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by Charles Ramsdell Lingley

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Title: The United States Since The Civil War

Author: Charles Ramsdell Lingley

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THE UNITED STATES

SINCE THE CIVIL WAR


By

CHARLES RAMSDELL LINGLEY
Professor of History, Dartmouth College.


TO MY WIFE


1920.




PREFACE

To write an account of the history of the United States since the
Civil War without bias, without misstatements of fact and without the
omission of matters that ought to be included, would be to perform a
miracle. I have felt no wonder-working near me. I can claim only to
have attempted to overcome the natural limitations of having been
brought up in a particular region and with a traditional political,
economic and social philosophy. I have tried to present as many sides
of every question as the limitations of space permitted and to look
sympathetically upon every section, every party and every individual,
because the sympathetic critic seems to me most likely to discover the
truth.

It used to be believed that history could not be written until at
least half a century had elapsed after the events which were to be
chronicled. It is of course true that only after the lapse of time
can students gain access to ample documentary material, rid themselves
of partisan prejudice and attain the necessary perspective. Unhappily,
however, the citizen who takes part in public affairs or who votes in
a political campaign cannot wait for the labors of half a century. He
must judge on the basis of whatever facts he can find near at hand.
Next to a balanced intelligence, the greatest need of the citizen in
the performance of his political duties is a substantial knowledge
of the recent past of public problems. It is impossible to give a
sensible opinion upon the transportation problem, the relation between
government and industry, international relations, current politics, the
leaders in public affairs, and other peculiarly American interests
without some understanding of the United States since the Civil War. I
have tried in a small way to make some of this information conveniently
available without attempting to beguile myself or others into the
belief that I have written with the accuracy that will characterize
later work.

Some day somebody will delineate the _spiritual_ history of America
since the Civil War--the compound of tradition, discontent,
aspiration, idealism, materialism, selfishness, and hope that mark the
floundering progress of these United States through the last half
century. He will read widely, ponder deeply, and tune his spirit with
care to the task which he undertakes. I have not attempted this phase
of our history, yet I believe that no account is complete without it.

I have drawn heavily on others who have written in this field--Andrews,
Beard, Paxson and Peck, and especially on the volumes written for the
American Nation series by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, Latané
and Ogg. Haworth's _United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_, was
unfortunately printed too late to give me the benefit of the author's
well-known scholarship. Many friends have generously assisted me. My
colleagues, Professors F.A. Updyke, C.A. Phillips, G.R. Wicker, H.D.
Dozier, and Malcolm Keir have read the manuscript of individual
chapters. Professor E.E. Day of Harvard University gave me his counsel
on several economic topics. Professor George H. Haynes of the Worcester
Polytechnic Institute, Professor B.B. Kendrick of Columbia University,
Professor W.T. Root of the University of Wisconsin, and Professors L.B.
Richardson and F.M. Anderson of Dartmouth College have read the entire
manuscript. Officials at the Dartmouth College Library, the Columbia
University Library, and the Library of Congress gave me especial
facilities for work. Two college generations of students at Dartmouth
have suffered me to try out on them the arrangement of the chapters as
well as the contents of the text. Harper and Bros. allowed me to use a
map appearing in Ogg, _National Progress_, and D. Appleton and Co. have
permitted the use of maps appearing in Johnson and Van Metre,
_Principles of Railroad Transportation_; A.J. Nystrom and Co. and the
McKinley Publishing Co. have allowed me to draw new maps on outlines
copyrighted by them. At all points I have had the counsel of my wife
and of Professor Max Farrand of Yale University.

CHARLES R. LINGLEY.
Dartmouth College, June 14, 1920.




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

    I RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
   II IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
  III ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
   IV POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
    V THE NEW ISSUES
   VI THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
  VII THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
 VIII THE OVERTURN OF 1884
   IX TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
    X EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
   XI INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
  XII DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
 XIII THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
  XIV THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
   XV MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
  XVI 1896
 XVII REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
XVIII IMPERIALISM
  XIX THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
   XX THEODORE ROOSEVELT
  XXI POLITICS, 1908-1912
 XXII ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
XXIII LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
 XXIV WOODROW WILSON
  XXV THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR

INDEX




MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

The growth of the United States from 1776 to 1867

Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868 to 1896

Economic interests, 1890

Relative prices, 1865 to 1890

The New West

Railroad mileage, 1860 to 1910, in thousands of miles

Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870

Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890 (The maps showing
the railroads are from Johnson and Van Metre, Principles of Railroad
Transportation, by courtesy of the publishers, D. Appleton & Co.)

Financial operations, 1875 to 1897, in millions of dollars

Total silver coinage, 1878 to 1894, in millions of dollars

Net gold in the treasury, by months, January, 1893, to February,
1896, in millions of dollars

The presidential election of 1896

The Philippines

The Spanish-American War in the West Indies

Campaign about Santiago

The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States

The cost of food, 1900 to 1912

Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900

Daily newspaper circulation, 1918

Election of 1904 by counties

Caribbean interests of the United States

Election of 1916 by counties

The Western Front

Strength of the American Expeditionary Force, July 1, 1917, to
November 1, 1918

The United States--1920

The cost of food, January, 1913, to January, 1920




CHAPTER I


RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH

Abraham Lincoln in the presidential chair was regarded by many of the
politicians of his party as an "unutterable calamity"; and while the
news of Lincoln's assassination was received with expressions of genuine
grief, the accession of Vice-President Andrew Johnson was looked upon as
a "Godsend to the country." As the Civil War came to a close, Lincoln
opposed severe punishments for the leaders of the Confederacy; he urged
respect for the rights of the southern people; he desired to recognize
the existence of a Union element in the South, to restore the states to
their usual relations with as little ill-feeling as possible, and in the
restoration process to interfere but little with the normal powers of
the states. Johnson, on the contrary, "breathed fire and hemp."
"Treason," he asserted over and again, "should be made odious, and
traitors must be punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must
be seized, and divided into small farms and sold to honest, industrious
men." For a time it seemed that the curtain would go down on the tragedy
of Civil War only to rise immediately on the execution of the
Confederate leaders and the confiscation of their property. A large and
active group of Washington politicians believed in the necessity of a
stern accounting with the "rebels." Lincoln's gentleness seemed to these
bitter northerners like a calamity; Johnson's vindictiveness like a
Godsend to the country. In the conflict between the policy of clemency
and the policy of severity is to be found the beginning of the period of
reconstruction.

Andrew Johnson was a compact, sturdy figure, his eyes black, his
complexion swarthy. In politics he had always been a Democrat. So
diverse were his characteristics that one is tempted to ascribe two
personalities to him. He was a tenacious man, possessed of a rude
intellectual force, a rough-and-ready stump speaker, intensely loyal,
industrious, sincere, self-reliant. His courage was put to the test
again and again, and nobody ever said that it failed. His loyalty held
him in the Union in 1861, although he was a senator from Tennessee and
his state as well as his southern colleagues were withdrawing. His
public and private integrity withstood a hostile investigation that
included the testimony of all strata of society, from cabinet officers
to felons in prison. Later, at the most critical moment of his whole
career, when he had hardly a friend on whom to lean, he was unflurried,
dignified, undismayed.

Although Johnson was born in North Carolina, the greater part of his
life was spent in eastern Tennessee. His education was of the slightest.
His wife taught him to write, and while he plied his tailor's trade she
read books to him that appealed to his eager intellect. When scarcely of
voting age he became mayor of the town in which he lived and by sheer
force of character made his way up into the state legislature, the
federal House of Representatives and the Senate. President Lincoln made
him military governor of Tennessee in 1862. In 1864 many Democrats and
most Republicans joined to form a Union party, and in order to emphasize
its non-sectional and non-partisan character they nominated Andrew
Johnson as Lincoln's running mate. And now this unschooled, poor-white,
slave-holding, Jeffersonian, states-rights Democrat had become President
of the United States.

It was scarcely to be expected that a man who had fought his way to the
fore in eastern Tennessee during those controversial years would possess
the characteristics of a diplomat. Even his friends found him
uncommunicative, too often defiant and violent in controversy,
irritating in manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the
management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were
dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power,
but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when
speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were
all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and
"Bully for you, Andy!" giving the presidency the "ill-savor of a corner
grocery" and filling his supporters with amazement and chagrin. The
North soon looked upon him as a vulgar boor and remembered that he had
been intoxicated when inaugurated as Vice-President. Unhappily, too, he
was distrustful by nature, giving his confidence reluctantly and with
reserve, so that he was almost without friends or spokesmen in either
house of Congress. His policies have commended themselves, on the whole,
even after the scrutiny of half a century. The extent to which he was
able to put them into effect is part of the history of reconstruction.

The close of the Civil War found the nation as well as the several
sections of the country facing a variety of complicated and pressing
social, economic and political problems. Vast armies had to be
demobilized and re-absorbed into the economic life of the nation.
Production of the material of war had to give way to the production of
machinery, the building of railroads and the tilling of the soil. The
South faced economic demoralization. The federal government had to
determine the basis on which the lately rebellious states should again
become normal units in the nation, and the civil, social and economic
status of the negro had to be readjusted in the light of the outcome of
the war. Most of these problems, moreover, had to be solved through
political agencies, such as party conventions and legislatures, with all
the limitations of partisanship that these terms convey. And they had
obviously to be solved through human beings possessed of all the
prejudices and passions that the war had aroused: through Andrew Johnson
with his force and tactlessness; through able, domineering and
vindictive Thaddeus Stevens; through narrow and idealistic Charles
Sumner and demagogic Benjamin F. Butler; as well as through finer
spirits like William Pitt Fessenden and Lyman Trumbull.

In their attitude toward the South, the people of the North, as well as
the politicians, fell into two groups. The smaller or radical party
desired a stern reckoning with all "rebels" and the imprisonment and
execution of the leaders.[1] They hoped, also, to effect an immediate
extension to the negroes of the right to vote. It was this faction that
welcomed the accession of Johnson to the Presidency. The other group was
much the larger and was inclined toward gentler measures and toward
leaving the question of suffrage largely for the future. Lincoln and his
Secretary of State, Seward, were representative of this party. The
attitude of the South toward the North was more difficult to determine.
To be sure the rebellious states were beaten, and recognized the fact.
There was general admission that slavery was at an end. But careful
observers differed as to whether the South accepted its defeat in good
faith and would treat the blacks justly, or whether it was sullen,
unrepentant and ready to adopt any measures short of actual slavery to
repress the negro.

In theory, the union of the states was still intact. The South had
attempted to secede and had failed. Practically, however, the southern
states were out of connection with the remainder of the nation and some
method must be found of reconstructing the broken federation. President
Lincoln had already outlined a plan in his proclamation of December 8,
1863. Excluding the leaders of the Confederacy, he offered pardon to all
others who had participated in the rebellion, if they would take an oath
of loyalty to the Union and agree to accept the laws and proclamations
concerning slavery. As soon as the number of citizens thus pardoned in
each state reached ten per cent. of the number of votes cast in that
state at the election of 1860, they might establish a government which
he would recognize. It was his expectation that a loyal body of
reconstructed voters would collect around this nucleus, so that in no
great while the entire South would be restored to normal relations. At
the same time he called attention to the fact that under the
Constitution the admission into Congress of senators and representatives
sent by these governments must rest exclusively with the houses of
Congress themselves. In pursuance of his policy he had already appointed
military governors in states where the federal army had secured a
foothold, and they directed the re-establishment of civil government.
The radicals opposed the plan because it left much power, including the
question of negro suffrage, in the hands of the states. A contest
between Congress and the executive was clearly imminent when the
assassin's bullet removed the patient and conciliatory Lincoln.

Lincoln's determination to leave control over their restoration as far
as possible in the hands of the states was in line with Johnson's
Democratic, states-rights theories. Moreover, the new executive retained
his predecessor's cabinet, including Seward, whose influence was
promptly thrown on the side of moderation. To the consternation of the
radicals the President issued a proclamation announcing a reconstruction
policy which substantially followed that of Lincoln. Like his
predecessor he intended to confine the voting power to the whites,
leaving to the states themselves the question whether the ballot should
be extended to any of the blacks. Wherever Lincoln had not already
acted, he appointed military governors who directed the establishment of
state governments, the revival of the functions of county and municipal
officials, the repeal of the acts of secession, the repudiation of the
war debts, and the election of new state legislatures, governors,
senators and representatives. The Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified by the new legislatures
and declared in effect December 18, 1865.

During the last half of the year, the President's policy met with wide
approval among the people of the North, where both Republicans and
Democrats expressed satisfaction with his conciliatory attitude. The
South was not unpleased, as was indicated by the speed with which men
presented themselves for pardon and assisted in setting up new state
governments. Nevertheless there were disquieting possibilities of
dissension. Northern radicals could be counted upon to oppose so
moderate a policy. There was a reaction, too, against the great power
which the executive arm of the government had exercised in war time.
Congress felt that it had been thrust aside, its functions reduced and
its prestige diminished. It could be looked to for an assertion of its
desire to dominate reconstruction. Finally when ex-confederates began to
be elected to office, many a northerner shook his head and wondered
whether the South was attempting to get into the saddle once more.

When Congress convened in December, 1865, its members held a wide
variety of opinions in regard to the best method of restoring the
confederate states to the Union. On one point, however, there was some
agreement--that Congress ought to withhold approval of executive
reconstruction until it could decide upon a program of its own. Led by
Thaddeus Stevens, the radical leader of the House, a joint congressional
committee of fifteen was appointed to report whether any of the southern
state governments were entitled to representation in Congress. For the
present, all of them, even the President's own state, were to be denied
representation. With Stevens as chairman of the House Committee on
Reconstruction and Johnson in the President's chair, a battle was
inevitable, in which quarter would be neither asked nor given.

Unhappily for themselves, the southern states played unwittingly into
the hands of Stevens and his radical colleagues. The outcome of the war
had placed upon the freedmen responsibilities which they could not be
expected to carry. To many of them emancipation meant merely cessation
from work. Vagabondage was common. Rumor was widespread that the
government was going to give each negro forty acres of land and a mule,
and the blacks loafed about, awaiting the division. The strict
regulations which had surrounded the former slave were discarded and it
was necessary to accustom him to a new regime. "The race was free, but
without status, without leaders, without property, and without
education." Fully alive to the dangers of giving unrestricted freedom
to so large a body of ignorant negroes, the southern whites passed the
"black codes," which placed numerous limitations on the civil liberty
of "persons of color." In some cases they were forbidden to carry arms,
to act as witnesses in court except in cases involving their own race,
and to serve on juries or in the militia. Vagrancy laws enabled the
magistrates to set unemployed blacks at work under arrangements that
amounted almost to peonage. It is now evident that the South was
actuated by what it considered the necessities of its situation and
not merely by a spirit of defiance. Yet the fear on the part of the
North that slavery was being restored under a disguise was not
unnatural. Radical northern newspapers and leading extremists in Congress
exaggerated the importance of the codes until they seemed like a
systematic attempt to evade the results of the war. As Republican
leaders in Congress saw the satisfaction created in the South by the
President's policy, and discovered that northern Democrats were rallying
to his support, the jealousies of partisanship caused them still further
to increase their grip on the processes of reconstruction. A disquieting
by-product of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, also began
to appear. Hitherto only three-fifths of the negroes had been counted in
apportioning representation in the House of Representatives. As soon as
the slaves became free, however, they were counted as if they were
whites, and thereby the strength of the South in Congress would be
increased. It was hardly to be expected that the North would view such a
development with satisfaction.

The first action of the leaders in Congress was the introduction of a
bill to continue and extend the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau, a
federal organization which supervised charitable relief given the
negroes, protected them in making contracts for labor and assumed a sort
of guardianship over the race in making its transition out of slavery.
The new measure was intended to continue this federal tutelage of the
blacks. The President's veto of the bill, February 19, 1866, served to
widen the breach between him and Congress and thereby postponed still
further the admission of the representatives of the southern state
governments. Three days later Johnson addressed a crowd which collected
before the White House. In the course of his speech he lost control of
himself to such an extent as to indulge in undignified remarks and
personalities, and even to charge leaders in Congress with seeking to
destroy the fundamental principles of American government. Thoughtful
men everywhere were dismayed. In the meantime a Civil Rights bill was
pending in Congress, the purpose of which was to declare negroes to be
citizens of the United States and to give them rights equal to those
accorded other citizens, notwithstanding local or state laws and codes.
The President objected to the bill as an unconstitutional invasion of
the rights of the states, but it was promptly passed over the veto.
Scarcely any members of Congress now supported him except the Democrats.
The conservative or conciliatory Republicans were lost to him for good.
Throughout the North it was felt that protection must be accorded the
freedmen against the black codes, and when the President opposed it he
lost ground outside of Congress as well as in it. "From that time
Johnson was beaten."

Stevens in the House and Sumner and others in the Senate were now in a
position to press successfully a stern, congressional reconstruction
policy to replace that of the executive. The first item in the radical
program was the Fourteenth Amendment, which passed Congress in June,
1866, although it did not become of force until 1868. It contained four
sections: (1) making citizens of all persons born or naturalized in the
United States and forbidding states to abridge their rights; (2)
providing for the reduction of the representation in Congress of any
state that denied the vote to any citizens except those guilty of
crimes; (3) disabling confederate leaders from holding political office
except with the permission of Congress; and (4) prohibiting the payment
of confederate debts. The first section was, of course, designed to put
the civil rights of the negro into the Constitution where they would be
safe from hostile legislation. The second sought to get negro suffrage
into the South by indirection at a time when a positive suffrage
amendment could not be passed. The third was to take the pardoning
power out of executive hands.

At this point there came a halt in the controversy until the country
could be heard from in the congressional elections of 1866. Both sides
made unusual efforts to organize political sentiment. Both attempted to
demonstrate their thoroughly national character by holding conventions
attended by southern as well as northern delegates. Each angled for the
soldier vote by encouraging conferences of veterans. Late in July
occurred an incident which the radicals were able to use to advantage.
A crowd of negroes attending a convention in New Orleans in behalf of
suffrage for their race became engaged in a fight with white
anti-suffragists and many of the blacks were killed. The riot was
commonly referred to in the North as a "massacre," the moral of which
was that the negroes must be protected against the unrepentant rebels.
But it was Johnson himself who furnished greatest aid to his
adversaries. Having been invited to speak in Chicago, he determined
upon an electioneering trip, "swinging around the circle," he called
it. Again he was guilty of gross indiscretions. He made personal
allusions, held angry colloquies with the crowd and at one place met
such opposition that he had to retire unheard. It mattered little that
the greater part of his speeches were sound and substantial. His lapses
were held up to public scorn and he returned to Washington amid the
hoots of his enemies. It was commonly believed that he had been
intoxicated. Probably no orator, _The Nation_ sarcastically remarked,
ever accomplished so much by a fortnight's speaking. There could be
little doubt as to the outcome of the elections. The Republicans
carried almost every northern state and obtained a two-thirds majority
in each house of Congress, with which to override vetoes.

As if impelled by some perverse fate the southern whites during the fall
and winter of 1866-67 did the thing for which the bitterest enemy of the
South might have wished. Except in Tennessee, the legislature of every
confederate state refused with almost complete unanimity to ratify the
Fourteenth Amendment. Natural as the act was, it gave the North
apparently overwhelming proof that the former "rebels" were still
defiant. Encouraged by the results of the election and aroused by the
attitude of the South toward the Amendment, Congress proceeded to
encroach upon prerogatives that had hitherto been considered purely
executive, and also to pass a most extreme plan of reconstruction.

The first of these measures, the Tenure of Office Act, was passed over a
veto on March 2, 1867. By it the President was forbidden to remove civil
officers except with the consent of the Senate. Even the members of the
Cabinet could not be dismissed without the permission of the upper
house, a provision inserted for the protection of Edwin M. Stanton, the
Secretary of War. Stanton was in sympathy with the radical leaders in
Congress and it was essential to them that he be kept in this post of
advantage. General Grant, who had charge of the military establishment,
was made almost independent of the President by a law drafted secretly
by Stanton. On the same day, and over a veto also, was passed the
Reconstruction Act, the most important piece of legislation during the
decade after the war. It represented the desires of Thaddeus Stevens and
was passed mainly because of his masterful leadership. At the outset the
new Act declared the existing southern state governments to be illegal
and inadequate, and divided the South into five military districts. Over
each was to be a commanding general who should preserve order, and
continue civil officers and civil courts, or replace them with military
tribunals as he wished. Under his direction each state was to frame and
adopt a new constitution which must provide for negro suffrage. When
Congress should approve the constitution and when a legislature elected
under its provisions should adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, the state
might be readmitted to the Union.

The Reconstruction Act was remarkable in several features. The provision
imposing negro suffrage was carried through the Senate with difficulty
and only as the result of the tireless activity of Charles Sumner.
Sumner and other radicals were determined that the blacks should be
enfranchised in order that they might protect themselves from hostile
local legislation and also in order that they might form part of a
southern Republican party. Even more noteworthy was the military
character of the Act. The President had already exercised his
prerogative of declaring the country at peace on August 20, 1866, more
than six months before the Act was passed. In the decision in the
Milligan case, which preceded the Act by nearly three months, the
Supreme Court had decided that military tribunals were illegal except
where war made the operation of civil courts impossible. Military
reconstruction was illogical, not to say unlawful, therefore, but
Congress was more interested in a method that promised the speedy
accomplishment of its purposes than it was in the opinions of the
executive and judicial departments.

Despite his dissent from its provisions, the President at once set
military reconstruction in operation. When he mitigated its harshness,
however, where latitude was allowed him, Congress passed additional
acts, over the veto, of course, extending and defining the powers of
the commanding generals. Armed with complete authority, the generals
proceeded to remove many of the ordinary civil officers and to replace
them with their own appointees, to compel order by means of the
soldiery, to set aside court decrees and even to close the courts and
to enact legislation. In the meanwhile a total of 703,000 black and
627,000 white voters were registered, delegates to constitutional
conventions were elected, constitutions were drawn up and adopted which
permitted negro suffrage, and state officers and legislators elected.
In conformity with the provisions of the Act, the newly chosen
legislatures ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
sent representatives and senators to Washington, where they were
admitted to Congress, and by 1871 the last confederate state was
reconstructed.

The commanding generals were honest and efficient, in the main, even if
their stern rule was distasteful to the South, but the regime of the
newly elected state officers and legislators was a period of dishonesty
and incapacity. Most of the experienced and influential whites had been
excluded from participation in politics through the operation of the
presidential proclamations and the reconstruction acts. In all the
legislatures there were large numbers of blacks--sometimes, indeed, they
were in the majority. Two parties appeared. The radical or Republican
group included the negroes, a few southern whites, commonly called
"scalawags," and various northerners known as "carpet-baggers." These
last were in some cases mere adventurers and in others men of ability
who were attracted to the South for one reason or another, and took
a prominent part in political affairs. The old-time whites held both
kinds in equal detestation. The other party was called conservative or
Democratic, and was composed of the great mass of the whites. Many of
them had been Whigs before the war, but in the face of negro-Republican
domination, nearly all threw in their lot with the conservatives.

Not all the activities of the legislatures were bad. Provisions were
made for education, for example, that were in line with the needs of
the states. Nevertheless, their conduct in the main was such as to
drive the South almost into revolt. In the South Carolina legislature
only twenty-two members out of 155 could read and write. The negroes
were in the majority and although they paid only $143 in taxes
altogether, they helped add $20,000,000 to the state debt in four
years. In Arkansas the running expenses of the state increased 1500
per cent.; in Louisiana the public debt mounted from $14,000,000 to
$48,000,000 between 1868 and 1871. Only ignorance and dishonesty could
explain such extravagance and waste. Submission, however, was not
merely advisable; it presented the only prospect of peace. Open
resentment was largely suppressed, but it was inevitable that the
whites should become hostile to the blacks, and that they should
dislike the Republican party for its ruthless imposition of a system
which governed them without their consent and which placed them at the
mercy of the incompetent and unscrupulous. A system which made a negro
the successor of Jefferson Davis in the United States Senate could
scarcely fail to throw the majority of southern whites into the ranks
of the enemies of the Republican organization.[2]

One step remained to ensure the continuance of negro suffrage--the
adoption of a constitutional provision. In 1869 Congress referred to the
states the Fifteenth Amendment, which was declared in force a year
later. By its terms the United States and the states are forbidden to
abridge the right of citizens to vote on account of race, color or
previous condition of servitude.

While radical reconstruction was being forced to its bitter conclusion,
the opponents of the President were maturing plans for his impeachment
and exclusion from office. By the terms of the Constitution, the chief
executive may be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
and Misdemeanors." Early in the struggle between President Johnson and
Congress a few members of the House of Representatives urged an attempt
to impeach him. Such extremists as James M. Ashley of Ohio, and Benjamin
F. Butler of Massachusetts, believed that he had even been implicated in
the plot to assassinate Lincoln. A thorough-going search through his
private as well as his public career failed to produce any evidence that
could be interpreted as sufficient to meet constitutional demands, and a
motion to impeach was voted down in the House by a large majority. So
indiscreet a man as the President, however, was likely at some time to
furnish a reason for further effort. The occasion came in the removal of
the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.

Stanton, although of a domineering and brusque personality, had ably
administered the War Department under Lincoln and Johnson. During the
controversy between the President and Congress, Stanton had remained in
the Cabinet but was closely in touch with his chief's opponents and
had even drafted one of the reconstruction acts. Johnson had tolerated
the questionable conduct of his Secretary, despite the advice of many
of his supporters, until August 5, 1867, when he requested Stanton's
resignation. The latter took refuge behind the Tenure of Office Act,
denying the right of the President to remove him, but yielding his
office at Johnson's insistence. This episode had occurred during a
recess of Congress and, in accord with the law, the removal of Stanton
was reported when it convened in December. The Senate at once refused
to concur and Stanton returned to his office. The President now found
himself forced, by what he regarded as an unconstitutional law, into
the unbearable position of including one of his enemies within his
official family, and once more he ordered the Secretary to retire. But
meanwhile the House of Representatives had been active and had on
February 24, 1868, impeached the President for "high crimes and
misdemeanors."

The trial was conducted before the Senate, as the Constitution
provides, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acting as the
presiding officer. The House chose a board of seven managers to conduct
the prosecution, of whom Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin F. Butler were
best known. The President was defended by able counsel, including
former Attorney-General Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis, who had earlier
sat upon the Supreme Court, and William M. Evarts, an eminent lawyer
and leader of the bar in New York. The charges, although eleven in
number, centered about four accusations: (1) that the dismissal of
Secretary Stanton was contrary to the Tenure of Office Act; (2) that
the President had declared that part of a certain act of Congress was
unconstitutional; (3) that he had attempted to bring Congress into
disgrace in his speeches; and (4) that in general he had opposed the
execution of several acts of Congress. The President's counsel asked
for forty days in which to prepare their case. They were given ten,
although members of the House had been preparing for more than a year
to resort to impeachment. The trial lasted from early March to late
May.

As the trial wore on, it became increasingly evident that the House had
but little substance on which to base an impeachment, and that the force
back of it was intense hatred of the President. It was made clear to
senators who were inclined to waver towards the side of acquittal that
their political careers were at an end if they failed to vote guilty.
The general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church even appointed
an hour of prayer that the Senate might be moved to convict. The lawyers
for the defense so far outgeneraled the prosecutors that one who reads
the records at the present day finds difficulty in thinking of them as
more than the account of a pitiful farce. At length on May 16 the Senate
was prepared to make its decision. The last charge was voted upon first.
It was a very general accusation, drawn up by Stevens, and seemed most
likely to secure the necessary two-thirds for conviction. Fifty-four
members would vote. Twelve of them were Democrats and were known to be
for acquittal. The majority of the Republicans were for conviction. A
small group had given no indication of their position, and their votes
would be the decisive ones. As the roll was called each senator replied
"Guilty" or "Not guilty," while floor and galleries counted off the vote
as the knitting women clicked off the day's toll of heads during the
days when the guillotine made a reign of terror in France. The result
was thirty-five votes for conviction and nineteen for acquittal. As
thirty-six were necessary, Johnson had escaped. A recess of ten days was
taken during which the prosecution sought some shred of evidence which
might prove that some one of the nineteen had accepted a bribe for his
vote, but to no avail. When the Senate convened again there was no
change in the vote on the second and third articles, and the attempt to
convict was abandoned.

For the first time in many months Johnson enjoyed a respite from the
attacks of his foes. Stanton relinquished his office, and the integrity
of the executive power was preserved. The race of the dictator of the
House had been run, for Stevens lived less than three months after the
trial.

The continuous controversies of the Johnson administration almost
completely pressed into the background two diplomatic accomplishments of
no little importance. The more dramatic of these related to the French
invasion of Mexico. During 1861, naval vessels of England, France and
Spain had entered Mexican ports in order to compel the payment of debts
said to be due those countries, but England and Spain had soon withdrawn
and had left France to proceed alone. French troops thereupon had
invaded the country, captured Mexico City and established an empire with
Archduke Maximilian of Austria as its head, despite the protests and
opposition of the Mexicans under their leader Juarez. The United States
had expressed dissent and alarm, meanwhile, but because of the war was
in no position to take action.

As soon as civil strife was finished, however, Johnson and Seward took
vigorous steps. An army under General Sheridan was sent to the border,
and diplomatic pressure was exerted to convince France of the
desirability of withdrawal. The occupation of Mexico was, apparently,
not popular in France, and in the face of American opposition the French
government sought a means of dropping the project. Accordingly the
invading forces were withdrawn early in 1867, leaving the hapless
Maximilian to the Mexicans, by whom he was subsequently seized and
executed.

While the Mexican difficulty was being brought to a successful outcome,
the government of Russia offered to sell to the United States her
immense Alaskan possessions west and northwest of Canada. Secretary
Seward was enthusiastically disposed to accept the offer and a treaty
was accordingly drawn up on March 30, 1867, providing for the
acquisition of the territory for $7,200,000. The Senate, however, was
far less inclined to seize the opportunity. Little was known about
Alaska, and the cost seemed almost prohibitive in view of the financial
strains caused by the war. Nevertheless the inclination to acquire
territory was strong and there was a widespread desire to accede to the
wishes of Russia who was understood to have been well-disposed toward
the United States during the war. Under the operation of these forces
the Senate changed its attitude and ratified the treaty on April 9,
1867. By this act the United States came into possession of an area
measuring nearly 600,000 square miles, and stores of fish, furs, timber,
coal and precious metals whose size is even yet little understood.

It was not long before it became apparent that radical reconstruction
had been founded too little upon the hard facts of social and political
conditions in the South, and too much upon benevolent but mistaken
theories, and upon prejudices, partisanship and emotion. It was
inevitable that there should be an aftermath.

At the close of reconstruction in 1871, the southern negro was a citizen
of civil and political importance. As a voter, he was on an equality
with the whites; he belonged to the Republican party and his party was a
powerful factor in the politics of the South; his position was secured,
or at least seemed to be secured, by amendments to the federal
Constitution. Legally and constitutionally his position appeared to be
impregnable. In the minds of the southern white, however, the amendments
vied with military reconstruction in their injustice and unwisdom. To
his mind they constituted an attempt to abolish the belief of the white
man in the essential inferiority of the black, to make the pyramid of
government stand on its apex, and to place the very issues of existence
within the power of the congenitally unfit. To the discontent aroused by
war were added political and racial antagonism, which blazed at times
into fury. The southern whites began to invent methods for overcoming
the power of the freedmen in politics and for insuring themselves
against possible danger of violence at the hands of the blacks.

The most famous device was the Ku Klux Klan or the Invisible Empire, a
somewhat loosely organized secret society which originated in Tennessee
during the turmoil immediately after the close of the war. In theory and
practice its operations were simple and effective. Its chief officials
were the Grand Wizard, the Grand Dragon, the Grand Titan. Local branches
were Dens, each headed by a Grand Cyclops. The Den worked usually at
night, when the members assembled clad in long white robes and white
masks or hoods, discussed cases which needed attention, and then rode
forth on horses whose bodies were covered and whose feet were muffled.
The exploits of the Klan expanded, in the exaggerated stories common
among the negroes, into the most amazing achievements. The members were
thought to be able to take themselves to pieces, drink entire pailfuls
of water, and devour "fried nigger meat." Usually the person about to be
"visited" received a notice that the dreaded Klan was upon him. He was
warned to cease his political activities or perhaps to leave the
neighborhood. If the threat proved ineffective, whipping or some worse
punishment was likely to follow.

In 1872 Congress unintentionally aided in the process of overcoming
negro domination by the passage of the Amnesty Act, which restored to
all but a few hundreds of the former Confederates the political
privileges which had been taken from them by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Under the latter the great majority of former southern leaders had been
deprived of the right to hold office. On the restoration of this right
such men as Alexander H. Stephens, former Vice-President of the
Confederate States, and Wade Hampton, one of the most influential South
Carolinians, could again take an active part in politics. With their
return, the cause of white supremacy received a powerful impetus.

In taking this step, however, Congress did not intend to allow the legal
and constitutional rights of the blacks to be waived without a contest.
Reports reached the North concerning the activities of the southern
whites--reports which in no way minimized the amount of intimidation and
violence involved--and in response to this information Congress passed
the enforcement laws of 1870-1871, generally known as the "Force
Acts."[3] These laws laid heavy penalties upon individuals who should
prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional political
powers--primarily the right to vote. As offences under these acts were
within the jurisdiction of the federal courts and as the federal
officials manifested an inclination to carry out the law, the number of
indictments was considerable. Convictions, however, were infrequent. The
famous Ku Klux Act of 1871 amplified the law of 1870 and was aimed at
combinations or conspiracies of persons who resorted to intimidation. It
authorized the President to suspend the privilege of the writ of _habeas
corpus_ and made it his duty to employ armed force to suppress
opposition.

Additional sting was given the enforcement laws by provision for the
superintendence of federal elections, under specified conditions, by
federal officials called "supervisors of election." The supervisors were
given large powers over the registration of voters and the casting and
counting of ballots, so as to ensure a fair vote and an honest count.
Since here, again, federal troops stood behind the law, it was manifest
that the central government would show some degree of determination in
its handling of the southern situation. Nevertheless, the result was
merely to delay the gradual elimination of the blacks from political
activity, not to prevent it. In practice the Republican state
governments in the South were continued in the seats of authority only
through the presence of the federal soldiery. In one way or another the
whites gained the upper hand, so that by 1877 only South Carolina and
Louisiana had failed to achieve self-government unhampered by federal
force.

In the meantime the enforcement acts were being slowly weakened by the
Supreme Court in several decisions bearing upon the Fourteenth
Amendment. The significant portion of Section I of the Amendment is as
follows:

    No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
    the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
    nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
    property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
    within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

In several cases involving the enforcement acts, the Court found
portions of the laws in conflict with the Constitution and finally, in
1883, the decision in United States _v._ Harris completed their
destruction. Here the court met a complaint that a group of white men
had taken some negroes away from the officers of the law and ill-treated
them. Such conduct seemed to be contrary to that part of the Ku Klux Act
which forbade combinations designed to deprive citizens of their legal
rights. The Court, however, called attention to the important words, "No
_State_ shall make or enforce," and was of opinion that the
constitutional power of Congress extends only to cases where _States_
have acted in such a manner as to deprive citizens of their rights. If
_individuals_, on the contrary, conspire to take away these rights,
relief must be sought at the hands of the state government. As the great
purpose of the Ku Klux Act had been to combat precisely such individual
combinations, it appeared that the Court had, at a blow, demolished the
law. Not long afterwards the Court declared unconstitutional the Civil
Rights Act of 1875, which had been designed to insure equal rights to
negroes in hotels, conveyances and theatres. Here again the Court was of
opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment grants no power to the United
States but forbids certain activities by the states.[4]

Stuffing the ballot box was common in South Carolina and other states.
In one election in this state the number of votes cast was almost double
the number the names on the polling list. In some places the imposition
of a poll tax peacefully eliminated the impecunious freedman. In
Mississippi the state legislature laid out the "shoestring" election
district, 300 miles long and about 20 miles wide, which included many of
the sections where the negroes were most numerous, in order that their
votes might have as little effect as possible. By hook or by crook,
then, in simple and devious ways, the dangers of negro domination were
averted. Nevertheless the provisions of the law for federal supervision
of elections remained, becoming a bone of contention during a later
administration.

About 1890 there began a new era in the elimination of the negro from
politics in the South. The people of that section disliked the methods
which they felt the necessity of using, and searched about for a less
crude device. Furthermore the rise of a new political movement in some
parts of the South in the late eighties and early nineties was making
divisions among the Democrats and was encouraging attempts by the two
factions to control the negro vote. Suddenly, a relatively small number
of negro voters became a powerful and purchasable make-weight. Both
sides, perhaps, were a bit disturbed at this development. At any rate,
additional impetus was given to the movement for the suppression of the
negro. Eventually plans were originated, some of which were clearly
constitutional and all of which carried a certain appearance of
legality.

The first steps were taken by Mississippi in 1890. The new state
constitution of that year required as prerequisite to the voting
privilege, the payment of all taxes which were legally demanded of the
citizen during the two preceding years--a provision to which no
constitutional exception could be taken, and which effectively debarred
large numbers of colored voters. Further, it provided that after January
1, 1892, every voter must be able to read any section of the state
constitution or be able to give an interpretation of it _when read to
him_. As the election officials who would judge the ability of the
applicant properly to interpret the constitution would certainly be
whites, it was clear that the ignorant black would have scant chance of
passing the educational test. Several other states followed in the wake
of Mississippi, until in 1898 Louisiana discovered a new barrier through
which only whites might make their way to the voting lists. This was the
famous "grandfather clause." In brief, it allowed citizens to vote who
had that right before January 1, 1867, together with the descendants of
such citizens, regardless of their educational and property
qualifications. As no negroes had voted in the state before that date,
they were effectively debarred. Under the influence of such pressure,
the negro vote promptly dwindled away to negligible proportions. In
Louisiana, to cite one case, there were 127,263 registered colored
voters in 1896, and 5,354 in 1900. Between these two years the new state
constitution had been passed. In 1915 the Supreme Court finally declared
a grandfather clause unconstitutional on the ground that its only
possible intention was to evade that provision of the Fifteenth
Amendment which forbids the states to abridge, on account of color, the
rights of citizens of the United States to vote.

The history of the effects of the war and of reconstruction on the
political status of the negro has been concisely summarized as falling
into three periods. At the close of the war: (1) the negroes were
more powerful in politics than their numbers, intelligence and
property seemed to justify; (2) the Republican party was a power in
the South; and (3) the negroes enjoyed political rights on a legal and
constitutional equality with the whites. By 1877 the first of these
generalizations was no longer a fact; by 1890 the Republican party had
ceased to be of importance in the South; and by the opening of the
twentieth century, the negro as a possible voter was not on a legal
and constitutional equality with the white.

In the sphere of government the war and reconstruction were of lasting
importance. Preeminently it was definitely established that the federal
government is supreme over the states. Although the Constitution had
seemed to many to establish that supremacy in no uncertain terms, it can
not be doubted that only as a result of the war and reconstruction did
the theory receive a degree of popular assent that approached unanimity.
Temporarily, at least, reconstruction added greatly to the prestige and
self-confidence of Congress. During the war the powers of the President
had necessarily expanded. The reaction, although hastened by the
character and disposition of President Johnson, was inevitable. The
depression of the executive elevated the legislature and not until the
beginning of the twentieth century did the scales swing back again
toward their former position.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

General. The best general account of the period 1865-1917 is to be found
in the following volumes of _The American Nation: A History_: W.A.
Dunning, _Reconstruction Political and Economic, 1865-1877_ (1907); E.E.
Sparks, _National Development, 1877-1885_ (1907); D.R. Dewey, _National
Problems, 1885-1897_ (1907); J.H. Latané, _America as a World Power,
1897-1907_ (1907); F.A. Ogg, _National Progress, 1907-1917_ (1918). The
volumes vary in excellence and interest, but set a high standard,
especially in their recognition of the importance of economic facts, and
contain excellent bibliographical material. The following single volumes
are useful: E.B. Andrews, _United States in Our Own Time, 1870-1903_
(1903); C.A. Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914); P.L.
Haworth, _Reconstruction and Union, 1865-1912_ (1912); P.L. Haworth,
_United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_; E.P. Oberholtzer, _History
of the United States since the Civil War_ (to be in several volumes, of
which one appeared in 1917, covering 1865-1868); F.L. Paxson, _The New
Nation_ (1915); H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the Republic, 1885-1905_
(1907), readable and especially valuable in its interpretation of the
period which it covers; J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from
Hayes to McKinley, 1877-1896_ (1919), lacks understanding of the period
covered. J.S. Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913),
has excellent chapters on the years 1865-1912; F.J. Turner in the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (11th ed.), article "United States, History
1865-1910," is brief but inclusive; the later chapters of Max Farrand,
_Development of the United States_ (1918), present a new point of view.
_The Chronicles of America Series_ (1919 and later), edited by Allen
Johnson, contains valuable volumes on especial topics. For party
platforms and election statistics consult Edward Stanwood, _A History
of the Presidency_ (2 vols., 2nd ed., 1916).

