Published: July 22, 2008 06:10 pm            

BRUCE KAUFFMAN: The Great Commoner makes history

William Jennings Bryan, who died this week in 1925, has been called the biggest loser in the history of American politics. He ran for president three times, in 1896, 1900 and 1908, and each time he lost by a margin larger than the previous time.

Yet if voters kept rejecting him for president, his Democratic Party started accepting his liberal reformist ideas, so much so that the Democratic Party of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and, to a great extent, the party of today, can trace its roots directly back to him.

Bryan first gained national attention, and the presidential nomination, at the Democratic Convention of 1896 when he delivered his mesmerizing “Cross of Gold” speech decrying America’s reliance on the gold standard and calling for a “free silver” policy that would replace that standard with a bimetallic standard that included silver — thereby making currency cheaper and more available to the “little guy,” the farmers and common laborers. Yet the “Great Commoner,” as he was called, advocated more than monetary reform. He also called for government regulation of corporations, a progressive income tax that soaked the rich, debt relief and federal insurance on bank deposits.

“Sound-money” Republicans, led by their presidential candidate, William McKinley, were appalled at Bryan’s political platform and successfully labeled him a dangerous radical, thereby sending him to defeat in 1896.

But he was back in 1900, calling for increasing the federal government’s role in protecting the common folk from the ills of laissez faire capitalism. He advocated nationalizing the railroads, public financing of political campaigns (having been badly outspent in 1896), recognition of unions, and even legislating a living wage for every American. Although he again lost — and lost again in 1908 — by 1914, the Democrat’s winning candidate for president, Woodrow Wilson, was championing many of Bryan’s ideas. And when FDR became president in 1932, he too advocated putting the federal government in charge of solving the nation’s economic and social problems, as did Lyndon Johnson when he won the presidency in 1964. For better or worse, Democrats are recognized as “the party of government” even today. Thanks to Bryan.

Yet there is an irony. Bryan was a believer in “Creationism” — the literal truth of the Bible. Indeed, because of his belief that the Earth was created in seven days, and the many other claims in The Book of Genesis, he led the prosecution of high school teacher John Scopes for teaching evolution in the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial.”

In other words, given his religious convictions, were Bryan alive today he would probably be decrying abortion, gay marriage and restrictions on school prayer, meaning this “Father of the Democratic Party” might well become a Republican.

Bruce Kauffmann’s e-mail address is bruce@historylessons.net

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.