The former
Secretary of State's only hope of immortality was to commit
political suicide, and he lacked the courage or the vision to fall
upon his sword.
When Woodrow Wilson was elected President for the first time he
appointed Mr. Bryan Secretary of State. The opinion Mr. Wilson
entertained of Mr. Bryan we all know. Mr. Wilson was not given to
letting his thoughts run wild, but on one occasion, with pen in
hand, he permitted himself the luxury of saying what he thought and
expressed the pious hope that somebody would knock the
distinguished Nebraskan into a cocked hat and thus dispose of the
perpetual candidate who was the Old Man of the Sea to the
Democratic Party.
Circumstances alter cases; Mr. Wilson as a private citizen could
say and think what he pleased; as President he was compelled to
make Mr. Bryan Secretary of State. As Mr. Bryan knew nothing of
history and less of European politics and had a superb disdain of
diplomacy--diplomacy according to the tenets of Bryanism being an
unholy and immoral game in which the foreign players were always
trying to outmaneuver the virtuous and innocent American--he was
provided with a political nurse, mentor, and guardian in the person
of John Bassett Moore, who had a long and brilliant career as an
international lawyer and diplomatist. Mr. Bryan busied himself with
finding soft jobs for deserving Democrats, preaching and
inculcating the virtues of grape juice to the diplomatic corps, and
concocting plans whereby the sword was to be beaten into a
typewriter and war become a lost art.
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