ative and slow, rather than impulsive. He has all the angularity of the untraveled American. He fears innovations upon the old order of things. To his mind the Republican party represents a revolutionary idea; its policy of industrial concentration, a war upon the competitive system; its colonial policy, a polyglot empire; its gold standard and its national bank currency, a conspiracy of dealers in money against the actual producers of wealth. To Mr. Bryan's mind these policies are all symptoms of the swift approach of monarchy. They are political, industrial, and financial experiments condemned by the past. In this sense Mr. Bryan stands for the United States of the past; is essentially an old-fashioned statesman, full of American prejudice and American confidence.

Trace his career from country school to supreme political leadership, and it will reveal at every point the patient planning of a wholesome ambition for public life. There never was a political career less accidental. There never was a politician less temperamental. The study and practice of elocution, the study of law, the study of public questions-all these were carefully considered preparations for political leadership. Impulse had little to do with them. The boy planned what the man should be. Mr. Bryan's favorite quotation reveals his theory of life :

“We build the ladder by which we rise

From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And mount to the summit round by round."

Then Mr. Bryan went to live in Lincoln, Nebraska. Again he struggled for an honest law practice, and again he became self-supporting, although at first he had to live on two meals a day and sleep in his office. He was little more than a boy in years and the birth of three children made his task harder. But no man ever heard him whimper or complain. He was following out his life's plan with sturdy cheerfulness.

There was a corrupt political gang in Mr. Bryan's ward. He decided to fight it. On election day he remained at the polling place. Night came and he was still at his post. It was not until daybreak that he returned to his wife and told her that the corrupt ward leader had been beaten by a few votes. Nothing could drive him away, not even hunger, until the last

ballot had been honestly counted and declared. This was the beginning of his career in practical politics.

The multiplication is as correct in the nighttime as it is in the daytime. It works as well in China as in America. So it is with all sound principles-they are universal. Mr. Bryan has based his life on principles and he relies on time and the intelligence of the plain people as his sure allies. He scorns neutrality, that stagnant home of those who are neither great enough for love nor strong enough for hate.

A pen picture of Mr. Bryan at home, among his children or with his neighbors, or on his well-kept farm, would reveal a kindly, upright, debt-paying, unassuming citizen, full of a gentle, rollicking humor-a man without an impure thought or an impure act. It would portray a profoundly religious Presbyterian, without cant or presumptuous piety; a man who neither drinks alcohol nor smokes tobacco, and yet does not deny other men the right to do so-frequently offering cigars to his friends ;-a graceful horseman, an expert hunter, a generous host. His books and lectures have given him a large income, but he has spent more than half of it in establishing college and school prizes and in contributions to political organizations. Although he has been lawyer, editor, member of Congress and a successful author and lecturer, his entire wealth to-day is exceedingly moderate.

But these are not the things that show Bryan the man, as the public should know him. They relate rather to his private life; and a man may have two natures, one private and the other public. Private virtue and public virtue are not inseparable. A man may be true to his wife and children and neighbors and yet be quite capable of wronging a stranger.

Mr. Bryan's three great attributes are deliberation, decency, and honesty. He is intensely American in all that distinguishes an American from a European. He has the same square-jawed courage, broad humanity, and quaint dignity that made Abraham Lincoln the typical American of his day. He has Lincoln's deep religious feeling and Lincoln's unwavering faith in the Declaration of Independence as a sure political guide. He is North America personified, with all its continental prejudices and confidence. Living in the very heart of the continent, surrounded by a rich country as yet undeveloped, he cannot see why the American Governm nt

should seek to establish colonies in Asia by bloodshed when American soil calls for industrious inhabitants. He sees the trust system rapidly narrowing the opportunities of young men at home while the Government is pretending to offer them opportunities abroad. He believes in his own country, in its material strength and its moral leadership among the nations of the world. He has the hope of youth, of good health, of sound morals. He loathes unnecessary war, and, being by nature a civilian, he refuses to use the soldier's coat he wore during the Spanish-American war as a political advertisement. The black charger he rode at the head of his regiment now carries him to and from his waving fields of corn and oats.

There is not a saner or more wholesome personality in the world than Mr. Bryan. He is evenly developed and evenly balanced. He loves books better than theaters, the fields better than cities, and he loves men better than all. He is equally opposed to imperialism on the one hand and socialism on the other hand, believing that the path of national safety lies midway between the two, along the old American competitive system, with its equal opportunities for all.

Mr. Bryan's financial theories may prevent him from ever being president of the United States for there are many who will stickle at the minor issue of free silver and swallow imperialism - but he will always be a great leader while he lives. He is the greatest commoner America has yet seen, a figure of romantic sincerity in an age of commercialism. It has been said of him by his critics that he is merely a trained voice. Rather is he a will, disciplined and hindered by conscience.

HONESTY.

HERE is a distinction in the use of the four words, honesty, uprightness, integrity, and probity; and yet, in their popular use, they embrace the same correctness of principle and conduct. "We look for honesty and uprightness in citizens; it sets every question at rest between man and man: we look for integrity and probity in statesmen, or such as have to adjust the rights of many." Yet all of these persons are alike in moral soundness and virtuous living. So we select honesty from the four words as