548 Chapter 20 From Smoke-Filled Rooms to Prairie Wildfire: 1877–1896
by repudiating Cleveland the Democrats escaped
much of the burden of explaining away his errors.
The newspapers came out almost unanimously for
the Republicans. TheNew York Timesaccused Bryan
of being insane, his affliction being variously classi-
fied as “paranoia querulenta,” “graphomania,” and
“oratorical monomania.” The Democrats had very
little money and few well-known speakers to fight
the campaign.
But Bryan proved a formidable opponent.
Casting aside tradition, he took to the stump per-
sonally, traveling 18,000 miles and making over
600 speeches. He was one of the greatest of orators.
A big, handsome man with a voice capable of carry-
ing without strain to the far corners of a great hall
yet equally effective before a cluster of auditors at a
rural crossroads, he projected an image of absolute
sincerity without appearing fanatical or argumenta-
tive. At every major stop on his tour, huge crowds
assembled. In Minnesota he packed the 10,000-seat
St. Paul Auditorium, while thousands milled in the
streets outside. His energy was amazing, and his
charm and good humor were unfailing. At one
whistle-stop, while he was shaving in his compart-
ment, a small group outside the train began clamor-
ing for a glimpse of him. Flinging open the window
and beaming through the lather, he shook hands
cheerfully with each of the admirers. Everywhere he
hammered away at the money question. Yet he did
not totally neglect other issues. He was defending,
he said, “all the people who suffer from the opera-
tions of trusts, syndicates, and combines.”
McKinley’s campaign was managed by a new type
of politician, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, an Ohio busi-
nessman. In a sense Hanna was a product of the
Pendleton Civil Service Act. When deprived of the
contributions of officeholders, the parties turned to
business for funds, and Hanna was one of the first
leaders with a foot in both camps. Politics fascinated
him, and despite his wealth and wide interests, he was
willing to labor endlessly at the routine work of polit-
ical organization.
Hanna aspired to be a kingmaker and early fas-
tened on McKinley, whose charm he found irre-
sistible, as the vehicle for satisfying his ambition. He
spent about $100,000 of his own money on the pre-
convention campaign. His attitude toward the candi-
date, one mutual friend observed, was “that of a big,
bashful boy toward the girl he loves.”
Before most Republicans realized how effective
Bryan was on the stump, Hanna perceived the danger
and sprang into action.
Certain that money was the key to political power,
he raised an enormous campaign fund. When business-
men hesitated to contribute, he pried open their purses
by a combination of persuasiveness and intimidation.
Banks and insurance companies were “assessed” a per-
centage of their assets, big corporations a share of their
receipts, until some $3.5 million had been collected.
Hanna disbursed these funds with efficiency and
imagination. He sent 1,500 speakers into the doubt-
ful districts and blanketed the land with 250 million
pieces of campaign literature, printed in a dozen lan-
guages. “He has advertised McKinley as if he were a
patent medicine,” Theodore Roosevelt, never at a loss
for words, exclaimed.
Incapable of competing with Bryan as a swayer of
mass audiences, McKinley conducted a “front-porch
campaign.” This technique dated from the first
Harrison-Cleveland election, when Harrison regularly
delivered off-the-cuff speeches to groups of visitors rep-
resenting special interests or regions in his hometown
of Indianapolis. The system conserved the candidate’s
energies and enabled him to avoid the appearance of
seeking the presidency too openly—which was stillWilliam Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech inspired this
cartoonist’s caricature of it as “plagiarized from the Bible.” Bryan’s
speech in favor of bimetallism was, in fact, studded with religious
references. He described the unlimited coinage of silver and gold as
a “holy cause” supported by those who built churches “where they
praise their Creator.”