The campaign of 1888 was indeed a personal victory 

 for William Jennings Bryan. His extraordinary ef- 

 forts had taken him into many areas of the state, and 

 had given him an enviable reputation as a speaker and 

 as an effective campaigner. During the campaign, he 

 had perfected his speaking techniques and had meas- 

 ured the great power he was capable of exercising over 

 his audiences."' Accounts of his campaigning at this 

 time indicate that Bryan had scarcely any rivals in the 

 realm of oratory. Nature had equipped him with an 

 unusually fine and powerful voice, and he had learned 

 how to use this instrument most effectively. Other 

 political figures depended upon torchlight parades, 

 brass bands and gadgets of every sort to arouse public 

 interest, but Bryan could rely on his voice and his 

 oratorical power. His success in 1888 undoubtedly 

 settled his own convictions that the most effective 

 political campaign techniques required the candidate 

 to meet the people on their own ground, to appeal to 

 them directly. Bryan's personal triumph perhaps 

 suggested to him that his future political success would 

 depend substantially upon his own personal magne- 

 tism. In many respects, Bryan's tour of Nebraska in 

 1888 was a rehearsal of his great presidential campaign 

 eight years later. Already, there were suggestions 

 that Bryan might emerge to take over the reins of the 

 state Democratic Party from its old-line leadership. 

 A defensive letter from the treasurer of the Democratic 

 State Central Committee to Bryan on the eve of the 

 election indicates the challenge which the vigorous 

 young man already presented to stalwart Democrats. ''- 

 Already, too, there were signs that certain young men 

 within the Party were chafing at the dominance of 

 elderly and perennially unsuccessful leaders. Frank 

 Morrissey, a young Omaha newspaperman, openly 

 expressed his dissatisfaction with J. Sterling Morton, 

 the leader of the old-line Democrats; 



Give us new men and fresh leadership. Get a\va\- from 

 old heartaches and put new hopes in our bosoms if you 

 would have militant democracy triumph. If you cling 

 to ghosts haunting the charnel house of the past, de- 

 moralization of the party will continue and the shadow 

 of defeat will remain heavy over it.''^ 



Bryan was beginning to emerge as the type of dynamic 

 young leader who might revive Nebraska's exhausted 

 Democratic Party. 



Between campaigns, during the years 1889 and 

 1890, Bryan worked in maintaining his own reputa- 

 tion and establishing useful contacts in Nebraska."^ 

 He set out to become an expert on the favorite Demo- 

 cratic campaign issue, the tariff, publishing a letter 

 on the subject in the New York Post and endeavor- 

 ing, unsuccessfully, to publish a book on tariff 

 reform."' By early 1890, there could be little doubt 

 that Bryan would be a major contender for the Demo- 

 cratic congressional nomination. The coming cam- 

 paign was complicated by the growing agricultural 

 unrest in the rural areas of Nebraska which became 

 manifest with the rapid development of the Farmers' 

 Alliance movement and its growing political influence 

 in the state."" The Alliance movement added a third 

 force to Nebraska politics with which both estab- 

 lished parties would need to contend. Particularly 

 for the Democrats, the Alliance posed a problem. 

 Always a minority in the past, the Democratic Party 

 might be able to take advantage of the new develop- 

 ment if old party wounds could be healed, and if a 

 candidate sufficiently attractive to the discontented 

 farmers could be found. By the spring of 1890, 

 Bryan's friends were urging cooperation and possible 

 "fusion" of the Democratic and Alliance tickets with 

 Bryan as the candidate for the House of Representa- 

 tives from Nebraska's First Congressional District."^ 

 Everywhere, the Independent movement seemed 



"' .More than thirty years later, Mrs. Bryan recalled her 

 husband's return from a campaign trip to western Nebraska 

 where he discovered that he possessed "more than usual power 

 as a speaker," that he could move his listeners as he chose. 

 See Bryan, Memoirs, p. 249. 



*- Bryan papers, letter from Euclid Martin to Bryan, Novem- 

 ber 1, 1888. 



ra Omaha Daih Herald, .August 20, 1888. 



"^ He continued his interests in Y.M.C.A. work; see Bryan 

 papers, letter from J. H. Waterman, president of the Y.M.C..-\., 

 Plattsmouth, Nebraska, to Bryan, January 14, 1889, and other 

 correspondence from the Y.M.C.A. His work with the Demo- 

 cratic leadership is suggested in a letter (Bryan papers) from 

 J. Sterling Morton to Bryan, October 10 and 11, 1889; Morton 

 wished Bryan to prepare statements against subsidies for the 

 Democratic state convention 



«5 Bryan papers, letter from Walter Hinds Page to Bryan, 

 August 27, 1889: G. P. Putnam's Sons to Bryan, September 3 

 and 13, 1889. 



8« The Farmers' Alliances were a phase in the formation of 

 organizations among the agricultural population. Beginning 

 in the South in the late 1870's, the .Alliance movement spread 

 into the Midwest wherever there was distress among the farmers. 

 During the late 1880's, the .Alliance became increasingly inter- 

 ested in political action and by 1890 the organization prepared 

 to nominate and campaign for its own slate of candidates. See 

 chapters 4-6 in Hicks, op. cit. (footnote 41 ). 



'" Bryan papers, letter from W. T. H. McClanahan, Elk 

 Creek, Nebraska, May 10, 1890, who wrote to Bryan, "If the 

 Democrats and alliance people can make a comb, this fall and 



PAPER 46: BRYAN THE CAMP.AIGNER 



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