Part 38

The contest of 1888 differed from the Cleveland contest of 1884 in its freedom from vituperation and bitterness. It was conducted with earnestness and dignity on both sides. Neither of the candidates greatly enthused the rank and file of their party, as did Blaine and Hancock in former national conflicts, but they commanded not only the entire confidence and respect of their parties, but also of the whole country. Cleveland took little personal part in the conflict, but Harrison made a most vigorous and telling campaign by his almost daily speeches delivered to visiting delegations at Indianapolis, in which he discussed every phase of the public questions of the day. These addresses were doubtless carefully prepared and given to the associated press, but they were not only very able, but they were singularly versatile and adroit, and presented Harrison to the public in an entirely new light. I cannot recall another Presidential contest that was conducted on both sides with greater dignity and decency than that between Cleveland and Harrison in 1888. Nearly equal respect was shown to both candidates in the Garfield-Hancock contest of 1880, but the famous forgery of the Morey letter to control the vote of the Pacific States against Garfield and the Credit Mobilier scandal marred the dignity of that conflict.

The following table exhibits the popular and electoral vote of 1888:

══════════════╤════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╦════════════════════════ │ POPULAR VOTE. ║ ELECTORAL │ ║ VOTE. STATES. ├──────────────────┬─────────────────┬────────────────┬──────────────────╫───────────┬──────────── │Benjamin Harrison,│Grover Cleveland,│Clinton B. Fisk,│Alson J. Streeter,║ Harrison │ Cleveland │ Indiana. │ New York. │ New Jersey. │ Illinois. ║and Morton.│and Thurman. ──────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────╫───────────┼──────────── Alabama │ 56,197 │ 117,320 │ 583 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 10 Arkansas │ 58,752 │ 85,962 │ 641 │ 10,613 ║ ―― │ 7 California │ 124,816 │ 117,729 │ 5,761 │ ―――― ║ 8 │ ―― Colorado │ 50,774 │ 37,567 │ 2,191 │ 1,266 ║ 3 │ ―― Connecticut │ 74,584 │ 74,920 │ 4,234 │ 240 ║ ―― │ 6 Delaware │ 12,973 │ 16,414 │ 400 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 3 Florida │ 26,657 │ 39,561 │ 423 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 4 Georgia │ 40,496 │ 100,499 │ 1,808 │ 136 ║ ―― │ 12 Illinois │ 370,473 │ 348,278 │ 21,695 │ 7,090 ║ 22 │ ―― Indiana │ 263,361 │ 261,013 │ 9,881 │ 2,694 ║ 15 │ ―― Iowa │ 211,598 │ 179,887 │ 3,550 │ 9,105 ║ 13 │ ―― Kansas │ 182,934 │ 103,744 │ 6,768 │ 37,726 ║ 9 │ ―― Kentucky │ 155,134 │ 183,800 │ 5,225 │ 622 ║ ―― │ 13 Louisiana │ 30,484 │ 85,032 │ 160 │ 39 ║ ―― │ 8 Maine │ 73,734 │ 50,481 │ 2,691 │ 1,344 ║ 6 │ ―― Maryland │ 99,986 │ 106,168 │ 4,767 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 8 Massachusetts │ 183,892 │ 151,856 │ 8,701 │ ―――― ║ 14 │ ―― Michigan │ 236,370 │ 213,459 │ 20,942 │ 4,541 ║ 13 │ ―― Minnesota │ 142,492 │ 104,385 │ 15,311 │ 1,094 ║ 7 │ ―― Mississippi │ 30,096 │ 85,471 │ 218 │ 22 ║ ―― │ 9 Missouri │ 236,257 │ 261,974 │ 4,539 │ 18,632 ║ ―― │ 16 Nebraska │ 108,425 │ 80,552 │ 9,429 │ 4,226 ║ 5 │ ―― Nevada │ 7,229 │ 5,362 │ 41 │ ―――― ║ 3 │ ―― New Hampshire │ 45,728 │ 43,458 │ 1,593 │ 13 ║ 4 │ ―― New Jersey │ 144,344 │ 151,493 │ 7,904 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 9 New York │ 648,759 │ 635,757 │ 30,231 │ 626 ║ 36 │ ―― North Carolina│ 134,784 │ 147,902 │ 2,787 │ 32 ║ ―― │ 11 Ohio │ 416,054 │ 396,455 │ 24,356 │ 3,496 ║ 23 │ ―― Oregon │ 33,291 │ 26,522 │ 1,677 │ 363 ║ 3 │ ―― Pennsylvania │ 526,091 │ 446,633 │ 20,947 │ 3,873 ║ 30 │ ―― Rhode Island │ 21,968 │ 17,530 │ 1,250 │ 18 ║ 4 │ ―― South Carolina│ 13,736 │ 65,825 │ ―――― │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 9 Tennessee │ 138,988 │ 158,779 │ 5,969 │ 48 ║ ―― │ 12 Texas │ 88,422 │ 234,883 │ 4,749 │ 29,459 ║ ―― │ 13 Vermont │ 45,192 │ 16,785 │ 1,460 │ ―――― ║ 4 │ ―― Virginia │ 150,438 │ 151,977 │ 1,678 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 12 West Virginia │ 77,791 │ 79,664 │ 669 │ 1,064 ║ ―― │ 6 Wisconsin │ 176,553 │ 155,232 │ 14,277 │ 8,552 ║ 11 │ ―― ├──────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────╫───────────┼─────────── Totals │ 5,439,853 │ 5,540,329 │ 249,506 │ 146,935 ║ 233 │ 168 ══════════════╧══════════════════╧═════════════════╧════════════════╧══════════════════╩═══════════╧═══════════

