The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Political Magic I suppose it is natural for members of the Republican party to throw the blame for their defeat on their official leaders. The implication seems...
...The answer to this argument was also simple: To double the amount of coin in circulation would deprive the capitalists of half their wealth—an act of robbery...
...There at last stood McKinley himself with his wide eyes and bulging forehead...
...A band came marching out to meet the one we had brought with us...
...There is no magic about it except the magic of human character...
...The people were asked above and below to vote for honesty...
...And with remarkable verve, the whole population of the country began to puff its way toward the little mecca in Ohio...
...Then he fell into his regular campaign routine...
...An energetic young chap named Theodore Roosevelt had burst into the New York Legislature and was making it hot for the Democrats in Tammany Hall...
...What I said or did I can hardly remember—only that McKinley, realizing my embarrassment, came forward quickly to relieve the situation...
...He suggested a front porch campaign— that is, a series of political addresses by McKinley on his own wide porch in Canton, a middle-sized town in central Ohio...
...In those days—not really long ago—all respectable people were Republicans...
...This notion that the Republicans were saints and the Democrats were robbers received support from another source...
...A neatly folded flag was held tightly under my arm...
...As President of the Republican Club, I was to present it to the candidate...
...His argument was very simple: If silver were coined on a basis even with gold, there would be twice as much money in the country and obviously poor people could get hold of more...
...This lively saint had been fitted onto the Republican ticket as candidate for Vice President...
...With all imaginable haste, we hurried down to the station and chartered a train long enough to carry our whole college and town...
...This way of thinking seems to rest on the false notion that the results of an election depend on the techniques of political experts...
...Bedecked with flags and bunting, we presented a gaudy sight...
...Somehow I let him know that the flag was a gift from the student body of my school...
...The Democratic candidate was the mellifluous William Jennings Bryan from far-off Nebraska...
...As we snorted our way through a succession of towns, the natives hailed us with an enthusiasm which matched our own...
...Of course, the big leaders shared the common assumption that the Vice Presidency was a graveyard and thought Teddy would never escape from it...
...A great and righteous country like ours could not be guilty of such a deed...
...We marched in double file to the famous wide porch—the center of McKinley's campaign...
...Needless to say, McKinley was elected President by a large majority...
...Directors of the rail systems received the idea with enthusiasm...
...The crowds of listeners would come from the ends of the earth in railway trains...
...What the people want is a man who looks and acts like a President...
...Mark Hanna, a Cleveland capitalist who had generously offered to act as McKinley's campaign manager, had a brilliant idea...
...I lived in the lively political state of Ohio, in a country village where the citizens were easily approached...
...But I feel sure that I influenced more votes then than in any other election in my life...
...I was only 19 at the time, too young to vote...
...I was attending college nearby...
...He looked like a man fit to be President of the United States...
...He had the misfortune to make the free coinage of silver the great issue of his campaign...
...The time had come for my part in the ceremony...
...Whenever my attention is turned to such questions, I think of my first campaign...
...But all of this was nothing in comparison with the enthusiasm which boiled up when we reached Canton, the headquarters of this great party of Republicanism...
...The implication seems to be that if clever professional politicians like Dean Burch had been out of the picture and some unnamed but presumably smarter Republicans had occupied their places, the Presidential election would have gone differently...
...The college town boasted a Republican Club, and I became its president in the year when the handsome and magnetic William McKinley was running for the Presidency...
...So the head of the ticket stood for honest money and the tail man was the symbol of honest politics...
Vol. 48 • February 1965 • No. 3
