A RIGHTEOUS CAUSE

A succinct study in which the author combines a knowledge of the standard works in the field with original research and new insights and analysis....[H]is book is a serious and intelligent one that students, scholars, and a general public can read with pleasure and profit. -Martin Ridge, Annals of IowaIt is the best short biography of Bryan now available....Cherny’s treatment of Bryan and Darrow at the Scopes trial is fair, and his concluding chapter, ’Evuluating a Crusader,’ is very well balanced. -Ferenc M. Szasz, Ohio HistoryCherny argues that Bryan helped transform the Democratic Party from the conservatism of Grover Cleveland to the progressivism of Woodrow Wilson....Cherny has traced Bryan’s life in short compass and in a fashion that works well for the studnet and general reader. -R. Hal Williams, Western Historical QuarterlyThree times the Democratic Party’s nominee for president (1896, 1900, and 1908), and Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan voiced the concerns of many Americans left out of the post-Civil War economic growth. In this book, Robert W. Cherny traces Bryan’s major political crusades for a new currency policy, prohibition, and women’s suffrage, and against colonialism, monopolies, America’s entry into World War I, and the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Drawing on Bryan’s writings and correspondence, Cherny presents Bryan’s key role in the Democratic Party’s transformation from a proponent of minimal government to an advocate of active government.Robert W. Cherny is Professor of History at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Populism, Progressivism, and the Transformation of Nebraska Politics, 1885-1915 and coauthor of San Francisco, 1865-1932.