Biography of William Jennings Bryan How He Shaped American Politics

William Jennings Bryan, born on March 19, 1860 in Salem, Illinois, was the dominant politician in the Democratic Party from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. He was nominated for the presidency three times, and his populist leanings and tireless stumping transformed political campaigning in this country. In 1925 he led the successful prosecution in the Scopes Monkey Trial, although his involvement ironically solidified his reputation in some areas as a relic from a prior age. Early years Bryan grew up in Illinois. Although originally a Baptist, he became a Presbyterian after attending a revival at age 14; Bryan later described his conversion as the most important day of his life. Like many children in Illinois at the time, Bryan was home-schooled until he was old enough to attend high school at Whipple Academy, and then college at Illinois College in Jacksonville where he graduated as valedictorian. He moved on to Chicago to attend Union Law College (the precursor of Northwestern University School of Law), where he met his first cousin, Mary Elizabeth Baird, whom he married in 1884 when Bryan was 24. House of Representatives Bryan had political ambitions from an early age, and chose to move to Lincoln, Nebraska in 1887 because he saw little opportunity to run for office in his native Illinois. In Nebraska he won election as a Representative—only the second Democrat elected to Congress by Nebraskans at the time. This was where Bryan flourished and began making a name for himself. Assisted by his wife, Bryan quickly gained a reputation as both a masterful orator and a populist, a man who believed firmly in the wisdom of the common people. Cross of Gold In the late 19th century, one of the key issues facing the United States was the question of the Gold Standard, which pegged the dollar to a finite supply of gold. During his time in Congress, Bryan became a staunch opponent of the Gold Standard, and at the 1896 Democratic Convention he delivered a legendary speech that came to be known as the Cross of Gold Speech (due to its concluding line, â€Å"you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!†) As a result of Bryan’s fiery speech, he was nominated to be the Democratic candidate for president in the 1896 election, the youngest man to achieve this honor. The Stump Bryan launched what was for the time an unusual campaign for the presidency. While Republican William McKinley ran a â€Å"front porch† campaign from his home, rarely traveling, Bryan hit the road and traveled 18,000 miles, making hundreds of speeches. Despite his incredible feats of oratory, Bryan lost the election with 46.7% of the popular vote and 176 electoral votes. The campaign had established Bryan as the undisputed leader of the Democratic Party, however. Despite the loss, Bryan had received more votes than previous recent Democratic candidates and seemed to have reversed a decades-long decline in the fortunes of the party. The party shifted under his leadership, moving away from the model of Andrew Jackson, which favored extremely limited government. When the next election came around, Bryan was nominated once again. The 1900 Presidential Race Bryan was the automatic choice to run against McKinley again in 1900, but while times had changed over the previous four years, Bryans platform had not. Still raging against the Gold Standard, Bryan found the country—experiencing a prosperous time under McKinley’s business-friendly administration—less receptive to his message. Although Bryan’s percentage of the popular vote (45.5%) was close to his 1896 total, he won fewer electoral votes (155). McKinley picked up several states he’d won in the prior round. Bryan’s hold over the Democratic Party frayed after this defeat, and he was not nominated in 1904. However, Bryan’s liberal agenda and opposition to big business interests kept him popular with large sections of the Democratic Party, and in 1908, he was nominated for president for the third time. His slogan for the campaign was â€Å"Shall the People Rule?† but he lost by a wide margin to William Howard Taft, winning just 43% of the vote. Secretary of State After the 1908 election, Bryan remained influential in the Democratic Party and extremely popular as a speaker, often charging extremely high rates for an appearance. In the 1912 election, Bryan threw his support to Woodrow Wilson. When Wilson won the presidency, he rewarded Bryan by naming him Secretary of State. This was to be the only high-level political office that Bryan ever held. Bryan, however, was a committed isolationist who believed the United States should stay neutral during World War I, even after German U-boats sank the Lusitania, killing nearly 1,200 people, 128 of them Americans. When Wilson moved forcibly towards entering the war, Bryan resigned from his cabinet post in protest. He remained, however, a dutiful member of the party and campaigned for Wilson in 1916 despite their differences. Prohibition and Anti-Evolution Later in life, Bryan turned his energies to the Prohibition movement, which sought to make alcohol illegal. Bryan is credited to some extent in helping to make the 18th Amendment to the Constitution a reality in 1917, as he dedicated much of his energies after resigning as Secretary of State to the subject. Bryan was believed sincerely that ridding the country of alcohol would have a positive effect on the country’s health and vigor. Bryan was naturally opposed to the Theory of Evolution, formally presented by both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858, sparking a heated debate that is ongoing today. Bryan regarded evolution not simply as a scientific theory he did not agree with or even solely as a religious or spiritual issue regarding the divine nature of man, but as a danger to society itself. He believed that Darwinism, when applied to society itself, resulted in conflict and violence. By 1925 Bryan was a well-established opponent of evolution, making his involvement with the 1925 Scopes Trial almost inevitable. The Monkey Trial The final act of Bryan’s life was his role leading the prosecution in the Scopes Trial. John Thomas Scopes was a substitute teacher in Tennessee who willfully violated a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in state-funded schools.  