Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1904 — BRYAN AT FOUNTAIN PARK [ARTICLE]

BRYAN AT FOUNTAIN PARK

Tuesday was a great day at Fountain Park Assembly. In faot ‘ the” great day. according to those who have there daring nil the sessions Tire attendance whs enormous, and estimated by good judges -to ba about 50 per cent larger than on the previous Sunday, which would bring the total up close to 5000 people The speoial attraction was W. J. Bryan, the s2o@ •attraction from Linooln Neb., b«t who was intrtduoed as from the 'United States.

Well, Mr. Bryan is a very moted and very able man, but whether big enough to cover ihe whole United States, is a question. His snhjeot was the value of Ideals; and contained a great many excellent and hepful thoughts, that should be of a good deal of help and encouragement eypeoially to the young. There were a good many humorous little tonohes in his address also. ’He is also a very oleairj and plea -eant speaker, but of those great bursts of eloquence with which he is supposed to sway great political conventions and audiences there were none. In >2aot, if Mr.

Bryan had had to’make his reputation as a genoral leotcrer. at assemblies and the lecture platform, it probably would be no exaggeration tossy that there are dozens of others in the same line today, several of whom have been here at one time and another, who wronld have achieved amouoh higher rank. And it was quite oommon to hear it said Tuesday, by those who have attended all the sessions that purely as a lectcrar, instruc tor and entertainer, be is inferior to both Hobson and Bob Taylor. In an unobtrusive way, Mr

Bryan takes oare to get consider oftble politics into J his lecture; and mostly democratic politics, at that. Also in a very pleasant and oftea humorous way, he impresses his audienoe that he is the great “It.” In his lecture also there is muoh that is impractical and visionary, and tome that, whether he means it so or not strikes us as very unpatriotic. As when he argues against a strong navy, or in reality, against any navy at all, for this nation.

It was Napoleon's diota that God was on the side’of the strongest battalions. Truer than that today would it be to say that the moral influence of a nation amounts to mighty little among other nations unless there are big ships and guns to make it good. .Without a strong navy the United States could not have freed Cuba, nor resoued the Phillippines from centuries of misrule. Nor could we have twice successfully interfered to save Venezuela from being overwhelmed by foreign aggression. Nor oould we have been the principal force in saving China from dismemberment after the Boxer war ; and also in preserving her neutrality , l and bo preventing a general war during sent war between Japan and Russia, There is also a whole lot of the rankest kind of demagcgism in Bryan’s ideas. It is when he talks of the rights and the power of the people, in their immediate, present and oollestive oapaoity, to govern themselves, and to have everything they want, regardless of whether what they want will help them or harm, now or hereafter. The people that now are. even in the freest, most intelligent and best governed nations, do not wholly govern themselves. In the forms of laws, constitutions, ous toms and precedents, they are governed largely by the accumulated wisdom and experience of many generations. And if all these restraining and governing influences were swept away, as the legioal conclusion of Bryan's ideas would imply; thero is no people now on earth, neither this country nor any other, that oould save itself, from utter anaroby, ohaos, and fUal despotism.