Defender of the Faith: William Jennings Bryan, the Last Decade, 1915-1925

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Harvard University Press, 1987 - Biography & Autobiography - 386 pages
Defender of the Faith offers a reinterpretation of William Jennings Bryan in his last years as an unchanging Progressive whose roots were deeply embedded in agrarian populism. It changes the standard picture of Bryan in his final years as that of a crusader for social and economic reform sadly transformed into a reactionary champion of anachronistic rural evangelism, cheap moralistic panaceas, and Florida real estate. He pleaded for for progressive labor laws, liberal taxes, government aid to farmers, public ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, federal development of water resources, minimum wages for labor, and other advanced causes.
 

Contents

The Armor of a Righteous Cause
3
Crusade for Peace
37
Years of Victory
93
The Paths of Duty
132
The Lean Years
176
The Voice of God
218
Brother or Brute?
243
The Enemys Country
293
The Last Battle
324
Epilogue
358
Bibliographical Note
366
Index
373
Copyright

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About the author (1987)

Lawrence W. Levine was an American historian noted for promoting multiculturalism and the perspectives of ordinary people in the study of history.

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