Who is william jennings bryan

He was known as "The Great Commoner" and "The Silver-Tongued Orator" and he ran for president of the United States in a then-unprecedented three campaigns. He became famous at 1896 Chicago Democratic Party convention when he uttered words which lived on in history - "You shall not crucify the working man upon a cross of gold!"

William Jennings Bryan, Salem's Favorite Son, was born here on March 19, 1860. His boyhood home has been preserved and has been turned into a museum filled with memorabilia of Bryan, his politics and the turn-of-the-century era in which he lived. The home is located on South Broadway, next door to the building that once housed the Bryan Bennett Library which he helped found. The museum is open by appointment only. Please contact City Hall through this website, email, or call (618) 548-2222 Ext.10 to set up a tour.

Bryan spent the first years of his life living in Salem. He attended Salem public school and at the age of 14 became a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church which is now named First United Presbyterian Church. Inside the church, located at the corner of McMackin and Washington Streets near downtown Salem, is a pulpit with a carved scene of the burning bush as noted in the Bible's Book of Exodus. The pulpit was a gift to the church from Bryan during his later years.

Initially, Bryan's ambition was to become a minister; however, he eventually decided to follow in his father's footsteps and become a lawyer. He left Salem to study law at the age of 15 and never lived here permanently again. Nevertheless, the "great commoner" often visited his home town during his career as an attorney, newspaper editor and politician.

Bryan was known as a populist and as a champion of free coinage of silver during his political career. That career blossomed in 1896 with the delivery of the "Cross of Gold" speech which drew greater ovation than had been given any other speaker at that gathering. Even those defending the gold standard applauded Bryan.

Before going to that convention Bryan had visited in Salem. He reportedly told a friend while here that he felt that he could receive the party's nomination if he could obtain the opportunity to speak to the delegates. Bryan's prediction was most accurate.

But historians note that the Chicago speech probably was the high point of Bryan's political career. Although he won the presidential nomination that year, again in 1900 and a third time in 1908, Bryan never succeeded in winning the White House. He became Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, holding that post until 1915 when he resigned, citing a disagreement with the president over the country's policy toward Germany.

After leaving Salem, Bryan lived for a time in Jacksonville, Illinois, then moved to Nebraska, entering politics and becoming editor-in-chief of the Omaha World newspaper. His final years were spent in Miami Beach, Florida.

Bryan participated as a prosecutor in the famous 1925 Scope's "Monkey Trial," in which a young biology teacher, John Thomas Scopes (also from Salem), was indicted for teaching evolution in the Dayton, Tennessee, High School.

A bronze likeness of Bryan was created by Gutzon Borglum, of Mt. Rushmore fame, in 1934 and it stood briefly in Washington, D.C. Later it was obtained by Salem and re-erected in Bryan Memorial Park where it now stands on the east side of Route 37 North.

William Jennings Bryan fused Populist rhetoric and policies with a new Democratic coalition. In the process became one of Nebraska’s — and the nation’s — favorite sons. But, like many early Nebraskans, he was born somewhere else — in Illinois in 1860. His father was a lawyer and local politician. Both of his parents were intensely religious, and young William shared their fervor. At the age of 12, he joined the fight for prohibition of alcohol by signing a temperance pledge for school. After high school, attended law school in Chicago and worked in the office of Lyman Trumbull, Abraham Lincoln’s friend and a U.S. Senator. Shortly after Bryan began is own law practice, he married Mary Elizabeth Baird.

Bryan discovered Nebraska when he visited a law school friend in Lincoln after inspecting land in Iowa owned by his father-in-law. He saw Nebraska as a land of opportunity, and so Bryan moved to Lincoln and set up practice in partnership with his law school friend.

In 1890 — just three years after coming here — he decided to run for Congress as a Democrat. He was a long shot. No Democrat had ever been elected to Congress from Nebraska in its 20 years of statehood. But Bryan had realized that common people were in desperate financial times, and the Populist Party was probably at the height of its popularity. Bryan picked up some of the same ideas as the Populists. He won the election and then went on to win a second term in Congress in 1892.

In 1894, he decided against another term in Congress and instead made himself a candidate for the U.S. Senate. But the Republicans were back in control of the Nebraska State Legislature and they elected a railroad attorney for the Senate seat. Without a political seat, he became the editor of the Omaha World Hearld, at that time a Democratic paper. His writings kept his name and ideas before the public, and he also traveled the Chautauqua lecture circuit.

Through these campaigns, writings and public appearances, Bryan had become one of the nation’s best recognized advocates for the "free silver" policy. As the 1890s depression deepened, his ideas were catching on.

Free Silver was, by 1895, a political movement that was embraced by the Populists and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. During the Civil War, President Lincoln had issued paper money, rather than gold coins, for the first time in the nation’s history. It was easier to print paper money than to mine or buy gold for coins, so there could be more money in circulation in the economy. That policy had helped pay for the war, but it had also stimulated inflation. So much paper money floating around tended to drive up prices. After Lincoln’s death, national Republican leaders had worked to make sure that every paper dollar issued was backed with gold. This is known as a tight money policy. When the depressions hit Nebraska and other agricultural states, it was more difficult for borrowers to pay back loans to the eastern banks. Reformers in the Farmers’ Alliance and other groups decided that backing the money with more plentiful silver rather than gold would make it easier for debtors to pay off their loans and remain on the farm. More money in circulation would make it easier for farmers to make some of that money and pay off their debts.

