Opinion of William Jennings Bryan

[Rob]

Fairly positive. His foreign policy views were particularly sensible.

His foreign policy is the biggest problem I have with him.

If you knew as much history as you pretend to, you'd know that Bryan actually urged Democratic Senators to vote for the annexation of the Phillippines, in the hope of maintaining it as a campaign issue in 1900! Or that Bryan, as Secretary of State under Wilson, was a ferocious advocate of US imperialism in Latin America...

[The Mikado]

Fairly positive. His foreign policy views were particularly sensible.

His foreign policy is the biggest problem I have with him.

If you knew as much history as you pretend to, you'd know that Bryan actually urged Democratic Senators to vote for the annexation of the Phillippines, in the hope of maintaining it as a campaign issue in 1900! Or that Bryan, as Secretary of State under Wilson, was a ferocious advocate of US imperialism in Latin America...

As long as you were on that subject, I'd have thought you'd have mentioned his famous comment about the Haitians.  (Not something I'm comfortable typing: Google is your friend)

Anyways, you're intentionally slanting matters.  Remember that, at the end of the day, this is a guy who resigned rather than enter WWI.  For better or worse, his views on Latin America were pretty standard for his period, and the Anti-Imperialist League could've saved us a half-century of problems in the Philippines.

[Magic 8-Ball]

Creationist.

Yawn, he was a day-age creationist (the ok kind), not Young Earth, and it was nearly 100 years ago.

You are aware that he lobbied state legislatures to ban the teaching of evolution in schools, yes?  I care more about that than what kind of creationist he was.

This was a different time.  The majority of scientists were not behind evolution at the time, so I give him a free pass.  I mean, every hero before the the 20th century, every single one of them, felt the same way about evolution that Bryan did.  In, most were worse, since Bryan didn't even disbelieve in the idea of evolution...he merely thought that Adam and Eve were created specially by God.  That was his only objection.  He was warm to the fact that the Earth could be billions of years old and life could have evolved; he only believed that Adam and Eve were a special creation by God.  This actually puts him far ahead of his time and even more of a FF.

You're right that most of them were creationists, but Bryan is the first "hero" I've heard of who tried to ban its teaching.

As to day-age creationism, wouldn't that make him a moderate hero, not a freedom fighter?  Either way, again, it's not that he was a creationist in and of itself that warranted its inclusion, but rather the manner in which he advocated it.  Trying to ban the teaching of controversial things does not make one a Freedom Fighter in my book.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Fairly positive. His foreign policy views were particularly sensible.

His foreign policy is the biggest problem I have with him.

If you knew as much history as you pretend to, you'd know that Bryan actually urged Democratic Senators to vote for the annexation of the Phillippines, in the hope of maintaining it as a campaign issue in 1900! Or that Bryan, as Secretary of State under Wilson, was a ferocious advocate of US imperialism in Latin America...

As Mikado said, he then resigned rather enterining WWI.  I said my biggest problem with him was foreign policy; I didn't say how much of a problem it was.