Photo from whitehouse.gov A photo of Benjamin Harrison, our 23rd president who was elected in 1888.

During that 1888 election, there were little more than 4,500 people living in Warren.

But it had three newspapers.

And this was an era where newspapers were blatantly partisan. So the Warren Mail was a Republican mouthpiece and the Warren Ledger was at least informally the paper for the county’s Democratic operation.

That presents some really interesting contrasts where politics are concerned (another example, that I’ll get to later, is differing perspectives on labor vs. capital in the midst of the Homestead strike).

To start the discussion, it requires a little bit of level setting because the issues that were at the heart of the 1888 election cycle are unfamiliar to us.

Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton This campaign poster hangs in the home of Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Rhetoric surrounding his election was strong as there were three newspapers in Warren County at the time.

The Democratic candidate – Grover Cleveland – proposed to reduce tariffs, taxes paid on imported and exported goods. Fights over tariffs were common in this period and they’ll still come up from time to time today.

A recent Senate Joint Economic Committee report during the COVID-19 pandemic argued that removing tariffs “would be an effective tool to boost economic growth, connect more people to work, and increase Americans’ purchasing power as the recovery continues.”

The argument for 19th century tariffs was similar. This was the era of the robber baron – Rockefeller and oil, Carnegie and steel – and there was a significant debate on whether tariffs, which would keep the cost of US-produced steel, for example, lower than that of foreign competitors, was good for the economy.

Cleveland was also opposed to Civil War pensions and inflated currency, according to the Library of Congress, which “made him unpopular with veterans and farmers even as he retained high support in Southern and border states.”

Election day was Nov. 6.

Similar to 2016, Harrison lost the popular vote but won the electoral college.

The rhetoric was strong in the days leading up to Election Day.

The Warren Ledger included headlines including “Every Patriot Should Work and Pray for Cleveland’s Re-Election” as well as – in all caps – “AN APPEAL FOR RIGHT.”

“Oh! partisan politics! Our very soul sickens and turns away from the low trickery, the bribery and the sycophantical fanning of those who desire favors,” the Ledger concluded.

I promise that was written in 1888 and now two weeks ago.

“Go to the polls on Tuesday next, as HONEST, true hearted men, and vote for the man who represents truth, honor and high toned integrity of purpose, and whom you can TRUST to carry into office an unstained reputation, and an unshaken determination to do RIGHT without fear or favor,” the Ledger extorted its readers, who presumably were almost exclusively Democrats.

The Mail was certainly pleased with the Republican triumph.

“HARRISON GOES IN, The Man of Destiny Goes Out!” the Warren Mail reported Nov. 7, offering the assertion that “Four Years of Prosperity Assured.”

“As we go to press, the Republican victory seems to be sure. We carry New York by 10,000 or over and may have Indiana, Delaware and Virginia,” the Mail reported.

We. Not “the Republican Party. But “we.”

What looks like an editorial under the headline “WARREN COUNTY OK!”

“As usual Warren County has done nobly,” the Mail argued. “Our sterling Republicans know no such word as fail. They went to work early and a very gratifying victory is the result.

“We have reason to feel very proud of the noble Republicans of Warren County!”

Both papers published the results by municipality.

“Our official table this week shows finely for the Republicans of Warren County. Never before have we given such a result,” the Mail reported. “A plurality of 1,689 for President with local candidates still higher, is unprecedented and speaks well for our organization and willing workers in the Republican cause.”

The Mail attributed that success to its “superior candidates,” arguing that Harrison’s “character is unassailable and he has surprised the nation by his ability, discretion and statesmanship during the campaign.

“Probably Warren County never had so many meetings and speeches…. In addition to these there were many earnest and successful party men, not speakers, to whom the party is indebted.”

The Mail asked a supple question “What did it? Who killed Grover?

“The main reason is: he didn’t get votes enough.”

And we thank the Mail for that stunningly insightful analysis.

The Ledger said its Democrats were “snowed under.”

“Brains vs. Boodle (wealth) don’t win!,” they claimed. “The political cyclone which struck Warren county last Tuesday took the democrats by surprise and taught a lesson in politics that ought not be soon forgotten.”

The Ledger’s Democratic editors also took some shots in defeat.

“The much anticipated day, November has passed and the result is even more disastrous than our worst fears anticipated,” they concluded, alleging some Republican tactics as “vile trickery.

“The defeat of Grover Cleveland is a great blow to hundreds of thousands of people who placed implicit confidence in his courageous, fearless administration.

“All honor to Grover Cleveland.”

I want to leave you with a little sketch of these two men, courtesy of their White House biographies.

To some degree, Cleveland may have gotten the last laugh, defeating Harrison for a second, non-consecutive term in the election of 1892.

“The First Democrat elected after the Civil War, Grover Cleveland was the only President to leave the White House and return for a second term four years later,” his bio states. “As a lawyer in Buffalo, he became notable for his single-minded concentration upon whatever task faced him.”

He opposed policies that gave special favors to certain groups – farmers, Civil War veterans, the railroads.

The most interesting connection to Warren County is the rumored illegitimate child that Cleveland hand, who may have changed his name to James E. King.

The individual is buried at Oakland Cemetery.

Harrison, a Senator from Indiana, was the grandson of a president – William Henry Harrison.

“Nominated for President on the eighth ballot at the 1888 Republican Convention, Benjamin Harrison conducted one of the first “front-porch” campaigns, delivering short speeches to delegations that visited him in Indianapolis,” his biography states. “In the 1880’s he served in the United States Senate, where he championed Indians, homesteaders, and Civil War veterans.”

That presents a pretty clear contrast with Cleveland’s priorities.

“Harrison was proud of the vigorous foreign policy which he helped shape,” his biography states. “The first Pan American Congress met in Washington in 1889, establishing an information center which later became the Pan American Union. At the end of his administration Harrison submitted to the Senate a treaty to annex Hawaii; to his disappointment, President Cleveland later withdrew it.”

Other accomplishments of the Harrison administration included internal infrastructure improvements, steamship investments and naval expansion. He also signed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the government’s first attempt at cracking down on monopolies.