Part 10

The argument made, by some, that it was unfortunate for the nation that it had anything to do with the Philippine islands, but that the naval victory at Manila made the permanent acquisition of those islands necessary is also unsound. We won a naval victory at Santiago, but that did not compel us to hold Cuba. The shedding of American blood in the Philippine Islands does not make it imperative that we should retain possession forever; American blood was shed at San Juan hill and El Caney, and yet the President has promised the Cubans independence. The fact that the American flag floats over Manila does not compel us to exercise perpetual sovereignty over the islands; the American flag waves over Havana to-day, but the President has promised to haul it down when the flag of the Cuban republic is ready to rise in its place. Better a thousand times that our flag in the orient give way to a flag representing the idea of self government than that the flag of this republic should become the flag of an empire.

There is an easy, honest, honorable solution of the Philippine question. It is set forth in the Democratic platform and it is submitted with confidence to the American people. This plan I unreservedly endorse. If elected, I will convene Congress in extraordinary session as soon as inaugurated and recommend an immediate declaration of the nation’s purpose, first, to establish a stable form of government in the Philippine Islands, just as we are now establishing a stable form of government in Cuba; second, to give independence to the Filipinos just as we have promised to give independence to the Cubans; third, to protect the Filipinos from outside interference while they work out their destiny, just as we have protected the republics of Central and South America and are, by the Monroe Doctrine, pledged to protect Cuba. A European protectorate often results in the plundering of the ward by the guardian. An American protectorate gives to the nation protected the advantage of our strength, without making it the victim of our greed. For three-quarters of a century the Monroe Doctrine has been a shield to neighboring republics, and yet it has imposed no pecuniary burden upon us. After the Filipinos had aided us in the war against Spain, we could not honorably turn them over to their former masters; we could not leave them to be the victims of the ambitions designs of European nations, and since we do not desire to make them a part of us or to hold them as subjects, we propose the only alternative, namely, to give them independence and guard them against molestation from without.

When our opponents are unable to defend their position by argument they fall back upon the assertion that it is destiny, and insist that we must submit to it, no matter how much it violates moral precepts and our principles of government. This is a complacent philosophy. It obliterates the distinction between right and wrong and makes individuals and nations the helpless victims of circumstance.

Destiny is the subterfuge of the invertebrate, who, lacking the courage to oppose error, seeks some plausible excuse for supporting it. Washington said that the destiny of the Republican form of government was deeply, if not finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the American people. How different Washington’s definition of destiny from the Republican definition! The Republicans say that this nation is in the hands of destiny; Washington believed that not only the destiny of our own nation but the destiny of the Republican form of government throughout the world was entrusted to American hands. Immeasurable responsibility! The destiny of this Republic is in the hands of its own people, and upon the success of the experiment here rests the hope of humanity. No exterior force can disturb this Republic, and no foreign influence should be permitted to change its course. What the future has in store for this nation no one has authority to declare, but each individual has his own idea of the nation’s mission, and he owes it to his country as well as to himself to contribute as best he may to the fulfilment of that mission.

Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee: I can never fully discharge the debt of gratitude which I owe to my countrymen for the honors which they have so generously bestowed upon me; but, sirs, whether it be my lot to occupy the high office for which the convention has named me, or to spend the remainder of my days in private life, it shall be my constant ambition and my controlling purpose to aid in realizing the high ideals of those whose wisdom and courage and sacrifices brought this Republic into existence.

I can conceive of a national destiny surpassing the glories of the present and the past—a destiny which meets the responsibilities of to-day and measures up to the possibilities of the future. Behold a republic, resting securely upon the foundation stones quarried by Revolutionary patriots from the mountain of eternal truth—a republic applying in practice and proclaiming to the world the self-evident proposition, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed with inalienable rights; that governments are instituted among men to secure these rights; and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Behold a republic in which civil and religious liberty stimulate all to earnest endeavor, and in which the law restrains every hand uplifted for a neighbor’s injury—a republic in which every citizen is a sovereign but in which no one cares to wear a crown. Behold a republic standing erect while empires all around are bowed beneath the weight of their own armaments—a republic whose flag is loved while other flags are only feared. Behold a republic increasing in population, in wealth, in strength and in influence, solving the problems of civilization and hastening the coming of an universal brotherhood—a republic which shakes thrones and dissolves aristocracies by its silent example and gives light and inspiration to those who sit in darkness. Behold a republic gradually but surely becoming the supreme moral factor in the world’s progress and the accepted arbiter of the world’s disputes—a republic whose history, like the path of the just, “is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