Reconstruction. The most valuable single volume on the reconstruction
period is the volume by Dunning already referred to; W.L. Fleming,
_Sequel of Appomattox_ (1919), is also excellent; J.F. Rhodes, _History
of the United States since the Compromise of 1850_, vols. VI, VII
(1906), is the best detailed account; James Schouler, _History of the
United States_, vol. VII (1913), presents a new view of President
Johnson. Valuable biographies are J.A. Woodburn, _The Life of Thaddeus
Stevens_ (1913); G.H. Haynes, _Charles Sumner_ (1909); Horace White,
_The Life of Lyman Trumbull_ (1913). On impeachment, D.W. Dewitt, _The
Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson_ (1903), is best. W.A. Dunning,
_Essays on Civil War and Reconstruction_ (ed. 1910), is strong on the
constitutional changes. Studies on reconstruction in the several states
have been published by W.W. Davis (Florida), (1913); W.L. Fleming
(Alabama), (1905); J.W. Garner (Mississippi), (1901); J.G. deR.
Hamilton (North Carolina), (1914); C.W. Ramsdell (Texas), (1910); and
others. For documentary material, W.L. Fleming, _Documentary History of
Reconstruction_ (2 vols., 1906-7), is essential. Edward Channing, A.B.
Hart and F.J. Turner, _Guide to the Study and Reading of American
History_ (1912), provides full references to a wide variety of works
covering 1865-1911. Consult also Appleton's _Annual Cyclopaedia_,
_1861-1902_. On foreign relations J.B. Moore, _Digest of International
Law_, 8 vols., (1906).

Periodical literature. The most useful periodicals are:

_American Economic Review_ (1911-); _American Historical Review_
(1895-); _American Political Science Review_ (1907-); _Atlantic
Monthly_ (1857-); _Century Magazine_ (1870-); _Harper's Weekly_
(1857-1916); _Harvard Law Review_; _History Teachers' Magazine_,
continued as _Historical Outlook_ (1909-); _Journal of Political
Economy_ (1892-); _Nation_ (1865-); _North American Review_ (1815-);
_Political Science Quarterly_ (1886-); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
(1886-); _Scribner's Magazine_ (1887-); _Yale Review_ (1892-1911, _new
series_, 1912-).

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States, was held
in prison until 1867 and then released. He died in 1889. Suggestions
that General Lee, the most prominent military leader, be arrested and
tried met with such opposition from General Grant, the Union leader,
that the project was dropped. Lee died in 1870.

[2] A number of these states later repudiated their debts.

[3] The threats used to keep the negroes away from the polls are
typified in the following, which was published in Mississippi:

    "The Terry Terribles will be here Monday to see there is a fair
    election."

    "The Byram Bulldozers will be here Monday to see there is a fair
    election.

    "The Edwards Dragoons will be here Monday to see there is a fair
    election.

    "Who cares if the McGill men don't like it?

    "The whole State of Mississippi is interested in the election.

    "It _shall_ be a Democratic victory."

[4] In regard to segregation of the races in railroad coaches, the
Court decided, 1910, that constitutional rights are not interfered with
when separate accommodations are provided, if the accommodations be
equally good. Chiles _v._ Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Co., 218 U.S.,
71.




CHAPTER II


IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME

Aside from President Lincoln, the most prominent personality on the
northern side during the latter part of the Civil War was General
Ulysses S. Grant. His successes in the Mississippi Valley in the
early days of the war, when success was none too common, his capture
of Vicksburg at the turning point of the conflict, and his dogged
drive toward Richmond had established his military reputation. When
the drive toward Richmond resulted at last in the capture of Lee's
army and its surrender at Appomattox, the victorious North turned
with gratitude to Grant and made him a popular idol, while the
politicians began to question whether his popularity might not be put
to account in the field of politics.

Grant himself had never paid any attention to matters of government.
In only one presidential election had he so much as voted for a
candidate, and then it was for a Democrat, James Buchanan. In 1860 he
was prevented from voting for Senator Stephen A. Douglas and against
Abraham Lincoln only by the fact that he had not fulfilled the
residence requirement for suffrage in the town where he was living.
Nevertheless in his capacity as general of the army his headquarters
after the war were in Washington and his duties brought him into
contact with the politicians and eventually entangled him in the
controversy between the President and Congress. Circumstances at
first threw him into close association with Johnson, but at the time
of the Stanton episode late in 1867 a misunderstanding arose between
them which developed into a question of veracity, and then into open
hostility. The opponents of the President took up the General's case
with alacrity and from then on the popular hero was looked upon as
the inevitable choice for the next Republican nomination.

The convention of the National Union Republican Party, as it was
called at that time, was held in Chicago, May 20, 1868, during the
interval between the votes on the eleventh and second charges of the
impeachment of President Johnson. General Grant was unanimously
nominated for the presidency and Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the
House of Representatives, for the second place on the ticket. The
platform portrayed the benefits of radical reconstruction and
defended negro suffrage in the South. In the North at that time the
black was commonly denied the vote--the Fifteenth Amendment having
not yet been ratified--and the convention accordingly declared that
the question of suffrage in all the "loyal" states properly belonged
in the states themselves. Other planks asserted that the public debt
ought to be paid in full, that pensions for the veterans were an
obligation and that immigration ought to be encouraged. The
administration of President Johnson was denounced and the thirty-five
senators who voted for his conviction in the impeachment trial were
commended.

The Democrats met at Tammany Hall in New York on July 4. Their
platform approved the pension laws, advocated the sale of public land
to actual occupants, praised the administration of President Johnson,
arraigned the radicals and declared the reconstruction acts
"unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." If the radical party
should win in the election, the Democrats asserted, the result would
be "a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and
the scattered fragments of the Constitution." The regulation of the
suffrage, one plank declared, had always been in the hands of the
individual states. The most prominent place in the platform, however,
was given to the question of the public debt. Part of the bonds
issued during the war had, by acts of Congress, been made payable
in "dollars," a word which might mean either paper dollars or gold
dollars. Paper, however, was much less valuable than gold, times were
hard, and many people held the opinion that the debt could properly
be paid in paper. Such was the "Ohio idea," which was made part of
the Democratic platform.

The choice of a candidate required twenty-two ballots. Early trials
indicated the strength of George H. Pendleton, popularly known as
"Gentleman George" and the chief exponent of the "Ohio idea." Johnson
also had support. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, having failed to
obtain the Republican nomination, allowed it to be known that he was
willing to become the Democratic candidate. At length, on the
twenty-second ballot, a few votes were cast for Governor Horatio
Seymour of New York, the chairman of the convention. The move met
with enthusiastic approval, despite Seymour's insistence that he
would not be a candidate, and he was unanimously chosen.

[Illustration:
Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868-1896]

The developments of the campaign depended largely upon occurrences in
the South. Military reconstruction had not been wholly completed in
Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia. The last of these states
had once been readmitted to the Union, but had immediately expelled
the negro members of its legislature, and was thereupon placed again
under military rule. The Ku Klux Klan was meanwhile in general
operation throughout the South and its activities, both real and
imaginary, received wide advertisement in the North. Public interest,
therefore, in the underlying issues of the campaign centered upon the
attitude of the candidates toward the southern question. General
Grant was understood to be with the radicals and Seymour with the
conservatives. The result of the election was the choice of the
Republican leader by an apparently large majority. He carried
twenty-six out of thirty-four states, with 214 out of 294 electoral
votes, but he received a popular majority of only 300,000. Examination
of the returns indicated a strong conservative minority in many of the
solid Republican states. The strength of the radicals in the South,
moreover, was due, in the main, to negro-carpetbag domination, and when
these states should become conservative, as they were sure to do, the
political parties would be almost evenly divided.[1]

The man who was now entering upon his first experience as the holder
of an elective office had risen from obscurity to public favor in the
space of a few years. Although a graduate of West Point, with eleven
years of military experience afterward, his career before 1861 had
been hardly more than a failure. He had left the army in 1854 rather
than stand trial on a charge of drunkenness; had grubbed a scanty
living out of "Hard Scrabble," a farm in Missouri; had tried his hand
at real estate, acted as clerk in a custom-house and worked in a
leather store at $800 a year. Then came the war, and in less than
three years Grant had received the title of Lieutenant-General, which
only Washington had borne before him, and had become General-in-Chief
of all the armies of the United States. Always an uncommunicative
man, he kept his own counsel during the interval between his election
and his inauguration. He saw few politicians, asked no advice about
his cabinet, sought no assistance in preparing his inaugural address
and made no suggestions to the leaders of his party concerning
legislation that he would like to see passed. His first act, the
appointment of his cabinet, caused a gasp of surprise and dismay.
Most of the men named were but little known and some of them were not
aware that they were being chosen until the list was made public. The
Secretary of State, Elihu Washburne, was a close personal friend, and
was appointed merely that he might hold the position long enough to
enjoy the title and then retire. He was succeeded by Hamilton Fish,
of New York, who proved to be a wise choice. The Secretary of the
Treasury was A.T. Stewart, a rich merchant of New York, but he had to
withdraw on account of a law forbidding any person "interested in
carrying on the business of trade or commerce" to hold the office.
The Secretary of the Navy, A.E. Borie, was a rich invalid of
Philadelphia, who had almost no qualifications for his office and
resigned at once. Better appointments were former Governor J.D. Cox,
of Ohio, as Secretary of the Interior, and Judge E.R. Hoar, of
Massachusetts, as Attorney-General.

When the Congress elected with Grant assembled in 1869 its first act
was a measure providing for the payment of the public debt in coin.
Part of the Tenure of Office Act was repealed, the President having
indicated his opposition to it. On the southern question General
Grant had earlier inclined toward moderation, but radical counsels
and the logic of events led him to join Congress in the passage of
the enforcement act and the Ku Klux Act, both of which have already
been mentioned.

It was during this, the first year of Grant's administration, that
there occurred the famous gold conspiracy of 1869. Jay Gould and
James Fisk, Jr., two of the most unscrupulous stock gamblers of the
time, determined to corner the supply of gold and then run its market
price up to a high level, in order to further certain interests which
they had recently purchased. The likelihood that the conspirators
could carry out the plan depended largely on the Secretary of the
Treasury, George S. Boutwell, who was accustomed to sell several
millions of dollars' worth of gold each month. If the sales could be
stopped Gould and Fisk might be successful. Accordingly, they got on
friendly terms with the President through cultivating the acquaintance
of his brother-in-law, were seen publicly with him at the theatre and
other places, and subsequently he wrote to the Secretary expressing
his opinion that the sales had better stop. Gould apparently was
informed of this decision by the brother-in-law, even before the
message reached the Secretary, and immediately bought up so much gold
as to run the price to an unparalleled figure. This was on "Black
Friday," September 24. The Secretary became alarmed, rumors were abroad
that the administration was implicated in the conspiracy, and at noon,
after consultation with the President, he decided to place four
millions in gold on the market. At once the price dropped, brokers went
bankrupt, and Gould and Fisk had to take refuge behind armed guards to
save their lives. The President had not been a party to the plans of
the speculators, but his blindness to their real purposes and his
association with them during the period when their scheme was being
perfected made him a target for all manner of accusations.

Further astonishment was caused by the attitude of the President toward
two of the three really able men in his cabinet. In June, 1870, he
suddenly called for the resignation of Judge Hoar. It appeared that he
was seeking votes in the Senate for a treaty in which he was interested
and that certain southern members demanded the post of attorney-general
for a southern man in return for their support. Secretary Cox's
resignation came soon afterward. He had taken his department out of
politics, had furthered the cause of civil service reform and had
protected his employees from political party assessments. These acts
brought him into collision with the politicians, who had the ear of the
President, and Cox had to retire. Both Hoar and Cox were succeeded by
mediocre men.

The treaty which caused the removal of Secretary Hoar was one that the
President had arranged providing for the annexation of San Domingo. The
Senate was opposed to ratification, but General Grant was accustomed
to overcoming difficulties and he urged his case with all the power at
his command. One result was an unseemly wrangle between the President
and Senator Charles Sumner over the latter's refusal to support
ratification. General Grant, in resentment, procured the withdrawal
of the Senator's friend, John Lothrop Motley from England, whither he
had been sent as minister, and later the exclusion of Sumner from the
chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a post in which he
had displayed great ability for ten years. Eventually the President had
to give way on San Domingo, as the Senate did not agree with him in his
estimate of its probable value.

In its conduct of our relations with England, on the other hand, the
administration met with success and received popular approval. Ever
since the war the people of the North had desired an opportunity to
make Great Britain suffer for her attitude during that struggle.
Senator Sumner struck a popular chord when he suggested that England
should pay heavy damages on the ground that her encouragement of the
South had prolonged the war. Specifically, however, the United States
demanded reparation for destruction committed by the _Alabama_ and
other vessels that had been built in English ports. In 1870 Europe
was in a state of apprehension on account of the Franco-Prussian War,
and Secretary Fish seized the opportunity to press our claims upon
England. The latter, meanwhile, had abated somewhat her earlier
attitude of unwillingness to arbitrate, and Fish placed little
emphasis on Senator Sumner's suggestions of a claim for indirect
damages. The Treaty of Washington, signed and ratified in May, 1871,
provided for the arbitration of the _Alabama_ claims under such rules
that a decision favorable to the American side of the case was made
exceedingly probable. Each of five governments appointed a
representative--the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland
and Brazil. The meeting took place in Geneva and resulted favorably
to the American demands. England was declared to have failed to
preserve the proper attitude for a neutral during the war and was
ordered in 1872 to make compensation in the amount of $15,500,000.

The United States had need of any feeling of national pride that
might come as the result of the Geneva award, to offset the shame of
domestic revelations, for one of the characteristics of the decade
after the war was the wide-spread corruption in political and
commercial life. One of the most flagrant examples was the Tweed Ring
in New York. The government of that city was in the hands of a band
of highwaymen, of whom William M. Tweed, the leader of Tammany Hall,
was chief. Through the purchase of votes and the skilful distribution
of the proceeds of their control, they managed to keep in power
despite a growing suspicion that something was wrong. A favorite
method of defrauding the city was to raise an account. One who had a
bill against the city for $5,000 would be asked to present one for
$55,000. When he did so, he would receive his $5,000 and the
remainder would be divided among the members of the Ring. The
plasterer, for example, who worked on the County Court House
presented bills for nearly $3,000,000 in nine months. The New York
_Times_ and the cartoons of Thomas Nast in _Harper's Weekly_ were the
chief agents in arousing the people of the city to their situation.
The former obtained and published proofs of the rascality of the
Ring, mass meetings were held and an election in November, 1871,
overturned Tweed and his associates. Some of them fled from the
country, while Tweed himself died in jail.

More important both because of its effect on national politics and
because of its influence on railway legislation for many years
afterward was the Credit Mobilier scandal. The Credit Mobilier was a
construction company composed of a selected group of stockholders of
the Union Pacific Railroad, the transcontinental line which was being
built between 1865 and 1869. In their capacity of railroad
stockholders they awarded themselves as stockholders of the
construction company the contract to build and equip a large part of
the railway. The terms which they gave themselves were so generous as
to insure a handsome profit. Chief among the members of the Credit
Mobilier was Oakes Ames, a member of Congress from Massachusetts.
Late in 1867 Ames became fearful of railroad legislation that was
being introduced in Washington and he therefore decided to take steps
to protect the enterprise. He was given 343 shares of Credit Mobilier
stock, which he placed among members of Congress where, as he said,
they would "do most good." Rumors concerning the nature of the
transaction resulted finally in accusations in the New York _Sun_
during 1872, which involved the names of many prominent politicians.
Congressional committees were at once appointed to investigate the
charges, and their reports caused genuine sensations. Ames was found
guilty of selling stock at lower than face value in order to
influence votes in Congress and was censured by the House of
Representatives. The Vice-President, Schuyler Colfax, and several
others were so entangled in the affair as to lose their reputations
and retire from public life for good. Still others such as James A.
Garfield were suspected of complicity and were placed for many years
on the defensive.

Fear was wide-spread that political life in Washington was riddled
with corruption. Corporations which were large and wealthy for that
day were already getting a controlling grip on the legislatures of
the states, and if the Credit Mobilier scandal were typical, had
begun to reach out to Congress. Had the charges been made a little
earlier they might have influenced the election of 1872, which turned
largely on certain omissions and failings of the administration, and
especially of General Grant himself.

There is something intensely pathetic in General Grant as President
of the United States--this short, slouchy, taciturn, unostentatious
man who was more at ease with men who talked horses than with men who
talked government or literature; this President who was unacquainted
with either the theory or the practice of politics, who consulted
nobody in choosing his cabinet or writing his inaugural address, who
had scarcely visited a state capital except to capture it and had
been elected to the executive chair in times that were to try men's
souls. An indolent man, he called himself, but the world knew that he
was tireless and irresistible on the field when necessity demanded,
persistent, imperturbable, simple and direct in his language, and
upright in his character. The tragedy of President Grant's career was
his choice of friends and advisors. In Congress he followed the
counsels of second-rate men who gave him second-rate advice; outside
he associated too frequently with questionable characters who
cleverly used him as a mask for schemes that were an insult to his
integrity, but which his lack of experience and his utter inability
to judge character kept hidden from his view. Honorable himself and
loyal to a fault to his friends, he believed in the honesty of men
who betrayed him, long after the rest of the world had discovered
what they were. He could accept costly gifts from admirers and
appoint these same men to offices, without dreaming that their
generosity had sprung from any motive except gratitude for his
services during the war.[2]

It was inevitable, in view of these facts, that the presidential
campaign of 1872 should be essentially an anti-Grant movement, but
its particular characteristics had their origin before the General's
first election. In 1865 a constitutional convention in Missouri had
deprived southern sympathizers of the right to vote and hold office.
A wing of the Republican party, led by Colonel B. Gratz Brown, had
begun a counter-movement, intended to remove the restrictions on the
southerners, and also to reform other abuses in the state. Colonel
Brown had early received the assistance of General Carl Schurz, a man
of ability with the temperament of a reformer. The Brown-Schurz
faction had quickly increased in numbers, had become known as the
Liberal Republican party and had attracted such interest throughout
the country that a national conference was called for May, 1872, at
Cincinnati. In adopting a conciliatory southern policy, the Liberal
Republicans became opposed to the President, who had by this time
become thoroughly committed to the radical program. Other critics of
the administration, mainly Republicans, became interested in the
Liberal revolt--those who deprecated the President's choice of
associates and advisors, the civil service reformers who were aroused
by the dismissal of Secretaries Hoar and Cox, and the tariff
reformers who had vainly attempted to arouse enthusiasm for their
plans.

On account of the varied character of the elements which composed it
and the independent spirit of its members, the Cincinnati assembly
resembled a mass meeting rather than a well-organized political
conference. It numbered among its members, nevertheless, many men of
influence and repute. Some of the most powerful newspaper editors of
the country, also, were friendly to its purpose, so that it seemed
likely to be a decisive factor in the coming campaign. In most
respects the platform reflected the anti-Grant character of the
convention. It condemned the administration for keeping unworthy men
in power, favored the removal of all disabilities imposed on
southerners because of the rebellion, objected to interference by the
federal government in local affairs--a reference to the use of troops
to enforce the radical reconstruction policy--and advocated civil
service reform. The convention found difficulty in stating its
attitude toward the tariff question. It was deemed necessary to get
the support of Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York _Tribune_,
the most powerful northern newspaper of Civil War times, but Greeley
was an avowed protectionist. The platform, therefore, evaded the
issue by referring it to the people in their congressional districts,
and to Congress. But the rock on which the movement met shipwreck was
the nomination of a candidate. Many able men were available--Charles
Francis Adams, who had been minister to England, Senator Lyman
Trumbull, B. Gratz Brown and Judge David Davis of the Supreme Court.
Any one of them would have made a strong candidate. The convention,
however, passed over all of them and nominated Greeley, long known as
being against tariff reform, against civil service reform and hostile
to the Democrats, whose support must be obtained in order to achieve
success. Although a journalist of great influence and capacity,
Greeley was an erratic individual, whose appearance and manner were
the joy of the cartoonist.

The Republican convention met on June 5, and unanimously re-nominated
Grant. The platform recited the achievements of the party since 1861,
urged the reform of the civil service, advocated import duties and
approved of the enforcement acts and amnesty.

To the Democrats the greatest likelihood of success seemed to lie in
the adoption of the Liberal Republican nominee and platform. Such a
course, to be sure, would commit them to a candidate who had
excoriated their party for years in his newspaper, and to the three
war amendments to the Constitution, which the Liberal Republicans had
accepted. Yet it promised the South relief from military enforcement
of obnoxious laws, and that was worth much. Both Greeley and his
platform were accordingly accepted.

The enthusiasm for the Liberal movement which was observable at the
opening of the campaign rapidly dwindled as the significance of the
nomination became more clear. Greeley was open to attack from too
many quarters. The cartoons of Nast in _Harper's Weekly_, especially,
held him up to merciless ridicule. In the end he was defeated by
750,000 votes in a total of six and a half million, a disaster which,
together with the death of his wife and the overwork of the campaign
resulted in his death shortly after the election. As for the
Republicans they elected not only their candidate but also a
sufficient majority in Congress to carry out any program that the
party might desire.

On March 3, 1873, as Grant's first term was drawing to a close,
Congress passed a measure increasing the salary of public officials
from the President to the members of the House of Representatives.
The increase for Congressmen was made retroactive, so that each of
them would receive $5,000 for the two years just past. To a country
whose fears and suspicions had been aroused by the Credit Mobilier
scandal, the "salary grab" and the "back pay steal" were fresh
indications that corruption was entrenched in Washington. Senators
and Representatives began at once to hear from their constituencies.
Many of them returned the increase to the treasury and when the next
session opened, the law was repealed except so far as it applied to
the president and the justices of the Supreme Court.

The congressional elections of 1874 indicated the extent of the
popular distrust of the administration. In New York, where Samuel J.
Tilden was chosen governor, and in such Republican strongholds as
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania the Democrats were successful. In the
House of Representatives the Republican two-thirds majority was wiped
out and the Democrats given complete control. Even the redoubtable
Benjamin F. Butler lost his seat.

Further apprehensions were aroused by rumors concerning the
operations of a "Whiskey Ring." For some years it had been suspected
that a ring of revenue officials with accomplices in Washington were
in collusion with the distillers to defraud the government of the
lawful tax on whiskey. Part of the illegal gains were said to have
gone into the campaign fund for Grant's re-election, although he was
ignorant of the source of the revenue. Benjamin H. Bristow, who
became Secretary of the Treasury in 1874, began the attempt to stop
the frauds and capture the guilty parties. This was no simple task,
because information of impending action was surreptitiously sent out
by officials in Washington. Finally Secretary Bristow got the
information which he sought, and then moved to capture the criminals.
One of the most prominent members of the Ring was an internal revenue
official in St. Louis who, it was recollected, had entertained
President Grant, had presented him with a pair of horses and a wagon,
and had given the General's private secretary a diamond shirt-stud
valued at $2,400. Public opinion was yet further shocked, however,
when the trail of indictments led to the President's private
secretary, General Babcock. On first receiving the news of Bristow's
discoveries, Grant had written "Let no guilty man escape"; but later
he became secretly and then openly hostile to the investigation.
During the trial of Babcock, the President asked to be a witness in
his behalf. A verdict of acquittal was given, but afterwards the two
men had a private conference, and when "Grant came out, his face was
set in silence." Babcock never returned to the White House as
Secretary, but was given the post of Superintendent of Public
Buildings and Grounds. Several of the members of the Ring were
imprisoned but were later pardoned by the President. In the meanwhile
Grant seems to have been brought to believe that Bristow was
persecuting Babcock with a view to getting the favor of the reform
element in the party and eventually the presidential nomination.
Relations between the two became strained and Bristow resigned.

The last year of Grant's second administration was blackened by the
case of W.W. Belknap, who was then Secretary of War. Investigation by
a House committee uncovered the fact that since 1870 an employee in
the Indian service had paid $12,000 and later $6,000 a year for the
privilege of retaining his office. The money had been paid at first
to Mrs. Belknap, who had made the arrangement, and after her death to
the Secretary himself. The House unanimously voted to impeach him,
but on the day when the vote was taken he resigned and the President
accepted the resignation. Only the fact that he was out of office
prevented the Senate from declaring him guilty, and critics of the
administration noted that the President had saved another friend from
deserved punishment.

It would be easy to over-estimate the responsibility of General Grant
for the political corruption of his administrations. For the most
part the wrong-doing of the time began before his first election.
Democrats as well as Republicans participated in many of the
scandals. Politicians in the cities, the states and the nation seemed
to be determined to have a share in the enormous wealth that was
being created in America, and they got it by means that varied from
the merely unethical and indiscreet, to the openly corrupt. As for
the President, his own defence, given in his last message to
Congress, may be taken as the best one: "Failures have been errors of
judgment, not of intent."

Under the circumstances, however, it was natural that the
presidential campaign of 1876 should turn upon the failings of the
administration. Popular interest in the southern issue was on the
wane. Early in the election year, nevertheless, James G. Blaine,
Republican leader in the House, made a forceful attack on Jefferson
Davis, as the wilful author of the "gigantic murders and crimes at
Andersonville," the southern prison in which federal captives had
been held. Instantly the sectional hatred flared up and Blaine,
already a well-known leader, became a prominent candidate for the
nomination. Republican reformers generally favored Bristow. A
third-term boom for Grant was effectively crushed by an adverse
resolution in the House.

The Republican nominating convention met on June 14. The virtues of
Blaine were set forth in a famous speech by Robert G. Ingersoll in
which he referred to the attack on Davis: "Like an armed warrior,
like a plumed knight James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the
American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against
the brazen forehead of every traitor to his country." The "plumed
knight," however, was open to attack concerning a scandal during the
Grant regime, and the convention turned to Governor Rutherford B.
Hayes, of Ohio, a man of quiet ability who had been unconnected with
Washington politics, was relatively unknown and, therefore, not
handicapped by the antagonisms of previous opponents. The platform
emphasized the services of the party during the war, touched lightly
on the events of the preceding eight years, advocated payment of the
public debt, and favored import duties and the reform of the civil
service.

The Democrats met on June 27. There was little opposition to the
nomination of Governor Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, a wealthy
lawyer who had made a record as a reformer in opposition to "Boss"
Tweed and a corrupt canal ring. The platform was distinctly a reform
document. It demanded reform in the governments of states and nation,
in the currency system, the tariff, the scale of public expense, and
the civil service. An eloquent paragraph exhibited those corruptions
of the administration which had caused such general dismay.

There was little in the campaign that was distinctive, and on
November 8, the morning after the election, it seemed clear that
Tilden had been successful. He had carried the doubtful states of
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. When the figures were
all gathered, it was found that his popular vote exceeded that of his
rival by more than 250,000. But there were disputes in three states,
Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. Hayes would be elected only if
the electoral votes of all these states could be obtained for him.
If, however, Tilden received even one electoral vote from any of the
states, the victory would be his. Hayes was conceded 166 electoral
votes; Tilden 184. Nineteen were in dispute. The Republican leaders
at once claimed the nineteen disputed votes, and asserted that their
candidate was elected. The Democrats had no doubt of the victory of
Tilden.[3] The capitals of the three doubtful states now became the
centers of observation. Troops had long been stationed in South
Carolina and Louisiana, and others were promptly sent to Florida.
Prominent politicians from both parties also flocked thither, in
order to uphold the party interests.

In South Carolina it became evident that a majority of the popular
vote was for Hayes, although both the Democratic and the Republican
electors sent in returns to Washington. In Florida there was a board
of canvassers which had power to exclude false or fraudulent votes.
It was composed of two Republicans and one Democrat. When all ballots
had been sent in, the Democrats claimed a majority of ninety; the
Republicans a majority of forty-five. The board went over the returns
and by a partisan vote threw out enough to make the Republican
majority 924. Republican electoral votes were thereupon sent to
Washington, but so also were Democratic votes. The situation in
Louisiana was still more complicated. Political corruption and
intimidation had been commonplaces in that state. On the face of the
returns, Tilden's electors had received majorities varying from 6,000
to 9,000. As in Florida there was a board of canvassers which was
here composed of four Republicans, three of whom were men of low
character. The vote of the state was offered to the Democrats, once
for $1,000,000 and once for $200,000, but the offer was not taken.
The board then threw out enough ballots to choose all the Hayes
electors. As in the other cases, Democratic electors also sent
ballots to Washington.

There was no federal agency with power to determine which sets of
electors were to be counted, and the fact that the federal Senate was
Republican and the House Democratic seemed to preclude the
possibility of legislation on the subject. No such critical situation
had ever resulted from an election, and a means of settlement must
quickly be discovered, for only three months would elapse after the
electoral votes were sent to Washington, before the term of General
Grant would expire. The means devised was the Electoral Commission.
This body was to be composed of five senators, five representatives,
and five justices of the Supreme Court. The Senate and the House were
each to choose their five members, and four members of the Court were
designated by the Act which established the Commission, with power to
choose a fifth. It was understood that seven would be Republicans,
seven Democrats and that the fifteenth member would be Justice David
Davis, an Independent, who would be selected by his four colleagues.
On him in all probability, the burden of the decision would fall. On
the day when the Senate agreed to the plan, however, the Democrats
and Independents in the Illinois legislature chose Justice Davis as
United States Senator and under these circumstances he refused to
serve on the Commission. It was too late to withdraw, and since all
the remaining justices from whom a commissioner must be chosen were
Republicans, the Democrats were compelled to accept a body on which
they were outnumbered eight to seven.

The Electoral Commission sat all through the month of February, 1877.
Its decisions were uniformly in favor of Hayes electors by a vote of
eight to seven, always along party lines, and on March 2, it was
formally announced that Hayes had been elected. The disappointment of
the Democrats was bitter and lasting, for their candidate had
received over a quarter of a million popular votes more than his
opponent, and yet had been declared defeated. For a time there was
some fear of civil war. Tilden, however, accepted the decision of the
Commission in good faith, and forbade his friends and his party to
resist. Moreover, close friends of the Republican candidate assured
southern Democratic politicians that Hayes if elected would adopt a
conciliatory policy toward the South, and would allow the southern
states to govern themselves unhampered by federal interference.
Peaceful counsels prevailed, therefore, and the closing days of
President Grant's administration were undisturbed by threats of
strife.

The question whether Hayes was fairly elected is a fascinating one.
There is no doubt that there was fraud and intimidation on both
sides, in the disputed states. In Louisiana, for example, the
Democrats prevented many negroes from voting by outrageous
intimidation, while the Republicans had many negroes fraudulently
registered. Little is known, also, of the activities of the "visiting
statesmen," as those politicians were called who went to the South to
care for their party interests. It is known that they were well
provided with money and that the boards of canvassers contained many
unscrupulous men. Nor is it likely that politicians who lived in the
days of the Credit Mobilier and the Whiskey King would falter at a
bargain which would affect the election of a president. Republicans
looked upon the Democrats as being so wicked that they were justified
in "fighting the devil with fire." Democrats looked upon the election
as so clearly theirs that no objection ought to be made to their
taking what belonged to them. It seems certain, however, that Hayes
had no hand in any bargains made by his supporters. As for Tilden,
his wealth was such that he could have purchased votes if he had
desired to do so, and the fact that all the votes went to his rival
indicates that he did not yield to the temptation. Moreover, one of
his closest associates, Henry Watterson, the journalist, tells of one
occasion when the presidency was offered to Tilden and refused by
him. Perhaps a definitive statement of the rights and wrongs of this
famous election will never be made; for one after another the men
most intimately associated with it have died leaving some account of
their activities, but none of them has told much more than was
already known.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Dunning, Rhodes and Schouler, together with most of the works
referred to at the close of Chapter 1, continue to be useful. L.A.
Coolidge, _Ulysses S. Grant_ (1917), is not as partisan as most of
the biographies of the time and is valuable despite a lack of a
thorough understanding of the period. The following are valuable for
especial topics: H. Adams, _Historical Essays_ (1891); C.F. Adams,
Jr., and H. Adams, _Chapters of Erie_ (1886), (gold conspiracy); C.F.
Adams, Jr., _Charles Francis Adams_ (Treaty of Washington); C.F.
Adams, Jr., "The Treaty of Washington" in _Lee at Appomattox, and
Other Papers_ (1902); James Bryce, _American Commonwealth_ (vol. II,
various editions since 1888, contains famous chapter on the Tammany
Tweed ring); A.B. Paine, _Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures_
(1904), (Tweed ring). P.L. Haworth, _Hayes-Tilden Disputed
Presidential Election of 1876_ (1906), is a thorough study; on this
election, see also John Bigelow, _The Life of S.J. Tilden_ (2 vols.,
1895), and C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_ (2 vols.,
1914).

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] The closing months of Johnson's administration found him almost in
a state of isolation. The incoming President refused to have any
social relations with him, or even to ride with him from the White
House to the Capitol on inauguration day. After the installation of
his successor, Johnson returned to Tennessee but was later chosen to
the Senate, where he served but a short time before his death.

[2] In 1884, a year before his death, the dishonesty of a trusted
friend left him bankrupt, while a painful and malignant disease began
slowly to eat away his life. Nevertheless, with characteristic courage
he set himself to the task of dictating his _Memoirs_, or more often
penciling sentences when he was unable to speak, in order that he
might repay his debts with the proceeds.

[3] There was also a technical question concerning one elector in
Oregon, which was easily settled.




CHAPTER III


ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA

With the close of Grant's administration, the main immediate problems
connected with political reconstruction came to an end. During the war,
however, important economic and social developments had been taking
place throughout the United States which were destined to take on
greater and greater significance. The reconstruction problem looked
backward to the war; the new developments looked forward to a new
America. Reconstruction affected fewer and fewer people as time went
on; the later changes ultimately transformed the daily life of every
individual in the nation. Not only did they determine the means by
which he earned his livelihood, but the comforts which he enjoyed, the
conditions of rural or urban life which surrounded him, the ease with
which he visited other portions of the country or obtained information
concerning them, the number and variety of the foreign products that
could be brought to him, the political problems upon which he thought
and voted, and the attitude of the government toward his class in
society. Most of these changes were distinguishable during the
twenty-five years following the war and could be stated in brief and
definite terms.

From the standpoint of population, the growth of the country before
1890, although not so rapid as it had been before the war, was both
constant and important. Between 1870 and 1890 the numbers of people
increased from nearly thirty-nine millions to nearly sixty-three
millions, the rate each decade being not far from twenty-five per cent.
Six states added more than a million each to their population--New York
and Pennsylvania in the Northeast; Ohio, Illinois and Kansas in the
Middle West; and Texas in the South. No fewer than seventeen others
expanded by half a million or more--ten of the seventeen being in the
valley drained by the Mississippi River system.

Detailed study of particular sections of the country discloses a
continuous shifting of population which indicates changes in the
economic life of the people. In northern New England, the numbers
increased slowly. Both Maine and New Hampshire lost from 1860 to 1870;
nearly half of Maine's counties and nearly two-thirds of Vermont's lost
population between 1880 and 1890; the people were abandoning the rural
districts to flock to the cities or migrate to the West. Shipbuilding
fell off in Maine; the dairy interests languished in Vermont, less
wheat was being planted and the farmers, no longer growing wool, were
selling their flocks. Most of the growth was to be found in the
industrial counties. The traditional New England thrift, however, was
not lost with the migration of the people, for savings bank deposits
were increasing, and the state of Vermont was free from debt in 1880,
and all its counties in 1890. The South, between 1870 and 1890,
increased in numbers a little less rapidly than the country as a whole.
On the Atlantic Coast the greatest relative expansion was in Florida;
in the western South, in Texas. The increase was almost wholly native,
as immigration did not flow into that section.

The great expansion of the Middle West, from Ohio to Kansas, was based
upon the public land policy of the federal government. Substantially
all this region had once been in the possession of the United States,
which had early adopted the system of laying out townships six miles
on a side, with subdivisions one mile square, (containing 640 acres),
called sections. An important feature of the policy had been the
encouragement of education and of transportation through the gift
of large grants of the public land. Moreover, settlement had been
stimulated by the disposal of land to purchasers at extremely liberal
figures. In 1862 the famous Homestead Act had inaugurated a still
more generous policy. Under this law the citizen might settle upon a
quarter-section and receive a title after five years of actual
occupation, with no charge other than a slight fee. Millions of acres
were taken up in this way both by natives and by immigrants. 1,300,000
people poured into Illinois between 1870 and 1890; over 1,000,000 into
Kansas, and nearly that number into Nebraska; in the Dakotas a young
man of college age in 1890 might have remembered almost the entire
significant portion of the history of his state and have been one of
the oldest inhabitants. The frontier of settlement advanced from the
western edge of Missouri into mid-Kansas, and almost met the growing
population of the Far West, whose economic possibilities had already
attracted attention.

The discovery of gold-dust in a mill-race in California had drawn the
"Forty-niners" to

    ... lands of gold
    That lay toward the sun.

For a few years fabulous sums of the precious metal had been extracted
from the ground by the hordes of treasure-seekers who had come from
all over the world by boat, pack-animal or "prairie schooner," around
Cape Horn, across the Isthmus of Panama or over the western mountains.
When the yield of the mines had slackened, some of the population had
filtered off to newer fields, but more had settled down to exploit the
agricultural and lumber resources of California. In Nevada a rich vein
of silver called the "Comstock Lode" had been discovered; in 1873 a
group operating the "Virginia Consolidated" mine struck the great
"bonanza," and the output reached unheard of proportions. The success
of the mines, however, was essential to Nevada, which had few other
resources to develop, and when the yield slowed down the population
growth of the state noticeably slackened. In Colorado during the late
fifties some prospectors had struck gold, and another rush had made
"Pike's Peak or Bust" its slogan. Some had returned, "Busted by
Thunder," but others had better fortune, discovered gold, silver or
lead, and helped lay the foundations of Denver and Leadville. In Idaho
and Montana, in Wyoming and South Dakota and other states, prospectors
found gold, silver, copper and lead, and thus attracted much of the
population that later settled down to occupations which were less
feverish and more reliable than mining. In general, the advance of
population into the Middle West was more or less regular, as wave on
wave made its way into the Mississippi Basin; in the Far West,
however, population extended in long arms up the fertile valleys of
Washington, Oregon and California, or was found in scattered islands
where mineral wealth had been discovered in the Rocky Mountain region.

From the standpoint of absolute growth, the expansion of most of the
far western states was not imposing, but the relative increase was
suggestive of the future. Colorado nearly quadrupled in a decade,
(1870-1880), and Washington equalled the record in the following ten
years. California grew faster from 1870 to 1890 than it had done in
the gold days, indicating that its development was based on something
more lasting than a fickle vein of ore. Meanwhile politicians were
fanning the desire of the growing territories to become states, and in
1889 Montana and Washington were admitted, and in the following year
Idaho and Wyoming. Of these, Washington alone had a population
equivalent to the federal ratio for representation in the House.[1]

Utah was kept outside for a few years longer, until the Mormon Church
gave satisfactory indication that anti-polygamy laws were being
enforced.

The migration westward, which has been a constant factor in American
development since early times, continued unabated after the Civil War;
indeed the restless spirit aroused by the four years of conflict
undoubtedly tended to increase this steady shift toward the West. By
1890 approximately a fifth of the native Americans were to be found in
states other than those in which they had been born. 95,000 natives of
Maine, for example, were to be found in Massachusetts; 17,000 were in
California; and considerable numbers in every state between the two.
The North Carolinians were equally well distributed. 43,000 were in
South Carolina, 18,000 in Texas, and 5,500 in Washington. Every state
had contributed to populate every other, although in general the
migration tended to take place on east and west lines, and
predominantly westward.

