William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator, and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States in the 1896, 1900, and 1908 elections. He served in the House of Representatives from 1891 to 1895 and as the Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1915. Because of his faith in the wisdom of the common people, Bryan was often called "the Great Commoner",[1] and because of his rhetorical power and early fame as the youngest presidential candidate, "the Boy Orator".[2]
Not to be confused with William Jennings Bryan Dorn.
William Jennings Bryan
March 19, 1860
Salem, Illinois, U.S.
July 26, 1925 (aged 65)
Dayton, Tennessee, U.S.
3, including Ruth
- Silas Bryan (father)
- Charles Bryan (brother)
- William Sherman Jennings (cousin)
Born and raised in Illinois, Bryan moved to Nebraska in the 1880s. He won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1890 elections, served two terms, and made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in 1894. At the 1896 Democratic National Convention, Bryan delivered his "Cross of Gold" speech which attacked the gold standard and the eastern moneyed interests and crusaded for inflationary policies built around the expanded coinage of silver coins. In a repudiation of incumbent President Grover Cleveland and his conservative Bourbon Democrats, the Democratic convention nominated Bryan for president, making Bryan the youngest major party presidential nominee in U.S. history. Subsequently, Bryan was also nominated for president by the left-wing Populist Party, and many Populists would eventually follow Bryan into the Democratic Party. In the intensely-fought 1896 presidential election, the Republican nominee, William McKinley, emerged triumphant. At age 36, Bryan remains the youngest person in United States history to receive an electoral vote for president and cumulatively, the most electoral votes without ever being elected president.[3] Bryan gained fame as an orator, as he invented the national stumping tour when he reached an audience of 5 million people in 27 states in 1896, and continued to deliver well-attended lectures on the Chautauqua circuit well into the 20th century.
Bryan retained control of the Democratic Party and again won the presidential nomination in 1900. After serving as a colonel in the 3rd Nebraska Infantry Regiment during the Spanish–American War, Bryan became a fierce opponent of American imperialism, and much of his campaign centered on that issue.[4] In the election, McKinley again defeated Bryan and won several Western states that Bryan had won in 1896. Bryan's influence in the party weakened after the 1900 election, and the Democrats nominated the conservative Alton B. Parker in the 1904 presidential election. Bryan regained his stature in the party after Parker's resounding defeat by Theodore Roosevelt and voters from both parties increasingly embraced some of the progressive reforms that had long been championed by Bryan. Bryan won his party's nomination in the 1908 presidential election, but he was defeated by Roosevelt's chosen successor, William Howard Taft. Along with Henry Clay, Bryan is one of the two individuals who never won a presidential election despite receiving electoral votes in three separate presidential elections held after the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment.
After the Democrats won the presidency in the 1912 election, Woodrow Wilson rewarded Bryan's support with the important cabinet position of Secretary of State. Bryan helped Wilson pass several progressive reforms through Congress. In 1915, he considered that Wilson was too harsh on Germany and finally resigned after Wilson had sent Germany a note of protest with a veiled threat of war in response to the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat. After leaving office, Bryan retained some of his influence within the Democratic Party, but he increasingly devoted himself to Prohibition, religious matters, and anti-evolution activism. He opposed Darwinism on religious and humanitarian grounds, most famously in the 1925 Scopes trial, dying soon after. Bryan has elicited mixed reactions from various commentators but is acknowledged by historians as one of the most influential figures of the Progressive Era.
Later career[edit]
Political involvement[edit]
During the 1916 presidential election, members of the Prohibition Party attempted to place Bryan into consideration for its presidential nomination, but he rejected the offer via telegram.[104][105]
Bryan supported Wilson's 1916 re-election campaign. Bryan did not attend as an official delegate, but the 1916 Democratic National Convention suspended its own rules to allow Bryan to address the convention; Bryan delivered a well-received speech that strongly defended Wilson's domestic record. Bryan served as a campaign surrogate for Wilson by delivering dozens of speeches, primarily to audiences west of the Mississippi River. Ultimately, Wilson narrowly prevailed over the Republican candidate, Charles Evans Hughes.[106] When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Bryan wrote to Wilson: "Believing it to be the duty of the citizen to bear his part of the burden of war and his share of the peril, I hereby tender my services to the Government. Please enroll me as a private whenever I am needed and assign me to any work that I can do."[107] Wilson declined to appoint Bryan to a federal position, but Bryan agreed to Wilson's request to provide public support for the war effort through his speeches and articles.[108] After the war, despite some reservations, Bryan supported Wilson's unsuccessful effort to bring the United States into the League of Nations.[109]
Crusade for Prohibition[edit]
After leaving office, Bryan spent much of his time advocating for the eight-hour day, a minimum wage, the right of unions to strike and increasingly women's suffrage.[110] However, his main crusades focused on support for prohibition and opposition to the teaching of evolution.[111][112] Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, which provided for nationwide Prohibition, in 1917. Two years later, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote nationwide. Both amendments were ratified in 1920.[113] In 1916 Bryan expressed his belief to John Reed that the government "may properly impose a minimum wage, regulate hours of labor, pass usury laws, and enforce inspection of food, sanitation and housing conditions."[114] During the 1920s, Bryan called for further reforms, including agricultural subsidies, the guarantee of a living wage, full public financing of political campaigns and an end to legal gender discrimination.[115]
Some Prohibitionists and other Bryan supporters tried to convince the three-time presidential candidate to enter the 1920 presidential election, and a Literary Digest poll taken in mid-1920 ranked Bryan as the fourth-most popular potential Democratic candidate. Bryan, however, declined to seek public office and wrote, "if I can help this world to banish alcohol and after that to banish war... no office, no Presidency, can offer the honors that will be mine". He attended the 1920 Democratic National Convention as a delegate from Nebraska but was disappointed by the nomination of Governor James M. Cox, who had not supported ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment. Bryan declined the presidential nomination of the Prohibition Party and refused to campaign for Cox, which made the 1920 campaign the first presidential contest in over thirty years in which he did not actively campaign.[116]
Though he became less involved in Democratic politics after 1920, Bryan attended the 1924 Democratic National Convention as a delegate from Florida.[117] He helped defeat a resolution condemning the Ku Klux Klan because he expected that the organization would soon fold. Bryan disliked the Klan but never publicly attacked it.[118] He also strongly opposed the candidacy of Al Smith due to Smith's hostility towards Prohibition. After over 100 ballots, the Democratic convention nominated John W. Davis, a conservative Wall Street lawyer. To balance the conservative Davis with a progressive, the convention nominated Bryan's brother, Charles W. Bryan, for vice president. Bryan was disappointed by the nomination of Davis but strongly approved of the nomination of his brother and he delivered numerous campaign speeches in support of the Democratic ticket. Davis suffered one of the worst losses in the Democratic Party's history, taking just 29 percent of the vote against Republican President Calvin Coolidge and the third-party candidate Robert M. La Follette.[119]
Death[edit]
In the days following the Scopes Trial, Bryan delivered several speeches in Tennessee. On Sunday, July 26, 1925, Bryan died in his sleep from apoplexy[1] after he had attended a church service in Dayton.[139] Bryan's body was transported by rail from Dayton to Washington, D.C. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, with an epitaph that read, "Statesman, yet Friend to Truth! Of Soul Sincere, in Action Faithful, and in Honor Clear"[140] and on the other side "He Kept the Faith".[141][142]
