constitution under sail here. it was off the coast of massachusetts off of marblehead. you can see just the same way when she sailed into battle, a simple sail configuration. you can see the old and new navy here with the blue angels flying overhead as constitution marks her 200th birthday in 1997. aboard constitution the captain was michael beck, but the first lieutenant our executive officer was lieutenant commander claire bloom. so she would wear an 1812-style uniform, which we have in our case here. and because it was the modern navy, while she would have as a lieutenant an ap let on the left shoulder. so we said to her, claire, we really need that once you leave constitution. so it's fun to be able to tell the current story of constitution as well as the history. it's all a part of her story and now constitution has women as a

regular part of her crew. you can watch this or other american artifacts programs any time by visiting ore website. and watch american artifacts every sunday at 8:00 a.m., 7:00 p.m., and 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 3. now the contenders, our 14-week series of those who ran for president and lost but changed history. we feature william jennings bryan, a three-time presidential candidate. this 90-minute program recorded at brian'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. tonight 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 the speech he delivered at the democratic national convention back in 1896. referred to as the cross of gold speech. it was the first run for the white house at age 36. >> we do not come as aggressors. our war is not a war of conflict. we're fighting in defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. we have petitions and our petitions have been sworn. we have been mistreated and our treaties have been disregarded. we have days when our calamity came. 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 in the state capitol in nebraska. it is commonly referred to as fairview, because at the turn of the century it gave you a fairview of the land. they moved here back in 1902, and now part of the l.g.h. 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. we have the two professors. and william thomas is the chair of the department of history at the university of nebraska here at lincoln. thank you, gentlemen, for being with us. to set this up speech. the man that delivered it, the

setting in chicago, the impact that it had on democratic delegates in 1869. in 1896. >> the country was very decided in 1996, 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 chicago as sort of a dark horse candidate for the presidency, but everyone knows he's a wonderful orator and is helping debtors, helping people in trouble economically and he gives this speech which people go wild when they hear is, partly because he had a wonderful voice. the tape you played was not in 1896, technology didn't exist to record 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. he kept this up so he would give a speech at a time in a convention where he knew the majority of delegates were for him, but at the same time, no riveting speech had been given yet for the 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 here is a race where he was challenging william mckinley, relatively unknown. served only two terms in the house of representatives, ran for the senate, won the popular vote, but lost because of legislation in nebraska and gave it to the republican candidate. the 1895/96 for william jennings bryan. >> a major strike, a railroad

strike in 1894 that tore the country apart and revealed to americans just how unstable the economy was and how deep the depression might become. and william jennings bryan ran as a democrat in a populous and in 1894 for the united states senate and ran against a railroad attorney named john thurston. so he gained a lot of attention for the senate campaign in 1894. i would liken it to the lincoln/douglas debate. he a series of debates and those gave him great visible among the political class, and so he emerged as a national figure at that time, and the country was desperate for leadership, 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 democrats, 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 that lost the election but changed politics. we're in lincoln, nebraska. here are more of the words from williams jennings bryan from his cross of gold speech. >> they tell us the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. we reply that the 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. we cannot have the nation help us.

instead of having a gold standard, because england has, we will restore by mettlism and then let england have by mettlism 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. you shall not crucify mankind up on a trough of gold. >> michael casson, how long was the speech in 1896? why was it referred to as a cross of gold? >> about 45 minutes long.

and cross of gold was a powerful metaphor and william jennings bryan was a very serious evangelical christian, 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 american who's were poor, poorer, keep americans in debt deeper in debt. a way of keeping the british economy, the supreme economy in the world. this economy based on the gold standard, so it sounds like a technical issue, but really an issue of haves to have-nots, that's the way bryant saw it. to crucify gold would be, of course, connected to pontius pilate crucifying christ. in the same way, bryan and populist minded democrats and republicans 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 so it's really a class divide in america at that time. now, you know, we have a lot of anger about the economy. the anger wasn't focused the same way it is 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. a lot more dollars could have been minted and coined, because there is 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 wasn't at that time. he essentially became a celebrity. >> yes. >> he was receiving as many as 2,000 letters during the campaign. >> yes. >> he campaigned 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. he was able to get checks from johnny rockefeller, other bigger industrialists. no restrictions whatsoever on campaign donations back in 1896. bryan, because he was running as a candidate of small farmers and workers, couldn't get that kind of money. he to go out and campaign 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 -- he traveled 18,000

