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The Life of William Jennings Bryan
Knopf
February 2006
400 pages
ISBN: 0375411356
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
An illuminating and dramatic biography of William Jennings
Bryan that restores him to his place of importance in
American history -- as a hero and leader of the Christian
left.
Bryan is remembered today mostly as the fundamentalist voice
in the 1925 Scopes trial. But as Michael Kazin makes clear,
he was a man of exceptional accomplishment. The most popular
speaker of his time, he gained a vast and passionate
following among both rural and urban Americans, to whom he
embodied the righteousness of a pastor and the practical
vision of a reform politician. As leader of a major
political party, he was able to put the fight to improve the
welfare of ordinary Americans in a moral and religious
frame. He preached that the nation should expand the power
of the federal government and counter the overweening power
of banks and industrial corporations by legalizing strikes
and supporting labor unions, banning private campaign
spending, giving the vote to women, instituting a
progressive income tax, and prohibiting the sale of alcohol.
At the 1896 Democratic convention, he delivered the famous
Cross of Gold speech and made the fight against the gold
standard, believing it was the cause of the nation�s
economic travails, his own Christian mission. Thereafter,
the size of his following mushroomed: for the first time,
millions outside the industrial north felt they had a
champion with a chance to take power in Washington. Bryan
became their "godly hero," in honor of whom they named their
sons and to whom they wrote fervent letters of admiration.
In 1896, 1900, and 1908, the Democratic Party nominated him
to be its presidential candidate, relying on the discontent
of the heartland to tip the balance in his favor. But
despite his immense popularity, the Republican opposition
was able to defeat him each time.
Yet Bryan�s legacy in American political history is
enormous. He did more than any other man to transform the
Democratic Party from a bulwark of laissez-faire into the
citadel of liberalism we identify with Franklin D.
Roosevelt. As secretary of state, Bryan helped craft the
idealistic foreign policies of Woodrow Wilson before
resigning in protest against the administration�s drift
toward entering World War I.
This is the first major biography of Bryan in almost forty
years--and the first to draw on the countless letters Bryan
received from his followers as well as on his speeches and
the lively journalism of his time. The result is a
clarifying portrait both of a seminal figure in the history
of our national politics and religion and of the richly
diverse and volatile political landscape in America during
the early twentieth century.
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