In the 1896 election, "free silver" was the central debate during the Democratic national convention. Bryan was selected as one of the main speakers. He gave a memorable speech, ending with all the righteous indignation he could muster:

Bryan and his wife, Mary Baird Bryan
Image of Mr. Bryan and text from "Great Leaders and National Issues of 1896, Lives and Portraits of Our Political Leaders and the Platforms of All the Great Parties." Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1896; Image of Mrs. Bryan from "The New Road," 1896

The delegates were stunned. The cheers and applause went on for over 30 minutes. He was nominated for the Presidency on the fifth ballot. At the age of 36, he was the youngest candidate nominated for the presidency up to that time.

Bryan was running against Republican William McKinley who advocated conservative policies and ran a "front porch" campaign — McKinley stayed at home and had groups of supporters come to him. Bryan, on the other hand, traveled over 18,000 miles and made over 600 speeches. Some days he would give 10 or 20 speeches. But it was not enough against the better financed Republicans. McKinley got 51 percent of the vote to Bryan’s 47 percent.

Over the next four years, the political situation changed. The economy came out of depression and the country entered the Spanish-American War. Bryan raised a regiment of mostly Nebraska volunteers for the war, but President McKinley didn’t want Bryan to get any glory and the regiment sat out the war in Florida. In 1900, Bryan was still the dominant figure in the Democratic party, and he got the party’s presidential nomination. But silver was no longer the rallying point it had been. So, Bryan took up the anti-imperialism cause — he argued that it would violate the essence of American democracy if the U.S. created an empire by taking over the Philippines from Spain.

Some Spanish-American War Medal of Honor recipients are in the Nebraska Hall of Fame.

Learn more about its members.

Bryan was defeated by Taft again. This time he came home and began publishing the newspaper The Commoner from Lincoln. The 16-page weekly paper was mailed to up to 140,000 progressive supporters. That exposure, along with an aggressive schedule of speaking engagements, kept Bryan as a major figure in the Democratic party.

However, in 1904, the party endorsed the gold standard, nominated a strong gold supporter and lost the election by a landslide to Theodore Roosevelt, who had become President after McKinley’s assassination in 1901. Roosevelt had adopted some of Bryan’s progressive policies and was a charismatic candidate.

Bryan was nominated again in 1908 and ran against Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor, William H. Taft. That election was the first to make use of recorded campaign speeches issued by the two opposing candidates. Some phonograph dealers put on "phonograph debates" with mannequins propped up in the stores as stand-ins for Bryan and William H. Taft. These were popular with the public and proved to be great fun. Despite his oratorical skills, Bryan lost the election to Taft.

In 1912, Bryan helped Woodrow Wilson win the presidency and Wilson named Bryan Secretary of State. He served for two years, negotiating peace treaties with 29 nations. He also helped Wilson push through a series of domestic reforms known as the "New Freedom" measures. But when Wilson began to push the country towards involvement in the First World War, Bryan resigned.

He turned his attention to other issues, saying that the three great reforms of the 1920s would be peace, prohibition and women’s suffrage. His support was significant in passing the latter two causes. At the end of his life, he was more and more concerned with religious issues and he became even more famous for his prosecution of the Scopes monkey trial. He argued against the teaching of evolution. Five days after the trial ended, Bryan died in his sleep in Tennessee.

In many ways, Bryan was ahead of his times. Despite his fundamentalist religious views, he was a progressive politician. The ideas he promoted unsuccessfully in 1896, were adopted by Teddy Roosevelt’s platform in 1904. He supported the adoption of the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission, control of trusts and monopolistic companies, government control of currency and banking, voting reform and regulation of campaign contributions. Before Bryan, the Democratic Party was a conservative party of Civil War losers. After Bryan, the party was a progressive alliance of small businesses, farmers, blacks and blue-collar workers. It was this alliance that later elected Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

William Jennings Bryan is in the Nebraska Hall of Fame.

Learn more about him and the other members.

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In 1886 — more than 20 years after the Homestead Act was signed — an itinerate photographer in Custer County, Nebraska set out to produce a photographic history of his county. Over the next 15 years, Solomon D. Butcher produced 1,500 images, hundreds of stories, and a remarkable record of a remarkable time in the history of Nebraska and the U.S.

When Butcher was 24 years old in 1880, he had homesteaded with his father and younger brother in central Nebraska. Like many early settlers, they built a dugout, a one-room house out of sod. But Butcher discovered he wasn’t cut out to be a farmer. He went back to Minnesota, studied medicine, and married a nurse from the hospital, but never became a doctor. Instead, he and his wife Lillie came back to Nebraska. He taught school for a time and then fell back on his high school training in photography. He opened a photographic gallery in northern Custer County, a gallery that was never really profitable.

Somehow, Butcher hit on an amazing idea — he would produce a photographic history of Custer County. He must have realized that he was living in a time and place that were important to the history of the country. There is also evidence that he thought this was an idea he could sell. For whatever reason, it was an idea that seized him.

"From the time I thought of the plan, for seven days and seven nights it drove the sleep from my eyes. I laid out plans and covered sheet after sheet of paper, only to tear them up and consign them to the waste basket. At last, Eureka! Eureka! I had fount (sic) it. I was so elated that I had lost all desire for rest. . . ."

Beginning in 1886, Butcher began to travel all across the county by horse and wagon, taking photographs of his friends and neighbors. These are the photographs that now illustrate many history texts about the settlement period (and that illustrate this website). He also collected pioneer stories. As he traveled, he supported himself with subscriptions and donations that various citizens made to the project as well as by the sale of photographs. Over the next seven years, he made over 1,500 images in Custer County.