On 4/20/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
me:
> >>is it possible to describe William Jennings Bryan -- the most famous
> US populist -- as a "demagogue"? <<
Daniel Davies wrote:
> is it possible to describe him any other way? perhaps as a non-American I
> am missing something here, but this question to me has the flavour of "is it
> possible to describe Tiger Woods as a golfer?".
I dunno. It sure seems as if WJB believed in the crap he preached.
WJB's theory of money was crappy, but so was that of the other side:
the gold standard:
<http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/currency.html>. Then, the other side
also preached Manifest Destiny*.
In any case, though, the rise of WJB was a sign of the dissolution of
populism as an autonomous movement, dissolving itself into the
Democratic Party, which meant that more radical planks of the populist
platform got discarded -- hence the prominence of the currency
question in the end.
* <http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5575/>
Hold a moment longer! Not quite yet, gentlemen! Before you go I would
like to say just a word about the Philippine business. I have been
criticized a good deal about the Philippines, but don't deserve it.
The truth is I didn't want the Philippines, and when they came to us,
as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them. When the
Spanish War broke out Dewey was at Hongkong, and I ordered him to go
to Manila and to capture or destroy the Spanish fleet, and he had to;
because, if defeated, he had no place to refit on that side of the
globe, and if the Dons were victorious they would likely cross the
Pacific and ravage our Oregon and California coasts. And so he had to
destroy the Spanish fleet, and did it! But that was as far as I
thought then.
When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I
confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all
sides—Democrats as well as Republicans—but got little help. I thought
first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands
perhaps also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night
until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I
went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance
more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don't
know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to
Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not
turn them over to France and Germany—our commercial rivals in the
Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could
not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and
they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's
was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them
all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and
Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by
them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to
bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent
for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I
told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States
(pointing to a large map on the wall of his office), and there they
are, and there they will stay while I am President!
Source: General James Rusling, "Interview with President William
McKinley," The Christian Advocate 22 January 1903, 17. Reprinted in
Daniel Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, eds., The Philippines
Reader (Boston: South End Press, 1987), 22–23.
--
Yoshie
