William Jennings Bryan

Born March 19, 1860 (Salem, Illinois)
Died July 26, 1925 (Dayton, Ohio)

Lawyer and politician

"[It is] better to trust in the Rock of Ages [Christianity] than to learn the ages or rocks."

During his long career in law and politics, including three unsuccessful bids for the presidency, William Jennings Bryan gained fame for both his speech-making skills and his passion for social reform. Nicknamed "The Great Commoner" due to his lifelong dedication to ordinary U.S. citizens, Bryan was also a religious fundamentalist (a very conservative kind of Christian who believes that the stories found in the Bible are literally true, not just illustrations or myths). In 1925 Bryan waged the final battle of his life when he took part in the famous Monkey Trial. The case involved Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes, who had been charged with breaking a law that had prohibited the teaching of the scientific theory of evolution in public schools. As part of the team that prosecuted Scopes, Bryan stood for traditional values in a trial that pitted the ways of the past against the ideas and beliefs of the modern world.

A strict upbringing

Born in Salem, Illinois, in 1860, Bryan was the oldest son of Silas Bryan, a prosperous Illinois farmer and judge, and his wife, Mariah. Like all of the couple's eight children,

Bryan was taught at home by his mother until he turned ten. During his early years he developed strong study habits and the sturdy Christianity of his parents. The elder Bryans were strict about behavior and religion, emphasizing frequent prayer and Bible reading. Young William idolized his father, who told him that a man could do the most good in the world as either a minister or a government leader.

At Illinois College Bryan studied the classics (such as works by the ancient Greek author Homer), mathematics, and U.S. history, nurturing a strong belief in democracy as the best of all possible political systems. He excelled in his studies and especially as a debater. In fact, the handsome and intelligent young man was chosen to be class orator (speech-maker) and served as vice president of his junior class. It was in college that Bryan began to form and express some of the passionate views he would continue to hold on many issues of the period. These included support for Prohibition (a proposed ban on alcoholic beverages that would become law with the 1919 passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) and women's suffrage (the right to vote, which would be granted with the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920).

A promising young lawyer

Bryan graduated in 1881. The year before, he had become engaged to Mary Baird of Jacksonville, Illinois. When his father died, Bryan's future seemed unclear, but his family decided that he should attend law school as planned. He entered Union College of Law in Chicago, where he spent two years. During that time he began to make political speeches. When he finished law school in 1883, Bryan went to work for the law firm of Kirby, Brown & Russell in Jacksonville. Within a year he had become successful enough to marry his fiance´e. After a four-year wait, the couple wed in 1884. Over the next few years, their children Ruth and William Jr. were born.

As a young lawyer, Bryan became involved in many community activities, including playing softball with a team of attorneys, attending church and temperance meetings (the movement to get people to stop drinking alcohol), and working on local elections. Busy and absorbed in his work, Bryan paid little attention to his health and developed poor eating habits. He was eventually diagnosed with diabetes (a serious disease in which the body does not produce enough insulin, which is necessary for processing sugar, starch, and other carbohydrates).

In 1887 Bryan decided to move to Lincoln, Nebraska. He saw Nebraska, which had been a state for only twenty years, as a land of opportunity. Opening a law firm with an old friend, Bryan was soon prospering as an attorney. In three years he won all but one of his cases. He also took advantage of the chance to get involved in politics. Even though Bryan was a member of the Democratic political party and Nebraska had always been dominated by Republicans, Bryan managed in 1890 to win election to the U.S. House of Representatives. He moved his family to Washington, D.C., in 1892.

A progressive member of Congress

As a member of Congress, Bryan became a champion of the poor, farmers, the working class, and small-business owners, whose interests were often overlooked, he felt, in favor of the more privileged members of society. Bryan would become one of the leaders of the Progressive Era (which lasted from about 1900 to about 1914), during which a variety of reformers, people who believe that society needs improvement, spoke out on a number of proposed reforms. For Bryan, these included Prohibition, women's suffrage, the popular election of senators, the establishment of the Department of Labor, and consumer protection and child labor laws. Through his extraordinary ability to capture and hold listeners' attention, despite his relative youth, he earned the nickname "the Boy Orator of the Platte" (the Platte is a major river in Nebraska).

An issue that was of special importance to Bryan was that of the gold standard. The United States guaranteed its paper money with reserves of gold, but most of the other governments of the world used both gold and silver. This made trade between nations more complicated. While U.S. gold-mine owners and other business leaders fought to keep the gold standard, Bryan argued that there was not enough gold available to support all of the world's money. He felt that if the United States switched to the same combined gold and silver standard used elsewhere, trade would improve and the economy would be strengthened. One of Bryan's crowning moments came when, at the Democratic National Convention in 1896, he made his famous "cross of gold" speech, which ended on a dramatic note: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

Presidential candidate and cabinet member

Bryan won a second term in Congress but was defeated when he ran for a third term. He then became editor of an Omaha, Nebraska, newspaper, the World Herald. In 1896, however, Bryan was nominated as the Democratic candidate in the presidential election. Running against the Republican nominee, William McKinley (1843–1901), Bryan campaigned vigorously. He made six hundred speeches in twenty-nine states, but the Republicans succeeded in portraying him as a radical with revolutionary ideas. Although he won 6.5 million votes out of a total of 14 million cast, Bryan lost the election. He ran for president again in 1900 and 1908 but was defeated each time.

