Empire for Liberty: America in the Long Nineteenth Century

[J66185]

Burgess is alright; interesting cat -- his cultural Catholicism gives him, by his own admission, great insight into human nature and the world which really come out in various ways throughout his works. Kubrick's adaption is, of course, a masterpiece. Burgess basically depicts the traditional Catholic view of man, devoid of God, in his novels -- really shows man for the primal and barbarous lustful creature he is unlike all those blinded by the Anglo-Saxon myth of progress.

That "ultraviolence" really did rub off on me pretty well, it was fitting. Although Burgess might easily dispute that claim about the film version, obviously.

 

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER XVII: TAMING THE WEST


The Little House on the Prairie ​

While the stereotypical impression of the American West was one of outlaws and lawmen, the reality of the civilizing of the American western frontier was in the community-building and community-forming nature of the American pioneers and settlers, Asiatic immigrants, and German immigrants who escaped the cauldrons of urbanized slavery to settle the frontier to continue the agrarian farm life.

It is true that part of westward expansion was westward flight away from commercialized and urbanized living, as I treated in Chapter IV. It is also true that part of westward expansion was from the spirit of get rich quick scheming with the discovery of gold and silver and other precious metals. And, of course, through the hum-drum of the railroad companies sweeping in to extract those resources and funnel them back east. Nevertheless, the unsung heroes of westward settlement were the nameless and faceless majority of women and men and children who ventured on foot and by wagon to stake a new claim of life and community in places open for the taking.

The native American tribes that existed in the west were scattered about because of their nomadic lives. Thus, much of the western frontier was, truly, empty territory and rolling hills. In those vast open spaces of land, the settlers worked to build, with each other instead of individually, the communities that would equally sweep William Jennings Bryan into the White House. Yet, the labor involved in westward settlement was difficult. So terrible were the conditions that suicide was common, and men turned to the bottle to satiate their pains. Thus, it became imperative for women to pick up the shovel to aid in the settlement of the west which, as numerous historians have explained, fueled the rise of the women’s movement which marched west to east proclaiming the equality and liberty of women because the westerly women showed their ability to work and succeed in their work, because the demands of nature required them so in order to survive.

As we’ve covered, the Middle-West lands were largely agrarian. Despite being overrun by the railroad companies, the farmers fought back with the Grange Movement and managed, through state legislatures, to pass Granger Laws to try and limit to the power of the railroad companies. The railroad companies fought back and eventually crushed the Grange Movement with the support of Congress.

In the midst of it all, in the turmoil of industrialization and material exploitation; in the midst of the Indian Wars; in the midst of outlaws and lawmen; the real civilizing of the western frontier was from those nameless and faceless men and women, and children, who built their homes, staked out their property, worked the land, and welcomed new pioneers and settlers into their small towns and villages. The toil and sweat, the labor of one’s brow, while hard work, was what pacified the great expanse of the western lands of the United States. Laura Ingalls Wilder, reflecting on her experiences, famously said, “As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness -- just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”[1]

FIGURE 1: A “little house on the prairie.”​

Indeed, the simple yet laborious life of the middle country was something that the eastern elite never understood. They saw a land ripe for plunder. They saw a land to feed the growing interests of the east coast. But the settlers and pioneers saw a little slice of heaven. They found paradise. They escaped the burgeoning constrictions of what Oswald Spengler would have called civilization. They lived in what Walt Wittman described as the “newer garden of creation, no primal solitude…[t]he crown and teeming paradise” of the United States. The idyllic and agrarian nature of the American frontier undeniably transported one back to Eden.

Moreover, the life on the frontier brought humans closer with animals and nature in a way unknown to the people crowded in industrial and urbanized metropolises on the coasts. Where rodents and other animals would have been seen as nuisances, the encounter with nature in the west was spiritual and life-affirming. Wilder’s novel perhaps best captures the sentimental union between man and beast in the old frontier, “These little creatures looked soft as velvet. They had bright round eyes and crinkling noses and wee paws. They popped out of holes in the ground, and stood up to look at Mary and Laura. Their hind legs folded under their haunches, their little paws folded tight to their chests, and they looked exactly like bits of dead wood sticking out of the ground. Only their bright eyes glittered.” In fact, the romantic notion of animals, and the depiction of benign rabbits that subsequently passed into American literary and cultural folklore, was from the western frontier’s august literary boom that praised the virtue of the simple farmer and the simple way of life where life and death was always ever present.

