William Jennings Bryan

Politician

• Born: March 19, 1860
• Birthplace: Salem, Illinois
• Died: July 26, 1925
• Place of death: Dayton, Tennessee

American secretary of state (1913-1915)

With his crusader’s zeal for righteousness and a determination to champion the cause of the common person, Bryan used his dramatic oratorical skills to gain the leadership of the Democratic Party from 1896 to 1912. Three times he won the Democratic nomination for president, but he lost all three elections. Bryan, also an attorney, defended creationism in the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925.

Areas of achievement Oratory, law, religion and theology, government and politics

Early Life

William Jennings Bryan was born to Mariah Elizabeth (née Jennings) Bryan, who was reared as a Methodist, and Silas Lillard Bryan, a devout Baptist of Scotch-Irish descent, who became a frontier lawyer, judge, and politician in south central Illinois. As a trial lawyer, Silas was known for his habit of quoting Scripture to the jury. William grew up on a large farm that his father had purchased. The nearby town of Salem had an economy based primarily on agriculture, and Bryan’s roots were in an agrarian environment that valued hard work, individualism, and religious faith. Especially influential in the Salem area were those churches stressing the necessity of a conversion experience. The revivalistic emphasis of the evangelicals in southern Illinois had a profound effect on young Bryan. Indeed, in later years, he would become what one historian has described as a “political evangelist,” a politician whose oratory resembled that of a revival preacher and whose political faith contained a strong moralistic tone. Bryan the politician saw himself as God’s warrior sent to destroy the Philistines, and he tended to see his own political concepts as baptized in light while those of his opponents were covered with darkness.

Bryan’s father sent him to Whipple Academy for two years and then to Illinois College in Jacksonville for four years, where he was graduated in 1881. During his college days, Bryan showed little interest in physical exercise or athletics, but he did demonstrate at least modest ability as a debater. For two years, he studied law in Chicago, graduating from the Union College of Law in 1883. He then returned to Jacksonville, where he practiced law from 1883 to 1887. While still a struggling young lawyer, Bryan married Mary Baird on October 1, 1884. During the first month of marriage, he gave a major share of his time to the campaign to elect Grover Cleveland as president. Mary Baird Bryan defied the conventions of her time by studying law and gaining admission to the bar in 1888.

In his early years, Bryan had an excellent physique and a handsome appearance. He was six feet tall, with a strong muscular frame. His clear baritone voice was resonant and pleasing. Age, lack of exercise, and gluttonous eating habits would in later life create a more corpulent figure.

In 1887, Bryan moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, and sought to establish a law practice there, but he quickly became involved in politics. Lincoln was a rapidly growing town that could afford opportunities for a young lawyer. The staunch Republican district that included Lincoln had recently sent a Democrat to Congress. Perhaps Bryan’s decision to move to Nebraska was motivated in part by hopes of getting in on the ground floor of the growing Democratic structure in Nebraska.

Life’s Work

In 1890, although he lived in a normally Republican district, Bryan won election to Congress for the Democratic Party. His district reelected him in 1892, but in 1894, when he sought a United States Senate seat, the Nebraska legislature chose his opponent. During his congressional years, Bryan gradually espoused the Free Silver movement. Those who favored the gold standard, he believed, would force debtors to pay back their debts with a dollar more valuable than the one they borrowed. The Populist Party, silver-mining interests, farmers, and silver state Republican senators were forming a coalition to fight for a bimetallic standard. In Congress, Bryan voted against repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and he began vociferously condemning his own Democratic president, Cleveland, who sided with the “goldbugs.” After his congressional career’s sudden end, Bryan intensified his pro-silver lecture campaign and became the most popular orator for the cause. The silver advocates were gaining control of the Democratic Party and were turning out Cleveland’s supporters.

