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An address given before the Phi Alpha Literary Society at Illinois College

on the Political Legacy of William Jennings Bryan, on November 16, 2010,

by John Remington Graham of the Minnesota Bar

MY FELLOW CITIZENS:

I am particularly grateful to accept induction as an honorary member of Phi

Alpha, because, as I understand it, Abraham Lincoln was the first to be thus inducted

honoris causa into this distinguished literary society. As a young lawyer I was

profoundly influenced in my thinking on the United States Constitution by Alexander

Stephens of Georgia, one of the greatest statesmen of the Old South, in his

incomparable treatise in two large volumes entitled A Constitutional View of the Late

War Between the States, National Publishing Co., Philadelphia, 1868-1870. Those

familiar with Stephens’ views and their impact on my thinking will perhaps forgive

me for saying that, aside from his correct and penetrating remarks on Dred Scott v.

Sandford, 19 Howard 393 (U. S. 1857), there is not much of which I approve in

Lincoln’s first inaugural address; that, aside from his perfection of English as is also

found in his letter to Mrs. Bixby, I cannot swallow the Gettysburg address; and that,

aside from his remarks about the need to bind up the nation’s wounds, there is little

with which I can favorably identify in Lincoln’s second inaugural address. And yet I

have a deep admiration of Abraham Lincoln, albeit for personal reasons which are

very different from what is commonly felt in this part of the world.
My respect for our 16th President rests upon a little known event in American

history. In my view the finest day in Lincoln’s life was February 3, 1865, aboard the

steamer River Queen off Hampton Roads, Virginia, where he and his secretary of

state met to discuss the hope of a peaceful end of then-raging hostilities with a

Southern delegation headed by his old friend Alexander Stephens whom he had

known some years before as a member of Congress, with whom he had corresponded

in a most amicable way after his election as President in hopes of assuring

Southerners of just treatment by his administration, who had given an address to the

legislature of Georgia on the eve of the American Civil War on the importance of

preserving the Union by diplomacy and statesmanship if at all possible, and who was

serving as Vice President of the Confederate States at the time of the meeting near

Hampton Roads. On that occasion, Abraham Lincoln displayed all the nobility,

gentleness, and kindness in his nature. He offered and was then in a position to

deliver terms of peace as magnanimous as have ever been advanced to terminate any

armed conflict. The standard account of the meeting on the River Queen is by

Alexander Stephens, who with many other enlightened Southerners then living,

including Robert E. Lee and John Breckinridge, agreed in principle and spirit, and

would have concluded peace very rapidly on the terms offered if they had been in a

position to arrange the necessary particulars. I shall not here comment on the details

which can be gathered from Stephens’ account, or the obtuse shortsightedness of

those who squandered the opportunity which Lincoln then made available. Even so,

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on account of this one gracious and virtuous act, Abraham Lincoln should be

forgiven for all the moral and practical errors ever attributed to him by those who

have not seen him in a favorable light.

My main purpose this evening is to honor William Jennings Bryan, the most

illustrious alumnus of Illinois College, who was a courageous and misunderstood

giant in his times. His image has been unfairly tarnished, not by scientific facts and

legal history so much as by warped agendas of dramatists and ideologues who never

understood Charles Darwin or his theory of evolution of species, which is now

subject to serious scientific question, and cannot survive except perhaps with

significant modifications, or what was really at stake in the prosecution of John

Scopes which still, even in our times, awaits an impartial judicial and philosophical

assessment. The pendulum may have swung on this question, but we are now as far

from the truth as ever before.

It is the political legacy of William Jennings Bryan that is my concern here. And

I am certainly pleased to acknowledge the presence of Sigma Pi, Bryan’s literary

society, in this audience. When I think of Bryan, I am reminded by an elegant speech

delivered by a most remarkable character who had served as a soldier and statesman

of the Old South during our American Civil War. In the wake of the surrenders of

Confederate armies at Appomattox Court House and Durham Station, Zebulon

Vance, who had served as governor of his State from the beginning of 1863 through

his arrest by federal troops in the spring of 1865, delivered a magnificent address to

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the literary societies of his alma mater, the University North Carolina, entitled The

Duties of Defeat (1866). It is one of the finest speeches I have ever read. Vance later

became governor in peace, then United States Senator from North Carolina. Of the

many exalted sentiments in Vance’s speech, including his call for reconciliation with

and forgiveness of those who were once enemies, I am struck by what he added to his

heartfelt eulogy of Southern men who had died defending their homeland from

invasion, for he adjured his listeners to remember the architects of peace, -- those

who rebuild civilization from the ruins caused by war, whose courage and sacrifices

were, in his estimation, as sacred, patriotic, and important as those who had given

their last full measure of devotion in battle.

