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From Stalemate to Crisis

Brinkley text Chapter 19


● In the late 19th century, the United States

seems to have had another series of mediocre

leaders

● Seemed more concerned with irrelevant issues

than with the nation’s more serious problems

● This was a period of stalemate in which

dramatic changes were taking place, but the

leadership was doing little to affect them


● The two-party system was strong

● Republicans and Democrats were almost evenly matched, and there was a vigorous contest for power

● The conflict between them centered more on regional, ethnic and religious sentiments than the broader political and policy issues

● Party loyalty was strong on both sides


● At this point, the federal government did

comparatively little

● The only Cabinet departments were the

original line-up in 1789

● The Department of State, the Department of

War (later the Department of Defense), the

Department of the Treasury, and the Post

Office, and . . .


● The Department of the Interior (added in 1849)

● The Department of Agriculture (1862)

● Mostly, the federal government just . . .

● . . . delivered the mail,

● . . . maintained the national military,

● . . . conducted foreign policy,

● . . . and collected tariffs and taxes


● But there were exceptions

● Economic development was growing in

importance


● The federal government had been involved in

economic development for some time

● Subsidies to railroads, land grants

● Intervention on the side of “capitalism”

(management)

● Pensions for Civil War veterans and widows

● Some reformers hoped to make old-age

pensions available to all Americans


● Party patronage and corruption stalled reform

efforts

● The most powerful organizations were the

political parties (Party Bosses), not the national

government

● There were 100,000 presidential appointments

to be made with a very small staff


● Presidents had to try to avoid offending powerful party factions

● Rutherford B. Hayes (served 1877-1881)

● Competition between Half-Breeds (reform) and Stalwarts (machine politics) for control of the Republican Party


● 1880 Election:

● Republicans nominated James A. Garfield (Half-Breed) for President

● Chester A. Arthur (Stalwart) nominated for Vice-President

● Democrats nominated an unknown (Winfield Hancock)

● Garfield-Arthur won easily


● Four months into his

term, Garfield was

assassinated

● Shot by Charles

Guiteau, a lawyer and

disgruntled office

seeker

● Probably mentally

unbalanced


● Guiteau proclaimed,

● “I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! I did it and I

want to be arrested! Arthur is President now!”

● Guiteau got his wish, and was arrested

● He was hanged a year later.


● Garfield had advocated civil service reform

● Arthur had been a believer in the “Spoils

System”

● But Arthur supported Garfield’s civil service

reforms after Garfield’s death

● 1883: Pendleton Act required civil service

exams for some federal jobs

● Expanded over the years


● 1884 Election:

● James G. Blaine

(R) vs. Grover

Cleveland (D)

● Cleveland won

● More about

Cleveland later


● FARMERS’ GRIEVANCES:

● TIGHT MONEY – the government would not

issue “greenbacks,” but insisted on “coinage at

par” – printing only as much currency as gold

reserves in the treasury could support.

● UNFAIR BANK PRACTICES – banks gave

better interest rates to the wealthy


● (Farmers’ grievances, cont’d)

● RAILROADS – all railroad companies agreed

to give better freight rates to industries than to

farmers

● The Grange contended that since the land of

the United States belongs to “all of us,”

companies that had laid rails on that land

should be controlled by the government.


● When silver was discovered in Nevada in the

1870s the farmers’ alliances tried to convince

the federal government to back currency up

with silver as well as with gold (BI-

METALLISM)

● Congress refused.


● RACIAL GRIEVANCES:

● Two theories, and two styles of black leadership, emerged during this era

● BOOKER T. WASHINGTON: raised as a slave, he advocated patience in achieving social equality

● “Be content with where you are,” he advised young black people.


● W.E.B. Du Bois (du BOYCE)

● Son of a university-educated

black family in the North

● He advocated that the “10%” –

the academically gifted young

black people – should demand

nothing less than full

professional education and

admission to the professions

● This was the only true equality


● The White leadership tended to favor

Washington’s views

● The emerging black business class tended to

favor Du Bois’ strategy

● Black leaders were divided for the next 75

years of which tactic would be most effective


● Political parties did NOT reflect these divisions

in society as much as they reflected religious

and social affiliations

● E.g., there was not a political party in the

1880s and 1890s that represented minorities,

workers, or women

● Differences in the parties were much more

subtle.


● REPUBLICANS:

● Predominantly Northerners, white and black

● Remained loyal to the ideals of Lincoln, though they were not active in racial equality

● Industrialist

● Protestant, tended to appeal to native-born WASP

● Anti-immigration

● Pro-temperance


● DEMOCRATS:

● Generally Southerners

● Many invoked “The Lost Cause” of states’

rights and old-world Southern gentility

● Largely Catholic and immigrant

● Segregationist


● Republican presidents dominated from 1880-1912

● During this period,

● Republicans generally controlled the Senate

● Democrats controlled the House

● This arrangement was stable and predictable,

generally accepted by each party.

