SOURCE: “Bryan, Thou Shouldst Be Living,” in These United States, edited by Louis W. Jones, William Huse, Jr. and Harvey Eagleson, Ray Long & Richard R. Smith, 1931, pp. 266-77.

In the following essay, Johnson laments the absence of a great liberal leader like Bryan.

I

Bryan should be living at this hour. Or if not Bryan, then Lord George Gordon, or Cagliostro, or John Brown of Ossawatomie—some first-class faker who believes in his own bunk.

It has been advanced that the decay of liberalism and the lack of a great liberal leader are to be attributed less to the apathy than to the bewilderment of this generation. With the increasing complexity of civilization, men of liberal mind are so hard put to it to know what to believe that they end by being afraid to put too much trust in anything. But the fallacy in this argument lies...