Semi=weekly graphic., 1896-08-22
BRYAN'S HEIPMEET.
SOMETHING. OF THE DEMOCRATIC
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES WIFE.

She Is His Assistant Companion and Friend.
How She Helped Him With His Speech
In the Studied Law to Keep Him
Company-A Loving Mother.
The wife of William Jennings Bryan
is an absolutely new species Of woman
among those who have stood chance
Of ruling IN the executive mansion.
Briefly, she is pale faced, intellect
ual slip of woman. She has an inn
znense amount of determination and 81
lent aggressiveness, is rather studious
and very reserved. She does not care for
fashion or society and pays no attention
whatever to either.
Attention was first drawn to AIRS.
Bryan at the time Bryan made his IA
NOUS tariff speech i'll the house. Inside
of few hours, i'll the midst of the adu-
lation he was receiving, Bryan gener-
ously declared that his wife deserved a
share in the praise.
This is the kind of woman Mrs. Bryan
is: For weeks the organs had been pre-
pairing that speech The Bryans is said
because the husband aud wife worked
over the speech day and night together
Every preparation for it was made with
determined GOODNESS.
Mrs. Bryan afterward told me how
they had worked over it, how sentence
after sentence had been polished and re-
polished and cut until each was a gem Of
70 bind fThazr bod oil axz AicnCxra4to1
Arlington, the famous cemetery of the
soldiers. There they went twice, and
among the graves of the great worked
over paragraphs that proved especially
effective when delivered. Mrs. Bryan
knew almost every word by heart.
A week before the big speech was
made Bryan had delivered eulogy ON .
dead colleague. Mrs. Bryan, then I'M
known even to her husband 8 colleagues,
sat in the gallery and carefully noted
the volume of tone required by Bryan
to fill the hall. Anything more deliber-
ate could hardly be conceived. By means
of signals the husband on the floor and
wife in the gallery communicated, and
he increased or lowered his voice at her
suggestion until she had satisfied her
self that he had struck the most effec-
tive tone
When the critical moment arrived,
Mrs Bryan was III the gallery. She has
told me how anxious she was, yet sure
that her husband would wake up the
house as it hadn't been stirred for
months, At first Bryan held q low
voice. Mrs. Bryan nodded for fuller
tones. Her eyes never left his face ex-
eept TO study the effect some sentence
might have ON the house. From time to
time Bryan glanced for encouragement
at the pale face of the woman in the
gallery, and when it all was over there
was one quick glance of intelligence.
Both knew that their work had been
we'll done, and the woman sank back in
her seat almost overcome by the inten-
sity of her satisfaction and RELIEF.
1t was few days later that Mr.. Bry-
an took me into the house gallery to
meet his wife, who came over nearly
every afternoon to meet him and walk
home with him at the close of the ses-
sion.
Mrs. Bryan told me how she and her
husband had known each other as young
people back in Illinois, where they be-
long, when her name was Mary Baird.
When they were married and went to
Nebraska to live and Bryan studied law,
she took up the same study with him.
Then Bryan found himself getting
into politics, but Mrs. Byan kept on
with her law studies, took her exami-
nations and was admitted to practice.
All this was done that she might work
with and help her husband.
In this connection Mrs. Bryan said:
ut amused me after | was graduated to
see the women III our town. OF course
1t was then little unusual for a wom-
an to be admitted to practice NY
friends called in numbers on me, and it
was queer to see how they Unanswered
to approach the subject. About half Of
them finally got it, but one and ALI
seemed to think that was bigger cu-
riosity than mummy
Mrs Bryan can be sarcastic when
sufficiently reused, and at any time will
say droll, witty things with only a
CLEAN of a smile IN her dark eyes.
She is the mother of three children,
and is very domestic in her inclinations.
When it was discovered that she was a
lawyer, congressman who meant to be
very agreeable inquired of her with
what line of law she was most familiar.
Mrs. Bryan's quick answer was:
Domestic relations, sir. 2
II the Bryans should come into the
White House many people would recall
and contrast the night Of their first ap-