Well have a full replay of opening day. Coming up next, q a with author ronald schafer. Then at 7 00 world is live with your phone calls and a look at todays headlines. 6 announcer this week on q a, former wall street journal reporter and columnist ronald shafer. Mr. Shafer discusses his book, the Carnival Campaign how the rollicking 1840 campaign of tippecanoe and tyler too changed president ial elections forever. Brian ronald shafer, why did you write a book called the Carnival Campaign . Ronald for two reasons. I live in williamsburg, virginia, right next door to where William Henry harrison and john tyler were born. They ran the first modern president ial campaign with rallies and president ial speeches. Brian what do you mean by modern . Ronald before this when you campaign for president , you did not give speeches or have rallies. You just sat at home and wrote letters to people who wrote you about the issues. In this election for the first time, they had huge rallies. Harrison became the first president to go out and give speeches. Brian having read your book, i have to ask how much of what is in this book parallels what we just went through . Ronald let me think. [laughter] ronald this was very much like the recent election. It was politics as entertainment, demagoguery, personal insults, and it involved the oldest man ever to run for president. At that time it was harrison, who was 67yearsold. Brian the myth i have read over the years is that he made the longest speech at the inaugural in history and it was raining and he died right after of a bad cold. Ronald the first part is true. He gave the longest inaugural speech in history, and as i say in the book, maybe the most boring. An hour and 45 minutes. But it was not raining. It was very cold, the wind was blowing. He did not wear a coat or hat. He wanted to look young. But he did not get sick. He went to two inaugural balls that night. Three, actually. He was fine. Two weeks later he went on a walk every morning from the white house. There was no secret service. He got caught in the rain and rushed back to the white house but does not change his clothes. He came down with a cold, it got worse and became pneumonia. He was dead a month after he was inaugurated. Brian was that a surprise . Ronald yes, total surprise. Everything you read up to that time says, he looks so young, so vigorous. In the book, i explain that he may have been helped along by his doctors, who treated him with all kinds of wild treatments of bloodletting and giving laxatives, something to make him vomit, some indian snake weed. Later, at least one study found that though they claimed they were treating him for pneumonia, they were treating him for the common cold. If he had better treatment, he might have survived. Brian what was this about rubbing mustard on his stomach . Ronald that is part of the treatment. On the stomach. There was also something called cupping, where they would heat up little metal things and cup your skin, put them on your skin and get blisters. It sounds terrible. None of this worked. It probably made him even worse because he was so tired from the campaign, 67yearsold, plus being harassed by job seekers all the time who in those days could go right in the white house. Brian when did you retire from the wall street journal and how long did you work there . Ronald 38 years, i retired 16 years ago. I wrote the washington wire on the front page of the journal. I was an editor and reporter. Brian what does it feel like no longer being one of the most powerful people in washington . The washington wire was on the front page and could really have an impact. Ronald it is tough to lose power. Actually personally, i had very little power. Once i retired, people no longer answer the phone. Ifore, i would call and say journal the wall street and they would call right back. Afterwards, i may never hear from them again. It is a big change once you move away from the seats of power. But that has been enjoyable and i have been able to do works like this book. Brian we always read [indiscernible] ronald i dont know why, maybe they could not find anybody to replace me. Actually, they had a very fine writer to replace me but i think the new management decided they wanted to use that space for other reasons. They took away all the features stories except the one that runs in the middle. Otherwise, that is the only feature story now on the front page of the journal. It,hey totally changed times change and thats what happened. Brian give us some background on William Henry harrison. Ronald he was born at Berkeley Plantation, which is very near williamsburg near richmond. His father, Benjamin Harrison v was a signer of the declaration of independence. He became known as the signer, his nickname. When henry was young, dinner guests were people like george washington, Thomas Jefferson, james madison. You can imagine the conversations that he heard. When he was 14, he was sent away to college. Most kids could not go to college then, but he was sent off to college and medical school and ended up in philadelphia. Brian what did he do then . Ronald his father died and suddenly he had no income. He inherited some land from Berkeley Plantation, but since he was the youngest of seven oldestn he was not the son so he did not get the plantation. Harrison had to find something to do. He really did not want to study medicine, he wanted to fight indians. He got a commission in the army, but instead of going as a private, his father had an old friend who is now president of the United States, george washington. Washington