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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2025
While scholars are revitalizing political history, they continue to neglect the formal yet dynamic institutional framework that shaped not merely the traditional subjects of election campaigns and governance but also newer concerns dealing with political participation, representation, power, legitimacy, and conflict. This article focuses on the 1893 senatorial elections in the six states where neither major party held the legislative majority on joint ballot necessary to elect a U.S. senator. This fraught situation derived from the success of the new Populist party and threatened the customary Republican control of both state politics and the U.S. Senate. By examining the previously overlooked actions and interactions of election and canvassing boards, state courts, and party committees with electoral rules, judicial norms, and legislative procedures after the general election of 1892, this article demonstrates that election outcomes were often contingent upon factors other than electoral mobilization, great issues, and popular opinion. Partisanship and the search for power produced “conspiracies” that corrupted basic electoral institutions, subverted voting results, denied rightful representation, violated democratic norms and practices, and provoked popular unrest.
1 On suffrage, see especially Keyssar, Alexander, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000)Google Scholar; on parties, see Summers, Mark Wahlgren, Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).Google Scholar
2 Jeffrey Broxmeyer et al., “New Directions in Political History,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 22 (Jan. 2023): 63–95. Ironically, Lisa Andersen found that students were most readily interested in the “specific electoral laws that shaped Americans’ political experience” in the Gilded Age (80). Relevant topics and citations that could have been considered include the following: for the Electoral College, see Keyssar, Alexander, Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020)Google Scholar; for ballots and voting procedures, see Peter H. Argersinger, Structure, Process, and Party (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1992), Bensel, Richard Franklin, The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Erik J. Engstrom and Samuel Kernell, Party Ballots, Reform, and the Transformation of America’s Electoral System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); for apportionment and districting, see Argersinger, Peter H., Representation and Inequality in Late Nineteenth-Century America: The Politics of Apportionment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Engstrom, Erik J., Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of Democracy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016)Google Scholar; for primary elections, see Ware, Alan, The American Direct Primary: Party Institutionalization and Transformation in the North (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002 CrossRefGoogle Scholar) and Reynolds, John F., The Demise of the American Convention System, 1880–1911 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for campaign finance restrictions, see Baker, Paula, Curbing Campaign Cash: Henry Ford, Truman Newberry, and the Politics of Progressive Reform (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012).Google Scholar
3 For the scope and significance of vote fraud, see Peter H. Argersinger, “New Perspectives on Election Fraud in the Gilded Age,” Political Science Quarterly 100 (Winter 1985–1986): 669–687; Reynolds, John F., Testing Democracy: Electoral Behavior and Progressive Reform in New Jersey, 1880–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Summers, Party Games, esp. 91–106; Campbell, Tracy, “Machine Politics, Police Corruption, and the Persistence of Vote Fraud: The Case of the Louisville, Kentucky, Election of 1905,” Journal of Policy History 15 (2003): 269–300 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hedwig Richter, “Transnational Reform and Democracy: Election Reforms in New York City and Berlin Around 1900,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 15 (Apr. 2016): 153; Gideon Cohn-Postar, “‘Vote for Your Bread and Butter’: Economic Intimidation of Voters in the Gilded Age,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 20 (Oct. 2021): 480–502.
4 John F. Reynolds, “A Symbiotic Relationship: Vote Fraud and Electoral Reform in the Gilded Age,” Social Science History 17 (Summer 1993): 227, 243.
5 Chicago Tribune, Jan. 30, 1885; Appendix to the Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Ohio, 1886 (Columbus, OH: Westbote, 1886), 7, 39, 44, 94.
6 For a valuable overview of senatorial elections, see Wendy J. Schiller and Charles Stewart III, Electing the Senate: Indirect Democracy Before the Seventeenth Amendment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015). While concerned with institutional factors separating voters from senatorial elections, it ignores most of the factors as well as the specific elections addressed in this article.
