Bold Spirit - Linda Hunt [45]
William and Mary Bryan’s home in Lincoln, Nebraska, decorated for a celebration during the Presidential election year of 1896.
Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society Photograph Collections, RG3198:22-6. Detail of this photograph on this page.
Helga understood. She knew firsthand the economic devastation during President Cleveland’s administration and valued Bryan’s expressed sympathy with the farmers and working-class families. She witnessed the collapse of the Spokane banks, the foreclosure on businesses and neighbor’s farms, and felt her own husband’s shame and helplessness at being unable to earn an honest living to support his nine children. Many Bryan supporters saw maintaining the gold standard as a conspiracy of the rich, of Wall Street, and the Republican party wanting to maintain the status quo.4 William McKinley ardently upheld the gold standard.
Bryan, who once wanted to be a Baptist preacher, used potent religious imagery that electrified his supporters. This also resonated with Helga’s Lutheran upbringing and strong knowledge of the Bible. She likely read the newspaper accounts and cartoons that either supported or lambasted his religious rhetoric, especially his famous “Cross of Gold” speech given at the national Democratic Convention. Warming his audience up, he insisted that upholding the gold standard had “slain the poor,” and hurt “the producing masses of this nation,”… and the “toilers everywhere.” Then, in a thundering conclusion, he railed against big business interests, Republicans, and McKinley, who advocated the gold standard. “We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”5 This speech threw down the gauntlet of a campaign that riveted the voters throughout the summer and fall of Helga’s and Clara’s bold venture.
Helga favored attorney, orator, and Congressman William Jennings Bryan for president, who was only thirty-six when his Democratic candidacy and concern for the poor galvanized interest in the 1896 election.
Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society Photograph Collections, RG3198: 17-10.
Clara did not share her mother’s enthusiasm for Bryan, preferring William McKinley. Republican supporters of McKinley and the gold standard were outraged by what they saw as Bryan’s sacrilegious and inflammatory manipulation of sacred Christian symbols. But they, too, couched the election in religious and moral metaphors as they argued against the proposed silver legislation they saw as a disastrous solution. McKinley believed restoring silver in America’s coinage would lower the dollar’s value to fifty-three cents, thus being an act of “stealing.” Many prominent ministers supported the gold standard, and some linked this to the Ten Commandments, reminding their congregations, “Thou shalt not steal.”6 Also seeking to appeal to the anxious working class, McKinley assured a “full dinner pail” for all citizens, rather than the half pail of free silver. To repay loans with a reduced-value dollar would mean cheating the lender, therefore it was “an issue of integrity and honesty.”7 Keeping the gold standard was essential to revive America’s prosperity, the only “honest dollar” and “sound currency.” McKinley proposed protective tariffs as the best way “to get work for the masses,” which particularly appealed to urban factory workers in the East. Clara, known for her sensitive gentle spirit, found McKinley’s calmer, less divisive campaign more appealing. She looked forward to going to McKinley’s home when they arrived in Ohio.8
As Helga and Clara continued their walk on the flat lands along the Platte River, they saw places where the Conestoga wagons left their deep wheel ruts, a permanent imprint of the importance of this river that guided settlers along the Oregon Trail. Helga knew this river served as a sustaining friend when pioneers journeyed to Oregon during the 1840s and 50s. But she and Clara found it cooling, too, as they crossed over three hundred