Judge Bryan's farm, about a mile outside of Salem, Illinois, was the show-farm of that section in 1866. It entended for five hundred acres, and included a garden and a private park where fine deer were kept. In this spacious environment William Jennings Bryan, born in Salem, started his career at the age of six. This disposes of some fiction about his being the son of a poor farmer. His father was, on the contrary, a cultivated man of local importance in Illinois. He was a Circuit Judge, had served in the State Senate, was a man above the average in his community. He wanted his son to have a classical education; his wife favored the career of a lawyer, for him; young Bryan himself, at this time, wanted to be a minister. This selection was chiefly because of the religious influence his father exerted over the house-hold. Judge Bryan was a very religious man. He made religious devotion a strict part of his daily life. He prayed three times a day, morning, noon, and night. Often when holding court, he would look at his watch, and at noon he would suspend proceedings and kneel for a few minutes in silent prayer in the courtroom. No matter where he was when noontime came, he stopped whatever he was doing for the mid-day prayer. Once he was about to mount his horse when, looking at his watch, he saw it was twelve o'clock, and he knelt beside the horse, said his silent prayer, mounted, and went on. This impressive habit influenced his son, and made him study his Bible, so that it was the model of his thoughts, his language, his reasoning. From this source can be traced that distinctive fashion of all his speeches, the form and fire of his oratory that has moved the Nation more than once. It is the form and style of Biblical literature. All his life he has been a leader—in religious movements, conducting a Sunday School, advocating prohibition, urging a cessation of war, opposing private capital in favor of Government ownership whenever expedient, pressing for direct primaries in Senatorial elections. His purpose has been that of a reformer, and most of his reforms, though scoffed at when first proposed, have become statutory laws or National policies since.

The Middle West, when Bryan grew up in it, was a section where people lived plainly, talked frankly, and hated class distinctions. All the influences of his first years of life were democratic. He didn't go to school till he was ten years old, but learned all that he knew up to that time from his father and mother. His surroundings were the quiet farmhouse, his hours were the sunrise and sunset hours of the farm, and his daily jobs were those of a boy on a farm, who attends to the chores. He could take care of the animals in the barn, plow, mow grass, pitch hay, hoe potatoes, plant a garden, or scrub the floors with the skill of many other boys of his age. After five years of the village school, he went to a preparatory school for the Illinois College, from which he was graduated when he was twenty-one. Then he went through the Union Law School in Chicago, and got his first job in a lawyer's office in that city.

During those eight years he developed normally, silently, without any outward indication of special talents for the law. But he had shown marked ability as a public speaker. He demonstrated this when he delivered the valedictory address at his graduation from the college, where he took the second prize for oratory in the intercollegiate contest, with a declamation of an original oration called “Justice.”

The real start of his career occurred when he went to work in the law office of ex-Senator Lyman Trumbull, whose influence and guidance developed the latent talents that were in him. This fortunate opportunity he has always regarded as the explanation of his success as an orator. He always acknowledged his gratitude to the valuable influence of his first employer. Long years afterwards, immediately after his nomination by the Democratic Convention for President in 1896, he went from the convention hall to the grave of Senator Trumbull in Oakland Cemetery, and stood bare-headed in grateful memory of his teachings.

His first platform, however, was the kitchen table at home on which he would stand and repeat his lessons to his mother, and this habit of declamation, of “speaking a piece,” was his own idea. He always felt that he could answer questions much better if he stood on the table than if he stood on the floor.

His ambition for public life started when he was twelve years old, in 1872, when his father was going through a political campaign for Congress. He watched, and listened, and saw the methods that were employed in his father's campaign, and arrived at certain fixed ideas as to how one could reach a place in public life. He planned first, when he grew up, to win a reputation and a moderate fortune in some profession, preferably the law. Then he could think of public life. But he actually reached his ambition, in later years, by seizing an unexpected opportunity.

The religious side of his life took positive form when he was only fourteen. Instead of joining the Baptist Church to which his parents belonged, he entered the First Presbyterian Church in Jacksonville, Ill., and has been a member of that church ever since.

The strict temperance in all things, which has consistently controlled the personal views of William Jennings Bryan, was based on a deeply religious sense of duty to the laws of the Church. In addition to this, during the years he spent at the preparatory school for college, from the age of fifteen to seventeen, he lived with a distant relative, Dr. Hiram K. Jones. The doctor was a scholarly sort of man with strict views of a temperate life, which he had taught at the Concord school, where he was a lecturer on Platonic Philosophy. In his home, Dr. Jones and his wife, who had no children themselves, gave young Bryan the care as of a son. He grew up in an atmosphere of intense and rigid self-discipline.

