William Jennings' Bryan "Cross of Gold" -- A Speech for the Ordinary Worker?

Let's go back to the past and see what we can learn about the present day. On July 9, 1986, William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska gave his famous "Cross of Gold" speech. His thesis, which was to make coins out of both silver and gold, was silly. His opponents' idea, the gold standard, was equally silly. Neither Bryan's "free silver" crowd nor the "gold bugs" knew a thing about economics. But monetary standards became a stand-in for social policy, and Bryan's argument was eternal: he stood up for the ordinary American against big business interests. Here is a key, very eloquent passage:

"We say to you that you have made too limited in its application the definition of a businessman. The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go 1,000 feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who in a backroom corner the money of the world."

When conservatives say that economic policy should be pro-business, they always mean pro-big business. They give only lip service to small business or wage employees. Bryan's speech changed the conversation. Business success, to Bryan, meant success for everyone.

We still talk like this today. Congress' 2017 tax cut, which gave massive tax cuts to rich people and tiny, itty-bitty tax cuts for the rest of us, continues the tradition that angered Bryan (without the gold, of course, but with new anti-worker tricks): Congress' argument was that helping the rich would ultimately help us all.

But Bryan said that policy should help ordinary people, farmers, and small businesses, and the country would then flourish. Ending his speech, he angrily called out the gold standard's advocates:

"If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world."

"Producing masses!" His point was that workers actually make things, and that rich people - the "financial magnates" who "in a backroom corner the money of the world" - merely control them. Very polarizing, very powerful. Bryan ended melodramatically:

"Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands 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."

I talk about the "Cross of Gold" speech in Chapter 4 of my book From the Front Porch to the Front Page. The point in my book is that Bryan's speech was so polarizing that it was poorly adapted to the general election. Even today, people who speak for ordinary Americans are often perceived to be polarizing, are they not? And often enough, they speak in a polarizing way, do they not? So, how does that work out? Bryan ran for President of the United States three times, and lost every time. Yet many of his ideas ultimately became law. He favored votes for woman, which was a great idea, and Prohibition, which didn't work out so well. He favored a stronger central government, which we certainly have today.