Up till 1896, the Democratic Party had been (since the Civil War) a Southern Based "me, to" party compared to the Dominate GOP of the time period. In 1896 that all changed, Williams Jennings Bryan was able to take over the Convention and adopt a "Free Silver" Platform and other progressive measures. Cleveland, the Sitting President, was ignored. Thus the Democratic party, as a whole, decided to reject what we would call the Democratic Leadership Council (DCL) of the old "Gold Democrats" (Which included Cleveland) for a much more left wing but still electable party leadership.
Side note on the "Free Silver" debate: At the end of the Civil war the US Dollar was at its lowest rate compared to the British pound and even the Canadian Dollar (prior to 1860, the US Dollar and Canadian Dollar were on a one to one ratio, but on July 11, 1864, one Canadian Dollar was worth $2.78 American Dollars. after 1865 the US Dollar returned to its one to one Ratio to Canadian Dollars). Technically the US was on the "Gold Standard" from the 1830s till 1861, and then 1865 till 1933 (When FDR took the US off the Gold Standard, by reducing the Value of US Dollars from $20 to an ounce of Gold, to $35 to an ounce of Gold, that stayed the standard till 1971 when Nixon floated the dollar as to its value in Gold).
Now the US return to the Gold Standard ny 1874 was achieved by a rapid repayment of the Civil War Debt. This caused the "Long Depression" of the 1870s. This "Long depression" did not end till the later 1890s. You had over 25 years of Deflation i.e. if you purchased land for $10,000 in 1870, you sold it for $5000 in 1896. Farmers were caught in a bind, what they could sell, was also selling for lower prices, and while wages declined, their mortgages and other debts stayed the same value (If they did not increase do to the decline in farm prices). In the South this lead to most small farmers (and many of the Freed Slaves who owned land after the Civil War) to lost title to their lands to large landowners and become sharecroppers on those lands. In the Mid-West (Ohio to the Montana), farmers saw their mortgages going up every year instead of going down (Mortgages prior to 1938, when the present idea of a 20 year mortgage became the norm, only lasted one year, at the end of the year it had to be paid or re-newed. If you could not pay the mortgage off, the bank ended up with the property. On the other hand most banks did not want the property, so the mortgage was renewed every year. The problem was the mortgages instead of going down every year ended up going up do to increase costs. During any recessions, banks ended up in a bind, their needed money to pay people running on the banks, but their money was tied up in mortgages. Thus they had no money to pay off depositors AND needed any dollar they could get their hands on. Thus, the banks would NOT re-new the mortgages, instead selling the farms at a huge lost, but getting a handful of cash that the banks disparately needed.
More on the Canadian-US Dollar exchange rate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_dollarThe "Free Silver" movement was to undo the above deflation. Huge Silver deposits had been found in Nevada in the 1860s, thus permitting huge level of silver production from then till the 1960s. In the 1790s, before the huge Gold Finds of the California Gold Rush (The Amount of Gold out of California was huge, all the subsequent "Gold Rushes" may have involved more people, but less gold was found). Most of this Gold was in Circulation by 1857 (When the US withdrew the Spanish Dollar, the piece of eight, from being a US Coin) and had dropped the price of Gold for the previous Eight years. Silver finding in the Nevada shortly followed. Thus you had a massive expansion in the amount of Gold in circulation in the 1850s, followed by a even more massive circulation of Silver in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s (and onward till the 1930s).
In 1857, the price of one Dollar of Gold and One Dollar of Silver was reflected in the One Dollar Gold Coins and One Dollar Silver Coins of the US. The subsequent silver production decreased the price of Silver in terms of Gold so that by 1900, a Dollar Gold Coin was still contained one Dollar in Gold, but the Silver value in a Silver Dollar was about 55 cents.
Out of change came the "Free Silver" Movement. i.e. minting more Silver Dollars, even if that caused the Dollar to decrease in value in terms of Gold. Wall street hated that proposal, main street and the farmers loved the proposal for it meant inflation which the country needed to fight the deflation the country had been in since about 1870. Until the 1920 Census, the Majority of Americans still lived in Rural Areas (The 1920 Census was the first time more people reported living in Cities then in Rural Areas) and thus what the Farmers wanted was important. Economist agree, in that a 1-2% inflation rate is good for the economy, while high inflation is bad, deflation in worse. The Free Silver movement was to inflate the economy by a massive influx of Silver. This was the heart of the progressive movement in the 1890s and why it became the center piece of the 1896 Presidential election (An election many feel, was won by the GOP via cheating, for it was the first time Secret Ballots were required in ALL Presidential elections, secret ballots meant ballots could be changed to reflect who was counting the ballots NOT who actually voted. Open Ballots, while having the downside of being public, had the advantage of being public, i.e. if your vote was counted as X, when you voted for Y, you could bring that up to the board of Elections. You can NOT do that with a Secret Ballot for you can NOT prove your vote was switched).
Anyway, the 1896 election was an election for progressive government. Bryan lost and so did progressive Government. McKinley had won but worried about his re-election in 1900, switched his Vice President from an old line politician to the GOP head of the progressive movement, TR Roosevelt (and upon McKinley assassination, Roosevelt became President).
