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Wilson appointed Bryan as Secretary of State upon assuming the Presidency. According to the Presidential_Succession_Act_1886, the Secretary of State was third in line to succession after the President and his VP.

On the evening of July 2, 1915, Eric Muenter, a onetime German professor at Harvard and Cornell universities, who opposed American support of the allied war effort, broke into the U.S. Senate and, finding the door to the Senate chamber locked, laid dynamite outside the reception room, which happened to be next to Marshall's office door. Though the bomb was set with a timer, it exploded prematurely just before midnight, while no one was in the office. Muenter may not have been specifically been targeting the Vice President.

On July 5, Muenter (who went under the pseudonym Frank Holt) burst into the Glen Cove, New York home of Jack Morgan, son of financier J.P. Morgan, demanding that he stop the sale of weapons to the allies. Morgan told the man he was in no position to comply with his demand; Muenter shot him twice and escaped.[71][72]Muenter was later apprehended and confessed to attempted assassination of the Vice President.[73] Marshall was offered a personal security detachment after the incident, but declined it.[74] Marshall had been receiving written death threats from numerous "cranks" for several weeks. "Some of them were signed," Marshall told the press, "but most were anonymous. I threw them all into the waste basket." Marshall added that he was "more or less a fatalist" and did not notify the Secret Service about the letters, "but that he naturally was startled when he heard of the explosion at the Capitol."[75]

POD is Muenter does his plot one month early, on June 2nd instead of July 2nd. His bomb works properly, and by sheer luck detonates at a time when both POTUS and VPOTUS were in its blast radius, killing both.

At this time, Bryan still had 7 days until his OTL resignation, and becomes automatically President.

Consequences?
Bryan tried to yoke the American credit to the Entente, saying "money is the worst of all contrabands because it commands everything else," but eventually yielded. He also pointed out that by traveling on British vessels, which were at risk of attack, "an American citizen can, by putting his own business above his regard for this country, assume for his own advantage unnecessary risks and thus involve his country in international complications" [41] Wilson's demands from Germany for "strict accountability for any infringement of [American] rights, intentional or incidental" after the sinking of the Lusitania troubled Bryan, who counseled an “evenhanded policy.”[42] Bryan resigned in June 1915, protesting “… why be so shocked by the drowning of a few people, if there is to be no objection to starving a nation.”[43]
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