National Affairs: My Brother’

Who would have believed that the Democratic Party, choosing a National candidate, would ever again have scooped up a Bryan from the fishy deep? “Another of the men before you has the misfortune to be my brother,” said William Jennings of Charles Wayland. Probably the elder Bryan spoke the truth and yet the Democratic Party turned to the younger Bryan, gave him its Vice Presidential nomination.

In the beginning, Charles Wayland followed his brother. He followed him from Illinois to Nebraska. There he set up a butcher shop in Lincoln. Later he turned to retailing cigars in Omaha. He was there when William Jennings launched out on the Spirit of ’96.

Again the younger man followed the elder man. He became his brother’s private secretary, then his business manager. That William Jennings can now comfortably recline on a sunny peninsula is in no small degree due to Charles Wayland’s good management.

It was on the elder brother’s departure for Florida that the younger brother appeared in the sunlight. His bald head shone. His eyes gleamed down his firm nose, his moustache bristled. He had been running a couple of farms near Lincoln. Then he decided to run Lincoln. He first became Councilman, next Mayor. He set up a municipal coal pile and brought down coal prices. That coal pile was a feather in his hat.

Largely on account of it, he was able to secure the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1922. In the election, he was supported by the Non-Partisan League, the New Progressive Party, the Committee of 48, as well as his Democratic following. That election was gobbled up by the Republicans. They swept out of office Senator Hitchcock and generally carried the State by about 30,000 votes. There was one exception—the Governorship. Charles Wayland Bryan received 82 per cent of the total vote, was elected with a majority of 75,000.

During his Governorship, he has taken an active hand in the war on gasoline and coal prices, by having the State go into the business* State taxes he reduced 13%. Within six months after taking office, he reduced the number of employes on the State payroll from 610 to 272.

His progressive alliances, his vote-getting ability in the farm districts, were undeniably the decisive factors which induced his selection. The point against him was the name of Bryan, a very ill-tasting morsel, especially in the East.

Governor Bryan has a wife, a son Silas who is a lawyer in Minneapolis and a daughter whose married name is Mrs. W. E. Harnsberger.

One political writer distinguished between the brothers Bryan by saying that William Jennings has been an office seeker and Charles Wayland an office holder.

*Mr. Bryan is not an advocate of Government ownership. Says he: “I am not in favor of Federal, State or Municipal ownership of anything except natural resources, such as water; but when business combinations, particularly utilities and those supplying vitally necessary products, defy all authority and endeavor to mulct the public, then I think that the Government should sternly repress them, using whatever means may be most efficient.”