Speeches of William Jennings Bryan. With Biographical Intro- duction by
Mary Baird Bryan. 2 vols. (Funk and Wagnalls Company. 8s. 6d. net.)—We have in these volumes twenty-one political speeches, and fifteen on religious, educational, and other subjects. Up to 1896 the " Silver Question" occupies an important place. The first volume contains four orations on this subject, which occupy one hundred and sixty-nine out of the three hundred and twenty-one pages. Whether Mr. Bryan now holds the same views we know not, but the subject seems to have dropped out of his political programme. Protection, on the other hand, is still a living issue with him. He denounced it in a powerful argument in 1892, and he returned to the subject when he was a candidate for the Presidency in 1908. "We hear no more," he says in the latter year, "of infant industries' that must be tenderly cared for until they can stand upon their feet " ; there is no suggestion that the "foreigner pays the tariff. These catch phrases have had their day ; they are worn out." Here, we may remark, where Protection is untried in practice, they are still fresh and apparently attractive. "Tariff measures which embody the principles of pro- tection are not drawn by legislators, although, as a matter of courtesy, they generally bear the names of legislators ; they are really drawn by the representatives of the interests which demand protection." Is it not a fact that Members of Congress are some- times popularly known, not as representing this or that State, but as Members for this or that great importing or manufacturing concern ?
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