Bryan

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1. Mike Timonin says:

   July 6, 2012 at 6:13 am

   One of the great speeches. I play this for my students periodically.

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2. rea says:

   July 6, 2012 at 6:48 am

   We talked some about populists using antisemitic imagry the other day, and I think this bit about bankers crucifying mankind on a cross of gold qualifies.

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   • timb says:

     July 6, 2012 at 11:42 am

     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

     You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns;

     There are subtexts one can read into political statement and then there are subtexts one creates. Claiming Bryan’s speech was an homage to anti-Semitism seems to qualify as the latter, since the line before is using Christ’s imagery to describe Labor v Capitol, not evil Jews against everyone else.

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     • John says:

       July 7, 2012 at 9:57 am

       Obviously it’s not overtly anti-Semitic, but surely the anti-Semitic undertones are pretty plain to see – for American protestants in the 1890s, the obvious comparison is being made between the banksters and the Jews who killed Jesus, and Bryan was surely aware of this. It’s not as though rea is the first person to note the connection.

       Bryan doesn’t seem to have been particularly anti-Semitic personally, and I think it’s fair to say that anti-Semitism among the Populists was no worse than anti-Semitism in the American body politic at large, but the anti-Semitic implications of Bryan’s imagery are certainly there.

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3. Russell Arben Fox says:

   July 6, 2012 at 7:11 am

   Casually racist and antisemitic (those rootless, cosmopolitan, city-dwelling immigrants!) he was, as was nearly every white Christian from middle America in those years, but he remains a huge hero of mine. He brought voices and concerns that were, thanks to the structures of our electoral system, almost certainly doomed to continued marginalization into the political mainstream. I love this speech.

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4. rea says:

   July 6, 2012 at 7:27 am

   He brought voices and concerns that were, thanks to the structures of our electoral system, almost certainly doomed to continued marginalization into the political mainstream

   Some of those voices (the anti-evolutionists, the pro-Germans in WWI) might have been better left marginalized.

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   • Pugnacious says:

     July 6, 2012 at 7:38 am

     And this from a so-called “Pro-German” on international finance.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NqG2lAojNQ

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     • Pugnacious says:

       July 6, 2012 at 8:07 am

       The most notable critic of the anti-evolutionist in pre-WWII America was also anti war and Pro-German:H.L. Mencken.

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   • The Fool says:

     July 6, 2012 at 8:31 am

     Wait, what was wrong with the pro-neutrality people? Because there was never a serious movement to declare war on behalf of Germany.

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     • rea says:

       July 6, 2012 at 8:54 am

       Bryan would have cut off US trade with the Allies, which would have decided the war. He eventually resigned as Secretary of State over Wilson’s decision to protest the sinking of the Lusitania.

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       • Spuddie says:

         July 6, 2012 at 9:03 am

         Would a Central Powers victory in WWI been that bad? These guys were not Nazis. They were monarchies on the verge of internal collapse one and all.

         Half of the problems in the Middle East today came from the Allied powers dividing up the Ottoman Empire for their own.

         How likely would the British and French have been to start a second World War on their terms?

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         • John says:

           July 6, 2012 at 9:21 am

           A Central Powers victory in World War I would have been quite bad. Look into the life and beliefs of Erich Ludendorff.

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           • rea says:

             July 6, 2012 at 9:42 am

             Yeah, the statement, “These guys were not Nazis,” is a little inaccurate–a lot of them were Nazis, later, and others like Ludendorff who technically weren’t Nazis were just as bad.

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             • John says:

               July 6, 2012 at 10:53 am

               Ludendorff actually participated in the Beer Hall Putsch, so while he later broke with Hitler, I’m not sure it’s accurate to say he wasn’t a Nazi.

               The other thing worth noting is that while Hitler was probably doomed to ultimately overreach and be destroyed, Ludendorff and company might very well have created a permanent imperial German domination on the European continent, which would not have been pleasant for anybody but the German aristocracy and (non-Jewish) business elites.

               So, while I guess it’s probably true that if Germany had won World War I there would have been no Holocaust, a Central Powers victory would have been awful in its own way (and no picnic for the Jews, either, given the massive anti-Semitism of a lot of the ruling classes).

