Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1900 — POLITICAL CURIOSITIES [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL CURIOSITIES

Bryan's Allied Forces and What They Truly Represent. It is useless to deny tliat Mr. Bryan is greatly handicapped by the fact hiat instead of being the candidate of one political- party, accustomed to act together, he is leading an amalgamated host made up of three separate organizations. These parties, while they have olio bond of,cohesion, differ radically on most-, Of the ' Other issues. The feat which, Mr. Bryan is attempting politically, for the first time in .our, .iiistory, difficult enough at best, is rendered especially so by the peculiar .characteristics of his allied forces. Never before were such'discordant antagonisms yoked together, * * ..But the chief, difficulty will arise should the allied parties meet with victory and succeed la capturing the government. Even wolves may be united in harmony to pursue prey and they work very well together until the game is run down. It is over the division of the.meat that the music arises, and it is well if the hungry varlets, having devoured the antelope, do not set upon and devour each other. The point of all this will appear when ihe effort is made to get the various wings to agree upon measures of reform after they are snugly j ensconced at Washington. In a multi- ' tude of counsellors there is distraction. I The patient will die while the doctors J are wrangling over remedies. The president who tries to utilize such I forces for the accomplishment of a fixed policy will have a job on hand I compared to which the taming of the j zebra and yoking tiro unicorn seem like light amusement. The great bedrock truth is that allied parties, though they may -be made effective to got in with, because ah opposition needs only mutual hatred and common hunger as motives for action, can never be relied on to accomplish legislative reforms. * * * The Independent is therefore constrained to predict that, difficult ns Mr, Bryan finds it to get in, his chief troubles will not begin until he is seated. An advance kiuetoscope picture of nis cabinet, if it could be thrown on the curtain, would certainly draw crowds to the limits of “standing room only.’* There is Arkansaw Jones, for instance, the war chief and field leader of the triumphant hosts. * * * Such a man to introduce financial reforms for this mighty nation might be found amusing if introduced by way of burlesque in comic opera, but as a serious venture would be inconceivable in a normal condition of parties. Croker of New York, fresh from carrying the Empire state, reeking with exactions from vice and Infamy of .all sorts to be used as a campaign fund; Altgeld, as attorney general, in the act of enforcing the law for whosp existence on the statute books he has made all his notoriety by denouncing; , Tillman, ns sccretaryy of war, recalling the troops from the Philippines to | save the brown man while he lets loose the dogs of war on the black man In his own state; “Cholly” Towne, as secretary of the trensury, opening the safe with Ids sliver hatchet; "Web” Davis, as secretary of state, getting even with England by re-es-tablishing-the Boci* republic; Populist Weaver, as secretary or agriculture, to teaclf farmers how to raise hell ii'.steall *bf hominy; to say nothing of “Coin” irarvey, /‘Windy.* Allen an(>many others of/ the,' president's inti-’ rnrtte cronies to fill out ‘the minor plaoes. with- this "menagerie of living Bryan to ' work‘on the rocky* rOad to reform.