HE LOST THREE TIMES

A review of Michael Kazin’s A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (2006)

(Rating 4 of 5)

William Jennings Bryan is a complicated figure in history.  After reading this biography, I—much like the author—am still not sure how I feel about him.  Bryan in his time inspired a lot of people.  He had a mass following in this country.  He is one of only a handful of Americans who carried a major party’s banner three times.  The others were Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Grover Cleveland, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Richard M. Nixon.  Nevertheless he leaves behind a complicated legacy.

Bryan was never elected to anything higher than a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and his brief time there can be considered unremarkable.  He was also very inefficient in the highest post he ever earned: Secretary of State of the United States.  What could be fair to say about Bryan is he played a type of a liberal Barry Goldwater role for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal the same way the real Goldwater paved the way for Reagan conservatism.  Bryan espoused polices that helped the Democratic Party break away from its phobia about the Federal Government’s powers.  Bryan told the Democrats that the government could actually be used for good.

Bryan on the campaign trail

He also changed the way people would run for president.  Bryan actually ran for president.  By the end of the century it was common for candidates for the highest office to actively campaign, instead of staying home and running through surrogates.  He also would come to advance popular causes, such as women’s suffrage, that were long overdue.

Woodrow Wilson's Cabinet, Bryan served as Secretary of State ineffectively

Despite this there are extremely negative things about him as well.  He allowed his religion to often cloud his judgment.  Bryan was always so convinced that he was right and God was on his side that he labeled anyone who opposed him was acting against the will of the Lord.  He was completely deaf to constructive criticism and that attitude turned former supporters against him.  Bryan supported and helped pass prohibition and never could see how it was a complete failure.  Bryan also turned back science education in his useless war on evolution.  Even some of the defenses that Kazin comes up with to explain his position doesn’t excuse his over reach and how he harm he caused to the education of students that continues to this day.

Bryan vs Darrow in the famous Scopes Trial

Then there is his stance on race.  I have long accepted that there are historical figures who I admire, who had opinions on race—and other things—that I now find abhorrent.  (Already we have mentioned Jefferson.)  I also understand that politics is always of the possible and sometimes even sympathetic politicians have to make choices in the name of political necessity.  (John Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Bill Clinton come to mind.)  However as Kazin points out his racism and racist positions are not based on any political calculus, but rather blind bigotry.   It makes his whole anti-imperialism crusade look hypocritical.  The nicest thing you could say about his racial legacy was that his populist campaigns helped pave the way for other social movements that would challenge those issues to rise up.

This is a good book about a fascinating individual who gave voice to the opposition in the era of Theodore Roosevelt.

THE TITANS OF THE GUILDED AGE

A review of Charles Morris’ The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy (2006) 

(Rating 4 of 5)

Charles Morris’ book deals with how the United States went from a patched together society after the Civil War to having one of the most powerful economies in the history of the world.  Many historians have clashed over the ‘great man’ theory and social history, this book gives you a bit of both.  The world was changing and that change was going to come regardless of who was in charge.  Nevertheless, these four individuals were responsible for the direction that it ultimately took.

From what I know of political history I came into this book thinking Jay Gould was something of a creep and this book did nothing change my mind.  It is amazing how a person can an act in such a manner that laws would have to be created to prevent someone from ever acting that way again.

Jay Gould

“Then, in the summer of 1869, with his railroad wars raging on every side, and the outcome still hanging in the balance, Gould launched, or was swept up in, the infamous Fisk-Gould ‘Gold Corner’.  It is one of the most notorious episodes in American financial history, one that demonstrates not only Gould’s own self-destructive streak but also the fragility of America’s postwar financial markets and the openness of the corruption.  The Gold Corner forever fixed the image of Gould as the evil genius of Wall Street; even worse from Gould’s perspective, it destroyed an important ally in his railroad wars, fatally tipping the balance against him.” (p.69)

Andrew Carnegie is known as the good entrepreneur, manly for his charity that he displayed for many years.  He some ways he reminds me of Thomas Jefferson who would publicly talk about the evils of slavery, even go so far and abolish the transatlantic slave trade during his presidency, while at the same time owning hundreds of slaves and freeing very few of them.  Carnegie would talk about doing good by his employees and often do badly by them.  Morris describes him as a man who was always obsessed that his employees were making too much and he was always looking for ways to slash their wages.

