That’s just what Hearst ought to have known would happen—for he had said things about Murphy which no man, born of woman, could possibly forgive.
***
But Bryan put a shadow upon his radiance, also.
He swallowed the Hearst programme all the way through—from soup and fish to cheese and coffee. His stomach balked at nothing. The ousting of Democratic delegations which had been elected to the Buffalo Convention; the packing of that Convention with delegations which had not been elected; the throw down of The Independence League; the guillotining of the Independent candidates; the repudiation of the honest labor-champion, Thomas Rock, and the endorsement of the Plunderbund corruptionist, Thomas Grady; the fix-up of the Judiciary ticket in which three Judges were allotted to Hearst while Murphy calmly pocketed seven—Bryan’s gorge rose at none of these things. One and all, they slid down his gullet like rain-water down a tin valley.
Just think if it!
In 1904, Bryan was making 60 speeches a day for Parker—Judge Alton B. Parker—whom he described as “the Moses of Democracy.”
In 1906, he was writing, telegraphing, telephoning and so forth for W. R. Hearst, the exact CONTRAST to Parker.
Heavens, what a leap!
From Parker to Hearst—from Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strand.
Never saw such a jump before in my life.