Alton B. Parker 1904 presidential campaign

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Alton B. Parker for President
Campaign1904 U.S. presidential election
Candidate
AffiliationDemocratic Party
StatusLost general election

After

Panama Canal Treaty.[1] In 1904, Roosevelt easily defeated Bourbon Democrat Alton Parker and won a second term as U.S. President.[2]

The nomination fight

A 1904 Parker campaign button

After his two defeats in 1896 and 1900, former

Secretary of State in Cleveland's second term, who had run in the previous two elections, also chose not to run.[3] After Bryan, Gorman, Cleveland, and Olney withdrew themselves from consideration, no prominent Democrat emerged to seek the 1904 Democratic presidential nomination.[3] Indeed, this was caused in no small part by the widespread belief that President Roosevelt was almost guaranteed to win a second term in 1904.[3]

The Democrats eventually united around

U.S. Supreme Court, he was persuaded to run for President in 1904 by David B. Hill.[3]

Parker played well to the Democratic Party's white base by refusing to criticize the

tariff reform and opposed an expansionist and imperialist foreign policy.[3] But unlike other pro-gold standard Democrats, he had loyally supported Bryan in 1896 and had not been involved in intraparty skirmishes.[3] While Bryan opposed Parker, he also could not find any prominent candidates to challenge him for the Democratic nomination.[3]

While he lacked Bryan's support, newspaper mogul

Henry Gassaway Davis was selected as Parker's running mate.[3]

Campaign

Parker and the Democrats campaigned in favor of reduced federal spending (especially on the military), greater funding to improve national waterways, tariff reform, a thorough investigation of public

progressive income tax was left out to placate conservatives.[3]

Unlike Bryan, who had aggressively campaigned throughout the entire country during the 1896 and 1900 campaigns, Parker ran a front porch campaign from his home in Esopus, New York.[6][5] Parker received a boost when Bryan endorsed Parker after the convention and belatedly campaigned for him in October.[6] Meanwhile, Hill, who managed Parker's campaign, sure of a landslide defeat in November, announced his retirement from politics in order to save Parker from guilt by association with Hill.[6] Throughout the 1904 campaign, the Democrats raised less than $500,000 (equivalent to $17 million in 2023), with more than half of it coming from Virginia tobacco magnate Thomas Fortune Ryan.[6] In the final weeks of the campaign, Parker tried to save his campaign by undertaking a brief speaking tour at the insistence of desperate party leaders, but it was to no avail.[6]

Results

President Roosevelt defeated Parker by a landslide, beating him 336 to 140 in the

former Confederacy and two border states, Kentucky and Maryland (with the latter by just 53 votes).[2] Meanwhile, Roosevelt carried three border states (Delaware, Missouri, and West Virginia) and the nation's 29 other states.[2]

In addition, Roosevelt's

U.S. House of Representatives for the first time ever.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b "HarpWeek | Elections | 1904 Overview". Elections.harpweek.com. 1902-02-19. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "HarpWeek | Elections | 1904 Overview". Elections.harpweek.com. 1904-11-08. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x "HarpWeek | Elections | 1904 Overview". Elections.harpweek.com. 1904-02-23. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
  4. ^ "Alton Parker | Albany Law School". Albanylaw.edu. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
  5. ^ a b c d "Historical Society of the New York Courts | New York Legal History / Legal Luminaries : New York State Court of Appeals". Nycourts.gov. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
  6. ^ a b c d e "HarpWeek | Elections | 1904 Overview". Elections.harpweek.com. Retrieved 2017-09-21.
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