Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1908 — What Bryan Can or Cannot Do. [ARTICLE]

What Bryan Can or Cannot Do.

In many districts Democrats are begging votes for Bryan oh the rather uncomplimentary ground that if he is elected he cannot do any harm because a Republican senate will block bis path. Republican orators, on the other hand, dwell on the appointing power of the executive and still more on his veto power. Bryan, his worst enemies being judges, is a'man of force, and if be reaches bls desired goal he will try to make a record. Of this, however, we may be certain: The election of Bryan would lessen our prestige in the eyes of the rest of the world. The Spanish war extended our territorial bounds, and the course of affairs in China has broadened out Influence, while the Panama canal of itself attracts the eye of every statesman of Europe. England, France, Germany, Italy and Russia expect tj see our government proceed on existing lines, developing the Philippines, watching the West Indies and pushing forward the work on the canal. They look for a policy of conservative tariff revision, of fair treatment of wage payers and wage earners, of steady but moderate naval increase. All this

they expect under President Taft. What would happen under President Bryan no man can tell. A few probabilities, however, reach to what Bishop Butler called a moral certainty that is practically a demonstration. The radical elements behind Bryan would insist upon appointments so wild and dangerous that a desperate fight In the senate might be expected, and, whatever the upshot of the wrangle, public time would be r wasted in the strife. Imagine a first class southern fire eater announcing that he would discharge every colored soldier how in the army! Imagine that man. as a candidate for a circuit judgeship! The imprudent selections Mr. Bryan would make, the more imprudent ones forced upon him might bring on a series of altercations unparalleled since the days of Andrew Johnson. Before we have a supreme court reconstructed as Mr. Bryan would like to reconstruct It there will be a legislative battle long and wearisome to everybody. So much for the radicals. On the other side, the Cleveland and Parker elements of the Democracy, if they support Bryan at all, will support him with a qualification. They may, for the sake of party regularity, work for him, but if he is elected president they will by all means try to defeat all his pet measures. No man in this country, least of ail Bryan himself, believes that Watterson and Pulitzer favor Bryan policies. The gold elements, long led by Tilden and Cleveland, will oppose everything specially dear to Mr. Bryan’s heart, and while the wrangle goes on the country’s most Important measures may wait Just now the speeches of Mr. Bryan against the tariff are vague. But if Mr. Bryan does not favor free raw materials he will offend a numerous and noisy body of Democrats in the north, and if he attempts to make the free raw materiel cry an actuality the south will be split from end to end. What the Democrats will do or try to do with regard to the Philippines, the army, the narvy, the canal, no one can undertake to say. All that is certain

is a wrangle worse than any in Cleveland’s time. The personal encounters of Senators Tillman and McLaurin and Messrs. Williams and De Annond give us an idea of the harmony that is to be anticipated. Randall’s stern discipline is no longer felt Imagine a half crazy Democratic house, a stubborn Republican senate, Bryan scattering the seed of innumerable recommendations, and the old camp meeting hymn, “What Will the Harvest Be?” would again be popular. To the reading, thinking, investing public of the old world this circus would be a nauseating spectacle. Europe is accustomed to governments that work. It has seen England under such premiers as Palmerston and Beaconsfield; it has watched Germany under the control of Bismarck; it has seen France rise after the terrible defeat of 1870; It has followed the growth of Russia in a score of lines of development. The statesmen and capitalists of Europe expect us to prove that republican Institutions are working institutions. Four years of Bryan and a hostile senate would be—well, not stale and flat, but rather unprofitable.

Resumption of business and return of prosperity will be found to play an Important part In men’s considerations 1 this fall when It comes to voting. It has about come to be a settled conviction that good times would quickly follow Taft’s election. This thought is paramount to everything else and has actuated such men as Ex-Senator Wilkinson Call of Florida, a lifelong Democrat and a Confederate veteran. Senator Call has just repudiated Bryan and has como out for Taft His reasons for this step he states are: *T am a Democrat I believe, however, that Judge Taft Is a good man as well m Mr. Bryan and Mr. Hisgen. But lam Inclined to the opinion that the best interests of the south would be promoted by voters In that section casting their ballots at this time for Judge Taft for president” ;