U. S. Senate
1888 presidential campaign {{quote box | align = right | width = 22em | salign = right Although Quay's first term in the Senate began March 4, 1887, Congress at that time did not convene until December, and so, not yet sworn in, Quay remained as treasurer; he resigned in August. He chose state senator
Boies Penrose of Philadelphia to act for him while he was absent in Washington. With Quay away for part of the year in Washington, he needed someone in Harrisburg to deal with the governor and legislature, and run the state organization. Penrose proved an effective choice; Quay, through Penrose, would exercise unparalleled power over state politics. Congress convened in December, but with Democratic President Cleveland still in office, the term was relatively quiet for Quay. As the
1888 Republican National Convention in Chicago approached, several
favorite son candidates were seeking support to become the nominee to challenge Cleveland. Blaine had been ambiguous about whether he would be a candidate, though he still had adherents. Quay was the chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation, which did not strongly support any particular candidate, though there were some leanings toward Ohio Senator
John Shermanthe Camerons were related by marriage to him. Quay was willing to support Senator Sherman, but primarily he wanted a candidate who, if victorious, would reward Pennsylvania for its support. The convention deadlocked; Quay, realizing that Sherman could not win, opened negotiations with the managers of former senator
Benjamin Harrison of Indiana. Quay wanted a written commitment to appoint a Pennsylvanian acceptable to Quay to the cabinet, but Harrison refused. Nevertheless, as the convention swung towards Harrison on the eighth and final ballot, Quay cast Pennsylvania's votes for the Indianan, but the circumstances did not give the state the credit for getting Harrison the nomination as Quay had hoped. At the time, the chairman of the
Republican National Committee (RNC) served as campaign manager for the presidential candidate, and Quay, a member of that committee, remained away from its post-convention session in New York. He was elected as RNC chairman by a large margin. Quay recruited Philadelphia businessman
John Wanamaker to do much fundraising. Wanamaker contributed $10,000 himself, led a committee of ten businessmen who contributed an equal sum, and raised over $200,000. Though the sums were not outlandish by later standards, they were at the time the largest amount ever raised in a presidential campaign. Among those Quay appointed to the national executive campaign committee was Cleveland industrialist
Mark Hanna, introducing the future senator to national politics. Quay's technique of assessing corporations for campaign contributions equal to a percentage of their assets would be copied by Hanna when he was RNC chair during the 1896 election. While Quay ran the overall organization out of New York City, Harrison conducted a
front porch campaign from his hometown of Indianapolis. Quay originally opposed Harrison's plan, but in August, wired to the candidate, "Keep at it, you're making votes." Quay had feared that speeches by Harrison would interfere with his plan to replace the traditional Republican technique of
waving the bloody shirt (blaming the Democrats for starting the Civil War) with a campaign to educate the voters on the issues with pamphlets and broadsides. Blaine's 1884 campaign had been derailed when
Rev. Samuel D. Burchard, at a rally with the candidate present, called the Democrats the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion", and both Quay and Harrison proved determined to avoid another damaging unscripted remark. After Blaine gave a speech describing
trusts as innocuous business associations with which no one should interfere, a position contrary to the Republican platform, Quay saw to it that he stuck to less-controversial topics, and limited his speaking engagements. Quay believed that vote fraud committed by
Tammany Hall had given Cleveland New York's electoral votes in 1884, and the election, and the senator was determined to prevent a repetition. To ensure that voter fraud did not occur in New York City, Quay hired agents whose work was ostensibly to compile a city directory, but which would contain the names of all of the city's eligible voters, greatly reducing the scope for voter fraud. Once the work was completed, Quay made it known. He offered rewards for providing evidence resulting in convictions for illegal registration or illegal voting, something the public took more seriously after the first reward paid was for the conviction of a Republican. adding that Harrison would never know how close to the gates of the penitentiary some of his supporters had come to make him president. Despite Harrison's comments, the successful 1888 campaign gave Quay a national reputation, proving he could elect a president. Quay met with Harrison in Indianapolis on December 19, 1888, and made recommendations as to appointments, urging that Blaine and Wanamaker not be given cabinet positions, but be given diplomatic posts, and that his deputy at the RNC,
James Clarkson, be appointed to the cabinet. In each case, Quay was ignored. Blaine was made Secretary of State, and Wanamaker took the patronage-rich position of Postmaster General. Quay, who did not want a cabinet post for himself, supported the appointment once it was announced, for it at least put a Pennsylvanian in the cabinet. Although Quay publicly backed the appointment of Wanamaker, he and Senator Cameron were incensed, as Harrison had failed to abide by the usual custom of discussing the nomination in advance with the nominee's home-state senators, and Wanamaker's appointment led to a break between Quay and Harrison. The appointment of Wanamaker proved a mixed blessing at best for Quay, since it elevated to high office a man who would be a thorn in his side for years to come, and the new Postmaster General enraged him by removing one of Quay's aides from his job with the post office.