That struggle against life and death was the very spirit that inculcated a sense of community and virtue among the people of the frontier. While it is true that many of the settlers and pioneers fled to escape the tentacles of urban civilization, it is not true to paint the western frontier as a libertarian frontier paradise where everyone did as they pleased. Instead, the western frontier become the beacon of American communitarianism and the allure of such a filial, closed-knit, and community-based way of life. The little house on the prairie stood out from the powers that be back in Washington. Yet, there was—and remains—an undeniable temptation to walk into that little house and find the peace and solitude that so many expressed in their older days.


[1] Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues.

 

[stnylan]

A yearning for what some people claim was a simpler time.

 

[volksmarschall]

PART V: THE AGE OF REFORM

CHAPTER XVIII: THE AGE OF BRYAN

If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands 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. - William Jennings Bryan.​

A Cross of Gold​

In understanding the age of reform, it is important to understand the two great political forces which contested with each other during this period. One was located in the interior of the country; it was agrarian and industrial, isolationist and anti-imperialist, it was nativist and anti-establishment. The other was located primarily in the northeast; it emanated from the old WASP lines of the de facto American aristocracy, it was culturally Protestant, but mentally secular and reformist. The historian Richard Hofstadter argued, correctly, that the tradition of populist democracy and reactionary sentiment, which was always the burgeoning force for democracy, was “formed on the farm and in small villages.”[1] The progressive tradition of managerial reformism, while feigning openness to democracy, was founded in urban and industrialized centers, it was Yankee, Protestant, and economical.[2]

The religious split between the populists and progressives has always been well-known and documented. The historian George McKenna coolly observes, “The Progressives loved America, but the America they loved was one that began in New England, traversed the North, and defeated the slave-holding South. Its religion was Protestant…It was the muscular, activist, strain of Puritanism.”[3] But insofar that the Progressive line of religiosity was rooted in the activist strain of Puritanism, and by now Puritanism—through the congregational church—had integrated into mainline Protestant life, the progressives could be counted among the mainline Protestant tradition. The populists, owing to their Protestantism of the interior heartlands, are what we would call “evangelical” or “fundamentalist” despite the fact that Edwardsian and Puritan theology is often given lip-service to these same evangelicals. Yet, the reality was different in Edwards’ own time when he found himself on the side of the progressives and the Old Light Calvinists and Presbyterians opposing the “great awakenings” as from demons.[4]

He's on the loose!​

It was out of the interior country, and with that evangelical fervor, that the prairie populist and the Cross of Gold messiah arose. In 1896, in a stuffy convention room, William Jennings Bryan, then a young man and political novice, took to the stage and gave an impassioned speech to the Democratic convention. At the end of the speech, he held his arms outstretched and lifted himself up by his toes as if he was imitating being crucified. The speech that changed a party and disturbed a nation read as follows:

I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were but a measuring of ability; but this is not a contest among persons. The humblest citizen in all the land when clad in the armor of a righteous cause is stronger than all the whole hosts of error that they can bring. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity. When this debate is concluded, a motion will be made to lay upon the table the resolution offered in commendation of the administration and also the resolution in condemnation of the administration. I shall object to bringing this question down to a level of persons. The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest of principle.

Never before in the history of this country has there been witnessed such a contest as that through which we have passed. Never before in the history of American politics has a great issue been fought out as this issue has been by the voters themselves.

On the 4th of March, 1895, a few Democrats, most of them members of Congress, issued an address to the Democrats of the nation asserting that the money question was the paramount issue of the hour; asserting also the right of a majority of the Democratic Party to control the position of the party on this paramount issue; concluding with the request that all believers in free coinage of silver in the Democratic Party should organize and take charge of and control the policy of the Democratic Party. Three months later, at Memphis, an organization was perfected, and the silver Democrats went forth openly and boldly and courageously proclaiming their belief and declaring that if successful they would crystallize in a platform the declaration which they had made; and then began the conflict with a zeal approaching the zeal which inspired the crusaders who followed Peter the Hermit. Our silver Democrats went forth from victory unto victory, until they are assembled now, not to discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the judgment rendered by the plain people of this country.

But in this contest, brother has been arrayed against brother, and father against son. The warmest ties of love and acquaintance and association have been disregarded. Old leaders have been cast aside when they refused to give expression to the sentiments of those whom they would lead, and new leaders have sprung up to give direction to this cause of freedom. Thus has the contest been waged, and we have assembled here under as binding and solemn instructions as were ever fastened upon the representatives of a people.

We do not come as individuals. Why, as individuals we might have been glad to compliment the gentleman from New York [Senator Hill], but we knew that the people for whom we speak would never be willing to put him in a position where he could thwart the will of the Democratic Party. I say it was not a question of persons; it was a question of principle; and it is not with gladness, my friends, that we find ourselves brought into conflict with those who are now arrayed on the other side. The gentleman who just preceded me [Governor Russell] spoke of the old state of Massachusetts. Let me assure him that not one person in all this convention entertains the least hostility to the people of the state of Massachusetts.

But we stand here representing people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made too limited in its application the definition of a businessman. The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go 1,000 feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who in a backroom corner the money of the world.

We come to speak for this broader class of businessmen. Ah. my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic Coast; but those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose—those pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature’s heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds—out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead—are as deserving of the consideration of this party as any people in this country.

It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came.

We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!

The gentleman from Wisconsin has said he fears a Robespierre. My friend, in this land of the free you need fear no tyrant who will spring up from among the people. What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of aggregated wealth.

They tell us that this platform was made to catch votes. We reply to them that changing conditions make new issues; that the principles upon which rest Democracy are as everlasting as the hills; but that they must be applied to new conditions as they arise. Conditions have arisen and we are attempting to meet those conditions. They tell us that the income tax ought not to be brought in here; that is not a new idea. They criticize us for our criticism of the Supreme Court of the United States. My friends, we have made no criticism. We have simply called attention to what you know. If you want criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the Court. That will give you criticisms.

They say we passed an unconstitutional law. I deny it. The income tax was not unconstitutional when it was passed. It was not unconstitutional when it went before the Supreme Court for the first time. It did not become unconstitutional until one judge changed his mind; and we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind.

The income tax is a just law. It simply intends to put the burdens of government justly upon the backs of the people. I am in favor of an income tax. When I find a man who is not willing to pay his share of the burden of the government which protects him, I find a man who is unworthy to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.

He says that we are opposing the national bank currency. It is true. If you will read what Thomas Benton said, you will find that he said that in searching history he could find but one parallel to Andrew Jackson. That was Cicero, who destroyed the conspiracies of Cataline and saved Rome. He did for Rome what Jackson did when he destroyed the bank conspiracy and saved America.

We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe it is a part of sovereignty and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than can the power to make penal statutes or levy laws for taxation.

Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to have a different opinion from the gentleman who has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business.

They complain about the plank which declares against the life tenure in office. They have tried to strain it to mean that which it does not mean. What we oppose in that plank is the life tenure that is being built up in Washington which establishes an office-holding class and excludes from participation in the benefits the humbler members of our society.

Let me call attention to two or three great things. The gentleman from New York says that he will propose an amendment providing that this change in our law shall not affect contracts which, according to the present laws, are made payable in gold. But if he means to say that we cannot change our monetary system without protecting those who have loaned money before the change was made, I want to ask him where, in law or in morals, he can find authority for not protecting the debtors when the act of 1873 was passed when he now insists that we must protect the creditor. He says he also wants to amend this platform so as to provide that if we fail to maintain the parity within a year that we will then suspend the coinage of silver. We reply that when we advocate a thing which we believe will be successful we are not compelled to raise a doubt as to our own sincerity by trying to show what we will do if we are wrong.

I ask him, if he will apply his logic to us, why he does not apply it to himself. He says that he wants this country to try to secure an international agreement. Why doesn’t he tell us what he is going to do if they fail to secure an international agreement. There is more reason for him to do that than for us to expect to fail to maintain the parity. They have tried for thirty years—thirty years—to secure an international agreement, and those are waiting for it most patiently who don’t want it at all.

Now, my friends, let me come to the great paramount issue. If they ask us here why it is we say more on the money question than we say upon the tariff question, I reply that if protection has slain its thousands the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands. If they ask us why we did not embody all these things in our platform which we believe, we reply to them that when we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other necessary reforms will be possible, and that until that is done there is no reform that can be accomplished.

Why is it that within three months such a change has come over the sentiments of the country? Three months ago, when it was confidently asserted that those who believed in the gold standard would frame our platforms and nominate our candidates, even the advocates of the gold standard did not think that we could elect a President; but they had good reasons for the suspicion, because there is scarcely a state here today asking for the gold standard that is not within the absolute control of the Republican Party.

But note the change. Mr. McKinley was nominated at St. Louis upon a platform that declared for the maintenance of the gold standard until it should be changed into bimetallism by an international agreement. Mr. McKinley was the most popular man among the Republicans; and everybody three months ago in the Republican Party prophesied his election. How is it today? Why, that man who used to boast that he looked like Napoleon, that man shudders today when he thinks that he was nominated on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Not only that, but as he listens he can hear with ever increasing distinctness the sound of the waves as they beat upon the lonely shores of St. Helena.

Why this change? Ah, my friends. is not the change evident to anyone who will look at the matter? It is because no private character, however pure, no personal popularity, however great, can protect from the avenging wrath of an indignant people the man who will either declare that he is in favor of fastening the gold standard upon this people, or who is willing to surrender the right of self-government and place legislative control in the hands of foreign potentates and powers.

We go forth confident that we shall win. Why? Because upon the paramount issue in this campaign there is not a spot of ground upon which the enemy will dare to challenge battle. Why, if they tell us that the gold standard is a good thing, we point to their platform and tell them that their platform pledges the party to get rid of a gold standard and substitute bimetallism. If the gold standard is a good thing, why try to get rid of it? If the gold standard, and I might call your attention to the fact that some of the very people who are in this convention today and who tell you that we ought to declare in favor of international bimetallism and thereby declare that the gold standard is wrong and that the principles of bimetallism are better—these very people four months ago were open and avowed advocates of the gold standard and telling us that we could not legislate two metals together even with all the world.

I want to suggest this truth, that if the gold standard is a good thing we ought to declare in favor of its retention and not in favor of abandoning it; and if the gold standard is a bad thing, why should we wait until some other nations are willing to help us to let it go?

Here is the line of battle. We care not upon which issue they force the fight. We are prepared to meet them on either issue or on both. If they tell us that the gold standard is the standard of civilization, we reply to them that this, the most enlightened of all nations of the earth, has never declared for a gold standard, and both the parties this year are declaring against it. If the gold standard is the standard of civilization, why, my friends, should we not have it? So if they come to meet us on that, we can present the history of our nation. More than that, we can tell them this, that they will search the pages of history in vain to find a single instance in which the common people of any land ever declared themselves in favor of a gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed investments have.

Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and my friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side shall the Democratic Party fight. Upon the side of the idle holders of idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? That is the question that the party must answer first; and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic Party, as described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic Party.

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.

You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

My friends, we shall declare that this nation is able to legislate for its own people on every question without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth, and upon that issue we expect to carry every single state in the Union.

I shall not slander the fair state of Massachusetts nor the state of New York by saying that when citizens are confronted with the proposition, “Is this nation able to attend to its own business?”—I will not slander either one by saying that the people of those states will declare our helpless impotency as a nation to attend to our own business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but 3 million, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to 70 million, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers? No, my friends, it will never be the judgment of this people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good but we cannot have it till some nation helps us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States have.

If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands 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.​

A painting depicting the end of William Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech.​

In imitating being crucified to the Cross, the Democratic delegates were silent for several seconds according to the accounts. Jennings admitted, in those few seconds, which felt like an eternity, that he had failed. Then the floor exploded in rapturous cries and applause. The delegates rushed the stage and lifted the prairie populist onto their shoulders and the Democratic Party had its candidate who would cause the forces of the establishment to rear its ugly head against the outsider and upstart populist.



[1] Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform, p. 7.

[2] Ibid., pp. 8-9.

[3] George McKenna, The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism, p. 191.

[4] This controversy is known as the Old Light-New Light Controversy.

SUGGESTED READING

Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

George McKenna, The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism

Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform​

 

[Specialist290]

It's been a good long while (if ever) that I've heard or read a speech as powerful as Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech. It's a sad reminder that the art of rhetoric is almost dead in today's society.

 

[stnylan]

It's been a good long while (if ever) that I've heard or read a speech as powerful as Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech. It's a sad reminder that the art of rhetoric is almost dead in today's society.

I was going to say the same thing. I can't remember the last time I heard a political speech of any worth by a modern politician. The delivery is usually poor and instead of focusing and leading up to an especially memorable phrase or passage (like Jennings above, or the Finest Hour speech of Churchill) they try to stuff so many potential soundbites into it that nothing resonates.

 

[Idhrendur]

I have to also agree, that is such an excellent speech.

