Nearly the whole state ticket was given to the Populists—only three unimportant offices being conceded to the Democrats, and Berge—George Washington Berge—captured the prize infamy, the fusion nomination for Governor. Bryan would allow no other name to be mentioned in the Democratic convention, although there were two or three Democrats there who had spent time and much money during the previous eight years fighting Bryan’s battles for him, and who had expressed a desire to receive a complimentary vote for that office. When Bryan speaks the Nebraska Democrat turns pale.
The Independent was still a thorn in the side of these fusionists. The editor openly declared that he never would vote for or support a Belmont-Bryan-Parker Democrat. Then it was that fusion itch for office and Bryan diplomacy joined forces to destroy the Independent. The plutocratic Republican attacks upon it had been of no avail, and week after week it had proclaimed the doctrines of the People’s Party for ten years. In an open fight against awful odds it had fought battle after battle, sometimes victorious and sometimes defeated, but it fought on. It took fusion treason, it took the work of men who constantly proclaimed themselves Populists, who insisted upon attending Populist conventions while their sole aim was to destroy the People’s Party, to do what all the hosts of plutocracy had failed to do.
As soon as the vote for fusion had been announced in the convention as prevailing, more than half the delegates present—whole counties had been voted for fusion when only one or two delegates were in the city—rose and left. The next morning they hired a hall and discussed the proposition of putting a straight Populist ticket in the field, but when it was remembered that the fusionists had the legal organization and the ticket would have to go on the ballot under some other name than People’s Party the project was abandoned. The result was that 20,000 Populists voted the Republican ticket, 30,000 stayed at home and refused to vote, and a little over 20,000 voted the Populist national ticket. The Senate of the Nebraska Legislature was solidly Republican; the House had only nine fusionists in it. Mr. Bryan saw to it that they all cast their votes for a straight Democrat for United States Senator. All that was necessary to get the fusionists to do that, both those who called themselves Democrats and those who called themselves Populists, was for them to imagine that they heard a far-off rumble that sounded like the voice of Bryan saying: “Vote for a Democrat.”
When the conventions were over and the campaign committees appointed, the fusionists found that it was a difficult thing to make a campaign in Nebraska. Something must be done to get the Independent to fight the battle for them, but the Independent still declared that it would not support a Parker Democrat. Then, sad to relate, the editor of the Independent got taken in himself.
The chairman of the Democratic State Committee, a brother-in-law to Bryan, came to Mr. Tibbles declaring that he represented Mr. Bryan and was speaking in Bryan’s name, and made the following proposition:
If Mr. Tibbles would spend most of his time out of the state during the campaign, and let the Independent support the fusion ticket, all of whose nominees except three were Populists, Mr. Bryan on his part would agree to go to Arizona or Colorado and get sick. He would continue to keep sick until the close of the campaign, so sick that he would not be able to make any political speeches at all. An exception was made in regard to Indiana. It was said that Mr. Bryan had promised to make three speeches in Indiana in support of his old personal friend who was running for Governor in that state, but it was further stipulated that these three speeches should not be political speeches, but repetitions of Mr. Bryan’s lecture on “Ideals.”
Mr. Bryan went to Arizona and sent home a letter saying that he was worse and would not be able to deliver any political speeches during the campaign. That letter was printed in the Lincoln daily papers and was shown to Mr. Tibbles as proof that Mr. Bryan was keeping his contract.
The chairman of the Democratic State Committee went to New York, saw Parker, Sheehan, Belmont, Tom Taggart and the rest of the band of financial and political pirates. He came home with money for campaign expenses. Then Mr. Bryan hired a special train and started out speech-making in Nebraska and in other states. The surprising rapidity with which his lung healed has never been equaled in all the history of medicine. But when the votes were counted it was learned that wherever Mr. Bryan spoke, whether from the rear end of his car, on a platform by the railway side, or in theatre or hall, a tidal wave of Republican votes followed him, although he pleaded with his Democratic hearers to be “regular.” Hundreds of thousands of Democrats listened to this man, who for eight years had been denouncing Wall Street and all its ways, and was now consorting with the most disreputable part of Wall Street, urging them to vote to keep it in power. Humiliated, sad at heart, their idol carrying the banner of the enemy, in the enemy’s ranks, they turned their backs in scorn upon Mr. Bryan, went to the polls and voted the Republican ticket. If they were to have Wall Street and plutocracy, they wanted the old, genuine article, not “something just as good.” The fusionists declared that wherever Watson or Tibbles spoke they made votes for Roosevelt. They did not make one Roosevelt vote where Bryan made a thousand.
Mr. Berge—George Washington Berge—received a large vote for Governor. That was because Mickey, the Republican, who was running for re-election, was cordially hated by the whole Republican Party. Thirty thousand Republicans voted for Berge, and then he was defeated. But Berge is a fusionist. He wants office, and especially the office of Governor of Nebraska.