POLITICAL NOTES

William Jennings Bryan

Where is that boy, that Heaven-born Bryan,

That Homer Bryan, who sang from the West?

Gone to join the shadows with Altgeld* the Eagle,

Where the kings and the slaves and the troubadours rest./-

His was a strange career: in politics a swift climax and a slow diminuendo; in religion a growing autserity; and a sudden termination. His invalid wife sent his chauffeur to call him from his rest and found him resting forever, stricken in an afternoon nap by the bursting of a blood-vessel in his brain as he was preparing to launch on another crusade for Fundamentalism against Evolution, dead on the scene of his last combat, at Dayton, with his last great speech unmade.

His was a strange career that began at Salem, Ill., March 19, 1866. A lawyer in Jacksonville, Ill., then at Lincoln, Neb. Elected to Congress in 1890 and again in 1892, he held in the four years 1891 to 1895 the only elective office which he ever gained and that was before his career had really begun.

He left the House of Representatives to run for Senator, but a Republican legislature was elected in Nebraska--and from then on he met defeat at the polls. He became editor of The Omaha World-Herald (owned by Gilbert M. Hitchcock) and went from his editorial office as a delegate to the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1896--the beginning of his political ascendency. He went to speak for the farmers of the West who believed their troubles were caused by a shortage of currency. He went to the Convention demanding the free and unlimited coinage of silver, crying: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall !not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

Those echoing words won him the next day the Democratic nomination for President. He began his 18,000-mile speaking tour against McKinley and he lost the election. Then came the Spanish War, and he served as Colonel in the Nebraska infantry, although he saw no field service. When 1900 rolled around he was back in the Presidential arena crying "no imperialism" because of the annexation of Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines. Again he was nominated, again defeated by McKinley.

He started his weekly The Commoner and quickly made a success of it. He took to lecturing and writing.

When 1904 came the Democrats decided to try another candidate. They chose Alton B. Parker, who repudiated free silver. Mr. Bryan grumbled but stood aside and saw Parker go down to a bitter defeat before Roosevelt.

In the interval before the next election, Mr. Bryan traveled around the world on a sort of international stumping tour. When he came back he launched out with a speech demanding public ownership of the railroads. Again he was a candidate, again defeated, this time by Taft. But he continued on his career, lecturing for woman suffrage, for prohibition.

In the election of 1912 he won his first victory at the polls--and then he was not a candidate. Bitter, bitter had been the Democratic Convention when Bryan, bit in teeth, prevented the nomination of Champ Clark, secured the nomination for Woodrow Wilson.

For that he was made Secretary of State and served over two years, resigning because he did not approve the President's increasing sternness with Germany following the sinking of the Lusitania. From then on his political career dwindled, although he spoke for Wilson in 1916, and was still enough of a factor in 1924 to make it seem worth while to nominate his brother for Vice President. But again the name of Bryan lost.

His personality needs no comment when it is so fresh in the public mind, but public men inspired by his death spoke nonetheless last week:

Charles G. Dawes: "... He may have been mistaken at times, as we all are, but he was trying always to do the right as he saw it."

John W. Davis: "Not even those who most disagreed with him ever questioned his courage and the deep sincerity of his convictions, whether religious or political. ..."

Josephus Daniels: "We had been brothers in affection and in service a third of a century. I loved him as I loved no other man. ..."

Senator Edwards (N.J.) : "A great mind has passed."

Elihu Root: "Mr. Bryan was a good and kindly man. He was fairly sincere at all times and very sincere on the points where I most disagreed with him."

Clarence Darrow: "I differed from him on many questions but always respected his sincerity and devotion. ..."

Alton B. Parker: "I don't care to make any statement. This is too sudden."

William E. Borah: "... The purity of his purposes and the sincerity of his convictions no one who knew him well will doubt."

Ex-Senator Hitchcock of Nebraska : "Within the 36 years of my acquaintance with Mr. Bryan he has lived several lives."

"First was the period of youthful idealism during which his eloquence, magnetism and persuasive influence over men were at their height. He had then a very attractive personality and his followers were devoted to him.

"Then came the period of fierce political struggle, during which he gradually became harder and more self-seeking. Then came the period of disappointed hopes and the bitterness of his last campaign. After that he flung away his personal ambition and to some extent his devotion to party. His life then became a strange mixture of devotion to moral and social reforms and a shrewd promotion of personal interests.

"In all of these three lives that he successively led he sacrificed his health and strength by the most extraordinary exertions. Like LaFollette, he became a victim of overwork. He was nevertheless the greatest moral force of his day."

President Coolidge (to Mrs. Bryan): "I trust that you may be given great consolation in remembering all his worth and in the abiding faith that a Divine Providence has ordered all things well."

Count Von Bernstorff (onetime German Ambassador to the U.S.): "He was the most honest pacifist I ever met."

John Thomas Scopes: "Whether one agreed with his ideas and principles matters little at this time. Honor must be paid to Mr. Bryan for his fearless stand on issues that he thought were right."

Eugene V. Debs: "The cause of human progress sustains no loss in the death of Mr. Bryan. It is customary to speak only good of the dead, but I prefer to speak the truth regarding men, whether living or dead."

*Altgeld was Governor of Illinois in 1896. /- From "Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan" in Collected Poems--Vachel Lindsay--Macmillan ($3.50).