Bryan, W(illiam) J(ennings) 1860-1925
US politician

Born in Salem, Illinois, he graduated from Illinois College in 1881 and studied law at Chicago. He served in the US House of Representatives as a Democrat from Nebraska (1891-95) and was a delegate to the 1896 Democratic national convention, where he delivered his famous 'Cross of Gold' speech in defence of free silver and so captured the presidential nomination. He lost to William McKinley in that year and in 1900; in 1908 he gained the nomination for the third time but lost to William Howard Taft. In the course of his campaigns he became known as a great populist stump-orator, styling himself as an advocate of the common people and denouncing expansionism and monopolies. He also promoted his views through a political weekly, The Commoner, which he founded and edited from 1901. He was appointed Secretary of State by Woodrow Wilson (1913), but as an ardent pacifist resigned in June 1915 over America's second Lusitania note to Germany. His last public act was assisting the anti-evolutionist prosecutor in the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. He was the father of the feminist Ruth Rohde.