BRYAN: THE MAN

The firm hold which Mr. Bryan has over the confidence, esteem, and love of his followers was strikingly proven in the dark days that followed November, 1896. It is certain that no other public man of his time could have been the candidate of the Democratic party on the Chicago platform, suffered that severe reversal, and yet retained, undisputed and undisturbed, the acknowledged leadership of the party. Whoso learns why it was that Mr. Bryan stood stronger in defeat then he was before has found the key to the man’s greatness. Certainly it was not that he was a great and eloquent orator. For the orator, while always assured a hearing and a place under the lime-light, is still far from the actual leadership of his party. It was not because of the views which he entertained on public questions, for they were those of scores of other well known and able men. It was not because of his honesty and sincerity alone, any more than of his undoubted courage or his clean and upright personality and blameless home life. These, while all real qualifications, were not essentials. Each and all of them were marked characteristics of other notable public men, although it is doubtful if any possessed them all alike in the same degree as Bryan. But there were other and rarer qualities, the most important, his cheerful and contagious optimism and his intensity of character, which spoke in his every act and utterance. His optimism is an unwavering faith in the ways and ends of the Creator; a firm and abiding belief that “He doeth all things well.” The verse from Ella Wheeler Wilcox with which Mr. Bryan closes his “First Battle” well illustrates this phase of his character:

“Let those who have failed take courage; Tho’ the enemy seems to have won, Tho’ his ranks are strong, if he be in the wrong The battle is not yet done; For sure as the morning follows The darkest hour of the night, No question is ever settled Until it is settled right.”

It is this inspiring belief, planted on a foundation so deep and so secure that no storm can shake it, that leaves Mr. Bryan as hopeful, confident, and serene in the darkest hour of defeat as his opponent can possibly be with the paeans of victory ringing in his ears. It is a rare trait, this superb optimism. It wins, instinctively, the hearts and affections of men, only to inspire them to heroic effort under the most adverse surroundings. But its strongest feature is its effect on the possessor. For when that discouragement which comes from failure, and the inertia which discouragement brings in its train, is eliminated from a strong man’s composition he becomes a god, with the power and greatness of the immortals. The scope of his vision is broadened, his mental horizon enlarges, fear and weakness are banished from his heart, and his might becomes irresistible as he battles for the right as he sees the right. So Mr. Bryan’s optimism has made him a strong, self-poised, cheerful, happy man, whose confidence and good spirits are contagious and whose following increases as his reverses multiply.

His second marked characteristic, his intensity, is one even rarer than the first. The extent to which it is his it is most difficult to make clear. It may, perhaps, be best done by illustration drawn from the writer’s personal experience.

One Saturday, toward the end of the 1899 campaign, Mr. Bryan was speeding across southern Nebraska from east to west on a special train. Every half or quarter hour stops were made at stations along the route, and Mr. Bryan would hastily emerge from his car, make his way, generally unassisted, to a nearby platform, and speak for from ten minutes to an hour to the crowds assembled to hear him. It was most fatiguing work and done by a thoroughly worn-out man. For Mr. Bryan had for two weeks been constantly traveling by train and carriage, speaking from two to a dozen times daily, eating at irregular intervals, and sleeping not more than four or five hours out of each twenty-four. As a natural result his face was drawn and haggard, his muscles frequently twitching, and under his eyes were great black hollows. Yet at every stopping point, when he rose to face his fellow Nebraskans, the worn look would give way, the deep-set eyes would lighten with the fires of a holy zeal, and, in a voice that rang out clear and strong and passionate he pleaded for the preservation of the Republic and its ideals, inviolate and intact. The train was running on schedule time, of course, and at each stopping point it was necessary for the engineer to toot his whistle and ring his bell, not once, but continuously, in order to tear Mr. Bryan away from his audience when the alloted time had expired. Then the indefatigable campaigner, shaking scores of outstretched hands as he ran, would hasten to his car, and the train would speed along to the next stopping place. Mr. Bryan would no sooner enter his car than he dropped his head on a pillow and slept until a tap on the shoulder awoke him, and he rushed out to make another speech, generally differing in form from any made that day or any previous day, though the substance of all was, of course, largely the same. Once, as the train was screaming along between stations Mr. Bryan called the writer to his state-room, where he lay at rest. He raised his head from the pillow as I entered, and started to speak. What words of suggestion or advice were on his tongue I shall never know, for, in the middle of his first sentence the tired head fell back, the lustrous eyes were closed, and his heavy breathing alone told that life remained in the man’s worn and exhausted frame as he lay there fast asleep.

