Democratic inarching club.^^ Bryan recalled speak- 

 ing at a picturesque meeting at a country schoolhouse 

 near Jacksonville, where, as the speaker of the evening, 

 he was invited to partake of a Democratic fiask of 

 whiskey. Although he refused the drink, and al- 

 though he was introduced as "Mr. Obrien," he 

 remembered the occasion as a success. '^ Congressman 

 John W. Springer remembered "double teaming" 

 with Bryan in campaigns during the Illinois years. '^ 

 This period was an important segment of the young 

 Democrat's political apprenticeship, giving him ex- 

 perience with certain fundamentals of grassroots 

 politics, training him in techniques which he retained, 

 sometimes to his own disadv'antage, throughout his 

 life. The county campaigns were organized by school 

 district, and diligent campaigners went from school 

 district to school district, contacting the voters, seeing 

 that all Democrats were brought to the polls. ^'' As he 

 worked in the county politics of rural Illinois, Bryan 

 learned that in some manner politics had to be a 

 personal vocation, that "Mr. Obrien" had to be able 

 to refuse a generously offered drink of whiskey, yet still 

 retain the attention and the affection of his listeners. 

 In the rural schoolhouses, Bryan discovered the need 

 to create a personal relationship between the candidate 

 and his audience, and he became committed to the 

 democratic notion of appealing directly to the people. 

 Illinois politics brought little renown and few re- 

 wards to William Jennings Bryan. Although he 

 served the Democratic organization faithfully, he was 

 never accorded more than a secondary role in local 

 politics. In his quest for Federal patronage appoint- 

 ments, the young man was largely rebuffed.^" After 

 four years in Jacksonville, he was still a struggling 

 country lawyer and petty politician; however, four 

 years after leaving Jacksonville, Bryan was a member 

 of Congress, and a major political figure. Undoubt- 

 edly, the lessons of political campaigning which he 

 learned in Illinois contributed to his later techniques 

 as a congressional and presidential campaigner. 



33 Ibid., September 18, 1884. 



3* Bryan, The First Battle, pp. 302-303. The Daih Journal 

 (Jacksonville) recorded very few speeches by Bryan in the 

 campaign of 1884, but this may be partially accounted for by 

 the paper's Republican leanings. See the Daily Journal, 

 July 6, 1884, for nn account of Bryan's Fourth-of-July oration. 



35 Bryan papers, letter from John \V, .Springer to Bryan, 

 August 24, 1888; Jacksonville Daily Journal, .August 30, 1884. 



36 Bryan papers, letter from Millard F. Dunlap, Jacksonville, 

 Illinois, to Bryan, .August 14, 1888, describing the techniques 

 of Dan Picrson, a local Democrat. 



3" Bryan, Memoirs, p. 73. 



NEBRASKA POLITICS 



In the summer of 1887 Bryan moved from Jackson- 

 ville, his home for more than a decade, to Lincoln, 

 Nebraska. The prospects for immediate success must 

 have seemed far more promising in this growing 

 western community than they were in Jacksonville. 

 One of Bryan's law-school classmates, Adolphus 

 Talbot, practiced law in Lincoln, and numerous 

 residents from Jacksonville and Morgan County had 

 mo\ed to southeastern Nebraska during the 1880's.^* 

 In the spring of 1887, Bryan heard from an acquaint- 

 ance at Lincoln who was attempting to sell stock in a 

 newly incorporated National Bank; "Lincoln is a live 

 city," his friend wrote.'' So, in the summer of 1887 

 Bryan visited Lincoln, was favorably impressed, and 

 in the early fall of the year he moved to Lincoln, 

 leaving his family in Jacksonville until spring, .when a 

 new house could be finished in the Nebraska pity.*" 



Lincoln must have seemed far more exciting polit- 

 ically than Jacksonville. The state of Nebraska was 

 beset by growing pains which were somewhat typical 

 of the problems facing other western states. Major 

 interest groups were already battling for political 

 supremacy; the powerful railroads, which had domi- 

 nated the state for years, and had support from both 

 Republicans and Democrats, were beginning to meet 

 serious opposition from agricultural interests.^' Polit- 



3* Jacksonville Daily Journal. .September 11 and 21, 1884. 



3^ Bryan papers, letter from George G. Waite, Lincoln, 

 Nebraska, to Bryan, March 29, 1887. 



■"' For details on Bryan's career in Lincoln, see Paolo E. 

 CoLETTA, "William Jennings Bryan's First Nebraska Years," 

 Xebraska History (March 1952), vol. 33, pp. 71-94. Two other 

 iiiiportant American political figures arrived in Nebraska at 

 about the time Bryan did. George Norris and Charles G. 

 Dawes, both young lawyers, moved from Ohio to the West, in 

 search of new opportunities. 



*' For the influence of railroads in politics and the opposi- 

 tion of the farmers to the railroads, see John D. Hicks, The 

 Populist Retolt: A History of the Farmers^ Alliance and the Peoples' 

 Party (University of Minnesota: Minneapolis, 1931), pp. 60-74. 

 (Reprinted, University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln, 1961.) 

 Ch.-\rles G. Dawes, ^-1 Journal of the McKinley Years (Lakeside 

 Press: Chicago, 1950), pp. 12-13, summarizes very succinctly 

 the problem of railroad rates. James H. Kyner, in a pic- 

 turesque reminiscence of his career as a railroad contractor, 

 End of Track (told to Hawthorne Daniel, originally published in 

 1937, reprinted by the University of Nebraska Press: 1960), 

 p. 94, recalled that he served as a representative of the rail- 

 road interests in the Nebraska legislature: "I took my seat in 

 1881, which was a period of great railroad activity, and legisla- 

 tion adverse to the railroads was forever being proposed. 

 During my four years in the legislature I opposed all this, with 



PAPER 46: BRY.A.N THE CAMP.MGNER 



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