“‘Let the people rule’ is a slogan for which our people can afford to stand—those who advocate this doctrine are traveling toward the dawn.” So wrote William Jennings Bryan in January, 1918.¹ This was one of the central ideas of the Great Commoner which he stressed not only during the “war to make the world safe for democracy” but again and again throughout his adult life. “As I understand democracy,” he stated many years earlier, “it means the rule of the people—a democracy that is founded upon the doctrine of human brotherhood—a democracy that exists for one purpose, and that the defense of human rights.”² It would be extremely difficult to select from his political career, 1890 to his death in 1925, a concept which he emphasized more than this.

In this light it is surprising and ironical to discover a contradiction in his life that certainly did not square with his much-vaunted talk about democracy and rule by the people. This was Bryan's attitude toward race relations. There is a further paradox and contradiction in his attitude in that he was not a consistent racist. In some respects, as the following pages will indicate, he was generous and broad-minded; and in others, especially as regards the Negroes, his attitude was acceptable to the strict segregationist. This phase of Bryan's social ideas has been touched on very little by his biographers and other writers, and the purpose in this paper is to explore the Commoner's attitudes on race, particularly Negro-white relations.

Bryan of course was not unique in his failure to square his racial ideas with the contemporary emphasis on democracy and rule by the people. Many of his fellow-progressives shared the contradiction. In fact, one of the ironies of American history is that at the same time that progressivism was reaching its height—the second decade of the twentieth century—Negro rights, in terms of the expectations of the Civil War and reconstruction period, were reaching a new low. At the same time that new legislation and new amendments to the constitution were reforming our society and making our government more responsible to the will of the people (at least the white people), other developments were occurring which eroded the rights of colored people and made much less meaningful the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution. In these respects, Bryan was simply one of the crowd.

Bryan, though not a Populist, was closely connected with the Populist movement and received its support. It is not the intention of the present writer to go into the current controversy as to whether, and to what extent, the Populists were anti-Semitic, except to say that he is inclined to agree with Norman Pollock, C. Vann Woodward, Walter T. K. Nugent, Robert F. Durden, and others, who say that such critics as Richard Hofstadter and Oscar Handlin have overstated their case that the Populists and quasi-populists were anti-Semitic.³ The papers of William Jennings Bryan also indicate an absence of anti-Semitism either on his part or on the part of those corresponding with him. Since he was supported by the Populists, particularly in 1896, this absence of evidence of anti-Semitism is significant. One letter from a Jewish merchant to Bryan supports this point: “Though your idea on the money question is against the policy of my correligion [sic] brothers Rothschilds [sic] the Bankers, I assure you that it gives the greatest pleasure to think only that I have an opportunity to use my influence and give you my support through my maiden ballot. …” The writer added that free silver in itself could not be taken as presumptive evidence of anti-Semitism, “for a cause like the one you stand for … is to deliver our people from the enslavers of the gold bondage.”⁴ There is additional evidence to indicate that Bryan was not anti-Semitic. During the campaign of 1896 he received from the Hebrew Democrats of Chicago a beautiful badge, “one of the handsomest received during the campaign.” Candidate Bryan expressed his appreciation for the kindly feeling which prompted the presentation and added: “Our opponents have sometimes tried to make it appear that we were attacking a race when we denounced the financial policy advocated by the Rothschilds. But we are not; we are as much opposed to the financial policy of J. Pierpont Morgan as we are to the financial policy of the Rothschilds. We are not attacking a race; we are attacking greed and avarice, which know neither race nor religion. I do not know of any class of our people who, by reason of their history, can better sympathize with the struggling masses in this campaign than can the Hebrew race.”⁵ Later, while secretary of state, Bryan indicated sympathy with the Zionist movement and offered whatever support he could give.⁶

When in 1920 Henry Ford, on the basis of the alleged Protocols of Zion, caused a furor throughout the country by recklessly charging that the Jews were planning world domination, Bryan scathingly denounced the Protocols. “It is astonishing,” he wrote, “that anyone would build upon an anonymous publication an indictment against one of the greatest races in history.” The plot was so diabolical in character, he thought, that this libel against the Jews, “while irritating, cannot do any permanent harm; it will soon be forgotten.”⁷ In the same article Bryan took occasion to mention the fact that he had many Jewish acquaintances and friends, included among whom were Supreme Court Justice Brandeis, “the great lawyer,” Samuel Untermeyer, “the eminent jurist,” Nathan Straus, “the world famed philanthropist,” his brother Oscar Straus, “equally distinguished as a diplomat and peace advocate,” Rabbi Stephen Wise, “fearless preacher of righteousness,” Julius Rosenwald, Ambassador Morgenthau, Otto and Julius Kahn and Bernard Baruch.⁸ Quite a number of letters, from Jews and gentiles, are in the Bryan papers in the Library of Congress which express appreciation for his denunciation of these Protocols.⁹ On another occasion after addressing the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Miami, his home city, Bryan was given high praise by the group. The secretary of the organization wrote that the country was fortunate in having men like him who “stand fearless and unafraid before the public as an advocate of Universal Brotherhood of Man and as the champion of toleration towards all people and all creeds.”¹⁰ When asked in 1923 what he thought of Henry Ford as a possible candidate for the presidency he wrote one of the auto magnate's supporters: “I do not like his attacks upon the Jews. It does not indicate the breadth of view that we need in those who are to speak for the entire country.”¹¹ Even in Bryan's fight against evolution he stressed the point that it was neither racial nor denominational. Whether one is Jew or gentile, Catholic or Protestant, he said, one must defend belief in God against the attacks of materialistic, atheistic evolutionists, or theistic evolutionists “who put God so far away as to weaken, if not destroy his influence upon life.”¹² In connection with the Scopes trial at Dayton, Tennessee, in July, 1925, Bryan's last battle, he raised the question whether it would not be good strategy to have both a Jewish and Catholic representative on the list of counsel for the state. As the Jewish representative he suggested the well-known lawyer, Samuel Untermeyer, who “has been my personal and political friend for twenty years.”¹³ A few days before his death, he wrote he was delighted “to have lived long enough to see an issue upon which all believers in revealed religion—that means all Christians, Protestant and Catholic, and all Jews as well—can unite, for the fight is against the Bible—both the old [sic] Testament and the New. …”¹⁴

