WordNet
the Great Commoner
n. United States lawyer and politician who advocated free silver and prosecuted John Scopes (1925) for teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school (1860-1925) [syn: Bryan, William Jennings Bryan, The Boy Orator of the Platte]
Wikipedia
The Great Commoner
The Great Commoner refers to one of two individuals:
- In the United Kingdom, it refers to the British Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder, before he accepted a title as the Earl of Chatham
- In the United States, it refers to presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan
Usage examples of "the great commoner".
The most interesting case of Disputed Last Words that I know of concerns William Pitt, the Great Commoner.
Wilson gazed vaguely out the window, toward a row of lights where his clerk-like secretary of state, Robert Lansing, was, no doubt, busy doing clerkly things, so unlike his predecessor, the Great Commoner, who was incapable of clerkdom or indeed of anything less mundane than Jovian thunderings for peace.