What do I have in common with William Jennings Bryan? Both of us were born in March in Salem, IL, although he made his appearance nearly 101 years before I did.

Thomas Wolfe may have thought that you can’t go home again, but people in Salem, have a different plan for their favorite native son, William Jennings Bryan, who was born here March 19, 1860. Memories and memorials abound in our small community at the juncture of Interstate 57 and Highway 50, about 70 miles east of St. Louis.

Politics formed part of Bryan’s education all his life. He became especially interested in the process when he was 12. At that time, his father, Silas Bryan, a prominent citizen in Salem, was seeking election to the House of Representatives. Young “Willy” accompanied his father to the campaign rallies.

Bryan’s mother, Mariah Jennings Bryan, also participated in her son’s education. Previous to his starting public school, she taught him at home, standing him on a table to recite his lessons. According to Bryan, these recitations atop the table were his first experiences with stump speaking.

This table is part of the exhibits in the Bryan Home and Museum, 408 South Broadway. Bryan’s birthplace and boyhood home has been carefully preserved and is filled with mementoes of Bryan, his politics, and his private and public life.

His baby gown, encased just inside the front door, is a symbolic beginning to the tour that parallels his journey from his boyhood in Salem to his death in Dayton, TN, just days after his participation in the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial.”

The front parlor of the two-story home contains furniture that belonged to Silas and Mariah Bryan. Some items, which were given as wedding presents to the couple, were made locally in Walnut Hill, Mariah’s hometown.

Walls and display cases in adjacent rooms hold other Bryan photographs and memorabilia, including many silver items. After his famous “Cross of Gold” speech in Chicago before the 1896 election, the Bryans received a variety of silver items as gifts.

When Bryan was six years old, his family moved to a 600-acre farm on the north edge of Salem. A large deer park in a corner of the farm is now a residential street called Deer Path Drive. The “Silas Bryan Estate” was at the end of Bryan Lane close to what is now Bryan Memorial Park. The Bryans’ 13-room, two-story brick house later burned down. In 1991, the current owners built a new home on the site, using bricks from the original home in their circle driveway.

Charred fire tongs from the burned house are now kept safely in the Bryan museum along with other mementoes of Bryan’s day-to-day private life: a wash bowl and basin, a kettle, ice skates, safety and straight razors, bowties, and walking sticks—one made from the backbone of a shark.

There is plenty to represent the public Bryan, too.

He traveled over 18,000 miles in the1896 Presidential campaign and wore holes in the soles of a pair of shoes because he walked so many of those miles. These shoes, along with a note of authentication in Bryan’s own handwriting are in the front room of the Bryan home.

Bryan’s first campaign for President also included his first ride in an automobile. A framed photograph in the museum shows him and his wife in an open automobile in Decatur October 23, 1896. Bryan had to stand up in the car to deliver his speech because the crowd was so big.

In 1906, Bryan and his wife and two of their three children, Grace and William Jr., went on a world tour. A collage of pictures from the trip can be found in the museum along with other mementoes like a Jerusalem picture book, Japanese art, and the hatbox for the silk hat he carried. Bryan brought back several rocks from the Sea of Galilee—one rock for each of the members of his church. Some of these souvenirs are also in the museum.

Part of the Bryan story included his time as a colonel in a Nebraska regiment during the Spanish-American War of 1898. His uniform is displayed in the museum.

Next to it is another relic of Bryan’s political life: the office chair he used during his tenure as Secretary of State for President Woodrow Wilson. After two years and four months, Bryan resigned this post in 1915 in opposition to Wilson’s hawkish anti-Germany policy. However, when the United States entered World War I, Bryan supported Wilson completely.

In the museum is an official government document for safe conduct that Secretary of State Bryan issued to a family traveling in Europe during this contentious time.

Where the Bryan museum now sits is actually eight feet farther south than its original location. The home was moved to accommodate the building for the Bryan-Bennett Library that Bryan helped to found. At that time, 1909, his cousin, May Davenport, served as the librarian and lived in the original Bryan home with her mother.

The Bryan Home and Museum, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975, is operated by the city with the Salem Historical-Patriotical Commission overseeing the operation. The museum is open to the public Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays from noon to 4:30 p.m. or by appointment by calling Salem City Hall, 618/548-2222.

A part of Bryan’s life that was both public and private was his devotion to his church and religion. In his boyhood he attended Sunday school twice each week because his father was Baptist and his mother was Methodist. At fourteen years old, however, he followed his own inclinations and became a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which is now the First United Presbyterian Church at the corner of McMackin and Washington in Salem. An ornate pulpit inside the church was a gift from Bryan, who gave an identical one to his church in Lincoln, Nebraska. The pulpits, which are crafted from pearl and exotic woods, display a carved scene of the burning bush as noted in Exodus.

