"The interests of labor are never in such great jeopardy as when intrusted to a
man who has the gilt oi oratory coupled" with unbounded political ambition and no
business judgment or training."

JAMES H. ECKELS
The Ex-Comptroller of the Currency, under President
Cleveland's Administration, Tells why he Did
Not and Will Not Support Bryan.

"I did not support Mr. Bryan in 1896, and I do not intend to now.
I shall oppose his election this year with all the vigor and ability I possess.
1 do not feel that I could stand to my convictions by remaining merely
passive and contenting myself with simply voting against him.
BRYAN THE ISSUE.
"No issue set forth in any platform, no matter how cunningly
devised and arranged, in this campaign can be made paramount to the
issue of Mr. Bryan himself, his erroneous views of public questions, his
numerous vagaries and his demonstrated desire to find popularity and votes
in a never-absent appeal to class prejudices and supposed race hatreds.
"1 am still a Democrat, if believing in Democratic principles correctly
interpreted and properly enforced as an agency for good constitutes true
Democracy ; but I am not one if he utterances of the platform adopted at
Chicago four years since and just reaffirmed and re^emphasized at Kansas
City ait the rightful expressions of what modern Democracy stands for.
ISMS OF POPULISM.
"The many isms of Populism were abhorrent four years since to my
sense oi what is safe and sound in the operations of government and the
general well-being of the people, because I viewed them as being funda
mentally wrong, and. being so. neither lapse of time nor errors of the
party in power reconcile me in their adoption ni' 'make it possible tl ta,^

I should support a candidate who not only approves of them, but is
their best embodiment and most vigorous champion.
"I have not read all of Mr. Bryan's utterances during the past four
years, but I have taken note of enough of them to know that his views have
not changed on any important question since 1896, and his determination
to stir up class strife is not less manifest; Throughout all his addresses,
public and private, is shown uniformly an apparent pleasure in preaching
the desirability of discord between employe and employer, class and class.
No appeal ever comes from him which is not tinged with advice to those
who must work to distrust those who must, employ.
HARMFUL TO LABOR.
"All this is not only un-American, but it is unjust, unfair, and harm
ful' most of all to the laborer, for whose well-being beyond all others
it is necessary that complete harmony between capital and labor and not
continual antagonism should exist. The interests of labor are never
in such great jeopardy as when intrusted to a man who has the gift, of
oratory coupled with unbounded political ambition and no business judg
ment or training.
"No man is fitted for the presidency who day in and day out pro
claims, in the midst of a demonstrated better condition of affairs, the re
verse to be true in order to foment a discontent, which will gain to
himself and party a political advantage.
IGNORANT OR BLIND.
"Mr. Bryan, without the statesmanship to analyze the conditions as
they exist, and find a remedy therefor, gives utterance to nothing that
would improve them, but only to that which would make them worse and
cause greater injury to the great mass of the people, whose fate he
constantly bewails. I do not believe in the public value of any man who is,
under any and all circumstances, a faultfinder and mere protester against
all existing order of things.
"Mr. Bryan's friends insist that he is nothing if not intellectually
honest and fearless. Granted that their contention is true, the inquiring
public must then be forced to conclude that be is either woefully ignorant
or wilfully blind. At no time since his coming into political power has
he made an economic prediction which has not failed of fulfillment, or laid
down as truth an economic doctrine which has not in the course of quick
events been demonstrated to be an economic fallacy.
DICTATION OF PLATFORM.
"If he does not study grave public questions in the light of past history
and present facts and human experiences, but only views them in the glare
of his own preconceived notions and flame of his own fiery political ora
tory, he is unsuited either to advise the public as a teacher or guide them
as a leader.
"If he was unfit because of his erroneous views and economic-heresies,
to be elected to the presidency in 1896, he is equally an unfit man now,
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for he boasts, with triumphant self-satisfaction, that he stands to-day on all
these questions exactly where he stood then, and to make nrore manifest
and clearly defined his position he compels his party to blazon such fact
in a platform so constructed as to accord with his views and wishes.
ALLIANCE WITH CROKER.
"I can conceive of nothing more pitiable than the sight of accredited
delegates of a once great political party in a national convention supinely
surrendering their own views on a vitally important economic question
at the hehest of a once defeated presidential candidate, who only had
brought that party into disgrace and disrepute, unless it be the sight of
that presidential candidate and to be nominee, appealing through his con
fidential agent Richard Croker, Tammany dictator, to be his chief aid,
trusted friend and lieutenant in the emergency which confronted him.
"Heretofore Democratic presidential candidates have gained public
respect and strength by having the open enmity of Tammany, Mr. .Bryan,
who more than any of them has boasted of his stand for principle and
his integrity of character, has done what Mr. Seymour, Mr. Tilden and Mr.
Cleveland would not do. He has -formed an open alliance, offensive and
defensive with Tarnmany, and that too, at a time when that organization is
known to be thoroughly corrupt, and a constant menace to ail the best
interests of good government.
UNITY WITH POPULISTS.
"Mr. Bryan hardly appeals to the thoughtful citizen, with whom polit
ical parties are only agencies for public good to the extent that they stand
for fundamentally right principles and honest administration, when upon
¦the one hand he is presented by the Populists and on the other by Tammany.
The joining hands with one constitutes an .offense against safety in gov
ernmental administration, the alliance with the other at} offense against
political depency, making it doubtful as to his ability, no matter how stren
uously he might try, to secure honesty in the conduct of public affairs in an
administration over which he presided.
"It is not difficult to predict what would be the outcome of any
administration based upon the socialism of. Populism and the rapacity of
Tammany
REAFFIRMING OF 16 TO i.
"I am told that not a few Democrats who refused to sanction the nomi
nee and platform of the Chicago convention will aid the nominee presented
at Kansas City. I. doubt if there are many who will do so. Why ghould
they? The same candidate has been named, the same doctrines announced,
only in a more offensive way.
"It must hot be forgotten that the reaffirming of the principles of the
Chicago platform was the repledging of an intention, when opportunity
is afforded, tQ debase the country's currency. It was re-assaulting the
Supreme Court of the country. It means a re-alliance with the elements of
disorder, as against the properly constituted authorities of peace, integrity,
of property and person. It is the announcing once more of a desire
— 3 —

