at bryan's home in lincoln, nebraska. each sunday at this time through labor day weekend, watch "the contenders" here on american history tv on c-span3. >> good evening, welcome to the third installment of c-span's the contender series. we look at the life, legacy, and times of william jennings bryan. a three-time presidential nominee from nebraska. what better way to introduce him than hearing from him. here's a portion of his speech that he delivered in 1896, referred to as the "address of gold" speech. it was the first run for the white house at age 36. >> our war is not a war of conquest. we're fighting in defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. we have petitions and our petitions have been sworn.

we have entreated and our entreaties have been disregarded. we have days when our calamity came. we big no longer, we entreat no more, we petition no more, we defy them. we go forth confident that we shall win. >> in the words of william jennings bryan. we're coming to you from his home and office in the state capital of lincoln, nebraska. it is commonly referred to as fairview, because at the turn of the century it gave you a fair view of the land. they moved here in 1902. it's now part of the bryan lgh medical center. we're coming to you from the first floor, his parlor, his study is just below us. he did much of his writing, entertaining here and we want to welcome our two guests. michael kazin is a professor of history and also the author of a

"godly hero, the life of william jennings bryan." and william thomas is a professor of history. thank you for being with us. to set this up speech. the man that delivered it, the setting in chicago, the impact it had. on democratic delegates in 1896. >> the country was very divided, there was a great depression, the democrats were split really down the middle. grover cleveland was very unpopular, as presidents usually are during great depressions and bryan comes into the convention in chicago as sort of a dark horse candidate for the presidency, but everyone knows he's a wonderful orater, and he's defending the cause of free silver, helping debtors, helping people in trouble economically, and he gives this speech which people go wild when they hear

it, partly because he had a wonderful voice. the tapes you played was later because technology didn't exist to record such a speech live in 1896. it doesn't sound like a 36-year-old man in that. he was robust, vigorous, amazing voice that could be heard without amplification by 10,000 people at a time. they set this up so he would give a speech at a time where he new the majority of the delegates were for him, but at the same time, no really riveting speech had been given yet for the silver cause at that time. so he had found his moment. he used it to great effect. >> we will hear more from the cross of gold speech and you indicated, his words recorded in 1923, but there is a race where he was challenging william mckinley, relatively unknown. served only two terms in the house of representatives here in

nebraska, ran for senate, won the popular vote but lost because the legislature in nebraska gave it to the republican candidate. so 1895-1896 for william jennings bryan. >> a major strike, a railroad strike in 1894 that tore the country apart and revealed how unstable the economy was and how deep the depression might become. and william jennings bryan ran as a democrat in a populous in 1894 for the united states senate and ran against a railroad attorney named john thurston. gained a lot of attention for the senate campaign in 1894. i would liken it to the lincoln douglas debate. he had a series of debates with john thurston, and those gave him great visibility across the nation among the political class. and so he emerged as a national figure at that time. and the country was desperate

for leadership, it was -- all the parties were divided. the republicans were divided, and the populous were on the scene. the republicans had won the presidential contest in nebraska in 1892, but the second place vote getter was the populous, and the democrat, cleveland, was far behind. so the democratic party was in deep trouble in this part of the midwest. >> william jennings bryan, one of 14 presidential candidates who lost the election but changed politics. we're in lincoln, nebraska. here are more of the words from williams jennings bryant from his cross of gold speech. >> they tell us the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. we reply great cities rest on our broad and fertile prairies, burn down your cities and leave our farms and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. but destroy our farms and the

grass will grow in the streets of every city of the country. we cannot stop until the battle is fought. if they say it is good, but we cannot have it that the nation help us, we reply instead of having a gold standard because england has, we will restore by metalism, and let england have by metalicism, because the united states has. if they dare to come out in the open fields and attend the gold standard, the good thing, we will fight them to the utter most, standing behind us, producing masses of this nation and the world supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer the demand for gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the bow of labor this crown of thorns.

