/ c . /<?. 23 . 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON. N. J. 
 
 Presented by 
 
 oHcn \A\W \cArn cIenn\^G!^"Sruan, 
 
 E 664 .B87 W7 
 Williams, Wayne C. 1878- 
 1953. 
 
 William Jennings Bryan 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/williamjenningsbOOwill 
 
William Jennings Bryan 
 
Hon. William Jennings Bryan 
 
 (Photograph of portrait painted for the State Department by Irving G. Wiles 
 of New York. It represents Mr. Bryan in the act of presenting to for¬ 
 eign Ambassadors and Ministers his peace plan, which is now embodied 
 in thirty peace treaties with nations exercising authority over three-fourths 
 of the population of the world.) 
 
William Jennings Bryan 
 
 A Study in Political Vindication 
 
 WAYNE C. WILLIAMS 
 
 New York Chicago 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1923, by 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
 
To the Memory 
 
 of 
 
 MY FA THER 
 
 Who Taught Me the Meaning 
 of Democracy 
 
/ 
 
 Foreword 
 
 T HIS book is not intended as a biography 
 of its subject—William Jennings Bryan. 
 While it covers his public career and is, 
 therefore, partly biographical, it is written with 
 a distinct purpose—to prove that events have vin¬ 
 dicated his views and principles. 
 
 Mr. Bryan would be the last to claim undue 
 credit for the triumph of the great reforms in 
 which he has been interested; he has always been 
 most generous in praise of others who have fought 
 with him for cherished principles, showing a 
 commendable anxiety to see his principles triumph 
 rather than himself exalted. 
 
 No other man in American public life has ever 
 lived to see so many of his ideas and reforms ac¬ 
 cepted by his political opponents and the people 
 at large and established in the fundamental law 
 and institutions of the land as has Mr. Bryan. 
 And no other political leader in American politics 
 (possibly in the world) has ever stood such a 
 storm of criticism or survived such vigorous at¬ 
 tacks as has the subject of this book. The as¬ 
 tonishing political vitality of Mr. Bryan deserves 
 careful study. 
 
 It has been the unhappy lot of most men who 
 seek reform either to be laughed off the stage or 
 die full of disappointment over the failure of their 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 fellow-men to see the thing which they had seen. 
 History is filled with leaders who, too' far in ad¬ 
 vance of their time, were crucified by their own 
 generation and immortalized by succeeding genera¬ 
 tions. 
 
 But this disappointment has not come to Mr. 
 Bryan, for he has seen his ideas embodied in the 
 fundamental law of the land; his personality 
 grow with his own generation; his principles be¬ 
 come more and more popular both at home and 
 abroad. This is due in part to his early entrance 
 into the place of greatest prominence in our na¬ 
 tional life; to the rapidity and^extent of our mod¬ 
 ern means of communication, to the power of his 
 eloquence and the faith in his inherent honesty of 
 purpose and deep sincerity of conviction. 
 
 Most men in America enter on the stage of 
 public life too late to see their ideas reach ma¬ 
 turity and fruition in their own time. 
 
 Time is the great adjuster, proving and testing 
 men and issues in a crucible that is infallible. The 
 man and the issue of the hour live but for a day; 
 only the eternal principles of right and justice 
 abide and endure. 
 
 “ A man is an atom; he is bom, he acts and 
 dies; but principles are eternal,” said Mr. Bryan 
 in one of his Convention speeches and it is the 
 great fundamentals of human welfare that alone 
 can stand the test of time. 
 
 Denver, Colorado. 
 
 w. c. w. 
 
Contents 
 
 I. 
 
 Democracy’s Lawgiver 
 
 • • 
 
 II 
 
 II. 
 
 World Conquest and World War . 
 
 18 
 
 III. 
 
 The Trusts 
 
 • • 
 
 38 
 
 IV. 
 
 A Democratic View of Roosevelt . 
 
 49 
 
 V. 
 
 World Peace . 
 
 • • 
 
 64 
 
 VI. 
 
 Monetary Reform 
 
 0 • 
 
 77 
 
 VII. 
 
 Four Great Reforms 
 
 • • 
 
 9i 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Bryan of To-morrow . 
 
 • • 
 
 hi 
 
 9 
 
“ Of what a statesman may be responsible 
 for I allow the utmost scrutiny; I deprecate it 
 not. What are his functions ? To observe 
 things in the beginning, to foresee and foretell 
 them to others—this I have done.” 
 
 —Demosthenes “ Oration on the Crozon.” 
 
I 
 
 DEMOCRACY’S LAWGIVER 
 
 F ROM July 9, 1896, to 1916 and almost to 
 the present hour, William Jennings Bryan 
 has been the leader of the Democratic 
 party and from 1896 to 1912 its sole leader. 
 As leader and candidate in three presidential cam¬ 
 paigns; as the arbiter of the other three cam¬ 
 paigns; as the writer of four of its six platforms; 
 and as the directing spirit of at least one of the 
 remaining two platforms, we may well seek to 
 comprehend the compelling influence of this man 
 upon the political life of his generation. 
 
 Excepting only Henry Clay, he has led his party 
 longer than any other man in American public 
 life. For an entire generation his ideas have domi¬ 
 nated Democratic councils and inspired Demo¬ 
 cratic platforms. Thrice defeated, consigned to 
 oblivion on numerous occasions, politically buried 
 at a score of funerals, he yet manifests an aston¬ 
 ishing political vitality that awaits explanation. 
 
 The Presidency could offer Mr. Bryan but few 
 attractions compared with the exalted platform 
 from which he now influences public life. Why 
 should a leader of public opinion, whose record 
 is almost without a parallel, exchange this sure 
 
 ii 
 
12 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 record of triumphs for the uncertainties of the 
 Presidency where the blunder of a single subordi¬ 
 nate or a mistake in the choice of a single official 
 might mar the record ? 
 
 Why change the prestige of a Henry Clay for 
 the empty honours of a Millard Fillmore? Who 
 has a real place in American history—Daniel Web¬ 
 ster or John Tyler? Of course, Bryan would not 
 be a Fillmore or a Tyler, but I mention these 
 names to show that of itself the Presidency brings 
 neither lasting fame nor personal happiness. To 
 desire the Presidency for solid achievement, for 
 results—that is worth while; but to desire it for 
 mere glory or fame, just to be pointed out or 
 deferred to—that is quite a different thing. 
 
 The most remarkable thing about the Bryan 
 leadership is not even the fact of that leadership, 
 unprecedented as that may be. The remarkable 
 tiling is the vindication of the Bryan views and 
 policies. Probably no other man in history has 
 advocated so wide a program and then lived to see 
 his principles receive such universal approval and 
 adoption as has Mr. Bryan. 
 
 Certainly, this is not true of any other political 
 leader who has had to depend upon public opinion 
 and the votes of self-governing peoples to carry out 
 his ideas. A monarch of the old, autocratic days 
 might acquire an idea some fine morning and put it 
 into power before night by imperial decree, but in 
 a democracy, a leader must impress his ideas upon 
 men only by reason and persuasion and by the force 
 and value of those ideas. 
 
DEMOCRACY’S LAWGIVER 
 
 13 
 
 Unless his principles commend themselves to 
 those who listen to him, he has no following and 
 cannot realize achievement by having those prin¬ 
 ciples become law. Mr. Bryan on the public plat¬ 
 form, reasoning and pleading with his fellow-men 
 for great ideals of government and humanity forms 
 the true measure of the political advances of this 
 generation, the climax of democracy in govern¬ 
 ment. 
 
 As a background for the claim that Bryan has 
 been vindicated in his views, let us first examine 
 what his views are and see how they have been 
 accepted by his party. Mr. Bryan joined in writing 
 the Democratic platform of 1896. He was di¬ 
 rectly responsible for the platforms of 1900 and 
 1908, on which he again ran for the Presidency. 
 He materially assisted in framing the platform of 
 1904. 
 
 He helped to write the platform of 1912 on 
 which Mr. Wilson successfully ran for the Presi¬ 
 dency; many of his ideas were written into that 
 platform and the platform of 1916. We are not 
 now speaking of governmental measures and 
 policies and laws. We are speaking of the giver of 
 law to the Democratic party. A consideration of 
 the governmental measures which represent the 
 Bryan ideas will come later. The Chicago plat¬ 
 form of 1896 contained the following planks: 
 
 1. Bimetallism. 
 
 2. Tariff for revenue only. 
 
 3. Income tax. 
 
14 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 4. No importation of pauper labour. 
 
 5. Arbitration of disputes of interstate rail¬ 
 way employees. 
 
 6. Enlargement of powers of interstate 
 commerce commission; enlarged control 
 of railroads. 
 
 7. Opposition tO' government by injunction. 
 
 8. Monroe doctrine to be maintained. 
 
 9. No third term in the presidential office. 
 
 10. Fixed term in civil service. 
 
 11. Federal government to improve the 
 Mississippi River and internal water¬ 
 ways. 
 
 These principles and planks will repay careful 
 study. Aside from the Civil Service plank, they 
 have all been adopted or realized in substance, and 
 time in some manner or another has vindicated 
 them. 
 
 Bimetallism never did have so great a vindica¬ 
 tion as at that hour in world commerce; when the 
 gold dollar became a fifty-cent dollar, nations were 
 clamouring for silver. The Federal Reserve Act, 
 to the passing of which Bryan contributed so much, 
 destroyed the grip of Wall Street financiers on 
 the currency of the nation. 
 
 Tariff for revenue only has been the law of the 
 land. The income tax is in force. Bryan fought 
 for it actively from 1894 to 1913. It is significant 
 that Mr. Bryan had to fight the battle for an in¬ 
 come tax practically alone, and that for twenty-one 
 jears he led the fight for the amendment for elec- 
 
DEMOCRACY’S LAWGIVER 
 
 15 
 
 tion of Senators by the people. While Bryan held 
 his party in line, very largely, for these two popu¬ 
 lar amendments he had the bitter opposition of 
 conservatives in both parties and of the Republi¬ 
 can party as a whole. Taft was against the in¬ 
 come tax amendment, finally advocating it when 
 Congress submitted it, but urging that it never be 
 used except in an emergency. During his term 
 President Roosevelt never came out for it, except 
 indirectly. In his speech of acceptance in 1908 
 Taft came out against an income tax. Roosevelt 
 never favoured popular election of Senators until 
 1910, and indeed did but little to aid that amend¬ 
 ment. The income tax amendment was ratified 
 and the proclamation signed by Secretary Knox in 
 1913, a few weeks before Mr. Bryan became Sec¬ 
 retary of State and Bryan himself signed the 
 proclamation for the popular election of Senators 
 amendment shortly after he took office. 
 
 Neither Mr. Plughes nor Mr. Harding favoured 
 the income tax amendment, Hughes strenuously 
 opposing it as Governor of New York. 
 
 America is paying the penalty at this hour for 
 the importation of pauper labour. 
 
 If we had had a law for the arbitration of rail¬ 
 way wage disputes, the Adamson law and its at¬ 
 tendant crisis would never have confronted 
 America, and in the great industrial crisis loom¬ 
 ing before the government the United States has 
 no law to meet it. 
 
 Enlarging the powers of the interstate com¬ 
 merce commission: the great fight of President 
 
16 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 Roosevelt in 1905 and 1906 was over this very 
 question and Roosevelt was Bryan's most bitter 
 opponent in 1896, and Bryan was Roosevelt’s most 
 valuable aid in securing it. 
 
 Shall we enlarge governmental control of the 
 railroads? Unquestionably it will be further en¬ 
 larged, even the most hardened reactionary ad¬ 
 mits. The only difference of opinion is as to what 
 form future governmental control will assume. 
 
 Government by injunction has been curbed by 
 law. Can any one recall the fierce and bitter storm 
 of criticism that broke over the head of Bryan in 
 1896 for this reform which is now a part of the 
 law of the land? Yet, in the September number 
 of the Review of Reviews, 1896, Roosevelt said: 
 “ The men who object to what they style 4 govern¬ 
 ment by injunction ’ are as regards the essential 
 principles of government in hearty sympathy with 
 their remote, skin-clad ancestors who lived in caves 
 and fought one another with stone-headed axes, 
 and ate the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros.” 
 
 In 1900, the Bryan platform had a plank de¬ 
 manding a new currency law, and we secured it 
 in 1914. It declared for a department of labour 
 in the Cabinet (the first platform demand of the 
 kind made by a prominent party) and a union 
 man bearing a union card sits in the Cabinet with 
 the President in Washington at this hour. It de¬ 
 clared for an inter-oceanic canal. 
 
 It declared for storing water to irrigate and im¬ 
 prove the arid lands of the West, the forerunner 
 of the great reclamation project. It declared 
 
DEMOCRACY’S LAWGIVER 
 
 17 
 
 against ship subsidies, a position from which the 
 nation has not retreated. 
 
 When we add to these substantial achievements 
 the successful Bryan fight for campaign publicity 
 before elections, for initiative and referendum, and 
 his aid in the movement for a child labour law, 
 we have a substantial program to command the 
 attention of the men who must write the political 
 history of this generation. Here is credit enough 
 for any single life, but the main chapters are yet 
 to be written. 
 
 The great achievements have not been re¬ 
 counted. Between 1896 and 1902, new issues were 
 thrust upon the country. The issues of the trusts 
 and imperialism, the serious problem of colonial 
 expansion. Upon these two issues Mr. Bryan took 
 advanced and decisive ground, and upon them he 
 has received his greatest vindication. 
 
II 
 
 
 WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 
 
 W E come now to the most important epoch 
 in Mr. Bryan’s life—the influence of 
 his views and his career upon the ques¬ 
 tion of imperialism. It is hardly too much to say 
 that the issue of imperialism was a personal issue 
 with Mr. Bryan. We do not mean to say that 
 there would have been no issue had he not raised 
 it or that no one else would have been found fight¬ 
 ing on his side of the question, because many able 
 men took the same view but no outstanding Ameri¬ 
 can political leader took a stand upon the issue 
 until Mr. Bryan had spoken; and he alone pos¬ 
 sessed the influence and driving power to accom¬ 
 plish what he did accomplish in the solution of this 
 question. Whether we measure the issue of im¬ 
 perialism by the interest it aroused, or by the 
 permanency of its influence upon the life of na¬ 
 tions or by its effect upon the destinies of peoples; 
 no matter how we look at this grave question, it 
 becomes a critical issue of the ages when consid¬ 
 ered in its widest implications. For the issue in¬ 
 volves a nation’s entire attitude toward all other 
 nations; it comprehends the whole national mo¬ 
 tive, purpose and impulse. 
 
 What are nations for? Why have peoples 
 
 18 
 
WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 19 
 
 erected governments? Do they exist to prey on 
 other nations? Must the weak submit to the 
 strong? Do- larger nations have some inherent 
 right in their process of growth and expansion to 
 overrun and terrorize and subdue weaker nations? 
 Is there any moral law governing them, such as 
 governs and controls individuals? Is a state con¬ 
 trolled by God’s laws in a way that a human being 
 is controlled by them? 
 
 These are far-reaching questions. They con¬ 
 cern the ultimate destiny of mankind and of 
 government. They were vitally involved in the 
 great struggle out of which we are just emerging. 
 
 Measured by these standards, then, we say that 
 the issue of imperialism as it was raised in 
 America by William Jennings Bryan is the great¬ 
 est issue to which his career has ever been related, 
 and represents in its widest implications the great 
 issue that confronts all nations for all time. 
 
 Let us stand on clear ground. What do we 
 mean by imperialism? The technical definition of 
 imperialism as related to America’s entrance upon 
 that policy is: The government of alien colonies by 
 the United States outside of the Constitution. 
 Stated in its wider aspects, imperialism is “ the 
 conquest or subjugation of one nation by another 
 through militaristic force.” 
 
 This is the issue which was raised by the great 
 war and the two are different phases of the same 
 question. The career of Mr. Bryan with respect to 
 the issue of imperialism divides itself both logically 
 and chronologically into three periods: 
 
20 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEY AN 
 
 First. Educating the Democratic party. 
 
 Second. Educating the American nation. 
 
 Third. Educating the people of the world. 
 
 Educating the Democratic Party 
 
 It will be admitted by every historian who writes 
 of a period twenty years ago that the question of 
 imperialism was thrust upon us unexpectedly. It 
 sprang in a moment out of the issues of war. 
 Practically no one foresaw it, but the war came, 
 Dewey sank the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay and 
 the Philippines were firmly in our grasp—the prize 
 of war. America stood at the threshold of Asia 
 and for the first time in our history we exercised 
 sea control outside of the natural, historic bound¬ 
 aries of the United States. Before very many 
 saw the issue which was before us, and before any 
 other public leader of prominence in either party 
 had taken a stand, Mr. Bryan, speaking at the 
 Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska, declared against 
 the annexation of the Philippine Islands and 
 against the policy of expansion. He was then 
 raising a regiment for the Spanish War. 
 
 Let us speak frankly as well as truly. The 
 Democratic party was not then with Mr. Bryan. 
 Roughly speaking, the party divided itself in senti¬ 
 ment about as follows: 
 
 The East was largely anti-imperialistic and 
 many of the prominent leaders who had opposed 
 Mr. Bryan in 1896 on the financial issue were with 
 him on the issue of expansion. 
 
 The Middle West was fairly evenly divided. It 
 
WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 21 
 
 did not have its mind made up fully, but evinced 
 strong leanings toward expansion, especially while 
 the war-fever was so strong in the nation. 
 
 The trans-Mississippi country and the Far West 
 were literally wild for expansion. The farther 
 west one went, the stronger the sentiment became 
 and the party on the Pacific Coast was almost of 
 one mind in favour of acquiring and retaining 
 this subject nation. 
 
 It is, therefore, within the limits of accurate 
 history to say that when Mr. Bryan left the army 
 after the conclusion of peace to fight for the prin¬ 
 ciples on the public platform in December, 1898, 
 the Democratic party was not with him on the 
 subject of expansion. 
 
 The writer submits that this was the hour which 
 furnished the supreme test of Mr. Bryan’s political 
 leadership. No higher test of courage or of lead¬ 
 ership could come to a man than Mr. Bryan was 
 subjected to in that hour. The opportunity for 
 clever trimming was never so good. The induce¬ 
 ment to offend nobody was never so powerful as 
 then. Mr. Bryan was thirty-eight years of age and 
 admittedly the idol of his party. He had every¬ 
 thing to lose and nothing to gain by taking an ad¬ 
 vanced stand on a question that had just been 
 raised. How easy to have been a “ pussy-footer ”! 
 How easy to have gone around the country saying 
 oracular things that looked both ways in order to 
 first find out how party sentiment stood and to 
 learn how the wind was blowing! But Mr. Bryan 
 was never a follower. His convictions had long 
 
22 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEY AN 
 
 been matured. He applied to the policy of Amer¬ 
 ica the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. 
 He believed that a nation was governed by the 
 same moral laws of right and wrong as an indi¬ 
 vidual; that no nation can afford to do wrong, 
 that no great nation can afford to covet the land 
 and the trade of a weaker nation. Here was a 
 new type of leadership. Here was a man who on 
 every other issue held six million Democrats in the 
 hollow of his hand, the latest candidate of his 
 party for President with a personal popularity un¬ 
 paralleled in the history of American politics. But 
 none of these things swerved Bryan for a moment. 
 Without waiting to consult other leaders or find 
 out the trend of sentiment in his own party, Mr. 
 Bryan took his stand against imperialism. He 
 campaigned the nation; he brought the party to 
 him; he wrote his views on this subject in the 
 Democratic national platforms of 1900, 1904, 
 1908, and 1912. He lived to see his principles 
 enacted by Congress, the Philippines given a decla¬ 
 ration of their right to self-government and in¬ 
 dependence, and his ideas vindicated and approved 
 by those who had been his bitterest opponents. 
 
 Vindication enough for one lifetime, surely! 
 Certainly so! But his greatest vindication did not 
 come in the realization and admission by the Amer¬ 
 ican people that his views upon imperialism in the 
 Philippines were correct. His greatest vindication 
 came in that hour when the mightiest military na¬ 
 tion in history by one thunderbolt sought to im¬ 
 pose its imperialistic will by force upon an unsus- 
 
WOBLD CONQUEST AND WOBLD WAB 23 
 
 pecting world; and in four years of savage warfare 
 there was hammered out upon the iron anvil of 
 war the eternal doctrines that forever destroy the 
 imperialistic principles in the life of men and na¬ 
 tions. 
 
 But Mr. Bryant first task was really his hard¬ 
 est one, and that was to educate his party to his 
 own views. He risked his popularity, he risked 
 his leadership, he risked his future candidacy for 
 the presidency. He threw them all into the bal¬ 
 ance and started out to convince the Democratic 
 party that his views were correct. Here was a 
 leader who carefully reasoned out his position on 
 a new public question, who surveyed the whole 
 life of a generation, who looked upon men and na¬ 
 tions and issues with a far-seeing eye, and then, 
 without consulting popular opinion, went into his 
 own library and closet, consulted his deepest con¬ 
 victions about religion and life, and with an un¬ 
 answerable reason based upon moral principles, 
 reached a definite conclusion and announced his 
 ideas to his party and the world: not saying: 
 “Which way are you marching?” “Where is 
 the head of the procession? ”, but saying: “ Here 
 I take my stand,” and “ He that is not with me is 
 against me.” 
 
