William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryanwas an American orator and politician from Nebraska, and a dominant force in the populist wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as the Party's nominee for President of the United States. He served two terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Nebraska and was United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson. He resigned because of his pacifist position on World War I. Bryan was a devout Presbyterian, a strong...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth19 March 1860
CountryUnited States of America
Anglo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to protect his own rights; American civilization will teach him to respect the rights of others.
The government being the peoples business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at all times open to the public view. Publicity is therefore as essential to honest administration as freedom of speech is to representative government. Equal rights to all and special privileges to none is the maxim which should control in all departments of government.
The chief duty of governments, in so far as they are coercive, is to restrain those who would interfere with the inalienable rights of the individual, among which are the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to worship God according to the dictates of ones conscience.
A corporation has no rights except those given it by law. It can exercise no power except that conferred upon it by the people through legislation, and the people should be as free to withhold as to give, public interest and not private advantage being the end in view.
As long as there are human rights to be defended; as long as there are great interests to be guarded; as long as the welfare of nations is a matter for discussion, so long will public speaking have its place.
If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it.
Principles are eternal...
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
There is no more reason to believe that man descended from some inferior animal than there is to believe that a stately mansion has descended from a small cottage.
A belief in God is fundamental; upon it rest the influences that control life.
The real question is, Did God use evolution as His plan? If it could be shown that man, instead of being made in the image of God, is a development of beasts we would have to accept it, regardless of its effort, for truth is truth and must prevail. But when there is no proof we have a right to consider the effect of the acceptance of an unsupported hypothesis.
If we have to give up either religion or education, we should give up education.
We spend months inside them, then the rest of our lives getting babied by them.
The money problem facing the country from 1789 to 1896 existed because Congress never exercised is authority to "coin money or regulate the value thereof" - but rather delegated that authority, sometimes by charter and sometimes by default, to the banking system. This despite the provision in the Constitution that charged Congress with the power to 'coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standards of weight and Measures.'