William Goebel: The Politics of Wrath by James C. Klotter

Author:James C. Klotter [Klotter, James C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 19th Century, United States, Murder, Biography & Autobiography, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV), History, Political, True Crime, General
ISBN: 9780813102405
Google: ceMzEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 8378903
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 1977-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

6

“I ASK NO QUARTER

AND

I FEAR NO FOE”

THE CAMPAIGN OPENED at the Democratic stronghold of Mayfield on 12 August. Initial speeches traditionally set the tone for the entire race and were widely reprinted. In the period before his speech, when candidates usually mingled with the crowd to shake hands and tell jokes, Goebel was ill at ease, restless, nervous, almost aloof. The irony became evident: whereas Goebel appealed to the masses with his stands on issues, his personality belied that appeal. The contradiction would haunt him as he spoke warmly and with strong feeling about matters that affected and interested the masses; but on a person-to-person basis he moved with a cold, emotionless aura, and he failed to articulate his feelings effectively.

Standing before the crowd as he prepared to give his speech, Goebel personified a type of Kentucky leader seldom seen on the political stage before. For almost from the advent of statehood, politicians of the commonwealth had depended heavily on strong oratory to win votes; they had stressed family ties and common ancestries; and postwar Democrats had emphasized their Confederate ties to prestigious leaders. The northerner Goebel could not make such appeals. Partly Populist, partly Progressive, a strong reformer, yet a powerful machine politician, Goebel was a transitional southern leader. His appeal would be different in that it would be more issue-oriented. This is not to say that Goebel ignored oratory, for he carefully prepared speeches with a good grasp of audience psychology. By repeating phrases and concepts and by using very little figurative language, he could give an effective talk. Perhaps not the demagogue some analysts have presented, Goebel did use some demagogic techniques. But in Kentucky politics that did not make him very different.

The audience he faced had tired of four years of Republican control and they saw Goebel seeking to redeem for the Democracy the office that was rightfully theirs. Uncertain Democrats wanted to be convinced that he was their man. Thus Goebel could have stressed common goals, healed wounds, and skirted divisive issues. But little in Goebel’s personality slowed his chosen course of attack. Attacking and fighting made the campaign easier for him. Goebel simply said the things he had been saying since entering politics a dozen years earlier. Only now the audience was not a few senators or a small Covington gathering, but a statewide one, and the stakes were much greater.

Goebel addressed voters who had experienced the greatest railroad rate discrimination, who had suffered most from falling prices. These people knew what Goebel was saying. As Thomas D. Clark noted: “They needed a political Joshua to lead them from the wilderness of Republicanism and railroad abuse into a Jericho of Democracy.” Their Joshua was William Goebel. Many Democratic voters, particularly small farmers, followed the path of free silver, railroad regulation, cheaper textbooks, and a return to Democratic control. Goebel aimed at these men when he gave unqualified support to the McChord railroad bill, the Chinn textbook bill, his own Election Law, and Blackburn’s return to the senate.

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