Bold Spirit by Linda Lawrence Hunt

Author:Linda Lawrence Hunt [Hunt, Linda Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-42506-5
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2003-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

William and Mary Bryan’s home in Lincoln, Nebraska, decorated for a celebration during the Presidential election year of 1896.

Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society Photograph Collections, RG3198:22-6. Detail of this photograph on this page.

Helga understood. She knew firsthand the economic devastation during President Cleveland’s administration and valued Bryan’s expressed sympathy with the farmers and working-class families. She witnessed the collapse of the Spokane banks, the foreclosure on businesses and neighbor’s farms, and felt her own husband’s shame and helplessness at being unable to earn an honest living to support his nine children. Many Bryan supporters saw maintaining the gold standard as a conspiracy of the rich, of Wall Street, and the Republican party wanting to maintain the status quo.4 William McKinley ardently upheld the gold standard.

Bryan, who once wanted to be a Baptist preacher, used potent religious imagery that electrified his supporters. This also resonated with Helga’s Lutheran upbringing and strong knowledge of the Bible. She likely read the newspaper accounts and cartoons that either supported or lambasted his religious rhetoric, especially his famous “Cross of Gold” speech given at the national Democratic Convention. Warming his audience up, he insisted that upholding the gold standard had “slain the poor,” and hurt “the producing masses of this nation,”… and the “toilers everywhere.” Then, in a thundering conclusion, he railed against big business interests, Republicans, and McKinley, who advocated the gold standard. “We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”5 This speech threw down the gauntlet of a campaign that riveted the voters throughout the summer and fall of Helga’s and Clara’s bold venture.

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