Ask William Jennings Bryan
“You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
“Also, gold crosses are SO 1895.”
Ask William Jennings Bryan was a syndicated American advice column that ran from 1896 until Bryan's death in 1925. Written by its titular questionee, anti-gold Populist and eventual Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, the column inexplicably became one of the era's defining pieces of common general periodical prognostication, or in non-educated non-historian terms, dumb newspaper gossip for laymen. At its peak, the column was featured in 1,200 newspapers across the country (and two in Florida), and is considered by modern historians to indeed be an event in American history.
History[edit | edit source]
Genesis[edit | edit source]
Ask William Jennings Bryan began in 1896 as a guerrilla effort by the Populist Party (the one that didn't nominate David Duke) to communicate its anti-gold standard platform to common Americans from coast to coast leading up to the Presidential election of that year. The previous election's stand-alone Populist magazine, James B. Weaver's Screw the Railroads Weekly, failed to accrue enough interest due to the fact that the high cost of release resulted in the publication only being available for purchase in the city of Gold Bar, Washington. To combat the higher promotional capabilities of the pro-gold Republican Party, the Populists needed a cheap yet visible avenue to promote their ideals with. Weaver's initial suggestion of publishing his magazine once again, only this time both at Gold Bar AND in the neighboring hamlet of Index, predictably failed. Instead, they called upon the services of Bryan, who at the time was a Democratic candidate for the presidency who shared the party's views, to pitch and execute a solution. Bryan, who had not minored in creative writing at Cornell despite his claims to the contrary (which had gotten him the Populist job to begin with), elected to create a national advice column that would answer all of its questions with tirades against financial trusts and big business and appeals towards the inflationary beauty of unrestricted silver minting no matter the subject. Thus, the publication was born.
Excerpt from Ask William Jennings Bryan, February 22, 1896
Dear Mr. Bryan,
Good heavens, Mr. Bryan! Yesterday, I caught my dear husband Reginald canoodling with our young Mexican servant in the back of the kitchen pantry! He quickly admitted to the adulterous act and others over the past fortnight, fired the girl on the spot, and promised to maintain his future faithfulness as long as we both shall live. He trusts in my ability to forgive, but I cannot bring myself to hold the same level trust for him again! What should I do?
Sincerely,
Conflicted in Charlotte
Dear Conflicted,
There are two ideas of government. 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. You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country. In other words, it's the damned gold!
After Bryan lost the election to pro-business Republican William McKinley, he continued to maintain his column even after the party divested from the publication and sold its syndication rights to King Features. Bryan's new bosses forced him to provide actual answers to his submitted queries, although he still managed to sneak in qualms about the gold standard and the whims of big business wherever he could.
Excerpt from Ask William Jennings Bryan, August 16, 1899
Dear Mr. Bryan
I simply cannot stand it! My recently widowed mother-in-law has moved in, and although the death of my husband's dear father is of the upmost tragedy, I simply cannot stand her pompuous and spoiled attitude any longer. My husband makes good money as an associate lawyer, but he is not the textile tycoon that his father was. However, she remains convinced that she will be able to lead the same life of luxury and leisure she has for her entire adult life. She refuses to assist me around the house, she makes demands after demands to my husband, and has no respect for anyone else in this family. I want to give her an ultimatum: heed our requests as a member of our household, or leave immediately! Should I?
Sincerely,
Henpecked in Helena
Dear Henpecked,
You should absolutely demand that she pull her own weight. It sounds as if she is nothing but a burden on your household, and there is no reason you should stand for her spoiled demeanor any longer, no matter how your husband feels. On a related note, the gold standard is still a national travesty, American imperialism is an affront to our great country's democratic ideals, and the unrestricted coinage of silver is the only way to fix our broken economy for the benefit of the common American. Just a thought.
As the years progressed, and Bryan slowly became more and more financially attached to his column, his political crusades faded, and he slowly became a typical feminine-focused fluff-talking advice columnist of the era. At the same time, his formerly formally pretentious prose radically shifted and became extremely informal and infinitely more pretentious.
Excerpt from Ask William Jennings Bryan, May 20, 1905
Dear Mr. Bryan,
Oh good lord! I looked in the mirror today, and what horror did I find haunting my scalp! Gray roots! I almost fainted at the sight. I am only 26 years old. I just married the love of my life! What am I going to do? I cannot become an old grayed hag at what is supposed to be the height of my youth and beauty. I shudder at the thought. My friend Patricia told me to try dying my scalp. She swears by her redhead dye, and she looks acceptable even for a naturally weathered 37-year-old woman like herself. But I just read that Jungle book by that Sinclair fellow, and I must say, if I cannot trust the meat industry to produce safe products practical for human use, I find it hard to believe that the dye industry would operate to a more moral degree. What should I do?
