ELECTION #27, 1892. The NASTY-METER is 3.

QUOTE from the Republican bosses about Benjamin Harrison: "He was as glacial as a Siberian stripped of his furs."

The CANDIDATES in 1892.

REPUBLICAN: BENJAMIN HARRISON.

Harrison was the incumbent and had spent most of his four years as president being controlled by the Republican bosses who had helped him win in 1888. Many of the Republican bosses couldn't stand the prickly, born-again Christian. He had made them mad by appointing people to his cabinet based on their qualifications. His cabinet included people like Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, both future presidents. On the other side of the coin he had made them very happy by enacting the highest tariffs in U.S. history, about 48%, on foreign goods. Even though his Republican bosses said that "talking to him even in warm weather made a person feel like putting on winter flannels, galoshes, overcoat, mitts, and earlaps" he was renominated as the Republican candidate.

DEMOCRAT: GROVER CLEVELAND.

Cleveland was still very popular with millions of Americans - after all, this was the man whose baby daughter, Ruth, had a candy bar named after her. He really wanted a third nomination and second term - he got it and the race against the frosty Harrison was on.

The CAMPAIGN in 1892.

Harrison spent most of the campaign emphasizing his support of high tariffs and protecting American manufacturers. Unfortunately for Harrison there was a violent strike in Homestead, PA when Andrew Carnegie's (the steel tycoon) general manager, Henry Frick, cut steel workers wages by 20% and then hired armed Pinkerton agents to battle the strikers - this was a huge PR disaster for Harrison and may have cost him the election.

Cleveland was helped tremendously by the Homestead strike by solidifying support from the laboring classes. The strike proved that high tariffs did not translate to high wages for workers.

In fairness to Harrison he did not have his mind on the campaign as his wife was very ill - she died two weeks before the election.

The WINNER was GROVER CLEVELAND and he became the 24th president of the U.S. after being the 22nd president from 1885 to 1889.

Cleveland got 5,553,898 popular and 277 electoral.

Harrison got 5,190,819 popular and 145 electoral.

James Weaver got 1,026.595 popular and 22 electoral.

But change was in the wind in 1892. A new political party, called the POPULIST PARTY had sprung up to fight the Wall Street hold on America. The members of the new party were mainly farmers and factory workers whose platform called for fair wages, public ownership of railroads, telegraph and telephones, and a restoration of government "to the hands of plain people." Their candidate was a man named James Weaver from Iowa and he garnered over one million votes. Weaver had campaigned all over the country with a charismatic woman named Mary Elizabeth Lease. She was a tremendous speaker and decried a "government of Wall street, for Wall Street, and by Wall street." (I would say this sounds pretty familiar with the Occupy Wall Street protesters we're seeing in 2011 and 2012.)
She also told farmers "to raise less corn and more hell."

Party bosses were about to see the beginning of the end of their storied power. The 20th century would bring change to the middle classes and poor -and for the better.