In 1896, Bryan managed to secure an opportunity to speak before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In his deeply moving and moralistic “Cross of Gold” speech, he mesmerized the delegates. Speaking to the “sound money” men he laid down the challenge, “You shall not press upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” When Bryan used this closing metaphor, he dramatized the crucifixion scene by holding his fingers to his head so that his hearers actually visualized the thorns piercing the brow of the working man. When he spoke of the cross, he held his arms extended horizontally for a full five seconds as the audience sat in a transfixed and reverent silence. The hush continued until he walked off the platform: Then came a wild outburst of enthusiasm as state banners were carried to the Nebraska delegation. The next day, the convention nominated him for the presidency. The more radical agrarian People’s Party (the Populists) also took him up as their presidential candidate: For them to reject Bryan would have split up the pro-silver advocates in the nation and possibly ensured defeat.

During the 1896 campaign, Bryan’s opponent William McKinley conducted a quiet, dignified campaign, staying at his home in Canton, Ohio. While McKinley seemed a safe, sane candidate who would not upset business conditions in the country, Bryan seemed to many a dangerous demagogue whose radical views on the currency system would destabilize the economy. Bryan traveled eighteen thousand miles by train during his campaign, speaking up to nineteen times a day and sleeping only a few hours each night. In 1896, it was not yet considered tasteful for a presidential candidate to solicit votes in such a frenetic manner. McKinley’s well-organized campaign won for him the presidency.

Bryan supported McKinley’s decision to go to war against Spain in 1898 in support of Cuban independence. The governor of Nebraska appointed Bryan a colonel, and the “Great Commoner” recruited a regiment, but he never succeeded in leaving his base in Florida to take a hand in the fighting. After the conflict, Bryan stood with the anti-imperialists in opposing the acquisition of the Philippine Islands. Yet surprisingly, he encouraged Democratic senators to vote for ratification of the Treaty of Paris of 1898, which gave the Philippines to the United States. Bryan believed the matter could be settled later. The next election could become a referendum on both “free silver” and “free Cuba.”

In 1900, Bryan gained his party’s nomination a second time. Yet the depression that had plagued Cleveland’s second term (1893-1897) gave way to prosperity in McKinley’s administration (1897-1901). Farm prices rose, unemployment decreased, and the amount of gold being mined increased, causing a needed moderate inflation of the currency. Since Bryan’s early popularity had been based on an appeal to those who were enduring hard times, he failed to compete successfully against McKinley’s “A Full Dinner Pail” slogan. Bryan received fewer votes in 1900 than he had received in 1896.

In January, 1901, Bryan began editing a weekly newspaper, the Commoner, and was actively involved in its publication until he became secretary of state in 1913. He also spent his years lecturing on the Chautauqua circuit. He did not seek the 1904 Democratic nomination, but in 1908 he did become the nominee and lost again, this time to William Howard Taft. Bryan’s choice as the nominee demonstrated that he was once again the acknowledged leader of the Democratic Party. This leadership continued until the election of a Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, in 1912.

Wilson chose Bryan to be secretary of state primarily because of the latter’s political influence within the party. As secretary of state, Bryan turned his energies toward peacemaking. He secured “conciliation treaties” between many nations, treaties that included the promise to submit differences to arbitral commissions rather than seek military solutions. When war did come to Europe in 1914, Bryan diligently sought to prevent American entry. When Wilson sent a remonstrance to Germany for sinking a passenger liner (the second Lusitania note), Bryan resigned in protest rather than approve what he thought an overly provocative message.

In his final years (1920’s), Bryan spoke on college campuses against the theory of evolution. He defended the right of taxpayers to determine what should be taught in the public schools. In Tennessee, he supported Baptists in their drive to establish an anti-evolution law. When John T. Scopes, a Tennessee high school teacher, tested the constitutionality of the law, Bryan came to Dayton, Tennessee, to argue for the prosecution. The so-called Monkey Trial was held in an almost carnival-like atmosphere and received media attention across the nation. Clarence Darrow, attorney for the defense, subjected Bryan’s defense of creationism to a withering barrage of ridicule and criticism. The ordeal of the trial, the heat of summer, Bryan’s unfortunate habit of overeating, along with diabetes, all hastened his death, which came only five days after the trial.

