"Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, 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.'"
I like to post birthdays of famous people on my Facebook page. Here's a recent one. William Jennings Bryan was born over in Salem, IL on March 19, 1860! I have happy childhood memories of visiting his childhood home in Salem. It was surely one of my childhood influences in going into American history as a career subject. Also, U.S. 50 from Sandoval, IL to Salem is a source of a fond personal sense of place, because of antiquing trips that my parents and I made in the late 1960s.
Back to Bryan. He served in the House in 1891-1895 and as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. Bryan was the Democratic nominee for President in 1896, 1900, and 1908. He sought economic relief for farmers and workers, including a national currency of both gold and silver, rather than a gold standard alone. Although not a strict fundamentalist, Bryan had a combination of conservative Bible interpretation and Social Gospel sensibilities. He was concerned that the theory of evolution undermined morality. He participated in the Scopes Trial in 1925 and found his anti-evolution position ridiculed by Clarence Darrow's defense and H. L. Mencken's articles. Bryan died of a stroke a few days after the trial.
But Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech to the Democratic National Convention in July 1896 is one of the great American speeches. After he finished---with that allusion to the sufferings of Jesus---there was dead silence, and he thought his speech had failed. Then the audience erupted in applause and a near riot of approval that required a half-hour to calm.
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