Harrison years (1889–1893) Quay and Harrison quickly came to differ about presidential appointments of federal officials. The president wanted to keep control of appointments and minimize the possibility of appointing corrupt people who might reflect badly on him; the state bosses had made promises during the campaign they needed to make good on or lose influence. The situation was made worse when the newspapers characterized each Pennsylvania appointment as either a victory for Quay or for Harrison, something that both men were aware of. In one incident, Quay handed Harrison a list of people he and Cameron wanted appointed, and replied, when the president asked for their qualifications, that the senators from Pennsylvania vouched for them. Harrison refused to appoint without making investigations, saying he could not blindly delegate the power of appointment. In another incident, Quay tried to discourage an office seeker by telling him the president likely would disregard a recommendation. The office seeker, incredulous, asked, "Doesn't he know that you elected him?" to which Quay replied, "No. Benny thinks God did it." When Congress convened in December 1889, the Republicans, in full control of government for the first time since the Grant administration, were anxious to get their legislative priorities through that had been campaign pledges in 1888: tariff legislation, monetary legislation, and an elections bill that would allow African-Americans in the South to more freely cast a ballot. The monetary legislation, the
Sherman Silver Purchase Act, passed Congress in May 1890. The tariff bill, the
McKinley Tariff (named for its sponsor,
House Ways and Means Committee chair
William McKinley of Ohio), passed the House in May 1890 with no Democrats in favor, but languished in the Senate, while the
Lodge Bill, to reform federal elections in the South, passed the House in July, but faced uncertain prospects in the Senate, as white Southerners saw it as a return to
Reconstruction. cartoon calling Quay "a branded criminal", 1890 Quay wanted the tariff to pass because it was supported by many manufacturers who helped finance the Republican Party, especially in Pennsylvania, and he had made promises of protectionist policies during the 1888 campaign. On the other hand, African Americans had no financial gifts to bestow. He also believed the Lodge Bill would provoke renewed sectional conflict. He sought to break the deadlock over the two bills by introducing a resolution in the Republican caucus to set a definite date to vote on the McKinley Tariff while postponing consideration of most other bills, including the Lodge elections legislation, until the next session of Congress in December. This appalled Harrison and bitterly divided the Republican Senate caucus. Eventually a compromise was worked out whereby the Republicans agreed to press the tariff legislation and to bring up the Lodge Bill on the first day of the new session in December. Harrison signed the McKinley Tariff into law on October 1, 1890. When the Lodge Bill came to the floor of the Senate in December, Southern senators announced their intention to filibuster, and Republicans with other priorities, mostly from the West, joined with the Democrats to indefinitely postpone its consideration. In the early part of the Harrison administration there began to be newspaper
exposés about Quay and his methods. Although Quay supporters hailed him as a political genius, others deemed him a sinister power behind Harrison's throne. Others who joined the ranks opposing Quay were Pennsylvania reformers such as Henry Lea and
Wharton Barker, and disappointed rivals for political power such as
Christopher Magee of Pittsburgh. In early 1890, the
New York World published a series of articles bringing up incidents from Quay's past, beginning with the 1867 Senate race, in which he was accused of accepting payments to recruit support for Simon Cameron. Quay responded with silence, which he was wont to do. In the 1890 elections, Republicans not only lost control of Congress, but in Pennsylvania, the Democrat, Pattison, was elected governor for a second, non-consecutive term. When asked why the Republican candidate,
George W. Delamater had failed, Quay attributed it to "a lack of votes", but historian William Alan Blair stated that Delamater was defeated due to the opposition to Quay. Quay finally answered the allegations against him in February 1891, addressing the Senate, which he rarely did, and calling the allegations "false and foul to the core". This did little to satisfy his opponents, and there were calls for his resignation as RNC chairman. Harrison had long desired his departure, and was unwilling to defend him. Quay in June 1891 announced that he would not lead the next presidential campaign, and resigned the following month. Quay was not supportive of Harrison as the president faced renomination in 1892, but also disliked the only real rival, Blaine. At the