made him an officer. He left philadelphia and went to Fort Washington near cincinnati. He actually walked most of the 300 miles, and he was a big lover of roman history. The only thing he took with him were some volumes of the works of cicero. He finally arrived in cincinnati to fight for the general, heading the fight against the indians in ohio. Brian how did he become known, as far as people in the United States . Ronald after he went to cincinnati, he got married, married anna, daughter of a wealthy landowner who sold him a tiny log cabin on the west bend of the ohio, about 14 miles west of cincinnati. He started looking for a better job. Again with some help from an old friend of his father president john adams he got appointed secretary and then governor of the indiana territory, which was a big job. At the time, the indiana territory covered not just indiana but illinois, michigan. Lots of territory. Then another old family friend, Thomas Jefferson, became president , and he had the louisiana purchase, which you may have heard of. He added that to the indiana territory and wrote harrison, urging him to buy more land from the indians to build up u. S. Ownership in the indiana territory. Brian it was strange reading your book because i grew up on a street called shawnee avenue in a town that had a Tecumseh Middle School in an area that had harrison high school. [laughter] brian we were five minutes away from battleground, indiana. How does that all relate to William Henry harrison . Ronald this is how he became famous. He had a run in with tecumseh because tecumseh was trying to get the indians not to sell their land to harrison. He came to harrisons home during the discussion, and he drew his tomahawk, harrison drew his sword, and they parted ways. So, tecumseh and his brother set up a town near lafayette called prophetsville. They were causing trouble, so harrison decided to close down the town. He got a troop of men from the federal government and indiana militia and camped outside the town before entering the next day. During the night, the indians attacked and there were lots of casualties on both sides, but a lot of them on harrison side. Nevertheless, harrison prevailed, closed down the town the next day. Word spread across the country, he became known as the hero of tippecanoe, which led to his nickname old tippecanoe. Brian that is the county in which lafayette is in. This is kind of jumping around, but one of the things that was hard to believe was when you talk about the campaign for president , there were 30,000 people that came to lafayette, went to battleground for a rally on behalf of William Henry harrison. I dont know where they fit them all, but that is a huge crowd even compared to the recent campaign. Ronald it is amazing the reaction he got from his campaign. There was such a huge crowd, they actually built a tent, which was supposed to hold 30,000 people. But it was a nice day, so they did not need it. People came from miles around to see this event and take part in the campaign for William Henry harrison. There were a lot of speeches, fireworks, and a lot of hard cider that was handed out free, which probably was one of the big draws. Brian on the cover of your book, how the rollicking 1840 campaign of tippecanoe and tyler, too changed president ial elections forever. What is does it mean, tippecanoe and tyler too . Ronald it refers to old tippecanoe, William Henry harrison, and tyler was his running mate. Tyler actually was his cousin, grew up down the road from Berkeley Plantation at another plantation. His father was friends with harrisons father. Tylers fathers roommate at william and mary was Thomas Jefferson, so they had a lot of interconnections. Although harrison was 17 years older, so he did not grow up with tyler, but the families knew each other. I can tell you if you want and im sure you do how that nickname came about. The first big rally in the campaign was in columbus, ohio. They had 30,000 people in columbus, a town of about 3000 people. They had a huge parade. One of the things in the parade was this big rolling ball, about 10 feet high, that came from cleveland that had slogans all over it. Well, there was a jeweler from nearby in the audience and he was so taken by this that he went home to his Tippecanoe Glee Club and wrote a song about this ball called the great commotion. The chorus line was for tippecanoe and tyler too, and the name caught on, or in modern terms, went viral. Brian when you talk about 30,000 people we just went through a campaign where president elect donald trump says it was the biggest rally in history, 15,000 to 25,000 people, and you are talking about a country where only 2. 5 Million People voted. You had a rally in the book that was 100,000 people. Ronald trump may have been a little exaggerating, he does that from time to time. As i say, harrison became the first president ial candidate ever to campaign, so nobody had ever heard of anything like this or seen anything like this. He started drawing more and more people. By the time he got to dayton, which was connected to another holiday, people came from all over the area, and it was 60,000 to 100,000 people just to see him. They probably could not hear him because they did not have microphones, but he gave a twohour speech in dayton, ohio, 100,000 people, and another one in cincinnati that drew an estimated 100,000 people. Population of the u. S. Was 40 about 20 of what it is now, so it is kind of amazing. I think obama drew 100,000 at a rally in manassas, but very rarely matched. Brian 1840, who was