The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1907-05-15
BRYAN's IMMoRTALs.
"orshiPs the Show and Glitter of A
rev Few Years of Personal Conspicuitv

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WorshiPs the Show and Glitter Of A
Detroit News. "SpAc"ty
An inquiry as to who are the great
est americans. recently set on foot by
we scrap BOOK, brought out many re-
pnes from prominent people. AS was
TO be expected, few of them had any
value and the interest they posses was
more in the light they throw ON the
character of the men who made the
replies than in the substance of the rc-
plies themselves
such was the case with william Jen-
nlngs Bryan, whose answer Is so char
acteristic, so evidently sincere and so
Illuminating as to the outlook and in
sight of the Democratic leader than 1t
Is wort HON re than passing mention
First. Mr.. Bryan names the 9five i'm
mortals. They are Washington,
whom he includes both as a military
man and statesman; jefferson, au-
thor of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence and defender of the principles
of liberty; Patrick Henry, the orator
of the Revolution. Jackson, the defen-
der of the people against the banks.
and Lincoln. whose rare virtues, abili-
ty and public service made him the
central figure of the Civil War. The
characterizations following each name
are substantially those given by Mr..
Bryan. Following the list of his five
immortals he says: IF more are need
ed you may add Webster, Clay and Cal
houn. the great triumvirate whose de-
bates illumines the times in which
they lived"
Here are eight names, one-half OF
which Mr.. Bryan frankly includes be-
cause they were orators. Science, lit
erature and invention have little place
in his cosmos, and the show and gilt
ter of few years of personal con-
spicuity seems to count more than a
lifetime of quiet achievement accom-
plished without noise and without the
reclamation of the mob. Hence the
name of John Marshall, greatest of
Judges, fails to attract his attention.
and Benjamin Franklin, first in science
and diplomacy, and not second to the
most OF those he names either in state
craft or good citizenship, is omitted
though both are immortal Old Sam
Adams. whose mplacable-almost IA
natic-insistence upon the rights of the
colonlsts was the real beginning of the
revolution. could not even get Into the
oratorical catch. and neither could his
kinsmen, John and John Quincy. The
abolitionists, John Brown, Garrison
and Summer are ignored General
Grant and General Lee must botb sir
back to make way for Patrick Henry
ana John Z. Calhoun.
Ralph Waldo Emerson could mot
possibly have been left out bv anv
mind alive to the fact that other in flu.
ences in life are quite as powerfnI as
those of statecraft and oratory and
those who believe greatly in literature
as a molder of minds and events would
doubtless displace some of Mr.. Rrvan,s
orators with Longfellow and Haw
thorne.
And then he proves himself eouanv
blind to the claim of the inventors
Morse. Fulton. and Whitney, who,
though dead. are still making and
molding the character of this country
to a greater extent than all the tariff
thinkers and States rights arguffers
that ever lived. They are the men
who. with the financial genuises like
Rockefeller, Carnegie and Westing-
house make the economic conditions
about which Mr.. Bryan's "Immorta1s''
argue, but he knows them not.
His is world of laws and words of
governmental schemes and doctrines.
it is a world in which blind masses
of men pull and haul and talk about
things they mostly do not understand.
while the patient heroes of the, world
of Investigation, literature. invention
and industry pass bY him undiscovered