Third Time's The Charm, Part III

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May 28, 2005

In the last article, we looked at William Jennings Bryan, the only three-time runner-up for the White House. His three races produced some interesting, colorful stories. Here are a few of them.

William Jennings Bryan was a powerful, eloquent speaker. His speeches combined emotional religious images and evangelical fervor. Because of his oratorical ability and his youth, he was often called "The Boy Orator of the Platte." This nickname led to one of the best-known lines of the campaign. Senator Joseph Foraker said that in Nebraska, where Bryan came from, the Platte River was "six inches deep and six miles wide at its mouth."

Republicans circulated coins making fun of Bryan and the pro-silver Democrats. One such dollar coin had a picture of Bryan and the words "IN GOD WE TRUST . . . FOR THE OTHER 47 CENTS."

William Jennings Bryan was a teetotaler, meaning he did not drink any form of alcohol. Even so, he sometimes turned up for speeches "smelling like a wrecked distillery." He handled laundry and bathing problems while campaigning by railroad train, which had no bathing facilities and little or no water, by "taking his clothes off between stops and rubbing himself with gin to get rid of the odor of perspiration."

The Democrats faced an unexpected problem with their campaign train when pickpockets began joining the Bryan's campaign party. Pickpockets would board his train as the day began, and then get off at each campaign stop, and spread out among the people gathered to hear Bryan speak. During his regular campaign speech, in order to point out that both metals were just as easily accepted, Bryan would ask all the people who had gold in their pockets to raise their hands. He would then ask those people with silver in their pockets to raise their hands. Then the pickpockets would go to work. Eventually, the Bryan campaign had to hire detectives to try to stop the pickpockets.

Republicans also used chants and songs to ridicule Bryan's 16-to-1 silver to gold coinage views. One by the "Wholesale Dry Goods Republicans" went:

Before Billy Bryan was thought of,
The taking of orders was fun;
Then a man would say, "Send sixteen,"
But now he says, "send only one."

At one campaign stop, a Democratic speaker stated confidently that Mrs. Bryan would be sleeping in the White House after next March 4. A Republican in the crowd yelled back, "If so, she'll be sleeping with McKinley."

After Bryan's third presidential defeat in 1908, Charles Thompson was riding a trolley car near Bryan's home and saw Bryan's young daughter Ruth running to catch the trolley. She just barely caught the trolley, and took the seat next to Thompson. After catching her breath, she turned to Thompson and said, "I seem to be the only member of the Bryan family that ever ran for anything and caught it." (Ruth Bryan Owen served in the U.S. House of Representatives for four years, and as U.S. Minister to Denmark for over three years. She also served as an alternate delegate to the United Nations.)