
William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” Speech - zjacobi
http://socratic-form-microscopy.com/2018/06/17/a-cross-of-gold-the-best-speech-youve-never-heard/
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smacktoward
_> Bryan decided that he wanted America to have a bimetallic currency.
Unfortunately, there was a political class united in its opposition to this
policy. That meant he needed a president that favoured it._

This gets the causality backwards. What Bryan decided was that _he wanted to
be President_ , and that in order to become President he would need to
associate himself with an issue hot and controversial enough to attract voters
to him for having taken their side on it. Bimetallism was a live-wire issue
among the rural constituency he wanted to set himself up as the champion of,
and it had few other champions due to the oppressive orthodoxy the gold
standard held over the thinking of the time, so he chose that as the issue to
wrap his arms around.

It worked -- Bryan stood out to rural voters as the one politician who really
understood their needs, and his career as "The Great Commoner" was born. But
Bryan's adoption of bimetallism came because he recognized its political
potency, not because he held strong opinions about the economics of the
matter. He cared so little about those that, when questioned about the details
by an Omaha newspaper, he replied that "I don't know anything about free
silver. The people of Nebraska are for free silver and I am for free silver. I
will look up the arguments later."

~~~
philwelch
He also ran for President for three out of four elections between 1896 and
1908 without winning. That's unheard of these days. The last major party
losing candidate to run again was Richard Nixon in 1968. Ross Perot also ran,
and lost, in 92 and 96.

It's very strange that losing a Presidential general election is seen as the
end of a political career when in years past, candidates like Bryan,
Stevenson, or Dewey were still seen as viable.

Also, your explanation of Dewey choosing a political stance that was widely
held among voters but somewhat taboo among the political class and riding that
stance to prominence shows that there's really nothing new or innovative in
the wave of populism sweeping Western democracies in recent years.

~~~
gowld
This is likely because the number of viable candidates today is much larger
due to population growth and access to media. In 1904, getting famous was much
harder than now, so someone already known to the voters, even as a loser,
could have a better chance than a yet-unknown.

~~~
philwelch
I wonder if negative campaigning also plays a role. Candidates like Hillary
Clinton and Al Gore have faltered due to the cumulative effect of years of
attacks, while candidates like Obama who appeared out of nowhere were more
successful.

~~~
Spooky23
Check out 19th century negative campaigns. Modern politicians look like
kittens. Pamphlets were published comparing Lincoln to an ape.

Candidates like Clinton falter because they suck. Kicking off your campaign
Roosevelt Island and driving to Pennsylvania or wherever in a hotel shuttle
van was the kickoff to a weak campaign.

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apo
_The dispute over bimetallic currency is now more than a hundred years old and
has been made entirely moot by the floating US dollar and the post-Bretton
Woods international monetary order._

Setting aside the technical detail (gold vs. silver), the debate was really
over hard vs. soft money. The issue is as relevant today as it was in the
1800s.

Hard (scarce, gold) money policies favor lenders, who care very much about
getting the full real value of their loans back. Inflation eats into their
returns by decreasing the future value of money.

Soft money policies favor borrowers, who pay back loans in ever cheaper
currency through inflation. Buy a farm today with a 10-year loan, and every
year the real value of the money you pay back (factoring inflation) decreases.

What we see with a lot of the interest in Bitcoin is a direct reaction to
decades of soft-money policies by the world's governments.

Here's the money quote:

 _... There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the
well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The
Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses
prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which
rests upon them. ..._

This is what the Cross of Gold speech was about, in a nutshell.

~~~
Steko
Moderate inflation is easily factored into repayment terms. What inflation
penalizes is keeping your money under your mattress. This creates demand to
use money now which creates economic activity.

> a lot of the interest in Bitcoin is a direct reaction to decades of soft-
> money policies by the world's governments

Bitcoin came from and was nurtured by monetary cranks but they are a small
fraction of why people are interested in it lately. Today it's an investment
asset or a means to do something illicit like dodge currency controls or
launder money.

~~~
apo
_Moderate inflation is easily factored into repayment terms._

 _Constant_ inflation is easily factored in. But inflation varies greatly
depending on prevailing conditions. The ruling party has an incentive to push
for inflationary policies to stimulate short-term economic activity, leading
to bouts of inflation that can wreck lenders over the long term.

 _What inflation penalizes is keeping your money under your mattress._

Inflation also punishes prudent investors - the kind who save for retirement.

Rising inflation leads to asset bubbles as pre-retirees seek to avoid being
destroyed by inflation. Stocks without earnings and real estate, for example.
They all get pushed up to ridiculous levels in the name of chasing return to
avoid getting clobbered by inflation.

Not to mention the harmful ecological consequences of inflationary policies
that encourage consumption over saving.

~~~
pembrook
You have it backwards. Rising inflation does not create asset bubbles. In
fact, rising inflation has the ability to _deflate_ asset bubbles.

For example, we are arguably approaching an asset bubble right now because of
a decade of _low inflation_ and _low interest rates._ In a zero inflation,
zero interest rate environment nobody is incentivized to hold cash(since it
returns zero) or CDs thus risk assets (ie. stocks) become inflated.

~~~
apo
_Rising inflation does not create asset bubbles._

I can think of three recent examples where inflation/soft money policies
triggered asset bubbles:

\- gold from late 1970s to early 1980s (CPI inflation)

\- US real estate late 1990s to 2008 (excessive loan origination)

\- US stocks from mid 1990s to 2001 (lax margin requirement)

 _For example, we are arguably approaching an asset bubble right now because
of a decade of low inflation and low interest rates. In a zero inflation, zero
interest rate environment nobody is incentivized to hold cash(since it returns
zero) or CDs thus risk assets (ie. stocks) become inflated._

An inflation rate of zero would incentivize many people and groups to increase
cash holdings. With no inflation to keep at bay, cash becomes a real no-risk
bet.

Those doing so would no doubt the interested in _real_ rates of return. For
years, investors in CDs endured a negative real rate of return due to
inflation. This forced people out of cash and into ever-risker assets.

Throw in mild deflation, and the average Joe could make a real return of a
percent or two just by holding cash. It could trigger a stampede of sorts into
cash and out of stocks, which explains why central banks are so keen to avoid
even mild deflation.

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smacktoward
Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech was made when audio recording technology was
being born, so in a little miracle of technology, we can actually hear the man
himself give it today:
[http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/](http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/)

(The recording is from a later 1925 performance of the speech by Bryan, not
from his original performance that famously turned the tide of the 1896
Democratic National Convention. But it's still a fairly unique opportunity to
hear a speech from that era in the voice of the man who gave it.)

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DubiousPusher
I find the "Free Silver" movement fascinating because it sheds a light on how
much we take our current economy for granted. Before I started to read about
economics on my own I heard many times about the evils of easy credit and
inflation but never had I heard about the problems of deflation and scarce
money.

~~~
anonymous5133
Yup and thankfully now we have so many different money systems that one can
decide where to keep their value. People need not keep cash under the mattress
if they dont want to. You can hold scarce assets that appreciate over time and
only hold inflationary fiat when you need to purchase something. Thus you will
never be pressured to spend all your money because most of your "money" isnt
being held in inflationary assets.

We are told that inflation is good because it encourages spending but i would
argue that such an effect is being dimished because many deflationary assets
are traded on liquid markets.

~~~
philwelch
That's kind of the point, right? Inflation encourages spending, but it _also_
encourages investment, and your saved money can be invested in stocks and
bonds, which also stimulate economic growth more than being stuffed in a
mattress.

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MrZongle2
According to Wikipedia and it's citations, William J. Bryan was satirized as
the Cowardly Lion by L. Frank Baum in "The Wizard of Oz".

~~~
jcranmer
No.

The Wizard of Oz as an extended allegory for bimetallism was a theory proposed
by Littlefield in the 60s, and it's been pretty much thoroughly debunked by
literary scholars who point out that the characters are essentially common
character tropes from 1890s literature, and biographers who pointed out that
it's completely contrary to the views that Baum himself held.

~~~
MrZongle2
Well then I suggest you take a trip to Wikipedia and start editing. For that
current bit of trivia there are no less than 4 citations, three of which are
from this century.

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Symmetry
If you haven't done coursework in economics reading at least the Wikipedia
page on inflation is a really good way to understand more about the issue.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation)

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macintux
Very interesting piece, and a fascinating blog in general. Seeing someone
document their ongoing struggle to understand the world reminds me how little
I've done about that myself.

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hyperpallium
His reasons for opposing evolution in the 1925 Scopes trial are interesting
[https://wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan)

