THIS IS FREE SILVER COUNTRY
William Jennings Bryan's hatred for capitalism, vocal anti-imperialism, and support for women's suffrage is unusually forward-thinking for a Democratic Reconstruction-era politician.
Obligatory, Bryan was supportive of Jim Crow legislation, but his position on race relations isn't all that clear-cut or consistent throughout his lifetime because he was a prominent anti-eugenicist later in life. Much of his motivation for prosecuting in the Scopes Monkey Trial was to oppose the eugenics that very much defined the popular (mis)understanding of evolution at the time. Hindsight does make Bryan's anti-science charades look foolish, but it also tells us that the mistakes of the American scientific community in the early 20th century contributed a lot to the rise of fascism in America and abroad. Was he not right to have misgivings? It doesn't absolve him, but I don't think it would be fair to call him a clown.
Chuds sure as hell haven't picked Bryan up as some historical figure to champion, and nor have Evangelicals due to him being too obviously left-wing on most issues. Does he have too much baggage to bother with? There isn't much of a modern equivalent to his politics so there can't be much harm either way.
There isn’t much of a modern equivalent to his politics so there can’t be much harm either way.
Wrong. From what you described he was the Tulsi Gabbard of his day - oddly ahead of his time on certain issues and then bizarrely regressive on others.
ah shit
edit: But I more or less meant that nobody nowadays is close to identifying with him, sorry about not being clear
What are some issues Tulsi is weirdly progressive on? I only know her as the Hawaiian BJP lady.
William Jennings Bryan rehabilitation post was absolutely not something I ever expected to see here. My retired history professor father would be proud.
Damn, I remember my teacher talking about how this guy wanted a second currency and how wacky that was; but I didn't know he did all this other stuff, really interesting!
-7DeadlyFetishes
Free silver! the blossoming of a huge range of heterodox economic and monetary ideas around this time is really fascinating.
That’s really interesting I never heard that perspective on scopes. I always figured he became like a born again or something. Is there a write up of that somewhere?
this is from his closing statements that he prepared for the trial,
but his declining health kept him from saying all this in personnvm the defense gave up and asked for a guilty verdict before closing statements were made, and here's the linkDarwin speaks with approval of the savage custom of eliminating the weak so that only the strong will survive, and complains that "we civilized men do our utmost to check the process of elimination." How inhuman such a doctrine as this! He thinks it injurious to "build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick" or to care for the poor. Even the medical men come in for criticism because they "exert their utmost skill to save the life of everyone to the last moment." And then note his hostility to vaccination because it has "preserved thousands who, from a weak constitution would, but for vaccination, have succumbed to smallpox!" All of the sympathetic activities of civilized society are condemned because they enable "the weak members to propagate their kind."
There's a whole lot of God and Christianity stuff too, but Bryan does have a valid point here. Darwin wasn't good at making sure his work wouldn't get hijacked for nefarious things.
Yo this man is unironically a clown. Chapostan lionizing him is a good meme tho. Keep going
Yeah the media at the time never took him seriously after his many failed presidential bids and monkey business (and Bryan being fairly anti-establishment didn't help that treatment).