A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

by Michael Kazin

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.

Genres: History, Biography, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Presidents, Biography Memoir

374 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 2006

About the author

Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown University. He is co-editor of Dissent magazine.

Reviews

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Jennings Bryan is often portrayed as something of a naive fool. The Scopes Trial, to a large extent, defines what people think about Bryan. And, he is also defined as a "loser," having failed in his presidential bids.

This book is a welcome corrective. Despite what some reviewers have said of the volume, it does not appear to me to slight his unfortunate views on race (although such views were not out of the mainstream for the time, needless to say).

Bryan's role in American political history is important. The Democratic Party, prior to his ascendance in it, was pretty much a conservative organization. Grover Cleveland was a not incapable President, but it is hard to distinguish his views, to a large extent, from those of his Republican adversaries. Bryan brought a whole new element into the Democratic Party. He spoke for "the common man," and built great rapport with them--south and north. The author, Michael Kazin, notes that Bryan, in a very real sense, prepared the Democratic Party for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

His effectiveness as a perennial candidate was apparently due to a confluence of several factors: his down to earth approachability to "the common person," his religious views which were sincere and infused his politics with traditional morality, and his extraordinary ability as an orator. Some of us have doubtles heard ancient recordings, from the early days of records, of his "Cross of Gold" speech. I remember not being much impressed, but this book makes it clear that he could electrify audiences in his earlier days.

The book tells us that he was, in some senses, a professional politician without portfolio. His fling as an elected representative ended early. Thereafter, he was someone who made his living speaking and writing about politics.

In the end, as times changed, he appears to have been left behind, with the Scopes Trial leaving him looking like someone from an earlier era, out of step with the times. Not a brilliant man, by the account of this work, he nonetheless was able for a period of time to animate great support from people and move the Democratic Party toward new possibilities.

His failings are outlined nicely, such as his views on race, his sometimes inability to react to changing circumstances, and so on.

But the book does a great service by giving us a keen insight into an important American political and cultural figure.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Kazin's A Godly Hero reconsiders the life of William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and lifelong progressive tribune in turn-of-the-century America. A man of humble origins in Nebraska, Bryan possessed boundless energy and an unmatchable oratorical gift that catapulted him quickly into the political stratosphere. At just 36 he became the youngest presidential candidate ever in 1896, revolutionizing elections with his lively personal campaigning (in contrast to the "front porch" campaign of William McKinley, who was sold like a product by Mark Hanna) and forthright appeals to populist ideas. Bryan lost resoundingly but remained a force in the Democratic Party for the rest of his life, winning nomination twice more and always controlling the hearts of its progressive-populist wing. Kazin demonstrates how Bryan's agitation against corporate malefactors and economic inequality ensured him massive grassroots appeal, viewing him as a peculiarly American mixture of fundamentalist Christianity and devotion to constitutional rights unlikely to appear today. Bryan unfortunately gave into his less admirable instincts late in life: after a disastrous term as Wilson's Secretary of State he became a leading advocate for Prohibition, a spokesman for racial segregation and, most famously, an opponent of evolution. Indeed, just before his death his prosecution of the Scopes Monkey Trial ensured his postmortem caricature as a pompous reactionary, representing all that's small-minded in American life. It's a part of his legacy that must be considered; but as Kazin demonstrates, it was part of a flawed but often admirable whole, a man who never wavered from his principles, whether positive or regrettable. Engaging portrait of a complex figure in American history.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

WJB is the most famous person to come from my hometown and there's not a lot of books out there about him, so I had to pick this up. It starts on page 1 describing his birth town(he didn't stay long) and says you have to drive 25 miles to go to the nearest movie theater. Ouch! WJB probably doesn't get much credit as he falls in a period in which there is not much going on in terms of great wars, but instead the main issue seems to be the gold vs silver standard. WJB is nominated for President by the Democrat Party three times and fails each time. To a certain extent, though, what he supported in the last 19th Century did eventually become part of the platform for Woodrow Wilson (who named WJB Secretary of State) and even moreso FDR and the New Deal, WJB may not have ever gotten enough votes to be elected, but what stands out is how much his supportewrs loved him. It's hard to think of anyone in this day or age that drives that amount of passion. Ron Paul probably comes closest in this era. WJB supporters wrote long letters and named children after him. WJB may also be the father of partisianship. Before him, people supported political parties according to their region, race, religion and how their families (you know, nothing like today) and even Democrat Grover Cleveland would fit well into today's GOP. Bryan put his liberal views out there, gathering support across many different crowds. At times, WJB did the politically expedient thing, so you don't see him taking on the racist part of the party (whereas Bryan often spoke for the poor and the Brotherhood of Man) or even compromising his views on war and prohibition. Of course, WJB was known for his oratory which drew strongly from Jesus and Jefferson. It's hard to imagine that type of person now, but he spoke strongly of Social Justice and God's plan. Bryan never was able to get elected (He couldn't beat McKinley's money or Teddy Roosevelt's charisma. Bryan never ran against TR directly, but it was TR's campaigning in 1900 and TR's handpicked successor Taft in 1908). However, in many ways he was an advocate for ideas that gave him a stage he would not have had as an incumbent (indeed, as Secretary of State, Bryan had to choose between his ideals and best practice). We don't hear much about Bryan the poulist, which is likely because Bryan dies right after the Scopes Monkey Trial, which has become his defining moment. When Ralph Reed says WJB is his political hero, it is this WJB he is referring to. WJB would probably not agree. Even Bryan at his most liberal, had critics to the left like Eugene Debs and famously criticzed by HL Mencken. Had Bryan not died right after the trial, perhaps his legacy would be focused elsewhere, but he did and it did, and Hollywood has helped cement that anymore. Kazin's book is a pretty good read. It is a little dense if you are not interested in Bryan, but it's a fairly good read, and I was interested in Bryan. I have been reading some really excellent political history books lately, and I love political history and biographies, but if they are not your thing. then this may be a bit tough.

One cannot read it with wondering how a character (and if, at all, someone) like WJB would exist in 21st Century politics. Someone espousing such a strong Christian justification for living, but using it to espouse left-of-center ideas. Maybe if Joel Osteen ran for office as a Democrat. Bernie Sanders has the political ideology while you dont have to go to Pat Robertson or Gary Bauer to find someone on the right who quotes the Bible. So why are the two so mutually exclusive? Kazin writes an excellent epilogue that explains that. Indeed, my hometown area has strongly been a Conservative Democrat area and only in the last 10-16 years has saw any thing different from that- liberal minded with a social conservative streak. In the last few years has the GOP had any kind of success. Kazin postulates that there is no real place for someone with these two stands (with the notable exception of minorities which are probably the only examples you can think of - King, Jackson, Sharpton, Chavez,etc). While certainly people like Mario Cuomo and John Kerry have strong faith, even these examples from a post-Reagan landscape are people you think of as political and not religious leaders. Kazin does state some of the obvious moves by the right which have been well-covered, probably most famously and most well done by Thomas Frank, but he also understands it is because the Left as well. The Left and the Democrat Party seems to marginalize ideologues. Surely as guilty of this marginalization as the Right. It's an interesting theory and one hard to dispute.