miles on passenger trains and didn't have his own jet, the way candidates do now, his own railroad car for most of the campaign year and spoke as many as 6,000 times in that 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. >> he's also the first campaigner to use the railroad in this way. to really campaign both across the country. steven douglas had done something similar, trying to take a campaign swing through the south and through parts of the north, 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 in every whistle stop town in illinois and ohio and virginia and pennsylvania, new

york. traveled all over america, bringing his campaign to the people. >> as always, we want to hear from you on c-span. if you live in an eastern or central time zone, 202-737-0002 in pacific and mountain time zone. we're in lincoln, nebraska, home referred to as fairview. william jennings bryan and his wife moved here in 1902. he ran for the house of representatives. born in salem, illinois. walk us through the early years and how did he end up here in nebraska? >> he was born in 1860, into a world that was being transformed. the railroad growth, the civil war that followed, 1860-1865. he was 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 and 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 ran for the bar, went into practice as a lawyer in lincoln, nebraska, in the 1880s. started his own law firm, a partnership with dolph talbot and he practiced basic law in a 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, 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. 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 of the state. >> 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 received the nomination and lost all three times? >> the person you profiled the first time, the nomination and, of course, a little bit different 100 years ago. a lot more voters, a lot more media, more money involved. this was really -- unlike clay, who had a small country, america wasn't just a country by the early 20th century. this was a modern campaign, all

three of them. >> 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 actually. 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 -- that's the highest percentage of eligible voters in any election for men, who had never had that highest percentage of voters again. >> and if you could touch 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, an 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 -- the democratic candidate wins the governorship, and this reverses what had been the case before. bryan campaigned and there were few debates. one in lincoln, one in omaha. 7,000 people turned out for the debate in lincoln in october 1894 and 15,000 people 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. it was a 2% flat tax on everyone making more than $4,000 a year.

so even 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 was down on the list in 1894. it was not as significant as it would become in 1896. >> can we talk about the income tax real quickly? >> yes. >> the supreme court rules that the income tax was unconstitutional. it's a pretty radical thing to do for the highest court in the land to say congress passed the law, the president signed that law, and it's not constitutional. that helped to inflame things on bryan's side in his campaign. >> if you could fast forward, the irony, in 1913, the signing of the 17th amendment which stated what? >> that the direct election of senators, 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, and 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 in 1894 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. a prize for his career, but he worked here. worked here with his wife, mary. very closely. they worked together at the double desk. important thing to mention, he and his wife were partners in

his career, which you often see of political wives now, we don't think of that being the case in the late 19th century but it was. of them. >> bob is with the nebraska state historical society. he is in the study of william jennings bryan and his wife. thanks very much for sharing your time with us on c-span's "the contender" series. >> thank you for having me. >> how often was in that study writing? >> probably daily when he was in lincoln. the study was the heart of the home, as he said. >> i'm going to have you walk in and show us what the desk looked like and also some of the artifacts that are on top of the desk. >> this is the partner's desk that he and his wife shared. they would exchange conversation, compose writings

and letters and help formulate some of the boggs positions tha may have wanted to take for the day. >> on the top of the desk, a copy of "the commoner." what was that, why was that significant in his life? and i know that he has signed the copy that's directly in front of you. >> i think it could best stated right in a quote from the first edition of "the commoner", which i have right here. it says "the commoner" will be to satisfy if by identity to the common people it proves its right to be the name which it has been chosen. >> you studied the man, you've studied this home, you've studied his life. what do you find especially interesting about william jennings bryan and how it's reflected in his home here that he moved in back in 1902? >> the home can really tell us a lot about the lifestyles of mr. and mrs. bryan and their family. i think one of the most important stories that came out of the restoration of this house

