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XX.

A WOMAN'S WORD FOR BRYAN

(The telephone bell rang and the editor was told that an El Paso woman, in the belief that "somebody ought to be saying something for Bryan," had an article she would like to have published. The Herald, also, feels that Bryan is in need of advocates and defenders, and therefore gladly gives space in the letter of Mrs. Lizzie Avirett of this city.)

Editor Herald:

There is an unwritten law that so soon as a man is elected president from any party he ceases to be a partisan, but it is at once president of the entire nation. But since Roosevelt has announced that he will step down from this high pedestal "to take the stump" for his nominees of the Republican party, a lover of justice, in amazement, pauses to inquire the reason why, for such unprecedented action on his part. Nearly eight years of service of such a high order that he will go down in history as one of the greatest presidents of all time, receiving as he has the devoted allegiance of all parties, it would seem that he would be satisfied with the one unusual act of naming and repeatedly endorsing his successor. But this is not sufficient, and against all precedent and conventionality he has decided to become a partisan of a party.

There are three reasons that suggest themselves for his course: First, that he is so sure

that the Republican party is infallible in its government and that any deviation from their perfect rule would be so disastrous that he is justified as a patriot in sacrificing everything if only his party may be continued in power; second, that he is so persistently determined to carry through whatever he undertakes that right or wrong he will exhaust his resources in doing so; third, is there a possibility that he and his party have reason best and only known to themselves why other measures than the publicity of campaign funds should be kept secret from an "indiscriminating people"? Mr. Sherman, his vice presidential nominee, in a recent speech, instead of outlining any plans, spent his time in sarcasm, and invectiveisms against Bryan, in which he spoke of "his rejection by the people," meaning the Republican party and thereby utterly ignoring any other party. The fact that he chose sarcasm as his weapon proved his argument far fetched.

Mr. Roosevelt, however, is too intelligent a man to believe that wisdom will expire should he and his party take a much needed vacation, and he is too good a man to believe that "might makes right," or that because a party is in the minority it is therefore necessarily wrong. All great reformers have had to struggle for years unaided and alone.

Besides the fact that all American citizens are supposed to inherit the inalienable right of being born free and equal makes it a travesty on justice to say that because the Republican arty should retire temporarily from supreme

control that they would not still retain a very great balance of power.

So that, supposing for argument's sake, Bryan, the peerless, friend of the working man, should in his zeal as benefactor pass drastic laws, would he not be emulating the example of our other great Commoner, Lincoln, who spent his life in trying to free the colored slaves?

Because the great mills, factories, trusts and corporations pay a pitiful wage to the great army of their employes the latter are none the less slaves who would not dare in peril of their very existence to lift a voice, much less to cast a vote, against their masters' wish.

Neither Roosevelt, Taft nor Sherman know what the sting of poverty is and it is a moral impossibility for one reared in financial ease to understand in even a small degree the anguish of soul experienced by the millions of American citizens who find it many times an impossible struggle to provide even the barest necessities of life. But because Bryan like Lincoln was inured to hardships in early life, he is fitted to follow the command of Him who gave His life to redeem mankind and who said "Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."

But the most potent argument of the Republicans is that if Bryan be elected, business will be paralyzed and yet the greatest panic of recent years is still fresh in the minds of all and that, too, when it is a noted fact that material conditions were never so auspicious. It is difficult to say which is greater-the nerve of the Republican party or the credulity of the average

voter to whom they pander. Mr. Sherman makes much of Mr. Bryan's defeat, but think of the grandeur of a man who is today holding aloft the standard of his defeated party, while the president, Taft, Sherman, and the united Republican party with its great trusts and corporations with their billions of wealth at their disposal uniting in a hitherto unheard of effort to overthrow Bryan and to keep themselves in power. Yes, "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again," and Bryan, though twice defeated and despite the attacks of the Republican party and its administration, to say nothing of grouchy opponents and their backers of other parties, will still retain his character of spotless integrity and should he be a third time defeated, which may God forbid, will stand forth far more glorious in defeat than they in victory. But if Bryan is elected, we may be sure there will be no law enacted by which the rich will become richer and the poor poorer, but with justice to all and favoritism to none, we will have a president of, by, and for all the people.

XXI.

A WOMAN ANSWERS

Editor Herald:

El Paso, Oct. 10.

I am sending you $5 for Governor Wilson's campaign fund-as I see Mr. Cobb is calling for help. While the state of Texas does not allow a woman to vote, I do not think there is any law against her financial aid, so that some man may be reached who has the privilege that is denied to her. And in view of the fact that the candidates for president of both wings of the Republican party are according to current charges entrenched behind the trusts, and in secret collusion with those two great political bodies the Catholic and Mormon churches, whose watchword is "eternal vigilance," it is high time that all independent thinkers should wake up and as Mr. Cobb says, "get busy," if we would have our country continue to be the land of the free and home of the brave.

Mr. Roosevelt presided 7 1-2 years over the Republican party, and thought it quite good enough for him then, and if it had given him the nomination for president for a third term for which he made such frantic efforts to have it do, it would no doubt have continued to be the G. O. P.; but when that colossal old ship of state sailed serenely by and left the colonel stranded on the shore, he then suddenly discovered that it was a fossil of injurious growth which required

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