A face only an (opposing) politician could love …

[BillJones]

 

William Jennings Bryan was a very controversial candidate when he ran for president in 1896. Those who ardently supported his free silver position were almost magnetically drawn to the man. Some of those who feared and ridiculed his monetary policy viewed him as a dangerous buffoon who would lead the country to ruin. Some people from this second group were responsible for making this unusual piece, which is a rather unique item in cast aluminum. It is a rather large piece that is 85 mm in diameter.

 

Bryan was well known for his considerable gifts as a political speaker. It was his famous “Cross of Gold” speech that elevated him from a very young (he just 36 years old, one year beyond the Constitutional limit to be president) two term Congressman and failed Senatorial candidate to the Democratic presidential nomination. That eloquence prompted his supporters to dub him “The Boy Orator of the Platt,” but a Democratic senator pointed out that the Platt River was six inches deep and six miles wide it its mouth. This, it was implied, was a fair representation of the depth of William Jennings Bryan’s brain pan.

 

The obverse of this piece features of caricature of Bryan looking totally foolish. This image appeared on a number of anti-Bryan items. The slogan “In God we trust … for the other 47 cents” refers to the fact that the Morgan dollars that some of us love to collect contained just 53 cents worth of silver at the time. The very real fear was that Bryan’s proposal to coin silver in unlimited amounts would result in massive monetary inflation that would impair the value of the U.S. dollar.

 

The reverse slogan, “16 to 1 … NIT … 1896” is a familiar one to those collect 1896 campaign pieces. It refers to Bryan’s contention that 16 parts of silver should be worth as much as 1 part of gold. At the time the real ratio was more like 30 to 1. The term “NIT” was short for “Not In Trust,” which was a take off on “In God we trust.”

 

This piece is listed as variety 902-3 in Fred Schornstein’s reference book. He calls it “common,” but don’t expect to find one easily at a large coin or political show. You will have to spend so time looking for a nice example.

 

[bsshog40]

Nice story there Bill. Unique piece and history with it.

[123cents]

Cool token and nice history lesson. Thanks Bill.

[SkyMan]

Very nice lesson there Bill, and a fun piece to go with it. Thanks. (thumbs u

[CoinAddict]

Great write up, Bill. Very interesting.

[MikeInFL]

Great coin and writeup. I always look forward to reading your posts.

 

Sorry for the tangental question, but was Bryan right or wrong with his position on silver/monetary policy? Using the metaphor, was the Bryan river deeper than portrayed by his political adversaries? What has history shown us?

[BillJones]

Great coin and writeup. I always look forward to reading your posts.

 

Sorry for the tangental question, but was Bryan right or wrong with his position on silver/monetary policy? Using the metaphor, was the Bryan river deeper than portrayed by his political adversaries? What has history shown us?

 

To put it as simply as possible, Bryan’s free silver proposal would have been a disaster. Back in 1896, when Bryan ran on it as virtually the total basis of his campaign, there was a glut of silver in the market. The western silver mines were producing far more silver than the economy could absorb. The Federal Government had been buying up much of the excess silver for many years and had been striking it into silver dollars that no one wanted.

 

The two coinage acts that had been in play were the Bland – Allison Act of 1978, and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. The Sherman Act had almost sunk the value of the U.S. dollar. At a time when a nation’s economic health and the value of its currency were measured by the amount of gold it had in its reserves, the Sherman Act called for the purchase of silver with paper money that could redeemed in either gold or silver. Most of those notes were redeemed in gold, which lowered the Federal Government’s gold reserves to a dangerously low level. That prompted President Grover Cleveland to call a special session of Congress to repeal the Sherman Act.

 

In the wake of this, the Bryan campaign called for a return to the free coinage of silver on a 16 to 1 basis. To put it simply Bryan’s proposal would have required the U.S. mint system to accept silver for coinage into mostly silver dollars at little or not cost. Since the content of a standard silver dollar at the time was about 53 cents, silver producers could have deposited 53 cents worth of silver at the mint and gotten a dollar in return. Naturally this situation would have resulted in a massive increase in the money supply until the U.S. dollar reached a buying power value of 53 cents in “real dollar” terms.

 

To put this into a modern perspective, it would have been like offering a paper producer the right to send paper to the U.S. Treasury for printing into paper dollars. The affect would not have been as extreme, but it would have seriously devalued the worth of the U.S. dollar.

 

Who would have been the winners as a result of this? The winners would have been those who supported Bryan – namely farmers who had taken out big loans against their property and the silver mine owners. The farmers would have been able to have paid back their loans with cheaper dollars, and the silver mine owners would have been able to convert their product in silver dollars that had greater value (at least for a while) than the value of their product.

 

In the short run, the farmers who had paid off their loans would have been winners, but unless they were able to find ways to protect the value of the money they received for their crops, they would have been losers. Wealthy people usually find ways to protect their wealth. Poor people who received their wages in the local currency often see the value of their labors marginalized. One need only look at what happens to those who live in “banana republics” to realize the truth.

 

Sadly Bryan did not understand the consequences of his policies. When an aid asked him about the effects of his free silver proposals, he confessed that he didn’t known. “I’ll study that later,” he reportedly said. As such you can see that those who said that Bryan’s brain pan was two inches thick and six miles wide were not far from the truth.

 

 

 

[TomB]

Given the fact that he was so young when he ran on his free silver platform, was there any attempt to reinvent Bryan later in his career for another run?

[BillJones]

Given the fact that he was so young when he ran on his free silver platform, was there any attempt to reinvent Bryan later in his career for another run?

 

William Jennings Bryan won the D-party presidential nomination in 1896, 1900 and 1908. He would have run in 1904, but wisely he noted that NO ONE could beat Theodore Roosevelt that year and pulled out.

 

Bryan and Henry Clay are the only major party candidates who ran for president three times in the general election and lost. Clay on his first attempt was one of four candidates in 1824 at a time before there really were competing political parties. Bryan is unique in that he won the D-party nomination three times, and lost all three times.

 

Free silver was Bryan’s big issue in 1896, and it almost got him elected. In 1900 he opened with free silver again, but soon few voters were interested in that because the economy had recovered. He then tried to make an issue of anti imperialism, but the U.S. had already fought and won the Spanish – American War so that was a dead issue. He also tried trust busting, but didn’t get much support for that either.

 

In 1908 Bryan ran a general reformist and anti trust candidate, but Teddy Roosevelt had stolen a lot of glory. Roosevelt was not running, but his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft was, and Taft wore the Roosevelt anti-trust mantle. Bryan lost that race by worse proportions that he had the previous two elections.

 

In 1913 Woodrow Wilson appointed Bryan to be his secretary of state. It was a reward for Bryan’s endorsement during the election campaign. There Bryan took a moralist’s approach to foreign policy and ended up failing badly. Historians don’t have nice things to say about his time as secretary of state.

 

Bryan’s final public appearance was as the prosecuting attorney in the famous Scopes monkey trial. He won the case, but lost his dignity as was shown in the movie and play, Inherit the Wind

[MikeInFL]

Fascinating history and analysis.

 

While I recalled his failed presidential aspirations, I was not aware he was the prosecutor at the Scopes trial.

 

Thanks again, Bill, for taking the time to respond. (thumbs u I appreciate it...Mike