The Voices Of Bryan And Taft

by tristero

If you have the slightest interest in American history, then this is incredibly cool. A CD company, Archeophone Records has released Debate ’08. That’s 1908, dear friends, the master debaters being Williams Jennings Bryan, Democrat, and William Howard Taft, Republican.

But this actually isn’t a debate in any sense of the word. Essentially, both guys made 2 minute long records that were sold for the whopping price of $ .35 (about eight bucks today). Bryan made ten recordings, Taft twelve. Taft won, duh. Whether these recordings had anything to do with that win is…debatable.

These are fascinating documents. William Jennings Bryan, of course, was an early bete noire for anyone who cares about science. He was the celebrity lawyer for the prosecution in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, the most iconic trial regarding the teaching of evolution.* (I would argue, however, that the Dover Panda Trial was far more decisive and just as enjoyable a story.)

What is less well known – and hard to square with modern intellectual/political alliances – is that Bryan also had a reputation as a populist and liberal. The recordings available at the first link bear that out. Bryan makes the case against imperialism and for guaranties of bank deposits. Taft, on the other hand, favors keeping troops in the Philippines and believes that “enforced insurance of bank deposits” will crash the American economic system and is deeply unfair. To bankers, of course. Even then, people, even then.

Also extremely interesting are the voices of the two men. They are speaking in a modified version of what must have been their crowd voices, a strident tone necessary so that they could be heard using no, or extremely primitive, amplification. This sound, combined with the monotonic inflection with which both men read their texts, is rarely heard today. But it provides some insight into how early orators sounded in the pre-phonograph era (oh, what I would give to hear Lincoln read the Second Inaugural!).

Even more interesting to my ear are the accents, which are different from any modern American one I know. I detected a very unusual “o” sound and a subtly different inflection of the “r” from contemporary speech, for example. Your mileage may vary, but I don’t think these accents exist anymore. Even my father, born 1909 and about to celebrate his centennial, sounds quite different.

Great stuff. I ordered my copy, and some early women blues. Take a listen and you may, too.

h/t, Alex Ross.

*Despite the fact that parts of it were broadcast quite widely (perhaps nationwide), I don’t believe recordings of the Scopes Monkey Trial exist. If that is not the case, PLEASE let me know immediately!

UPDATE: Voices of the presidents going back to Harrison can be heard here. Thanks to Michael in comments.