● That generalized acceptance of the status quo

mitigated against any dramatic social change


● One notable exception: Grover Cleveland

● A Democrat who earned a reputation as a

reformer

● Won in 1884 after his Republican opponent

rashly characterized Democrats as Catholics,

rebels, and drunkards


● As president, Cleveland worked to lower protective tariffs

● He felt that protective tariffs were unfair to ordinary people and helped industrialists too much.


● Cleveland’s re-election

campaign in 1888 was

fought over the tariff

● He lost a close (and

probably dishonest)

election in ’88 to

Benjamin Harrison


● Benjamin Harrison was a completely

unremarkable leader

● During his term many new sources of anger

among ordinary Americans appeared.

Benjamin Harrison

● Grandson of

President William

Henry Harrison (who

had served for four

weeks in 1841)

● Benjamin Harrison

was the last President

with a beard


● Congress passed the first Sherman Anti-

Trust Act in 1890

● It was not intended to do much other than

quiet the criticism of big businessmen

and their monopolies

● It was little-used for about ten years, and

was never very successful.


● Republicans under Harrison acted

quickly to re-instate the protective tariffs

that Cleveland had fought against

● The McKinley Tariff of 1890 benefited the

industrial tycoons greatly

● It was introduced by then-Representative

(later President) William McKinley


● The McKinley tariff was was the highest tariff ever

● It raised the average duty (tariff) to an average of almost fifty percent (50%)

● It was very unpopular among ordinary people

● It helped the Republicans lose their Congressional majority in 1892

● It also helped McKinley lose his Congressional seat


● Grover Cleveland returned to prominence after

this mid-term Republican defeat, in an “I-told-

you-so” frame of mind

● Even though he had lost a presidential election

for a second term in 1888, the Democrats

nominated him again in 1892

● He won, becoming the only president to serve

two non-consecutive terms

● So he was the 22nd and the 24th President


● Under Cleveland’s second term Congress

lowered the protective tariff somewhat

● Passed the Wilson-Gorman tariff over the

president’s weak objections.

● But Cleveland was by no means a general

reformer

● He did not believe that changing social policies

was any affair of the government


● Farmers were often victimized by industrialists

as well

● Striking, union formation and other forms of

collective action was more difficult for them

● The Grange and other Farmers’ Alliances

sprang up in the 1880s

● Farmers could state their grievances and use

politics to force government aid


● The Grange:

● Oliver Hudson Kelley of

the U.S. Department of

Agriculture made an

official trip through the

South


● He was astounded by

the lack of sound

agricultural practices

he encountered

● Helped form the

National Grange of

the Patrons of

Husbandry in 1867


● The Grange began as a

fraternal organization,

complete with its own

secret rituals.

● Local affiliates were known

as "granges" and the

members as "grangers.“

● In its early years, the

Grange was devoted to

educational events and

social gatherings


● The Grange grew slowly in the early years

● But the attraction of social events was

considerable

● Farm life in the 19th century was marked by a

tedium and isolation

● It usually was relieved only by church functions

and the weekly trips to town for supplies


● Following the Panic of 1873, the Grange

spread rapidly throughout the farm belt

● Farmers in all areas were plagued by low

prices for their products, growing indebtedness

and discriminatory treatment by the railroads

● These concerns helped to transform the

Grange into a political force


● During the 1870s, the Grangers advocated

● Cooperative purchasing to obtain lower prices

on farm equipment and supplies

● Pooling of savings to reduce dependence on

corrupt banks

● Cooperative grain elevators to hold non-

perishable crops until the optimal times to sell


● Mary Elizabeth Lease of

Kansas, one of the

nation's first female

attorneys, traveled to

Grange halls

● She urged the farmers to

"raise less corn and more

hell.”


● Such pleas went largely unheeded

● Most farmers preferred to blame the politicians,

judges and bankers for their plight

● As a result, the various groups who advocated

real reform (or who were consistently abused

by America’s majorities) had no hope of

assistance under the programs of either the

Democrat or the Republican parties

● But those problems did not go away.


● The Grange and the various Farmers’ Alliances

became more and more militant in demanding

government action to assist farmers

● They demanded laws to assist farmers in

getting bank loans, and to lower the rates

charged by railroad companies

● Farmers called these high freight rates

“thievery, legalized.”


