Re William Jennings Bryan:
 
I would admit to a tiny stretch (or, as Huck might say, a stretcher), but
not to an unconscionable one.
 
I do regret calling WJB an anti-semite (tracking down and identifying
anti-semites seems to be suspiciously close to tracking down and
identifying Jews), but I stand firm on his language and ideology, at least
around the turn-of-the-century, as an ideal example of Populist
anti-semitism.  He presses all the buttons:  powerful international
bankers bowing down to the golden calf of monometalism, etc.  When Bryan
stood with arms wide and shouted "you shall not crucify mankind on a cross
of gold," he was, of course, addressing "Christ killers."  Pound quotes
this speech in his broadcasts.  Let us not also forget that the Bryan of
1896 returned to haunt Pound in the form of radio--the Scopes trial of
1925 was probably the first great public event broadcast live to a huge
audience. I have no evidence that Pound commented directly on it, but the
English papers available throughout Europe covered the trial quite
closely.
 
By the way, the Ku Klux Klan considered Bryan one of their greatest
supporters.  It caused quite a bit of embarassment for Bryan, and prompted
a very insincere apology.  Bryan's horrible social intolerances are, after
a century of study by all kinds of scholars, a given.
 
As for Buchanan, I can't say I've listened closely enough, but it seems to
me that the Populist tradition comes hard-wired with judeophobia going
right back to Jefferson's objections to Jews as too urban, too legalistic,
too literal-minded.  That's what the most reliable historians (most of
them liberals, to be sure) say.
 
It's interesting, then, that EP doesn't seem to take advantage of this
side of Jefferson--perhaps because his major interest in Jefferson (late
1920s and early 1930s) did not overlap with his obsession with Jews
(mid-1930s and onward).  It's also worth noting that Pound edits out John
Adams's anti-anti-semitic remarks in the Adams Cantos.
 
Jonathan Gill
Columbia University
 
 
 
 
On Thu, 23 Sep 1999, bob scheetz wrote:
 
> Jonathon Gill writes:
>
> >...William Jennings Bryan, whose "Cross of Gold"
> >speech is a virtual lexicon of Populist judeophobia.
>
> this seems rather an unconscionable stretch
> ...like how they're presently hatcheting patrick buchanan,
> our latter-day golden-tongued populist
>
>
> bob
>