CHAPTER VII
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896
It does not require that distant historical perspective, which is supposed to be necessary for final judgments, to warrant the assertion that the campaign of 1896 marks a turning point in the course of American politics. The monetary issue, on which events ostensibly revolved, was, it is true, an ancient one, but the real conflict was not over the remonetization of silver or the gold standard. Deep, underlying class feeling found its expression in the conventions of both parties, and particularly that of the Democrats, and forced upon the attention of the country, in a dramatic manner, a conflict between great wealth and the lower middle and working classes, which had hitherto been recognized only in obscure circles. The sectional or vertical cleavage of American politics was definitely cut by new lines running horizontally through society, and was also crossed at right angles by another line running north and south, representing the western protest against eastern creditors and the objectionable methods of great corporations which had been rapidly unfolded to public view by merciless criticism and many legislative investigations.
Even the Republican party, whose convention had been largely prepared in advance by the vigorous labors of Mr. Marcus A. Hanna,[41] was not untouched by the divisions which later rent the Democratic party in twain. When the platform was reported to the duly assembled Republican delegates by Mr. Foraker, of Ohio, its firm declaration of opposition to free silver, except by international agreement, was greeted by a divided house, although, as the record runs, there was a "demonstration of approval on the part of a large majority of the delegates which lasted several minutes." When a vote was taken on the financial plank, it was discovered that 110 delegates favored silver as against 812 in support of the proposition submitted by the platform committee. The defeated contingent then withdrew from the convention after having presented a statement in which they declared that "the people cry aloud for relief; they are bending under a burden growing heavier with the passing hours; endeavour no longer brings its just reward ... and unless the laws of the country and the policies of political parties shall be converted into mediums of redress, the effect of human desperation may sometime be witnessed here as in other lands and in other ages."
This threat was firmly met by the body of the convention which remained. In nominating Mr. Thomas B. Reed, Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts, declared: "Against the Republican party are arrayed not only that organized failure, the Democratic party, but all the wandering forces of political chaos and social disorder.... Such a man we want for our great office in these bitter times when the forces of disorder are loose and the wreckers with their false lights gather at the shore to lure the ship of state upon the rocks." Mr. Depew, in nominating Mr. Levi P. Morton, decried all of the current criticism of capital. Mr. Foraker, in presenting the name of Mr. McKinley, was more conciliatory: distress and misery were abroad in the land and bond issues and bond syndicates had discredited and scandalized the country; but McKinley was the man to redeem the nation.
This conciliatory attitude was hardly necessary, for there were no radical elements in the Republican assembly after the withdrawal of the silver faction. The proceedings of the convention were in fact then extraordinarily harmonious, brief, and colorless. The platform, apart from the sound money plank, contained no sign of the social conflict which was being waged in the world outside. Tariff, pensions, civil service, temperance, and the usual formalities of party programs were treated after the fashion consecrated by time. Railway and trust problems were overlooked entirely. Even the money plank was not put first, and it was not so phrased as to constitute the significant challenge which it became in the campaign. "The Republican party," it ran, "is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then every dollar has been good as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such an agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard must be maintained."
This clear declaration on the financial issue was apparently not a part of the drama as Mr. Hanna and Mr. McKinley had staged it. The former was in favor of the gold standard so far as he understood it, but he was not a student of finance, and he was more interested "in getting what we got," to use his phrase, than in any very fine distinctions in the gold plank. Mr. McKinley, on the other hand, was widely known as a bimetallist; but his reputation throughout the country rested principally upon his high protective doctrines. He, therefore, wished to avoid the monetary issue by straddling it in such a way as not to alienate the large silver faction in the West. Mr. Hanna's biographer tells us that Mr. Kohlsaat claims to have spent hours on Sunday, June 7, "trying to convince Mr. McKinley of the necessity of inserting the word 'gold' in the platform. The latter argued in opposition that 90 per cent of his mail and his callers were against such decisive action, and he asserted emphatically that thirty days after the convention was over the currency question would drop out of sight and the tariff would become the sole issue. The currency plank, tentatively drawn by Mr. McKinley and his immediate advisers, embodied his resolution to keep the currency issue subordinate and vague."[42] The leaders in the convention, however, refused to accept Mr. McKinley's view and forced him to take the step which he had hoped to avoid.
In his speech of acceptance, McKinley deprecated and sought to smooth over the class lines which had been drawn. "It is a cause for painful regret and solicitude," he said, "that an effort is being made by those high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the people of this country into classes and create distinctions among us which in fact do not exist and are repugnant to our form of government.... Every attempt made to array class against class, 'the classes against the masses,' section against section, labor against capital, 'the poor against the rich,' or interest against interest in the United States is in the highest degree reprehensible." In the Populist features of the Democratic platform he saw a grave menace to our institutions, but he accepted the challenge. "We avoid no issues. We meet the sudden, dangerous, and revolutionary assault upon law and order and upon those to whom is confided by the Constitution and laws the authority to uphold and maintain them, which our opponents have made, with the same courage that we have faced every emergency since our organization as a party more than forty years ago."