Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-02
PRESIDENTIAL
CAMPAIGNS
By FREDERIC ]. HASKIN
V. THE HARRISON-VAN
BUREN, RACE OF 1910

WY ASHlNGTON, D. c., Sept
M ga big meeting" was
Wv in progress in Giles county,
Virginia, in November
| 1910. The circuit-riders were assist
| ed by earnest exhorters and there
! were many professions of conversion.
| One old woman in the neighborhood
had held out against the efforts of
| the church. She was piecing a quilt
-. quilt of ten thousand pieces. At
last after two years of toll, the quilt
| was finished, and she consented to
! GO to "meeting.' On the way to the
! church she heard a great piece of
| news. When she got to the meeting
| she rushed to the ''mourners' bench"
knelt for space in prayer and then
quilt is finished; my soul is saved;
| and TiDpecanoe is elected"
| To the Wings of $40 souls saliva
| ton and the election of William
| Henry Harrison were matters of
| equal Importance. The campaign was
| not so much a political campaign as
| it was a Hallelujah Chorus sung
| the most exciting political race of
our history, and it ended by the over
| Whelming election of William Henry
| Harrison to be president, and John
| Tyler to be vice president. 1t was
| the flrst campaign in which cartoons,
I
| ica1 songs had a vogue, and it was
| the first in which a candidate for
/ president took the stump to appeal
to the voters directly.
and have you heard the news from
Maine?
| How it went,
| Hell-bent,
| For Governor Kent,
And Tippecanoe and Tyler, too,
/
That was one of the many great
| Wing songs of the campaign. 1t
| has lived because of the alliterative
! Tilt of the refrain For Tippecanoe
and Tyler, too," and because of the
| memory of the tornado of enthu-
s sIasm which greeted it's appear
| campaign. Harrison was we'll in the
| lead, but the Van Buren, admins
| tration ana the old Jackson machine
| were StraininS to stem the Whig
uprising. The September elections
in Maine were then. as now, taken a.
| straws to show the trend of the po-
| litlcal air currents.
| Horace Greeley entered the arena
of national politics in this year. He
started a campaign paper in New
York called The Log Cabin" In
| every issue it printed from ten to
| twenty Wing campaign songs. On
S4O
| news of the redemption of Maine, -
Tor Maine had been strong Demo
| cratic state, it also published the
words and music of the song "Tippe-
canoe ana Tyler, TOO"
60. The campaign of 1910 is called the
Log Cabin and Hard Cider Cam
| pa1gn." 1t all came about because
! of the complaceat superiority of. the
Democrats. Van Buren, had beaten
Harrison in 1886, and when the
Whigs turned down their great Clay,
and again nominated the venerable
Harrison, the Democrats could do
nothing but laugh. Having beaten
| Harrison once, they reasoned that it
| was utterly impossible for them to
be beaten by Harrison. The sneers
at the Wing CANDIDATE appeared in
every Democratic paper, but it re-
| manned for the Baltimore Republican
| to say:
Give him barrel of hard cider,
| and settle a pension of $4,000 a year
on him, and, my word for it, he will
sit the remainder of his days in his
| log cabin, by the side of a sea-coal
fire, and study moral philosophy"
| That paragraph was not so cruel,
perhaps, as the New York Evening
| Posts appeal to the ladies to send
| in secondhand shoes and hats SO
| that the poverty-stricken Harrison
might appear in decent clothing be-
fore the people, but it struck the
| Whigs as utterly contempeible.
took up the "hard cider" and log
cabin" sneers at their candidate and
proclaimed to the world that, as true
democrats, they were supporting a
man VINO I'd IlcGa IN log ca61n ana
The Wings and their predecessors,
| in opposition to the Democrats, had
had excellent opportunity to judge
of the efficacy of the Hero in poll
| tics. For four presidential cam
| paigns Andrew Jackson had been I'M
conQuerable with the people. in 1886
| Harrison had been a candidate, but
| there was little reference to his war
| record. But in 1870 he was put forth
| by his ardent followers as a real,
| the hero of the Battle of the Thames,
| of the Battle of Fort Meigs. and he
| had overcome the mighty chieftai1,
| Tecumseh, at the Battle of Tippeca-
| vice president, Richard M. johnson,
| of Kentucky, had slain .Tecumseh
with his own hand, and a few of the
| younger Democrats tried to retaliate
with Johnson as a hero. But it didn't
go. Johnson was not popular to be-
gin with, and 1910 was distinctly
not a Democratic year.
The panic of 1887, brought on by
| transportation and too much conf
dence in the great governmental
|
prosperity, had reduced the nation
| to poverty. Men were out of work,
| bank deposits had been lost in bank
wrecks, and the country was in a
terrible condition. Whether rightly
or wrongly, the party in power was
held to be responsible and the Wing
| landslide was inevitable.
When the Wings met at Harris
burg there were three candidates
nor+1r yVi11io n, LJanrv TJarricon and
Winfield Scott Thaddeus Stevens
made his first entry into the realm
of practical--and dirty-politics in
this convention. He was an anti
convention that it would be impossi-
BILE to get the antiMason vote for
CLAW. who was a Royal Arch Mason
with Clay eliminated the race. was
between Scott and Harrison. both he
roes of the war of 1912. Roth were
crriously enough, it required the vote
of the Virginia delegation to settle
the issue Thaddeus Stevens was
for Harrison because he had let
ter from HsrriSOn promising MN
a cabinet position if. Harrison was
nonri ted and elected.
stevens also had a letter from
General Scott written to Francis
Granger in which Scott was flirting
with the abo'itionist sentiment in
New York with view to getting
votes in the convention. Stevens,
with careful carelessness. let this
letter drop on the floor of the Vlr-
ginia headquarters room 1t WIS
found end read. Instantly the V1r-
ginia delegation solidiied in sup
port of Harrison and he won the
ronoination. 1t was the first real
fioht for a nomination by national
/ convention.
Another remarkable feature of
the campaign of 1870 was the estab-
lishrrent of the Abolition party. It's
candidate for president, James q.
Birnev. received 1853 votes. mostly
in m New New York and Massachusetts. but
it was the beginning of a move
ment which brought about the politi-
col conditions which resulted in the
Civil war, the battalion of slavery