1 00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:08,520 Hello. Quite having behind us the commercial interests and the labouring interests and all the toiling masses, 2 00:00:08,520 --> 00:00:17,610 we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the Bureau of Labour this crown of thorns. 3 00:00:17,610 --> 00:00:23,850 You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold, unquote. 4 00:00:23,850 --> 00:00:28,020 The year is 1896, and at the Democratic National Convention, 5 00:00:28,020 --> 00:00:36,270 William Jennings Bryan has just concluded what is now considered to be one of the most powerful political addresses in American history. 6 00:00:36,270 --> 00:00:41,370 His subject now seems almost comically dry, a championing of by Methodism, 7 00:00:41,370 --> 00:00:49,980 an underpinning of currency based on both gold and silver over the gold standard policy of a sitting Democratic president, Grover Cleveland. 8 00:00:49,980 --> 00:00:56,770 Yet from this single issue stemmed a wider social message, a message of support for the rural poor. 9 00:00:56,770 --> 00:01:02,580 Quote, I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies, 10 00:01:02,580 --> 00:01:08,850 burn down your cities and leave our farms and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. 11 00:01:08,850 --> 00:01:14,850 But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country. 12 00:01:14,850 --> 00:01:18,210 I'm afraid I was only 36 years of age. 13 00:01:18,210 --> 00:01:26,100 Almost on the force of his fervent rhetoric alone, Bryan became the Democratic Party's presidential nominee and in the election campaign, 14 00:01:26,100 --> 00:01:29,100 which followed against Republican William McKinley, 15 00:01:29,100 --> 00:01:37,770 will make glimpsed the state of the American nation and its great social and economic divisions as it turns to enter the 20th century. 16 00:01:37,770 --> 00:01:47,190 With me to discuss the American election of 1896 are Noni Kubi, a third year history student of Uncrossed College and the Rothermere Institute, 17 00:01:47,190 --> 00:01:53,340 and Dan Dundrum, a fourth year history student at Lincoln College and also the Rockefeller Institute. 18 00:01:53,340 --> 00:02:01,860 Thank you very much for joining me. N'goni, perhaps we could start by getting a picture of what America is like around the end of the 19th century. 19 00:02:01,860 --> 00:02:07,050 What's the population like on people in towns or cities? What are the main issues facing the country? 20 00:02:07,050 --> 00:02:11,130 So America this time it's undergoing some big changes. 21 00:02:11,130 --> 00:02:18,060 It's industrialising urbanising and there's a lot of immigration, mainly from Europe. 22 00:02:18,060 --> 00:02:26,250 There are a lot of people moving from the from the rural areas into the cities, into not so nice neighbourhoods. 23 00:02:26,250 --> 00:02:40,350 And in 1896, the country is just three years after a big recession panic crash, a big financial panic, I think financial panic in 1893. 24 00:02:40,350 --> 00:02:48,930 What's the cause of this panic? I say this was there was a rush on gold held by the US government, 25 00:02:48,930 --> 00:02:57,660 by many by European investors who were wanting to cash in their dollars and following some crisis in Argentina. 26 00:02:57,660 --> 00:03:06,210 This creates panic within the within the markets and it creates a real problem for lots of America's big companies, 27 00:03:06,210 --> 00:03:11,790 something like a quarter of America's railroad companies go bust in the following year. 28 00:03:11,790 --> 00:03:21,720 It's really we call the figures themselves over bankruptcies and things and unemployment in the industries that you mentioned really swell. 29 00:03:21,720 --> 00:03:31,260 So it's a lot of economic turbulence at a time and during an era when, as we've said, relatively speaking, America's prospered. 30 00:03:31,260 --> 00:03:36,930 In the years since the American Civil War, it's growing at a rapid rate. 31 00:03:36,930 --> 00:03:44,640 I don't think we can overemphasise how rapidly it's grown by our modernised places like Chicago doubles in population. 32 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:53,880 In the 18th set in the 70s, Nebraska, which is William Jennings Bryan, state her doubles in population during the 80s. 33 00:03:53,880 --> 00:04:01,380 I think so. It's a hugely momentous by if we think if we thought about that in modern context, that would be astonishing. 34 00:04:01,380 --> 00:04:10,410 And it creates all kinds of problems. And it's also a time when America has just finished closing the frontier, 35 00:04:10,410 --> 00:04:15,900 which means they have they've finished expanding across the country, joined up east and west. 36 00:04:15,900 --> 00:04:25,260 They have. Yeah. Yeah. So we're getting the picture in my head and for our listeners that we have this period of great social change, 37 00:04:25,260 --> 00:04:29,580 but shorter periods since 1893 of economic turmoil. 38 00:04:29,580 --> 00:04:37,870 You mentioned to me earlier that certain groups recovered from the economic turmoil much quicker than others. 39 00:04:37,870 --> 00:04:46,910 Yeah. So in particularly, it was farmers who were particularly hard hit, especially out in the West, a lot of. 40 00:04:46,910 --> 00:04:52,760 Farms are abandoned where farmers couldn't pay their mortgages when there was significant 41 00:04:52,760 --> 00:05:01,130 deflation in the currency following the Russian on gold and farmers faced with lowering prices. 42 00:05:01,130 --> 00:05:07,370 They didn't have as much money. Their mortgages were lowering in value. So they often had to leave their homes. 43 00:05:07,370 --> 00:05:16,730 And it's a bit of a bit of a double whammy in lots of ways. There is the the weather is poor, which means that the harvest yields are poor as well. 44 00:05:16,730 --> 00:05:18,620 And in 1896, 45 00:05:18,620 --> 00:05:30,560 and it also comes on the back of a long period of environmental problems in the agricultural region of America that there has been before. 