From Garfield to Harding

The Success of Midwestern Front Porch Campaigns

Jeffrey Normand Bourdon

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781631013737
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

How front porch campaigns transformed candidate interaction with the public

In 1880, James Garfield decided to try something new: rather than run the typical passive campaign for president, he would welcome voters to his farm. By the end of the campaign, thousands of people—including naturalized voters, African Americans, women, men from various occupations, and young voters—traveled to Garfield's home, listened to him speak, shook hands, met his family, and were invited inside. The press reported the interactions across the country. Not only did Garfield win, but he started a new campaign technique that then carried three other Republicans to the presidency.

Benjamin Harrison followed suit in 1888, and his crowds dwarfed Garfield's as Indianapolis exploded with hundreds of thousands of visitors. Eight years later, William McKinley ran the most famous front porch campaign from his hometown of Canton, Ohio, with around 750, 000 Americans traveling down those streets—including miners' unions, women's suffrage groups, and Confederate soldiers to their Union counterparts. Finally, Warren Harding continued the tradition in 1920 and won by a 60 percent popular majority.

Using a technique very evident today, Republican campaign managers quickly realized that merchandising their candidate as a brand generated much support. After Harding, presidential candidates began to travel the country extensively themselves to speak personally to the American people.

CHAPTER 1

Germans, Jubilee Singers, and Axe Men

James A. Garfield and the Original Front Porch
Campaign for the Presidency

James A. Garfield sometimes had a flair for the dramatic as a presidential candidate in the campaign of 1880. No previous contestant had ever openly invited groups of people to visit him at his residence, but that is exactly what Garfield did in the summer of 1880. As the first front porch campaign in American history unfolded, personal friends, unknown well-wishers, and different groups all traveled to Mentor, Ohio, and visited him at his Lawnfield home. The visits ranged from the mundane to the dramatic. On October 1, 1880, the Jubilee Club from Fisk College was about to fulfill an obligation in Painesville, Ohio, and decided to stop at Lawnfield. They gathered in Garfield’s living room, which his personal secretary, Joseph Stanley-Brown, later described as “big” and “well-filled.” As Garfield walked by his secretary on his way into the room, he said, “My boy! I am going to say a word to them if it kills me.” Realizing that there were no reporters to record the potentially dramatic event, Stanley-Brown wrote down all the events he witnessed in a notebook. The club’s leader gave an “effecting speech” before the group started singing African American spirituals, at which people watching became “increasingly emotional.” Stanley-Brown wrote that “tears were trickling down the cheeks of many of the women, and one staid old man blubbered audibly behind a door.” Once the singers were done, Garfield rose and, “standing at ease besides the fireplace with his hand resting lightly on the mantle,” he began talking to the crowd in “low conversational tones” and employed “rhetorical periods,” which southerners in his audience would be able to appreciate. According to Stanley-Brown, the candidate said that he understood the needs and desires of a “race out of place” and finished his talk with “clear, ringing tones”: “And I tell you now, in the closing days of this campaign, that I would rather be with you defeated than against you and victorious.” Immediately following Garfield’s remarks, according to his secretary, there was a moment of complete silence followed by the sound of “human expirations in unison.” The story of the event appeared in newspapers in Cleveland, but Garfield’s closing statements were omitted from the reports.¹ No matter how this event was reported, Garfield’s front porch campaign undoubtedly produced some unique and dramatic moments like the interlude with the Jubilee Club.

Maybe most importantly, it does not appear that Garfield offended anybody during the contest. He actually proved to be one of the more active presidential candidates in the nineteenth century as he conducted a front porch campaign, spoke at three military gatherings, kept up correspondence with his political backers, and managed to go on a stump-speaking tour by train to New York State in early August. Onlookers contrasted this active campaign style with the inactivity of the Democratic candidate, Winfield Hancock, who did not tour or speak to groups of voters at his home. The porch not only gave Garfield a public voice but also made him seem much more in touch with common men than his seemingly aloof opponent. A campaign style that featured the candidate as the front man of the party also helped Republicans continue the process of unifying their party behind a strong presidential candidate. In what became the closest popular vote in American presidential history, the homebound effort certainly played a role in the party’s victory.²

