Lot 252
Bryan, William Jennings (1860-1925) Three-time Democratic presidential nominee (1896, 1900, 1908); Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson; prosecutor in the Scopes Trial. Typed letter signed ("W.J. Bryan") as editor of The Commoner, a weekly magazine Bryan founded in 1899, 2¼ pages, 11 x 8 in., Dec. 4, 1902. With holograph corrections. To Erving Winslow, Anti-Imperialist League, Boston, discussing the Democratic Party, President Cleveland's political positions, the Philippines and imperialism.
In part: "…I am very sorry that I cannot look upon President Cleveland's utterances as you do. I was in Congress when he was president….He was responsible for the demoralized condition of the party in 1896, and his administration has hung like a mill-stone about the neck of the party ever since….My platform of 1900 contained the very things that he now advocates, and yet his influence was thrown to the republican ticket. It is unadulterated hypocrisy….I note what you say in regard to the renewal of the fight on imperialism. I think it is all right to…keep the people posted on the details of the Philippine policy, but if we win the fight it must be on the principle of imperialism….voters cannot be aroused in regard to the details of things that effect [sic] people ten thousand miles away….I believe that it is necessary for the democrats to defend their position on all the questions, leaving to events to determine upon which issue the emphasis shall be laid. To run from any of these questions or to make peace with the enemy would be suicidal….We lost in the western states, but where people fight for a principle they can lose without demoralization, where they make compromises for the sole prupose [sic] of winning, then defeat is disasterous…."
Estimated Value $1,000 - 1,250.
Smythe, June 6, 1996, lot 328.
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