[Luke Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of mixed reviews on this one and I don't get it. Maybe people just want something different from a historical biography than I do. I suppose Kazin could have developed some grand thesis and flimsily connected it to modern politics in a complicated fashion. I'm sure if this book was written post 2016 that certainly would have happened, but the idea makes me nauseous. Just give me the details of the mans life and time and let me draw my own conclusions. This books succeeds in that. An easy read that covers important ground with the right amount of detail.
As for Bryan himself; what a fascinating and important character in American history. The leader of the Christian left, for 30+ years, when the Christian left was a real, organized force. It's interesting to note the heterodox range of the things Bryan fought passionately for: free silver, nationalization of railroads and health care, woman's suffrage, peace/anti-intervention (to the point where he was forced out of Wilson's cabinet for opposing WW1), prohibition, unions, and against the teaching of evolution in schools. A similar character would be impossible in todays politics.
Kazin paints a nuanced portrait of Bryan. My one quibble is his handling of the race question. He over and over again makes reference to Bryan not caring about the plight of African-Americans. It may be true. It probably is given the times. But Kazin doesn't present any compelling evidence of it, and I don't know why you would just assume, with all of Bryan's talk about "the people" that he only meant white people, when he never said it.
Bryan was a complicated guy, and he embarrassed himself late in life with the Scopes trial (although I would argue that being against Darwinism, when it was being used to justify eugenics at the time, is not so bad), but to my mind he is close to a heroic figure. Because Debs was running for President in the same era it's easy to think of Bryan as more moderate than he was. (I would have supported Debs). But by modern standards he would be the most left-leaning national politician ever (yes, left of Sanders). He was fiercely principled, and his principles came from his faith. And he came closer than anyone to uniting the rural and urban working classes around their mutual self interest. Like a friend said "there's a reason they (capital) went absolutely ape shit on him".

[Andy Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well researched, well written biography of William Jennings Bryan that shows him to be a more complex and more influential man than history typically gives him credit for.

The author, Michael Kazin, notes that most of today's perception of him stems from the depiction of his role in the Scopes trial and does not recoginize the passion and the influence of the younger Bryan when he entered political life in the 1890s. I was especially interested in the book's inclusion of comments about Bryan from his contemporaries such as Willa Cather, WE DuBois, Mark Twain, William Allen White and other lesser known Americans.

Kazin also describes the political and economic history of the time to set the stage for Bryan's life. Kazin does not hide his political liberalism in analyzing the times and Bryan's life; it was nice knowing that up front and it allowed for a latter chapter on the disconnect between 20th century "cultural" liberals and their ability to lead a broad progressive coalition when they do not base their movement on genuine respect for "average" Americans and an appeal to inspire as opposed to a patronizing attitude and an appeal based on guilt or what is best for us.

There is also a sobering thread throughout the book on Bryan's disappointing views and political actions on race. While it is legitimate to view this issue in the perspective of the time, it does not hold true for Bryan when you realize that he actively courted Jim Crow supporters and often used political foes' attempts for fair treatment of African Americans against them in political campaigns

In summary, an excellent read both in learning about Bryan and in learning about the political history of his time

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty slow book and it is, at times, hard to get into the story of a guy who never actually won anything. I definitely came away with a much more negative opinion of Bryan than I had prior. His tacit racism (specifically his utter non-effort to denounce the KKK), his somewhat two-facedness (taking money from saloon-keepers when it served his purpose), and his inability to understand that sometimes entering a war 'saves' lives, well, I got sort of soured on him despite all the good he did pursuing his more progressive agenda items.

It was really interesting to see the turning point of the Democratic party from the disorganized 'big tent', racist, agrarian, anti-urban (but sometimes pro-labor) hodgepodge to the only-slightly-more-cohesive party we have today.

Also, Kazin doesn't do a great job explaining why anyone could get so worked up over bimetallism. I didn't really get a good societal context that justifies a presidential campaign with the gold standard as the most important issue; and what made Bryan's position uniquely Democratic?

A decent book, but I think I would've been just as fine reading a lengthy magazine article.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this book.

[Duzclues · Rating 4 out of 5]

To get to my main point before my inevitable ramblings, I came away from this book shocked at how relevant to today the story of a relic of the past is.

This was a book recommended to me by a Twitter mutual, who said it was one of the better biographies that they ever read. So, I opened the pages of this book with that glowing recommendation in mind. I also came into the book with a prior opinion on the book’s subject, William Jennings Bryan. I came into the book with a positive opinion of him, something that I don’t think the author anticipated quite as much, as Bryan, as is pointed out in the book, has been treated by history as a caricature. The primary thesis of the book was evidently to improve the reputation, so I was going into the book pretty much expecting to get details added to the sketch of my opinion of Bryan and not much more, maybe an overview of the transitionary period between the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the fall of the Bourbon Democrats, among other things. And I did get that. But I also got so much more, and this book ended up being as relevant and revelatory to modern politics than any work of history I have ever read.

This book spends a lot of time on religion and politics. Today, we hear about the religious right, and how they have carried the conservative movement to the powers they have reached in the decades-long backlash to the Civil Rights Movement. William Jennings Bryan’s political movement was dominated by religion, as well, as Kazin describes. Except his movement was carried by the religious left. But in reading about the religious left, I was very surprised to learn about how very similar the religious left was to the religious right, not in their political beliefs, but in their position in society, both how they think of themselves, and what their opponents think to them. Kazin describes the religious left very effectively and in depth, which, considering the parallels I just mentioned, gives a look at contemporary religious politics. The ardor that Bryan received from his followers throughout his career, which Kazin also gives an insightful look at and analysis of, in my view parallels the ardor which Donald Trump receives from his followers. William Jennings Bryan was 100 times the person Donald Trump is, and to compare the two is a great disservice to Bryan. But the parallels between the two leader’s bases are clear, just like the parallels between the religious right and left I talked about earlier. I came away from this book with new insight into the politics of Trump’s base, something which has been hard for me to come by. That’s the best thing that can come out of reading history, a deeper understanding of modern issues.

For that, I’d highly recommend this book. I take a star off because I felt that it took a little while for Kazin to tie together his arguments, but this book is very well written and readable. One more criticism, not about the book but about the publisher: the font is waaaayy too small, it made the reading experience a little tedious. This seemed like 500 pages worth of content squeezed into 300. But apart from that, this was a good read. Two thumbs up.