William Jennings Bryan was precisely one of those architects of peace, seeking

to rebuild the United States from the injury inflicted by military operations which had

crushed the Old South. Bryan rose to fame as a master of the monetary politics, and

so was one of the most illustrious patriot statesmen in a class which has included a

number of excellent Congressmen, I mean the likes of Charles Lindbergh Sr. of

Minnesota, Louis McFadden of Pennsylvania, and, more recently, Wright Patman

and Ron Paul of Texas. To this list, others may be added, all of them interested in the

money question in which respect they are alike, but sometimes differing among

themselves on what might be the best solution.

William Jennings Bryan merits our notice, not necessarily because his proposals

were invincible for all time, although they were practical and necessary in his day,

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but because he was a prototype of what we need now in Washington D. C. So it is

because, without sound monetary reform, we cannot tackle our burden of national

debt, the problem of health care, the solvency of social security, regulation of foreign

trade in keeping with our national interests, the restoration of constitutional

government, workable federalism, beneficial regulation of the environment, military

readiness, immigration, domestic productivity, an independent and impartial

judiciary, and, yes, a sane foreign policy in the Middle East to promote peace

between Arabs and Jews, and also in Europe and Asia, and elsewhere.

In his day Bryan sought monetary reform as a means of applying healing balm

to our country in the wake of the conflict which had simultaneously been a civil war

like unto the fighting between Israel and Judah after the death of King Soloman, a

war between a Northern union and a Southern confederacy of States, and a war for

Southern independence which undeniably resembled the American Revolution.

The costs of this war were hideous, -- a million casualties out of 27 million free

persons, and 400 thousand starved from a slave population of 4 million. The money

spent and property sacrificed in four years amounted to three-fourths of the assessed

value of all taxable wealth in the United States in 1860. The national debt of the

United States in 1860 was about equal in specie to the national debt of the United

States as estimated by Alexander Hamilton and the First Congress in 1791, and yet

by the beginning of 1866, the national debt of our country had multiplied fifty-three

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times. One month of fighting the American Civil War augmented the national debt

more than had than eight years of the American Revolution.

The bulk of the war bonds were held by large banking houses in London, Paris,

Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The National Bank Acts of 1863 and 1864

made it possible for the holders of these bonds to capitalize a whole new and

dominant system of national banks with reserve institutions on Wall Street which

eventually became the main engines and beneficiaries of our system of banking and

currency under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Adjunctive legislation in 1865 and

1866 taxed state bank notes out of circulation and subordinated state banks to

national banks. The most significant yet least understood impact of the American

Civil War was loss of the monetary independence of the United States.

And public and private debt was payable mainly in gold, because of appalling

legislation which was passed by stealth through Congress and signed by the President

without understanding what the bill contained. I refer mainly to the Coinage Act of

1873 which allowed silver coin to pass as legal tender only in small amounts.

Subsequent legislation was attempted with a view to correcting the demonetization of

silver under the Coinage Act of 1873, but these later statutes were not adequate in

content or implementation, or were repealed before they could become effective.

Consequently, creditors had unfair advantage over debtors. There was a critical

undersupply of money. Private interests had primary control over such money as

there was, and they used this enormous power for their own convenience, at the

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expense of small business, of farmers and laborers, and the general good of society.

As Benjamin Franklin explained to the British Parliament in 1766, in advising them

how to avoid economic troubles in the American colonies, there is an optimum

supply of money for every society, greater than which will produce inflation to no

advantage, but lesser than which, if far less, will be exceedingly harmful to an

economy. Today we are worried about inflation, the inconveniences of which are

well known to us, but Franklin thought that the greater danger lay in an undersupply

of good currency, and in consequent deflation. And after the American Civil War, the

United States suffered of exactly such an undersupply of money, -- an undersupply, it

might be added, which had been engineered by the powers of high finance, in control

of banking and currency across the land.

In this setting, there was a need to increase the money supply, by then much too

deflated and giving creditors an unfair advantage. And the best way to accomplish

this objective was to make use of silver which, due to improved mining technology,

had become cheaper in relation to gold. The idea was feasible in that abundant

deposits of silver had been found in Nevada, nor was there the slightest constitutional

difficulty is using silver as the basis of money. Moreover, the use of silver as the

basis of money in the United States was respectable, inasmuch as Robert Morris,

patriot financier of the American Revolution, had recommended during the days of

the Confederation that legal tender of the United States ought to consist exclusively

of silver coin.