was the roll of his wife and the interpretation of her life, which is best represented here in this office. >> and the two sat directly across each other and worked on everything basically, correct? >> they certainly did. bryan mentioned -- had said that his wife was a beloved wife and help mate. >> how much of the material there is original? >> very few of the pieces of original bryan furnishings survived. these furnishings in this office have been collected to represent what was originally in the room based on some very fine 1908 photographs of these spaces. >> but if he was seated in that chair adjacent to you, would he feel comfortable? would it feel like his study at the turn of the century? >> it would be very much like his study at the turn of the century. even the cluttered desk and the open bible. >> bob pushendorf with the

nebraska state historical society. thanks very much for opening up this home to c-span cameras. james is joining us from st. albans, west virginia, as we welcome you calls and participation in this, the third of our series looking at the life and the political career of william jennings bryan. go ahead, james. >> caller: i'd like for you to talk a minute 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 in this country. he was a german immigrant. very popular images of the democratic donkey and the republican elephant. but by the time that bryan ran in 1986, i don't know if mast was still alive or not, but politically, what mast is best known for, these really visit rhee yolic and effective images

of boss tweed, the corrupt boss in the late 1870s, and the images of boss tweed looking like a seedy devil, you might say, really helped to bring tweed down. he was a democratic candidate at the time, important prosecutor in new york city. samu samuel tildon who prosecuted tweed and was able to bring down the tweed ring. >> we know about the hayes tilden dispute. rob from sacramento, california. >> caller: my question resonates from the grover cleveland episode. historian was asked what grover cleveland thought about william jennings bryan and he said that grover cleveland hated william jennings bryan and then he was cut off and wasn't able to finish. i was kind of curious, what did

he hate him for? if, in fact, is that true? thank you. >> you want to take it? >> well, i'll start and you can follow up. he didn't like -- grover cleveland was a hard-money democratic president. he didn't like bryan's position on the silver issue. he particularly didn't like the income tax that bryan had championed in the house, and had helped pass. but 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. >> yeah, 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, he was from buffalo. people who believed thomas jefferson and andrew jackson that the government should not really do very much in the

economy. in fact, during the depression of the 1890s, grover cleveland said that the people should support the government, but the government should not support the people. and this is very different from what bryan believed. bryan was in our parlance today was a liberal. he was a democratic liberal. he believed the government should be strong enough to help people who could not help themselves. and he wanted to redress the balance between corporate power and the power of workers and small farmers. and so -- and also, cleveland had broken this railroad strike with federal troops. and the attorney general at the time, cleveland's attorney general was actually a railroad attorney at the same time as he was breaking the strike by railroad workers. so for bryan, cleveland was, in the 1890s, at least, representative of all he didn't like about his party and all he didn't like about american politics. >> in order to get a better sense of the man, i want to use michael's words from his book

and get your reaction. he said -- willing to lead a charge against secular forces whose power is both mightier and more subtly deployed than a century ago. >> bryan was a champion of those who needed help. he was a man of great conviction. and one of the things that he was trying to do that was most difficult was to take on the economic powerful class that had emerged in american politics and american economy. in a way that didn't look like class warfare. that was what was so hard for bryan 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, and 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's just tearing down the american ideals. >> so those are your words. are there parallels to somebody today in american politics who would resemble a william jennings bryan? >> i'm not sure. there are people who would want to be william jennings bryan. sarah palin in some ways tried to be. they're angry populars. they're people who believe a small greedy elite is after the majority of americans. but bryan was a representative of a movement, i think. an anti-monopoly movement, a movement that people believe that corporate america was taking the country in a revolutionary direction. and we have, for better or worse, i think, come to grips with -- or made our peace with

big business and we can't imagine a society in which big business is not there. whereas that was not true for bryan. >> yeah, i think just where we are here in fairview, bryan's home. we just looked at the desk that he worked with mary bryan side by side. most businesses were like that in america in the 1870s and 1860s and 1850s. they were partnerships. they were small partnerships, small firms. and that period before 1896 was a period of enormous industrial growth. colossal corporations emerging in american society. the pennsylvania railroad employed more people than united states post office. so these were corporations with enormous resources, enormous wealth, and enormous power. and most people had experienced a very different america, one of a small partnerships and that change was arresting, and