[Carl Rollyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Biography is a merciless unmasker. Leon Edel, Henry James’s biographer, slightly altered one of the master’s phrases to declare that the biographer uncovers the “figure under the carpet.” In the Edelian biography, the biographer ferrets out the facts of private life that the subject has carefully concealed and reveals the unconscious motivations—or at least unspoken—impulses that Freud has taught him to look for.
​Hamlet may not have know about seems, madam, but biography is all about the difference between appearance and reality. At least since the 1920s, the world has been a stage in which the players strut and fret but also repress and inhibit themselves. Eugene O’Neill adopted masks for “The Great God Brown” and “Strange Interlude” in order to emphasize the divided self, the inner and outer, that society, he believed, had to reckon with.
​But this Freudian fuss about the divided self is not applicable to one and all and, in fact, ought to be burlesqued—as Groucho Marx does in “Coconuts”: “Pardon me,” he announces, “while I have a strange interlude.” Indeed, the way Groucho always mugs for the camera with his painted-on mustache reminds us that no matter what character he is playing he is always Groucho.
​And so it was with William Jennings Bryan a.k.a. “The Great Commoner,” the standard bearer of the working class, three-times the Democratic Party nominee (1896, 1900, 1908, the scourge of corporations, the nemesis of Wall Street, and in popular lore, the fundamentalist whom Clarence Darrow humiliated in the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee.
​Any biographer looking to detect contradictions in character, discrepancies between his private and public behavior, or scandal of any kind, will be sorely disappointed. Bryan made lots of money but never invested in the stock market; a charismatic politician and preacher, he turned away adoring women and not only remained faithful to his wife but was downright uxorious. He loved to lecture about Jesus Christ, and there was a good deal about Bryan that was Christ-like. One of the best features of Michael Kazin’s biography is his quotations from people who wrote to Bryan—not only the poor and downtrodden but wealthy businessmen and people of all classes who saw him as a kind of savior.
​Bryan was not a fundamentalist in the contemporary sense of the term, Mr. Kazin demonstrates. Unlike the Christian right, he did not side with the Republican Party. And though he opposed evolution and believed communities had the right to ban its teaching in schools, he was not a literalist; that is, if the earth was created in six days, those days, he suggested when Darrow cross-examined him, would be eons in our terms. Bryan correctly saw that Darwinism could be interpreted as a noxious in its social consequences, with “survival of the fittest” interpreted to mean that society had no obligation to help the weak. He was also disturbed by idea of eugenics which many believers in evolution adopted because, again, under the guise of developing a more healthy species, the disadvantaged would be marked for elimination.
​So the caricature of Bryan the religious zealous and naïve Democrat is destroyed in this learned and gracefully written biography even as Bryan the man and the orator takes on a stature that makes him a precusor of the New Deal (many of Bryan’s colleagues and followers gravitated to Roosevelt after their leader died).
​But what intrigues me even more is what Mr. Kazin’s book does for the genre of biography. It is often charged that biography is reductive, that it restricts our sense of history by according to much attention to individuals. But just the opposite can be true, especially when Mr. Kazin applies his understanding to what historians such as Richard Hoftstadter have said about populist and progressive movements in the early 20th century. In Bryan, the biographer finds a figure who had an appeal that cut across supposedly divided voting blocs: the populists (working class), the progressives (middle class). Indeed, a lot of TR’s rhetoric, Bryan himself pointed out, was pure Bryanism even though TR despised Bryan.
​Why was Bryan so popular, even though he failed three times to capture the presidency? He was a great speaker, to be sure—even being able to make the transition from addressing large crowds without the aid of microphones to, in his last years, triumphing in the medium of radio. He could make a political position seem like a sacred principle, so that his belief that the country should go off the gold standard and increase the money supply by minting silver coins became the equivalent of Christ throwing the money changers (the Republicans) out of the temple: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” This speech, given to the 1896 Democratic convention, was punctuated by Bryan’s stepping back from the podium, pulling his hands away from his brow, and extending them straight out from his body, holding the Christlike pose for perhaps five seconds, Mr. Kazin reports.
Bryan spoke to the “heart of America,” his wife Mary said. “But that answer is too sentimental,” Mr. Kazin objects:
It fails to grasp the historical context for Bryan’s popularity and neglects the fact that he often challenged his audiences with political talks—from recitals of the Cross of Gold speech to long critiques of World War I and arguments for prohibition and woman suffrage. Neither does it explain what he meant to these Americans—in small cities as well as crossroads villages—that other well known speakers on moral topics did not.
What is that historical context that Mr. Kazin finds so important? Bryan came of age before the advent of modernism, before the likes of John Reed and the bohemian left ridiculed him as an old fogey, before the disjunction between a Christian left and secular reformers became so wide that many of the commoners Bryan called on in building the Democratic Party have deserted it, understanding that their faith has been deemed a subject of ridicule.
​Bryan had his blind spots. For him, African Americans hardly existed. Even after it was no longer politically expedient to side with Southerners who formed a large part of his core constituency, Bryan seemed incapable of seeing the injustice of segregation.
Mr. Kazin thinks Bryan was right to oppose America’s entry into World War I because it led to Communism, fascism, and much else that was evil. But would not entering have been sensible? Would the German kaiser’s victory have been a better outcome? Mr. Kazin does not consider the question.
​Other than doing justice to Bryan, what is the warrant for this biography. I find it in Mr. Kazin’s juxtaposition between John Reed’s magazine, “The Masses,” and Bryan’s, “The Commoner. The former was irreverent and witty and the latter earnest and righteous. Even in his declining days, however, Bryan was able to “embellish his reputation among people that John Reed could never reach. “I want you to know that I am one of the thousands of young men in this country that you have helped into lofty conceptions of life and its meaning,” a Presbyterian minister in Michigan wrote to Bryan. Mr. Kazin concludes that Bryan represented the “yearning for a society run by and for ordinary people who lead virtuous lives. As everyone who heard him could attest, Bryan made significant public issues sound urgent, dramatic, and clear, and he encourage citizens to challenge the motives and interests of the most powerful people in the land. That is a quality absent among our recent leaders, for all their promises to leave no man, woman, or child behind.”
​It seems to me that in such sentences Mr. Kazin is using biography not only to describe a man but also to show how history was once made.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve always thought William Jennings Bryan was an intriguing political figure. He dominated Democratic Party politics for a generation, yet never made it to the White House despite being nominated 3 times by his party. In fact, he was just a two-term Congressman and only served about 2 years as Secretary of State. In other words, he didn’t spend much time in elected or appointed office during his long career as a political leader. But his influence was not dependent upon an office.

The political era in which Bryan operated was remarkably similar to our own, and you can see some of Bryan (or “Bryanism”) in some political figures today. Like a 19th or 20th century Bernie Sanders, Bryan spoke out against the power of corporations and the wealthy. His brand of populism differed from Trump’s but foreshadowed it.

Bryan was certainly not perfect. He was neutral (at best) on civil rights, for example. He is nonetheless compelling today because, as I said earlier, his influence continues to be felt.

