One Saturday, toward the end of the 1899 campaign, Mr. Bryan was speeding across southern Nebraska from east to west on a special train. Every half or quarter hour stops were made at stations along the route, and Mr. Bryan would hastily emerge from his car, make his way, generally unassisted, to a nearby platform, and speak for from ten minutes to an hour to the crowds assembled to hear him. It was most fatiguing work and done by a thoroughly worn-out man. For Mr. Bryan had for two weeks been constantly traveling by train and carriage, speaking from two to a dozen times daily, eating at irregular intervals, and sleeping not more than four or five hours out of each twenty-four. As a natural result his face was drawn and haggard, his muscles frequently twitching, and under his eyes were great black hollows. Yet at every stopping point, when he rose to face his fellow Nebraskans, the worn look would give way, the deep-set eyes would lighten with the fires of a holy zeal, and, in a voice that rang out clear and strong and passionate he pleaded for the preservation of the Republic and its ideals, inviolate and intact. The train was running on schedule time, of course, and at each stopping point it was necessary for the engineer to toot his whistle and ring his bell, not once, but continuously, in order to tear Mr. Bryan away from his audience when the alloted time had expired. Then the indefatigable campaigner, shaking scores of outstretched hands as he ran, would hasten to his car, and the train would speed along to the next stopping place. Mr. Bryan would no sooner enter his car than he dropped his head on a pillow and slept until a tap on the shoulder awoke him, and he rushed out to make another speech, generally differing in form from any made that day or any previous day, though the substance of all was, of course, largely the same. Once, as the train was screaming along between stations Mr. Bryan called the writer to his state-room, where he lay at rest. He raised his head from the pillow as I entered, and started to speak. What words of suggestion or advice were on his tongue I shall never know, for, in the middle of his first sentence the tired head fell back, the lustrous eyes were closed, and his heavy breathing alone told that life remained in the man’s worn and exhausted frame as he lay there fast asleep.
Late in the afternoon of that same day Mr. Bryan’s dinner was brought him on the train, and he ate—as he slept—between stations. His traveling companions, it may be observed, had eaten hearty meals at a town long passed, dining in leisure while Mr. Bryan, standing with bared head on a wind-swept platform, with a scorching sun beating down upon him, addressed five thousand or more wildly cheering people. As he sat in his little compartment, hastily munching his food, there were with him Mr. Joseph A. Altsheler, of the New York World, and the writer, representing the Omaha World-Herald. One of us chanced to mention some interruption made at the last meeting, where a shrewd Republican partisan had raised a point which Mr. Bryan’s ready repartee had quickly, if not efficiently, disposed of. As soon as the matter was mentioned Mr. Bryan turned from the tray on which were his fried chicken, cold slaw, and coffee. And there, his eyes glowing like lakes of molten metal, his expressive features all in play, in the voice of one who addressed a multitude, he took up that Republican’s sophism and analyzed it for the benefit of us twain. Such was the concentrated and awful intensity of the man that it thrilled me to the core, and, under that burning gaze and vibrant, moving voice, in such an unusual entourage, I trembled with an emotion I could not name.
It was near midnight of that day when the train reached Benkelman, in far western Nebraska, where the last speech was to be delivered. The warm day had been succeeded by a night that was almost bitter cold, and, as we alighted from the train, tired, sleepy, and hungry, the cold, fierce wind from the mountains swooped down on us, and pierced us through and through. At that late hour, and in that semi-arid, scantily populated country, there were patiently waiting, wrapped in their great coats, nearly fifteen hundred people, most of whom had driven from twenty to one hundred miles “to hear Bryan speak.”
In the course of that day Mr. Bryan had already spoken sixteen times. To do this he had risen before five o’clock in the morning and had traveled over two hundred miles. At Benkelman, it was agreed, he should speak not longer than fifteen minutes, and go to bed.
