WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 380, 18 March 1927, Page 4

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.

In 1896 I first saw’ him, a candidate for the Presidency, 36 years old and being feasted in Los Angeles by the democrats of South California, including the big vineyard growers and w’ine merchants of the Golden State. Every plate was decorated with a row’ of wine glasses. Here, Mr Bryan had the chance to play the diplomat, for the wine industry was very precious there. Without a word, ho sat down and quietly turned his five or six glasses upside down. 1 never saw r liquor flow’ as it did at that banquet. After a while w hen it got to w’orking on them, one Democrat orator ventured to call attention to the fact that “our candidate has his glasses all turned over, w’here w'e wanted to di him honour with our favourite beverage, and crown him with our choice industry.” Then Mr Bryan’s turn came; he held a glass of w’ater in his hand and said: “Gentlemen, I have two reasons for not partaking of your wine. First, I am a Christian and a member of the Presbyterian Church. My Church teaches total abstinence. I will never, by any moral lapse, humiliate my Church by tramping on its rules if I can help it. Second, thtre sits by my side a little woman w’ho, in my youth gave her heart, but w r as worried about my occasional indulgence in the wine at banquets. Before our marriage, I told her never to worry on that score again. While she and l both lived, I would never touch a drop of intoxicants again. I have never violated that pledge, and I will not for any honour, for any papulor applause, or for the Presidency of the Great Repub’ie, yield to any impulse to please others by violating ihe promise to the little woman w’ho is more to me than all the rest.” He never had any principles for sale. —“By his Pastor.” His fight w’as for a religious conviction —unpopular in the schools — spurned by the Church —uninteresting to the State, with nobody left to thank the Commoner 1 but with utter abandon he threw himself into the arena because he believed the faith was imperilled, and felt the cause needed a champion. He had seen the Bible pushed out of our tax-supported schools, even the Lord’s Prayer stopped in the opening exercises of the public school on the ground that

to inculcate religion is sectarian. Then Text Books and teachers inducted into the schools that held up the Bible to scorn, and scoffed at religion. He felt that to teach against religion w r as as “sectarian” as to teach religion. He felt someone ought to say so. What he thought ought to be done he did, and he was never nobler than in throwing himself against the whole world drift, and stemming that current up to his last breath. Every thoughtful man knows that there is something the matter with the world. Every' true man would like to help set it right. Some think the matter is the aftermath of the w’ar, the w’ets say it is prohibition, the drys reply it is lawiessness and drinking. Every surface suggestion has had full expression. Bryan went deeper and found a fundamental defect. He took the risk of pointing it out. He said: “You have crowded religion out of your schools. Without re ligion there is no foundation for morality. You teach a Godless interpretation of the universe and materialistic science. You trace your origin to the jungle and your destiny to the dust; and if man is the brute of the day he will live the part. We must get back to faith in God the Bible, the Sabbath, the moral life, the spiritual leadership of mankind, the “faith of our fathers living still.”