A late version
Subject(s): Bryan, William Jennings, 1860-1925, Populism, Presidents--Election, Public speaking, United States
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William Jennings Bryan plays a drum labeled “Populism” while standing on a hatch labeled “Chicago Platform” on a ship that is going up in flames and billowing clouds of dark smoke labeled “Defeat 1896” and “Defeat 1900.” His hat is labeled “Free Silver” and a broken strap on the drum states “16 to 1.” Caption: The boy stood on the burning deck / From which all Democrats had fled; / The flames that lit the battle’s wreck / Shone ’round him o’er the dead. (Mr. Bryan says he is still standing on the Chicago Platform. – Roanoke, Va., speech).
Comments and Context
A seemingly minor detail in this cartoon and caption is dispositive about the positions and popularity of William Jennings Bryan in 1901. Dalrymple calls upon famous lines from an otherwise-forgotten poem by a relatively obscure British poet of the 1820s, Felicia Dorothea Hemans, Casabianca. “The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle’s wreck Shone ’round him near the dead.” The first line. in Dalrymple’s time and ours, has lived as an allusion: people who are too blind, or blindly dedicated, to realize the destruction inherent in their stubbornness. The main point might be found in Bryan’s reference to the “Chicago Platform.” He had twice lost the presidency, soundly, yet it was not the recent (1900) platform to which he clung, but the five-year-old “Cross of Gold,” free-silver fever that overtook the 1896 Democrat convention. Had he learned a political lesson? By 1904 he quietly had softened his myopic attention to Populist economics, but, on the other hand, did not receive a third nomination.
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1901-07-24
Creator(s)
Period
Vice President of the United States (1901)
Repository
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Page Count
1
Record Type
Image
Resource Type
Rights
These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.
Citation
Cite this Record
Chicago:
A late version. [July 24, 1901]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o276133. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Dalrymple, Louis, 1866-1905. A late version. [24 Jul. 1901]. Image.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. March 5, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o276133.
APA:
Dalrymple, Louis, 1866-1905., [1901, July 24]. A late version.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o276133.
Cite this Collection
Chicago:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-prints-and-photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. March 5, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-prints-and-photographs.
APA:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-prints-and-photographs.