7 For the partisan strategy of admitting new states, see Charles Stewart III and Barry R. Weingast, “Stacking the Senate, Changing the Nation: Republican Rotten Boroughs, Statehood Politics, and American Political Development,” Studies in American Political Development 6 (1992): 223–271.
8 New York Times, Dec. 11, 16, 1892; Anaconda Standard, Dec. 11, 16, 1892; Francis Warren to Willis Van Devanter, Dec. 13, 14, 16, 1892, Francis Warren Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming; Helena Independent, Dec. 12, 1892; Evening Star (Washington, DC), Dec. 21, 1892; Cheyenne Daily Leader, Dec. 29, 1892.
9 Omaha Daily Bee, Dec. 20, 1892. Previous Republican actions had also effectively limited the use of “legitimate” tactics. Republicans had already cynically endorsed agrarian reform demands only to repudiate their pledges once elected, and desperate farmers were not to be trifled with again. For the extraordinary actions Populists took to prevent their legislators from succumbing to Republican appeals in the first senatorial election involving their party, in Kansas in 1891, see Peter H. Argersinger, The Limits of Agrarian Radicalism: Western Populism and American Politics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 80–101. For suggestive observations as to why bribery in senatorial elections was common during this period, see Schiller and Stewart, Electing the Senate, 9–10, 46–47.
10 Appletons’ Annual Cyclopaedia, 1889 (New York: D. Appleton, 1890), 571; Appletons’ Annual Cyclopaedia, 1890 (New York: D. Appleton, 1891), 565–566.
11 Nation, Apr. 3, 1890, 272, Apr. 17, 1890, 306, Apr. 24, 1890, 325; Congressional Record, 51st Cong., 1st sess., 3103–3106, 3230–3231, 3423, 3435. The New York Times on Apr. 17, 1890, headlined its account, “Theft of Two Senators.” For the Republican perspective, see New York Tribune, Apr. 14, 1890. By frustrating their previous partisan strategy for controlling the Senate, election reverses in western states turned Republican senators to the strategy already adopted by their House colleagues, that of contesting seats. For context, see Jenkins, Jeffrey, “Partisanship and Contested Election Cases in the Senate, 1789–2002,” Studies in American Political Development 19 (2005), 68, 74 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Tribune Almanac and Political Register for 1891 (New York: Tribune Association, 1891), 52, 57, 60, 70, 76; A. P. Gorman to W. C. Whitney, Dec. 7, 1892, John Stout to W. C. Whitney, Dec. 17, 1892, William C. Whitney Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; New York Times, Dec. 10, 11, 12, 1892; Sun (New York), Dec. 11, 12, 1892.
13 Anaconda Standard, Dec. 16, 1892; Weekly Tribune (Great Falls, MT), Sept. 17, 1892; Helena Independent, Sept. 16, 1890, Oct. 8, 1892; John J. Ingalls to P. I. Bonebreak, Aug. 18, 1890, John J. Ingalls Papers, Kansas Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas; John J. Ingalls to Joseph Fifer, Nov. 8, 1892, Joseph Fifer Papers, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois; Columbus (Nebraska) Journal, Dec. 28, 1892. Party elites, of course, encouraged conspiratorial thinking to mobilize their voters and justify their own behavior. See Summers, Party Games, esp. 64. The point here is that, being conspirators themselves, they also believed in conspiracies designed by opponents. In this context, the importance of Chandler (credited by Warren for his advice to the Republican committee) seems particularly apparent. Two years before, with control of the New Hampshire legislature in dispute, Chandler had guided the state party to sweeping success, and the election of a U.S. senator, by crafting a scheme employing certifying boards, courts, and legislative officers that his legal advisors described as “in flat violation” of the law, while Chandler himself launched a propaganda campaign charging “Democratic conspirators” with “threatening revolution” to control the legislature but maintaining that Republicans sought merely to “prevent civil strife.” Democrats condemned Chandler for introducing into New Hampshire “his Florida methods,” a reference to Chandler’s role in the disputed presidential election of 1876. Afterward, Chandler reassured the more fastidious President Harrison that “Time and reason will abundantly vindicate the victory.” See Warren to Van Devanter, Dec. 13, 1892, Warren Papers; F. N. Parsons to W. E. Chandler, Nov. 11, 1890, and W. E. Chandler to Henry Putney, Dec. 29, 1890, William E. Chandler Papers, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, New Hampshire; Chandler to editor, New York Tribune, Nov. 20, 1890; Nashua Daily Telegraph, Nov. 10, 19, 24, 25, 1890; Concord Evening Monitor, Jan. 7, 9, 1891; W. E. Chandler to Benjamin Harrison, Jan. 8, 1891, Benjamin Harrison Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
14 Laramie Boomerang, Sept. 29, 1892; George Miller to W. C. Whitney, Dec. 1, Nov. 10, 1892, Whitney Papers; Francis Warren to Willis Van Devanter, Dec. 14, 1892, Warren Papers.