Garfield started the first front porch campaign because he simply did not want to upset his friends and prospective voters: “I could not play dummy on my own doorstep, when my yard was filled with voters from all parts of the country, hurling speeches at me on all subjects.”³ Once he had said yes to a visit from one group of friends or small club of people, it became very difficult to say no to another. The crowds themselves helped catalyze his efforts by simply showing up at his home. The process snowballed until it became an integral part of the candidate’s strategy. There is no evidence that the Republican Party’s national chairman, business merchant Marshall Jewel, either criticized or supported Garfield’s decision to try this novel campaign technique. In 1876 Rutherford Hayes did not actively campaign and was sometimes mocked for it in the press. When Hayes lost the popular vote, one sheet contended that Republicans had “blundered … in making too much of the party and too little of the candidate and his principles.”⁴ Lawnfield provided a venue for Garfield to show and explain his principles to voters. The effort served both the candidate and his party in a multitude of ways. Garfield’s homebound tactics allowed him to perform three individual campaign functions: (1) meet prospective voters and make them feel comfortable in his home, (2) invite important Republican leaders to his house to conduct critical backroom meetings under the guise of the “front porch” style, and (3) keep up with his correspondence. It also allowed the Ohioan to publicly present himself as the Republican nominee when powerful party members like James Blaine and Roscoe Conkling overshadowed him on the national stage. Visitors could be put into four categories: personal friends from the past, well-wishing acquaintances, Republican political leaders, and “deputations,” or specific organizations that came in groups.

The front porch campaign developed in three phases. During phase one, friends, well-wishers, and acquaintances in small groups visited Garfield after his acceptance of the Republican nomination from mid-July to early September 1880. Phase two lasted five weeks, beginning on September 4, when occasional large groups, interspersed with small groups and individuals, visited the candidate. The turning point came when Republicans won state elections in Ohio and Indiana on October 12 and 13, and people began to realize that they had the opportunity to see the presidential frontrunner in his own home. From October 15 to 31, groups of hundreds and sometimes thousands descended upon Lawnfield as phase three unfolded. This final part of the process saw Garfield’s homebound effort turn into the type of spectacle politics that many political observers had grown used to for half a century.⁵ The events that took place in Mentor in September and October were reported throughout the country in newspapers. Republican sheets carried the speeches that the candidate gave, reported on the parades that the delegations made to his farm, and detailed the interactions that visitors had with Garfield and his family. These events helped Republicans portray him as a down-to-earth, understanding family man who was well aware of the needs and desires of the people he encountered. Suddenly, on November 1, the process ended as abruptly as it started.

The issues facing presidential candidates fluctuated as politics in the 1870s saw white voters become less concerned about African Americans in the South and more interested in matters related to industrialization, corruption in government, and the spoils system. The Republican Party itself was divided into three groups over the spoils system and the use of political patronage, support for the Grant administration, and advocacy for Radical Reconstruction. A faction within the party calling themselves Stalwarts supported Grant throughout his scandal-plagued administration, backed the continuation of Radical Reconstruction, and thought that Republicans should actively use political patronage to support party leaders and the party faithful. Popular partisan leaders, such as Conkling and John Sherman, as well as lesser-known men like Chester Arthur, led this group. Another group within the party, called Half-Breeds (a name invented by Stalwarts as a pejorative characterization of those perceived as not fully committed Republicans) and spearheaded by Blaine, remained only partially loyal to Grant, supported civil-service reform, and backed a merit system for federal employment. Led by Carl Schurz, a third group, called the Independents, wanted a massive overhaul of the civil-service system. Going into the convention, the Republicans knew that the unpopular President Hayes would not be seeking a second term, so the Conkling-led Stalwarts favored a third term for Grant. The former president held a slight lead at the beginning of the convention over party leaders and Half-Breeds Blaine and Sherman. But after days of nothing but deadlock and gridlock among bickering faction leaders, Wisconsin delegates switched their votes over to Garfield, beginning the complicated process of building support for him. After thirty-six votes were taken, Garfield at last secured the nomination.⁶ The candidate himself identified with the Half-Breeds, so Republican leaders chose Arthur as his vice presidential running mate as a concession to the Stalwarts. With his party divided over issues and the nomination, Garfield knew he had his work cut out for him if he wanted to win the general election. It was from this backdrop that the candidate had to figure out how to campaign for the presidency against Democrat Hancock.