 Mr. Bryan resigned from the army December 
 14, 1898, saying, among other things: 
 
 “ Now that the treaty of peace has been concluded 
 I believe that I can be more useful to my country as 
 a civilian than as a soldier. 
 
 “ Our nation is in greater danger now than is Cuba. 
 
24 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 . . . The imperialistic idea is directly antagonistic 
 
 to the ideas and ideals which have been cherished 
 by the American people since the signing of the 
 Declaration of Independence. A nation cannot en¬ 
 dure, half republic and half colony. It would be 
 easier to ratify the treaty and deal with the question 
 in our own way. The issue can be presented directly 
 by a resolution of Congress declaring the policy of 
 the nation upon this subject. Such a resolution 
 would make a clear-cut issue between the doctrine 
 of self-government and the doctrine of imperialism.” 
 
 Mr. Bryan advocated the passage of the Bacon 
 resolution (introduced January 11, 1899) making 
 precisely this declaration but it was defeated in the 
 Senate by one vote. The resolution submitted 
 read: 
 
 “ Resolved further, that the United States hereby 
 disclaim any disposition or intention to exercise per¬ 
 manent sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over the 
 said islands, and assert their determination, when a 
 stable and independent government shall have been 
 erected therein, entitled in the judgment of the 
 government of the United States to recognition as 
 such, to transfer to said government, upon terms 
 which shall be reasonable and just, all rights secured 
 under the cession by Spain, and to thereupon leave 
 the government and control of the islands to their 
 people.” 
 
 (Vote on amendment, 2 / 14 / 99 , page 1846 . Yeas, 
 29 . Nays, 29 . Chair—Vice-President Hobart— 
 voted “ nay ” and declared amendment lost.) 
 
 Had it been then adopted the whole future of 
 the history of our relation to the Philippines would 
 have been different. It needs only one other and 
 
WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 25 
 
 later historical recital to conclude the record. This 
 declaration was adopted by a Democratic House 
 and Senate in 1913, and no Republican President 
 or Congress has dared advocate its repeal. It 
 stands as the declared and avowed purpose of 
 America, our reaffirmation of our devotion to the 
 ideals of self-government that has made us the 
 nation that we are. 
 
 Mr. Bryan was criticized because he advocated 
 ratification of the treaty which gave us the Philip¬ 
 pines. His reply was given in his acceptance 
 speech in 1900: 
 
 “ In view of the criticism which my action aroused 
 in some quarters, I take this occasion to restate the 
 reasons given at that time. I thought it safer to 
 trust the American people to give independence to 
 the Filipinos than to trust the accomplishment of 
 that purpose to diplomacy with an unfriendly nation. 
 
 “ Lincoln embodied an argument in the question 
 when he asked, ‘ Can aliens make treaties easier than 
 friends can make laws?’ I believe that we are now 
 in a better position to wage a successful contest 
 against imperialism than we would have been had 
 the treaty been rejected. With the treaty ratified a 
 clean-cut issue is presented between a government 
 by consent and a government by force, and imperial¬ 
 ists must bear the responsibility for all that happens 
 until the question is settled. 
 
 “If the treaty had been rejected the opponents of 
 imperialism would have been held responsible for 
 any international complications which might have 
 arisen before the ratification of another treaty. But 
 whatever difference of opinion may have existed as 
 to the best method of opposing a colonial policy, 
 there never was any difference as to the great impor- 
 
26 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 tance of the question and there is no difference now 
 as to the course to be pursued. 
 
 “ The title of Spain being extinguished we were 
 at liberty to deal with the Filipinos according to 
 American principles. The Bacon resolution, intro¬ 
 duced a month before hostilities broke out at Manila, 
 promised independence to the Filipinos on the same 
 terms that it was promised to the Cubans. I sup¬ 
 ported this resolution and believe that its adoption 
 prior to the breaking out of hostilities would have 
 prevented bloodshed, and that its adoption at any 
 subsequent time would have ended hostilities. 
 
 “If the treaty had been rejected considerable time 
 would have necessarily elapsed before a new treaty 
 could have been agreed upon and ratified, and dur¬ 
 ing that time the question would have been agitating 
 the public mind. If the Bacon resolution had been 
 adopted by the Senate and carried out by the Presi¬ 
 dent, either at the time of the ratification of the 
 treaty or at any time afterwards, it would have taken 
 the question of imperialism out of politics and left 
 the American people free to deal with their domestic 
 problems. But the resolution was defeated by the 
 vote of the Republican Vice-President, and from that 
 time to this a Republican Congress has refused to 
 take any action whatever in the matter.” 
 
 The Bryan campaign (of 1900) was one of the 
 most brilliant personal and political campaigns in 
 the political history of any country. From Boston 
 to San Francisco, from Minneapolis to New Or¬ 
 leans, Mr. Bryan was heard in all the great centers 
 of the nation. There is no doubt that his wide 
 personal popularity not only brought him great 
 audiences, but predisposed the Democratic masses 
 in his favour. But he encountered bitter opposi- 
 
WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 27 
 
 tion, and a wild passion aroused by the war which 
 demanded the fruits of victory. The most difficult 
 sentiment in the world to overcome is the war 
 passion which demands the fruits of conquest, be¬ 
 cause the man who favours retaining the fruits of 
 war can hide behind the Flag. 
 
 “ The Flag is in the Philippines. Who will haul 
 it down ? ” This was the battle cry of the oppo¬ 
 sition and we must submit it is the most attractive 
 and effective battle cry which could have been de¬ 
 vised. It was harder to meet than a ton of argu¬ 
 ment. Mr. Bryan’s greatest task was in the West. 
 He said when he came to Denver in January of 
 1899: “I have come to Denver with the under¬ 
 standing that the West is wild for the annexation 
 of the Philippines.” Mr. Bryan was right. He 
 literally had to change opinions which had been 
 forged in the white heat of war; but he changed 
 them. Gradually the leaders began to see the 
 strength of his views. They began to realize that 
 this nation must never embark upon an imperial¬ 
 istic adventure and gradually the sentiment began 
 to veer in his direction. Mr. Bryan was greatly 
 helped by the attitude of President McKinley and 
 the Republican administration, for, with some nota¬ 
 ble exceptions, they were rapidly ranging them¬ 
 selves on the side of expansion. Mr. Bryan asked 
 that the treaty of peace contain a declaration fa¬ 
 vourable to the independence of the Philippines, 
 but he was beaten. President McKinley came out 
 outspokenly for the permanent retention of the 
 Philippine Islands. Senator Beveridge and Vice- 
 
28 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 President Roosevelt, then a candidate and one of 
 the leaders of his party, were merciless in their 
 criticism of the Nebraskan leader. They declared 
 that the Philippines were ours forever, that God 
 directed the battle, that Providence gave us the 
 Philippines and embarked us upon a course of 
 imperialism. The Filipinos fought, they resisted 
 the yoke of a foreign nation, a war followed, but 
 the force of America finally subdued those who 
 struggled for liberty. The conscience of the na¬ 
 tion was with Bryan but the pocketbook of the 
 nation was against him. By January of 1900, the 
 Democratic party was substantially in accord with 
 its leader and the Republican party was united in 
 favour of imperialism. The lines of battle were 
 definitely drawn and extended. The opposing 
 ideas are found in the platforms of the two parties 
 and the position of the Democratic party has never 
 been altered. The Republicans gave no hope what¬ 
 ever to the Filipinos and they approved the use of 
 force to destroy the sentiment of self-government. 
 With fine scorn, Mr. Bryan said: “ I want to know 
 whether the mothers of this land have no higher 
 ambition for their sons than to raise them up and 
 send them across the seas to fight the ideas of 
 freedom in a foreign land in order that somebody 
 may get railroad franchises. ,, 
 
 Thus was the issue joined and the campaign that 
 followed was clean, educative and intensive in the 
 extreme. Our foreign policy was the issue. But 
 Champ Clark described the attitude of America 
 when he told how in a political meeting he had 
 
WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 29 
 
 shown the wrongful course which America was 
 embarking upon and a farmer in the crowd said, 
 “ Well, I guess we can stand it as long as hogs are 
 at a high price per pound.” This argument car¬ 
 ried the Mississippi Valley against the Bryan ideas 
 on imperialism. When the Democratic party was 
 defeated, Mr. Bryan’s opponents said his career 
 was over. He had picked upon an issue and had 
 lost it. Now he would abandon this issue, but even 
 if he retained it, his career was over. 
 
 Mr. Bryan’s career would have been ended if 
 he had based it upon a wrong issue, for a public 
 man rises or falls by the strength of the princi¬ 
 ples he advocates. No amount of brilliant per¬ 
 sonality or stirring oratory or clever wit can ever 
 make a public man survive. He must rise or fall 
 by his principles. Here is the secret of Mr. 
 Bryan’s political longevity. He is constantly re¬ 
 ceiving a new vindication in the adoption of these 
 principles. He took the right side of the question 
 of imperialism, not the popular side, not the war¬ 
 like side, not the side which people favoured who 
 are aroused to a passion by war; but the right side. 
 
 “ Is it right? ” 
 
 This is what Lincoln said in his immortal 
 debate with Douglas and “ this is the issue that 
 will continue in this country when these poor 
 tongues of Douglas and myself shall be silent.” 
 
 A man can afford to lose the Presidency if he 
 is on the right side of an issue, but no man can 
 afford to win the Presidency of the United States 
 on the wrong side of an issue. 
 
30 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 Educating the American Nation 
 
 Mr. Bryan was educating the nation when he 
 was educating the Democratic party but a long 
 period of further education was necessary from a 
 non-partisan platform; and this Mr. Bryan accom¬ 
 plished. With the Republican party in power in 
 all branches of the government, the policy of im¬ 
 perialism went on uncrushed and unchecked. Re¬ 
 bellion was crushed. The supreme court sustained 
 the policy in the Downes case, and the Philippines 
 were to all intents and purposes the property of the 
 United States forever. 
 
 But the heart of America was disturbed and un¬ 
 easy. Our policy of imperialism did not square 
 with our revolutionary principles and teachings. 
 There was a moral factor involved and while the 
 desire for markets and the greed of conquest and 
 the spirit of war were still powerful, yet there 
 was a moral issue involved and slowly but surely 
 this moral issue began to enter the mind and heart 
 of America and to resist the materialism which 
 had so thoroughly infused itself into all our na¬ 
 tional and personal life. Many factors contributed 
 to this change: 
 
 1 . The policy of America did not square with 
 her historic traditions and principles. 
 
 2. Mr. Bryan’s unceasing attacks upon the 
 policy of imperialism. 
 
 3. The Russo-Japanese war and concurrent 
 developments in the Orient. 
 
WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 31 
 
 4 . The steady aggressions of Japan and Rus^- 
 sia in Korea and China. 
 
 5. The progress of the Filipinos toward self- 
 government, thus confirming Mr. Bryan’s 
 views. 
 
 6 . Even as early as 1907, Mr. Roosevelt in a 
 presidential message declared that it was 
 his plan to permit the Filipinos to have 
 self-government, “ after the fashion of the 
 really free peoples.” Sentiment was 
 changing. The Filipinos themselves came 
 to the bar of Congress to plead their cause. 
 
 In 1912 upon an anti-imperialistic plank written 
 by Mr. Bryan, the Democratic party found itself 
 in power. The Filipinos’ promised independence 
 was already in sight. Congress passed a resolu¬ 
 tion declaring the nation’s purpose toward the 
 Philippines. Even without any outside event hap¬ 
 pening, the nation was slowly but surely gravitat¬ 
 ing toward the position taken by Mr. Bryan in 
 1900. 
 
 And it was this resolution, the Jones resolution, 
 as first advocated in essence by Mr. Bryan and 
 finally adopted after he had written the promise 
 into four platforms of his party, that placed 
 America in the right relation to the Filipinos, pre¬ 
 vented this nation from embarking upon a policy 
 of imperialism and saved America from ever being 
 classed with those nations which, in the past, have 
 sought conquest. 
 
 But a far greater vindication was at hand. Out 
 
32 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 of the great loom of Time on which is woven the 
 destiny of nations, was coming the World War, 
 and out of it was coming a vindication for Bryan 
 ideas surpassing any vindication any political 
 leader has had in probably any age of world-his¬ 
 tory. It is enough to say that the World War 
 reversed the opinion of America on the question 
 of imperialism and changed the standards, princi¬ 
 ples and ideas of the nations of the world—a 
 change so profound and vast that the historian of 
 this present day cannot adequately measure it—and 
 the change which has come over the dream of the 
 world is a change from an attitude favouring im¬ 
 perialism to an attitude directly against that policy 
 and sustaining and vindicating the policies and 
 principles of William Jennings Bryan. It is diffi¬ 
 cult to view the question of imperialism in the light 
 of the World War and to realize that we ever held 
 to the view that a strong and powerful nation 
 could impose its will upon a weaker nation by 
 force of arms. The Great War has caused the 
 whole world to revise its opinions on nearly every 
 question relating to the life of nations and of peo¬ 
 ples. It has literally melted and remoulded the 
 judgments, the thoughts and the impulses of man¬ 
 kind. But on no subject has it so definitely and 
 concretely revolutionized opinions as on the ques¬ 
 tion which we define by the one word “ imperial¬ 
 ism/’ The war was so revolutionary and casuistic 
 that it compelled a re-examination of nearly every 
 question; and we in America have re-examined 
 our views upon the right of any nation to sub- 
 
WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 33 
 
 jugate another nation. In the lurid light of the 
 great conflict upon the plains of France and Bel¬ 
 gium, we see the whole matter of imperialism in a 
 new form. Instead of the glories of war, instead 
 of the conquest for markets, instead of a competi¬ 
 tive mad rush of nations for the trade of weaker 
 peoples, we see emerging into view the banner of 
 the cross, the kindly hand, the brotherly spirit 
 stretching itself over the nations of the world. 
 “ Above the din and clang of war we hear the deep 
 undertone ” of the songs of humanity chanting the 
 praises of the Prince of Peace. 
 
 In the light of the gigantic attempt of Germany 
 to subdue the world by force and to realize the im¬ 
 perialistic ambitions of her war lord the stand of 
 Mr. Bryan in 1896 and 1900 seems almost inspired. 
 This is not saying that American occupation of the 
 Philippines is at all comparable to German military 
 invasions and conquests. Far from it. Our great 
 republic has not shown this ruthlessness and 
 American occupation has resulted in vast good to 
 the Filipinos, which they willingly acknowledge. 
 Mr, Bryan never asked that America relinquish the 
 islands to any foreign prey but only that while help¬ 
 ing them in brotherly fashion to get on their feet 
 we do so with a declaration that we entertained no 
 designs of permanent control over them and that 
 in due time we intended them to be free, even as 
 we are free. And there never was any doubt as 
 to what would be the ultimate policy of a democ¬ 
 racy like America. The Filipinos themselves have 
 had the good sense to see this. But America needs 
 
34 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 to be careful to disclaim the imperialistic motive, 
 as she did with Cuba, and then by her acts to live 
 up to her high declaration of principles. Germany 
 was the spirit of imperialism personified. Her 
 aims were all imperialistic. She conceived the war 
 from imperialistic ambitions. She constructed it 
 on imperialistic principles. She fought it to 
 achieve imperialistic ends. Her worship of might 
 and force, her cunning preparation, her thunder¬ 
 bolts launched upon an unsuspecting world, her 
 invasion of Belgium and France, her attempt to 
 impose her will on the world by force startled the 
 moral, ethical, religious sentiment of the world 
 and awakened America into a realization of the 
 wrong and the danger that lie inherent in a policy 
 of conquest. America turned again to the prin¬ 
 ciples of Bryan and listened again to his voice 
 pleading with this Republic to leave the false ideals 
 of conquest, to give up purchasing trade with 
 blood and to plant itself as a free nation upon the 
 principles of Jesus Christ and the doctrines of 
 human brotherhood. Let us think again of the 
 brazen, arrogant declarations of the German mili¬ 
 tary leaders and their war lord as their mighty 
 armies swept over the defenseless peoples of 
 Europe. Let us look at this nation so proud in 
 its military force now humbled and conquered, 
 with its imperialistic dream shattered; and in the 
 light of this stupendous disaster, let us read again 
 the words that in 1900 came from the mouth of 
 Mr. Bryan: 
 
WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 35 
 
 “ Behold a republic in which civil and religious 
 liberty stimulate all to earnest endeavour, and in 
 which the law restrains every hand uplifted for a 
 neighbour’s injury—a republic in which every citizen 
 is sovereign, but in which no one cares to wear a 
 crown. 
 
 “ Behold a republic standing erect, while empires 
 all around are bowed beneath the weight of their own 
 armaments—a republic whose flag is loved, while 
 other flags are only feared. 
 
 “ Behold a republic increasing in population, in 
 wealth, in strength and in influence, solving the prob¬ 
 lems of civilization and hastening the coming of a 
 universal brotherhood—a republic which shakes 
 thrones and dissolves aristocracies by its silent ex¬ 
 ample, and gives light and inspiration to those who 
 sit in darkness. 
 
 “ Behold a republic gradually but surely becoming 
 the supreme moral factor in the world’s progress and 
 the accepted arbiter of the world’s disputes—a re¬ 
 public whose history, like the path of the just, ‘ is 
 as the shining light that shineth more and more 
 unto the perfect day.’ ” 
 
 But the greatest personal and political vindica¬ 
 tion which Mr. Bryan received came out of the 
 mouth of his greatest opponent, Theodore Roose¬ 
 velt. Why do we select Mr. Roosevelt? Because 
 he had been the leader of the Republican party 
 from September, 1901, until January of 1919, be¬ 
 cause he had controlled its destinies as few other 
 men have, because he was one of the soundest 
 thinkers this or any other nation has ever pro¬ 
 duced; because he had been most outspoken and 
 violent in his criticism of Mr. Bryan and because 
 he had changed his mind and came over to Mr. 
 
36 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 Bryan’s views in a way that few other political 
 leaders ever have. In 1900, Mr. Roosevelt said of 
 Mr. Bryan’s views on imperialism:—in the Roose¬ 
 velt letter accepting the Vice-Presidential nomina¬ 
 tion— 
 
 “ The only certain way of rendering it necessary 
 for our republic to enter onto a career of militarism 
 would be to abandon the Philippines to their own 
 tribes. 
 
 “ The question is now, not whether we shall ex¬ 
 pand, but whether we shall contract. The Philip¬ 
 pines are now part of American territory. To sur¬ 
 render them, would be to surrender American terri¬ 
 tory.” 
 
 But in the light of the great war and of the 
 dangerous position we occupied in the Orient if we 
 attempted to hold the Philippines forever, Mr. 
 Roosevelt, in his book “America and the World 
 War,” Chapter 9, page 160, written in the year 
 1915 and just fifteen years after he so bitterly at¬ 
 tacked Bryan’s policy in regard to the Philippines, 
 said: 
 
 “ I exclude the Philippines. This is because I feel 
 that the present administration has definitely com¬ 
 mitted us to a course of action which will make the 
 early and complete severance of the Philippines from 
 us not merely desirable but necessary. 
 
 “ I hope, therefore, that the Filipinos will be given 
 their independence at an early date. . . . 
 
 “ I do not believe we should keep any foothold 
 whatever in the Philippines. Any kind of position 
 by us in the Philippines merely results in making 
 them pur ‘ heel of Achilles ’ if we are attacked by a 
 
WORLD CONQUEST AND WORLD WAR 37 
 
 foreign power. They can be of no compensating 
 benefit to us.” 
 
 Could vindication be greater? Could any man 
 ask more of a generous political opponent than that 
 he come out in this frank and open fashion and 
 admit that whereas he was wrong his opponent 
 was right, and that the views which he once con¬ 
 demned he now found it necessary to commend ? 
 
Ill 
 
 THE TRUSTS 
 
 W E come now to one of the most im¬ 
 portant periods in Mr. Bryan’s life— 
 the period of the fight to control the 
 great trusts and combinations of the nation. The 
 trusts had been growing, enlarging and spreading 
 their power over new fields ever since 1885. They 
 had become a power even as early as 1890. The 
 Sherman Anti-Trust Law was a response to de¬ 
 mand for legislation to curb their growing power 
 and the feeling of alarm spreading over the nation 
 in regard to them. The law had been largely a 
 dead letter and by 1896 the feeling all over the 
 nation was that some stronger remedy was needed. 
 After the victory of the Republican party in 1896, 
 the trusts grew and waxed fat with a rapidity and 
 wielded a power that threatened the healthy com¬ 
 mercial life of the nation. The trusts had elected 
 their friends to power and they thought they could 
 do as they pleased. They were right; and they 
 did do as they pleased. They grew so arrogant 
 and strong that conservative thinkers, even in the 
 Republican party, saw that they must be curbed. 
 It was this new sentiment developing even then in 
 the Republican party which grew until it came to 
 voice in the anti-trust campaign of President Theo- 
 
 38 
 
THE TRUSTS 
 
 39 
 
 dore Roosevelt in 1902 and 1907-1908 and which 
 laid the foundations for the Roosevelt break and 
 the Progressive party in 1912. That remarkable 
 movement had its roots in the movement started 
 away back in 1902 by Roosevelt for .curbing the 
 power of the trusts. Indeed, we may go back 
 much further and say that it had its roots in the 
 earlier agitation of Mr. Bryan for the prevention 
 of trusts. 
 