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Under the old sterling standard in England, the ratio of silver to gold was 15.2

to 1 at the mint. Under another historical standard set by the King of Portugal in 1668,

the ratio of silver to gold was 16 to l. But by the latter part of the 19th Century, the

going price of silver to gold as commodities was more like 18 or 19, sometimes even

20 to 1. Consequently if silver could be easily coined on demand at traditional ratios

in relation to gold, which was higher than its market value as a commodity, the money

supply would be greatly expanded, and this increase would occur without permission

of the coterie of private financial interests which then controlled banking and currency

in this country. Under this program, payment of public and private debt would be

facilitated, and commerce would be lubricated for the good of the United States.

It was during this crisis that William Jennings Bryan rose to prominence on the

national scene by delivery of a famous speech at the Democratic national convention

of 1896 in Chicago. There has never been a speech in American history richer in

power and eloquence. Bryan pleaded the case for a more abundant supply of money

through free and unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 to l in gold. A few

excerpts will suffice to catch the brilliance of Bryan’s oratory. He said,

“We say in our platform that we believe the right to coin money and issue
money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe it is a part of
sovereignty and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals
than can the power to make penal statutes or levy laws for taxation.”

And he elaborated his point:

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“Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of money is a
function of the banks, and that the government ought to go out of the
banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell
them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government, and
that banks should go out of the governing business.”

He defined the issue which his party would carry into the election:

“There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you
legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak
through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that, if you legislate
to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through
every class that rests upon it.”

He asserted the dynamic principle which proved he was right:

“You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold
standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile
prairies. Burn down our cities and leave our farms, and your cities will
spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and grass will grow in
the streets of every city in this country.”

And he concluded memorably,

“We shall answer the demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You
shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall
not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

Three times Bryan ran for President, and three times he was defeated under the

pounding of newspapers owned or controlled by the domestic and international

financiers who also owned and controlled the institutions which could expand and

contract the supply of money or what passed for money in the United States.

What was true in Bryan’s day has been true ever since, for it is an invariable

reality that, if private interests are allowed to subvert the power of coining money,

they will, unless prevented, also subvert the power of the press. Over the course of a

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century or more, the major financial institutions on Wall Street have acquired and

maintained direct or indirect ownership and control over most major news media in

the United States, and they have used their power without scruple or conscience in

shaping public opinion and swaying public elections. Bryan won a respectable share

of the vote for President in 1896, in 1900, and again in 1908, but he never was able to

overcome the massive power of the establishment press wielded by Wall Street.

Nobody has yet overcome the beast created by the financing of the American

Civil War.

Even so, Bryan’s fundamental ideas of building up the middle class, and honest

money created and annulled exclusively by public authority, have become the most

successful and workable program in American politics. Whenever and to whatever

extent one party or another has adopted and acted upon these planks, it has prospered,

and the country has been better off. There is no better way to fight poverty, to enhance

domestic productivity, to increase upward mobility in society, to strengthen national

sovereignty, to protect both labor and capital, to make wealth secure, to establish

socio-cultural stability, to safeguard the country from revolution and upheaval,

to assure ordered liberty, to defend the right of property, to promote sound moral

values, and to improve the arts and sciences than to respect, care for, and educate the

middle class.

There was a time when this notion was the political asset of Democratic Party,

but no longer, for now Republicans believe it too. Whenever Democrats become

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distracted with extraneous social issues like abortion on demand and same-sex

marriage, which have moderate and sensible solutions, and global warming which

must be understood in light of empirical evidence instead of newspaper hype, they

loose sight of the middle class, and power shifts to Republicans. And when

Republicans become distracted with their preoccupations with the wealthy and foreign

wars, they forget the middle class, and Democrats return to power. Always the key to

success in American politics, and in national prosperity, is not avante garde

intellectuals and their faddish ideas, nor the rich and the powerful, but the middle

class. It was William Jennings Bryan who saw and articulated this truth more clearly

than all other statesmen in American history.

But essential to his first principle was his emphasis on honest money under the

scrupulous arbitrament of a prudently regulated, fully transparent, and truly impartial

public authority in which no private interests might enjoy privileged position or

knowledge. Or as said by Sir William Blackstone who taught the law to our founding

fathers, “The coining of money is in all states the act of sovereign power.” That at

least is what should prevail, and, in any generation, we shall be remiss if we allow the

situation to become otherwise, as unfortunately has been rather too true in the United

States since the conclusion of the American Civil War.