[Jared Nelson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written. Uninteresting content. Repetitive. Unengaging. Could not finish.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was on about page 120, the run-up to the 1904 Democratic convention, when the light bulb turned on:

William Jennings Bryan was the 120-years-earlier predecessor to Bernie Sanders, on the legend even more than the reality, and related to that, the degree to which many peddled the Kool-aid or drank it for themselves, often long after the reality differed clearly. This includes the two protagonists.

That said, this is one of those books that is both provocative and problematic at times. And, as is the norm with such books, I’ll have a greatly extended review on my blog. What I have here is the basics of what I learned new about Bryan as well as a basic-level critique.

Trying to rate it is also problematic. I do think this is well researched (Kazin also notes former recent, as of the 2007 date, biographers), but not necessarily well analyzed.

I don’t think I had read before about Bryan volunteering to serve in the Spanish-American War. Even if he saw no combat, it did look hypocritical next to previous anti-American statements.

That said, Kaplan gets some Spanish Empire wrong. The Philippines as well as Cuba and Puerto Rico were still a part. So was Spanish Morocco and Spanish Sahara. Bioko and Rio Muni, later united as Spanish Guinea, were held in equatorial west Africa.

As for his service, as a volunteer, why didn’t he resign before the 1898 midterms? Bryan obviously doesn’t tell us, but it’s another spanner in the spokes of his bicycle.

And, supporting the treaty? Wow. And, the Senate approved it by just 2 votes to spare. Bryan said, in essence, that we should follow Kipling’s adage and adopt the white man’s burden but shuck it quickly.

Then, after 1900, buying a rural mansion that in today’s terms would run at least $500K? Multiple guest rooms. Dining room that seated 24. Servants. (Peak Bryan was making $2K/week on the Chautauqua circuit and more besides. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator says $2K, in 1913, its earliest year, would be $62K today. Per week. Just for a dozen weeks of summer, $750,000 a year in today’s terms..)

1904? Not endorsing Hearst. Sure, Hearst’s womanizing was already known, but Bryan had shown himself a semi-hypocrite on imperialism already.

Kazin believes the legend of Taft as conservative, which is only half true. For example, he doesn’t mention that, rather than “trimming” on the tariff, Taft traded tariff reform for getting the 16th Amendment out of the Senate. Nor does he mention that TR never tried tariff reform and that he didn’t push the 16th Amendment, either. As part of that, he’s also wrong about Gifford Pinchot. Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book on Taft and TR has a more nuanced portrayal.

That said, supporting the 1898 treaty foreshadows Bryan carrying Wilson’s water in Mexico before resigning over the Lusitania. And, carry that water he did. And in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

There are other vignettes here, such as just how conservative TR was, claiming Bryan had “socialistic and communistic tendencies” in 1900. The claim, and the demagoguery, surprise nobody who knows the reality of Brownsville 1906.

Bryan coopted w/SoS acceptance. Wilson knew that.

His first big oops was not on Mexico but Federal Reserve. He did get Wilson to accept government oversight of the banks, but, with individual banks controlling the regional feds, especially the NY Fed, that was hollow. And, he was told that at the time. The remaining Populists and rising Progressives wanted something like the original, not watered down, Bank of North Dakota on lending requirements for the Fed, board of directors, etc.

Mexico/Caribbean? Bryan shared Wilson's paternalism. And, such it was, even if it shed the worst of GOP dollar diplomacy.

WWI? Wilson hoped Bryan would resign already by end of 1914, reportedly. Kazin doesn’t tell us if Bryan had heard about that.

That said, Kazin misses the mark, at least partially, on Wilson as fake neutral, as in, not a real neutral, and from relatively on, not a real neutral. He talks briefly about submarines not doing cruiser warfare as violating international law but says nothing about the same for blockade by extension and food as blockade weapon, even with his admiration for British law in general. Kazin notes later that the Lusitania was carrying munitions as well as passengers, but not that it was armed with guns more than big enough to sink a submarine if it surfaced. Lost a star right there. (He doesn't ask if Wilson knew either one at the time.)

Would siding with Bryan "have prompted a political rebellion"? Questionable. I don't know about Republicans, but most non-Southern Democrats west of the Mississippi in 1915 were still isolationist. Once again, I present Champ Clark. He then claims the NY World spoke "for most of the American press" when it called German response to Wilson's diplomatic note "the answer of an outlaw."

I had suspected Kazin would land here when, in his chapter on the 1912 convention, he indicated that Bryan plumping for Wilson instead of Champ Clark was a good thing. Yes, Clark was more parochial than Wilson, but he was opposed to WWI. (As Speaker, he didn't vote on the declaration, but his opposition was known. His son was an isolationist senator in the run-up to WWII.)

In Kazin's "War Against War," long review here he partially redeems himself — but not totally.

Sadly, as Kazin notes a bit in his Bryan bio and may cover more there, antiwar Congresscritters were ill-organized. A bill to block traveling on British ships wasn't introduced until 1916, and then, Thomas Gore et al had no answer to Wilson alleging they were making foreign policy on the fly.

Kazin redeems himself more fully at the end of the chapter: "In retrospect, he was quite right to oppose American entry into the Great War. It was not a conflict that history has justified."

But NOT totally fully. See what I said above about his thoughts on Bryan plumping for Clark as well as Wilson. And, going beyond what he said about “not justified,” it not only wasn’t justified for the world, it wasn’t justified for the US, even if Germany had still decided to smuggle Lenin into Russia.

Back to Wilson on the war. The reality is that, before the Luisitania, Wilson had, essentially, willingly made the US a “non-combatant co-belligerent.”

As for history and alt-history, Bryan's unwillingness to either battle Wilson's renomination (with the two-thirds rule in effect, he might have succeeded in blocking it albeit without his own nomination) or run as a TR-type independent reinforced that he had nothing to offer but platitudes. And, John Reed type mocking aside, hadn't this long been true? (Some Progressives pushed to nominate Bryan after TR said no, but ultimately, they had only a Veep nominee.)

Re the 1916 campaign? This is the first time I've seen the claim that Debs passed on the Socialist nomination due to health. If true, he wouldn't have run for a Congressional seat, either, would he have? His later imprisonment did wreck his health, but he still stood for the 1920 nomination from his cell. Of course, he would have been in the cell anyway, but, it seems that he stepped aside in 1916 for other reasons.

On Scopes? Kazin claims his violation of the Tennessee law was UNintentional. Really? Sidebar: He grew up in Bryan's hometown of Salem, Illinois. Per Wiki, Bryan spoke at his HS graduation, and claims that Scopes was laughing. Per Wiki, the truth on the case may be not that it was an unintentional violation but that there was NONE — as in Scopes may not have taught any evolution that day. (If you're going to challenge legend, you should do it right.)