Within the westward-moving tide of population were swirling
eddies--cities--which tended to attract to themselves larger and larger
proportions of the surrounding people. In 1870 two men in every ten
lived in cities whose population was 8,000 or more; by 1890 another man
in every ten had forsaken rural life. Large cities like Boston and New
York sucked in surrounding districts, and so constituted metropolitan
centers with problems new to American life. Such cities as Birmingham,
Kansas City, and Seattle were just appearing in 1880, but their growth
was very rapid; Los Angeles increased ten fold and Minneapolis
thirteen, between 1870 and 1890; Denver, having received ten newcomers
between 1860 and 1870, added 102,000 in the following twenty years.
In the country as a whole the concentration in cities was most marked
in the area north of the Potomac and Ohio rivers and east of the
Mississippi; the South remained rural, as before the war. With the
growth of urban population came questions of lighting and water supply,
street railway transportation and municipal government, industry,
education, health and morals.[2]

Immigration, another constant factor in American development,
underwent important changes during the twenty-five years from 1865
to 1890. Greater in prosperous years and smaller during years of
depression, the inward tide reached its climax in 1882, when 789,000
aliens reached the new world. That year, in several respects, was a
turning point in the history of immigration into the United States.
It was in this year that the Chinese were excluded; that immigration
from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia became of sufficient size to be
impressive; and that the first inclusive federal immigration act was
passed. The immigration law of 1882 defined, in general, the policy
which the nation has pursued ever since. It placed a tax of fifty
cents on all incomers to be paid by the ship companies; it forbade the
landing of objectionable persons, such as convicts and lunatics; and
it placed on the owners of vessels the expense of returning immigrants
not permitted to land. All these provisions were amended or developed
in later laws, like that of 1885 forbidding persons or corporations to
prepay the transportation of laborers or to encourage immigration
under contract to perform work. The greater part of the foreign
population settled in the manufacturing and urban North. Put into
simplest terms, the census of 1890 showed that of every hundred aliens
who had come to the United States between 1870 and 1890, thirty-seven
were to be found in the states from Maine to Pennsylvania, four from
Delaware to Texas, forty-seven from Ohio to Kansas and twelve in the
Far West (for the most part Chinese).

Of the great economic interests of the United States, the most
widespread was agriculture. In the Northeast, to be sure, the amount
of improved farm land had been growing steadily less since 1850 and
the people had been turning their energies into other activities. In
the South, on the other hand, agriculture formed the main economic
resource and the twenty-five years following the war were, for the
most part, consumed in recovering from that struggle. Although
conditions varied from place to place, the situation in many portions
of the South was little short of pitiable. Not only were factories,
public buildings and railroads, houses and barns, tools and seeds
destroyed, capital and credit gone, mining at a standstill and banks
ruined, but bands of thieves infested many districts, federal officers
were frequently dishonest and defrauded the people, and the entire
labor system was wiped out at a stroke. The negroes had not been ideal
workmen as slaves; now, as freedmen, they found difficulty in
adjusting themselves to the economic obligations of their new status,
and evinced a tendency to rove about restlessly, instead of settling
down to the stern task of helping to rebuild the shattered South.

It was manifest that the first problem was to revive the agricultural
activities of the old days, and that the main resource must be cotton,
the demand for which in the markets of the North and of Europe was
such as to make it the best "money crop." A labor system was
introduced known as share-farming or cropping. Under this system the
plantation owner who had more property than he could cultivate under
the new conditions let parts of his land to tenants, supplying them
with buildings, tools, seed and perhaps credit at the village store
for the supplies necessary for the year. The tenant, who had neither
money nor credit with which to buy land, furnished the labor, and at
the harvest each received a specified share of the product, commonly a
half. The system had its disadvantages; it kept the farmer always in
debt, and since the only valuable security which the plantation owner
had was the crop--the land being almost unsalable--he insisted on
the cultivation of cotton, which was a safe crop, and avoided
experimentation and diversification. On the other hand, the system
enabled the land owner to take advantage of the labor supply and to
supervise the untutored negro,--and it kept the South alive. In
addition to the large plantations, cultivated by several tenant
farmers, the number of small farms tilled by independent owners or
renters increased. Due to this tendency and to the opening of many
small holdings in the Southwest, the size of the average farm
diminished, so that the small farmer began to replace the plantation
owner as the typical southerner.

Owing to the insistence of land owners upon cotton culture, the South
first caught up with its _ante-bellum_ production in the cultivation
of this staple, for shortly before 1880 the crop exceeded that of
1860. The production of tobacco, the second great southern crop,
sharply shifted after the war from the Atlantic Coast states, except
North Carolina, to the Mississippi region, especially to Kentucky.
Maryland, indeed, never again produced much more than half as great a
crop as she did in 1860, while Virginia did not equal her former
record until the opening of the twentieth century, although the South
as a whole recovered in the late eighties. Rice culture, likewise, did
not recover readily for South Carolina alone produced almost as much
in 1860 as the entire South in 1890, and not until the development of
production in Louisiana after 1890 did the crop assume its former
importance. The production of sugar in Louisiana in 1890 was but
little greater than it had been in 1860, and in the production of
cereals the South did not keep pace with the upper Mississippi Valley
before 1890. On the other hand the rapid growth of Texas was one of
the outstanding features of southern development during the period,
for that state improved an amount of farm land between 1870 and 1890,
roughly equivalent to the combined areas of New Hampshire, Vermont,
and Massachusetts. There was observable, moreover, a certain
hopefulness, a certain resiliency of purpose, a pride in the
achievements of the past and in the possibilities of the future. In
these respects the South was a new South by 1890.

Greater than the South as a food-producing area, was the belt of
states from Ohio and Michigan to Kansas and the Dakotas:

    Where there's more of reaping and less of sowing,
    That's where the West begins.

The increased occupation of the public lands, the growth of population,
improvements in transportation and the greater use of agricultural
machinery, which could be employed to advantage on the large and
relatively level farms, led to developments that were destined to have
an important effect on the history of the nation. Agricultural
machinery, such as the reaper, had been known long before the war, but
the reduction of the labor supply from 1861 to 1865 had compelled
farmers to replace men with machines. A reaper that merely cut the
grain and tossed it aside, gave way at last to one which not only cut
the grain, but gathered it into sheaves and bound the sheaves with
twine. So great was the effect of the harvester upon western
agriculture that William H. Seward declared that it "pushed the
frontier westward at the rate of thirty miles a year."

Due to the facts already mentioned, the number of mid-western farms
increased nearly a million from 1870 to 1890, and the acreage in
improved farm land grew by an amount equivalent to the combined areas
of the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, with a
generous margin to spare. The production of corn, wheat, oats and other
cereals became so great as to demand an outlet to the East and to the
markets of the world. Elevators for the storage of grain were
constructed with a capacity of 300,000 to 1,000,000 bushels, and
improvements were made in the methods of loading and unloading the
product. Despite the growth of the agricultural interests of the Middle
West, however, the farmer did not reach prosperity. For twenty years
after 1873 prices fell steadily both in the United States and in other
countries of the world, and the agricultural classes found themselves
receiving a smaller and smaller return for their products. Unrest grew
to distress, and distress to acute depression, while the demands of the
farmers for relief frequently determined the trend of mid-western
politics.[3]

[Illustration:
Relative Prices--1865-1890]

Less general than agriculture, but more characteristic of the period
after the war, was the development of manufacturing. The census of 1870
was faulty and inadequate, but it was sufficiently accurate to indicate
that the manufacturing region was preeminently that north of the
Potomac-Ohio river line and east of the Mississippi. By 1890 it was
apparent that the industrial interests were shifting slightly toward
the West; nevertheless the leading states were those of southern New
England, and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In these states no
fewer than four hundred and forty-seven industries employed more than a
million dollars of capital each. The manufacturing of cotton, woolen
and silk for the rest of the country was done here; foundry products,
iron and steel manufactures, silver and brass goods, refined petroleum,
boots and shoes, paper and books, with a host of other articles, were
sent from this section to every part of the world. All along the line,
from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, capital engaged in manufacturing
doubled between 1880 and 1890, and the number of employees greatly
increased.

Although the industrial life of the South belongs, for the most part,
to the years since 1890, the coal and iron deposits of Alabama were
known and utilized before that year, the number of cotton mill spindles
in North Carolina tripled between 1880 and 1890, and cotton expositions
were held in Atlanta in 1881 and New Orleans in 1884. It was in the
eighties, also, that the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the Norfolk
and Western led to the exploitation of the coal deposits of Virginia
and West Virginia, especially the famous Pocahontas field.

Some aspects of the growth of manufacturing in the North are well
illustrated in the development of the mineral resources around Lake
Superior. The presence of copper and iron in this region had long been
known, but they had not been utilized until a decade before the Civil
War, and even then the output had been greatly restricted by
insufficient transportation facilities. By the close of the war,
however, a canal had been constructed which allowed the passage of
barges from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and railroads had been laid to
a few important mining centers. The Marquette iron range in northern
Michigan, the Gogebic in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Menominee near
Marquette, the Vermilion Lake and Mesabec ore-beds near Duluth,--all
these combined to yield millions of tons of ore, caused the development
of numerous mining towns and laid the foundations of a gigantic
expansion in the production of steel. As the iron and steel industry
with its furnaces, machinery and skilled labor was already established
at points in Illinois, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, it was cheaper to
transport the ore to these places than to transfer the industry to the
mines. Ore vessels were constructed capable of carrying mammoth
cargoes; docks, railroads and canals were built; and the products of
the mines taken to lake and inland cities. Improvements, meanwhile,
were being continually made in the steel industry, such as the Bessemer
process, by which the impurities were burned out of the iron ore, and
exactly enough carbon introduced into the molten metal to transform it
into steel.

Although the steel industry was established in many places, its most
dramatic growth occurred in those parts of eastern Ohio and western
Pennsylvania that center about the city of Pittsburg. Placed
strategically at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers
join to form the Ohio, in the midst of an area rich in coal, petroleum
and natural gas, Pittsburg rapidly became the center of a region in
which the development of manufacturing and the construction of
railroads dwarfed other interests. A large portion of the ore mined in
the Lake Superior fields was carried to the Pittsburg district to be
transformed into steel products of all kinds. Moreover, the fortunes
made by private individuals in the region, and the inflow of alien
laborers to work in the factories and on the railroads raised weighty
social and industrial problems.

Manifestly the extension of agriculture and industry in so large a
country as the United States was dependent upon the corresponding
growth of the means of transportation, both by water and by rail. A
detailed account of the expansion of the railway net, with the
accompanying' implications in the fields of finance and politics, is a
matter for later consideration. Certain of its general features may be
mentioned, however, because they are intimately interwoven with the
economic developments which have just been explained. The concentration
of the population in the cities, of which New York and Chicago were
outstanding examples, was one of these features. From the time of the
first census, the city of New York continued to maintain its position
as the most populous city of the nation. Between 1850 and 1890 it added
a round million to its numbers, containing 1,515,000 persons at the
later date. Moreover it was the center of a thriving and thickly
settled region extending from New Haven on the one side to Philadelphia
on the other--the most densely populated area in America. The
uninterrupted expansion of the city indicated that the reasons for its
growth were constant in their operation. And, in fact, the reasons were
not difficult to find. It was blessed with one of the world's finest
harbors and had access to the interior of the state by way of the
Hudson and Mohawk rivers. These natural advantages had long since been
recognized and had been increased by the construction of the Erie Canal
in 1825 which, with the Great Lakes and the several canals connecting
the Lakes with the Ohio Valley, had given New York an early hold and
almost a monopoly on the trade between the upper Mississippi, the Lakes
and the coast. The city, therefore, became an importing and exporting
center; its shipping interests grew, immigration flowed in, and its
manufacturing establishments soon outstripped those of any other
industrial center; the great printing and publishing, banking and
commercial firms were drawn irresistibly to the most populous city, and
Wall Street became the synonym for the financial center of the nation.

In 1840 Chicago had been an unimportant settlement of 4500 persons, but
by the opening of the war it had grown to twenty-five times that size,
and added 800,000 between 1870 and 1890. It had early become evident
that the city was the natural outlet toward the East for the grain
trade and the slaughtering and meatpacking industry of the upper
Mississippi Valley. Before the late sixties, however, railway
connection was defective, being composed of many short lines rather
than of one continuous road, so that freight had to be loaded and
unloaded many times during its passage to the seaboard. This situation,
which had been merely inconvenient before the war, had become little
short of intolerable during the struggle, because the closing of the
Mississippi had cut off from the Middle West its water outlet toward
the South and had diverted more freight to the railroads. After the
war, Cornelius Vanderbilt, president of the Hudson River Railroad,
combined a number of the shorter roads so as to give uninterrupted
communication between Chicago and New York, to tap the trade of the
Mississippi Valley, and to compete with water traffic by way of the
Great Lakes and the Erie Canal. Other railroads saw the possibilities
in the western trade, and the Baltimore and Ohio, the Grand Trunk, and
the Erie followed the lead of Vanderbilt. A similar development,
although on a smaller scale, accompanied the growth of other northern
cities. The retroactive effects of the roads on the distribution of the
population are too detailed for discussion, but a single example may
typify many. In 1870 the Maine farmer supplied much of the meat
consumed in Boston; by 1895, he was getting his own meat from the West.
He must, therefore, adapt himself to the new conditions if he could,
move to the manufacturing cities as so many of his neighbors did, or
migrate to the West.

Like the growth of New York and Chicago, the development of California
had an important effect on the history of American railway
transportation. Although it had been agitated for many years, the
project for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast had
not reached the construction stage until the congressional acts of 1862
and 1864 provided for a line to be built from Omaha to San Francisco.
The Union Pacific Railroad had been incorporated to build the eastern
end, while the western end was to be constructed by the Central Pacific
Railroad Company, a California corporation. The latter act, that of
1864, had given the roads substantial financial assistance and half the
public land on a strip forty miles wide along the line of the track.
Many difficulties had stood in the way--lack of funds, problems of
construction and inadequate labor supply. Eventually they had all been
overcome by the energy and skill of such men as Stanford, Crocker and
Huntington. Imported Chinese coolies had met the labor demand and
construction was speeded up. Actual building had begun in 1863 and six
years later the two roads met at Promontory Point near Ogden in Utah,
where the last spike was driven, the engines

    Facing on the single track,
      Half a world behind each back.

During the four years following the completion of the transcontinental
line, 24,000 miles of new railroad were constructed, much of which was
built into the wilderness ahead of settlement. So great an expansion,
coming at a time when immense stretches of new land were being opened
and industry being developed on a large scale, could hardly fail to
result in over-speculation. The results appeared in 1873. Jay Cooke and
Company, the most important financial concern in the country had been
back of the Northern Pacific Railroad, marketing large quantities of
its bonds and so providing capital for construction, the purchase of
equipment, the payment of wages and so on. Obviously a large amount of
money was thus being put into an enterprise from which returns would
come only after a considerable period; and yet construction had to be
continued, or what was already invested would be lost. What Cooke was
doing for the Northern Pacific was being done for the Chesapeake and
Ohio by Fisk and Hatch, and by other firms for speculative enterprises
in every corner of the land.

The process of putting capital into fixed form could hardly go on
forever, and several events led to a final crash. In 1871 and 1872
great fires in Chicago and Boston destroyed millions of dollars' worth
of property. Early in 1873 the government investigation of the Credit
Mobilier Company led to widespread distrust of the roads and made
investors conservative about buying bonds. On September 18, 1873, Jay
Cooke and Company found itself unable to continue business and closed
its doors. The failure was a thunderbolt to the financial world.
Indeed, so unbelievable was the news that an energetic policeman
arrested a small newsboy who shouted his "Extra--All about the failure
of Jay Cooke."

If Jay Cooke and Company fell, the sky might fall. People rushed to
withdraw their funds from the banks. Fisk and Hatch opened their doors
for fifteen minutes and received calls for $1,500,000. They closed at
once. The smaller financial institutions followed the bigger ones.
Stocks fell, the Exchange was closed, there was a money famine.
Industrial concerns, dependent on the banks, failed by scores.
Industrial paralysis, with railroad receiverships, laborers out of
employment, riots and their accompaniments, showed how deep-seated had
been the trouble. Not until late in the decade did business recover its
former prosperity.

With the return of more stable conditions the construction of railroads
continued unabated. The Northern Pacific ran near the Canadian line and
connected the upper Mississippi Valley with the coast, carrying in its
trail the manners and customs of the East. Two lines in the South were
extended to the Pacific, so that by the middle eighties four great main
avenues gave passage through a region over which, so recently, the
miner and the trapper had forced a dangerous path.

The fact that it was often necessary, in building the railroads across
the plains, to detail half the working force to protect the remainder
against the Indians, calls attention to one unmistakable result of the
conquest of the Far West. The construction of the railroads spelled the
doom of the wild Indian. Far back in 1834 the government had adopted
the policy of setting aside large tracts of land west of the
Mississippi for the use of the Indian tribes. Most of the savages had
been stationed in an immense area between southern Minnesota and Texas,
while other smaller reservations had been scattered over most of the
states west of the river. On the whole, the government had dealt with
the Indians in tribes, not as individuals. The rapid inflow of
population to the fertile lands, together with the rush of prospectors
to newly discovered supplies of gold and silver, caused increasing
demands from the Indians for protection, and from the whites for the
extinguishment of Indian land titles.

The classical illustration of this tendency is found in the case of the
Sioux Indians in South Dakota. The discovery of gold in the region of
the Black Hills, on the Sioux reservation, aroused agitation for the
removal of the tribe to make way for settlers and miners. But the
execution of the scheme was not so simple as its conception. The
removal of the Sioux necessitated the transfer of the Poncas, a
peaceful tribe which lay immediately east. The latter, not unnaturally,
objected, quarrels arose and eventually the Poncas were practically
broken to pieces. The Sioux, not satisfied, attempted to regain the
Black Hills, fought the famous Sioux War of 1876, led by Sitting Bull,
but were crushed and forced to give up the unequal contest.

It would not be worth while to enter into the details of the numerous
Indian conflicts after the Civil War. It is enough to notice that
stirring accounts of them may be read in the memoirs of such soldiers
as Custer, Sheridan and Miles, and that they cost millions of dollars
and hundreds of lives. Finally it became evident that the attempt to
deal with the Indians in tribes was a failure and it was determined to
break up the tribal holdings of land so as to give each individual a
small piece for his private property, and to open the remainder to
settlement by the whites. In pursuance of such a policy, the Dawes Act
of 1887 provided for the allotment of a quarter-section to each head of
a family, with the proviso that the owner should not sell the land
within twenty-five years. This was intended to protect the Indian from
shrewd "land-sharks." Citizenship was given with the ownership of the
land, in the hope that a sort of assimilation might gradually take
place, and earnest attempts were made to provide education for the
red-man. Not all these hopes were realized, however, and the later
Burke Act, 1906, attempted further protection.

While the Indian was being restricted to a small part of the great
region west of the Mississippi, there was being enacted on the plains
one of the most picturesque of all American dramas. Beyond the settled
parts of the states just west of the "Father of Waters," bounded north
and south by Canada and the Rio Grande, and extending west to the Rocky
Mountain foot-hills, lay a huge empire of rolling territory. It was
grass-covered, but lacked sufficient rainfall to make it fertile, so
that it was considered, as part of it had early been called, "the great
American desert."

Cattle turned loose long before by Spanish ranchers down in the
Southwest had multiplied, spread out over the plains, and run
wild--wild as Texas steers. A combination of circumstances disclosed
the fact that these cattle could be improved by breeding, corraled and
driven north over the "Long Trail," to be slaughtered in Omaha, Kansas
City, St. Louis and Chicago for the people of eastern cities. The
round-up, when the cattle were collected; the drive, under command of
the boss and his cow-boys,

    loose in the unfenced blue riding the sunset rounds;

the great ranches in the North, where the herds were fattened for the
market;--all this formed the background of an attractive romance.
Obviously, however, the drive was dependent on great stretches of open
country, with free grazing and free access to water, and it is also
manifest that these conditions could not long endure in the face of
constant westward migration. Homesteaders followed the railroads out
across the plains, and the cheapening of wire fence led to the
enclosure of great farms including the best grazing lands and the water
supply. By 1890, therefore, the great drives were a tale that is told.
The less romantic packing business remained, however; ranches supplied
the cattle, the railroads transported them, and improvements in
refrigerating and canning made possible another development in domestic
and foreign trade.

In addition to the expansion of the several economic interests of the
various sections of the country, inventions and improvements were
taking place which affected the general problems of production and
distribution. Improvements in machinery saved forty to eighty per cent.
of the time and labor demanded in the production of important
manufactured goods. Cheapened steel affected all kinds of industry. The
development of steam-power and the beginnings of the practical use of
electricity for power and light multiplied the effectiveness of human
hands or added to human comfort. Cheaper and quicker transportation
almost revolutionized the distribution of economic goods. The increased
use of the telegraph and cable shortened distances and brought together
producers and consumers that had in earlier times been weeks of travel
apart.

The necessarily statistical character of an account of economic
development should not obscure the meaning of its details. Increased
population, with its horde of incoming aliens, created a demand for
standing room, necessitated westward expansion, and made the West more
than ever a new country with new problems. The growth of agriculture
enlarged a class that had not hitherto been as influential as it was
destined to be, and brought into politics the economic needs of the
farmer. Manufacturing brought great wealth into the hands of a few,
created an increasing demand for protective tariffs and gave rise to
strikes and other industrial problems. The concentration of especial
interests in especial sections made likely the emergence of sectional
antagonisms. Back of tariff and finance, therefore, back of
transportation and labor, of new political parties and revolts in the
old ones, of the great strikes and the increasing importance of some of
the sections, lay the economic foundations of the new era.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

No thorough study of the economic history of the United States after
the Civil War has yet been made. E.L. Bogart, _Economic History of the
United States_ (1907), and various later editions, is the best single
volume; E.E. Sparks, _National Development_ (1907), is useful. On the
South, consult articles by St. G.L. Sioussat, in _History Teachers'
Magazine_ (Sept., Oct., 1916); P.A. Bruce, _Rise of the New South_
(1905); J.C. Ballagh (ed.), _South in the Building of the Nation_
(1909), vol. VI; M.B. Hammond, _Cotton Industry_ (1897). R.P. Porter,
_West from the Census of 1880_ (1882), is a useful compendium. The
Plains in the day of the cowboy are well described in Emerson Hough,
_Passing of the Frontier_ (1918); Emerson Hough, _Story of the Cowboy_
(1898); F.L. Paxson, _Last American Frontier_ (1910); and F.L. Paxson,
"The Cow Country," in _American Historical Review_, Oct., 1916. N.A.
Miles, _Serving the Republic_ (1911), contains reminiscences of Indian
conflicts. On the Far West, in addition to Porter, Hough and Paxson,
Katharine Coman, _Economic Beginnings of the Far West_ (2 vols., 1912);
H.K. White, _Union Pacific Railway_ (1898); L.H. Haney, _Congressional
History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1908-1910); S.E. White, _The
Forty-Niners_ (1918).

There is also an abundance of useful illustrative fiction, such as:
Bret Harte, _Luck of Roaring Camp_, and other stories (Far West);
Edward Eggleston, _Hoosier Schoolmaster_ (Indiana); W.D. Howells,
_Rise of Silas Lapham_ (New England); G.W. Cable, _Old Creole Days_
(New Orleans); C.E. Craddock, _In the Tennessee Mountains_; F.H.
Smith, _Colonel Carter_ (Virginia); Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled
Roads_ and _Son of the Middle Border_ (Middle West); P.L. Ford, _Hon.
Peter Sterling_ (New York); S.E. White, _Gold_ (California); and
_Riverman_ (Lake Superior lumber); John Hay, _Breadwinners_ (industrial).

For other references to economic aspects of the period, see chapters
IX, XI, XIV.

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] The ratio was 151,912 but, by a provision of the Constitution,
states are given a representative even if they do not contain the
requisite number.

[2] The most important advances in municipal street railway
transportation were made between 1875 and 1890. In 1876 New York began
the construction of an overhead or elevated railway on which trains
were drawn by small locomotives. The first electric street railways
were operated in Richmond, Va., and in Baltimore. Electric street
lighting was introduced in San Francisco in 1879.

[3] Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled Roads_, portrays the hardships of
western farm life.




CHAPTER IV


POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES

Powerful as economic forces were from 1865 to 1890, they did not alone
determine the direction of American progress during those years.
Different individuals and different sections of the country reacted
differently to the same economic facts; a formula that explained a
phenomenon satisfactorily to one group, carried no conviction to
another; political parties built up their platforms on economic
self-interest, and yet they sometimes had their ideals; theories that
seemed to explain economic development were found to be inadequate and
were replaced by others; and practices that had earlier been regarded
with indifference began to offend the public sense of good taste or
morals or justice, and gave way to more enlightened standards. Some
understanding is necessary, therefore, of the more common theories,
ideals, creeds and practices, because they supplemented the economic
foundations that underlay American progress for a quarter century after
the war.

Since the Republican party was almost continuously in power during this
period, its composition, spirit and ideals were fundamental in
political history. Throughout the North, and especially in the
Northeast, the intellectual and prosperous classes, the capitalists and
manufacturers, were more likely to be found in the Republican party
than among the Democrats. In fact such party leaders as Senator George
F. Hoar went so far as to assert that the organization comprised the
manufacturers and skilled laborers of the East, the soldiers, the
church members, the clergymen, the school-teachers, the reformers and
the men who were doing the great work of temperance, education and
philanthropy. The history of the party, also, was no small factor in
its successes. Many northerners had cast their first ballot in the
fifties, with all the zeal of crusaders; they looked back upon the
beginnings of Republicanism as they might have remembered the origin of
a sacred faith; they thought of their party as the body which had
abolished slavery and restored the Union; and they treasured the names
of its Lincoln, its Seward, its Sumner and Grant and Sherman. The
Republican party, wrote Edward MacPherson in 1888, in a history of the
organization, is

    both in the purity of its doctrines, the beneficent sweep of its
    measures, in its courage, its steadfastness, its fidelity, in its
    achievements and in its example, the most resplendent political
    organization the world has ever seen.

Senator Hoar declared that no party in history, not even that which
inaugurated the Constitution, had ever accomplished so much in so short
a time. It had been formed, he said, to prevent the extension of
slavery into the territories, but the "providence of God imposed upon
it far larger duties." The Republican party gave "honest, wise, safe,
liberal, progressive American counsel" and the Democrats "unwise,
unsafe, illiberal, obstructive, un-American counsel." He remembered the
Republican nominating convention of 1880 as a scene of "indescribable
sublimity," comparable in "grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty
torrent of Niagara."

During the generation after the war the recollection of the struggle
was fresh in men's minds and its influence was a force in party
councils. The Democrats were looked upon as having sympathized with the
"rebellion" and having been the party of disunion. In campaign after
campaign the people were warned not to admit to power the party which
had been "traitor" to the Union. Roscoe Conkling, the most influential
politician in New York, declared in 1877 that the Democrats wished to
regain power in order to use the funds in the United States Treasury to
repay Confederate war debts and to provide pensions for southern
soldiers. As late even as 1888 the nation was urged to recollect that
the Democratic party had been the "mainstay and support of the
Rebellion," while the Republicans were the "party that served the
Nation."

At a later time it was pointed out that the party had not been founded
solely on idealism; that the adherence of Pennsylvania to the party,
for example, was due at least in a measure to Republican advocacy of a
protective tariff; that Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton, two of
the leading members of Lincoln's cabinet had been Democrats; and that
Lincoln's second election and the successful outcome of the war had
been due partly to the support of his political opponents. As time went
on, also, some of the leaders of the Republican party declared that its
original ideals had become obscured in more practical considerations.
They felt that abuses had grown up which had been little noticed
because of the necessity of keeping in power that party which they
regarded as the only patriotic one. They asserted that many of the
managers had become arrogant and corrupt. All this helped to explain
the strength of such revolts as that of the Liberal Republican movement
of 1872. Nevertheless, during the greater part of the twenty-five years
after the war, hosts of Republicans cherished such a picture as that
drawn by Senator Hoar and Edward MacPherson, and it was that picture
which held them within the party and made patriotism and Republicanism
synonymous terms.

These Republicans, however, who took the more critical attitude toward
their party formed the core of the "Mugwump" or Independent movement.
Their philosophy was simple. They believed that there ought to be a
political element which was not rigidly controlled by the discipline of
party organization, which would act upon its own judgment for the
public interest, and which should be a reminder to both parties that
neither could venture upon mischievous policies without endangering its
control over the machinery of government. Theoretically, at least, the
Independent believed that it was more important that government be well
administered than that it be administered by one set of men or another.
The weakness of this group, aside from its small size, was its
impatience and impracticability. By nature the Independent was an
individualist, forming his own opinion and holding it with tenacity. In
such a body there could not be long-continued cooperation or singleness
of purpose; each new problem caused new decisions resulting in the
break-up of the group and the formation of new alignments. The
Independent group, therefore, varied in strength from campaign to
campaign. To the typical party worker, who looked upon politics as a
warfare for the spoils of office, the Independent was variously
denounced as a deserter, a traitor, an apostate and a guerilla
deploying between the lines and foraging now on one side and now on the
other. To the party wheel-horse, independent voting seemed
impracticable, and the atmosphere of reform too "highly scented."

The Democrats, laboring under the disadvantage of a reputation for
disloyalty during the war, and kept out of power for most of the time
during the period, were forced into a defensive position where they
could complain or criticize, but not present a program of constructive
achievement. They denounced the election of 1876 as a great "fraud";
they looked upon the Republicans as the organ of those who demanded
class advantages; they condemned the party as wasteful, corrupt and
extravagant in administration, careless of the distress of the masses,
and desirous of increasing the authority of the federal government at
the expense of the powers of the states. Their own mission they felt to
be the constant assertion of the opposite principles of government and
administration. They felt that they in particular represented
government by the people for the equal good of all classes. In
conformity to what they believed to be the principles of Jefferson and
Jackson they professed faith in the capacity of the plain people. They
advocated frugality and economy in government expenditure and looked
with alarm on any extension of federal power that invaded the
traditional domain of local activity.

The intensification of party spirit and party loyalty, which was so
typical of the times, "delivered the citizen more effectually, bound
hand and foot, into the power of the party embodied in its
Organization." The organization, meanwhile, was being improved and
strengthened. Its permanent National Committee which had existed from
_ante-bellum_ days, was supplemented in both parties immediately after
the war by the congressional committee, whose mission it was to carry
the elections for the House of Representatives. Increased attention was
paid to state and local organizations. Party conventions in states and
counties chose delegates to national conventions and nominated
candidates for office. State, county and town committees raised money,
employed speakers, distributed literature, formed torch-light companies
to march in party processions and, most important of all, got out the
voters on election day. By such means the National Committee was
enabled to keep in close touch with the rank and file of the party, and
so complete did the organization become that it deserved and won the
name, "the machine."

The master-spirit of the machine was usually the "Boss," a professional
politician who generally did not himself hold elective office or show
concern in constructive programs of legislation or in the public
welfare. Instead, his interests lay in winning elections; dividing the
offices among the party workers; distributing profitable contracts for
public work; procuring the passage of legislation desired by industrial
or railroad companies, or blocking measures objected to by them. A
vivid picture of the activities of the boss in New York, drawn by Elihu
Root, will serve to portray conditions in many states and cities from
1865 to 1890:

    From the days of Fenton, and Conkling, and Arthur, and Cornell,
    and Platt, from the days of David B. Hill, down to the present
    time, the government of the state has presented two different lines
    of activity, one of the constitutional and statutory officers of
    the state, and the other of the party leaders,--they call them
    party bosses. They call the system--I do not coin the phrase, I
    adopt it because it carries its own meaning--the system they call
    "invisible government." For I do not remember how many years, Mr.
    Conkling was the supreme ruler in this state; the governor did not
    count, the legislatures did not count; comptrollers and secretaries
    of state and what not, did not count. It was what Mr. Conkling
    said; and in a great outburst of public rage he was pulled down.

    Then Mr. Platt ruled the state; for nigh upon twenty years he ruled
    it. It was not the governor; it was not the legislature; it was not
    any elected officers; it was Mr. Platt. And the capitol was not
    here (in Albany); it was at 49 Broadway; with Mr. Platt and his
    lieutenants. It makes no difference what name you give, whether you
    call it Fenton or Conkling or Cornell or Arthur or Platt, or by the
    names of men now living. The ruler of the state during the greater
    part of the forty years of my acquaintance with the state
    government has not been any man authorized by the constitution or
    by the law.[1]

Under such conditions, corruption was naturally a commonplace in
politics. In the campaigns, the party managers were too often men to
whom "nothing was dreadful but defeat." At every Presidential election,
immense sums of money were poured into the most important doubtful
states--Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. Twenty to
seventy-five dollars was said to have been the price of a vote in
Indiana in 1880; and ten to fifteen per cent. of the vote in
Connecticut was thought to be purchasable. In New York ballot-box
stuffing and repeating were the rule in sections of the city. Employers
exerted a less crude but equally efficacious pressure upon their
employees to vote "right." Municipal government also was often
characterized by that extreme of corruption which called out the scorn
of writers on public affairs. The New York _Times_ complained in 1877
that the government of the city was no more a popular government than
Turkish rule in Bulgaria, and that if the Tammany leaders did not
collect revenue with the horse-whip and sabre, it was because the forms
of law afforded a means that was pleasanter, easier and quite as
effective.

Federal officials, it must be admitted, did not set a high standard for
local officers to follow. During Grant's administration five judges of
a United States Court were driven from office by threats of
impeachment; members of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House
of Representatives sold their privilege of selecting young men to be
educated at West Point; and candidates for even the highest offices in
the gift of the nation were sometimes men whose political past would
not bear the light of day. More difficult to overcome was the lack of a
decent sense of propriety among many public officers. Members of the
Senate practiced before the Supreme Court, the justices of which they
had an important share in appointing; senators and representatives
traded in the securities of railroads which were seeking favors at the
hands of Congress; and even in the most critical circles, corrupt
practices were condoned on the ground that all the most reputable
people were more or less engaged in similar activities. Most difficult
of all to understand was the unfaltering support accorded by men of the
utmost integrity to party leaders whose evil character was known on all
sides. Men who would not themselves be guilty of dishonest acts and who
vehemently condemned such deeds among their political opponents, failed
to make any energetic protest within their own ranks for fear that they
might bring about a party split and thus give the "enemy" a victory.

The political practices which prevailed after 1865 for at least a
quarter of a century were notoriously bad. Yet the student of the
period must be sensitive to higher aspirations and better practices
among many of the politicians, and among the rank and file of the
people. George F. Hoar, John Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover
Cleveland and many others were incorruptible. The exposure of
scandalous actions on the part of certain high officials blasted their
careers, indicating that the body of the people would not condone
dishonesty, and the parties found it advisable to accept the
resignations of some of their more notorious campaign managers.
Moreover, the American people of all classes were a political people,
with a capacity for political organization and activity, and with a
passion for change. The cruder forms of corruption were successfully
combated, and the popular, as well as the official sense of good taste
and propriety gradually reached higher levels.

Another fundamental political consideration after the Civil War was the
gradual reduction of the power of the executive department. During the
war the authority exercised by President Lincoln had risen to great
heights, partly because of his personal characteristics and partly
because the exigencies of the times demanded quick executive action.
After the conflict was past, however, the legislative body naturally
reasserted itself. Moreover, the quarrel between President Johnson and
Congress, as has been shown, took the form of a contest for control
over appointments to office and especially over appointments to the
cabinet. The resulting impeachment, although it did not result in
conviction, brought about a distinct shrinkage in executive prestige.
Grant was so inexperienced in politics and so naive in his judgments of
his associates that he fell completely into the power of the machine
and failed to revive the former importance and independence of his
office.

The ascendancy which thus slipped out of the hands of the executive was
seized by the Senate, where it remained for a long period, despite
efforts on the part of the president and the House of Representatives
to prevent it. So remarkable and continuous a domination is not to be
explained by a single formula. The long term of the members of the
Senate, the traditional high reputation of the body and the undoubted
ability of many of its members assisted in upholding its prestige. Its
small size as compared with the House of Representatives gave it
greater flexibility. Furthermore, certain Senate practices were
instrumental in giving that body its primacy. Under the provisions of
the Constitution the Senate has power to ratify or reject the
nominations of the executive to many important positions within his
gift, and by the close of reconstruction it had acquired a firm control
over such appointments. "Senatorial courtesy" bade every member,
regardless of party, to concur with the decision of the senators from
any state with regard to the appointments in which they were
interested. When, therefore, the executive wished to change conditions
in a given office he must have the acquiescence of the senators from
the state in which the change was to occur. If he did not, the entire
body would rally to the support of their colleagues and refuse to
confirm the objectionable nominations. With such a weapon the Senate
was usually able to force the executive into submission, or at least to
make reforms extremely difficult. In Senator Hoar's suggestive words,
senators went to the White House to give advice, not to receive it.

In connection with revenue legislation the Senate seized the leadership
by means of an evasion of the Constitution. According to the terms of
that document, all bills for raising revenue must originate in the
House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose amendments.
Relying upon this power the Senate constantly revised measures to the
extent of changing their character completely and even of grafting part
or all of one proposal upon the title of another. In one case, early in
the period, the Senate "amended" a House bill of four lines which
repealed the tariff on tea and coffee; the "amendment" consisted of
twenty pages, containing a general revision of customs duties and
internal revenue taxes. At a later time the Senate Finance Committee
drew up a tariff bill even before Congress had assembled.

The primacy of the Senate quickly led to recognition of the value of
seats in it. Influential state politicians sought election in order to
control the patronage. Competent judges in the early nineties declared,
for example, that the senators from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland
were all of this type. Another considerable fraction was composed of
powerful business men, directors in large corporations, who found it to
their advantage to be in this most influential law-making body and who
were known as oil or silver or lumber senators. So was laid the
foundation of the complaint that the Senate was a millionaires' club.
And so, too, it came about that much of state politics revolved about
the choice of members for the upper house, for senators were elected by
the state legislatures until long after 1890. The power of the House of
Representatives, in contrast with the Senate, was relatively small
except during the single session 1889-1891, when Thomas B. Reed was in
control, although individual members sometimes wielded considerable
influence.

Somewhat comparable to the shift in the center of power from one
federal authority to another, was the change which took place in the
relative strength of the state and national governments. This transfer
was most clearly seen in the decisions of the Supreme Court in cases
involving the Fourteenth Amendment.

Previous to 1868, when the Amendment became part of the Constitution,
comparatively little state legislation relating to private property had
been reviewed by the Court. Ever since the establishment of the federal
government, cases involving the constitutionality of state legislation
had been appealed to United States Courts when they had been objected
to as running counter to the clauses of the Constitution forbidding
states to enact bills of attainder, _ex post facto_ laws, or laws
impairing the obligation of contracts. Their number, however, had been
relatively small, and normally the acts of state legislatures had not
been reviewed by federal courts; or in other words the tendency had
been to preserve the individuality and strength of the several states.
After the war, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments placed
additional prohibitions on the states, and the decisions of the Supreme
Court determined the meaning and extent of the added provisions. The
interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was especially important.
Most significant was the interpretation of Section 1, which reads as
follows:

    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
    to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
    and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
    enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities
    of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
    person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
    nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
    of the laws.

So vague and inclusive were these phrases that many important questions
immediately sprang from them. What were the privileges and immunities
of the citizen? Did those of the citizen of the United States differ
from those of the citizen of a state? Was a corporation a person? What
was liberty? What was due process of law? Hitherto the protection of
life, liberty and property had rested, in the main, upon the individual
states, and cases involving these subjects had been decided by state
courts. Were the state courts to be superseded, in relation to these
vital subjects, by the United States Supreme Court?

It has already been shown that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment
was the protection of the recently freed negro. The Thirteenth
Amendment had forbidden slavery, but the southern states had passed
apprentice and vagrancy laws which reduced the negro to a condition
closely resembling slavery in certain of its aspects. The Fourteenth
Amendment was designed to remedy such a condition by forbidding the
states to abridge the privileges of citizens, or to deprive persons of
life, liberty or property. Were the very vague phrases of the Amendment
merely in keeping with the vagueness of many of the other grants of
power in the Constitution, or were they designedly expressed in such a
way as to accomplish something more than the protection of the
freedman?

The first decision of the Supreme Court involving the Amendment was
that given in the Slaughter House Cases in 1873, which did not concern
the negro in any way. In 1869 the legislature of Louisiana had given a
corporation in that state the exclusive right to slaughter cattle
within a large area, and had forbidden other persons to construct
slaughter-houses within the limits of this region, but the corporation
was to allow any other persons to use its buildings and equipment,
charging fixed fees for the privilege. Cases were brought before the
courts to determine whether the law violated that part of the
Fourteenth Amendment which forbids a state to pass laws abridging the
privileges of citizens and taking away their property without due
process of law. By a vote of five to four the Court upheld the
constitutionality of the statute.

