Who among you so-called regular
Democrats can stand up and pro
claim your right to a record for hon
orable and conscientious consistency
to principles that will compare with
Tom Watson’s?
What did you stand for when you
voted for Bryan in 1896?
What great principles did you
have in mind when you supported
the Peerless One in 1900?
And tell me the great over-shad
owing reason why you still clung to
the “party of your forefathers” in
190 4 when Alton B. Parker was
doing the vaudeville stunts?
If you succeed in finding plausible
excuses, based upon principles, for
the votes you case in these three
elections, you will never, never, be
able to give the same excuses for
your last vote for Bryan, in 1908.
Both the old parties are today
writing into their platforms princi
ples for which Tom Watson and his
followers stood and battled when
they had to go through fire and
blood to keep the flag waving.
I venture to say that scores who
read this article —and the editor of
the Ledger may be one of the bunch
—are today spouting the words that
Tom Watson uttered twenty years
ago in speeches he made in the face
of mobs of “regular Democrats”
whose most decent weapons were
rotten eggs.