The defense was led by Clarence Darrow, at the time perhaps the most famous defense attorney in the country. The trial  attracted national attention. The trial’s climax came when Bryan, in an unusual move, agreed to take the stand, going toe to toe with Darrow for hours as the two argued their points. Although the trial went Bryan’s way, Darrow was widely perceived as the intellectual victor in their confrontation, and the fundamentalist religious movement that Bryan had represented at the trial lost much of its momentum in the aftermath, while evolution was more widely accepted every year (even the Catholic Church declared there was no conflict between faith and acceptance of evolutionary science in 1950). In the 1955 play Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, the Scopes Trial is fictionalized, and the character of Matthew Harrison Brady is a stand-in for Bryan, and portrayed as a shrunken giant, a once-great man who collapses under the assault of modern science-based thought, muttering inauguration speeches never given as he dies. Death Bryan, however, saw the trail as a victory and immediately launched a speaking tour to capitalize on the publicity. Five days after the trial, Bryan died in his sleep on July 26, 1925 after attending church and eating a heavy meal. Legacy Despite his immense influence during his life and political career, Bryan’s adherence to principles and issues that have largely been forgotten means his profile has diminished over the years—so much so that his main claim to fame in the modern day is his three failed presidential campaigns. Yet Bryan is now being reconsidered in light of Donald Trump’s 2016 election as a template for the populist candidate, as there are many parallels between the two. In that sense Bryan is being reevaluated as a pioneer in modern campaigning as well as a fascinating subject for political scientists. Famous Quotes â€Å"... 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.† -- Cross of Gold Speech, Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois, 1896. â€Å"The first objection to Darwinism is that it is only a guess and was never anything more. It is called a ‛hypothesis,’ but the word ‛hypothesis,’ though euphonious, dignified and high-sounding, is merely a scientific synonym for the old-fashioned word ‛guess.’† -- God and Evolution, The New York Times, February 26, 1922 â€Å"I have been so satisfied with the Christian religion that I have spent no time trying to find arguments against it. I am not afraid now that you will show me any. I feel that I have enough information to live and die by.† -- Scopes Trial Statement Suggested Reading Inherit the Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, 1955. A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan, by Michael Kazin, 2006 Alfred A. Knopf. â€Å"Cross of Gold Speech†

I Am a Man More Sinned Against Than Sinning. to What...

I am a man more sinned against than sinning. To what extent does the character King Lear suffer out of all proportions to his initial transgressions? There would be two different opinions on whether or not King Lear deserved what had happened to him. First, I think I should mention the ways that King Lear suffered. There were evident levels of emotional and physical suffering. From an emotional perspective, Lear discovers that he is hated by his own daughters, which would be a terrible experience for a father. Not only is Lear hated by Goneril and Regan, they are also plotting to kill him. This would be emotionally damaging for any father. Also from a physical perspective, Lear gets kicked out of his kingdom to live in what is referred†¦show more content†¦This could also be compared to Lears initial transgressions of quantifying love. Lear may be hoping that by telling Regan how much he loves her, she will give him what he wants, similar to the way that when Regan told Lear how much she loved him, she got what she wanted. Unfortunately, Lear got quite the opposite and the proposition of his departure was evident still. This shows that perhaps Lear is getting far worse than he deserves, in comparison to his original transgression of quantifying love for a positive outcome. And even after this has happened, the scene continues to go on, and Lear discovers that his servant (who is really Kent in disguise) has been put in the stocks for fighting with Oswald, Gonerils servant. This shows Lears loss of power very well, saying that his servants are worth less than Gonerils servants. Later on in this same scene, Lear makes a famous comment which was I gave you all... The idea that he gave his daughters everything is a negative thing for a start. Giving away all you possessions is obviously not good, because then you have nothing left. Although, Lear was saying it as if to say, I gave you all I had, couldnt you return the favour? His transgression here is giving his daughters everything, but his suffering was not receiving anything in return. In this case, his Karma would be neutral, seeing as he gave away anything, what right does he have to have anything? King Lear would get kicked out shortly