Cleveland lost his election in 1888 by his message to Congress, delivered a year before, making the tariff and revenue question the sole issue before the country. His message referred to no other question than the issue of reduced revenues and taxes. I saw him on Saturday night before the meeting of Congress, and with Speaker Carlisle, who was to be re-elected to the Speakership on the following Monday, earnestly urged him to modify his message. Carlisle was quite as positive as I was in assuring him that it would result in disaster to himself and his administration. His answer was that possibly we were right, but that it was a duty that should be performed, and while he might fall, he believed the country would vindicate him at an early day. He was a man who gave very serious thought to his official duties, performed them with great fidelity, and when convinced as to his duty none could dissuade him from his purpose. But for that message he would certainly have been re-elected President in 1888.

Cleveland entered the Presidency enjoying the confidence and respect of the country in a much larger degree than is usually accorded to new Presidents. His record as Mayor of Buffalo, as Governor of New York, and his political and official utterances generally were all in the line of the purest and best politics, and the sturdiness with which he maintained his convictions even against all considerations of expediency compelled the respect alike of friend and foe. No more conscientious man ever filled the Executive chair of the nation, and I doubt whether any other President gave such tireless labor to the duties of the office. His Cabinet officers were simply advisory as to the direction of their departments, and every question of importance came to him for final decision. I think he was as nearly capable of giving up the Presidency to maintain his convictions as any man who ever filled the position.

He certainly knew when he sent his tariff message to Congress against the advice of nearly all of those upon whose political judgment he most depended, that he was inviting political disaster, and that he was inviting it when the Republican leaders freely confessed their inability to defeat his re-election. He had inspired the interest of the best political elements of the country by his courageous support of civil service reform, that was then in its infancy. He did it with the full knowledge that he had a party behind him that was most unwilling to surrender the spoils of power to any sentiment, however sacred. I met him very often during his first term, and was sometimes invited to come to the Executive Mansion after ten o’clock at night, when he would willingly converse until the small hours in the morning. These habits were improved when the beautiful and accomplished wife came as mistress to the White House, and it was delightful to see his ordinarily rather heavy face brighten when he spoke of the woman who had brought into his life a measure of happiness to which he had ever before been stranger. I met him frequently during the contest of 1888, and while he hoped that he might be re-elected he was not confident. I saw him soon after his defeat, and no man ever bore great political disaster with such serene philosophy. He knew that his tariff message had defeated him, but he said that he believed it better that he should be thus defeated than not to have faced the issue as he did.

