On January 12, 1898, the Ohio General Assembly met in joint convention to elect a United States Senator. The incumbent, Mark Hanna, had been appointed by Governor Asa Bushnell on March 5, 1897, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Sherman to become Secretary of State to President (and former Ohio governor) William McKinley. Hanna's appointment was only good until the legislature met and made its own choice. The legislature elected Hanna over his fellow Republican, Cleveland Mayor Robert McKisson, both for the remainder of Sherman's original term (expiring in 1899) and for a full six-year term to conclude in 1905.

Hanna, a wealthy industrialist, had successfully managed McKinley's 1896 presidential campaign. The Ohio Republican Party was bitterly divided between the faction led by McKinley, Hanna and Sherman, and one led by Ohio's other senator, Joseph B. Foraker. Bushnell was a Foraker ally, and it was only under pressure from McKinley and others that he agreed to appoint Hanna to fill Sherman's Senate seat. After Hanna gained the appointment, Republican legislators kept their majority in the November 1897 election, apparently ensuring Hanna's election once the new body met in January 1898. However, before the legislative session, the Democrats allied with a number of Republicans, mostly from the Foraker faction, hoping to take control of the legislature and defeat Hanna.

The coalition was successful in taking control of both houses of the legislature; with the Senate election to be held just over a week later, intense politicking took place. Some lawmakers went into hiding for fear they would be pressured by the other side. The coalition decided on McKisson as their candidate the day before the balloting began. Three Republican state representatives who had voted with the Democrats to organize the legislature switched sides and voted for Hanna, who triumphed with a bare majority in both the short and long term elections. Bribery was alleged; legislative leaders complained to the United States Senate, which took no action against Hanna. McKisson lost a re-election bid as mayor in 1899; Hanna remained a powerful figure in the Senate until his death in 1904.

Background and appointment of Hanna

The members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in drafting the Constitution, empowered state legislatures, not the people, to choose United States Senators. Federal law prescribed that the senatorial election was to take place beginning on the second Tuesday after the legislature which would be in place when the senatorial term expired first met and chose officers. On the designated day, balloting for senator would take place in each of the two chambers of the legislature. If a majority of each house voted for the same candidate, then at the joint convention held the following day at noon, the candidate would be declared elected. Otherwise, there would be a roll-call vote of all legislators, with a majority of those present needed to elect. If a vacancy occurred when the legislature was not in session, the governor could make a temporary appointment to serve until lawmakers convened.

Beginning in about 1888, there were rival factions seeking control of the Republican Party of Ohio. In 1896, one faction was led by Senator John Sherman, former governor William McKinley, and McKinley's political manager, Cleveland industrialist Mark Hanna. The other grouping was led by former governor Joseph Foraker, who had the support of Ohio's current governor, Asa S. Bushnell. A truce was reached for the 1896 election campaign whereby McKinley's supporters would vote for Foraker in the Ohio Legislature's January 1896 senatorial election, while Foraker would support McKinley's presidential ambitions. Foraker was elected and in June, the senator-elect placed McKinley's name in nomination at the 1896 Republican National Convention. In the November election, McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan to win the presidency; Hanna served as his campaign manager and chief fundraiser. The industrialist raised millions for McKinley's campaign but was bitterly attacked by Democratic newspapers for allegedly trying to buy the presidency, with McKinley as his easily dominated agent. In the 1896 election, the issue of the nation's monetary standard was a major issue, with McKinley advocating the gold standard, while Bryan favored "free silver", that is, to inflate the money supply by accepting all silver presented to the government and returning the bullion to the depositor in the form of coin, even though the silver in a dollar coin was worth only about half that.

After the election, McKinley offered Hanna the post of Postmaster General, which he turned down, hoping to become a senator if Sherman (whose term was to expire in 1899) was appointed to the Cabinet. McKinley did not believe the rumors, which proved accurate, that the 73-year-old Sherman's mental faculties were failing, and offered him the position of Secretary of State on January 4, 1897. Sherman's acceptance meant that, once he resigned, one of Ohio's Senate seats would be in the gift of Bushnell, with the appointee to serve until the legislature reconvened in January 1898.

Foraker was astonished when he learned that Hanna was seeking the Senate seat, not knowing that the industrialist had political ambitions. He felt that Hanna's campaign activities did not qualify him for legislative service. Hanna and his allies applied considerable pressure on the governor, though initially McKinley did not participate.