president . Ronald Martin Van Buren. He was known as little vanny or the little magician, and he was a professional politician from new york. He was the protege of Andrew Jackson, his Vice President. Jackson anointed van buren as his successor. Unfortunately, he won in 1936 and next came the great panic of 1937, a depression, and the economy fell apart, jobs lost, wages went down. It was a terrible time to be running for reelection. Brian what kind of guy was president van buren . Ronald he was kind of stodgy, very straightforward. He was single. His wife had died when he was in his 30s and he never remarried. He pretty much was a straightforward president. His problem was that he was surrounded by a lot of people he appointed to office who were corrupt. The election by the Harrison Campaign was against the corrupt officeholders in washington, d. C. , which also may sound familiar. Brian what did he mean by being corrupt then . Ronald they take money to do things. [chuckling] ronald that pretty much sums it up. Both he and jackson went by the philosophy, to the victor go the spoils. Part of that was giving friends jobs in high places. Brian who was his Vice President and what impact did he have . Ronald ironically, his Vice President was richard johnson, known as old dick. He had actually fought in a battle with William Henry harrison as his commander, the battle of the thames in ontario, canada during the war of 1812. Harrison was a general, appointed by another family friend, james madison. They were facing the british, who were running away, and their indian allies, including a fellow named tecumseh. So they had them trapped in the woods in ontario what would become ontario. They decided on this unusual attack, that the kentucky militia led by johnson would attack on horseback, and they did. They easily subdued the british, then johnson went after the indians. He got shot several times, his horse was shot, then he shot and killed an indian, probably tecumseh. So anyway, the indians stopped and the battle was won, and harrison was a hero of the thames. But the van buren campaign painted johnson as the hero of the thames. He actually became the first Vice President ial candidate to give speeches. He went around talking to audiences. He was very popular. All he had to do was show the scars from his wounds, and everybody was on his side. Brian president van buren was a democrat. What did that mean back then . Ronald the democrats were out of the Thomas Jefferson philosophy. They believed in no federal government at all, or the smallest federal government. When the Great Depression hit, the panic of 1837, they did nothing. They believed the government should not do anything, you are on your own. This of course alienated voters. The whigs believe there should be some government help, mainly involving building roads connecting the states, but they promised to offer some help. They in effect offered to make America Great again, except their slogan was harrison and reform, not quite as catchy but it worked. Brian what is a whig . Ronald a party that was created to counter the democrats. Whig was a name that the revolutionaries used when they fought against the british, so they adopted it. Henry clay founded the party. The party was really scattershot. People from all over. The only thing they believed in was they hated Andrew Jackson, who they called king andrew. They were whigs who opposed the king, but this king was king andrew. Brian what did they think of president van buren . Ronald they thought he was getting nothing done, that he was not listening to the people. They also spread rumors that he was having big fancy parties and he was spending money to make the white house a palace of splendor and improving the grounds. Most of it was not true, but they said he ate with Golden Spoons at the white house and put french cologne on his whiskers. They called him sweet vanny whiskers, so they made him up as the champion of the 1 , basically, the rich people and the officeholders. Brian how many books have you written . Ronald four or five i think. Brian any history books . Ronald my last book was on the start of the brooklyn dodgers in the 1890s. Brian what triggered you on this one . Ronald partly living in the area of williamsburg. I have visited Berkeley Plantation. And then i had always been told when i was features editor at the wall street journal that the 1840 campaign was the first modern campaign. Why . I dont know, but that is what everyone says, so i looked into it and sure enough, it was. Brian one of the things mentioned throughout the book is the log cabin. Ronald this became the symbol of the campaign. Harrison was nominated in harrisburg, pennsylvania, and the plan was to portray him as the general washington of the west. He would be this leader on the white horse leading the people. The week after the convention ended, some reporter in an opposition newspaper wrote this article that harrison, 67 years old, was really just an old granny and he would be content with hard cider and a pension to stay in his log cabin instead of running for president. This threw the plans in a fury. Two people in harrisburg, a newspaper editor and a banker, met at the bankers mansion. Harrison knew nothing about this. They said, what are we going to do about this . The banker said, why dont we just go with it . The log cabin is a symbol of the common man. The hard cider is what the common man drinks. The editor gets out a piece of paper and draws a log cabin, raccoons on the top, and a barrel of hard cider. He says, why dont we do Something Like