In tracing the early influences of his life, besides the religious temperament of his father, the healthy and scholarly guidance of his two mentors in Chicago, Dr. Jones and Senator Trumbull, must be added the inspiration and devotion of the girl he met at the Illinois College, and whom he subsequently married.

She was Miss Mary E. Baird of Perry, Illinois, who was also a student in the Annex, the department for girls. She, too, had earned distinction for her oratory in the college, and delivered the valedictory address at her graduation.

As a young man, William Jennings Bryan was considered one of the handsomest students in the college: tall, with black hair, a white skin, expressive eyes, and a smile that was winning, radiant, an embodiment of the equable, amiable, kindly temperament he has always had. Their romance, which began on the college campus, was founded on mutual intellectual interests, an ideal approach to a permanent happiness. They were engaged at the end of their college life, which they had shared in study. He decided to be a lawyer. They viewed their romance with practical vision, for his fiancée decided that she too would study law, so as to be able to help him when they were married. She studied law, but never practiced.

Mrs. Bryan has described vividly her first meeting with the orator:

“My personal knowledge of Mr. Bryan dates from September, 1879,” she writes. “He was then entering his Junior year. I saw him first in the parlors of the young ladies' school which I attended in Jacksonville, Ill. He entered the room with several other students, was taller than the rest, and attracted my attention at once. His face was pale and thin; a pair of keen, dark eyes looked out from beneath heavy eyebrows; his nose was prominent—too large to look well, I thought; a broad, thin-lipped mouth and a square chin completed the contour of his face. He was neat though not fastidious in dress, and stood firmly with dignity. I noted particularly his hair and smile—the former, black in color, fine in quality, and parted distressingly straight; the latter, expansive, expressive.”

Mr. Bryan's smile, when he was a young man, was in fact so wide that an onlooker seeing him for the first time at a public meeting said, “That man can whisper in his own ear.”

The trend of Mr. Bryan's thought in any crisis usually led to a refuge of some sort in the Scriptures. This was because he had been influenced as a boy to seek consolation and advice in the Bible, or in prayer. His religious instincts have always prevailed, they have colored all his famous speeches and lectures. He always quotes the Scriptures in them. Mrs. Bryan emphasizes this tendency in an anecdote she recounts of her husband's interview with her father on the subject of their marriage:

“The time came when it seemed proper to have a little conversation with my father,” she writes, “and this was something of an ordeal, as father is a reserved man. In his dilemma, William sought refuge in the Scriptures and began:

“Mr. Baird, I have been reading Proverbs a good deal lately, and find that Solomon says: ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord.’ Father, being something of a Bible scholar himself, replied: ‘Yes, Solomon did say that; but Paul suggests that, while he that marrieth doth well, he that marrieth not, doth better.’”

“This was distressing, but William saw his way through, for he said, ‘Solomon would be the best authority on this point, because Paul never married, while Solomon had many wives.’”

The matter was then satisfactorily arranged, and they were married in October of 1884, when Mr. Bryan was twenty-four. During the summer of that year a small home was built, into which they moved as soon as they were married. This incident like many others in Mr. Bryan's life demonstrates the practical side of his character, which has been no small part of his success.

“During the next three years,” writes Mrs. Bryan, “we lived comfortably, though economically, and laid by a small amount.”

During this time the young “Emancipator of the West,” as he was called later, was the collection clerk for Brown and Korby, a small firm of country lawyers in Jacksonville. Occasionally he delivered political speeches in the local county elections.

Mr. Bryan's choice of Lincoln, Nebraska, for a permanent home came three years after he was married. There were no political reasons for the change, for the city, county, and State were almost solidly Republican, whereas Mr. Bryan is a Democrat. He returned home, from a business trip to Lincoln, Nebraska, full of enthusiasm for the West. He had met an old schoolmate, A. R. Talbot, who had a law office of his own in Lincoln, and Mr. Bryan, being offered a partnership with him, accepted. This was not an improvement in a business way, because the new partner was still a young man of stiff ideals. Mr. Talbot's business as a lawyer was largely with the railroads. Mr. Bryan, on principle as a disciple of anti-trust legislation, declined to do anything for any railroad, so he did not share in the profits of Talbot's business, and practically had to begin at the bottom of the ladder again. This was never any problem to Mr. Bryan. He has begun over and over again in so many vital National issues in which he has been opposed, that it is one of his chief characteristics to pursue his ideal at whatever personal cost it involves. His is the temperament of true reform.