youtial not crucify mankind up on a cross of gold. >> michael kazin, how long was the speech in 1896 and why was it referred to as a cross of gold? >> about 45 minutes long. and cross of gold was a powerful metaphor for a country where most people were christians and william jennings bryan was a very serious evangelical. and for those who wanted to keep debtors in debt, who wanted to keep them on a gold standard, wanted to keep interest rates high, reflect the supply of money, for bryan and many who supported him, this was a way of keeping the poor poor, keeping the denters deeper in debt. a way of keeping the british economy, the supreme economy in the world. it sounds like a technical issue, but it was an issue of the haves against the have nots,

or that's how bryan saw it. to crucify gold would be, of course, connected to pontius pilate crucifying christ. in the same way, bryan and populists and populist minded democrats and republicans, too, thought that the american economy was being run for the interest of those who already had property or those who already had money, those who already had banks and big industries, so there's a class divide in american politics at that time. now we have a lot of anger about the economy. the anger wasn't focused on money the same way it was then. every dollar people had in their pockets could be redeemed for a dollar in the federal treasury, versus gold. bryan wanted that to be redeemed in silver as well, the means a lot more dollars could have been minted and coined because there was more silver in circulation than there was gold.

really a call for cheaper money, lower interest rates, and greater economic opportunity for a small business person, a farmer, a worker who wanted to be a small business person or farmer. >> in your book, you talk about his charisma and what he meant at that time, he essentially became a celebrity. >> yes. >> he was receiving as many as 2,000 letters during the campaign. >> yes. >> you write about something he did that was viewed as revolutionary, which was campaigning for the office as opposed to william mckinley who had the front porch strategy in ohio. can you explain? >> mckinley had a lot of money in the campaign. able to get checks from johnny rockefeller, other bigger industrialists. could write him checks, no restrictions whatsoever on donations back in 1896. bryan, because he was running as a candidate of small farmers and workers, couldn't get that kind of money, so he had to go out

and campaign for himself, he couldn't depend on a large machine to do that for him. a wonderful speaker, loved to speak. for him, this was a positive thing. he made munecessity into a virtue. he traveled 18,000 miles on trains, adidn't have his own je the way candidates do now, his own railroad car, for most of the campaign year, and spoke to as many as 6,000 times in a campaign, many times a day, for example. so for him, this was an opportunity to become known and also, the only chance he had to reach americans directly. >> also the first campaigner to use the railroad in this way. to really campaign across the country. steven douglas had done something similar in 1860 in the crisis of the nation, trying to take a campaign swing through the south and parts of the north

and revitalize the democratic party. for the most part, after 1860, american presidential candidates sat on their front porch and other people campaigned for them and bryan went out there and campaigned at every whistle stop town in illinois and ohio and virginia and pennsylvania, new york. traveled all over america, bringing his campaign to the people. >> we want to hear from you on c-span. 202-737- 202-737-0030 in the eastern time zone, and 202-737-0020 in pacific and mountain time zones. we're in lincoln, nebraska, home referred to as fairview. he served two terms and he was born in salem, illinois. walk us through the early years of william jennings bryan and how he ends up here in nebraska. >> he was born in 1860, into a

world being transformed. the railroad growth, the civil war that followed, 1860-1865. too young to serve in the civil war, and that actually came back to again and again in his public life. he had not served in the military, so many men in politics in his period of political activity had served in the military, so he did not have that opportunity as a young man. instead, he read for the bar, went in to practice as a lawyer in lincoln, nebraska, in the 1880s. started his own law firm, a partnership with dolph talbot and practiced basic law in a urban, growing urban environment in the prairie. and that's when he became active in politics. >> if i could just add, at the time and in many ways still, going to law school was always a good training to go into politics, you always wanted to

go into politics, his father, a judge in illinois, a very close associate of steven douglas, and his father helped write the illinois state constitution in the late 1850s. so really politics was in his blood, i think, and he never thought of doing anything else than politics in a serious way. he became a lawyer because he wanted to get in politics. he moved through nebraska, the democratic party weak here, and he took the opportunity for a young man to rise quickly within the democratic party. >> let me go back to the way he was able to capture the imagination of the country. three times getting the democratic nomination, has that ever happened where you receive a nomination and lost all three times? >> the person you profiled the first time, henry clay, received a nomination, and twice with the whig party. but a little different 100 years ago.

