As part of our ongoing series Stumping and Eating, the role of food in elections, we turn to Ohio and Missouri. In the summer of 1876, former Union general during the Civil War, James A Garfield, delivered a stump speech in Cleveland Ohio. He said, “I stand today before you not to defend the shortcomings of the Republican Party, but because I see in that party the only means to guard the country against ruin.” He called national debt and corrupt public officials as the two greatest evils that the country faced. Garfield said, it takes a courageous politician to cut off family and friends seeking political patronage. On around the same date Democratic Party operatives in Missouri kicked off their gubernatorial campaign with a political barbecue that approximately to 5000 people attended. Those who attended gorged on meat and in exchange for listening to political speeches.