The speaker’s stand was at the principal street intersection of the village. It was gaily decorated with flags and bunting, and lighted by flaring gas jets. The piercing mountain wind swooped down on it like a wolf on the fold. Up on this eminence the worn and wearied campaigner, half dead from want of sleep and his constant exertions, was hurried. Shrill volleys of cheers and yells rose to the heavens. There was a moment’s silence. Then, on the cold air, there fell the deep, melodious, serene voice of the orator, in words of earnest protest and warning, in a magnificent plea for the Republic. For ten or twelve minutes we, who were his traveling companions, remained; and though our eyes were heavy and our senses dulled, though we shivered from the cold even as we trembled with exhaustion, the splendid enthusiasm of that hardy little band of frontiersmen warmed our hearts, and we cheered with them. But, in a few minutes, tired nature called loud to us, and we plodded to the hotel, a block and a half away. We sat for a half hour about the blazing fire, absorbing the grateful warmth. Through the closed doors and windows there came to us, ever and anon, the rich and powerful voice of the orator down the street, punctuated by the wild yells of applause that came from the delighted men of the sand-hills. Again we retreated,—this time to our bed chambers. My teeth chattered like castanets as I disrobed. And now I could plainly hear the orator’s voice,—sometimes his very words,—words that thrilled and pulsated with the life of an animate thing. I pulled the blankets and comforters close about me, and fell into the sleep of utter exhaustion. The next morning we learned that, for just one hour and three quarters Mr. Bryan had stood in that bitter, piercing wind, under the inscrutable stars of midnight on the prairie, and preached the gospel of democracy. Do you gather, now, what I mean in saying that Mr. Bryan’s intensity is something most difficult to describe? It is something that knows not fear, nor hunger, nor exhaustion; that keeps him moving on,—ever and steadily on toward the goal, unswerved and unhindered by those hardships, trials, and obstacles that check the course of other men, or cause them to turn into broader and easier paths.
It is this intensity of character and purpose that makes heroes and martyrs. It also makes fanatics. But Mr. Bryan is no fanatic; his stubborn determination and unyielding purpose is tempered with mental equipoise, good judgment, and common sense.
The first impression one receives of Bryan as a man, and the last one to fade, is that of his reckless sincerity. Right or wrong, he is honest; he is of such a nature that he can not be otherwise; and all things for good or evil, for success or defeat, must subordinate themselves to his personal conception of duty. He possesses all those qualities common to all great men, and some that but very few great men can claim. He has few friends among the rich men of the nation, and is a stranger to fashionable “society;” but he is loved and trusted by the millions who follow him with a devotion such as no other American has won. At his home or abroad, among his children or with his neighbors, or on his well-kept farm, may be found a kindly, upright, debt-paying, unassuming citizen, full of a gentle rollicking humor, a man without an impure thought or act, a profoundly religious Presbyterian, a man who does not smoke, yet who does not hesitate, on occasion, to offer cigars to his friends; who will sit hour after hour in tobacco-laden air, sharing in the conversation of those whose mouths are chimneys for the time. He never drinks wine or liquor, yet he never flaunted a phylactery, or called names when the clink of glasses was heard. In all things a temperate and abstemious man, yet, such is his toleration that there is nothing oppressive about his being better than most of us.
In personal appearance as well as mental gifts, Mr. Bryan is highly favored. Before uttering a word, his magnetic influence wins for him the favor of his audience. Simple is his delivery and bearing. “As he stands before his listeners,” said Mr. R. L. Metcalfe, in a book published four years ago: “he presents a bold and striking picture; intelligence is stamped on every feature; he commences in the soft, pleasant tone, instantly riveting your attention upon him. Your eyes are fastened upon the orator. As he moves, you in spirit move with him; as he advances to his climax his audience advances with him. In perfect harmony orator and audience travel over the path of thought, until the climax is reached, and then, as the last tone of the deep, rich, melodious voice of the orator is uttered with a dramatic force, there breaks forth the full, earnest applause that marks the approval of those who listen. The hand of the orator is raised; instantly perfect silence follows. The sweet tones of the marvelous voice are again heard within the enclosure, no matter how vast.
“There is much in Mr. Bryan’s oratory that recalls to us many of our noted speakers of long ago. Search his speeches through, whether in Congress, before the convention, or on the stump, and you will find them absolutely free from personalities. No audience ever sat within the sound of his voice and caught a word that would appeal to the lower passions of anger, hate, or revenge. He is always the master of himself.”
The directness, simplicity, and purity of Mr. Bryan’s style as an orator and the loftiness and beauty of his sentiment are well shown in the appended excerpt from one of his Congressional speeches on “Money,” in which occurs his famous apostrophe to Thomas Jefferson: