a godly hero the life of william jennings bryan

Begun in 1874 at Lake Chautauqua in western New York, these tent gatherings, usually in rural or small-town settings, offered a mix of entertainment–comedy, music, circus acts, plays–and speeches of moral edification. (As a sort of bonus side trip, Kazin takes the reader on a brief journey through that American institution. During his life he delivered more than six thousand scheduled speeches and many more spontaneous ones. These followers, made up especially of the rural poor and working classes from the South and Midwest, most of whom were Christian, wrote letters to him by the thousands, declaring their devotion to him and their absolute trust in his wisdom and virtue.īryan was quite possibly the most notable orator in the history of American politics. Bryan served as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, eventually resigning because his pacifism created conflict with Wilson and his cabinet prior to the United States entering World War I.įew politicians before or after Bryan have inspired such adoration in his followers. Roosevelt and his ideological descendants” (xix). Three times, in 1896, 1900, and 1908, he was the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, and when he was not a candidate, he was the Democrats’ most powerful figure: “more than any other man … transform his party from a bulwark of laissez-faire into the citadel of liberalism we identify with Franklin D. Thompson, he would “rescue from the enormous condescension of posterity” (xviii).īryan’s rightful claim to a lasting place in our national historical memory is based on a life spent at the very center of American politics for over forty years. But that picture of Bryan is dreadfully inaccurate, and Michael Kazin has written this fine biography “to gain a measure of respect for Bryan and his people.” Quoting historian E.

Lee in their (screen)play, Inherit the Wind. William Jennings Bryan, if he is known at all these days, is remembered as a buffoon, the fundamentalist opponent of Clarence Darrow in the famous Scopes trial as depicted by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E.

A godly hero the life of william jennings bryan