1892 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Quay realized that Harrison's renomination could not be prevented, and himself voted for McKinley, by then governor of Ohio, who was third in the balloting although not a declared candidate. Not wishing to be deprived of patronage if Harrison was re-elected, the senator pledged to work for the Republican ticket, but did little until October, when after negotiations and unknown concessions, he appeared at campaign headquarters, and pledged to help raise money. Nevertheless, Harrison was defeated by former president Cleveland. According to Pollock, Quay's "break with Harrison and his failure to take an active part in the campaign of 1892 was one of the prime factors in the Democratic victory of that year". The 1892 legislative elections were also of concern to Quay as the following year's legislature would vote on whether to give him a second term as senator. There was opposition to Quay within the Republican Party, largely centered on Philadelphia, though Pittsburgh bosses such as Magee were also opposed to him, and put forth Congressman
John Dalzell of Allegheny County as a rival. In addition to bossism, Quay was attacked for his sporadic attendance in Congress, which he defended by stating he was still often ill from his exertions in the 1888 presidential race, and had to spend time at his Florida home at
St. Lucie. His statements were bolstered when he fell ill early in 1892, causing his wife Agnes to make one of her rare trips away from Beaver to tend to him in Florida. Dalzell was vulnerable to attack as a railroad and corporation lawyer, and an agreement was reached to place both their names on the Republican primary ballot, local legislators in theory being bound to abide by the result. With support from fellow Civil War veterans, Quay defeated Dalzell in almost every county, was the overwhelming choice of the Republican legislative caucus in January 1893, and won his second term later that month with two-thirds of the legislature voting for him.
Cleveland administration; rise of McKinley (1893–1896) With Cleveland back in the White House, the Republicans had only minority status in Congress. The Democrats wanted to revisit the McKinley Tariff, but other matters, such as the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, had higher priority, and it was not until 1894 that what became known as the
Wilson-Gorman Tariff passed the House. Seeking to preserve protectionist tariffs for Pennsylvania's manufacturers, Quay threatened to talk the original bill to death. Since he had not addressed the Senate on a legislative matter in his first term, he was not taken seriously, but he proceeded to do what was very close to that, for the bill that eventually emerged from the Senate was so transformed that President Cleveland refused to sign it, letting it pass into law without his signature. Quay kept control of the Senate floor for over two months, from April 14 to June 16, 1894, himself consuming 14 legislative days, and did not conclude his remarks until he and other pro-tariff legislators had secured a compromise that preserved tariffs on manufactures, as favored by Pennsylvania industry, and included other protectionist provisions. John Oliver wrote, "one can readily see the connection between Quay's fight for a high protective tariff and liberal contributions from the Pennsylvania manufacturers". Quay faced further rebellion within the Pennsylvania Republican Party in 1895. Republicans had elected
Daniel H. Hastings as governor in 1894; he was the candidate the reform element had wanted in 1890 instead of Delamater, and, this time, Quay acquiesced in his nomination. With Hastings elected, the anti-Quay faction pressed its advantage, defeating Penrose in his attempt to gain the Republican nomination for
mayor of Philadelphia in early 1895. With Governor Hastings friendly to the opposition, Quay brought the matter to a head by challenging the opposition-aligned chair of the Republican State Committee for his position. He appealed to rural politicians, alleging that the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh machines were trying to take them over. At the state convention, a deal was reached whereby Quay would get the post, and he moved the adoption of a platform that committed the party to reform. This delighted the opposition, and many embraced Quay as a reformed sinner. McKinley acted early to begin