this . They go to the convention in pennsylvania, show it, people go crazy. Within a month, you have parades with log cabins on wheels. Parade, Something Like 50 feet wide carrying 40 people, pulled by 20 horses. This became a symbol of every parade, there would be log cabins on wheels. He was portrayed as the champion of the common man living in a log cabin. In fact, he lived in a mansion in ohio. He had a big house on the river. The little cabin they had bought from his wifes father they had 10 kids, so they expanded. It was very modern and he had thousands of acres, so he was actually very wealthy but he was portrayed as the champion of the poor, which again, some parallels. Brian you talk about when he was the governor of indiana \wa the governor of indiana territory for some 14 years, that he lived in a place and had a mansion called grassland. Did you talk about all the money he spent there bringing goods from overseas . Explain that. To outfit the place. Ronald he became the governor of indiana, so he needed the governors house. He had not inherited a lot of money, but he had inherited land when his father and mother died. He sold some of that land and built this fabulous house in the middle of a little town near the illinois border to house the governor. Also it was built very sturdy, protected against possible indian attacks. It looked very much like the Berkeley Plantation house in virginia. So he became accustomed to living high, even though he may not have the money to back it up sometimes. Brian you live in williamsburg now, and near you is the Berkeley Plantation plus the tyler house. How big are those houses . Ronald Berkeley Plantation is big. It was a working plantation, it had slaves and it was used during the civil war as the headquarters for mcclellan when there were battles down there. Brian mcclellan, who fought for the union. Ronald yes, that was their headquarters and lincoln came to visit. It is a very large plantation and is still open to the public. The home where tyler was born was another plantation, but the big home is where he retired after he left the presidency. He moved back to the area and he built sherwood forest, and he called it that because he had been kicked out of the whig party. He did not really get along with the whig policies after he became president , so he figured he was like an outlaw like robin hood, so he called the place sherwood forest. To this day, that is still the name. It is the longest frame house in america, 301 feet long, one room wide. It is a very long room, and it became his retirement place with his second wife, who is 30 years younger. She built a room at the end where they would dance the virginia reel. So we have two houses within five miles of each other that were occupied by former president s of the United States. Brian i know you say you got interested because you lived in williamsburg, but you had to have some characters and all that. When did you decide you had to write a book . Ronald i looked at how the campaign developed. Two things, one was the development of the log cabin image and the other one was the effect of giving the speeches. Today, that seems so common, but you have to remember back in those days, this was nothing they had ever heard of. To track the development here is what happened, why he did this. He started out following the very same pattern. He would answer letters. But one day, a fellow in new york said he had written harrison asking about issues and got a letter back that was not from harrison, it was from a committee. This was an outrage that the democrats jumped on, saying he has a conscience committee, the poor man is being kept in an iron cage, they dont trust him to answer his own letters. Harrison was just humiliated by this and decided he had to do something. He got an invitation to speak at a ceremony at fort meigs, where he once commanded near toledo. So he accepted. He started on his way. It is a long way, 200 miles. By this time, the log cabin theme had kicked in, so he kept his silk cap at home and took his farmers hat and plain clothes. He stayed at a hotel and went to see the boys of the tippecanoe club. The next morning, there is a crowd gathered outside and he starts to say a few words. Pretty soon, he is giving a speech. It is june 6, 1840, the first speech ever by a president ial candidate. Then he continued to fort meigs and gave a speech, continued to cleveland, then gave more than 40 speeches going all around the state. Like an aging rock star, the mick jagger of politics at the time. Brian when he retired from the military, what did he do then and where had he been between that time and 1840 . Ronald his retirement was controversial because he adjust he had just won the battle of the thames. He went to washington and there were parades. He gets to washington and resigns. What happens . Secretary of war did not get along with him, so he was going to assign him to a meaningless post and harrison did not want that, so he resigned. He sent a letter to president madison and figured that madison would not accept it, but the secretary of war intercepted it and said, ok, and replaced him named Andrew Jackson. Harrison was assigned to go do some peace talks with the indians, which he did, but he was out of office. He was able at that time to use his fame to get into congress. He went to congress, he was in the house. And he was in the ohio senate. As the years went by, his fame faded and he lost a couple of elections. He finally convinced the state legislature to appoint him to the u. S. Senate. Finally he is back in