These indications of the Commoner's lack of anti-Semitism, particularly those involving his later years, have considerable significance in view of the efforts of some writers to connect him with the Ku Klux Klan activity of the 1920's.

As regards Orientals, Bryan was somewhat ambivalent. His personal attitude toward them was friendly, courteous and sympathetic, but in the matter of immigration to this country, he, like many others, was in favor of restriction. This ambivalence and generosity are somewhat symbolized by the following amusing but true story. One day in 1898, a Japanese boy, suitcase in hand, appeared at the Bryan home in Lincoln and asked to be taken in. Two years before he had written Bryan saying that he would like to join the family and be educated by him. The Commoner wrote immediately that he had three children of his own to educate and that he could not take on the additional responsibility. Some time later another letter appeared from the boy, announcing that he had reached San Francisco and was on his way to Lincoln. This time Bryan wrote to a friend in San Francisco, one of the national Democratic Committeemen, explaining what had happened and urging him to make it clear to the boy that he could not educate him. The next news of the ambitious Japanese lad was his appearance at the Bryan home. The least the family could do was to take the boy in “for the night” and explain the matter to him. The upshot was that Yamashita made his home for five and a half years with the Bryans and attended the public schools, and the state university before returning to his home country in 1903. This experience increased the Nebraskan's interest in the Oriental peoples and helped open avenues of friendly intercourse and contacts in Japan in 1905 when the Bryans made their round-the-world tour.¹⁵

Bryan's reports of this visit to the Orient during the tour also breathe a polite, friendly interest,¹⁶ but this interest was not extended to inviting immigration from that area. The United States policy of exclusion, then in effect with regard to the Chinese, and later to be put into effect against others, met with the Commoner's solid support. The Democratic platform of 1900, which was largely Bryan's creation, favored the “continuance and strict enforcement of the Chinese exclusion law, and its application to the same classes of all Asiatic races.” The same document proclaimed that the Filipinos could not become United States citizens “without endangering our civilization.”¹⁷ The platform of 1908, also largely a Bryan product, opposed the admission of Asiatic immigrants “who cannot be amalgamated with our population, or whose presence among us would raise a race issue and involve us in diplomatic controversies with Oriental powers.”¹⁸ The same words, which Bryan praised in The Commoner, were to be found in the Nebraska Democratic platform of 1907, a fact which indicates the common origin of the two planks.¹⁹ The commonly used argument that the exclusion of Oriental workers was necessary to protect American labor was also stressed by Bryan, but the objection was more broadly based and was usually tied to the problem of race and “demoralization to our social ideas.” In defending Chinese exclusion in 1901, he wrote that “Race prejudice is a social factor which must always be recognized and reckoned with. The presence here of a race permanently separated from us by color, dress customs and habits of thought, is a thing to be deplored.” Chinese and Japanese, he said, could not amalgamate with Americans, and we should not have groups “separated from us by distinct color and race lines.”²⁰ In an article on “The Yellow Peril” he said that exclusion should be extended to the Japanese if they did not voluntarily limit emigration, and he added that the immigration of Filipinos “involves the same menace to our country.”²¹

The Commoner's visit to the Orient confirmed his views on exclusion. No American could become acquainted with the Chinese coolie, he said, without recognizing the impossibility of opening our doors to him. And nearly all the reasons for exclusion of the coolie, he added, applied also to the skilled laborers. He concluded that one race problem (the Negro) was enough and that it would be neither kindness to China nor fairness to our people “to invite an immigration of such a character as to menace our own producers of wealth, endanger our social system and disturb the cordial friendship and good will between America and China.”²² The Commoner was conscious of the arguments of those who said that exclusion was a denial of the ideal of human brotherhood. But, he explained, there was no more reason why in the name of brotherhood you had to admit all people into your country than there was for having to admit all people into your family. A nation is a family, he added, and it can serve better if it remains a homogeneous people.²³

This did not mean, of course, that the Commoner was opposed to such temporary Oriental immigration as business men, tourists, and especially, students. This last group, he thought, ought to be given a special welcome, and we ought to go out of our way to invite them. There was no better way of influencing other countries for good than through their young men and women who, after studying in this country and gathering new ideas, would return to their homelands as our ambassadors of good will. He believed this so strongly that he thought we could well afford to spend less on warships “to protect us from imaginary foes” and more on education of foreign youth which would “lessen the probability of war.” He was, of course, delighted with the fact that part of the Boxer indemnity was returned to China to be used as a fund for educating young Chinese in the United States.²⁴

