Alva Review-Courier -

In the late 19th century, most people who lived on the Great Plains were Republicans. This was so for several reasons.

Most of these settlers had migrated to the area from northern states or directly from Europe. They preferred the GOP because they associated the Democratic Party with the South and slavery.

Encouraged by Republican Party leaders, many Americans blamed the Civil War on the Democratic Party’s defense of slavery and slaveholders.

Typically, in the late 19th century, Republican candidates symbolically “waved the bloody shirt” (that is, the shirt of a fallen soldier) by constantly reminding voters of the Civil War – and charging that Democrats were responsible for that bloody conflict.

Another reason for the voters on the Great Plains to support the GOP was because Republicans had passed the Homestead Act, giving land to settlers, and several laws funding the building of railroads across the Great Plains on their way to the country’s east and west coasts.

At any rate, Oklahoma voters followed the national trend. As we have seen previously, the elections for Oklahoma’s one delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives had gone to the Republicans in the territory’s first three elections: 1890, 1892 and 1894.

But in 1896, Oklahomans – like other voters on the Great Plains – abandoned the GOP and voted for a combined Democratic Party/third party candidate.

When it comes to politics in the United States, we have long had a “two-party tradition” since the first two parties were founded in the last decade of the 18th century by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

So-called “third party” (or “minor party) candidates rarely do well in trying to challenge the Republicans and the Democrats.

But the 1890s saw the emergence of a fairly successful third party, fueled in part by Great Plains Republicans who were fed up with a federal government that did not seem to care about the issues that were affecting these pioneers’ lives.

This discontent among voters resulted in Oklahoma electing its only non-Republican delegate to Congress – as we will see next week.