The majority held that the purpose of the Amendment was primarily the
protection of the negro. This purpose, the Court thought, lay at the
foundation of all three of the war amendments and without it no one of
them would ever have been suggested. The majority did not believe that
the Congress which passed the amendments or the state legislatures
which ratified them intended to transfer the protection of the great
body of civil rights from the states to the federal government. Neither
did they think that due process of law had been interfered with by the
Louisiana legislation. In reply to the objection that the
slaughter-house law violated the clause, "nor shall any State deny to
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,"
the majority declared:

    We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by
    way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account
    of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this
    provision.

In brief, then, the majority was inclined to preserve the balance
between the states and the national government very much as it had
been. It believed that the amendments should be applied mainly if not
wholly to the fortunes of the freedman and that judicial review of such
legislation as that in Louisiana concerning the slaughter of cattle
should end in the state courts.

For a time the interpretation of the Court remained that given by the
majority in this decision. When western state legislatures passed laws
regulating the rates which railroads and certain other corporations
might legally charge for their services, the Court at first showed an
inclination to allow the states a free hand. Regulation of this sort,
it was held, did not deprive the citizen or the corporation of property
without due process of law.

There were indications, nevertheless, that the opinion of the Court was
undergoing a change as time elapsed. An interesting prelude to the
change was an argument by Roscoe Conkling in San Mateo County _v._
Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1882. Conkling was acting as
attorney for the railroad and was attempting to show that the roads
were protected, by the Fourteenth Amendment, from state laws which
taxed their property unduly. Conkling argued that the Amendment had not
been designed merely for the protection of the freedman, and in order
to substantiate his contention, he produced a manuscript copy of the
journal of the Congressional committee that had drawn up the proposals
which later became the Fourteenth Amendment. He had himself been a
member of the committee. The journal, it should be noticed, had never
hitherto been utilized in public.

Conkling stated that at the time when the Amendment was being drafted,
individuals and companies were appealing for congressional protection
against state taxation laws, and that it had been the purpose of the
committee to frame an amendment which should protect whites as well as
blacks and operate in behalf of corporations as well as individuals. In
other words, Conkling was making the interesting contention that his
committee had had a far wider and deeper purpose in mind in phrasing
the Amendment than had been commonly understood and that the demand for
the protection of the negro from harsh southern legislation had been
utilized to answer the request of business for federal assistance. The
safety of the negro was put to the fore; the purpose of the committee
to strengthen the legal position of the corporations was kept behind
the doors of the committee-room; and the phrases of the Amendment had
been designedly made general in order to accomplish both purposes. The
sequel appeared four years later, in 1886, when the case Santa Clara
County _v._ Southern Pacific Railroad brought the question before the
Court. At this time Mr. Chief Justice Waite announced the opinion of
himself and his colleagues that a corporation was a "person" within the
meaning of the Amendment and thus entitled to its protection.

Later decisions, such as that of 1889 in Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
Paul Railway Company _v._ Minnesota, left no doubt of the fact that the
Court had come to look upon the Fourteenth Amendment as much more than
a protective device for the negro. The full meaning of the change,
however, did not appear until after 1890, and is a matter for later
consideration. In brief, then, before 1890, the Supreme Court was
content in the main to avoid the review of state legislation concerning
the ownership and control of private property, a practice which lodged
great powers in the state courts and legislatures. By that year,
however, it was manifest that the Court had undergone a complete change
and that it had adopted a theory which would greatly enlarge the
functions of the federal courts, at the expense of the states. The
medium through which the change came was the Fourteenth Amendment.

The demand on the part of business men for protection from state
legislation, which Roscoe Conkling described in the San Mateo case,
arose from their belief in the economic doctrine of _laissez faire_.
Believers in this theory looked upon legislation which regulated
business as a species of meddling or interference. The individual, they
thought, should be allowed to do very much as he pleased, entering into
whatever business he wished, and buying and selling where and how and
at what prices suited his interests, stimulated and controlled by
competition, but without direction or restriction by the government. It
was believed that the amazing success of the American business pioneer
was proof of the wisdom of the _laissez faire_ philosophy. The economic
giant and hero was the self-made man.

Economic abuses, according to the _laissez faire_ philosophy, would
normally be corrected by economic law, chiefly through competition. If,
for illustration, any industry demanded greater returns for its
products than proved to be just in the long run, unattached capital
would be attracted into that line of production, competition would
ensue, prices would be again lowered and justice would result. Every
business man would exert himself to discover that employment which
would bring greatest return for the capital which he had at his
command. He would therefore choose such an industry and so direct it as
to make his product of the greatest value possible. Hence although he
sought his own interests, he would in fact promote the interest of the
public.

Indeed the philosopher of _laissez faire_ was sincerely convinced that
his system ultimately benefited society as a whole. Andrew Carnegie, an
iron and steel manufacturer, presented this thesis in an article in the
_North American Review_ in 1889. The reign of individualism, he held,
was the order of the day, was inevitable and desirable. Under it the
poorer classes were better off than they had ever been in the world's
history. "We start then," he said, "with a condition of affairs under
which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably
gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist,
the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good." Let the man of
ability, he advised, accumulate a large fortune and then discharge his
duty to the public through philanthropic enterprises, such as the
foundation of libraries. Society would be more highly benefited in this
way than by allowing the millions to circulate in small sums through
the hands of the masses. Statistical studies of the distribution of
wealth seemed to justify Carnegie's judgment that the existing tendency
was for wealth to settle into the hands of the few. In 1893 it was
estimated that three one-hundredths of one per cent. of the people
owned twenty per cent. of the nation's wealth.

Although the _laissez faire_ theory was dominant later even than 1890,
it was apparent before that time that its sway was being challenged.
The adherents of _laissez faire_ themselves did not desire to have the
doctrine applied fully and evenly. They demanded government protection
for their enterprises through the medium of high protective import
tariffs, and they sought subsidies and grants of public land for the
railroads. Naturally it was not long before the classes whose desires
conflicted with the manufacturing and railroad interests began in their
turn to seek aid from the government. The people of the Middle West,
for example, were not content to allow the railroad companies to
control their affairs and establish their rates without let or
hindrance from the state legislatures. The factory system in the
Northeast, likewise, raised questions which were directed toward the
foundations of _laissez faire_. Under the factory regime employers
found it advantageous to open their doors to women and children and to
keep them at machines for long, hard days which unfitted the women for
domestic duties and for raising families, and which stunted the
children in body and mind. Out of these circumstances arose a demand
for restrictions on the freedom of employers to fix the conditions
under which their employees worked.

Opposition to an industrial system based upon _laissez faire_ would
have been even greater during the seventies and eighties if it had not
been for two sources of national wealth--the public lands and the
supplies of lumber, ore, coal and similar gifts of nature. When the
supply of land in the West was substantially unlimited, a sufficient
part of the population could relieve its economic distresses by
migrating, as multitudes did. Such huge stores of natural wealth were
being discovered that there seemed to be no end to them. But in the
late eighties when the best public lands were nearly exhausted and the
need of more careful husbanding of the national resources became
apparent to far-sighted men, advanced thinkers began to question the
validity of an economic theory which allowed quite so much freedom to
individuals. For the time, however, such questions did not arise in the
minds of the masses.

As the _laissez faire_ doctrine underlay the problem of the relation
between government and industry, so the quantity theory of money was
fundamental in the monetary question. According to the quantity theory,
money is like any other commodity in that its value rises and falls
with variations in the supply and demand for it. Suppose, for example,
that a given community is entirely isolated from the rest of the world.
It possesses precisely enough pieces of money to satisfy the needs of
its people. Suddenly the number of pieces is doubled. The supply is
twice as great as business requires. If no new elements enter into the
situation, the value of each piece becomes half as great as before, its
purchasing power is cut in two and prices double.[2]

A bushel of potatoes that formerly sold for a dollar now sells at two
dollars. A farmer who has mortgaged his farm for $1,000 and who relies
upon his sales of potatoes to pay off his debt is highly benefited by
the change, while the creditor is correspondingly harmed. The debtor is
obliged to raise only half as many potatoes; the creditor receives
money that buys half the commodities that could have been purchased
with his money at the time of the loan.

On the other hand, suppose the number of pieces of money is instantly
halved and all other factors continue unchanged. There is now twice as
great a demand for each piece, it becomes more desirable and will
purchase more goods. Prices, that is to say, go down. Dollar potatoes
now sell for fifty cents. The debtor farmer must grow twice as many
potatoes as he had contemplated; the creditor finds that he receives
money that has doubled in purchasing power.

It has already been said that the quarter century after the war was, in
the main, a period of falling prices. The farmer found the size of his
mortgage, as measured in bushels of wheat and potatoes, growing
steadily and relentlessly greater. The creditor received a return which
purchased larger and larger quantities of commodities. The debtor class
was mainly in the West; the creditors, mainly in the East. The
westerners desired a larger quantity of money which would, as they
believed, send prices upward; the East, depending upon similar
reasoning, desired a contraction in supply. The former were called
inflationists; the latter, contractionists. Much of the monetary
history of the country after the Civil War was concerned with the
attempt of the inflationists to expand the supply of currency, and the
contractionists to prevent inflation.

The intellectual background of the twenty-five years after the war, so
far as it can be considered at this point, was to be found mainly in
the development of education and the growth of the newspaper and
periodical. Before the Civil War, except in the South, the old-time
district school had given way, in most states, to graded elementary
schools, supported by taxation. After the war the southern states made
heroic efforts to revive education, in which they were aided by such
northern benefactions as the Peabody Educational Fund of $2,000,000
established in 1867. In the northern states the schools were greatly
improved, free text-books became the rule, the free public high-schools
replaced the former private academies, and normal schools for the
training of teachers were established. The period was also marked by
the foundation of scores of colleges and especially of the great state
universities. The Morrill Act of July 2, 1862, had provided for a grant
to each state of 30,000 acres of public land for every senator and
representative in Congress to which the state was entitled. The land
was to be used to promote education in the agricultural and mechanic
arts, and in the natural sciences. The advantages of the law were
quickly seen, and between 1865 and 1890 seventeen state universities
were started, most of them in the Middle and Far West. Many of these
underwent a phenomenal growth and had a great influence on the states
in which they were established.

The newspaper press was also undergoing a transformation in the quarter
century after the war. The great expansion of the numbers and influence
of American newspapers before and during that struggle had been due to
the ability of individuals. James Gordon Bennett had founded the New
York _Herald_, for example, in 1835, and from then on the _Herald_ had
been "Bennett's paper." Similarly the _Tribune_ had represented Horace
Greeley and the _Times_, Henry J. Raymond. The effect of the war was to
develop technical resources in gathering news, to necessitate a larger
scale of expenditure and a wider range of information, and to make a
given issue the work of many men instead of one. Raymond died in 1869,
Greeley and Bennett in 1872; and although the _Sun_ was the embodiment
of Charles A. Dana until his death in 1897, the _Nation_ and the
_Evening Post_ of Edwin L. Godkin until 1899, nevertheless the tendency
was away from the newspaper which reflected an individual and toward
that which represented a group; away from the editorial which expressed
the views of a well-known writer, to the editorial page which combined
the labors of many anonymous contributors. The financial basis of the
newspaper also underwent a transition. As advertising became more and
more general, the revenues of newspapers tended to depend more on the
favor of the advertiser than upon the subscriber, giving the former a
powerful although indirect influence on editorial policies.

The influence of the press in politics was rapidly growing. A larger
number of newspapers became sufficiently independent to attack abuses
in both parties. The New York _Times_ and Thomas Nast's cartoons in
_Harper's Weekly_ were most important factors in the overthrow of the
Tweed Ring in New York City, and in the elections of 1884 and later,
newspapers exerted an unusual power. Press associations in New York and
the West led the way to the Associated Press, with its wide-spread
cooperative resources for gathering news.

As important as the character of the press, was the amount and
distribution of its circulation. Between 1870 and 1890 the number of
newspapers published and the aggregate circulation increased almost
exactly threefold--about five times as fast as the population was
growing. In the latter year the entire circulation for the country was
over four and a half billion copies, of which about sixty per cent.
were dailies. So great had been the growth of the press during the
seventies that the census authorities in 1880 made a careful study of
the statistical aspects of the subject. It appeared from this search
that newspapers were published in 2,073 of the 2,605 counties in the
Union. Without some such means of spreading information, it would have
been impossible to conduct the great presidential campaigns, in which
the entire country was educated in the tariff and other important
issues.

The expansion of the press is well exemplified by the use of the
telegraph in the spread of information. When Lincoln was nominated for
the presidency in 1860, a single telegraph operator was able to send
out all the press matter supplied to him. In 1892 at the Democratic
convention, the Western Union Telegraph Company had one hundred
operators in the hall. Mechanical invention, meanwhile, was able to
keep pace with the demand for news. The first Hoe press of 1847 had
been so improved by 1871 that it printed ten to twelve thousand
eight-page papers in an hour, and twenty-five years later the capacity
had been increased between six and sevenfold.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Nearly all material on party history is so partisan that it should be
read with critical scepticism: Francis Curtis, _The Republican Party,
1854-1904_ (2 vols., 1904); J.D. Long, _Republican Party_ (1888); for
the Independent attitude, consult _Harper's Weekly_ during the campaign
of 1884. As the Republicans were in power most of the time from
1865-1913, there is more biographical and autobiographical material
about Republicans than about Democratic leaders. Local studies of
political conditions and the social structure of the parties are almost
entirely lacking. On the personal side, the following are essential:
G.F. Parker, _Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland_ (1892); T.E.
Burton, _John Sherman_ (1906); J.B. Foraker, _Notes of a Busy Life_ (2
vols., 1916), throws light on the ideals and practices of a politician;
G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_ (2 vols., 1903), gives the
New England Republican point of view; Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of
E.L. Godkin_ (2 vols., 1907); G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover
Cleveland_ (1909), is useful, but sketchy, there being as yet no
thorough biography of Cleveland; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910),
interestingly portrays the philosophy of a machine politician, but
should be read with care; John Sherman, _Recollections of Forty Years
in House, Senate and Cabinet_ (2 vols., 1895); Edward Stanwood, _James
G. Blaine_ (1905), is highly favorable to Blaine; W.M. Stewart,
_Reminiscences_ (1908), is interesting, partisan and unreliable. For a
general estimate of the autobiographical material of the period,
consult _History Teachers' Magazine_ (later the _Historical Outlook_),
"Recent American History Through the Actors' Eyes," March, 1916.

Jesse Macy, _Party Organisation and Machinery_ (1904); M.G.
Ostrogorski, _Democracy and Political Parties_ (2 vols., 1902), gives a
keen and pessimistic account of American political practices in vol.
II; J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems in the United
States_ (1903, and later editions) gives a succinct account in good
temper.

For the Fourteenth Amendment: C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of
Judicial Supremacy_ (1914); C.W. Collins, _The Fourteenth Amendment and
the States_ (1912), is a careful study, which is critical of the
prevailing later interpretation of the Amendment. The Slaughter House
case, giving the earlier interpretation is in J.W. Wallace, _Cases
argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_ (Supreme Court Reports), XVI,
36.

L.H. Haney, _History of Economic Thought_ (1911), on _laissez faire_;
J.L. Laughlin, _Principles of Money_ (1903); and Irving Fisher, _Why is
the Dollar Shrinking_ (1914), present two sides of the quantity theory
of money.

Most useful on the development of education are F.P. Graves, _A History
of Education in Modern Times_ (1913); and E.G. Dexter, _History of
Education in the United States_ (1904).

The growth of newspapers is described in _The Bookman_, XIV, 567-584,
XV, 26-44; see also Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of Godkin_, already
mentioned; G.H. Payne, _History of Journalism in the United States_
(1920); J.M. Lee, _History of American Journalism_ (1917). The effects
of education and the press on American social, economic and political
life have not been subjected to thorough study.

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] _Addresses on Government and Citizenship_, 202.

[2] In practice, new elements do enter into the situation so that the
theory requires much qualification. Cf. Taussig, _Principles of
Economics_ (1915), I, ch. 18.




CHAPTER V


THE NEW ISSUES

Out of the economic and political circumstances which have just been
described, there were emerging between 1865 and 1875 a wide variety of
national problems. Such questions were those concerning the proper
relation between the government and the railroads and industrial
enterprises; the welfare of the agricultural and wage-earning classes;
the assimilation of the hordes of immigrants; the conservation of the
resources of the nation in lumber, minerals and oil; the tariff, the
financial obligations of the government, the reform of the civil
service, and a host of lesser matters. The animosities aroused by the
war, however, and the insistent nature of the reconstruction question
almost completely distracted attention from most of these problems.
Only upon the tariff, finance and the civil service did the public
interest focus long enough to effect results.

The tariff problem has periodically been settled and unsettled since
the establishment of the federal government. Just previous to the war
a low protective tariff had been adopted, but the outbreak of the
conflict had necessitated a larger income; and the passage of an
internal revenue act, together with a higher protective tariff, had
been the chief means adopted to meet the demand. By 1864 the country
had found itself in need of still greater revenues, and again the
internal and tariff taxes had been increased. These acts were in force
at the close of the war. The internal revenue act levied taxes upon
products, trades, and professions, upon liquors and tobacco, upon
manufactures, auctions, slaughtered cattle, railroads, advertisements
and a large number of smaller sources of income.

The circumstances that had surrounded the framing and passage of the
tariff act of 1864 had been somewhat peculiar. The need of the nation
for revenue had been supreme and there had been no desire to stint
the administration if funds could bring the struggle to a successful
conclusion. Congress had been willing to levy almost any rates that
anybody desired. The combination of a willingness among the legislators
to raise rates to any height necessary for obtaining revenue, and a
conviction on their part that high rates were for the good of the
country brought about a situation eminently satisfactory to the
protectionist element. There had been no time to spend in long
discussions of the wisdom of the act and no desire to do so; and
moreover the act had been looked upon as merely a temporary expedient.
It is not possible to describe accurately the personal influences which
surrounded the passage of the law. It is possible, however, to note
that many industries had highly prospered under the war revenue
legislation. Sugar refining had increased; whiskey distilling had fared
well under the operation of the internal revenue laws; the demands of
the army had given stimulus to the woolen mills, which had worked to
capacity night and day; and the manufacture and use of sewing machines,
agricultural implements and the like had been part of the industrial
expansion of the times. Large fortunes had been made in the production
of rifles, woolen clothing, cotton cloth and other commodities,
especially when government contracts could be obtained. Naturally the
tax-levying activities of Congress had tended to draw the business
interests together to oppose or influence particular rates. The
brewers, the cap and hat manufacturers, and others had objected to the
taxes on their products; the National Association of Wool Manufacturers
and the American Iron and Steel Association had been formed partly with
the idea of influencing congressional tariff action.

After the close of the war, the tariff, among other things, seemed to
many to require an overhauling. Justin S. Morrill, a member of the
House Committee on Ways and Means, and one of the framers of the act of
1864, argued in favor of the protective system although he warned his
colleagues:

    At the same time it is a mistake of the friends of a sound tariff to
    insist upon the extreme rates imposed during the war, if less will
    raise the necessary revenue.... Whatever percentage of duties were
    imposed upon foreign goods to cover internal taxes upon home
    manufactures, should not now be claimed as the lawful prize of
    protection where such taxes have been repealed.... The small
    increase of the tariff for this reason on iron, salt, woolen, and
    cottons can not be maintained except on the principle of obtaining a
    proper amount of revenue.

Sentiment was strong against the tariff in the agricultural parts of
the West and especially in those sections not committed to
wool-growing. Great personal influence was exerted on the side of
"tariff-reform" by David A. Wells, a painstaking and able student of
economic conditions who was appointed special commissioner of the
revenue in 1866. As a result of his investigations he became converted
from a believer in protection to the leader of the opposition, and his
reports had a considerable influence in the formation of opinion in
favor of revision. The American Free Trade League was formed and
included such influential figures as Carl Schurz, Jacob D. Cox, Horace
White, Edward Atkinson, E.L. Godkin, editor of _The Nation_, and many
others. William B. Allison and James A. Garfield, both prominent
Republican members of the House, were in favor of downward revision.

In 1867 a bill providing for many reductions passed the Senate as an
amendment to a House bill which proposed to raise rates. Far more than
a majority in the House were ready to accept the Senate measure, but
according to the rules it was necessary to obtain a two-thirds vote in
order to get the amended bill before the House for action. This it was
impossible to do. Nevertheless, the wool growers and manufacturers were
able "through their large influence, persistent pressure and adroit
management" to procure an act in the same session which increased the
duties on wool and woolens far above the war rate. In 1869 the duties
on copper were raised, as were those on steel rails, marble, flax and
some other commodities in 1870.

The growth of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872, with its
advocacy of downward revision, frightened somewhat the protectionist
leaders of the Republican organization. It was believed that a slight
concession might prevent a more radical action, and just before the
campaign a ten per cent reduction was brought about. In 1873 the
industrial depression so lowered the revenues as to present a plausible
opportunity for restoring duties to their former level in 1875, where
they remained for nearly a decade.

The lack of effective action on the part of the tariff reformers of
both parties was due to a variety of causes. In the years immediately
following the war, the Republicans in Congress were more interested in
their quarrel with President Johnson than in tariff reform.
Furthermore, the unpopular internal revenues were being quickly reduced
between 1867 and 1872, and it was argued that a simultaneous reduction
of import taxes would decrease the revenue too greatly. Moreover there
was no solidarity among the Democrats, the South was discredited, and
at first not fully represented. Wells was driven out of office in 1870,
the Liberal Republican movement was a failure, the protected
manufacturers knew precisely what they wanted, they knew how to achieve
results and some of them were willing to employ methods that the
reformers were above using. As time went on and the country was, in the
main, rather prosperous, many people and especially the business men
made up their minds that the war tariffs were a positive benefit to the
country. For these reasons a war policy which had generally been
considered a temporary expedient became a permanent political issue and
a national problem.

The positions of the two political parties on the tariff were not sharply
defined during the ten years immediately following the war. The Democrats
seemed naturally destined for the role of revisionists because of their
party traditions, their support in the South--ordinarily a strong,
low-tariff section--and because they were out of power when high tariffs
were enacted. Yet the party was far from united on the subject. Some
prominent leaders were frankly protectionists, such as Samuel J. Randall
of Pennsylvania, who was Speaker of the House for two terms and part of
another. The party platform ordinarily was silent or non-committal. In
1868, for example, the Democratic tariff plank was wide and generous
enough for a complete platform. The party stood for

    a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxation
    under the internal revenue laws as will afford incidental
    protection to domestic manufacturers, and as will, without
    impairing the revenue, impose the least burden upon, and best
    promote and encourage, the great industrial interests of the
    country.

In 1872 the "straight" Democrats, that is those who refused to support
Greeley, were for a "judicious" revenue tariff; but in 1876 the party
denounced the existing system as "a masterpiece of injustice, inequality
and false pretence." Democratic state platforms were even less firm; in
fact, the eastern states seemed committed to protection. In Congress,
however, most of the opposition to the passage of tariff acts was
supplied by the Democrats.

The attitude of the Republicans was more important, because theirs was
the party in power. There was, as has been shown, a strong tariff-reform
element, and in some of the conventions care seems to have been taken
to avoid any definite statement of principles--doubtless on account of
the well-known differences in the party--and for many years there was
no clearly defined statement of the attitude of the organization. Yet
it must be emphasized that Republicans were usually protectionists in
the practical business of voting in Congress. Skillful Republican leaders
gave way a little in the face of opposition but regained the lost ground
and a little more, after the opposition retreated. Since the war-tariffs
had been passed under Republican rule, it was easy to clothe them with
the sanctity of party accomplishments.

Fully as technical as the tariff problem, and presenting a wider range
for the legislative activities of Congress, was the financial situation
in which the country found itself in 1865. The total expenditures from
June 30, 1861 to June 30, 1865 had been somewhat more than three and
one-third billions of dollars, an amount almost double the aggregate
disbursements from 1789 to 1861. Officers accustomed to a modest budget
and used to working with machinery and precedents which were adapted to
the day of small things, had been suddenly called upon to work under
revolutionized conditions. Prom the point of view of expense, merely,
one year's operations during the war had been equivalent to thirty-six
times the average outlay of the years hitherto. As has been shown, the
major part of the income necessary for meeting the increased expenses
had been obtained by means of the tariff and internal revenue taxes.

The tariff worked to the advantage of many people, and its retention
was insistently demanded by them; the internal revenue taxes were
disliked, and few things were more popular after the war than their
reduction. In 1866 an act was passed which lowered the internal revenue
by an amount estimated at forty-five to sixty millions of dollars. In
succeeding years further reductions were made, so that by 1870 the
scale was low enough to withstand attacks until 1883.

The national debt was the source of more complicated questions. It was
composed, on June 30, 1866, of a variety of loans carrying five
different rates of interest and maturing in nineteen different periods
of time. Parts of it had been borrowed in times of distress at high
rates; but after the struggle was successfully ended, the credit of the
government was good, and enough money could be obtained at low interest
charges to cancel the old debt and establish a new one with the interest
account correspondingly reduced. Hugh McCulloch and John Sherman as
secretaries of the treasury were most influential in accomplishing this
transition, and by 1879 the process was completed and a yearly saving of
fourteen million dollars effected.

Differences of opinion concerning the kind of money with which the
principal of the debt should be paid brought this matter into the
field of politics. When the earliest loans had been contracted, no
stipulation had been made in regard to the medium of payment. Later
loans had been made redeemable in "coin," without specifying either
gold or silver; while still later bonds had been sold under condition
that the interest be paid in coin, although nothing had been said about
the principal. There was considerable demand for redemption of the
bonds in paper money, except where there was agreement to the contrary,
although the previous custom of the government had been to pay in coin.
The proposal to repay the debt in paper currency, the "Ohio idea,"
gained considerable ground in the Middle West, as has already been
explained. In the campaign of 1868 the Democratic platform advocated
the Ohio plan. Some of the Republicans, like Thaddeus Stevens, agreed
with this policy; some of the Democrats opposed it--Horatio Seymour,
the presidential candidate, among them. Nevertheless the Democratic
platform committed the party to payments in greenbacks unless express
contract prevented, while the Republicans denounced this policy as
"repudiation" and promised the payment of the debt in "good faith"
according to the "spirit" and "letter" of the laws. The credit of the
government was highly benefited by the payment of the debt in gold, yet
the bonds had been purchased during the war with depreciated paper, and
gold redemption greatly enriched the purchasers at the expense of the
remainder of the population. It is hardly surprising that the debtor
classes were not enthusiastic over this outcome. The Republicans on
being successful in the election and coming into power, carried out
their campaign promises and pledged the faith of the country to the
payment of the debt in coin or its equivalent.

The income tax was a method of raising revenue which did not produce
any considerable returns until after the war was over. Acts passed
during the war had levied a tax on all incomes over six hundred dollars
and had introduced progressively increasing rates on higher amounts.
Incomes above $5,000, for example, were taxed ten per cent. The
greatest number of people were reached and the largest returns obtained
in 1866 when nearly half a million persons paid an aggregate of about
seventy-three million dollars. The entire system was abolished in 1872.

Aside from the tariff, the "legal-tender" notes gave rise to the
greatest number of political and constitutional tangles. By acts of
February 25, 1862 and later, Congress had provided for the issue of four
hundred and fifty million dollars of United States paper notes, which
were commonly known as greenbacks or legal-tenders. The latter name
came from the fact that, under the law, the United States notes were
legal tender for all debts, public or private, except customs duties
and interest on the public debt. In other words, the law compelled
creditors to receive the greenbacks in payment of all debts, with the
two exceptions mentioned. Three main questions arose in connection with
these issues of paper: whether Congress had power under the
Constitution to make them legal tender; whether their volume should be
allowed to remain at war magnitude, be somewhat contracted or entirely
done away with; and whether the government should resume specie
payments--that is, exchange gold for paper on the demand of holders of
the latter.

The first of these questions was twice decided in the Supreme Court. In
1870, in Hepburn _v._ Griswold, the point at issue was whether the
greenbacks could lawfully be offered to satisfy a debt contracted
before the legal-tender act had been passed. As it happened, Salmon P.
Chase, who had been Secretary of the Treasury during the war, was now
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and delivered its opinion. By a vote
of four to three it decided that the greenbacks were not legal tender
for contracts made previous to the passage of the law. At the time when
the case was decided, however, there were two vacancies on the bench
which were immediately filled, and shortly thereafter two new cases
involving the legal-tender act were brought before the Court (Knox _v._
Lee, and Parker _v._ Davis). The decision, which was announced in 1871,
over-ruled the judgment in Hepburn _v._ Griswold and held by a vote of
five to four that the legal-tender act was constitutional as applied to
contracts made either before or after its passage.

The second question relating to the greenbacks was that in regard to
their volume. At first Congress adopted the policy of contraction and
when greenbacks came into the treasury they were destroyed. As continued
contraction tended to make the volume of currency smaller and to make
money harder to get, and therefore, to raise its value, the debtor
classes began to object. As early as 1865 there was strong sentiment
against contraction and in favor of paying the public debt in paper.
Economic distress in the West furthered the movement and some of the
Republican leaders were doubtful of the wisdom of reducing the outstanding
stock of paper. Contraction was stopped, therefore, in 1868, and only
President Grant's veto in 1874 prevented an increase in the amount.
Eventually, in 1878, the amount then in circulation--$346,681,000--was
fixed by a law forbidding further contraction.[1]

The western farmers, meanwhile, were feeling the pinch of falling
prices. Believing that their ills were due to the scarcity of money,
they opposed the policy of contraction and even launched the Greenback
party to carry out their principles. In 1876 it polled 80,000 votes,
and in 1878 at the time of the congressional elections over 1,000,000,
but thereafter its strength rapidly declined. Neither the East nor the
West understood the motives of the other in this controversy. Eastern
congressmen considered western insistence upon a large volume of
currency as a dishonest movement to reduce bond values by legislation.
Such an action, they asserted, would do away with the national
integrity. The people of the West thought of the eastern bondholders as
"fat bullionists" who dined at costly restaurants on terrapin and
Burgundy and paid for their luxuries with bonds whose values were
raised by a contracted currency.

The third question relating to the greenbacks was that of the
resumption of specie payments. At the close of the war practically all
the money in circulation was paper, which passed at a depreciated value
because it was not redeemable in coin. The obvious thing was to resume
the exchange of specie for paper and thus restore the latter to par
value, but serious obstacles stood in the way. A money crisis in 1873
aroused a clamor for larger supplies of paper; gold was hard to
procure, as France and Germany were both accumulating a redemption fund
and specie was actually flowing out of the country. Outside of the
treasury there was little gold in the United States, the amount being
less than one hundred million dollars as late as 1877. The friends of
resumption could not be sure of the feasibility of their project, and
the opponents were aggressive and numerous.

In the elections of 1874 the Republicans were severely defeated, and it
was seen that the Democrats would have a clear majority in the next
House of Representatives. Hence the Republicans hurried through a
resumption bill on January 14, 1875--a sort of deathbed act. It
authorized the secretary of the treasury to raise gold for redemption
purposes, and set January 1, 1879, as the date when resumption should
take place. As in the case of the tariff, the political parties found
difficulty in determining which side of the resumption question they
desired to take. Although the Democratic platform of 1868 contained a
greenback plank, yet some of its leaders opposed, and the state
platforms of 1875 and 1876 demanded resumption. The national platform
of the latter year both denounced the Republicans for not making
progress toward resumption and demanded the repeal of the act of 1875,
without disclosing whether the party was prepared to offer any
improvements. In November, 1877, a bill practically repealing the
resumption act passed the House--the western and southern Democrats
furnishing most of the affirmative votes, assisted by twenty-seven
Republicans. A resolution declaring it to be the opinion of Congress
that United States bonds were payable in silver was introduced and
advocated by many Republicans. On the other hand, eastern state
Democratic and Republican platforms were much alike. Apparently,
therefore, differences of opinion in regard to the greenbacks and
resumption were caused as much by sectional as by party considerations.

More lasting than finance as a political issue but less enduring than
the tariff, was the reform of the civil service. In its widest sense,
the term civil service included all non-military government officers
from cabinet officials and supreme court judges to the humblest
employee in the postal or naval service. The reform, however, was
directed mainly toward the appointment and tenure of the lower
officers. Before the Civil War the "spoils system" had been in full
swing; appointments to positions had been frankly used as rewards for
party activity; office-holders had been openly assessed a fraction of
their salaries in order to fill the treasure chest at campaign times;
rotation in office had been the rule. During the war, President Lincoln
had found his ante-room filled with wrangling, importunate office-seekers
who consumed time which he needed for the problems of the conflict. As
he himself had expressed the situation, he was like a man who was
letting offices in one end of his house while the other end was burning
down. During the war, also, the patronage at the disposal of the
government had vastly increased. Not only had the number of laborers,
clerks and officials become greater, but numerous contracts had been
let for the production of war materials, and manufacturers and merchants
intrigued for a share of federal business. "Influence" and position had
been more powerful than merit in procuring the favor of government
officers.

After the war many abuses that had earlier been overlooked began to
attract the attention of a few thoughtful men. It was estimated that
not more than one-half to three-fourths of the legitimate internal
revenue was collected during Johnson's presidency, so corrupt and
inefficient were the revenue collectors. Endless Indian troubles and
countless losses of money resulted from the corruption of the federal
Indian agents. Conditions were even worse during the Grant regime. The
President's appointments were wretched; he placed his relatives in
official positions; revenue frauds amounting to $75,000,000 were
discovered during his second administration. In certain departments, it
was customary, when vacancies occurred, to allow the salaries to
"lapse"--that is, accumulate--so as to provide a fund to satisfy
patronage seekers. In one case, thirty-five persons were put on the
"lapse fund" for eight days at the end of a fiscal year, in order to
"sop up" a little surplus which was in danger of being saved and
returned to the treasury. One customs collector at the port of New York
removed employees at an average rate of one every three days; another,
three every four days; and another, three every five days, in order to
provide places for party workers. One secretary in an important
department of the government had seventeen clerks for whom he had no
employment. The party assessments on officeholders became little short
of outrageous. Two or three per cent. of the salary of the lower
officers was called for, while the more important officials were
expected to contribute much larger sums. In New York--for the system
held in the states and cities--candidates for the mayoralty were
reputed to pay $25,000 to $30,000; judges, $10,000 to $15,000; and
representatives in Congress, $10,000. While these conditions were by no
means wholly due to the spoils system, the method of appointment in the
civil service made a bad matter worse.

Conditions such as these could hardly fail to produce a reform
movement. In fact, as far back as 1853 some elementary and ineffective
legislation had attempted a partial remedy. The war gave added impetus
to the movement and attention turned to the reform systems of Great
Britain and other countries, where problems similar to ours had already
been met and solved. The first American who really grasped civil
service reform was Thomas A. Jenckes, a member of Congress from Rhode
Island. He introduced reform bills in 1865 and later, based on studies
of English practice and on correspondence with the leaders of reform
there; but no legislation resulted. In brief, his plan provided for the
appointment of employees in the public service on the basis of ability,
determined by competitive examinations. After a time Jenckes and his
associates achieved considerable success and finally interested
President Grant in their project. In 1871 they got a rider attached to
an appropriation bill which authorized the chief executive to prescribe
rules for the admission of persons into the civil service and allowed
him to appoint a commission to put the act into effect. George William
Curtis, a well-known reformer, was made chairman, and rules were
formulated which were applied to the departments at Washington and to
federal offices in New York. Grant, although favorable to the reform,
was not enthusiastic about it, and soon made an appointment which was
so offensive that Curtis resigned. Congress, nothing loath, refused to
continue the necessary appropriations and the reform project continued
in a state of suspended animation until the inauguration of President
Hayes.

The human elements in the struggle for civil service reform, both
during the decade after the war and for many years later, are necessary
for an understanding of the course of the controversy and its outcome.
These elements included the advocates of the patronage system, the
reformers and the president.

Sometimes the advocates of the patronage system viewed the reform with
contempt. Roscoe Conkling, for example, expressed his sentiments in the
remark, "When Dr. Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of
the scoundrel he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word
reform!" Sometimes they attempted to discredit the project by an
exaggeration of its effects, as when John A. Logan declared that he saw
in it a life-tenure and an aristocratic caste. "It will not be apparent
how great is its enormity," he declared in Congress, "how vicious are
its practices and how poisonous are its influences until we are too far
encircled by its coils to shake them off." The strength of the
exponents of the patronage system, however, lay not in their capacity
for contempt and ridicule, but in a theory of government that was
founded upon certain very definite human characteristics. The theory
may be clearly seen in the _Autobiography_ of Thomas C. Platt, a
colleague of Conkling in the Senate and for many years the boss of New
York state. It may be expressed somewhat as follows.

In the field of actual politics, parties are a necessity and
organization is essential. It is the duty of the citizen, therefore, to
support the party that stands for right policies and to adhere closely
to its official organization. Loyalty should be rewarded by appointment
to positions within the gift of the party; and disloyalty should be
looked upon as political treason. One who votes for anybody except the
organization candidate feels himself superior to his party, is
faithless to the great ideal and is only a little less despicable than
he who, having been elected to an office through the energy and
devotion of the party workers, is then so ungrateful as to refuse to
appoint the workers to positions within his gift. Positions constitute
the cohesive force that holds the organization intact.

The second of the human elements, the reform group, was led by such men
as George William Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton and Carl Schurz, with the
support of periodicals like _Harper's Weekly_ and _The Nation_. The
career and character of Curtis is typical at once of the strength and
the weakness of the group. As a young man Curtis had intended to enter
a business career, but finding it unsuited to his tastes he had
abandoned his ambition, spent some years in European travel and then
devoted himself to literary work, first on _Harper's Magazine_ and
afterwards, for many years, as editor of _Harper's Weekly_. He had
early interested himself in politics, had been in the convention which
nominated Lincoln, had taken part in numerous state and national
political conferences and conventions, was president of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and chancellor of the University
of the State of New York. For many years, during the period when civil
service reform was making its fight for recognition, Curtis was the
president and one of the moving spirits of the National Civil Service
Reform League. In politics he was an independent Republican. Although
of the intellectual class, like the other prominent leaders of the
reform movement, he was a man of practical political ability, not a
mere observer of politics, so that he and his associates made up in
capacity and influence what they lacked in breadth of appeal. Some of
the leaders were patient men who expected that results would come
slowly and who were ready to accept half a loaf of reform rather than
no loaf at all, but there were also such impatient critics as E.L.
Godkin who put so much emphasis on the failures of the reformers as to
overshadow their positive achievements. Moreover, there were the
well-meaning but impracticable people who constituted what Theodore
Roosevelt once called the "lunatic fringe" of reform movements.

The attitude of the exponents of the patronage system toward the
reformers was one of undisguised contempt. In a famous speech delivered
at a New York state convention in Rochester in September, 1877,
Conkling poured his scorn on the reform element in general and on
Curtis in particular, as "man-milliners," "carpet-knights of politics,"
"grasshoppers in the corner of a fence," and disciples of ladies'
magazines with their "rancid, canting self-righteousness."

The third personal element in the reform controversy was the chief
executive. Beginning with Grant, if not with Lincoln, the presidents
were favorable to the progress of reform, but they were surrounded by
circumstances that made vigorous action a difficult matter. The task of
distributing the patronage was a burden from which they would have been
glad to be relieved, yet the demands of the party organization were
insistent,--and to turn a constantly deaf ear to them would have been
to court political disaster. The executive was always in the position
of desiring to further an ideal and being obliged to face the hard
facts of politics. The progress which he made, therefore, depended on
how resolutely he could press forward his ideal in the face of
continued opposition. A great difficulty lay in getting subordinates-in
the cabinet, for example-who were in sympathy with progress, and
sometimes even the vice-presidential nomination was given to the
patronage element in the party in order to placate that faction, while
the presidential nominee was disposed to reform.

Public opinion was slow in forming and was lacking in the means of
definite expression. For many years after the war there was widespread
fear that the installation of a Democratic president would result in
the wholesale debauch of the offices, and sober northerners believed,
or thought they believed, that "rebels" would again be in power if a
Democrat were elected. Under such conditions and because the offices
were already filled with Republicans, the Republican North was willing
to leave things as they were.

The party pronouncements on civil service reform were as evasive as
they were on finance and the tariff. To be surer the Liberal
Republicans in 1872 sincerely desired reform and made it the subject of
a definite plank in their platform, but the wing of the Democratic
party that refused to ally with them was silent on the civil service,
and the "straight" Republicans advocated reform in doubtful and
unconvincing terms. In 1876 both party platforms were even more vague,
although Hayes himself was openly committed to the improvement of the
service.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The best work on the tariff is F.W. Taussig, _Tariff History of the
United States_ (6th ed., 1914), a scholarly and non-partisan account,
although giving slight attention to legislative history; Ida M.
Tarbell, _Tariff in Our Times_ (1911), emphasizes the personal and
social sides of tariff history and is hostile to protection; Edward
Stanwood, _American Tariff Controversies_ (2 vols., 1903), devotes
considerable attention to the historical setting and legislative
history of tariff acts, and is distinctly friendly to protection.

The most useful single volume on financial history is D.R. Dewey,
_Financial History of the United States_ (5th ed., 1915), which is
concise, accurate and equipped with full bibliographies; A.B. Hepburn,
_History of Currency in the United States_ (1915), is by an expert;
A.D. Noyes, _Forty Years of American Finance_ (1909), continues the
same author's _Thirty Years_ and is reliable; T.B. Burton, _John
Sherman_ (1906), is useful here. The legal-tender decisions are in J.W.
Wallace, _Cases argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_, VIII, 603,
and XII, 457.

The standard work on the civil service is C.R. Fish, _The Civil Service
and the Patronage_ (1905); the reports of the Civil Service Commission,
especially the Fourth Report, are essential; the articles by D.B. Eaton
in J.J. Lalor, _Cyclopaedia of Political Science_ (3 vols., 1893), are
justly well-known; G.W. Curtis, _Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols.,
1894), and Edward Cary, _George William Curtis_ (1894), are excellent.
The politician's side may be found in A.R. Conkling, _Life and Letters
of Roscoe Conkling_ (1889), and T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910).

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] This is the amount still outstanding.




CHAPTER VI


THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

The conditions which confronted President Hayes when the final decision
of the Electoral Commission placed him in the executive chair did not
make it probable that he could carry out a program of positive
achievement. The withdrawal of troops from the South had been almost
completed, but the process of reconstruction had been so dominated by
suspicion, ignorance and vindictiveness that sectional hostility was
still acute. As has been seen, the economic problems which faced the
country were for the most part unsolved; on the subjects of tariff,
finance and the civil service, neither party was prepared to present a
united front; and the lack of foresight and statesmanlike leadership in
the parties had given selfish interests an opportunity to seize control.
Nor did the circumstances surrounding the election of Hayes tend to
simplify his task, for the disappointment of the Democrats was extreme,
and they found a natural difficulty in adjusting themselves to the
decision against Tilden. Democratic newspapers dubbed Hayes "His
Fraudulency" and "The Boss Thief," printed his picture with "Fraud"
printed across his brow and referred to his election as the "steal" and
a "political crime."

The man who was to essay leadership under such conditions had back of
him a useful even if not brilliant career. He had been born in Ohio in
1822, had graduated from Kenyon College as valedictorian of his class,
attended Harvard Law School and served on the Union side during the war,
retiring with the rank of a brevet Major General. He had been twice
elected to Congress, but had resigned after his second election to
become governor of his native state, a position which he had filled for
three terms.

Hayes was a man of the substantial, conscientious and hard-working type.
He was not brilliant or magnetic, he originated no innovations, burst
into no flights of imaginative oratory. His state papers were planned
with painstaking care--first, frequently, jotted down in his diary and
then elaborated, revised, recopied and revised again. The vivid
imagination and high-strung emotions that made Clay and Blaine great
campaigners were lacking in Hayes. He was gentle, dignified, simple,
systematic, thoughtful, serene, correct. In making his judgments on
public questions he was sensitive to moral forces. The emancipation of
the slaves was not merely wise and just to him--it was "Providential."
He favored a single six-year term for the President because it would
safeguard him from selfish scheming for another period of power. Partly
because of the lack of dash and compelling force in Hayes, but more
because of the low standards of political action which were common at
the time, his scruples seemed puritanical and were held up to ridicule
as the milk-and-water and "old-Woman" policies of "Granny Hayes." His
public, as well as-his private life, was unimpeached in a time when
lofty principles were not common and when scandal attached itself to
public officers of every grade. To his probity and the "safe" character
of his views, as well as to his record as governor of an important
state, was due his elevation to the presidency.[1] In his habit of
self-analysis, Hayes was reminiscent of John Quincy Adams. Like Adams he
kept a diary from his early youth, the serious and mature entries in
which cause the reader to wonder whether Hayes ever had a childhood.
When he had just passed his twentieth birthday he confided to his diary
that he found himself unsatisfied with his progress in Blackstone, that
he must curb his "propensity" to read newspapers to the exclusion of
more substantial matter, and in general that he was "greatly deficient
in many particulars." Then and in later years he noted hostile
criticisms of himself and combated them, recorded remarks that he had
heard, propounded questions for future thought, expressed a modest
ambition or admitted a curbed elation over success.

In the field of politics Hayes was looked upon as a reliable party man,
a reputation which was justified by his rigid adherence to his party and
by his attitude toward the opposition. In both these respects he was the
ordinary partisan. Nevertheless he thought out his views with unusual
care, made them a matter of conscience and measured policies by ethical
standards that were more exacting than the usual politician of the time
was accustomed to exercise. The only remark of his that gained wide
circulation reflects his type of partisanship: "he serves his party best
who serves his country best." In these latter respects--his
thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, exacting standards of conduct and
less narrowly partisan spirit--he formed a contrast to the most
influential leaders of his party organization. Altogether it seemed
likely at the start that Hayes might have friction with the Republican
chiefs.

The opening of the administration found public interest centered on the
inaugural address and the Cabinet.[2] The inaugural set forth with
clearness and dignity the problems which the administration desired to
solve: the removal of the barriers between the sections on the basis of
the acceptance of the war amendments, southern self-government and the
material development of the South; reform in the civil service,
thorough, radical and complete; and the resumption of specie payments.
To the choice of a cabinet, Hayes devoted much painstaking care. For
Secretary of State, he nominated William M. Evarts of New York, an
eminent lawyer who had aided Charles Francis Adams in his diplomatic
battle with England during the Civil War and later in the Geneva
Arbitration, had shown wit and finesse in the defence of Andrew Johnson
in the impeachment trial, and had valiantly assisted the Republican
cause before the Electoral Commission. In addition, Evarts was a man of
the world who knew how to make the most of social occasions and was an
orator of reputation. The Secretary of the Treasury was John Sherman of
Ohio, who had been for years chairman of the finance committee of the
Senate, and was an example of the more statesmanlike type of senator of
war and reconstruction times.

The nomination of Carl Schurz, as Secretary of the Interior, and David
M. Key, as Postmaster-General, caused an uproar among the party leaders.
Schurz was a cosmopolitan, a German-American, a scholar, orator, veteran
of the Civil War, friend of Lincoln, and independent thinker. His
devotion to the cause of civil service reform recommended him to the
friendship of the President and to the enmity of the political leaders.
The politicians scored Schurz as not a trustworthy Republican--he was
independent by nature and had been a leader in the Liberal Republican
movement; and they denounced him as an impractical man, whose head was
full of transcendental theories--which was a method of saying that he
was a civil service reformer. No little excitement was occasioned by the
appointment of Key. The President had desired to appoint to the cabinet
a southerner of influence, and had thought of Joseph E. Johnston as
Secretary of War. The choice of General Johnston would have been an act
of great magnanimity, but since General Sherman, to whom Johnston had
surrendered only twelve years before, was commander of the army, it
would have placed Sherman in the singular position of taking military
orders from a former leading "rebel." When Hayes consulted his party
associates, however, he found their feelings expressed in the
exclamation of one of them: "Great God! Governor, I hope you are not
thinking of doing anything of that kind!" He thereupon reluctantly gave
way and turned to Key. The latter was less prominent than Johnston, but
had been a Confederate leader, was a Democrat and a man of moderate
counsels. The remaining members of the cabinet were men of much less
moment, but altogether it is clear that few presidents have been
surrounded by so able a group of advisers.[3]

Seldom, also, has a president's announcement of his cabinet caused so
much dissent among his own supporters. Senator Cameron, of Pennsylvania,
had urged a cabinet appointment for his son, and on being refused became
hostile to Hayes. Senator Blaine, of Maine, was piqued because Hayes
refused to offer a place to a Maine man; the friends of General John A.
Logan, of Illinois, were dissatisfied at the failure of Hayes to
understand the qualifications of their favorite; Conkling disliked
Evarts and besides desired a place for his associate Thomas C. Platt;
and the latter considered the nomination of Evarts a "straight-arm" blow
at the Republican organization. Departing, therefore, from the custom in
such cases, the Senate withheld confirmation of the nominations for
several days, during which it became apparent that the rest of the
country had received the announcement of the cabinet with favor, and
then the opposition disappeared. During the remainder of his presidency,
however, Hayes fared badly in making his nominations to office, for
fifty-one of them were rejected outright, a larger number than had ever
before been disagreed to when the President and the Senate were of the
same party. The frequency with which the nominations were rejected and
the combative manner in which the contests were carried on by the Senate
indicated that it was determined to regain and hold fast the influence
in federal counsels that it had relinquished to the executive during the
war.

Aside from the nomination of members of the cabinet, the first important
executive action that tested the attitude of the Senate toward the
President was in relation to the southern problem. By March, 1877, all
the former Confederate states except Louisiana and South Carolina had
freed themselves from Republican rule by the methods already mentioned,
and in these states the Republicans were kept in power only by the
presence of troops. In Louisiana, both Packard, a Republican
carpet-bagger, and Nicholls, a Louisiana Democrat, claimed to be the
rightful governor. In South Carolina, the Republican contestant was
Chamberlain, a native of Massachusetts; the Democrat was Wade Hampton, a
typical old-time southerner. Hayes could withdraw the troops, in
pursuance of his conciliatory policy, but if he did the Republican
governments would certainly collapse because they were unsupported by
public opinion. Furthermore, the returning board which had declared
Hayes the choice of Louisiana in the presidential election had asserted
that the Republican Packard was elected. Blaine, in the Senate,
championed the doctrine that Hayes could not forsake the southern
Republicans without invalidating his own title. Speaking in a confident
and aggressive manner, he held that the honor, faith and credit of the
party bound it to uphold the Republican claimants. Nevertheless, the
President investigated conditions in both states, satisfied himself that
public opinion was back of the Democratic governments and then recalled
the troops, hardly more than a month after his inauguration. The
Republican governments in the two states promptly gave way to the
Democrats, and the storm was on in the Senate.[4]

The Republican politicians believed that no good thing could come from
the "rebels," that the President was abandoning the negro, and that he
was surrendering the principles for which the party had contended.
"Stalwarts," was the name applied by Blaine to these uncompromising
party men who would not relinquish the grip of the organization on the
southern states. Hayes was freely charged with having promised the
removal of the military forces in return for the electoral votes of the
two states concerned, and some color seemed to be lent to this
accusation when he proceeded to reward the Louisiana and Florida
returning boards with appointments to office. Even the New York _Times_,
which usually supported Hayes with vigor, characterized the Louisiana
settlement as "a surrender." William E. Chandler who had assisted Hayes
as counsel in the disputed election attacked him in a pamphlet, "Can
such Things be and overcome us like a Summer Cloud without our Special
Wonder?" Most of the influential leaders in both houses of Congress
scarcely disguised their hostility. Indeed the discontent went back into
the states where, as in New Hampshire, a contest over the endorsement of
Hayes was so bitter that the newspaper reporters had to be excluded from
the state convention to prevent public reports of schism in the party.
The Democrats could not come to his support since they were unable to
forget the election of 1876 even in their satisfaction over the
treatment accorded the South. In six weeks the President was without the
backing of most of his party leaders. On the other hand, a few men of
the type represented by Hoar and Sherman commended the President's
policy. Independent publications such as _Harper's Weekly_ did likewise,
and when the Republican convention of 1880 drew up the party platform
the leaders made a virtue of necessity and adopted a plank
enthusiastically supporting the Hayes administration.

After he had finished with the southern problem, Hayes confided to his
diary, "Now for civil service reform!" And for appointments in general
he recorded several principles: no sweeping changes; recommendations by
congressmen to be investigated--not merely accepted; and no relatives of
himself or his wife to be appointed, however good their qualifications
might be. In the meanwhile Secretary Schurz set to work to put the
Department of the Interior on a merit basis. The principles that Hayes
set up for himself and the steps that Schurz took were in conformity
with the party platform of 1876 and with the President's inaugural
address; nevertheless the party leaders were displeased, if not
surprised, for platform promises were lightly regarded and inaugural
addresses were sometimes not to be taken very seriously.

The earliest acts of Hayes were not such as to facilitate the further
progress of reform. The appointment of the members of the Louisiana
Returning Board to federal offices gave color to charges that they were
receiving their reward for assisting the President into his position.
Furthermore, on June 22, 1877, he issued an executive order forbidding
any United States officials to take part in the management of political
organizations and declaring that political assessments on federal
officers would not be allowed. So drastic an order brought amazement to
the party leaders, who had not dreamed of anything so radical. Perhaps
the order was too sudden and sweeping, considering the practices of the
time. At any rate it was not enforced and the President seemed to have
set a standard to which he had not the courage to adhere. Nevertheless,
reform principles were successfully tested in the New York Post Office
by Thomas L. James, a vigorous exponent of the merit system who had been
appointed by President Grant and was now re-appointed and upheld by
President Hayes.

But the great battle for the new idea came in connection with the New
York Custom House. Through the port of New York came two-thirds to
three-fourths of the goods which were imported into this country, and
the necessity for a businesslike conduct of the custom house seemed
obvious. Yet there had for some time been complaints concerning the
service, and Sherman appointed commissions, with the approval of the
President, to investigate conditions in New York and elsewhere. The
commission which studied the situation in New York reported that
one-fifth of the persons employed there were superfluous, that
inefficiency and neglect of duty were common, and that the positions at
the disposal of the collector had for years been used for the reward of
party activity. The commission recommended sweeping changes which
Secretary Sherman and President Hayes approved. It then appeared that
the New York officials were not favorable to the President's reform
plans. Furthermore, Chester A. Arthur, the collector of the port, was a
close friend of Roscoe Conkling, the head of the state machine; and A.B.
Cornell, the naval officer, was chairman of the state and national
Republican committees; It was evident that an attempt to change
conditions in New York would precipitate a test of strength between the
administration and the New York organization.

As Arthur and Cornell would not further the desired reforms and would
not resign, the President removed them. When he nominated their
successors, however, the Senate, led by Conkling, refused to add its
confirmation and there the matter rested for some months. Eventually the
President's nominations were confirmed, an outcome which seems to have
been brought about in part at least by letters from. Secretary Sherman
to personal friends in the Senate in which he urgently pressed the case
of the administration. The President's victory emphasized the
disagreement of the powerful state organization with the reform idea,
and while the reformers rejoiced that the warfare had been carried into
the enemy's country, newspaper opinion varied between the view that the
President was playing politics and that he was actuated by the highest
motives only. Agitation for reform, meanwhile, continued to increase.
The literary men among the reformers, aided by scores of lesser lights,
conducted a campaign of education; the New York Civil Service Reform
Association, founded in 1877, and the National Civil Service Reform
League, in 1881, gave evidence of an effort towards the organization of
reform sentiment.

While the attention of the President and the politicians was directed
toward the reform of the civil service, there occurred an event for
which none of them was prepared. Early in the summer of 1877 train hands
on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad struck because of a reduction in
wages, the fourth cut that they had suffered in seven years. The strike
spread with the speed of a prairie fire over most of the northern roads
between New England and the Mississippi. At the height of the
controversy at least 100,000 strikers and six or seven thousand miles of
railway were involved, while at several points especially Martinsburg,
West Virginia, and Pittsburg, rioting and destruction took place. A
considerable number of people were killed or wounded, and the loss of
property in Pittsburg alone was estimated at five to ten millions of
dollars. Eventually, when the state militia failed to check the
disorder, the President was called upon for federal troops and these
proved effectual. That even so thoughtful and conscientious a man as
Hayes was far from understanding the meaning of the strike was indicated
in his message to Congress in which he merely expressed his
gratification that the troops had been able to repress the disorder.
Repression, that is to say, was the one resource that occurred to the
mind of the chief executive and to the majority of the men of his day.
That repression alone could not remedy evils permanently, that salutary
force ought to be immediately supplemented by a study of the rights and
wrongs of the two sides and by a dispassionate correction of
abuses,--all this did not even remotely occur to the thoughts of the
political leaders of the time.

The breach in the ranks of the Republicans which was made by the events
of the early days of the Hayes administration was closed in the face of
an attack by the common enemy--the Democrats. The latter, being in
control of the House, appointed the "Potter Committee" to investigate
the title of Hayes to the Presidency, hoping to discredit him and
thereby turn the tables in the election of 1880. The committee examined
witnesses and reported, the Democrats asserting that Tilden had been
elected and the Republicans that Hayes had been. The Republican Senate,
meanwhile, had prepared a counterblast. By legal proceedings a committee
had obtained from the Western Union Telegraph Company over thirty
thousand of the telegrams sent by both parties during the campaign. The
Republicans declared that the "cipher despatches" among these messages
showed that the Democrats had offered a substantial bribe for the vote
of an Oregon Republican elector. Before the dispatches were returned to
the telegraph company, somebody took the precaution to destroy those
that concerned Republican campaign methods and to retain those relating
to the Democrats. The latter were published by the New York _Tribune_
and revealed attempts to bribe the Florida and South Carolina Returning
Boards. Most of them had been sent by Tilden's nephew or received by
him, so that the corrupt trail seemed to lead straight to the candidate
himself, but the evidence was inconclusive. The Potter Committee then
investigated the telegrams, together with a great number of witnesses,
and another partisan report resulted. It thus appeared that both pot and
kettle were black and there the matter rested. The Democrats had done
themselves no good and had done the Republicans no harm.[5]

The Democrats also attacked the election laws, under which federal
officials supervised elections, and federal judges and marshals had
jurisdiction over cases concerning the suffrage. Under these laws, also,
troops could be used to enforce the judgments of the Courts. There is no
doubt that intimidation, unfair practices and bribery were all too
common in the North as well as in the South. The lack of official
ballots and secret voting made abuses inevitable. In New York,
Cincinnati and other northern cities, and on a smaller scale in the
rural districts, abuses of one sort or another were normal
accompaniments of elections. Intimidation in the South was notorious and
not denied. The existing election laws gave the dominant party an
opportunity to appoint large numbers of deputy-marshals--largely party
workers, of course-paying them from the national treasury and so
solidifying the party organization. In the election of 1876 about
$275,000 had been spent in this way. Some of the federal supervisors had
been extremely energetic--so much so that in one case in Louisiana their
registration lists showed 8,000 more colored voters in 1876 than were
discovered by the census enumerators four years later.

If the Republicans saw involved in the laws both a principle and a party
weapon, the Democrats saw both a principle and an opportunity. They
attached a "rider" to an army appropriation bill, which made it unlawful
to use any part of the army for any other than the purposes expressly
authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress. Since the
Constitution allowed the use of troops only to "execute the laws of the
Union, to suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions," the new law would
prevent the employment of armed forces for civil purposes at the polling
places. The President was compelled to yield to save the appropriation
bill.

In the next Congress the Democrats controlled both House and Senate and
they advanced to the attack on the remainder of the election laws.
Attempts were made to prevent the appointment of special deputy-marshals
by forbidding the payment of any compensation to them or to the regular
marshals when used in elections. Each time that Congress passed such a
law the President vetoed it, even though special sessions had to be
called to make up for lost time. He saw in the use of the rider a
dangerous assertion of coercive power on the part of Congress. By means
of it, Congress was withholding funds essential for military and civil
purposes until the President should assent to legislation totally
unconnected with the appropriations. He felt himself being threatened
and driven by a hostile legislature. For the President to give way
before such constraint would be to lose the veto power and to destroy
the independence of the executive as a branch of the government. The
Democrats were unable to muster force enough to overrule the veto, and
here the matter rested while other forces, which have already been
described, were sapping the strength of the election laws. On the whole,
the result was probably to bring the Republican factions together and so
to strengthen the party for the election of 1880. The Democrats, on the
other hand, probably lost ground.

In the meanwhile a difficult and technical problem--the monetary
question--was forcing itself upon the attention of Congress and of the
country. The rapid development of the economic life of the United States
was demanding an increased volume of currency with which to perform the
multitude of exchanges which constantly take place in the life of an
industrial people. Unless the volume of the currency expanded
proportionately with the increase of business, or there was a
corresponding increase in the use of bank checks, the demand for money
would cause its value to go up--that is, prices to go down. If the
volume expanded more rapidly than was necessitated by business, the
value of money would fall and prices would go up. A change in the price
level in either direction, as has been seen, would harm important groups
of people. The exact amount, however, by which the volume should be
increased was not easy to determine. Furthermore, assuming that both
gold and silver should be coined, what amount of each would constitute
the most desirable combination? What ought to be the weight of the
coins? If paper currency was to supplement the precious metals, what
amount of it should be in circulation? These are difficult questions
under any circumstances. They did not become less so when answered by a
bulky and uninformed Congress acting under the influence of definite
personal, sectional and property interests.

Several facts tended to restrict the kind of money whose volume could be
greatly increased. It was not advisable to expand the greenbacks because
legislation had already limited their amount and because such action
would unfavorably affect the approaching resumption of specie payments.
The quantity of national bank notes, another common form of paper money,
was somewhat rigidly determined by the amount of federal bonds
outstanding, for the national bank notes were issued upon the federal
bonds as security. Moreover, the bonds were being rapidly paid off
during the seventies and it was, therefore, impossible to expect any
increase of the currency from this source. Normally the supply of gold
available for coinage did not vary greatly from year to year and
certainly did not respond with exactness to the demand of industry for a
greater or smaller volume of circulating medium. It seemed to remain for
silver to supply any needed increase.

But silver was not in common use except as a subsidiary coin. For many
years the value of the bullion necessary for coining a silver dollar had
been greater than the value of the coin. Nobody therefore brought his
silver to the mint but sold it instead in the commercial markets. Indeed
so insignificant was the amount of silver usually coined into dollars
that an act of 1873 systematizing the coinage laws had omitted the
silver dollar completely from the list of coins. The omission was later
referred to by the friends of silver currency as the "Crime of 1873." At
the same time a remarkable coincidence was providing the motive power
for the demand that silver be more largely used as currency. Early in
the seventies Germany and the Latin Monetary Union, (France,
Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and Greece), had reduced the amount of their
silver coinage, thus throwing a large supply of bullion on the market.
Simultaneously, enlarged supplies of silver were being found in western
United States. A Nevada mine, for example, which had produced six
hundred and forty-five thousand dollars' worth of ore in 1873 had turned
out nearly twenty-five times that amount two years later. Naturally the
market price of silver fell and the mine owners began to seek an outlet
for their product. Thus the people who were convinced that the volume of
the currency was insufficient for the industrial demands of the nation
received a new and powerful reenforcement from the producers of silver
ore. There arose what the New York _Tribune_ referred to as "The Cloud
in the West."

Inevitably the cloud in the West threw its shadow into Congress where
the demand was insistent that the government "do something for silver."
A commission had been appointed in 1876 to study the currency problem
and make recommendations. When the report was made it appeared that the
opinions of the members were so divergent that little was gained from
the investigation. While the commission was deliberating, Richard P.
Bland of Missouri introduced a bill providing for the free and unlimited
coinage of silver. Under its provisions the owner of silver bullion
could present any quantity of his commodity to the government to be
coined under the conditions which controlled the coinage of gold. The
House responded readily to Bland's proposal. In the Senate, under the
leadership of William B. Allison, the free and unlimited feature of the
bill was dropped and a provision adopted limiting the purchase of
bullion to an amount not greater than four million dollars' worth per
month and not less than two million dollars' worth. The bullion so
obtained was to be coined into silver dollars, which were to be legal
tender for all debts public and private. Bland was ready to accept the
compromise because he hoped to be able to increase the use of silver by
subsequent legislation. "If we cannot do that," he said, "I am in favor
of issuing paper money enough to stuff down the bond-holders until they
are sick." The remark was typical of the sectional and class hatreds and
misunderstandings which this debate aroused, and of the maze of
ignorance in which both sides were groping. To the silver faction, their
opponents were "mendacious hirelings" and "Gilded Shylocks." God, in His
infinite wisdom had imbedded silver in the western mountains for a
beneficent purpose. "The country," said one speaker, "is in an agony of
business distress and looks for some relief by a gradual increase of the
currency." On the other hand, the opponents of silver scorned the
"delusion" of a "clipped" coin and the dishonest proposition to make
ninety cents' worth of silver pass as a dollar. The "storm-driven,
buffeted, and scarred" ship of industrial peace, an easterner declared,
"deeply laden with all precious and golden treasure is sighted in the
offing!... shall we put out the lights?... Dare we remove the ship's
helm, leaving her crippled and helpless!"

Sherman believed that this limited amount of silver could be taken into
the currency system without difficulty, but President Hayes thought that
harm would result from making the silver dollar a legal tender when the
market value of the bullion in the coin was not equal in value to that
of the gold dollar. He therefore vetoed the bill on February 28, 1878.
He could not carry Congress with him, however, and the measure was
passed over the veto on the same day.

Party lines had disappeared during the debates over the passage of the
act. Eastern members of both houses and of both parties had been
opposed, with few exceptions, to the increased use of silver; the
westerners had been equally united in its favor. The East, the creditor
section and the holder of most of the Civil War bonds, had no desire to
try an experiment with the currency which would, in their opinion,
reduce the purchasing power of their income. The debtor West looked with
disfavor upon an increase in the real amount of their debts which was
brought about by an inadequate supply of currency. Since prices
continued to decline they believed that the remedy was a greater
quantity of money. Evidently the greenback controversy was reviving in a
new garb.

The approach of the resumption of specie payments which had been set, it
will be remembered, for January 1, 1879, increased the burden under
which the westerners and the debtor classes in general were working.
Favorable commercial conditions and Sherman's foresight, tact and
intelligence made it possible to overcome the various difficulties in
the way of accumulating a sufficient reserve of gold, and on December
31, 1878, the Treasury had on hand about $140,000,000 of the precious
metal, an amount nearly equal to forty per cent. of the paper in
circulation. Despite the desirability of resumption, the first effects
of preparations for it were harmful to considerable bodies of people. As
January 1 approached, the greenbacks, which had been circulating at a
depreciated value, rose nearer and nearer to par. Debts which had been
incurred when paper dollars were worth sixty cents in gold, had to be
paid in dollars worth eighty, ninety or a hundred cents, according to
the date when the debt fell due. Business men who were heavily in debt
and farmers whose property was mortgaged found their burden daily
growing in size.

Notwithstanding the steady advance of paper toward par value, Sherman
nervously awaited business hours on January 2, 1879, (since the first
fell on Sunday) to see whether there would be such a rush of holders of
paper who would wish gold that his slender stock would be wiped out. New
York, the financial center, was watched with especial anxiety. To
Sherman's surprise, only $135,000 of paper was presented for redemption
in gold; to his amazement and relief, $400,000 in gold was presented in
exchange for paper. Evidently, now that paper and metal were
interchangeable, people preferred the lighter and more convenient
medium. Favorable business conditions enabled the government to continue
specie payments; a huge grain crop in 1879, coupled with crop failures
in England, caused unprecedented exports of wheat, corn and other
products, and a corresponding importation of gold. The damage resulting
from the appreciation of paper was temporary in character; the public
credit was vastly benefited; and the greater amount of stability in the
value of paper proved invaluable to industry.

Happily Hayes's stormy political relations were balanced by comparative
quiet in foreign affairs. Only Mexico caused trouble, and that was of
negligible importance. A few raiders made sporadic excursions into
Texas, which necessitated an expedition for the punishment of the
marauders. General Ord was directed to cross the border if necessary,
but General Diaz, at the head of the Mexican government, concluded an
agreement for cooperation with the United States in the protection of
the boundary. The agreement was only partly successful, however, and on
several occasions troops crossed the Rio Grande and fought with bandits.

On the Pacific Coast, meanwhile, the Chinese question was becoming a
political issue. In earlier times the immigration of the Chinese had
been encouraged because of the need of a cheap labor supply when the
transcontinental railroads were being built. As the coast filled up,
however, with native population, and the demand for laborers fell off,
there arose numerous objections to the oriental. It was seen that since
he was willing to work for extremely low wages he could drive American
laborers out of their places. Labor leaders such as Dennis Kearney held
meetings on the "sand lots" in San Francisco and aroused anti-Chinese
feeling. Riots and violence, even, were not unknown.

Just before the inauguration of President Hayes a commission of inquiry
had visited the coast and examined many witnesses. The commission
reported that the resources of the Pacific states had been more rapidly
developed with coolie labor than they would otherwise have been, but
that the Chinese lived under filthy conditions, formed an inferior
foreign element and were, on the whole, undesirable. It recommended that
the executive take steps in the direction of a modification of the
existing treaty with China, for fear that the problem might spread
eastward with increasing immigration. The electioneering possibilities
of the subject had appealed to both parties and they had earnestly
demanded action in their platforms of 1876. Opinion was forming
throughout the country, aided by Bret Harte's famous lines:

    Which I wish to remark
    And my language is plain,
    That for ways that are dark
    And tricks that are vain,
    The heathen Chinee is peculiar
    Which the same I would rise to explain.

Action by Congress was hindered by the Burlingame treaty of 1868 with
China, which covered the subject of immigration in unmistakable
language. By its provisions citizens of China were to have the same
rights of travel and residence in America as the subjects of the most
favored nation. Reciprocally, China was to grant equal privileges to
citizens of the United States. The process of modifying a treaty through
the ordinary diplomatic channels was so slow that Congress sought to
avoid delay by passing a law forbidding shipmasters to bring in more
than fifteen Chinese at one time, and calling upon the President to
notify China that the terms of the Burlingame treaty, in so far as they
related to immigration, would not hold after July 1, 1879, when the
proposed legislation would take effect. President Hayes sympathized with
the purpose of the bill but felt obliged to veto it because of the
Burlingame treaty. The veto message recalled that the treaty had been of
American seeking and that its ratification had been applauded all over
the country. The abrogation of part of the agreement would be equivalent
to abrogation of the whole, leaving American citizens in China without
adequate treaty protection. Furthermore Hayes felt that treaties could
not rightfully be violated by legislation, but advocated other measures
for the relief of the people of the Pacific Coast. He thereupon sent to
China a commission, headed by James B. Angell of Michigan, which
succeeded in liberally modifying the existing treaty. Under the new
arrangement the United States might "regulate, limit, or suspend" the
immigration of Chinese laborers; and as the treaty was promptly
ratified, it redounded somewhat to the credit of the Republicans in the
election of 1880.

The administration of Hayes was, on the whole, an admirable one. The
problems which he faced were varied and difficult, but most of them were
met sensibly and with success. To be sure, he did not grasp the social
and economic forces behind the monetary agitation; nor did he have the
insight and originality necessary for attacking the problem of industrial
unrest as it appeared in the strike of 1877. But neither did his
associates, nor his successors in the presidency for many years to
come. On the other hand, the ethical standards of the administration
were high and the atmosphere of the White House sane and wholesome. The
home life of the President was exceptionally attractive, for Mrs. Hayes
was a woman of unusual charm and social capacity. The attitude of Hayes
on the southern question and on civil service reform was courageous and
progressive. And most of all, his ideas on public questions were stated
with unmistakable clearness in a day when old issues were sinking into
the background and both parties were reluctant to define their position
on the new ones.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

A great contribution to the understanding of Hayes's administration was
made by the publication of C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_
(2 vols., 1914). It is complete and contains copious extracts from
Hayes's diary, but is written with less of the critical spirit than is
desirable; J.F. Rhodes has a valuable chapter in his _Historical Essays_
(1909); J.W. Burgess, _Administration of R.B. Hayes_ (1916), is a
eulogy; V.L. Shores, _Hayes-Conkling Controversy_ (1919), describes the
civil service quarrel; J.R. Commons and others, _History of Labor in the
United States_ (2 vols., 1918), describes the strike of 1877; so also
does J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley_
(1919), with full references. On the Chinese affair, consult Mrs. M.E.
B.S. Coolidge, _Chinese Immigration_ (1909). Most of the general
histories already mentioned dwell at length on the Hayes administration.

For the official messages of this and succeeding administrations, the
most convenient source is J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
Presidents_ (10 vols., 1903).

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] For a time public interest was absorbed by the determination of
President and Mrs. Hayes to serve no wines of any kind in the White
House. Finally a delicious frozen punch was served at about the middle
of the state dinners, known to the thirsty as "the Life-saving Station."
It was popularly understood to be liberally strengthened with old Santa
Croix rum, but the President later asserted that he had caused the punch
to be sharpened with the flavor of Jamaica rum and that no drop of
spirits was inserted. What the _chef_ really did, perhaps nobody knows.
At any rate, both sides were satisfied. Williams, _R.B. Hayes_, II; 312
note.

[2] Because March 4 fell on Sunday, the oath of office was privately
administered to Hayes on Saturday evening, March 3. Williams, _Hayes_,
II, 5.

[3] George W. McCrary was Secretary of War; Richard W. Thompson,
Secretary of the Navy; Charles Devens, Attorney-General.

[4] Chamberlain, the Republican claimant in South Carolina, wrote in
1901 that he was "quite ready now to say that he feels sure that there
was no possibility of securing permanent good government in South
Carolina through Republican influences." _Atlantic Monthly_, LXXXVII,
482.

[5] Many of the dispatches were in a complicated cipher which resisted
all attempts at solution. The _Tribune_ published samples from time
to time, keeping interest alive in the hope that somebody might solve
the riddle. Finally two members of the _Tribune_ staff were successful
in discovering the key to the cipher in a way that recalls the
paper-covered detective story. The newspaper aroused and excited public
interest by publishing specimens and eventually achieved a sensation by
putting the most damaging material into print on October 16, 1878. One
of the telegrams, with its translation, ran as follows:

    "Absolutely Petersburg can procured by Copenhagen may Thomas
    prompt Edinburgh must if river take be you less London Thames
    will."

    Translation: If Returning Board can be procured absolutely, will
    you deposit 30,000 dollars? May take less. Must be prompt. Thomas.




CHAPTER VII


THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES

The Hayes administration was scarcely half over when the politicians
began to look forward to the election of 1880. At the outset of his
term, Hayes had advocated a single term for the executive and there was
no widespread movement among the politicians to influence him to change
his attitude. His enemies, indeed, had already turned to General Grant.
There had been a third-term boom for the General during his second
administration and he had indicated that he was not formidably opposed
to further continuance in office. Suddenly, however, the anti-third-term
feeling had risen to impressive proportions, whereupon the House of
Representatives had adopted a resolution which characterized any
departure from the two-term precedent as "unwise, unpatriotic, and
fraught with peril to our free institutions." As the resolution passed
by an overwhelming vote--233-18--nothing further was heard of a
third-term boom.

The Hayes administration put a different complexion on the matter. The
wheel-horses of the party were not enthusiastic over the President or
his policies, and in their extremity they looked to Grant. The New York
State Republican Convention, under control of Roscoe Conkling and his
forces, instructed delegates to support the General as a candidate for
the nomination and endeavored to forestall opposition to a third term.
It declared that the objection to a third presidential term applied only
to a third consecutive term and hence was inapplicable to the
re-election of Grant. Grant, meanwhile, presented a spectacle that was
at once humorous and pathetic. He had not expected, on leaving the
presidency, to return to power again, had dropped consideration of the
political future and had given himself up to the enjoyment of foreign
travel. The royal reception accorded him wherever he went suggested to
his political supporters that they utilize his popularity. It was
foreseen that when he returned to America he would receive a tremendous
ovation, on the wave of which he might be carried into office. He was
flooded with advice and entreaties that he act in accordance with this
plan. His family was eager to return to the position of social eminence
which they had occupied, and pressure from them was incessant. At first
he did nothing either to aid or to hinder the boom, then gave way to the
pressure and at last became extremely anxious to obtain the coveted
prize.

If the politicians did, in truth, desire a relaxation from the patronage
standards of the Hayes regime, they did not make that the ostensible
purpose of their campaign. They argued that the times demanded a strong
man; that foreign travel had greatly broadened the General and given him
a knowledge of other forms of government; that he had been great as a
commander of armies, greater as a President, and that as a citizen of
the Republic he "shone with a luster that challenged the admiration of
the world." Behind him were Conkling and Platt, with the New York state
organization under their control, Don Cameron who held Pennsylvania in
his hand, General Logan, strong in Illinois, and lesser leaders who
wielded much power in smaller states. Many business men were ready to
lend their aid; the powerful Methodist Church, to which he belonged, was
favorable to him; and, of course, his popularity as a military leader
was unbounded. His return to the United States while the enthusiasm was
at its height was the signal for an unprecedented ovation. The opponents
of a third term painted in high colors the danger of a revival of the
scandals of Grant's days in the presidential chair, formed "No Third
Term" leagues, called an "Anti-Third-Term" convention and decried the
danger of continuing a military man in civil office. _The Nation_
scoffed at the educational effect of foreign travel on a man who was
fifty-seven years of age and could understand the language in only one
of the countries in which he travelled. A large fraction of the
Republican press, in fact, was in opposition. "Anything to beat Grant"
and "No third term" were their war-cries. Nor was there any lack of
Republican candidates to oppose the Grant movement and to give promise
of a lively nominating convention. Blaine's popularity was as widespread
as ever. Those who feared the nomination of either Grant or Blaine
favored Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont or Secretary Sherman. Both
of these men were of statesmanlike proportions, but Edmunds was never
widely popular and Sherman was lacking in the arts of the
politician--"the human icicle," T.C. Platt called him.

The Republican nominating convention of 1880 met in Chicago in a
building described as "one of the most splendid barns" ever built. This
convention is unusually worthy of study because it involved most of the
elements which entered into American politics in the early eighties. It
was long memorable as making a record for that form of enthusiasm which
bursts into demonstrations. "Great applause," "loud laughter," "cheers"
and "hisses long and furious" dot the newspaper accounts of its
deliberations. The members "acted like so many Bedlamites," one of the
delegates said. On one day the opening prayer was so unexpectedly short
that there was applause and laughter. The keen contest for the
nomination resulted in galleries packed with supporters of the several
candidates, who cheered furiously as their favorite delegates appeared.
As the galleries came down nearly to the level of the floor, the
spectators were almost as much members of the convention as the
delegates themselves. It was under such conditions, then, that the
convention proceeded to the serious business of adopting principles and
choosing a leader.

Three hundred and six of the 757 delegates were sworn supporters of
Grant--pledged to die, if they died at all, "with their boots on," one
of their leaders said. In each of the big delegations--those from New
York, Pennsylvania and Illinois--a minority was unfavorable to Grant.
This minority could be counted in the General's column if the convention
could be forced to adopt the so-called "unit-rule," under which the
delegation from a state casts all its votes for the candidate favored by
the majority. In this particular case, the minorities in New York,
Pennsylvania and Illinois numbered more than sixty delegates, so that
the adoption of the rule was a stake worth playing for. The plan
formulated by the Grant leaders was worthy of the time.

Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania was chairman of the National Republican
Committee. Following the usual custom, Cameron was to call the
convention to order and present the temporary chairman who had been
chosen by the Committee. As the Grant supporters were in a minority even
on the Committee, provision was made to meet the emergency in case the
majority insisted on the appointment of an anti-Grant chairman. Cameron
was to announce the name, a Grant delegate was to move to substitute a
Grant man instead, and Cameron would enforce the unit-rule in the
resulting ballot. This would ensure control of the organization of the
convention and, doubtless, of the nomination of the candidate.

Unhappily for this well-laid plan, rumor of it leaked out, and the
majority of the National Committee--opposed to Grant--conveyed
information to Cameron that he must agree to give up such a scheme or be
ousted from his position. Cameron, convinced that his enemies were
determined, gave up his project, and Senator George F. Hoar, who favored
neither Grant nor Blaine, was made temporary and later permanent
chairman.

Although defeated in the first skirmish, the Grant forces pressed
forward for renewed conflict. Conkling presented a resolution that every
member of the convention be bound in honor to support the eventual
candidate, whoever he might be. The resolution passed 716 to three; and
he then moved that the three who had voted in the negative had thereby
forfeited their votes in the convention. James A. Garfield of Ohio led
the opposition to such rough-shod action and Conkling angrily withdrew
his resolution amid hisses. When Garfield reported from the Committee on
Rules in regard to the regulations under which the convention should
deliberate, he moved that the unit rule be not adopted and the
convention upheld him. It was manifest that the delegates were not in a
mood to surrender to a junto of powerful machine politicians.

