Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1896 — WILLIAM J. BRYAN, POPULIST. [ARTICLE]

WILLIAM J. BRYAN, POPULIST.

Stewart Bears Testimony to the Nominee’s Kadical Principles. If additional evidence were needed that William J. Bryan is a Populist it may be found in the declaration of the Populists themselves, their allies and abettors in the two conventions which met at St. Louis last week and indorsed Mr, Bryan. In the 'silver convention William M. Stewart, Republican Unit-ed-States senator from Nevada, bore testimony to Mr. Bryan’s principles in these words; I kooiv William »T. Rryah. He believes what we believe. He Is us true to his principles as a needle (o the pole. He Is not a Democrat in good' and regular standing, having said time and again that if the Democratic party adopted a gold platform he would pot support it. | In the same convention Judge Scott of Nebraska, in the course of a fervid speech, invoked the Almighty to send pqstilence and disease, war and famine upon the nation “rather than subject Us to four more years of oppression under Grover Cleveland/’ , , J lie then Called for three -cheers for Bryan, which were heartily given. shewing the estimation in which a Democratic President was held by a gathering which indorsed the Nebraska candidate. So much for the silver convention. In the Populist gathering the testimony to Mr. Bryan’s populistic orthodoxy was even strpnger. Judge Green of Nebraska, an intimate friend and associate of Mr. Bryan, in answer to a question from a Texas delegate, said: “I know Mr. Bryan. I know him personally. He is my friend, and I say to you he is as true a Topulist as j-oii or I.” As Judge Green is, according to his own statement, a Populist of thirty years’ standing, more convincing could hardly be asked for. But the proof accumulates. James B. Weaver of lowa, twice the candidate <»f the Populists for the presidency of the /United States, in nominating Mr. Bryan said: I place in nomination for the presidency of tile United States a distinguished gentleman, who. let it be remembered. Ims already been three times indorsed by the Populist party of ids own state—once for representative in Congress, once for United States senator and only last week for the jn-esideucy. The inference in the last clause that the Coliseum convention was a Populistic gathering is both plain and sincere. But of that later on. > * - The host evidence, however, oLa man's faith—political or otherwise—it* - to —be found in his own words. On the 4th of November, 1803. at Lincoln, Neb., Mr. Bryan, in addressing a Democratic, state convention which had voted down a free silver resolution by a two-thirds majority. made this deelaratioft: If the Democratic party, after you go home, indorses your action and this becomes your sentiment, I want to promise you that I will go out and serve my country und my God under some other name, if I go alone. Divested of the hyperbole, which is Mi-. —Bryan's favorite rhetorical figure., this declaration meant that he wpuld desert the Democratic party and become a Populist. . Does anyone doubt that he has fulfilled his declaration? Mr. Bryan is the nominee of three national conventions. Two of these Were openly and avowedly Populistic. The third—the one which met iu Chicago—was Populist in everything blit name, and that name was stolen from a party with which it had no sympathy. That it was a Populist convention was proved by the fact that it nominated Air. Bryan. That geittieman could mot have accepted the Democratic platform of 1892 or of any previous year. He could- not have faced a Democratic convention '.with his record behind him. Nor, on the other hand, could the Chicago conventioh have nominated a Democrat. The feeble attempts that were ninde to do so showed the estimate iu which Democrats wore held by the convention. Teller, the Republican, was accorded consideration and might have been nominated, but Democrats of lifelong standing were cither contemptuously thrust aside or not mentioned at all. It was a Populist convention. The two St. Louis assemblages which have adjourned after indorsing Mr. Bryan were also Populist conventions. He has had the indorsement of no one but Populists for the last tlireiv years. lie is claimed by the Populists. He is exjdoited as a Populist. He admits that he is a Populist. He is a Populist. Is any further argument necessary ?-»• From the Chicago Chronicle (Dem.).