Now, the 1900 election was different then the 1896 election. First you had two massive gold finds in South African and Australia, the effect of both was to bring down the price of Gold leading to the inflation the "Free Silver" movement had always wanted. Second, the Spanish-American war had been fought and won, making a hero out of TR Roosevelt. Thus McKinley again defeated Bryan and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party (Bryan ran an anti-imperialism campaign, saying the US can NOT rule the Philippines for it is a different Country then the US and other wise attacking the expansion of US Power after 1898).
In 1904, the Democratic Party decided to opt for one of its old line Democrats as its Candidate, ignoring the Left and Bryan. The defeat was worse then Bryan ever incurred, so in 1908 Bryan again was the Nominee and this time running an anti-monopoly campaign. The GOP again defeated Bryan (This is a close to a Bryan-Roosevelt fight there ever was, Taft was Roosevelt hand picked successor). After the 1908 election, Bryan said he would NOT run thus Bryan was able to come out for Women's right to vote (Something the South was the most opposed to, so prior to 1908 Bryan had stayed quite about as he did about race for the same reason, Bryan knew he could NOT win election without the South and thus had to either cater to the South OR ignore things the south opposed, Bryan appeared to do the later more then the former). The Left wing of the Democratic Party went with him on that issue.
In 1912, Bryan supported Wilson for President. When Wilson won, Bryan was Wilson's Secretary of State and was even able to make arbitration of international dispute a working option for many nations, but then WWI broke out. When Wilson refused to cut off the banks loans to Britain and France, Bryan resigned, pointing out that the US will have to protect those loans by going to war with Britain and France and the refusal of Wilson to stop such loans, put the US on a path of war (Bryan was the last major Cabinet member to resign over a disagreement with the President over policy).
After WWI, Bryan (who had always been an world traveler and reader) read a book about the German High Command of WWII and how that High Command had perverted Darwin's theory to justify the mass killings of WWI (Thus his subsequent actions in the Scopes Monkey Trial, where he meet Scopes and talked to him about the case and even offered to pay the fine for the issue, in Bryan's eyes, was NOT the theory of evolution itself, but how it was bring used to justify "Social Darwinism" and that dogmas related theories). At least one reported of the trial changed his view, when he found himself siding with Bryan (The Reporter had been a long term Bryan opponent within the Democratic Party). Another reported saw a third reporting typing out what was going on in the trial before it ever occurred, when ask why the reported said "I know what my Editor wants". Some other common errors in regard to the trial, no hostilely to the defense, in fact the town hosted BOTH the prosecution and the Defense at two different dinners. Scopes, while arrested, never spent a day in Jail (The town has asked him to stand trial as a publicity stunt, even posting the "fine" as bond before Scopes even agreed to said he taught human evolution), that the subject was evolution not restricted to human evolution AND that the prosecution asked for Jail time, when the statute clearly forbade any Jail time (And Bryan had lobbied the Tennessee Legislature NOT to put any punishment on the law Bryan had written without any punishment, for it covered Professionals and thus no punishment was needed).
Byran died in 1925, five days after the end of the Scopes Monkey trial (and after being hit by a car) from the long term effect of Diabetes. Within ten years his progressive wing of the Democratic party was in full control of both houses of Congress (FDR was supported that wing, but not a member of it, to far left as far as FDR was concerned). This wing took charge and made the New Deal, fighting Wall Street all the way. It took almost 40 years to over come the power of Wall Street, but it started with a defeat of the old line Democratic who made the mistake of being GOP-light as opposed to progressive (Truman was the first person I know of that used the term "Republican-Light).
Just pointing out that it took almost 40 years of fighting before the People accepted the fact we needed progressive reforms AFTER the Democratic Party accepted the job of being progressive. It took the Democratic Defeat of 1894 to convince the Democratic Party in 1896 to embrace being progressive. Even in defeat the Democratic Party stayed Progressive for every time a non progressive Candidate was nominated the progressive wing stayed home and the Democratic party lost even bigger. This forced the old line Democrats (Now the DLC) to accept and embrace progressive legislations. Once in power, the progressive wing took charge and ran the government (This occurred only in the 1930s, but lasted till the 1960s). The Death of the progressive movement took the dying off of the Generation that suffered the most during the Great Depression for the GOP to gain control over Congress (The baby boomers were much more GOP in out-view then had their parents been). We are now seeing what the Country saw and learned during the Great Depression, that the GOP will lie to stay in power and they are NOT to be trusted. Sooner or later the coming generation will embrace this same outlook, but it will take time and a lot of work by the left wing of the Democratic party, the work Bryan and his followers did between 1886 and 1832 which lead to the New Deal and the remaining progressive laws of the 1930s through the 1970s.
My point is a good defeat can lead to later victories, and hopefully this defeat can lead to Obama and his cabinet learning he MUST get the progressives out in the next election and that requires Obama and his cabinet to do things the left wing of the party WANTS, including things Wall Street opposes.
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