For the next few years, Bryan remained active in Democratic Party activities, often voicing his populist (those who try to represent the views of ordinary people) opposition to special favors for the wealthy and powerful. He founded a newspaper called The Commoner, in which many of the concerns of the Progressive Era were highlighted. Bryan soon gained a new nickname: "The Great Commoner."

In 1913 another Progressive Era leader, Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; served 1913–21), was elected president. The threat of war loomed in Europe, where Germany was seeking to gain territory, but Wilson vowed to keep the United States out of the conflict. Wilson appointed Bryan—who shared many of his ideals, including an antiwar stance—secretary of state, the member of the president's cabinet (made up of heads of various government departments) who is in charge of foreign relations.

Then, in April 1917, the British merchant ship Lusitania was struck by German missiles, killing more than one hundred U.S. citizens. Wilson felt he had to respond with protests to Germany. It gradually became clear that the United States was going to enter World War I, and Bryan wanted no part of it. He resigned his position, although he did support the U.S. war effort once the country became involved in the conflict. Bryan moved to Florida in 1920 and, though he was no longer involved in politics, remained active in the Democratic Party.

Religious and scientific beliefs clash

The year 1859 saw the publication of a controversial book that would cause a cultural divide, especially in the United States. In On the Origin of Species, naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) proposed the scientific theory of evolution, which traced the development of human beings and other living things over millions of years. Darwin's suggestion that human beings shared some common origins with other primates (a category that includes monkeys, apes, and humans) was wrongly interpreted as meaning that people were directly descended from monkeys.

Like other scientific discoveries and theories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Darwin's ideas were embraced by some and rejected by others. Religious fundamentalists were especially offended at the proposal of any other origin for human beings than the one described in the Bible, in which God made the world and all of its creatures in seven days, and in which Adam and Eve were the first humans. Those who believed in this story of the so-called "Divine Creation" were known as creationists, and Bryan was one of them.

In fact, Bryan was a major voice for the creationist movement, whose followers wanted to safeguard the values they believed formed the basis of U.S. civilization. They feared that the teaching of evolutionary theory in schools would cause young people to abandon the religion that had always guided the nation's people, and that society would soon fall into moral decay. Bryan became heavily involved in the effort to uphold the value of faith over science by passing laws to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools.

The teaching of evolution is outlawed in Tennessee

In 1920 Bryan published a widely distributed pamphlet titled The Menace of Darwinism, in which he attacked evolutionary theory as a threat to the religious foundations of U.S. society and education. Two years later he declared in a speech as quoted in L. Sprague DeCamp's The Great Monkey Case that it was "better to trust in the Rock of Ages [Christianity] than to learn the ages of rocks." Bryan's fundamentalist fervor struck a chord with those who shared his discomfort with the new ideas and values that were transforming society.

Creationism Still Attracts Believers

In the decades following the Scopes trial, the debate over evolution theory versus creationism died down somewhat. A new book published in 1961, however, created a ripple of controversy for its strict creationist account of humanity's origin. In The Genesis Flood, John Whitcomb and Henry Morris asserted that the Earth was just ten thousand years old and that after its formation, God had taken six days to create all plants, animals, and human beings. They claimed that humans and dinosaurs had lived on Earth at the same time, and that fossil remains may be explained as resulting from mass deaths caused by the great flood described in the Bible.

About a decade later, a small group of fundamentalists convinced the California Board of Education that creationism should be taught in public schools along with evolution theory, on the grounds that students had a right to hear alternative arguments about the subject. This victory was particularly significant in that California's school system, the largest in the nation, had a major impact on the textbook publishing industry. In 1972 the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, groups that had not previously considered creationism worth commenting on, issued statements denouncing it.

More recently, the theory of intelligent design has gained ground as a version of creationism adapted to the contemporary world. Proponents of this idea hold that the very complexity of the universe is proof that it must have been designed by some divine, guiding force. They continue to actively push for public schools to teach the Biblical version of creation along with the scientific one.

In early 1925 the state of Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which made it illegal to teach any theory of human origin that went against the biblical story of creation. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) immediately offered to assist any Tennessee teacher who wished to challenge the law. A group of citizens in Dayton, who disagreed with the law—and also wanted to bring some attention to their small town, recruited a high school biology teacher named John Scopes—who agreed to get himself arrested so that the law could be tested and perhaps overturned.

The Monkey Trial begins

In April Scopes delivered a lesson on evolution to his students and was arrested and charged with violating the Butler Act. The trial was set to begin on July 10. Now sixtyfive years old, Bryan quickly offered to help prosecute Scopes, convinced that his status as a lawyer and fundamentalist crusader would help achieve a guilty verdict. Hearing of Bryan's involvement, defense attorney Clarence Darrow (1857–1938; see entry), himself nationally famous for his successful defense of underdog clients, offered to lead the defense team.

