ABSTRACT
The Chicago convention, for which Grover Cleveland was the presidential candidate, took place in 1884. He and others considered press reports of his private life to be a shocking invasion of privacy, a wanton wallowing in gossip. No action is more contemptible and cowardly than to bring false charges against a candidate's private character in the brief and busy days of a campaign, and nobody but a dolt would pay attention to them or pretend to credit them if they come from wholly irresponsible and unworthy sources. In an era of politically connected newspapers that openly announced whether they were Republican or Democratic, editors split on how—or whether—to print the claims against the Democratic candidate. The Evening Post, which had told its readers five days earlier that everyone is entitled to some privacy, even specified which train car the couple would use.
