votes.”
The image of a written appeal, delivered to a voter to be read in the privacy of his own
home, with special appeal to his particular interest, conjures up the kind of uncertainty and
anxiety, a willingness to separate oneself from traditional neighborhood connections, that party
leaders sensed in voters. A Minnesota Republican sympathetic to the national committee wrote
to ask that “some arrangement could be made to flood the state with . . .literature. . . that farmers
and laborers might read, think, and understand for themselves.”
Such methods also helped the
national party reach voters where “the State and county committees are often negligent about the
distribution of campaign documents.”
In such a campaign, observed Clarkson, “there is no
outcry nor clamor nor enthusiasm. To the superficial observer it is apathetic. . . . Instead of
trying to capture men by enthusiasm in the mass, the system is to go to them in detail and to
reach them along the effective lines of influence.”
“No sensible campaign committee,” wrote
a Chicago observer, “would rely for success upon mass-meetings”
environment.
The demand for literature both pointed to the weakness of Jacksonian mode appeals and
to the increasing worked that rested on the committees. As Republican National Chairman,
James Clarkson founded the Ben Franklin Publishing Company to facilitate the distribution of
Republican arguments.
An correspondent of Grover Cleveland wrote to advise that the
national party establish “some kind of semi-official organ, by means of which the people could
be reached and informed in regard to matters in which they all have a common interest.”
The
126
James B. Meikle to William Jennings Bryan, August 26, 1890, William Jennings Bryan Papers, box 2,
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
127
Eugene G. Hay to Wharton Barker, January 11, 1887, Wharton Barker Papers, box 2, Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress.
128
Dictated Statement of Senator Charles Dick to James B. Morrow, February 10, 1906, Hanna-McCormick Family
Papers, box 4, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
129
James Clarkson to Leigh Hunt, October 1, 1904, James S. Clarkson Papers, box 2, Manuscript Division, Library
of Congress.
130
“Republican Rally Tonight,” Chicago Tribune, XLVI, (October 9, 1886), 4.
131
James S. Clarkson to Welker Given, August 18, 1894, James S. Clarkson papers, box 2, Library of Congress.
132
W.L. Scott to Grover Cleveland, August 15, 1886, Daniel S. Lamont Papers, box 95, Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress.
39
Convention