Thurston on Bryan

Republican U.S. Senate candidate John M. Thurston campaigned at local party club meetings across the state in 1894, poking fun of the turbulence in the Democratic and Populist opposition and of his opponent, William Jennings Bryan.

THURSTON ON BRYAN

Willing to Face Him or Any Other Man Before the Voters on Nebraska

At a meeting of the Swedish Garfield club at Patterson hall last evening addresses were made by Congressman Mercer, John M. Thurston and H. C. Russell, republican nominee for commissioner of public lands and buildings. A. S. Churchill, republican nominee for attorney general, was present, but declined making a speech because he was not feeling well.

Mr. Thurston became most interested himself and most interesting to his audience when he spoke of a "7 by 9-inch sheet," which was in charge of a "a puny, petty, populistic, political pissmire," which was certainly making the statement that no republican in Nebraska was brave enough to stand up and face "Billy Windmill Bryan" on the stump before the people of Nebraska. Mr. Thurston went little further before he called this paper the World-Herald. He then declared that there were republicans in Nebraska who would not shrink from facing the devil to discuss with him political issues before the people of Nebraska. He then remarked that it was well known that he himself had always stood on the street corners in campaign time, working for the republican ticket; that he had never crawled through a door at such a time and closed it after him and that he never would. And then he said that if the pops or the demo-pops or the pop-democrats, the guerillas between party lines, had a man whom they wished to pit against a republican before the voters of Nebraska, let them send on their challenge and it would not be refused. Soon after this he asserted that he believed the republicans would elect the straight ticket, all the congressional nominees and the majority of the representatives in the legislature and that a republican would be elected to the United States senate.

About this Document

  • Source: Omaha Daily Bee
  • Citation: 1
  • Date: August 25, 1894