In postwar America, William Jennings Bryan dedicated his last few years of his life defending his faith. He battled against modernists and protested against the teaching of Darwinism in public schools. Bryan also continued to speak for prohibition and sexual equality. In the election of 1920, the Democratic Party nominated James Cox for President and Franklin D. Roosevelt for Vice President, but the Republican Party won by a landslide. Bryan's movements unintentionally gained the support of the Ku Klux Klan, and though Bryan did not approve of the Klan's hostility and intolerance, he as a politician did not condemn the group. In the election of 1924, the Democratic Party ran John Davis as President and Bryan's brother Charles Bryan as Vice President against incumbent Republican Calvin Coolidge and third party Progressive Robert La Follette. Bryan's party again lost crushingly, and Bryan lost much of his political influence because many in the party turned against him during the election. In 1925, Bryan assisted in the prosecution of John Thomas Scopes against the defense of Clarence Darrow in the State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes trial. Scopes was accused of teaching Darwinism at a public school which was against Tennessee law. The trial turned into a battle between modernism and fundamentalism. Despite the ruling in favor of the prosecution, the defense ridiculed Bryan during his questioning and demonstrated that fundamentalism and its direct interpretation of the Bible were illogical. A few days after the trial, Bryan went to take an afternoon nap and did not wake up.
Key Terms
Volstead Act
Teapot Dome
Fundamentalism
Modernism
Eighteenth Amendments
Ku Klux Klan
State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes
Clarence Darrow
Questions
What was the main impact of the Scopes trial?
Why did Bryan ignore the KKK's actions?
What goals did Bryan achieve in the time before his death?
What contributed to the Republican Party's success in the last two elections?
Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan during the trial, Photograph, from Famous Trials in American History, accessed March 12, 2015, http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/darrowbryan300.jpg
Kazin, Michael. "Save the Children." In A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan, 262-295, New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2006.
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