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Show fET940 Campaign! Seem Exciting I But It's Pretty Tame Compared to the If Riotous Harrison-Van Buren Race in 18401 0 & CAUjr T fmr 2uA XT OR TIV 4 T Z, COUPOStO MO RESPECTrilLU ttBICkTU T H. HARRISON, TROY. Tublishfi hy John C . Anlrart. Title page of a campaign sons of 1840. W ZELMOSCOTT WATSON sed by Western Newspaper Union.) I?' riTH two such colorful personalities as Presi-'V Presi-'V VV dent Roosevelt and hil Wendell Willkie as opposing W candidates and the third term 383 Issue supplying material for mt beated debate, this year's Ife campaign Promises to be" J&f Jome one of the hottest presi-iential presi-iential contests in recent ears. But it is doubtful if it I. U be as exacting as the one ffhich stirred America 100 Si?" vears ago when Martin Van ited' Buren was the Democratic ' Use: cominee and Gen. William 'dkfrici"; Henry Harrison was the champion of the Whigs. Although the campaigns of 1840 aSd Snd 1M0 are a full century apart, ani't they offer some interesting paral-lels. paral-lels. In both cases there has been a crossing of party lines in aft d In the selection of presidential xe,j or vice presidential candidates. , ' in 1840 Harrison's running mate on the Whig ticket was John Tyler, Ty-ler, a Democrat. In 1940 the Democratic . vice presidential cominee is a former Republican and the Republican candidate for president is a former Democrat. ,a In 1840 the Democrats, who had i A been in power for 12 years, were W, trying to keep a President in the f White House for another four v & years. Opposed to them was a young, vigorous party which had been defeated four years earlier. In 1940 the Democrats, who have m been in power for eight years, get tiirir are trying to extend that period pes: to 12 years under the same lead-ve lead-ve the: er. Pitted against them is a rejuvenated re-juvenated Republican party, 1 office i-- striving to stage a comeback aft-to aft-to sif" er two successive defeats. :tioa, A 'Packed' Convention, m is t For a proper understanding of thing : the tumultuous 1840 campaign it ble, is necessary to go back to the , , 1836 presidential race. Before '"'"S' the end of his second term Presi-icaifii Presi-icaifii dent Andrew Jackson had deter-le's deter-le's i: mined to make Vice President aristocratic Van Buren was said to be living at the White House. Whig orators denounced the Democratic candidate's extravagance. extrava-gance. They declared he was "maintaining a royal establishment establish-ment at the cost of the nation. Will the people feel inclined to support their chief servant in a palace as splendid as that of the Caesars and as richly adorned as the proudest Asiatic mansion?" Instead of defending their candidate can-didate from such exaggerated charges as this, the Democrats added fuel to the flame by the names they called Harrison "a super-annuated old woman," "a pitiable dotard," "a granny," "a red-petticoat general," and "the hero of forty defeats." All of this, plus the Whigs depicting him as a great military hero and a simple sim-ple farmer, served to endear Harrison Har-rison to the "common pee-pul," especially the farmers and backwoodsmen. back-woodsmen. The alliterative "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too!" became their favorite slogan and when they weren't shouting that, they were chanting "Van, Van is a used-up man!" or "With Tip and Tyler, We'll Bust Van's Biler!" A Stirring Symbol. Not only did the Whigs have such effective slogans as those quoted above but they also had a striking symbol for their cause. cede? er of". 0M'- MARTIN VAN BUREN Harrison's running mate the Democrat John Tyler. Harrison's Harri-son's military record was his chief recommendation as a presidential pres-idential candidate. The son of Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, In-dependence, he had joined the army as an ensign at the age of 19, and had served against the Indians In-dians in Ohio under St. Clair and Wayne. In 1795 he was promoted to captain and placed in command com-mand of Fort Washington on the present site of Cincinnati. Two years later he resigned his commission and was appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory Terri-tory from which in 1790 he was chosen a delegate to congress. When the territory was divided in 1801 he was made governor of the new Territory of Indiana and in that position won the victory over the Indians which gave him the sobriquet of "Old Tippecanoe." Tippe-canoe." At the outbreak of the War of 1812 he was appointed brigadier general, placed in command of the Northwest frontier and defeated de-feated the British and Indians at the Battle of the Thames at which the famous Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, was killed. Promoted to the rank of major-general, he resigned from the