washington, but he wants a higher paying job. He wants to be the ambassador to bolivia, a job that has just opened up under john quincy adams. Adam says, this harrison is always begging for jobs, the worst guy. Thisam i going to do with guy . But his secretary of state, henry clay, said, why dont you give him this job. So he did take the job, which paid a lot of money, but it took him a year to get there. He was only there a few days when Andrew Jackson became president. He and Andrew Jackson did not get along. The first thing jackson did was say, you are out of here. So harrison had to go all the way back home and ended up being the county clerk at Hamilton County near cincinnati, which paid pretty well, but he was a lowly county clerk. Brian on a personal basis, you say that five of his 10 kids had died at what age . An early age . Ronald by the time he was running for president , five of his 10 children had died. And actually while he was coming back from his speech at fort meigs, he was supposed to speech in springfield, ohio. But first they said they had a message from his family. They gave him a letter that said his son had died. His son was a physician, so he canceled the speech and went home. So yeah, most of his children did not survive, which added to his expenses because a lot of his childrens families lived with him on north bend on the ohio river. Brian i remember in your book, you say the son was 36 and died of alcoholism . Ronald that was another son, william junior, who was an alcoholic. Because of that, harrison swore alcohol. Ng grain for he called it sinning and he would never sin again, because his son was an alcoholic. They had a lot of family tragedies. Brian you look back at his life, how long was he in the military . Ronald he joined when he was 18yearsold, around so 1891, and he resigned in 1913. Brian what did he look like and how tall was he . Describe his personality. Ronald he was about five foot nine, he combed his hair over the front of his head. He was a big fan of roman history, so it was like julius caesar. He was very welleducated, very genial. He could tell stories, he was wellread. He did not read fiction, but he read nonfiction, shakespeare. He liked to talk to people. He was probably more educated than your typical president ial candidate. Consider Andrew Jackson, for example. But he still had his enemies, of course. Brian where did he meet his wife . Ronald when he went to Fort Washington, cincinnati, about 20 cabins at the time. Her father was the wealthiest landowner there, and they married when they were both 22yearsold. His wife, anna. Brian what was she like and how long did she live . Ronald her main appeal for harrison besides her dark eyes, she was welleducated. I think they got along in terms of being able to converse. She survived until well past the 1860s, staying at north bend. But her father opposed to the marriage at first. They were married at his house by justice of the peace, but the father left town because he did not approve. He eventually came around as Harrison Rose in stature. Brian you mentioned the panic of 1837, the depression. If we keep that in mind, van burens president , then in 1840 there is van buren and harrison running against each other. What was the economy like at that time . Do you remember how many states we had . Ronald 26 at that time. The economy it was the worst depression until 1929, it was awful. People could not get work or food. There were food riots in new york. The main theme, if there was one, of the Harrison Campaign which tried to avoid issues as much as possible was to promise better times ahead, that they were going to help you with the harrison Reform Movement and that you could count on them to at least worry about you, where the democrats, they said, did not care about you. Brian so in 1840, what was the media like . Pa. Is they did not really care much about the truth. The idea was they were part of the campaigns. The main whig one was here in washington, the intelligentsia. The publisher was the mayor of washington, d. C. , so they were the whig paper. The main democratic paper had been started und run by a man named blair, who is jackson,ay near andrew he built a house right across the street from the white house, which is now known as the blair house. The big newspaper and the one that may have swung the election was started by horace greeley. It was called the log cabin. It was all about the Harrison Campaign, every article in the paper was pro harrison and antivan buren. It had a subscription of 80,000 people. Greeley claimed he could have had 100,000 but did not have enough printing presses. Brian tell us about horace greeley. Ronald he is most known as the guy who said, go west, young man. That probably was because everything in the east was so bad and west was growing a little bit. He was a strange guy, a strict nutritionist. He followed a fellow named graham, who invented the graham cracker. He was a tall, skinny guy with glasses and wore a white hat. He was an amazingly intelligent man and eventually started the New York Herald tribune and ran for president against ulysses grant. Brian where did he live . Ronald new york city. His newspaper was called the new yorker, not the same one we know today. Newspaper a major yorker and that is how the whigs met him. Then he started a paper called the jeffersonian to promote the candidate of a governor for new york, william seward. Eventually he went to the tribune. So he was mainly a new yorker. Brian who paid for his paper the log cabin . Ronald the whig party paid for it. They were able to