46 00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:34,820 Things have gone poorly for big industries and corporations. 47 00:05:34,820 --> 00:05:39,390 With the panic of 1893, there has been a period in the 90s of poor harvests. 48 00:05:39,390 --> 00:05:47,480 So so in some ways the economic turbulence or turmoil or whatever we want to call it has been going 49 00:05:47,480 --> 00:05:54,590 on for much longer for farmers and for agricultural workers than it does for the rest of the nation. 50 00:05:54,590 --> 00:06:05,660 So the panic perhaps comes in the middle of this economic downturn for the farmers rather than at the start, as it does for everyone else. 51 00:06:05,660 --> 00:06:14,870 A lot seems to come down to this issue of the gold standard versus a free silver standard or by mettlesome thing, could, you know, 52 00:06:14,870 --> 00:06:23,270 perhaps in the first instance, explain this to economic positions that have been in confrontation with each other for a lot of the 19th century. 53 00:06:23,270 --> 00:06:28,820 It's really difficult to understand how big of a deal this was because it's just so foreign to us. 54 00:06:28,820 --> 00:06:36,320 So the American currency? Well, a lot of currencies and the American currency was based on gold. 55 00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:40,430 Lincoln during the Civil War had issued paper currency in greenbacks. 56 00:06:40,430 --> 00:06:47,840 But during Reconstruction, Republicans had been really keen to get this back to 100 percent, backed by gold. 57 00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:59,420 But this man, that period in the whole world where there was like contracting supply of gold and so there was a real shortage of money in America. 58 00:06:59,420 --> 00:07:09,080 And this meant deflation is rapidly expanding period of growing wealth and growing concentration of wealth in certain classes. 59 00:07:09,080 --> 00:07:12,860 And that means there's a real demand for money, but at the same time is contracting supply. 60 00:07:12,860 --> 00:07:21,140 So there's there's deflation. This is like I said, it's really bad in the West, is really bad for farmers and for for some other people. 61 00:07:21,140 --> 00:07:32,030 What they want to happen is to increase monetary supply by using silver to back up some of the currency by metals and silver and gold. 62 00:07:32,030 --> 00:07:40,490 So the way I draw it to me now, it sounds like a completely sensible thing to do to to move towards a dual gold and silver currency. 63 00:07:40,490 --> 00:07:45,680 But what were the arguments on the proponents of gold that kept gold as the standard for so long? 64 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:56,060 Gold proponents of gold essentially argued that silver will be highly inflationary, that, yes, there are problems with monetary supply, 65 00:07:56,060 --> 00:08:02,690 but the problem with the monetary supply are born out of the somewhat global economic turbulence, 66 00:08:02,690 --> 00:08:08,900 it should be said, of the of the period rather than shortage, necessarily a shortage of gold, 67 00:08:08,900 --> 00:08:19,960 that this is a temporary phenomenon and it will dissipate if we issue silver, will create an inflationary spiral and destabilise our currency. 68 00:08:19,960 --> 00:08:27,190 And that's what we want to do, trade. Yeah, that's exactly the U.K. That's that's a key thing that Europe, 69 00:08:27,190 --> 00:08:34,450 the big financiers in the U.K., which is a financial powerhouse, do not want silver. 70 00:08:34,450 --> 00:08:45,720 They want globally. Gold standard is the accepted consensus for sound economic management amongst the economic elite. 71 00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:53,640 Well, that's really excellent. I feel we've got a good sense of where the country is in 1896, which is, of course, an election year, 72 00:08:53,640 --> 00:09:00,840 the sitting Democratic president, Grover Cleveland, has already served two terms at the convention, is not up for re-election. 73 00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:05,910 The Republicans choose William McKinley. Dan, what sort of man was McKinley? 74 00:09:05,910 --> 00:09:14,340 What did he stand for? Well, William McKinley has been a congressman from Ohio for a number of a number of years. 75 00:09:14,340 --> 00:09:20,400 And he's at the time he wins the Republican nomination. He's the sitting governor of Ohio. 76 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:27,090 Now, he's not generated much publicity as governor of Ohio, at least on a national stage. 77 00:09:27,090 --> 00:09:29,130 But as congressman from Ohio, 78 00:09:29,130 --> 00:09:42,810 the most significant measure he's backed is a massive increase in tariffs in 1890 as a measure essentially to reduce reduce unemployment. 79 00:09:42,810 --> 00:09:54,780 It's ramping up the tariffs on imported goods to raise the price of foreign produced goods in the hope that Americans turn to domestic goods. 80 00:09:54,780 --> 00:10:00,060 In the meantime, so that his reputation is he's got a murky reputation on gold and silver. 81 00:10:00,060 --> 00:10:06,120 He's never come out strongly in favour of gold up until this point in time. 82 00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:14,310 But one of his favourite means of solving economic problems that it has a reputation for is high tariffs. 83 00:10:14,310 --> 00:10:20,020 So McKinley is chosen for the Republicans by, as I gather, a relatively straightforward process. 84 00:10:20,020 --> 00:10:26,550 There's not a huge amount of confrontation in a convention is the natural candidate. 