why did william jennings bryan lose the 1896 election

McKinley won with 7.1 million votes to Bryan's 6.5 million, 51% to 47%. Illinois Senator John M. Palmer was eager to be the presidential candidate, and the convention nominated him with Kentucky's Simon Bolivar Buckner as his running mate. We come to speak of this broader class of business men.[62][63]. According to historian Stanley Jones in his account of the 1896 election, "it seemed in retrospect a curious logic that gave a capitalist from Maine a leading role in a campaign intended to have a strong appeal to the masses of the South and West". Instead, he sought the Senate seat that the Nebraska legislature would fill in January 1895. Though he continued to publicly oppose U.S. involvement in World War I after his resignation, Bryan changed course after the nation entered the conflict in 1917 due to extensive popular support for the war effort. Bryan Club" and "Keep Your Eye on Nebraska. Eugene V. Debs Why did most southern states pass laws to disenfranchise black voters in the 1890s To eliminate the possibility of future political alliances between poor whites and blacks Which reform did the Populists call for on their party platform of 1892 Public ownership of railroads and telegraphs For the last decade of his life, he largely dedicated himself to reforming the nations moral and religious character. why did william jennings bryan lose the election of 1896? The sympathies of the Democratic Party, as shown by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic Party. This was not the case: the mining industry was seeing poor times, and had little money to donate to Bryan. [67], Bryan described the stillness as "really painful"; his anxieties that he might have failed were soon broken by pandemonium. The campaign, as it proved, was badly organized: This was Jones' first national campaign, and the party structure in many states was either only newly in the control of silver forces, or in gold states wanted no part of the national ticket. Source (Popular Vote): .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#3a3;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}Leip, David. He ran for president a second time in 1900 and a third time in 1908, each time losing. Palmer proved an able campaigner who visited most major cities in the East, and in the final week of his campaign, told listeners, "I will not count it any great fault if next Tuesday you decide to cast your ballots for William McKinley. On the fifth ballot, other states joined the Bryan bandwagon, making him the Democratic candidate for president.[76][77]. (W.W. Norton & Company, 2018), William Jennings Bryan, the Great Commoner. Constitutional Rights Foundation, Spring 2010 (Volume 25, No. That evening, Bryan dined with his wife and with friends. Why did William Jennings Bryan lose the 1896 election? Why was the 1896 election devastating for Populist movement? Retrieved May 19, 2012. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of libertythe cause of humanity.[59]. Rumors that Europeans were about to redeem a large sum for gold caused desperate selling on the stock market, the start of the Panic of 1893. "[145], The consequences of defeat, however, were severe for the Democratic Party. [151] The poet Vachel Lindsay, 16years old in 1896, passionately followed Bryan's first campaign, and wrote of him many years later: Where is that boy, that Heaven-born Bryan,That Homer Bryan, who sang from the West?Gone to join the shadows with Altgeld the Eagle,Where the kings and the slaves and the troubadours rest.[152]. "[101] Many Populists saw the election of Bryan, whose positions on many issues were not far from theirs, as the quickest path to the reforms they sought; a majority of delegates to the convention in St. Louis favored him. In March 1898, two years into William McKinley's first term as president, he gave Spainwhich was in the midst of a brutal campaign of repression in . This would restore a practice abolished in 1873. Sherman's act required the government to pay out gold in exchange for silver and paper currency, and through the early months of 1893 gold flowed out of the Treasury. Thanks in advance if you have any recommendations! The New York World reported, "The floor of the convention seemed to heave up. See, In New England, Cleveland had won Connecticut in 1892 while losing the region as a whole by 53,000votes, Bryan won no states and lost New England by over 172,000 votes. "[109], Bryan set the formal acceptance of his nomination for August 12 at New York's Madison Square Garden; he left Lincoln five days earlier by rail, and spoke 38times along the way, sometimes from the trackside in his nightgown. [b] That is the question which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The economy failed to improve, and when the President in 1894 sent federal troops to Illinois to break up the Pullman Strike, he outraged even more Democrats. There is no legal or constitutional requirement that the loser of a U.S. presidential election must concede. The jury predictably found Scopes guilty, but Bryans performance in the trial, and his thrashing in the national press, marked a less than stellar end to his long career as a public figure. They quickly endorsed Bryan and Sewall, urging all silver forces to unite behind that ticket. McKinley was supported by middle-class and wealthy voters, urban laborers, and prosperous farmers; this coalition would keep the Republicans mostly in power until the 1930s. [51], Once seated, Bryan went to the Platform Committee meeting at the Palmer House, displacing