Significance

Bryan’s greatest achievement was his leadership of the Democratic Party during the years 1896 to 1912. During this time, he moved the Democrats toward progressive reformism. He failed to win the presidency because he did not succeed in uniting the farmers’ protest crusade and the laborers’ interests into a single movement. The Democratic Party was too diverse to be controlled by a single ideology in Bryan’s time. Yet Bryan did press for reforms (many inherited from the Populists and others) that became legislative and constitutional realities in the twentieth century. These include the graduated income tax, popular election of U.S. senators, woman suffrage, stricter railroad regulations, currency reform, and, at the state level, adoption of the initiative and referendum.

Bryan is also remembered as a peace activist. He was almost, though not quite, a pacifist. He opposed Wilson’s neutrality policy before the United States’ entry into World War I as too pro-British. In 1915, he supported Henry Ford’s effort to settle the European troubles by sending a peace ship to Europe with leading peace advocates aboard. He frequently gave lectures on the “Prince of Peace.” He crusaded also against imperialism and the liquor traffic.

His role as an influential voice for conservative Christianity is well known. He helped the Fundamentalists win a temporary victory when they took leadership positions in the Presbyterian Church in 1924; Bryan himself became vice-moderator of the denomination. Although lacking biblical scholarship, he willingly took part in the Scopes trial, casting himself in the role of a defender of the Genesis creation story.

Further Reading

Cherny, Robert W. A Righteous Cause: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985. A readable, brief biography that covers not only the life of Bryan the person but also the social and political context of his life. A final chapter offers an evaluation of Bryan’s contribution.

Clements, Kendrick A. William Jennings Bryan: Missionary Isolationist. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982. Clements views Bryan as a microcosm of the average person and his or her foreign policy views, creating a sample of how the typical American would approach foreign affairs. He thought Bryan sought a balance between the escapism of traditional isolationism, on the one hand, and a missionary impulse to give aid, on the other.

Coletta, Paolo E. William Jennings Bryan. 3 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964-1969. Because of its thorough research and detailed coverage, this remains the most important biography of Bryan. The title of volume 1, Political Evangelist, suggests Coletta’s interpretation of Bryan. He sees him as more of a moralist than a statesman, as a humanitarian who tried to encourage others to be guided by righteousness and ethics in their conduct of economic and political affairs.

Glad, Paul W. The Trumpet Soundeth. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1960. This volume concentrates on the era of Bryan’s Democratic Party leadership (1896-1912). It attempts to understand Bryan in the context of Midwestern society. Glad views Bryan’s later years (1920-1925) as a tragic era when the “Great Commoner’s” views no longer suited the intellectual climate of the United States. Yet Glad sees him, during the earlier era, as a constructive leader of the political opposition.

Kazin, Michael. A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. New York: Knopf, 2006. A revisionist view of Bryan, in which Kazin maintains that Bryan’s religion-based liberalism reshaped the Democratic Party and made way for the New Deal.

Koenig, Louis W. Bryan: A Political Biography of William Jennings Bryan. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971. A complete one-volume biography. To Koenig, Bryan’s career is extremely significant because he was a champion of causes that were far advanced for his day. He fought for economic and social justice in the same manner that midcentury Democratic liberals would do later. Although Koenig views Bryan as intellectually shallow, he portrays him as a brilliant politician.

Leinward, Gerald. William Jennings Bryan: An Uncertain Trumpet. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Leinward seeks to destroy the caricatured view of Bryan by describing how and why he dominated American public life for three decades.

Levine, Lawrence W. Defender of the Faith. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. Levine concentrates on the last decade of Bryan’s career (1915-1925). The book represents an attempt to understand the “change” in Bryan from his early to later career, how he was transformed from a crusader for economic justice and social reform into an ultraconservative champion of lost causes. Levine’s answer: No such change ever took place. Bryan continued to be what he had always been, a paradoxical figure, one who could champion reform and reaction at the same time.

Springen, Donald K. William Jennings Bryan: Orator of Small-Town America. Foreword by Halford R. Ryan. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. This work focuses on Bryan as a great speaker and motivator, inspired by conservative views.

Stone, Irving. They Also Ran. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1943. Stone’s chapter on Bryan, in a book about defeated presidential candidates, is a good example of the more negative approach to Bryan. Liberals have found it difficult to forgive Bryan for his defense of fundamentalist Christianity. Stone’s colorful chapter portrays Bryan as a psychopath, a religious fanatic, and an intellectual dolt.