The _Independent_ was still a thorn in the side of these fusionists. The editor openly declared that he never would vote for or support a Belmont-Bryan-Parker Democrat. Then it was that fusion itch for office and Bryan diplomacy joined forces to destroy the _Independent_. The plutocratic Republican attacks upon it had been of no avail, and week after week it had proclaimed the doctrines of the People’s Party for ten years. In an open fight against awful odds it had fought battle after battle, sometimes victorious and sometimes defeated, but it fought on. It took fusion treason, it took the work of men who constantly proclaimed themselves Populists, who insisted upon attending Populist conventions while their sole aim was to destroy the People’s Party, to do what all the hosts of plutocracy had failed to do. As soon as the vote for fusion had been announced in the convention as prevailing, more than half the delegates present—whole counties had been voted for fusion when only one or two delegates were in the city—rose and left. The next morning they hired a hall and discussed the proposition of putting a straight Populist ticket in the field, but when it was remembered that the fusionists had the legal organization and the ticket would have to go on the ballot under some other name than People’s Party the project was abandoned. The result was that 20,000 Populists voted the Republican ticket, 30,000 stayed at home and refused to vote, and a little over 20,000 voted the Populist national ticket. The Senate of the Nebraska Legislature was solidly Republican; the House had only nine fusionists in it. Mr. Bryan saw to it that they all cast their votes for a straight Democrat for United States Senator. All that was necessary to get the fusionists to do that, both those who called themselves Democrats and those who called themselves Populists, was for them to imagine that they heard a far-off rumble that sounded like the voice of Bryan saying: “Vote for a Democrat.” When the conventions were over and the campaign committees appointed, the fusionists found that it was a difficult thing to make a campaign in Nebraska. Something must be done to get the _Independent_ to fight the battle for them, but the _Independent_ still declared that it would not support a Parker Democrat. Then, sad to relate, the editor of the _Independent_ got taken in himself. The chairman of the Democratic State Committee, a brother-in-law to Bryan, came to Mr. Tibbles declaring that he represented Mr. Bryan and was speaking in Bryan’s name, and made the following proposition: