[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]
William Jennings Bryan, who spotlighted Lincoln from the nineties on,
died in 1925, shortly after the famous Scopes trial in Tennessee. He had
gone to that state to thunder disapproval of John T. Scopes, who was
being tried for teaching evolution, contrary to Tennessee law. It is
believed that Bryan’s death was hastened by his vigorous efforts in
behalf of fundamentalism.
It is interesting to gaze upon this modest church—Normal Methodist, 55th
and South—which Bryan attended after his removal to Fairview, and
reflect that here, doubtless, were built up the religious convictions
which accompanied him—perhaps hastened him—to his grave. Not always did
he occupy one of the old fashioned stained oak benches. Often he spoke
from the carved pulpit, his hand upon the old metal-clasped Bible, his
pontifical and mellow voice filling the little church.
What W. J. Bryan believed he believed with great sincerity and
articulateness. First intimations of his gifts as an orator came with
the impassioned silver speech in 1896 in which he declared: “You shall
not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall
not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” His contemporaries did not
always agree with the Great Commoner, but they could not do otherwise
than respect his sincerity. He fought for the silver standard, for
peace, for prohibition, for fundamentalism, often losing but never
giving up the fight.
His lion’s face and mane, his broad hat, his golden voice, are gone, but
gashes of his reform ax may still be seen on the surface of the
commonwealth.