a lot more voters, a lot more media, more money involved. this was really, unlike clay, who had a really small country, population, america wasn't just a country by the early 20th century. this was a modern campaign, all three of them. in a sense, that clay's campaigns were not. >> you write in your book that 14 million americans voted in that election in 1896, and 75% to 85% of eligible voters cast their ballots. >> some women too. women had the vote in colorado. they voted in colorado, a couple other western states, which he won actually. but, yes, 80% and that was actually -- the highest percentage of eligible voters in any election for men, who had never had that highest percentage of voters again. >> if you could touch briefly on his senate bid in 1894. >> sure, he started out campaigning to get both populous

and democratic nomination, both parts -- the populous were, of course, insurgent movement in american politics, rapidly rising, they had secured the house in nebraska. and the irony of his 1894 senate campaign is that the republicans win the legislature and the democrats -- democratic candidates win the governorship, and this reverses what had been the case before. bryan campaigned, largely, there were two debates, one in lincoln and one in omaha. 7,000 people turned out for the debate in lincoln in october 1894 and 15,000 turned out for the debate in omaha. this was a great event to come to this political campaign and be part of it for the public. bryan started out talking largely in the campaign about the income tax.

this was an important issue, the democrats had passed the first income tax since the civil war in 1894, and bryan had been part of that. a 2% flat tax on everyone making more than $4,000 a year. so on the rich. he started his debate with john thurston on that issue. and then he went to the union pacific railroad and its monopoly power, and the silver issue, down on the list in 1894. not as significant as it would become in 1896. >> can we talk about the income tax real quickly? >> yes. >> 1895, the supreme court rules that the income tax was unconstitutional. as you can imagine, a pretty radical thing to do for the high stz court in the land to say congress passed the law, the president signed the law, and it's not constitutional. that helped to inflame things on

bryan's side in the campaign. >> if you could fast forward, the irony, in 1913, the signing of the 17th amendment which stated what? >> that the direct election of senator, you know, bryan is of course expecting to get elected. and hoping to get elected. the republican majority elects john thurston to be the senator from nebraska, another irony, thurston becomes the republican national committee chair in 1896, so bryan runs for president and gets the nomination and the man he ran against in nebraska en1894 is the republican committee chair for mckinley. >> we'll go downstairs and look at his study in a moment. does this home reflect william jennings bryan? >> in many ways. a great home, and at the time considered a mansion. as you'll see, it's well furnished. he made a lot of money speaking, so in that sense, it was a

prize. it was a prize for his career. but he worked here, worked here with his wife mary, very closely. in fact, you'll see a double desk that worked on together. that's important to mention about him is that he and his wife were partners through his career as is off true of political wives now. you don't think that much in the late 19th century of that being true. >> thank you very much for sharing your time and insight on c-span "the contender series." >> thank you for having me. >> how does he use that home, and how often was he in that study writing? >> he would have used the study probably daily when he was in lincoln. the study was the heart of the home. >> we'll have you walk in if you would and show us what the desk

looked like and also some of the artifacts on top of the desk. >> this is the partner's desk that he and his wife shared. they would exchange conversation, compose writings, send letters, and help formulate some of the positions that he may have wanted to take for the day. >> on the top of the desk, a copy of the commoner. what was that? why was it significant in his life? i know he has signed the copy directly in front of you. >> i think it could be stated in the quote from the first position of the commoner, which is it will be to satisfy if by identity to the common people, it proves to its right to be the name which has been chosen. >> you've studied the man, this home, his life. what do you find especially

interesting about william jennings bryan and his home here, that he moved into back in 1902? especially interesting about william jennings bryant and how it's reflected when he moved back in 1902? >> the home can really tell us a lot about the life-styles of mr. and mrs. bryant and their family. one of the most important stories that came out of restoration of this house was the role of his wife and the interpretation of her life, which is best represented here in this office. >> and the two sat directly across from each other and worked on everything basically, correct? >> they certainly did. bryant had said that his wife was a beloved wife and help mate. >> how much of the material there is original? >> very few pieces much original bryant furnishings survived. these furnishings in this office have been collected to represent what was originally in the room based on very fine 1908 photographs of these spaces.