Darrow no doubt sensed the importance of this trial. He believed that its central issue was the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech, which had been violated by the Tennessee law. Ironically, Darrow had previously worked on many of the same reform causes as Bryan, and he had supported Bryan in his bids for the presidency.

The case drew national attention, especially since the trial was attended by print reporters from all over the country; it was also the first court case to be broadcast on the new medium of radio. As the court date approached, Dayton was overrun by a carnival-like atmosphere, with food and drink vendors setting up stands, souvenir sellers hawking stuffed monkeys (the event had already been nicknamed the "Monkey Trial"), and streetcorner preachers shouting to passersby.

Bryan added further excitement to the scene with his dramatic arrival, stepping down from his train to cheers from a crowd of several hundred admirers. For several days he was often seen wandering around town, munching on radishes (one of his favorite foods) and making speeches wherever and whenever he could. Early in the trial, Bryan delivered a seventyminute attack on evolutionary theory that, while full of his usual passion, seemed somewhat vague and intellectually shallow to some observers. One of these was H.L. Mencken (1880–1956; see entry), the famously acid-tongued journalist from the Baltimore Sun, who was on hand to cover the trial.

Bryan called as a witness

From the beginning there was no doubt that Scopes had broken the law. Darrow's plan was to expose the law

as unconstitutional. He intended to present expert witnesses (such as scientists who were also Christians) to show that religious faith was not necessarily incompatible with a belief in the theory of evolution. Eventually, though, the judge ruled that this testimony was irrelevant, because it had nothing to with whether Scopes had violated the Butler Act.

In desperation, Darrow made a bold move: He called Bryan himself to the witness stand. Bryan's fellow prosecutors urged him to refuse, but Bryan readily agreed to take the stand. This was probably a mistake, for what followed was a confrontation that left Bryan looking foolish.

For ninety minutes, Darrow grilled Bryan on his religious beliefs. He asked whether biblical stories like that of Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale and survived in its stomach for three days, could be literally true. Bryan replied that they could, but then Darrow asked if it was true that God had made the world in only seven days. Bryan said that these may not have been twenty-four-hour days, but rather periods of time. It was this admission that proved most damaging to the fundamentalist cause, which had always centered on the belief that everything in the Bible was literally true.

The exchange ended with Bryan objecting to what he considered Darrow's slurs against the Bible. Darrow replied with his own objection, stating: "I am examining you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes."

The battle ends

It seemed that Bryan had lost some ground after testifying, but he nevertheless prepared to make a grand closing statement. He intended to use his considerable powers of persuasion to dazzle his listeners and convince any doubters of the wisdom of his stance. Bryan, however, never got a chance to make his speech. The defense team had no intention of allowing Bryan such an opportunity, so they declined to make a closing statement; under Tennessee law, this prevented the prosecution from making a closing statement as well. Further, Darrow asked the jury to find Scopes guilty so that the defense could appeal the case to a higher court. The judge agreed, pronouncing Scopes guilty and fining him one hundred dollars for violating the law. The trial was over.

Despite the court decision, it was generally agreed that Darrow had won a moral victory, making a strong case for the right of educators to share new ideas with their students and exposing the fundamentalists as backward. The creationist cause, on the other hand, had been damaged by Bryan's rather befuddled testimony. The debate over the religious and scientific views of the evolution of human beings was not over, however, and in fact still continues in the twenty-first century.

Having lost the opportunity to deliver what could have been the speech of his life, Bryan spent the two days following the trial dictating his statement to his secretary, with plans to get it published. On July 25, five days after the trial had ended, Bryan attended church, had lunch with his wife, and lay down for a nap. He never awoke. His doctor said that the cause of death was diabetes, no doubt made worse by the fatigue brought on by the stress of the trial. The inscription on Bryan's tombstone characterized well the final battle of his life: "He Kept the Faith."

For More Information

Books

Anderson, David D. William Jennings Bryan. Boston: Twayne, 1981.

Cheney, Robert W. A Righteous Cause: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985.

Coletta, Paolo E. William Jennings Bryan—Political Evangelist, 1860–1908. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964.

De Camp, L. Sprague. The Great Monkey Trial. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.

Ginger, Ray. Six Days or Forever: Tennessee Versus John Thomas Scopes. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1969.

Hanson, Erica. The 1920s. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 1999.

Larson, Edward J. Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Levine, Lawrence W. Defender of the Faith. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Miller, Nathan. New World Coming: The 1920s and the Making of Modern America. New York: Scribner, 2003.

Perret, Geoffrey. America in the Twenties. New York: Touchstone, 1982.

Tompkins, Jerry R., ed. D-Days at Dayton: Reflections on the Scopes Trial. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965.

Web Sites

"Famous Trials in American History: Tennessee Versus John Scopes, the Monkey Trial." Famous Trials by Doug Linder Available online at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm. Accessed on June 21, 2005.