The Presidential Election of 1884 and the Greatest Party South Bend Had Ever Seen
When James Blaine came to town, South Bend turned out for him in a big way
BY AARON HELMAN // POSTED OCTOBER 12, 2024
It was October 18, 1884.
The Republican newspapers in South Bend didn't believe in jinxes and they certainly weren't worried about what might happen if they counted their chickens before they were hatched. As the city approached the largest human gathering in its young history, they were bold with their headlines, issuing predictions as proclamations and making projections as matters of fact.
James Blaine was coming to South Bend just two weeks ahead of the election, but according to the Tribune, he was already the “coming President of the United States.” It was the highest profile visit South Bend had ever seen. The city was about to party like it never had before.
You're forgiven if you've forgotten about the candidacy of James Blaine. American history has a way of forgetting the also-rans, but in this case it's a real shame. According to one poll, James Blaine is the fourth-most important American politician who never became President. Even though he lost that 1884 election, James Blaine had a life and legacy worth remembering.
Maybe that's why South Bend threw him a celebration he'd never forget.
James Blaine arrived at the 1884 campaign with as thorough a resume as any candidate could hope for. He'd spent 13 years in the House, served a term in the Senate and was Secretary of State under President James Garfield. Blaine was at the President's side when Garfield was assassinated.
South Benders saw Blaine as an echo of its own Schuyler Colfax, and in almost every way, they were right. Blaine was a Whig before he was a Republican and the editor of a partisan newspaper before he was a politician. When Colfax ascended to the Vice Presidency, it was James Blaine who took on Colfax's role as Speaker of the House.
The pair shared similar priorities and even slogged through similar controversies. Just like Colfax, Blaine had been implicated by rumor or by fact in the Credit Mobilier Scandal.
Blaine's problems didn't end there. He was also implicated in another railroad trading scandal a few years later, and this one had more teeth to it. whispers of scandals would hound Blaine throughout his career and loomed ominously over his 1884 Presidential campaign. His opponents called him the “magnetic” Blaine because of the way controversy seemed to stick to him.
But those whispers were nowhere to be heard in South Bend, during that strange time in history when the city was a firmly Republican stronghold in an otherwise Democrat state.
Eight years before he earned the Republican nomination, James Blaine earned himself a nickname as America's “Plumed Knight.” It's not certain what the term was supposed to mean or why it stuck, but for the remainder of his life, Blaine was inseparable from the sobriquet.
South Bend was pretty keen on it too.
When Blaine's train rolled into South Bend, the city had organized an escort of Plumed Knights to greet him upon his arrival. Dozens of prominent South Benders dressed in black suits, white belts, and plumed helmets formed a gauntlet between the train depot and Blaine's carriage. Blaine's stepped from the passenger car to the celebratory booms of cannons, the waving of flags, and the cheers of as many as 40,000 people from all over the region. Besides the Plumed Knights, there were also 36 young women dressed in fairy whites, one for each state.
Homes and businesses were decorated for the occasion. Warm rays from the October sun shone upon a sea of flags at the Studebaker factory, shined proudly upon a legion of Chinese lanterns at the Oliver home. Clem Studebaker commissioned topiaries for his home special for the occasion.
A carriage procession featuring Blaine and his entourage, South Bend's Republican leadership, and the city's business elite lasted for 90 minutes before the speeches began.
The Tribune's praise was enthusiastic, to put it mildly, saying of Blaine that:
“A nobler specimen of manhood it would be difficult to find, standing erect in the full prime of a glorious life, his full beard, moustache and hair silvered with the frosts that touch us all when the half century of life is reached.”
