flag: “the different nationalities, the different secret societies, the different church organizations,
college organizations, college clubs, university clubs, the various elements of the different
nationalities are all considered. . . . in every way each individual voter who is eligible to
Republican conquest is reached directly and personally and by the one who has the most
influence with him.” Individual clubs would specialize in issues that spoke to the unique
interests of their members: “wherever mechanics are strong I had Clubs made up entirely of
mechanics, where foreign elements are strong Clubs made up of the same foreign elements.”
Linking party appeals to voter interests compensated for the national organizations’ distance
from voters, and allowed party appeals to more accurately reflect the unique needs of particular
segments of the party-in-the-electorate. Massive public campaign rallies, traditional within the
Jacksonian organizational mode, would be made obsolete by this approach. Clarkson even
encouraged women’s clubs.
Clarkson saw this as “the method of the new generation,” one that “revolutionized” the
party organizations, “just as dry goods business and all other kinds of business have been
revolutionized and conducted on entirely new methods.” In this spirit, Clarkson crafted the
Republican party’s campaign appeals to draw traditionally Democratic Irish Catholics and
peripheral groups such as blacks and Mormons into the party, and to create among them a sense
that their numbers empowered them to protect their interest through participation in the party
organizations. In speeches to black Republican groups, Clarkson insisted that their duty to the
Republican party had been “paid in full, and that hereafter they should vote as their own
convictions lead them. . . . with the party that will be fairest to their race.” Acting as such would
enable blacks—as a distinct group representing a distinct set of interests—“to dictate terms to the
political parties.”
167
Clarkson to Leigh Hunt, October 1, 1904, Clarkson papers, box 2, Library of Congress.
168
“Private From Clarkson,” New York Times, August 9, 1892, 1.
169
Untitled, undated biographical manuscript, Clarkson papers, box 4, Library of Congress.
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Convention