Bryan, William Jennings (1860-1925)

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William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)

Democratic presidential candidate, 1896, 1900, 1908

The Great Commoner. Known as the “Boy Orator of the Platte” for his stirring oratory and as the Great Commoner for his representation of the poor, the working class, and the farmer, William Jennings Bryan based his political strength in the South and West of the United States. Yet his wide-spread appeal showed that national politics at the end of the nineteenth century had begun to move away from a focus on regional interests and toward representing class interests and developing a national economic and monetary policy.

Background. Born in Salem, Illinois, on 19 March 1860, William Jennings Bryan earned an A.B. (1881) and A.M. (1884) from Illinois College and a law degree (1884) at Union Law School in Chicago. After practicing law and becoming active in Democratic Party politics in Illinois, he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, and opened a law office in 1888. In 1890 he ran for Congress as a Democrat, winning in a normally Republican district. In 1892 and again in 1895 he sought election to the Senate, but failed to win enough support in the Nebraska legislature, which was controlled by the Republicans. In the House of Representatives Bryan spoke out against high tariffs and in favor of the free coinage of silver, winning a reputation as a spellbinding orator. After his second term ended in March 1896, Bryan, who had already decided to run for president, became editor of the Omaha World Herald.

Presidential Candidate. As a delegate to the 1896 Democratic National Convention, he took an active part in the free-silver movement, causing a sensation with his “Cross of Gold” speech. The Democrats chose him as their presidential candidate, despite the opposition of the New York wing of the party, which remained conservative and probusiness. His opponents and some of his supporters began to call him the “Boy Orator of the Platte.” Bryan conducted a vigorous speaking campaign, arguing for “bimetallism”—the free coinage of silver and gold—and fighting for the working man against big business and financial interests. He also received the nomination of the Populist Party. Breaking with the tradition holding that presidential candidates should say little and be seen even less, Bryan made more than six hundred speeches in twenty-nine states, covering more than thirteen thousand miles in a hard campaign. The Republicans, who had nominated William McKinley, depicted Bryan as an anarchist and revolutionist. In the end Bryan won almost 6.5 million votes of the nearly 14 million cast, but lost to McKinley. Perhaps more than any other election in the period, the election of 1896 demonstrated the national division that pitted the poor, the debtors, and the farmers of the South and West—who supported Bryan—against the industrialists, much of the middle class, professionals, and the rich of the Northeast—who supported McKinley.

Later Career. Bryan served briefly as colonel of the Third Nebraska Regiment, which became known as the “Silver Regiment,” during the Spanish-American War, but he became ill and received a medical discharge before the regiment was shipped out for occupation duty in Cuba. He won the Democratic presidential nomination again in 1900 and 1908, each time losing by a wider margin than he had in 1896. As secretary of state under President Woodrow Wilson in 1913-1915, Bryan opposed American involvement in World War I, resigning in protest when it became clear that Wilson was moving away from neutrality. Bryan’s final time in the public spotlight carne in 1925, when he served as attorney for the prosecution in the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial, opposing the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The aging Bryan was no match for defense attorney Clarence Darrow, and the Great Commoner died on 25 July 1925, soon after the conclusion of the trial.