85 00:10:26,550 --> 00:10:32,310 I do not think everyone just doesn't remember what happened in the Republican 86 00:10:32,310 --> 00:10:36,830 convention because of what happened in the Democratic convention while he was here, 87 00:10:36,830 --> 00:10:44,910 because indeed, the Democratic Convention is much more exciting to begin to describe the issues that Democrats face in picking their candidate. 88 00:10:44,910 --> 00:10:51,330 So the Democrats were a lot more divided over this issue of gold and silver. 89 00:10:51,330 --> 00:10:59,930 They had been losing votes to the populist party, which is particularly Purcellville of the populist party that a third party out of. 90 00:10:59,930 --> 00:11:07,440 Yes. So this is a period where there were a lot of alternative parties and populist party was a big one. 91 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:14,250 Cleveland had been a strong proponent of gold and it was kind of assumed that the Democrats would just 92 00:11:14,250 --> 00:11:23,130 continue to be gold until the the Free Silver Movement found its spokesman in a William Jennings Bryan, 93 00:11:23,130 --> 00:11:27,510 36 year old. He wasn't currently holding office. 94 00:11:27,510 --> 00:11:34,680 He'd previously be a congressman. He'd been a congressman from Nebraska during the 90s. 95 00:11:34,680 --> 00:11:41,520 And he'd tried to run and become senator for Nebraska, but he lost his bid to become senator, 96 00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:48,480 which was you didn't have one direct election of senators in the 90s to become a senator for your state. 97 00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:53,670 You had to essentially get the backing of the power players within the state. 98 00:11:53,670 --> 00:12:02,620 And when you were standing, O'Brien did not appeal to the power brokers within Nebraska and instead they chose Republican senator. 99 00:12:02,620 --> 00:12:12,190 But yes, William Jennings Bryan had been a congressman and he'd managed to get a lot of attention speaking on the silver issue. 100 00:12:12,190 --> 00:12:18,220 He is one of the prominent advocates for free silver, and he has a reputation as such. 101 00:12:18,220 --> 00:12:22,960 What his background, they come from a wealthy family or a poor family. 102 00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:29,590 How did he get into politics? No, not particularly a wealthy family, a kind of middling family. 103 00:12:29,590 --> 00:12:33,310 He's actually initially raised in Illinois. 104 00:12:33,310 --> 00:12:38,140 He makes a lot of his in later life after the 1896 election. 105 00:12:38,140 --> 00:12:43,720 And and even during this period, he makes a lot of pegging his master to Nebraska. 106 00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:51,790 But he's raised and brought up in Illinois. He actually attends law school in Chicago, but he finds he finds his home in Nebraska. 107 00:12:51,790 --> 00:12:57,160 He starts practising law in in a fairly prosperous town in Nebraska. 108 00:12:57,160 --> 00:13:02,920 And so that's his background is he's he's from a family of Democrats. 109 00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:12,730 His both his mother and father are committed Democrats. And Brian's always throughout college, university, as we call it, and then law school. 110 00:13:12,730 --> 00:13:19,030 Brian's been a very passionate orator. He's put a lot of work into studying the classic orators. 111 00:13:19,030 --> 00:13:27,190 And that's really something he's excelled at, is intellectually he's middling during this period. 112 00:13:27,190 --> 00:13:34,780 But he has excelled at performing as an orator. And he the one thing that we've got to remember about Brian is that he's a really devout 113 00:13:34,780 --> 00:13:42,970 Christian revivalist and he gives America a lot of really great oratory and problems. 114 00:13:42,970 --> 00:13:54,340 But he's a really keen Christian. And so he speaks at political conventions as if from the pulpit, that same style at the convention, 115 00:13:54,340 --> 00:14:00,680 he gives the speech that is known as the Cross of Gold speech, which I read a few quotes from an introduction. 116 00:14:00,680 --> 00:14:04,480 Dan, how did he come to be giving such a big speech? 117 00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:11,980 Was the closing speech of the convention? Well, Bryan has engineered to be at the close of the convention. 118 00:14:11,980 --> 00:14:15,940 He wants to he wants to have the last word, as it were. 119 00:14:15,940 --> 00:14:21,100 But there have been speeches from advocates of silver throughout the convention. 120 00:14:21,100 --> 00:14:29,800 There's a significant member of the Democratic Party who makes a very uninspiring speech in favour of silver at the start of the convention. 121 00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:39,340 So the Democratic Party has endorsed as its plank celebrates the power balance as such within the Democratic Party, 122 00:14:39,340 --> 00:14:44,620 that it's known beforehand that the party will commit to an agenda of free silver. 123 00:14:44,620 --> 00:14:49,000 And so there's a whole bunch of speeches by prominent silver advocates. 124 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:54,640 But as I said, Bryan, consciously engineers to be speaking last at the convention. 125 00:14:54,640 --> 00:15:01,210 Yes, there are uninspiring speeches for free silver, the kind that ruin people's political careers. 126 00:15:01,210 --> 00:15:12,360 But Brian's inspiring speech in favour of silver really makes an outsider into a viable candidate for the Democratic Party nomination. 127 00:15:12,360 --> 00:15:18,700 It was a very physical performance. The final line about crucified on a cross of gold. 128 00:15:18,700 --> 00:15:29,940 Yes, well, it's a it's one of the we know from reports just how moved and inspiring people in the audience find this speech. 