It is only immediately after an election that one hears criticisms of party management from within a party. A campaign is a great time-eater, and when a man has given six months or possibly a year of hard work to making an aggressive fighting machine of his party he is naturally grieved when it goes down in defeat. In the first few weeks following the election of 1916 Western Republicans complained bitterly of the conduct of the national campaign. Unhappily, no amount of a posteriori reasoning can ever determine whether, if certain things had been handled differently, a result would have been changed. If Mr. Hughes had not visited California, or, venturing into that commonwealth, he had shaken the hand of Governor Hiram Johnson, or if he had remained quietly on his veranda at home and made no speeches, would he have been elected President? Speculations of this kind may alleviate the poignancy of defeat, but as a political situation is rarely or never repeated they are hardly profitable.
There are phases of political psychology that defy analysis. For example, in doubtful States there are shifting moods of hope and despair which are wholly unrelated to tangible events and not reconcilable with “polls” and other pre-election tests. Obscure influences and counter-currents may be responsible, but often the politicians do not attempt to account for these alternations of “feeling.” When, without warning, the barometer at headquarters begins to fall, even the messengers and stenographers are affected. The gloom may last for a day or two or even for a week; then the chairman issues a statement “claiming” everything, every one takes heart of hope, and the dread spectre of defeat steals away to the committee-rooms of the opposition.
An interesting species are the oracles whose views are sought by partisans anxious for trustworthy “tips.” These “medicine-men” may not be actively engaged in politics, or only hangers-on at headquarters, but they are supposed to be endowed with the gift of prophecy. I know several such seers whose views on no other subject are entitled to the slightest consideration, and yet I confess to a certain respect for their judgment as to the outcome of an election. Late in the fall of 1916, at a time when the result was most uncertain, a friend told me that he was wagering a large sum on Mr. Wilson’s success. Asked to explain his confidence, he said he was acting on the advice of an obscure citizen, whom he named, who always “guessed right.” This prophet’s reasoning was wholly by inspiration; he had a “hunch.” State and county committee-rooms are infested with elderly men who commune among themselves as to old, unhappy, far-off things and battles long ago, and wait for a chance to whisper some rumor into the ear of a person of importance. Their presence and their misinformation add little to the joy of the engrossed, harassed strategists, who spend much time dodging them, but appoint a subordinate of proved patience to listen to their stories.
To be successful a State chairman must possess a genius for organization and administration, and a capacity for quick decision and action. While he must make no mistakes himself, it is his business to correct the blunders of his lieutenants and turn to good account the errors of his adversary. He must know how and where to get money, and how to use it to the best advantage. There are always local conditions in his territory that require judicious handling, and he must deal with these personally or send just the right man to smooth them out. Harmony is the great watchword, and such schisms as that of the Sound Money Democrats in 1896, the Progressive split of 1912, and the frequent anti-organization fights that are a part of the great game leave much harsh jangling behind.
The West first kicked up its heels in a national campaign in the contest of 1840, when William Henry Harrison, a native of Virginia who had won renown as a soldier in the Ohio Valley and served as governor of the Northwest Territory, was the Whig candidate. The campaign was flavored with hard cider and keyed to the melody of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” The log cabin, with a raccoon on the roof or with a pelt of the species nailed to the outer wall, and a cider-barrel seductively displayed in the foreground, were popular party symbols. The rollicking campaign songs of 1840 reflect not only the cheery pioneer spirit but the bitterness of the contest between Van Buren and Harrison. One of the most popular ballads was a buckeye-cabin song sung to the tune of “The Blue Bells of Scotland”:
“Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go?
Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go?
It goes against the spoilsman, for well its builders know
It was Harrison who fought for the cabins long ago.
Oh, who fell before him in battle, tell me who?