{"id":30924,"date":"2020-11-04T07:30:06","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T12:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=30924"},"modified":"2020-11-03T08:03:23","modified_gmt":"2020-11-03T13:03:23","slug":"paulding-county-hosted-presidential-hopefuls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/paulding-county-hosted-presidential-hopefuls\/","title":{"rendered":"Paulding County Hosted Presidential Hopefuls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
President Taft was one of a handful of presidential candidates who have campaigned in Paulding County. The President is visible standing in the far right side of the bandstand in Paulding in 1912. This detail is from a photograph included in Paulding County, Ohio: A Pictorial History Volume III, set for publication by the John Paulding Historical Society later this fall.<\/strong>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By: Jane Nice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paulding County Bicentennial Committee Part of a series<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAULDING \u2013 We are currently inundated with information about our presidential candidates from many forms of media, but more than a hundred years ago those running for office had almost exclusively two means of bringing their platforms and their presence to the public: through newspaper coverage and by personal campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paulding County hosted candidates for the highest office in the land at least twice in its history. First, William Jennings Bryan \u2013 who was gearing up for a repeat challenge against sitting president William McKinley in the 1900 election \u2013 came to Paulding to stump for Ohio gubernatorial candidate John R. McLean in the fall of 1899.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then more than 20 years later, in 1912, President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt, both Republicans, came to town to duke it out before the May primary election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those days, the candidates travelled with their entourages by railroad and usually made many campaign stops on their tours, sometimes giving several speeches at different destinations in a single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Office seekers counted on their local party-affiliated newspapers to spread their message to the wider public after their visits. The Paulding Democrat did not disappoint when it reported on the 1899 Bryan-McLean visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThree Days of Ovations!\u201d was the front-page headline in the Paulding Democrat followed by, \u201cThe Bryan- McLean Tour of Northwestern Ohio Eclipses Everything of its Kind on Record.\u201d Then under that, \u201cThe Democracy of the Great Northwest Fired with Enthusiasm by the Eloquent and Patriotic Words of their Next Year\u2019s Candidate for President.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paulding Democrat reported that the candidates began their three-day tour in Greenville and concluded it on Sandusky. Paulding was the last stop of the day on Thursday, October 19. Bryan and McLean were met at the train by the city band and three carriages \u201call drawn by snow white horses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prominent Paulding Democrats of the day, including the Honorable John S. Snook, escorted the candidates to the speaker\u2019s stand on the courthouse lawn, \u201cwhich was already surrounded by an anxious and expectant audience numbering thousands,\u201d according to the article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, Mrs. Bryan, who was traveling with her husband, was presented at the train station with an \u201carmful of beautiful roses\u201d by a delegation of Paulding women who escorted her to county Treasurer Saurwein\u2019s office in the courthouse where the ladies could comfortably listen to her husband\u2019s speech through the open window and out of the elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the stand on the lawn, Snook introduced candidate McLean, who was owner and publisher of the Cincinnati Enquirer, as \u201cone of the most eminent business men in all the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McLean \u201ccame forward and said that he would demonstrate that he was a business man by presenting without delay the speaker who everyone desired to hear,\u201d candidate for president of the United States, William Jennings Bryan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his nearly hour-long speech, his fifth of the day, Bryan spoke about coinage, trusts, the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, and the size of the U.S. Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite Bryan\u2019s efforts, McLean was defeated a month later by Republican George K. Nash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following year, Bryan was also defeated, and incumbent William McKinley was set to serve for another four years. However, McKinley died just shy of a year into that term after being shot in an assassination attempt and succumbing to gangrene from his wound. Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt took over the office of president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years later, Roosevelt ran for president outright and won, but a promise he made in that campaign \u2013 to not seek another term in office \u2013 would later come back to haunt him. Although presidents were not then limited to two terms, that had been the precedent set, and Roosevelt wanted to show good faith in following it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the1908 election, Roosevelt backed William Howard Taft as the Republican candidate for president. Taft won, and Roosevelt left the United States to travel abroad for a year. Enthusiastic crowds greeted Roosevelt upon his return, and believing that he still had much to accomplish, Roosevelt went back on his election promise of 1904 and threw his hat in the ring to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feverish primary campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination took Taft and Roosevelt out on the rails in the spring of 1912, and included stops for both in Paulding, within days of the deciding primary election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paulding County hosted presidential hopefuls<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paulding County Republican newspaper excitedly announced on May 16 that former President Roosevelt was to speak on that date at 12:30 p.m., and that President Taft was coming two days later, on Saturday, May 18, at 10:30 a.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is not often a town the size of Paulding is honored by the presence of the two most prominent citizens of the nation, a President and ex-President. Mr. Taft\u2019s visit here will be the first time a President ever visited this town and, so far as we know, Roosevelt is the only ex-President that ever came here,\u201d the paper announced on page one under the headline \u201cPaulding surely on the Map.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, a detailed account of their visits was not given in the next week\u2019s paper. If a supplement covered the visits, it has been lost to time. The Paulding County Republican simply reported the election results of May 21, 1912: \u201cRoosevelt Gets Majority of Ohio Delegates.\u201d Taft, however, prevailed in the national ballot and was the Republican candidate on the November ticket. Roosevelt ran outside of the party, splitting the Republican vote, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson became the next president of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More information on the bicentennial can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com\/PauldingCounty200.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Jane Nice Paulding County Bicentennial Committee Part of a series PAULDING \u2013 We are currently inundated with information about<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1464],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-history-community"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bicentennial-president-campaign.jpg?fit=666%2C880&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-82M","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 18:12:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}