129 00:15:29,940 --> 00:15:36,660 And the great shame is in 1896, we don't have even an audio recording of the speech, 130 00:15:36,660 --> 00:15:41,850 but we know from reports the just the theatricality with which he goes about it. 131 00:15:41,850 --> 00:15:44,940 He concludes the speech. He read the the cross of gold line, 132 00:15:44,940 --> 00:15:54,120 and he literally sticks his hands in the air and makes a crucifix and holds holds the crucifix for four or five seconds, turning around on the spot. 133 00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:58,290 I believe so. Oh yeah. It's very complex. 134 00:15:58,290 --> 00:16:04,860 Somehow I think about image in your head. There's no coincidence that it's a crucifix. 135 00:16:04,860 --> 00:16:09,760 It's explicitly anti Semitic movement. 136 00:16:09,760 --> 00:16:18,180 It's an Freeserve. Advocates believe that it is the big Jewish bankers who were holding the country 137 00:16:18,180 --> 00:16:25,090 to ransom and literally reliving the crucifixion with America as Christ and. 138 00:16:25,090 --> 00:16:27,790 And is this the time actually quite popular? 139 00:16:27,790 --> 00:16:36,370 Oh, yeah, so it's you see a lot in my cartoons from this period, like political cartoons characterise them. 140 00:16:36,370 --> 00:16:44,800 Jewish bankers pinning Brian to across the end of the 19th century turn of the 20th century. 141 00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:53,290 This anti-Semitism is fairly rife not just in America, but in in Europe as well. 142 00:16:53,290 --> 00:16:58,420 It's a conspiracy mentality fuelling this this anti-Semitism in lots of ways. 143 00:16:58,420 --> 00:17:00,970 You made the comparison to Trump earlier on. 144 00:17:00,970 --> 00:17:07,990 Perhaps we should talk about what comparisons can and maybe cannot be drawn with the current election cycle a bit later, 145 00:17:07,990 --> 00:17:17,200 perhaps we should say that, unlike Trump, his poetic mastery is more astonishing, just as from the beginning of the speech. 146 00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:22,480 I will be presumptuous indeed to present myself against the distinguished gentleman to whom you have listened to this word. 147 00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:28,590 But a measure of ability but is not a contest amongst persons the humblest is that in all the land when planting 148 00:17:28,590 --> 00:17:33,700 in the arms of a righteous cause is stronger than all the whole hosts of everything that they can bring. 149 00:17:33,700 --> 00:17:37,660 I come to speak to you in defence of a cause. This wholly is the cause of liberty, the cause of humanity. 150 00:17:37,660 --> 00:17:41,860 I mean, this isn't Christian preaching. You're talking about Florida. 151 00:17:41,860 --> 00:17:48,760 Yeah, definitely. He's a he's got a way with words. You can't see it working on a click bait sort of audience, can you? 152 00:17:48,760 --> 00:17:52,960 He can. I mean, not one use of tremendous or beautiful. No, no. 153 00:17:52,960 --> 00:17:57,460 And it's very it's also very difficult to that we can get across. 154 00:17:57,460 --> 00:18:05,920 We can get a cross of gold. We can give it in speeches, title. But soundbites require several sentences. 155 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:16,840 And I think this is something you find frequently in political speeches, even up to in some ways that middle of the 20th century, the soundbites. 156 00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:22,120 And it's very difficult to get to a speech, his message just through one sentence. 157 00:18:22,120 --> 00:18:25,930 And it's the same with Brian, but it it flows in it. 158 00:18:25,930 --> 00:18:34,150 It definitely works with the audiences that he's speaking to. His people come to hear, Brian, people come to Brian's rallies. 159 00:18:34,150 --> 00:18:41,710 Brilliant. So Brian is the nominee. How is he viewed at the start of his campaign in the country at large? 160 00:18:41,710 --> 00:18:44,260 People haven't heard of him before. He's yeah. 161 00:18:44,260 --> 00:18:52,000 He's not got that much of of a national reputation beyond the cross of gold and the advocating for silver. 162 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:53,560 Of course, as you can imagine, 163 00:18:53,560 --> 00:19:02,980 he gets a lot of a lot of publicity in the newspapers there as a result of what goes on at the Democratic convention and the cross of gold speech. 164 00:19:02,980 --> 00:19:08,320 The major new American newspapers are fairly uniformly against Bryan. 165 00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:16,930 The New York World, for example, which is America's largest paper at this time, I believe is very anti Brian. 166 00:19:16,930 --> 00:19:22,690 But of course, by the same token, because they hate Brian, because Brian provides very good copy, 167 00:19:22,690 --> 00:19:28,540 they to actually spend a lot of time covering Brian, but they're not covering Brian in a in a very flattering light. 168 00:19:28,540 --> 00:19:31,930 But yes, this is Brian's fame moment. 169 00:19:31,930 --> 00:19:35,560 This is Brian getting all the attention. 170 00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:41,650 And this very much fuels Brian's political career. For the next 30 years. 171 00:19:41,650 --> 00:19:51,820 Brian will be a national figure until he dies in 1925. Nobody you mentioned to me before that Brian wasn't like so much in the cities. 172 00:19:51,820 --> 00:19:59,980 Yes. So I think it originally starts with the whole deflationary inflationary message of buy metals. 173 00:19:59,980 --> 00:20:04,090 And so if you if you're for silver, you're for inflation. 174 00:20:04,090 --> 00:20:11,200 And that's just really not a good thing. If you are a labouring man in the city, you don't want prices to go up. 175 00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:16,630 And so the cities have a fear right from the beginning. They have a negative view of Bryan. 