While secretary of state in Woodrow Wilson's first administration, Bryan faced a difficult Oriental racial problem when the California legislature was determined to pass legislation prohibiting the ownership of land by those ineligible to citizenship. The secretary of state was in a dilemna for several reasons. He, like Wilson, favored state rights and felt that the federal government could do little more than encourage the California legislature to modify the language of the bill in such a way that our treaties with Japan would not be infringed upon and Japanese susceptibilities would be considered. In an earlier controversy when San Francisco attempted to segregate Oriental school children, and when President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to use federal force to compel respect for the treaty rights of Japanese in the United States, Bryan defended the right of California to control its local affairs. Furthermore, as already seen, he was opposed to Oriental immigration on racial grounds. So here again his ambivalence was in evidence. Even though he was sent to California by Wilson to try to settle what had developed into a serious international dispute, and even though he tried hard to get Governor Hiram Johnson and the legislature to modify the proposed legislation, he was not in a position to threaten the state with the use of force to uphold the federal side of the argument.²⁵

Some years later Bryan was asked his opinion of the immigration law of 1924 as it affected the Asiatics, particularly the Japanese. He replied that the exclusion of Asiatics was decided upon a number of years ago. With regard to the Japanese the exclusion was affected by the Gentlemen's Agreement to which Japan agreed. While not sufficiently informed as to the facts to say whether the recent legislation was justified, he was, he continued, “disposed to think that the Gentleman's Agreement as it stood or as it might have been modified would have been sufficient.”²⁶

In discussing Bryan and racism one cannot ignore his relationship with the Ku Klux Klan. Here too there was some ambivalence, and it is not easy to say precisely what the relationship was. The fact that upon the death of the Commoner a number of local Klan organizations held memorial services and burned crosses in his honor adds to the confusion rather than dissipates it. At Dayton, Tennessee, for instance, robed Klansmen from the area held such a service and at its close a large cross was lighted bearing this inscription: “In memory of William Jennings Bryan, the greatest klansman of our time, this cross is burned; he stood at Armageddon and battled for the Lord.” Similar Klan services were held and tributes offered in other parts of the country.²⁷

Though called the “greatest klansman of our time,” this does not necessarily prove that he was ever a member. In fact, he had very little to do with the Klan and, as already indicated, was not in sympathy with its program of racial and religious intolerance toward Jews and Roman Catholics.²⁸ In the closing days of the campaign of 1896 he felt it necessary to deny the charge that he was a member of the American Protective Association “or of any other society hostile to any church, religion or race.” He believed, he said, that no religious test should be applied in the holding of public office.²⁹ This seems to have been his attitude throughout his career. In 1920, for instance, a list of Democratic candidates for president made up by him, any of which he said he could support, included, among others, Jews and Catholics.³⁰ Though probably never a member, and opposed to much of its program, Bryan nevertheless did not take the forthright position against the Klan that many thought he should have when the organization became an issue again in the 1920's. Especially was this true of the Democratic convention of 1924 in New York where the issue of condemning the Klan by name became a heated one. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, for example, referring to Bryan as “unequivocally silent,” thought that the Klan could have been stifled at the convention had he been “true to his mettle and not metal.”³¹ A year before the campaign, the associate editor of the national Catholic weekly, Our Sunday Visitor, appealed to the Commoner to raise his voice against the increasing Klan activity and harassment. He added that next year (1924), with Alfred E. Smith, the “Rum and Rome” candidate³² running for the presidential nomination, the situation would get worse.³³ Even earlier (December, 1922) another Catholic friend, Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana, expressed concern about the impact of the Klan on the coming election. In reply Bryan explained at some length his attitude toward the organization. He agreed with Walsh that the Klan would “likely have some influence on the next election,” and then added:

I am satisfied that the organization will be temporary as similar organizations have been, but it will disturb politics for a while as the A.P.A. did many years ago. This organization combines about all the race prejudices we have in this country. … It is unfortunate that we should have any organization built upon prejudice against any group, and superlatively unfortunate to have an organization built upon all the prejudice combined.

The question is how to deal with the situation. I have never been converted to the doctrine of fighting the devil with fire and I do not believe that an appeal to prejudice will prove effective in fighting this organization. Prejudice is a factor that has to be reckoned with and it implies ignorance on the part of those prejudiced. The only remedy for ignorance is enlightenment and I am sure that enlightenment will prove a remedy in this case.

Bryan optimistically concluded that the tendency of such secret organizations to be used for redressing of private or personal grievances and for pecuniary advantage was irresistible and “therefore offers assurance of the overthrow of the organization.”³⁴

A similar attitude seemed to motivate Bryan in the 1924 Democratic convention. On the issue as to whether intolerant organizations like the Klan should be condemned specifically by name, he opposed such a move on the ground that it was unnecessary. The Catholic church, he said, which for many centuries was the only custodian of the Christian religion, and with its legacy of martyred blood and with the witness of all its missionaries who went everywhere, did not need the protection of a great party. Nor did the Jews need it. They had Moses and Elijah. “They have Elisha, who was able to draw back the curtain and show upon the mountain tops an invisible host greater than a thousand Ku Klux Klans. … It is not necessary and the Ku Klux Klan does not deserve the advertisement that you give it.” The Commoner thought the Klan was nearly dead and gone and that there were bigger issues demanding attention. He wanted harmony, not discord; and the Democratic party, he concluded, never has been and should not be on the side of any one church.³⁵ In the ensuing campaign, when the Democratic nominee took a strong position against the organization, Bryan said, “I am with him in what he said about the Klan.”³⁶

With regard to the North American Indians, Bryan thought they had the ability and the desire to “rise as high as any other race” and that they should be allowed to do so.³⁷