In reviewing the contest, he said that he had but a single unpleasant memory of it and its results, and that was that the malicious scandals of some of his most unscrupulous foes relating to his domestic life had brought sorrow to the “dear little woman,” to use his own expression, who deserved the respect and protection of every one. Some of the desperate Tammany leaders had formulated the scandals against Cleveland’s domestic life, distributed them broadcast in a circular at the St. Louis convention, and there are always many whose political prejudices make them welcome and accept such assaults upon a political nominee. I was much with Cleveland during his first and second terms of the Presidency, and also during the interval, and a more affectionate and devoted husband I have never seen. He was not a man to exhibit the arts of the demagogue, for to them he was an entire stranger, but I saw him tell the story of his home life more eloquently than words could ever have given it, when, on the 4th of March, 1893, as he was about to leave the large parlor of the Arlington, crowded with his many friends, to go to the inauguration ceremony, he stepped up to his wife, gave her a hearty kiss and affectionately patted her on the head, as he bowed himself off to accept the highest civil trust of the world.

Greatly as Cleveland’s tariff message had obstructed his election, he would have succeeded but for the perfidy of Tammany. He carried the country by nearly 100,000 popular majority, being much larger than the popular majority he received in 1884, but the electoral vote of New York lost him the Presidency. The betrayal of Cleveland by Tammany was clearly evident by the returns of the election in that State. Cleveland was at the head of the Democratic ticket for President, and Governor Hill, the favorite of Tammany, was on the same ticket for Governor, and he was re-elected by a majority of 19,171, while Cleveland lost the State by a majority of 14,373. Tammany and Mr. Dana, of the _Sun_, that was then the Tammany organ, had their revenge.

THE CLEVELAND-HARRISON-WEAVER CONTEST

1892

President Harrison had anything but a tranquil administration. Soon after his inauguration bitter factional strife was developed, and he seemed never to be able to get into anything approaching close and sympathetic relations with the leaders of his party. He was much like Cleveland in his conscientious devotion to his public duties, and he was poorly equipped and had little taste for political direction. He was generally respected by the people of all parties, but he held the political leaders of his own faith at arm’s length. Senator Quay called upon him soon after his inauguration, expecting to receive the generous thanks of the President for his management of the desperate campaign that had given him and the party victory; but Quay’s political trust in his chieftain was greatly chilled as the President congratulated his Field Marshal that Providence had been with them in the contest and carried them safely through. While Quay is of the same old-school Presbyterian stock as Harrison, and had the training of his Presbyterian minister father, his faith in foreordination was not so rugged as to assume that Providence would have carried Harrison through if Quay had not exhausted all political resources, regular and irregular, to wrest New York from Cleveland and give Harrison the victory. Cameron, who had served in the Senate with Harrison, while he had entire faith in the integrity and ability of the new President, had no faith in his political usefulness, and from the start there were not the most cordial relations between the Pennsylvania Senators and the administration.

Harrison had failed to carry the popular majority over Cleveland, and the Republican majority in both Senate and House was regarded as too small for the present and future safety of the party. It was this political necessity that led to the admission of the six new States of North and South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Wyoming, which were expected to bring 12 additional Republican Senators, 7 additional Republican Congressmen, and 19 additional Republican electoral votes. How sadly the Republican leaders miscalculated on these new States is shown by the fact that Idaho and North Dakota voted for Weaver, while Montana and Wyoming were saved by nominal majorities, and all of these States, with the exception of North Dakota, voted against the Republican candidate for President in 1896.

