The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-12-11
THE WORLD ON BRYAN

Our old friend, Col. Henry Waiter
SON, thinks he has the World ION the
hip" because of certain friendly adj
vice that we have been giving to Mr..
Bryan, and he gleefully remarks:
"The Courier-Journal told the World
when it elevated Mr.. Bryan into
hero and placed him upon it's staff of
space-writers that it were well to have
a care, sa it had told President-elect
Wilson that if he made the Nebraska
Snowman secretary of state he would
live to regret it. Obviously the World
has discovered it's mistake. Whether
the president has discovered his, We
cannot say; but he must know that
as secretary of state Mr.. Bryan is a
joke
The Word is not aware that it Eel
evated Mr.. Bryan into nero" We
think he rendered great service to
the democratic party and the nation
at the Baltimore convention, and have
never hesitated to give him full cred
it. We think, too, that he has been ir-
reproachably loyal to the president,
and that his political influence has
been almost invaluable to the Wilson
administration. The country, too, is
under heavy obligations to him for the
restraint he has exercised over his
followers and for the public good that
has come out of it.
AS an illustration, Mr.. Bryan in ten
words could have prevented the pass
age of the banking and currency law.
| He could have had most of the west
and south in revolt if he had but given
the signal; yet he held his former
| free silver supporters in line for a
conservative measure of banking and
currency reform. There has been no
instance since he became secretary
of state in which his political influ.
ence, which the east used to regard
as menace to the republic itself, has
not been used to promote the com
mon good.
| 1t is on the administrative side that
Mr.. Bryan has proved a sorry disap.
pointment. He is a poor secretary OF
state because he has lost his capacity
for hard, plodding, continuous effort
He has lectured and speechified and
rear-platformed and junketed around
for so many years that he is incapable
| of claiming himself to a desk and
/ making himself master of his job.
AS secretary of state he is ignorant
and he will not learn. He would rath
er argue than work. Much of the Off
cial labor of his office is dry and dull
and exacting. He has no stomach fol-
it.
| A great secretary of state in these
! times would be at his desk twelve
hours a day. Mr.. Bryan would rather
be in state prison. He does not know
what is going on in the state depart
ment. He does not know what ought
to be going on there. He has no
grasp of his duties because he has
lost the taste for drudgery, and no
man who is unwilling to be drudge
can be a satisfactory secretary OF
state. Neither Jefferson nor John
Quincy Adams nor Elihu Root learned
his trade by intuition. They worked
and work is one of the things that Mr.
Bryan will not do unless by chance
he does it on platform with the
cheers of the crowd ringing in his
ears.
An honorable man, an upright man,
man with noble ideals of interna-
tional service and noble faith in
democratic institutions, he is a hope.
less failure as secretary of state be-
cause he has made himself incapable
of sustained and systematic intellect
ual eXertion.-World.
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