to get into power that the sacred right of private contract under the guar-
anty of law may be abrogated. It is the acceptance of those elements of
socialism whiclrworks injury to both government and people.
"In fine, the reaffirmation at Kansas City was the re-asserting of the
utterances made at Chicago, which, revolutionary then, are none the less
so now. A source of menace to the country then, they are equally so
now ; and every man who^stood out against them then ought not on some
new issue, which does not in any degree lessen the danger of these for
harm, fail to denounce and defeat them.
"I do not think that the fact that here and there may be some elements
more conservative in the party than seemed to be the case in 1896, makes
any difference. Mr. Bryan still gives official voice to the party's views,
maps but its campaigns and writes its platforms. Mr. Bryan's intimates
and advisers are still Populists and self-seekers, with the added contingent
of Tammany bosses. He has neither use nor care for any man' who is
conservative in his views or careful in his utterances.
EFFECT ON GOLD BASIS.
"If elected President the public must be prepared to see Mr. Bryan,
as chief executive and those associated with him as cabinet counselors,
construe 'every law bearing upon the currency and the powers of the
Treasury Department in such a manner as to nullify, as best they can, its
provisions in so far as they bear upon the question of the maintenance
of the gold standard. His Populist allies boast that they seek power
that they may bring about the repeal of the existing law, and to this end
they are Mr. Bryan's champions and defenders.
"He can and will keep the country in a state of fermeu>; and un
certainty in an attempt to bring about the larger use of silver as a re
demptive money. The experiment is too dangerous a one to be entered
upon by any on the grounds that the gold standard is so fixed in law
that it cannot be disturbed, no matter who may be President or Secretary
of the Treasury. The law ought to be executed with a construction
favorable to it to fully carry out its provisions and not in a manner
antagonistic to them. It is n'ot a perfect law, but can be made so by
its friends. It can be made abortive by its enemies once firmly en
trenched in power.
BRYAN AND RECENT WAR. ;
"It will hardly do for any sound money Democrat or Republican
to support Mr. Bryan because of a supposed better position he occupies
than Mr. McKinley on the question of colonial possessions, despite his
worst position on the question of the monetary standard, thfr Supreme
-Court, the enforcement of law and the right of private contract. Mr.
Bryan's position can hardly be as satisfactory a one on an analysis grow
ing out- of the Spanish- war.
"He and his friends, in order to put the administration to a political
disadvantage, urged on the declaration' of war with Spain, and when it
was over Mr. Bryan, personally, at Washington, through personaLad-
vice and solicitation, brought into line a sufficient number of .Democratic
Senators to ratify the treaty of Paris, despite the fact that it provided
for the purchase and taking sovereign possession of Porto Rico, and the
— 4 —

