r -
The Commoner
MAY, 1915
31
the state department, Mr. Secretary
Bacon never threw up a "window. He
was the soul of dignity. Besides, the
building was well ventilated in those
days. We had men at the head of
the state department then. Things
are so different now."
They gather at teas and dinners
and in hotel corridors and at clubs
and in committee meetings and on
the street, these staple and fancy de
plorers, and they talk of laws and
wars, of shopping and cigars, of ba
bies, books and bonds. But in the
end the conversation turns to the man
who is at the head of or on the neck
of or part way under the state de
partment, according to various au
thorities. The Bryan disapproval is not a
mere political criticism. - It is a com
TirGhensive. whole-hearted, constitu
tional, fundamental, temperamental,
social, religious, anatomical, gastron
omic, and sartorial disagreement. It
is the sort of disapproval which
reaches out, like a corporation, for
more things to clutch. It falls, like
the mantle of charity, on all objects
within its scope and automatically
embraces any new feature touched or
appertained to by the. secretary of
state. President McKinley served
water and other flat things happily
and safely through his administra
tion. It remained for Mr. Bryan to
canonize absinth frapp e, blitzen
cocktails, and extract of tarantula
in Washington by serving grape
juice. People who had never tasted
the stuff rushed out and drank it in
prder to loathe it with more vigor. If
, we were to take too seriously the
' groans of Bryan dinner victims, we
would think that in times past people
went to state dinners for the purpose
of being hauled out by the legs in a
condition of alcoholic coma where
as American state functions have al
ways been comparatively arid affairs.
It simply became borno in on the
amalgamated deplorers that there
must bo something blighting about
sobriety because Mr. Bryan indulged
in it.
The Chautauqua incident was dis
cussed all over the country. In
Washington it becamo a brooding
lorror. A lot of Washington people
had never heard of chautauquas un
til they found that Secretary Bryan
was frequenting them. Then they
tried to read up on the thing in Ga
borjau's library of crimes. It wasn't
the awfulness of the deed which
shocked Washington. It was the lack
of dignity. No secretary of state had
ever chautalked before. It hadn't
been done at all. It was impossible
to conceive. The smallness of tho
salary was no excuse. Knox and
Bacon and Hay couldn't live on their
salaries either, but nobody saw them
rushing around the country exhibit
ing in a tent. They sawed wood in
the back yard and eked out their pit
tance in proud silence. And, besides,
anyone who spends that much money
is extravagant. Nothing contributed
more to the popularity of economy
in Washington in 1914 than the fact
that Bryan couldn't live on $12,000
a year. It was almost Impossible for
some time to find a republican con
gressman who would complain about
his little old $7,500 and mileage to
Australia. Some of them went so
far as to brag that they saved money
on $7,500 whereas the general line
of conversation had previously con
veyed the idea that when a congress
man draws his trifling donation from
the government he hands it over to
his landlord and borrows enough
from some friend to stake him to a
light lunch in a lean-over restaurant.
Still, Secretary Bryan could live
on $2,000 a year atid serve his state
dinners in a beer tunnel without com
ing any nearer to suiting his Wash-
f tt,
ington critics. It is a hopeless case
with him. Ho just naturally doesn't
suit. Ho wears his hair long. No
secretary of state has over worn so
much hair in tho same place. HIb
clothes are out of focus. His shape is
obsolete and annoying. Ho is said to
perspiro in hot weather. Eminent
visitors from other countries have
caught him using a palm-leaf fan.
Ho wears slippers at home. John
Hay never did this or, if he did, ho
set a guard around the houso and
kept his shame to himself. His trous
ers bajr worse than Cleveland's. Ho
wears a plug hat. Everyone in Wash
ington wears a plug hat but if Bry
an keeps on doing it, he will mako
the custom unpopular and ruin an
investment of hundreds of thousands
of dollars.
He is too polite. He is also heart
less and unfeeling. Ho makes ora
tions instead of pronouncing speech
es, as a secretary of state should do,
Ho has made changes in the state de
partment customs. Ho walks too
much and mingles shockingly. Ho Is
austere and rides in automobiles to
excess. He gets down to worn too
early. He takes work homo with
him. One would think ho was paid
by the hour. Ho doesn't work at all
on Sundays. No man ought to im
peril the diplomacy of a government
for a religious scruple. Tho state,
war, and navy building is running
down. The climate has been bad of
late. Gas bills arc higher. If they
start jitney busses, ho is likely to
ride in one. Tho gypsy moth is get
ting into the trees in tho district.
What can you do with a man like
that!
These are serious indictments and
not easily quashed. But they cover,
it seems, only Mr. Bryan's minor pec
cadillos.
ine republican to discuss his large
sins. When the remnants of official
republicanism get busy around tit
capltol on his case they criticize kfm
with a whole-hearted entliusiasm
which must be a great relief for eom
of thoso older statesmen whose prin
cipal duty haa beon to bo conserv
ative and cautious about everything
Bryan is a safety valvo for them.
Thcro has bocH a great disposition
among republicans to bo fair with
tho new administration as far a
comment goes. They have given the
president tho benefit of tho doubt and
havo been as unpartisan toward the
cabinet as could be expected from a
party which hopes to eject tho said
administration with loud shouts in
1916. Everybody speaks a kind word
for our honored president and then
gives tho secretary of stato both bar
rels with nails in tho charge. It is
a beautiful system and keeps tho re
publicans feeling broad-minded and
virtuous because criticizing Bryan
doesn't count. The opon season on
him has lasted about twenty years
now.
Naturally one would expect that n
gentleman who has been so unani
mously deplored might show soms
marks of tho fact. But Mr. Bryan
seems to carry the burdens of the
Stato department as comfortably as
ho carried tho comatose democratic
party some fifteen years ago.' That
everything ho does is regarded with
cold disapproval by a largo number
of spectators does not seem to lessen
his weight, his cheerfulness, or his
activities. Undoubtedly ho fell heir
to tho largest mess of international
snarls since Seward's time.
FIUCI3 Coin utandard IJUirilrdtcd
book. Buying Prlcon, hoIIh at 1G' costs,
or if preferred, dozen West potcard,
orivon for thren monthn at 10 centH. col
lectors' hundred-piiKo paper, ddvotcd to
It takes an old-lino fight- ntampH, colnn, relic. weaponK, oiu
UOOKB anil ininvriim. bniuunnni-u .'"'
Philatelic Went, "Collcclorn' World
Superior, Neb.
I
FOR SALE
An Improved farm of 200 acres, under irrigation, three
miles from Mission, Texas.
This farm is in the Rio Grande Valley. I have not time to
look after it It has a house costing $2,500.00, with barns
and outbuildings to match; is fenced and in cultivation.
I am willing to sell for less than the price at which unim
proved land in that section is selling.
I will sell the entire 200 acres for $20,000, with a liberal discount for cash. Small tracts, not including the one upon
which the house stands, may be purchased as follows: lOacre tracts, $125 per acre; 20 acre tracts, $122.50 per acre;
40 acre tracts $120 per acre ; 80 acre tracts, $115 per acre. . ,
I have 40 acres of unimproved land near Mission, which I will sell, as a whole or in 10 or 20 acre tracts, for $75 per
acre, cash. Address
W. J. BRYAN, LINCOLN
IMEIB.
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