The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-17
BRYAN AS A NEIGHBOR.
 HIS HOME IN LINCOLN.
We'll Liked by the Plain People of the Ne
 braska City.

Lincoln is MT, Bryan's town in ev- erything but politics. In that regard 1t belongs to the pure or Nebraska State Journal faction of the republican party on those occasions when 1t is not owned by the Burlington railroad and the ambassador to Mexico. Here, however, is not case of political prophet without honor in his own country, for MT. Bryan is the biggest politician in view from the silvery dome of the state capitol, as every body cheerfuly admits. And everybody thinks it a shame that the community in which MT. Bryan established his home twenty years ago was four-ffths republican. A republicans politics, as is well known, are about as hard to change as a $10 bill in West Hoboken after midnight.
 Socially andgintellectually Lincoln is Bryan's town indeed. Probably no public man in America is more loved and respected by his neighbors Lin coin people are skeptlcal, Those per- sons who pose, who put on the dog and indulge in pomp and pretense, are town Jokes. There are few such, even in a town so enlightened. But Mir Bryan does not pose. He walks the streets as any other citizen, and when he stands at corner waiting for a car there Is nothing about him that compels attention. He doesn't blow a horn or ring a bell, or strut, or swell his chest. He wears ordinary clothes and a slouch hat, and if he ever carries a cane 1t is when he is away on his trips.
 Many men, when they attain politi- cal eminence, divorce themselves from the human race. They ride In closed carriages and dine at inaccessible clubs. They can't be touched with 8 10-foot pole. Like the late Prof. Enoch, they become translated and are seen no more. But MT. Bryan is plainly visible to the naked eye. He has not yet applied for a separation from humanity, and that is one of the first reasons for his popularity with Lincoln people. They would pick a flaw if they could, but there is none to find. In spite of whirlwind successes that have made him a world figure, MT, Bryan is still one of the folk; he is still Will liam J., plain, busy, good-natured citizen, in whom there is no shadow of vanity; just as he was before 1896, If he has any enemies in town they do their knocking with feathers.
 There are great men in Lincoln as elsewhere, whose greatness is burden some to their contemporaries. There are others whose mightiness, like that of Shere Khan, is dangerous to the humber animals. Mir Bryan's great ness, as it appears to the average Lin colnite, is neither elephantine nor tig- erish and is pleasant to look upon. He may be described among the great men of the age as a calm and heaven Vesuviuses and Popocatapetls and La pointing Pike's Peak amid a throng of What at's-it's-name down in Martinique. MT. Bryan never raises the price of oil on anybody nor does he cause his fel- low being to shrivel up with sense of their insignificance. He is a comfort- able neighbor.
 The towns demands upon Mir. Bryan are many, but he struggles along bravely beneath his civic burdens. Lincoln has more conventions, na- tional and otherwise, than any city of twice it's size in the country. The people go in strong for lodges. There are 5000 or more college students here. There are scores of societies for the intellectual advancement of their members. Naturally a man of such eloquence and popularity is likely to be called out, after the manner of the fire department, at almost any hour of day or night, and he responds nobly.
 At a recent memorial service of the Elks he made an address on brother hood that would have sounded well as a sermon from the greatest pulpit on earth If he is a more talking ma- chine, as some cartoonists would make folks believe, let it be said that he gives freely of that which he hath. MT. Bryan is one of the moving spirits of the Round Table, a club of leading men of the town who meet to settle the gravest questions they can think up. He is active in church work. He teaches the Bible class in the little Sunday school at Normal near his