It seemed necessary, if Mr. Bryan was to prove his undying love for the Democratic Party, to convince all Eastern Democrats that he would forever prove “regular” no matter who was nominated or what the platform was, and it seemed to the fusionists, if they were to have any of the spoils of victory when the national Government was captured, that the People’s Party must be destroyed. It must never hold another state or national convention. They all agreed that the party had done a wonderful work for the nation, that its principles were being everywhere adopted, but it must be crucified, officially pronounced dead and buried, and the first step toward that object was the destruction of the _Nebraska Independent_. Mr. Berge is a lawyer. He never has had a day’s experience in a newspaper office. He announced that he would start a paper in Lincoln in opposition to the _Independent_. Then a proposition was made to the proprietor of the _Independent_ to sell out. A very large price was offered. When the proprietor faced these facts he began to get discouraged. He had grown up in Lincoln. He had associated with these fusionists for years. The fight which he saw in the near future with these men was an unpleasant thing to contemplate. The cost of running a great newspaper plant is large. When it was known that the home advertising would in part be lost, and also a large share of the job work, the moment the editor defied Bryan and the fusionists, the outlook was gloomy. To those whom the _Independent_ had always fought in the city and state were to be added hundreds of others who had passed as friends. And the proprietor became discouraged. It _is_ somewhat discouraging to go to a convention ostensibly composed of men of your own party and see the most active members of it engaged in a scheme to destroy your party. These have been the conditions in every Populist convention in the state of Nebraska since 1890. The only thing that prevented the party from being destroyed sooner was the _Nebraska Independent_. The fusionists became more and more convinced of that fact, and the scheme was invented to publish a paper in opposition in the same city, which, while claiming to be Populistic, would work for the destruction of the party. Credit for the invention belongs to George Washington Berge. The hope was entertained that when the People’s Party was destroyed all the Populists would go into the Democratic Party, and George Washington Berge would be Governor and W. J. Bryan United States Senator.