William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States (1896, 1900 and 1908). He lost, each time by a bigger margin. He served in Congress briefly as a representative from Nebraska and was the 41st United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1916. Bryan was a devout Presbyterian, a supporter of popular democracy, an enemy of gold, banks and railroads, a leader of the silverite movement in the 1890s, a peace advocate, a prohibitionist, and an opponent of Darwinism on religious grounds. With his deep, commanding voice and wide travels, he was one of the best known orators and lecturers of the era. Because of his faith in the goodness and rightness of the common people, he was called "The Great Commoner."
In the intensely fought 1896 and 1900 elections, he was defeated by William McKinley but retained control of the Democratic Party. With over 500 speeches in 1896, Bryan invented the national stumping tour, in an era when other presidential candidates stayed home. In his three presidential bids, he promoted Free Silver in 1896, anti-imperialism in 1900, and trust-busting in 1908, calling on Democrats to fight the trusts (big corporations) and big banks, and embrace anti-elitist ideals of republicanism. President Wilson appointed him Secretary of State in 1913, but Wilson"s strong demands on Germany after the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915 caused Bryan to resign in protest.
After 1920 he was a strong supporter of Prohibition and energetically attacked Darwinism and evolution, most famously at the Scopes Trial in 1925. Five days after winning the case, he died in his sleep.
First campaign for the White House: 1896
In 1893, the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act resulted in the collapse of the silver market. Bryan delivered speeches across the country for free silver from 1894 to 1896, building a grass-roots reputation as a powerful champion of the cause.
At the 1896 Democratic National Convention, Bryan lambasted Eastern monied classes for supporting the gold standard at the expense of the average worker. His "Cross of Gold" speech made him a sensational new face in the Democratic party. That same year he became the first presidential candidate to campaign in a car (a donated Mueller) in Decatur, Illinois.
The Bourbon Democrats who supported incumbent conservative President Grover Cleveland were defeated, and the party"s agrarian and silver factions voted for Bryan, giving him the nomination of the Democratic Party. At the age of 36, Bryan became—and remains—the youngest presidential nominee of a major party in American history.
Disappointed with the direction of their party, Gold Democrats invited Cleveland to run as a third-party candidate, but he declined. Cleveland did, however, support John M. Palmer, nominee of the Gold Democrats, rather than Bryan.
In addition, Bryan formally received the nominations of the Populist Party and the Silver Republican Party. Without crossing party lines, voters from any party could vote for him.In 1896, the Populists rejected Bryan"s Democratic running mate, Maine banker Arthur Sewall, and named as his running mate Georgia Representative Thomas E. Watson. People could vote for Bryan and Sewell, or for Bryan and Watson.
The Republicans nominated William McKinley on a platform calling for prosperity for everyone through industrial growth, high tariffs, and sound money (gold). Republicans ridiculed Bryan as a Populist. However, "Bryan"s reform program was so similar to that of the Populists that he has often been mistaken for a Populist, but he remained a staunch Democrat throughout the Populist period." This is because, despite having used many of the Populist ideas, Bryan kept all of his Democratic views while simply adding the Populist views to gain their votes.
Bryan depicted as a Populist swallowing the Democratic Party; 1896 cartoon from the Republican magazine Judge.Bryan demanded Bimetallism and "Free Silver" at a ratio of 16:1. Most leading Democratic newspapers rejected his candidacy. Despite this rejection by the newspapers, Bryan won the Democratic vote.
Republicans discovered in August that Bryan was solidly ahead in the South and West, but far behind in the Northeast. He appeared to be ahead in the Midwest, so the Republicans concentrated their efforts there. They said Bryan was a madman, a religious fanatic surrounded by anarchists, who would wreck the economy. By late September, the Republicans felt they were ahead in the decisive Midwest and began emphasizing that McKinley would bring prosperity to all Americans. McKinley scored solid gains among the middle classes, factory and railroad workers, prosperous farmers, and the German Americans who rejected free silver. Bryan gave 500 speeches in 27 states. McKinley won by a margin of 271 to 176 in the electoral college.