Bryan was also generous with his father’s church. Hearing that Salem’s First Baptist Church was in debt over $500, he matched donations made by the church members so that the debt could be paid. His gift of $217 is noted in church minutes from that time.

Bryan’s staunch belief in the literal word of the Bible was one of the reasons why he became involved in the Scopes trial in 1925.

John Thomas Scopes, who had been indicted for teaching evolution in a Dayton, Tennessee, high school, was also from Salem, Illinois. When he graduated from Salem High School May 16, 1919, Bryan delivered the commencement address.

In Salem, Scopes boarded in the Badollet House, still standing at 310 North Washington. This house, which was the first brick house built in Salem, had also served as a slave stop on the Underground Railroad. It was originally built for Howard and Tabitha Pace Badollet.

At the trial in Dayton, Bryan was never out to discredit Scopes. In fact, Scopes and Bryan’s son were friends. Bryan himself thought the Tennessee law was a poor one because it involved fining an educator. He even offered to pay the fine if Scopes was convicted.

Nor was Bryan against teaching evolution if it was presented as a theory along with other options such as creationism.

However, defense attorney Clarence Darrow unexpectedly called Bryan to the witness stand as an “expert” on the Bible and then ridiculed Bryan’s beliefs in the literal interpretation of the Bible rather than questioned Bryan on the points of the trial. In truth, the whole trial had been something of a circus with extremely hot weather and crowds so huge the proceedings were moved outdoors when the courtroom floor began to crack.

Despite the conditions and Darrow’s strategy, Bryan handled himself well by sticking to the facts, defining terms carefully, differentiating between literal and figurative language in the Bible, and questioning the reliability of scientific evidence that contradicted the Bible.

However, Darrow’s questioning revealed that Bryan actually knew very little about those he had denounced for their criticism of the Bible. Darrow also induced Bryan to admit that parts of the Bible were open to interpretation, an admission that was, at best, a Fundamentalist faux pas. According to Bryan biographer Robert W. Cherny, “The gasp of the startled Fundamentalists must have been loud enough to carry over the national radio hookup.”

Scopes never took the witness stand, nor was he jailed. The judge abruptly stopped the trial amid the confusion and fist-shaking emotion of Bryan and Darrow, and charged the jury, who returned in just a few minutes with a guilty verdict. Scopes was fined $100, which was later refunded.

In spite of the verdict, Bryan was humiliated and exhausted by the trial. In true Bryan fashion, however, in the five days following the trial, he was as busy as ever:

On Sunday, June 26, he drove from Chattanooga to Dayton, participated in a church service, and then lay down for a nap from which he never awakened.

Papers reported that he died of “apoplexy,” the term used for a stroke or cerebral hemorrhage at the time. Some accounts claimed a heart attack had felled the “Silver-Tongued Orator.” Others cited diabetes mellitus. Whatever was determined to be the official cause, surely the intense heat, the stress of the trial, and his diabetes contributed to his untimely death.

Some reporters and editors of “big-city” newspapers continued to ridicule him even after his death. Most of them considered him to be an ignorant hick with no redeeming qualities.

However, the “common” people realized his dedication, hard work, and sacrifice in their behalf and showed up in large numbers for his funeral.

Because of his service in the Spanish-American War, Bryan was buried in Arlington Cemetery along with his wife and a daughter, Grace Dexter Bryan. However, Bryan’s parents and some of his siblings were buried in Salem in the Bryan plot in East Lawn Cemetery: about 200 feet from Main Street on the west side of the main cemetery road. In 1896 Bryan walked up this same road behind his mother’s funeral coach before boarding a train to Chicago, where he delivered his famous “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic National Convention.

While in Salem, he reportedly told a friend that he felt he would receive the Democratic nomination if he had an opportunity to speak to the delegates. Some historians maintain that Bryan’s Chicago speech was probably the highlight of his political career even though he was a Presidential candidate two more times and eventually Secretary of State for Wilson. His “Cross of Gold” speech drew a greater ovation than any other speech at the convention. Even those defending the gold standard applauded his eloquence.

Although Bryan’s aspirations and careers in law, journalism, and politics took him to places far removed from his small Midwestern hometown, he returned to Salem often. Even the local media bear the stamp of the respect that Salem continues to have for him.

