The editor of the _Independent_ was obstreperous. He had had enough of fusion with a party half of which was more disreputably plutocratic than the Republican Party, and whose “irrevocable” rules were so rigid that they required a man, upon a vote of a convention, to come out boldly before the people and advocate a policy he had denounced by pen and voice for eight years. All sorts of schemes were devised to bring this obstreperous editor into subjection to the imperial will of Mr. Bryan. The first was to send all the leading men of the state, from the Chief Justice down, to use persuasion. That failed. Then Mr. Bryan’s personal daily organ in the state tried a new deal. It poured out on Mr. Tibbles the most fulsome flattery day after day. It said if he would only say “fusion” every Populist in the state would obey his command. When all that failed Mr. Bryan came himself. The proposition that he made was that a fusion electoral ticket be put in the field composed of four Populists and four Democrats, Mr. Bryan saying that, “in the event of their election, each party could count the full vote as its own.” The proposition was instantly rejected. Others followed. Mr. Bryan came to the _Independent_ editorial-room four different times, using all his eloquence and persuasive powers to get the editor to consent to and advocate a fusion with a party that had nominated Parker, and whose campaign was put into the hands of the most disreputable gang that ever sought Wall Street favor. Mr. Bryan gave orders that everything visible, clear to the political horizon, and other things invisible lying behind the floating clouds, should be offered to the Populist convention providing that the Populists would fuse. The battle was fought out on the convention floor. Many Democrats had secured seats as delegates. One Democrat came over from his own convention and answered to the call of Thurston County in the Populist convention which had no delegates present, and voted the fifteen votes that county was entitled to every time for fusion. Out of the hell-broth brewed in that all-night session there floated upon the fusion scum Bryan, Belmont, Sheehan, Tom Taggart and, remember this last name, George W. Berge. 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.