Sincerely,
Periled in Passcagoula
Dear Periled,
Dye it, miss! A gray lady is a sorry sight, especially when she's a girl. Cover up those roots with whatever you can! Pour a bucket of ink on it if you have to! Your husband is going to scurry on out for a spritelier woman if you let your appearance crumble before him. Handle this small cosmetic issue before it balloons into an ugly crisis! And you can trust me. I am William Jennings Bryan, after all. Would a Cornell graduate lead you wrong?
Gossip[edit | edit source]
Despite his departure from political content within his column, when Bryan ascended to the Secretary of State position under Woodrow Wilson's presidency, he used his newfound authority and his larger presence at the nation's capital to expand his column to include a political news/gossip section titled Washington Gossip, which presented a sensationalized depiction of political affairs within the Wilson administration that favored random, often fictitious headlines over true journalism. Despite the obvious falsehoods of reports such as "CROOKED NEW YORK GANG MOB STAGES FAILED COUP OVER WAYS-AND-MEANS COMMITTEE, FEARLESS LEADER WILSON EXPELS ALL ITALIANS FROM CONGRESS", the public rabidly consumed Bryan's work.
Excerpt from Washington Gossip, February 11, 1915
ITEM! Today, famed film director D.W. Griffith staged a private screening of his latest production "Birth of a Nation" for Mr. Wilson and the rest of his cabinet. Personally, I could not care less for dry ancient history, and I thought it was long and too devoid of slapstick comedy (have you SEEN that Chaplain fellow? What a hoot!) Mr. Wilson loved it, though. When I asked him for his opinion, he lauded Mr. Griffith and what he called "a perfectly accurate and truthfully romantic depiction of American history". His only complaint: "I just wish they killed more of those negros."
There's war about in Europe, and I'm sure each and every one of you has heard vociferous and woefully misguided calls for our nation's intervention in those undesirable affairs abroad. As a public servant of my great nation (and an expert on quite practically everything, as my column has undoubtedly demonstrated), I have done everything in my power as Secretary of State to discourage Mr. Wilson from making any rash decisions on the military front. He is a smart, methodical man, and I trust that he will keep us all neutral and safe. I have also made it particularly clear that I will not stand for any sort of American involvement, but I needn't worry, nor should you. The war's an ocean away! Go on with your lives, live happily and fruitfully, maybe even take a peaceful cruise-ship vacation to keep your mind of the doldrums of foreign policy. After all, it's not like those Germans would sink the Lusitania, right? Right?
In House news, my sources tell me Speaker Champ Clark's wife is pregnant, but that he may not be the father? Who could it be? (hint: it's not NOT him!)
Despite Bryan's obvious qualms with war and American imperialism, WWI's Zimmerman Telegram, long believed to be a covert message sent to Mexico by warmongering Germany that promised the nation lost southwestern American territory in return for an anti-American alliance, is now understood to have been a creation of Bryan's column that came about because President Wilson's unshackling anti-war stance left Ask William Jennings Bryan with a sagging action-hungry readership.
Later years[edit | edit source]
After Bryan left the president's cabinet in 1915, he continued to publish his column. For a few months, he tried to continue Gossip from outside Washington's political circle, but the public soon tired of increasingly baseless headlines such as "WARHAWK SCUMBAG WILSON TO LAUNCH TORPEDOS AT OHIOAN GERMAN ENCLAVES" and the segment was soon dropped at the behest of the syndicate. As Bryan grew older, even his regular advice responses grew more and more erratic and once again began to reflect Bryan's political views.
Excerpt from Ask William Jennings Bryan, June 21, 1923
Dear Mr. Bryan,
I am very concerned about the future outlook of my daughter. For her entire life, I have trained her to be a paragon of traditional femininity in order to secure her a well-endowed husband. I've spent countless dollars on private girl's schooling to prevent her natural inclinations from getting the better of her greater interests, and just last month I sent her off to a good women's college in order to earn a respectable degree. But last week, I received a letter in the mail from a friend of mine in the college town saying that my daughter had become a flapper. My goodness! I've heard about these girls in the news, of course, but I never thought my sweet dainty Eliza would join their unwomanly ranks. How should I confront her new lifestyle and return her to her quality roots?
