Talk:1898 United States Senate elections in Ohio

Why was Sherman chosen as Secretary of State
Our article on John Sherman states: "'In 1897, newly elected President William McKinley appointed Sherman Secretary of State. Selected more for his high standing inside the Republican Party than any diplomatic experience, Sherman proved to be ineffective in the position and in 1898, McKinley replaced Sherman with Assistant Secretary of State William R. Day.' (emphasis mine)."

While Sherman of course had no previous experience in the state department, he did serve on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and therefore must have been at least slightly knowledgeable about foreign affairs. Since this article is active and on a related subject, I thought I would ask my question here: is the quoted statement accurate? Could we improve it somehow? NW ( Talk ) 13:07, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, he wasn't McKinley's first choice, McKinley wanted Iowa Senator William B. Allison. We don't know McKinley's full motivations, but it looks like he wanted Sherman in the Senate (where he could govern Ohio's patronage and frustrate Foraker), Allison as Secretary of State, and Hanna as Postmaster General. Allison turned it down, and Hanna wanted to be a senator. The problem with Sherman at the time is that he was slowly becoming senile. McKinley did not believe this even though it was widely talked about in political circles. His ineffectiveness was due to that. Had, say, Harrison appointed Sherman instead of Blaine as Secretary of State in 1889, there is no reason to believe he would have done anything other than a fine job, as he did as Secretary of the Treasury under Hayes. It could probably be improved, but to do it almost requires several paragraphs of discussion. I think I've treated it most fully at Mark Hanna, though there is also some discussion at William McKinley.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:23, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Navigation template
The "Elections in Ohio" sidebar is an unnecessary distraction near the top of the article. Should not navigation templates like this appear at the foot of the page? It is not necessary, in this well-focused article, to put before the text links to lists of (for example) municipal elections in three large cities. Kablammo (talk) 11:45, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * No objection.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:37, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The mechanics of template creation are a mystery to me, so I have requested assistance at Template_talk:ElectionsOH. In the meantime I am removing the existing template; someone looking for similar subjects can go to the categories.  If anyone thinks the presence of the current template is important they can of course revert me.  Kablammo (talk) 15:18, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20040111001745/http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=detail&Page=006010.html&StartPage=10&EndPage=19&volume=60&notes=&newtitle=Volume%2060%20Page%2010 to http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=detail&Page=006010.html&StartPage=10&EndPage=19&volume=60&notes=&newtitle=Volume%2060%20Page%2010
 * Added tag to http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=detail&Page=0079138.html&StartPage=138&EndPage=151&volume=79&notes=&newtitle=Volume%2079%20Page%20138

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Bibliography section
I changed the "Bibliography" section to a subsection. This is a relatively minor adjustment, but as a section this title is usually placed first in the appendixes related to biographies or named "Works or publications", "Discography", or "Filmography", per MOS:BIB. Using a separate source related "Bibliography" section is out of place, confusing, and not consistent with a majority of other articles. We commonly practice placing relate subjects in a subsection so it seems appropriate to follow this with source links (generally listed), and links providing inline text-source integrity, that combined form the citations. Otr500 (talk) 19:45, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Flag in infobox anachronism
Should the flag of Ohio in the infobox be removed as it is not historically accurate to the date, as the flag was adopted in 1902, 4 years after the election took place? Politicsfan4 (talk) 18:52, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If you can figure out a way of doing it without causing a redlink in the template, feel free.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:44, 24 November 2020 (UTC)