1892 Election of Grover Cleveland

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Grover Cleveland was the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897. The 1892 election was his third campaign for the presidency, in which he won a plurality of the popular vote and a large majority in the Electoral College, which officially elects the president and vice president.(2) William Steinway was an enthusiastic supporter of Cleveland and had the honor of being a member and the presider of the 1893 New York Electoral College.(Diary, 1893-01-09)

Grover Cleveland was nominated for president at the June 1892 Democratic convention in Chicago. He faced opposition within his party from delegates of southern and western states because of his stand against the free coinage of silver. Also, he was opposed by the delegation from his home state of New York, which was packed with hostile men from Tammany Hall. Cleveland barely received enough votes on the first ballot to win the nomination. The convention picked the reform advocate Adlai Stevenson to be the vice presidential candidate.(2) (He was the grandfather of Adlai Stevenson, who campaigned for the presidency in 1952 and again in 1956, losing both times to Dwight Eisenhower.(3)

The 1892 Republican convention was held in Minneapolis and chose the incumbent president, Benjamin Harrison of Indiana. Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New-York Tribune and former U.S. Minister to France, was nominated for vice president. The campaign was dominated by the tariff issue, in which Harrison defended the protectionist tariff of 1890 and Cleveland favored tariff reduction. He advocated lowering the tariff to a total sufficient to cover the government’s expenses, whereas Harrison favored retaining high tariffs to limit foreign competition for American products. In the middle of the campaign, the First Lady, Caroline Harrison, died and the candidates ceased their campaigning.(2) In the November election, Cleveland received 46 percent of the popular vote and Harrison received 43 percent.(2) The remaining 11 percent was split among minor parties, including the Prohibition Party, the Populist Party and the Socialist Party.(4) In the Electoral College, Cleveland received 277 votes, while Harrison won 145 votes.(2)

William Steinway was a lifelong Democrat and generally backed the candidates of Tammany Hall, the political organization that dominated New York City politics. However, at times he supported a reform faction within the city’s Democratic Party. William was a longtime friend and political supporter of Grover Cleveland. At the time of the Democratic convention in Chicago, William was traveling in Germany. is His friend, Oswald Ottendorfer, the publisher of New York’s leading German language newspaper, the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, kept him informed of the results of the Chicago convention.(Diary, 1892-06-24)

Twelve days before the election, William attended a rally of German-Americans supporting Cleveland at the Cooper Institute in New York. At the time, the Cooper Institute (now Cooper Union) was a tuition free school with courses available to any applicant. WIlliam was elected chairman of the meeting and gave a speech in German.(Diary, 1892-10-27) (see below) William noted in the Diary that his speech was well covered in the press.(Diary, 1892-10-28) On election day, William voted for the entire Democratic ticket.(Diary, 1892-11-08)

William was given the honor of being an Elector for Cleveland in the 1892 election. The U.S. Constitution does not provide for the direct election of presidents and vice presidents. Instead, voters vote for Electors who represent the candidates. The winning Electors meet in their state capitals and cast ballots for the candidates they represent. The number of Electors allotted to each state is determined by the number of members of Congress from that state. After the Electors’ ballots are counted, the result from each state capital is delivered to the Senate at the U.S. Capitol to be counted and the winner declared.(1) William was in poor health on the day the Electors met in Albany. He was troubled by gout in his right knee and forced to walk with two canes. He took a train to Albany, arriving at the state Capitol before noon. He was elected to preside over the meeting and conducted the business of counting ballots from the speaker’s chair, including making brief opening and closing remarks. The session adjourned in mid-afternoon and William returned to New York City by train, arriving that evening.(Diary, 1893-01-09)(5)
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Part of William Steinway’s speech as reported in the New York Times of October 28, 1892, p. 1:

“The question is whether the Government of the United States shall be left to a party which believes that the sound judgment of the people can be influenced by immense sums of money, and which, therefore, collects in the most unscrupulous way such sums, promises the passage of laws to the advantage of single individuals, and sacrifices the best interests of the country by holding out high offices as an inducement for collecting a large corruption fund.

There can be no doubt such a line of actions will undermine our free institutions and everything which distinguishes the United States in the eyes of the whole civilized world It is therefore only natural that the German-American citizens will and must use all of their influence toward the preventing of such a danger.

It might be claiming too much to say that the Democratic Party as such gives a sufficient guarantee for the improvement of political methods or avoidance of these wrongdoings. There are dispositions and tendencies active in the ranks of the Democratic Party which, if they are not properly checked, will involve great danger. But it is an undeniable fact that this party, whether voluntarily or compelled by public opinion, has been so directed in this campaign that it has become the best medium for the overthrow of those base and corrupt methods of political life.”

Sources:

(1) The Constitution of the United States of America, Article 2, Section 1.
(2) Degregorio, William A., The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, New York, Wings, 1993, pp. 345-346.
(3) Morison, Samuel Eliot, The Oxford History of the American People, New York, Oxford, 1965, pp 740-742.
(4) Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. (ed.). The Almanac of American History, New York. Putnam, 1983.
(5) “Switched off for Murphy: The Electoral College Controlled by the Machine: Real Business Postponed,” The New York Times, January 10, 1893, p. 1.

Read the National Museum of American History blog post on the 1893 Electoral College Drama.  http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/electoral-college-1893