Library of Congress
1896 Democratic party nominees William Jennings Bryan
for president and Arthur Sewall for vice president.
voice failed.) To compete with the din of
a huge audience, speakers had to resort to
orator’s tricks of the day, such as spreading and raising their arms to expand
their lungs and diaphragms to crank up
the volume of their voices and moving
around the stage to reach different parts
of the audience. Even so, beyond the front
rows, it could be difficult for some of the
audience to make out the finer points of
a speaker’s address. But Bryan, with his
powerful voice, was the master of all the
acoustical obstacles of the great coliseum.
In 1896, Grover Cleveland was completing his second presidential term. Though
he was not a candidate, he did what he
could to support his Bourbon-goldbug
faction at the convention. So he dispatched
the former navy secretary, William Whitney, with a private, three-car train loaded
with gourmet food and wine to lift their
spirits. But the gesture mainly illustrated
the pecuniary disparity between silverites and Bourbons. (In contrast, with an
affinity for frugality, Bryan was to muse
after the convention, when checking out
of his hotel, that he had only incurred
$100 in expenses to win the Democratic
nomination.) So bitter was the infighting
on every vote in the convention — almost
all of which the Bourbons lost — that a
goldbug Democrat commented that he
was reminded of “the French Revolution.”
On the third day of the convention,
when the Bourbons insisted on debating
the primary issues of the platform on the
floor, each side selected speakers to present
its views. The silverites, holding sway, took
the first and last speaker positions, and
three gold bugs filled the remaining slots.
Viewing the last position as the strongest, Bryan persuaded co-silverite Ben
Tillman of South Carolina to take the
longer, opening debate position. As it
turned out, after a disastrous speech from
the former secessionist, Tillman, and an
overall two hours of rambling, half-heard
speeches, the disappointed audience,
which had expected more, became restless. Some began to call out for Bryan. His
moment had arrived.
William Jennings Bryan, only 36 years
old, quickly navigated the stairs leading
up to the 20-foot-high rostrum of the
Coliseum. After words of deference to the
speakers before him, he began, “I come to
speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as
the cause of liberty — the cause of humanity.” Bryan and his followers earnestly
believed that this was a fight for the fate of
democracy itself. After about 20 minutes
of countering the goldbug positions, Bryan
drew to his conclusion. Raising his hands
to his head, he put his fingers out along
his forehead and said, of the goldbugs, “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.”
Stepping back, away from the podium,
Bryan extended his arms straight out from
the sides of his body and held them there
for a long moment in a pose that in a
flash evoked the crucifixion. The crowd
was stunned into silence, and the speaker
left the rostrum and walked toward the
Nebraska delegation. Then the Coliseum
crowd detonated into a raucous celebration about twice as long as the speech
itself. Both men and women stood on
their chairs and threw their hats in the
air, oblivious to where they came down.
Two elderly southern delegates embraced
one another and wept profusely. A band
struck up “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and the silverites hoisted Bryan on
their shoulders and marched around the
Coliseum to the music. Such processions
were copied at presidential conventions
for years to come.
Contrary to popular belief, Bryan’s
speech was not impromptu. He had
planned it, practiced it and refined it for
months, down to the memorable gestures, long before the convention. He
had even used the analogies about the
crown of thorns and cross of gold in earlier speeches. But the communications of
those days being what they were, these
figures of speech would not have been
familiar to his audience.
In the fourth round of delegate