Bushnell did not want to appoint Hanna, and offered the seat to Congressman Theodore Burton, a member of neither faction, who turned it down. Historian Wilbur Jones speculates that the seat was refused because of Burton's unwillingness to alienate Hanna's supporters, an action which might sacrifice a career in the House of Representatives for the sake of a few months in the Senate. The governor considered other options, such as arranging to get the position himself or calling a special session of the legislature and have them elect a new senator. However, Bushnell eventually decided that appointing someone else was not worth risking the wrath of the new presidential administration, and of Hanna (who was chairman of the Republican National Committee). In late February 1897, McKinley sent a personal emissary, his old friend Judge William R. Day, to Bushnell, and the governor yielded. Hanna was given his commission by Governor Bushnell in the lobby of Washington's Arlington Hotel on the morning of March 5, 1897.

Hanna's associates alleged that Bushnell had delayed the appointment of Hanna so that Foraker could be Ohio's senior senator. Herbert Croly, in his biography of Hanna, agreed, and McKinley biographer H. Wayne Morgan also states that Bushnell delayed Hanna's commission for this reason. Hanna biographer William Horner considers this motive possible. In his memoirs, Foraker denied this, stating that Sherman had not resigned from the Senate until the afternoon of March 4, 1897 (the date on which the president and Congress were sworn in) so that Sherman could formally introduce Foraker to the Senate. Sherman, according to Foraker, was also unwilling to resign until he had been confirmed as Secretary of State, which took place on the afternoon of March 4. Foraker noted that he had been senator-elect since his selection by the legislature in January 1896 "and there was no vacancy for which Mr. Hanna could be qualified, except only that to be created by the retirement of Mr. Sherman, and Mr. Sherman refused to retire until I was sworn and in my seat".

1897 state legislative campaign

Hanna obtained endorsement for election as senator by the 1897 Republican state convention during June in Toledo, and by local conventions in 84 of Ohio's 88 counties. Republicans expressed little opposition to Hanna's candidacy for senator prior to the November state elections, at which Ohioans elected a governor, other statewide officials, and a legislature. There was much national interest in the legislative campaign, which was seen as a rematch of 1896 and a forerunner of the 1900 presidential campaign, and as a referendum on Mark Hanna. President McKinley both campaigned on Hanna's behalf in Ohio and recruited speakers for him; for the Democrats, Bryan was the leading orator. Democrats hoped that by gaining a majority in the legislature and frustrating Hanna's election bid, they could claim a reversal of the voters' verdict in the 1896 presidential race, and exact revenge on the man who had helped orchestrate their defeat. While the question of whether Hanna should continue in the Senate was central to the campaign, also discussed was whether McKinley's policies, including the Dingley Tariff, had brought prosperity, as well as the issue of free silver versus the gold standard. The Democrats, as was their custom, did not endorse a specific candidate for Senate, but Cincinnati publisher John R. McLean was widely spoken of as the party's rival for Hanna's seat until strategists decided that his wealth and business background did not provide adequate contrast to Hanna, and McLean was forced into the background.

During the campaign, William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal renewed the savage attacks on Hanna which had marked the 1896 presidential campaign; Hanna was depicted as a bloated plutocrat, frequently trampling a skull marked "Labor" and dominating a shrunken, childlike McKinley. Foraker was not prominent in support of Hanna; he did endorse his junior colleague in mid-September, and made several speeches soon after the announcement, but thereafter maintained a public silence which would continue until after the vote for senator by the newly elected legislature in January 1898.

Hanna made speeches across the state, much to the curiosity of Ohioans, who had heard a great deal about him for his activities on behalf of McKinley, but who did not know him well. He had rarely been called upon to make public addresses. McKinley recommended his personal technique of thoroughly laying out a speech in advance, but Hanna found it did not work well for him. Instead, he preferred to compose a brief introduction and then speak extemporaneously, not always even being certain of what topics he would address. According to his biographer, Herbert Croly, the informality of Hanna's speeches won over many in his audience, and he became known as a very effective public speaker. According to Philip Warken in his thesis on the 1898 Senate election, "The campaign probably worked to Hanna's advantage. The shadowy figure in the background took on shape and form, the candidate's public appearances tending to break down [Davenport's] popular but distorted image of him." When Democrats attacked Hanna, who had considerable financial interests in industry, as a "labor crusher", he gave speeches inviting listeners to ask his workers whether they were well treated. Subsequently, several union leaders and workmen's committees confirmed that they had no complaint against Hanna.

In the November election, 62 Republicans and 47 Democrats were elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, while in the Ohio Senate there were 18 Democrats, 17 Republicans, and 1 Independent Republican elected. This meant a majority of 15 for the Republicans on joint ballot, ample, it was thought, to secure Hanna's election.

Senate election

Political turmoil