Thanks to the support of the railroads, ticket prices were slashed. In late October, the Front-Porch Campaign reached its peak. The growing crowds that filled Canton from countless railcars gave the message that the outcome of the election was no longer in doubt. William McKinley won the election of with Electoral College votes, 47 more than needed. He carried every battleground state and every state in the critical central Midwest, and took New England by ratio.
From now on, the power of the party bosses over nominations to the presidency would be greatly diminished. The general elections would now be more about the candidate, not the party. Rove, Karl. Horner, William T. Athens: Ohio University Press, Williams, R. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, Merry, Robert W. Harpine, William D.
William McKinley, head and shoulders portrait, and Garret A. Hobart, head and shoulders portrait, facing left; in ovals bordered with U. The general elections would now be more about the candidate, not the party Sources Rove, Karl. Republican Glees, Songs Copyright J. Coe, Richmond, Indiana, Become a member for free. Bryan, in response, stumped the nation in a strenuous campaign, covering 18, miles in just three months.
He spoke to wildly enthusiastic crowds, condemning McKinley as the puppet of big business and political managers.
However, midway through his campaign, Bryan's pace faltered. His strategy for dual party support failed. Gold Democrats bolted the party, unhappy with Bryan's stand on bimetallism and free silver. Some urban-based progressives, who worried about Bryan's evangelistic style and moralistic fervor, also deserted the Democrats.
Moreover, Bryan failed to build support outside his Populist and agrarian base, especially in the face of McKinley's effective campaigning on economic issues. Bryan lost to McKinley by a margin of approximately , votes, the greatest electoral sweep in twenty-five years. McKinley received over a third more electoral college votes than Bryan. The Republican victory reflected a winning coalition of urban residents in the North, prosperous midwestern farmers, industrial workers, ethnic voters with the exception of the Irish , and reform-minded professionals.
It launched a long period of Republican power lasting until , broken only by Woodrow Wilson's victory in , which occurred principally because of a split in the Republican Party. After four years in office, McKinley's popularity had risen because of his image as the victorious commander-in-chief of the Spanish-American War see Foreign Affairs section and because of the nation's general return to economic prosperity.
Hence, he was easily renominated in as the Republican candidate. The most momentous event at the Philadelphia convention centered on the vice presidential nomination of Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York. Vice President Garret A. Hobart of New Jersey had died in office, and Roosevelt's candidacy added a popular war hero and reform governor to the ticket. Setting up the stage for a rematch of the election, the Democrats again nominated Bryan at their convention in Kansas City. Grover Cleveland's former vice president, Adlai E.
Stevenson, took the second spot on the Democratic slate. The rematch played to old and new issues. Bryan refused to back off his call for free silver even though the recent discoveries of gold in Alaska and South Africa had inflated the world's money supply and increased world prices. As a result, the U. Farmer dissatisfaction was less than it was in , and gold was the reason behind it.
Hence, Bryan's silver plank was a nonissue to the farming community, which was one of his main constituent groups. Responding to these voter sentiments, Democratic Party managers included the silver plank in their platform but placed greater emphasis on expansionism and protectionism as the key issues in the election. With the nation mired in the aftermath of a serious economic depression and a deeply unpopular Democrat incumbent— Grover Cleveland —in the White House, the GOP had surged back in the most recent midterms to win control of both the House and Senate.
But in an unexpected turn of events, the young Democratic Nebraska lawyer and former congressman Bryan challenged McKinley in Thousands of businesses closed, and the nation suffered more than 10 percent unemployment for more than five straight years. While President Cleveland favored the gold standard, many in the Populist Party and the rural, agrarian wing of the Democratic Party—including many farmers in the South and West—supported the Free Silver Movement.
This would inflate the currency, increasing the prices farmers would receive for their crops and helping them pay back their debts more easily.
William Jennings Bryan was a dominant force in the populist wing of the Democratic party in When the Democrats convened in Chicago to choose their presidential candidate in July , they repudiated Cleveland and changed courses dramatically, making free silver a central plank of their platform.
During the convention, he delivered what would become one of the most famous political orations in U. The most electric moment of his speech came at the end, when he drew on his evangelical Christian faith. The crowd of more than 20, at the Chicago Coliseum went wild, and Bryan went on to clinch the nomination, becoming the youngest presidential nominee in history.
0コメント