Despite the factionalism within the Republican Party, Garfield had a solid history as a general and congressman from Ohio. The last of seven log-cabin presidents, Garfield was born into modest means to a widowed mother, who he remained close to for the rest of his life. He worked as a carpenter to finance his education and in 1856 graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts. Following school, Garfield became a Republican and campaigned against slavery in Ohio. In 1858 he married Lucretia Rudolph and became an Ohio state senator a year later. Garfield opposed secession and in 1861 and 1862 served as a brigadier general in the Union army, fighting in battles like Middle Creek, Shiloh, and Chickamauga. A year later he was selected to be the member of the US House of Representatives from Ohio’s Nineteenth District. For the next seventeen years, he worked as a member of the House and earned a reputation as a skilled orator who supported civil-service reform, a bimetal monetary system, agricultural technology, an educated citizenry, and a relatively moderate approach to civil rights. By 1880 Garfield had chaired three committees in the House.⁷ It was from this position that he received the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency, which he formally accepted on July 10, 1880.

Not only did Garfield have a nice political and military résumé, but he also cast a striking physical figure. James D. McCabe described him as “six feet high, broad shouldered, and strongly built,” having “an unusually large head, that seems to be three-fourths forehead, light brown hair and beard, large light blue eyes, a prominent nose and full cheeks.” Another biographer characterized Garfield’s head as “massive” and his brain as “gigantic.” He weighed approximately 240 pounds. It appears as though Garfield never took to luxurious dress or living either: “He dresses plainly, is fond of broad-brimmed slouch hats and stout boots, eats heartily, [and] cares nothing for luxurious living.” McCabe also stressed that the candidate was an intellectual family man who seemed perfectly comfortable staying at home, writing that he was “thoroughly temperate in all respects save in that of brain work, and is devoted to his wife and children, and very fond of his country home.” Garfield had an affinity for using nicknames, actually calling one young son “Dutch Brig” and the other “Little Yacht” because he was always fond of the military and the sea. He called his wife “Squirrel” and his daughter “Scutifer.” His secretary and telegraph operator, Stanley-Brown, was known as the “Hurler of Lightning,” or sometimes just “Hurler.” Probably Garfield’s best nickname was saved for his Newfoundland dog; after a particularly frustrating year in Congress in 1879, he gave the dog the nickname “Veto.” Beyond this, McCabe asserted of the Ohioan, “Among men he is genial, approachable, companionable, and a remarkably entertaining talker.” Garfield has also been described as “charming” and possessing “unpretentious politeness for which he is distinguished.”⁸ With this type of physical and personal description, the candidate certainly had the tools to meet with prospective voters. But with the recent failures of presidential hopefuls Horatio Seymour and Horace Greeley from the stump, it was doubtful that he would be making extensive speaking tours for the presidency.

Garfield was also positively described by his neighbors in Mentor, who never thought of him as “proud” or “stuck up … although they thought he might become so when he first moved among them.” His wife was described as a “perfect lady” who was not afraid to do work, while his mother was “an intelligent, energetic old lady, with a clear head and a strong will, who keeps well posted on the news of the day, and is very proud of her son’s career, though more liberal of criticism than praise.” Garfield’s two living sons attended college in New Hampshire during the campaign season, but his daughter, Molly, a “handsome, rosy cheeked girl of about twelve,” and two younger sons were still living in Mentor with the family. Sometimes Garfield liked to play tennis or croquet with his daughter or other family members. At dinner the family went through each individual entry in a “little Dictionary of three thousand words” because Garfield did not want the conversation to constantly revolve around the presidential race.⁹ The appearance of a pretty daughter and two younger sons at the home of the candidate could have only helped his image as a man capable of understanding the problems that families faced due to industrialization, a president who (along with his party) championed home life and would strive to protect domestic tranquility. These images combined to help the campaign merchandise Garfield as a man still immersed in Jeffersonian ideals despite society’s shift to more Hamiltonian ones.