It was noted above that the Commoner was not in sympathy with the intolerance manifested by the Ku Klux Klan toward the Jews and Catholics. His attitude toward Negro race relations, however, was much less generous and was quite inconsistent with his emphasis on democracy, equality, and rule by the people. In this regard his position was acceptable to the ardent segregationist. In 1923 he stated that his views on the race question had not changed as a result of his living in the South during the later years of his life. They were formed, he added, long before he ever thought of moving to that section.³⁸ This seems to have been the case; for with regard to race relations, Bryan had said essentially the same things at the turn of the century that he was saying in the 1920's. There is available in his papers, in the press, and especially in his own paper, The Commoner, sufficient material to indicate quite clearly his position on white-Negro relations. In 1901, for instance, there appeared in The Commoner a long editorial on “The Negro Question.” The occasion for the editorial was the recent invitation of President Theodore Roosevelt to Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House, which, said Bryan, “was unfortunate, to say the least. It will give depth and acrimony to a race feeling already strained to the uttermost.”³⁹ He went on to say that there were four phases of the race question as regards our Negro population: legal rights, educational opportunities, political privileges, and social status. As to the first, legal rights, there could be no question, said Bryan. As citizens Negroes had the same rights under the federal and state constitutions as the whites. Then, as was so often the case, Bryan felt called upon to defend his position on imperialism and attack the Republican argument that the colored man in the South and the brown man in the Philippines were being similarly treated. In defending southern policy, the Commoner spoke more about the theoretical position of the colored than about their realistic, practical position. In none of the southern states, he unrealistically and naively argued, “has an attempt been made to take from the negro the guarantees enumerated in our constitution and the bill of rights.” But “the Filipino in the orient and the Porto Rican in the West Indies are denied the protection of the constitution.” These people are “subjects and suffer the common lot of those who live under arbitrary power.”⁴⁰

In the matter of education of the Negroes, Bryan said they were “entitled to all the opportunities offered to the white man,” but he did not seem to be very critical of the South for the fact that the blacks did not in practice have the same opportunities. He took the broad theoretical position, however, that the Negro “must be educated; no community can afford to permit any portion of its population to remain ignorant or to become imbruted. The whites, for their own welfare as well as for the good of negroes, must see to it that the free school is open to every child, white and black.” The colored people, Bryan continued, have already made great educational progress, largely through the help of the southern white people, while partisan Republicans “have been inciting the negro to oppose everything advocated by the southern whites.”⁴¹ Bryan apparently was disturbed in 1905 when Virginia proposed to put into her new constitution a section which would have apportioned funds to the education of the colored in proportion to tax money received from them, and the Nebraskan denounced the plan. In every state public education is financed by general taxation, and no where do people pay according to benefits received. To disfranchise the Negro by an educational qualification, he added, and then deny him the means of securing an education is a serious matter.⁴²

On the political rights of the Negroes, which had been the subject of much discussion for several decades, Bryan said it was the Republicans who extended the franchise to the Negroes, but, he continued, “during the past few years that party has shown less and less interest in the political status of the colored man.” Qualifications for the franchise, including educational, were prescribed in some southern states with a view of securing and maintaining white supremacy which Bryan defended as “absolutely essential to the welfare of the south.” Reflecting the prevailing opinions of his day about the evils of carpet-bag governments in the reconstruction period, he used the current cliches about the South not wanting a repetition of the “legislative robbery” and the “excesses of the black legislatures” of that period.⁴³ He thought universal suffrage was the ideal and regretted that even educational qualifications were ever necessary, but pointed out that they were imposed upon white men in some northern states even before they were found necessary in the South. These qualifications, he held, did not conflict, as some have said, with those principles of equality mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and the endowment of inalienable rights, nor with the principle that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. They could be defended, he continued, on the ground that “when races of different degrees of civilization are thrown together and must necessarily live together under the same government—when, in other words, it is simply a question as to which race shall exert a controlling influence—then the more advanced race has always exercised the right to impose conditions upon those less advanced.” He even conceded that every race was capable of self-government, but “a race may not be capable of sharing upon equal terms in the control of a government whose blessings are enjoyed by, and whose burdens are imposed upon, several races differing in their advancement.” Though one race should not invade the territory of another and force upon it an alien government and the evils of a colonial system, yet when two races are compelled to live together “the more advanced race never has consented, and probably never will consent, to be dominated by the less advanced.”⁴⁴

Suffrage qualifications raise a different question from colonialism, Bryan added. The former are temporary. That is, those who cannot vote today “may qualify … to vote tomorrow; the condition is not hopeless. Under the colonial system, however, the disqualification is permanent. There are no means provided whereby the subject may become a citizen.” The Commoner then resorted to a specious argument which he usually used when defending the so-called difference between the situation in the South and conditions under colonialism: Negroes in the South live under laws made by the voters for themselves whereas the people under a colonial government are bound by laws which they not only do not make but which are not binding even on the law-makers. These differences were very important, he thought, and were “the foundation of all crimes committed by empires against their subjects.”⁴⁵

The last point, the social phase of the Negro question, had been seldom discussed, Bryan wrote, because no one had ever advocated social equality between the two races. The editor quoted at some length statements from Abraham Lincoln to the effect that the latter did not believe in the political and social equality of the white and black races, and that physical differences between the two would probably forever prevent them from living together on the basis of exact equality. Since there was this difference, Lincoln was in favor of his race having the superior position. So, said Bryan, President Roosevelt would not find in the life or words of Lincoln anything to justify advocating social equality between the races, if that is what the president had in mind by inviting Booker T. Washington to the White House dinner.