raise a lot of money. The main backer was a party boss in new york named weed, a newspaper publisher in albany. He knew all the rich people in new york city, who he called the merchant princes. He would do favors for them and get the state legislature to do anything they wanted. He rationalized by saying the merchant princes never asked for anything bad, so there was no problem. Then he said when he needed money, they were happy to give. So he would raise money for the Harrison Campaign. Brian go back again to how harrison became the candidate. He lived in north bend, ohio. Ronald 67yearsold. Brian van buren was in the white house one term. He was running again, economy was not good. How did harrison get the nomination . Ronald that is the question henry clay always asked. They had three candidates at this time, the first Whig Convention ever in harrisburg. They had just built a new train station. In frome could come washington and everywhere. Henry clay, who had started the whig party, figured he would get the nomination. He was the leader on the first two votes, but he did not get enough to get the nomination. They had to keep voting. They said, he may not be able to get this, so they started with backstreet type conversations in bars and smokefilled rooms why dont we maybe go to harrison or general Winfield Scott . They were both generals. Eventually the support swung to harrison because he was known as a man who was not supporting the abolitionists and they thought scott might. Finally on the fifth vote, harrison won the vote, much to clays surprise. Brian where was he during the convention . Ronald nobody was there. That was another major difference from now. Back in those days, you were supposed to pretend you were not running for president. All of these men were at home. They did not even know when it happened. Brian when did he find out . Ronald a week or two later, there was a notice in the cincinnati newspaper that harrison had won. Finally he got an official letter from the whigs that he was the nominee. He answered, said he was very happy about it, very surprised even though he had been lobbying for this. It took a long time to find out that he was the nominee. Brian you mentioned the newspaper the log cabin had 80,000 circulation. How did it move around through 26 states . Ronald mainly by train and boats. They had distributions they could set up with steamships and trains. The democrats complained about money being spent. They were raising all this money from rich people to distribute this newspaper across the country. Brian in chapter seven, you talk about something called the golden spoon speech. Ronald that was part of the attack on van buren. A man named charles ogle, a congressman from new york, in april of 1840 went to the house floor and give a speech that lasted two days. Van buren had made the mistake of asking for some modest appropriations to improve the white house, which was in pretty bad shape after the brits torched it during the war of 1812. A very modest increase, but this fellow went roombyroom explaining all the money that was being spent on these lavish chairs and curtains and carpeting, more money than you could buy 10 log cabins with, and he turned this into a palace of splendor and was eating with Golden Spoons and that while people were starving, he was having fancy parties. It was part of the imagemaking, where harrison was the candidate for the poor people and here was the rich man in washington, sneering. Brian so he gave this speech, how long would it take people around the country to get the information . Was there any way to transmit besides the log cabin newspaper . Ronald yes. There was the early version of the congressional record, but most people do not see that. The whigs took care of that. They reprinted copies and sent them out across the country. Everybody could see the speech, which usually ended up being printed in the newspapers, at least the whig newspapers. Brian i keep thinking about what we went through with the campaign. Reading from your book, the administration the washington the van buren newspaper assailed the ogle speech as an omnibus of lies. How often did somebody accuse the other side of lying . Ronald about every 30 seconds. Brian so that is nothing new. Ronald it was standard procedure. Whatever your opponent was saying was a lie and we are telling the truth, similar to what we just went through. Lies and insults are the fabric of the campaign. Harrison said he was the most persecuted man in america. Brian another quote opponents of Martin Van Buren called him a weasel, a crawling reptile, and a political schemer. Political schemer doesnt sound so bad, but a weasel . Does it get any worse . Ronald not very much. They turned on poor van buren. He had no idea why people were saying these things. It was very nasty. Even his friends turned on him. Washington irving, the author, washington irving, the author, grew up with in the same part of the state and was his friend until van buren would not appoint his brother to a job, so he switched over to harrison. In those days, you had better be ready for a lot of insults as president. Brian who paid for this campaign and how did they get so many log cabins going around by horses . Ronald it was the whig party who paid for it and they got it from the merchant princes in new york. They also raised some money by having fundraisers and things like we have now, but mainly through the wealthy. Brian you have statistics about what happened in the actual campaign. William Henry Harrison got 1,275,390 votes, 234 electoral votes, and