The way having been now cleared for action, the convention adopted a
platform. This was composed largely of a summary of the achievements of
the party and denunciation of the opposition. Most of the planks were
abstract or perfunctory, or expressed in such a way as not to commit the
party seriously. _Harper's Weekly_, a Republican periodical, regretted
the character of the platform and remarked that such documents are
expected to say

    An undisputed thing
    In such a solemn way.

Judged by this criterion, the platform was ideal. The obligations of the
country to the veterans were emphasized and the restriction of Chinese
immigration called for. On the tariff, the only utterance was an avowal
that duties levied for the purposes of revenue should discriminate in
favor of labor. After this declaration of faith had been unanimously
adopted, a Massachusetts delegate presented an additional plank
advocating civil service reform.

The convention was now badly put to it. To reject a plank which had been
accepted both in 1872 and in 1876 would discredit the party,
particularly as the platform just adopted had accused the opposition of
sacrificing patriotism "to a supreme and insatiable lust for office."
Nevertheless the opposition to its adoption was formidable, and it had
already been twice rejected in the Committee on Resolutions, which drew
up the platform. There seemed no way of avoiding the issue, however, and
the plank was thereupon adopted, though not before Webster Flanagan of
Texas had blurted out, "After we have won the race ... we will give
those who are entitled to positions office. What are we up here for?"

With the speeches presenting candidates to the convention, the real
business of the week began. Senator Conkling aroused a tempest of
enthusiasm for General Grant in a famous speech which began with the
lines,

    When asked what state he hails from,
      Our sole reply shall be,
    He comes from Appomattox
      And its famous apple tree.

Garfield presented Sherman's name. At the outset General Grant led,
Blame was a close second and Sherman third. This order continued for
thirty-five ballots. By that time Blaine and Grant had fought each other
to a standstill. The General's three hundred and six held together
without a break, and Blaine's forces were equally determined.[1]

There was little chance of compromise, as Grant and Blaine were not on
speaking terms, and Conkling and Blaine looked upon each other with
unconcealed hatred. Since Sherman was handicapped by lack of united
support in his own state, the natural solution of the problem seemed to
be the choice of some other leader who might harmonize the contending
factions. On the thirty-fourth ballot, seventeen votes were given to
Garfield; on the next, fifty; then a stampede began, in spite of a
protest by Garfield, and on the thirty-sixth ballot a union of the
Blaine and Sherman forces made him the choice of the convention. The
nominee for the vice-presidency was Chester A. Arthur, who was one of
the leading supporters of Grant and a member of the Conkling group.

The choice of Garfield was well received by the country, perhaps the
more so as a relief from the danger of a third term. The nominee was a
man of great industry, possessed of a store of information, tactful,
modest, popular, an effective orator, and a veteran of the war. His
rise from canal boy to candidate for the presidency exemplified the
possibilities before industrious youth and gave rise to many a homily
on democratic America. Yet his friends had to defend his relation to a
paving scandal in the District of Columbia and an unwise connection with
the Credit Mobilier of 1873. In neither of these cases does Garfield
seem to have been corrupt, but in neither does he appear in a highly
favorable light.[2]

As the Republicans were dispersing, the Greenback convention was
assembling. Their strength in the campaign was almost negligible but
their platform presaged the future. Money to be issued only by the
government, the volume of money increased, ameliorative labor
legislation, restriction of Chinese immigration, regulation of
interstate commerce, an income tax, government for the people rather
than for classes, wider suffrage,--all these were advocated in concise
and unmistakable terms. James B. Weaver was the presidential candidate.

Among the Democrats, the all important question was whether Tilden would
be a candidate again. He naturally wished for a renomination and an
opportunity to prove by an election that he had been "fraudulently"
deprived of the presidency in 1876. The party, likewise, seemed to need
his services, as no other leader of equal prominence had appeared. On
the other hand, his health had rapidly failed since 1876 and it was
apparent that he was unequal to the exacting labors of the presidency.
Not until just before the meeting of the convention, however, did he
make known his wishes and then he declared that he desired nothing so
much as an honorable discharge from public service and that he
"renounced" the renomination. The party took him at his word and turned
to the adoption of a platform and the choice of another leader.

The platform reflected the bitterness of the party over the "great
fraud" of 1876-1877 and advocated tariff for revenue only, civil service
reform and the restriction of Chinese immigration. In other words,
except for the usual self-congratulation and the denunciation of the
opposition, the Democratic platform closely resembled that of the
Republicans. The convention then nominated for the presidency General
Winfield S. Hancock, a modest, brave Union soldier, of whom Grant once
said, "his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a
blunder for which he was responsible." He was not an experienced
politician, but was popular even in the South.

On the whole the Democratic convention was much less interesting than
its Republican predecessor. There were no fierce factional quarrels to
arouse the emotions to concert pitch. The applause spurted out here and
there like the "jets from a splitting hose" in the "Ki yi yi yi" which
characterized the cheers of the lower wards of New York, in contrast to
the rolling billows of applause which formed so memorable an element in
the opposition gathering. The New York Tribune, although hostile to
everything Democratic, perhaps stated the fact when it commented on the
lack of enthusiasm. The convention, the Tribune noted, was well-behaved,
but a mob without leaders; there were no Conklings or Garfields or
Logans, only John Kelleys and Wade Hamptons.

The campaign of 1880 reflected the lack of definite utterances in the
party platforms. Since each side was loath to press forward to the
solution of any real problem facing the nation, the campaign was
confined, for the most part, to petty or even corrupt partisanship. The
career of General Garfield was carefully overhauled for evidences of
scandal. Arthur's failings as a public officer were duly paraded.
General Hancock was ridiculed as "a good man weighing two hundred and
forty pounds." Some attempt was made by the Republicans to make an issue
of the tariff, and a remark of Hancock to the effect that the tariff was
a "local issue" was jeered at as proving an ignorance of public
questions. There was little response to the "bloody shirt" and little
interest in "the great fraud." A modicum of enthusiasm was injected into
the canvass by the participation of Conkling and General Grant. The
former was not happily disposed toward the Republican candidate and
Grant had always refused to make campaign speeches, but as the autumn
came on and defeat seemed imminent, these two leaders were prevailed
upon to lend their assistance. Near the end of the campaign a letter was
circulated in the Pacific states, purporting to have been written by
Garfield to a Mr. Morey, and expressing opposition to the restriction of
Chinese immigration. The signature was a forgery, but complete exposure
in the short time before election day was impossible and the letter
perhaps injured Garfield on the coast. Nevertheless Garfield and Arthur
won, although their popular plurality was only 9,500 in a total of about
nine millions. The electoral vote was 214 to 155 and showed that the
division among the states was sectional, for in the North Hancock
carried only New Jersey, together with Nevada and five electoral votes
in California, the result probably of the Morey letter.

Two aspects of the campaign had especial significance. The attempt by
Conkling and his associates to choose the Republican nominee through the
shrewd manipulation of political machinery, and against the wishes of
the rank and file of the party, was a move on the part of the greater
state bosses to get control of the national organization, so that they
might manage it as they managed their local committees and conventions.
The second notable circumstance concerned the collection and expenditure
of the campaign funds.

Even before the convention met, the Republican Congressional Committee,
pursuing the common practice of the time, addressed a letter to all
federal employees, except heads of departments, in which the suggestion
was made that the office holders would doubtless consider it a
"privilege and a pleasure" to contribute to the campaign funds an amount
equal to two per cent. of their salaries. The Republican National
Committee also made its demands on office holders--usually five per
cent. of a year's salary. The Democrats, having no hold on the federal
offices, had to content themselves with the cultivation of the
possibilities in states which they controlled. In New York, Senator
Platt was chairman of the executive committee and he sent a similar
communication to federal employees in the state. Even the office boy in
a rural post office was not overlooked, and when contributions were not
forthcoming, the names of delinquents were sent to their superiors.
Other developments appeared after the election was over. In February,
1881, a dinner was given in honor of Senator S.W. Dorsey, secretary of
the Republican National Committee, to whom credit was given for carrying
the state of Indiana. General Grant presided and grace was asked by
Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. Dorsey was an Arkansas carpet-bagger, who
had been connected with a railroad swindle and was soon, as it turned
out, to be indicted for complication in other frauds. The substance of
the speeches was that the prospect of success in the campaign seemed
waning, that Indiana was essential to success and that Dorsey was the
agent who accomplished the task. Arthur, who was one of the speakers,
explained the _modus operandi_: "Indiana was really, I suppose, a
Democratic State. It had been put down on the books always as a State
that might be carried by close and perfect organization and a great deal
of--(laughter). I see the reporters are present, therefore I will simply
say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion and
distributed tracts and political documents all through the State."

With the victory accomplished, the politicians turned from the contest
with the common enemy to the question of the division of the spoils;
from the ostensible issue of platforms, to the real issue that Flanagan
had personified. Although the Republicans had presented a united front
to their opponents, there were factional troubles within the party that
all but dwarfed the larger contest. The "Stalwarts" were composed of the
thorough "organization men" like Conkling, Platt and Arthur; the
"Half-breeds" were anti-organization men and more sympathetic with the
administration. The commander of the Stalwarts and one of the most
influential leaders in the country was Roscoe Conkling, Senator from New
York. In person Conkling was a tall, handsome, imperious man, with
something of the theatrical in his appearance and manner. As a
politician he was aggressive, fearless, scornful, shrewd and adroit when
he chose to be, and masterful, always. As an orator he knew how to play
on the feelings of the crowd; his vocabulary, when he turned upon one
whom he disliked, was memorable for its wealth of invective and
ridicule, and especially he uncorked the vials of his wrath on any who
were not strictly organization men. Although an able man and a
successful lawyer, Conkling seems to have had less interest in the
public welfare than in conventions, elections and patronage.

The announcement of Garfield's choice of a Cabinet was the signal for a
fierce patronage fight. James G. Blaine, the choice for Secretary of
State, was distasteful in the extreme to Conkling. Many years before,
during a debate in the House, Blaine had compared Conkling to Henry
Winter Davis as

    Hyperion to a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble,
    dunghill to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining
    puppy to a roaring lion.

He had contemptuously referred to Conkling's "haughty disdain, his
grandiloquent swell, his majestic, supereminent, overpowering,
turkey-gobbler strut." Accordingly when Garfield disregarded Conkling's
wishes in regard to the representation which New York should have in the
cabinet, Conkling laid the blame upon his old enemy.[3]

As soon as the administration was in office, the Senate met in executive
session to act on appointments, and it appeared that the parties were
evenly divided, the balance of power lying in the hands of two
Independents. President Garfield sent in his list of nominees for office
without consulting Conkling in regard to New York appointments. Among
them was William H. Robertson for the coveted position of collector for
the port of New York. As Robertson had been opposed to Grant and to the
unit rule in the Republican convention, Conkling's rage reached a fever
pitch. In an attempt to discredit the President before the country, he
made public a letter from Garfield giving countenance to the practice of
levying campaign assessments on federal employees. Conkling's point of
view is not difficult to understand. Consultation with the senators from
a state with regard to nominations to offices within its boundaries was
the common custom; Conkling had sunk his dislike of Garfield during the
campaign in order to assist in a party victory; moreover, he and Platt,
the other New York senator, understood that Garfield had agreed to
dispense New York patronage in conformity to the wishes of the
Stalwarts, in case Conkling took the stump. He had carried out his part
of the bargain and now desired his _quid pro quo_.

Meanwhile the Senate was trying to organize and having failed because of
the even division of the parties, stopped the attempt long enough to act
on the nominations. The President then withdrew all except that of
Robertson, thus indicating that offices in which other senators were
concerned would not be filled until the New York case was settled.
Foreseeing that the members would wish to clear the way for their own
interests and that Robertson's nomination was likely to be agreed to,
Conkling and Platt resigned their posts and appealed to the New York
legislature for a re-election as a vindication of the stand they had
taken. As the legislature was Republican and as Vice-President Arthur
went to Albany to urge their case, they seemed likely to succeed; but to
their mortification they were both defeated after an extended contest,
and Conkling retired permanently to private life. Platt, who was
promptly dubbed "Me Too," also relinquished public office, but only for
a time. In the meanwhile, as soon as Conkling and Platt had left the
Senate, the nomination of Robertson had been approved, and Garfield was
triumphant.

Further light was thrown upon political conditions by the investigations
of the "star routes." These were routes in the South and West where
mails had to be carried by stage lines, and were under the control of
the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, Thomas J. Brady. Rumors had
been common for some years that they were a source of corruption.
Garfield's Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, had already made a
reputation as the reform postmaster of New York, and he set himself
to investigate the reports. Among other things it was discovered that a
combination of public men and contractors had succeeded in raising the
compensation on 134 star routes from $143,169 to $622,808, dividing the
extra profits among themselves. Brady and Senator Dorsey, the active
agent in the campaign in Indiana, were accused of being in the "ring"
and were indicted on the ground of conspiracy to defraud the government.
Brady attempted to block the investigation by threatening Garfield with
an exposure of the campaign methods, and when the threat failed he made
public a letter from the President to "My dear Hubbell," chairman of the
Congressional Committee, similar to that which Conkling had earlier
published. The trials of the conspirators dragged on until 1883 and
resulted in the acquittal of all the accused except one of the least
important. Yet some good was accomplished, for the ring was broken up.
Dorsey retired from public life, and renewed attention was drawn to the
need of better federal officials.

During the course of the trials, the country was shocked by the
assassination of the President on July 2, 1881, at the hands of a
disappointed office seeker named Guiteau. Despite a strong constitution
Garfield grew slowly weaker and died on September 19. The catastrophe
affected the country the more profoundly because of its connection with
the factional quarrel in the Republican party and because, following the
recent murder of the Russian Czar, it seemed to show that democratic
government was no guarantee against violence.[4]

The consternation with which the elevation of Chester A. Arthur to the
presidency was received was not confined to the Democrats. An
oft-repeated remark made at the time was expressive of the opinion of
those best acquainted with the new executive: "'Chet' Arthur President
of the United States! Good God!" In truth Arthur's previous career
hardly justified anything except consternation. He had been identified
always with machine politics and particularly with the Conkling group;
he had been a prominent figure in the opposition to Hayes when the
latter attempted to improve conditions in the New York Customs House;
and had taken an active and undignified share in the quarrel between
Garfield and Conkling. Chester A. Arthur, however, was a combination of
characteristics such as enlist the interest of the student of human
nature. Of Vermont birth, educated at Union College where he had taken
high rank, he had taught school for a time, had entered the practice of
law in New York, had made a good war record, and had been a member of
the Republican party from its beginning. In many ways Arthur was made
for politics. He was the "man of the world" in appearance, polished,
refined, well-groomed, scrupulously careful about his attire, a
_bon-vivant_. Yet he was equally at home in the atmosphere of politics
in the early eighties; a leader of the "Johnnies" and "Jakes," the
"Barneys" and "Mikes" of New York City. Dignity characterized him,
whether in the "knock-down" and "drag-out" caucus or at an exclusive
White House reception. He possessed a refinement, especially in his home
life, that is not usually associated with ward politics but which forms
an element of the "gentleman" in the best sense of that abused word.

Yet they who feared that President Arthur would be like Chester A.
Arthur, the collector of the port, were treated to a revelation. The
suddenness with which the elevation to the responsibility of the
executive's position broadened the view of the President proved that he
possessed qualities which had been merely hidden in the pursuit of
ordinary partisan politics. Platt, expectant of the dismissal of
Robertson, now that a Stalwart was in power, fell back in disgust and
disowned his former associate, for it appeared that Arthur intended to
further the principles of reform. His first annual message to Congress
contained a sane discussion of the civil service and the needed
remedies, which committed him whole-heartedly to the competitive system.
Although he did not go as far as some reformers would have had him, he
went so much farther than was expected that commendation was
enthusiastic, even on the part of the most prominent leaders in the
reform element. In the same message he urged the repeal of the
Bland-Allison silver-coinage act, the reduction of the internal revenue,
revision of the tariff, a better navy, post-office savings banks, and
enlightened Indian legislation. Altogether it was clear that he had laid
aside much of the partisan in succeeding to his high office.[5]

The Chinese problem soon provided him with an opportunity to show an
independence of judgment, together with an indifference to mere
popularity, which were in keeping with the new Arthur, but which were a
surprise to his former associates. As a result of the changes in the
Burlingame treaty, which gave the United States authority to suspend the
immigration of Chinese laborers, Congress passed a bill in 1882 to
prohibit the incoming of laborers for twenty years, western Republicans
joining with the Democrats in its passage.[6] Arthur vetoed the measure
on the ground that a stoppage for so great a period as twenty years
violated those provisions of the treaty which allowed us merely to
suspend immigration, not to prohibit it. An attempt to overcome the veto
failed for lack of the necessary two-thirds majority. Congress did,
however, pass legislation suspending the immigration of laborers for ten
years, and this bill the President signed. Later acts have merely
extended this law or made it more effective.

Arthur also exercised the veto upon a rivers and harbors bill. It had,
of course, long been the custom for the federal government to aid in the
improvement of the harbors and internal water-ways of the country. But
the modest sums of _ante-bellum_ days grew rapidly after the war,
stimulated by immense federal revenues, until the suggested legislation
of 1882 appropriated nearly nineteen million dollars. It provided not
merely for the dredging of great rivers like the Mississippi and Ohio,
but also for the Lamprey River in New Hampshire, the Waccemaw in North
Carolina, together with Goose Rapids and Cheesequake Creek. Some of
these, the opposition declared, might better be paved than dredged.[7]
It might seem that a bill against which such obvious objections could be
raised would be doomed to failure. But the argument of Ransom of North
Carolina, who had charge of the bill in its later stages in the Senate,
seems to have been a decisive one. Somebody had objected that the
members of the committee had cared for the interests of their own
states, merely. Ransom repelled the charge. He showed that the New
England states had been looked out for; "Look next to New York, that
great, grand, magnificent State ... that empire in itself ... Go to
Delaware, little, glorious Delaware." The committee had retained $20,000
for Delaware. "Go next ... to great, grand old Virginia." Virginia had
received something. "Go to Missouri, the young, beautiful, growing,
powerful State of my friend over the way." And so on--all had been
treated with thoughtful care. Ransom was wise in his day and generation.
Although Arthur objected to the bill on the grounds of extravagance and
of the official demoralization which accompanied it, nevertheless
Republicans and Democrats alike joined in passing over the veto an act
which would get money into their home states.

The congressional elections in the fall of 1882 indicated that the
factional disputes among the Republicans, and their failure to reform
conditions in the civil service had presented the opposition with an
opportunity. In the House of Representatives, Republican control was
replaced by a Democratic majority of sixty-nine; the state legislatures
chosen were Democratic in such numbers as to make sure the even division
of the Senate when new members were elected; in Pennsylvania, a
Democratic reformer, Robert E. Pattison, was elected governor, and in
New York another, Grover Cleveland, was successful by the unprecedented
majority of 190,000.

The results of the campaign added interest to a civil service reform
bill which had been drafted by some reformers led by Dorman B. Eaton,
and which had been presented to the Senate by George F. Pendleton, of
Ohio. The debate elicited several points of view. Pendleton set forth
the evils of the existing system of appointments, and emphasized the
superior advantages of appointment after competitive examination. The
Democrats were in distress. Although Pendleton was himself a Democrat
and the party platforms had been advocating reform, nevertheless the
election of 1884 was not far ahead, Democratic success seemed likely,
and the party leaders desired an unrestrained opportunity to fill the
offices with their followers. Senator Williams expressed a conviction
that the Republican party was a party of corruption and continued:

    The only way to reform is to put a good honest Democratic
    president in in 1884; then turn on the hose and give him a
    good hickory broom and tell him to sweep the dirt away.

The Republicans, on their side, were fearful of the same clean sweep
that Williams hoped for, and they therefore looked with greater
equanimity upon a bill which might retain in office the existing
office-holders, most of whom belonged to their party. This aspect of the
situation was not lost upon such Democrats as Senator Brown who moved
that the measure be entitled "a bill to perpetuate in office the
Republicans who now hold the patronage of the government." In the Senate
only five members voted against its passage, but thirty-three absented
themselves; and in the House forty-seven opposed, while eighty-seven
were absent. A little study of the debate makes it clear that the
passage of the act was due to conviction in favor of reform on the part
of a few and to fear of public opinion on the part of many others.
Undoubtedly many of the absentees were members who would not vote for
the measure and were fearful of the results of voting against it. The
President signed the bill January 16, 1883.

The Pendleton act left large discretion in the hands of the President.
It authorized the appointment of a commission of three who should
prepare and put into effect suitable rules for carrying out the law. The
act also provided that government offices should be arranged in classes
and that entrance to any class should be obtained by competitive
examination; that no person should be removed from the service for
refusing to contribute to political funds; and that examinations should
be held in one or more places in each state and territory where
candidates appeared. The system was to be inaugurated in customs
districts and post offices where the number of employees was as many as
fifty, but could be extended later under direction of the President. The
soliciting or receiving of contributions by federal officials of all
grades, for political purposes, was forbidden. With the exceptions just
mentioned, officers could be removed from office as before, but the
purpose of removal was now gone. Since the appointee to the vacancy must
be the successful competitor in an examination, the chief who removed an
officer could not replace him with a personal friend or party worker.

The first commission was headed by Dorman B. Eaton. The work of grading
officials and placing them within the protection of the law began at
once, and by the close of President Arthur's term nearly 16,000 were
classified. Fortunately, the work of the commission was carried on
sensibly and slowly, and no backward steps had to be taken.

The attitude of Congress toward tariff revision illustrates many of the
characteristics of congressional action during the early eighties. In
his first message to Congress, Arthur said that the surplus for the year
was $100,000,000, and therefore urged the reduction of the internal
revenue taxes and the revision of the tariff. In May, 1882, Congress
authorized a tariff commission to investigate and report, and in
conformity with the law Arthur appointed its nine members. All of them
were protectionists and the chairman, John L. Hayes, was secretary of
the Wool Manufacturers' Association. After holding hearings in more than
a score of cities and examining some hundreds of witnesses, the
commission recommended reductions varying from nothing in some cases to
forty or fifty per cent. in others. The average reduction was twenty to
twenty-five per cent.

Using the report as a foundation, the Senate drew up a tariff measure,
added it to a House bill which provided for a reduction of the internal
revenues, and passed the combination. Meanwhile, lobbyists poured into
Washington to guard the interests of the producers of lumber, pig-iron,
sugar and other materials upon which the tariff might be reduced. When
the Senate bill reached the House it contained lower duties than the
protectionist members desired. The latter, although in possession of the
organization of the House, were not strong enough to restore higher
rates, but under the shrewd management of Thomas B. Reed, one of their
number, they were able to refer the bill to a conference committee of
the two houses which contained seven strong protectionists out of ten
members. Reed admitted that the proceedings were "unusual in their
nature and very forcible in their character" but he felt that a change
in the tariff had been promised and that the only way to bring it about
in the face of Democratic opposition was to settle the details "in the
quiet of a conference committee." A "great emergency" having arisen, he
would take extraordinary measures. The bill produced under these
circumstances reduced the internal revenue taxes, lowered some of the
tariff duties and raised others, but left the general level at the point
where it had been at the close of the war. _The Nation_, favorable to
reform, scornfully characterized the act as "taking a shaving off the
duty on iron wire, and adding it to the duty on glue!" Senator Sherman,
a protectionist member of the conference committee, wrote an account of
the whole procedure many years afterward. After commending the spirit
and proposals of the tariff commission and mentioning the successful
efforts of many persons to have their individual interests looked out
for, he expressed a regret that he did not defeat the bill, as he could
have done in view of the evenly balanced party situation in the Senate
at that time.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The election of 1880 is well treated by Sparks, Stanwood, Andrews, and
Rhodes. Senator G.F. Hoar, the chairman of the Republican nominating
convention, has a valuable chapter in his _Autobiography of Seventy
Years_. Such newspapers as the New York _Times_ and _Tribune_ are
invaluable for a discussion of the conventions.

The events of the administration, such as the tariff debates, the
passage of the civil service law and others are discussed in the special
works mentioned in Chapter V. Consult also: Edward Stanwood, _J.G.
Blaine_; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_; and A.R. Conkling, _Life and
Letters of Roscoe Conkling_. The _Annual Cyclopaedia _contains several
excellent articles on the tariff (1882, 1883), civil service reform
(1883), star route trials (1882, 1883). H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the
Democratic Party to Power in 1884_ (1919), contains useful chapters on
Garfield and Arthur.

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] For Platt's account of the annual reunion and banquet of the three
hundred and six--"The Old Guard"--see _Autobiography_, 115.

[2] Garfield's early career as a canal boy led to such campaign songs
as the following:

    He early learned to paddle well his own forlorn canoe,
    Upon Ohio's grand canal he held the hellum true.
    And now the people shout to him: "Lo! 't is for you we wait.
    We want to see Jim Garfield guide our glorious ship of state."

[3] William Windom, of Minn., was Secretary of the Treasury; E.T.
Lincoln, of Ill., Secretary of War; Wayne MacVeagh, of Pa.,
Attorney-General; T.L. James, of N.Y., Postmaster-General; W.H. Hunt,
of La., Secretary of the Navy; S.J. Kirkwood, of Ia., Secretary of
the Interior.

[4] The death of the President emphasized the need of a presidential
succession law. Under an act of 1792, the president and vice-president
were succeeded by the president of the Senate and the speaker of the
House. When Garfield died, the Senate had not yet elected a presiding
officer and the House had not met. The death of Arthur would have left
the country without a legal head. The Presidential Succession Act of
1886 remedied the fault by providing for the succession of the cabinet
in order, beginning with the Secretary of State. The presiding officers
of the Senate and House were omitted, because they might not be of the
dominant party.

[5] The cabinet was composed of F.T. Frelinghuysen, N.J., Secretary of
State; C.J. Folger, N.Y., Secretary of the Treasury; R.T. Lincoln, Ill.,
Secretary of War; B.H. Brewster, Pa., Attorney-General; T.O. Howe, Wis.,
Postmaster-General; W.E. Chandler, N.H., Secretary of the Navy; H.M.
Teller, Colo., Secretary of the Interior.

[6] Above, p. 145.

[7] Some thoroughly unselfish members of Congress like Senator Hoar,
however, believed the bill a justifiable one and voted for it. See Hoar,
_Autobiography_, II, chapter VIII.




CHAPTER VIII


THE OVERTURN OF 1884

The election of 1880 was memorable only for the type of politics with
which that contest was so inextricably involved. The party leaders were
second-rate men; the platforms, except for that of the Greenback party,
were as lacking in definiteness as the most timid office-seeker could
desire; in brief, it was a cross-section of American professional
politics at its worst. The election of 1884 was a distinct, although not
a complete contrast. It was not a campaign of platforms, but like the
election of 1824 it was a battle of men. Two genuine leaders, each
representing a distinct type of politics, contended for an opportunity
to try out a philosophy of government in the executive chair. In 1880
the conventions were the chief interest--the campaign was dull. The
campaign of 1884, on the other hand, was one of the most remarkable in
our history.

It will be remembered that the year 1882 had been characterized by
political upheavals. In Pennsylvania the Greenbackers had demanded that
currency be issued only by the central government--not by the national
banks--and that measures be taken to curb monopolies; the independent
Republicans had revolted against Cameron, and demanded civil service
reform and the overthrow of bossism; and the Democrats had elected a
governor of the reformer type, Robert E. Pattison. Massachusetts
Republicans had gasped the day after the election to find that "Ben"
Butler, who bore a questionable reputation as a politician, as a soldier
and as a man, had been elected by a combination of Greenbackers and
Democrats on a reform program. In New York the Democrats had taken
advantage of a factional quarrel among their opponents to elect as
governor a man who had achieved a reputation as a reformer--Grover
Cleveland. That some of the states which had been Democratic in 1882,
had become Republican again in 1883 illustrates the unstable character
of the politics of the time.

The beginning of the convention season of 1884 gave hint of the vigorous
campaign ahead. An Anti-Monopoly party nominated Benjamin F. Butler, who
was also supported by the Greenbackers. The Prohibitionists presented a
ticket headed by John P. St. John. The action of the Republican
convention, which met at Chicago on June 3, proved to be the turning
point in the campaign. President Arthur was frankly a candidate for
another term, but he did not have the united support of the professional
politicians and was distrusted by most of the reform element. Nor had
his veto of the Chinese immigration bill and the rivers and harbors act
tended to increase his popularity. Most enthusiastic, confident and
vociferous were the supporters of James G. Blaine, of Maine. The
independent element hoped to nominate Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, and
was particularly disturbed at the character of the workers for the "Man
from Maine." His campaign manager, Stephen B. Elkins, had been charged
with a discreditable connection with the star-route scandals; men of the
Platt type were urging that it was now Blaine's "turn"; and Powell
Clayton, an Arkansas carpet-bagger of ill-repute, was the Blaine
candidate for the position of temporary chairman of the convention.

Before a candidate was chosen the delegates turned to the adoption of
the platform. This was of the usual type but was an advance over that of
1880 in several respects. It committed the party to a protective tariff
and advocated an interstate commerce law and the extension of civil
service reform.

The balloting for candidates proved that Blaine was clearly the choice
of the convention. The mere mention of his name threw the delegates
into storms of applause and even on the first ballot he received votes
from every state in the union save five. On the fourth ballot he
received an overwhelming majority and became the nominee. John A.
Logan of Illinois, a prominent politician and soldier, was nominated
for the Vice-Presidency--a tail to the ticket, in the opinion of the
Democrats, which was designed to "Wag Invitation to the Soldier Vote."
The choice of Blaine was variously received by the different factions
in the convention. The Pacific coast delegates, in a special train,
went from Chicago to Augusta, Maine, before starting for home, in
order personally to pledge their support to the candidate. On the
other hand, Theodore Roosevelt disgustedly remarked that he was going
to a cattle-ranch in the West to stay he knew not how long. George
William Curtis sadly declared that he had been present at the birth of
the Republican party and feared that he was to be a witness of its
death. Other reformers were no less disaffected.

The outspoken Republican opposition to Blaine gave infinite aid and
comfort to the Democrats whose convention, coming a month later, could
take advantage of the growing schism in the opposition. During the
interval between the two conventions the growing sentiment in favor of
the nomination of Grover Cleveland received the additional impetus of
independent Republican support. The Democratic party was still an object
of suspicion to them, but they were ready to run the risks of even a
Democratic administration, if a leader of proved integrity should be
nominated, and Cleveland seemed to them to meet the demands of the
times. The first work of the convention, which met in Chicago on July 8,
was the adoption of a reform platform. Characterizing the opposition
party as a "reminiscence," it condemned Republican misrule, and promised
reform; it proposed a revision of the tariff that would be fair to all
interests, and reductions which would promote industry, do no harm to
labor and raise sufficient revenue; and it briefly advocated "honest"
civil service reform.

The enthusiasm which the independent Republicans were manifesting for
Cleveland was balanced by the hostility of elements within his party.
As Governor he had exercised his veto power with complete disregard
for the effect on his own political future. He had, for example,
vetoed a popular measure reducing fares on the New York City elevated
railroad, basing his objections on the ground that the bill violated
the provisions of the fundamental railroad law of the state. He was
opposed by Tammany Hall, led by John Kelley, who declared that the
labor element disliked him. Kelley's reputation, however, was such
that his hostility seemed like a compliment and gave force to General
Bragg's assertion, in seconding the nomination of Cleveland, that his
friends "love him most for the enemies he has made." The first ballot
proved that the Governor was stronger than his competitors, Senator
Bayard, Allen G. Thurman, Samuel J. Randall and several men of lesser
importance, and on the second ballot he received the nomination.

The choice of Cleveland gave the independent movement more than the
expected impetus. The New York _Times_ at once crossed the line into
the Cleveland camp and _Harpers Weekly_, long a supporter of the
Republicans, the Boston _Herald_, Springfield _Republican_, New York
_Evening Post_, _The Nation_, the Chicago _Times_ and a host of less
important ones followed. A conference of Independents in New York
City, which was composed of five hundred delegates and which enlisted
the support of such men as Carl Schurz, George William Curtis, Henry
C. Lea, Charles J. Bonaparte, Moorfield Storey and President Seelye of
Amherst College, gave striking evidence of the revolt which Blaine's
nomination had aroused. Curtis said in the conference, that the chief
issue of the campaign was moral rather than political. The New York
_Times_ declared that the issue was a personal one. Some of the better
element, however, like Senator Hoar, earnestly urged the election of
Blaine, while Senator Edmunds refused either to aid or oppose his
party. Others, like Roosevelt, were unable to give ungrudging support,
but felt that reform would be better promoted by working within the
party than by withdrawing. It is obvious that Blaine and Cleveland,
not the platforms of the parties, had become the issue of the
campaign.

James G. Blaine was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, was educated at
Washington College in his native state, later moved to Augusta, Maine,
and purchased an interest in the Kennebec _Journal_. On assuming his
journalistic duties he familiarized himself with the politics of the
state and became powerful in local, and later in federal affairs. He was
a member of the first Republican convention and was chairman of the
state Republican committee for more than twenty years, from which point
of vantage he had a prevailing influence in Maine politics. He served in
the state and federal legislatures as well as in Garfield's cabinet and
was a prominent candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876 and in
1880.

Grover Cleveland, although only seven years younger than Blaine, was
relatively inexperienced on the stage of national affairs. He was born
in New Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian minister, grew up with little
education, was salesman in a village store and later clerk in a law
office, at the age of eighteen. Although he had been sheriff of Erie
County, it was not until 1881, when he became mayor of Buffalo, that
he took an important part in politics, and here his record as the
business-like "veto mayor" was such as to carry him into the governor's
chair a year later. The huge majority which he received in the
gubernatorial contest was not wholly due to his own strength--doubtless
factional quarrels among the Republicans assisted him--but the
prominence which this election gave him and his conduct as Governor
made inevitable his candidacy for higher office.

Few men could have been nominated who would have presented a more
complete contrast than Blaine and Cleveland. In personality Blaine was
magnetic, approachable, high-strung, possessed of a vivid imagination
and of a marvellous memory for facts, names and faces. Over him men
went "insane in pairs," either devotedly admiring or completely
distrusting him. Cleveland was almost devoid of personal charm except
to his most intimate associates. He was brusque and tactless,
unimaginative, plodding, commonplace in his tastes and in the elements
of his character. Men threw their hats in the air and cheered
themselves hoarse at the name of Blaine; to Cleveland's courage,
earnestness and honesty, they gave a tribute of admiration. When the
campaign was at fever heat, Blaine was lifting crowds of eager
listeners to the mountain peaks of enthusiasm; Cleveland was in the
governor's room in Albany, phlegmatically plodding away at the
business of his office. He was too heavy, unimaginative, direct, to
indulge in flights of oratory. Yet scarcely anything that Blaine said
still lives, while some of Cleveland's phrases have passed into the
language of every-day.

No less a contrast existed between Blaine and Cleveland as political
characters. The former's experience in the machinery of politics, in the
disposal of its loaves and fishes, has already been mentioned. Of that
part of politics, Cleveland had had no experience. It is said that he
never was in Washington, except for a single day, until he went there to
become President. Both were bold and active fighters, but Blaine was a
strategist, a manager and a diplomat, while Cleveland could merely state
the policy which he desired to see put into effect, and then crash
ahead. Blaine had the instinct for the popular thing, was never ahead of
his party, was surrounded by his followers; Cleveland saw the thing
which he felt a moral imperative to accomplish and was far in advance of
his fellows. The Republican was popular among the professional political
element in his party and was supported by it; the Democrat never was.
Cleveland openly declared his attitude on controverted issues, in words
that admitted of no ambiguity and at times when only silence or soft
words would save him from defeat. Blaine lacked the moral courage and
the indifference to immediate results which were necessary for so
exalted an action. Cleveland had more of the reformer in his nature, and
had so keen a sense of responsibility and duty that his political career
was a succession of battles against things that seemed wrong to him.
Blaine accepted the party standards as they were; he belonged to the
past, to the policies and political morality of war and reconstruction;
Cleveland belonged to the transition from reconstruction to the
twentieth century.

The particular thing, however, that came out of Blaine's past to dog his
foot-steps, give him the enmity of the Independents--better known as the
"Mugwumps"--and, doubtless, to defeat him, was a series of transactions
exposed in the Mulligan letters. In order to understand these, it is
necessary to inquire into events that occurred fifteen years before the
overturn of 1884. In April, 1869, a bill favorable to the Little Rock
and Fort Smith Railroad--an Arkansas land-grant enterprise--was before
the House of Representatives. Blaine was Speaker. As the session was
near its close and the bill seemed likely to be lost, its friends
bespoke Blaine's assistance. He suggested that a certain point of order
be raised, which would facilitate the passage of the measure, and also
asked General John A. Logan to raise the point. Logan did so, Blaine
sustained him and the act was passed. Nearly three months later, Warren
Fisher, Jr., a Boston business man, asked Blaine to participate in the
affairs of the Little Rock Railroad. Blaine signified his readiness,
closing his letter with the words, "I do not feel that I shall prove a
dead-head in the enterprise if I once embark in it. I see various
channels in which I know I can be useful." When Blaine's enemies got
hold of this, they declared that he intended to use his position as
Speaker to further the interests of the road, as he had done at the time
of the famous point of order; his friends asserted that he intended
merely to sell the securities of the road to investors. Whether one of
these contentions is true, or both, he did sell considerable amounts of
the securities of the road to Maine friends, getting a "handsome
commission." Considerable correspondence passed between Blaine and
Fisher from 1869 to 1872 when their relations ended. Blaine understood
that all their correspondence was mutually surrendered.

In the spring of 1876, the presidential campaign was on the horizon and
Blaine was a prominent candidate for the Republican nomination.
Meanwhile ugly rumors were flying about concerning the connection of
certain members of Congress, Blaine among them, with questionable
railroad transactions, and he arose in the House to deny the charges. He
did not discuss the matter fully, as he did not wish his Maine
constituents to know that he had received a large commission for selling
Little Rock securities. Gossip grew, however, and a congressional
investigation resulted in May, 1876. Blaine was one of the witnesses,
but was doubtless anxious to bring the investigation to an end, since it
clearly reduced his chances of receiving the nomination. Presently
gossip said that Warren Fisher and James Mulligan were going to testify.
Mulligan had been confidential clerk to one of Mrs. Blaine's brothers
and later to Fisher. When Mulligan began his testimony it appeared that
he intended to lay before the committee a package of letters that had
passed between Blaine and Fisher, and thereupon, at Blaine's whispered
request, one of the members of the committee procured an adjournment for
the day. That evening Blaine found Mulligan at the latter's hotel and
prevailed on him to surrender the letters temporarily, in order that
Blaine might read and then return them. Blaine thereupon consulted two
lawyers and on their advice he refused to restore the package to
Mulligan. Merely to keep silence, however, was to admit guilt. Blaine,
therefore, arose one day in the House of Representatives and holding the
letters in his hand read selections and defended himself in a remarkable
burst of emotional oratory. At the climax of this defence he elicited
from the chairman of the committee of investigation an unwilling
admission that the committee had suppressed a dispatch which Blaine
declared would exonerate him. Blaine was triumphant, his friends sure
that he had cleared himself and the matter dropped for the time. Further
investigation was prevented by Blaine's refusal to produce the letters
even before the committee and by his sudden illness shortly afterward.
His election to the Senate soon took him out of the jurisdiction of the
House committee and no action resulted.

The nomination of Blaine in 1884 was a fresh breeze on the half-dead
embers of the Mulligan letters. _Harper's Weekly_ and other periodicals
published them with damaging explanatory remarks. Campaign committees
spread them abroad in pamphlet form. Attention was directed to such
phrases as "I do not feel that I shall prove a dead-head" and "I see
various channels in which I know I can be useful." Hostile cartoonists
used the phrases with an infinite variety of innuendo. But the most
powerful evidence was still to come. On September 15, 1884, Fisher and
Mulligan made public additional letters which Blaine had not possessed
at the time of his defence in 1876. The most damaging of these was one
in which Blaine had drawn up a letter completely exonerating himself,
which he asked Fisher to sign and make public as his own. Blaine had
marked his request "confidential" and had written at the bottom "Burn
this letter." Fisher had neither written the letter which was requested
nor burned Blaine's. Meanwhile it was recalled that Blaine had earlier
characterized the reformers as "upstarts, conceited, foolish, vain" and
as "noisy but not numerous, pharisaical but not practical, ambitious but
not wise," and the already intemperate campaign became more personal
than ever.

