Lewiston Evening Teller

BRYAN IS 48 YEARS OLD

WILL CELEBRATE EVENT IN CHICAGO. SPEAKING TONIGHT IN ARMORY AT FORMAL OPENING OF CITY CAMPAIGN.

CHICAGO, March 19.

William J. Bryan, twice the candidate of the democratic party for president of the United States and, in racetrack parlance, 'the one best bet' for the nomination again this year, spent his 48th birthday in Chicago today.

Mr. Bryan is here to speak at a meeting in the Seventh Regiment armory tonight, which will mark the formal opening of the democratic campaign in Chicago.

The demonstration has been arranged by the Bryan league, of which former Mayor Carter H. Harrison is the head.

During the day word was passed around that this was Mr. Bryan's birthday, and for several hours the distinguished Nebraskan was kept busy receiving the good wishes of friends and admirers.

Though it is now nearly 12 years since he received his first nomination for the highest office in the land, Mr. Bryan is still a comparatively young man. He is in the prime of vigorous manhood and well qualified, physically, to stand the strain of the coming campaign.

Twelve years of almost constant travel and speechmaking have made no visible inroads on his physical resources.

If he is nominated at the Denver convention next July, Mr. Bryan intends to start at once on a strenuous campaign that will equal if not eclipse his wonderful record already established in this direction.

Mr. Bryan is the originator of the whirlwind campaign.

Mr. Bryan's speaking campaign of 1896 lasted approximately four months, and there were on an average 25 campaigning days in each month. In this campaign he made more than 2500 speeches, short and long. During the last three months of the campaign it was nothing unusual for him to make 20 speeches in a single day. Sometimes the number ran as high as 35 for the day. But at the end of the campaign Mr. Bryan apparently was in as good physical condition as at the start.

Four years later he entered his second whirlwind campaign, and, as pugilists would say, he was in the pink of condition. His first big effort was his speech of acceptance, made in Indianapolis on a day so hot that many persons were overcome in the crowd. With such a beginning Mr. Bryan proceeded to break his speech-making record of the first campaign. On one occasion, working westward from St. Louis, he made his first speech of the day at 5 o'clock in the morning and his last at midnight, which meant an almost continuous performance of 19 hours. And his midnight speech was said to have been made with all the vigor of a man who had made no previous public appearance during the day.