he is best known. But loving Mr. Bryan and voting for his principles are different pairs of sleeves. Anybody doubting it is invited to examine the Nebraska election for the last ten years. In 1896 Mr. Bryan carried his State by 13,576. In 1900 Mr. McKinley carried it by 7,822. In 1904 Mr. Roosevelt carried it by 86,682. Every Congressman and every State officer is a Republican. Every Western State that Mr. Bryan carried in 1896 is now Republican on national issues. The West may still love Mr. Bryan, but it prefers to elect Republicans to office, declining to mix its affections with its politics.

A 1906 reception to William J. Bryan, the distinguished American orator, journalist and private citizen, is one thing, but a 1906 ovation to William J. Bryan, the next Democratic candidate for President, is quite another. It is the most mysterious "blind pool" ever organized by misguided politicians. It is the most impolitic, foolish abdication of power on the part of a great political organization ever recorded in the history of the United States. Even the partisans of Louis Napoleon waited until they had elected him President before they made him a dictator, but the Democrats of the United States are completely abdicating their self-control and party self-government by making Mr. Bryan their party dictator before they have elected him to anything. "A mad world, my masters."

TWELVE YEARS OF BRYANISM

[From "The Map of Bryanism," Feb., 1908]

For nearly twelve years, Mr. Bryan, you have been the leader-yes, the dictator of the Democratic party in the United States. With but one exception, its policies have been your policies; its principles, your principles; its platforms, your platforms.

After twelve years of such domination, during which time the party has gone down to three successive national 'defeats, piling disaster upon disaster and ruin upon ruin, your friends insist not only that you are the most available candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1908, but that you are the only available candidate, and you yourself have issued a statement expressing your readiness and willingness to accept the nomination-a statement, by the way, which your supporters confidently claim has eliminated all other candidates from the field.

If the Democracy has prospered so greatly under your leadership that the irresistible logic of events compels your nomination again in 1908, that fact ought to be apparent from an impartial inventory of the party's political assets.

We purpose, therefore, to take some account of your stewardship, and render thereon an unprejudiced and dispassionate report.

Excepting Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson no other Democrat has dominated his party so long or so completely as you, Mr. Bryan.

Of the twenty-eight years of Jefferson's active leadership the party was in power twenty-four. Of the sixteen years of Jackson's active leadership the party was in power twelve.

Under your leadership the party has not been in power a single day, a single hour, a single minute. It has steadily lost ground, until at this time it is almost without force at the North, except in local affairs; it is menaced even at the South, where it lost Kentucky in the last November election, and its ancient strongholds are either in possession of the Republicans or are held by a tenure at once precarious and disquieting.

You began your domination of the Democratic party in a period of great financial disturbance. You now purpose to be the Democratic candidate for President in another period of great financial disturbance, as the nominee of a political party whose reputation for financial sanity you have discredited all over the civilized world. Not only have you failed to recant as to your past financial heresies, but you have steadfastly adhered to your free-silver delusions. No longer ago than Dec. 7, in a speech at Freeport, III., you declared that your financial policy in 1896 had been "vindicated."

In such circumstances you may well say that the action of the party in again nominating you "cannot be made dependent upon the prospect of success." What prospect of success could there be?

As an orator, Mr. Bryan, you have few peers. As an agitator you are without a rival. No man could have reached and held the position that is yours without qualities of a high order. Alone among Americans of recent years you have maintained political leadership in the face of repeated disaster and seemingly because of it.

If we take issue with such a man we must leave nothing to mere assertion, and we must wholly disavow malice and prejudice. We shall consider Bryan the politician, the party leader, not Bryan the man.

For the purpose of demonstrating the error of your assumption more plainly than in words or figures, we print herewith maps of the United States showing the States carried by Democrats and Republicans in the years 1892, 1896, 1900 and 1907:

These maps speak for themselves. If they do not answer your question, "And when has a party out of power increased its strength more rapidly than the Democratic party has?" there can be no answer. If they do not answer your assertion that "the Democratic party is more united than it has been in many years," there can be no answer.

The Democratic party went out of power in the nation March 4, 1897. Four years earlier it controlled 23 of the 44 States, the Republicans 17 and the Populists 4.

In Congress the party division was as follows Senate -Democrats, 44; Republicans, 38; Independent, 1; Alliance, 2; vacancies, 3: House-Democrats, 220; Republicans, 128; Populists, 8.

The popular vote in 1892 was: Democratic, 5,556,918; Republican, 5,176,108; Populist, 1,041,028 (Weaver, for whom you voted).

The electoral vote in the same year was: Democratic, 277; Republican, 145; Populist, 22.

What was the situation Nov. 14, 1907, Mr. Bryan, after eleven years of your leadership, when you announced your receptive candidacy?

Of the 46 States the Democrats controlled 13 and the Republicans 33.

The popular vote in the Presidential election of 1904 was: Republican, 7,623,486; Democratic, 5,077,971; Socialist, 402,283. The electoral vote was: Republican, 336; Democratic, 140.

In Congress the party division now is: Senate-Republicans, 61; Democrats, 31. House-Republicans, 223; Democrats, 168.

In 1893 there were Democratic United States Senators from California, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin. In 1907, when you reviewed your work and found Democratic conditions and prospects so pleasing, there was not a single anti-Republican Senator from a Northern State except two silver men from Colorado and Nevada respectively. The Republicans had gained a Senator, not only in Colorado, but in Missouri.

Whole States at the North are without Democratic representation in Congress and from the Atlantic to Pacific, north of the Ohio River, there are but six Democratic Governors, viz: James M. Higgins, Rhode Island; John A. Johnson, Minnesota; Joseph K. Toole, Montana; John Sparks, Nevada; John Burke, North Dakota, and George E. Chamberlain, Oregon. Singularly enough, these are all found in States which are normally Republican or Populistic. Kentucky has just gone Republican, electing an entire State ticket by the second largest majority the State has given to any candidate in fifteen years.

Throughout the North, in the cities and in the counties, Democrats have been driven from places which the party has controlled for generations, and in hundreds of localities no representative of the party holds a public position, except as he may have been appointed thereto by some considerate or patronizing Republican or is protected by the provisions of a civil service law.

Such today is the condition of the historic Democratic party, Mr. Bryan, after twelve years of your leadership.

BRYAN'S NOMINATION MEANT TAFT'S ELECTION

[November 4, 1908]

MR. TAFT owes his election less to his own strength than to Mr. Bryan's weakness.

This fatal weakness was apparent to The World months before either of the national conventions assembled. Day after day we warned the Democracy against it. The morning after Mr. Taft's nomination this newspaper declared without reservation that Bryan's nomination means Taft's election, and the vote yesterday abundantly vindicated this prediction.

Mr. Bryan's friends insisted, however, that he was entitled to another nomination backed by a united party. They had their way. Mr. Bryan received his nomination