Life, 1902-08-21 · page 8 of 20
Life — August 21, 1902 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page features **William Jennings Bryan**, a prominent Republican politician and stump speaker. The biographical entry describes his early life in Nebraska, his rise as a Democratic voice, and his 1896 speech that elected President McKinley. The lower cartoon satirizes **Bryan's "Democratic harmony dinners."** The illustration shows classical figures (appearing to reference Socrates based on the caption) at a banquet. The joke critiques these dinners as theatrical attempts to create party unity—essentially propaganda events. The caption "Why, I'm the ghost of a flower" and dialogue about wishing someone were present suggests the dinners were hollow performances masking actual Democratic discord and absent leadership, mocking Bryan's efforts to manufacture party cohesion through ceremonial gatherings.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
154 LIFE: Life’s Dictionary of International Biography. W. J. BRYAN, A WELL-KNOWN stump speaker - and wireless politician, who has been working for some years in the interests of the Repub- lican Party, an occupation in which he has been eminently successful, Mr. Bryan was born in a corn field in Nebraska, John W. Gates happening to be away, and there was a silver cross in the sky and an embossed escutcheon, with shirt sleeves in the foreground and adonkey rampant. At nine months old he could say “Grover,” and at two years he easily broke the lang-tester in the principal drug store at Lincoln, At three he began to write Democratic platforms, this being his first attempt at fiction, and at seven he started his great work of revising the Jeffersonian principles to suit himself and Chairman Jones, and brought them in under the main tent, instead of ex- hibiting them in a side show as heretofore. In 1896 Mr. Bryan, carefully packing his voice in excelsior, went to Chicago, and having mado his great speech that elected President McKinley, started out to stump the country, and inci- dentally to outclass the Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, At that time the enemy’s country was situ- ated in the north- ern part of the State of New York. Now itis bounded on the west by the Philippine Islands. From that da this, however, he has always been able to make a liv- ing, and has saved. up enough money to adopt for his motto Every sound money cloud has a siiver ining. During the Span- colonel of volunteers, and in “YOU'RE WHAT"? ASKED THE COMMON OR GAKDEN SPOOK, OF A STRANGER AT MIPNIGUT'S TOUR. AND THR SHADR REPLIED, WITH A GRACEFUL GLIDE, “WHY, 'M THR GHOST OF A FLOWER!" “TUE GHOST OF A FLOWER?" SAID THE OLD-TIME SPOOK, “THAT'S A BRAND-NEW ONE ON 1 NEVER SCPPOSED A FLOWER HAD A GHOST, THOUGH I'VE SEEN TH shade of a tre defence of his country offered to go to the Philippines and lecture Aguinaldo, but it was feared that all hopes of capturing that liberty-loving scoundrel would be frustrated, so the attempt was abandoned. Mr. Bryan then turned his attention to the invention of Democratic harmony dinners, taking for his model the WITH SOCRATES. . “PoP, DON'T YOU WIS! YOU WERE MES" ish war Mr. Bryan became a sauee “WELL, MAMMA WHIPS ME WHEN SHE GETS MAD, BCT SOR TALES TO YOU." comicbooks.com