lieved the Republican was entitled to his seat and therefore proposed to vote for him, and his vote was recorded that way. Every platform upon which he has accepted a nomination for office has protested against the giving of subsidies of any kind from the public treasury. He has maintained the integrity of that plank at every opportunity. The beet sugar interests have been an important political factor in Nebraska, but in the State Legislature, in 1891, when the State bounty on beet sugar was to be repealed, and a strong lobby was operating against the proposed repeal, Mr. Bryan visited the Legislature in person and gave to the Democrats and Populists of that body his good advice and vigorous encouragement. The result was that the bounty was repealed, only to be replaced by a subsequent Republican Legislature. Mr. Bryan's platforms have favored an income tax, and his splendid fight in behalf of that measure is a matter of history. Mr. Bryan's platforms advocated the election. of Senators by the people, and he used his best efforts in Congress to carry that plank into execution. Some people were surprised when immediately following the Chicago Convention Mr. Bryan announced that, if elected to be President, he would under no circumstances accept a second term, on the ground that a President should be free from possible motive to work for renomination, and thus be able to discharge the duties of his high office for the greatest good to the greatest number. But when we look back over Mr. Bryan's political history in Nebraska, we find that in two of his platforms almost the identical words used. in this announcement are embodied in the planks of those platforms. Bryan's political platforms have advocated rigid economy in public expenditures, and his record in Congress shows that he has lost no opportunity to carry that principle into execution. Bryan's home life is that of the ideal American. He is the companion of his wife and children as well as the devoted husband and father. Bryan's public interest in the people who suffer under heavy public burdens is not assumed. It is characteristic of the man who has a tender sympathy for every personal woe. Having no vices, he is not extravagant in his public expenditures, while he is methodical in his personal affairs, and jealously provides that his expenditures shall never exceed his income. At the same time he has a warm, generous heart and his limited purse has, only too often, been at the disposal of those in distress. One of Mr. Bryan's most striking characteristics is his mildness. It may be difficult for those who have seen him on the platform, hurling defiance eloquently at the enemies of popular government, to imagine that this is a man who was never known to lose his temper. He is temperate in all things. He is open to reason and is entirely considerate of the opinions of others. He is true to his friends and no man would go further than he to accommodate a worthy acquaintance. Because Mr. Bryan is a brilliant leader of men, it has in some quarters been assumed that he is hasty and unstable, if not erratic. Nothing could be further from the truth. His whole private life and his entire public career prove that Mr. Bryan is as deliberate as a philosopher in forming his opinions and that he is firm as rock in standing by his convictions. Few men at fifty are as mature in judgment as Mr. Bryan is at thirty-six. Few men at fifty have devoted so much time to the arduous study of the science of Government as Bryan has at thirty-six. Pitt was prime minister of England before he was thirty; Napolean was crowned Emperor of France at thirty-five; Alexander Hamilton had attained world-wide fame as a statesman at thirty-three; Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence before he became thirty-four. Time will show that Mr. Bryan is entitled to rank among these extraordinary men, not simply as a brilliant leader, but also as a profound student. His powers as an orator are naturally the first to secure public recognition, but it is his intellectual force and firmness of character which |