“The Democratic Party cannot serve God and Mammon; it cannot serve plutocracy and at the same time defend the rights of the masses.
“If it yields to the plutocracy it ought to lose, and it will lose, the support of the masses; if it espouses the cause of the people, it cannot expect either votes or contributions from the capitalistic classes and from the great corporations.”
In pursuance of this very correct line of reasoning, Mr. Bryan resolutely declared that if the Democratic Party adopted the gold standard, “I promise you that I will go out and serve my country and my God under some other name, even if I must go alone.”
Again Mr. Bryan said, in his book called “The First Battle,” Chapter III, page 124, “In that speech I took the position which I have announced since on several occasions, namely, that I would not support for the Presidency an advocate of the gold standard.”
Again Mr. Bryan said: “Does the individual member of a party at all times reserve the right to vote against the nominee of a party, and to abandon his party entirely whenever in his judgment his duty to his country requires it? He may abandon the party temporarily, as, for instance, when an unfit candidate is nominated, or the voter may abandon his party permanently, either when he himself changes his opinion upon a paramount public question or when his party changes its position.”
Now let the reader compare the present attitude of Mr. Bryan with the political ethics expounded by him in his book.
He was then the idol of the radicals; he was then the Tribune of the People.
He was the strong and stalwart foe of every plutocrat, every Wall Street interest, every beneficiary of class legislation.
The people hailed him with an enthusiasm which had not been known since the days of Henry Clay. So great was their faith in him that he swept into his movement in 1896 the Free Silver organization and the great bulk of the Populist Party.