Hot Time in the Old Town - Edward Kohn [97]
The response that the city gave the two men could not have been more different, with historic consequences. Horace Greeley’s Tribune called Lincoln “one of Nature’s orators, using his rare powers solely and effectively to elucidate and to convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well.” Two months later Lincoln received from the Illinois legislature his first endorsement for the presidency.
In contrast, days after his Garden speech, Bryan still had to defend himself over its failure and the resulting shift in his campaign schedule. Still, his New York supporters came to his defense. The young New York congressman William Sulzer visited Bryan on Friday, August 14, and left their meeting with a complacent smile. When asked whether Bryan had a fighting chance, Sulzer became excited. “A fighting chance!” he exclaimed. “He will sweep this country like a tidal wave!”
Democratic newspapers remained equally committed. Hearst’s Journal kept up the drumbeat for Bryan in Friday’s edition, comparing the Great Commoner to the Great Emancipator. “New York City then,” the paper said of 1860, “bowed to chattel slavery, as it now bows to money slavery. Its motto was ‘Cotton is King.’ It was as subservient to Southern trade as it is now to European money lenders.” Both Bryan and Lincoln, the paper noted, read their speeches “to avoid the unscrupulousness and mendacity of those who were instructed to misreport [them].” And both men had given orations “more statesmanlike and less ‘catching’ and inflammatory than their reputations had led their audiences to expect.” The Journal even argued that Bryan’s “victory” had been greater than Lincoln’s because he faced “powerful and unscrupulous enemies.” Bryan had faced “the entire Eastern press, backed up by the great trusts, syndicates, and combinations of capital of the United States.” He had read his speech because “he knew that the purchasable newspapers of the East were prepared to twist his language and distort his ideas, to corrupt all sources of intelligence for their readers in so far as his mission was concerned.” Bryan could easily have reached into his bag of rhetorical tricks to score a “mere personal triumph.” Instead, he forced the opposition press to set forth the Democratic side of the argument for the good of the entire nation. “It was a great victory,” the paper concluded in a lonely assessment, “and one that will long be remembered in the history of political warfare.”
Like most New York observers, the Evening Post disagreed. In a blistering August 14 editorial, the paper that had been associated with reformers such as Carl Schurz and E. L. Godkin used the Garden speech as a means of mercilessly ridiculing the Democratic presidential candidate. The Post noted the “considerable anxiety” felt in some Republican quarters before the speech, as Bryan’s opponents feared a great oratorical success like the one he had achieved in Chicago. “In place of vague fear,” the paper said, “inextinguishable laughter has come. Mr. Bryan has broken his prestige, and broken it fatally, as it now appears.” On the heels of his well-publicized and dramatic trip East, Bryan had either “to achieve the most brilliant success, or lose everything.” In deviating from his strength—extemporaneous oratory—the Post likened Bryan to a comedian who tries his hand at heavy tragedy. Not only had he decided to depart from his role as fiery orator to become a cool statesman, but he had failed to inform his audience of this change. “The Madison Square Garden audience felt not only disappointed, but tricked,” the paper said.
The Post also drew parallels to Lincoln, believing that the Nebraskan, in coming to New York, sought to achieve the same sort of influence on the East the Illinoisan