The big issue is how much Bryan was motivated by opposition to evolution by natural selection, ie, Darwinian theory, and how much by social Darwinism, and how much or how little he distinguished the two. Kazin never really addresses that how much/how little issue. And, while a fair chunk of touters of evolution also touted social Darwinism, even in the natural sciences, many did not. The same is likely true, to a lesser degree, of upper-class conservative politics. And, it's certainly true of liberal Christians.

Was Bryan a fundamentalist? In the fullest sense of the book "The Fundamentals," no, but in a narrow sense, yes. In a vaguer sense, just like the members of the conservative wing of Lutheranism in which I grew up? Yes. Bryan might not preach hellfire to or about Catholics in public, but who knows what he thought in private. He was a biblical literalist. So, Kazin's "no" must be taken as a split verdict. The problem is, that Kazin doesn’t note the difficulty with analyzing Bryan as a fundamentalist today apples in a self-referential way. Just as Bryan didn’t have the politics of today’s fundamentalists, the fundamentalists 100 years ago. The lynchpin of “The Fundamentals” was not politics, but German-based higher criticism. Though we don’t have layman Bryan on record about higher criticism, he surely rejected it.

To wrap up, it seems that Kazin has a soft spot for Bryan — and enough of one that, on fundamentalism, and a few other things, he gave him a bit of a pass. (Other critics here have said that he does that with Bryan's racism, too. One or two other critics argue the other way, but even an occasional Southern politician explicitly denounced the Second Klan, for example.) Bryan leading the effort to BLOCK Klan condemnation in the 1924 Democratic platform does get mentioned, as does his undercount of Second Klan membership, but? "Mention" is all it gets.

Here's another way of presenting it, and why I don't think this charge against Kazin is too harsh.

To look at a direct political contemporary? Eugene Debs evolved on many things, including race. (His original union, the American Railway Union, was segregated at first.) In prison — the WWI-related imprisonment, not his early one — he had his eyes opened about racial sentencing disparity — and talked about it.

Bryan never evolved.

I also forgot that Kazin had a less than stellar essay in Myth America. (He wasn't alone.)

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a catalog of the eventful life of WJB. I read it just after finishing Applegate's bio of Henry Beecher. Kazin begins with a description of Beecher, setting the stage for this new and different religious orator.

I came away from Applegate with a good understanding of Beecher, what made him tick and how he fit into the larger picture of the times. Through Kazin, I know more about Bryan, his campaigns, his periodical (The Commoner) and his travels, but I don't feel that I know anything about him personally. For instance his brother, almost without introduction, is seen managing Bryan's speaking appointments, and eventually running for Vice Pres. with only scant mention of their relationship or the reasons for their differences. His wife, and his relationship to her are similar mysteries. At one point Kazin says that she wants a conventional homelife, but everything else in her life demonstrates the opposite. Kazin gives no discussion or reconciliation of this. One of her writings from the Scopes trial shows her to be pretty small minded. Was she?

This book shows an appreciation for the unpopular stands Bryan took besides this famous silver crusade. Perhaps his career, as Bryan defined it, was not harmed by his unpopular stands for temperance, against WWI and the against the teaching of evolution.

This book harkens back to a time when activist Christians were most visibly concerned about stopping poverty. Their platform included temperance and the empowerment of women through suffrage. Somehow this concern couldn't encompass all races. Bryan shows courage in advocating unpopular positions, but was it that racial equality was too impossible to preach or was he a racist? Kazim finds, among volumes of writings and speeches only one cryptic poem where he shows some empathy. Byran's overreaction to one letter from a Black pointing out the obvious might be a clue. A nerve was obviously hit. Byran's opinion on race, like the one on free silver (late in the book we learn that Bryan said the never understood the economics of the issue) are presented without much analysis.

The analysis of the influence and impact of Bryan is the best part of the book. While not a page turner, this book is a worthwhile read for its assemblage of research. I wanted more "up close and personal" which is why I held back a star on this, otherwise, very good book.

[Amber · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have always had a curiosity to learn more about the life of William Jennings Bryan, famous for his role in the Scopes trial. This book however did nothing to help me learn of Bryan. Had this book been titled The History of the Democratic Party I would not have been disappointed. Whole pages and chapters were dedicated to explaining the history of the party while mere sentences stated that Bryan ran on the party ticket.
The author also mentioned often that Bryan was renown for his speeches and how many books he published of those speeches yet there were only a few sentences from those speeches even quoted throughout the entire book. Another disappointment.
Finally, I was expecting at least a reasonably substantial section of the book to address the Scopes trial since that is now Bryan's claim to fame. I knew the author might not have favorable views of Bryan's stance at the trial (the author starts the book saying he is a liberal atheist) but I assumed there would still be much to be said about that experience in his life. No, never mind. A few very short pages at the end quickly cover a few highlights of the trial before we are off to the death and burial of Bryan.
Overall, my problems with this book remain that the author's lack of ability to help the reader come to know Bryan thus my one star.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bryan is an extremely important figure in American History, significantly responsible for inspiring the New Deal and Democratic politics for the next century. This is the first attempt in a long time to look at the work that Bryan did.

However, Kazin admits early on that he's a secular, urban liberal writing about a religious, rural liberal, and the dissonance is obvious throughout. He's way too eager to give organized labor all the credit for making or breaking elections while mentioning but not really exploring the tensions between workers and the employers who told them how to vote (still existent today, but given the label "class warfare"). The tension created by Bryan's attempt to expand the tent of the Democratic Party beyond the South without alienating them is the larger and more important story.

Kazin gets all the facts right, but I'd prefer he did it with a little less condescension. Ever since Hofstadter, urban academics have looked at rural America and the Populist Movement with disdain, and Kazin continues that tradition.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

No critics holler to add Bryan's bust to Mount Rushmore, yet they agree that this new biography is long overdue and relevant to 21st-century American politics (just reverse the parties' philosophies). Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University, places Bryan's successes and failures in historical context and examines why Bryan argued so vociferously against Darwinism in the famous Scopes trial. A few critics thought that Kazin was too soft on Bryan and let his clear admiration for the man cloud fair treatment of his opponents' stances. Though still a divisive character after all these years, Bryan remains an important link to both the expansion of liberal social programs within the Democratic Party and the fundamentalist rigor of the current administration.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

To most people, I think (including me), Bryan is the man who embarrassed himself at the Scopes trial. Kazin successfully shows that he was much more than that. Though Kazin is very clear about Bryan's flaws--his racism and indifference to the plight of minorities being the most evident--he also shows his strengths--his sincerity, his egalitarianism (with the exception of his attitude towards blacks and other minority groups), his courage in the face of opposition. He was simply a populist at a time when that meant to most people standing up for working class whites. To these constituents, African Americans were just competition for scarce jobs and competition that brought down wages. Pitting the downtrodden against each other is a very old game.

But he also believed in women's suffrage and promoted a progressive income tax.