president van buren got 1,128,854 and only 60 electoral votes. Ronald it was somewhat like the recent campaign. Harrison won in states that got his electoral votes. Van buren picked up a lot of votes. There was some feeling that it may be these circuits campaign started to backfire by the end of the campaign because it did not have much substance. But remember, he was from new york, although harrison won new york. Im sure of van buren picked up a lot of votes there. The vote total actually was fairly close. The funny thing about van buren, jackson said to wait for the final returns and dont give up yet. Someone, aad pollingr, go to the day over several days during those times. He finally got word that he lost new york and knew he had lost the election. He was at that time sitting to have his portrait made. Brian the interesting thing is who was eligible to vote. 80 of the eligible voters in 1840 voted. We are talking 60 now, but 81 who was eligible . Ronald that was an amazing total, the highest ever at that time. What happened that year, the one reason they went to the log Cabin Campaign theme was that the voter rolls had expanded. Most of the white males in the country before you had to own property, be in the militia, but they expanded it so the number increased. Then this entertaining campaign increased voter interest so much that the voter number increased by 60 for this election, and 81 of the voters turned out. Brian a quote from the national intelligencer, which side were they on . Ronald the whig side. Brian it has pleased the almighty to give the people of the longsuffering country a victory over their weak and wicked rulers. Ronald they spoke in biblical terms in those days. Youve got to remember, the image that the whigs had presented was that the average worker was oppressed by government that refused to do anything about their terrible troubles. This was like a sign from heaven that we now have a president who is going to listen to you. A lot of the newspapers talk in sweeping terms, and the democrats complained that harrison was sung into office, because there were so Many Campaign songs, or that money had paid for the election. Brian ive got a quote from your book from the globe, on the van buren side, saying the increase in votes was due to mercenaries hired, bribed, and purchased. Ronald yes. That was one of the charges. And there is probably some truth to that because in those days there was a lot of bribing of voters. There was no secret vote. People up. Coop cooping. It would give people wine and food and tell them to vote for this person, and they would do it. They sent bullies to the polls to chase away someone of the opposition. It was not exactly on the up and up, but that was on both sides. Brian did they vote on the same day . Ronald the voting stretched from late october to early november and sometimes would be over two or three days. You would get results from one state early on, but you would not know the final until more states came in. There was nobody on television telling you, here are the states and the totals. It took days for the newspapers to get the totals, so it took a couple of weeks before people knew who won. Brian did anybody back then challenge the vote . Ronald no. For one reason, it would have taken forever to go over the challenged votes because so many of them could have been challenged. But the feeling was in terms of voter fraud was that both sides pretty much did this, so it evened out. Brian where did you do your research . Ronald i did a lot of it in williamsburg, visited Berkeley Plantation. I visited sherwood, the home of tyler. I got a tour by his great grandson, william. He took me through the house and showed me a lot of his old papers and so forth. I did a lot of work at the college of william and mary. A lot of these things now, you can get them online. I wanted eyewitnesses to what happened back then, so i was able to get online newspapers from 1840 and books that have been written by people who were there in 1840. An invaluable resource is the diary of john quincy adams, who kept a running tally of things. He was a kind of sarcastic old guy. It was a really good look. Brian what did he think of harrison . Ronald he thought he was ok. He thought he was not an intellectual giant, but he did not like tyler because he was a slaveholder. And it adams was antislavery. So, he did not like the fact that tyler was able to rise to the presidency. Brian you say that William Henry harrison, having won, gave an 8000plus word speech. They had the first inaugural parade in history. Why did they have it just starting with harrison . Ronald mainly because this was the hallmark of his campaign, big rallies with the log cabins on wheels. They had the First Official inaugural committee and arranged the parade like the rallies with the log cabins and marching bands. Music was very important in this campaign and the whigs in baltimore had gotten a brandnew wagon for harrison to ride in, but he did not want to ride in it. He rode his horse, did not wear a hat or coat. He did have a hat, but he kept doffing it as he went down pennsylvania avenue. They paraded down to the capital and once he gave his speech, they paraded back to the white house. Brian couple of small things in the book Buckeye State. Ronald harrisons adopted state was ohio, wonderful state, as you know. The name buckeye really became famous during the campaign. At the very first rally in columbus, some people in marietta, ohio chopped down buckeye trees and built a log cabin on wheels. A man there wrote the buckeye song. They