 But this is leading us into fields far too wide for 
 the limits of this chapter. We have not space or 
 time to enter upon a general study of the political 
 history of the country for the past twenty years. 
 Such a history must some day be written by some 
 impartial historian and if he really be impartial and 
 set down facts with a clear and unbiased view he 
 must give first place to William Jennings Bryan 
 in discussing the anti-trust movement in America. 
 
 By the end of the Spanish-American war in 
 
 1898 and the entrance of the country into the year 
 
 1899 the thought of the nation turned to the trust 
 question as probably the overshadowing domestic 
 issue of the campaign of 1900. Indeed, had the 
 war not thrust the question of imperialism into 
 the forefront the trust question would have been 
 the single issue of the campaign of 1900. 
 
 But in the summer and fall of 1899—just on 
 the eve of the approaching presidential campaign 
 —the prime economic question before the country 
 centered around the trusts and the great debate 
 of that year was on the question “ What remedy 
 can be found for trusts ? ” 
 
40 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 Everybody in those days had a remedy. Some 
 folks wanted to let them alone and let competition 
 kill them; others wanted to make them over into 
 law-proof and water-tight monopolies and let them 
 run amuck, still others wanted the government to 
 regulate them as combinations in restraint of trade. 
 Others wanted to rely upon lawsuits alone, under 
 the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. 
 
 It remained for Mr. Bryan to propose a new 
 remedy. While on a visit to Colorado in August 
 of 1899, Mr. Bryan was interviewed by the Rocky 
 Mountain News of Denver and on August 28 of 
 that year, on page two will be found a facsimile 
 photograph print of his written statement of a 
 remedy for the trusts. It is copied verbatim: 
 
 “ The trusts can be destroyed whenever the peo¬ 
 ple carry their hostility toward the trusts to the point 
 of voting against them. One remedy, and I believe 
 a complete one, can be found in a law which will 
 require corporations to secure a license before doing 
 business outside of the state in which they are or¬ 
 ganized. Such license can be issued upon conditions 
 which will squeeze the water out of the stock and 
 prevent monopoly. 
 
 " W. J. Bryan.” 
 
 This remedy deserves most careful reading. It 
 is packed with meaning and force. It is one of the 
 most comprehensive statements in the briefest 
 form ever made on a great economic problem. 
 
 But, passing for a moment the merit of the 
 proposition, let us see what became of the proposed 
 remedy. 
 
THE TRUSTS 
 
 41 
 
 In the first place this was the very first proposal 
 of such a remedy by anybody of prominence or 
 importance in the nation. It was, indeed, the first 
 time any such remedy had ever been so proposed. 
 I do not mean to say that nobody had thought of 
 it or ever mentioned it or that somewhere in some 
 book some one may not have suggested such a 
 remedy. What is meant is that no public man of 
 prominence in America had, up to that time, sug¬ 
 gested this remedy for trusts; no one has ever 
 laid claim to priority over Mr. Bryan on this sub¬ 
 ject. Mr. Bryan is entitled to all the credit we 
 can give him for he is the sole author of the 
 remedy. 
 
 The reception accorded the Bryan remedy was 
 exactly what might be expected from a press 
 which was so largely hostile. The remedy was 
 received with derision by the opposition papers 
 generally. It was “ vague and futile,” “ silly and 
 impossible ”; “ It had been propounded by Mr. 
 Bryan merely as a plank to catch votes, to get into 
 the presidency with ”; “ to make a campaign is¬ 
 sue”; “It was unheard of”; “No political 
 economists were sanctioning it.” No Republican 
 leader would favour it because that would have 
 been quite contrary to the general principles of 
 party loyalty. The Democratic press generally was 
 favourable with here and there some sober oppo¬ 
 sition editor who saw the merit of the proposal 
 and frankly said so. But it was high treason for 
 any Republican to endorse Bryan’s views on any¬ 
 thing. It is all right and perfectly proper and 
 
42 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BBYAN 
 
 patriotic to put his views into law and make them 
 the fundamental policy of the land, provided you 
 carefully keep the Bryan label off the goods. 
 
 In the fall of 1899, Mr. Bryan proposed the 
 remedy at an anti-trust conference in Chicago 
 where it received wide consideration and was ac¬ 
 corded an enthusiastic hearing; it was after this 
 speech that the proposal received genuine nation¬ 
 wide attention. In the Chicago speech Mr. Bryan 
 made another historic declaration. It was the 
 opening sentence of that famous speech and, like 
 the trust remedy, has a history of its own. Here 
 it is: “ I begin with the declaration that a monopoly 
 in private hands is indefensible from any stand¬ 
 point and intolerable. I make no exception to the 
 rule.” Neither the Democratic party nor its Presi¬ 
 dent, Mr. Wilson, has ever made any exceptions 
 to this rule. 
 
 “A clever phrase,” says some critic? A fact, 
 granted that it is a phrase, but it is something 
 more; it is a principle. No greater principle has 
 ever been embodied in so few words on an eco¬ 
 nomic issue. And in addition to being a principle 
 it is a battle cry and in the domain of logic it is a 
 starting point for the whole problem of the com¬ 
 binations in restraint of trade. 
 
 Mr. Bryan used unmistakable language; there is 
 no escaping its meaning or its force. It defines a 
 form of industry that cannot be accepted in our 
 modern economic life in America. It is a defini¬ 
 tion of a class that must be excluded from our 
 thinking. If a modern progressive American be- 
 
THE TRUSTS 
 
 43 
 
 gins a study of the trust problem and tries to clear 
 up his thinking and find out where he stands he 
 may take this sentence as a starting point and 
 reason out the whole problem from here. 
 
 The sentence—“ A private monopoly is inde¬ 
 fensible and intolerable ”—has had a remarkable 
 history, quite as remarkable as the Bryan remedy 
 for trusts. It appeared in the Democratic plat¬ 
 form in 1900, in 1904, and again verbatim in the 
 platform of 1908 on which Bryan ran for the 
 presidency and in the platform of 1912 on which 
 Wilson was first elected to the Presidency. More¬ 
 over, President Wilson thought so well of it as a 
 principle and a battle cry to rally the progressive 
 forces that he used it in his letter of acceptance 
 and in his trust message to Congress. In this spe¬ 
 cial message, delivered on January 20, 1914, he 
 said, “We are all agreed that * private monopoly 
 is indefensible and intolerable * and our program 
 is founded upon that conviction.” 
 
 In 1900, the trust issue was so overshadowed 
 by the issue of imperialism that the remedy was 
 not as widely discussed as it might have been. 
 
 But leave it to Father Time. He is the great 
 modifier of opinion. He makes and moulds the 
 minds of men in new and astonishing ways. 
 Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency in the fall 
 of 1901. That winter he named James R. Garfield 
 as Commissioner of Corporations, a bureau under 
 the Department of Commerce and Labour. In 
 December, 1904, he made his report to his chief 
 and that report was transmitted to Congress, being 
 
44 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 Document No. 165 of the House of Representa¬ 
 tives, dated December 21, 1904. The letter of 
 transmittal is dated December 19, 1904. I quote 
 from pages 44 and 48 of that document: 
 
 “ This is one of two more practical methods sug¬ 
 gested. It assumes the passage by Congress of a 
 complete corporation law, with the compulsory re¬ 
 quirement that all corporations engaged in interstate 
 commerce shall be organized under such a law. 
 . . . Such a law should have three principal fea¬ 
 
 tures : 
 
 (a) The creation by Congress of corporations with 
 power to engage in interstate commerce. 
 
 (*) The prohibition upon all other corporations 
 from engaging in such commerce. 
 
 (O The granting to such Federal Corporation the 
 right to manufacture and produce. 
 
 The principal features of such a system would be: 
 
 (a) The granting of a Federal license or franchise 
 to engage in such interstate commerce. 
 
 (O The imposition of all necessary requirements 
 as to corporation organization and manage¬ 
 ment as a condition precedent to the grant of 
 such franchise or license. 
 
 (c) The requirement of such reports and returns 
 as may be desired, as a condition of the re¬ 
 tention of such franchise or license. 
 
 ( d ) The prohibition of all corporations from en¬ 
 gaging in interstate commerce without such 
 license or franchise. ,, 
 
 Mr. Garfield favoured the national incorporation 
 of interstate commerce corporations; Mr. Bryan 
 favoured the licensing of such incorporation but 
 both had the same end in view. 
 
THE TRUSTS 
 
 45 
 
 President Roosevelt was giving just as much 
 thought and attention to the trust question as was 
 his Commissioner of Corporations. In December, 
 1906, he sent his annual message to Congress and 
 on the trust question, among other things, he said: 
 
 “ In some method, whether by a national license 
 law or in other fashion, we must exercise, and that 
 at an early date, a far more complete control than at 
 present over these great corporations—a control that 
 will, among other things, prevent the evils of exces¬ 
 sive overcapitalization, compel the disclosure by each 
 big corporation of its stockholders and of its proper¬ 
 ties and business.” 
 
 In 1907 he again advocated this remedy with more 
 elaboration. 
 
 Is it strange, therefore, that in 1908, the Demo¬ 
 cratic national platform, with Bryan as the can¬ 
 didate, should reemphasize this remedy and make 
 it a cardinal feature of the platform? It became 
 one of the leading features of the campaign of 
 1908. Taft did not favour the remedy and so far 
 never has. Governor Hughes, a later nominee of 
 the Republican party for the Presidency, trained 
 his heaviest guns upon the Bryan trust remedy. 
 He attempted to have a great deal of fun with it 
 and interested the people, as he travelled around 
 the country using his remarkable analytical mind 
 to pick supposed flaws in the plan, point out its 
 theoretical dangers and limitations and possible 
 situations that might arise whenever its practical 
 operation was attempted. Of course, this is soft 
 ground for any one. It is easy to take any remedy 
 
46 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 that was ever proposed, from Christianity to the 
 League of Nations, and, in advance of its actual 
 operation, suggest all sorts of possible difficulties 
 that might arise under it. 
 
 But the Democrats repeated and readopted the 
 remedy again and endorsed it in the platform of 
 1912 and it remained for the Democratic President 
 on that platform to finally give that plank official 
 endorsement. In his message to Congress, in 
 August of 1919, President Wilson, in discussing 
 a remedy for trusts and trust profiteering, said: 
 
 “ We should formulate a law requiring a federal 
 license of all corporations engaged in interstate com¬ 
 merce and embodying in the license or conditions 
 under which it is issued specific regulations designed 
 to secure competitive selling and prevent unconscion¬ 
 able profits in the methods of marketing. . . . 
 
 Such a law would afford a welcome opportunity to 
 effect other much needed reforms in the business of 
 interstate shipment and in the methods of corpora¬ 
 tions which are engaged in it.” 
 
 We may therefore close this chapter of our dis¬ 
 cussion of the Bryan contributions to American 
 political life and thought with this approval and 
 endorsement of a Bryan remedy given by a great 
 Democratic President. No higher approval could 
 be found. What is the best test of a man’s think¬ 
 ing, whether it be sound or good sense or of value 
 to his generation? 
 
 Probably the very best test is for his ideas to be 
 put into actual concrete practice and to succeed. 
 Partisanship and an unwilling popular opinion have 
 
THE TRUSTS 
 
 47 
 
 iiot yet permitted a test of this plan of Mr. Bryan’s 
 in the national field though many of his ideas have 
 already stood the test of actual practice. 
 
 But there are some other tests: Is the plan log¬ 
 ical ? Are the ideas sound ? Do they accord with 
 and fit facts, hard concrete facts as we find them 
 in a very practical world ? Do they fit in with the 
 legal rules and constitutional modes of operation 
 of our state and federal governments? These are 
 real tests. 
 
 Now the very best test of whether ideas are 
 sound and logical is found in the way they com¬ 
 mend themselves to other sound thinking men, con¬ 
 temporaries of the man who puts forth the ideas. 
 Of course, some prophet cries alone in the wilder¬ 
 ness once in a while and later generations hear his 
 voice and recognize his ideas. But we have a 
 world mentally awake now and steam and light¬ 
 ning and invisible currents carry ideas to the four 
 corners of earth in the flash of an eye. The whole 
 world is thinking more clearly and thinking to¬ 
 gether, as it never did before. 
 
 Measured by this last test—by approval of his 
 contemporaries, Mr. Bryan’s remedy stands the 
 test and becomes one of the greatest sources of 
 vindication for him that he has ever enjoyed. 
 
 The Democrats have been long convinced. It 
 remained to convince the Republicans. And when 
 two such eminent Republican leaders and such 
 clear thinkers as James R. Garfield and Theodore 
 Roosevelt commend the same plan it must have 
 merit and worth. 
 
48 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 We submit that on a remedy for the trusts Will¬ 
 iam J. Bryan has not only been Democracy’s law¬ 
 giver; he has had as great a vindication as any 
 public leader could ask at the hands of his own 
 generation. And we will risk the prediction that a 
 greater vindication on this very issue is yet to 
 come. 
 
IV 
 
 A DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF ROOSEVELT 
 
 T HE reaction of Bryan and Roosevelt upon 
 the careers of each other furnishes one 
 of the striking contrasts of history. The 
 enlarging picture of Theodore Roosevelt gains new 
 lines from the perspective Time gives to it. The 
 picture is looming larger each year; the lines are 
 becoming clearer, not only because no man can 
 have justice done him while he yet lives in the 
 fierce heat of partisan strife, but also because new 
 angles and new view-points come to be expressed 
 when history is really given a chance at a man. 
 
 But a Democratic view of Roosevelt is yet to be 
 written. What did the great Republican leader's 
 opponents think of him? Contemporary history 
 during the Roosevelt days furnishes poor answer. 
 Indeed, who would think of finding the real meas¬ 
 ure of any man from what his political opponents 
 said about him in the days when they were trying 
 to keep him out of office and get themselves into 
 office? 
 
 There was a Democratic opinion about Roose¬ 
 velt, however, that was not vocal in his lifetime, 
 not often heard in political campaigns and that 
 marked the true view of most Americans about 
 this remarkable American. That is the view I 
 propose to give here. It is the view of Roosevelt 
 
 49 
 
50 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 which finds him rejecting Mark Hanna reaction- 
 aryism after sharing in its rewards in 1900 and 
 sees him develop into the leader of one of the most 
 advanced national progressive movements since the 
 Civil War. Theodore Roosevelt never stood still 
 in his thinking or his political views; he was con¬ 
 stantly growing and developing and his progress 
 was away from Toryism toward Liberalism, using 
 these terms in their wide political sense; from 
 standpat, reactionary Republicanism toward broad, 
 advanced Democratic progressivism. There are 
 many who will object to these terms and who will 
 deny that Theodore Roosevelt ever had anything 
 in common with the reactionary or with the Demo¬ 
 cratic party. They are mistaken, as I hope here 
 to show. 
 
 This development of Roosevelt from orthodox, 
 hidebound Republicanism to Progressivism marks 
 an era in American political life. It had a pro¬ 
 found effect, not only on the campaigns of 1910, 
 1912, and thereafter, but it has left deep impress 
 upon the future political life of the nation, the 
 evidences of which are yet to be revealed. 
 
 It is a very important thing to know when 
 Roosevelt actually became a progressive and why 
 he became one. Victor Murdock once said that 
 the Presidency made Roosevelt a progressive, and, 
 broadly speaking, this must be true. Of course, 
 no one moment, or year, or event, or speech can 
 mark the change in a man's thinking—especially of 
 the thinking of Theodore Roosevelt. Any natural 
 development, either mental or otherwise, must be 
 
A DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF ROOSEVELT 51 
 
 gradual and so it was with Roosevelt. But the 
 answer to the above question involves the delinea- 
 tion of the Democratic view-point, for the political 
 evolution of Roosevelt is what makes the Demo¬ 
 cratic view of him interesting and important in an 
 historical sense. 
 
 My own opinion has long been that Roosevelt 
 was a progressive long before he realized or ad¬ 
 mitted it himself. He had the fundamental sym¬ 
 pathies with men which mark the true progressive, 
 and he had that broad outlook on human history 
 which sees the upward struggle of humanity as 
 the true measure of historic progress. And with 
 a certain and true conception of this struggle 
 of the common man to improve his lot, throw off 
 his burdens and fully express his life, the true 
 progressive applies this knowledge to present day 
 problems of the hour to ascertain their relation to 
 this age-long struggle of mankind and seeks to find 
 in the concrete problems of the hour those meas¬ 
 ures which will correctly aid mankind in his up¬ 
 ward struggle toward better things. This is what 
 marks the real progressive. “ Mankind has moved 
 slowly upward through the ages, sometimes a little 
 faster, sometimes a little slower, but rarely, indeed, 
 by leaps and bounds. At times a great crisis comes 
 in which a great people, perchance, led by a great 
 man, can at white heat strike some mighty blow 
 for the right—make a long stride in advance along 
 the path of justice and orderly liberty,” said Roose¬ 
 velt in a speech. There are many men of great 
 wealth, college training and with a real grasp of 
 
52 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 the philosophical lessons of history who have an 
 intellectual understanding of this historic view¬ 
 point of man’s upward struggle but their money 
 and selfishness and ease and their acquired view¬ 
 point make them refuse to apply the admitted 
 truths of history to the concrete problems of the 
 hour. They are willing to concede, in the abstract, 
 truths which they flatly and vehemently deny when 
 applied to their own time and their own interest. 
 This is why it is of the deepest historic significance 
 that Roosevelt was left a heritage of property by 
 his father which enabled him to be free of either 
 poverty or of inordinate wealth. He did not need 
 to think of money in the terms in which a captain 
 of industry or a scion of mere wealth or a very 
 poor man usually does think of it. He could see 
 money in its right proportion to the other things 
 of life. 
 
 In addressing a meeting in Denver, Colonel 
 Roosevelt once began in these words, “ When I 
 graduated from Harvard, I entered the New York 
 Legislature and began my education.” 
 
 And so he did, and the education was along 
 strictly progressive lines. But whether Roosevelt 
 then, or even some years after that, suspected that 
 he was growing in a progressive direction it is 
 quite certain that no Democrat suspected it. His 
 legislative career began about 1881 and it was 
 1904 and 1905 before Democrats generally began 
 to realize that a progressive leader sat in the Presi¬ 
 dent’s chair. 
 
 No one who went through the campaign of 
 
A DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF EOOSEYELT 53 
 
 1896 will ever forget it, and it sounded political 
 depths that have yet to make their final mark on 
 American political thought and activity. But what 
 we are here trying to convey as a background for 
 a consideration of Roosevelt’s growth was the fact 
 that the first Bryan campaign was far from being 
 merely a free silver campaign. It was a protest 
 against the vicious activities and the autocratic, 
 dangerous tendencies of organized wealth in 
 America. The whole Bryan platform of 1896 
 shows this to be a fact. The very spirit of such a 
 protest breathes in the great Bryan speech that 
 swept the convention that year and in the platform 
 that declared against banking control of the treas¬ 
 ury, railroad control of industry and politics and 
 court control of labour and the abuse of injunc¬ 
 tions and in the plank about the Supreme Court 
 and its income tax decision. 
 
 Against this radical deliverance and its plain and 
 brilliantly speaking candidate the whole Republican 
 organization set itself. It was a campaign of the 
 apotheosis of wealth. Wall Street was magnified 
 and glorified and it was rank treason to attack 
 any court decision, to speak even mildly of injunc¬ 
 tive abuses or to favour a tax on the rich. If ever 
 the inordinately rich had their innings they had 
 them in the 1896 campaign. And Roosevelt threw 
 himself into the fight against “ Bryanism ” with 
 all the fierce bitterness of his pugnacious nature. 
 
 Both parties came out of the campaign with a 
 very definite view-point as to the relation of wealth 
 and business to politics and the relation of courts 
 
54 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEY AN 
 
 to all three and big business had its way from 
 1896 to 1901, enthroned in power in a way it has 
 never known since and will probably never know 
 again. 
 
 Now the whole evolution of Roosevelt, there¬ 
 after, was away from the standards, the ideals 
 and principles of the Republican party in 1896 and 
 in the direction of that group which protested 
 against the sins of organized wealth. I am not 
 now speaking of any double or single standard of 
 money when I say this. The heart of the financial 
 problem lay in the control of the money and credit 
 of the country—a control which Wall Street re¬ 
 luctantly surrendered when the Federal Reserve 
 Act was passed in the first Wilson administration, 
 with the powerful aid of Bryan. 
 
 But the Democratic protest in 1896 went to the 
 whole social, industrial structure of our national 
 fabric of wealth and put squarely to the people of 
 the nation the question of who should control our 
 wealth and our business relations. The result was 
 an overwhelming victory for the powerful financial 
 forces of the nation but with that we are not now 
 concerned. We are discussing the relation of 
 Theodore Roosevelt to that contest and the views 
 of Democrats about him. 
 
