William Jennings Bryan, moral crusader and pacifist, was Woodrow Wilson's first Secretary of State, serving during the first year of World War One in Europe until he resigned in response to President Wilson's hard line on the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U boat. Never before or since has a Secretary of State embodied such a moral outlook. This report examines Bryan's ideals and his impact on American diplomacy in this critical period.
Today, the name of William Jennings Bryan is probably most associated with the Scopes "Monkey Trial," the famous evolution law courtroom battle of 1925, in which Bryan took what we would now call the creationist side against Clarence Darrow. Some may vaguely recall that he made a fiery speech about the "cross of gold" in 1896, but this means little to us, in large part because the issue, "free silver," no longer has the resonance that creationism versus evolution still retains in current affairs.
The full dimension of Bryan's role in American public life has thus been lost to popular memory. Remembered only as a precursor of the Religious Right, he was actually one of the most radical mainstream politicians of his age, and three times the Democratic nominee for President. Made Secretary of State when Woodrow Wilson finally won the Presidency for the Democrats in the 1912 election, William Jennings Bryan held that office through the critical months before and after the outbreak of World War One. The war was a heartbreak for Bryan, a dedicated pacifist who deeply believed that war was obsolete as well as immoral. In the end, America's drift towards war against Germany led to his resignation.
From that point many authors begin the final phase of Bryan's career,1in which he slowly drifted out of the center of American public life. His tenure as Secretary of State was thus a bitter experience for him, a deep blow to his ideals. To us, it is likely to...