Andrew D.White claimed that the election of 1884 was “the vilest” ever waged.
Doesn’t that charge get hurled at every election?
In any case, the election of 1884 does offer some singular features.
The contest became one between a candidate who was “delinquent in office but blameless in private life” (James G.Blaine) and one who was “a model of official integrity, but culpable in his personal relations” (Grover Cleveland).
The Republicans nominated perhaps the most corrupt person ever to run for the office, at least in the 19th century, in James G. Blaine. The veep slot was filled by General John A. (“Black Eagle”) Logan of Illinois. Both of these men were considered guilty of crooked railroad dealings, so many Republican liberals said they would support whomever the Democratic nominee was that year—if he was acceptable.
That turned out to be New York Governor Grover Cleveland, who was acceptable to those who wanted clean government in both parties because “1. He is an honest man; 2. He is an honest man; 3. He is an honest man; 4. He is an honest man.”—as the New York World explained. “We love him for the enemies he has made” was the cry at the convention. His veep nominee was Thomas A Hendricks of Indiana. The Republicans who supported the democratic ticket were soon dismissed as “Mugwumps”, an Algonquin Indian word meaning “chief”.
But it turned out that Cleveland had a bit of a skeleton in his closet: he had fathered a child out of wedlock with a Buffalo widow and had been providing financial support to the two of them, and the press got wind of it in all its salacious details. Soon the newspapers were filled with epithets like “rake”, “libertine”, ”father of a bastard”, “a gross and licentious man”, a “moral leper”, “a man stained with disgusting infamy”, “worse in moral quality than a pickpocket, a sneak thief or a Cherry Street debauchee, a wretch unworthy of respect or confidence”.
The election looked like it was going to be close and it was all going to come down to New York.
On October 29, or “Black Wednesday” as it became known for Blaine, he attended a meeting of Protestant clergymen where the Reverend Samuel D. Burchard delivered a welcoming address. That address concluded: “We are Republicans, and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.” Blaine didn’t repudiate the bigoted anti-Catholic phrase, and by the time it was reported in the newspapers, it was too late. He had pretty much lost the Irish Catholic vote.
But that wasn’t all for the clueless Blaine.
That night he attended a lavish fund-raising dinner at the exclusive Delmonico’s restaurant, with millionaires like Jay Gould, John Jacob Astor, and Russell Sage. The country was in a depression at the time, but he spoke about Republican prosperity in his remarks after dinner. The next morning Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World had a front-page headline and cartoon:
Which hurt him more? Who knows.
Blaine lost New York by 1,149 votes out of more than a million, and Cleveland won the election.
Before the election the Republicans cried, “Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa?” After Cleveland won, the Democrats had a cry of their own: “Gone to the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
It seems that the out of wedlock child did not hurt Cleveland at all with the voters. Odd that the Republicans seem not to have learned any lesson from that. Or perhaps they learned the wrong lesson.
So how did Cleveland do in office?
His first term was pretty good. He was great at anti-corruption, cleaned up military contracting, taught the railroads a thing or two, and got the Interstate Commerce Commission enacted. Plus a few other things.
His second term, after a one term hiatus, not so much. So a mixed rating, I guess.