BRYAN 



964 



BRYAN 



When Bryan first became a national figure 

 he was thirty-one years old. He had just been 

 elected to the House of Representatives from 

 a Nebraska district, and his fame as the "boy 

 orator of the Platte" accompanied him to 

 Washington. Here he was given the unprece- 

 dented honor of membership on the Committee 

 on Ways and Means during his first term. 



Early Career. The question arose in many 

 minds at the same time "Who is this 'boy 

 orator of the Platte'?" Investigation showed 

 that he was born on March 19, 1860, at Salem, 

 Illinois. He was valedictorian of his class when 

 he was graduated from Illinois College, at Jack- 



WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

 Three times an aspirant for the Presidency of 

 the United States, the second so-called "Great 

 Commoner" in American history. 



sonville, in 1881, and he attended a Chicago law 

 school from 1881 to 1883, at the same time 

 studying in the office of Lyman Trumbull. In 

 the next year he married Miss Mary Baird, 

 who later graduated in law, and to whom he 

 publicly gave credit for frequent advice on 

 both legal and political questions. After he 

 had practiced law in Jacksonville for four years, 

 the family moved to Lincoln, Neb., where he 

 quickly became a leader of the bar and a pop- 

 ular Democratic campaign orator. 



When the first Nebraska Congressional Dis- 

 trict, normally a Republican stronghold, sent 

 him to Washington in 1891, there was consid- 

 erable good-natured comment at his expense. 

 But Bryan was a hard worker, and he forced 

 recognition for himself in the discussions on the 

 tariff and free silver. His advocacy of the 

 unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 



16 to 1 (see BIMETALLISM) found no favor 

 with his Republican constituents, who refused 

 to elect him for a third term and also defeated 

 him as candidate for United States Senator. 

 He then became editor of the Omaha World- 

 Herald, and continued to advocate free silver 

 both in his paper and on the public platform. 



Three Campaigns for the Presidency. In 

 1896 Bryan was an alternate delegate to the 

 Democratic national convention at Chicago, 

 and became a member upon the withdrawal of 

 a regular delegate. He wrote the plank of the 

 platform declaring for free silver, and during 

 a heated debate which lasted for seven hours 

 he swept the convention off its feet by a great 

 oration, closing with these words: 



We shall answer their demand for a gold 

 standard by saying to them : You shall not press 

 down upon the brow of labor this crown of 

 thorns ! You shall not crucify mankind upon a 

 cross of gold. 



The speech won him the nomination for 

 President. In the campaign that followed 

 Bryan traveled over 18,000 miles and delivered 

 over 600 speeches in twenty-seven states a 

 record number. The story of the campaign 

 was told in his book, The First Battle. The 

 election resulted in the choice of McKinley, 

 the Republican candidate (see McKiNLEY, 

 WILLIAM, subhead Administration). Again in 

 1900 Bryan was defeated by McKinley after 

 a campaign almost as exciting as that of 1896. 

 After this second defeat Bryan founded The 

 Commoner, a weekly journal published at Lin- 

 coln (later changed to a monthly). In 1904 

 he did not seek the nomination, but bitterly 

 opposed the conservative stand taken by the 

 convention and its repudiation of the principles 

 for which he stood. 



For the next two years the political world 

 saw nothing of him. In 1905 and 1906 he was 

 on a tour of the world, and was everywhere 

 received with many honors. The decisive de- 

 feat of Parker in the 1904 election turned the 

 Democrats again to Bryan, who was mentioned 

 as a candidate for President as soon as he 

 returned to the United States. He was nomi- 

 nated in 1908, but was defeated by William H. 

 Taft. In spite of these three defeats Bryan 

 was still the leader of his party, although there 

 were many who tried to lessen his influence. 

 In 1910 he was all but repudiated by the Demo- 

 cratic convention of his own state ; every candi- 

 date whom he supported was defeated for 

 nomination, and the county local option plank 

 which he proposed was also beaten. 





