July 9 · This Day in America
On the Commons in lower Manhattan, General Washington orders the army assembled at six o'clock. Word has come down from Philadelphia, and now an officer reads it aloud to the ranks: all men are created equal, and the political bands are dissolved. The soldiers have heard the language of grievance for years. This is something else. This is a country. By evening the crowd has had enough of symbols that aren't theirs. Soldiers and civilians march down Broadway to Bowling Green, where a four-thousand-pound gilded statue of George III has stood since 1770, the king cast as a Roman emperor on horseback. They bring ropes and axes and bring him down. The lead is hauled to Connecticut and melted into 42,088 musket balls. The army would fire the king back at his own troops.
Source: www.frauncestavernmuseum.org
Also on this day · 1896
At the Democratic convention in Chicago, William Jennings Bryan — barely known outside Nebraska — closes the debate over the gold standard with a speech for the indebted farmer and the wage earner. He ends with a line that lands like a hammer: you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. The hall comes apart. Within days the dark horse has the presidential nomination. He was thirty-six.
Source: www.thenation.com
“You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”William Jennings Bryan, 1896