15 Lewis L. Gould, Wyoming: A Political History, 1868–1896 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968), 173; Cheyenne Daily Leader, Nov. 25, Dec. 7, 9, 1892; Francis Warren to J. B. Okie, Dec. 14, 1892, Warren Papers. Van Devanter also tried to have thrown out the votes of two Democratic precincts in Converse County. Cheyenne Daily Leader, Nov. 17, 19, 1892. For a ferocious defense of Republican tactics, see Cheyenne Daily Sun, Nov. 26, 1892.
16 Cheyenne Daily Leader, Dec. 9, 10, 11, 15, 1892; Cheyenne Daily Sun, Dec. 9, 1892; Sundance Reform, Dec. 15, 1892. Warren now preferred to believe that Republicans had finally secured a legislative majority but that Democrats, by legally challenging Republican machinations, intended to “steal it away from us.” Warren to Enoch Vanter, Dec. 12, 1892, Warren Papers.
17 Cheyenne Daily Leader, Dec. 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 1892; Laramie Boomerang, Dec. 29, 1892; Francis Warren to Willis Van Devanter, Dec. 21, 22, 1892, Warren Papers; Cheyenne Daily Sun, Dec. 28, 1892.
18 Warren to Van Devanter, Dec. 13, 1892, Warren Papers; Cheyenne Daily Leader, Dec. 28, 30, 1892; Carbon County Journal (Rawlings, Wyoming), Dec. 10, 1892; Laramie Boomerang, Dec. 29, 1892.
19 State v. Barber, 32 Pac. Rep. 14, 18 (Wyoming, 1893); Cheyenne Daily Sun, Jan. 1, 1893. Groesbeck, elected as a staunch Republican, became a crusading Socialist after he left the bench.
20 Francis Warren to Willis Van Devanter, Jan. 4, 1893, Warren Papers; I. S. Bartlett, History of Wyoming (Chicago: Clarke, 1918), I: 222; Gould, Wyoming, 183–195. Warren consoled himself that Republicans, by “deadlocking the legislature,” had prevented the election of a Democrat to a six-year term; an appointee would serve only until the next legislative session or be rejected by the Senate, diminishing the state’s representation in Washington, an outcome the partisan Republican found agreeable. Warren to H. T. Jones, Feb. 28, 1893, Warren to M. M. Estee, Mar. 1, 1893, Warren Papers.
21 Helena Independent, Nov. 29, 30, Dec. 7, 17, 1892; W. A. Clark to W. C. Whitney, Nov. 15, 1892, Whitney Papers; Anaconda Standard, Dec. 4, 7, 1892; Sun (New York), Dec. 11, 1892.
22 State v. Board of Canvassers of Choteau County, 31 Pac. Rep. 879 (Montana, 1892); Anaconda Standard, Jan. 1, 1893; Helena Independent, Dec. 6, 7, 12, 13, 29, 1892; Clark to Whitney, Nov. 15, 1892, W. F. Harrity to W. C. Whitney, Jan. 14, 16, 1893, Whitney Papers.