Andrew Carnegie

John D. Rockefeller was known as a man with a heart of stone.  However Morris shows he could be a ruthless businessman, but of the four subjects he was probably the nicest.  He was very rich man who could have used a better P.R. person.

“Although he often played rough he was surprisingly free of vindictiveness.  When he took over another man’s business, he generally paid a fair price, indeed, he often overpaid.  A typical ploy was to open his books to the target: any sensible man would understand that competition was hopeless and make a deal.  If a target was especially obdurate, rejecting all reasonable offers, a switch would turn and Rockefeller would suddenly unleash total blazing warfare on every front—price, supplies, access to transportation, land-use permits, whatever created pain.  When the target capitulated—they always did—the fair price offer would still be available, often with an offer to join the Rockefeller team.” (p.20)

John D. Rockefeller

Then there was J.P. Morgan, the banker.  He seems to be the elite of the elite in this book, although I think Rockefeller was richer. (Indeed, Morris thinks Rockefeller was richer than even Rockefeller himself was aware.)  Morgan’s role became so prominent that, in a way, he was the Federal Reserve before there was a federal reserve.  Morris points out that it was Morgan bailing out the government in the middle of multiple panics that the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.

JP Morgan

 

In addition to the giants, Morris discusses the rise of new type of Middle class, one whose role is to be the primary consumers of the new market.  Morris shows how houses would become homes and a new buying culture was to be created.              

This is a great book about how American business boomed in the years that followed the American Civil War.  It is an interesting take on the transformation of a culture.

{Video posted on YouTube by Randy King }

A LOOK BACK AT EMANCIPATION

A review of LaWanda Cox’s Lincoln and Black Freedom: A Study in Presidential Leadership (1981 original, 1994 my copy)

(Rating 4 of 5)

    

During the civil rights movement that—ironically—climaxed during the one hundredth anniversary the Civil War (1961-1965) many scholars began to challenge President Lincoln’s commitment to freedom.  Often these scholars would lack understanding of civil war politics, use anachronisms, and present the emancipation narrative as Lincoln vs. the Radicals as opposed to Lincoln having to deal with the multiple forces, some often stronger than the radicals.  In 1981, the year I was born, LaWanda Cox shattered the revisionist view with this work detailing how Lincoln’s Reconstruction ideas evolved, and how the cause to equality in the nineteenth century was blown when John Wilkes Booth made Andrew Johnson the president.  

I decided to read this book because it is cited so often in other Civil War books that I have read, most notable in Eric Foner’s Reconstruction.  The consequence to reading a book so often cited was that the first four chapters were just review for me because I have been exposed to this information so often before.  The final chapter was more fascinating a direct comparison and contrast with the Lincoln and A. Johnson Administrations.

            “Lincoln had recognized the historic challenge.  He was prepared to implement, so far as he would find practicable, ‘the principle that all men are created equal.’  The nature of presidential leadership helped shape events, and the leadership of Andrew Johnson and of Lincoln diverged markedly. Johnson lacked Lincoln’s political skill, finesse, and flexibility; more importantly, he did not face in the same direction.  Lincoln would expand freedom for blacks; Johnson was content to have their freedom contained.” (p.150)

In 1861, history met man and moment when Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as the President of the United States, in 1865 history missed when Andrew Johnson succeeded him.  Johnson’s presidency was in every way a disaster undermining progress and sending the country so far back racially that it would take a hundred years to overcome it. (By 'overcome it' I mean Johnson's regressed progress, not racism). Andrew Johnson is an another reason to hate John Wilkes Booth.