Overall, an interesting and complex, if flawed, man and politician.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Kazin's book is an insightful effort to rehabilitate William Jennings Bryan for our times. Seeking to dispel the image from Mencken of the fundamentalist bigot, he argues that Bryan is a pivotal figure in the transformation of the Democratic Party into the liberal force it became in American politics. While he relies on heavily on previous Bryan biographers for much of his details, his great strength is in his placement of Bryan within the context of his times. This allows him to demonstrate Bryan's impact in the movements and developments of his times, showing him to be a more significant figure than a thrice-defeated presidential candidate might otherwise warrant. The result is the best single-volume biography of Bryan available, one that should be read by everyone interested in this oft-caricatured historical figure.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does a good job of expressing the idea that legacies can be complicated, Kazin closes with the idea that it is possible not only for someone to be a progressive in one realm (advocacy against capitalism and for the betterment of the poor) and reactionary in another (imbecilic resistance to science), but for someone to have those seemingly contradictory impulses for the same reason. In Bryan's case his biblical literalism (er, sort of literalism, that part kind of falls apart under cross examination from Clarence Darrow). I came away with a bit more fondness for Bryan than I had before reading the book, but that isn't really the point. He outlived his use and was not fortunate enough to descend into obscurity. Ultimately he is an excellent example of one side of the opposing roots of the American left, secular radicalism and jingoistic Kansas-style Populism.

[Christa · Rating 2 out of 5]

William Jennings Bryant was one of many men who reinvented the South during the Progressive era. The turn of the twentieth century welcomed an increase in urbanization, stimulated the stature of the middle class while the industry of commercialization boomed. He was clearly a racist. Although, this books portrays his beliefs as honorable because he believed in the teachings of Jefferson and the notion of equal rights for all, Jennings didn't embrace all people; women and people of color didn't faction into the definition of the southern white Democratic appeal. With a deeply religious upbringing, which plagued most of the South at the time, Bryan incorporated gospel teachings with his political agendas with voraciousness, trusting that this combination would cleanse the political landscape and uplift economic development and moral religious values of the middle class.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written biography that neither lionizes nor destroys its subject. Each issue of controversy was dealt with in an even-handed manner, which helped me immensely, as Bryan has always been somewhat of an historical/religious enigma to me. My only concern was that Kazin was not entirely consistent with his portrayal of some events (i.e. positive spin on event in one chapter, negative recollection in next chapter). However, that concern is completely outweighed by the treatment of the subject. Highly recommended for those interested in politics, the intersection of religion and politics, liberalism, and those rare creatures known as public evangelical Christian liberals.

[Julia Bilderback · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of the books I had to read for my grad course on the gilded age and progressive era. First, the edition I got had very small print that gave me a headache every time I read any of it. The book was packed with a lot of information, but even though it was presented roughly chronologically I felt that the chapters could have been better laid out. Then it was just very wordy and I feel that Kazin could have presented the info in a much more concise way. I don't know if he had to meet a specific word count, but the book suffered for it.

[Patty Bird · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately I couldn’t force myself to get more than 62% through the book. The title sparked my interest but all it has been is how this faithful man juggled his political ambition based on his faith. Too political for my taste.

[Justinmmoffitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's an alright book but it does get rather sluggish. William Jennings Bryan comes across as a sycophant.

[Leo · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fascinating subject but a poor author.

[Regina Gifford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Williams Jennings Bryan is one of the most important historical figures who I knew very little about in terms of life story or personality before starting this book. I certainly knew the contours of his life (the orator of the ‘Cross of Gold’, the failed three time presidential candidate, Secretary of State and crusading evangelist against the evils of drink and Darwinism) but none of its details. He would show up as a supporting character in every biography and history I read of the era. He was either a friend or a foil to every leader, a hagiographic hero of working men or an idealistic buffoon. He was the man who gave some of the greatest speeches in American history yet would never (quite) be president.

Michael Kazin’s biography captures the contradictions of Bryan’s life: he was moral but self-righteous, the champion of common men but only if they were white, a liberal populist but a conservative evangelist. How does a modern day secular liberal reconcile the man who did more than Eugene Debs, Teddy Roosevelt or even Woodrow Wilson to advance the notion that the federal government must provide for the welfare of ordinary Americans with the conservative ideologue who raged against the evils of "wets" and evolutionists? Kazin shows that these conflicting legacies of Bryan are not as inconsistent as they appear to a modern reader but rather based on the foundation of his strong religious faith. The social Gospel he adhered to as a young politician was driven by the same faith that drove his fear that religious faith in America was being eroded after the first world war.

The book is also an excellent history of early twentieth century politics, with detailed descriptions of party conventions and the shifting of the Democratic party to liberal progressivism and federal interventionism to achieve it. Through the sheer force of his charisma (and some really great speeches), Bryan brought more Americans who viewed progressive ideas into the mainstream. I was amazed by how many of his positions are now givens of American life: a progressive income tax, the Federal reserve and stronger anti-trust laws, minimum wage, elastic currency, and Women’s Suffrage. Along with Teddy Roosevelt, he defined a new type of politician and campaign.

As a modern reader, I also found particularly interesting how this charismatic populist gained the adoration of such a loyal base of followers, not unlike today's populist movements. Bryan spent most of his life campaigning and raging against an elite (in his case, the moneyed interests and trusts) vs actually serving in government. I was surprised to find that he actually only spent four years as a Congressman and one brief stint as an ineffectual Secretary of State. The Chautauqua movement of Bryan’s day provided a venue for his followers to *pay* to see the great Commoner and hear his litany of grievances (albeit in a religious framework). Just like modern day followers of the populist leader, they looked at him with almost messianic reverence and “Bryanism” became a formidable social and political force that leaders of both political parties had to reckon with. If Bryan had had social media and 24 hour cable, he probably would have been president after his first run. (As all history geeks know, the more things change, the more they stay the same.)

As far as his non-public life is concerned, I’m not sure I know much more about him than I did before I read the book. In the foreword, the biographer explains that Bryan was not a great memoirist and very little of his personal correspondence survives. There are interesting contemporary impressions throughout the book: Roosevelt disparaged both Bryan and his followers (he gathered “all the lunatics, all the idiots, all the knaves, all the cowards, and all honest people who are slow-witted”), Wilson considered him a populist demagogue (even though they agreed on domestic policy, the intellectual Wison disdained Bryan), Willa Cather looked at him as naive and quaint, and Jack Reed (while appreciating his progressive ideals) also thought of him as a rube. But it didn’t matter to his followers; he was their Godly hero and they were with him to the end..and then some.

A ‘Godly Hero’ is a good biography of a man who can be viewed as both complex and simple. It is an excellent history of early 20th century politics. It is an interesting look into how populist movements begin and are fed by charismatic personalities. Unlike Chernow’s biographies of Grant and Hamilton, it doesn’t necessarily rehabilitate Bryan’s legacy but it certainly explains it. I learned a great deal and would recommend it to anyone interested in American political history.