his presidential campaign, meeting with Republican politicians from the South in early 1895 at
Thomasville, Georgia, the winter home of his friend and advisor, Mark Hanna. On his return north, Hanna met with former Michigan governor
Russell Alger, who was acting as emissary for Quay and New York's Republican political boss, former senator
Thomas C. Platt, to discuss a possible deal for the presidential nomination. Despite this and a second meeting, between Hanna and Quay, McKinley insisted he would make no deals to gain the Republican nomination. Platt and Quay decided to promote favorite son candidates to deny McKinley a first-round majority at the
1896 Republican National Convention and force him to the bargaining table. According to historian Clarence A. Stern, the opposition to McKinley "appears to have been to a large extent inspired by the desire of such politicians to gain the greatest possible advantage from the existing situation". Quay was Pennsylvania's favorite son and he found considerable enthusiasm in the state for nominating a Pennsylvanian as the state had been the largest to be consistently loyal to the party, but had never received a place on a Republican ticket. Assured of most of Pennsylvania's 64 votes, Quay journeyed to McKinley's home in
Canton, Ohio, for discussions, but, according to the press, received only unspecified assurances. After Governor Hastings nominated Quay for president, the senator received 61 votes, third behind McKinley, who was nominated, and Speaker of the House
Thomas B. Reed of Maine. Although Quay was reluctant, he served on the national campaign advisory committee under the new RNC chairman, Hanna, reversing their positions from 1888. Quay played only a small role in the fall campaign, helping to run the campaign's New York headquarters, and making recommendations that Hanna spend more money in several Southern states, part of which Hanna agreed to. McKinley won the election over the Democratic and Populist candidate,
William Jennings Bryan, winning Pennsylvania by almost 300,000 votes, providing nearly half of his margin in the popular vote.
Battles with Wanamaker; fight for re-election (1896–1901) Don Cameron was to retire as senator when his term expired in 1897, and former postmaster general Wanamaker wanted his seat. Although Wanamaker gave his usual $10,000 to the Republican presidential candidate, he was not able to gain Quay's backing to become senator, as Quay feared that should he not gain re-election in 1899, Wanamaker might take power in the state party. According to McClure, the two initially agreed, but the pact fell apart when Wanamaker named someone to conduct financial transactions who was unacceptable to the senator. Wanamaker made speeches throughout Pennsylvania to promote himself as a senatorial candidate, and sought the endorsement of legislative candidates, but was faced with the strength of the Quay machine, which had the support of a majority of the elected Republican legislators. In January 1897, Penrose defeated Wanamaker in the Republican caucus, 133–75, and was elected as Pennsylvania's junior senator. An angered Wanamaker would constantly attack and oppose Quay until the senator's death in 1904. In the aftermath of the Senate battle, President McKinley turned over patronage appointments in Pennsylvania to Quay and Penrose; Wanamaker requested that a neighbor of his be appointed postmaster of a
fourth-class post office, but was turned down. Wanamaker entered the campaign for the Republican nomination for governor in 1898, campaigning statewide and delivering speeches on "Quayism and Boss Domination in Pennsylvania Politics". He was defeated by Congressman
William A. Stone, a Quay loyalist. Nevertheless, during the fall campaign, Wanamaker made 140 speeches, hoping to generate enough opposition to Quay to defeat his re-election bid when the legislature met in January 1899. On October 3, 1898, Quay was arrested for conspiracy to defraud the People's Bank of Philadelphia. Quay had arranged in 1896 for $1,000,000 of state funds () to be deposited in it and had persuaded John S. Hopkins, cashier and manager of the bank, that the funds be invested in the
Metropolitan Traction Company of New York, sending a telegram: "If you buy and carry a thousand Met for me I will shake the plum tree", believed by investigators to mean that funds from the state treasury would be used to cover the speculation. The stock collapsed, the bank failed, and Hopkins fatally shot himself. It was alleged that the bank was paying the interest on state funds not to the state treasury, but to Quay. In spite of the allegations, Stone