Thomas Nast's able pencil caricatured Blaine in _Harper's Weekly_ as a
magnetic candidate too heavy for the party elephant to carry; _Puck_
portrayed him as the "tattooed man" covered all over with "Little Rock,"
"Mulligan Letters" and the like. _Life_ described him as a

    Take all I can gettery,
    Mulligan lettery,
    Solid for Blaine old man.

Nor was the contest of scurrility entirely one-sided. _Judge_
caricatured Cleveland in hideous cartoons. The New York _Tribune_
described him as a small man "everywhere except on the hay-scales."
Beginning in Buffalo rumors spread all over the country that Cleveland
was an habitual drunkard and libertine. As is the way of such gossip,
its magnitude grew until the Governor appeared in the guise of a monster
of immorality. The editor of the _Independent_ went himself to Buffalo
and ran the rumors to their sources. He came to the conclusion that
Cleveland as a young man had been guilty of an illicit connection, that
he had made amends for the wrong which he had done and had since lived a
blameless life. Such religious periodicals as the _Unitarian Review_,
however, continued to describe him as a "_debauchee_" and "_roué_."
Nearly a thousand clergymen gathered in New York declared him a synonym
of "incapacity and incontinency." Much was made, also, of the fact that
Cleveland had not served in the war, and John Sherman denounced him as
having no sympathy for the Union cause. It did little good in the heated
condition of partisan discussion to point out that young Cleveland had
two brothers in the service, that he was urgently needed to support his
widowed mother and her six other children, and that he borrowed money to
obtain a substitute to take the field. On the other side, _Harper's
Weekly_ dwelt upon the Mulligan scandal; _The Nation_, while deploring
the incident in Cleveland's past, considered even so grave a mistake as
less important than Blaine's, since the latter's vices were those by
which "governments are overthrown, states brought to naught, and the
haunts of commerce turned into dens of thieves."

As the campaign neared an end it appeared that the result would turn
upon New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Indiana, and especially upon
the first of these. In New York several elements combined to make the
situation doubtful and interesting. Tammany's dislike of Cleveland was
well-known, but open opposition, at least, was quelled before election
day. Roscoe Conkling, still influential despite his retirement, refused
to take the stump in behalf of Blaine, declaring that he did not engage
in "criminal practice." The Republicans also feared the competition of
the Prohibitionists, because they attracted some Republicans who refused
to vote for Blaine and could not bring themselves to support a Democrat.
On the eve of the election an incident occurred which would have been of
no importance if it had not been for the closeness of the contest. As
Blaine was returning from a speaking tour in the West, he was given a
reception in New York by a delegation of clergymen. The spokesman of the
group, the Reverend Dr. Burchard, referred to the Democrats as the party
of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." Blaine, weary from his tour, failed to
notice the indiscreet remark, but the opposition seized upon it and used
it to discredit him in the eyes of the Irish. On the same evening a
dinner at Delmonico's at which many wealthy men were present, provided
material for the charge that the Republican candidate was the choice of
the rich classes.

Early returns on election night indicated that the Democrats had carried
the South and all the doubtful states, with the possible exception of
New York. There the result was so close that some days elapsed before a
final decision could be made. Excitement was intense; and business
almost stopped, so absorbed were people in the returns. At length it was
officially decided that Cleveland had received 1,149 more votes than
Blaine and by this narrow margin the Democrats carried New York, and
with it the election.

Contemporary explanations of Blaine's defeat were indicated by a
transparency carried in a Democratic procession which celebrated the
victory:

    The _World_ Says the Independents Did It
    The _Tribune_ Says the Stalwarts Did It
    The _Sun_ Says Burchard Did It
    Blaine Says St. John Did It
    Theodore Roosevelt Says It Was the Soft Soap Dinner[1]
    We Say Blaine's Character Did It
    But We Don't Care What Did It
             It's Done.

None of these explanations took into account the strength of Cleveland,
but the closeness of the result made all of them important. From the
vantage ground of later times, however, it could be seen that greater
forces were at work. By 1884 the day had passed when political contests
could be won on Civil War issues. The younger voters had no recollections
of Gettysburg and felt no animosity toward the Democratic South. Moreover,
Cleveland's success was the culmination of a long-continued demand for
reform, which he satisfied better than Blaine.

The opening of the first Democratic administration since Buchanan's time
excited great interest in every detail of Cleveland's activities and
characteristics.[2] Moreover, many who had voted for him distrusted his
party and were apprehensive lest it turn out that a mistake had been
made in placing such great confidence in one man. The more stiffly
partisan Republicans firmly believed that Democratic success meant a
triumphant South, with the "rebels" again in the saddle. Sherman
declared that Cleveland's choice of southern advisors was a "reproach to
the civilization of the age," and Joseph B. Foraker, speaking in an Ohio
campaign, found that the people wished to hear Cleveland "flayed" and
wanted plenty of "hot stuff."

The President's early acts indicated that the partisans were unduly
disturbed. His inaugural address was characterized by straightforward
earnestness. The exploitation of western lands by fraudulent claimants
was sharply halted. The cabinet, while inexperienced, contained several
able men, of whom Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State, William C.
Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, and L.Q.C. Lamar, the Secretary of the
Interior, were best known.[3]

The first great obstacle that Cleveland faced was well portrayed by one
of Nast's cartoons, in which the President, with an "Independent" club
in his hand, was approaching a snarling, open-jawed tiger, which
represented the office-seeking classes. The drawing was entitled
"Beware! For He is Very Hungry and Very Thirsty." It was not difficult
to foresee grave trouble ahead in connection with the civil service. The
Democrats had been out of power for twenty-four years, the offices were
full of Republicans, about 100,000 positions were at the disposal of the
administration, and current political practice looked with indifference
upon the use of these places as rewards for party work. Hordes of
office-seekers descended upon congressmen, in order to get introductions
to department chiefs; they filled the waiting rooms of cabinet officers;
they besieged Cleveland. Disappointed applicants and displaced officers
added to the clamor and confusion.

The President's policy, as it worked out in practice, was a compromise
between his ideals and the wishes of the party leaders. He earnestly
approved the Pendleton act and desired to carry out both its letter and
its spirit. He removed office holders who were offensively partisan and
who used their positions for political purposes. He gave the South a
larger share in the activities of the government, both in the cabinet
and in the diplomatic and other branches of the service. When the term
of a Republican office holder expired he filled the place with a fit
Democrat, if one could be found, in order to equalize the share of the
two parties in the patronage. Nearly half of the diplomatic and consular
appointments went to southerners, and eventually most of the Republicans
were supplanted.

The displacement of so many officials gave the Republicans an
opportunity to attempt to discredit the President in the eyes of his
mugwump supporters. An amended law of 1869 gave the Senate a certain
control over removals, although the constant practice of early times had
been to give the executive a free hand. Moreover the law had fallen into
disuse--or, as the President put it--into "innocuous desuetude." The
case on which the Senate chose to force the issue was the removal of
George M. Duskin, United States District Attorney in Alabama, and the
nomination of John D. Burnett in his place. The Senate called upon the
Attorney-General to transmit all papers relating to the removal; the
President directed him to refuse, on the ground that papers of such a
sort were not official papers, to which the Senate had a right, and also
on the ground that the power of removal was vested, by the Constitution,
in the president alone. In the meantime it had been hinted to Cleveland
that his nominations would be confirmed without difficulty if it were
acknowledged that the suspensions were the usual partisan removals. To
do this would, of course, make his reform utterances look hypocritical
and he refused to comply:

    I ... dispute the right of the Senate ... in any way save
    through the judicial process of trial on impeachment, to review
    or reverse the acts of the Executive in the suspension, during
    the recess of the Senate, of Federal officials.

As he was immovable and was taking precisely the position that such
Republican leaders as President Grant had previously taken, the Senate
was obliged to give way. Although it relieved its feelings by censuring
the Attorney-General, it later repealed the remains of the Tenure of
Office act of 1869, leaving victory with the President.

In connection with the less important offices Cleveland was forced to
compromise between the desirable and the practicable. Most of the
postmasters were changed, although in New York City an efficient officer
was retained who had originally been appointed by Garfield. All the
internal revenue collectors and nearly all the collectors of customs
were replaced. On the other hand, the classified service was somewhat
extended by the inclusion of the railway mail service, a change which,
with other increases, enlarged the classified lists by 12,000 offices.

It seems evident that Cleveland pressed reform far enough to alienate
the politicians but not so far as to satisfy the reformers. When he
withstood Democratic clamor for office, the Independents applauded, and
the spoilsmen in his own party accused him of treason. When he listened
to the demands of the partisans, the reformers became disgusted and many
of them returned to their former party allegiance. Eugene Field
expressed Republican exultation at the dissension in the enemy's ranks:

    ... the Mugwump scorned the Democrat's wail,
    And flirting its false fantastic tail,
    It spread its wings and it soared away,
    And left the Democrat in dismay,
            Too hoo!

Aside from the President, official Washington seems to have had but
little real interest in reform. The Vice-President, Hendricks, was a
partisan of the old school, and so many members of Congress were out of
sympathy with the system that they attempted to annul the law by
refusing appropriations for its continuance. On the whole a fair
judgment was that of Charles Francis Adams, a Republican, who thought
that Cleveland showed himself as much in advance of both parties as it
was wise for a leader of one of them to be.

In addition to further improvements in the civil service laws, Cleveland
was interested in a long list of reforms which he placed before Congress
in his first message: the improvement of the diplomatic and consular
service; the reduction of the tariff; the repeal of the Bland-Allison
silver-coinage act; the development of the navy, which he characterized
as a "shabby ornament" and a naval reminder "of the days that are past";
better care of the Indians; and a means of preventing individuals from
acquiring large areas of the public lands. The fact that Hayes and
Arthur had urged similar reforms showed how little Cleveland differed
from his Republican predecessors. It was not likely, however, that the
program would be carried out, for Congress was not in a reforming mood
and the Republicans controlled the upper house so that they could block
any attempt at constructive policies.

The latent hostility which many of the Civil War veterans felt toward
the Democratic party was fanned into flame by Cleveland's attitude
toward pension legislation. The sympathy of the country for its disabled
soldiers had early resulted in a system of pensions for disability if
due either to wounds or to disease contracted in the service. Early in
the seventies the number of pensioners had seemed to have reached a
maximum. Two new centers of agitation, however, had appeared, the Grand
Army of the Republic and the pension agent. The former was originally a
social organization but later it took a hand in the campaign for new
pension legislation. The agents were persons familiar with the laws, who
busied themselves in finding possible pensioners and getting their
claims established. The agitation of the subject had resulted in the
arrears act of 1879, which gave the claimant back-pensions from the day
of his discharge from the army to the date of filing his claim,
regardless of the time when his disability began. As the average first
payment to the pensioner under this act was about $1,000, the number of
claims filed had grown enormously and the pension agents had enjoyed a
rich harvest. The next step was the dependent pensions bill, which
granted a pension to all who had served three months, were dependent on
their daily toil, and were incapable of earning their livelihood,
whether the incapacity was due to wounds and disease or not. President
Cleveland's veto of the measure aroused a hostility which was deepened
by his attitude toward private pension acts.

For some time it had been customary to pass special acts providing
pensions for persons whose claims had already been rejected by the
pension bureau as defective or fraudulent. So little attention was paid
to private bills in Congress that 1454 of them passed between 1885 and
1889, generally without debate and often even without the presence of a
quorum of members. Two hours on a day in April, 1886, sufficed for the
passage of five hundred such bills. Nobody would now deny that many were
frauds, pure and simple. Cleveland was too frugal and conscientious to
pass such bills without examination and he began to veto some of the
worst of them. Each veto message explained the grounds for his dissent,
sometimes patiently, sometimes with a sharp sarcasm that must have made
the victim writhe. In one case where a widow sought a pension because of
the death of her soldier husband it was discovered that he had been
accidentally shot by a neighbor while hunting. Another claimant was one
who had enlisted at the close of the war, served nine days, had been
admitted to the hospital with measles and then mustered out. Fifteen
years later he claimed a pension. The President vetoed the bill,
scoffing at the applicant's "valiant service" and "terrific encounter
with the measles." Altogether he vetoed about two hundred and thirty
private bills. Time after time he expressed his sympathy with the
deserving pensioner and his desire to purge the list of dishonorable
names, and many applauded his courageous efforts. Nevertheless, his
pension policy presented an opportunity for hostile criticism which his
Republican opponents were not slow to embrace. His efforts in behalf of
pension reform were said to originate in hostility to the old soldiers
and in lack of sympathy with the northern cause. In 1887 it even became
necessary for him to withdraw his acceptance of an invitation to attend
a meeting of the Grand Army in St. Louis, because of danger that he
might be subjected to downright insult.[4]

Before the hostility due to the pension vetoes had subsided,
Adjutant-General Drum called the attention of the President to the fact
that flags taken from Confederate regiments by Union soldiers during the
war and also certain flags formerly belonging to northern troops had for
many years lain packed in boxes in the attic and cellar of the War
Department. At his suggestion Cleveland ordered the return of these
trophies to the states which the regiments had represented. Although
recommended by Drum as a "graceful act," it was looked upon by the old
soldiers with the utmost wrath. The commander of the Grand Army called
upon Heaven to avenge so wicked an order and such politicians as
Governor Foraker of Ohio gained temporary prominence by their bitter
condemnation of it. Eventually the clamor was so great that the
President rescinded the order on the ground that the final disposition
of the flags was within the sphere of action of Congress only. In
February, 1905, however, Congress passed a resolution providing for the
return of the flags and the exchange was effected without excitement.

For the reasons already mentioned, little legislation was passed during
President Cleveland's administration that was of permanent importance.
An exception was the Interstate Commerce Act, which is a subject for
later discussion. A Presidential Succession Act, which has earlier been
described, provided for the succession of the members of the cabinet in
case of the removal or death of the president and vice-president. The
Electoral Count Act placed on the states the burden of deciding contests
arising from the choice of presidential electors. When more than one set
of electoral returns come from a state, each purporting to be legal,
Congress must decide which shall be counted. Of some importance, too,
was the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1889 and the
inclusion of its secretary in the cabinet. The admission of the Dakotas,
Montana and Washington as states took place in the same year. The
improvement of the navy, begun so auspiciously by Secretary Chandler
under President Arthur, was continued with enthusiasm and vigor, and the
vessels constructed formed an important part of our navy.

Of less popular interest than many of the political questions, but of
more lasting importance, was the rapid reduction of the public land
supply. The purpose of the Homestead law of 1862 had been to supply land
at low rates and in small amounts to _bona fide_ settlers, but the
beneficent design of the nation had been somewhat nullified by the
constant evasion of the spirit of the laws. Squatters had occupied land
without reference to legal forms; cattlemen had fenced in large tracts
for their own use and forcibly resisted attempts to oust them; by hook
and by crook individuals and companies had got large areas into their
possession and held them for speculative returns. Western public opinion
looked upon many such violations with equanimity until the supply of
land began to grow small. Then came the demand for the opening of the
Indian reservations, which comprised 250,000 square miles in 1885. The
Dawes act of 1887 provided for individual ownership of small amounts of
land by the Indians instead of tribal ownership in large reservations.
By this means a considerable amount of good land was made available for
settlement by whites. The dwindling supply of western land also called
attention to certain delinquencies on the part of the railway companies.
Many of them had been granted enormous amounts of land on certain
conditions, such as that specified parts of the roads be constructed
within a given time. This agreement, with others, was frequently broken,
and question arose as to whether the companies should be forced to
forfeit their claims. Cleveland turned to the problem with energy and
forced the return of some millions of acres. Nevertheless, the fact that
it was becoming necessary to be less prodigal with the public land
indicated that the supply was no longer inexhaustible, and led the
President in his last annual message to urge that the remaining supply
be husbanded with great care. Congress was not alert to the demands of
the time, however, and no effective steps were taken for many years.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

H.C. Thomas, _The Return of the Democratic Party to Power in 1884_
(1919), is most complete and scholarly on the subject; Sparks, Curtis,
Dewey, and Stanwood continue useful; H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the
Republic, 1885-1905_ (1907), is illuminating and interesting; H.J. Ford,
_Cleveland Era_ (1919), is brief; the files of _The Nation_ and
_Harper's Weekly_ are essential, while those of the New York _Sun,
Evening Post_ and _Tribune_ add a few points. The Mulligan letters are
reprinted in _Harper's Weekly_ (1884, 643-646).

On the administration, consult the general texts and the special volumes
mentioned in chapter V; G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover Cleveland_
(1909); and _Political Science Quarterly_ (June, 1918), "Official
Characteristics of President Cleveland," give something on the personal
side; J.L. Whittle, _Grover Cleveland_ (1896), is by an English admirer;
Cleveland's own side of one of his controversies is in Grover Cleveland,
_Presidential Problems_ (1904); on Blaine, Edward Stanwood, _James G.
Blaine_ (1905). The _Annual Cyclopaedia_ has useful biographical
articles.

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] A reference to the Dorsey dinner at which Arthur told how Indiana
was carried.

[2] His marriage to Miss Frances Folsom, which occurred in 1886,
occasioned lively interest.

[3] Other members were: Daniel Manning, N.Y., Secretary of the
Treasury; William C. Endicott, Mass., Secretary of War; A.H. Garland,
Ark., Attorney-General; William F. Vilas, Wis., Postmaster-General.

[4] President Cleveland also frequently used his veto power to prevent
the passage of appropriations for federal buildings which he deemed
unnecessary.




CHAPTER IX


TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL

The most significant legislative act of President Cleveland's
administration was due primarily neither to him nor to the great
political parties. It concerned the relation between the government
and the railroads, and the force which led to its passage originated
outside of Congress. The growth of the transportation system,
therefore, the economic benefits which resulted, the complaints which
arose and the means through which the complaints found voice were
subjects of primary importance.

Beginning with the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
about 1830, the extension of the railways went forward with increasing
rapidity so that they soon formed a veritable network: between 1830
and 1850 over 7,000 miles were laid; by 1860 the total was 30,000
miles; the Civil War and the financial depression of 1873 retarded
progress somewhat, but such delays were temporary, and by 1890 the
total exceeded 160,000 miles. In the earlier decades most construction
took place in the Northeast, where capital was most plentiful and
population most dense. Later activity in the Northeast was devoted to
building "feeders" or branch lines. In the South, the relatively
smaller progress which had been made before the war had been undone
for the most part by the wear and tear of the conflict, but the
twenty-five years afterward saw greatly renewed construction. The most
surprising expansion took place in Texas where the 711 miles of 1870
were increased to 8,754 by 1890. In the Middle West, roads were
rapidly built just before the war and immediately after it, and the
first connection with the Pacific Coast, as has been shown, was made
in 1869.

[Illustration:
Railroad Mileage, 1860-1910, in thousands of miles]

Many of the circumstances accompanying this rapid expansion were novel
and important. Beginning with a federal grant to the Illinois Central,
for example, in the middle of the century, both the nation and the
states assisted the roads by gifts of millions of acres of land. It
was to the advantage of the companies to procure the grants on the
best possible terms, and they exerted constant pressure upon
congressmen whose votes and influence they desired. Frequently the
agents of the roads were thoroughly unscrupulous, and such scandals as
that connected with the Credit Mobilier were the result. More
important still, the fact that the federal and state governments had
aided the railroads so greatly gave them a strong justification for
investigating and regulating the activities of the companies.

Mechanical inventions and improvements had no small part in the
development of the transportation system. The early tracks,
constructed of wood beams on which were fastened iron strips, and
sometimes described as barrel-hoops tacked to laths, were replaced by
iron, and still later by heavy steel rails. By 1890 about eighty per
cent. of the mileage was composed of steel. Heavy rails were
accompanied by improved roadbeds, heavier equipment and greater speed.
A simple improvement was the gradual adoption of a standard
gauge--four feet eight and a half inches--which replaced the earlier
lack of uniformity. The process was substantially completed by the
middle eighties, when many thousands of miles in the South were
standardized. On the Louisville and Nashville, for example, a force of
8,763 men made the change on 1,806 miles of track in a single day. The
inauguration of "standard" time also took place during the eighties.
Hitherto there had been a wide variety of time standards and different
roads even in the same city despatched their trains on different
systems. In 1883 the country was divided into five vertical zones each
approximately fifteen degrees or, in sun-time, an hour wide. Both the
roads and the public then conformed to the standard time of the zone
in which they were.

[Illustration:
Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870]

Of greater importance was the consolidation of large numbers of small
lines into the extensive systems which are now familiar. The first
roads covered such short distances that numerous bothersome transfers
of passengers, freight and baggage from the end of one line to the
beginning of the next were necessary on every considerable journey. No
fewer than five companies, for example, divided the three hundred
miles between Albany and Buffalo, no one of them operating more than
seventy-six miles. In 1853, these five with five others were
consolidated into the New York Central Railroad. Sixteen years later,
in 1869, the Central combined with the Hudson River, and soon
afterwards procured substantial control of the Lake Shore and Michigan
Southern, the Rock Island, and the Chicago and Northwestern. As the
result of this process a single group of men directed the interests of
a system of railroads from New York through Chicago to Omaha. The
Pennsylvania Railroad began with a short line from Philadelphia to the
Susquehanna River, picked up smaller roads here and there--eventually
one hundred and thirty-eight of them, representing two hundred and
fifty-six separate corporations--reached out through the Middle West
to Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, and in 1871 controlled over
three thousand miles of track, with an annual income of over forty
million dollars. In the eighties a railroad war in northern New
England started the consolidation of the Boston and Maine system.

The beneficial results of the growth of the transportation facilities
of the nation were immediate and revolutionary. The fact that average
freight rates were cut in halves between 1867 and 1890 helped make
possible the economic readjustments after the Civil War to a degree
that is not likely to be overestimated. Not only did railway
construction supply work for large numbers of laborers and help bring
about an ever greater westward migration, but it opened a market for
the huge agricultural surplus of the Middle West. Without the market
in the cities of the populous Atlantic Coast and Europe, the expansion
of the West would have been impossible. Moreover, the railways brought
coal, ore, cotton, wool and other raw materials to the Northeast, and
thus enabled that section to develop its manufacturing interests.

[Illustration:
Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890]

Despite the admittedly great benefits resulting from the railroad
system, there was a rising tide of complaint on the part of the public
in regard to some aspects of its construction and management. It was
objected, for example, that many of the western roads especially were
purely speculative undertakings. Lines were sometimes built into new
territory where competition did not exist and where, consequently, the
rates could be kept at a high point. The Chicago, Burlington and
Quincy presented such a case in 1856. Profits were so great as to
embarrass the company, since the payment of large dividends was sure
to arouse the hostility of the farmers who paid the freight rates.
"This, indeed," declared the biographer of one of the presidents of
the road, "was the time of glad, confident morning, never again to
occur in the history of railroad-building in the United States."
Sometimes lines were driven into territory which was already
sufficiently supplied with transportation facilities, in order to
compel the company already on the ground to buy out the new road. If,
as time went on, traffic enough for both roads did not appear, they
had to be kept alive through the imposition of high rates; otherwise,
one of them failed and the investors suffered a loss. The
opportunities for profit, however, were so numerous that the amount of
capital reported invested in railways increased by $3,200,000,000
during the five years preceding 1885.

A practice which was productive of much wrong-doing and which was
suggestive of more dishonesty than could be proved, related to the
letting of contracts for the construction of new lines. The directors
of a road frequently formed part or all of the board of directors of a
construction company. In their capacity as railroad directors they
voted advantageous contracts to themselves in their other capacity,
giving no opportunity to independent construction companies who might
agree to build at a lower cost. As the cost of construction was part
of the debt of the road, the directors were adding generously to their
own wealth, while the company was being saddled with an increased
burden. It cost only $58,000,000, for example, to build the Central
Pacific, but a construction company was paid $120,000,000 for its
services. When John Murray Forbes was investigating the Chicago,
Burlington and Quincy he found that the president of the road was
paying himself a salary as president of a construction company, out of
the railroad's funds, without the supervision of the treasurer or any
one else, and without any auditing of his accounts. Moreover, six of
the twelve members of the board of directors were also members of the
construction company. Such an attempt to "run with the hare and hunt
with the hounds" was suggestive, to say the least, of great
possibilities of profit to the directors and a constant invitation to
unnecessary construction.

Another grievance against the railways was the reckless, irresponsible
and arrogant management under which some of them operated. An eminent
expert testified before an investigating commission in 1885 that Jay
Gould once sold $40,000,000 of Erie Railway stock and pocketed the
proceeds himself. Most of the energy of the officers of some roads was
expended in deceiving and cheating competitors. "Railroad
financiering" became a "by-word for whatever is financially loose,
corrupt and dishonest." If certain roads demonstrated by successful
operation that honest methods were better in the long run, their
probity received scant advertisement in comparison with the
unscrupulous practices of their less respectable neighbors. It is to
be remembered, also, that the growth of the railway system had been so
rapid and so huge that it was impossible to meet the demand for
trained administrators. Naturally, men possessed of little or no
technical understanding of transportation problems could not provide
highly responsible management.

The dishonest manipulation of the issues and sales of railroad stocks
is a practice that was not confined solely to the twenty-five years
after the Civil War, but the numerous examples of it which occurred
during that period aggravated the exasperation which has already been
mentioned. Daniel Drew, the treasurer of the Erie Railway in 1866,
furnished an excellent illustration of this type of activity. Drew had
in his possession a large amount of Erie stock which had been secretly
issued to him in return for a loan to the company. The stock in the
market was selling near par and still rising. Drew instructed his
agents to make contracts for the future delivery of stock at prices
current at the time when the contracts were made. When the time came
for fulfilling his contracts, Drew suddenly threw the secret stock on
the market, drove general market prices on Erie stock down from
ninety-five to fifty, bought at the low figure, and sold at the high
price which was called for in the contracts made by his agents. The
effect of such sharp dealing on investors, the railroad or the public
seems not to have entered into the calculation. Indeed, the Erie and
many another road was looked upon by its owners merely as a convenient
piece of machinery for producing fortunes.

Gould, Drew and other railroad men of their time were also expert in
the practice of "stock-watering." This consists in expanding the
nominal capitalization of an enterprise without an equivalent addition
to the actual capital. The rates which the railway has to charge the
public tend to increase by approximately whatever dividends are paid
on the water.[1] Then, as later, when a road was prospering greatly
it would sometimes declare a "stock dividend," that is, give its
stockholders additional stock in proportion to what they already
owned. The addition would frequently be water. Its purpose might be to
cover up the great profits made by the company. If, on a million
dollars' worth of stock, it was paying ten per cent. dividends, the
public might demand lower freight and passenger rates; but if the
stock were doubled and earnings remained stationary, then the
dividends would appear as five per cent.--an amount to which there
could be no objection. H.V. Poor, the railroad expert, declared before
a commission of investigation in 1885 that the New York Central
Railroad was carrying $48,000,000 of water, on which it had paid eight
per cent. dividends for fifteen years. He also estimated that of the
seven and a half billions of indebtedness which the roads of the
country were carrying in 1883, two billions represented water. Others
thought that the proportion of water was greater. In any case the
unnecessary burden upon business to provide dividends for the watered
stock was an item of some magnitude. The investor, however, looked
upon stock-watering with other eyes. The building of a new road was a
speculation; the profits might be large, to be sure, but there might
in many cases be a loss. In order to tempt money into railroad
enterprises, therefore, inducements in the form of generous stock
bonuses were necessary.

The rate wars of the seventies gave wide advertisement to another
aspect of railroad history. The most famous of these contests had
their origin in the grain-carrying trade from the Lakes to the
sea-board. The entry of the Baltimore and Ohio and the Grand Trunk
into Chicago in 1874, stimulated a four-cornered competition among
these roads and the Pennsylvania and New York Central for the traffic
between the upper Mississippi Valley and the coast. Rates on grain and
other products were cut, and cut again; freight charges dropped to a
figure which wiped out profits; yet it was impossible for any line to
drop out of the competition until exhaustion forced all to do so. A
railroad can not suspend business when profits disappear, for fixed
expenses continue and the depreciation of the value of the property,
especially of the stations, tracks and rolling stock, is extreme.
Since the rate wars were clearly bringing ruin in their train, rate
agreements and pooling arrangements were devised. The latter took
several forms. Sometimes a group of competing roads agreed to divide
the business among the competitors on the basis of an agreed-upon
percentage. Another plan was to pool earnings at the close of a period
and divide according to a prearranged ratio. Sometimes destructive
competition was prevented by a division of the territory, each company
being allowed a free hand in its own field. In general, pooling
agreements were likely to break down, although a southern pool
organized by Albert Fink on a very extensive scale lasted for many
years and was thought to have had a vital influence in eliminating
rate-wars. Their efficacy depended mainly on good faith, and good
faith was a rarity among railroad officials in the seventies and
eighties. In the eyes of the public, rate agreements and pools were
vicious conspiracies which left the rights and well-being of the
private shipper completely out of the calculation.

Still another indictment of the railways resulted from their
participation in politics. It was inevitable, of course, that the
roads should be drawn into the field of legislation--the grants of
public land, for example, helped bring about the result. It early
seemed advantageous to attempt to influence state legislatures to pass
favorable laws, and it seemed a necessity to bring pressure to bear in
order to protect the roads from hostile acts. The methods used by the
railway agents in their political activity naturally varied all the
way from legitimate agitation to crude and subtle forms of bribery. An
insidious method of influencing both law-making and litigation was the
pass system. Under it the roads were accustomed to give free
transportation to a long list of federal and state judges, legislators
and politicians. For a judge to accept such favors from a corporation
which might at any time be haled before his court, and for a
legislator to receive a gift from a body that was constantly in need
of legislative attention is now held to be improper in the extreme.
But in those days a less sensitive public opinion felt hardly a qualm.
That the practice was likely to arouse an unconscious bias in the
minds of public officials is hardly debatable. The more crude forms of
bribery, too, were not uncommon. It was testified before a committee
of investigation that the Erie Railway Company in one year expended
$700,000 as a corruption fund and for legal expenses, carrying the
amount on the books in the "India-rubber account." The manipulation of
the courts of New York by the Erie and the New York Central during the
late sixties was nothing short of a scandal. Alliances between
political rings and railroad officials for the purpose of caring for
their mutual interests were so common that reformers questioned
whether the American people could be said to possess self-government
in actuality. Immediately after the Civil War, Charles Francis Adams,
an acute student of transportation, declared that it was scarcely an
exaggeration to say that the state legislatures were becoming a
species of irregular boards of railroad direction. The evils of the
alliance between the roads and politics were not, of course, due
entirely to the former. The receiver of a pass shared with the giver
the evil of the system. Many a legislator was corrupt; more shared in
practices which were little removed from dishonorable. Adams, for
example, gives an account of his experiences, as a director of the
Union Pacific, in dealing with a United States senator in 1884. The
congressman was ready to take excellent care of railroad corporations
which retained him as counsel, but was a corrupt and ill-mannered
bully toward the Union Pacific, which had not employed him.[2]

The most constant grievance was discrimination--that the roads varied
their rates for the benefit or detriment of especial types of freight,
of individuals and of entire localities. Through business between
competing points was carried at a low figure, while the roads recouped
themselves by charging heavily in towns where competition was absent.
Shippers complained that rates between St. Paul and Chicago, for
example, where competition existed were hardly more than half the
charges to places at a similar distance where a single road was in a
position to demand what it pleased. Manufacturers in Rochester could
send goods to New York City and reship them to Cincinnati, back
through Rochester, for less than the rate direct to their destination.
Yet the direct haul was seven hundred miles shorter than the indirect.
Secret arrangements were commonly made with favored shippers by which
they secured lower rates than their competitors. When it became
evident that transportation cost entered into the price of
substantially everything which the ordinary citizen consumed, and when
it was considered that a slight rise in railroad rates might easily
amount to a heavy tax on a shipper or an entire region, it was seen
that uniformity of rates was a matter of the utmost concern.

In brief, then, it was complained that the growth of the
transportation system had placed enormous power in the hands of a
small group of men, many of whom had indicated by their selfishness,
arrogance and questionable practices that they ought not to be
entrusted with so great a measure of authority.

The best example of the American railroad president after the war was
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt began his career by
ferrying passengers and freight between Staten Island and New York
City. Later he turned his attention to shipping, in which he made a
fortune, and planned the operation of steamships on a large scale.
Becoming interested in railroading, he clearly perceived the
importance of the western trade and the necessity of consolidation.
Vanderbilt was a man of vision, a man who combined magnitude of plan
with the vigorous grasp of the practical details necessary for the
realization of his ambitions. He was buoyant, energetic, confident,
ambitious, determined, despotic. Unhampered by modern conceptions of
public duty, undeterred by the hostility of powerful opponents, with
eyes fixed upon the combination and control of a great transportation
system, Vanderbilt entered courageously upon bitter struggles for
supremacy which involved the misuse of the courts, the control of the
New York state legislature and a thousand charges of corrupt influence
and bribery, but he welded railroads together, replaced wood and iron
with steel, and constructed tracks and terminals. At his death in 1877
he left a huge fortune and bequeathed to his successors a great,
consolidated railroad enterprise, skillfully and successfully
administered. The great weakness of Commodore Vanderbilt and his
associates, and of those who later imitated his work was their
fundamental conception of the railroad as a private venture. Success
consisted in bigness, great profits, crushing or buying out
competitors, and administering the business for the best good of the
few owners, regardless of the interests of the region through which
the railway passed. Vanderbilt and many of his contemporaries were men
of business sagacity and foresight, but their ethical outlook was
restricted and their sense of public responsibility not well
developed.

So considerable a list of grievances naturally bestirred the people to
seek relief at the hands of their legislators. Two lines of action
were followed. In Massachusetts, as early as 1869, a state commission
was formed with purely advisory powers. Under the able leadership of
Charles Francis Adams it attained great influence and worked
effectively for the elimination of railroad abuses through conference
and the weight of public opinion. In Illinois, on the other hand,
reliance was placed upon compulsory action. The state constitution of
1870 declared the railroads to be public highways and required the
legislature to fix rates for the carriage of freight and passengers,
and to pass laws to correct abuses connected with the railways and
grain warehouses. In compliance with the constitution the state passed
the necessary legislation and placed their execution in the hands of a
commission with considerable power. Other western states followed the
Illinois model.

On the national scale the agitation for government action began with
the minor parties. In 1872 the Labor Reformers demanded fair rates and
no discrimination; in 1876 the Prohibitionists called for lower rates;
in 1880 the Greenbackers stood for fair and uniform rates; four years
later they urged laws which would put an end to pooling,
stock-watering and discrimination, and in the same year the
Republicans promised an act to regulate commerce if they were elected.
The most effective force behind the demand for railroad regulation was
the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the "Grange." This society
was founded by O.H. Kelley, a government clerk in Washington, in 1867.
Its initial purpose was the organization of the agricultural classes
for social and intellectual improvement, but later it engaged in the
effort to correct transportation abuses and to arouse cooperation
among the farmers in other ways. The movement grew astonishingly,
especially in the Middle West, where its membership reached nearly
759,000 in 1875.

Transportation conditions in the West had not reached the relatively
stable situation which characterized those of the East. In the West
much new work was being done, with the attendant evils of construction
companies and unnecessary and speculative undertakings. Much of the
railroad stock was in the hands of eastern investors whom the western
farmers pictured as living in idle ease on swollen incomes, careless
of the high rates and unfair discriminations under which the farmer
groaned. The constantly falling prices, which influenced the West in
so many other ways, served to heighten the discontent with any abuse
which increased the farmer's burden. Moreover, the western states had
contributed huge amounts of land to help build the railways and they
were not minded to give up the hold which their generosity had
justified.

Impelled, then, by such force as the Grange and similar organizations
supplied, the western states proceeded to the adoption of laws whose
purposes ordinarily included railroad rate-making by the legislature
or by a commission, the doing away with such abuses as discrimination,
and the prohibition of free passes. The railroads promptly opposed the
laws and carried the battle to the courts. The so-called "Granger
Cases" resulted. Three of these were representative of the general
trend of the decisions.

The famous case Munn _v._ Illinois, which was decided by the Supreme
Court in 1876 was possibly the most vital case in the history of the
regulation of public service corporations after the Civil War. The
legislature of Illinois, in conformity with the state constitution of
1870, had passed a law fixing maximum charges for the storage of grain
in warehouses. The owners of a certain warehouse refused compliance
with the law on the ground that it was contrary to the Constitution
and hence null and void. They argued that when the state fixed rates
it deprived the owners of the right to set higher charges and so, in
effect, deprived them of their property, in defiance of that portion
of the Fourteenth Amendment forbidding a state to "deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

On examination of the history of the control of such enterprises, the
Court found that it had been customary in England for many centuries
and in this country from the beginning, to regulate rates on ferries,
charges at inns, and similar public enterprises, and that it had never
been thought that such action deprived persons of property without due
process of law. In other words, the established common law, at the
time of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, did not look upon
rate regulation as a deprivation of property. The Court, therefore,
declared the Illinois warehouse law constitutional, and in doing so
made the following statement:

    Property does become clothed with a public interest when
    used in a manner to make it of public consequence, and affect
    the community at large. When, therefore, one devotes his
    property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in
    effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must
    submit to be controlled by the public for the common good,
    to the extent of the interest he has thus created.

While the Munn case was before the Court, the case Peik _v._ the
Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company was raising a question which
struck at the heart of the chief practical impediment in the way of
state control of transportation. The central question in the
litigation was whether the legislature of Wisconsin could lawfully
regulate rates on railroads inside the state. Since the bulk of the
traffic on most roads crosses state borders at one time or another in
its transit, the regulation of rates within a state normally affects
interstate commerce. But the regulation of interstate commerce is
vested in Congress by the terms of the Constitution. The railroad was
quick to take advantage of the division of power between the states
and the nation. Indeed, when fighting state legislation, the roads
earnestly emphasized the exclusive power of Congress over interstate
commerce; but when fighting national regulation, they equally
deprecated any interference with the reserved rights of the states.
Acting in accordance with its established practice, the Court decided
that the state was authorized to regulate rates within its borders,
even though such regulation indirectly affected persons outside, until
Congress passed legislation concerning interstate commerce. Obviously
this decision allowed the states to work out their railroad problems
unhampered, and constituted one of the chief victories for the
Grangers.

In 1886, however, the Court overturned some of the principles which
had been established in the Munn and Peik cases. The new development
came about in connection with the Wabash railroad. It appeared that
the road had been carrying freight from Peoria, Illinois, to New York
for smaller rates than were charged from Gilman to New York, despite
the fact that Peoria was eighty-six miles farther away. Since Illinois
law forbade a road to levy a greater charge for a short haul than for
a long one, a suit was instituted and carried to the Supreme Court.
The company held that the Illinois legislation affected interstate
commerce and hence trenched upon the constitutional power of Congress.
This time the Court upheld the road. It decided that the
transportation of goods from Illinois to New York was commerce among
the states, that such commerce was subject to regulation by Congress
exclusively, and that the Illinois statute was void. It seemed, then,
that state regulation was a broken reed on which nobody could safely
lean, and attention thereupon turned to the federal government.

Congress had already been discussing federal regulation intermittently
for some years. The so-called "Windom Report" of 1874 had advised
federal construction and improvement of transportation facilities in
order to lower rates through competition, but no action had resulted.
In 1878 the "Reagan bill" had proposed government regulation, and from
that time the subject had been almost continuously before Congress. In
1885 the Senate had appointed a select committee of five to
investigate and report upon the regulation of freight and passenger
transportation. The committee was headed by Shelby M. Cullom, who had
been a member of the legislature of Illinois and later governor, in
the years when the railroad and warehouse laws were being put into
effect. It endeavored to discover all shades of opinion by visiting
the leading commercial centers, and by consulting business men, state
commissioners of railroads, Granger officials and others. After a
somewhat thorough investigation, the committee expressed its
conviction that no general question of governmental policy occupied so
prominent a place in the attention of the public as that of
controlling the growth and influence of corporations. The needed
relief might be obtained, the committee thought, through any one of
four methods: private ownership and management, with a greater or less
degree of government oversight; government ownership and management;
government ownership with private management under public regulations;
partial state ownership and management in competition with private
companies. The widespread opposition to state ownership of railroads,
the commission thought, seemed to point to some form of government
regulation and control of the existing situation.