23 Anaconda Standard, Jan. 4, 5, 1893; Helena Independent, Jan. 3, 4, 1893.
24 Livingston (Montana) Enterprise, Aug. 20, 1892; Marcus Daly to A. P. Gorman, Jan. 18, 1893, A. P. Gorman et al. to W. A. Clark, Jan. 18, 1893, A. J. Davidson to A. P. Gorman, Jan. 18, 1893, W. A. Clark to A. P. Gorman, Jan. 19, 1893, A. P. Gorman to W. C. Whitney, Jan. 19, 1893, Whitney Papers; House Journal of the Third Session of the Legislative Assembly of Montana (Butte, MT: Inter Mountain Publishing, 1893), 376 Google Scholar. See also William L. Lang, “Spoils of Statehood: Montana Communities in Conflict, 1888–1894,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 37 (Autumn 1987): 40–41.
25 New York Times, Jan. 3, Apr. 12, 13, 1893; New York Post, Dec. 12, 1892; Nath Brewer to W. C. Whitney, Dec. 26, 1892, Whitney Papers; Jamestown (North Dakota) Weekly Alert, Jan. 26, 1893; Bismarck Weekly Tribune, Feb. 3, 1893; Appletons’ Annual Cyclopaedia, 1893 (New York: D. Appleton, 1894), 534–535.
26 Morning Call (San Francisco), Dec. 7, 1892; Helena Independent, Dec. 21, 1892; John P. Irish to W. C. Whitney, Dec. 25, 1892, Whitney Papers; Annie Diggs to T. V. Cator, Nov. 27, 1892, Jan. 7, 1893, Thomas V. Cator Papers, Green Library, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
27 Morning Call (San Francisco), Dec. 10, 11, 1892, Jan. 11, 19, 1893; Daily Record-Union (Sacramento, California), Jan. 5, 11, 1893; C. A. Barlow to T. V. Cator, Nov. 17, 1892, Cator Papers; The Journal of the Assembly during the Thirtieth Session of the Legislature of the State of California, 1893 (Sacramento, CA: State Office, 1893), 125; Stephen White to F. A. Eastman, Sept. 16, 1890, Stephen M. White Papers, Green Library, Stanford University, Stanford, California. See also Harold Francis Taggart, “The Senatorial Election in California in 1893,” California Historical Society Quarterly, 19 (Mar. 1940): 59–73.
28 Columbus Journal, Jan. 25, 1893.
29 James Boyd to W. C. Whitney, Dec. 2, 1892, Whitney Papers; Alliance-Independent (Lincoln, Nebraska), Nov. 24, Dec. 22, 1892; Omaha Daily Bee, Dec. 13, 19, 1892; State v. Stein, 53 N.W. 999, 1003, 1005 (Nebraska, 1892). Republicans refused to renominate Maxwell in 1893 because of his criticism of Republican justices for making partisan decisions; Populists nominated him for chief justice in 1895. Robert W. Cherny, Populism, Progressivism, and the Transformation of Nebraska Politics, 1885–1915 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 44.
30 Omaha Daily Bee, Jan. 1, 1893; Alliance-Independent (Lincoln, Nebraska), Nov. 24, 1892, Jan. 5, 12, 1893; State v. Van Camp, 54 N.W. 113, 119 (Nebraska, 1893); Thomas Allen to William Jennings Bryan, Jan. 21, 1893, William Jennings Bryan Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; House Journal of the Legislature of the State of Nebraska, 1893 (York, NE: Nebraska Newspaper Union, 1893), 7.
31 Alliance-Independent (Lincoln, Nebraska), Jan. 5, 12, Feb. 16, 1893; Omaha Daily Bee, Feb. 13, 18, 1893; G. W. Hopkins to W. J. Bryan, Jan. 23, 1893, Bryan Papers; House Journal of Nebraska 1893, 1583–1692. Republican editors had predicted the senatorial contest would be won by the Republican “with the fattest purse,” able to bribe “half a dozen” Populists. See Omaha Daily Bee, Nov. 28, 1892, quoting Fremont Flail.
