Originally posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2012
Political challenges to the gold standard have a colorful history.
The campaigns of William Jennings Bryan remain the, well, gold standard, for color.
In the Boston Globe Katherine Whittemore, in an October 27th review of seven political books, yields this:
Romney calling Obama’s actions “troubling” is nothing: John Quincy Adams’s supporters circulated a “Coffin Handbill” against Andrew Jackson, which featured an illustration of six coffins, denoting the soldiers Jackson had executed (unfairly, they said) for desertion. They also claimed Jackson’s mother was a prostitute. I cadged that from “Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush” (Oxford University, 2004). Author Paul F. Boller Jr.’s list of nasties against the aspirants includes “pickpocket, thief, traitor, lecher, syphilitic, gorilla, crook, anarchist, and murderer.” How to pick from such bounty? Here’s a good pickpocket story: William Jennings Bryan, running against the gold standard, liked to ask the crowds at his whistlestops to raise their hands if they had gold in their pockets, then if they had silver — meanwhile a gang of thieves, who’d secretly boarded Bryan’s train, made off with the metals, using Bryan’s question to help them select victims.
William Jennings Bryan 1896 whistlestop in Wellsville, Ohio courtesy of Wikipedia
Whittemore concludes: “You know, one of our country’s most profound achievements is our peaceful transfer of power. Instead of bloodshed, we have long, profane, messy elections. Big picture? That’s not so troubling.”
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