Hot Time in the Old Town - Edward Kohn [7]
Since 1890, when he ran for Congress for the first time, William Jennings Bryan had emerged as one of the leading advocates of bimetallism. Born in 1860, Bryan had been raised on the prairie soil of Salem, Illinois. Deeply influenced by his father, who was both a Baptist preacher and a local judge and politician, Bryan studied law with an eye toward politics. Yet even as an aspiring lawyer, Bryan always had something of the preacher about him. In college he won awards for his skills as an orator, and his initial ambition had been to enter the clergy. Settling in Lincoln, Nebraska, Bryan became involved in the Democratic Party, whose state leaders were delighted to let the young orator speak on behalf of the party. In 1888 Bryan had campaigned for Democratic nominee President Grover Cleveland. In 1890, at age thirty, Bryan became only the second Democratic congressman elected in Nebraska.
In light of the economic crises of the 1890s, the issue of the money supply soon became pressing. In 1892 Grover Cleveland returned to the presidency largely on the issue of tariff reform, but the economic crisis of the following year brought to the fore the money supply question. Calling a special session of Congress, Cleveland called for the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. This act, backed by farming and mining interests, required the government to purchase massive quantities of silver every month. Special Treasury notes were issued for the silver purchase, notes that could be redeemed for either silver or gold. The plan backfired when investors turned in the Treasury notes for gold, thus depleting the nation’s gold supplies. Anti-silver forces blamed the Sherman Act for the 1893 crash and called for its repeal before the country’s gold supply dwindled even further. In addressing Congress over the repeal, Cleveland pointed out that in the three years since the Sherman Act, gold bullion reserves had decreased by more than $132 million, while silver reserves increased by more than $147 million. Repealing the act would send a strong message about the soundness of the American dollar and, Cleveland hoped, revive the economy.
Speaking against repeal of the Sherman Act, Bryan addressed the House of Representatives in his typical preaching style, with biblical references and vivid imagery:
[The president] won the confidence of the toilers of this country because he taught that “public office is a public trust,” and because he convinced them of his courage and his sincerity. But are they willing to say, in the language of Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him?” Whence comes this irresistible demand for unconditional repeal? Are not the representatives here as near to the people and as apt to know their wishes? Whence comes the demand? Not from the workshops and farms, not from the workingmen of this country, who create its wealth in time of peace and protect its flag in time of war, but from the middle-men, from what are termed the “business interests,” and largely from that class which can force Congress to let it issue money at a pecuniary profit to itself if silver is abandoned. The president has been deceived. He can no more judge the wishes of the great mass of our people by the expressions of these men than he can measure the ocean’s silent depths by the foam upon its waves.
In the end the “Boy Orator” was unsuccessful,