Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1914-12-08

a speech at Detroit. Thus would he
have been great, nor would it have
been necessary for William Jennings
Bryan to have been Unexpectedly
called upon to fill certain lyceum dates
Whether your fame shall be of an
ephemeral and evanescent character,
or whether it shall go laundering
down to all ages coupled with such
names as Washington, Lincoln, Taft,
and might modestly add, FL. o.
Tair, distinguished patriot and state
man, depends not so much upon your
self and your inherent ability, as upon
the discrimination which you show
in selecting your advisers.
Two years of your administration
lave nearly passed. In a spirit of
friendly criticism, l will say that
they have not been one grand bowling
success. l do not blame you for this,
nor is it too late for me to help you
out of the undesirable predicament in
which you now find yourself. When
you gathered your cabinet from
obScurity, everyone wondered how Oh
earth so many great men had so long
escaped the notice of the public; now
they are beginning to wonder how
you ever got acquainted with the
bunch.
You have had the wrong advisers.
They are largely theorists like your
self, men who may have had academic
training, but who were lacking in
that breadth of vision, that knowledge
OF statecraft, that insight into practi-
cal politics, that grasp and compre-
hension of international questions,
which are the attributes of the real
stateman and which are the possess
sion of but limited few. With due
modesty l include myself among the
few. 1t grieves me to thus be COM
PEELED to dilate upon my own virtues,
which by this time should be recog-
nized from the Atlantic to the Pacific
and from Canada's militant shores,
where we may yet have trouble, to
the land of Villa and watchful wait
ing. But for the scripturalinjunction
against hiding ones light under a
bushel, might allow my modesty to
overcome me. But thus fortified, /
am willing to let my light blaze forth,
trusting that it may be the beacon
which will lead our ship of state into
safe waters and past the shoals that
are now threatening it on every hand.
Whether you will have the good sense
to be guided by this beacon remains
to be seen.
In this dark hour of my country's
need, l stand ready to come to its
succor. l am willing to accept the
portfolio of secretary of state, provid-
ing you see fit to cast William Jen-
nings Bryan adrift. He is the shoal
upon which your ship of state will
founder. Personally he is very nice
man, but as stateman he is not a
success, as witness his speech in Chi
cago recently when he spoke of uni
versal peace and attempted to under
mine one branch of our great iron in
dustries. His views on the liquor
questions are entirely wrong and
otfensi We to large part of our party,
not to mention what he may do with
the Monroe doctrine and other inter-
national complications. / would not
thus try to prejudice your mind
against him and separate him from
his job, if he were poor man and de-
pendent upon the beggarly $4,000 a
year which goes with this job, but
which he, forgetting the true spirit
of democracy, its Jeffersonian simple
ity, claims is inadequate to meet his
needs. Let him retire to his western
ranch or to his Florida fruit farm,
and If these fail to yield sufficient in
come, let him resume his work upon
the rostrum. / am willing to make
the effort TO maintain myself upon
this salary, nor will l atte mpt TO
spend any of my time as an enter
tainer.
Naturally, before making the