A “carbuncled faced old drunkard,” a “howling atheist,” a “syphilitic lecher,” a “pickpocket thief and murderer,” a “crook and an anarchist.”
Hardly terms of denigration, but those are just some of the terms 19th century presidential candidates used against each other during their campaigns.
It certainly puts terms from 1992 such as “draft dodger” and “wimp” in the kinder, gentler category, as does the knowledge that in 1824 a duel was fought between Speaker Henry Clay and Senator John Randolph because of lasting bitterness over that year’s presidential election.
Irish issues figured prominently in several elections, beginning in 1824 with Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson, himself the son of Ulster emigrants, who defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans and gained lasting Irish support as a result. (See article on Harry Truman in this issue for more on Jackson.)
The atmosphere was somewhat different in the election of 1884, when the support of the Tammany machine in New York was considered a vital building block for a successful candidate. Indeed, for the first and only time the Irish issue very likely decided an American presidential election.
Republican James Blaine, with an Irish Catholic mother, had high hopes for at least a split of the half-million Irish votes in New York. But his dream came crashing to earth a few days before the election.
On October 29, a Protestant clergyman, Dr. Samuel Burchard, speaking on a Blaine platform with the candidate present, stated, “We are Republicans and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party of ‘Rum, Romanism and Rebellion,” remarks clearly seen as shorthand for “drunken Irish Fenians.”
Those widely reported bigoted words ignited Tammany voters in a storm of protest and almost all plumped for Cleveland. Blaine, who lost the nationwide election by a whisker, lost New York by only 1,047 votes out of one million cast.
Blaine himself bitterly regretted the clergyman’s remarks. “But for the intolerant and improper remarks of Dr. Burchard, which was quoted everywhere to my prejudice, and in many places attributed to myself, I would have carried New York by 10,000 votes if the weather had been clear on election day and Dr. Burchard been doing missionary work in Asia Minor or Cochin China,” he told a friend.
Four years later, Republican Benjamin Harrison defeated Cleveland, thanks in part to a famed bogus letter known as the “Murchison Letter” sent by a California Republican pretending to be an American citizen of English birth and asking the British Minister in Washington, “Would he do England a service by voting for Cleveland?” The British minister fell for the ploy and answered in the affirmative. Harrison’s supporters spread news of the letter far and wide among the Irish, and Cleveland, ironically, given the 1884 occurrence, was doomed.
By 1928, the issue had become not so much Irish as Catholic, and Alfred Smith, the first significant Irish Catholic candidate, born and raised on New York’s lower east side by emigrant parents, had little hope once the religious issue and the rumors that the Pope himself had his bags packed ready to move to Washington, were thrown at him. Among other rumors circulated – and apparently believed — was one that a special tunnel would be built from the White House to the Vatican. Herbert Hoover carried 40 states.
John F. Kennedy’s famous defence of his faith and the separation of church and state occurred on September I2, 1960, in Houston, Texas, during his campaign against Richard Nixon. “I am not the Catholic candidate for President,” he told a group of Protestant ministers. “I am the Democratic party’s candidate who happens to be Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters and the Church does not speak for me.”
Kennedy laid to rest forever the prejudice against Irish Catholics holding the highest office in the U.S. Nowadays, of course, there are other groups, who have yet to cross that threshold of acceptance.
Many observers believed that New York Governor Mario Cuomo would encounter anti-Italian prejudice if he were to run, and that was a factor in his decision to wait out the 1992 race on the sidelines. Jews, Hispanics, blacks and women, of course, have yet to overcome an innate prejudice in society against their succeeding to the highest office. In that respect Irish Americans can count their blessings.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the October 1992 issue of Irish America. ♦
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