The Mockingbird's Ballad

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That early fall, 1896, their mother's longtime interest in politics and women's suffrage took a more active part in her and their lives. She took them to Nashville to hear "The Boy Orator of the Platte", thirty-six-year-old congressman from Nebraska, William Jennings Bryan. Bryan, nominated a few months earlier for president by the Democrats, was the new giant-slayer designate for farmers, laborers and small business folk. He lived up to his calling and smote, chest and thigh, the moneyed, robber barons of monopolies, tight money, and high tariff and the high-faluting power broker's hired hands, the Republican Party. Lou had read much about Bryan and his lawyer wife, Mary. In 1896 at the age of 31, Bryan had entered Congress. Reelected in '94, by 1896 he had become a nationally recognized leader of the progressive liberal wing of the Democrats. His "Cross of Gold" speech at the convention created a truly spontaneous nomination. This powerful plea for economic justice and agrarian reform kicked off his run for the White House as the youngest candidate ever. The "Panic of '93" had wrecked the national economy with farmers, workers and small business people buried under the crumbled ruins. Times were bad, the worst in bustling growing America in over fifty years. Hundreds of thousands were jobless. Farm prices were rock bottom and costs were sky high. Conservative Democrat President Grover Cleveland followed the spendthrift conservative Republican Benjamin Harrison. Harrison and the GOP Congress had spent the US Treasury surplus accumulated by Cleveland in his first term, 1884 - 1888, and the vaults were dry. Cleveland was left with the mess. He couldn't get the GOP congress to pass the needed legislation that might have overcome it and restore the economy. Bryan had mounted a crusade more than a campaign to reform the excesses of the moneyed barons who manipulated the national economy with the able assistance of Congress for the profit of the few. "Free-Silver" was the battle cry of those who wanted to increase and make credit easier in the national economy. Gold and silver as available money along with regulating the few huge business trusts, monopolies, and lower tariff costs were the foundation planks of Bryan's platform.

The "Gold Bugs" nominated the high tariff Ohio governor, former congressman, William McKinley to continue the conservative, reactionary policies of big business and keep the big mules in power. It was city versus country, big business versus small business and labor, and the wealthy versus everybody else; northeast versus the rest of the USA and the status quo versus change. Bryan's campaign would be comprised of more than 600 speeches and 18,000 miles traveled across 27 states during the three month campaign. He became the first presidential candidate to actively campaign nation-wide on the behalf of his aspirations, ideas and principles. McKinley stayed home in Ohio and spoke from his 'front porch'. When the votes were counted, McKinley edged Bryan by 600,000 votes. Bryan would receive more votes losing than Cleveland had received winning in 1892. The McKinley crowd, financed by big business, out-spent the Democratic effort 10 to 1. A slight shift of less than a few thousand votes in six states would have elected Bryan.