32 Boyd to Whitney, Dec. 2, 1892, A. P. Gorman to W. C. Whitney, Dec. 20, 1892, Whitney Papers; Omaha Daily Bee, Jan. 20, Feb. 8, 1893; Senate Journal of the Legislature of the State of Nebraska, 1893 (York, NE: Nebraska Newspaper Union, 1893), 316–324, 340; Thomas Allen to W. J. Bryan, Jan. 13, 1893, Bryan Papers. For the Democratic rift, see also Paolo E. Coletta, “William Jennings Bryan and the Nebraska Senatorial Election of 1893,” Nebraska History 31 (Sept. 1950): 182–203.
33 Omaha Daily Bee, Jan. 22, Feb. 5, 1893; H. M. Boydston to W. J. Bryan, Jan. 13, 1893, Thomas Allen to W. J. Bryan, Jan. 20, 1893, Bryan Papers; Capital City Courier (Lincoln, Nebraska), Feb. 11, 1893.
34 Barber County Index (Medicine Lodge, Kansas), Feb. 1, 1893; Kansas Session Laws of 1887 (Topeka, KS, 1887), chapter 154; Advocate (Topeka, Kansas), Dec. 7, 1892, Nov. 1, 1893; Topeka [Weekly] State Journal, Dec. 8, 1892; Eighth Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Kansas, 1891–92 (Topeka, KS: Hamilton Printing, 1892), 129–140; Topeka Daily Capital, Nov. 30, 1892; Kent, W. H., An Historical Review of the Causes and Issues that Led to the Overthrow of the Republican Party in Kansas in 1892 (Topeka, KS: Topeka Daily Press, 1893), 10 Google Scholar.
35 Topeka Daily Capital, Dec. 18, 1892; New York Times, Dec. 8, 1892.
36 St. Paul (Minnesota) Daily Globe, Dec. 18, 1892; Topeka [Weekly] State Journal, Dec. 22, 1892; Eighth Biennial Report of the Secretary of State, 129–140. Republicans did manage to steal a presidential elector in North Dakota. Democratic and Populist fusionists had cast a majority of popular votes for all three state electors, but Republican county canvassing boards rejected sufficient returns from fusionist precincts to enable two Republican candidates to claim election. Populists and Democrats appealed to the courts, which ruled that the boards were legally required to accept all returns as submitted. But the outgoing Republican governor ignored the ruling and issued a certificate to one Republican before the local board reported its recount. Such actions, well after the election, could not affect its national outcome but demonstrated the Republicans’ implacable partisanship. Jamestown Weekly Alert, Dec. 15, 22, 29, 1892, Jan. 5, 1893; Bismarck Daily Tribune, Dec. 27, 28, 1892.
37 J. H. Hamilton to Lyman Humphrey, Dec. 26, 1892, Lyman Humphrey Papers, Kansas Historical Society; Kansas Commoner (Wichita, Kansas), Dec. 15, 1892; Emporia Weekly Republican, Dec. 15, 1892. Populists held fifty-eight certificates, and the remaining house members consisted of three Democrats (including one seated after the transposed vote totals were properly reversed) and one Independent.
38 Salina (Kansas) Sun, Dec. 31, 1892; Diggs to Cator, Jan. 7, 1893, Cator Papers; Daily Sentinel (Topeka, Kansas), Jan. 6, 1893; Advocate (Topeka, Kansas), Mar. 8, 1893.
39 Albert Horton to E. W. Halford, Oct. 8, Nov. 14, 21, 1892, to Benjamin Harrison, Apr. 10, 1893, Harrison Papers; Topeka Daily Capital, Jan. 4, 5, 6, 1893; Rosenthal v. State Board of Canvassers, 32 Pac. Rep. 129 (Kansas, 1893); Shellabarger v. Williamson, 32 Pac. Rep. 132 (Kansas, 1893); Rice v. Board of Canvassers of Coffey County, 32 Pac. Rep. 134, 136 (Kansas, 1893); Wilds v. State Board of Canvassers, 32 Pac. Rep. 136 (Kansas, 1893).