the Nebraska gold delegate on the committee. After the defense called Bryan himself as an expert on the Bible, Darrow subjected him to a brutal examination in the sweltering courtroom, revealing his lack of theological as well as scientific knowledge. The book, composed of accounts of (fictitious) lectures on the silver issue given by an adolescent named Coin to Chicago audiences, became an immense bestseller. [103] Populist leader Henry Demarest Lloyd described silver as the "cow-bird" of the Populist Party, which had pushed aside all other issues. William jennings Bryan supported the cause of what in the 1896 presidential election? Author: William Jennings Bryan Publisher: Haskell House Pub Limited ISBN: Size: 56.95 MB Format: PDF, ePub, Docs View: 4174 Get Book Disclaimer: This site does not store any files on its server.We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Mary Bryan had joined her husband in late September; on The Idler, the Bryans were able to eat and sleep in relative comfort. [146] The election of 1896 marked a transition as the concerns of the rural population became secondary to those of the urban; according to Stanley Jones, "the Democratic Party reacted with less sensitivity than the Republicans to the hopes and fears of the new voters which the new age was producing". Bryan later asked the Platform Committee chairman, Arkansas Senator James K. Jones why he was given such a crucial role as closing the platform debate; Senator Jones responded that he had three reasons: Bryan's long service in the silver cause, the Nebraskan was the only major speaker not to have addressed the convention, and that Jones had a sore throat. Retrieved May 19, 2012. [12] Advocates believed these proposals would lead to prosperity, while opponents warned that varying from the gold standard (which the United States had, effectively, used since 1873) would cause problems in international trade. Bryan affirmed that the people could be counted on to prevent the rise of a tyrant, and noted, "What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand, as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of organized wealth. Bryan was quoting from an 1878 speech by Cleveland's Treasury Secretary, Hill remained neutral in the campaign, despite urgings to go over to the Gold Democrats, seeking to preserve his control of the state Democratic party, and also hoping (in vain) to secure his own re-election by the legislature. [20], In March 1895, the same month he left Congress, Bryan passed his 35thbirthday, making him constitutionally eligible for the presidency. [148], One legacy of the campaign was the career of William Jennings Bryan. While speaking in McKinley's hometown of Canton, Ohio, Bryan yielded to impulse and called upon his rival at his home with Congressman Bland; the Republican candidate and his wife, somewhat startled, received the two men hospitably in a scene Williams calls, "surely bizarre. Bryan was well rested. William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 - July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator and politician. "[72] Bryan had made no arrangements for formal nominating speeches given the short timeframe, and was surprised when word was brought to him at the Clifton House that he had been nominated by Henry Lewis of Georgia: the candidate had expected the Kansas delegation to name him. [13] Bryan, who had been elected after the passage of the latter enactment, initially had little to say on the subject. Now among the most famous politicians in the country, Bryan would run twice more for president, losing again to McKinley in 1900 and to William Howard Taft in 1908. Writers such as Edgar Lee Masters, Hamlin Garland and his fellow Nebraskan, Willa Cather, like Bryan came from the prairies; they wrote of their admiration for him and his first battle. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States in the 1896, 1900, and the 1908 elections. [22][23] In the 17months between his departure from Congress and the Democratic National Convention in July 1896, Bryan travelled widely through the South and West, speaking on silver. Bryan, a former Democratic congressman from Nebraska, gained his party's presidential nomination in July of that year after electrifying the Democratic National Convention with his Cross of Gold speech. Bimtallism. Each made their cases for gold, and likely changed few votes. [129] Republican newspapers and spokesmen claimed that Bryan's campaign was expensively financed by the silver interests. John Nimick. "Silver Dick" Bland was seen as the elder statesman of the silver movement; he had originated the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, while Boies' victories for governor in a normally Republican state made him attractive as a candidate who might compete with McKinley in the crucial Midwest. Advocates of free silver (or bimetallism) wanted the government to accept all silver bullion presented to it and to return it, struck into coin, at the historic value ratio between gold and silver of 16 to 1. It began as a simple courtesy, with a telegram that William Jennings Bryan sent. How could a boy in appearance, one not yet admitted to the convention, without a single state behind him, dare claim the nomination? Much of the blizzard of paper the Republican campaign was able to pay for concentrated on this area/ By September, this had its effect as silver sentiment began to fade. I will not aid them to press down upon the bleeding brow of labor this crown of thorns."[26]. 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