A Democratic savior will be selected this August in Denver, but he will have a hard time outshining the charisma of the choice a century ago. The 1908 Denver Democratic National Convention selected William Jennings Bryan as the party’s presidential candidate.
The West — Colorado in particular — was hoping that Bryan was its savior. “The Silver State” was still recovering from the disastrous 1893 silver crash. That terrible local echo of a worldwide depression had been aggravated in Colorado by the federal government’s solution: the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. This ended the major federal subsidy of the silver industry, then Colorado’s economic mainstay. As the price of silver dropped more than 50 percent, mines, smelters and associated business crashed, including half the banks in Denver.
Westerners had selected Bryan, a Nebraska congressman, in 1896 as the presidential candidate of both the Democratic and the Populist parties. At the 1896 Chicago Convention, Bryan first gave his famous “Cross of Gold” speech: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
Bryan would give that speech hundreds of times before coming to Denver in 1908, including a 1900 presidential campaign where he once again lost to Republican William McKinley. Surely, Coloradans hoped and prayed, Bryan would win on his third try for the presidency in 1908 and implement his promise of free and unlimited coinage of silver. Conservative Easterners, regarding additional coinage of silver as fiscal suicide, despised Bryan as much as Westerners adored him. By spending lavishly and campaigning hard, the goldbugs won the populous Eastern states and the election.
A handsome and charming man with a booming voice, Bryan was the greatest orator of the day. The masses worshiped him. Although advocating radical change, Bryan was actually a fundamentalist Presbyterian as shown by his later career and defense of the Biblical version of human creation in the Scopes Monkey Trail. The nation eventually adopted many of the reforms he championed, including the income tax (to replace property taxes, which fell heaviest on farmers and ranchers), popular election of U.S. senators, national women’s suffrage, prohibition and public knowledge of newspaper ownership.
Incidentally, a bear cub named for Bryan was instrumental in launching the Denver Zoological Gardens. “Billy Bryan” was an orphan found in the mountains near Aspen and raised by Colorado Midland Railway General Passenger agent J.W. Bailey. As Billy grew, Mrs. Bailey complained that he broke into her jams and jellies and terrified the children.
Alexander J. Graham, superintendent of City Park, agreed to keep him in the barn next to his house, which still stands, a designated Denver landmark, at 2080 York Street. There Billy got into further trouble, according to the Denver Times. “When superintendent Graham went out to his chicken coop this morning to pick out the turkey which had been chosen for the Christmas dinner, he was astonished to find blood on the floor and not a bird in sight.”
Eventually, Graham built a cage for Billy Bryan north of Duck Lake. There, the Denver Zoo opened in 1896 with Billy Bryan as its first resident and a reminder of the man Coloradans hoped would be president.
Tom Noel (www.coloradowebsites.com/dr-colorado)teaches history at the University of Colorado Denver and appears as Dr. Colorado on Channel 9’s “Colorado & Company” every other Tuesday. He will sign copies of his latest book, “Denver’s Performing Arts & Conventions” (with Amy Zimmer), at the Tattered Cover at 7:30 on July 7.
