BRYAN, WILLIAM JENNINGS (1860– ). Although he was three times defeated for the presidency of the United States, William Jennings Bryan molded public opinion as few of our presidents have done. For many years he was the leader of the Democratic party, and it was his influence that won the Democratic presidential nomination for Woodrow Wilson in 1912.
Bryan was born and educated in Illinois and prac ticed law there until 1887, when he moved to Nebraska and speedily made a reputation as one of the foremost orators of the day. In 1890 he was elected to Con gress, where he was at once placed on the ways and means committee, an honor that is usually reserved for those who have served in the house for years.
Six years later, at the age of 36, Bryan achieved national fame, and received his first nomination for the presidency, when he swept the national Demo cratic convention off its feet by an impassioned appeal for free and unlimited coinage of silver in the ratio of 16 parts of silver to 1 part of gold. Turning to those who wished to keep gold as the money standard, he exclaimed: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon this cross of gold." Though Bryan failed of election then, and again in 1900 and 1908, he was still regarded as the leader of the party. By his weekly—later monthly—paper called The Commoner, and by the lectures which he delivered from Chautauqua platforms in all parts of the country, he did much to advance the cause of prohibition, of religion, and of morality. In the na tional convention of 1912 he opposed the reactionaries.
He was appointed secretary of state by President Wilson, and while in office he negotiated treaties with 30 countries, representing three-fourths of the world's population, for the international investigation of dis putes before resorting to war. So strong was his opposition to war that, in June 1915, he resigned from the cabinet as a protest against the President's firm ness in pushing the Lusitania matter with Germany.
When the United States finally entered the war, how ever, Bryan supported the government's war meas ures, declaring that " the quickest road to peace is through the war to victory."