was victorious by over 110,000 votes. cartoon depicting Quay "held by the enemy" (Wanamaker) and prevented from going to the Senate Quay was the choice of the Republican legislative caucus in January 1899, but some remained away and his support was not enough for the necessary majority of the legislature with the two houses meeting in joint assembly. For the next three months, the legislature deadlocked as Quay's term in the Senate ended, leaving a vacancy. Quay had a sufficient hold over the Democratic legislative leaders to prevent them from uniting with the anti-Quay Republicans to elect a senator, and the deadlock persisted through 79 ballots. Quay was finally brought to trial on the allegations in April 1899, but the prosecution rested an hour after the legislature adjourned, having failed to elect a senator, and he was quickly acquitted, leading Quay's defenders to allege that the indictment had been purely political. Within an hour of the acquittal, Governor Stone appointed Quay to fill the vacant Senate seat. Since at the time the Constitution limited governor's appointments to the Senate to when a vacancy occurred during the recess of the legislature, there were immediate questions as to whether this was a valid appointment, and when Congress convened in December, Quay was not seated, but his credentials were referred to a committee. In January 1900, that committee recommended that Quay not be seated by a 5–4 vote, and in April the Senate refused to seat Quay by a vote of 33–32 in a vote that cut across party lines, with the Republicans against Quay including Hanna, who had become senator from Ohio in 1897. Angered by Hanna, Quay found the opportunity for revenge at the
1900 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. With the death of Vice President
Garret Hobart in 1899, McKinley needed a new running mate. Some supported New York Governor
Theodore Roosevelt, seen as a war hero and a reformer. Among those who wanted Roosevelt on the national ticket was Platt, who did not want him as governor and figured he would be harmless as vice president. Hanna was appalled at the prospect of putting someone he deemed impulsive so near the reins of power. When approached by Platt, Quay was happy to agree to help, in part because of a desire to avenge himself on Hanna. According to McClure, "it was the desertion of Quay by Hanna in the contest for Quay's admission to the Senate that made Roosevelt the nominee for Vice-President against his own earnest protest, and thus made him President of the United States." In August 1900, the Republican State Convention endorsed Quay and denounced the Senate's action, urging the following year's legislature to return him to the Senate. With Wanamaker again making speeches during the fall campaign, Quay also took to the campaign trail. Despite serving two terms in the Senate, he had rarely made a public address, but spoke 19 times across Pennsylvania in October and November 1900. The McKinley/Roosevelt ticket was elected, winning Pennsylvania, but it was uncertain whether Quay had enough support in the legislature to be elected. Not enough Republicans attended the legislative caucus to provide a majority for Quay leaving him four votes short of a majority to elect. Quay was elected because two Democratic legislators voted for him, and two others remained away from the voting. According to McClure, "only one of Quay's masterly political ingenuity and skillful control of Democrats of easy virtue could have won out in the fight. One of the crucial votes in electing Quay was an ill Republican, brought on a stretcher from the hospital to the state capitol to cast his ballot. He languished, forgotten, in a hallway as his bearers joined in the celebrations of Quay's victory, got pneumonia and died. He was given an impressive funeral: both Quay and Penrose attended, wearing silk hats.
Final years and death (1901–1904) . Quay was sworn in to his third term in the Senate on January 18, 1901, in a Senate chamber filled with his supporters, congratulatory telegrams, and flowers. In May, he let it be known he would not seek another term; the long battle over the seat had sapped his strength, and he planned no new political battles. In general, he held to that resolution, though with a few exceptions, and according to McClure, once he made that announcement, "the factional feeling that had harassed him for many years gradually perished".