Late in the afternoon of that same day Mr. Bryan’s dinner was brought him on the train, and he ate—as he slept—between stations. His traveling companions, it may be observed, had eaten hearty meals at a town long passed, dining in leisure while Mr. Bryan, standing with bared head on a wind-swept platform, with a scorching sun beating down upon him, addressed five thousand or more wildly cheering people. As he sat in his little compartment, hastily munching his food, there were with him Mr. Joseph A. Altsheler, of the New York _World_, and the writer, representing the Omaha _World-Herald_. One of us chanced to mention some interruption made at the last meeting, where a shrewd Republican partisan had raised a point which Mr. Bryan’s ready repartee had quickly, if not efficiently, disposed of. As soon as the matter was mentioned Mr. Bryan turned from the tray on which were his fried chicken, cold slaw, and coffee. And there, his eyes glowing like lakes of molten metal, his expressive features all in play, in the voice of one who addressed a multitude, he took up that Republican’s sophism and analyzed it for the benefit of us twain. Such was the concentrated and awful intensity of the man that it thrilled me to the core, and, under that burning gaze and vibrant, moving voice, in such an unusual entourage, I trembled with an emotion I could not name.

It was near midnight of that day when the train reached Benkelman, in far western Nebraska, where the last speech was to be delivered. The warm day had been succeeded by a night that was almost bitter cold, and, as we alighted from the train, tired, sleepy, and hungry, the cold, fierce wind from the mountains swooped down on us, and pierced us through and through. At that late hour, and in that semi-arid, scantily populated country, there were patiently waiting, wrapped in their great coats, nearly fifteen hundred people, most of whom had driven from twenty to one hundred miles “to hear Bryan speak.”

In the course of that day Mr. Bryan had already spoken sixteen times. To do this he had risen before five o’clock in the morning and had traveled over two hundred miles. At Benkelman, it was agreed, he should speak not longer than fifteen minutes, and go to bed.

The speaker’s stand was at the principal street intersection of the village. It was gaily decorated with flags and bunting, and lighted by flaring gas jets. The piercing mountain wind swooped down on it like a wolf on the fold. Up on this eminence the worn and wearied campaigner, half dead from want of sleep and his constant exertions, was hurried. Shrill volleys of cheers and yells rose to the heavens. There was a moment’s silence. Then, on the cold air, there fell the deep, melodious, serene voice of the orator, in words of earnest protest and warning, in a magnificent plea for the Republic. For ten or twelve minutes we, who were his traveling companions, remained; and though our eyes were heavy and our senses dulled, though we shivered from the cold even as we trembled with exhaustion, the splendid enthusiasm of that hardy little band of frontiersmen warmed our hearts, and we cheered with them. But, in a few minutes, tired nature called loud to us, and we plodded to the hotel, a block and a half away. We sat for a half hour about the blazing fire, absorbing the grateful warmth. Through the closed doors and windows there came to us, ever and anon, the rich and powerful voice of the orator down the street, punctuated by the wild yells of applause that came from the delighted men of the sand-hills. Again we retreated,—this time to our bed chambers. My teeth chattered like castanets as I disrobed. And now I could plainly hear the orator’s voice,—sometimes his very words,—words that thrilled and pulsated with the life of an animate thing. I pulled the blankets and comforters close about me, and fell into the sleep of utter exhaustion. The next morning we learned that, for just one hour and three quarters Mr. Bryan had stood in that bitter, piercing wind, under the inscrutable stars of midnight on the prairie, and preached the gospel of democracy. Do you gather, now, what I mean in saying that Mr. Bryan’s intensity is something most difficult to describe? It is something that knows not fear, nor hunger, nor exhaustion; that keeps him moving on,—ever and steadily on toward the goal, unswerved and unhindered by those hardships, trials, and obstacles that check the course of other men, or cause them to turn into broader and easier paths.

It is this intensity of character and purpose that makes heroes and martyrs. It also makes fanatics. But Mr. Bryan is no fanatic; his stubborn determination and unyielding purpose is tempered with mental equipoise, good judgment, and common sense.

The first impression one receives of Bryan as a man, and the last one to fade, is that of his reckless sincerity. Right or wrong, he is honest; he is of such a nature that he can not be otherwise; and all things for good or evil, for success or defeat, must subordinate themselves to his personal conception of duty. He possesses all those qualities common to all great men, and some that but very few great men can claim. He has few friends among the rich men of the nation, and is a stranger to fashionable “society;” but he is loved and trusted by the millions who follow him with a devotion such as no other American has won. At his home or abroad, among his children or with his neighbors, or on his well-kept farm, may be found a kindly, upright, debt-paying, unassuming citizen, full of a gentle rollicking humor, a man without an impure thought or act, a profoundly religious Presbyterian, a man who does not smoke, yet who does not hesitate, on occasion, to offer cigars to his friends; who will sit hour after hour in tobacco-laden air, sharing in the conversation of those whose mouths are chimneys for the time. He never drinks wine or liquor, yet he never flaunted a phylactery, or called names when the clink of glasses was heard. In all things a temperate and abstemious man, yet, such is his toleration that there is nothing oppressive about his being better than most of us.

