Seven parties nominated presidential candidates in
1884, although only the Prohibition and Greenback-Labor parties were thought to
be able to influence the election. The Prohibition party nominated John St.
John, a former governor of Kansas, for president. Republicans were particularly
worried about his candidacy because so many Prohibitionists identified with the
Republican party, and St. John, prominent and articulate, might be able to woo
them away from their regular party base.
St. John was embarrassed during the campaign,
though, when revelations about his marriage were made known in the press. He had
married at 19 years of age, fathered a child, then divorced at his wife's
request. Both St. Johns married someone else shortly afterward. St. John
paid for his boy's education, provided lodging in his home when the young man
read law, and secured him a government position.
Republican operatives tried to convince St. John
to drop out of the race. When he refused, they engaged in a smear campaign
against him, accusing him of wife abuse and other dreadful deeds. In
retaliation, a furious St. John concentrated his efforts in upstate New York, an
area of the key electoral state where Blaine was vulnerable on the prohibition
issue. The Democratic party secretly funded the Prohibition party's campaign
there. In the end, the Prohibition vote in New York proved to be one of the
leading factors in Blaine's electoral defeat by Democrat Grover Cleveland.
The Greenback-Labor party nominated Benjamin
Butler, former Democrat, former Republican congressman, and former Greenback
governor of Massachusetts, for president. An ardent advocate of soft-money and
labor reform, the colorful Butler was popular with working-class voters. His
party was thought to draw more away from the Democrats, so Republicans secretly
funded his campaign.
The Reform wing of the Republican party was
disgusted by the nomination of James Blaine. Some reformers, such as New York
assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt, remained loyal to the party. Others, like former
interior secretary Carl Schurz, Harper's Weekly editor George William Curtis,
and Nation editor E. L. Godkin actively promoted Cleveland's candidacy. Those
who bolted were called "Mugwumps," purportedly an Algonquin name for chief, but
derided by regular Republicans as meaning one who sits on a fence, with his
"mug" on one side and his "wump" on the other. That epitaph, however, was one of
the softer brickbats thrown at the pro-Cleveland Republicans. During the
campaign, the Mugwumps were ridiculed as self-righteous, effeminate men or silly
women, not "manly" enough to participate in the game of politics, where (with a
few limited exceptions) only men could vote or be elected to office.
The degree of vilification may be due to the fact
that the Mugwumps represented not merely political independence, but civil
service reform, which aimed at severely restricting patronage, considered the
lifeblood of the party system. The seriousness of the issue went deep.
Supporters believed that patronage encouraged a corrupt and inefficient
government, so they advanced civil service reform to make political parties more
honest and democracy work better. Opponents believed that patronage was the
basis of party strength, which, in turn, was the foundation of democracy;
therefore, they perceived civil service reform as a full-scale attack on both
parties and democracy by an aristocratic elite.
With the passage of the federal Civil Service Act
in 1883, the reformers did not want to lose the momentum of that legislation.
Only a limited number of federal employees were included under the law
initially, but its coverage could be expanded by executive order. Consequently,
it was vital that the next president support and extend civil service reform.
But civil service reform was not the only factor in their defection.
In an editorial, Curtis summarized the three
reasons why he and other Independents opposed Blaine so vehemently: 1) his
involvement in various scandals; 2) his imperialist foreign policy; and 3) his
record as a spoilsman who resisted civil service reform and reform in general.
The second point is usually overlooked, but was quite an important one. During
the campaign, reformers circulated two tracts which criticized Blaine's foreign
policy during his brief tenure as Garfield's secretary of state. The third point
is sometimes perceived as only regarding civil service reform, but Mugwumps like
Curtis and Schurz assumed that a more efficient and honest government would be a
more activist government in areas such as education, conservation, and health
and safety regulations.
In his letter of acceptance, Cleveland emphasized
reducing federal spending and providing "honest administration." The Democratic
nominee promised to make appointments based on merit, advance civil service
reform (although he did not specify how), and work for a constitutional
amendment limiting presidents to one term. Cleveland delivered only two campaign
speeches in October, one in Newark, New Jersey, and the other in Bridgeport,
Connecticut. He did make public appearances in New York at county fairs,
parades, and rallies, ostensibly in his role as New York governor, but on such
occasions spoke only in patriotic generalities. However, in 1884,
Republican James Blaine spent six weeks on the campaign trail. He also
left most of the campaign organization to others. The Democratic National
Committee was again (as in 1880) headed by Connecticut financier William Barnum,
but the day-to-day operations were managed by Senator Arthur Poe Gorman of
Maryland. The only times that Cleveland intervened were to insist that his
campaign tell the truth about his relationship with Maria Halpin and quash
rumors about the Blaines' premarital affair.
