Brother of William James Bryan, a Senator from Florida; born near Fort Mason, Orange County (now Lake County, Florida); attended the common schools; graduated from Emory College, Oxford, Georgia (now Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia), in 1893 and from the law department of Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, in 1895; admitted to the bar in 1895 and commenced practice in Jacksonville, Florida; chairman of the board of control of the Florida State institutions of higher education 1905-1909; appointed on February 22, 1911, the legislature having failed to elect, and subsequently elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1911, to March 3, 1917; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1916; chairman, Committee on Claims (Sixth-third and Sixty-fourth Congresses); resumed the practice of law; declined the appointment as Governor General of the Philippine Islands by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917; trustee of Emory University; judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals of the Fifth Judicial Circuit from April 1920 until his death in Jacksonville, Fla.; interment in Evergreen Cemetery.