Getting an opponent In the days after the Republican convention, McKinley remained in Canton. Hanna had been elected chairman of the RNC during the convention; he established campaign headquarters in Chicago, in the electorally-crucial Midwest, appointed an executive committee and began to organize the campaign, which as chairman was his responsibility. McKinley oversaw the activities of Hanna and other key managers, and addressed delegations of workers who came to visit him. He met with Hobart, who came to Canton on a brief visit on June 30, 1896, and who joined his running mate in speaking to a crowd of visitors. In his speeches, McKinley concentrated on tariffs, which he expected to dominate the campaign, and gave short shrift to the currency question. As McKinley awaited his opponent, he privately commented on the nationwide debate over silver, stating to his Canton crony, Judge
William R. Day, "This money matter is unduly prominent. In thirty days you won't hear anything about it." The future Secretary of State and
Supreme Court justice responded: "In my opinion in thirty days you won't hear of anything else." At the time McKinley was nominated, it was not clear who his Democratic rival would be. Cleveland's opponents within his party had mobilized into an organized effort to take over the Democratic Party and pass a platform supporting free silver. The platform was deemed of highest priority, and only once that fight was won was a candidate for president to be considered. Despite this resolution, several Democrats sought the nomination, with the foremost being former Missouri representative
Richard P. Bland and former Iowa governor
Horace Boies. Others either seeking or spoken of for the nomination included South Carolina Senator
Benjamin Tillman, Senator
Joseph C. Blackburn of Kentucky, and former Nebraska representative
William Jennings Bryan. , seen during the 1896 campaign|alt=A man in his thirties wearing a dark suit holds his hands together in front of him as he looks to his right. In the background can be seen the stars and stripes. Dawes had known Bryan in Nebraska, and predicted that if the former congressman got to address the convention, he would use his skills as a speaker to stampede it to a nomination. McKinley and Hanna mocked Dawes, telling him that Bland would be the Democratic choice. The
1896 Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago on July 7, with the silverites in full control; they drafted a platform supporting free silver. The final speaker during the debate on the platform was former congressman Bryan, who with Dawes in the gallery delivered a speech decrying the gold standard that to Democrats, according to Phillips, was "messianic—a call to arms". Dawes deemed his friend's
Cross of Gold speech magnificent, though with "pitiably weak" logic, but it won Bryan the presidential nomination, and Phillips noted that the address "unnerved Midwestern Republicans, mindful of their own distrust of the East, and threw a weighty stone into the quiet pool of June
GOP electoral assumptions". When journalist
Murat Halstead telephoned McKinley from Chicago to inform him that Bryan would be nominated, he responded dismissively and hung up the phone. Bryan's nomination briefly gratified the Republicans, believing that his selection would lead to an easy victory for McKinley. In those days when the presidential campaign did not begin in earnest until September, Hanna had planned a vacation while McKinley anticipated a quiet summer. The Republicans were caught by surprise by the wave of enthusiasm that Bryan's speech and nomination caused, and scuttled these plans; as Hanna wrote to McKinley on July 16, "the Chicago convention has changed everything".
Fundraising and organization Hanna quickly realized that the currency issue struck an emotional chord in many Americans, and decided on a campaign to persuade the voter that "sound money", the gold standard unless modified by international agreement, was much preferable to bimetallism. Such propaganda would not be cheap, as before the age of television and radio, the most effective way of reaching the electorate was through the written word, and through public speakers who would address meetings on behalf of the candidate. This would take money, and Hanna undertook to secure it from his corporate connections. As Hanna began his fundraising efforts in late July, the Populists met in St. Louis. Faced with splitting the silver vote, they chose to endorse Bryan, beginning their dissolution as a party. Large sums had to be spent quickly, and Hanna energetically built a businesslike campaign. Bryan's surge contributed to a sense of crisis that enabled Hanna to make peace in his party, eventually uniting all behind McKinley with the exception of some Silver Republicans. But as the campaign began operations, and began them on a huge scale, money was short. Hanna initially spent much of his time in New York, where many financiers were based. He faced resistance at first, both because he was not yet widely known on the national scene, and because some moneymen, although appalled at the Democratic position on the currency issue, felt Bryan was so extreme that McKinley was sure to win. Others were disappointed New York Governor Morton was not the presidential nominee, but their support became warmer as they came to know McKinley and Hanna. Reports of Bryan support in the crucial Midwest, and intervention by Hanna's old schoolmate,
John D. Rockefeller (his
Standard Oil gave $250,000), made executives more willing to listen. After a gloomy August for the campaign's fundraising, in September, corporate moguls "opened their purse strings to Hanna".