176 00:20:16,630 --> 00:20:24,940 But then McKinley and his campaign manager, they really get to work on fuelling this fear of Bryan. 177 00:20:24,940 --> 00:20:30,820 And what sort of things do they do? So they tie him to religious fundamentalism. 178 00:20:30,820 --> 00:20:36,160 They say he's an extremist and they tie him to radical radicalism. 179 00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:44,860 So they really tie him to the governor of Illinois who pardon the Haymarket bombers who are notorious anarchists. 180 00:20:44,860 --> 00:20:49,120 He didn't actually do the bombing, but that didn't matter. They were they were anarchists. 181 00:20:49,120 --> 00:20:51,250 And and Brian was tied to this. 182 00:20:51,250 --> 00:20:59,920 So he was seen as a a candidate of chaos and he would disrupt things, which is good if you're not happy with the status quo, 183 00:20:59,920 --> 00:21:06,490 but not so good if you want things to carry on, because there are certain groups who are very much in favour of inflation. 184 00:21:06,490 --> 00:21:11,560 Yeah, yeah, sure. Say the farmers in particular. Really? 185 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:16,120 Well, not all farmers, it should be said Eastern farmers, not so much Western farmers, 186 00:21:16,120 --> 00:21:23,320 Western Midwestern farmers, Southern farmers, all very keen on inflation because they get more for the project. 187 00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:31,730 And I think, yes, I. I think they're not necessarily keyed on inflation per say, if they could explain to us what inflation was, 188 00:21:31,730 --> 00:21:36,890 but if somebody tells them that by pegging currency to both gold and silver, 189 00:21:36,890 --> 00:21:42,620 they can get higher prices for their produce, and that's definitely something that they can support. 190 00:21:42,620 --> 00:21:48,440 That doesn't necessarily mean that they would support high prices for everything. 191 00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:54,620 Yes, it means that you're basically you pay less money for your land because your mortgage effectively decreases, 192 00:21:54,620 --> 00:21:58,250 which is a big deal for Western farmers. 193 00:21:58,250 --> 00:22:05,870 Not such a big deal if you're a prosperous farmer who has been sat on your land for centuries and don't need to pay off a mortgage. 194 00:22:05,870 --> 00:22:11,900 But if you're a new perspective out in the new lands out west, yeah, I guess it makes a difference. 195 00:22:11,900 --> 00:22:16,340 You mentioned briefly McKinley's campaign manager, Hannah. 196 00:22:16,340 --> 00:22:23,270 Yeah. He seems to be quite an important figure in all this. He finds a new way to to make money for his candidates. 197 00:22:23,270 --> 00:22:32,450 Yeah. So Hannah is kind of credited with creating this modern campaign, which is based on really big money. 198 00:22:32,450 --> 00:22:40,790 Hannah approaches a lot of big businesses who are very concerned about how they trade internationally and they want a stable currency. 199 00:22:40,790 --> 00:22:45,350 And he he tells them that Brian is going to destroy the economy. 200 00:22:45,350 --> 00:22:54,590 Brian laughs Anarchist's Brian is completely crazy, basically, and says, you must fund us because we must stop Brian. 201 00:22:54,590 --> 00:23:03,350 And he raises enormous amounts of money for MacKinley. I think it's the equivalent today of about 85 million dollars, 202 00:23:03,350 --> 00:23:14,810 which is just unheard of then it's a staggering amount that Mark Hannah manages to raise by appealing to industrialists and wealthy people. 203 00:23:14,810 --> 00:23:24,170 Hannah himself is a multimillionaire. Hannah made his money in Cleveland as an industrialist and retires to politics at the age of 40. 204 00:23:24,170 --> 00:23:30,740 And then very much he becomes McKinley's powerbroker for want of a better word throughout. 205 00:23:30,740 --> 00:23:34,400 He is happy and direct in the campaign. 206 00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:40,760 No fundraising is extraordinarily successful, which I think gets back to something not only touched on earlier, 207 00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:48,680 the just the rampant fear amongst the pro gold faction of America, 208 00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:56,720 of the dangers of silver and the dangers of Brian and the effectiveness of this message. 209 00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:06,620 Hannah also commissions commissions. He puts together a speakers bureau that tours the country, making stump speeches effectively in favour of McCain. 210 00:24:06,620 --> 00:24:12,020 McKinney stays in his Ohio home and receives delegations and make speeches. 211 00:24:12,020 --> 00:24:18,380 So it's great to talk about at the same time. Extraordinary that lots of this money went on busing people in. 212 00:24:18,380 --> 00:24:22,730 But it wasn't extraordinary at the time that that's a thing, right, that you bus people. 213 00:24:22,730 --> 00:24:28,850 Rather, it's more it's Brian that does the extraordinary thing of travelling the country for us. 214 00:24:28,850 --> 00:24:32,690 Now, that's normal. Of course, you can go and see of prospective voters. 215 00:24:32,690 --> 00:24:38,820 But he it is Brian who has to do this because he doesn't have the funds and he doesn't have the ability to get people to come to him. 216 00:24:38,820 --> 00:24:42,470 And he does. Amazing whistle stop tour of the nation. 217 00:24:42,470 --> 00:24:49,580 And he gives like five speeches in one day in Detroit and he travels something like during the course of the campaign, 218 00:24:49,580 --> 00:24:55,250 he travels something like 16000 miles on the standard course of trains and things. 