Philippines, without any, provision for giving them any home government
whatsoever. The evils and burdens of the present moment growing out
of the Spanish war are to be laid as" much at. the door of Mr. Biyan and
his party as at that of Mr. McKinley and his. His explanation of his
reason for wishing the treaty ratified is wholly superficial and does not
bear analysis. POLICY ON PHILIPPINES.
"I imagine, that self-government will come quite as readily thrbugh
the administration of Mr. McKinley as through that of Mr. Bryan. It
will not come under either until the" Philippines are fitted for it, property
rights safe and personal ones protected. I hardly believe Mr. Bryan
".ould do more than send a commission there, as the President has done,
in order to take steps looking, to supplanting the military government
with a civil one.
"The country will not sanction the immediate abandonment pf those
islands to disorder and pillage. When a time comes that there is safety
in a constitutional home government, only remaining within the sphere
of the influence of the United States, and public sentiment is to this end,
it can be put down that Mr. McKinley's administration will readily grant
it, for I believe it is generally admitted that no one is more ready to put
himself in touch with public sentiment than the President, or act in ac-.
cordance therewith with more alacrity. If Mr. Bryan means an im
mediate abandonment of our control in the islands he must certainly fail
of support, for no thoughtful person will sanction a policy which will
make the country ridiculous in the eyes of the world.
WOULD NOT TRUST HIM.
"If Mr. Bryan and his party had stood out as they should have
against the Spanish war, and had opposed instead of assisted in ratifying
the Paris treaty, they would be in a better position to confront Republican
plans and purposes, for they would at least be consistent with their action.
As it is now they urged the war, but now wish to avoid the consequences
in order to gain political power by so doing. As it is, I don't see that
Mr. Bryan is less of an expansionist, through force of circumstances
which he assisted in creating, than is Mr. McKinley. The difference is
certainly not great enough to make any man surrender his convictions
on other great questions to accept him upon one.
"It may also be fairly doubted whether a man with so many erroneous
ideas as to the conduct of the domestic affairs of the nation can be
trusted to have right ones when it comes to managing our foreign prop
erties.
AS TO PORTO RICO.
"As to the question growing out cf-the Porto Rican tariff, I believe
the administration made a most egregious error, but as Democracy is
now constituted and controlled, it stands for nothing so far as a tariff
policy Is concerned. It has abandoned all the advantages of its position
on this question, by advocating in its silver policy the very worst kind
of protection. Mr. Bryan stands responsible for making1 it a party
unable to manfully advocate' a Democratic' tariff dbctrirte.
- , —/J — m

"It is to-day, under Mr. Bryan's leadership,' a party emphasizing, a
desire for special privileges and class legislation, appealing for the sup
port of every element of discontent by falling in 'with and advocating the
particularly special legislation which such element stands for. Its dema
gogy is manifest on every hand..
RAISING THE BOER ISSUE.
"What thoughtful arid inquiring person can possibly believe that either
Mr. Bryan or the delegates at Kansas City are really deeply solicitous
to the extent which it is made to appear that they are as to the alleged
wrongs of the Boers in South Africa? It is. not manifest, through the thin
disguise of, a love of human freedom, rights and Republican form of
government, that Mr. Bryan and his followers hope for the German, and
Dutch vote as a determining factor in the election because racial affilia
tions with the Boers and a supposed race prejudice against Great Brit
ain, and not because the question or the integrity of the Boer republics
is so dear to them.
"It is absurd that the great questions with which we have to do
affecting the vital interests of the United States shall he overlooked in a-
debate upon how Great Britain shall conduct its own affairs, especially in
the face of a proclaimed reaffirmation of the Monroe Doctrine, which
means, properly interpreted, that the people of the United States shall
attend to their own affairs and let European nations look after theirs.
CONFIDENCE IN GERMANS.
"Having voiced such a sentiment, the Kansas City, convention, under
the inspiration of Mr. Bryan, immediately proceeds, for political effect, to
express a wish to interfere with a European government in a matter
strictly its own. I think such politics cheap, and unstatesmanlike, quite
benath the dignity of any great party or leader.
"I shall be surprised if any German ' voter, heretofore the bulwark
of the country, against every assault upon the integrity of the country's
currency system and protesting against any debasement of the country's
coin, will not aid and abet such a proceeding because of a belief in any
injustice done by Great Britain to. some affiliated race ten thousand miles
away. The Germans know that militarism, so-called, in this country' is
beyond the range of possibilities, but the assaults which Mr. Bryan and
his followers would make if in power is something that would entail
loss in every direction to the property interests which by labor and saving
they have accumulated.
CALLS HIM FAULT-FINDER.
"Such utterances are all on a par with Mr. Bryan's constant reiteration
of having here an un-American financial system forced on us by and for
the benefit of the English and against our own interests. He cannot but
know that such statement is made for political effect, and that by making
it he impugns the good faith and patriotism of more than half the voters
who do not agree with or support him.
"If Mr. Bryan was a statesman^nd not a mere declaimer and dealt in' a
— 6 —