40 Republican Election Methods in Kansas: General Election of 1892, and Legislative Investigations, Session of 1893 (Topeka, KS: n.p., 1893), 82; G. C. Clemens, Points for Populists as to Organizing the House of Representatives (n.p., n.d.), 6–8; Kansas Weekly Capital (Topeka), Jan. 26, 1893; Advocate (Topeka, Kansas), Jan. 18, 1893.
41 Appendix No. 2, 70 Maine Reports 560, 584, 586; Clemens, Points for Populists, 4; Advocate (Topeka, Kansas), Nov. 1, 1893. For the Maine controversy, see Hatch, Louis, ed., Maine: A History (New York: American Historical Society, 1919), 2:599–619 Google Scholar; Summers, Party Games, 107–109.
42 [Populist] House Journal … Kansas, 1893 (Topeka, KS, 1893), 1–8; [Republican] House Journal … Kansas, 1893 (Topeka, KS, 1893), 1–16, 60–63; Kent, Historical Review, 17–20; Kansas Democrat (Topeka), Jan. 10, 1893; Atchison Daily Champion, Jan. 19, 1893; Topeka Populist, Jan. 20, 1893. For Republicans’ single-minded determination to charge Populists with a “conspiracy” against “law and order” to promote “anarchy and communism,” see J. K. Hudson, Letters to Governor Lewelling (Topeka, KS: Topeka Capital, 1893). For a forceful indictment of Republicans as the real anarchists, see People’s Voice (Wellington, Kansas), Jan. 20, 1893. The “Legislative War” desperately needs a full and modern study. William E. Parrish, “The Great Kansas Legislative Imbroglio of 1893,” Journal of the West 7 (Oct. 1968): 471–490, is seriously flawed by its reliance on a handful of Republican sources, avoidance of Populist sources, and inattention to many legal issues.
43 [Populist] House Journal, 56–58, 61–69, 82–89, 97–106, 116–119; Advocate (Topeka, Kansas), Jan. 25, Feb. 1, 1893; C. T. Mingenbeck to L. D. Lewelling, Jan. 29, 1893, Lorenzo D. Lewelling Papers, Kansas Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas; Waterbury, Edwin, The Legislative Conspiracy in Kansas: Court vs. Constitution: Who Are the Anarchists? (Topeka: Kansas Bureau and News, 1893), 13 Google Scholar.
44 [Republican] House Journal, 83–89, 125–28, 175–176; Kansas Democrat (Topeka), Jan. 24, 1893; Pratt County Union (Pratt, Kansas), Mar. 9, 1893; Lawrence Daily World, Jan. 13, 1893; Kent, Historical Review, 23–25; Senate Journal: Proceedings of the Senate of the State of Kansas, 1893 (Topeka, KS: Hamilton Printing, 1893), 61–62; People’s Voice (Wellington, Kansas), Feb. 24, 1893; Topeka Daily Press, Feb. 16, 1893; Horton to Harrison, Apr. 10, 1893, Harrison Papers; Topeka [Weekly] State Journal, Feb. 23, 1893. Rathbone also manipulated the issue of the ineligibility of postmasters in order to advance Senator Warren’s reelection in Wyoming. After deflecting Democratic Senator Brice’s charge that a Republican legislator was a postmaster, Rathbone privately told Warren’s secretary that “so long as the man was not against us, if he was in the legislature, it was all right.” L. C. Baker to F. E. Warren, Jan. 16, 1893, Warren Papers. Despite his partisan services, Rathbone was later removed from the Post Office and sentenced to ten years in prison for embezzlement and fraud. Bristow, Joseph L., Fraud and Politics at the Turn of the Century: McKinley and His Administration as Seen by His Principal Patronage Dispenser and Investigator (New York: Exposition Press, 1952), 96–101.Google Scholar
45 John Little to L. D. Lewelling, Feb. 17, 1893, Lewelling Papers; In re Gunn, 32 Pac. Rep. 948 (Kansas, 1893); State v. Tomlinson, 20 Kan. 692, 703 (1878); Waterbury, Legislative Conspiracy, 33, 79–89; Advocate (Topeka, Kansas), Mar. 1, 8, 1893; [Populist] House Journal, 373.
