Connecting to Past Presidents
One way to secure voter confidence was to invoke the names and images of great past presidents. In his first two runs for the nation’s highest office, William Jennings Bryan was linked on sheet music covers to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. “Patriotic National Silver Song” refers to Bryan’s crusade for a monetary standard using both gold and silver. A 1920 campaign song cover pictured Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) with former Republican presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley. Instead of Harding’s other Republican predecessor, William Howard Taft, Abraham Lincoln is in the center under the broad embrace of Uncle Sam.
<p>One way to secure voter confidence was to invoke the names and images of great past presidents. In his first two runs for the nation’s highest office, William Jennings Bryan was linked on sheet music covers to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. “Patriotic National Silver Song” refers to Bryan’s crusade for a monetary standard using both gold and silver. A 1920 campaign song cover pictured Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) with former Republican presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley. Instead of Harding’s other Republican predecessor, William Howard Taft, Abraham Lincoln is in the center under the broad embrace of Uncle Sam.</p>