army in 1816 when he was elected to congress from Ohio. After serving three years in congress, he was elected a state senator in 1819 and five years later he was sent to the United States senate. In 1828 he was appointed minister to Colombia Colom-bia but he was recalled when Jackson became President. A Candidate Minus a Platform. In nominating Harrison for President in 1840 the Whigs failed to provide him with any platform of party principles for the very good reason that they had none except that of wanting to be in power. But, as it turned out, they didn't need a platform. Despite the fact that there was great dissatisfaction with Van Buren's administration, largely due to the depression which followed fol-lowed the panic of 1837 and a growing feeling that Van Buren had become "too aristocratic" for the common people, the Democrats Dem-ocrats might easily have won the election. They were the party in power, had all the resources of patronage and their leader was known as the "Little Magician, a tribute to his astuteness as a politician. But Van Buren's followers made several very bad political blunders blun-ders and the Whigs were quick to take advantage of them. One of the Whig newspapers, which was not very enthusiastic about the party's candidate, printed the statement that "give him a barrel bar-rel of hard cider and a pension of $2,000 a year and, our word for it he will sit the remainder of his days in a log cabin by the side of a 'sea coal' fire and study moral mor-al philosophy." Candidate of the 'Plain People. Despite the fact that Harrison lived as a well-to-do country gen-leman gen-leman at his home, North Bend in Ohio, the Wings industriously cultivated the idea that he lived in a log cabin, toiled in the fields as a simple farmer and was indeed in-deed one of the "plain people. In contrast to his simplicity was the palatial luxury in which the Martin Van Buren his successor u the White House. So "Old 3ppu!' Hickory" arranged to have a who- nominating convention held a advjs- year and a half before the elec-inottt elec-inottt tion. By "packing" this conven-r conven-r tip- tion, which was held in Baltimore m May, 1835, with delegates which he controlled, Jackson dic-tated dic-tated the nomination of Van Bu-itiOIfll Bu-itiOIfll 'en for President and Richard M. E Johnson of Kentucky for vice President despite the opposition of in.8 Southern wing of the party. Rj This wing bolted the party and nominated Sen. Hugh L. White of tWf Tennessee for President and John idsl Tyler of Virginia for vice presi-dent. presi-dent. rf Despite this defection in the Ta"y ranks, Van Buren and John-truC' John-truC' S?n managed to win the election "'nfti1' , 1836 because the Whigs were p 0 spIit- They had nominated ;5V ,en' William Henry Harrison of "mo for President and Francis ;-ssf ranger for vice president, but if were was another Whig ticket in we fieid headed by Daniel Webber Web-ber of Massachusetts for Presi-ig Presi-ig iff;' , ei?' an the same vice presiden- a al nominee, Francis Granger. sert' . n 'he election Van Buren car-r'et car-r'et 15 states and received 170 electoral votes, enough to win for -J mm over Harrison's 73 electoral Tl Votes, Webster's 14, White's 26, Mj and the 11 of South Carolina Us, Which went to Willis P. Mangum 1jJ 0 North Carolina. jPj An Unhappy Administration, nb'l 4 an Buren's administration ! - i?S ?n unhaPPy one. He inherit-rJK. inherit-rJK. oV. f the difficulties growing e"'"'.,'.i utof Jackson's financial policies. ZX ricame the panic of 1837 Zf ri i "suited from a boom pe-VI pe-VI t? Caused by the craze for in-IViW in-IViW h 'improvements. Despite , AJ , ? doubles and a growing dis- I pension within the Democratic S -nyi Van Buren managed to If & , e nomination for re-election y jjTne Whigs again nominated arrison and, in an attempt to at-ton at-ton -he dissatisfied Democrats 'heir banner, they chose for They mounted log cabins on wheels and drew them through the streets with teams of white horses. At their rallies hard cider was freely dispensed in fact, the campaign of 1840 has come down in history as the "Log Cabin-Hard Cider Campaign." Never before and never since had there been such a noisy campaign and one so completely dominated by emotion. And so William Henry Harrison was borne into the White House on this flood of ballyhoo (even though that word hadn't yet "been coined). But it was a hollow victory vic-tory for the Whigs. Within s month after Harrison's inauguration, inaugura-tion, he died and John Tyler, th Democrat, became President Throughout his administration he quarreled with the leaders of the party that had elected him. So four years later they turned at last to Henry Clay but he was defeated de-feated by James K. Polk, the Democratic nominee, and the first "dark horse" in American political polit-ical history. |