 

[volksmarschall]

It's been a good long while (if ever) that I've heard or read a speech as powerful as Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech. It's a sad reminder that the art of rhetoric is almost dead in today's society.

I was going to say the same thing. I can't remember the last time I heard a political speech of any worth by a modern politician. The delivery is usually poor and instead of focusing and leading up to an especially memorable phrase or passage (like Jennings above, or the Finest Hour speech of Churchill) they try to stuff so many potential soundbites into it that nothing resonates.

I have to also agree, that is such an excellent speech.

It's also a sad reminder as to how WJB got remembered by posterity. The man was clearly a learned individual capable of interweaving classics, Bible, and American history that even most of our supposed "enlightened" politicos of today (and their journalistic ilk) would be incapable. But, alas, "Scopes-Monkey" got the better of him. Admittedly, I've long had a love affair with William Jennings Bryan. I even had to ensure I included him in my UG American history thesis in modified published form.

There's a reason, or many reasons, why it's one of the most famous speeches in American history. Even though said by someone who was never President in our time line. Washington's Farewell and FDR's "Day that will live in Infamy" are the only probable contenders alongside it for most memorable and well-known (if known at all) speeches.

 

[stnylan]

Oh I don't know, I think you could add some Lincoln to that as well - "the better angels of our nature" and so on.

 

[volksmarschall]

Oh I don't know, I think you could add some Lincoln to that as well - "the better angels of our nature" and so on.

Yeah. Gettysburg’s Address; I forgot Abe. But I’m not the biggest Lincoln bro though I have a really nice leather set of his letters. He’s got great prose.

 

[J66185]

This might be overdue but did you get the article by Edith Hall on "Re-reading Slavery" by any chance?

 

[volksmarschall]

This might be overdue but did you get the article by Edith Hall on "Re-reading Slavery" by any chance?

No. When was this? Edith Hall and I are on polar opposite spectrums when it comes to the classics and the discipline of history; it's part of my rebellious disdain for history detached from the healing of the soul. I don't doubt her accolades and awards. We just differ strongly on pedagogy and use. The way she uses my beloved Euripides or Sophocles is not how I would use them. My essays on classics and literature are truly focused on the interiority of man and to steer with Plato's noble horse instead of being overtaken by the ignoble horse and fall to the earth like Phaeton.

All this knowledge, what is used for? Just read Livy or Xenophon and it should be clear, especially in conjuncture with Plato and Homer. If it's not aimed for the ascension of man up the Mountain of Desire it's all vanity.

 

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER XVIII: THE AGE OF BRYAN


Running For President
​

William Jennings Bryan’s campaign was the culmination of three decades of popular and populist discontent aimed at the east coast’s capitalization, industrialization, and imperialism. With Cuba under American occupation, and American troops now stationed in Manilla after a quick and decisive war against Spain,[1] Bryan also accosted the American imperium as part of his populist strategy. The interior of the country, after all, was the region most deracinated by coastal ambitions. Bryan, as a man of the heartland, saw the struggle of restraining the imperial eagles as essential to his character, nature, and the future of the American ideal.

A Judge cartoon mocking the Bryan presidential campaign.​

Bryan also popularized the modern campaign. Whereas before, partisan newspapers[2] were the main front for advancing political candidacy, Bryan wielded, ironically, the railroads for his popular benefit. He launched tours into towns and cities, travelling by the railcar, to deliver “stump” speeches to the audiences. He wowed people with his oratory and command of ancient history. He wowed people with his wit and charm. He wowed people his flaming language of righteous indignation. Among his famous speeches that he oft repeated was his speech against imperialism:

I feel that I owe an apology or explanation to the people who are to listen for the fact that I must read what I am going to say. It would be more pleasant to me and more agreeable to you to speak without notes, but I want to address that larger constituency which we reach through the newspapers, for it is a thousand times as numerous as any crowd that could assemble here, and therefore, in order that I may speak to all throughout the land. I have committed to writing what I desire to say, and will ask for your indulgence while I read my speech…

When I say that the contest of [1896]* is a contest between Democracy on the one hand and plutocracy on the other I do not mean to say that all our opponents have deliberately chosen to give to organized wealth a predominating influence in the affairs of the Government, but I do assert that on the important issues of the day the Republican party is dominated by those influences which constantly tend to substitute the worship of mammon for the protection of the rights of man.

