Similar heroic declarations Mr. Bryan made against the Clevelandites, the Wall Street element of his party, the undemocratic advocates of the British gold standard which had chained the world to London. In his book, in his paper, in his speeches,—particularly at Birmingham,—he vowed that he would never support a gold standard candidate and that he would quit the Democrats if the party adopted a gold standard platform. “_Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?_” That was the tone of Bryan’s indignant reply whenever he was asked whether he would follow his party if it deserted its principles. Alas! The heroics sounded well—but where was the hero? We admit that Bryan made a great fight against the Ryan-Belmont hirelings in the Democratic National Convention of 1904. His forensic powers are of a high order, and they were magnificently displayed in that debate. But he wasn’t true grit, wasn’t dead game,—did not prove himself a thoroughbred. No, he is not the kind of bird that dies in the cock-pit; he showed the “dominecker.” Had he met Parker’s gold telegram with a defiant, “I accept the challenge! Let those who are true to Democratic principles follow me out of this Convention!” he would have smashed the Ryan-Belmont slate, forced Parker out of the lists, won the nomination for himself, and _might_ have been President. But he sunk the popular hero into the party hack,—let them put the harness on, hitch him up and drive him in a direction that his record, his vows and his convictions made it a disgrace for him to travel. Then came the speeches in which he said as much in favor of Parker as he had said against him,—and Parker had not changed a bit. The change was _there_, and it was vast,—but it was in Bryan. Then came the swing backwards to radicalism again. Bryan spoke at the Jefferson Day banquet in Chicago in 1906 and said that the time had come for the Democratic party to declare itself in favor of the Government Ownership of the railroads. He advanced the proposition that the states should own the local lines while Uncle Sam ran the trunk lines. This absurd plan was the burden of the Bryan talk and Bryan editorials for more than a year,—long enough for the whole country to realize what an impractical “statesman” he is. So ludicrous a “break” queered him still further with the men of the business world, and told heavily against him in the campaign of this year. Then, after his home-coming speech in Madison Square Garden, he made his final declaration in favor of Government Ownership. Having toured Europe and witnessed the advantages of State-owned public utilities, his own convictions in favor of that system had been strengthened. But Democratic editors and politicians raised a Bourbon outcry against Government Ownership, and Bryan, after shuffling about awhile, took to the woods.