While condemning Roosevelt for inviting Washington, Bryan then, inconsistently, went on to argue that man “chooses his society for himself. It is as much a matter of taste as the selection of a husband or a wife. It is no cause for offense to any man that you prefer to associate with someone else; it depends upon your character and virtues whether the preference is a compliment to or reflection upon him, but in either case you have a right to choose congenial companions and in doing so you are not only within your rights, but you are doing what every one does.” Social lines, the Commoner continued, are no more inconsistent with the principle of universal brotherhood than are family or national ties. Social equality should be opposed on the ground that amalgamation of the races is not desirable, and is not the solution of the race problem. But amalgamation would be the “logical result of social equality.” The two races should work out their own problems, and there can be helpfulness and cooperation without intermarriage. Also the advocacy of social equality would tend to throw the two races “into greater antagonism and conflict rather than to bring them together.” Washington's work would be greatly impaired, continued the editorial, if his object was to “initiate the members of his race into the social circles of the whites.” The race problem is here and nothing is to be gained by ignoring race prejudice. It is “wiser to recognize it and to make our plans conform to it.” Bryan concluded that the recent occurrence at the White House would not make the solution of the problem any easier.⁴⁶

Bryan did not take this position because of any hostile feeling toward Booker T. Washington. As a matter of fact he had a high regard for him and for the compromising paternalistic pattern of race relations which in general Washington was emphasizing. Bryan made financial contributions to Washington's work at Tuskegee, praised his work on various occasions, and characterized him as “the most conspicuous living member of his race.”⁴⁷

Bryan was quick to defend southern Democrats against Republican charges of violating the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, and noted with approval any Republican tendency toward “lily-white” attitudes. He seemed happy to report the action of Alabama and North Carolina Republicans who, after the turn of the century, approved constitutional and party restrictions on Negro political activity. “… even that staid old republican newspaper, the Kansas City Journal,” wrote Bryan, “declares that it is the part of wisdom for other southern republicans to follow the example of those of Alabama and North Carolina. The Journal says that these republicans can never hope to win except as a white man's party.”⁴⁸ Furthermore, the Commoner continued to turn Republican criticism against Democratic action toward Negroes right around and use it as an argument against Republican practice toward the Filipinos. He argued in fact that the suffrage qualifications in the South were “not nearly so severe as the republican colonial policy in the Philippines.”⁴⁹

Such statements did not go unchallenged by the Republicans. The Chicago Inter-Ocean, for example, said his remarks about conditions in the Philippines were false and, as to the South, added that he should have been more forthright in pointing out the unfairness of the application of the laws in practise.⁵⁰

Bryan was also critical of some of Theodore Roosevelt's appointments of Negroes to office and again took the southern white's point of view. Roosevelt defended his appointment of qualified Negroes to office on the same basis as whites. He said he could not close the door of hope merely because of color and added that Negroes should be encouraged by appointing some qualified members of the race. But, said the Commoner, Roosevelt was side-stepping the issue. Why did he not make these appointments in the North where they would cause less racial agitation and antagonism? By making these appointments in the South the president contributed “more than his share to the agitation.” When he appointed a colored man to office he did it “with a flourish of trumpets and a brass band accompaniment that the world might know that the ‘door’ was wide open. When a colored postmistress was objected to he refused to allow her to resign and closed the office. … This did more to excite race prejudice than any ten colored appointments that President McKinley made.” Bryan thought a good character was more important “and more permanent” than a postoffice, and he over-simplified the problem by declaring that nothing would “do more to kill race prejudice than the building up of character.” Harking back to the Booker T. Washington dinner at the White House, he seemed to fear that Roosevelt had raised the question of social equality and then was following it up by efforts to secure that equality. He also attributed part of the President's motivation to politics and the need for the votes of colored delegates at the next Republican convention.⁵¹

With regard to the lynching of Negroes, one of the increasingly ugly phases of the race problem during the Progressive Era, Bryan, of course, had nothing but words of condemnation. But he had a tendency to try to “explain” southern white action on this point. Republicans, he said, ought to be more concerned about the causes of lynching, “the hideous offenses which have led the white people in the south to execute summary vengeance.” They ought also, he added, to be more concerned about lynching in the North. When President Theodore Roosevelt commended Governor Durbin of Indiana for taking strong action in a lynching case, the Commoner praised the president and also commended him “for having coupled a denunciation of rape with a denunciation of lynching.”⁵² In another article in which he called attention to the murder of a Negro at the hands of a mob in Illinois, he even stated that the growth of lynching might be due in part to the practice of Republicans making Negro appointments to office over the protests of whites.⁵³

When at the conclusion of an address at Cooper Union in 1908 Bryan was asked whether the policy of disfranchising the Negro was in accord with the spirit of brotherhood, he hedged by saying the question was much too large to be discussed in so brief a period. He then resorted to his usual arguments to show how the colored man of the South lived under laws made for him and the white man and was therefore better off than the Filipino; how the franchise qualifications were temporary and could in time be met; and how the Republicans in the North would have done the same if conditions had been such as to threaten white supremacy.⁵⁴ Though critical of what he characterized as Republican pretenses, Bryan did commend President Taft for his more cautious southern policy. He praised particularly Taft's innaugural statement in which the president doubted whether the appointment of a Negro to office “in a community in which race feeling is so widespread and acute as to interfere with the ease and facility with which the … government business can be done by the appointee is of sufficient benefit by way of encouragement to the race to outweigh the … increase of race feeling which such an appointment is likely to engender.” In such appointments, therefore, continued Taft, the executive must be careful not to do the race more harm than good. Bryan thought Taft would be “universally commended” for this position.⁵⁵

In 1913, the fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Bryan, as secretary of state, became associated with the administration of Woodrow Wilson. This was the period when the Progressive Movement reached new heights. Paradoxically, it was also the period when tre fortunes of the Negro reached their lowest level since the days of reconstruction. Led by Wilson as candidate to believe that they could count upon him “for absolute fair dealing and for everything by which I could assist in advancing the interests of their race,” the colored people supported him in larger numbers than any Democratic candidate to that time. Great was their disappointment, therefore, when they discovered that this administration not only appointed a smaller number of Negroes to office but actually introduced, or at least greatly enlarged, the practice of segregation both among government workers, and in the District of Columbia.⁵⁶

The present writer has discovered no evidence that Secretary of State Bryan opposed this trend. In view of his attitudes as discussed above, he could hardly have been expected to dissent. Also the great pressure brought upon the Secretary by the party faithful to find jobs for “deserving Democrats” probably constituted additional motivation for not opposing the policy of appointing fewer Negroes.⁵⁷ In fact, on at least one important occasion, Wilson wanted to appoint a colored person as Minister to the Negro Republic of Haiti, but Bryan advised against it. As some pointed out, the stock, southern objections to Negro appointments could not be made here because the Haitians were colored, and the bogy of social equality could not be raised. But the Secretary had other reasons for opposing it: all the European countries had white men there and the United States “would be at a disadvantage if we sent a colored representative;” the Germans were trying to increase their trade there and their minister was very influential; Haiti would assume increased importance with the opening of the Panama Canal, and Bryan thought that “we ought to yield whatever political advantage which might come from appointing a colored man in order that our position there be as well fortified as possible.”⁵⁸

In 1914 President Wilson accepted for the national government a Confederate monument at Arlington during which ceremonies he stated that this chapter in United States history was now closed. The moving occasion, in which both Union and Confederate veterans participated, prompted Bryan to write for The Commoner an article entitled, “Sectionalism is Dead.” This was a day, he said, marking an old era closed and a new one begun.⁵⁹ This was a sentiment, however, in which ten million Negro Americans could not share; for this “road to reunion” was at their expense. But Bryan, like most whites, did not see this at the time and his views on race relations seemed to have increasing acceptance, North as well as South.

Not until the 1920's, so far as the available evidence goes, was the Commoner again significantly involved in racial discussion. When an anti-lynching bill was before Congress in 1922, he thought its passage would be a “grave mistake” “which the North would regret as much as the South.”⁶⁰ In 1923 he gave an address to the Southern Society in Washington, D. C. which had enough repercussions to indicate that the race issue was still not fully interred. Invited by the New York Times to write an article on the race question from the viewpoint of his ten years as a resident of the South, he amplified and attempted to clarify his remarks before the Southern Society. Actually, little that was new was added to his arguments of some twenty years before, except that they were perhaps still more baldly and dogmatically stated. To summarize, his chief arguments were as follows: 1. Suffrage qualifications do not violate the Declaration of Independence but rest upon the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, “which includes the right to preserve civilization and progress. …” 2. Where two races are forced to live together, the more advanced race “will always control as a matter of self-preservation not only for the benefit of the advanced race, but for the benefit of the backward race also.” Negroes have made great progress when associated with the whites. “Slavery among the whites was an improvement over independence in Africa. The very progress that the blacks have made, when—and only when—brought into contact with the whites, ought to be a sufficient argument in support of white supremacy …” “Any one who will look at the subject without prejudice will know that white supremacy promotes the highest welfare of both races.” 3. Northern states would do exactly as the southern states have done if they were confronted by the same conditions. “There is not a State in the Union in which the whites would permit black supremacy.” 4. When Republicans move to the South they at once adopt the southern point of view on Negro race relations. The fact that the North does not send Negroes to Congress “is conclusive proof either that the blacks are inferior or that race prejudice keeps them in the background.” 5. Republican inconsistency is shown by the fact that they govern the Filipinos by laws which they make for the Filipinos, but under which they would not be willing to live themselves. The Filipinos have less protection than the Negroes because the latter live under laws made by the whites for themselves and the colored. 6. The Republicans, insincere and hypocritical, agitate race prejudice for the sake of political gain and “are the prime cause of race antagonism.” 7. The restrictions on Negro suffrage are based upon necessity (white supremacy) and not upon prejudice. “Where the percentage of blacks is small … there will be no restriction of franchise based upon color; neither will there be segregation in school or upon the railroad trains.”⁶¹

The address before the Southern Society and the article in the New York Times attracted wide attention. Southern whites, of course, received it favorably and saw to it that the article was given further circulation by publication in some of their papers.⁶² By the same token, Negroes took a dim view of the matter, and at least a few let Bryan know how they felt about it. William L. Reed from Massachusetts took strong exception to the Commoner's speech and article, especially the statement that Massachusetts would do the same as Virginia and South Carolina if and when confronted by the same circumstances. Reed pointed out that he had been twice elected a member of the state legislature in a district that was white ten to one. He then asked Bryan whether he could point to similar tolerance anywhere in the South. Nor was Reed impressed by the Commoner's argument that the North did not send Negroes to Congress. Neither did it send Bryan there, he added. Reed's most telling accusation was that Bryan emphasized the inferiority of the race but avoided the cause. After emancipation, Reed continued, the South refused to educate the Negro, shut him off from every helpful influence, and then showed him up as inferior and depraved.⁶³

One interesting, if not significant coincidence, was the fact that just a few months after his widely publicized speech and article on Negro race relations, Bryan lost out in a very close contest for election as moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly. According to his own investigation and calculation, he discovered that the vote of the colored delegates, who held the balance of power, defeated him for the position. Somewhat bitterly he remarked that the “black vote” ought to be congratulated and shown “how it saved the Presbyterian Church from having a conservative Moderator.”⁶⁴ Was it a mere coincidence that the great majority of the Negro delegates voted against Bryan?

