William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), US Congressman from Nebraska, three-time presidential candidate and secretary of state, emerged in the late 19th century as a prominent voice in the Democratic Party and the nation. A staunch Protestant, his populist rhetoric and policies have earned him the nickname “the great commoner”. In his later years, Bryan campaigned against the teaching of evolution in public schools, culminating with his leading role in the Scopes Trial.
Youth and political career
Bryan was born on March 19, 1860 in the small town of Salem, Illinois. His father, Silas, was a dedicated Jacksonian Democrat and renowned lawyer who held various locally elected positions and passed his policy on to his son. After graduating from Illinois College, Bryan received a law degree from the Union College of Law, Chicago in 1883. He was called to the Illinois Bar and began practicing law in Jacksonville, marrying Mary Elizabeth Baird in 1884; the couple had three children.
In 1887 Bryan moved to the growing state of Nebraska, where he settled in Lincoln and established a thriving law firm. In the early 1890s, with drought destroying the livelihoods of many American farmers, the People’s Party (also known as the Populist Party) was emerging as a force in American politics by appealing to small farmers, traders and other less wealthy voters. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1890, when he was only 30 years old, Bryan has championed populist causes, including the direct election of senators, progressive federal income tax and the “free money” movement. , which sought to increase the federal money supply by basing US currency on silver as well as gold.
Speech of the “Golden Cross” and election of 1896
Triggered by the collapse of the mighty Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, the panic of 1893 plunged the country into deep economic depression. In August 1893 Bryan won the admiration of free silverites with his three-hour speech to Congress denouncing President Grover Cleveland’s (ultimately successful) efforts to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 and re-bind the US currency to the ‘gold standard. After unsuccessfully running for the Senate in 1894, Bryan returned to Nebraska and became editor of the Omaha World-Herald.
In 1896, Bryan captivated audiences at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with a heated speech urging his compatriots to stand up for the common man against big business interests and to support free money. To those who hold on to the gold standard, he said in closing: “You will not rest this crown of thorns on the front of your work, you will not crucify humanity on a golden cross.
The day after his “Golden Cross” speech Bryan won the Democratic presidential nomination; he also won the support of the Populist and National Silver parties. He campaigned tirelessly, traveling the country and giving hundreds of speeches in front of millions of people, while his Republican opponent, Ohio Governor William McKinley, stayed at home and gave speeches from his porch. But McKinley’s victory was fueled by a massive influx of campaign funds from Wall Street bankers and other wealthy business interests, all determined to crush Bryan’s radical brand of populism.
Progressivism and pacifism
Now one of the country’s most famous politicians, Bryan would run for president twice more, losing again to McKinley in 1900 and to William Howard Taft in 1908. Rather than continue the battle for free money , he devoted himself to opposing US imperialism, which he considered immoral and undemocratic. He also advocated for progressive income tax, antitrust laws and other government business regulations, women’s suffrage and a ban on alcohol. Despite his electoral losses, Bryan continued to wield considerable influence through his devout religious speeches as well as a weekly magazine, the Commoner.
After Bryan helped rally Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential election, Wilson chose the now older Democratic statesman as secretary of state. Bryan’s pacifist stance increasingly disagreed with the president, and he resigned in 1915 in protest after Wilson sent a second note to Germany demanding an end to the submarine warfare after the sinking. of Lusitania, an action Bryan felt went too far towards violating American neutrality.
Anti-Evolution Crusade, Scopes Trial and Death
Although he continued to publicly oppose the United States’ involvement in World War I after his resignation, Bryan changed course after the nation entered the conflict in 1917 due to broad popular support. to the war effort. During the last decade of his life, he devoted himself largely to reforming the moral and religious character of the nation. At the center of these efforts was a campaign to end the teaching of evolution in public schools.
As an evangelical Christian and a believer in the literal interpretation of the Bible, Bryan also saw a serious threat in the application of Charles Darwin’s theory to human society. He argued that teaching children to “survive the fittest” would over time stop caring about the poor and otherwise more needy members of the population. Bryan’s inability to differentiate between social Darwinism and the scientific theory of evolution galvanized his most fundamentalist religious supporters, but earned him the contempt of many others who shared his progressive politics.
In 1925, John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was tried in Tennessee to test the state’s first law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. Bryan signed on as chief prosecutor, facing off against criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow. The Scopes “monkey trial” in Dayton, Ohio, took place in the national spotlight, with reporters, religious leaders and spectators crowding into the courtroom. After the defense called Bryan himself an expert on the Bible, Darrow subjected him to a brutal examination in the sweltering courtroom, revealing his lack of theological and scientific knowledge.
The jury predictably found Scopes guilty, but Bryan’s performance at trial and his beating in the national press marked a less than stellar end to his long career as a public figure. On July 26, 1925, five days after the verdict was delivered, Bryan died in his sleep from a stroke. His widow accompanied his body in a special wagon to Washington, where it was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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Jill Lepore. These Truths: A History of the United States. (WW Norton & Company, 2018)
“William Jennings Bryan, the ‘great commoner.’ »Constitutional Rights Foundation, Spring 2010 (Volume 25, n ° 3)
Biographies of Secretaries of State: William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925). Department of State: Office of the Historian.
John Nimick. “The great commoner Bryan dies in his sleep, apoplexy being the cause of death.” UPI Archives, July 27, 1925.
