Since 1890, Arkansas had been a classic Jim Crow Southern state in which most blacks and poor whites had been disfranchised by poll taxes.[1] This would confine significant Republican Party politics to the two UnionistOzark counties of Newton and Searcy that remained controlled by the GOP at a local level throughout the “Solid South” era.[2] Because the coinage of silver had been the dominant political issue apart from black disfranchisement ever since the poll tax was passed,[3] the state would powerfully back “free silver” Democrat William Jennings Bryan in 1896.[4] However, in the following elections disfranchisement affected poor whites more than blacks, with the result that the Republican Party became somewhat more competitive despite being still associated with Reconstruction.[5] Bryan would later win Arkansas again in 1900. The GOP was helped in the earlier 1900s elections by the view that 1904 Democratic nominee Alton B. Parker had betrayed Bryan with his support for the gold standard.[6]
By October polls made it clear that Arkansas would stay firmly with the “Solid South”,[7] and this is what was observed: indeed Bryan improved on Parker's 1904 margin, winning the state against William Howard Taft by a margin of 20.01% (up from Parker's 15.1% in 1904) despite the dislike of Bryan's retreat from free silver.
^Perman, Michael (April 3, 2003). Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888-1908. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 65. ISBN0807860255.
^See Urwin, Cathy Kunzinger (January 1991). Agenda for Reform: Winthrop Rockefeller as Governor of Arkansas, 1967-71. University of Arkansas Press. p. 32. ISBN1557282005.
^Dougan, Michael B. Arkansas Odyssey: The Saga of Arkansas from Prehistoric Times to Present: a History. pp. 305, 307. ISBN9780914546658.
^Niswonger, Richard L. (Spring 1975). "Arkansas and the Election of 1896". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 34 (1): 41–78. doi:10.2307/40027649. JSTOR40027649.
^Bemko, Dior Jurij (1991). From the new freedom to the New Deal: Southern politics, 1900-1932 (Thesis). Texas A&M University Press. p. 13. Docket 921682.
^Bemko. From the new freedom to the New Deal (Thesis), p. 15
^"Poll Gives Taft Lead of 27 Votes". Boston Globe. October 18, 1908. p. 1.
.jpg)