A proper question to raise in conclusion is: In view of the Commoner's great emphasis on the common people, democracy, and rule by the people, why did he take the stance he did on white-Negro relations? It is true that many others, perhaps most whites, north and south, took a somewhat similar position in the progressive period. Not even northern historians, under the influence of Dunning, Burgess, Rhodes and others, were, on the whole, indignantly opposing this position. But since Bryan was an outstanding reform leader, in many cases being far ahead of the majority and one who had a sensitive social conscience, why did he lag behind in this reform? We can probably accept as true his explanation in 1923 that his residence in the South in his later years did not determine his attitude—that his views were formed long before he ever thought of living in the South.⁶⁵ But even while living in the North much of his support came from the South, and it is still a relevant question as to how much, if any, this fact influenced the Great Commoner. Possibly very little, for he was known as one to follow what he considered right regardless of the consequences. In any case, the present writer, much as he believes, as pointed out elsewhere,⁶⁶ that until recently historians have not done justice to Bryan, is of the opinion that the Commoner's views on white-Negro relations constituted one of the weakest points in his armor.

Notes

1. The Commoner, January, 1918, p. 1.

2. Stated in speech at Jacksonville, Florida, Feb. 16, 1904, Ibid., March 11, 1904, pp. 1 ff.

3. The literature on this controversy has become quite voluminous. As an introduction, see Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F. D. R. (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1955); Norman Pollock, “The Myth of Populist Anti-Semitism,” The American Historical Review, LXXVIII (October, 1962), 76-80; Walter T. K. Nugent, The Tolerant Populists Kansas Populism and Nativism (The University of Chicago Press, c. 1963). Robert F. Durden, in his recently published work, The Climax of Populism: The Election of 1896 (University of Kentucky Press, c. 1965), says: “Likewise the charge of anti-Semitism that various writers have recently leveled against the Populists is one for which absolutely no evidence can be found in the private letters that poured into [Marion] Butler's office from Populists in virtually every state of the union.” p. 151. Butler, whose papers Durden used extensively, was a leading Populist from North Carolina and national chairman of the party.

4. Meyer Kamen to Bryan, Oct. 30, 1896, Bryan Papers, Library of Congress, quoted in Norman Pollock, op. cit., pp. 76-77.

5. William J. Bryan, The First Battle A Story of the Campaign of 1896 (W. B. Conkey Co., Chicago, c. 1896), pp. 580-1.

6. New York Times, June 25, 1913, p. 3.

7. The Commoner, December, 1920, p. 2; New York Times, Dec. 14, 1920, p. 16.

8. Ibid. The same statement is in Bryan Papers, Box 34, Library of Congress. See also The Commoner, March, 1922, p. 1 for another tribute of Bryan to his friend, Samuel Untermeyer.

9. See, for example, the following from Jewish friends: Oscar S. Strauss to Bryan, Dec. 15, 1920, Box 33, Bryan Papers, Library of Congress; Julius Kahn to Bryan, Dec. 10, 1920, ibid.; Isidor Cohen to Bryan, Dec. 10, 1920, ibid. Unless stated otherwise it will be understood that the Bryan Papers referred to in this paper are those located in the Library of Congress.

10. Dr. G. J. Rosenthal to Bryan, March 29, 1921, ibid.

11. Quoted in Lawrence W. Levine, Defender of the Faith William Jennings Bryan: The Last Decade 1915-1925 (Oxford University Press, N. Y., 1965), p. 300.

12. The Commoner, June, 1922, p. 2.

13. Bryan to S. K. Hicks, June 10, 1925, Bryan Papers. Untermeyer could not serve, however, since he had planned to be in Europe during that time, but he did send some suggestions to Bryan which he thought might be helpful to the prosecution. Untermeyer to Bryan, June 25, 1925, ibid.

14. Bryan to Col. P. H. Callahan, July 17, 1925, Box 47, ibid.

15. William Jennings Bryan and Mary Baird Bryan, The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan (The John C. Winston Company, Philadelphia, c. 1925), p. 282. See also William Jennings Bryan, Jr., “My Japanese Brother,” The Reader's Digest, LXVI (June, 1955), 17-21. This is a moving story of a devoted and lasting friendship.

16. These reports were published in The Commoner in 1906 and then in book form: The Old World and Its Ways (The Thompson Publishing Company, St. Louis, 1907).

17. Kirk H. Porter and Donald Bruce Johnson, National Party Platforms 1840-1956 (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1956), pp. 113, 115.

18. Ibid., p. 150.

19. The Commoner, Oct. 4, 1907, pp. 1-2, 7.

20. Ibid., March 1, 1901, p. 2; Oct. 18, 1901, p. 3.

21. Ibid., Dec. 6, 1901, p. 1.

22. William Jennings Bryan, The Old World and Its Ways, pp. 137, 142-43, 146, 150.

23. The Commoner, Dec. 6, 1901, p. 1.

24. The Old World and Its Ways, Dec. 17, 1909, p. 1.

25. New York Times, April 12, 1913, p. 2, April 20, 1913, p. 1; The Commoner, April 25, 1913, p. 2, May 2, pp. 3, 4, 5, 7, May 9, pp. 7, 10-14, May 16, pp. 1 ff., May 23 p. 2; Bryan Memoirs, pp. 366-67. The best treatment of this incident is Paolo E. Coletta, “‘The Most Thankless Task’: Bryan and the California Alien Land Legislation,” Pacific Historical Review, XXXVI (May, 1967), 163-87.