[Sagar Jethani · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Jennings Bryan poses a problem for contemporary political observers: where does one place the man? This lion of the Democratic party stood up to the power of Wall Street on behalf of impoverished farmers and tradesmen, but he also turned a blind eye to violence against African-Americans, whose second-class status he justified through scripture. One of the most vocal anti-imperialists of his day, he deplored the United States' colonization of the Philippine Islands only to later practice gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean as Secretary of State. He was as deplored by conservatives for siding with the disenfranchised as he was reviled by liberals for denouncing the teaching of evolution in public schools. His populism would reshape American politics forever, but in ways he could never have imagined.

Bryan rose to prominence during the Panic of 1893. Financial speculation in the expanding railroad industry was one of its chief causes. The subsequent bank runs, credit crunch, and trade paralysis it caused disproportionately punished those at the lower end of the economic ladder-- farmers and tradesmen. Resentment had been brewing on the part of workers against Wall Street speculators, and Bryan possessed a unique ability to give voice to the dispossessed.

The voice. It is perhaps difficult to relate in an era of 24-hour news cycles and 7.1 surround sound the power which a strong voice used to command. In an era predating radio, electronic amplification, or audio recording, Bryan practiced the art of oration until he had honed his voice to perfection. Many of his contemporaries rated him the orator of the century, and even his political adversaries would find themselves moved to tears at his speeches, only to later disagree with every word when reading the transcript in the newspaper.

His famous Cross of Gold speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention catapulted him to instant fame. He praised the working classes over those who merely moved money from one column to another-- an obvious dig at Wall Street, whose speculation was widely seen as the primary cause of the financial crash. Bryan drew a straight line from the Jeffersonian vision of agrarian government to the plight of the modern farmer, claiming that this conception of America was threatened by the rise of Eastern financiers trading on the wealth which they had no hand in producing.

"You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our 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."

His address electrified the convention, and instantly propelled Bryan to the top of the 1896 ticket. Although he narrowly lost to William McKinley, Bryan swept every state in the West and the South. He also became a hero to millions of Americans who saw him as their political savior. Their devotion knew no bounds. Bryan received thousands of letters from admirers claiming that the election had been stolen by Republican operatives, and that a bloody revolution might be required to put the country back on proper footing. While he never encouraged such extremism, neither did he go out of his way to uproot it.

In representing the interests of the powerless, Bryan overcame his party's historic mistrust of federal power. Yes, federal power was still seen as the evil behind the War of Northern Aggression, but Bryan felt it might yet be turned to good if it could be harnessed to support the working man. A federal income tax, for instance, could require those at the top of the economic ladder to help support those on lower rungs. A federal agency to regulate the trading of securities could help prevent rampant speculation and illicit dealing by Wall Street. Bryan would later argue for federal oversight of food manufacturers to ensure the correct listing of ingredients on their products, and public financing for political campaigns to negate the influence of big business in the electoral process.

Bryan also lambasted the notion that the United States should join the rest of Europe in becoming an imperial power. Most Republicans favored colonizing the Philippine Islands after Spain was forced to relinquish them. To those who argued that the U.S. had a moral obligation to "Christianize" and "civilize" Filipinos, Bryan asked how such an argument differed from that made by the British in 1776, and asked: "Is our National character so weak that we cannot withstand the temptation to appropriate the first piece of land that comes within our reach?" He argued that the burden of creating and maintaining an empire would "turn the thoughts of our young men from the arts of peace to the science of war."

If Bryan's first run at the presidency had been waged on a platform extolling the rights of working class Americans over those of the privileged few, his second in 1900 was based on anti-imperialism. Where his earlier loss had been close, his second was decisive: this time, he was crushed by McKinley. Bryan's populist message had millions of converts, but it played better in rural districts than in big cities whose occupants feared the firebrand. Up until he was tapped to serve as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State, Bryan functioned as the party's moral conscience-- a perpetual campaigner who continued to push Democrats to reject the plutocratic vision of the Republican party.

When Woodrow Wilson was sworn-in as President in 1913, he tapped Bryan as his Secretary of State. For the first time in his life, Bryan had to subjugate his personal politics to another's vision, with dubious results. In his new role, Bryan's pacifist and anti-imperialist ideals were severely undermined by his ordering of gunboat diplomacy against Haiti and the Dominican Republic.The nation's leading pacifist thus set in motion an arrogant, militant treatment of Central and South America which was reflected 70 years later in Ronald Reagan's characterization of events in Nicaragua as taking place "in our own backyard." One can, without too much imagination, attribute the anti-American stance of recent Central and South American leaders like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez as a direct result of the imperialist legacy Bryan helped to establish.

William Jennings Bryan's legacy is difficult to place. Here is a man whose strident defense of the weak and impoverished against the strong and well-financed informs much of the language still used by the left today. But this is also the man who employed facile arguments from scripture to justify the second-class treatment of African-Americans. An ardent opponent of Wall Street, Bryan argued for many of the regulatory agencies we take for granted today (and whose founding would wait until FDR's New Deal). But he also took no pains to mask the ecclesiastical underpinnings of his politics in a manner the Christian Coalition would find familiar today. His elevation of rural farmers and laborers as "real" Americans as opposed to their big-city brethren has been wholly co-opted by the right wing. One hears this sentiment echoed today by the likes of Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, and Michele Bachmann, although their classification system hearkens more to demographics than economics by playing up on white suburban fears of the racial diversification of America. Attendees at the raucous 1964 Republican National Convention would hound "Eastern elites" in the media for supporting more moderate leaders than the far right's chosen nominee, Barry Goldwater. This regional division comes directly from Bryan-- but in a manner he would have found utterly repugnant, shorn as it was of the heart of his argument: the exploitation of working class Americans by big business.

Without Bryan, there would not have been a Huey P. Long, whose refrain of "Every man a king" was a clear echo of the Nebraskan. There would have been no Father Coughlin, whose fiery oratory pushed FDR to the left-- and who would set a precedent for inflammatory rhetoric of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh many years later. Theodore Roosevelt would likely have not split with the GOP and formed the Progressive Party had he not come under mounting pressure from the populists that Bryan helped define.

And without this lion of the left, the conservative movement would not have the bulk of its ideological vocabulary. Therein lies the contradiction, the great punchline which only history can devise: one of the nation's most ardent defenders of the poor and dispossessed posthumously provides the party of corporate America with its most potent lexical weapons.

[Porter Broyles · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Jennings Bryan was one of the most profound politicians in America History, but how much do most American's know of this Titan?

WJB was born near the start of the Civil War and was homeschooled by his mother. He had a natural gift of oration and started speaking before the public at the age of 4. By the age of 23 he had entered the legal profession, but decided that his hometown was too small for him, so he moved to Lincoln Nebraska.

