BRYANT 



965 



BRYANT 



Recent Political Activity. His Democratic 

 opponents freely predicted that this defeat 

 meant the end of Bryan's leadership, but two 

 years later, at Baltimore, he appeared stronger 

 than ever before and established his power 

 without question. His influence in Woodrow 

 Wilson's nomination and election were recog- 

 nized by his appointment as Secretary of State 

 in the new President's Cabinet. Bryan was 

 not trained in diplomacy, and his administra- 

 tion of this office met with considerable criti- 

 cism, especially because he was absent from 

 Washington at several critical periods. He con- 

 tinued in office until June 8, 1915, when he re- 

 signed because he was unable to agree with 

 the President on the policies to be pursued 

 toward Germany and the other European na- 

 tions at war. For further details, see WILSON, 

 WOODROW, subhead Administration. 



Temperance Advocate and Lecturer. Bryan's 

 courage in advocating policies which seem to 

 him right and just has been strikingly illus- 

 trated by his outspoken stand for prohibition 

 of the liquor traffic. In this he has assumed 

 no halfway position, but, seemingly indifferent 

 to the effect on his political career, has defi- 

 nitely taken his place in the ranks of those who 

 are working to legislate out of existence the 

 sale of intoxicating liquors. It was a source of 

 great satisfaction to him that his state of 

 Nebraska joined the ranks of the prohibition 

 states in the fall elections of 1916, and he 

 announced at that time that he would thence- 

 forth devote himself to the work of making 

 the entire United States dry. 



As a lecturer he is probably known to more 

 people than any other public man of his time, 

 and no speaker has won more enduring pop- 

 ularity on the Chautauqua circuits. Of the 

 Winona (Ind.) Chautauqua Assembly he was 

 in 1915 elected president. The quality of his 

 oratory is often described as "silver-tongued." 

 Never at a loss for a telling phrase or for words 

 to express his thoughts, he captivates his audi- 

 ences by his splendid delivery, his graceful 

 flow of language and his earnestness and sin- 

 cerity. His greatest effort, The Prince of Peace, 

 is a masterpiece of American oratory. W.F.Z. 



BRY'ANT, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794-1878), 

 the first great American poet, known as the 

 "Father of American poets." Though he has 

 never been popular and beloved in just the 

 way that Longfellow has been, yet there are 

 certain of his poems, as Thanatopsis, To a 

 Waterfowl, The Death of the Flowers and To 

 the Fringed Gentian, which are as well known 



as anything else in American literature. They 

 have given inspiration as well as pleasure to 

 innumerable people. 



Events of His Life. Bryant was born at 

 Cummington, Mass., and was the son of a 

 country doctor. From his childhood his in- 

 clinations were toward literature, and he spent 

 in reading and study much of the time which 

 most boys de.vote to play. This does not mean 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 



that he had no pleasures, for he has left 

 an account of snowball fights, of dam-building 

 and of the races in which he used to join the 

 other children. At the age of ten he had a 

 poem published in a country newspaper, and 

 three years later attracted much attention on 

 the appearance of The Embargo, a satiric poem, 

 based on the celebrated Embargo Act (which 

 see) and addressed to President Jefferson. In 

 1810 he entered Williams College, but after 

 a year gave up the idea of a college course and 

 studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 

 1815, and practiced for ten years, most of the 

 time at Great Barrington, Mass. Before he 

 left that town in 1825 he was married to Miss 

 Fairchild, with whom he had a very happy 

 life. 



Meanwhile, when he was but seventeen, he 

 had written Thanatopsis, the first great poem 

 that America had produced. He left it care- 

 lessly among some papers, but six years later 

 his father discovered it and sent it to the 

 editor of the North American Review. Its 

 publication commanded immediate attention 



