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In 1921 Wheaton College proudly hosted William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925). The former Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, three-time Democratic presidential nominee, social reformer, lawyer andunswerving and unswerving Presbyterian fundamentalist addressed a standing-room-onlyassembly only assembly for an evening service in Blanchard Hall's compact Fischer Chapel, which had seen the likes of D. L. Moody and Jane Addams. According tostudent to student Edward Coray, Bryan "was a fascinating speaker and spiced hismessage his message with some good humor." Known as The Great Commoner forchampioning for championing causes like prohibition and women's suffrage, he lecturedforcefully lectured forcefully to faculty and students against the theory of evolution, later using those very arguments in his seminal debate with attorneyClarence attorney Clarence Darrow during the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Exhausted, Bryanexpired Bryan expired in his sleep five days after the verdict was declared, hisdeath his death compounded by weight and cerebral hemorrhaging. He is buried inArlington in Arlington National Cemetery. To this generation when one thinks ofDemocratic of Democratic Conventions the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention can comereadily come readily to mind, but in 1896 Bryan, at age 36, addressed alessa less-raucous, but no-less significant Democratic Convention in Chicagowith Chicago with his historic "Cross of Gold" speech, which responded to the thosedemanding those demanding a currency based upon a gold standard. Bryan shouted, "wewill we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: Youshall You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, youshall you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." Sadly, many don'tremember t remember the compassionate statesman. Bryan is cruelly satirized as theoafish the oafish "Matthew Harrison Brady" in the 1955 Broadway smash, Inherit theWindthe Wind. However, R. G. Lee, the eminent Southern Baptist pastor andconvention and convention president, memorialized him as "a mighty statesman eagle, quarreled at but not hindered in his lofty flight, by the noisy humansparrows human sparrows of his day who envied but could not attain unto his eminence." |
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