>> if he was seated in that chair adjacent to you, would he feel comfortable? feel like his study at the turn of the century? >> it would be very much like his desk at the turn of the century, even the cluttered desk and the open bible. >> thank you very much for opening up this home to c-span cameras. we'll check in with you throughout the program. west virginia. go ahead, james. >> caller: i would like to tell us about thomas mast. >> thomas mast. >> thomas mast was a great cartoonist responsible for, among other things, the most popular image we have of santa claus. he was a german immigrant. created manges of the democrat donkey and republican elephant.

by the time bryant raised in 1896, not sure if bryant was still alive or not. besides those images, mast is best known for these really vitriolic and very effective images of boss tweed, the very corrupt tammany hall in. and his images of boss tweed looking like a seedy devil, you might say, really helped to bring tweet down, and the democratic candidate at the time are important. prosecutors, later on democratic candidate for president in 1876 who prosecuted tweed and was able to bring down the tweed as it came to be known. >> rob next from sacramento,

california, go ahead, please. >> caller: my question originates from the american president series during the grover cleveland episode, an historian was asked what grover historian was asked what grover william jennings bryant, and said that grover cleveland hated william jennings bryant and cut off and wasn't able to finish. and i was curious what did he hate him for? and is that, in fact, true? thank you. >> well, i'll start, michael, and you can follow up. he didn't like -- grover cleveland was a hard-money democratic president. he didn't like bryant's position on the sill issue. he didn't like the income tax that bryant had helped pass. it was the silver issue and breaking with the cleveland administration's repeal of the sherman silver purchase act that most got the ire of grover cleveland.

>> cleveland was representative of the old democratic party. the democratic party of commercial interests from the east, especially new york, where cleveland was from himself from buffalo. people believed thomas jefferson, andrew jackson, that the government shouldn't do very much in the economy. during the depression of the 1890s, grover cleveland says that the people should support the government, but the government should not support the people. and this is different from what bryant believed. bryant was what we call today a liberal. he was a democratic liberal. he believed the government should be strong enough to help people who couldn't help themselves and redress the balance between corporate power and the power workers and small farmers. and so -- also cleveland had broken this strike with several troops, and the attorney general at the time. cleveland's attorney general was actually a railroad attorney at

the same time, breaking the strike by railroad workers. so for bryant, cleveland was -- in the 1890s at least, representative of all he didn't like about his party, didn't like mesh politics. >> in order to get a better sense, i want to get your reaction of his words. he said we lack politicians today who are willing to lead a charge against secular charges whose power is mightier and steadily deployed than a century ago. >> bryant was a champion of those who needed help. he was a man of great conviction and one of the things he was trying to do that was most difficult was to take on the economic powerful class that had emerged in american politics, in the american economy, a way that

didn't look like class warfare. that was what was so hard for bryant to be able to do, to not appear to be a demagogue, to do it sincerely, to speak to the people without tearing down, but instead attempting to build up. that was a very hard case to make. and he did it beautifully, but it was a very difficult attempt to try and reveal the inadequacies of american society at the time without looking like someone who is just tearing down the american ideals. >> those are your words. are there parallels to someone today in american politics that would resemble a william jennings bryant? >> i'm not sure. there are people who want to be william jennings bryant. sarah palin, in some ways, tried to be in some ways 1896. an angry populous, people who believe a small media elite is after the majority of americans. but, you know, bryant was

representative of a movement, i think. an antimonopoly movement that believed corporate america was taking the country in a revolutionary direction. we have, for better or worse, come to grips or made our peace with big business, and we can't imagine a society in which big business is not there. that was not true for bryant. >> i think just where we are here in fairview, bryant's home, we looked at the desk where he worked with mary bryant side by side. most businesses were like that in the 1870s, 1860s, 1850s, they were partnerships. they were small partnerships, small firms. that period before 1896 was a period of enormous industrial growth. colossal corporations emerging in american society. the pennsylvania railroad employed more people than the united states post office.

these were corporations with enormous resources, enormous wealth and enormous power, and most people had experienced a very different america. one of a small partnership and that change was arresting. bryant was speaking to that massive transition in american society, american life. >> money and politics, very early campaigning in this country. i want to let you listen in to the 1900 campaign in which william jennings bryant talked about the issue of transparency, knowing who was contributing to whom. on the second of his three campaigns to the white house. >> an election is a public affair. it is held for the benefit of the public and is believed to be a police for people to elect their officials and give direction to policies adopted. there is no sound reason for

secrecy in regard to campaign methods and publicity within itself prove a purifying influence in politics. we have increased the favoritism of corporations. people want to know what influences are at work in the campaign that they can better decide the great corporations as to make it impossible for it to protect the rights of the people. >> from the 1908 campaign with william howard taft. anything changed a century later? >> it does sound like it. yeah, obviously people love money. want government to do things they want the government to do. people with little money do too. there's a lot of influence you have if you have a lot of money obviously. and bryant was in favor of