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               • timb says:

                 July 6, 2012 at 11:37 am

                 Missing the picnic that Europe became after the Central Powers loss…

                 Except for the 100 million dead, how was the mid-20th century, Mrs. Lincoln
               • John says:

                 July 6, 2012 at 9:09 pm

                 The point is that Europe would also have been awful if the Central Powers had won, and that it’s ridiculously unfair to judge what people should have done based on long term outcomes they couldn’t have possibly foreseen.

                 The fact of World War II suggests that the US should have been more involved in European affairs during the Interwar years, not that the decision to intervene in World War I was the wrong one.
               • Timb says:

                 July 7, 2012 at 1:17 am

                 So, your point was, Europe might be more awful than the most awful vent in World history if the Central Powers had won. And that William Jennings Bryan should have known this when he determined that neutrality was he way to go?
               • John says:

                 July 7, 2012 at 9:45 am

                 You are the one who is saying that Bryan was right to oppose World War I because of Nazism. I’m saying that Nazism was unforeseeable, and that judgment of America’s entry into World War I ought to be based on facts that were clear at the time, which was that the Kaiser’s Germany was genuinely terrible.

                 In addition, and secondarily, Hitler was defeated, and was probably inevitably going to be defeated because he didn’t know when to stop. The damage he did in the meanwhile was awful, but the destruction of World War II also sowed the seeds for a peaceful, prosperous, and democratic European continent after the war. A German victory in World War I might, in fact, have led to a sustainable domination of the European continent by a reactionary caste of anti-Semitic, anti-democratic, Prussian aristocrats.

                 I have no idea whether that’s better or worse than what actually happened, or whether, indeed, such a system would have been sustainable in the long run, but it’s a genuinely bad outcome, and it’s really problematic to whitewash it as “better than Hitler.” Wilson, Bryan, and the rest can’t have known that.

                 Also worth pointing out is that Bryan’s ideological successors were just as committed to opposing U.S. involvement in World War II as they had been in opposing U.S. involvement in World War I.
               • Spuddie says:

                 July 7, 2012 at 10:29 am

                 However all 3 Central Powers were fairly unstable politically and economically. Without outside conflict to prop them up, they would have fallen apart on their own.

                 WWI was sparked off by separatism within Austria-Hungary. It was an empire which could barely hold itself together and was rife with stifling corruption. They were one of the last major powers to industrialize in Europe.

                 Germany’s economy had a glass jaw. As compared with other colonial powers like the UK and France, Germany’s overseas resources were scattered and scant. The repressive atmosphere was a hotbed of potential revolution.

                 The Ottoman Empire was on its last legs before the war. It barely had the resources to administrate its Middle Eastern holdings let alone fend off

                 A Central Powers victory would not really have done much more than buy those countries some more time.
               • John says:

                 July 7, 2012 at 11:18 am

                 Austria-Hungary was destroyed by the war; it was basically in okay shape prior to the war, except in the minds of its leaders. There was certainly no immediate, or even intermediate, danger of break-up. But this is irrelevant to the question of a Central Powers victory, because such a victory would have turned Austria-Hungary into a pure satellite of Germany.

                 And I think you’re just completely wrong about Germany. With a couple of exceptions like India and the Dutch East Indies, overseas possessions were more of a burden to the metropole than a benefit. Certainly France derived no benefit from its colonial empire, much more extensive than Germany’s.

                 Germany was the leading economic power on the continent in 1914, and a victory in the war would have totally cemented that, especially if Germany had been able to establish a German-dominated Mitteleuropa over the whole continent. Germany was strong enough that even after its defeat it was able to rise again and overrun most of the continent before being defeated. I don’t see why we would think it would be worse off in the event of victory.

                 As for a “hotbed of potential revolution,” that seems wildly overstated to me. The Social Democrats were becoming more popular in pre-war Germany, but they were also becoming more complacent and reformist. Any real threat of revolution from that quarter was shown to be nonsense by the SPD’s reaction to the outbreak of war, when the vast majority loyally supported the Kaiser and his government. Even in the wake of defeat, the main concern of the reformist majority of the SPD was to work with the reactionary Prussian officer corps to stave off communist revolution, not to prevent the triumph of reaction.

