william jennings bryan

Bryan was born in 1860 and grew up a devout Presbyterian and an ardent Democrat during a period known as the “Gilded  Age.”  Bryan studied law at Chicago, started a family, and moved west to Lincoln, Nebraska, where his political career began in 1890.  He won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1890 and again in 1892, but lost his bid for a Senate seat, and became the editor of the Omaha World-Herald instead.  During this period, Nebraska was a hotbed of growing unrest, especially among American farmers.  Their demands represented a radical, agrarian, and progressive call for action.  Bryan championed their cause.  When the Democratic Party met in Chicago in 1896, the American economy was the key issue of the convention, and Bryan traveled to Chicago in support of “free silver” and a bimetal  monetary policy.  During his speech, Bryan had framed the debate over free silver as an enduring conflict between “the idle holders of idle capital” who preferred a fixed gold standard and those who would support “the struggling masses. ”Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interest, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold stand by saying to them: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns: you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”  He helped carry the day, and free silver became a part of the Democratic platform.  He won the nomination, but lost the election to Republican William McKinley.  Bryan would run for president  two more times and lose both elections.  He served as Secretary of State for President Woodrow Wilson, but resigned before World War I.  He fought for Prohibition, and against the teaching of evolution, viewing both drunkenness and “Darwinism” as profound attacks on the moral qualities that defined successful democracies.  In 1921, William Jennings Bryan traveled to Richmond, IN, to record excerpts of his “Cross of Gold Speech”.  It had been 25 years since he had first delivered the speech in Chicago, and he had delivered it hundreds of times since, traveling across the United States.  Only in Richmond, though, did he record it for posterity.  He was now an old man, yet from the crackling record, something of Bryan’s youth and passion remained still to be heard; his voice calls out from the past, providing subsequent generation of citizens immutable and tangible access to one of the great statesman of the American Republic.