 The Democrats all regarded Roosevelt as hope¬ 
 less. They classed him with the most extreme 
 reactionaries. Nothing happened in the campaign 
 of 1900 to change our opinion although the Roose¬ 
 velt fight for a tax on franchises in New York 
 ought to have opened our eyes somewhat. Maybe 
 
A DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF EOOSEYELT 55 
 
 one state was too small or the setting not to our 
 liking. Roosevelt gave no direct symptom of hav¬ 
 ing seen our point of view. He was in the closest 
 communion with the Wall Street crowd, as we 
 called them, in so far as we knew. 
 
 Roosevelt came into the Presidency in 1901 but 
 all through the campaign of 1902 and his tour of 
 the country in the early spring of 1903 we still 
 regarded him as bound to the reactionaries. He 
 stood for the Republican tariff views, and while 
 he began a campaign of publicity for the trusts the 
 Democrats were all backing the Bryan remedy in 
 which publicity was such a minor issue that we 
 regarded publicity as a mere sop, thrown to the 
 public, a red herring drawn across the trail. We 
 never realized that behind publicity lay a Roose¬ 
 velt fight against the very enemies of the people 
 we were then attacking. 
 
 The new President was already sounding the 
 battle cry but as we now look back upon that time 
 we cannot see why we then failed to appreciate 
 the significance of his words. In 1902 in a speech 
 at Provincetown, R. I., on August 23, 1902, and 
 found in “ Addresses and Presidential Messages ” 
 (Putnam), page 13, Roosevelt said: 
 
 " It is not true that the poor have grown poorer; 
 but some of the rich have grown so very much richer 
 that, where multitudes of men are herded together 
 in a limited space, the contrast strikes the onlooker 
 as more violent than formerly.” 
 
 Speaking of the trusts, he said: “ The great cor¬ 
 porations which we have grown to speak of rather 
 
56 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and 
 the State not only has the right to control them, but 
 it is in duty bound to control them whenever the 
 need of such control is shown.” 
 
 The presidential campaign of 1904 brought no 
 decided symptom of change. The campaign of 
 that year was fought on the Roosevelt personality 
 and upon very general lines, upon old lines, we 
 may properly say, and nothing that the President 
 said in his campaign speeches or acceptance ad¬ 
 dress indicated to us a changed Roosevelt. The 
 Bryan fight on Parker at St. Louis in the Demo¬ 
 cratic convention of 1904 made Roosevelt’s elec¬ 
 tion as certain as anything in history could well 
 be, even if the President had not possessed a per¬ 
 sonality which had already captivated the nation. 
 
 In a speech at Harrisburg, Pa., in 1906, dedi¬ 
 cating the new Capitol building, Roosevelt gave 
 the Democrats a surprising and unexpected revela¬ 
 tion. In a single phrase, discussing the relation 
 of the State to business and condemning a class 
 government, he said:—“ We want no mere ‘ Wall 
 Street civilization.’ " 
 
 The use of the phrase “ Wall Street civiliza¬ 
 tion ” was a real event in the current political his¬ 
 tory of that time. It sometimes happens that a 
 word or phrase reveals, mental attitudes of star¬ 
 tling significance. Unquestionably the rank and 
 file of the Democrats felt that the President was 
 seeing things as they had seen them when they 
 read his phrase in the Harrisburg address. 
 
 When did the Democrats finally wake up to 
 
A DEMOCEATIC VIEW OF ROOSEVELT 57 
 
 Roosevelt's progressivism? It was revealed to us 
 in the message to Congress on December 5th, 1905 
 —the famous railroad message—“ The fortunes 
 amassed through corporate organization are now 
 so large, and vest such power in those that wield 
 them as to make it a matter of necessity to give to 
 the sovereign—that is the Government, which rep¬ 
 resents the people as a whole—some effective 
 power of supervision over their corporate use. In 
 order to insure a healthy social and individual life 
 every big corporation should be held responsible 
 by and be accountable to some sovereign strong 
 enough to control its conduct.” 
 
 “ I do not believe in the government interfering 
 with private businesses more than is necessary. 
 But neither do I believe in the government flinch¬ 
 ing from overseeing any work when it becomes 
 evident that abuses are sure to obtain therein, un¬ 
 less there is governmental supervision.” 
 
 This message recommended (1) extending 
 power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to 
 control railroad rates; (2) put all private car lines 
 under the Interstate Commerce Commission; (3) 
 stop rebates; (4) passes; (5) safety appliances; 
 (6) shorter hours of labour; (7) employer’s lia¬ 
 bility law. 
 
 The fight began the day that message was read 
 to Congress. The message opened the eyes of the 
 Democrats of the country. Wherever Democrats 
 met, in cross roads, country stores, in factories, in 
 parlours, in newspaper offices, there was universal 
 comment that the President was right and that 
 
58 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 he was leaning our way. He had seen the light, 
 and was coming to our view. Naturally there was 
 a lot of self-gratification and private exultation in 
 all this which was unseemly for any American to 
 indulge in but for any one who appreciates the bit¬ 
 terness of the attack (amounting far too often to 
 social ostracism) upon Democrats who followed 
 Bryan in 1896 and the anathemas any man brought 
 down on his head when he attacked Wall Street 
 or the railroads, the Democrats may be pardoned 
 for a little self-glorification when Roosevelt swung 
 his artillery around and opened up on the great 
 railroad magnates and the “ malefactors of great 
 wealth ” in that famous message. There is not 
 time to delineate every feature of the contest— 
 this is not written with that purpose. It is enough 
 to say that from that day on, the President began 
 a triumphant march toward the Democratic battle 
 line and as the fight grew hotter the President’s 
 utterances grew stronger and less restrained until, 
 by the spring of 1908, he was talking like a true 
 Bryan radical and behind him stood four-fifths, 
 yes, seven-eighths of the nation in his fight against 
 a truculent and powerful Wall Street coalition. 
 What a delight to Democrats who had stood all 
 the bitterness of attack and abuse to see a great 
 Republican President flaying right and left among 
 his party associates, openly denouncing the wrongs 
 of big business and declaring for a country in 
 which no man, either rich or poor, stood above the 
 law. It was a great day for the Democrats. It 
 was a greater day for America. It may prove to 
 
A DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF ROOSEVELT 59 
 
 have been the very thing and the one thing that 
 will save us from a wave of Bolshevism now. 
 
 As the battle waxed hotter between Roosevelt 
 and the reactionaries within his party (and we 
 may add the reactionaries in the Democratic 
 party) the President’s utterances grew more 
 pointed and stronger. The President asked for 
 the power to be given to the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission to decide in a given case whether a 
 given rate of a railroad is unreasonable and unjust 
 and after investigation to prescribe the maximum 
 reasonable rate the road can charge, the decision 
 to stay in effect until reversed by the courts. This 
 very reasonable request aroused one of the bitterest 
 fights ever known in legislative history of the na¬ 
 tion and it required a year to get the legislation 
 desired. In asking for it and for similar legisla¬ 
 tion, the President said: “ It is because, in my 
 judgment, public ownership is highly undesirable 
 and would probably in this country entail far- 
 reaching disaster, that I wish to see such super¬ 
 vision and regulation of them in the interest of the 
 public as will make it evident that there is no need 
 for public ownership.” 
 
 How far-seeing the President! How blind the 
 owners of the great railroads were! The action 
 of President Roosevelt in 1905 and 1906 had much 
 to do with delaying the movement for government 
 ownership until the present time. 
 
 The President was fighting the identical forces 
 that Bryan had been fighting, only Roosevelt 
 fought from the White House and Bryan from 
 
60 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 the stump. Bryan came to the President’s aid and 
 announced that he would oppose for Congress any 
 representative or senator who did not support the 
 President in his fight with the railroads. 
 
 We next come to the message of 1908: 
 
 “ Too often we see the business community, in a 
 spirit of unhealthy class consciousness, deplore the 
 effort to hold to account under the law the wealthy 
 men who in their management of great corporations 
 whether railroads, street railroads, or these other 
 industrial enterprises, have behaved in a way that 
 revolts the conscience of plain, decent people.” 
 
 “ To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-de¬ 
 fying corporation to take any action, no matter how 
 iniquitous, in the effort to secure an improper profit 
 and to build up privilege, would be ruinous to the 
 republic and would work the abandonment of the 
 effort to secure in the industrial world the spirit of 
 democratic fair dealing.” 
 
 “ The anarchist is the worst enemy of liberty and 
 the reactionary the worst enemy of order.” 
 
 The use of the word “ privilege ” in the above 
 message is significant. The President never failed 
 to state both sides and to give the dangerous ten¬ 
 dencies in both directions but he made it perfectly 
 clear that he was with the movement to curb law¬ 
 less wealth. It was a word which we Democrats 
 thought we had appropriated to ourselves. It was 
 a new word in Republican councils. It must have 
 looked strange to reactionary Republicans to see 
 this word written on the banners and the mottoes 
 of the Republican party but nevertheless it was 
 
A DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF ROOSEVELT 61 
 
 written there by the President, and—we all hope 
 —never to be erased. 
 
 The other significant feature of the President’s 
 message is his appeal to governmental power to 
 right the abuses of great wealth. The reformer 
 is often obliged to seek a law; he must ask for 
 a new law and for the extension of the functions 
 of government. The reactionary has a ready ar¬ 
 gument for this; he says the reformer is seeking 
 to make men good by law and that this thing can¬ 
 not be done. The reactionary is right, within lim¬ 
 its, but the persistent demand of the reformer for 
 law and for widening the functions of the State 
 has behind it something more than an appeal for 
 new or different legislation. It is based upon 
 two fundamental political conceptions: 
 
 First: That government is the only hoop that 
 holds society together firmly, and if society seeks 
 to correct its wrongs it must use government as 
 the instrument. As President Wilson said in his 
 great book, “ The State,” “ Government is the in¬ 
 strument which society uses to facilitate its pur¬ 
 poses.” 
 
 Secondly: The second fundamental conception 
 behind the demand of the reformer is that society 
 is a progressive, growing organism that must adapt 
 itself to changing environment both within and 
 without and that this adaptation is largely a legis¬ 
 lative one—a struggle to express final human rela¬ 
 tions in law. 
 
 How far we should go in extending and broad¬ 
 ening the control of government over property is 
 
62 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 always a debatable question. The reactionary says 
 that government should not interfere with property 
 at all. The Socialist says that government should 
 absorb and control and own all private property. 
 The true Democrat and the true Progressive say 
 that government should control just so much of 
 property as is necessary to preserve liberty and 
 promote the welfare of mankind, leaving to private 
 initiative the widest possible field of activity. 
 
 Thus it was that the President said in his last 
 message to Congress:—“Men of property should 
 recognize that they jeopardize the rights of prop¬ 
 erty when they fail heartily to join in the effort 
 to do away with abuses of wealth.” 
 
 “ The danger to American democracy lies not 
 in the least in the concentration of administrative 
 power in responsible and accountable hands; it lies 
 in having the power insufficiently concentrated.” 
 
 Coming to the courts, he said: 
 
 “ There are, however, some members of the ju¬ 
 dicial body who have lagged behind in their under¬ 
 standing of these great and vital changes in the body 
 politic, whose minds have never been opened to the 
 new application of the old principles made necessary 
 by new conditions. Judges of this stamp do lasting 
 harm by their decisions.” 
 
 “ It is far better from every standpoint that the 
 remedy should come from within. Break down 
 the barriers of privilege which is the foe of right.” 
 
 The mistake which big business made was in 
 ever challenging the President. He had the ad¬ 
 vantage of the champions of wealth for he had 
 
A DEMOCRATIC VIEW OP ROOSEVELT 63 
 
 the superior platform from which to fight; he was 
 a better fighter and he was on the right side. In 
 his long and bitter contest with the powers of 
 privilege the President ranged himself upon the 
 side of the Democratic party as led by William 
 Jennings Bryan. He wrote new mottoes all over 
 the banners of the Republican party, and when in 
 their desperation the sinister reactionary forces 
 that had so long controlled his party took, by fraud 
 and stealth, a nomination from the great Republi¬ 
 can leader, Roosevelt broke with them and estab¬ 
 lished the Progressive party of the nation. 
 
 A careful analysis of the progressive platform 
 of 1912 shows unmistakably two things: first, it 
 was an open break with the trust-controlled boss- 
 ridden Republican party; second, it looked in the 
 direction of the progressive Democratic platforms 
 written by Mr. Bryan in 1896, 1900, and 1908. 
 For the first time, two major parties in America 
 were competing to see which could be most truly 
 progressive. In fundamentals, in spirit, in ap¬ 
 proach to great national issues, the two platforms 
 were so much alike that the Bryan platforms may 
 well be said to form the foundation or source of 
 the Progressive platforms. Without the three 
 Bryan presidential campaigns there would have 
 been no 1912 progressive platform and campaign 
 such as was witnessed. 
 
 Thus do our leaders contend against and yet for 
 each other; thus do the stars in their courses fight 
 for that better day for humanity for which we all 
 strive. 
 
V 
 
 WORLD PEACE 
 
 r 8 ^HE relation of Mr. Bryan to international 
 ^ peace lies as much in the future as it 
 -1L does in the past—perhaps even more so. 
 It may require centuries for an exact and accurate 
 determination of the tremendous influence he is 
 wielding and will yet have upon the question of 
 peace between nations. This question of peace 
 between nations is so closely interwoven with the 
 whole question of imperialism that it is difficult 
 to separate the two. It is also interwoven with 
 the question of industrial peace within the confines 
 of every civilized nation on the globe. 
 
 In this chapter we propose to treat of Mr. 
 Bryan’s activities and influence upon the questions 
 of international and industrial peace. We start 
 with the admitted proposition that Mr. Bryan loves 
 peace; that he loves it more than possibly anything 
 else in this world; that he is essentially a man 
 with the spirit of peace; that he is not a war-loving 
 individual; that if a dispute arises between men 
 or classes or industrial groups or nations, his in¬ 
 stinct turns toward a peaceful settlement and not 
 toward a settlement with force and blood. Such a 
 man finds the source of his impulses toward peace 
 in the doctrines of Christ and the Sermon on the 
 
 64 
 
WORLD PEACE 
 
 65 
 
 Mount. His face is turned away from the life of 
 the jungle, where might prevails, and in the di¬ 
 rection of the sunlight of human brotherhood. 
 
 We could write at great length upon this spirit 
 of Mr. Bryan and its influence upon modern life 
 in the settlement of disputes, in the effect which he 
 has had in building up in America a sentiment op¬ 
 posed to war as a means of settling disputes. 
 There is a wide field here which we cannot touch. 
 There is room only to deal with concrete sugges¬ 
 tions and definite activities. 
 
 The most distinct contribution which Mr. Bryan 
 has made to the movement for international peace 
 is found in his thirty peace treaties negotiated 
 while he was Secretary of State. 1 
 
 In the heart of these treaties is embodied that 
 principle of the treaties which prohibits both of 
 the disputing nations from resorting to arms until 
 their grievance has been investigated by an impar¬ 
 tial international tribunal, a world court. The 
 plan of operation embodied in this principle was 
 first suggested by Mr. Bryan, in an article in The 
 Commoner in February, 1905, presenting the idea 
 that it be applied to the settlement of international 
 disputes. The idea took root at once; it began to 
 spread and grow. It was commented upon in a 
 great many influential journals in America and 
 received the attention of diplomats at home and 
 
 1 For a history of these treaties see volume issued by the 
 Carnegie Peace Foundation in 1920 entitled, “ Treaties for 
 the Advancement of Peace Between the United States and 
 Other Powers ” negotiated by Mr. Bryan when Secretary of 
 State; with an introduction by Dr. James Brown Scott. 
 
66 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BBYAN 
 
 abroad. Governmental authorities in all countries 
 began to examine the proposition, and the more it 
 was examined the more it grew in public favour. 
 In 1906, returning from his tour of the world, 
 Mr. Bryan attended the International Parlia¬ 
 mentary Union in London in July of that year. 
 He had already presented the plan at a banquet 
 in Japan in 1905, and the world was ready for 
 the presentation of the idea in a larger forum. 
 At the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Mr. Bryan laid 
 his ideas before the leaders of that body, after it 
 had been endorsed by Sir Henry Campbell-Banner¬ 
 man, the Prime Minister of England. In an 
 address upon the subject, he presented a resolution 
 favouring this method of settling disputes. The 
 Inter-Parliamentary Union at once went on record 
 in favour of the Bryan idea, and the International 
 Peace Conference held in New York at a later 
 date endorsed the plan; a public meeting in Edin¬ 
 burgh, composed of leaders of several bodies of 
 religious thought from all nations, also adopted the 
 plan. 
 
 Later, President Taft negotiated arbitration 
 treaties with Great Britain and France; before 
 they were completed Mr. Bryan conferred with the 
 President and Secretary of State, Knox, and a 
 portion of his plan was incorporated in the treaties. 
 Still later, President Taft came to Lincoln, Ne¬ 
 braska, and, with that breadth and fairness so 
 characteristic of him, in a public address gener¬ 
 ously gave Mr. Bryan credit for the idea which 
 he had suggested as a part of these treaties. These 
 
WOKLD PEACE 
 
 67 
 
 treaties failed of adoption, but not because of the 
 Bryan principle for settling disputes. 
 
 In 1913 when Mr. Bryan entered President 
 Wilson's cabinet as Secretary of State, he at once 
 prepared to formulate treaties with all the nations 
 of the world. He first secured the approval of 
 President Wilson, and then, after the plan received 
 the endorsement of the Cabinet and the Foreign 
 Affairs Committee of the Senate, laid the proposal 
 for the treaty embodying these principles before 
 the representatives of practically all the nations 
 of the earth. 
 
 Let us note two things about this act of Mr. 
 Bryan at this particular time. First, it was 
 thoroughly characteristic of the Democratic states¬ 
 man to seek to put his principles into practice when 
 he was once in an official position to do so. With 
 Bryan to believe a thing, is to believe in it. If he 
 holds convictions upon some public question, they 
 really represent convictions, not mere passing 
 fancies or notions or whims. They are not to get 
 into office on and then to be laid aside. They are 
 positive principles which he holds with force and 
 earnestness. Believing these principles, he desires 
 public office only that he may put them into effect. 
 He regards a political platform as a pledge to the 
 people which, once adopted, results in a binding 
 contract with the people. There is no uncertainty, 
 no vacillation. He has the courage of his convic¬ 
 tions. This is the reason why certain great special 
 interests have fought Mr. Bryan so fiercely and 
 persistently. They know that he will not change 
 
68 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 his convictions for mere public position; that if he 
 is in power he will seek to carry out his principles 
 and put them into law. They know they are deal¬ 
 ing with a man who cannot be persuaded to trim 
 or to deceive those who have relied upon his prin¬ 
 ciples. 
 
 And yet we have here a type of radical thinking 
 which is broadly conservative, a conservatism that 
 moves forward only with the facts, that receives 
 its impulses from the cries of humanity. In the 
 light of the radicalism of the present day, we must 
 regard Mr. Bryan as the most conservative 
 progressive who is now conspicuous in American 
 public life. Secondly, Mr. Bryan was made the 
 subject of ridicule on the part of many foolish 
 and unthinking persons. Even men in high places 
 were inclined to look upon the Bryan Peace Trea¬ 
 ties as a fool’s errand. The late Secretary Frank¬ 
 lin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior in the Wil¬ 
 son Cabinet, voiced this feeling once, saying: 
 
 “ When the Wilson administration came in Mr. 
 Bryan became Secretary of State, and true to his 
 principles, at once began the negotiation of treaties 
 for the postponement of all wars until a calm judg¬ 
 ment could be had upon their causes. Let us be 
 frank. We of America did not take those efforts of 
 Mr. Bryan with any high degree of seriousness. We 
 thought him a noble-minded visionary; anyway, there 
 was to be no need for such treaties. The bankers 
 would not permit any war between the great nations; 
 and if even they could not command, * Peace, be 
 still,’ to the angry waves of war the international 
 ties that bound all workingmen would work the 
 
WORLD PEACE 
 
 69 
 
 miracle. And so Mr. Bryan went about trying to 
 do good amid the cynical smiles of those who wished 
 him well. He was trying to bring the nations into 
 harmony out of a common interest and sympathy, but 
 it has been found that Fear was the cement that was 
 needed. Yet his plan is incorporated as the first 
 step of the pyramid of the present proposed league. 
 He left office boasting, properly boasting, that thirty 
 nations had signed the proposed pact. But Ger¬ 
 many—purposeful, waiting Germany—was not one 
 of the thirty. The Kaiser saw its drift and stepped 
 aside. So until the war came all efforts failed save 
 these tentative steps.” 
 
 Certain men thought it was a weak and silly at¬ 
 tempt to do the impossible. There was plenty of 
 open criticism and laughter and more laughter in 
 private. But almost before the ink was dry on 
 the treaties, the guns in Europe began to thunder, 
 and then the world began to see that once more 
 Mr. Bryan was profoundly practical and sensible, 
 and perhaps after all he had anticipated the su¬ 
 preme need of modern times. 
 