J. P. Morgan gave $250,000. Dawes recorded an official figure for fundraising of $3,570,397.13, twice what the Republicans had raised in 1892, and as much as ten times what Bryan may have had to spend. Dawes' figure did not include fundraising by state and local committees, nor in-kind donations such as railroad fare discounts, which were heavily subsidized for Republican political travelers, including the delegations going to see McKinley. Estimates of what Republicans may have raised in total have ranged as high as $16.5 million. From his house on North Market Street in Canton, McKinley ran his campaign, with telephone and telegraph at his disposal. Hanna was busy meeting with executives to extract funds, and delegated much of the day-to-day policymaking to others, most prominently Dawes, who was a member of the campaign executive committee and was responsible for distributing much of the money that Hanna raised. Payne was nominally in charge of the Chicago office, but Dawes, a member of the McKinley inner circle, had more influence. Pamphlets were sent from Chicago in carload lots across the country. The campaign spent almost $500,000 on printing alone, which Stanley Jones, in his account of the 1896 campaign, estimated paid for hundreds of millions of pamphlets. The campaign paid for hundreds of speakers to stump on McKinley's behalf. Efforts were made to keep expenses down; Dawes insisted on competitive bidding, and most of his top-level hires were business associates, not political operatives. Others prominent in the Chicago office included
Charles Dick, the secretary of the organization and later a senator.
Front porch campaign {{quote box | align = right | width = 25em | salign = right From the moment he was nominated, McKinley was beset by supporters coming to Canton to hail him, hoping to hear him give a political speech. McKinley remained in Canton, available to the public every day but Sunday, continuously from his June nomination until Election Day in November, excepting one trip in July to give previously arranged nonpolitical speeches in Cleveland and at
Mount Union College. He also took one weekend of rest in late August. The need to greet and speak to supporters made it difficult for McKinley to get campaign work done; one political club interrupted his conference with Hobart in late June. McKinley complained that his time was not being well managed. Bryan's announcement, after gaining the Democratic nomination, that he would undertake a nationwide tour by rail, something then unusual for presidential candidates, put pressure on McKinley to match him. Hanna especially urged his candidate to hit the road. McKinley decided against this, feeling that he could not outdo Bryan, who was a brilliant
stump speaker, and that he would be foolish to try. "I might as well put up a trapeze on my front lawn and compete against some professional athlete as go out speaking against Bryan. I have to
think when I speak." Furthermore, no matter how McKinley traveled, Bryan would upstage him by choosing a less comfortable manner. McKinley was unwilling to compete with Bryan on the Democrat's terms, and sought to find his own way to reach the people. The
front porch campaign that McKinley decided on was a natural extension of the pilgrimages to Canton by McKinley devotees that were already occurring. After a few initial stumbles, things settled into routine by mid-September. While any group could visit McKinley by writing in advance, his campaign arranged for many of them, and they came from towns small and large. If possible, the group's leader was brought to Canton in advance to confer with McKinley on what each would say; if not, the group would be met at the Canton railroad station by a McKinley representative, who would discuss what would be said with the group's leader. There were parades every day in Canton that campaign season, as the groups marched through the
bunting-draped streets, escorted by a mounted troop known as the McKinley Home Guards, who saw to it that groups arrived at the McKinley residence on a prearranged schedule. There, the group leader would deliver his remarks, and McKinley would deliver a reply often prepared in advance. Afterwards, there might be refreshments or the opportunity to shake hands with McKinley, before the delegation was escorted off for their return journey to the railroad station. If it rained, the meetings took place in one of several indoor venues. , October 1896; McKinley, just right of center, holds a top hat. Bicycling was the latest craze in the United States in 1896, and among those who came to salute McKinley was a brigade of bicyclists, who pulled images of McKinley and Hobart behind their vehicles, and performed tricks as they went to see their presidential candidate. The people of Canton joined in enthusiastically, and restaurants and souvenir venders expanded their operations. A popular source of keepsakes was the wood of McKinley's front porch or fence, whittled as supporters listened, and the blades of his lawn, when not trampled underfoot, made later appearances in scrapbooks. In between delegations, McKinley entertained visitors; future Secretary of State
John Hay, a major backer, came to Canton reluctantly, not relishing the crowds, but wrote "he met me at the [railroad] station, gave me meat & took me upstairs and talked for two hours as calmly & serenely as if we were summer boarders in Bethlehem, at a loss for means to kill time. I was more struck than ever with his mask. It is a genuine Italian ecclesiastical face of the XVth Century." With
his campaign ill-financed, Bryan was his own greatest asset, and traveled to 27 of the 45 states, logging , and in his estimated 600 speeches reached some 5,000,000 listeners. McKinley did not match those numbers, speaking 300 times to 750,000 visitors, but in remaining at home, he avoided the fatigue of Bryan's exhausting tour. The Republican was better able to provide fresh material for the next day's newspapers without making gaffes; Bryan made several. According to R. Hal Williams in his book on the 1896 campaign, "The Front Porch Campaign was a remarkable success."
Issues and tactics Bryan's nomination caused defections and divisions in the Republican party; many farmers in the Midwest, even in McKinley's Ohio, found the inflation it was expected free silver would cause to be attractive, as it would make it easier to repay debts. Polls in battleground midwestern states, and word from activists there, showed that Bryan had made deep inroads into Republican support. One survey in August showed that of the midwestern states, only Wisconsin was safe for the Republicans. , before the McKinley home. Although women could not vote in most states, they might influence male relatives and were encouraged to visit Canton. By early in August, the McKinley campaign had decided upon a strategy: appeal to labor and established farmers. McKinley, on the urgent advice of his advisers, by the middle of that month had decided that the currency question must be addressed immediately, and the campaign machine began the process of generating millions of publications and sending hundreds of speakers into the field. The pamphlets contained quotes or articles from McKinley, members of Congress, and financial experts on why a bimetallic standard would be ruinous to the country.