Corydon Fuller’s visit to Lawnfield provides a vivid picture of the personable nature of the front porch campaign and its connection to the Jeffersonian ideal. An old friend of Garfield’s, Fuller visited him in the summer of 1880. He arrived at Lawnfield at ten o’clock in the morning and found Garfield dictating letters to his two stenographers. The guest noted that in one corner of the room was a pile of newspapers so high that they could fill a “large wagon-box,” along with approximately 5,000 letters and telegrams piled about the floor. Garfield gave some “rapid directions” to his assistants and then took his friend by carriage around the farm. Fuller claimed that the candidate “had not desired the nomination that he had received, at the present time, but would have preferred to spend a few years in the Senate. He said he did not deny to hope at some future time to receive it, after he had become better prepared to execute its great duties; but as it had come unsought, he should accept, and if elected, do the best he could.” Garfield pointed out the changes and improvements he had made around the farm in recent years, especially an orchard that he had planted. He also stopped the carriage for a moment to speak to his foreman about some hay that needed to be moved. When the two men returned to the house, Garfield summoned a hired man to put the horses up and invited Fuller inside for dinner. The friends entered the kitchen, where Garfield’s mother was apparently pitting cherries to put into a pie for dessert. Fuller claimed that as they approached her, Garfield asked if he knew “this little old woman” and “affectionately” laid his hand on her shoulder. He then added, “Mother, don’t you remember Corydon?” Mrs. Garfield then gave Fuller a “cordial greeting” as the two men passed into another room.¹⁰ This interlude also illuminates the symbolism of small-town values that Garfield’s homestead was capable of exuding.

While the majority of the larger group visits to Lawnfield did not really pick up until October, according to one Garfield biographer, the first “considerable” group came to the home on September 4. After “a company of ninety-five ladies and gentlemen from Indiana arrived by special train, having walked to the house from the railroad by way of the lane,” as Garfield identified them, he appeared in front of them. The Painesville Telegraph explained that the special train contained three cars that “were handsomely decorated with flags and banners and pictures of Garfield.” The group “marched throughout” the fields surrounding the home and were “pleasantly and cordially welcomed” by the family. The Indianapolis Journal characterized the group as “a very intelligent company, representing every leading branch of commercial business.” Garfield admitted that he was expecting their visit, having received advance notice, but added, “I am very pleasantly surprised at the large number of ladies and gentlemen who have honored me by this visit.” He described the “magical powers” of American labor, internal trade, and the advances of the Western Reserve (the Midwest) for the last eighty-four years. Garfield delved into a detailed history of the settlement of Indiana and explained that it was a prime example of American ingenuity and hard work. The candidate noted that in 1796 a group of forty-two surveyors had landed in the area that was later named Indiana: “At that time from the Pennsylvania line to Detroit hardly a smoke ascended from the white man’s cabin.” But in 1880, he pointed out, “the Western Reserve furnishes happy and comfortable homes to more than three-fourths of a million intelligent people.”¹¹ These remarks helped establish two trends for Garfield at home: he always made broad pronouncements that were uncontroversial, and he personally identified with each audience.

Following this event, Garfield talked with the chairman of the group, George Webster, declaring that he was highly pleased with the call and that such visits “were just what he wanted made, but not what he expected.” According to the Indianapolis Journal, after the speech the visitors were invited to meet the candidate, his wife, and his mother. The group also formed a glee club, which sang several patriotic songs for the family. Two days after the visit, the Journal complimented the candidate for his stellar performance: “Garfield’s speech to the commercial travelers … must have classed among his happiest efforts in this line of speaking. He possesses in a remarkable degree the art of saying the right thing in the right way. He is always appropriate … and never commonplace. … They show him to be a man of great, varied, and ready resources.” The Painesville Telegraph also lauded the event, contending that the call “was perhaps one of the most pleasant and agreeable made at the General’s residence since his nomination.” Its report claimed that members of both political parties were in attendance so that the meeting was “devoid of political significance” and wa...