My Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck By Lightning

retrocampaigns:

“Bryan’s my man - Who’s yours?”

Poster promoting William Jennings Bryan for president in 1908, Bryan’s third run. He was a strong advocate for women’s suffrage, in addition to direct election of U.S. senators, child labor regulations, anti-imperialism and a graduated federal income tax.

from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

Also well known for being a supporter of Prohibition, an opponent of Darwinistic Evolution particularly at The Scopes Trial and the inspiration behind Vachel Lindsay’s “Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan” (1919):

Election night at midnight:
Boy Brian’s defeat.
Defeat of western silver.
Defeat of the wheat.
Victory of letterfiles
And plutocrats in miles
With dollar signs upon their coats,
Diamond watchchains on their vests and spats on their feet.
Victory of custodians, Plymouth Rock,
And all that inbred landlord stock.
Victory of the neat.
Defeat of the aspen groves of Colorado valleys,
The blue bells of the Rockies,
And blue bonnets of old Texas, by the Pittsburg alleys.
Defeat of alfalfa and the Mariposa lily.
Defeat of the Pacific and the long Mississippi.
Defeat of the young by the old and the silly.
Defeat of tornadoes by the poison vats supreme.
Defeat of my boyhood, defeat of my dream.