The Meaning of the Election 549The Meaning of the Election
During the campaign, some frightened Republicans
had laid plans for fleeing the country if Bryan were
elected, and belligerent ones, such as Theodore
Roosevelt, then police commissioner of New York
City, readied themselves to meet the “social revolu-
tionaries” on the battlefield. Victory sent such people
into transports of joy. Most conservatives concluded
that the way of life they so fervently admired had
been saved for all time.
However heartfelt, such sentiments were not
founded on fact. With workers standing beside capi-
talists and with the farm vote split, it cannot be said
that the election divided the nation class against
class or that McKinley’s victory saved the country
from revolution.
Far from representing a triumph for the status
quo, the election marked the coming of age of
modern America. The battle between gold and sil-
ver, which everyone had considered so vital, had
little real significance. The inflationists seemed to
have been beaten, but new discoveries of gold in
Alaska and South Africa and improved methods of
extracting gold from low-grade ores soon led to a
great expansion of the money supply. In any case,
within two decades the system of basing the vol-
ume of currency on bullion had been abandoned.
Bryan and the “political” Populists who supported
him, supposedly the advance agents of revolution,
were oriented more toward the past than the
future; their ideal was the rural America of
Jefferson and Jackson.
McKinley, for all his innate conservatism, was
capable of looking ahead toward the new century. His
approach was national where Bryan’s was basically
parochial. Though never daring and seldom
imaginative, McKinley was able to deal
pragmatically with current prob-
lems. Before long, as the United
States became increasingly an
exporter of manufactures, he
would even modify his posi-
tion on the tariff. And no
one better reflected the
spirit of the age than Mark
Hanna, the outstanding
political realist of his gener-
ation. Far from preventing
change, the outcome of the
election of 1896 made possible
still greater changes as the
United States moved into the
twentieth century.considered bad form—and at the same time allowed
him to make headlines throughout the country.
Guided by the masterful Hanna, McKinley brought
the front-porch method to perfection. Superficially the
proceedings were delightfully informal. From every cor-
ner of the land, groups representing various regions,
occupations, and interests descended on McKinley’s
unpretentious frame house in Canton, Ohio. Gathering
on the lawn—the grass was soon reduced to mud, the
fence stripped of pickets by souvenir hunters—the visi-
tors paid their compliments to the candidate and heard
him deliver a brief speech, while beside him on the
porch his aged mother and adoring invalid wife listened
with rapt attention. Then there was a small reception,
during which the delegates were given an opportunity
to shake their host’s hand.
Despite the air of informality, these performances
were carefully staged. The delegations arrived on a
tightly coordinated schedule worked out by McKinley’s
staff and the railroads, which operated cut-rate
excursion trains to Canton from all over the nation.
McKinley was fully briefed on the special interests and
attitudes of each group, and the speeches of delegation
leaders were submitted in advance. Often his secretary
amended these remarks, and on occasion McKinley
wrote the visitors’ speeches himself. His own talks were
carefully prepared, each calculated to make a particular
point. All were reported fully in the newspapers. Thus
without moving from his doorstep, McKinley met
thousands of people from every section of the country.
These tactics worked admirably. On election day
McKinley collected 271 electoral votes to Bryan’s 176,
the popular vote being 7,036,000 to 6,468,000.
McKinley and Hobart Campaign Posterat
http://www.myhistorylab.com
View theImageCampaign buttons for McKinley and Bryan in 1896. Bryan sought to expand the money supply
through the coinage of silver dollars; McKinley sought to remain with the gold standard.