In 1891, Bryan was elected to the US House of Representatives where he served for 4 years. In 1896, he spoke at the Democratic National Convention. In presenting his "Cross of Gold" speech, he decried the gold standard and sought to push for adoption of silver as part of the monetary standards. Bryan unexectedly became the Democratic nominee for President. Bryan, known as the "Great Commoner", is the youngest person to run for president on a major party ticket. He's also the youngest person to win an electoral vote.

Bryan was the Democratic answer to the Progressive Republicans. Many of the positions taken by McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt were Bryan ideas. Later, critics of FDR would equate FDR's ideas as WJB reborn. Bryan opposed big business, fought for the average person, and women's sufferage. He supported labor unions and other populist notion gaining the Populist Party's nomination in 96 as well.

In 1900, Bryan ran again for President. This time against McKinley with Teddy Roosevelt as his vice presidential candidate. In this election, Bryan and Roosevelt made history. For the first time in Presidential politics, two candidates faced off for a debate.

Bryan lost to McKinley, but his political career was not over.

Bryan became a correspondent and wrote for progressive newspapers. His opinion pieces became one of the must read sources of opinion in the country. In 1904, he didn't win his party's nomination, but he covered both the conventions and helped write the Democratic platform.

In 1908, he again ran for President---becoming the only candidate to run for President on a major ticket three times and never winning. In 1912, conservative Democrats were able to stop the progressive Democrats from nominating Bryan, but succeeded in nominating Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, won as the Republican party split between Taft and Roosevelt.

Bryan became Wilson's Secretary of State. The two men did not agree on much and Bryan ultimately stepped down over the US involvement in WWI. Bryan had become a major opponent to the US involvement, and when the country went to war patriotic fever took over. For the first time in his career, he found himself on the outside.

Bryan became known as a popular preacher during this time and saw his career as one to protect children. Education had always been important to him, but he now became concerned with what children were being taught. This lead him to oppose Darwinian thought. It was during this period that his rhetoric took on more of a racist bent.

In 1924-25, Bryan sought to raise his profile again by taking on the trial of the century--the Scopes Monkey Trial. During the Trial, despite being part of the prosecution, he agreed to let Clarence Darrow question him on the stand as an "expert."

Darrow made a mockery of his defense and his reputation never recovered.

Had his career ended in 1916, he would have been known as one of the Country's great leaders. Instead, he is known for his religious radicalism, oposition to a popular president, racist ideas, and the Scopes Trial debacle.

[Joshua Horn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bryan is one of the most dramatically forgotten American politicians. Three time presidential candidate, today, according to this author, he is only really remembered at all by creationists. I had heard that he was one of the most explicitly Christian politicians in American history, so I was interested to learn more. If the book dragged a bit, that was probably more due to the limited drama of Bryan's life rather than any lack of authorial skill.

Bryan doesn't fit neatly into any conceptual box that we have as modern Americans. He seems to have been genuine pious and embraced religion from the heart. He was an Arminian Presbyterian, but other than rejecting evolution, he seemed not to have been overly concerned with theology, and had no issue working with other denominations, and even Catholics and Jews. He was an exemplar of the social gospel. While his speeches were rich with biblical language and imagery, he nearly always reinterpreted it as a call for political and social change, like someone like Martin Luther King Jr would later do. Yet at the same time he seems to have also embraced the need for personal conversion.

Politically he embraced the legacy of Thomas Jefferson, but only his focus on rights and the advancement of common Americans. He completely rejected Jefferson's attachment to limited government. Bryan came at a turning point in American politics. At the beginning of his career the main issue before the country was whether the currency should be based on gold or silver. (This is something that I don't care at all about). But Bryan was a big advocate into expanding the role of the federal government, and he can be seen as the founder of the modern progressive form of the Democrat party. He was constantly pushing ways to expand government, and by the end of his career (party through his influence) both parties supported a much larger federal government. Bryan seemed to have little interest in the Constitution, and it was remarkable how many issues he encountered and picked the wrong side (nationalizing railroads, segregation, subsidies, minimum wage, prohibition, women's suffrage, both signing up to fight the Spanish-American war, and at time being nearly a pacifist etc). One bright spot was his opposition to the US's entry into WW1, but even there he ended up in some weird positions. A warning for how we can't just know scripture and quote scripture, but need to apply it to our beliefs in the proper way.

It was interesting how Bryan really was a man of his era. His entire career was based on oratory, in an age where Americans were obsessed with oratory. He was a remarkable speaker, some of the political conventions he spoke at were huge events, and he was the only man who could make himself heard. It was said that if his career had come a bit closer towards the invention of radio, he would have been elected president.

There's a lot of interesting parallels between Bryan and Trump, though they were very different men. I'll leave it at that for now....

The author is quite open about being a progressive liberal. I therefore disagree with some of his interpretations and conclusions (and he with Bryan), but nonetheless he seemed to do a pretty fair job in presenting the facts of his life.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bryanism as a political philosophy is both justifiably and unjustifiably overlooked and Kazin clearly and succinctly explains why. Bryan's actions definitely reinforced Jim Crow and led to three increasingly humiliating losses for a Democratic party that more often represented the voices of the poor than the Republicans at the time. His ideas were mostly incoherent, often sentimental and sometimes disastrous (prohibitionism, creationism). However, he was literally the only anti-corporatist and anti-imperialist in popular culture besides Mark Twain in the late 19th century. He updated the Jacksonian democratic model for a new era and removed Jackson's cruelty and expansionism (if not his racism). And he consistently modeled decency without pity, especially in his relationship with his wife Mary Baird Bryan (and his early support of women's suffrage) and his odd alliance with the anarchist and pacifist Tolstoy.

The big lesson of Bryan to me comes down to the uses of left Christianity in politics. I find little here to recommend it. The followers of Bryan were almost always willing to stomach Jim Crow, often anti-Semitic, often nativist, and quick to assume that Bryanism failed because their opponents were immoral and anti-democratic. The fact that Bryan's Republican opponents were a bunch of urban plutocrats who forced a slate of terrifyingly bad Presidents into office by using ten to twenty times the funds of Bryan's supporters doesn't quite excuse the effects of Bryan's appeals to the suffering and grace of Christianity. The thesis of Bryan's speeches always amounts to transmuting pain and suffering into policy and it never fits.

However, Kazin usefully points out how educated elites, especially the Progressives who lifted every one of Bryan's stances (16-19th amendments are all Bryan) often ascribed to stances that simply dismissed rural, southern, and western voters to the dustbin of history at best and to a eugenics fueled Darwinistic early death at worst. The deplorables of American life will seek their Andrew Jackson, Richard Nixons, and [name redacted] if they don't find their William Bryans, simply because they understand that the progressives, liberals, moderates, social justice warriors, etc. find them embarrassing at best.

The last alternative in the modern world that Bryan was born into is radical politics that does not ask for Christian sin and suffering or for acquiescence to corporate bondage. Eugene Debs offered this alternative after embracing some of the early ideas of Bryanism. An anti-racist, sexist, and capitalist alternative built not on Bryanist oratory but on better lives for more people.