Mr. Bryan's refusal as a lawyer to accept a fee of $10,000 to defend a railroad, because he could not surrender his anti-trust views, indicates that he was not destined to become a successful lawyer. His opponents have claimed that he was not, but Mrs. Bryan writes, in his defense, “Consider that he entered the law at twenty-three and left it at thirty, and during that period began twice, and twice became more than self-supporting.”

His practice in Lincoln, Nebraska, was small, but he was immediately recognized by the Democrats, who were the minority party. His talents as a public speaker found ample scope at banquets, meetings, and clubs. He was soon chosen as delegate to the State Democratic Convention and there met all the leading Democrats of Nebraska, which led to a series of speeches on political interests.

In 1890, when he was just thirty, he was nominated for Congress from his district on the Democratic ticket. Mr. Bryan's great gifts as an orator elected him in this campaign with a majority unheard of for Democrats in Nebraska. He had achieved the recognition, that has been widely acknowledged since, of his intense sincerity of character and his simplicity of manner and feeling towards all people. His voice was soothing to hear, his presence was dignified without coldness; his power of launching a picturesque phrase, of shy humor and terrific earnestness, was admitted after the chief address of his campaign.

In Congress, he was favored by an appointment on the Committee of Ways and Means, an honor rarely conferred on a young member. During the next three years he studied the National issues of his time deeply. Anxious to justify his selection on an important Committee, he prepared himself for the address on the tariff in 1893, which launched him into National prominence. He has always had a large following ever since he sprang into the limelight twenty-eight years ago.

In a brief analysis of Mr. Bryan's phenomenal activity in politics, in religion, in the social and diplomatic affairs of the Nation, the inevitable conclusion that he is a constructive thinker of tireless energy is brought home to us. His intellectual grasp of big issues and his fertility of expression have swung many National reforms. Nor has he ever retreated from his ideals in the face of bitter opposition, though it has brought the ridicule of cartoons and press upon him.

His defeat in his next campaign for Congress, however, left him secretly shorn of ambition. He was a poor man, he had a family to support, and at this crisis he thought seriously of taking up the practice of law again. The sudden activity of the Democratic Party in a great drive for National power diverted him from this course. He had shown himself to be a student and an original force in democratic gospel, and more than this, in popular interpretation of issues for the people. An offer was made him on the staff of the Omaha World-Herald, which he accepted, at a salary of $1800. In addition to this he was in demand as a lecturer. His place in the political fortunes of the Democratic Party became unassailable and his speeches, made all over the country, were ammunition that scattered his opponents. Finally, at the Democratic Convention, he rose to the great opportunity of his career and captured the nomination with the famous “cross of gold” speech, which urged the increased coinage of silver on a basis of 16-1 with gold.

He received an ovation, the delegates carrying him on their shoulders round the Convention Hall, and he was ever after a force in National life. Because of his reformer's temperament he has been opposed; and yet, because of his temperament also, he has made a permanent, deep mark upon the history of the Nation. Many of the policies he had advocated have been adopted by other political parties, who have found them expedient.

He advocated Government ownership of railroads, municipal ownership of utilities, regulation of corporations, tariff reforms, the Federal income tax, State Rights, publicity of campaign contributions, opposition to imperialism, restriction of immigration, Federal guarantee of deposits in National banks, self-government for the Philippines, free Cuba, pure food laws, employers' liability act, one term only for President, irrigation, election of United States Senators by direct vote, opposition to militarism, opposition to child labor, Christian missions in foreign lands, semi-socialism. Prohibition has been his life's work, and at the age of sixty-one he conducts vast Sunday School meetings.

He was the first American to do something for the abolition of war. As far back as 1905 he made a public declaration against war that attracted wide-spread attention. It was received with sneers and scoffing. At that time war was a dead issue for America. In that year the Congress of the Interparliamentary Union for the Promotion of International Arbitration, adopted an amendment written by Mr. Bryan, favoring recourse to an International Arbitration Committee. This was the fundamental treaty idea. With the fire of his oratory, he attracted the attention of cynical diplomats. Pointing at the picture of Admiral Nelson's death he declared:

“There is as much inspiration in a noble life as in a heroic death.”

The keynote of this statement was what has now been accepted, a realization that permanent peace depends upon arbitration. From that time, Mr. Bryan fought continuously to annihilate war. This became paramount in his service to the country as Secretary of State. Whenever he could, he removed international complications that might lead to war. His innumerable peace treaties have become prophetic instances of his foresight in international affairs. His purpose was, he said, “to provide a time for passion to subside.” Between 1913 and 1914 he signed twenty-six treaties of peace with foreign nations.

Mr. Bryan has shown himself in many instances to be a man in advance of his time.