 Upon Mr. Bryan’s invitation, practically all the 
 nations of the world took up the consideration of 
 his proposed peace treaties. These treaties were 
 negotiated with the following countries: Salvador, 
 Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Neth¬ 
 erlands, Bolivia, Persia, Portugal, Costa Rica, 
 Switzerland, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Den¬ 
 mark, Italy, Norway, Peru, Uruguay, Brazil, Ar¬ 
 gentine Republic, Chile, Paraguay, China, France, 
 Great Britain, Spain, Russia, Ecuador, Greece, and 
 Sweden. These governments exercise authority 
 
70 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 over three-fourths of all the people of the world. 
 Since that time England has followed the Bryan 
 treaty plan with Brazil, and Sweden with Chile, 
 while Switzerland has concluded a similar con¬ 
 vention with Germany. 
 
 Another evidence that the Bryan Treaty Plan is 
 growing is found in a recent bulletin of the Hague 
 Tribunal reporting unanimous agreement upon a 
 plan for the conciliation of international disputes. 
 The report begins: 
 
 “ On behalf of the First Committee, which is 
 unanimous, I have the honour to submit to the As¬ 
 sembly the draft resolution concerning the procedure 
 of conciliation in international disputes. 
 
 “ The First Committee was not able, in the course 
 of its numerous meetings, to give satisfaction to all 
 the hopes and opinions expressed during its discus¬ 
 sions. 
 
 “ Since then several treaties, which are known as 
 the 4 Bryan Treaties/ have been concluded. The first 
 of these was a treaty between Great Britain and 
 Brazil, signed, I may add, by the distinguished M. 
 da Gama to whom I have the honour and pleasure to 
 pay a tribute here. Next came the treaty between 
 Sweden and Chile. In addition, I may remind you 
 that Switzerland and Germany also have just con¬ 
 cluded a convention dealing with conciliation in in¬ 
 ternational disputes,” etc. 
 
 It is significant that two great nations declined 
 to enter into these treaties, though they did accept 
 the principle. These nations were Japan and Ger¬ 
 many. Had the idea become more contagious, had 
 Germany had such treaties with the nations with 
 
WOELD PEACE 
 
 71 
 
 whom she was then plotting to go to war, the his¬ 
 tory of the world would have been different; and 
 ten millions of men would probably be alive now 
 and the world be three hundred billion dollars 
 richer. The fundamental principles of this treaty 
 plan are as follows: 
 
 First, that it should be applied to all disputes of 
 every kind and character. 
 
 Secondly, that the investigation should be made by 
 a permanent board whose aid could be invoked by 
 either side at any time, and invested with authority 
 to investigate upon its own initiative. 
 
 Thirdly, that in order to assure fairness, the board 
 should consist of five members, one chosen by each 
 side from its own citizens, one chosen by each from 
 another nation and one chosen by agreement. 
 
 Fourthly, that each side should possess the right 
 to act independently at the conclusion of the investi¬ 
 gation and the presentation of the report, the recom¬ 
 mendations of the commission enjoying only such 
 force as their intrinsic merits gave them. 
 
 The heart of the treaty can be stated in three 
 sentences: 
 
 All disputes must be investigated: 
 
 No war until investigation is concluded: 
 
 Independence of action after investigation. 
 
 After the negotiation of these treaties, several 
 of the large South American nations adopted simi¬ 
 lar treaties among themselves, but it remained for 
 the conclusion of the war to bring a real vindica¬ 
 tion of Mr. Bryan’s views upon this question. 
 President Wilson went abroad and formulated the 
 
72 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 League of Nations into the World Peace Treaty 
 of Paris, and the controlling principle of this 
 League is that before the nations shall resort to 
 war they must first wait upon the investigation of 
 an impartial tribunal. It was quite a while before 
 the people of the world waked up to the fact that 
 the Bryan principle had been embodied in the 
 Paris Covenant for the League of Nations, In¬ 
 deed, it was not until President Wilson himself, 
 with that keenness of intellect which so dis¬ 
 tinguishes him among the men of his time, pointed 
 out this salutary provision of the Peace Treaty 
 and called it “ the very heart of the covenant,” 
 saying at Indianapolis: 
 
 “ I am recalling these circumstances, my fellow- 
 citizens, because I want to point out to you what 
 apparently has escaped the attention of some of the 
 critics of the League of Nations, that the heart of 
 the League of Nations does not lie in any of the 
 portions which have been discussed in public debate. 
 The great bulk of the provisions of that covenant 
 contained these engagements and promises on the 
 part of the states which undertook to become mem¬ 
 bers of it. 
 
 “ That in no circumstances will they go to war 
 without first having either submitted the question 
 to arbitration—in which case they agree to abide by 
 the result, or having submitted the question to dis¬ 
 cussion by the council of the League of Nations, in 
 which case they will allow six months for the dis¬ 
 cussion, and engage not to go to war until three 
 months after the council has announced its opinion 
 upon the subject under dispute. 
 
 “So that the heart of the covenant of the League 
 
WORLD PEACE 
 
 73 
 
 is that the nations solemnly covenant not to go to 
 war for nine months after a controversy becomes 
 acute. 
 
 “If there had been nine days’ discussion Germany 
 would not have gone to war. If there had been 
 nine days within which to bring to bear the opinion 
 of the world, the judgment of mankind upon the 
 purposes of these governments, they never would 
 have dared to execute these purposes.’’ 
 
 Public attention was then turned to the treaties 
 which Mr. Bryan had previously negotiated, em¬ 
 bodying this same principle. Then the tide began 
 to turn to Mr. Bryan, and those who came to scoff 
 remained to praise. 
 
 The Four-Power Treaty, covering disputes in 
 the Pacific, is built upon the plan of the Bryan 
 Treaties. 
 
 But probably the most interesting commentary 
 upon Mr. Bryan’s efforts for peace is found in the 
 attitude of his great antagonist of so many years, 
 Theodore Roosevelt. It is especially interesting 
 to select the attitude of Mr. Roosevelt as a type of 
 opposition to the Bryan idea, not only because the 
 two men have been conspicuous leaders of two 
 great parties and two great schools of American 
 political thought, but because their personal careers 
 have been so dramatically opposed to each other. 
 
 Commenting upon the Bryan peace treaties in 
 the New York Times, October 4, 1914, Mr. 
 Roosevelt said: 
 
 “ The navy has done a thousand times more for 
 peace than all the arbitration treaties and peace trea- 
 
74 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 ties of the type now existing that the wit of man 
 could invent. 
 
 “ Recently, there have been negotiated in Wash¬ 
 ington thirty or forty little all-inclusive arbitration 
 or so-called ‘ peace ’ treaties which represent as high 
 a degree of fatuity as is often achieved in these 
 matters. There is no likelihood that they will do us 
 any great material harm because it is absolutely cer¬ 
 tain that we would not pay the smallest attention to 
 them in the event of their being invoked in any 
 matter where our interests were seriously involved; 
 but it would do us moral harm to break them, even 
 although this were the least evil of two evil alterna¬ 
 tives. It is a discreditable thing that at the very 
 moment, with before our eyes such proof of the 
 worthlessness of the neutrality treaties affecting 
 Belgium and Luxemburg, our nation should be ne¬ 
 gotiating treaties which convinced every sensible ob¬ 
 server abroad that we are either utterly heedless in 
 making promises which cannot be kept or else will¬ 
 ing to make promises which we have no intention of 
 keeping. What has just happened shows that such 
 treaties are worthless except to the degree that force 
 can and will be used in backing them. There are 
 some well-meaning people misled by mere words, 
 who doubtless think that treaties of this kind do ac¬ 
 complish something.” 
 
 Now, without any comment whatever, let us 
 see what Mr. Roosevelt said over his own signa¬ 
 ture so late as 1918 about an agreement for com¬ 
 pulsory arbitration between England and America. 
 Bearing in mind what the great Republican Presi¬ 
 dent said about the futility of the Bryan Peace 
 Treaties, let us see how events changed his opin¬ 
 ions and brought him around to the Bryan view- 
 
WORLD PEACE 
 
 75 
 
 point. In the Review of Reviews for February, 
 1919, at page 155, there is an article by Mr. 
 George Haven Putnam on Roosevelt, in which he 
 tells of visiting him at the hospital just prior to his 
 last illness, and he quotes Roosevelt verbatim as 
 follows: 
 
 “When I was in the White House, I took the 
 ground that while we ought always to maintain good 
 relations with Great Britain, it was really not pos¬ 
 sible to agree in advance that every issue that arose 
 was to be adjusted by conference or by arbitration. 
 . . . I have changed my mind. ... I hold 
 
 that there are, and that there can be, no possible 
 issues between England and America or any Eng¬ 
 lish speaking peoples of the world, which ought not 
 to be and which cannot be, adjusted, in the most 
 cases by conference, and in any extreme difficulty by 
 arbitration.” 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt then wrote Mr. Putnam a letter 
 in order that the ex-President could put himself on 
 record, and the following quotation is taken from 
 that letter: 
 
 “ I believe that the time has come when we should 
 say that under no circumstances shall there ever be 
 a resort to war between the United States and the 
 British Empire, and that no question can ever arise 
 between them that cannot be settled in judicial fash¬ 
 ion, in some such manner as would be settled ques¬ 
 tions between states of our own union.” 
 
 Was ever vindication more complete than this? 
 
 Does this language need any comment? Who 
 has changed opinion, Mr. Bryan or Mr. Roose- 
 
76 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 velt? Who has come over to the other’s view? 
 We do not quote this in any spirit of criticism or 
 derogation of Theodore Roosevelt. What Ameri¬ 
 can is there who does not admire the lion-hearted 
 American, the citizen and patriot who dared all in 
 battle and who fought unflinchingly for what he 
 believed to be right. But we are talking, now, 
 about the soundness of Mr. Bryan’s views. We 
 are calling attention to the vindication which 
 swiftly passing time is bringing to him, and we be¬ 
 lieve that the change of views by Theodore Roose¬ 
 velt is the most remarkable personal vindication 
 which Mr. Bryan has ever had. 
 
VI 
 
 MONETARY REFORM 
 
 T HE question of how far the Government 
 shall control or supervise the business ac¬ 
 tivities of the nation is a wide and de¬ 
 batable field. It is a wavering line of policy shift¬ 
 ing with events. Arguing its respective merits 
 divides the two schools of political philosophers— 
 the collectivists and individualists—as sharply as 
 any issue can divide them. 
 
 But as applied to the field of banking, currency 
 and finance the argument is closed—the Govern¬ 
 ment-control advocates have won. The whole 
 currency fight has been a fight to extend the power 
 of centralized supervision and control of the Fed¬ 
 eral government over the vast banking interests of 
 the country and that has now been done. Before 
 the last act in the great drama—the passage of 
 the Federal Reserve Act in the Wilson adminis¬ 
 tration, the banker was happy in an uncontrolled 
 “ individualism ” that allowed him to roam freely 
 over the field of American business and finance 
 except for minor supervision, regulation and ex¬ 
 amination. His power of initiative, of uncon¬ 
 trolled freedom to do as he pleased was so exten¬ 
 sive that the most extreme individualist could only 
 
 77 
 
I 
 
 78 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 applaud it. The banker was the best, most un¬ 
 controlled individualist in the American business 
 world. He was therefore the first to object and 
 the hardest to reconcile to government supervision 
 and control of his banking activities. 
 
 We could study the whole currency law fight, 
 and Mr. Bryan’s relation to it, from this angle 
 alone but it deserves and must have wider treat¬ 
 ment. There are three phases of the fight for 
 monetary reform that need to be considered; first, 
 the fight for bimetallism, the branch banks issue 
 and the Federal Reserve Act or the currency law. 
 
 The vindication which Mr. Bryan has had in 
 fighting for a double standard of money is much 
 more marked than the unthinking would guess. 
 The logic of his opponents on the money question 
 runs like this: his first platform declared for free 
 coinage of silver at sixteen to one and this never 
 having been established his stand was wrong and 
 the fight was a failure. 
 
 This reasoning overlooks the fact that the first 
 money platform on which Mr. Bryan ran for the 
 Presidency was much more than a mere free 
 coinage plank; it was a protest against a then 
 existing genuine money trust in the very strongest 
 sense of that word. The essence of the money 
 question lay then and does now lie in the control 
 of the currency issues and credit of the country 
 by a small ring of powerful banks centered in the 
 heart of the nation’s metropolis—the financial cen¬ 
 ter of the world. Upon this issue Mr. Bryan first 
 attacked the money and banking citadel. That 
 
MONETAEY EEFOEM 
 
 79 
 
 he was right, that events and legislation have vin¬ 
 dicated him cannot be doubted. 
 
 In that fascinating story of his life, Henry 
 Morgenthau, New York financier, describes the 
 power of “ Wall Street.” 
 
 “ The decade from 1896 to 1906 was the period 
 of the most gigantic expansion of business in all 
 American history and, indeed, in all the history of 
 the world. In that decade the slowly fertilized eco¬ 
 nomic resources of the United States suddenly 
 yielded a bewildering crop of industries. Vast rail¬ 
 road systems were projected and built into, being 
 with magic speed. The steel industry sprang with 
 mushroom-like rapidity into a business employing 
 half a million men, and yielding the profits of a 
 Golconda. The Standard Oil Company spread its 
 production and sales to the ends of the earth. In 
 every field of manufacture, expanding companies 
 were brought together into great trusts to unify their 
 finances and to stimulate their production. 
 
 “ All these swift growths demanded money: money 
 for new plants—money for expansion—money for 
 working capital. The cry everywhere was for money 
 —more money—and yet more money. Wall Street 
 was besieged with a continual supplication for capital 
 —that priceless fluid to water the bursting fields of 
 pulsing prosperities. It is an old law that he who 
 has what all men seek may make his own terms, and 
 in that decade Wall Street controlled the money of 
 America. No wonder, then, that the financiers of 
 Wall Street leaped to a power greater for a time 
 than the power of presidents and kings. No wonder 
 that heads were turned, that power was abused, that 
 tyranny developed, and that finally the nation, sens¬ 
 ing a life-and-death struggle between capitalism and 
 organized government itself, arose in fear and anger, 
 
80 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 and put shackles on the money power that made it 
 again the servant, and no longer the master, of the 
 people. 
 
 “ Let me trace briefly how this magic power was 
 concentrated. Under the old banking system, before 
 the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, the need for 
 a common banking centre through which to ‘ clear ’ 
 inter-community and inter-state debits and credits, 
 following upon the exchange of goods and the sale 
 of crops, led the ‘ country' banks all over the United 
 States to maintain in some New York bank a con¬ 
 siderable deposit of their funds, so that inter-bank 
 transactions could be settled expeditiously and with¬ 
 out cost by the simple device of drawing a draft 
 against the New York account. The sum total of 
 these country bank deposits in the metropolitan banks 
 placed in the control of the New York bankers a 
 vast reservoir of liquid capital. What should have 
 been done with this money was to use it as the basis 
 for financing the movement of crops in the fall and 
 the exchange of commodities during the rest of the 
 year. What frequently was done with it was to lend 
 it to New York financiers for speculation in the price 
 of crops and commodities, preventing the farmers 
 and country merchants and small industrials from 
 securing money at the times they needed it. An¬ 
 other use to which this reservoir of capital was put, 
 was to lend it to the great industrial groups battling 
 for supremacy in the fields of sugar, steel, textiles, 
 railroads and the like. 
 
 “ Thus arose a natural struggle between the banks 
 and the insurance companies for the control of the 
 finances of the country. If the bankers could control 
 the insurance companies, they would be masters of 
 the situation. If the insurance companies could con¬ 
 trol the banks, then the insurance company presi¬ 
 dents would be the great men. 
 
MONETARY REFORM 
 
 81 
 
 “What actually happened was that the banking 
 power, instead of being all in the hands of one man, 
 was held jointly by a group of a few men who, al¬ 
 though they fought incessantly and bitterly among 
 themselves nevertheless often united for common 
 profit.” 
 
 The attempt to laugh the Bryan silver adherents 
 off the stage in 1896 was given small shrift by no 
 less an authority than Dr. Albert Shaw, the wise 
 and fair editor of The Review of Reviews, who 
 said editorially at that time: 
 
 “ The dispassionate student of the financial and 
 monetary history of the United States since the war 
 must conclude that the great array of citizens now 
 fighting for the coinage of silver are contending for 
 a cause that has been logically evolved, and that owes 
 the strength of its support to circumstances which 
 can be rationally explained.” 
 
 In a later issue of his magazine Dr. Shaw said, 
 editorially, that “ The East ” [and the financial ex¬ 
 perts and bankers] “had never given the Western 
 supporters of silver credit for the strength of their 
 logical and historical argument for silver.” 
 
 When we couple this very fair and entirely cor¬ 
 rect view with two more facts we have the vindi¬ 
 cation complete. These two facts are the unprece¬ 
 dented and unexpected increase in the volume of 
 gold since 1896 (plus the overwhelming proportion 
 of it now held in this country) and the fact that 
 in spite of predictions and logical demonstrations 
 to the contrary the despised “ fifty-cent v silver 
 
82 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 dollar rose to one hundred cents in all the markets 
 of the world between 1896 and the present hour. 
 
 In 1902 Mr. Bryan began his fight on the branch 
 banks, contending that by multiplication of 
 branches the banking business of the country 
 would soon be centered in the hands of a powerful 
 monopoly. His plea went unheard at that time 
 but the whole question of the branch bank had to 
 be met in American banking circles some time or 
 other and finally became acute during the past two 
 years. It reached a climax with the bankers of 
 the country at the time of the convention of the 
 American Bankers Association in New York City 
 in October of 1922. In the greatest convention 
 of that powerful body ever held in its history the 
 whole question of branch banks was threshed out 
 and settled, let us hope permanently, by a strong 
 declaration against the branch-bank policy. 
 
 One of the really effective and conservative 
 journals in American banking and finance is the 
 American Banker of New York and in discussing 
 the branch bank this journal said: 
 
 “ National banks are prohibited from having 
 branches by law, though hitherto some have gotten 
 around the law by absorbing State Banks and turning 
 them and their branches into branch offices of the 
 national bank. 
 
 “ There are twenty-two States which permit trust 
 companies and State-chartered banks to have 
 branches. Because such States as Ohio, Michigan 
 and California permit State institutions to have 
 branches national banks are being crowded off the 
 map. So, in order to meet the competition the pres- 
 
MONETARY REFORM 
 
 83 
 
 ent Comptroller has given a liberal interpretation to 
 the National Banking Act, and has authorized na¬ 
 tional banks to open additional offices in States that 
 permit branch banking. 
 
 “ To stop the multiplication of branch banks ef¬ 
 fectively not only must Congress adopt a drastic act 
 prohibiting them, but the legislatures of twenty-two 
 States must do the same.” 
 
 A protest arose from the whole country. Here 
 are some examples of the feeling then shown: 
 
 While most of the banks that have established 
 branches confine their activities to one city, it 
 would not be long, said the American 'Banker, 
 “ before so-called ‘ offices ’ would spread to other 
 towns and then our independent banking system 
 that has been one of the best supports of the true 
 principles of American democracy would be gone.” 
 With this the New Haven Journal-Courier was in 
 complete agreement: “ Nothing could be more 
 disastrous for the common welfare than to have 
 the thrift of the nation so concentrated in places 
 of deposit that the control of it would remain in 
 the hands of a few.” In Texas the Houston 
 Chronicle declared that if our industries “ were to 
 fall into the hands of centralized finance we could 
 not help becoming an enslaved people, no matter 
 what our Government might appear on paper.” 
 The Chicago Daily News observed that they are 
 managed by men “ at a considerable distance ” who 
 are “ unfamiliar with local circumstances and in¬ 
 evitably lacking in sympathy with local needs.” 
 The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal 
 
84 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 deprecate the possible elimination of the country 
 banker who knows his customers and is a leader 
 in his community. 
 
 At the Bankers' Convention in New York 
 Banker Andrew J. Frame of Waukesha, Wiscon¬ 
 sin, asserted that our 30,000 independent banks 
 “ have done more to upbuild this powerful nation 
 than all the cream-skimming monopolistic banks 
 have done for other nations." Mr. Frame had 
 reference to the “ less than ten great banks ” which 
 now “ dominate the whole banking power of 
 France and Germany/* the five great banks which 
 control “ over eighty-six per cent, of Great Brit¬ 
 ain’s banking power ’’ and Canada where “ some 
 seventeen central banks now skim the cream from 
 over 4,600 branches, leaving only the skimmed milk 
 for the rural and suburban populations.” 
 
 But the final chapter on banking and currency 
 was written with Mr. Wilson in the White House 
 and Mr. Bryan at his side in the Cabinet when 
 the Federal Reserve Act was passed by the Demo¬ 
 cratic Congress, signed by a Democratic President 
 and is now and forever the law of the land. 
 
 In the passage of this great constructive meas¬ 
 ure, Mr. Bryan may very properly claim his share 
 of the credit and no one who assisted in the legisla¬ 
 tion at that time will ever deny it to him. Mr. 
 Bryan’s advocacy of the currency law and espe¬ 
 cially of that portion of the law providing for a 
 government-issued and government-controlled cur¬ 
 rency constitutes an important chapter in his po¬ 
 litical work. While he did not draw the currency 
 
MONETABY BEFOBM 
 
 85 
 
 bill he had given his views to Chairman Glass more 
 than a year before, stressing the importance of 
 government notes loaned to the banks instead of 
 bank notes issued by the government. But for 
 some reason the bill as introduced did not reflect 
 these views but provided for bank notes, as the 
 banks desired. 
 