Ode to Salt and The Sound of Silence Samples †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Ode to Salt and The Sound of Silence. Answer: Introduction The state of total or nearly total lack of connection between the society and an individual is termed as social isolation. A person when isolated from his or her community, he or she is in the state of social isolation. The modern individual is facing problems related to social isolation where individuals are suffering from aloofness, self-centeredness, lack of concrete identity (de Jong Gierveld, Van Tilburg Dykstra, 2016). Thus, the modern individuals are socially isolated being. The purpose of this essay is to show the similarities and differences between Pablo Nerudas Ode to Salt and Paul Simons The Sound of Silence centralizing on a theme called social isolation. The thesis statement: The social isolation is the most common theme of the modernist writers. The Comparison of the Poems Based on the Themes Ode to Salt and The Sound of Silence The Latin American poet Pablo Neruda writes Ode to Salt. In his poem, the poet has illustrated the story of salt in the context of the vastness of the world, thus the salt is isolated from its root in the salt mine. The salt is confined in the saltcellar now and before that, it was in the salt mine. The salt mine is the vast family of the salt and so to speak it is the birthplace of the salt. However, the salt is taken from the salt mine and used for domestic purpose. This image is similar to portray an individuals feelings of isolation. The poet hears the solitude of the salt and the poet has been shivered by it. The poet sated, I shivered in those solitudes / when I heard / the voice of the salt in the desert. The poet is very respectful towards salt and expressed the long history and necessity of the salt. He wrote, Preserver/ of the ancient / holds of ships. The salt carries much details of the finite world, which was expressed in the last line. However, its voice is broken and i t sings a mournful song, when it is isolated from its association. The pain of isolation is expressed in the metaphor of the individuals pain in isolation. From another perspective, the poem is the representation of the glorification of the history of the salt. It portrays the importance of the salt in the history and the author is inspired by the salts history. Paul Simons poetry The Sound of Silence expresses the pangs of isolation in the modern world. The poem has been started with addressing the darkness, which is the old friend of the poet. The poet wants to talk with the darkness Within the Sound of Silence (Simon, 2016). However, the poet walks alone in some restlessness, which is the symbol of modernity. The poet might express the crowd by the restlessness. The isolation has been expressed in the lines, People talking without speaking / People hearing without listening / People writing songs that voices never shared / And no one dared / Disturb the Sound of Silence (Simon, 2016). The situation is like that where peoples interaction is meaningless, weightless and people are unable to communicate with an understanding. The songs in this world are meaningless where the oppressed voice is not shared and no one in this world is dared to write this kind of song. The silence sound of isolation is still there. Along with the representation of social isolation, the Paul Simons poem is the representation of the conflict between material world and the spiritual attraction, which transcends this material world. The voice in the poem plays a role of visionary who feels and makes caution about the lack of spirituality among modern people. The comparison The theme of social isolation is present in both the poems. Ode to Salt has represented the factor of social isolation in the metaphor of salt, The Sound of Silence has portrayed it by showing the modern mans situation where sound of silence is there, and no one is actually communicating to the others social being. The poet in his poem Ode to Salt has discussed the social isolation, though the salt shares long history with human being. The salt sung when it was in the mines, however, when it is in the solitude, the poet hears the shivering sound of the salt as isolation could make an individual sad and gloomy. In comparison to The Sound of Silence, the poet Paul Simon here has shown the social isolation in a broader way. The poet has shown the result of the social isolation among the human beings (Eajournals.org, 2017). The result is people communicates with each other without conveying the meaning, people hears to each other without understanding the meaning and the whole world is t he form of isolation where true communication has broken. Analyzing the Poems Both the poets have represented their views of social isolation in their own ways. Pablo Neruda has focused on the inanimate object and given it the essence of humanity. Thus, he has used the poetic tool of personification here. The salt is get personified and the poet heard the oppressed voice of the salt. The salt here is oppressed, as it is isolated. However, any isolated being could face a number of challenges as it is torn out from its root. The salt is isolated from the mines, thus, it is facing problems related to sadness for the rootedness. The poet has used ode form here, which highlights emotion. The relationship between the salt and the world has been expressed by the one-word lines, which are preposition (Wilson, 2014). The words are structured in a way that represents the sprinkling ways of fall of the salt as if the salt is crying. The Sound of Silence is a lyric of a famous band called Simon and Garfunkel. It also represents the social isolation in its own way. The ref rain in this poem establishes the silence nature of the sound that does not carry any meaning. The song carries itself the sound of the silence, which is the result of isolation. Conclusion It can be concluded that, as the social isolation is the pervading theme of modernity, most of the poems or songs carry the thread of this theme with them. The Pablo Nerudas poem Ode to Salt and Paul Simons The Sound of Silence has been analyzed in the context of social isolation and in this paper shown the reflection of isolation in the poems. References De Jong Gierveld, J., Van Tilburg, T., Dykstra, P. (2016). Loneliness and social isolation. Eajournals.org. (2017). Retrieved 11 October 2017, from https://www.eajournals.org/wp-content/uploads/Poetic-Vision-of-Pablo-Neruda.pdf Simon, P. (2016).Lyrics 1964-2016. Simon and Schuster. Wilson, J. (2014).A companion to Pablo Neruda: evaluating Neruda's poetry(Vol. 259). Boydell Brewer Ltd.