needed to cover the entire state. He could not 

 answer every request for help but he did his best, 

 concentrating his speaking engagements in the 

 county seats and the more important towns in the 

 eastern third of Nebraska, the most populous portion 

 of the state. During September and October, Bryan 

 made more than fifty personal appearances in behalf 

 of his candidacy and in support of the Democratic 

 state ticket. On most of the days when he was 

 campaigning, the candidate appeared in two different 

 towns, sometimes traveling long distances to reach 

 both of his meetings. His audiences were generally 

 reported as large and enthusiastic, and he pursued 

 his opponents — both Republicans and gold-standard 

 Democrats — with his usual vigor. Bryan made 

 ample use of Nebraska's railroads as he traveled 

 through the state, a forecast of his extraordinary rail 

 trips in 1896. 



The climax of Bryan's campaign for the Senate was 

 a pair of two debates between Bryan and his Repub- 

 lican opponent, John M. Thurston. The debates 

 attracted a great deal of interest and enormous 

 crowds attended the meetings. Eager partisans of 

 both candidates arrived at Lincoln by the trainload, 

 crowding into the Agricultural Building at the State 

 Fair Grounds for the first debate in October 17. At 

 Omaha on the next evening, a crowd estimated at 

 15,000 heard the debaters argue the justice of the 

 tariff, the need for free coinage of silver, and other 

 great economic questions."" Although one of his 

 friends insisted: "Your debate with Mr. Thurston 

 has strengthened your prestige among farmers up here 

 materially," the signs of victory were not reassuring."' 

 On October 4, William McKinley addressed a great 

 crowd at the Omaha Coliseum, denouncing the 

 Democratic depression, defending the gold standard, 

 and extolling the protective tariff."- On Novembers, 

 election eve, an exhausted William Jennings Bryan 

 spent the evening with his family at Lincoln; the next 



"The people of this county will almost swear by you. You 

 certainly have a most enviable reputation and I want you to 

 come." (John F. Brandon, Carrollton, Missouri, to Bryan, 

 September 27, 1894.) 



■'"Omaha World-Herald, October 18, 19, and 21, 1894, car- 

 ried details of the debates. 



'" Bryan papers, letter from William H. Green to Bryan, 

 October 26, 1894. 



132 Omaha World-Herald, October 5, 1894. McKinley cam- 

 paigned aggressively during the fall of 1 894, defending protection 

 in 371 speeches in 16 States. See Margaret Leech, In the 

 Days o) McKinley (New York: Harper & Bros., 1959), pp. 61-62, 

 for an account of this effort. 



day it was all over. Nebraska's Democrats were not 

 alone in their total defeat; throughout the nation, the 

 Republican party had won great successes, taking con- 

 trol of the House of Representatives and state legisla- 

 tures everywhere outside the South. By not running 

 for reelection to the House, Bryan saved himself from 

 almost certain defeat. He may have been consoled 

 by his "preferential" vote of 80,000, an outstanding 

 achievement in a Republican year."^ During the 

 winter of 1895 the Republican, John M. Thurston, 

 was chosen by the state legislature to represent 

 Nebraska in the United States Senate. 



CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT 



Bryan's political apprenticeship ended with the 

 senatorial vote in 1894; his political style and his 

 campaign techniques were fully developed by this 

 time, and he carried them on with only minor varia- 

 tions for the remainder of his life. Furthermore, his 

 ambitions had, by 1894, encompassed every office 

 that he would ever desire, for he had concluded that 

 the Presidency lay within his grasp. His apparent 

 popularity and success as a public speaker gave him 

 assurance that he would be a strong contender for the 

 highest office. By fulfilling his role as the David of 

 commonsense democracy and free silver, he would 

 vanquish the false and exploitive Goliath of privilege, 

 greed, and gold. But before he would have an 

 opportunity to slay the giant, Bryan needed to become 

 known throughout the nation as a defender of justice 

 for the common man. He had already gained an 

 enviable reputation through his more important 

 speeches in the House of Representatives and his 

 speaking tours outside of Nebraska. In the two years 

 which followed his ill-fated campaign for the Senate, 

 Bryan set out to utilize the techniques and talents 

 which he had developed during the ten years of his 

 political apprenticeship, in order to build on the 

 existing foundation of his fame. His drive for the 

 Presidency was fundamentally an individual effort, 

 represented by two separate campaigns: the first for 

 the Democratic nomination during 1895 and the first 

 half of 1896; the second, for President during the 

 memorable campaign of 1896."* 



133 BoELL, op. cit. (footnote 107), pp. 134-143. 



13» Bryan's presidential campaign in 1896 has been most fully 

 described in his own volume. The First Battle (Chicago, 1896). 

 The campaign deserves a modern scholarly reconsideration 

 from the perspective of both McKinley and Bryan. Bryan's 

 drive for the nomination during the years 1895-96 is a story in 

 itself, deserving of special consideration. 



PAPER 46: BRYAN THE CAMPAIGNER 



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