industries, each giving hope and ambition to those who work In them than to have Just a few gigantic trusts preying on the whole country, whose owners will transmit unearned wealth from generation to generation. Yes, we have dreamed about the trust question, and we have had a vision of a country freed from monopoly. • a • "But more than that, we dreamed about rate regulation. Yes, it was a beautiful dream. We first dreamed it ten years ago and we mentioned the dream in the Chicago platform, and it impressed us so that we dreamed again and we put it in the Kansas City platform, and we liked the dream so well we put it in the St. Louis platform. And after a while the president came along and he says: 'Anybody got any dream on this subject?’ And the Republicans said: 'We haven’t; you can search us.’ And so be looked around and found our plank and he says: ‘Here it is.’ Oh, my friends, what a blessed thing it is to furnish ideas for a party. What a blessed thing it is to give inspiration, even to your opponents.” ... “Ten years ago I never mentioned the government ownership of railroads. I never even mentioned it six years ago, and yet, within two years a Republican president has warned the country in two messages that if the railroads don’t get out of politics and let the people run this government, there will be no alternative except government ownership. Why, it surprises me to find out how radical some people are getting nowadays. Just think of it! President Roosevelt more radical than I was six years ago. But I said it first. But it was the closest shave I ever had. Why, on most questions I have beaten him ten years, but on this question I just got in six months ahead. I am becoming convinced that the railroads are not going to get out of politics, and ultimately we must find the solution in the ownership of the railroads by the people and their operation in behalf of the people. I don’t know how soon this will come, but I tell you, my friends, I would have been very much humiliated' if the president had suggested it before I did." ... “Will you come with us? We have pointed out the dangers, and Republicans speakers now admit the soundness of our warning. You have a chance to help us. Elect a Democratic congress and that congress will give us that reforip. Help elect a Democratic state tii-ket and then the world will know that when we go into the great battle which w r e are going to fight two years hence, that Indiana will be on the side of the people and not on the-4ide of organized and predatory wealth.”