Presidential election of 1900
He ran as an anti-imperialist in 1900, finding himself in alliance with Andrew Carnegie and other millionaires. Republicans mocked Bryan as indecisive, or a coward, a point spoofed by the Bryan-like Cowardly Lion in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in the spring of 1900.[10]
Bryan combined anti-imperialism with free silver, saying:
The nation is of age and it can do what it pleases; it can spurn the traditions of the past; it can repudiate the principles upon which the nation rests; it can employ force instead of reason; it can substitute might for right; it can conquer weaker people; it can exploit their lands, appropriate their property and kill their people; but it cannot repeal the moral law or escape the punishment decreed for the violation of human rights.
In a typical day he gave four hour-long speeches and shorter talks that added up to six hours of speaking. At an average rate of 175 words a minute, he turned out 63,000 words, enough to fill 52 columns of a newspaper. In Wisconsin, he once made 12 speeches in 15 hours.[12] Before Bryan held any political office there remained a need for income; public speaking would not become any less of a passion as it also became a source of income for Bryan and his family. Bryan held an estate in Nebraska as well as a 240-acre (0.97 km2) ranch in Texas, of which both were paid for with earnings from publications of The Commoner as well as speaking fees. Bryan"s rates were noted as $500.00 per speech in addition to a percentage of the ticket sales profit. He held his base in the South, but lost part of the West as McKinley retained the Northeast and Midwest and rolled up a landslide. McKinley won the electoral college with a count of 292 votes compared to Bryan"s 155. Bryan lost more states than he had in 1896.
Presidential election of 1908
The 1908 election was Bryan’s third attempt at gaining the presidency. The Democrats nominated Bryan by wide margin at the Democratic convention held in Denver and decided on John Kern, a politician from Indiana, as his running mate. Bryan ran against the Republicans, and Theodore Roosevelt’s hand-picked nominee William Howard Taft.
The GOP ran its campaign on the benefits of the Roosevelt administration, creation of a postal service, continuation of “Sound Currency”, citizenship for Puerto Rico inhabitants, regulation on big business, and tariff revision in protectionist mode.
Bryan and the Democrats’ platform denounced the wrongs done by the Republican party: Congress spent too much money; Roosevelt hand picked Taft in undemocratic fashion; Republicans wanted centralization; Republicans favored monopolies. In response, Bryan unleashed the slogan, “Shall the People Rule?” In a time of peace and prosperity, and Republican trust-busting, Bryan fared poorly among the voters. He lost the electoral college 321 to 162, his worst defeat yet, and did not carry any of the states in the Northeast.
Secretary of State: 1913–1915
For supporting Woodrow Wilson for the presidency in 1912, Bryan was appointed as Secretary of State. However, Wilson only nominally consulted him and made all the major foreign policy decisions himself. Bryan negotiated 28 treaties that promised arbitration of disputes before war broke out between the signatory countries and the United States. He had made several attempts to negotiate a treaty with Germany, but ultimately was never able to succeed. In the civil war in Mexico in 1914, Bryan supported American military intervention.
Wilson"s desire to enter the war in Europe brought him to odds with Bryan and, eventually, led to Bryan"s resignation in June 1915 over Wilson"s demands for "strict accountability for any infringement of [American] rights, intentional or incidental."
Death
Immediately after the trial, Bryan continued to edit and deliver speeches, traveling hundreds of miles that week. On Sunday, July 26, 1925, he drove from Chattanooga to Dayton to attend a church service, ate a meal, and died (the result of diabetes and fatigue) in his sleep that afternoon—just five days after the Scopes trial ended. School Superintendent Walter White proposed that Dayton should create a Christian college as a lasting memorial to Bryan; fund raising was successful and Bryan College opened in 1930. Bryan is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His tombstone reads "He kept the Faith." He was survived by among others, a daughter, Congresswoman Ruth Bryan Owen and her son (by artist William Homer Leavitt) John Bryan Leavitt and daughter Ruth Leavitt, as well as two children by her second husband, Royal British Engineers officer Reginald A. Owen.
