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104 D i s t r a c t i o n 4 Country Life William Jennings Bryan visited New York City during early summer 1897. It was a chance to thank important city Democrats for their support the previous year, and perhaps to let them know that despite his loss to William McKinley he might try for the presidency again in 1900. At age thirty-seven, Bryan planned to be a political figure for a long time. He relied on a coterie of staunch believers in New York City because the rest of the state was a stronghold of opposition to the Silver Democrats; Bryan had received 40 percent of the state’s votes compared to 47 percent nationwide. The Boy Orator of the Platte started his political rounds Saturday with breakfast at dawn, then took a passenger train to Irvington to see the man whose enthusiastic assistance had been a boon to the presidential campaign. The train arrived at the Irvington station near eight o’clock. Bryan, followed by a few reporters , walked up an adjacent hill past the Cosmopolitan Building and across a meadow to a white, two-story mansion.“Mr.Walker was not expecting Mr. Bryan , and was just getting up when he arrived,” according to the New York Times.1 The first fact perhaps was accurate, but the second fact was questionable. John Brisben Walker did not sleep past dawn. He awoke at sunrise, then worked in bed for two hours or more opening and answering mail,reading manuscripts of articles and stories, writing directives to associate editors, and awaiting his male secretary to report promptly to the bedroom at eight each workday for dictation of memorandums and instructions on the day’s tasks. “He would be impatient to begin the day’s work,”recalled a secretary, one with literary aspirations whose work Walker never accepted for publication. “There was no nonsense tolerated in Mr. Walker’s presence.” Saturday was no exception. It was a workday, and the weekly editorial conference consumed the afternoon.2 In the meantime on this particular Saturday, Walker and Bryan conducted political business. “They walked out on the tennis lawn, and talked for some Distraction 105 time,” the news article reported. Walker was no political novice, but the caustic public roasting from the New York Times the previous autumn had exacted a personal toll. One sardonic editorial had warned people about the “Popocratic ” political organizer, using slang for the fusion of Populists and Democrats .“Now, Mr.Walker, barring his temporary aberration of mind on the silver question, is a most estimable and trustworthy citizen,” the newspaper commented , before declaring that Walker “can delude himself with the notion that justice requires” silver coinage.“The only safe course for sound-money men to pursue in this campaign is to beware of John Brisben Walker.”3 During the 1896 campaign, Walker had organized rallies and scheduled appearances for the Democratic candidate in New York City. Bryan had visited Walker’s home in Irvington for dinner and an overnight stay several weeks prior to the November election. Democratic leaders and Bryan supporters had convened at Irvington for the day to meet Bryan, the first presidential candidate to travel the country on a campaign. One of the supporters at the campaign session was William Randolph Hearst, the young publisher of the New York Journal, a lackluster newspaper until the sensationalist from San Francisco purchased it in autumn 1895. Hearst and Walker were acquaintances who also were active in a municipal government reform organization in New York City to break the hold of Tammany Hall politicos. Cosmopolitan had remained mute on the presidential contest, however. Walker was a realist, aware that most Cosmopolitan readers lived in eastern states and big cities. He would not endanger his magazine by openly allying it with Bryan.4 No doubt his activism on behalf of Bryan had caused some discomfort among business associates in Manhattan. Walker was a charter member of the Up-Town Club, an organization of businessmen that included Simon Brentano, Charles Tiffany, and executives of Macy’s, Stern Brothers, Lord & Taylor, and numerous banks. Also, some neighbors in Westchester County scarcely were silver types. Men of wealth who campaigned for Bryan were shunned socially. New York Times editorials during summer 1896 referred to Walker’s support of Bryan when criticizing and ridiculing the concept of Cosmopolitan University.5 The magazine had not abandoned Manhattan completely upon completion of interior work at the Cosmopolitan Building in summer 1897...

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