File:19071747d12w.jpg

English: “One Hundred Years Hence”

	Cartoonist:  William Allen Rogers
	Source:  Harper's Weekly
	Date:   November 30, 1907, p. 1747

As William Jennings Bryan prepared for his third run for the presidency (1896, 1900, and 1908), Harper’s Weekly ran this cartoon humorously predicting that he would be available for the Democratic nomination 100 years later in 2008. After his loss in 1900, Bryan began publishing The Commoner (note the bulletin board) as an organ for his political and social views. With conservatives temporarily in control of the party in 1904, he chose not to run. However, he remained in the limelight by criticizing presidential nominee Alton B. Parker and announcing his own agenda. Following Parker’s resounding loss to President Theodore Roosevelt, Bryan regained dominance as the party’s national leader. The bulletin board in the cartoon suggests that Bryan changed his principles to suit the occasion. It is true that in 1908 he qualified his earlier call for government ownership of railroads, but his political principles were remarkably consistent over the years. He clung to the idea of free silver, for example, well past the time when most had given it up as a lost cause.