The small Republican majority in the House was rapidly and ruthlessly increased by admitting Republican contestants regardless of the merits of their claims, and the whole policy of the Republican leadership, outside of Harrison himself, who did not inspire it, was to maintain Republican supremacy by might, regardless of right. Not only were six new States added, but a new Force bill was decided upon to restore Republican supremacy in the South. The attempt to revive such a measure was simply midsummer madness, as it was opposed by the entire conservative Republican element and arrayed the South in implacable hostility to the administration. Blaine had defeated the Force bill when it was urged under the Grant administration, and Senator J. Donald Cameron defeated it under the Harrison administration. Cameron had decided the contest between M. C. Butler, Democrat, and David T. Corbin, Republican, of South Carolina, in 1877. Corbin was one of the ablest of the South Carolina carpet-baggers, and was elected by the Republican Legislature, that had been finally dispersed by President Hayes refusing to support it, and Butler had been elected by the Hampton or Democratic Legislature.

There was a peculiar condition of affairs in South Carolina at the time. Patterson, the Republican Senator from that State, was a fugitive after the Hampton Government attained power, and Small, Cardoza, and a number of other colored leaders and officials in the State were under indictment for embezzlement and other frauds, and some of them had been convicted. On the other side, a number of Democratic citizens of South Carolina were under indictment in the Federal Courts for outrages perpetrated by them in the Ku Klux organization, and had the course of justice been permitted to go on without interruption, a large number of the leaders of both sides would have ended in prison. A truce was agreed upon, and finally an unwritten but well-maintained agreement was reached that there should be no further prosecution of the Ku Klux clan, and no further prosecution of Senator Patterson or any of the other Republicans who were then at the mercy of the Democrats. This was assented to by the Democrats on condition that Butler should be admitted to the Senate, and Cameron was the man who accomplished it.

When the new Force bill came up under the Harrison administration, Cameron was earnestly opposed to it, and he is entitled to the full credit of having defeated it. His Senatorial term expired on the 4th of March, 1891, and he was a candidate for re-election before a Republican Legislature that had been chosen in the fall of 1890, when the Democrats elected Pattison, Democrat, to his second term as Governor. It was expected that the vote on the Force bill would be had before the Senatorial election, and Cameron was threatened with defeat if he did not line up with the party in its favor. A majority of the considerate Republicans of Pennsylvania doubtless agreed with him, but he had many political enemies, and they would have been glad had he given them an opportunity to attack him as opposing the accepted policy of the party.

Some time before the Legislature met, Cameron requested me to meet him at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia. He stated the case frankly; said he could command the Republican nomination for Senator without a doubt and by a large majority, but that if the Democrats would unite with the bolting Republicans, he might be defeated if a vote was reached on the Force bill before the Senatorial election and he voting against it. What he desired was the assurance that if Cameron was threatened with defeat by the Republicans because of his opposition to the Force bill, the Democrats should not permit him to be crucified for opposing and defeating a bill that they were most anxious to have defeated. Pattison had been elected Governor and William F. Harrity had been announced as the coming Secretary of the Commonwealth. I said to Cameron that both of them were within two squares of us and that I could ascertain their views in a very few minutes. I immediately called on Pattison and Harrity, presented the case to them, and they both authorized me to give the assurance to Senator Cameron that if he were opposed by Republicans because of his opposition to the Force bill, the Democrats would not permit him to be sacrificed for what they would regard as one of the bravest and most patriotic of his public acts. That assurance was given to Cameron, and he was then safe. It became well known to the anti-Cameron Republicans that the Democrats would not permit him to be sacrificed. The result was that Cameron was elected by Republican votes, although his position on the Force bill was well understood.

