McKinley's Unifying Speech to a Campaign Delegation

McKinley Campaign Poster

A lesson from the past: yes, a politician can win elections without preaching hate. During his 1896 Front Porch Campaign against William J. Bryan, future President William McKinley told a crowd:

“I do not teach the doctrine of hate. I prefer the doctrine of hope.”

McKinley mostly stayed at home during his campaign, while hundreds of delegations organized themselves and traveled to Canton, Ohio by train to hear him speak. He addressed them outdoors, often standing on the front porch of his modest two-story frame house. Indeed, for months on end, he spoke to several delegations every day.

Receiving one of those groups, a delegation from Cambridge, Ohio on October 24, 1896, McKinley projected a warm style and greeted his audience with a personal message. He began by establishing a personal connection:

“I believe in the many visits I have made to the tin-mill men of Cambridge, you will acquit me to-day of ever having undertaken to deceive, or mislead you.”

McKinley then launched into his signature issue, which was the protective tariff. Like Donald Trump after him (and many politicians before and since), McKinley felt that American industry needed to be protected from overseas, low-wage competition:

“I have always proclaimed the doctrine of a protective tariff. I do not abate one bit of faith in that great principle.”

He then briefly gave his (vague) reasons:

“I believe in self-preservation, for this Government of ours; in a tariff that protects our product; that maintains the American scale of wages, that gives steady and constant employment to labor, and that provides enough money for the Government without the necessity of its going constantly in debt.”

Now, McKinley spoke before the modern research about international trade, which shows the drawbacks of the protective tariff. Modern economists generally believe that the tariff drives up prices and invites retaliation from other nations. Still, the protective tariff has been one of the most constant issues, pro and con, in the history of American politics. McKinley’s plea, arguing that the tariff was pro-American and protective, carried even more appeal then, than it does today.

From an economic standpoint, McKinley’s campaign was based on fundamental absurdities. It was his attitude, not the issues, that gained him his overwhelming electoral victory. Dignified, not angry; hopeful, not pessimistic; personable, not divisive, he projected a solid presidential image.

Emphasizing his theme of hope in unity, McKinley then asserted that all Americans were equal:

“I said to you then that the workingmen had an opportunity to show that there was no such thing as class or caste in the United States, and that any man from the mine or from the mill, might aspire to the highest place in the gift of this people as freely as anybody else.”

And, concluding his brief speech, he rejected political division on principle:

“I do not teach the doctrine of hate. I prefer the doctrine of hope. Never give up hope as long as you have the ballot.”

McKinley’s positive tone was that image’s focal point. Instead of giving a set speech to every audience, McKinley tailored his presentation to the small group that had come to see him. Yes, McKinley repeated the same themes, in similar but not identical words, in one speech after the other. However, instead of giving a single canned campaign speech to one audience after the other, McKinley gave his campaign a personal touch without ever straying from his central message. Thus, every speech was potentially newsworthy. Shorthand reporters transcribed his speeches as he gave them. Wire services transmitted the texts to newspapers across the nation. Thus, McKinley conducted one of the first mass-media campaigns.

McKinley’s attack against his opponent was general and tasteful. He never mentioned Bryan by name. He never accused Bryan of preaching hate. Instead, he elected to let the audience draw their own conclusion. He emphasized that the ballot, not hate, gave them the solution to their needs.

Earlier Post: The Trump Trade War? Back to Henry Clay! 

Not only did he reject hate, but McKinley also denied classism and national divisions. One has to think that McKinley’s unifying approach must have made it easier for him to govern the nation after his election. During his campaign, he went out of his way to avoid making enemies. He tried to gather all of the American public into a sense of unity. Not only did his hundreds of brief campaign speeches, of which this was only one, win him the White House, but they also established him as a leader.

A personal touch. Positive arguments. A conclusion of hope and unity. Why can’t politicians today speak like that? And if a politician took a solid, dignified approach – would the American public of today even listen?

by William D. Harpine  

________________

Research Note: if you click on “William D. Harpine’s Publications” above, you will find links to my publications about McKinley’s speeches. (Note that my book, From the Front Porch to the Front Page: McKinley and Bryan in the 1896 Campaign, is now in paperback!) 

My former professor, Charles Urban Larson, has written insightfully about the unifying style of persuasion. 

A transcript of McKinley's speech to the Cambridge, Ohio delegation is on page 6 of the Canton Repository, October 25, 1896. That excellent newspaper was, as it continued to be long after, a significant Republican-oriented publication. Large research libraries should be able to find the article in an Internet database under its title, “Doctrine of Hate Not Taught.”

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

Image: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons