What Could Have Been – Maine Presidential Leadership Part III

Thomas Brackett Reed is one of the least known, and least talked about politicians from Maine. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had never heard of him – but interestingly he may be one of the most consequential of all statesmen from the Pine Tree State.

Explaining why is a difficult matter. But broken down succinctly, Reed, after becoming Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, increased the power and influence of the Speaker’s office dramatically. His efforts set the stage for his (once removed) successor, Joseph Gurney Cannon, to become the most powerful and influential Speaker of the House in the history of this country.

Reed was born in Portland, grew up in Maine, and attended Bowdoin College – graduating at the beginning of the Civil War.

A lawyer, he was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1868, and then later to the Maine Senate in 1870. He then was elevated to the position of Maine Attorney General that same year. In 1876 – the first year that James G. Blaine ran for President – Reed was elected to Congress.

Reed’s career in Congress was remarkable. He made a name immediately as a freshman during the aftermath of the contested 1876 election – he was an integral part of the house investigation of the election. As time went by, he rose to chair the Judiciary Committee, and became one of the most prominent Republicans in Congress. In 1888, when Republicans retook the House, an intense leadership fight ensued between Reed and future president William McKinley. Reed, backed by his friend Teddy Roosevelt, ended up edging out McKinley by a hair.

Interestingly, McKinley and Reeds futures would be intertwined in a number of ways. In 1890 he wrote the McKinley Tariff, which raised tariff rates to their highest level in history. This proved to be immensely popular to the country, and the voters punished Republicans by electing huge Democratic majorities that year (Democrats gained a whopping 89 seats), costing Reed his Speakership.

Ever the fighter, Reed was able to regain his position only four years later as the Republicans got their revenge by picking up van unbelievable 130 seats in what was the largest midterm election win in the history of the United States.

As Speaker, Reed introduced a number of procedural changes that aimed to strengthen legislative control by the majority party (and by extension, the Speaker), as well as increasing the power of the Rules Committee. These changes, known at the time as the “Reed Rules” were savagely attacked by his opponents, who labeled him “Czar Reed” – implying that he was a tyrannical leader.

But Reed had presidential aspirations, and made his move in 1896.

How it could have happened – In the late 1800s, party nominations for president were done much differently than they are today. There were no primaries, there was no mass media – there were delegates from the various states, and there were smoke filled back rooms.

Reed fell victim to a brilliant strategy by William McKinley. Mark Hanna, who would become McKinley’s campaign manager (and his day’s version of Karl Rove) had previously attended a speech by Reed, and came away from it feeling that Reed lacked the “stature” that McKinley had about him. Hanna then set of to work for McKinley’s nomination, and went on a barnstorming tour of the south, lobbying the particular delegations on McKinley’s behalf – a method that had never exactly been attempted before – and was able to lock up most of them for his candidate.

Reed had been outflanked. It wasn’t even a contest at the nominating convention – McKinley won on the first ballot and Reed never sniffed the White House again.

Thomas Reed would have had a tall order to have gained the nomination – it likely would have taken a clever political strategy that one-upped the Hanna strategy. Sadly, Reed was not an innovative political thinker, it seems, and was the victim to history.

Had he won the nomination, chances are extremely good he would have won the 1896 election. 1896 was what is generally considered a “re-aligning” election – though part of the reason it is considered that is because of the innovative campaign strategy by Hanna (namely, the fundraising of huge sums of money in the business community), and there is no guarantee Reed would have (or could have) matched that level of political innovation.

What a Reed Administration would have looked like – McKinley and Reed differed more in perception and style than in policy substance. For example, both men were staunch defenders of the gold standard – one of the biggest issues of the time – and it seems likely Reed would have pursued similar policies to McKinley in that regard.

Many of the events of the McKinley era were little more than historical forces that swept up public opinion and drove presidential decisions. The country recovered from the Panic of 1893 and returned to prosperity partly due to the economic policies of the Cleveland and McKinley administrations, but also party due to the natural fluctuations of the market and economy as well. The recovery drove popular opinion of McKinley, and would have also done so with Reed, who again, would have likely pursued very similar policies.

Also, the Spanish-American War was very much a matter of forces out of the control of the chief executive. Reed would have entered that conflict as well.

Interestingly, one of the lasting things that a Reed administration would have meant for the country was likely denying it Theodore Roosevelt.

McKinley chose Garret Hobart as his running mate in the 1896 election, and he died before he could finish out his term. For his re-election campaign, McKinley selected Teddy Roosevelt. When McKinley was assassinated, Roosevelt took over.

It seems highly unlikely that events would have transpired this way had Reed become president. First of all, Roosevelt was selected as McKinley’s Vice President in 1900 because the party wanted him out of the way. The post of Vice President at the time was seen as a worthless, do nothing office, and it was frequently where public figures went to die.

Reed and Roosevelt were friends, and Reed would probably have never tapped Roosevelt for such a worthless position. Instead, he likely would have installed him in an important cabinet position, or otherwise supported him for a future run for the presidency at some point in the future.

He also would probably not have tapped Hobart either. That would have stopped there ever having been a vacancy, and even if Reed would have selected Roosevelt to appease the party – he wouldn’t have had a chance because of the lack of vacancy.

Because of this, had Reed either survived the assassination attempt, or had he died, a radical, reformer politician would never have ascended to the White House, and an American political icon would have never gotten off the ground.

Next up: Edmund Muskie

Matthew Gagnon

About Matthew Gagnon

Matthew Gagnon, of Yarmouth, is the Chief Executive Officer of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a free market policy think tank based in Portland. Prior to Maine Heritage, he served as a senior strategist for the Republican Governors Association in Washington, D.C. Originally from Hampden, he has been involved with Maine politics for more than a decade.