SECRETARY BRYAN’S RESIGNATION
Whatever may be the judgment of William J. Bryan’s motives in resigning the position of Secretary of State in President Wilson’s cabinet, there is an almost universal feeling of relief at the accomplished fact. We doubt if there is a single one even of Mr. Bryan’s warmest admirers who would not admit, if brought to an honest confession, Mr. Bryan’s utter incompetency for such a place. President Wilson was doubtless conscious of Mr. Bryan’s failings when he grafted him into his cabinet, but he was moved by political considerations which at the time seemed to be compelling. And there is no doubt that Bryan has been highly useful to Wilson in bringing the Democratic party, to which Wilson was comparatively a stranger, to the support of the administration. Bryan’s services in the Cabinet have been purely political. At the time the appointment was tendered him there was no dream of the outbreak of the great war which has imposed such a burden and strain upon the office of Secretary of State in conducting our foreign relations. There was to be sure the Mexican trouble, which was serious enough, but at the time probably not appreciated at its full gravity. There is a widespread belief that the fundamental mistake of our Mexican policy was due to Mr. Bryan’s impracticable idealism. At that time the President was not fully awake to the weakness of Bryan’s character, and carelessly allowed himself to be committed to a policy of drift and pusillanimity which, instead of saving Mexico from anarchy, has resulted in plunging it into the worst anarchy in its history, and has confronted the United States with possibly the hard necessity of military intervention to save the Mexican people from utter destruction. This is a result that was not sought by Mr. Bryan, but it is a result which his vacillation invited. By the time the European situation developed President Wilson was better acquainted with Secretary Bryan, and he judiciously took the conduct of the State Department, so far as it concerned the European crisis, into his own hands. This has saved us from a fatal involvement which could hardly fail to embroil us with one or more of the belligerent powers. For it is usually weakness and not strength which embroils a country in war when the country is seeking to avoid war. Secretary Bryan displayed such a capacity for blundering, such actual imbecility when it came to grappling with practical questions, that his presence in the State Department always endangered the smashing of diplomatic crockery as the presence of a bull in a China shop endangers the smashing of actual crockery. President Wilson is entitled to credit for seizing the reins of our foreign relations and holding them with a firm hand the moment he became convinced of the utter incompetency and uselessness of the driver he had selected. The retirement of Bryan is a load off the shoulders of his administration which may save it from the utter ruin which threatened it. The country breathes more freely that Bryan has gone. In private life his platitudes and puerile philosophies can do comparatively little harm, notwithstanding his accomplishments as an orator, his personal magnetism, and his apparent sincerity. In their long acquaintance with him on the stump and the rostrum the American people have come to size him up pretty correctly. They look upon him much as they would upon an actor with a pleasing voice and presence who entertains but does not convince. His exposition of the beatitudes and generally accepted moralities, and his reiteration of common-place and tawdry sentiment passes off harmlessly like a glow of summer lightning so long as he is a private citizen, and we all have to be thankful that he no longer speaks with an official voice.