                 And what is quite clear from later events is that the roughly two thirds of the population who didn’t vote for the Social Democrats had roughly no interest in revolution, and were, in fact, quite satisfied with the imperial regime as it stood. Some of them, it’s true, called for democratic reforms, but quite weakly, and it was only the trauma of war and defeat that actually brought such calls to the forefront.

                 The fact that Germany fell so easily under Hitler’s sway suggests, I think, that a victorious Second Reich would have been able to deal rather easily with whatever mild social unrest would have developed.
   • John says:

     July 6, 2012 at 9:22 am

     Bryan was also pro-prohibition and palled around with the KKK.

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   • timb says:

     July 6, 2012 at 11:38 am

     Seriously, rea, you think Bryan led “anti-evolutionists” to center stage? I think that movement just was looking for a spokesperson

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5. scott says:

   July 6, 2012 at 8:34 am

   Maybe we shoulld share this with our European friends, who can substitute “euro” for gold.

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6. timb says:

   July 6, 2012 at 11:36 am

   Just so we know, we are judging a Populist hero completely by the standards of present day politics. There were plenty of future Nazis in Britain at the time in case one forgets.

   By the standard of presentism, Lincoln is a racist and white supremacist, let alone with Jefferson, Washington, et al. Acting as if the most important decisions Bryan took were god-botherering and the resigning as SS in 1916 is missing what he was known and respected for and the danger his views represented to the status quo of rich jerks.

   By the way, my former Con Law professor wrote a book on the Progressives called “The Tragedy of William Jennings Bryan: Constitutional Law and the Politics of Backlash.” So far, an awesome read.

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   • Erik Loomis says:

     July 6, 2012 at 11:40 am

     Progressives are more unfair to Bryan than any other individual in American history. When I have more time, I am going to write about this. Basically, it all comes down to the Scopes Trial where he is forever remembered as a backwards yokel with backwards yokel values.

     I mean, if we are going to start getting after turn of the 20th century figures for bad racial thoughts by modern times, let’s at least focus on Theodore Roosevelt, who had the power to do terrible things.

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     • Timb says:

       July 6, 2012 at 1:04 pm

       To be fair to them, he was a “ruralist” and had trouble attracting immigrants and “city folk” to his banner due to rampant xenophobia in his Party. That makes them uncomfortable. Add his racial insensitivity, which was NOT a universal Progressive value, and you can engage in Presentism. In reality, it’s Gilded Age hippie punching, but we’re all too learned to recognize that

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     • scott says:

       July 6, 2012 at 3:33 pm

       Ever since Hofstadter, the progressive tendency is to yokel the shit out of Bryan and on a larger scale to dismiss populist economic discontent as the realm of unredeemable racist whites. Somehow the part where there might be legitimate class and economic grievances to address gets lost in the urge to dismiss as unworthy of aid the holders of those grievances.

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       • John says:

         July 6, 2012 at 9:24 pm

         There’s a difference between saying the holders of those grievances are unworthy of aid, and saying that the policies proposed by the Populist Party and those associated with it within the Democratic Party were often unredeemably racist. Are you saying that people like Ben Tillman and the later incarnation of Tom Watson were not unredeemable racists?

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         • Timb says:

           July 7, 2012 at 1:21 am

           Are you claiming Populists joined with Democrats in the pre-1896 South?

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           • John says:

             July 7, 2012 at 9:38 am

             I don’t think I was. I believe I was claiming that populists joined with Democrats after 1896 in many parts of the country, and that the policies advocated by Populists, and by populist-oriented Democrats, were often racist.

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         • Timb says:

           July 7, 2012 at 1:30 am

           Watson began to support the Farmers’ Alliance platform, and was elected to the United States House of Representatives as an Alliance Democrat in 1890. In Congress, he was the only Southern Alliance Democrat to abandon the Democratic caucus, instead attending the first People’s Party congressional caucus. At that meeting, he was nominated for Speaker of the House by the eight Western Populist Congressmen. Watson was instrumental in the founding of the Georgia Populist Party in early 1892.