In 1859 Lincoln said that the Republican party believed in the man and the dollar, but that in case of conflict it believed in the man before the dollar. This is the proper relation which should exist between the two. Man, the handiwork of God, comes first; money, the handiwork of man, is of inferior importance. Man is the master, money the servant, but upon all important questions today Republican legislation tends to make money the master and man the servant.

The maxim of Jefferson, “equal rights to all and special privileges to none,” and the doctrine of Lincoln that this should be a government “of the people, by the people and for the people,” are being disregarded and the instrumentalities of government are being used to advance the interests of those who are in a position to secure favors from the Government.

The Democratic party is not making war upon the honest acquisition of wealth; it has no desire to discourage industry, economy and thrift. On the contrary, it gives to every citizen the greatest possible stimulus to honest toil when it promises him protection in the enjoyment of the proceeds of his labor. Property rights are most secure when human rights are most respected. Democracy strives for civilization in which every member of society will share according to his merits.

No one has a right to expect from society more than a fair compensation for the services which he renders to society. If he secured more it is at the expense of some one else. It is no injustice to him to prevent his doing injustice to another. To him who would, either through class legislation or in the absence of necessary legislation, trespass upon the rights of another the Democratic party says, “Thou shalt not.”

Against us are arrayed a comparatively small but politically and financially powerful number who really profit by Republican policies; but with them are associated a large number who, because of their attachment to their party name, are giving their support to doctrines antagonistic to the former teachings of their own party…

When our opponents are unable to defend their position by argument they fall back upon the assertion that it is destiny, and insist that we must submit to it, no matter how much it violates our moral percepts and our principles of government. This is a complacent philosophy. It obliterates the distinction between right and wrong and makes individuals and nations the helpless victims of circumstance.

Destiny is the subterfuge of the invertebrate, who, lacking the courage to oppose error, seeks some plausible excuse for supporting it. Washington said that the destiny of the republican form of government was deeply, if not finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the American people. How different Washington’s definition of destiny from the republican definition!

The Republicans say that this nation is in the hands of destiny; Washington believed that not only the destiny of our own nation but the destiny of the republican form of government throughout the world was entrusted to American hands. Washington was right. The destiny of this Republic is in the hands of its own people, and upon the success of the experiment here rests the hope of humanity. No exterior force can disturb this Republic, and no foreign influence should be permitted to change its course. What the future has in store for this nation no one has authority to declare, but each individual has his own idea of the nation’s mission, and he owes it to his country as well as to himself to contribute as best he may to the fulfillment of that mission.

I can never fully discharge the debt of gratitude which I owe to my countrymen for the honors which they have so generously bestowed upon me; but, sirs, whether it be my lot to occupy the high office for which the convention has named me, or to spend the remainder of my days in private life, it shall be my constant ambition and my controlling purpose to aid in realizing the high ideals of those whose wisdom and courage and sacrifices brought the republic into existence.

I can conceive of a national destiny surpassing the glories of the present and the past — a destiny which meets the responsibilities of today and measures up to the possibilities of the future. Behold a republic, resting securely upon the foundation stones quarried by revolutionary patriots from the mountain of eternal truth — a republic applying in practice and proclaiming to the world the self-evident propositions that all men are created equal; that they are endowed with inalienable rights; that governments are instituted among men to secure these rights, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Behold a republic in which civil and religious liberty stimulates to earnest endeavor and in which the law restrains every hand uplifted for a neighbor’s injury — a republic in which every citizen is a sovereign, but in which no one cares to wear a crown. Behold a republic standing erect while empires all around are bowed beneath the weight of their own armaments — a republic whose flag is loved while other flags are only feared. Behold a republic increasing in population, in wealth, in strength and in influence, solving the problems of civilization and hastening the coming of an universal brotherhood — a republic which shakes thrones and dissolves aristocracies by its silent example and gives light and inspiration to those who sit in darkness. Behold a republic gradually but surely becoming the supreme moral factor in the world’s progress and the accepted arbiter of the world’s disputes — a republic whose history, like the path of the just, “is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”​

Another Judge cartoon mocking the Free silver campaign of Bryan entitled, “Last Ghost Dance of the Free Silver Tribe.”​

Bryan’s message of a just republic, a shining city on the hill, captured the imagination of the people he spoke to who labored in the dirt, dust, and mud of the earth while their political representatives, far away, dined lavishly and in fine suits. Bryan’s populist crusade was aimed at true democracy, as he saw: a decentralization of wealth and power back to the masses. He did not, then, see his role as a bureaucratic centralizer but as a populist decentralist, to use the levers of government to restore back to the people the promise of America’s founding as he conceived it through the eyes of his hero, Thomas Jefferson.