219 00:24:55,250 --> 00:24:59,150 He makes speeches from the back of trains. He makes a huge amount of speeches. 220 00:24:59,150 --> 00:25:03,350 He's something like six meals a day to keep him going. 221 00:25:03,350 --> 00:25:13,940 Despite being a teetotaller, he rubs himself down with alcohol to to wake him up, which means he arrives and gives his speeches reeking of gin. 222 00:25:13,940 --> 00:25:20,180 But he's a devout teetotallers, by all accounts, is an extremely magnetic man. 223 00:25:20,180 --> 00:25:27,620 Yeah. Yeah, certainly. Yes. He's he's got the charisma and the force of personality. 224 00:25:27,620 --> 00:25:36,050 He gets where he is because of this public persona and this huge this huge amount of charisma that he's got while speaking. 225 00:25:36,050 --> 00:25:40,850 He becomes a celebrity, basically. Where does he focus his campaign? 226 00:25:40,850 --> 00:25:46,880 Does he go all over or does he focus on swing states? I guess they both focus on the Midwest. 227 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:54,500 That's so America this time is still recovering from the civil war and it's very sectional. 228 00:25:54,500 --> 00:25:59,290 So the north and Northeast still votes very Republican in the South. 229 00:25:59,290 --> 00:26:04,880 Still, it's very, very Democrat, although this election does slightly change that. 230 00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:08,910 And so the Midwest in the West, that's where the that's where it's going to be up for grabs. 231 00:26:08,910 --> 00:26:13,040 Now, Brian feels like he's got the West pretty, pretty covid. 232 00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:24,680 And so they both focus on that. Yeah, they focus heavily on the on the states bordering the Great Lakes, as nobody said, the region that we think of. 233 00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:31,940 The Midwest, those are the places that they spend a lot of time and effort trying to win the votes of those constituencies. 234 00:26:31,940 --> 00:26:41,450 OK, so we've cunningly kept the listener in suspense until now about who actually won the election of 1896. 235 00:26:41,450 --> 00:26:45,850 But we shall do so no longer knowing what was a result. 236 00:26:45,850 --> 00:26:50,780 They pull Brian after his miles and miles of travelling. 237 00:26:50,780 --> 00:26:58,760 He fails to get the presidency. McKinley It's a landslide in terms of the electoral vote, electoral college. 238 00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:06,600 But in terms of the popular vote, it's pretty close. We should just do a quick recap about the Electoral College votes versus the popular vote. 239 00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,850 So Electoral College votes are assigned to every state. Yeah. 240 00:27:10,850 --> 00:27:20,030 So the states have the same number of votes in the Electoral College as they have their representatives in Congress. 241 00:27:20,030 --> 00:27:32,330 And so so each state initially has two two Electoral College votes, plus however many representatives they have in the in the House. 242 00:27:32,330 --> 00:27:39,560 And so voters are voting for an Electoral College representative who is pledged to vote for either McEnany, 243 00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:45,770 O'Brien or one of the other candidates, of which there are a few they know front of them. 244 00:27:45,770 --> 00:27:52,490 So this is a way in which the popular vote be quite close. But the the overall Electoral College vote yes. 245 00:27:52,490 --> 00:28:00,080 And it's not easy. It's not unheard of in America to lose the popular vote, but win the election. 246 00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:09,320 George W. Bush in 2000, these third parties that we talk about only the populist party say so. 247 00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:13,550 We said that in 1835 there were other big deal. So how they got away. 248 00:28:13,550 --> 00:28:19,490 So they've kind of been absorbed by the Democrats because of Brian. 249 00:28:19,490 --> 00:28:25,940 They really, really powerful as a third party coming up to this election. 250 00:28:25,940 --> 00:28:32,540 They had in the previous election, they'd got, I think, four or five states, a number of states anyway. 251 00:28:32,540 --> 00:28:39,620 And they decide that they they've really become a single issue party, which not many, 252 00:28:39,620 --> 00:28:43,790 not all populists are happy about what they've really come behind this very sober idea. 253 00:28:43,790 --> 00:28:53,180 That's their main idea now. And so when Brian becomes a free silver Democrat, they do a very strange manoeuvre of they also nominate Brian. 254 00:28:53,180 --> 00:28:58,220 Brian becomes their nominee, but they select they nominate a different vice presidential candidate. 255 00:28:58,220 --> 00:29:01,220 And it's never quite clear who who Brian will pick, 256 00:29:01,220 --> 00:29:07,190 whether [INAUDIBLE] pick a Democrat candidate or his populist candidate if he does become president. 257 00:29:07,190 --> 00:29:14,220 And so this strange manoeuvre results and the populist party being wiped out, is this well absorbed, absorbed? 258 00:29:14,220 --> 00:29:25,430 Yeah, yeah. I think this is in some ways the the swan song of the the People's Party, which we call the Populist Party. 259 00:29:25,430 --> 00:29:30,920 It grew out of various farmer's parties that existed before it. 260 00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:43,280 And it endorses Bryan. And it loses some of its independent power, let's say, as a third party force because of its endorsement of Bryan. 261 00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:48,350 And as Noni says, in some ways, that's not just because of this manoeuvre. 262 00:29:48,350 --> 00:29:52,910 It's because the Democrats very much begin to absorb its agenda. 