Phillipsburg loses its mind when William Jennings Bryan pays a visit

The front page of The Express-Times on Sept. 23, 1996, recalled famous liberal orator William Jennings Bryan's presidential campaign stop in Phillipsburg 100 years earlier.

Phillipsburg seemed to lose its collective mind when William Jennings Bryan came to town on Sept. 23, 1896, during his first presidential campaign. People were climbing telegraph poles to get a view of the famous liberal orator. Here’s what The Express-Times reported 25 years ago, on the 100th anniversary of Bryan’s visit.

He electrified crowds across the nation, blasting the corrupting influence of big business on government and supporting the rights of laborers to form unions.

The 36-year-old won his party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with a passionate call for an end to the gold monetary standard in the belief it would better the economy for ordinary people.

Then, a month and a half before elections for the highest office in the land, 10,000 to 12,000 people were gathered to hear him speak in Phillipsburg’s Union Square.

He was William Jennings Bryan, and [on Sept. 23, 1896] he traveled by train along the Delaware River, stopping in Phillipsburg to deliver a rousing speech from the porch of the Union Square Hotel.

When he exited his Pullman car at 11:25 a.m., the crowd erupted.

Women waved their handkerchiefs and men waved their hats in welcome. Some packed themselves onto crowded balconies, while the more adventurous climbed telephone and telegraph poles to see and hear the man the newspapers called The Boy Orator.

… Bryan ascended the stand. Amid cries of “speech,” he stood on a chair, held up his hands and asked for attention. Immediately, a hush washed over the crowd, according to the Easton Daily Express.

“I have but a moment, fellow citizens, in which to speak to you, and I beg you to be silent in order that you may hear,” Bryan began.

It was one of 600 speeches Bryan delivered in 27 states over more than 18,000 miles in that election year.

“We are in the midst of a great campaign, a campaign in which the issue is submitted to the American people, far greater in its importance, greater in its results than any issue, in my judgment, which has been submitted to the American people in a time of peace, during the entire history of this country.”

It was a fine, early autumn day. Bryan looked over the sea of hat-covered heads toward Easton and the elegant new bridge that linked the states.

[That would be the free bridge, constructed in 1895 replacing an earlier covered bridge. But the bridge wasn’t actually free yet — tolls were removed in 1921.]

“My friends, I see here laboring men. I want you to remember that in this campaign we have opposed to us every man who has tried to destroy laboring organizations and to break up these associations of men.”

Cries of “You are right” and “Give it to them” interrupted the speech as Bryan blasted everyone from railroad bosses to “the syndicate.”

At 11:35 a.m., the train whistle blew, and Bryan was off to Belvidere — where he said a few words from his train car — and on to Washington and Hackettstown.

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Bryan lost that election to William McKinley. … He lost to McKinley again in 1900 and to William Howard Taft in 1908.

Woodrow Wilson appointed Bryan secretary of state in 1913 but Bryan — an avowed pacifist — quit his post as the nation moved closer to World War I.

Bryan’s supporters credited him as a liberal champion who was influential in adoption of such reforms as popular election of senators, Prohibition, women’s suffrage, and the creation of the income tax and the Department of Labor.

Historians believe the concluding episode of his life, the Scopes “monkey trial” in July 1925 was inconsistent with the progressive causes he had championed.

Bryan interpreted the Bible literally and assisted in the prosecution of a school teacher accused of teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. The trial attracted worldwide attention as a duel between fundamentalism and modernism.

John T. Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was later overturned.

The passionate court battle took its toll on Bryan, who became ill and died the next year.

MORE LEHIGH VALLEY HISTORICAL NOTES THIS WEEK

• 2011: Who has the best pizza in the Lehigh Valley? Mario Andretti helps The Express-Times and lehighvalleylive.com announce the winners of the pizza showdown on Sept. 21, 2011. They were Pino’s Pizzeria in Easton for its Neapolitan pizza, and Pizza Joe’s Italian Restaurant in Nazareth for its specialty pie.

• 2001: Northampton County marks 250 years. A celebration of Northampton County’s founding became a showing of patriotism in the shadow of the 9/11 terrorist attacks two weeks earlier, The Express-Times reported on Sept. 24, 2001.

• 1971: Tocks alternative. An internal report from the National Parks Service says, for the first time, that a national recreation area from the Delaware Water Gap north would be feasible without the controversial Tocks Island Dam, the Easton Express reported on Sept. 21, 1971. The dam would have created a 37-mile-long lake — it was never built, but the recreation area continues to draw visitors.

This story is part of Lehigh Valley Then, a weekly series that recalls historical headlines from lehighvalleylive.com affiliate The Express-Times and its predecessors from 10, 20, 25, 50 and 100 years ago. Stories are pulled from microfilm at the Easton and Bethlehem area public libraries. Excerpts from the original text are edited for clarity and length.

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Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com.

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