I wouldn’t call WJB a Communist. IL Gov. John Altgeld was going that way, one of the leaders at the time in purging President Cleveland and the Gold Bourbon Conservatives. Bryan was a Christian Socialist, back when they thought they could merge the two things, but he was a Christian first. He would not have fit in today’s Democrat party. He was already horrified by the 1920s at the attempts to purge Christianity and Intelligent Design from the schools (as he died right after the Scopes Trial).
“N***ers that speak French? Imagine that!” - Bryan upon being informed of the existence of Haiti. Carried Louisiana three times.