A PROMINENT AMERICAN WOMAN.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 281, 1 June 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

A PROMINENT AMERICAN WOMAN.

In an article on the homo life of Mr William J .Bryan, who has twice contested the Presidency of the United States, and, it is understood, will be a candidate again this year, an Amercan journal says that on his political journey Mr Bryan is almost invariably accompanied by his wife. And on these journeys, and through her iAraost constant association with | the most intimato details of his political work, Mrs Bryan has come to have such a knowledge of politics as n) other woman ever possessed. Her I husband holds her his wisest adviser, and prudent politicians have learned to reckon upon her judgment when thoy seek to bring him to their views. She writes but little, and that chiefly for their own paper, the Commoner; nor does she speak in public. Withal she is as potent a fotce in the political as in the home life of the Bryans. Classmates in college, she and her husband were married shortly after graduation, when she studied law and was admitted, to the Bar, not j vith any expectation of practising, but merely that she might help "Will" — as she invariably calls him — in his office work. All through their married life she has been studying things that wotild help Will — [ shorthand, typewriting, proof reading, the art of expression, and the mystjon-ies — which in 1896 pioved unfathomable to so many — of bimetallism. Some years ago the writer of the article was a guest at the Bryan home in Lincoln. Coming to breakfast at an early hour which seemed abnormally early to the jaded mind of a New York mowing journalist, he found a vacant place. "Where is Mrs Bryan?". he asked. "Oh," said her husband, "three times a week she goes to the university before breakfast for an early class* in German. "You see," he centinued with a smile, "I can't read German, and she thought it might be a good thing to have someone in the family who could get at first hand the sentiment of the German Press." Nevertheless, the breakfast was admirably served. This in itself is not of importance, but helps to illustrate the fact that for all her intellectual work, Mrs Bryan is no Mrs Jellaby, but a thoroughly competent working housewife. Theßryan home has ever been a model of neatness and good domestic management. Much of the work of the Bryan household centres about the weekly newspaper, the Commoner, which is the vehicle of such of Mr Bryan'B views as he cannot find occasion to express upon the platform. , The Commoner publishes the name of an associate editor, but the true associate is Mrs Bryan, whose work for it fills a large portion of' her busy days. Next to the enbrmous mass of political correspondence which needs daily attention, it is the chief day's work, and husband and wife work over its copy and proofs together in tha, library, where political portraits, busts, and engravings, illustrating famous debates in the United States Senate, look down upon them.