August 25, 1894 | Newspaper
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.
August 26, 1894 | Newspaper
The Bryan-Thurston Senate race took place in the context of a massive strike by Pullman car and railroad workers in the summer of 1894. Both men vied for the support of workingmen.
August 28, 1894 | Newspaper
Republican editor Edward Rosewater went on a campaign to discredit Thomas Majors, the Republican nominee for governor in 1894, and to expose railroad influence in the campaign. Rosewater's disgruntled disgust with party fealty to the railroads did not prevent him from attacking the Democratic Party as beholden to trusts and against the interests of workingmen.
August 30, 1894 | Newspaper
Calling the opposition "pops," a diminutive term to dismiss and criticize the Populists and any of their allies, the Republican newspaper in Lincoln, Nebraska, criticizes Bryan's efforts to campaign for money reform as hypocritical and self-serving.
September 2, 1894 | Newspaper
The Republican State Journal criticizes Bryan and his Populists allies in Congress for their votes on the sugar tariff, a protectionist measure that, the paper asserts, practically killed the local sugar beet industry. Bryan is also criticized for his editorship of the Omaha World Herald.
September 2, 1894 | Newspaper
Thurston campaigns in York before large crowds and presents the Republican message in 1894 on money, trade, and labor.
September 3, 1894 | Newspaper
Bryan's candidacy and his move to fuse with the Populists and campaign for free silver went against the Cleveland White House administration. In Nebraska the Democratic forces divided and some remained "gold bugs," staunch conservatives on the money issue and others remained reluctant to break with the Democratic presidential administration on such important issues. The Republican State Journal seeks to exploit the deep divisions in the Democratic Party.
September 3, 1894 | Newspaper
Republican editor Edward Rosewater criticizes the strike commission investigation and argues little of value will emerge from its recommendations because railroads have so much influence. Rosewater includes a little poem about Thomas Scott, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, ridiculing him as self-absorbed and arrogant.
September 6, 1894 | Newspaper
Republican Editor Edward Rosewater welcomes the consolidation of the Southern Railway out of its receivership and hopes that bigness will streamline railroad operations and open up opportunities for government oversight and control.
September 7, 1894 | Newspaper
William Jennings Bryan's World Herald calls attention to the demands of workers and the situation evolving around the Union Pacific receivership.
September 8, 1894 | Newspaper
The Republican State Journal emphasizes the Democratic Party's internal divisions over the fusion with Populists.
September 8, 1894 | Newspaper
The Bryan-Thurston campaign took place amidst national news of the trial of Eugene Debs and others in the American Railway Union for violence and disobeying court injunctions in the 1894 Pullman strikes.
September 14, 1894 | Newspaper
Republican editor Edward Rosewater accuses the Democratic Congress and Democratic candidates of attempting to gain political advantages from passing an "anti-trust" piece of legislation. He also criticizes the Democratic administration for failure to enforce anti-trust acts.
September 23, 1894 | Newspaper
The Republican State Journal calls attention to Bryan's tactics within the Democratic Party, emphasizing his inability to compromise, his miscalculation of the Populist strength, and his failure to mend fences with the administration Democrats.
September 26, 1894 | Newspaper
The Republican State Journal ridicules Bryan's Populist-Democratic fusion as an unlikely alliance and a fantasy.
September 27, 1894 | Newspaper
William Jennings Bryan's newspaper reports the events of his nomination at the state convention, emphasizing the joining of forces to defeat the Republicans and the deep history of the Democratic Party.
September 28, 1894 | Newspaper
Bryan challenges Thurston to a debate.
September 28, 1894 | Newspaper
After the Democratic convention nominates Bryan, the Republican State Journal ridicules Bryan as pompous and self-serving, blind to the consequences of his actions.
October 5, 1894 | Newspaper
In the era before direct election of senators, candidates often stood unofficially for a period of time, and in 1894 John Thurston was not officially nominated by the Republican Party with a platform. His standing was as a citizen and a party member. Bryan hopes to force Thurston's views into the open and directly challenge him, but the editor of the Bee and other Republicans consider these offers little more than political posturing.
October 7, 1894 | Newspaper
The Republican State Journal ridicules rival Republican editor Edward Rosewater, who was giving speeches around Nebraska in a campaign to eliminate railroad influence in politics and prevent the election of Tom Majors as governor. The State Journal depicts Rosewater as a self-centered buffoon.