Yes. Some of the rich men of today were soldiers at one time—years ago; but they are not soldiers now when they are rich, and they were not rich when, years ago, they were soldiers. (=17=) If politicians do not go to war, what about Mr. Bryan’s case? Didn’t Mr. Bryan patriotically go to the war in Cuba? No. Mr. Bryan did not go _to_ the war in Cuba. He simply went _toward_ the war. Mr. Bryan was, of course, patriotic, fervently, noisily so; but, like the intelligent people of his class, he always had his enthusiasm under perfect control. Mr. Bryan at no time showed an unmanageable desire to get _up close in front, on the firing line_. And his class was true to him, respected his strong preference for war five hundred miles from the flaming, snarling Gatling gun; and, accordingly, his class—in power at Washington—kept him well out of danger. At one time he got the impression he was in danger of being sent to the front. At once he cried out, “It’s politics!” and promptly resigned his noble command, double quick, patriotically. Mr. Bryan, mounted on a splendid horse, with uplifted sword in hand, grandly vowing to “defend the flag against the enemy” as he headed his noble braves, assembled for review, and admiration, before the _Omaha Bee_ building, ready to start _toward_ the front—at that sublime moment Colonel William Jennings Bryan was, well, simply beautiful, not to say pretty. As the golden tones of this Nebraskan Achilles, this Alexander from the Platte Valley, rolled forth in his heroic vow to bleed (if necessary) for his flag, the nation was comforted—felt saved already. Patriotism _is_, after all, _worth all it costs_—that is, worth all it costs Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bryan, like Mr. Hearst and many others, is patriotic, even intemperately so—with his mouth. But the reader may ask, “Was not Mr. Roosevelt in the Cuban War a case of a politician actually on the firing line?” Clearly an exception. Name a few other “great statesmen” or international noises who went to the Cuban War—to the actual firing line. Mr. Roosevelt loves excitement and danger. And what indescribable dangers there were for the Americans in the Cuban War! The mightiest “republic” on earth was pitted against the most toothless, decadent old political grandma in Europe. The dangers?—equal to those that threaten an armed, athletic hunter alone and face to face with a sucking fawn. Mr. Roosevelt himself has heroically—and carefully—recounted and printed his own brave deeds in that war. With Christian love and humility, with charming modesty and delicacy, with the diffident ingenuousness of a blushing schoolgirl, characteristic of him, Mr. Roosevelt tenderly recites one of his noble deeds as follows:[197]