[1] The Spanish-American War was fought in 1891. It had little to report so we glance over it in this AAR which, on the whole, isn’t given much to recounting military history anyway.

[2] The news media was never founded on the principle of “neutrality.” Almost all newspapers were partisan in orientation. The idea of a “neutral news” is pure fantasy conjured up by people who know little of how media works. The real argument against the monopolization of ideological news media is that oppositional media isn’t readily available; though this has obviously changed with the rise of “alternative media” in our present day.

*This speech was originally given in 1900, it has been changed to reflect the new game election date.

 

[stnylan]

Oddly enough today my father and I were just having a chat about one of the essentials of the American nature - the idea that you guys have a shining city on the hill, and a general perplexity that the rest of the world does not see it.

 

[volksmarschall]

Oddly enough today my father and I were just having a chat about one of the essentials of the American nature - the idea that you guys have a shining city on the hill, and a general perplexity that the rest of the world does not see it.

You can blame, or credit, the Puritans for that one -- I think, I made mention of this long ago when dealing with the Puritan origins of a part of America. Of course, the irony is, though few on the so-called "right" will acknowledge it, the "left" embraces the idea too. America as "an idea" unfolding to that mystical destiny. Of course, one could say that the British certainly had a strong sense of divine mystical imperialism too for a long time! Yeah, like the "company of nations" in Genesis 35 is really about Britain and the British Commonwealth. Eisegesis 101 right there!

Those pesky Protestants. See what happens when you divorce your self-understanding from the ecclesia!

As I see it, part of what defines the American left is the notion of America as a becoming the city on the hill. Actually, I think WJB's speech captures that essence. The American right, by contrast, in its rigidity, thinks America is the city on the hill. My own views and affections, as an American, a Platonist, and classicist, is much more complex and complicated.

This reminds me, I'm what, only a couple hundred miles away from right now as I finish my thesis in London?

EDIT: Love those cartoons! Those are period cartoons. From "an establishment" literary and political/satirical journal. Judge was the great rival to Puck for almost 60 years. And the ignorant say the level of demonization today is bad...

 

[The Quiet Dreamer]

It's also a sad reminder as to how WJB got remembered by posterity. The man was clearly a learned individual capable of interweaving classics, Bible, and American history that even most of our supposed "enlightened" politicos of today (and their journalistic ilk) would be incapable. But, alas, "Scopes-Monkey" got the better of him. Admittedly, I've long had a love affair with William Jennings Bryan. I even had to ensure I included him in my UG American history thesis in modified published form.

There's a reason, or many reasons, why it's one of the most famous speeches in American history. Even though said by someone who was never President in our time line. Washington's Farewell and FDR's "Day that will live in Infamy" are the only probable contenders alongside it for most memorable and well-known (if known at all) speeches.

Indeed. In hindsight, Bryan at the Scopes Trial feels like one of those "what the Hell were you thinking?" moments.

 

[volksmarschall]

Indeed. In hindsight, Bryan at the Scopes Trial feels like one of those "what the Hell were you thinking?" moments.

The power of H.L. Mencken!! Definitely wasn't a fan...

 

[volksmarschall]

Great news everyone, the manuscript which I was a contributor for has passed the referring with Lexington Press (U.S.). It will be published in the Fall of 2019 under the title: The College Lecture Today: An Interdisciplinary Defense for the Contemporary University. I have a chapter examining the pedagogy of the religious lecture examining the oral and literary structure of religious stories, the hero's journey, the mono-myth, why the psyche gravitates to these stories, and the balance struck in what I call the persona-narrative immersion dialectic. Among the thinkers drawn on in support of my chapter included St. Augustine, Walter Ong, Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell. A self-mandatory reference to Hegel was included.

Also, later this month I will have a 10,000 word commentary on Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace coming out in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the book C.S. Lewis described as "the greatest book ever written." All of this, on top of my rush to finish my thesis on Edmund Burke's political aesthetics, are among many reasons why I sadly don't have as much spare time to devote to this AAR. But hey, we've gotten to Bryan!

 

[KingJerkera]

That is so cool

 

[ncm]

Congratulations, man. I've been making my way through this AAR since my return to the forums a while ago, it's an excellent read and a key inspiration (alongside my current undergrad module) for my forthcoming Germany project. Eagerly awaiting its next update!