 But Mr. Bryan had planted himself on unan¬ 
 swerable Democratic ground in advocating govern¬ 
 ment currency. 
 
 The Democratic platform of 1896 contained, as 
 its currency plank, the following: 
 
 “ Congress alone has the power to coin and issue 
 money, and President Jackson declared that this 
 power could not be delegated to corporations or in¬ 
 dividuals. We, therefore, denounce the issuance of 
 notes intended to circulate as money by the National 
 Banks, as in derogation of the Constitution and we 
 demand that all paper which is made legal tender for 
 public and private debts, or which is receivable for 
 duties to the United States shall be issued by the 
 Government of the United States and shall be re¬ 
 deemable in coin.” 
 
 The platform of 1908 said: 
 
 “ We believe that in so far as the needs of com¬ 
 merce require an emergency currency, such currency 
 should be issued, controlled by the Federal govern¬ 
 ment and loaned on adequate security to the Na¬ 
 tional and State banks.” 
 
 And thus armed with the gospel of Democracy 
 as declared in its platforms, Mr. Bryan was to 
 
86 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 bring the President around to his stand. Presi¬ 
 dent Wilson learned of Mr. Bryan’s opposition to 
 some provisions of the bill, sent for him and ex¬ 
 pressed the hope that he would support the meas¬ 
 ure. Mr. Bryan explained to the President that 
 the bank-note provision was in conflict with the 
 position of the Democratic party from Jefferson 
 down and in conflict with the platforms upon 
 which he, Mr. Bryan, had been a candidate. Sec¬ 
 retary Joseph P. Tumulty, in his book, “ Woodrow 
 Wilson as I Knew Him,” thus describes what fol¬ 
 lowed: 
 
 “ In the committee on banking and currency in 
 both the Senate and the House were many friends of 
 Mr. Bryan, who thought that his radical views on 
 the money question could be used as a rallying point 
 for opposition to the President’s plan for currency 
 reform. But those who counted on Mr. Bryan’s 
 antagonism were doomed to disappointment and fail¬ 
 ure, for while it is true that Mr. Bryan found serious 
 objections to certain parts of the bill, when those 
 were eliminated he moved forward with the Presi¬ 
 dent in the most generous fashion and remained with 
 him until the Federal Reserve Act was made part of 
 the law of the land. . . . 
 
 “ There was an interesting incident in connection 
 with the handling of the currency legislation that 
 brought about what threatened to be the first rift 
 in the President’s cabinet. It concerned Mr. Bryan’s 
 attitude of opposition to certain features of the bill 
 as drafted by the Banking and Currency Committee 
 of the House. My connection with this particular 
 affair arose in this way: in the early stages of the 
 discussion of the Federal Reserve Act, and while 
 Mr. Glass’s committee was considering the matter, a 
 
9 
 
 MONETARY REFORM 87 
 
 messenger from the White House informed me that 
 the President wished to confer with me in his study. 
 As I walked into the room, I saw at once from his 
 general attitude and expression that something seri¬ 
 ous was afoot and that he was very much distressed. 
 Turning around in his chair, he said: ‘It begins to 
 look as if W. J. B. (he thus referred to Mr. Bryan) 
 and I have come to the parting of the ways on the 
 Currency Bill. He is opposed to the bank-note fea¬ 
 ture of the bill as drawn. We had a long discussion 
 about the matter after Cabinet meeting to-day. In 
 thoroughly kindly way Mr. Bryan informed me that 
 he was opposed to that feature of the bill. Of course 
 you know, W. J. B. and I have never been in agree¬ 
 ment on the money question. It is only fair, how¬ 
 ever, to say that in our discussion Mr. Bryan con¬ 
 ducted himself in the most generous way, and I was 
 deeply touched by his personal attitude toward me. 
 He even went so far as to say that in order that I 
 might not be embarrassed in the handling of the bill, , 
 he was willing to resign. ... In the meantime, 
 Mr. Bryan has promised to say nothing to any one 
 about the matter until he has a further discussion 
 with me/ 
 
 “ The President then frankly discussed with me 
 the effect of the possible resignation of Mr. Bryan. 
 The President suggested that I drop in on Mr. Bryan 
 very soon and if possible casually invite a discussion 
 of the Federal Reserve Act, telling Mr. Bryan of his 
 (the President’s) interests in it, and how much he 
 appreciated Mr. Bryan’s personal attitude toward 
 him. 
 
 “ I realized the seriousness and delicacy of the 
 situation I was asked to handle, and, being on the 
 friendliest terms with Mr. Bryan, I telephoned him 
 and invited myself to his home—the old Logan Man¬ 
 sion, a beautiful place in the northwest part of Wash¬ 
 ington. I found Mr. Bryan alone when I arrived. 
 
88 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 We went at once to his library and, in a boyish way, 
 he showed me a picture which the President had 
 autographed for him only a few days previous. As 
 we stood before this picture Mr. Bryan gave expres¬ 
 sion to his sincere admiration and affection for the 
 President. He related, with deep feeling, how much 
 Mr. Bryan had enjoyed his contact and official com¬ 
 panionship with him and how he had come to have a 
 very deep affection for him. As we turned away 
 from the picture, he grew serious and began the 
 discussion of the very thing upon which the Presi¬ 
 dent and I had conferred only a few hours before. 
 He freely discussed his differences with the President 
 over the Federal Reserve Act, and asked me the di¬ 
 rect question: ‘ Who from Wall Street has been dis¬ 
 cussing this bill with the President? I am afraid that 
 some of the President’s friends had been emphasizing 
 too much the view of Wall Street in their confer¬ 
 ences with the President on this bill.’ I frankly told 
 Mr. Bryan that this imputation did a great injustice 
 to the fine men with whom the President conferred 
 on the matter of banking reform and that I was cer¬ 
 tain that the President’s only intimate advisers in this 
 matter were Mr. McAdoo, Senator Owen of Okla¬ 
 homa and Mr. Glass of Virginia, and that I personally 
 knew that in their discussions the President never 
 argued the point of view of the Eastern financial in¬ 
 terests. Mr. Bryan was reassured by my statement 
 and proceeded to lay before me his objections to the 
 character of the currency issue provided for in the 
 bill. He then took from the library shelves a volume 
 containing all the Democratic National Platforms and 
 read excerpts from them bearing upon the question 
 of currency reform. He soon convinced me that 
 there was great merit in his contention. Before leav¬ 
 ing him, I told him of my interview with the Presi¬ 
 dent, and how deeply distressed he (the President) 
 .was that Mr. Bryan was not disposed to support him 
 
MONETAEY EEFOEM 
 
 89 
 
 in the matter of the Federal Reserve Act. It was 
 evident that Mr. Bryan felt a keen sympathy for the 
 President, and that he was honestly trying to find a 
 way out of his difficulties that would enable him to 
 give the President his whole-hearted support. He 
 showed real emotion when I disclosed to him the 
 personal feelings of the President toward him, and 
 I feel sure I left him in a more agreeable frame of 
 mind. I told him that I would talk with the Presi¬ 
 dent, Mr. McAdoo, and Mr. Glass and report to him 
 on the following day. 
 
 “ I returned to the President’s study and reported 
 to him in detail the results of my conference with 
 Mr. Bryan. I called his attention to Mr. Bryan’s 
 criticism of the bill and then ventured the opinion 
 that Mr. Bryan, according to the traditional policy 
 of the Democratic party, was right in his attitude and 
 that I felt that he (Mr. Wilson) was wrong. For a 
 moment the President showed a little impatience with 
 this statement and asked me to point out to him 
 where the party in the National Platforms had ever 
 taken the view Mr. Bryan indicated in his discussion 
 with me. I then showed him the book Mr. Bryan 
 had given me containing the Democratic platforms 
 and he read very carefully plank after plank on the 
 currency. He finally closed the book, placed it on 
 his desk, and said: ‘ I am convinced there is a great 
 deal in what Mr. Bryan says/ We then discussed 
 ways of adjusting the matter. I finally suggested 
 that the President allow me to talk with Mr. Glass 
 and place before him Mr. Bryan’s position and that 
 he have Mr. Glass confer with Secretary McAdoo 
 and Senator Owen. This was arranged. I had no 
 way of ascertaining just what took place at this con¬ 
 ference, but after the Cabinet meeting on the follow¬ 
 ing Tuesday Mr. Bryan walked around to where the 
 President was sitting and said to him: ‘ Mr. Presi¬ 
 dent, we have settled our differences and you may 
 
90 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 rely upon me to remain with you to the end of the 
 fight/ The President thanked him cordially, and 
 thus the first break in the Cabinet line was averted/’ 
 
 It should be said that those who know of the 
 attitude of the two Houses of Congress at that 
 time believe the bill would not have passed as it 
 was prepared and ready to be submitted. Mr. 
 Bryan pointed out a vital defect in the bill and by 
 securing a change, made the passage of the bill a 
 certainty. He is therefore entitled to at least a 
 share in the credit for the most important eco¬ 
 nomic measure of the Wilson administration. 
 After twenty years the Chicago platform plank 
 relating to the issue of currency (then so bitterly 
 attacked and abused) was vindicated. And this 
 was a plank of the Chicago platform which Mr. 
 Bryan himself had written. 
 
 It is enough to add that the currency law won 
 only after the hardest fight the money power of 
 the United States ever made against a measure. 
 Its operation has shown it to be one of the greatest 
 pieces of monetary legislation ever placed upon 
 the statute books of any nation in history; it has 
 disproved the dire predictions of the bankers of the 
 country who so bitterly opposed it; it has proven 
 the financial salvation of America in the great 
 World War and since that time. No one would 
 now think of repealing this act; it is on the statute 
 books of the country for all time. 
 
VII 
 
 FOUR GREAT REFORMS 
 
 I T is one of the chief glories of America that 
 we can achieve our reforms and change the 
 policies and institutions of the country when¬ 
 ever we can convince a majority of our fellow- 
 citizens that we are right. 
 
 Nothing is more attractive and fascinating in 
 all human history than this fight for humanity, for 
 great issues of right and justice; for public wel¬ 
 fare. Behind it lies a wealth of Anglo-Saxon his¬ 
 tory, of early sacrifices of our forefathers, here 
 and in England, for free speech and a free press; 
 buttressing it are our constitutional safeguards of 
 free speech and press and assemblage and our well- 
 known constitutional modes of shaping legislation 
 and changing our institutions. We are apt to' lose 
 sight of the vital significance of these fundamental 
 constitutional safeguards if we merely give them 
 stereotyped praise or recite them by rote. Their 
 real significance does not become striking until we 
 see them in some dramatic historic setting; a Pym 
 or a Hampden defying a tyrant Stuart; a Crom¬ 
 well striking for human rights; a Garrison fighting 
 for the slave with weapons of the press; asserting 
 his undying right to speak against human wrong; 
 a Lincoln in Cooper Union, declaring that “ right 
 makes might ” and thus laying down the rule of 
 
 9 1 
 
92 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEY AN 
 
 right for all future generations of men. In crises 
 like these we see the value of constitutional safe¬ 
 guards and we thank our forefathers for erecting 
 and adopting them. 
 
 In other words, it takes “ reforms ” and “ re¬ 
 formers ” to truly show the permanent values un¬ 
 derlying that remarkable fabric of human right 
 and political justice known as the American Con¬ 
 stitution. In the light of American history one 
 wonders how organizations can ever spring into 
 being, under our flag, which advocate sabotage or 
 the torch or bomb. One wonders, too, why free 
 speech is ever curtailed for a single moment in 
 America. It is the greatest safety valve in the 
 world and it is, moreover, a constitutional safety 
 valve. 
 
 This is our approach, then, to a consideration 
 of Mr. Bryan’s relation to four great reforms in 
 American life—the election of Senators, the In¬ 
 come Tax, Prohibition and Suffrage Amendments 
 to our Federal Constitution. Mr. Bryan would be 
 the very last man to claim undue precedence in 
 advocating these reforms. He above all men rec¬ 
 ognizes and pays tribute to the early pioneers who 
 laid the foundations for our later successes along 
 moral lines. But that he contributed powerful sup¬ 
 port and was a dynamic influence in the adoption 
 of these four amendments no American of his 
 generation will deny. 
 
 Popular Election of Senators 
 
 Mr. Bryan began his work for Constitutional 
 
FOUR GREAT REFORMS 
 
 93 
 
 reform with the advocacy of the popular election 
 of Senators. His Congressional platform in 1890, 
 on which he first ran for Congress, contained the 
 following plank: “We favour an amendment to 
 the Federal Constitution which will take the elec¬ 
 tion of United States Senators from the state 
 legislatures and place it in the hands of the people 
 where it belongs. ,, In 1892, during his first term 
 in Congress, he voted for the resolution proposing 
 such an amendment. This was the first resolution 
 ever passed by either House on this subject. 
 Andrew Johnson recommended this change in a 
 message to Congress: 
 
 “ Experience seems to have established the neces¬ 
 sity of an amendment of that clause of the Constitu¬ 
 tion which provides for the election of Senators to 
 Congress by the legislatures of the several states. It 
 would be more consistent with the genius of our form 
 of government if the Senators were chosen directly 
 by the people of the several states. The objections 
 to the election of Senators by the legislatures are so 
 palpable that I deem it unnecessary to do more than 
 submit the proposition for such an amendment with 
 the recommendation that it be offered to the people 
 for their judgment.” (From “ Messages and Papers 
 of the Presidents.” Vol. VI, p. 642 . From Message 
 of President Andrew Johnson, to Congress, July 18 , 
 1868 .) 
 
 About 1882 James B. Weaver, then a member 
 of Congress from Iowa, introduced a resolution 
 proposing an amendment of this kind. Bryce men¬ 
 tions this resolution in his “ American Common¬ 
 wealth.” 
 
94 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 The Senate took no action upon the resolution 
 passed in 1892 but it was introduced again and 
 passed through the next Congress. These two 
 Congresses were Democratic. In 1894 the Re¬ 
 publicans obtained control of Congress and two 
 Congresses went by before the resolution was 
 again passed by the House. It was again ignored 
 by the Senate. After that, two other Republican 
 Houses passed a similar resolution and still the 
 Senate refused to concur. 
 
 In the meantime, Mr. Bryan had secured the in¬ 
 corporation in the Democratic platform of 1900 a 
 plank favouring popular election of Senators. 
 This plank was reiterated in 1904, 1908, and 1912. 
 The Democratic platform of 1900 said, “ We 
 favour an amendment to the Federal legislation 
 providing for the election of United States Sena¬ 
 tors by direct vote of the peopled 
 
 Platform of 1908: “ We favour the election of 
 United States Senators by direct vote of the people 
 and regard this reform as the gateway to other 
 national reforms.” 
 
 In 1904 Senator La Follette introduced a reso¬ 
 lution in the Republican National Convention en¬ 
 dorsing the popular election of Senators, but his 
 plank was defeated by a vote of seven to one. 
 
 In 1910 the Democrats again secured control of 
 Congress and a resolution proposing this amend¬ 
 ment was passed by the House for the sixth time 
 (the first, second, and sixth Congresses were Dem¬ 
 ocratic; the third, fourth and fifth were Republi- 
 ca n)« This time the Senate yielded and the 
 
FOUR GREAT REFORMS 
 
 95 
 
 Amendment was submitted to the states. It was 
 ratified within a short time and it became the very 
 pleasant duty of Mr. Bryan to affix his signature 
 to the last document necessary to make this amend¬ 
 ment a part of the Constitution. This was done 
 in April, 1913, soon after he entered the State 
 Department. 
 
 Here is the record. When a young man of 
 thirty he began the championship of this important 
 step toward more popular government—a step that 
 brought the Senate into harmony with our theory 
 of government. He began advocating the reform 
 two years before it was ever endorsed by any 
 Congress. He voted for it in the House the first 
 time it passed a branch of Congress; he wrote it 
 into four national platforms of his party and then 
 signed the proclamation that published the fact that 
 it had been adopted as part of the Constitution. 
 
 At first the reform attracted little attention—it 
 never did secure the endorsement of a Republican 
 national platform. It was even defeated, as above 
 stated, in a Republican National platform twelve 
 years after it was twice endorsed by Democratic 
 Congresses and after it had been twice endorsed 
 by Republican Congresses. Now it is a part of 
 the Constitution and there to stay. This may be 
 called the first vindication of an important reform 
 with which Mr. Bryan was identified—was, in 
 fact, an influential factor. 
 
 The Income Tax Amendment 
 
 During Mr. Bryan’s second term of Congress he 
 
96 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 was a member of the Ways and Means Committee 
 (as he was also during his first term). The Wil¬ 
 son Bill contained an income tax clause. Mr. 
 Bryan was on the sub-committee (composed of 
 Congressman McMillan of Tennessee, Congress¬ 
 man Montgomery of Kentucky, and Mr. Bryan) 
 which prepared the income tax part of the law. 
 During the discussion in the committee it became 
 known that President Cleveland was not favour¬ 
 able to the income tax, and that the Secretary of 
 the Treasury, John G. Carlisle, did not want it in¬ 
 cluded in the law with the tariff schedules. Fear¬ 
 ing that it might be vetoed if it was passed sepa¬ 
 rately, Mr. Bryan circulated a petition calling a 
 caucus and in the caucus secured the passage of a 
 resolution making the income tax law a part of 
 the revenue bill. This insured its passage. The 
 President allowed the revenue bill to become a law 
 without his signature. 
 
 Mr. Bryan took charge of the debate on the in¬ 
 come tax portion of the bill on the floor and an¬ 
 swered the leading argument from the other side 
 presented by the late Bourke Cockran. It is not 
 necessary to refer to the history of the income tax 
 before the court, resulting in nullification of the 
 law at a second hearing of the case. Justice Jack- 
 son was not present at the first hearing when the 
 vote stood four to four, thus affirming the validity 
 of the law. At a rehearing Justice Jackson voted 
 in favour of sustaining the income tax law but one 
 of the other justices had changed his mind between 
 the two hearings of the case and his vote turned 
 
FOUR GREAT REFORMS 
 
 97 
 
 the decision and the law was declared unconsti¬ 
 tutional. 
 
 Bryan’s platform, the Chicago platform of 1896, 
 contained a plank on the income tax and the plat¬ 
 forms of 1900 and 1908 also declared for an in¬ 
 come tax; the plank in 1908 declared specifically 
 for an amendment to the Constitution authorizing 
 an income tax. In 1904 Mr. Bryan made a fight 
 for such a plank in the Resolutions Committee of 
 the Parker convention but failed. Some of the 
 committee insisted that, though they favoured an 
 income tax, they thought it unwise to declare for 
 it in that campaign when they were making a spe¬ 
 cial bid for the New York vote. 
 
 In the campaign of 1908 Mr. Bryan’s platform 
 declared in favour of an income tax amendment 
 to the Constitution while Candidate Taft con¬ 
 tended that the Amendment was not necessary, ex¬ 
 pressing the opinion that an income tax could be 
 secured by statute whenever it became desirable. 
 Mr. Taft was elected and then recommended the 
 submission of an income tax amendment. It is 
 believed that he thought its submission necessary 
 to defeat a statutory income tax which was agreed 
 upon by the Democrats and progressive Republi¬ 
 cans as an amendment to the Aldrich bill. Here we 
 have a Republican President taking up Mr. Bryan’s 
 plan to defeat the plan proposed by this very same 
 Republican, viz., a statutory income tax. 
 
 The amendment was ratified and during the first 
 term of Mr. Wilson’s administration an income 
 tax law was passed in which the maximum rate was 
 
98 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BKYAN 
 
 fixed at ten per cent.—five times as high as the 
 two per cent, rate in the law of 1894. During the 
 war the surtaxes carried the income tax rate to 
 sixty-five per cent, on the largest incomes. 
 
 Here we have the second Constitutional reform 
 in the securing of which Mr. Bryan took a promi¬ 
 nent part. While the fight for the income tax 
 amendment began several years after the fight be¬ 
 gan for the election of Senators by direct vote, it 
 was ratified two months earlier—in February, 
 1913. If ratification had been delayed for two 
 months, Mr. Bryan would have had the honour 
 of announcing the ratification of this amendment 
 as he did the ratification of the Seventeenth 
 Amendment. 
 
 In what then—may we ask—does the vindica¬ 
 tion of Mr. Bryan consist? In these two things: 
 that, having begun the fight almost single-handed, 
 for these two great reforms he waged a successful 
 fight, secured the adoption of the two great meas¬ 
 ures through amendments to the Federal Constitu¬ 
 tion, convinced his opponents and the nation that 
 he was right and wrote his ideas into the funda¬ 
 mental law of the land; second, in the fact that the 
 two measures, once adopted, are now admittedly 
 valuable reforms, that they have secured the ap¬ 
 proval of a vast majority of the citizens of this 
 country and that their repeal is not seriously dis¬ 
 cussed by any one or by any party. 
 
 Without the income tax this nation could not 
 have made wealth pay its just share of the cost 
 of the war or of government. The income tax, 
 
FOUR GREAT REFORMS 
 
 99 
 
 like popular election of Senators, has come to stay 
 and its wisdom and beneficence will grow upon the 
 matured judgment of the nation through the coming 
 years. Mr. Bryan may well rest his case for 
 vindication upon these two great measures alone. 
 