263 00:29:52,910 --> 00:29:59,480 And also, silver becomes less of an issue after this. And the world finds more gold. 264 00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:05,270 American economics gets more back on track. 265 00:30:05,270 --> 00:30:09,170 Following his victory, McKinley does quite a good job of stabilising the country. 266 00:30:09,170 --> 00:30:14,630 Would you? Yeah, or at least perceived to be. Yes. You see, as much as any. 267 00:30:14,630 --> 00:30:20,990 Yes, we can debate how much president can actually influence the course of economic development. 268 00:30:20,990 --> 00:30:29,840 And we can also talk about which sections of society McKinley compromises are less good for. 269 00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:40,250 But definitely by 1898 basic the things that we describe as basic economic indicators are doing rather nicely. 270 00:30:40,250 --> 00:30:51,380 There is not the same rampant unemployment. There is not the same panic amongst agrarian populations and these kind of things. 271 00:30:51,380 --> 00:30:59,840 The recovery happens between 1896 and 1898, this long awaited recovery from the panic of 1893. 272 00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:07,480 And what's happened to the gold loving Democrats? Would it be they'd go after Brown took over? 273 00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:13,270 So the Democrats, the split much, 274 00:31:13,270 --> 00:31:21,130 much like people of prophecies or tried to prophecies that the Republicans might win this election if if Donald Trump won the nomination, 275 00:31:21,130 --> 00:31:26,200 that didn't turn out true. But the Democrats do splinter go. 276 00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:32,490 Democrats form their own temporary party and run the Democrat Party. 277 00:31:32,490 --> 00:31:39,520 Yes. Yes. They form their own national Democratic Party and they rally around this issue because, as I said before, 278 00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:50,050 people go advocates feel so strongly about the issue that they are unwilling to support a nominee who is so staunchly pro Silvo. 279 00:31:50,050 --> 00:31:54,050 It's time to ask what should probably tell me is incredibly naive question. 280 00:31:54,050 --> 00:31:58,640 No human me. Why did McKinley win? 281 00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:05,560 And I think in general, McKinley won because of gold, because we were discussing this earlier. 282 00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:15,130 Silver was incredibly popular amongst certain sectors of society, but gold was incredibly popular amongst the rest of society. 283 00:32:15,130 --> 00:32:25,090 And it was so polarising that when Brian stood up for four silver, he was incredibly popular amongst populists, amongst silver Democrats. 284 00:32:25,090 --> 00:32:29,290 But gold Democrats and Republicans are never going to swing his way. 285 00:32:29,290 --> 00:32:42,760 And so McKinley championing gold and saying how pushing this rhetoric that Brian was dangerous and all of these things that pro gold Americans feared. 286 00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:45,010 Yeah, he was always going to win. 287 00:32:45,010 --> 00:32:56,230 Yeah, I mean, in some ways, one could argue not that it's a landslide defeat, but it is actually remarkable how well Brian did, 288 00:32:56,230 --> 00:33:04,030 given the issues that he's supporting and the narrow the narrow constituencies which support his his issues. 289 00:33:04,030 --> 00:33:08,840 He's also part of the party that is associated with the economic panic of 1893. 290 00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:15,620 It's the Democratic Party that has been in office during the panic. 291 00:33:15,620 --> 00:33:17,980 And so all of these things, Brian, as I said, 292 00:33:17,980 --> 00:33:26,410 he does in some ways remarkably well at winning constituencies that in some ways you shouldn't be voting for him. 293 00:33:26,410 --> 00:33:34,190 Then I guess this MacKinley, as well as he manages to turn some southern counties red, 294 00:33:34,190 --> 00:33:41,320 he manages to turn solidly Confederate's counties to vote Republican, which is incredible. 295 00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:47,320 And he does this mainly by showing that Brian is a radical conservative. 296 00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,950 Southern whites are really scared of that. 297 00:33:50,950 --> 00:33:53,710 But McKinney also does this by compromising with Southern whites. 298 00:33:53,710 --> 00:34:02,110 And this is a real turning point in this era in in reconciliation between the north and the south. 299 00:34:02,110 --> 00:34:08,650 So McKinney is the last civil war veteran. He was a union veteran, but he doesn't do what's called waving the bloody shirt. 300 00:34:08,650 --> 00:34:15,130 He doesn't say you must vote for me as a unionist, but in the north, because of look what the Democrats did to us. 301 00:34:15,130 --> 00:34:19,060 Instead, when he goes to speak in Georgia, he has a grey a Confederate pin. 302 00:34:19,060 --> 00:34:28,480 And he and he never speaks out against lynching and he doesn't speak out at all against an African-American voter disenfranchisement. 303 00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:33,000 He compromises with the South. Yes, it doesn't. 304 00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:42,180 The race is clearly a huge issue at this time, but actually races very conspicuously absent from the campaigns themselves. 305 00:34:42,180 --> 00:34:48,930 There's just been a major Supreme Court decision in 1896 which has effectively legalised segregation. 