Politics and Religion

He soon thought of himself as well versed in men's fancy attire, favoring fine wool Brooks Brothers suits especially ordered from New York for winter season. He fancied Haspel and Company of New Orleans's popular summer linen suits in white and buff for late spring and summer. The summer heat even wilted those suits of fine cotton. He learned to fit suits, shirts, shoes and hats. The fedora was becoming popular. The Derby and skimmer were the hats most favored by the younger men. The classic large brimmed, high crown, slouch hat sold the most, black and brown. It was the farmer's headwear. In shoes the work brogans moved well after harvest time - October through December. For Sunday-go-to meeting, the Nashville manufactured Johnson-Murphy shoes sold the best, in black for the older men and brown for the younger. Mr. Washburn, head floor walker for clothing gave Joe a lesson in how to get his less than well-scrubbed men shoe customers to use the "sizing sock". He explained that, otherwise, the unwashed feet and occasional dirty socks of many customers would soil the shoes. Joe became very adept at this ruse.

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That early fall, 1896, their mother's longtime interest in politics and women's suffrage took a more active part in her and their lives. She took them to Nashville to hear "The Boy Orator of the Platte", thirty-six-year-old congressman from Nebraska, William Jennings Bryan. Bryan, nominated a few months earlier for president by the Democrats, was the new giant-slayer designate for farmers, laborers and small business folk. He lived up to his calling and smote, chest and thigh, the moneyed, robber barons of monopolies, tight money, and high tariff and the high-faluting power broker's hired hands, the Republican Party. Lou had read much about Bryan and his lawyer wife, Mary. In 1896 at the age of 31, Bryan had entered Congress. Reelected in '94, by 1896 he had become a nationally recognized leader of the progressive liberal wing of the Democrats. His "Cross of Gold" speech at the convention created a truly spontaneous nomination. This powerful plea for economic justice and agrarian reform kicked off his run for the White House as the youngest candidate ever. The "Panic of '93" had wrecked the national economy with farmers, workers and small business people buried under the crumbled ruins. Times were bad, the worst in bustling growing America in over fifty years. Hundreds of thousands were jobless. Farm prices were rock bottom and costs were sky high. Conservative Democrat President Grover Cleveland followed the spendthrift conservative Republican Benjamin Harrison. Harrison and the GOP Congress had spent the US Treasury surplus accumulated by Cleveland in his first term, 1884 - 1888, and the vaults were dry. Cleveland was left with the mess. He couldn't get the GOP congress to pass the needed legislation that might have overcome it and restore the economy. Bryan had mounted a crusade more than a campaign to reform the excesses of the moneyed barons who manipulated the national economy with the able assistance of Congress for the profit of the few. "Free-Silver" was the battle cry of those who wanted to increase and make credit easier in the national economy. Gold and silver as available money along with regulating the few huge business trusts, monopolies, and lower tariff costs were the foundation planks of Bryan's platform.