Artifact of the Month: 1896 presidential campaign pins

By Richard I. Gibson

The presidential election of 1896 was among the most hard-fought and complex in U.S. history, and Butte had a vested interest in it.

The issue that mattered was gold vs. silver. Republicans, with William McKinley at the head of the ticket, strongly supported the gold standard, while William Jennings Bryan’s pro-silver platform attracted disgruntled western Republicans who had split to form the National Silver Party. In the run-up to the political conventions there were also “gold Democrats” but Bryan, thanks in part to his oratory and “Cross of Gold” speech, was nominated—but he was also on the Populist Party ticket with a different vice-presidential running mate.

Bryan advocated “free silver,” or bimetallism, and use of silver for coinage in the ratio of 16 to 1 (16 ounces of silver to one of gold), when the de facto ratio was about 32 to 1. This was just three years after the Panic of 1893 had resulted in a crash in the price of silver, decimating many mining communities including Philipsburg. It impacted Butte significantly.

A complication for Butte was that unions were leery of the inflationary silver policies embraced by Bryan, but on the whole miners favored his approach. Ultimately, Bryan carried most western mining states by large margins. In Montana, he gained nearly 80% of the vote. Bryan won 22 states, and margins in others were close enough that the decision was not clear until late Thursday following the Tuesday election, but William McKinley was the national winner, both in the Electoral College and in the popular vote. Bryan, in a successful attempt to woo farmers, alienated city residents with lines like "Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again; but destroy our farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country." Most urban areas voted overwhelmingly for McKinley.

The Butte Miner repeatedly endorsed Bryan, and while the outcome was in doubt cheered his huge victory in Montana.

Some of the most interesting campaign pins in American history came from the 1896 presidential contest, and the World Museum of Mining has several in its collection. The lapel pins here reflect both the “gold bugs” who supported McKinley and Bryan’s “silver bugs.” The silver bug pin (upper left in the photo at top) bears Bryan’s image and the words “free silver” and “16 to 1,” while the gold bug (upper right) contains McKinley’s photo and the words “sound money.” The pitchfork, with “Bryan and Sewall” on the haft, impales three gold bugs labeled “McK-R-H” for McKinley, Republicans, and Hobart, McKinley’s running mate.

Nearly identical pins were made for each party. Those in gold were for Republicans and those in silver were for Democrats. The gold flag (upper left in the lower photo of pins, at right) would have been worn by a McKinley supporter, while the articulated folding pair of silver flags contains images of Bryan and his running-mate Arthur Sewall. The lower button is from the 1900 presidential campaign when Bryan (left) ran with Adlai Stevenson, vice-president under Grover Cleveland and grandfather of Adlai Stevenson II, unsuccessful presidential candidate against Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.

Despite the political failure of the silver campaign, the metal remained useful and valuable. Butte’s cumulative silver production of around 750,000,000 ounces probably ranks it as the third-largest silver producer in the world, after #1 Potosi, Bolivia, and the Kellogg-Coeur d’Alene district of Idaho. The Orphan Girl Mine, where the World Museum of Mining stands today, produced about 7,500,000 ounces of silver on its own before it closed in 1956.

Artifact of the Month: Smoke flues

East part of proposed smoke flue to a proposed stack on the tip of Rampart Mountain. 1892.

By Richard I. Gibson
(click any image to enlarge)

B and M Meaderville smelter,
start of 5300-foot flue.

The Boston and Montana Mining Company was organized in 1887 by Albert Bigelow of Boston and the Lewisohn brothers of New York, early partners with Charles Meader (for whom Meaderville was named). They grew to become one of the largest copper mining companies in the United States before being acquired by the Amalgamated in 1899-1901, and the Amalgamated ultimately became the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. But in the early 1890s, the Boston and Montana was a major player in the Smoke Wars.

It was said in 1890 that Butte contained just four living trees—thanks to the need for timber in mine tunnels, wood to construct houses, fuel for smelters, and death of trees by toxic fumes. The problem of heap roasting was huge in the early 1890s because of the sulfurous and arsenical smoke that sometimes reduced visibility on Butte streets to a half block. That process was simple: dig a pit, put some fuel in it, pile sulfide ore on top, and set on fire. It reduced the ore somewhat, a crude (and cheap) means of concentrating ore prior to smelting in a real blast furnace. The B&M used it to improve efficiency (i.e., to reduce costs) in shipping of Butte ore to their new smelter in Great Falls, but the smoke and fumes it put into Butte’s air were killing people at an alarming rate—eleven deaths in nine days during one bad inversion. The rich went to California; those who could afford it took rooms in Walkerville, above the smoke. 

Proposed 3650-foot flue to Timber Butte
(with 2850-foot branch to Reduction Works).

The city passed the first Smoke Ordinance on December 17, 1890, banning open-air roasting and mandating tall stacks to disperse the smoke. B&M’s superintendent, Captain Thomas Couch, with backing from officers in Boston, essentially ignored the law. Increasing rhetoric from Mayor Henry Mueller, the city council, and Anaconda Standard editorials had no effect. As the November 1891 smoke season began, the Standard labeled the conflict “the war of wealth against health.” Nothing changed.

Double-tunnel flue system

Plans of various sorts were devised, which in all likelihood were little more than lip service to the demands of the people and the city government. In the face of a 60% increase in Butte copper production between 1890 and 1892, “wealth” basically won out. The smoke problem continued for another decade, until in the early 1900s heap roasting finally ended and ores were shipped directly to smelters in Anaconda and Great Falls. In 1906, only two smelters still operated in Butte, Clark’s and the Pittsmont, both of which dispersed their fumes with tall stacks.

Single-tunnel flue

The January 1892 plans shown here are part of the World Museum of Mining collection. They reflect a grand idea to build nearly 12,000 feet of brick flues 8 to 12 feet across to transport smoke to stacks on two high points, Timber Butte for the Colorado Smelter and the tip of Rampart Mountain for the Boston and Montana Smelter in Meaderville. The flues would have cost $32 or $33 per foot, nearly $390,000 in dollars of the day. Not a single foot was ever constructed.

References: The Battle for Butte, by Michael Malone, 2006 (p. 48); Smoke Wars, by Donald MacMillan, 2000 (p. 63-81). There's another Boston & Montana connection in this post.