 Woman’s Suffrage 
 
 Take down from your library shelf a history of 
 the life of Frances E. Willard or Anna Howard 
 Shaw. Read it carefully and thoughtfully, for it 
 bears the moral impress of some of the greatest 
 of our American women. It is more than that; 
 it is a reformer’s epic. It vindicates our American 
 theory of government as nothing else can do for it 
 describes the early beginnings of the great fight 
 to make the nation dry and to give the ballot to 
 women. No one can read these life histories and 
 be discouraged over the early stages of any reform. 
 There is tonic in these pages, not alone in con¬ 
 templating the life of these remarkable women, 
 but also in contemplating the marvellous power of 
 right to triumph over all manner of vicious in¬ 
 fluences, over wrong-thinking majorities; over ele¬ 
 ments that profit from wrong and hate the right. 
 It ought to rob every un-American group in our 
 country of their desire to win by any other method 
 than the sound constitutional method of convinc¬ 
 ing, by reason, a majority of their fellow-country¬ 
 men. 
 
 Be it said to the credit of the American women 
 that they won their fight for the ballot by clean, 
 sane, conservative, American methods. 
 
100 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 No sooner had suffrage been thrust upon the 
 national stage where it clearly occupied a pre¬ 
 eminent place than Mr. Bryan took his stand upon 
 the issue, and it was a characteristic message he 
 gave. “ I shall claim no privileges for myself that 
 I do not ask for my wife,” he announced. 
 
 In 1914 the suffrage amendment was submitted 
 to the voters of Nebraska, and Mr. Bryan’s partici¬ 
 pation in the suffrage fight began when this amend¬ 
 ment was submitted. He canvassed the state in 
 the interest of the amendment and between 1914 
 and 1916 he spoke by invitation in a number of 
 states where the amendment was an issue. In 
 1916 he campaigned in nineteen Western states, 
 several of which had adopted woman suffrage. In 
 all of his speeches Mr. Bryan defended the Demo¬ 
 cratic position on the subject which went a little 
 further than the Republican National platform 
 and also the attitude of the President on that sub¬ 
 ject. While Mr. Bryan did all that he could by 
 speeches and through his paper for the suffrage 
 amendment, his contribution to the adoption of 
 this amendment was not as great, relatively, as to 
 the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth amend¬ 
 ments. But it is characteristic of Mr. Bryan that 
 his support of a proposition is either all or noth¬ 
 ing; it is whole-hearted if given at all. There is 
 nothing negative in his make-up nor in his advocacy 
 of measures. If he favours a proposal the whole 
 country will know where he stands and precisely 
 the same may be said if he opposes a measure. 
 It is interesting to note that in over thirty-three 
 
FOUR GEEAT REFOEMS 
 
 101 
 
 years of national fame and on all national issues 
 raised in that period not one of his fellow-country¬ 
 men has ever been in doubt as to where he stood; 
 no one has ever had to ask what his words meant 
 nor has he ever been accused of “ pussy-footing ” 
 or “ trimming ” upon any issue. This is a certifi¬ 
 cate of straightforwardness, of genuine character 
 that has endeared him to the American electorate, 
 regardless of party. 
 
 The Mother Argument 
 
 The strongest argument ever advanced by Mr. 
 Bryan in behalf of suffrage is his “ mother argu¬ 
 ment,” as made in his Washington speech in 1916, 
 and it is reproduced here because it presents the 
 subject in what he regarded as the strongest light. 
 Said he: 
 
 “ The strongest argument in favour of woman suf¬ 
 frage is the mother argument. I love my children 
 —as much, I think, as a father can; but I am not 
 in the same class with my wife. I do not put any 
 father in the same class with the mother in love 
 for the child. If you would know why the mother’s 
 love for a child is the sweetest, tenderest, most last¬ 
 ing thing in the world, you will find the explanation 
 in the Bible: 4 Where your treasures are there will 
 your heart be also.’ 
 
 “ The child is the treasure of the mother; she in¬ 
 vests her life in the child. When the mother of the 
 Gracchi was asked: ‘Where are your jewels?’ she 
 pointed to her sons. The mother’s life trembles in 
 the balance at the child’s birth, and for years it is 
 the object of our constant care. She expends upon 
 it her nervous force and energy; she endows it with 
 
102 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 the wealth of her love. She dreams of what it is to 
 do and be—and, oh, if all of a mother’s dreams only 
 came true, what a different world this would be! 
 The most pathetic struggle that this earth knows is 
 not the struggle between armed men upon the battle 
 field; it is the struggle of a mother to save her child 
 when wicked men set traps for it and lay snares for 
 it. And as long as the ballot is given to those who 
 conspire to rob the home of the child it is not fair— 
 no one can believe it fair—to tie a mother’s hands 
 while she is trying to protect her home and save her 
 child. If there is such a thing as justice, surely a 
 mother has a just claim to a voice in shaping the 
 environment that may determine whether her child 
 will realize her hopes or bring her gray hairs in 
 sorrow to the grave. 
 
 “ Because God has planted in every human heart 
 a sense of justice, and because the mother argument 
 makes an irresistible appeal to this universal sense, 
 it will finally batter down all opposition and open 
 woman’s pathway to the polls.” 
 
 Mr. Bryan felt that in adopting woman suffrage 
 he would also greatly aid prohibition and help to 
 promote world peace. He regarded the saloon and 
 war as the two greatest enemies of the home. In 
 this position he is seeing his views vindicated with 
 a larger and yet larger number of the American 
 people turning against war as a means of settling 
 international difficulties, and with an almost 
 unanimous voice against the return of the saloon. 
 
 Everywhere a larger percentage of women than 
 men support prohibition and everywhere the senti¬ 
 ment against war has been stronger among women 
 than among men. 
 
FOUR GREAT REFORMS 
 
 103 
 
 Prohibition 
 
 Mr. Bryan occupies a unique place among the 
 advocates of Prohibition. He would doubtless 
 modestly defer to that brave and numerous band 
 of early pioneers on this issue who fought its bat¬ 
 tles for a half century before the present genera¬ 
 tion came into being. To those early pioneers all 
 of the present-day prohibitionists must give place. 
 
 Mr. Bryan has, however, two distinctions re¬ 
 garding Prohibition and the vindication that is 
 coming daily to him in advocating this reform and 
 no one will ever seek to rob him of them; in the 
 first place he was the first Presidential candidate 
 of either of the two great parties who ever took a 
 stand upon National Prohibition prior to the 
 adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment. In the 
 second place he was the first national political 
 character to take a stand for prohibition and throw 
 the weight of his great influence and matchless 
 eloquence in favour of this great reform. These 
 two historic facts give Mr. Bryan a high place 
 among those to whom must be given credit for the 
 adoption of National Prohibition. Compared, 
 then, with any other of the national political lead¬ 
 ers and their stand on prohibition Mr. Bryan may 
 be counted a pioneer in the fight. 
 
 Mr. Bryan has been a total abstainer from youth 
 but his fight against the saloon did not begin ac¬ 
 tively until 1910. When the question was up in 
 Nebraska in 1890 he favoured a high license law 
 that had recently been enacted in Nebraska in 
 
104 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 preference to State Prohibition as then proposed— 
 the adjoining states of Kansas and Iowa had pro¬ 
 hibition at that time but made no pretense of en¬ 
 forcing it. For twenty years after that the ques¬ 
 tion was not an issue in the nation or in Nebraska. 
 
 About 1908 county option began to be suggested 
 as an improvement over town option as it then 
 existed in Nebraska. Mr. Bryan had been from 
 1896 an advocate of the initiative and referendum. 
 The Nebraska platform of 1908 declared for the 
 initiative and referendum and the Democratic leg¬ 
 islature elected that year would have submitted the 
 amendment providing for the initiative and refer¬ 
 endum but for the fact that a few Democratic 
 Senators, controlled by local liquor interests, re¬ 
 pudiated the platform. Mr. Bryan found that an 
 outside liquor organization was attempting to con¬ 
 trol the nomination of Democratic Senators with a 
 view to secretly pledging them against the initiative 
 and referendum. He, therefore, entered the fight, 
 informing the representatives of the breweries that, 
 if they would not permit the adoption of the initia¬ 
 tive and referendum lest it should result in the 
 submission of county option, it would be necessary 
 to pass county option first in order to clear the way 
 for the initiative and referendum. 
 
 He was absent from Nebraska on a trip to South 
 America during the early part of the year and was, 
 therefore, at a disadvantage in the fight but he 
 raised the standard against the domination of 
 politics by the liquor traffic and carried the fight 
 to the state convention where he was defeated, and 
 
FOUR GREAT REFORMS 
 
 105 
 
 temporarily lost the leadership of his party in 
 Nebraska. 
 
 This fight within his own party over county 
 option marked the real beginning of Bryan’s fight 
 to make America dry. It was an interesting and 
 significant contest. The liquor interests with their 
 usual keenness recognized the danger to their in¬ 
 terests in the opposition of Bryan. 
 
 They determined to defeat him in his own state, 
 to destroy his leadership in the Democratic party 
 in Nebraska and to destroy him as a national fig¬ 
 ure in his own party as well. They openly an¬ 
 nounced this as their avowed purpose. 
 
 Mr. Bryan accepted their challenge. He pub¬ 
 lished their threat in a conspicuous manner and 
 announced that “ if the liquor interests can make 
 good their threat to destroy me politically, my 
 death will be a warning to the fathers and mothers 
 of the power of this foe to the home and to Ameri¬ 
 can life.” 
 
 The fight was on. It is ended now but instead 
 of Bryan being politically dead and the liquor in¬ 
 terests standing triumphant over the body of their 
 fallen foe we find the liquor interests banished 
 from American life and Mr. Bryan an active and 
 indispensable figure in the councils of his party in 
 the nation. 
 
 Two years later the liquor interests opposed him 
 as delegate to the national convention but he was 
 elected in spite of this opposition, running about 
 five thousand ahead of his ticket. After his re¬ 
 turn from Baltimore the liquor interests attempted 
 
106 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 to repudiate his action at Baltimore. In this they 
 failed and Mr. Bryan’s course was endorsed by the 
 state convention. From this time on the fight grew 
 more and more bitter. In the campaign of 1914, 
 he visited several states in which the prohibition 
 question was an issue. He refused to be drawn into 
 the discussion of the question because he was help¬ 
 ing to secure a Democratic Congress in order that 
 the program of the Wilson administration might be 
 completed during the second half of his term. He 
 found, however, that it was impossible to get a 
 hearing on other issues where the people were vot¬ 
 ing on prohibition and at the conclusion of the 
 campaign he announced through his paper that he 
 would favour Prohibition wherever it was an issue. 
 In 1915 he spoke for the prohibition amendment 
 in Ohio and after that in other states but did not 
 favour making it a national issue until after the 
 campaign of 1916 on the ground that without be¬ 
 ing able to secure the adoption of the amendment 
 the prohibition issue would divert attention from 
 the economic questions the people were consider¬ 
 ing. In 1916 state prohibition was an issue in 
 Nebraska and he canvassed the state for it. The 
 Wets defeated him for delegate to the Democratic 
 National Convention that year. 
 
 As soon as the campaign of 1916 was over he 
 announced himself ready to aid in the securing of 
 national amendment and proceeded to support this 
 amendment in speeches throughout the United 
 States. When it was submitted he spoke for rati¬ 
 fication in a number of states. It so happened that 
 
FOUR GREAT REFORMS 
 
 107 
 
 Nebraska was the thirty-sixth state to ratify; thus., 
 by a happy accident, his own state completed the 
 requirement of the Constitution and made the 
 Eighteenth Amendment a part of the organic law 
 of the land. 
 
 It was upon the submission by Congress of the 
 Eighteenth Amendment to the states that Mr. 
 Bryan received what is perhaps one of the finest 
 recognitions of his service to the cause of the peo¬ 
 ple that has ever come to him. Recognizing his 
 invaluable services in influencing Congressmen to 
 vote for submitting the amendment to the states, 
 the national leaders of the Anti-Saloon League of 
 America presented him with the following ad¬ 
 dress : 
 
 “ Hon. William Jennings Bryan, 
 
 Miami, Florida. 
 
 “Dear Mr. Bryan: As general superintendent, 
 legislative superintendent and legislative committee 
 of the Anti-Saloon League of America, we wish to 
 express to you our very great appreciation of the 
 service you have rendered in helping to secure the 
 adoption by Congress of the resolution for national 
 prohibition. 
 
 “ As democracy’s greatest prophet of reform you 
 have many times rendered conspicuous service for 
 the right; never more so than in the present case. 
 During all the recent months leading up to the final 
 battle, your voice has sounded the high note of ideal¬ 
 ism in this fight for humanity, has inspired your 
 friends to confidence and enthusiasm, and has sent 
 the shock of alarm throughout the ranks of the liquor 
 forces. This period of continued and distinguished 
 service found fit completion in your great address 
 
108 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 last Wednesday night at the Metropolitan Methodist 
 Episcopal Church and the overflow meeting at the 
 First Presbyterian Church before the annual con¬ 
 vention of the Anti-Saloon League of America; in 
 your return to the national capital for the final strug¬ 
 gle in the House, and in your history-making and 
 memorable reply to Mr. Gompers which, added to 
 your unquestioned influence with the members of 
 the Congress, did so much to put the cause of temper¬ 
 ance and prohibition ‘ over the top/ 
 
 “ But we must not undertake to recount your serv¬ 
 ices. We wish only on behalf of ourselves and our 
 constituency to express to you our heartiest con¬ 
 gratulations and good will and our deepest sense of 
 appreciation for your great service. 
 
 “ Generations yet unborn will rise up to call you 
 blessed. Women and children without number who 
 have had to sit in sackcloth and ashes, robbed of 
 their right and despoiled of their best treasures by 
 the greedy, conscienceless, lecherous traffic in strong 
 drink, will not cease to thank God that He sent you 
 to help proclaim the day of their deliverance. 
 
 “ May your ‘ bow abide in strength/ 
 
 “ Sincerely and respectfully yours, 
 
 “ P. A. Baker, general superintendent; James 
 Cannon, Jr., chairman; A. J. Barton, Edwin C. 
 Dinwiddle, legislative superintendent; Wayne B. 
 Wheeler, secretary; Ernest C. Cherrington. 
 Legislative Committee of Anti-Saloon League of 
 America.” 
 
 Mr. Bryan was one of the company of sup¬ 
 porters of this amendment who gathered in Wash¬ 
 ington on the sixteenth of January, 1920, to cele¬ 
 brate the passing of the United States from the 
 old era to the new. The leaders of the movement 
 unanimously invited him to occupy the place of 
 
FOUR GREAT REFORMS 
 
 109 
 
 honour at this meeting and make the last speech 
 before the nation became saloonless. He began at 
 twenty minutes after eleven and talked until 
 twelve, when the audience rose and greeted this 
 great change with the Doxology. Mr. Bryan re¬ 
 served his text until one minute before twelve and 
 then announced it: “ They are dead that sought the 
 young child’s life—prefacing the announcement 
 with the statement that, since King Alcohol had 
 slain a million times as many children as Herod 
 did, no more appropriate words could be found. 
 Mr. Bryan’s activity in the cause of Prohibition 
 covered a period of about ten years, from 1910 to 
 1920 when the Constitutional Amendment went 
 into effect. 
 
 This is the third of the Constitutional reforms 
 to which he gave powerful aid. When he began 
 his attack upon the liquor traffic he allied himself 
 with a very unpopular group but he lived to see 
 the sentiment grow, expand, and become victorious. 
 His judgment as to the desire of the American 
 people was again vindicated. 
 
 Those who believe in the policy of National 
 Prohibition—and they are now a majority in 
 America—will rejoice that Mr. Bryan threw the 
 weight of his vast influence into this fight against 
 the saloon and in favour of national morality. 
 Those who still favour the saloon and the wet 
 policy bitterly denounce him for the fight he has 
 waged against the liquor interests. But there can 
 be no question of the final result or the final ver¬ 
 dict of public opinion in America upon this matter 
 
110 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BKYAN 
 
 nor of the final effect of the policy of national 
 prohibition upon America and the world. The 
 growing, swelling tide of sound public opinion fa¬ 
 vourable to the policy of prohibition will yet en¬ 
 circle the earth. The vindication that Mr. Bryan 
 and the friends of prohibition are yet to receive 
 for the achievement of this great reform will be 
 difficult indeed to estimate. Neither in the present 
 generation nor in those immediately to follow will 
 we see the full fruition of this great advance in 
 national morality and individual purity. This re¬ 
 form is too fundamental, its effects strike too deep 
 into the vitals of our public and personal life; it 
 cuts out a cancer too deeply rooted for the full 
 measure of this great advance to be apparent now. 
 Only in the long sweep of the ages and in the light 
 of a new day; of higher morality, a keener con¬ 
 science, a higher conception of human welfare 
 upon the part of all men, can the peoples of the 
 world see the full meaning of the banishment of 
 liquor from our civilization. The saloon is 
 doomed. As Mr. Bryan well said in his most re¬ 
 cent utterance upon this matter: 
 
 “ Our government is in the hands of the people, 
 and the people will use the government for the pro¬ 
 tection of their rights and for the advancement of 
 their welfare. Alcohol as a beverage has been in¬ 
 dicted as a criminal, brought up to the bar of judg¬ 
 ment, condemned, and executed. Our nation will be 
 saloonless for evermore and will lead the world in 
 the great crusade which will drive intoxicating liquor 
 from the globe.” 
 
VIII 
 
 THE BRYAN OF TO-MORROW 
 
 F' I ^ HERE is something epic about the career 
 of Mr. Bryan in American politics; 
 
 -JL something that defies analysis or defini¬ 
 tion. It links us with a distant past, an age in 
 politics so remote (as political time goes) that we 
 feel we are almost in touch with Civil War days. 
 
 Bryan was first elected to Congress in early No¬ 
 vember, 1890, nearly thirty-three years ago. He 
 was then thirty years old. At practically the same 
 time, over in Wales, a young Welsh lawyer was 
 being chosen for the first time to sit in the English 
 House of Commons. This was Lloyd-George, 
 three years younger than Bryan, and destined to 
 stay in Parliament until he became Prime Minister 
 in the most critical and fateful hour in English 
 history. Indeed, the two careers and the two per¬ 
 sonalities have much in common, in their espousal 
 of the cause of the common people and their elo¬ 
 quence on the stump and in the tribune. 
 
 When Bryan entered Congress on the first 
 Monday in December, 1891, he began a national 
 political career with a group of men scarcely one 
 of whom is now living and only two of whom are 
 still in Congress. Glance at the roll of Congress¬ 
 men who walked down the aisle of the House and 
 
112 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 took the oath with Bryan. The House member¬ 
 ship has entirely changed and only two remain in 
 the Senate. Among them were Charles F. Crisp, 
 the Speaker, William M. Springer and Robert R. 
 Hitt of Illinois, B. F. Shively, W. D. Bynum of 
 Indiana, and Wm. S. Holman, the “ Watch dog 
 of the Treasury ” from the same state; Jonathan 
 P. Dolliver and David B. Henderson of Iowa, 
 Bourke Cockran of New York, Richard P. Bland 
 of Missouri, Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, 
 and Roger Q. Mills of Texas, all famous in their 
 day. Joseph G. Cannon, who had been in several 
 earlier Congresses, was out that term, it being one 
 of only two times he had ever failed of election. 
 Only Cannon and Henry Cabot Lodge remained. 
 Cockran died during the last session, while Lodge 
 has been in the Senate from Massachusetts for 
 many years, and Cannon has left the House. 
 
 Over in the Senate Chamber on the same day, 
 pointed out in the cloak rooms and from the gal¬ 
 leries, we find the following leaders of an age past 
 and gone: Frye and Hale of Maine, George F. 
 Hoar of Massachusetts, Henry M. Teller of Colo¬ 
 rado, James K. Jones of Arkansas, Cushman K. 
 Davis of Minnesota, Frances E. Warren of 
 Wyoming, the only surviving member at this time; 
 George Q. Vest of Missouri, Platt of New York, 
 Quay of Pennsylvania, John T. Morgan of Ala¬ 
 bama, Orville H. Platt of Connecticut, Wm. B. 
 Allison of Iowa, Shelby M. Cullon of Illinois, Dan¬ 
 iel W. Voorhees of Indiana, John G. Carlisle of 
 Kentucky, Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, Ed- 
 
THE BEY AN OP TO-MORROW 
 
 113 
 
 ward D. White of Louisiana, later Chief Justice 
 of the Supreme Court, Aldrich of Rhode Island, 
 Daniel of Virginia and John Sherman of Ohio. 
 
