A Peek into the Voting Booth in 1896

In 1896 Mary Elizabeth Lease delivered her famous speech at Cooper Union Hall in New York City.  It was a time of great anomosity between the wealthy and the working people.  The Democrats and the People's Party had nominated the same Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, and his campaign was focused on replacing the Gold Standard with bimetallism, a monetary standard supported with gold and silver.  If you did not read last week's blog about the 1896 election, you may want to scroll down to "A Documentary Treasure," posted 11-8-2018, to read what has been one of the most popular blogs I have posted.  This week I provide a peek into what some of your farming and other laboring ancestors may have been thinking when they marked their ballots. 

Mary Elizabeth Lease was a Kansan and one of the most popular speakers of that time.  Although women did not have the vote, she appeared before cheering crowds to hold them spellbound for 2 or 3 hours, or more.  On August 11, 1896, according to the New York World newspaper, the crowd was "charmed by the seductive oratory of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Lease."  Among the targets of her criticism were "the name of Whitney and Cleveland, of Vanderbilt and Rothschild" which were "hailed with hisses and cat-calls" from the crowd.  She declared, "...here in this country we find in place of an aristocracy of royalty an aristocracy of wealth."

It was a time when farmers in Kansas like Isaac Werner had gone into debt to buy horses and oxen (the tractors of their time) and equipment when the prices for their crops were high and the interest on their loans was low, only to be crushed by debt when crop prices fell and interest rates soared.  Added to that were the rising fares Railroads imposed to ship farmers' crops to Eastern markets.  To the farmers, Wall Street, Speculators, and Railroad Tycoons were the villains. Populists wanted (1) government regulations to control the power of the wealthy and (2) bimetallism to curtail the hoarding of gold by the wealthy at the expense of the government and the American people.  As Mary Elizabeth Lease said, "They say this question is so deep that the common people are not fit to decide it.  They say 'leave it to the financiers.'  We have left it to them too long, and while we have been sinking into bankruptcy our financiers have been growing millionaires."

Some of these American milliionaires had grown so wealthy they sought to connect their families to royalty by marrying their daughters to royalty in Europe, paying a considerable 'dowery' to secure the match.  Lease didn't think much of that, describing the shame of "...an American to pay $10,000,000 for the cast-off, disreputable rags of old world royalty, for the scion of a house that boasts the blood of a Jeffreys and a Marlborough."  Winston Churchill's mother was an example, and Downton Abbey fans know that Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, is a fictional example.

Hanna was the president's advisor, looking for gold from war bonds.

Mary Elizabeth Lease also railed against the profits made by the wealthy when the government issued bonds to fight the Civil War, as they did for the later Spanish-American War.  "...we have arrived at a point when there is not enough money to carry on the business of the country. ...When the war broke out the Government was compelled to beg for men and money.  You [the American workers] responded nobly to that cry, but the men who had been crying, 'on to Richmond!' refused to answer.  They locked up their gold or sent it to Europe.  They held their gold more sacred than your lives, your liberty, your wives and children, while the Government was compelled to mortgage itself to get that sneaking cowardly yellow metal.  And if war was to break out again to-morrow gold would disappear as suddenly again."

It is always enlightening to look back at history in reflecting on today's issues.  The year Mary Elizabeth Lease was making this speech in 1896 was the same year some of your ancestors were voting on a ballot similar to the ballot that was the subject of last week's blog.  Those voters, called populists, were farmers and other laborers angry with the influence and special treatment of the wealthy in this country.  A few days ago, many Americans voted, and while voters from varying backgrounds and economic groups could be found in both the Republican and the Democratic parties, it is interesting that those voters today identified as Populists and Progressives tend to vote with the Republicans.  What would Mary Elizabeth Lease think?!

I thought this would be an interesting bit of history to follow last week's blog about the 1896 election.  I hope you enjoyed both of them.

Remember, you can click on the images to enlarge them.

Another Echoing Voice





A 1890s political cartoon from the County Capital 

In her speech at Cooper Union Hall in New York City on 11 August 1896, (referenced in last week's blog post, "Echoing Voices from the Past,") Mary Elizabeth Lease spoke the following:  "Once we made it our boast that this nation was not founded upon any class distinction.  But now we are not only buying diamonds for thier wives and daughters and selling our children to titled debauchees, but we are setting aside our Constitution and establishing a gold standard to help the fortunes of our hereditary foe."  This cartoon is a perfect illustration of Mrs. Lease's accusation!



Titled "Fruits of American Plutocracy," the cartoon shows a wealthy American father bestowing his blessings on his daughter's  marriage to a "Foreign Prince," linking his family with the "Nobility."  The dialogue at the bottom of the image reads:

"American Millionaire:  So, Duke, you want my daughter's hand in marriage?
The Duke:  I would give name and honor through her hand.
American Millionaire:  Have you scrofula?  Are you dissipated?  In other words, have you all the contaminations common to noble blood?
The Duke:  I'm afflicted with scrofula, epilepsy, am dissipated, disreputable, and a scoundrel.
American Millionaire:  Take her, then, and may heaven bless my children." 

Mary Elizabeth Lease declared in her Cooper Union speech that "There are two great enemies of thought and progress, the aristocracy of royalty and the aristocracy of gold..."  It is said that George Washington declined when asked to be made King of the United States, and our Declaration of Independence states that "All men are created equal."  Yet, the fairy tale lure of kings and queens, and the romance of a simple girl marrying a handsome prince has appealed to many Americans.  Magazines with photographs of William and Kate on their covers sell well, and many Americans wept for the death of William's mother, Princess Diana.

 

Nothing offers greater proof of Americans' fascination with English nobility than the current popularity of the television series, "Downton Abbey."  Consider its plot.  Downton Abbey has fallen into financial distress, so the young male heir, Lord Grantham, marries Cora Levinson, the daughter of a wealthy American, in order to save the estate! 

 

Obviously, not all of us share the scorn of Mary Elizabeth Lease as we tune in each week during the all-to-brief season to watch the lives of the Crawley family and wistfully long to see what is going to happen to them as we wait for the months to pass until the next season begins.  For those of us who admit to being fans of that show, we shouldn't be too critical of the Plutocrat in the cartoon who wants to be aligned with the nobility through the marriage of his daughter to a Duke!