The assassination of McKinley in September 1901 made Roosevelt president. The fact that he had been instrumental in getting Roosevelt the vice-presidential nomination in 1900 gave Quay little alternative but to support Roosevelt, and the president kept Quay loyal by giving him a major voice in patronage in Pennsylvania, even as he pursued reform policies. With Hanna opposed to Roosevelt and a presidential hopeful for 1904, Roosevelt's allying with Quay, and also Platt, kept the bosses from uniting against him. Roosevelt sometimes refused Quay's requests, as when the senator asked that a Pennsylvanian be appointed to the
Isthmian Canal Commission, charged with building the
Panama Canal. The president stated that appointment to the commission had to be entirely on merit. Continued divisions in the Pennsylvania Republican Party led to losses in the off-year elections of 1901, and Quay feared this would get worse in 1902, when there would be elections for the governor and the legislature.
John P. Elkin had wide support for governor among Quay's faction of the party, and had defended the senator before the Senate committee considering his credentials in 1899 and 1900. Quay believed it was necessary to nominate for governor a judge whose character was beyond suspicion. Hanna favored Elkin's nomination, and Quay feared that the Ohioan might control Pennsylvania's delegation to the next national convention through Elkin. Thus, Quay pressed for the nomination of Judge
Samuel Pennypacker of Philadelphia. Pennypacker was reluctant when approached by a Quay emissary, but agreed; he wrote that his election as governor "came to me without the lifting of a finger, the expenditure of a dime, or the utterance of a sigh". Pennypacker's election postponed the divide in the Republican Party in the state until after Quay's death. In office, Pennypacker generally did what Quay wanted, but sometimes differed from him over appointments to office. One battle Quay undertook in his last years was statehood for Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona. Both major parties had in their platforms pledged support for statehood, and a bill to accomplish this passed the House of Representatives in 1902. One reason Quay wanted the bill to pass is that it might allow
William "Bull" Andrews, a longtime Quay lieutenant with financial interests in
New Mexico Territory, to reach the Senate. Quay, a member of the Committee on Territories, amassed support in the Senate for the bill, likely enough to pass, but the committee chair,
Albert Beveridge of Indiana, felt the three territories were not yet ready for statehood, and used Senate procedures to evade a vote on the bill through the remainder of the session. Quay remaining in Washington through the winter of 1903 to seek passage of his bill, rather than spending part of the winter in Florida as usual, hurt his health. The territories did not attain statehood during Quay's lifetime. Oliver considered Quay a "real friend of the American Indian". Throughout his Senate career, he was an advocate for
Native Americans, but especially was so in his later years. Although Indians had no contributions to give to Quay's machine, he took up their causes, believing they were treated badly by the Federal government. He was a member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs; when
Chief Joseph and his party came to Washington, they expended all their funds and were unable to get home, Quay paid their railroad fare. During his visits to Florida, he took an interest in the welfare of the
Seminole Indians. Beginning in about 1903, Quay's health deteriorated. He went to his brother's country estate at
Morganza, Pennsylvania, in April 1904, but knowing he was dying, he asked to be conveyed home to Beaver. Suffering from
gastritis, he continued to lose weight and strength. Quay could read and speak several languages, possessing one of the finest private libraries in America. One day in late May 1904, he asked to be taken into his library, where he read a little, handled the volumes lovingly, and after he fell asleep, was taken back to his room. He died in Beaver on May 28, 1904. Quay was buried, in Beaver, on May 31, 1904. Shops throughout the area were closed. Trains brought the general public from Pittsburgh and dignitaries from Harrisburg and Washington. Among the senators attending the funeral were Republicans Penrose, Platt and
Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio, and Democrats
Arthur Gorman of Maryland and
Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina. His headstone gives his name and those of his parents, his dates of birth and death, and
implora pacem (Latin for "Pray for peace"). ==Personal life and memorials==