Our Campaigns Blog - Chronicler's Minutiae

The Candidates' Election Day - 1900
Posted September 07, 2020 at 08:30pm by Chronicler

=== Election of 11/6/1900 ===

The presidential election of 1900 involved the same major party nominees as 1896 - the Republican William McKinley (now the incumbent) and William Jennings Bryan, nominee of the Democratic and Populist Parties. The 1900 election thus is similar to the later 1956 election.

William Jennings Bryan (Democratic, Populist, Anti-Imperialist Parties)

Bryan gave his final speech of the campaign in Omaha on the eve of the election, just as he had done in 1896, taking a train to Lincoln the following morning. A smaller group of people was aware of his arrival time, leading the state Republican press to gloat about a loss of support. Newspaper coverage of Bryan's day has a gap from the time of his arrival at the station until his supper at 6 pm.

The afternoon of election day, Bryan took a nap to help recuperate from his long campaign travels. He then took a horseback ride over his farm outside of Lincoln. That evening, Bryan received election news at his home. For the first time, news networks such as AP delivered returns by telephone; Bryan had access to news from the phone, but McKinley received his news from the telegraph. Bryan also had four telegraph lines run temporarily to his house, with the whole first floor of his house given over to a campaign office on election night. The earliest returns were being reported by 6 pm when the returns from Poughkeepsie and Elmira in New York showed a slight Bryan gain over four years earlier. The returns from New York City and Brooklyn were particularly disappointing to Bryan, where he gained but not enough to carry the state. In Boston, however, Bryan's vote slipped from 1896. The results from Maryland reported fairly early. Maryland was a state that Bryan was confident he would be able to gain; again, he closed the gap from 1896 but not enough to win. Once he realized Maryland was lost, Bryan retired to his private quarters upstairs to review returns privately. At 8:45, a flustered Bryan decided to take another nap and see if the situation improved. His staff turned away reporters while Bryan slept. When Bryan woke up at 11 pm, the situation was dire. He sent everyone away from his house and put out the lights for the night.

William McKinley (Republican)

Like four years earlier, McKinley greeted a crowd of supporters outside his home in Canton early on election day. He shook hands with many of them and walked to his polling place, greeting many neighbors along the route. Workers in a factory also cheered him on from the multiple factory windows. McKinley arrived at his polling place and voted at 9:20 am. Upon returning home, a dispatch arrived from New York stating that a large vote had already been cast there.

A party of well wishers gathered with McKinley to monitor the returns. Politicians present included Mark Hanna and George B. Cortelyou. Ida McKinley had several of her local female friends present in the parlor, as she found it interesting to read incoming information from the various states. The Republican National Committee paid to bring direct direct telegraph lines to the library in the McKinley house to assist in receiving the latest returns. The local returns were encouraging, as the formerly strongly Democratic Stark County where they lived had again voted for McKinley, with his margin doubled in 1900. Cortelyou monitored incoming information. They kept abreast of the results in various states, and at 9:00 pm news arrived that McKinley had carried New York and Illinois, putting him over the requisite 224 electoral votes. Interestingly, Bryan's Democratic vote in Ohio remained exactly the same in 1900 that it had been in 1896, though McKinley's vote rose in Ohio by 18,000. Early returns indicated that McKinley would win Missouri (although Bryan ended up winning it) and Bryan's home state of Nebraska, and McKinley gained several Western states and lost only Kentucky from his 1896 win.

Around midnight, residents of Canton received the news that McKinley had collected a majority of the electoral votes. Bands began playing in downtown Canton, and they travelled with the crowd to McKinley's house. Some people also had small fireworks they set off. After multiple requests from his neighbors outside, McKinley stepped onto his front porch at 12:30 to thank them for their support.

The day after the election, the McKinleys rose late after going to bed well after midnight. They boarded a train for Washington DC that afternoon, arriving in Pittsburgh just before sunset and continuing on the latter portion of the journey by train overnight. Groups of people gathered at train stations to see if they could get a glimpse of the president, but he was on a sleeping car and was not visible from the train stations. The train arrived in DC at 8:10 in the morning. Ethan Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior, met the McKinleys at the station with their carriage and accompanied them to the White House. Bryan sent a telegram of congratulations to the President on the 8th, two days after the election (compared to his decision to do this three days after the 1896 election).

Third Party Nominees

The newspapers ran little reporting on the minor candidates of 1900. Woolley (the Prohibition nominee) had maintained the most strenuous campaign schedule of the year; he took a break on election day but returned to giving temperance speeches the following day.

Sources: Akron Beacon Journal, 11/8/1900; Nebraska State Journal, 11/7/1900; Omaha Daily Bee, 11/8/1900

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