It is true that the creation of wealth has spiritual causes, including individual

incentive, personal ingenuity, and free enterprise. Destroy or weaken this power drive

of success by excessive regulation or taxation, or pie-eyed schemes of redistributing

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wealth, and our economy will flounder and fail. Bryan fully understood this truth, for

he was no socialist, but at the same time he knew that some tasks, like the

administration of justice, are properly the work of public authority alone, and can

never be safely delegated to the private sector of society. And as he stressed so clearly

in 1896, and as is true in the present age, one of those tasks, which belongs

exclusively to public authority, is emission of an optimum supply of currency, just

allotment of credit, creation of honest money, and assurance of disciplined banking.

© John Remington Graham 2010

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Subj: Joyeaux Noël et Bonne Année!


Date: 12/22/2010 2:10:08 P.M. Central Standard Time
From: jrgraham@oricom.ca
To: sharon4anderson@aol.com

Friends, -- This year was for me a time of major thresholds. First, thirty years of marriage, which is quite
a feat, I can hardly believe it myself. Then came my 70th birthday, causing me to reflect on the words of
the 90th Psalm, "The days of your years are three score years and ten," etc.

We had a big gathering of the Quebec Grahams just after Sylvie and I had completed 30 years together
since the event at Notre Dame des Victoires, -- 30 years! I have the pleasure of seeing Nathaniel more
often these days. He told me not long ago how difficult it was to spend 30 days with the same woman, --
a delightful, beautiful, and educated female at that. I told him that it was surely a worthy rite of manhood.
Anyway, we had the Quebec Grahams together on labor day to celebrate the 30 years of Jack and
Sylvie. The photo of the celebration is attached, marked "fête du travail" or labor day. Off to the left is
Benoît, who is holding our "chatte" (lady cat) who gave us five "chatons" (kittens) this year. I call her
Sarah, because she too is running for President of the United States in 2012, although I am having a hard
time finding an authentic certificate showing she is a natural born citizen, -- I am told she is not the only
one with that problem. Her friend is Bobby, our Chizu, who is not shown in the photo, because he was
then chasing chipmunks, but he is the most sociable dog in the universe. Bobby is our burglar alarm,
Sarah our mouse trap. They sleep together, eat each other's food, and are continually boxing in the living
room. Next to Benoît is Michael who is just now finishing adolescence -- thank God -- and high school.
Then comes Marie Graham, LL. B., who fortunately is not wasting her legal education on the practice of
law, but is putting it to good use in Montreal. For my birthday, she and her "chum" (Quebec French for B.
F.) gave me an elegant Habana cigar -- perfectly and pleasantly legal in Quebec --, the kind they give out
in embassies: it was delicious, I puffed and savored it appreciatively down to a short stub. Then comes
Pierrot (French diminutive for Pierre), who is working on his baccalaureate in philosophy, and so is the
apple of my eye. Then Charlie, far more practical than his father. Once a hockey star, he can sell ice to
Eskimoes. He is holding our grandson Ayden Jack Graham, and next to him is Christine Lassard,
Ayden's charming mom, also very practical. The silly old man between Charlie and Christine, is me. And
Sylvie, who dearly loves being mairesse of St-Agapit, is off to the right.

On November 16, 2010, I was inducted into a literary society at Illinois College as an honorary member
for my work as a legal historian. Ironically they cited my Constitutional Histdory of Secession , Pelican
Pub. Co., Gretna, La., 2002-2005, as the work which caught their notice, The first honorary member of
the society was Abraham Lincoln, inducted in 1859, and so I said kind words about him, for I have never
disliked him. Lincoln, despite my Southern sympathies. :Lincoln is extraordinary, because he was thrown
by destiny into enormous events which were larger than he -- and surely most others -- could understand
and manage. He could not resign, because, if he had, things would have gotten unspeakably worse, so
he stuck it out. He made big mistakes, true, but he was hardly the only one making big mistakes in those
days. If he blundered into war at Fort Sumter, for example, so did Jefferson Davis, who had been a
graduate of West Point and a secretary of war, and so should have understood the need for
patience. Think how far both of them were from J.. F. K.'s masterful handling of the Cuban missile crisis.
Lincoln's meaning for us is not the corny ideology associated with his name, which God forbid. He was
remarkable, because carried the cross, attempting to make the best of an impossible situation into which
he had been thrust by forces larger than himself. And in the end, despite his errors, he became a
very good man. It is hard to see why through the confused passions of the time in which he lived, yet
surely his assasination was worse for the South than the defeat at Gettysburg. But my topic in the
induction speech was William Jennings Bryan who is one of my heroes. I attach my remarks on the
occasion so you can see why I regard him so highly. We need men like Bryan today.

Anyway, I send greeting for Christmas -- I actually believe in it --, and my blessing for the New Year au
nom du père, et du fils, et du saint esprit. -- Jack Graham

Wednesday, December 22, 2010 AOL: Sharon4Anderson

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