"[144] Williams believes that Bryan did better than any other Democrat would have, and comments, "The nominee of a divided and discredited party, he had come remarkably close to winning. I don't know but its effect will be to nominate him. "1896 Presidential Election Results". The convention, by voice vote, seated the silver Nebraskans, who arrived in the convention hall a few minutes later, accompanied by a band. William Jennings Bryan on the Stand Calling Bryan to the stand was a shock for the court. He set his sights on higher office, believing he could be elected president in 1896 even though he remained a relatively minor figure in the Democratic Party. "[123] After a brief interval for handshakes, the train would pull out again, to another town down the track.[123]. "[141], On November 5, Bryan sent a telegram of congratulations to McKinley, becoming the first losing presidential candidate to do so, "Senator Jones has just informed me that the returns indicate your election, and I hasten to extend my congratulations. Although Bryan claimed that many employers had intimidated their workers into voting Republican, Williams points out that the Democrats benefited from the disenfranchisement of southern African Americans. Neither candidate had much money to spend on his campaign. [108] According to Stanley Jones in his study of the 1896 campaign, "Bryan expected that he alone, carrying to the people the message of free silver, would win the election for his party. [14] After his election to Congress, Bryan studied the currency question carefully, and came to believe in free silver; he also saw its political potential. The 1878 BlandAllison Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 required the government to buy large quantities of silver and strike it into coin. He was defeated in the general election by the Republican candidate, former Ohio governor William McKinley. "[110][111][112] August 12 was an extremely hot day in New York, especially for the crowd jammed into the Garden; when Missouri Governor William J. New York Senator Hill was next: the leading spokesman for gold, both gold and silver delegates quieted to hear him. Now among the most famous politicians in the country, Bryan would run twice more for president, losing again to McKinley in 1900 and to William Howard Taft in 1908. Soon afterwards, the delegates, bored, shouted for a speech from Bryan, but he was not to be found. Not even supporters thought the Gold Democrats would win; the purpose was to have a candidate who would speak for the gold element in the party, and who would divide the vote and defeat Bryan. Bryan, an attorney and former Congressman, galvanized support with his Cross of Gold speech, which called for a reform of the monetary system and attacked business leaders as the cause of ongoing economic depression. To this day, countless theater festivals around the world honor his work, students read more. The left-wing Populist Party (which had hoped to nominate the only silver-supporting candidate) endorsed Bryan for president, but found Sewall unacceptable, substituting Thomas E. Watson of Georgia. Rumors that Europeans were about to redeem a large sum for gold caused desperate selling on the stock market, the start of the Panic of 1893. While speaking in McKinley's hometown of Canton, Ohio, Bryan yielded to impulse and called upon his rival at his home with Congressman Bland; the Republican candidate and his wife, somewhat startled, received the two men hospitably in a scene Williams calls, "surely bizarre. Bryan served as Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1915, resigning as Wilson moved the nation closer to intervention in World War I. [88][89] Newspapers that supported other parties in western silver states, such as the Populist Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colorado, and Utah's Republican The Salt Lake Tribune, quickly endorsed Bryan. He introduced several proposals for the direct election of senators and to eliminate tariff barriers in industries dominated by monopolies or trusts. Bryan left the convention, returning to his hotel to await the outcome. [36] Historian James Barnes wrote of Bryan's preparations: The Nebraskan merely understood the political situation better than most of those who might have been his rivals, and he took advantage in a legitimate and thoroughly honorable manner of the existing conditions. Bryan". [6][7][8], In Congress, Bryan was appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee and became a major spokesman on the tariff and money questions. [48], As the committees met, the convention proceeded, though in considerable confusion. As an evangelical Christian and a believer in the literal interpretation of the Bible, Bryan also saw a grave threat in the application of Charles Darwins theory to human society. Bryan, a former Democratic congressman from Nebraska, gained his party's presidential nomination in July of that year after electrifying the Democratic National Convention with his Cross of Gold speech. The position involved no day-to-day duties, but allowed him to publish his political commentaries. The only areas of the nation where Bryan took a greater percentage of the urban than the rural vote were New England and the Rocky Mountain states; in neither case did this affect the outcome, as Bryan took only 27% of New England's vote overall, while taking 88% of the Rocky Mountain city vote to 81% of the vote there outside the cities. [132] Early Republican polls had shown Bryan ahead in crucial Midwestern states, including McKinley's Ohio. The 1896 Democratic National Convention repudiated the Cleveland administration and nominated Bryan on the fifth presidential ballot. He was a fine actor, with a justly famous voice, but was not a charlatan. But McKinleys victory was fueled by a massive influx of campaign cash from Wall Street bankers and other wealthy business interests, all determined to crush Bryans radical brand of populism. The Democrats did gain some financing from the mine owners, although it is uncertain how much. Bryan and many other Democrats believed the economic malaise could be remedied through a return to bimetallism, or free silvera policy they believed would inflate the currency and make it easier for debtors to repay loans. The majority felt exposed, crestfallen, and humiliated.[56]. [127], Republican newspapers painted Bryan as a tool of Governor Altgeld, who was controversial for having pardoned the surviving men convicted of involvement in the Haymarket bombing. United States presidential election of 1900, American presidential election held on November 6, 1900, in which Republican incumbent Pres. A free silver policy would inflate the currency, as the silver in a dollar coin was worth just over half the face value. Department of State: Office of the Historian. In 1925, high school biology teacher John Scopes went on trial in Tennessee as a test of the first state law banning the teaching of evolution. [93] When Bryan was nominated on a silver platform, the Republicans were briefly gratified, believing that Bryan's selection would result in an easy victory for McKinley. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. "[101] Many Populists saw the election of Bryan, whose positions on many issues were not far from theirs, as the quickest path to the reforms they sought; a majority of delegates to the convention in St. Louis favored him. These results made the Midwest the crucial battlefield that would decide the presidency. President Cleveland, stunned by the convention's repudiation of him and his policies, decided against open support for a bolt from the party, either by endorsing McKinley or by publicly backing a rival Democratic ticket. His campaign was low-key, without excessive publicity: Bryan did not want to attract the attention of more prominent candidates. [136] His train reached Lincoln after the polls opened; he journeyed from train station to polling place to his house escorted by a mounted troop of supporters. All Rights Reserved. Coletta noted the problems faced by Bryan in obtaining the nomination, and how his groundwork helped overcome them: The maneuver that paid Bryan highest dividends was his fifteen months of missionary work in behalf of silver and cultivation of the Chicago delegates. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Bryans inability to differentiate between social Darwinism and the scientific theory of evolution galvanized his more fundamentalist, religious supporters but earned him the disdain of many others who shared his progressive politics. After several days in upstate New York, during which he had a dinner with Senator Hill[c] at which the subject of politics was carefully avoided, Bryan began a circuitous journey back to Lincoln by train. [119] Among the foremost supporters of Bryan was publisher William Randolph Hearst who both contributed to Bryan's campaign and slanted his newspapers' coverage in his favor. Why did William Jennings Bryan lose the 1896 election? The song was "Sift Sand, Sal", the source does not explain the relevance of this to Bryan. McKinley was supported by middle-class and wealthy voters, urban laborers, and prosperous farmers; this coalition would keep the Republicans mostly in power until the 1930s. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States in the 1896, 1900, and the 1908 elections. He was slim, tall, pale, raven-haired, beaked of nose. The answer was simple, Bryan told Abbothe had prepared a speech that would stampede the convention. Men and women threw their hats into the air, not caring where they might come down. However, he was deemed unlikely to succeed, as many Democrats feared that if elected, he might fill some patronage jobs with Republicans. Former Governor William McKinley, the Republican candidate, defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Although not a landslide shift comparable to election swings in the twentieth century, McKinley's victory ended the pattern of close popular margins that had characterized elections since the Civil War. [147] This was evidenced in the tariff question: Bryan spent little time addressing it, stating that it was subsumed in the financial issue; Republican arguments that the protective tariff would benefit manufacturers appealed to urban workers and went unrebutted by the Democrats. He campaigned relentlessly, traveling around the country and giving hundreds of speeches to millions of people, while his Republican opponent, Ohio Governor William McKinley, stayed home and gave speeches from his porch. Decide to endorse William Jennings Bryan (Democratic candidate). [35] Bryan was deeply moved when, after the adoption of the platform, Colorado Senator Henry M. Teller led a walkout of silver-supporting Republicans. In 1896, Bryan captivated the audience at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with a passionate oration urging his countrymen to stand up for the common man against big business interests and support free silver. If this robbery is permitted, the farmer will be ruined, and then the cities will suffer. On July 26, 1925, five days after the verdict was issued, Bryan died in his sleep after suffering a stroke. The coalition of wealthy, middle-class, and urban voters that defeated Bryan kept the Republicans in power for most of the time until 1932. [81][82] Amid talk that the Gold Democrats would form their own party, Senator Hill was asked if he remained a Democrat. Although defeated in the election, Bryan's campaign made him a national figure, which he remained until his death in 1925. Senator Jones felt compelled to spend five minutes (granted by the gold side), stating that the silver issue crossed sectional lines. McKinley did well in the border states of Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky. A streak of the moralist preacher raised his political chances among a people attuned to the biblical phrase and Shakespearan [sic] stance. The minority report attracted the opposite reaction.[54]. Writer Edgar Lee Masters, who witnessed Bryan's speech, remembered, "Suddenly I saw a man spring up from his seat among the delegates and with the agility and swiftness of an eager boxer hurry to the speaker's rostrum. [49] Bryan had been widely supported as a candidate for permanent chairman by the silver men, but some western delegates on the Committee on Permanent Organization objected, stating that they wanted the chance to support Bryan for the nomination (the permanent chairman was customarily ruled out as a candidate). [65], Bryan concluded the address, seizing a place in American history:[66], Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will 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. "[145] Bryan's own explanation was brief: "I have borne the sins of Grover Cleveland. Ever since the election of 1800, American presidential contests had, on some level, been a referendum on whether the country should be governed by agrarian interests (rural indebted farmers-the countryside-"main street") or industrial interests (business-the city-"wall street"). [22][23] In the 17months between his departure from Congress and the Democratic National Convention in July 1896, Bryan travelled widely through the South and West, speaking on silver. It was not until 10:45am, three-quarters of an hour late, that Chairman White called the convention to order. Seward spent his early career as a lawyer before winning a seat in the New York State Senate in 1830. Through the almost three decades before his death in 1925, he was ever present on political platform and speaking circuit, fighting first for silver, and then for other causes. [29], Bryan faced a number of disadvantages in seeking the Democratic nomination: he was little-known among Americans who did not follow politics closely, he had no money to pour into his campaign, he lacked public office, and had incurred the enmity of Cleveland and his administration through his stance on silver and other issues. [120], On September 11, 1896, Bryan departed on a train trip that continued until November 1, two days before the election. Eugene V. Debs Why did most southern states pass laws to disenfranchise black voters in the 1890s To eliminate the possibility of future political alliances between poor whites and blacks Which reform did the Populists call for on their party platform of 1892 Public ownership of railroads and telegraphs National Archives and Records Administration. On this day in 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivered his rousing speech as a delegate to the Democratic convention declaring that mankind would not be "crucified on a cross of gold.". 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