Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1915-05-28
The Cooked Hat" for Bryan?

think OF jealousy against d Suooi o'Ho~e
but in this case Bryan is by no means
as subordinate as he might be. and the
happe nings of wartime abroad. nave
served to put the Department OF state
| into the limelight to an extent hitherto
unenualled. It is we'll known in some
quarters outside of Washington-at
Princeton, for instance-that wilson
insists on standing alone. sharing
neither the throne nor the limelight. AT
Princeton a professor had to bend the
knee to Wilson, or quit, or fight. MOST
Of the staff knuckled under. some OF
them resigned, but Dean West resisted
and it was Wilson and not he who
had to go.
Up to now the Wilsonian attitude to-
ward Bryan has had Washington
guessing. No one can deny that Will
son owes his nomination to Bryan,
who violated his instructions from the
Democrats of Nebraska in order to
accomplish it. Wilson's election Is a
debt to nobody in particular: he owes
it to division in Republican ranks
which has now substantially disap-
reared. Nevertheless, Bryan appeared
to have a claim; he was taken into the
Cabinet and so long as he devoted HIM
self to securing jobs for deserving
Democrats" TO eking out his $4,000
stipend with Chautauoua fees, to adj
vertising grape juice and such vegar-
les, all went well. To be sure, the State
Department bumped rather audibly at
times, but in general, the President
and his Secretary Of State got on as
we'll as though the former had never
wished to knock the latter into a
cooked hat.
Then along came the war. and all
the belligerents began clamoring for
our good will, their legations and en-
bassies in hostile capitals passed into
our hands, there arose numerous
questions of neutrality, citizenship and
the like, and the State Department
emerged from it's traditional reserve
and doomed up as the biggest thing in
the administration. From its clustered
walls there began to issue notes. men,
oranGa, statements, warnings-an bear
ing Bryan's name, though obviously not
of his preparation, and from that min
ute the White House appeared to close
the eve Of liberation for the Secretary
| of State In various ways the talented
Tumulty began to let it leak out that
Wilson had become Ibis own Foreign
Minister" that it was the presidential
prudence which marked all the excel
lent pronouncements prepared in real
ity by the trained Republicans whom
Bryan had not dared to displace, and
that it was the Princeton pedagogue
and not the Nebraska necromancer
who was really plotting the ship of
state through the troubled seas Of
strict neutrality.
Bryan appeared to take all Of this
lying down, and then the Wilson.an
tactics as SO we'll known in New Jer-
sey, began to develop. 1t was resolved
to put Bryan to a further test of sub
serviency. The one-term plank in the
Baltimore platform is Bryan's pet
piece of platform architecture. A single
term in the White House is political
fetch with him. Away back in 1896,
when he clamored up to crown Of
thorns with a cross of gold, his first
act after being nominated at Chicago
was to rip a leaf from a notebook and
write upon it something like this: "In
order that 1 may do my work with an
eye single to the good Of the people,
I promise, if elected, not to be a can
didate for second term" Therefore,
he regards the one-term declaration
at Baltimore as sacrosanct.
Not SO Wilson. In his mind nothing
is to be free from impious dissertation
save his own notions-and the surren-
dering Of power was never a Wilson,
ian trait. During the campaign Of
1912, wild asses-and his party is
crowded with that ilk-could not drag
from his reluctant lips single word
on the single term pledge. Nor has
he even yet become vocal. even In
spots. to use his own phrase. on this
subject. On the contrary, he is now
and always has been a candidate for
reelection; and. in pursuance Of his
plan, he has been putting out sena-
torial and secretarial and COMPRESSION
al feelers all over the country. When
ever and wherever Of late, two or
three Democrats have met to munch
a ham sandwich and to call it a JEFF
fersonian banquet" there has been a
Josephus Daniels, or Mitchell Pal
mer, or a Jim Ham Lewis, or a Tom
Marshall or Redfield to declare
that the President is loaded down.
| even to his calculating eyelids with