SOURCE: “William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925),” in The “Also Rans”: Great Men Who Missed Making the Presidential Goal, Books for Libraries Press, 1928, pp. 320-38.

In the following essay, Seitz considers Bryan's political career.

From the days of Continental currency to the founding of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1915, the United States had been a fertile field for financial heresies. A fast growing country, with slow communications, limited credit, and a shortage of circulating medium, made it easily subject to financial distress. Of the “hard money” stock, silver was relatively scarcer than gold, with a varying value affected by the supply, which finally caused its demonitization—the celebrated “Crime of 1873.” Wildcat currency, and bank notes that were seldom tame, kept the country in monetary misery. When the government greenback was invented in 1862 it soon became so much below par as to imperil the finances of the nation. The government paid...