Theodore Roosevelt, then a member of the
New York City Police Commission, recalled seeing boxcars full of paper being dispatched when he visited the Chicago headquarters in August. For the benefit of those who did not read English, there were pamphlets in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Yiddish, German, Polish, Norwegian, Italian, Danish, and Dutch. Pre-written articles were sent to periodicals, and the campaign paid for friendly newspapers to be sent to thousands of citizens across the country for the duration. Five million families received McKinley campaign materials on a weekly basis. Among the surrogates sent out on McKinley's behalf was newspaper editor
Warren G. Harding, paid to make speeches across Ohio. The future president made a positive impression and three years later was elected to the
Ohio State Senate, beginning his political rise. On his front porch, McKinley urged sound money, though he never ceased to promote protectionism to support American industry. Horner noted, "the campaign effectively linked both gold and protectionism with patriotism." McKinley felt that he could not campaign entirely on the money issue, as many midwestern Republicans who supported silver considered protection the major issue of the campaign, and would stay with the party if it promoted tariffs. These issues were given different emphases sectionally: in the East and South, the money issue was stressed most strongly, while tariffs were given more attention in the Midwest. McKinley had little support in the mining-dominated Rocky Mountain states, where even most Republicans were for silver and Bryan. On the Pacific coast, where there was strong silver sentiment, but where McKinley had some hope of winning, the tariff was made the major issue. McKinley soothed ruffled feathers of party bigwigs by mail and in person. Though former president Harrison refused to tour, he gave a speech in New York where he railed against free silver, stating, "the first dirty errand that a dirty dollar does is to cheat the workingman". The public was closely following the campaign, and the Republican efforts had their effect. In September, polls showed the midwestern states leaning Republican, though silver-supporting Iowa was still close. McKinley's running mate, Hobart, continued to look after his law practice and business interests, and was apparently a major contributor to the Republican campaign. He helped to run the New York office, gave some speeches from his own front porch in Paterson, and in October went on a short campaign tour of New Jersey, though he was a reluctant public speaker. Hobart was much stronger for the gold standard than was McKinley, and made clear his views in his speeches. 's portrayal of the McKinley–Hanna relationship
William Randolph Hearst's
New York Journal was hostile to McKinley throughout the campaign; prior to the Republican convention,
Alfred Henry Lewis accused Hanna of acting on behalf of a syndicate, controlling McKinley. During the general election campaign, the Democratic newspapers, especially the papers owned by Hearst, attacked Hanna for his supposed role as McKinley's political master. These articles and cartoons have contributed to a lasting popular belief that McKinley was not his own man, but that he was effectively owned by the corporations, through Hanna.
Homer Davenport's cartoons for the Hearst papers were especially effective in molding public opinion about Hanna, who was often depicted as "Dollar Mark", in a suit decorated with dollar signs (a term for which "dollar mark" was a common alternative). McKinley's 1893 personal financial crisis allowed him to be convincingly depicted as a child, helpless in the hands of businessmen and their mere tool in the 1896 campaign. Hearst and the
Journal gave $41,000 to Bryan's campaign, one of the largest the Democrats received, but that amount was dwarfed by the sums raised by Hanna. September saw Maine and Vermont go heavily Republican in their state elections, meaning the Northeast was likely safe for McKinley. Early in that month, dissident Democrats, who favored the gold standard and President Cleveland's policies, formed the
National Democratic Party, or Gold Democrats, meeting in Indianapolis. The nomination of Illinois Senator
John M. Palmer for president and former Kentucky governor
Simon Bolivar Buckner for vice president meant Bryan would have to overcome an electoral split in his party. Hanna applauded the selection, and predicted it would get large numbers of votes. There was no chance Palmer would win the election, and Hanna saw to it that the Gold Democrats were aided with quietly-provided funds. The Midwest was the crucial battleground, and both parties poured in their resources, with Bryan spending most of his time there, as did Hanna. McKinley and Hanna began to sense that the flood of materials and speakers on the silver question had had their effect in the Midwest. Dawes began to slow the flow of pamphlets against silver, and set loose a flood of material favoring McKinley's tariff policies. Events favored the Republicans: wheat prices rose considerably in the final weeks of the campaign, lessening the enthusiasm of farmers for free silver. The Democrats alleged that Republicans were coercing workers into voting for McKinley on threat of losing their jobs; Hanna denied it, and offered a reward for evidence, that was not claimed. To Bryan's outrage, Hanna called for a "Flag Day" for the final Saturday, October 31, as the campaign again sought to link support for McKinley to patriotism, a theme echoed by the candidate as he addressed his final delegations. Hundreds of thousands marched through the streets of the nation's cities in honor of the flag; New York City saw its largest parade since 1865. Election day was November 3; on its eve Hanna and Dawes predicted overwhelming victory. ==Election==