26. Bryan to Morris Hulten, Feb. 2, 1925, Bryan Papers, Box 40.

27. New York Times, Aug. 1, 1925, p. 1, Aug. 8, 1925 p. 4, Aug. 10, 1925, p. 26.

28. See Levine, op. cit., pp. 280-81.

29. Bryan, First Battle, p. 593; New York Times, Oct. 31, 1896.

30. New York Times, July 5, 1920, p. 1. During the campaign of 1920 Bryan was embarrassed by what was either a reporter's or a publisher's slip in a report given out by him during the Democratic Convention in San Francisco. Fighting strongly for a dry plank in the platform and for a dry candidate, he stated, among other things, that “Nothing having the odor of the vat can hope to receive the approval of this convention.” But, as reported by at least part of the press, it came out as follows; “Nothing having the odor of the vatican can hope to receive the approval of this convention.” Bryan, in an article addressed “To Catholic Friends,” hastened to correct the offensive statement as soon as it was brought to his attention, even though those who knew Bryan knew that a mistake had been made. The Commoner, Sept., 1920, p. 2.

31. New York Times, Oct. 20, 1924, p. 2.

32. Words of the associate editor.

33. Robert R. Hull to Bryan, Aug. 25, 1923, Bryan Papers, Box 38.

34. Bryan to Walsh, Dec. 30, 1922, Bryan Papers, Box 36.

35. New York Times, June 29, 1924, pp. 1, 6.

36. Ibid., Aug. 30, 1924, p. 4.

37. Bryan to Hubert Work, June 19, 1923, Bryan Papers, Box 37.

38. Manuscript of article entitled “White Supremacy” in Bryan Papers, Occidental College Library; New York Times, March 18, 1923, Sec. 8, p. 1.

39. The Commoner, Nov. 1, 1901, p. 1.

40. Ibid., pp. 1-3.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid. Feb. 3, 1905, p. 13.

43. Ibid., Nov. 1, 1901, pp. 1-2; Dec. 30, 1904, pp. 2-3.

44. Ibid., Nov. 1, 1901, pp. 1-3.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. See, for example, The Commoner, March 22, 1901, p. 6; Nov. 1, 1901, pp. 1-3; Nov. 25, 1904, p. 3; Washington to Mrs. Bryan, Jan. 21, 1899 [1900 is probably intended], Bryan Papers, Box 24.

48. The Commoner, Sept. 19, 1902, pp. 6-7.

49. Ibid., Dec. 1902, p. 3; Aug. 21, 1903, pp. 1-2; Statement “The Race Problem” in Bryan Papers, Box 64.

50. The Commoner, Sept. 11, 1903, pp. 1-2. The Chicago Inter-Ocean editorial is here reproduced in its entirety, as well as Bryan's reaction to it.

51. Ibid., Jan. 9, 1903, p. 1; Apr. 10, 1903, p. 3; Aug. 21, 1903, pp. 1-2; Statement, “The Race Problem,” in Bryan Papers, Box 64.

52. Ibid., Dec. 19, 1902, p. 3; Aug. 21, 1903, pp. 1-2; Statement, “The Race Problem,” in Bryan Papers, Box 64.

53. Ibid. June 26, 1903, p. 2.

54. “Cooper Union Statement—Questions and Answers,” dated Apr. 21, 1908, in Bryan Papers, Occidental College Library.

55. James D. Richardson (editor), A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908, (Bureau of National Literature and Art, n. p., 1909), Vol. XI, p. 1451; The Commoner, March 19, 1909, p. 4; Apr. 30, 1909, p. 1.

56. George C. Osborn, “The Problem of the Negro in Government, 1913,” The Historian, XXIII (May, 1961), 330-347; Oswald Garrison Villard, “The President and the Segregation at Washington,” North American Review, CXCVIII (Dec., 1913), 800-807; New York Times, March 2, 1913, p. 2, and Nov. 13, 1914, p. 2; Arthur S. Link, Wilson The New Freedom (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N. J., 1956), pp. 243-254.

57. Bryan's plea to find government jobs for “deserving Democrats” was widely quoted. See, for example, Bryan to Walter W. Vick, Aug. 20, 1913, printed in the North American Review, CCI (Feb., 1915), 285; The Commoner, Feb., 1915, p. 2.

58. Bryan to Wilson, Jan. 21, 1914, Bryan Papers, National Archives; Oswald G. Villard, op. cit., 802.

59. June, 1914, p. 4.

60. Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 24, 1922.

61. The New York Times, March 18, 1923, Sec. 8, p. 1. The same statement appears in manuscript form in the Bryan Papers, Occidental College Library. It appears that the article was to be used as an editorial in The Commoner which, however, stopped publication before it was published.

62. Dan C. Roper to Bryan, March 30, 1923; Clark Howell to Bryan, March 31, 1923; Oliver W. Stewart to Bryan, Apr. 5, 1923; Horace Hood to Bryan, Apr. 5, 1923, all in Bryan Papers, Box 37.

63. William L. Reed to Editor of The New York Times, Apr. 1, 1923, Sec. 8, p. 8. See also Bryan to W. Thomas Soders, March 3, 1923, Bryan Papers, Box 37.

64. Bryan to Rev. D. S. Kennedy, June 12, 1923, Bryan Papers, Box 37.

65. New York Times, March 18, 1923, Sec. 8, p. 1.

66. See, for instance, Willard H. Smith, “William Jennings Bryan—A Reappraisal,” Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences, Proceedings, 1965, (New Series Vol. X) pp. 56-69; Smith, “William Jennings Bryan and the Social Gospel,” The Journal of American History, LIII (June, 1966), 41-60.