           The People’s Party advocated the public ownership of the railroads, steamship lines and telephone and telegraph systems. It also supported the free and unlimited coinage of silver, the abolition of national banks, a system of graduated income tax and the direct election of United States Senators. As a Populist, Watson tried to unite the agrarians across class lines, overcoming racial divides. He also supported the right of African American men to vote. Unfortunately, the failures of the Populists’ attempt to make political progress through fusion tickets with the Democrats in 1896 and 1898 deeply affected Watson.

           Associating the 1915 Tom Watson with the 1890-1898 Watson is not accurate

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           • John says:

             July 7, 2012 at 9:36 am

             Isn’t it relevant that the 1890-1898 Tom Watson later became an anti-semitic race baiter? Doesn’t that show an ugly side to populism that we ought to take into account?

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       • Timb says:

         July 7, 2012 at 1:20 am

         Somehow the part where the Populists joined with blacks and Republicans in the South in the 1890′s is forgotten, as is the fact that the reaction to Populism amongst racist Southern Dem was to institute Jim Crow.

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         • John says:

           July 7, 2012 at 9:39 am

           And the reaction to Jim Crow and electoral failure among Populists was to become even bigger race baiters than the Bourbon Democrats.

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   • John says:

     July 6, 2012 at 9:19 pm

     Future Nazis in Britain? What are you talking about?

     Beyond that, no, criticism of Bryan is not simply a matter of presentism. Even in the context of the politics of the early twentieth century his politics had numerous unappealing aspects.

     I’d also think that genuine supporters of the Populist message should not rush to embrace Bryan. Bryan’s main achievement with regard to the Populists was to corral them back into the Democratic Party, which then proceeded to do nothing for them for decades.

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     • Timb says:

       July 7, 2012 at 1:24 am

       John, you are unaware of fascism in Britain in the 30′s?

       He Democrats did nothing for them? Without the Democrats, their only shot at winning national election in’96 would have been stillborn. What power they had, they had because they allied with the Dems

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       • John says:

         July 7, 2012 at 9:35 am

         Fascism in Britain was a complete joke, and was destined to remain a complete joke. I’m also not sure what point your reference to it is supposed to be making.

         And they had no shot of winning a presidential election in the near future, anyway. What the Populists should have done was to try to consolidate their status as the second party in the west (Republicans vs. Populists) and South (Democrats vs. Populists), to elect governors, members to congress, to state legislatures, and so forth. Bryan was a dead end, and had no real chance of winning the 1896 election. Bryan would have needed 48 more electoral votes to win the election. He was particularly close only in California (8 electoral votes), Kentucky (12 electoral votes), Oregon (4 electoral votes), and I guess Indiana (15 electoral votes) – that gives him only 39. To win, he’d have also needed to win Ohio, which he lost by about 50,000 votes.

         And remember, even if Bryan had won, he’d not have been able to pass any populist measures, because congress would have still been controlled by conservatives – probably by Republicans, given the scale of the Republican majorities in both houses in the historical 55th Congress, but even if by Democrats, it would have been conservative Bourbon Democrats with a dominant place.

         Bryan was a dead end for populism. Maybe populism was doomed anyway, but going over to the Democrats did them no good.

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7. Pugnacious says:

   July 6, 2012 at 7:55 pm

   On 11September1941, FDR gave an executive order to the US Navy and Army Air Corps to attack–we must assume attack and destroy–German Naval vessels in international waters. Also on that day, Charles Lindbergh gave his famous America First Peace Speech at Des Moines, Iowa. And on that day in Washington, DC. ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the construction of the Pentagon were held.

   Now we know that Chaim Weizmann wrote his famous letter to Winston Churchill on 10SEPT1941 offering Jewish Brigades to fight the Germans…reminding him of the successful efforts of Frankfruter, Ben Victor Cohen and himself in bringing America into WWI on the Allied side and “tipping the scales” for the Allied victory.

   Weizmann’s 11SEPT1941 Letter to Winston Churchill
   http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/Churchill/Weizmann_Zionists/WSC_100941.html

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