In personal appearance as well as mental gifts, Mr. Bryan is highly favored. Before uttering a word, his magnetic influence wins for him the favor of his audience. Simple is his delivery and bearing. “As he stands before his listeners,” said Mr. R. L. Metcalfe, in a book published four years ago: “he presents a bold and striking picture; intelligence is stamped on every feature; he commences in the soft, pleasant tone, instantly riveting your attention upon him. Your eyes are fastened upon the orator. As he moves, you in spirit move with him; as he advances to his climax his audience advances with him. In perfect harmony orator and audience travel over the path of thought, until the climax is reached, and then, as the last tone of the deep, rich, melodious voice of the orator is uttered with a dramatic force, there breaks forth the full, earnest applause that marks the approval of those who listen. The hand of the orator is raised; instantly perfect silence follows. The sweet tones of the marvelous voice are again heard within the enclosure, no matter how vast.

“There is much in Mr. Bryan’s oratory that recalls to us many of our noted speakers of long ago. Search his speeches through, whether in Congress, before the convention, or on the stump, and you will find them absolutely free from personalities. No audience ever sat within the sound of his voice and caught a word that would appeal to the lower passions of anger, hate, or revenge. He is always the master of himself.”

The directness, simplicity, and purity of Mr. Bryan’s style as an orator and the loftiness and beauty of his sentiment are well shown in the appended excerpt from one of his Congressional speeches on “Money,” in which occurs his famous apostrophe to Thomas Jefferson:

“There are wrongs to be righted; there are evils to be eradicated; there is injustice to be removed; there is good to be secured for those who toil and wait. In this fight for equal laws we can not fail, for right is mighty and will in time triumph over all obstacles. Even if our eyes do not behold success, we know that our labor is not in vain, and we can lay down our weapons, happy in the promise given by Bryant to the soldier:

‘Yea, though thou lie upon the dust, When they who help thee flee in fear Die full of hope and manly trust Like those who fall in battle here. Another hand by sword shall yield; Another hand the standard wave; Till from the trumpet’s mouth is pealed The blast of triumph o’er the grave.’

“Let us, then, with the courage of Andrew Jackson, apply to present conditions the principles taught by Thomas Jefferson—Thomas Jefferson, the greatest constructive statesman whom the world has ever known; the greatest warrior who ever battled for human liberty. He quarried from the mountain of eternal truth the four pillars upon whose strength all popular government must rest. In the Declaration of American Independence, he proclaimed the principles with which there is, without which there can not be, ‘a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ When he declared that ‘all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,’ he declared all that lies between the alpha and omega of the Democracy.

“Alexander ‘wept for other worlds to conquer,’ after he had carried his victorious banner throughout the then known world. Napoleon ‘rearranged the map of Europe with his sword’ amid the lamentations of those by whose blood he was exalted; but when these and other military heroes are forgotten and their achievements disappear in the cycle’s sweep of years, children will still lisp the name of Jefferson, and freedom will ascribe due praise to him who filled the kneeling subject’s heart with hope and bade him stand erect—a sovereign among his peers.”

In all of his rapid utterances and unpremeditated sentences one would fail to detect the slightest lapse from good English; not only good, but admirable. His talk is not that of a pedant,—far from it; but he does speak like a cultivated, well-read man; like a polished man of letters, but not so polished as to leave nothing but the gloss apparent. You may search his numerous speeches, lectures, and addresses without finding the slightest “_lapsus linguae_,” and all without sterility or banality. In his speeches he shows a very remarkable versatility. “He will talk along in a colloquial manner,” says Mr. Metcalfe, “making you laugh or stirring your heartstrings with his pathos as he wills, and suddenly he will throw forth his periods in language that makes one involuntarily suspect of plagiarism from Milton or the prophets. Simplest words are chosen, and they are formed in short, pithy sentences. No word is used solely for its sound; the mere jingle of words has no place in the mental workshop of our orator. To him words are the servants of thought, and take their real beauty from the thought that blazes through them. His style is as pure and captivating as that of Irving or Addison, and not dissimilar to either. But style with him, as with those two great masters, is valued not for itself, but because it conveys in the most pleasing manner the thoughts which he would have others know.