1896

Envelope of Edmonds letter dated 9 October

In 1896, the Democrats and the Populists both nominated William Jennings Bryan whose call for a silver-backed currency contrasted with his opponent William McKinley’s staunch support for gold. In the midst of one of the most dramatic presidential campaigns in history, University of Mississippi student and Republican supporter James Edmonds wrote home on October 27th:

The interest felt in the elections is very intense…I greatly fear there will be more fighting and talking done next Tuesday night, than studying. The six or eight McKinley men who are here intend forming in a body and giving the McKinley yell at the telegraph office when the news comes of his election. We have been warned that if Bryan is defeated and we do any “crowing” that we may expect several good fised [sic] “scraps.” As three of us are exceedingly lusty specimens we are, as yet, not very much daunted by the prospect. I expect there will be … a full docket at court in the morning.

Six days after the vote, Edmonds wrote:

And is the neighborhood disgusted over Bryan’s defeat? I never saw such an expression of chagrin and anger as was depicted on some of the faces in the Opera house the night of the third…. One boy said he couldn’t understand how a Southerner could ever be in favor of a Republican candidate. I told him “Did it ever occur to you that there were more things between heaven and earth than were ever dreamed of in your feeble intellect” – “It might be common sense!” Nearly everyone I have anything to do with has been very considerate in the expression of their feelings. I was with two other “gold men” the night one of them in favor of McKinley and another for Palmer [U.S. Senator John M. Palmer of Illinois and a Democratic candidate]. One of my club mates ‘Toll’ Hibbes is in favor of [Joshua] Levering the prohibition candidate – but he was strangely alone in his political belief.