statesmanlike manner with American problems we would not be treated
to the floods of petulant fault-finding and appeals to prejudice which are
manifest in all that he says, but. would have instead suggested solutions,
grounded Upon -principles, and in accord with the facts of national history '
and national experience.
DISTRUST HIS WISDOM.
"I am sure the American people rightly distrust the wisdom of one
who thus far in life has been a living expression, in every address he has
made, of that best definition of the essential elements of stump speech,
namely, to claim everything and denounce well.
"I am not unmindful of the fact that there are many conditions in this
country requiring careful, thoughtful and statesmanlike dealing with.
There are many evils to which labor is subject that need to be remedied.
Likewise there are many prejudices ttnjustly entertained against capital,
but in neither instance can they be dealt with to the good of all by any
one who brings to them none of the elements of a statesman and all' of
those which wholly make up the successful stump-speaker and campaign
orator.
WHERE REMEDIES LIE.
"I believe that more of the remedy lies without the pale of enacted
legislation than within it, and that neither labor nor capital is benefited
by public utterances on the platform in legislative halls and through the
columns of the press to the effect that there is an irrepressible conflict
between them. .
"I do not believe any man benefits his country by being a preacher
of discontent, strife between classes, social and political pessimism, financial
error, and continuous financial gloom, despite surroundings and widespread
prosperity, and therefore I do not believe in Mr. Bryan.
"There are some things in President McKinley's administration and
official acts I am not in accord with. I do not accept Republican doctrines
as against pure Democratic ones rightly interpreted and incorporated into
the administration of public affairs. But as between Republicanism and
Populism, filtered through the channel of Bryanism, I prefer Republican
ism.
DENIES HIS DEMOCRACY.
"There is no Democratic doctrine presented this year and no Demo
cratic candidate. Mr. Bryan was first named by the Populist because he
best stood for Populistic doctrines. He was only indorsed by the conven
tion at Kansas City, called under alleged Democratic auspices, because
Bryanism, Populism and Democracy as now made up are synonymous
terms. "The combined forces of the element's of discontent of the country
haying gathered in one fold and found without a dissenting voice a can
didate so many' sided as to respond with an equal degree of satisfaction to
each one's peculiarism, it seems to me the part of wisdom to meet them
in another election,and again demonstrate that the electorate of this country
in ev ery critical time always stands ready to do that which is wise, putting
down the wrong thing and putting up the right.
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YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08937 3691

TO VOTE FOR McKINLEY.

"I am going to vote for President McKinley, and do, whatever I
consistently can to aid in his election, not because I favor all his policies
or approve of all his political acts, but because under all existing con
ditions I believe the affairs of the country will be better off in nis hands
than in those of Mr. Bryan.
"I hope some time to see the Democratic party recreated, advocating
Democratic candidates and Democratic principles, but it cannot be more
than a disturbing- force in the country's daily history until it rids itself
of a leadership which has brought it to its present low estate, and ceases
making itself the lying-in asylum of those elements of discontent which, if
once entrusted with Governmental power, would work injury at home
and loss of standing abroad.
ADVICE TO DEMOCRATS.
"It can live under defeat without complete and ultimate destruction,
but a victory gained by it with a candidate holding the views of Mr.
Bryan, and a platform pledging the party to carry out the- things ad
vocated at Chicago in 1896, and in Kansas City this year, would work
such results to the country that it would pass forever out of political
power at" a recurring election, without the smallest minorities to do it
on, 'Unwept, unhonored and unsung.'
"The Democrat who wishes to save his party's future will only aid
that end by defeating Mr. Bryan and burying his platform. Its ultimate
recurrence to power and prestige lies in the independence of Democrats
who are such on principle, and not through expediency."