46 W. C. Jones to W. C. Whitney, Nov. 25, 1892, George Glick to W. C. Whitney, Dec. 8, 1892, Whitney Papers; Kansas City Gazette, Jan. 5, 12, 1893; Daily Sentinel (Topeka, Kansas), Dec. 14, 1892; Topeka Daily Capital, Jan. 6, 1893.
47 Kansas Democrat (Topeka), Jan. 6, 1893; Thomas Moonlight to P. H. Coney, Jan. 18, 1893, P. H. Coney Papers, Kansas Historical Society; Topeka Daily Capital, Mar. 19, 1893; Atchison Daily Champion, Jan. 19, 1893; Pittsburg (Kansas) Daily World, Jan. 9, 1893; Emporia Daily Republican, Jan. 25, 1893.
48 Kansas Senate Journal, 159–62; [Republican] House Journal, 98–100, 104–105, 108–116. For the failure of Chandler’s attempt to unseat Martin, see Butler, Anne M. and Wolff, Wendy, United States Senate Election, Expulsion, and Censure Cases, 1793–1990 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1995), 246–248.Google Scholar
49 Topeka [Weekly] State Journal, Feb. 2, 9, 1893; Fred Close to John Martin, Feb. 22, 1893, Lewelling Papers; Emporia Weekly Republican, Feb. 23, 1893; Diggs to Cator, Jan. 7, 1893, Cator Papers; Topeka Daily Capital, Mar. 19, 1893; Iola Register, Mar. 24, 1893. For bribery in Kansas senatorial elections, see La Forte, Robert S., “Gilded Age Senator: The Election, Investigation, and Resignation of Alexander Caldwell, 1871–1873,” Kansas History 21 (Winter 1998–1999): 234–255 Google Scholar; Butler and Wolff, Senate Election Cases, 174–77, 219–220; White, William Allen, The Autobiography of William Allen White (New York: Macmillan, 1946), 191–192 Google Scholar.
50 Kansas Agitator (Garnett), Oct. 26, 1893. In the aftermath of the 1892 election, of course, Republicans in the West and Midwest also effectively disfranchised Populists by enacting antifusion laws. See Argersinger, Peter H., “‘A Place on the Ballot’: Fusion Politics and Antifusion Laws,” American Historical Review 85 (Apr. 1980): 287–306 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Argersinger, Limits of Agrarian Radicalism, 136–175.
51 The degree to which the many such reforms, beyond the federal amendments providing for popular election of senators and woman suffrage, were actually democratic in either intent or effect is another question, one that merits far more consideration than yet accorded by historians.
52 Congressional Record, 53rd Cong., 1st sess., 101–110; 52nd Cong., 1st sess., 3191–3195; George F. Edmunds, “Should Senators Be Elected by the People?” Forum, Nov. 1894, 270–278.
53 Ellis, Susan and King, Ronald F., “Inter-Party Advantage and Intra-Party Diversity: A Response to Wirls,” Studies in American Political Development 13 (Apr. 1999): 32 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 34. In apparently the only Senate vote taken during the Progressive Era on direct presidential election and abolition of the Electoral College, Democrats strongly supported the proposal (twenty yea to nine nay) while Republicans just as strongly opposed it (twelve yea to twenty-seven nay). Congressional Record, 62nd Cong., 3rd sess., 2362; Commoner, Feb. 7, 1913, 7.