 Benjamin Harrison was President, and Grover 
 Cleveland, a practicing lawyer in New York City. 
 Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft were 
 both in Washington—Roosevelt as Civil Service 
 Commissioner and Taft as Solicitor-General of the 
 United States. Warren G. Harding was editing a 
 paper in Marion, Ohio, Woodrow Wilson had just 
 begun lecturing on politics and jurisprudence at 
 Princeton University. When Bryan first ran for 
 the Presidency in 1896, at thirty-six years of age 
 (just within the Constitutional limit), these men 
 held their positions mentioned here, save that 
 Cleveland was President and Roosevelt Police 
 Commissioner in New York. Will H. Hays, who 
 became Republican National Chairman and, later, 
 a Cabinet member, was of high-school age in In¬ 
 diana as was James M. Cox out in Ohio. Mark 
 Hanna was a capitalist in Cleveland, Ohio, and 
 the then chairman of the Republican National 
 Committee. Charles E. Hughes was a practicing 
 lawyer in New York City, and Elihu Root led the 
 New York Bar. 
 
 Four years in Congress and a brilliant, fighting 
 speech full of fire and forensic eloquence at the 
 National Democratic convention at Chicago made 
 Bryan the nominee of his party for the Presidency 
 and projected a new personality into national 
 politics, a personal force not to be displaced during 
 the next thirty or forty years. 
 
1U 
 
 WILLI AM JENNINGS BEY AN 
 
 We must not lose sight of the deep significance 
 of the Chicago convention on the future policies 
 and fortunes of the Democratic party of the na¬ 
 tion. It cut far deeper than was then seen. Two 
 things have come out of it; First, the permanent 
 alignment of the party on the side of the common 
 man as against privilege and wealth. The Demo¬ 
 cratic party there became a genuinely radical 
 or progressive party, for the first time since the 
 days of Andrew Jackson. This is the normal 
 position of the Democratic party—it has no part 
 in Wall Street traditions or policies; it is the 
 peculiar champion of the common people of 
 America, the great middle and labouring classes. 
 As Mr. Bryan so wisely said in an address in 
 Boston in 1902: “ There is no room in America 
 for two aristocratic parties; one aristocratic party 
 is enough. The mission of the Democratic party 
 is to serve the common people.” 
 
 In 1912 Governor Wilson—then a Presidential 
 candidate—said at Lincoln, Nebraska, “ The 
 Democratic party is free to serve the people; and 
 Mr. Bryan made it free.” 
 
 This is the true and historic mission of Democ¬ 
 racy. Once or twice it has swung from this posi¬ 
 tion when the Eastern wing of the party dominated 
 it and named the candidate and wrote the platform 
 (and led it to disastrous defeat), but the Eastern 
 adherents of the party are following a name and a 
 tradition rather than a deep-seated principle, unless 
 they follow in the direction Bryan and Wilson are 
 leading. They have little in common with the 
 
THE BEY AN OF TO-MOREOW 
 
 115 
 
 average Democrat and unfortunately they do not 
 seek a common view-point. But under the aggres¬ 
 sive and advanced leadership of Bryan in three 
 campaigns and through the two terms of Woodrow 
 Wilson the party was given a definite set toward 
 doctrines that favour equal privileges and op¬ 
 portunities instead of special privileges, and the 
 party resumed its normal course and pursued its 
 true mission. 
 
 The second result of the Chicago Convention 
 was to give a new leader to the party in the person 
 of Mr. Bryan and his was almost an undisputed 
 leadership from 1896 to 1916. The longevity of 
 Bryan’s public career surprises us quite as much 
 as his' political vitality. There is an element of 
 humour in the various obsequies that have been so 
 frequently held over his political remains. Even 
 some of his close friends have conceded his political 
 death and mournfully attended the final cere¬ 
 monies. Vain illusion! No political leader dies 
 who stands in the front of, instead of behind, the 
 political procession; whose face is to the future and 
 whose ideas are ahead of his time. The only 
 political interments are those of men who have not 
 kept pace with the thinking of the generation in 
 which they lived—men whom the great procession 
 has passed and who do not know it. Such a man 
 buries himself and often preaches his own funeral 
 sermon. This helps to explain the political vitality 
 of Mr. Bryan and when we add to this an engag¬ 
 ing personality, a philosophical cheerfulness over 
 numerous defeats that would have broken other: 
 
116 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BBYAN 
 
 men, sterling character, a supreme gift of elo¬ 
 quence that is unequalled in the present generation 
 and perhaps not surpassed in any age of the world, 
 we have a combination that explains much of the 
 Bryan leadership that persists so amazingly and 
 with such unpleasant consequences to his political 
 enemies. 
 
 The failure of Bryan to attain the Presidency 
 is classed with that of Clay and Blaine, and 
 there is much in common in the types of men in¬ 
 volved and the campaigns each appeared in as 
 candidates. 
 
 But two distinctions are worth noting: First. 
 Clay did his work as a member of the Senate 
 except when he was Secretary of State; he was in 
 office during his entire public career. This may be 
 said, substantially, of Blaine. But Bryan was in 
 office only four years as a Member of Congress 
 and two years and three months as Secretary of 
 State. Bryan’s work has been done almost entirely 
 as a private citizen, aided, of course, by the pres¬ 
 tige gained in three Presidential campaigns. 
 Secondly, it is historical fact that Clay and Blaine 
 both had the support of the moneyed element, Clay 
 always fighting with the rich Northern Protection¬ 
 ist Whigs, the manufacturing element of the 
 country, and Blaine fighting for the same interests, 
 the same protected manufacturers, the hard money 
 element, the big banks and the big business of his 
 day, the Republican party being the historic suc¬ 
 cessor of the Whig party. 
 
 Bryan had no moneyed interests behind him, no 
 
THE BRYAN OF TO-MORROW 
 
 117 
 
 great journalistic interests, and fought single- 
 handed the greatest combination of money and 
 special interests probably that the world has ever 
 seen. His career proves that a young man does 
 not need great newspapers or money influence, in 
 order to rise in the world, and that is a salutary 
 lesson sadly needed in American politics just now. 
 
 Indeed, when we take the great triumvirate of 
 Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, we find that these men 
 did their work as public officials, holding high 
 office, while Mr. Bryan’s work has been done on 
 the stump and by his pen, by the sole power of 
 meeting, talking with, and convincing his fellow- 
 men that his cause was just—the sole method that 
 ought to be employed in a democracy, for democ¬ 
 racy is government by discussion. 
 
 Here is a career without a parallel in American 
 politics. It began with a Presidential nomination 
 just within the constitutional age limit of thirty- 
 six, and has extended now for nearly thirty years, 
 in national party leadership at all times in the direc¬ 
 tion of advanced reforms to aid the common people 
 of the nation. It is a purely progressive career 
 from the beginning to the present time. More¬ 
 over, and most important of all, in the career of no 
 other American statesman has there been so much 
 that he advocated embodied in the fundamental 
 law of the land. No other American political 
 leader has seen so many of his own ideas adopted 
 in his own time as has Mr. Bryan. 
 
 I shall not attempt to discuss the possibilities 
 before Mr. Bryan; to-morrow is a long word. He 
 
118 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 
 
 is now sixty-three and, apparently, in perfect 
 health. On Memorial Day, 1894, when he was 
 thirty-four and a member of Congress, he made a 
 speech at Arlington. Secretary Gresham and 
 President Cleveland were present and rode home 
 together in a carriage. A third party in the car¬ 
 riage, reporting the conversation tjiat took place, 
 quoted Secretary Gresham as saying of Mr. Bryan, 
 “ We can be sure of one thing; while he lives he 
 must be reckoned with as a force in American 
 politics.” 
 
 The prediction has proven true during the 
 twenty-nine years that have elapsed since it was 
 made—is there any reason why it should fail dur¬ 
 ing the years of his life that remain? He has 
 made three memorable campaigns for the Presi¬ 
 dency and has played a prominent part in three 
 national conventions at which he was not a candi¬ 
 date. 
 
 At St. Louis in 1904 he returned to the party the 
 commission that he received in 1896, in a sentence 
 which has been quoted many times: 
 
 “ Eight years ago a Democratic national conven¬ 
 tion placed in my hand the standard of the party and 
 commissioned me as its candidate. Four years later 
 that commission was renewed. I come to-night to 
 this Democratic national convention to return the 
 commission. You may dispute whether I have 
 fought a good fight, you may dispute whether I have 
 finished my course, but you cannot deny that I have 
 kept the faith.” 
 
 At Baltimore in 1912 he made his greatest 
 
THE BRYAN OF TO-MORROW 
 
 119 
 
 parliamentary fight, overthrowing New York’s in¬ 
 fluence and committing the party to the progressive 
 platform carried out under President Wilson. 
 
 Mr. Bryan grasped every dramatic and political 
 element of significance in the situation of this 
 memorable Convention. Before leaving the closing 
 scenes of the turbulent Republican Convention at 
 Chicago, he wired every Democratic candidate 
 for the nomination asking if they favoured Alton 
 B. Parker for temporary chairman of the Demo¬ 
 cratic National Convention, whose choice had just 
 been announced by the Democratic National Com¬ 
 mittee? Bryan protested against the Parker choice 
 on the ground that he was the representative of the 
 Wall Street interests, and offered to join them in 
 a protest. 
 
 It was a situation exactly to the taste of the 
 practical politician; a situation in which expe¬ 
 diency demanded evasion or acquiescence in the 
 Parker choice. The politicians proved themselves 
 unusually short-sighted and they jumped at the 
 Bryan bait. One and all they wired, either as can¬ 
 didates or the representatives of candidates, that 
 they were keeping hands off; that the choice lay 
 with the National Committee, that Parker had sup¬ 
 ported Bryan in 1908, and that they would not 
 interfere. 
 
 Some of the Wilson convention managers ad¬ 
 vised a similar telegram and certainly there were 
 strong arguments for such a course. They are 
 said to have even suggested a rough draft of such 
 a telegram to the New Jersey governor. But the 
 
120 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 sage of Princeton was about to show his superior¬ 
 ity over the mere politicians. Wilson was too far¬ 
 sighted for any such performance. He chose prin¬ 
 ciple at the risk of apparent disaster, and the ulti¬ 
 mate triumph vindicated his judgment. 
 
 To his Convention managers gathered at his 
 home he said, “ The American people expect more 
 of me than that,” and seating himself on the edge 
 of his bed with pad and pencil he wrote the follow¬ 
 ing fateful words, in reply to Bryan: 
 
 June 22, 1912. 
 
 Hon. William J. Bryan: 
 
 You are quite right. The Baltimore conven¬ 
 tion is to be a convention of progressives—of men 
 who are progressive in principle and by conviction. 
 It must, if it is not to be put in a wrong light before 
 the country, express its convictions in its organiza¬ 
 tion and its choice of the men who are to speak for 
 it. You are entirely within your rights in doing 
 everything within your power to bring that result 
 about. 
 
 No one will doubt where my sympathies lie, and 
 you will, I am sure, find my friends in the convention 
 and always in the interest of the people’s cause. I 
 am happy in the confidence that they need no sug¬ 
 gestions from me. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 Woodrow Wilson. 
 
 The vote on the fourteenth ballot had been 
 reached; it showed Clark 554 l / 2y Wilson 356. 
 No other candidate for a Democratic nomination 
 for President in a hundred years had ever come 
 this near the two-thirds necessary to a nomination 
 
THE BRYAN OF TO-MORROW 
 
 121 
 
 without receiving it. The fateful hour had come. 
 The bosses were gleefully chuckling over the hu¬ 
 miliation of Bryan, the overthrow of the inde¬ 
 pendent progressive elements of Democracy, and 
 over in the woods at Oyster Bay walked Theodore 
 Roosevelt, more deeply concerned than any one, 
 while one of his sons is reported to have told the 
 newspaper reporters, “ Pop’s praying for Clark.” 
 
 Again the careers of Bryan and Roosevelt were 
 to cross each other and this time Bryan was to win. 
 
 We quote from the official report of the Con¬ 
 vention: 
 
 “Mr. William Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska 
 (when his name was called). Mr. Chairman. 
 
 The Presiding Officer. For what purpose does 
 the gentleman from Nebraska rise? 
 
 Mr. Bryan of Nebraska. To explain my vote. 
 
 Several Delegates. Regular order! 
 
 The Presiding Officer. Under the rule nothing 
 is in order by the calling of the roll. How does the 
 gentleman vote ? 
 
 Mr. Bryan of Nebraska. As long as Mr. Ryan’s 
 agent—as long as New York’s ninety votes are re¬ 
 corded for Mr. Clark, I withhold my vote from him, 
 and cast it. 
 
 (At this point there was a demonstration.) 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 “ Speaking for myself, and for any of the delega¬ 
 tion who may decide to join me, I shall withhold my 
 vote from Mr. Clark as long as New York’s vote is 
 recorded for him.” (Applause.) “And the position 
 that I take in regard to Mr. Clark I shall take as to 
 any name that is now or may be before the conven¬ 
 tion. I shall not be a party to the nomination of any 
 man, no matter who he may be, or from what section 
 
122 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 of the country he comes, who will not, when elected, 
 be absolutely free to carry out the anti-Morgan-Ryan- 
 Belmont resolution, and make his administration re¬ 
 flect the wishes and the hopes of those who believe in 
 a government of the people, by the people and for the 
 people/’ (Applause.) 
 
 The Clark tide was stayed—the Wilson vote be¬ 
 gan to rise. 
 
 Mr. Bryan triumphed over the bosses and re¬ 
 actionaries of his party and by his action secured 
 the nomination of a progressive leader for Presi¬ 
 dent by the progressive delegates, thus making the 
 party an instrument for social, political and in¬ 
 dustrial justice in the years to come. 
 
 At San Francisco in 1920 he made a fight for 
 five amendments to the platform; 
 
 Dry Plank: We heartily congratulate the Demo¬ 
 cratic party on its splendid leadership in the submis¬ 
 sion and ratification of the Prohibition amendment 
 to the Federal Constitution and we pledge the party 
 to the effective enforcement of the present law, hon¬ 
 estly and in good faith, without any increase in the 
 alcoholic content of permitted beverages and without 
 any weakening of any other of its provisions. 
 
 National Bulletin: We favour a national Bulle¬ 
 tin, not a newspaper, but a Bulletin, issued by the 
 Federal Government, unde* the fair and equitable 
 control of the two leading parties, such Bulletin to 
 furnish information as to the political issues of the 
 campaign, editorial space and space for presentation 
 of claims of candidates proportionately divided be¬ 
 tween the parties. 
 
 Profiteering: The Democratic party pledges the 
 
THE BRYAN OF TO-MORROW 
 
 123 
 
 nation to rid it of the profiteer and to close the door 
 against his return. It will endeavour to eliminate 
 all unnecessary middlemen by the encouragement of 
 organizations among producers that will bring those 
 who sell and those who use nearer together. It will 
 enact and enforce laws that will effectively prevent 
 excessive charges by such middlemen as are neces¬ 
 sary. To this end it will demand legislation subject¬ 
 ing to the penalties of the criminal law all corporate 
 officers and employees who give or carry out in¬ 
 structions that result in extortion; it will make it un¬ 
 lawful for any one engaged in Interstate Commerce 
 to make the sale of one article dependent upon the 
 purchase of another article and it will require such 
 corporation to disclose to customers the difference 
 between cost price and selling price or limit the 
 profit that can be legally charged as the rate of in¬ 
 terest is now limited. It will also endeavour to create 
 in the several states trade commissions with powers 
 as ample as those of the federal trade commission 
 and to enact laws authorizing each local community 
 to create, as needed, similar commissions for the in¬ 
 vestigation of local charges of profiteering. 
 
 Compulsory Service: We are opposed to univer¬ 
 sal compulsory military training in time of peace. 
 
 Treaty Plank: The Democratic party demands 
 an amendment to the Federal Constitution providing 
 for the ratification of a treaty by a majority vote, 
 so that it will be as easy to end a war as it is to de¬ 
 clare war. Planting ourselves upon the most funda¬ 
 mental principle of popular government, namely, the 
 right of the people to rule—a doctrine in support of 
 which we have recently spent over twenty-five billions 
 of dollars and for which we have sacrificed 100,000 
 precious lives—we favour an immediate reconvening 
 of the Senate that this principle may be applied to 
 the treaty controversy and ratification secured with 
 such reservations as a majority of the Senators may 
 
124 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 agree upon, reserving for the future the making of 
 such changes as we may deem necessary. 
 
 We favour the appointment by the President with 
 the consent of the Senate of delegates to represent 
 this nation in the league until regularly chosen dele¬ 
 gates are elected and qualified. 
 
 We favour the selection of the nation’s delegates 
 in the League of Nations by popular vote in districts 
 in order that the people may speak through repre¬ 
 sentatives of their own choice in the august tribunal 
 which will consider the welfare of the world. 
 
 These delegates should be instructed not to vote 
 for war without specific instructions from Congress 
 or from the people, given by referendum vote. 
 
 Our nation’s delegates should also be instructed to 
 insist upon the disarmament of the world in order 
 that the burden of militarism may be lifted from the 
 shoulders of those who toil and the foundations of 
 an enduring peace laid in friendship and cooperation. 
 
 Who doubts that the party would have fared 
 better if it had incorporated these planks? 
 
 There are many and great problems before the 
 nation; Mr. Bryan is identified with every one of 
 them. James Bryce says: “ In the United States 
 there are comparatively few persons who devote 
 themselves to constant thinking about public affairs 
 and who endeavour to form the opinion of the na¬ 
 tion.” Mr. Bryan is one of the few who answers 
 this description; for a quarter of a century he has 
 studied and discussed public questions and aided 
 in the formation of public opinion. 
 
 If there is any attempt to overthrow prohibition, 
 Mr. Bryan may be relied upon to defend this 
 highest expression of the nation’s conscience. In 
 
THE BRYAN OF TO-MORROW 
 
 125 
 
 all the efforts that our nation may make for the 
 promotion of world peace Mr. Bryan can be 
 counted upon for assistance. 
 
 In response to a speech in which a friend ex¬ 
 pressed regret that he had not been rewarded with 
 the Presidency, Mr. Bryan said, “ My place in his¬ 
 tory will depend, not upon what the people do for 
 me but upon what I do for the people.” There is 
 a world of meaning in this sentence. It expresses 
 the fundamental idea of service to humanity em¬ 
 bodied in the language of the Master when He gave 
 the world a new standard of greatness: “Who¬ 
 soever will be chief among you, let him be your 
 servant.” 
 
 Mr. Bryan’s work has been even broader than 
 the political field. He has lived in the arena of 
 politics, national and international, but reserved 
 time for church duties and religious addresses. 
 His weekly Bible Talks are published in news¬ 
 papers having a circulation of about four million. 
 These and his religious books and lectures are 
 causing him to be increasingly known as a De¬ 
 fender of the Faith. Above and beyond all other 
 things, he is a believer in God, the Bible, and 
 Christ. 
 
 Mr. Bryan’s influence will not end with his life. 
 Unless we are greatly mistaken, it will increase as 
 time brings greater vindication to the principles 
 which he has advocated. We all recognize how 
 difficult it is for a public leader to be appreciated 
 justly and thoroughly in his own time and espe¬ 
 cially when he is in advance of the time. The 
 
126 
 
 VILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 record preserved in these pages of the actual vindi¬ 
 cations his views have received during his own 
 lifetime, the actual words of his one-time oppo¬ 
 nents, the steady and relentless march of events 
 which have proven him right and left his scoffing 
 opponents in ridiculous despair—all of this we 
 have set down for the present generation to read. 
 
 But no man who is in advance of his time can 
 expect a full vindication in his own generation and 
 no wise advocate of reforms does expect it. It 
 is probably quite within the truth that Mr. Bryan’s 
 ideas have become popular and received a vindica¬ 
 tion faster than he himself anticipated. But even 
 vindication in itself does not measure the height 
 and depth of this personality and this life. For 
 the life is something greater than the career, the 
 ideas, the principles that may have been advocated. 
 Only in the ripened years, in the full fruition of 
 time, can we measure this career. It cannot be 
 adequately done now. We can only take a partial 
 measurement and indicate the scope and direction 
 of the influence of this life and spirit upon the 
 nation and the race. It may be long after Mr. 
 Bryan’s death ere there come upon the world the 
 peace he longed and worked for; a nation calm in 
 its peace with all other nations; Christ’s love in the 
 hearts of men, of nations, of capital and labour; a 
 real, genuine brotherhood of man. Only in gener¬ 
 ations yet to come, maybe, will his peace treaties 
 hold the nations in chains of law and order and 
 brotherhood, bringing them to peace courts and 
 world parliaments; when war with all its blood- 
 
THE BRYAN OF TO-MORROW 
 
 127 
 
 red horror will be remembered as a hideous dream 
 and nation will be linked to nation in the bonds of 
 love; when America will confirm with unanimous 
 voice her adherence to national prohibition and 
 political purity. 
 
 Only then will the ideas and ideals and impulses 
 of this life which we have studied here receive due 
 appreciation from the hearts of men. Thus it is 
 that Mr. Bryan’s friends may regard without im¬ 
 patience all the passing storms of criticism and 
 foolish words and misunderstanding often so will¬ 
 ingly created against him. Ridicule and invective 
 are but the passing breath of the moment’s storm; 
 only the truth, only the good survives and abides. 
 Webster reminded his hearers in the Senate in his 
 great reply to Hayne that “ the past, at least, is 
 secure.” With Mr. Bryan’s career we may add 
 that the future also is secure. No matter how 
 deeply his life has touched and influenced his own 
 generation, it is destined to influence generations 
 who will never know him in the flesh. 
 
 And this is immortality indeed. 
 
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