Again, in 1904, a great victory seemed in
my grasp. Parker had telegraphed his Gold
Standard ultimatum to the Democratic Con
vention, and Bryan, after having sworn a
thousand times that he would never surrender
to Wall Street, surrendered.
When I made my speech in Cooper Union,
New York, soon afterward, it seemed to
everybody that the six million Silver Demo
crats would be compelled to support me.
But Bryan made his bargain with August
Belmont and Thomas F. Ryan— the two men
who had bought Parker's nomination— and,
in a Special Train which Wall Street fur
nished, Bryan went tearing around the coun
try, telling the gaping boobs that Parker was
a Moses, Parker’s ideals were Bryan’s ideals,
&c. ■
It was very sickening, and it was the
dirtiest work any politician claiming to be
too good to taste wine ever performed. But
it was effective. It accomplished what Bryan
knew it would: it elected Roosevelt.
Then again in 1908, after Bryan had sent
his daughter to a Social Equality College, to
be polished off with the negroes; and after
he had made such an egregious ass of himself
on the Government ownership of railroads—•
one system for Uncle Sam, and 47 systems
for the States—l did think that my own
State could be rowed out of the Dead Sea,
put into the competitive column, and thus
made a factor in national politics. >
But, the unexpected happened. Joe.
