The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-07-04
A STUDY OF w. j. BRYAN
PERSONALITY OF THE MAN WHO
WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT.
What He VIII Do IL Elected to the
Office, or If Not-The Nebrasknn
a Voice and Nothing lore.
william Allen White. in July Mcclure.

Bryan shows his greatest personal
strength In the fact that he is to-day. as
he has ever been. utterly without a political
machine. Other men in American politics
stand or fall for reasons outside of their
personality. Mr.. David Hill. for instance.
is a geographical location. Mr.. Mckinley
is a kind Of syndicate. Roosevelt stands
for an ideal of civic righteousness. Mr..
Croker is an impudent appetite. Quay is a
system of wireless telegraphy. But Bryan
is Bryan, and Bryan is his prophet. More
power for good or evil rests under Bryan's
black SLOUGH hat than under any other sim
gle head-piece in America. Bryan is ma
chineless. not because he abhors the ma
chine. but because he ignores it He would
not know what to do with captains and
lieutenants. If his party should begin to
turn from him. Bryan could not call, What
no.. warder. let the portcullis fall" in a
score of States and check the stampede. II
oratory would not stop the panic, the null
titude would have to leave him as 1t came
to him. After which he would go on lee
turing till that gave out. and running for
the Senate till hat CAV out, and for Con-
gress till that gave out. when he would
return to his law Office, and continue as he
was in the beginning, an honest. hard
working, ordinary country lawyer, with an
extraordinary voice and a forceful, direct.
plausible way of putting short Anglo-Saxon
words that often moves jurieS, but Is not SO
thrilling in briefs.
A COMPARISON.
But if, in the other hand, Bryan's presi-
Dental ambition should be gratified. the
country would have a startling spectacle.
1t would be like that of a Southern gentle
man in swallow-tails and a choker, but one
generation removed from his periwig. sud-
denly shunted half a century ahead and
damned into the oak-bottomed chair of a
railroad president. The gentleman of the
old school would try honestly TO do his
duty. But he would have such dlfhcult
things to learn, and such an ~incapacity Ior
learning them, that he would cut many a
fantastic caper and in the end make a mess
of it as bad as a ~thorough-going rascai
would. Mr.. Bryan, trying TO run the presi-
Dental office as Jackson ran il. might
make many important and expensive per-
sonal discoveries. He might discover that
the world has moved since Jackson's day:
that the present phase of industrial evolu-
ton is not a conspiracy against God n
man; and that an intelligent conscience Is
a surer guide than an ear trained TO catch
the voice of the people.
The danger of men of Bryan's mold to
the country is not what they hold true. so
much as il is how they hold it: not so
much the limit of their intelligence as their
attitude toward truth. For Bryan's men,
tai is that of a debater. When
he faces al alleged fact, his habit is not
to search it for truth, but TO answer il. He
is not seeking the truth; he has IL, and Is
seeking to make converts. While his mar
velous mental acuteness as a debater is Il
shield that will always ward certain
truths from his heart, yet he has one SIM
pie oratoriacl trick, and only one; he begs
the question.
EvASIvE METHOD.
For instance, a reporter recently asked
Bryan if the practice of electing senator's
in Montana by the corrupt use of money
is not deplorable. His reply was: Don't
you think the spectacle of Senator Hanna
voting to unseat Clark for buying an
election was incongruous?" Now the alleged
incongruity of Senator Hanna's position in
the Clark investigation has nothing to do
with the case against the corrupt use of
money in elections. But that answer be-
fore a crowd would turn the debate into
another channel. In his Chicago speech
Bryan said: IF they tell us that the gold
standard is a good thing, we shall point to
their platform and tell them that their
platform pledges the party to get rid of the
gold standar and substitute bimetallism.
If the gold standard is a good thing. why
try to get rid of it?" With the crowd that
passes for argument against the gold
standard. but the fact is. the merits or
dement's of the gold standard are not
touched uDon at all. In no place in that
speech was there a single logical argument
offered against the gold standard. Yet the
speech was a perfect piece of rhetoric of
its kind, and it convinced thousands of
the iniquity of the gold standard. Convic-
ton came through bald, unsupported asser-
ton, repeated a score of times in different
figures of speech and uttered with
a manifest sincerity of belief that was the
This method of political discussion is not
original with Bryan. 1t is common to all
debaters. to all politicians and to many
statesmen. Blu they cannot maintain the
u~nfiinching sincerity that Bryan wears, for
If they are men of much intelligence. they
see their own shame, and having seen ii.
cannot entirely conceal it. But Bryan,
like the lady in the poem. never can know
and never can understand"
MERELY AN ORATOR.
And yet it is not the kind of argument
Bryan uses which gives him strength, it is
not the principles he advocates that draw
men to him. At the bottom of the magnet
ism which pulls men toward Bryan is the
growth in the popular mind Of a faith in So
cialism. and a hope to see the State lay hold
of the industrial system and untangle its
many snarls. During this century Of me-
chanical progress the economic world has
literally jumped a cog in the process of its
evolution. Many people believe that society
is not properly adjusted. that the machin-
cry of industry is not a gear, and too many
people are being ground by Ii. There is a
widespread belief that repairs are needed,
and because Bryan gets out with his ora
torical hammer and knocks upon the in
dustrial system and the existing order
u~nthinking people have hailed him as the
master mechanic But Bryan is not a
builder. Oratory is rarely constructive. I,
is an illusion, a legerdemain, and the world
is learning to disassociate oratory from
craftsmanship. There is really no more
reason for electing an orator TO Office thar
for electing a fiddler. Both ta:en,s rouse
the emotions. Bryan is a voice.
When the master mechanic shall arrive
and staighten out the kinks in the great
machine of production and distribution. he
may be-probably will be-a prosaic, bald.
headed old man, whose mind has beer
raine in the shops. factories. counting.
houses, and offices OF the world. This mar
will take a legislative jack-screw. and work
an important miracle. When he shall have
come and gone-this true master mechanic
men will smile at the remembrance oi
the passing day when ar earnest, honest
gallant, loquacious young man charmed
them with the melody of his hypnotic voice
And yet in every cause there must be z
voice crying in the wilderness.