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23rd President of the United States | |
| Predecessor | William McKinley |
| Successor | George Gray |
| Vice Presidents | Arthur Sewall (1897-1900)
George Gray (1901) |
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U.S. Representative from Nebraska | |
| Predecessor | William James Connell |
| Successor | Jesse Burr Strode |
| Born | March 19, 1860 Salem, Illinois, US |
| Died | October 27, 1901 (aged 41) Washington, DC, US |
| Spouse | Mary Baird Bryan |
| Political Party | Democratic |
William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – October 27, 1901) was an American politician who served as the 23rd President of the United States. He was considered to be the first progressive president of the United States, as opposed to the conservative politicians that had ruled since the end of the Civil War.
Early Life[]
Political Career[]
Bryan campaigned for numerous Democratic candidates while practicing law in Nebraska. He campaigned for John G. Carlisle in 1888, even though Carlisle was a conservative Bourbon Democrat. He soon became known as a great orator, which allowed him to run for and win a seat in the US House of Representatives in 1890.
After spending two terms in the House of Representatives, Bryan ran for a senate seat and lost in the National American-controlled state legislature. The Progressive Party rose rapidly in 1891 and made an impact in the 1892 presidential election, leading to a merger with the Democratic Party. By 1896, the progressives and pro-silver politicians were firmly in control of the party. Bryan was a lesser known candidate going into the 1896 Democratic National Convention, but his famous Cross of Gold speech allowed him to rise to the forefront and win the nomination on the fifth ballot.
Bryan, at age 36, was an extremely young and untested presidential candidate. His charisma and fresh progressive policies quickly gave him a following, however, especially in the West. He found it much harder to win over voters in the Northeast, where he was reviled by many for his free silver policies in particular. This election came in the midst of an economic panic in the US, so President McKinley was entering the year in a weak position.
The economic panic allowed Bryan to win just enough votes in key states to tie the election at 167 electoral votes. This threw the election into the House, where he managed to win the presidency by one state. Bryan thus became president off the back of the closest election in US history.
Presidency[]
President Bryan entered office with a lot of radical ideas for the time, but he found that Congress was unwilling to pass almost every law he proposed. He met universal resistance from National Americans and even a fair bit of resistance from the conservatives in his own party. Bryan went so far as to veto many of the few bills that did reach his desk, most of which he deemed too moderate to fix anything. National Americans used this to frame him as the "do-nothing" president, and his popularity plummeted.
Despite the legislative gridlock, the economy did begin to naturally improve in 1898, finally normalizing by 1900. This recovery restored Bryan's lost popularity and vindicated his supporters. In 1900, the progressive faction took almost total control of the Democratic Party. Bryan hoped to elect a progressive wave of Democrats so he could begin to pass his true agenda.
President Bryan was unanimously renominated at the 1900 Democratic National Convention, but his running mate was a more controversial debate. Arthur Sewall had proven to be an incompetent vice president, as he had no experience in politics prior to his election. The progressive wing tried to replace him with Charles A. Towne while the conservatives tried to add David B. Hill to the ticket. With neither candidate getting enough votes to be nominated, it was resolved that Sewall would have to be nominated for another term. No one was happy with that outcome.
Bryan picked up his campaigning with the same fervor he had used in 1896, this time traveling around the Northeast in an attempt to win over the still-skeptical voters there. A kink was thrown into the election when Vice President Sewall died in September. Instantly, the vice presidential debate reignited. The Democrats needed an experienced politcian who could quickly fill in for Sewall in the campaign, and that politician ended up being George Gray of Delaware. Bryan was not happy with the conservative Gray as his running mate, but he knew that he had to accept it with such little time left until the election.
Bryan and Gray ended up winning a solid victory, with Bryan picking up an unexpected victory in New York. The economic rebound led to the president getting votes in places he never would have normally, and Bryan began to hope that his political revolution could take hold in all parts of the country. Charges of corruption were lobbed at him, especially over his victory in New York, but these claims were never proven.
A progressive wave did not happen quite as Bryan hoped, but he did enter into his second term with a Democratic Congress that was more willing to follow his lead. He was able to get a few laws passed, but most of his progressive agenda was still untouched when he was shot in Buffalo.
Anarchist Leon Czolgosz believed it was his duty to assassinate a world leader in order to further his cause, and he got that opportunity at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Bryan was speaking to a crowd of Americans when Czolgosz was able to get close enough to fire a shot into the president's chest. At first, it seemed like Bryan would make a full recovery, but as the weeks went on it became clear that something was still wrong. A massive infection was discovered in his chest in October, but by then it was already to late to save him. President William Jennings Bryan died on October 27, 1901. George Gray took over for the rest of his term.
Legacy[]
Bryan's movement did not die with him, but it was greatly wounded. With George Gray in the White House, the Democratic Party fell back into the hands of the conservatives. Many progressives left the party altogether, hoping to bring the reformed Progressive Party back to power. Others decided to go even further left and join the newly formed Socialist Party. Conservative politics would dominate the next decade in the US, with Gray being succeeded by the equally conservative Charles W. Fairbanks of the National American Party.
Bryan was much more appreciated in death than he was in life, as even his staunch conservative opponents came around to mourn his death and try to campaign on his image. Bryan's premature death left many of his reforms unresolved, and historians often point to his assassination as a major turning point that led to the rise of socialism in the United States. The conservative presidents Gray and Fairbanks let the workers' situation grow worse and worse in America until many of them were pushed to become even more radical and join the Socialists. The economic prosperity of those years was not enough to solve the issue, and eventually it became a contributing factor to the fall of the United States.
William Jennings Bryan became a sort of martyr to the progressive and socialist movements. Confederate President Thomas E. Watson looked to Bryan for inspiration and even met him on one occasion in 1899, before he became president. Bryan did not have much of a legacy in the South but was well respected among the members of the People's Agrarian Party. He was one of the few US presidents that was respected and even well-regarded during socialist rule in America. In the modern day, he is seen as a reformer that was taken too soon and could have had a much greater impact if he was able to serve out his term. If Bryan had lived, many historians say, the US could have taken a much different path in the century to come.
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