As in other years, the vice-presidential nominee
delivered stump speeches and represented the ticket at partisan events. Seen as
a respectable gentleman, Thomas Hendricks got by with attacking the Republican
record, agenda, and character, whereas his more disreputable Republican rival,
John Logan, was forced to be more restrained. Hendricks preached the virtue of
soft-money in debt-ridden farm areas, chiding the Republicans for their excesses
taxation, and linking them to the Prohibition movement before German-American
audiences. Most of his campaigning took place in and around his home state of
Indiana, a must-win swing state for Democrats. It paid off; Indiana fell into
the Democratic column in November. Because many Democrats still burned over what
they considered the theft of the White House from the 1876 ticket of Tilden and
Hendricks, the second-time vice-presidential candidate was a sentimental
favorite at partisan gatherings. His years of government service gave confidence
to voters worried about a ticket headed by a relatively inexperienced governor.
Finally, Hendricks proved to be an effective liaison between the Democratic
National Committee and Tammany Hall.
The focus of the Democratic campaign was on
Blaine's corruption. According to Democrats, Blaine's malfeasance was emblematic
of the greed and arrogance of an entire party-the Republicans-which had been
ensconced in office far too long. That strategy was also a way for Democrats to
link Blaine and the Republicans to large, business corporations ("monopolies"),
wielding disproportionate economic and political power which could affect the
lives of common workingmen adversely. Mugwump periodicals, such as the New
York Times, Harper's Weekly, and the
Nation, published a steady flow of anti-Blaine editorials and news
stories, while political cartoonists at Harper's Weekly, Puck, and other
journals lampooned the Republican nominee, including as a "tattooed man" who
sold himself to the highest bidder. The sensational New York World
erroneously reported that Blaine was dying of Bright's Disease.
Cleveland Scandal: The Maria Halpin
On July 21 the presidential campaign was jolted by
news of a sex scandal involving Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland. The Buffalo
Evening Telegraph reported that the bachelor Cleveland had fathered a child out
of wedlock (born 1874) by a widow named Maria Halpin; that he had callously
abandoned mother and child, then later arranged Halpin's commitment to an asylum
and the child's placement in an orphanage. The story became a major
embarrassment to the Cleveland camp. Since the negative image of Blaine was of a
corrupt politician, and the positive image of Cleveland was of a man of
integrity, the Halpin scandal was a threat to the public persona promoted by
The revelation's early date in the campaign,
though, allowed the Democrats to respond effectively, although the story still
had legs into November. Yet, while defenders argued that the affair was a
youthful discretion that Cleveland righted, the Telegraph, joined by some other
anti-Cleveland newspapers, painted the nominee as a habitual womanizer, brawler,
and drunk, whose wild ways continued into his governorship. That context, plus
the public's unfamiliarity with Cleveland, gave the Halpin allegation more
When presented with the news, Cleveland was
alleged to have instructed his managers: "Tell the truth." It was admitted that
he had the affair, and, although he thought he was not the father, had
financially supported both mother and child. When Maria Halpin's alcoholism
seemed to threaten the boy's well being, Cleveland saw to it that she was placed
in a sort of half-way house, not an insane asylum, and that the boy was placed
in an orphanage, where he was soon adopted by a wealthy couple. The other
stories were shown to be false. The diligently hardworking governor had no time,
much less inclination, to spend his evenings on the seedy side of town.
(Apparently no one on either side, though, bothered to interview Maria Halpin.)
The Cleveland version of the story portrayed the
Democratic nominee (at the expense of Halpin's reputation) as acting justly
after falling from grace, and honestly after his private life became public.
Consequently, the incident actually reinforced the perception of Cleveland as a
man of good character. Furthermore, his actions were contrasted with the
behavior of Blaine who supposedly acted in his own self-interest and lied about
his financial dealings.