The contentious battle between New York's Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama of Illinois had some pundits wringing their hands over what seemed to be internecine warfare. But presidential conventions, especially in the Democratic Party, have a long and glorious history of blistering battles. And one Niagara Falls Democrat was a part of several of them.
The late City Historian E.T. Williams was also a powerful Democratic operative for many years in Niagara Falls and was a delegate to some explosive presidential conventions. He wrote about a few of his experiences in a 1944 article, calling such political games the "quadrennial political chaos."
One interesting race involved former Buffalo mayor Grover Cleveland, who was elected president in 1884. After serving four controversial years, he sought a second term in 1888, but was defeated by Benjamin Harrison. But he wasn't done yet.
Williams wrote that Cleveland "staged a comeback that has no parallel in American history." He again sought the Democratic nomination in 1892 at the convention held in Chicago.
Also seeking the nomination was New York Gov. David B. Hill. New York state delegates were split between the two camps, with Cleveland and Hill each having their supporters at the convention. The candidates had to wheel and deal at the convention, with many decisions coming at the last minute in smoke-filled back rooms.
Williams said that one speech, coming long after midnight, by famed Tammany Hall orator W. Bourke Cochran, a Hill supporter, claimed Cleveland could not win New York. His talk to the contrary, Cleveland wrested the nomination from Hill and went on to win re-election, taking New York by a 50,000 majority.
At the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1896, Williams was the only delegate from Niagara County. Factors in that convention were the rising call for a silver standard and an anti-Cleveland movement, because he sent troops to Chicago to quell the so-called Haymarket riots. Illinois Gov. John P. Altgeld strongly opposed Cleveland in his handling of that matter, Williams said.
Influential figures at that convention were Gov. Altgeld, who favored the silver movement; U.S. Sen. Benjamin R. Tillman of South Carolina; New York Gov. Hill, a proponent of the gold standard; Richard P. Bland of Missouri, a silver man; and "Boy Orator of the Platte" William Jennings Bryan, also a silver advocate.
Williams wrote that Bryan's "Cross of Gold and Crown of Thorns" speech won him the nomination for president and thwarted the ambition of Silver Dollar Bland, the pioneer free silver champion.
The issue was whether to endorse the free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1. This inflationary measure would have increased the amount of money in circulation and aided cash-poor and debt-burdened farmers.
Bryan ended his speech thus:
"If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."
But Williams said he came home to find "many of the Democratic Party supporting the Palmer & Buckner gold standard ticket or helping to give William McKinley 268,000 majority in the State of New York."
At Kansas City in 1900, Williams noted the delegates sat in 106-degree heat for eight hours on the Fourth of July. Bryan was finally nominated a second time, and Bryan's nomination was seconded by Gov. Hill.
Another convention in St. Louis in 1904 was a lengthy affair. Williams wrote, "We sat all night in the convention which nominated Judge Alton B. Parker, of New York, for president at 5:45 o'clock in the morning."
At that convention, there was a movement in favor of William Randolph Hearst, New York publisher, for the presidential nomination, but Williams said "it was largely noise."
Williams was also at the convention when Woodrow Wilson, New Jersey governor and former president of Princeton University, won the nomination over House of Representatives Speaker Champ Clark. William Jennings Bryan, then a delegate from Nebraska, played a key role in securing the nomination for Wilson and later became secretary of state in Wilson's administration.
HOT OFF THE PRESS -- My latest book effort, largely a compilation of these Reporter columns, is now available at all the normal book outlets. Entitled "Remembering Niagara: Tales From Beyond the Falls," it was published by The History Press of Salem, Mass., and Charleston, S.C. Check it out at www.historypress.net. The book includes about 25 photos.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Jume 17 2008 |