Whatever may be the judgment of William J. Bryan’s motives in resigning
the position of Secretary of State in President Wilson’s cabinet, there
is an almost universal feeling of relief at the accomplished fact. We
doubt if there is a single one even of Mr. Bryan’s warmest admirers
who would not admit, if brought to an honest confession, Mr. Bryan’s
utter incompetency for such a place. President Wilson was doubtless
conscious of Mr. Bryan’s failings when he grafted him into his cabinet,
but he was moved by political considerations which at the time seemed
to be compelling. And there is no doubt that Bryan has been highly
useful to Wilson in bringing the Democratic party, to which Wilson was
comparatively a stranger, to the support of the administration. Bryan’s
services in the Cabinet have been purely political. At the time the
appointment was tendered him there was no dream of the outbreak of the
great war which has imposed such a burden and strain upon the office of
Secretary of State in conducting our foreign relations. There was to
be sure the Mexican trouble, which was serious enough, but at the time
probably not appreciated at its full gravity. There is a widespread
belief that the fundamental mistake of our Mexican policy was due to
Mr. Bryan’s impracticable idealism. At that time the President was not
fully awake to the weakness of Bryan’s character, and carelessly allowed
himself to be committed to a policy of drift and pusillanimity which,
instead of saving Mexico from anarchy, has resulted in plunging it into
the worst anarchy in its history, and has confronted the United States
with possibly the hard necessity of military intervention to save the
Mexican people from utter destruction. This is a result that was not
sought by Mr. Bryan, but it is a result which his vacillation invited.
By the time the European situation developed President Wilson was better
acquainted with Secretary Bryan, and he judiciously took the conduct of
the State Department, so far as it concerned the European crisis, into
his own hands. This has saved us from a fatal involvement which could
hardly fail to embroil us with one or more of the belligerent powers.
For it is usually weakness and not strength which embroils a country in
war when the country is seeking to avoid war. Secretary Bryan displayed
such a capacity for blundering, such actual imbecility when it came
to grappling with practical questions, that his presence in the State
Department always endangered the smashing of diplomatic crockery as the
presence of a bull in a China shop endangers the smashing of actual
crockery. President Wilson is entitled to credit for seizing the reins
of our foreign relations and holding them with a firm hand the moment he
became convinced of the utter incompetency and uselessness of the driver
he had selected. The retirement of Bryan is a load off the shoulders of
his administration which may save it from the utter ruin which threatened
it. The country breathes more freely that Bryan has gone. In private life
his platitudes and puerile philosophies can do comparatively little harm,
notwithstanding his accomplishments as an orator, his personal magnetism,
and his apparent sincerity. In their long acquaintance with him on the
stump and the rostrum the American people have come to size him up
pretty correctly. They look upon him much as they would upon an actor
with a pleasing voice and presence who entertains but does not convince.
His exposition of the beatitudes and generally accepted moralities,
and his reiteration of common-place and tawdry sentiment passes off
harmlessly like a glow of summer lightning so long as he is a private
citizen, and we all have to be thankful that he no longer speaks with an
official voice.