handed out copies at the parade in columbus. Then the tippecanoe song came along and the fellow who wrote it proclaimed himself as being a buckeye from the great Buckeye State of ohio. They had a lot of stump speakers. A letter famous ones like henry clay, daniel webster. The biggest one was an illiterate blacksmith in ohio, nicknamed the buckeye blacksmith. Lots of songs were written about was calledarrison the buckeye candidate, and forever after that, ohio became the Buckeye State. Brian you say Martin Van Buren was the first president to have central heating in the white house . Ronald that was one of the things that made it a palace, i guess. It was probably pretty cold up until that time. But the big one was john quincy adams, who installed the bathroom in the white house. Brian what didnt you know before you started this . Ronald one of the things i did not know was the heavy involvement of women. This was the First Campaign that women were involved with. They could not vote, of course, but the whigs decided they would be great allies because they could persuade their husbands and boyfriends to vote for harrison. And in fact it became a great movement. Women wore sashes, whig husbands or none, and refused to marry their boyfriends unless they said they would vote for the whigs. Women came to the parades and waved handkerchiefs, some gave speeches, some wrote pamphlets. It was very shocking. They were criticized by the democrats, who said these women should be home making pudding. This was the beginning of the movement for the womens vote. Familiar bloomer was the young woman who got involved. A lot of these women went on to push for the and one of my favorite anecdotes, i have got to tell you. There was a rally in springfield, illinois, and the horses stampeded. A woman was heard to say, if any are to be killed, let them be the ladies, for they cant vote. Brian is that where ronald she went on to start a magazine on fashion and wore pants that were known as bloomers. And that became the fashion. Brian comparing to the most recent election, the whigs won both houses of congress and two thirds of the state legislatures. Sounds familiar. Was that a surprise . Ronald it probably was that they won that much. The surprise started with a vote for governor in maine, where a fellow named kent was the whig candidate and he won by 60 votes. He was not expected to win. Whigs had a song, hellbent for kent. From then on, the whigs had an idea that Something Big was happening. Brian another comparison, what happened after harrison was elected and the president was defeated . What was their relationship . Ronald van buren during the campaign, they attacked van buren. There were a lot of cartoons stomping downn moved in. As harrison in fact, when harrison arrived in washington, he stayed at a hotel. Van buren invited him to the white house and was very gracious. He invited him to move in ahead of the election to get away from the crowds. Of course he had no secret service protection, but he stayed at the hotel. Van buren brought his cabinet over to meet harrison and had him over for dinner. He was very gracious. He did not attend inauguration, because that was not the custom at the time. But he turned out to be very gracious loser. Brian so when he died harrison dies 30 days plus 12 hours into his presidency. What happens . Ronald there is panic because the Vice President is not there. In those days, Vice President had nothing to do, so he had gone home to williamsburg, virginia. To his plantation. Brian in those days, how long would it take to get from here to there . Ronald about 20 hours. So they sent two guys who took a steamship and a train and rode to his house. They got there in the middle of the night. He was not on his knees playing marbles with one of his would have myths it. They rushed him back. He had some word that harrison was not doing well but did not think it was proper to rush back and hover over the body. So he was sworn in. The other problem is, what do you call him . This had never happened before and the constitution had never told them what you do. It just said, the Vice President takes the duties of president , not that he was president. Tyler said, call me president. Brian where were you born . Ronald columbus, ohio. Went to ohio state university. Went to work for the wall street journal in 1963. Brian your favorite story you wrote the entire time you were at the journal, 38 years . Ronald one of my favorites had to be a profile of art buchwald, the famous humor columnist. I followed him around for two weeks, wrote a story about how he writes his column, and we became good friends. I have been a fan of his ever since. Brian you retired 15 years ago. How would you rate retirement . Ronald i give it an a. I like it. You have time to do what you want and you can write books and watch cspan all day. Brian our guest has been ronald g. Shafer. The book is called the Carnival Campaign how the rollicking 1840 campaign of tippecanoe and tyler too changed president ial elections forever. Thank you very much. Ronald thank you very much, brian. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer for free transcripts or to give us your comments, visit us at q a. Org. Programs are also available as cspan podcasts. Announcer you liked this program here are some others you might enjoy. And jeanneple David Heidler discuss in book on William Henry clay. Kaplanliam seal and fred discussed their books. You can find those interviews and more at cspan. Org. From the we are live u. S. 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