Sincerely,
Worried Sick in French Lick
Dear Worried,
Evolution is a goddamn lie, I tell you! The fact that our nation's government wants to teach our schoolchildren the hereticies of Darwin makes my moral soul tremble profusely. The very thought of divine humanity being derived from the base of the lowly chimpanzee is an affront to the merits of God and the ideals of our Christian forefathers. Darwin's concepts have been co-opted by the elite to prevent our nation's suffering poor from achieving social and material equality and have been called upon to defend the brutality of imperialism by corrupted powers-of-years-past. This alone proves that the theory of evolution is a complete falsehood that defies the nature of human morality. I tell you, the day our nation blindly accepts the whims of god-hating scientists and imbues her future generations with immoral concepts of human nature and divinity will be a very dark day indeed. Bryan out.
The End[edit | edit source]
Bryan's column did not end upon its author's death on July 16, 1925. The syndicate, still reaping high distribution rates from the property, attempted to continue the column under a young ghostwriter named Ann Landers. The syndicate was shocked, however, when millions of readers objected to Bryan's replacement, as the ghostwriter replaced Bryan's feminine-oriented advice from an obviously male perspective with female-oriented advice from an obviously female perspective. Losing newspapers left and right, the syndicate was left with no choice but to end the column. Eventually, Landers would land her own long-running advice column in 1943 named Ask Ann Landers, but not after being typecast as several political figures in newspaper features for a full decade after the end of Bryan's column. In a 1983 interview with Parade, Landers stated, "I'm grateful for Bryan ['s column], obviously, for the career breakthrough and all, but those miserable years writing Dear Lincoln and The Monroe Talk-trine in tandem took about 25 years off my life, to be honest."
Reactions[edit | edit source]
Bryan's political contemporaries were unimpressed by his side job as a columnist. During his presidential campaign in 1900, Republican candidate and Bryan's opponent Theodore Roosevelt attacked Bryan's column during a rally in Milwaukee, stating,
It is time for America to make a choice. It can choose a path forward into our new, global future under my watchful eye, see military success abroad, see corruption both economical and governmental dwindle under my control. Or it can watch everything our Founding Fathers built crumble under a populist Bryan dictatorship, and then complain about it all to his phony agony uncle column. You know what? Agony uncle's a nice insult. Let's call him that from now on, shall we? We shall! Down with agony uncle! Down with agony uncle! Join in, my fellow Americans! Come on!
Bryan responded during a campaign rally a week later in Waukegan, bringing a typewriter out in front of his supporters and exclaiming,
(clack clack clack) What's that? (clack clack clack) I'm sorry, can you repeat that? (clack clack clack) Roosevelt? What did he say? (clack clack clack) My column? (clack clack clack) What about it? (clack clack clack) Oh, he doesn't approve? (clack clack clack) Well, tell him I can't hear him over the sound of my roaring typewriter (clack clack clack) and my handsome $450 a month salary from syndication and royalties. And you know it's income taxed!
- Bryan's typewriter was not nearly loud enough to overpower his or anyone else's speech, thus, he made the "clack clack clack" sounds himself.
Bryan would later decimate Roosevelt's post-presidency career in 1912 when he published in his Washington Gossip column that the former president had been engaged in adulterous beastialitous relationships with several "teddy bears" as reported by an unnamed whistleblower grizzly from Mississippi.
Legacy[edit | edit source]
Modern historical reception of Ask William Jennings Bryan has been mixed. In his book The Boy and The Man: The Life and Times of William Jennings Bryan, historian James Dirkwood argues that the column was an important and overlooked portal into the inner thoughts and desires of Bryan, stating, "Here we see who Bryan truly was. Beyond his well-documented political aspirations, he was evidently a big fat talkaholic sissypants as well. And since he's dead and he can't say otherwise, you can't prove me wrong! Being a historian rocks, baby!"
The American Populist by Jane d'Arnaud goes as far as to say that Bryan's column was his greatest accomplishment, writing, "Ask Williams Jennings Bryan was more than a simple advice column. It was an important milestone on the road to modern political expression beyond the confines of petty Washington argument and tangential word-work. Without his column, we never would have seen such important works as Harry Truman's self-help bestseller, How I Became President Without Even Trying (and you can too!), Carter and Mondale At The Movies, and Huey Long's ill-fated softcore porno, Huey's Long."
However, others view the column as unimportant in the grand scheme of Bryan's life and in American politics of the period as a whole. David Aberuzzo argues in his 1986 book Bryan: The Man Himself that the column was little more than a sidenote in Bryan's famed political career, stating, "In the end, a politician is defined by his actions in the political arena. While entertaining, Ask William Jennings Bryan holds no merit in an argument over the legacy of his career and life. Plus, advice columns? Really? We're historians, goddamnit! We don't talk about common fodder junk. How unintellectual. (walks away snobbishly (yes, I wrote that in))"
Famed advice columnist Dear Abby is said to have been inspired to write her own column after reading Ask William Jennings Bryan while stoned out of her mind in the McNaught Syndicate archives on July 27, 1949.