For example, the first three call letters for Salem’s radio station, WJBD, are Bryan’s initials. The B does double duty since the last two call letters represent the initials of Bryan Davidson, one of the partners of Salem Broadcasting Company that built and operated WJBD, which began broadcasting in December 1956.

Salem’s tri-weekly newspaper, the Times-Commoner, was also named in honor of Bryan, who was known as “The Great Commoner” because he consistently defended ordinary, working-class Americans. When the Salem Republican and the Marion County Democrat merged in 1955, a contest was held to select the best name for the new publication. “Times” and “Commoner” were the two most popular entries. In Nebraska, Bryan himself had had a newspaper called The Commoner.

The Republican was first printed during the year of Bryan’s birth, 1860. Consequently, the Times-Commoner can claim to be the oldest continually published newspaper serving the Salem area.

Bryan has also been called one of the most influential “losers” in American history. Despite three defeats in Presidential elections, he dominated his party for 16 years, from 1896-1912, while leading the Democrats through a major transformation “to make the masses prosperous.”

During this time of change, he was also “the watchdog of Congress and the conscience of the country.”

Some of his most “radical” ideas eventually became realities: the 16th Constitutional Amendment dealing with graduated income tax, the 17th Amendment providing for direct election of Senators, the 18th Amendment concerning prohibition of liquor, the 19th Amendment for women’s suffrage, public disclosure of newspaper ownership and the signing of editorials, workmen’s compensation, minimum wage, the eight-hour work day, public regulation of political campaign contributions, the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act, voting reform, safety devices and pure food processing—among many, many others.

“Bryan was no intellectual giant,” said historian Dennis Phillips in his review of Cherny’s biography, “but how many men have been? Like him or not, William Jennings Bryan has had more influence on American public policy than at least half the men who won Presidential elections.”

Phillips also believes that the Depression may not have hurt common people so much if more of Bryan’s ideas had been made into law before 1929.

“When he was right,” said Phillips, “he took up a cause with a zeal not often found among politicians.”

The Bryan statue in the Bryan Memorial Park triangle on North Broadway in Salem represents another time when Bryan may not have received the respect he deserved.

Gutzon Borglum, who sculpted the faces on Mt. Rushmore, created the statue, which originally stood in West Potomac Park in Washington, DC. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated it there May 3, 1934. About 10 years before Bryan’s death, Borglum had also created life masks of both Bryan and his wife and a cast of Bryan’s fist. These smaller sculptures can be found in the Bryan museum.

Later, however, the statue in Washington, DC, was literally yanked down to clear the way for a new approach to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and lay in a vacant lot until Salem City Attorney Frederick Merritt and Illinois Senator Paul Douglas began a campaign to obtain the statue. They and others back in Salem agreed that “Billy” should come home where he would be appreciated.

In 1961, when Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall agreed to “loan” the statue to Salem, the exchange was not without its complications and mishaps.

The first problem was how to get a 2,700-pound bronze statue and its 29,300-pound marble base back to Salem without spending $2,000 on just the transportation. Insurance involved would also be an astronomical expense for Bryan’s hometown.

However, citizens of Salem banded together in this special project. James Johnson furnished a flatbed truck along with the insurance for the trip. James Warfield bought the fuel. L.R. Young donated a lead truck and driver. Emmet Kane Insurance donated three years of insurance for the statue when it reached its final destination, and Paul Henley made two long truck signs stating that Bryan was returning home to Salem.

Billy left Washington on May 22. During the journey home, the truck had a flat tire, brakes on the truck caught fire in the mountains, and the load shifted so severely that Billy nearly toppled off the flatbed.

Nevertheless, the trip was successfully completed, and Billy was escorted into Salem with respectful pageantry. People from throughout the Marion County area lined Highway 50 east of Salem, and the Salem Fire Department, the Salem Police Department, and the high school band paraded Billy to the Bryan park triangle.

Back in Washington, the mood was not so jubilant because some people there objected to the statue’s removal. One paper erroneously reported that a “crew of Shanghai toughs” had tried to smuggle the statue out of the District only to be stopped by outraged citizens.

However, Salemites point out that no one in Washington seemed too concerned about the Bryan statue while it was lying neglected in a vacant lot.

In 1973, Congressman Kenneth Gray introduced a bill to the U.S. House of Representatives to give Salem a quitclaim deed with all rights, title, and interest to the $125,000 statue of William Jennings Bryan. Congressman Paul Simon turned the title over to the City of Salem on March 31, 1975, in a ceremony at the Bryan home.

Billy was home to stay.