306 00:34:48,930 --> 00:34:57,150 And it's it's an issue that the the two candidates avoid engaging with because as n'goni said, 307 00:34:57,150 --> 00:35:08,400 I think that analysis is spot on the political calculations on McKinney's part, cause him not to make race an issue in the election. 308 00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:16,530 And so under his premiership going forward, do some of the social problems in some cities and beyond. 309 00:35:16,530 --> 00:35:23,790 That is, do they continue to fester? Does the general economic improvement also improve the situation? 310 00:35:23,790 --> 00:35:31,330 This is the start of what's known as the nadir of African-American and white relations. 311 00:35:31,330 --> 00:35:38,460 It's it's a period where there is complete in some areas, voter disenfranchisement. 312 00:35:38,460 --> 00:35:40,050 In North Carolina at this point, 313 00:35:40,050 --> 00:35:47,640 there is zero African-Americans registered to vote in the next eight years after McKinley is elected and when he's elected again, 314 00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:53,370 even though he doesn't serve that term, there are at least 800 lynchings. 315 00:35:53,370 --> 00:36:02,820 This is the worst period for race relations, really. So, no, I think party is partly to do with decisions that people like McKinley made. 316 00:36:02,820 --> 00:36:11,530 But they they chose to they chose to compromise and to heal sectional divisions over race relations. 317 00:36:11,530 --> 00:36:20,890 But also the rural urban dynamic and the tensions between the two really don't go away, they intensify quite dramatically. 318 00:36:20,890 --> 00:36:29,060 Brian, even more becomes associated with the agrarian population and with Christianity in the years going forward. 319 00:36:29,060 --> 00:36:41,300 He very much becomes the spokesperson for these constituencies. And in nineteen twenty five, he ends up speaking in short of creationism trial. 320 00:36:41,300 --> 00:36:52,330 And there is kind of caricature. Does this backwards, poor mannered American that's a representative of past America, 321 00:36:52,330 --> 00:37:01,570 this kind of agrarian vision, and that actually he's trying to try to stop the march of modernity. 322 00:37:01,570 --> 00:37:10,250 So that's along with the racial divisions widening the the kind of rural urban divisions continue to widen. 323 00:37:10,250 --> 00:37:18,950 We have three minutes left and it's the thorniest issue of all, but I should ask the question, at least n'goni, are there any comparisons, 324 00:37:18,950 --> 00:37:23,720 useful or otherwise, that perhaps can be made between MacKinley Brid election and the current American election? 325 00:37:23,720 --> 00:37:31,470 We find ourselves serving as a historian. I find myself. 326 00:37:31,470 --> 00:37:37,540 Very difficult to say, oh, yeah, this is how they're similar, but there are a lot of similarities, 327 00:37:37,540 --> 00:37:45,400 so many at that he was saying earlier about the divide between the causes in the Democrat Party. 328 00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:50,350 I think that's one of the big ones in the Republican in the Republican Party now. 329 00:37:50,350 --> 00:37:53,980 We thought that the Republican Party is going to splinter and it still might. 330 00:37:53,980 --> 00:38:03,670 It still might, although there's also the massive difference between the machine for Clinton or the 331 00:38:03,670 --> 00:38:11,260 machine for McKinley compared to the lack of organisation comparatively that Trump had. 332 00:38:11,260 --> 00:38:16,360 So Brian didn't have the campaign strategy. They didn't have the staff behind him. 333 00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:27,710 McKinley had and Trump is doing all of his own talks, whereas Clinton has Obama, she has Michelle Obama, she has Joe Biden, Al Gore. 334 00:38:27,710 --> 00:38:30,820 It's such an incredible list of people who speak for her, 335 00:38:30,820 --> 00:38:37,570 whereas Trump is doing it all himself and even Mike Pence, who started dropping out of speaking for him. 336 00:38:37,570 --> 00:38:42,970 Yeah, yeah. I think I think those are the most significant comparisons. 337 00:38:42,970 --> 00:38:50,560 The the political I mean, what's going on within the parties and the way that the political campaigns are operating. 338 00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:57,370 I think it's it's tempting to look at some of the rhetoric, the rhetoric of the populists, 339 00:38:57,370 --> 00:39:01,810 the Bryars rhetoric and these attacks against the economic elite, 340 00:39:01,810 --> 00:39:07,240 unless this conspiracy mentality in a way, because that's what it is in lots of ways, 341 00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:11,410 that's what's causing this resentment of the of the gold standard. 342 00:39:11,410 --> 00:39:20,680 Is this this idea that Americans and farmers are being played by this Eastern economically? 343 00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:28,090 It's tempting. It's tempting to see some of that in both Trump and Bernie Sanders campaign. 344 00:39:28,090 --> 00:39:34,030 But I think as we pulled out, the problem with that comparison is often what's behind this. 345 00:39:34,030 --> 00:39:41,460 The thinly veiled xenophobia and racism is very different from what we see. 346 00:39:41,460 --> 00:39:46,470 In the 21st century, we might say that that to a certain extent, that underlying Trump's campaign, 347 00:39:46,470 --> 00:39:51,150 but it's definitely Bernie Sanders is not waging anti-Semitic attacks. 348 00:39:51,150 --> 00:39:55,080 There is no question of that. 349 00:39:55,080 --> 00:40:03,840 So, as I said, we should maintain caution with comparisons and similar, but but different in lots of ways. 350 00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:11,076 Well, thank you very much, both of you. It's been an education for me. Join us next time on in our spare time.