● Out of the demands of farmers, workers, and other ordinary folk came a new political movement

● The People’s Party, commonly called The Populists.

● Populist leaders included farm advocate Mary E. Lease and Congressman Tom Watson of Georgia.


● Populism appealed to small town people, to

farmers, and to some among the working class

● They didn’t offer much for black citizens,

though many blacks followed them because

neither of the major parties offered them

anything, either

● The AFL stayed away from populism, claiming

it was “too radical” for them.


● Populism was a political force that was able to

connect small town people both in the North

and the South

● This was a geographic line neither of the major

two parties had ever been able to bridge

● Democrats in particular began to listen to the

Populist message, and to realize that many

voters were drawn to it.


● A continuing Populist call was for “free

coinage of silver,” as a means of ending the

currency problems of the country.

● Farmers at that time generally took out bank

loans at the start of the planting season,

planning to pay them back once the crop sold

● A farmer was thus “land poor” – his wealth was

in his crops, not in his pockets. Cash was

always short.


● Farmers and Populists saw printing more

paper dollars, or making silver one of the

economy’s official metals, as the answer to

their problems

● This showed a slight understanding of how

paper money works, but was still an appealing

idea to the Populists.


● The Republican Party scoffed at this new “bi-

metallist” theory. Silver was far too plentiful,

they argued; backing currency with silver would

ultimately water down the dollar’s worth

● Republicans and their industrialist constituents

favored what they called “hard money” – paper

money backed dollar-for-dollar with gold only.


● The “money question” became the big divide in

American politics during the 1890s

● Populists, for all the flaws in their economic

thinking, seemed to be the only political home

for small-town, rural Americans.


● Democrats realized the appeal of their ideas,

even though they were simplistic

● Democrat strategy began to envision a

different Democrat party that widened its

appeal to now include small town people in

North and South

● By mid-1890s, the Democrat party began to

resemble the Populist party in many ways.


● An economic panic in 1893 soon widened into

the worst depression the country had even

known at that point

● Several major companies went bankrupt, laid

off many workers, and sent the stock market

into a skid.


● Workers blamed the industrialists for the

problem, and also for taking out their losses on

the backs of their employees by laying them off

when times got tough.

● Industrialists blamed the “low tariff” policies of

the Cleveland administration, for not being

attentive enough to foreign competition and its

effect on domestic sales.


● Banks began to call in loans and were reluctant

to grant new ones, trying to safeguard their

assets in case the economy really did fail

completely.

● Over 8000 businesses failed, including a few of

the industrial giants

● Farm prices fell, as demand fell (because

workers could not afford to buy groceries.)


● Unemployment was over 20%.

● An Ohio Populist named Jacob Coxey led a

march of farmers and the unemployed on

Washington DC, to force Congress to come to

their aid

● “Coxey’s Army”

● Congress ignored them

● A revolt was brewing

Jacob Coxey


● Many Populists believed (incorrectly) that the

root of the Depression was a little-noticed

government action in 1873, by which Congress

agreed never to accept silver as any more than

1/16 of the treasury’s specie

● “Specie” = hard money, precious metal

● During the economic crisis of 1893, this 1873

action began to seem like a crime.


● Populists proclaimed that if only the government had accepted silver on a par with gold in ’73, the ’93 depression would not have happened.

● A Populist leader named William Jennings Bryan seized on this one fact, and hammered if often in his speeches

● Populists loved him for it, and the Democrat Party took note as well.


● Bryan was a

Scripture scholar and

part-time preacher

● He had a heart for

small town America

● And he had a sharp

sense of injustice.


● He said that

industrialists’ insistence

on “the gold standard” –

backing money only with

gold – resulted in the

“crucifixion of

America’s heartland”

upon a “cross of gold.”


● Populists nominated Bryan as their presidential

candidate in 1896

● They assumed that both of the major parties

would nominate “business-as-usual”

candidates

● They assumed that the Populist Bryan could

win an upset victory

● They saw him as the only candidate with

appeal to the mass of “ordinary people” voters.


● But the Democrats, seeing Bryan’s wild

popularity in 1896, nominated him as well

● Bryan accepted the nominations of both parties

● Neither the Populists nor the Democrats were

entirely comfortable with the people this dual-

nomination brought into their parties

● Some of the party faithful refused to accept

Bryan.


● And as a result, Bryan lost a very hard-fought

campaign in 1896 to William McKinley, who

advocated laissez-faire economic policies and

a high protective tariff

● The popular vote was fairly close (51.1%

McKinley - 47.7% Bryan)

● 4% difference between the candidates

● But McKinley won the wealthy, large states and

their high electoral vote counts.

William McKinley

William Jennings Bryan

● Bryan later argued for the prosecution in the 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial” against the famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow

● He won the case, but the trial put great strain on him

● He died five days later


● But while economic conservatism prevailed in

that election, the Populists did succeed in

changing the Democrat party forever in 1896

● Democrats continued to widen their appeal to

farmers and ordinary working class voters, and

eased very slowly into a growing comfort level

with the idea of social reform.


● But don’t assume that the voices for reform

were totally ineffective

● Supreme Court decisions during this time show

that the efforts toward equality for ordinary

people were having some effect, however

small.


● Bradwell v. Illinois

(1872)

● Myra Bradwell

graduated from law

school but was denied

the right to practice law

in Illinois


● The Illinois state supreme court had ruled

that men and women traditionally

operated in differing “spheres of

influence”

● The practice of law was not in the

woman’s “traditional sphere”

● Bradwell appealed the decision to the

United States Supreme Court


● Bradwell’s attorney argued that Illinois’ action

violated her rights under the 14th amendment

● Illinois counter-argued that the 14th amendment

did not specifically include a state’s privilege

under the Constitution to grant (or not grant)

law licenses

● A law license was not a “civil right.”


● The Court agreed with Bradwell by a 4-3 vote

● 3 Supreme Court justices agreed with the that

of Illinois that God did not want women to

practice law

● Bradwell was admitted to the Illinois bar

● She eventually won a federal license in 1892 to

practice in the Supreme Court.


● Back to the Grange . . .

● Grange influence was particularly strong in

Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois

● Political pressure yielded a series of "Granger

laws" designed to give legislative assistance to

the farmers

● Initially, they were successful


● Munn v. Illinois (1877)

● Munn was one of the so-called Grange cases, resulting from Grange activism regarding the railroads.

● The State of Illinois, acting under pressure from reform groups, had regulated the amount a grain storage facility could charge farmers to store their grain while awaiting shipment via railroad.


● Grain storage facilities (called “grain elevators”

in those days) were generally owned and

operated by railroads

● Because railroads didn’t want to do business

with farmers because of the high risk of

spoilage to this kind of freight, the railroads

charged farmers a premium price to store grain

until shipment.


● Illinois was a farm state where many Populist-minded legislators served in the state legislature

● The Illinois legislature in 1876 mandated a maximum storage rate

● Munn, who operated a grain elevator, sued the state for “depriving him of his property [potential profit] without due process” – a 14th

amendment violation.


● The Supreme Court ruled against Munn, and in

favor of the Illinois price controls

● Grain elevators, said the Court, are widely

used by the public and because of that the

legislature has a right to regulate them.

● Munn was one of the first cases approving

government regulation of railroads


● Munn is considered a watershed

● “Watershed” = a turning point, a point after

which everything was different

● But a counteroffensive by the railroads brought

the Wabash case, which wiped out some of the

gains


● Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railroads v.

Illinois (1886)

● This powerful combination of railroad interests

in Illinois sued the state in 1886 to protest state

regulation of shipping rates on railroads

● It might have been expected that the Court

would revert to the position it had taken with

Munn v. Illinois.


● But the Court did not

● It didn’t overturn Munn, either

● But it did state that the Wabash case was not like Munn

● Munn applied only to grain elevators inside of the state (intrastate commerce)

● In Wabash, the shipping rate regulations were applied to interstate commerce


● In other words, the Supreme Court said that

Illinois’ regulation of interstate commerce was

unconstitutional

● Reason: only the Congress could regulate

interstate commerce (traffic between states)

● You may even remember Gibbons v. Ogden

(1824) from Chapter 7


● The Wabash decision discouraged any further

state attempts to regulate railroads, at least for

a while

● But the suits that came before the Supreme

Court during the Populist era showed that large

numbers of people were beginning to demand

relief from unfair corporate practices.


● Congress responded in 1887 with the

Interstate Commerce Act

● It created an Interstate Commerce Commission

(ICC)

● The ICC had oversight authority over railroads,

canals, etc.

● And any other public conveyance that was

involved in interstate commerce.


● ICC rules were somewhat vague:

● Shipping rates had to be “reasonable and just,”

but were not specific about just exactly what

that meant.

● Rates had to be made public

● Secret kickbacks called rebates were outlawed

● Prices could not be structured in a way that

discriminated against “small markets.”


● The ICC was given authority to investigate and

prosecute suspected abuses and violations

● However, Congress did not appropriate

enough money for the ICC to do an effective

job


● President McKinley further weakened the

Commission by appointing pro-railroad men to

it

● Still, the precedent favoring some kind of

regulation had begun.

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