Читать книгу William Jennings Bryan - Harvey Ellsworth Newbranch - Страница 4

Table of Contents

About the life and services of William Jennings Bryan will be centered the labors of those who, in future time, shall contribute to the pages of history the story of American states-craft and political tendencies of the dying days of the nineteenth century and the opening decade of the twentieth. The historian who has to do with Bryan and his times will deal not only with one of the most momentous and important periods of American history, but with one of the most remarkable and interesting characters whose name adorns its pages.

It is not generally while the battle of ideas and ideals is on, it is but rarely during the developing period of great political and social movements, that their relative and ultimate importance may be judged; and it is as seldom, during the lifetime of a public man, whose name is identified and whose services are associated with the great issues which constitute the line of demarcation in the field of political thought, that his true character, his strength, and his weaknesses, may be appreciated or understood.

In the study of man and of history a proper sense of perspective is as all-essential as in the limner’s art. The warrior who, with heart aflame, strives on a great battlefield, can know but little of the terrible grandeur of the whole, and still less of the import of the movements of battalions, regiments, and corps. It remains for him who, from an eminence of distance or of time, surveys impartially the entire field, to comprehend its sublimities and horrors, and to appreciate the full significance of its waging and its outcome. And even so, of necessity, it is most difficult for us who live in the American republic, at this century’s sunset, to be able or even willing rightly to appreciate the full import of movements in the advancement or retarding of which each bears howsoever humble a part. Too frequently in politics, as in battle, men do fiercely strive with blinded eyes and deafened ears, and they sometimes wildly strike at him who is their friend.

And yet there are many things in the life of a public man which his neighbors and associates can not fail of knowing, and which, when interpreted, permit his contemporaries to estimate the quality of his character, even though they may not know the full value of his public services. In every man, of whatever station, there are elements and traits which prominently stand forth. These, with such things as he has done and the words which he has spoken, constitute the material from which we may form our concepts of his worth.

In William Jennings Bryan are certain traits so prominent and unmistakable that he who runs may read. They have been well revealed, in few words, by Judge Edgar Howard, of Papillion, Neb. In a speech delivered before the Jacksonian Club of Omaha, on July 15, 1900, Judge Howard said:

“Reverently I say it, that while I do not worship the man, I do worship those traits in him that, as I read the book, stand unparalleled in politics. There is not a man of you here or anywhere to be found who has the nerve to speak a profane or vulgar word in the presence of our candidate for President. Nor does a man dare suggest a move on the political chess-board that honor will not approve. He brightens and betters all those who come in contact with him, no matter who they be. Then why should we not go before the world and preach this man—the personification of purity, clean in all things—as well as his principles?”

In this little volume it will be attempted to tell briefly the story of this American’s life and the movements with which he has been associated. The tale must be hurriedly moulded into form, and we fear its rough lines and its crudities will be all too apparent. And yet, withal, it will be the result of sincere endeavor to aid his fellow-citizens to know William Jennings Bryan even as he is. It is, we believe, a laudable design, however poorly executed. For here, on the farther side of the brown and swift Missouri, there dwells a man of virile and rugged qualities, typically American and truly Western, the story of whose life is a wondrous inspiration to every citizen of the Republic and a monument to the uplifting force of right living and high ideals. For it tells that even in the politics of to-day, honeycombed with cant, hypocrisy, and insincerity, absolute honesty of motive and candor of statement is still no bar to the truest leadership and the highest advancement. It tells further of the marvelous opportunities of humble American citizenship, demonstrating once more, as in Abraham Lincoln’s time, that to the man of conscience, brains, and courage, the highest walks of life are open; to which neither poverty nor obscurity is a bar. And finally it tells of the great potential power of the idea, unaided and even bitterly opposed, when forcefully and sincerely stated, to win its way to the hearts of humankind.

And so it is that to such as will honestly study William Jennings Bryan’s career, and learn the lesson that it teaches, must come hope and inspiration and promise of the dawn. For whether he ever hold high political office or not; whether or not, in the crucible of time, his political faith prove true or prove fallacious; his life still teaches that courage and plain honesty may win for a public man such following and support, such exalted place in the hearts of his countrymen, as has never yet rewarded the tricks and wiles of even the most brilliant of opportunists.