There were thus many disturbing elements in the Republican ranks, and one of the most serious was the McKinley Tariff bill of 1890. President McKinley was then chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and the Tariff bill of 1890 was known as the McKinley Tariff, but it is due to him to say that he was overruled in many of its most offensive features, and some of the most important schedules were made by the manufacturers interested, who had, in accordance with positive promises given them, made large contributions to the Republican campaign fund of 1888.

I happened to be a guest at a public dinner and seated beside McKinley a short time before the election of 1890, and soon after the McKinley bill had passed. He discussed the situation freely, and was evidently concerned as to the result of the coming election, as there was but little time after the passage of the bill for the people to understand it, but he was confident that it would be sustained. In that he was greatly mistaken, as the Republicans never suffered such a disastrous defeat as that of 1890, due almost wholly to the McKinley Tariff. True, the elections of 1891 showed that the Republicans had regained some of their losses of 1890, but when the Republican convention met to nominate a candidate the contest was regarded as at least doubtful by the more intelligent and considerate Republican leaders, and the political situation was greatly intensified by Blaine suddenly retiring from the Cabinet three days before the convention met. His letter of resignation was curt and emphatic. It was notice to the country that Blaine had ceased to be in sympathy with the Harrison administration.

The Republican convention met at Minneapolis on the 7th of June, with J. Sloat Fassett as temporary chairman and Governor William McKinley, of Ohio, as permanent president. When McKinley accepted the presidency of the convention he did not expect to be a candidate for nomination, but the swiftly changing events of American politics made him what was regarded as a hopeful candidate before a ballot was reached, and he was voted for by all of his Ohio delegates, excepting himself, who voted for Harrison. The 1st and only ballot resulted as follows:

Benjamin Harrison, Ind. 535-1/6 James G. Blaine, Maine 182-5/6 Wm. McKinley, Jr., Ohio 182 Thomas B. Reed, Maine 4 Robert T. Lincoln, Illinois 1

Whitelaw Reid, of New York, was nominated for Vice-President by acclamation. The following platform was unanimously adopted:

The representatives of the Republicans of the United States, assembled in general convention on the shores of the Mississippi River, the everlasting bond of an indestructible republic, whose most glorious chapter of history is the record of the Republican party, congratulate their countrymen on the majestic march of the nation under the banners inscribed with the principles of our platform of 1888, vindicated by victory at the polls and prosperity in our fields, workshops, and mines, and make the following declaration of principles:

We reaffirm the American doctrine of protection. We call attention to its growth abroad. We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican Congress.

We believe that all articles which cannot be produced in the United States, except luxuries, should be admitted free of duty, and that on all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home.

We assert that the prices of manufactured articles of general consumption have been reduced under the operations of the Tariff Act of 1890.

We denounce the efforts of the Democratic majority of the House of Representatives to destroy our tariff laws piecemeal, as is manifested by their attacks upon wool, lead, and lead ores, the chief products of a number of States, and we ask the people for their judgment thereon.

We point to the success of the Republican policy of reciprocity, under which our export trade has vastly increased, and new and enlarged markets have been opened for the products of our farms and workshops.

We remind the people of the bitter opposition of the Democratic party to this practical business measure, and claim that, executed by a Republican administration, our present laws will eventually give us control of the trade of the world.

The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bimetallism, and the Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of the parity of values of the two metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar, whether of silver, gold, or paper, shall be at all times equal. The interests of the producers of the country, its farmers and its workingmen, demand that every dollar, paper or coin, issued by the Government, shall be as good as any other.

We commend the wise and patriotic steps already taken by our Government to secure an international conference to adopt such measures as will insure a parity of value between gold and silver for use as money throughout the world.

We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast; that such laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, this sovereign right guaranteed by the Constitution. The free and honest popular ballot, the just and equal representation of all the people, as well as their just and equal protection under the laws, are the foundation of our republican institutions, and the party will never relax its efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the purity of elections shall be fully guaranteed and protected in every State.

We denounce the continued inhuman outrages perpetrated upon American citizens for political reasons in certain Southern States of the Union.