> And I have a question for the many amateur experts on 1890s us
> populism here. Bryan (far from synonymous with populism, I know) lost
> a totally regional national vote to that primordial version of Bush,
> McKinley. Bryan got all the south and west and rural states in their
> first matchup; McKinley won the more populous northeast and industrial
> midwest. Given the populists' attempts to link up to workers issues
> in such a time of undisguised class warfare, why then did McKinley get
> the votes of most industrial workers?
> Was it catholic immigrant distrust of bryan's prot evangelicalism?
A little bit. Mostly his temperance, not so much his protestantism. Of course, he wasn't advocating imposing temperance on Northern Catholics.
> Bryan's unwillingness to campaign on workers' issues?
The opposite is true. He shouted his support for the maximal left-labor program whenever he got the chance.
> Was Hannah's bread and circus campaigning successful?
Yes, very much so.
> Were the threats by owners to close factories if bryan won what did it?
Yes. And lots of other threats and intimidation, using the hegemonic resources of northern capital.
> Given the parrallels between McKinley's time and our own right now, I
> find the question of industrial workers voting for him an interesting
> reversal of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas question.
Exactly. In this period the question was "what's the matter with the northern working class." Kansas was about as radical as can be.
> Kevin Phillips thinks it was partially due to workers' liking the
> lower prices for food commodities status quo economics was producing
> then, and partially because McKinley was actually somehow a
> labor-friendly moderate in his heart
The US at that time was more like an empire. The northeast was colonizing the south and west, forcing them into an economic zollverein on terms rigged against them. The gap between the level of development in the NE and S was breathtaking, like that between the US now and Mexico. (I don't have stats to back that up, I'm just giving you a flavor of the gap.)
That structural political-economic conflict was expressed in cultural terms by "bloody-shirt" Civil War revanchism, just as US-Latin American structural conflict is expressed in terms of scary bearded fanatics and domineering gringos. So "lower food prices" was a code-word for the gold standard and protectionism, i.e., the economic program of the industrial Northeast. It benefitted the north, including industrial workers. Culturally, McKinley could portray Bryan as the front man for the rebels and confederates who killed our boys.
As for McKinley being a labor-friendly moderate, well he was supported by Gompers. That is, he was friendly to sell-out labor leaders who never got anything to show for their support. But it would be hard to find a less genuinely labor-friendly candidate.
Seth