The Wrangell Sentinel

A STURDY CAMPAIGNER

There is a physical side to this business of campaigning for the presidency.
In the earlier days, candidates went personally into the hinterlands making not one-night stands but brief pauses interrupted to move on to a newer and perhaps more fertile field. It was a tremendous strain on them physically.
Today, with improved travel accommodations and the help of radio campaigning it not the arduous task of former years, but it has its moments.
William Jennings Bryan, torch bearer of extraordinary record in politics, doubtless is the man who proved the sturdiest campaigner of them all. And even he almost broke down.
Bryan was physically fit and energetic when he first stumped the country in 1896, bearing his cross of gold. He insisted on patronizing the local trains, riding in the day coaches at the outset of his tour.
In that campaign, Bryan delivered as many as 20 speeches a day, a great part of them from the rear of his slow-moving train. In Tennessee his throat began to balk. When this was known, many curatives were pressed upon him. One bottle of a remedy for hoarseness was tasted by Benton McMillen of Tennessee and found to contain a caustic fluid which might have injured Bryan permanently.
It was toward the end of that campaign that Bryan began to approach exhaustion. He had completed a three-days' series of speeches in Chicago. Despite his splendid physique, the strain began to tell.
He was scheduled to travel north of Chicago when his "loop" engagements were ended. But so trying had been the requirements of his tour that it was necessary to delay the start of the party for more than two hours.