The Return of the Great Commoner.

William Jennings Bryan returned to the helm of his party in 1908. He had staked out his position two years before in a speech leaving little question that he was trying to reclaim the political left from Roosevelt and the progressive Republicans. In this two-hour speech he dedicated six paragraphs to the railroad question. Viewing them as monopolies, he said that if proper, effective railroad regulation could not be obtained, the government should treat the railroads as public property and ultimately take them over. The Republican press acted as if the entire speech were about railroads. They substituted "immediately" for "ultimately," making the proclamation seem more extreme than it really was. Congressional Republicans responded to Bryan's criticism by passing the Hepburn Act, and southern states rejected his argument because it went counter to their states' rights...