It seemed necessary, if Mr. Bryan was to prove his undying love for the Democratic Party, to convince all Eastern Democrats that he would forever prove “regular” no matter who was nominated or what the platform was, and it seemed to the fusionists, if they were to have any of the spoils of victory when the national Government was captured, that the People’s Party must be destroyed. It must never hold another state or national convention. They all agreed that the party had done a wonderful work for the nation, that its principles were being everywhere adopted, but it must be crucified, officially pronounced dead and buried, and the first step toward that object was the destruction of the Nebraska Independent.
Mr. Berge is a lawyer. He never has had a day’s experience in a newspaper office. He announced that he would start a paper in Lincoln in opposition to the Independent. Then a proposition was made to the proprietor of the Independent to sell out. A very large price was offered. When the proprietor faced these facts he began to get discouraged. He had grown up in Lincoln. He had associated with these fusionists for years. The fight which he saw in the near future with these men was an unpleasant thing to contemplate. The cost of running a great newspaper plant is large. When it was known that the home advertising would in part be lost, and also a large share of the job work, the moment the editor defied Bryan and the fusionists, the outlook was gloomy. To those whom the Independent had always fought in the city and state were to be added hundreds of others who had passed as friends. And the proprietor became discouraged.
It is somewhat discouraging to go to a convention ostensibly composed of men of your own party and see the most active members of it engaged in a scheme to destroy your party. These have been the conditions in every Populist convention in the state of Nebraska since 1890. The only thing that prevented the party from being destroyed sooner was the Nebraska Independent. The fusionists became more and more convinced of that fact, and the scheme was invented to publish a paper in opposition in the same city, which, while claiming to be Populistic, would work for the destruction of the party. Credit for the invention belongs to George Washington Berge. The hope was entertained that when the People’s Party was destroyed all the Populists would go into the Democratic Party, and George Washington Berge would be Governor and W. J. Bryan United States Senator.
The proprietor of the Independent was bound in the contract transferring to George Washington Berge the title to the paper, not to engage in the business of publishing a reform paper for five years, but the fusionists found that it would be impossible to put any shackles on the editor. He intends to fight on. Just as all the world is beginning to accept Populist principles he does not propose to sheathe his sword and stand by, a passive spectator. The greatest battle of the age is to be fought. He “is going up against” that crowd again.
The columns of the Independent have been an open forum for any man who thought he had something that would benefit humanity. In the columns of the paper he could always voice his sentiments. Besides that, it has been a journal of economics, sociology, philosophy, ethics, finance, single tax, land, Government and all the decent news. Now it has gone into the hands of an ordinary Western lawyer who never read a standard work of authority on any one of these subjects. It is to be a personal organ after the fashion of the one that W. J. Bryan publishes in the same town. W. J. Bryan is the most accomplished orator of the day. He has personal acquaintances in every state and territory. Millions have met and shaken hands with him. George W. Berge has some acquaintances outside of Lancaster County, Nebraska, and besides that, Berge is a Populist engaged in destroying the Populist Party. These are his elements of success.
The Populists of the different states and territories who have been readers of the Independent will in the near future have a place to express their views and read discussions of the great problems that are pressing for solution. We will be heard. For years not a great daily would print a line in defense of the fundamental principles of Populism. Now magazines are making fortunes for their proprietors who have admitted some of these principles to their pages. Some of these magazines have a greater circulation than was ever known before anywhere in the world for monthly periodical literature. The People’s Party is not dead. The Nebraska Independent will rise from its ashes stronger and better than ever before. The vilest, rottenest, worst smelling spot in all the preserves of plutocracy is that place where the fusionist roams, seeking to destroy the organization that gave him the only opportunities of his life.
Pole Baker
BY WILL N. HARBEN
Author of “The Georgians,” “Abner Daniel,” etc.