Impressed with the magnitude of the abuses involved, and the
hopelessness of regulation through state laws, the committee presented
a bill designed to bring about regulation on a national scale through
a federal agency. The resulting law was the Interstate Commerce Act of
February 4, 1887. It provided that all railway charges should be
reasonable and just; forbade the roads to grant rebates, or to give
preferences to any person, locality or class of freight, or to charge
more for a short haul than for a long one except with the consent of
the proper authorities; it made pooling unlawful; and it ordered the
companies to post printed copies of their rates, which were not to be
altered except after ten days' public notice. The act also created an
Interstate Commerce Commission of five members to serve six-year
terms, into whose hands the administration of the measure was placed.
Persons who claimed that the railways were violating the provisions of
the law could make complaint to the Commission, or bring suit in a
United States Court. In order that the Commission might know the
condition of the roads, it was given power to call upon the carriers
for information, to demand annual reports from them, and to require
the attendance of witnesses. If the railroads refused to carry out the
orders of the Commission, they could be brought before a United States
district court.

In forbidding pools, the Act committed the railroads to the policy of
enforced competition, a policy which was commonly accepted at the time
as the best one for the public interest. Such experts, however, as
Professor A.T. Hadley and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., raised important
objections. They cited the rate wars to indicate the results of
competition and declared that railroads ought to be monopolies. If two
grocery stores are established where trade enough exists for only one,
they asserted, the weaker competitor can close his doors and the
public loss is not heavy; but in the case of the railways a weak
competitor must continue business even at disastrously low rates
because all his interest charges continue and the depreciation on his
property is extreme. The construction of an unnecessary road and its
subsequent operation at a loss, its failure or its abandonment,
constitute a great drain upon the public. Such objectors contended
that pooling combinations did away with many of the evils of
cut-throat competition, and they accordingly urged that the carriers
be permitted to make such arrangements, under whatever government
regulation might be needed to prevent unreasonable charges. By such
means the available business of a region might be fairly divided among
the roads entering it, without resort to competitive rate-cutting and
its consequent evils.

The passage of the law was looked upon with much hostility on the part
of the railroad interests. James J. Hill thought that the railroads
might survive, although the country would be ruined, and he predicted
that Congress would shortly be called in special session to repeal the
act. More important than mere hostility was the constant opposition
and evasion which characterized the attitude of the carriers toward
the operation of the law. Discriminations were commonly practiced and
hidden away in accounts under false or misleading headings. Rebates
were given and received, a fact which was due in no small degree to
the shippers themselves. A large shipper might demand advantageous
rates and threaten to turn his trade over to a rival road. As the
arrangement would be secret, and the likelihood of discovery small,
the temptation to break the law was correspondingly great.

The good results of the passage of the law were disappointingly
slight. To be sure, the Commission was gaining experience,
administrative precedents were being established and injustice was
somewhat less common than before. The first chairman was Judge T.M.
Cooley, a noted lawyer whose appointment was considered an admirable
one. Most important of all, the principle of government regulation was
established. Nevertheless, progress was so slow as to be almost
invisible. The courts hampered the activities of the Commission. When
cases arose involving its decisions, they allowed a retrial of the
entire case from the beginning, permitting the introduction of facts
which had been designedly withheld by the carriers in order to
undermine the influence of the Commission, and sometimes they reversed
its findings and so dulled the effectiveness of its labors. Eleven
years after the Act was passed the Commission declared that abuses
were so constant that the situation was intolerable; a prominent
railroad president made the charge that "good faith had departed from
the railway world"; and an important authority on railroad affairs
declared that the Commission had become an impotent bureau of
statistics.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

More study has been made of railroad regulation and the technical side
of railroading than of the history of transportation and the effects
of the roads on the political and economic life of the people. An
excellent single volume is John Moody, _The Railroad Builders_ (1919),
which devotes attention to the important personages of railroad
history, discusses the growth of large systems and contains valuable
maps; the best concise account of the history of the railways is W.Z.
Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulation_ (1912). Chap. I; W.Z.
Ripley, _Railway Problems_ (rev. ed., 1913), is reliable; E.R. Johnson
and T.W. Van Metre, _Principles of Railroad Transportation_ (1916),
has some excellent chapters and several informing maps; C.F. Carter,
_When Railroads were New_, (1909), is a popular account; C.F. Adams,
_Chapters of Erie_ (1886), exposes early railroad practices; H.G.
Pearson, _An American Railroad Builder_ (1911), presents the career
of J.M. Forbes as a railroad president; A.T. Hadley, _Railroad
Transportation_ (1886), is a classic, early account. Consult also E.R.
Johnson, _American Railway Transportation_ (1903); Frank Parsons,
_Heart of the Railroad Problem_ (1906); C.F. Adams, Jr., _Railroads:
Their Origin and Problems_ (1878, rev. ed., 1893); "A Decade of
Federal Railway Regulation," in _Atlantic Monthly_ (Apr., 1898). On
the personal side, the following are valuable: E.P. Oberholtzer, _Jay
Cooke, Financier of the Civil War_ (2 vols., 1907); J.G. Pyle, _Life
of J.J. Hill_ (2 vols., 1917); _Memoirs of Henry Villard_ (1909). On
the subject of land grants and regulation: L.H. Haney, _Congressional
History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1910); S.J. Buck, _The Granger
Movement_ (1913), and the same author's _The Agrarian Crusade_ (1920),
are best on the relation of unrest among the agricultural classes to
the railroad problem. The "Cullom Report" is in Senate Reports, 49th
Congress, 1st session (Serial Number 2356), in 2 vols., and is a mine
of information on early abuses. The most important Granger cases are
in _United States Reports_, vol. 94, p. 113 (Munn _v._ Ill.), and vol.
118, p. 557 (Wabash case).

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] For example, an investor might contribute $100 in cash to an
enterprise. The "paid in capital" or "actual" capital would, then be
$100. He might receive in return $100 in stock and $100 in bonds, in
which case the "nominal capital" would be $200; the additional $100
would be "water." If the enterprise paid interest on the bonds, and
dividends on the stock, it would, of course, be paying a return on the
water. The practice of stock-watering did not end with the days of
Gould and Drew.

[2] In this connection Professor Farrand mentions the statement of a
railroad magnate that "in Republican counties he was a Republican, and
in Democratic counties he was a Democrat, but that everywhere he was
for the railroad." _Development of the United States_, p. 290.




CHAPTER X


EXTREME REPUBLICANISM

That the election of 1888 differed from its predecessors since 1865 was
due chiefly to the independence, courage and political insight of
President Cleveland. Hitherto campaigns had been contested with as
little reference to real issues as conditions rendered possible.
Neither party had possessed leaders with sufficient understanding of
the needs of the nation to force a genuine settlement of an important
issue. That 1888 saw a clear contest made it a memorable year in recent
politics.

It will be remembered that the tariff act of 1883 had been satisfactory
only to a minority in Congress, because it retained the high level of
customs duties that had been established during the Civil War. The
congressional election of 1882 had resulted in the choice of a
Democratic House of Representatives and had offered another opportunity
for downward revision. Early in 1884, therefore, William R. Morrison
presented a bill making considerable additions to the free list and
providing for a "horizontal" reduction of about twenty per cent. on all
other duties as levied under the act of 1883. The measure was defeated
by four votes. Opposed to it were substantially all the Republicans and
forty-one Democrats, most of them from the industrial states of New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Democratic tariff plank of
1884, as has been seen, was practically meaningless, but the election
of Cleveland, and the choice of a Democratic House gave another
opportunity for revision. Again Morrison attempted a reduction, and
again he was defeated by Samuel J. Randall and the other protectionist
Democrats.

The entire matter, however, was about to receive a new and important
development at the hands of President Cleveland and John G. Carlisle,
who was the Speaker of the House during the four years from 1885 to
1889. Carlisle was a Kentuckian, a man of grave bearing, unflagging
industry and substantial attainments. His tariff principles were in
accord with those of the President, and his position as Speaker enabled
him to determine the make-up of the Committee on Ways and Means, which
would frame any tariff legislation. Cleveland had expressed his belief
in the desirability of tariff reduction in his messages to Congress of
1885 and 1886, basing his recommendations on the same facts that had
earlier actuated President Arthur in making similar suggestions. His
recommendations, however, had received the same slight consideration
that had been accorded those of his Republican predecessor. He
therefore determined to challenge the attention of the country and of
Congress by means of a novel expedient.

Previous presidential messages had covered a wide variety of
subjects--foreign relations, domestic affairs, and recommendations of
all kinds. Departing from this custom, the President made up his mind
to devote an entire message to tariff reform. His project was startling
from the political point of view, for his party was far from being a
unit in its attitude toward reduction, a presidential campaign was at
hand, and the Independents, who had had a strong influence in bringing
about his success in 1884, sent word to him that a reform message would
imperil his chances of re-election. This type of argument had little
weight with Cleveland, however, and his reply was brief: "Do you not
think that the people of the United States are entitled to some
instruction on this subject?"

On December 6, 1887, therefore, he sent to Congress his famous message
urging the downward revision of the tariff. The immediate occasion of
his recommendation, he declared, was the surplus of income over
expenditure, which was piling up in the treasury at a rapid rate and
which was a constant invitation to reckless appropriations. The portion
of the public debt which was payable had already been redeemed, so that
whatever surplus was not expended would be stored in the vaults, thus
reducing the amount of currency in circulation, and making likely a
financial crisis. The simplest remedy for the situation seemed to
Cleveland to lie in a reduction of the income, and the most desirable
means of reduction seemed to be the downward revision of the tariff, a
system of "unnecessary taxation" which he denominated "vicious,
inequitable, and illogical." Disclaiming any wish to advocate free
trade, he expressed the hope that Congress would turn its attention to
the practical problem before it:

    Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by
    dwelling upon the theories of protection and free trade. This
    savors too much of bandying epithets. It is a _condition_ which
    confronts us, not a theory.

The effect of the message was immediate. Men began at once to take
sides as if everybody had been waiting for a leader to speak his mind;
and the parties adopted the definite principles to which they adhered
for many years afterwards. The Democrats very generally rallied to the
support of their champion; gaps in the ranks were closed up; and
doubtless the usual pressure was applied to obstinate members who were
disinclined to follow the leader. The Republican attitude was well
expressed in the phrase of one of the politicians: "It is free-trade,
and we have 'em!" The most prominent Republican, James G. Blaine, was
in Paris, but true to his instinctive recognition of a good political
opportunity he gave an interview which was immediately cabled to
America. In it Blaine maintained that tariff reduction would harm the
entire country, and especially the South and the farmers, and urged the
reduction of the surplus by the abolition of the tax on tobacco, which
he termed the poor man's luxury. The "Paris Message" was generally
looked upon as the Republican answer to Cleveland, and as pointing to
Blaine as the inevitable candidate for the ensuing campaign. On one
point, most men of both parties were agreed--that the President had
displayed great courage. "The presidential chair," declared James
Russell Lowell, "has a MAN in it, and this means that every word he
_says_ is weighted with what he _is_."

The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of
Representatives, Roger Q. Mills, promptly presented a bill which
conformed to the principles for which the President had argued. The
discussion of the Mills bill was long known as the "Great Tariff Debate
of 1888." The House seethed with it for more than a month. Mills and
Carlisle on one side and William McKinley and Thomas B. Reed on the
other typified the new leadership and the new positions which the
parties were taking. Senator Morrill's idea that the war tariff was a
temporary one, President Arthur's advice that the tariff be revised,
the recommendations of the Tariff Commission of 1882 that reductions
were necessary,--all these were no longer heard. Instead, the
Republicans upheld the protective system as the cause of the unexampled
prosperity of the nation. It is not to be supposed that protectionist
or reductionist converts were made by the endless discussion, but the
initial prejudices of each side were undoubtedly deepened. Each telling
blow on either side was applauded by the partisans of each particular
speaker, so that "applause" fairly dots the dull pages of the
Congressional Record. McKinley enlivened his colleagues by pulling from
his desk and exhibiting a suit of clothes which he had purchased for
$10.00, a figure, he asserted, which proved that the tariff did not
raise prices beyond the reach of the laboring man. Mills tracked down
the cost of the suit and the tariff on the materials composing it, and
further entertained the House by an exhibit showing that it cost $4.98
to manufacture the suit and that the remainder of the price which the
laborer paid was due to the tariff. In the end, the Mills bill passed
the House with but four Democrats voting against it. Randall was so ill
that he was unable to be present when the final vote was taken, but a
letter from him declaring his opposition to the bill was greeted with
great applause on the Republican side. Randall's day was past, however,
and leadership was passing to new men.

Meanwhile the Republicans in the Senate, where they were in control,
had prepared a tariff bill which was designed to give evidence of the
sort of act which would be passed if they were successful in the
campaign. Senator Allison and Senator Aldrich were influential in this
connection. The passage of leadership in tariff matters to Senator
Aldrich and men of his type was as significant as the transition in the
House. Aldrich was from Rhode Island, an able man who had had
experience in state affairs, had served in the federal House of
Representatives and had been in the Senate since 1881. He had already
laid the foundations of the great financial and industrial connections
which gave him an intimate, personal interest in protection and which
later made him an important figure in American industry and politics.
Since neither party controlled both branches of Congress, it was
impossible to pass either the Mills bill or the Senate measure; but the
proposed legislation indicated what might be expected to result from
the election. Each side had thoroughly committed itself on the tariff
question.

In the meanwhile, great interest attached to the question of leaders
for the campaign. Opposition to Cleveland was not lacking. His efforts
in behalf of civil service reform had not endeared him to the
office-seekers, and the hostility of the Democrats in the Senate was
shown by their feeble support of him. The West did not relish his
opposition to silver coinage, while his vetoes of pension legislation
were productive of some hostility, even in his own party. Nor was the
personality of the President such as to allay ill-feeling. Indeed,
Cleveland was in a position comparable to that of Hayes eight years
before. He was the titular party leader, but the most prominent
Democratic politicians were not in agreement with his principles, and
any step taken by him was likely to arouse as much hostility in some
Democratic quarters as among the Republicans. Opposition to his
nomination focused upon David B. Hill, Governor of New York, a man who
was looked upon as better disposed towards the claims of party workers
for office. Other leaders like Bayard, Thurman and Carlisle aroused
little enthusiasm, and the gradual drift of sentiment toward Cleveland
became unmistakable. If the politicians did not accept him with joy,
they at least accepted him; for he was master of the party for the
moment at least, and his hold on a large body of the rank and file was
not to be doubted. When the Democratic convention met in St. Louis in
June, 1888, his nomination was made without the formality of a
ballot.[1]

The platform was devoted, for the most part, to the question of revenue
reform, indorsing the President's tariff message and urging that the
party be given control of Congress in order that Democratic principles
might be put into effect. Resolutions were also adopted recommending
the passage of the Mills bill, which was still under discussion when
the convention met.

Among the Republicans the choice of a candidate was a far more
difficult matter. The probable choice of the party was Blaine, but his
letter from Italy, where he was travelling early in the convention
year, forbade the use of his name and opened the contest to a great
number of less well-known leaders. Publicly it was stated that Blaine
refused for reasons which were "entirely personal," but intimate
friends knew that he would accept a nomination if it came without
solicitation and as the result of a unanimous party call. Although the
demand for him still continued, there were smaller "booms" for various
favorite sons, and as his ill health continued he made known his
irrevocable decision to withdraw. Except for Blaine, the most prominent
contender was Senator Sherman, whose candidacy reached larger
proportions than ever before. The Ohio delegation was unitedly in his
favor and considerable numbers of southern delegates were expected to
vote for him. On the other hand, his lack of personal magnetism was
against him and his career had been connected with technical matters
which did not make a popular appeal. On the first ballot in the
nominating convention his lead was considerable, although not decisive,
but no fewer than thirteen other leaders also received votes. One of
these was Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana whom Blaine had
suggested as an available man and whom the New York delegation
considered a strong candidate because he was poor, a reputable senator,
a distinguished volunteer officer in the war and a grandson of William
H. Harrison of Tippecanoe fame. Further voting only emphasized the lack
of unanimity until the eighth ballot, when the delegates suddenly
turned to Harrison and nominated him.

The platform was long and verbose. It devoted much attention to the
protective tariff which, in imitation of Henry Clay, it entitled the
"American system"; it advocated the reduction of internal revenue
duties, if necessary to cut down the surplus; and it urged civil
service reform, liberal pensions and laws to control oppressive
corporations.

Two factions of the Labor party, as well as the Prohibitionists,
nominated candidates and urged programs to which no attention was paid,
but which were later taken up by both the great parties, such as
arbitration in labor disputes, an income tax, the popular election of
senators, woman suffrage and the prohibition of the manufacture of
alcoholic beverages.

The campaign deserves attention because of the unusual elements that
entered into it. A spectacular feature which, although not new, was
developed on a large scale, was the formation of thousands of political
clubs, which paraded evenings with flaming torches. In this type of
organization the Republicans were more successful than the Democrats
and thus steered many young men into the party at a time when they were
looking forward to casting their first ballot. The most unwholesome
feature was, as before, the methods used to finance the campaign. In
this connection both parties were guilty, but the Republicans were able
to tap a new source of supply. The campaign was in the hands of Matthew
S. Quay, a Pennsylvania senator whose career as a public official left
much to be desired. Quay's political methods were vividly described at
a later time by his friend and admirer Thomas C. Platt, whose account
lost none of its delightfulness in view of the fact that Platt
obviously felt that he was complimenting his friend in telling the
story. Believing in the "rights" of business men in politics, Platt
declared, Quay was always able to raise any amount of money needed,
although when funds were raised by business interests against him, he
lifted the "fiery cross" and virtuously exposed his opponents before
the people. Having calculated with skill the number of votes needed for
victory, he found out where he could get them--"and then he got them."

That Quay was able to tap a new source of supply was due to a
combination of circumstances. It will be remembered that the Pendleton
civil service act of 1883 had forbidden the assessment of
office-holders in political campaigns, and had made it necessary to
procure funds elsewhere. In the campaign of 1888, business men who
believed that the success of Cleveland would hurt their interests, and
manufacturers who profited directly by the protective tariff rallied to
the defence of Harrison and contributed heavily to his campaign
fund.[2]

The use to which the funds thus contributed were put was revealed in a
letter written apparently by W.W. Dudley, treasurer of the National
Republican Committee, and sent to party leaders in Indiana. The latter
were directed to find out who had the "Democratic boodle" and force
them, presumably by competition, to pay big prices for their own men.
The leaders were also instructed to "divide the floaters into blocks of
five and put a trusted man with the necessary funds in charge of these
five, and make him responsible that none get away, and that all vote
our ticket."

On the other hand the most wholesome feature of the campaign was its
educational aspect. Hundreds of societies, tons of "literature,"
thousands of stump speeches attacked and defended the tariff.
Schoolboys glibly retailed the standard arguments on one side or the
other. Attention was centered, as it had not been since the war, on an
important issue.

At the close of the campaign the Republicans played a trick which was
reminiscent of the Morey letter of Garfield's day. A letter purporting
to be from a Charles F. Murchison, a naturalized American of English
birth, was sent to the British minister in Washington, Lord
Sackville-West. Murchison requested the minister's opinion as to
whether President Cleveland's hostile policy in a recent controversy
with Canada had been adopted for campaign purposes and whether after
election the President would be more friendly toward England. Lord
Sackville indiscreetly replied that he believed President Cleveland
would show a conciliatory spirit toward Great Britain. The
correspondence was held back until shortly before the election and was
then published in the newspapers and on hand bills. Republicans
triumphantly declared that Cleveland was the "British candidate." The
President was at first inclined to overlook the incident but eventually
gave way to pressure and dismissed the minister, whereupon the English
government refused to fill the vacancy until there was a change of
administration.

In the ensuing election the vote cast was unusually heavy; the
protectionists felt that a supreme effort must be made to preserve the
tariff system, and the Democrats, having experienced the joys of power,
were determined not to loosen their grip on authority; the
Prohibitionists increased their vote over that of 1884 by 100,000,
while the Labor party cast 147,000, almost as many ballots as the
Prohibitionists had numbered in the earlier year. Cleveland received
somewhat over 100,000 more votes than Harrison, but his support was so
placed that his electoral vote was sixty-five less than his opponent's.

From the standpoint of political history the result was unfortunate.
The tariff question had been sadly in need of a definite answer, the
people had been educated upon it and had given a decision, but the
electoral system placed in power the party pledged to the theories of
the minority. Aside from the unusual effect of our machinery of
election, many small elements entered into the Republican victory. Some
of the Independents had become disaffected since 1884 and had returned
to the Republican fold. Disgruntled office-seekers opposed a President
who did not reward his workers. In New York, which was the decisive
factor, Hill was a candidate for re-election as governor and was
elected by a small majority, while Cleveland lost the state by 7,000
votes. This gave color to charges that the enemies of the President had
made a bargain with the Republicans by which the latter voted for Hill
as governor and the Democrats for Harrison as President.

Benjamin Harrison, veteran of the Civil War in which he had attained
the rank of brevet brigadier-general, and senator from Indiana for a
single term, was hardly a party leader when he was nominated for the
presidency. Although he was by no means unknown, he had been
sufficiently obscure to be unconnected with factional party quarrels,
and his career and character were without blemish. At the time of his
accession to the executive chair he was fifty-six years of age, a short
man with bearded face, and with head set well down between his
shoulders. Accounts of his characteristics, drawn by his party
associates, did not differ in any essential detail. As a public
speaker, the new President was a man of unusual charm--felicitous in
his remarks, versatile, tactful. In a famous trip through the South and
West in 1891, he made speech after speech at a wide variety of places
and occasions, and created a genuine enthusiasm. His remarks were
widely read and highly regarded. Nevertheless there seems to have been
some truth in the remark of one of his contemporaries that he could
charm ten thousand men in a public speech but meet them individually
and send every one away his enemy. His manner, even to senators and
representatives of his own party, was reserved to the point of
frigidity. When he granted requests for patronage he was so ungracious
as to anger the recipients of favor. Although his personal character
and integrity were as unquestioned as those of Hayes, and although he
was a man of cultured tastes, well-informed, thoughtful and
conscientious, it must be admitted that he lacked robust leadership and
breadth of vision, and that he did not understand the real purposes of
the policies which his party associates were embarking upon, or if he
did that he tamely acquiesced in them. The party leaders were soon
engaged in initiating practices and passing legislation which would
strengthen the organization with certain groups of interested persons.
Harrison, conscientious but aloof, provided no compelling force to turn
attention toward wider and deeper needs.

Two appointments to the cabinet were important. Since Blaine was the
foremost leader of the party and had done much to bring about the
election of Harrison, it was well-nigh impossible for the latter to
fail to offer him the position of Secretary of State. The appointment
was so natural that popular opinion looked upon it as the only
possibility, yet the natures of the two men were so diverse and their
positions in the party so different that friction seemed likely to
result. Even before the administration began it was freely predicted
that Blaine would "dominate" the cabinet, a prophecy that might well
create a feeling of restraint between the two. The invitation to John
Wanamaker to become Postmaster-General was regarded as significant.
Wanamaker was a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia, who had organized an
advisory campaign committee of business men which contributed and
expended large sums of money during the canvass. Critical reformers
like the editor of _The Nation_ were not slow to connect Wanamaker's
large contribution to the campaign fund with his elevation to the
cabinet, and to suggest that the business interests were being brought
into close relations with the administration. T.C. Platt, expectant of
a return for his campaign assistance, in the form of a cabinet
position, and in fact understanding that a pledge had been made that he
would be appointed, found himself superseded by William Windom of
Minnesota in the Treasury and became a bitter opponent of the
President.[3]

It was an odd turn of the fortune of politics that brought Benjamin
Harrison face to face with the responsibility for furthering the cause
of civil service reform--the same Harrison who, as a senator, had
sneered at Cleveland for surrendering to difficulties. The party
platform had urged the continuation of reform, which had been
"auspiciously begun under the Republican administration" and had
declared that the party promises would not be broken as Democratic
pledges had been; and Harrison had announced his adherence to the party
statement. In some respects real progress was made. Secretary of the
Navy Tracy introduced reform methods in his department. The appointment
of Theodore Roosevelt to the Civil Service Commission was productive of
good results. The work of reform was defended forcefully and
successfully; its opponents were challenged to substantiate their
charges. When Senator Gorman declared that in an examination for letter
carriers in Baltimore the candidates were asked to tell the most direct
route from Baltimore to China, Roosevelt at once wrote asking him to
state the time and place of the examination himself or to send somebody
to look over the papers, copies of which were in the commission's
office. The senator did not reply.

The removal of office holders, however, proceeded with amazing
rapidity. The First Assistant Postmaster-General was J.S. Clarkson, who
had been vice-chairman of the Republican National Campaign Committee.
The speed with which he cleared the service of Democrats earned him the
title "headsman" and is indicated by the estimate that he removed one
every three minutes for the first year. When the force of clerks was
increased for the taking of the census of 1890, the superintendent of
the census office found himself "waist deep in congressmen" trying to
get places for friends. The Republican postmaster of New York who had
been continued by Cleveland was not re-appointed. It was soon
discovered, also, that the President was placing his own and his wife's
relatives in office and giving positions to large numbers of newspaper
editors, thus indirectly subsidizing the press. The Commissioner of
Pensions, Corporal James Tanner, distributed pensions so freely as to
arouse wide-spread comment and was soon relieved of his position.[4]

Curtis, addressing the National Civil Service Reform League, flayed the
President because he had despoiled the service. A Republican newspaper,
he declared, had said that the administration whistled reform down the
wind "as remorselessly as it would dismiss an objectionable tramp."
Prominent members of the party went to the President in person to urge
on him the redemption of the platform promises.

Although progress was not general, nevertheless there were particular
reforms that commended themselves. The offensive Clarkson gave way to
hostile criticism and retired. During the last half of the
administration, the civil service rules were amended so as to add a
considerable number of employees to the classified service, especially
in the post office department. Quay and Dudley found their methods
condemned by public opinion and resigned their positions on the
National Republican Committee.[5]

Aside from his choice of subordinates, Harrison contributed little to
the political history of his administration, for the leadership was
seized by a small coterie of extreme Republicans in the House of
Representatives, of whom the chief figure was the Speaker, Thomas B.
Reed. The House which had been elected with Harrison contained 159
Democrats and 166 Republicans. The Republican majority was too slight
for safety, for the questions which were coming before Congress were
such as to arouse party feeling to a high pitch. The Republicans felt
themselves commissioned, by a successful election, to put the party
program into force, but so powerful a minority could readily block any
legislation under the existing parliamentary rules. Only Reed knew what
expedient would be resorted to in the attempt to put through the party
program, and not even he could guarantee that the adventure would be
successful.

Thomas B. Reed had long represented Maine in the House of
Representatives. He was a man of huge bulk, bland in appearance,
imperturbable in his serenity, caustic, concise and witty of tongue,
rough, sharp, strong, droll. In the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary
debate and manoeuvre, as well as in his knowledge of the intricacies of
procedure, Reed was a past master. He worsted his adversaries by
turning the laugh on them, and his stinging retorts, which swept the
House "like grapeshot," made him a powerful factor in partisan
contests.[6]

The political and economic philosophy of Reed and his associates was
unusually important, because it controlled their action during the time
when they dominated the House and determined the character of the
legislation passed during Harrison's time. When President Cleveland's
tariff message welded the Democrats together to demand reduction, it
likewise influenced the Republicans to adopt the other extreme. That is
not to say, of course, that the Republican attitude was due solely to
Cleveland, for the party was already committed to protectionism.
Nevertheless, many of its prominent leaders, including its presidents,
had urged revision. That recommendation was now no longer heard. Such
men as McKinley in the House fairly apotheosized the protective system.
The philosophy of the party leaders received full exposition in a
volume edited by John D. Long, ex-governor of Massachusetts, and
composed of articles written by sixteen of the most prominent
Republicans. It had been published during the campaign. The attitude of
the party toward its chief tenet was expressed in the phrase, "The
Republican party enacted a protective tariff which made the United
States the greatest manufacturing nation on earth"; and its conception
of the Democratic party in the statement that the Democrats were mainly
old slave-holders, liquor dealers and criminals in the great northern
cities. In the field of national expenditure, also, the party reacted
from Cleveland's frugality. Senator Dolph frankly urged the expenditure
of the surplus revenue rather than the reduction of taxation. McKinley
took the position that prices might be too low. "I do not prize the word
cheap," he said; "cheap merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean
a cheap country." Harrison remarked that it was "no time to be weighing
the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales." This philosophy
was now to have its trial, but first the obstructive power of the
minority must be curbed. Reed's plan for accomplishing this result
appeared late in January, 1890.

A contested election case was up for decision in the House. The roll
was called and three less than a quorum of representatives answered.
Scores of Democrats were present, but by merely refusing to answer to
their names they could be officially absent. Unless the Republicans
could provide a quorum--that is, more than half the total membership of
the chamber of their own number, they were helpless. Clearly they
could not muster their full force at all times and especially on
questions upon which the party might be divided. On the other hand, the
right to refuse to vote was a long-standing one and had been used over
and over again by Republicans as well as Democrats. Reed, however, had
made up his mind to cut the Gordian knot. Looking over the House he
called the names of about forty Democrats, directed the clerk to make
note of them and then declared a quorum present. The meaning of the act
was not lost on the opposition. Pandemonium broke loose. Members rushed
up the aisle as if to attack the Speaker, but Reed, huge, fearless and
undisturbed, stood his ground. The Democrats hissed and jeered and
denounced him with a wrath which was not mollified by the derisive
laughter of the Republicans, who were surprised by the ruling, but
rallied to their leader. Two days later, when a member moved to
adjourn, the Speaker ruled the motion out of order and refused to
entertain any appeal from his decision. He then firmly but quietly
stated his belief that the will of the majority ought not to be
nullified by a minority and that if parliamentary rules were used
solely for purposes of delay, it was the duty of the Speaker to take
"the proper course."

The rules committee then presented a series of recommendations designed
to expedite business. One of the proposed changes provided that the
chair should entertain no dilatory motions. Such motions, whose purpose
was merely to obstruct action, had long been common. The Republicans
were said to have alternated motions to adjourn and to fix a day for
adjournment no less than one hundred and twenty-eight times in an
attempt to defeat the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. The second rule
allowed the speaker to count members who were present and not voting in
determining whether a quorum was present. Other rules systematized
procedure and facilitated the passage of legislation. The Democrats
raged, denounced Reed as a "Czar," fought against the adoption of the
rules--all to no avail. The majority had its way; the Speaker
dominated legislation.[7]

The efficacy of the Reed reforms in expediting legislation was quickly
demonstrated. One of the earliest proposals to pass the House was Henry
Cabot Lodge's federal election law, which was intended to insure
federal control at polling places. Theoretically the measure was
applicable to the North as well as to the South, but no doubt existed
that it was really designed to prevent southern suppression of the
negro vote. The Democrats rallied to the opposition and denounced
Lodge's plan as a "force act." Despite objections it passed the House,
but it languished in the Senate and finally was abandoned. The generous
expenditure policy which the new philosophy called for brought forth
certain increases which were noteworthy. The dependent pension bill
which Cleveland had vetoed was passed, and a direct tax which had been
levied on the states during the Civil War was refunded. Another extreme
party measure was the Sherman silver act which became law on July 14,
1890. By it, 4,500,000 ounces of silver were to be purchased each
month. Its partisan character was indicated by the fact that no
Republicans voted against it, and no Democrats for it. Since the amount
of silver to be purchased was practically the total output of the
country, it was evident that the western mine owners were receiving the
same attention that was being accorded manufacturers who sought
protective tariff laws. Indeed, western Republicans, who were opposed
to the high tariff which eastern Republicans favored, were brought to
support such legislation only by a bargain through which each side
assisted the other in getting what it desired.[8]

The tariff measure which was thus entwined with the silver bill was
intended to carry out the pledge made in the party platform. Harrison
had early called the attention of Congress to the need of a reduction
of the surplus, had urged the passage of a new tariff law and the
removal of the tobacco tax which, he declared, would take a burden from
an "important agricultural product." The framing of the bill was in the
hands of William McKinley, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and
Means. McKinley was a thorough-going protectionist whose attitude on
the question had already been expressed somewhat as follows: previous
Democratic tariffs have brought the country to the brink of financial
ruin; without the protective tariff English manufacturers would
monopolize American markets; under the protective system the foreign
manufacturer largely pays the tax through lessened profits; under
protection the American laborer is the best paid, clothed and contented
workingman in the world; since it is necessary, then, to preserve
protection, the surplus should be reduced by the elimination of the
internal revenues; and protective tariff duties should be raised and
retained, not gradually lowered and done away with.

The Committee early proceeded to hold public hearings at which
testimony was taken, and to which manufacturers came from all over the
country to make known what duties they thought they ought to have. The
bill which was finally presented to the House proposed a level of
duties which was so high that it has generally been considered the
extreme of protection. McKinley himself justified the high rates only
on the ground that without them the bill could not be passed. With the
help of the Reed rules and the western Republicans the McKinley tariff
reached the President and was signed by him on October 1, 1890. It went
into effect at once.

The more prominent features of the measure sprang from the tariff creed
which had been advocated through the campaign. In order to conciliate
the farmers, the protective principle was applied to agricultural
products, and tariffs were laid on such articles as cereals, potatoes
and flax. On the cheaper grades of wool and woolens and on carpet wools
there was a slight rise over even the rates of 1883. On the higher
grades of woolen, linen and clothing the increase was marked. The duty
on raw sugar was removed and one-half cent per pound retained on the
refined product, but domestic sugar producers were given a bounty of
two cents a pound in order to protect them against the free importation
of the raw material. As the sugar duty had been productive of large
amounts of revenue, its remission reduced the surplus by about sixty to
seventy millions of dollars. In order to encourage the manufacture of
tin-plates, a considerable duty was imposed, which was to cease after
1897 unless domestic production reached specified amounts. As the
result of Blaine's urgency, a reciprocity feature was introduced. The
usual plan had been to reduce duties on certain products in case
concessions to American goods were given by the exporting countries,
but in the McKinley act the Senate inserted a novel provision. Instead
of being given power to lower duties in case reciprocal reductions were
made, the President was authorized to impose duties on certain articles
on the free list when the exporting nation levied "unjust or
unreasonable" customs charges on American products. It was expected
that this plan would be applied to Latin-American countries and would
increase our exports to them in return for sugar, molasses, tea, coffee
and hides. In general, the McKinley act was the climax of protection.
Under the impetus of President Cleveland's reduction challenge, the
Republican party had recoiled to the extreme.

The high rates levied by the new tariff act were quickly reflected in
retail prices and caused immediate and wide-spread discontent. The
benefits which the farmer had been led to expect did not put in their
appearance. Unhappily for McKinley and his associates the congressional
elections occurred early in November, scarcely a month after the new
law went into effect, and when the dissatisfaction was at its height.
The result was a stinging defeat for the Republicans. The 159 Democrats
were increased to 235, and the 166 Republicans dwindled to 88. Even in
New England the Democrats gained eleven members, in New York eight, and
in Iowa five. In Wisconsin not one Republican survived, and among the
lost in Ohio was McKinley himself.

Although the Republicans retained control of the Senate after 1890, the
Democratic House brought an end for a time to the domination of Reed
and the primacy of the lower chamber in the government. Such extreme
legislation as had characterized the first half of the Harrison regime
stopped abruptly. The role played in all this by Harrison himself seems
to have been a minor one. Many of his recommendations lacked the solid
character of those made by Hayes, Arthur and Cleveland, and he did not
make his influence felt in connection with the silver legislation, of
which he probably disapproved. It is significant that the one piece of
legislation which had the most enduring results was not a partisan act.
This act, the Sherman Anti-Trust law, demands attention in detail.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

In addition to the general and special works already mentioned, C.
Hedges, _Benjamin Harrison: Speeches_ (1892), provides useful material;
Cleveland's tariff message of Dec. 6, 1887 is in J.D. Richardson,
_Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, VIII, 580-591.

On the administration, and particularly the ascendancy of the House of
Representatives under Reed, consult: De A.S. Alexander, _History and
Procedure of the House of Representatives_ (1916); Mary P. Follett,
_Speaker of the House of Representatives_ (1896); C.S. Olcott, _William
McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916); J.G. Cannon in _Harper's Magazine_ (Mar.,
1920); _Annual Cyclopaedia_, 1890, pp. 181-191; S.W. McCall, _Thomas B.
Reed_ (1914), well written, although adding little to what was already
known; H.D. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912); W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the
Spoilsman_ (1919), on Harrison and the civil service; G.W. Curtis,
_Orations and Addresses_ (2 vols., 1894), summarizes the
administration's attitude toward civil service; T.B. Reed, _Reed's
Rules, A Manual of General Parliamentary Law_ (1894), gives a concise
summary of parliamentary conditions from Reed's standpoint; H.B.
Fuller, _The Speakers of the House_ (1909), excellent on the personal
side. The tariff is well treated in Stanwood, Taussig and Tarbell. On
pensions consult W.H. Glasson, _History of Military Pension Legislation
in the United States_ (1900), or better, the same author's _Federal
Military Pensions in the United States_ (1918).

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] The vice-presidential candidate was Allan G. Thurman of Ohio,
affectionately known as the "noble old Roman," one of whose titles to
fame was the ownership of a large red bandanna handkerchief which he
nourished on all occasions.

[2] A party worker who realized the opportunity which this fact
presented complained that Pennsylvania manufacturers who made fortunes
under protection did not contribute to the Republican campaign fund,
and remarked: "If I had my way about it I would put the manufacturers
of Pennsylvania under the fire and fry all the fat out of them."

[3] The remaining members of the cabinet were: Redfield Proctor, Vt.,
Secretary of War; W.H.H. Miller, Ind., Attorney-General; B.F. Tracy,
N.Y., Secretary of the Navy; J.W. Noble, Mo., Secretary of the
Interior; J.M. Rusk, Wis., Secretary of Agriculture.

[4] Corporal Tanner is commonly supposed to have been so anxious to
have a hand in the generous distribution of government revenue among
the old soldiers that he declared one morning as he seated himself at
his desk, "God help the surplus." This is a mistake, although the
Corporal seems to have been more ready than the President to act
quickly and generously on claims.

[5] The open character of the financial corruption of the campaign
also gave impetus to the movement for the secret or Australian ballot
which was first introduced in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 28, 1888, and in
Massachusetts on May 29, of the same year. Another reform movement was
that which resulted in the destruction of the Louisiana lottery. Cf.
A.K. McClure, _Recollections_, 173-183, and Peck, _Twenty Years_,
215-220.

[6] An incident which occurred when he was not speaker may serve to
illustrate the manner in which he routed his opponents. Representative
Springer, of Illinois, who had a reputation for loquacity and
insincerity, once asked for unanimous consent to correct a statement
which he had previously made in debate. "No correction needed," shouted
Reed. "We didn't think it was so when you made it."

[7] In his _Manual of General Parliamentary Law_, Reed declared that
the House prior to 1890 was the most unwieldy parliamentary body in the
world. Three resolute men, he asserted, could stop all public business.
A few years later, when the Democrats were in power, they adopted the
plans which Reed had so successfully used.

[8] These acts were part of the general financial history of the
period and in that connection demand fuller discussion at a later
point. Cf. Chap. XV.




CHAPTER XI


INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_

About the time the Sherman Anti-trust law was being passed, in 1890,
Henry D. Lloyd was writing his book _Wealth Against Commonwealth_, in
which occurred a memorable passage:

    A small number of men are obtaining the power to forbid any but
    themselves to supply the people with fire in nearly every form known
    to modern life and industry, from matches to locomotives and
    electricity. They control our hard coal and much of the soft, and
    stoves, furnaces, and steam and hot-water heaters; the governors on
    steam-boilers and the boilers; gas and gas-fixtures; natural gas and
    gas-pipes; electric lighting, and all the appurtenances. You cannot
    free yourself by changing from electricity to gas, or from the gas
    of the city to the gas of the fields. If you fly from kerosene to
    candles, you are still under the ban.

To understand the dangers of the monopolies which Lloyd feared and
denounced, it is necessary to know the principal features in the
development of American industry from the close of the Civil War to
1890.

It will be remembered that the consolidation of small railroad lines
into large systems was accompanied by such advantages to the companies
and to the travelling public, as to demonstrate that combination was the
inevitable order of the day. The similar integration of small industrial
and commercial enterprises took place more slowly between 1870 and 1890,
but the process was no less inevitable on that account. The census of
1890 indicated that the production of manufactured articles had greatly
increased since 1870; more capital was engaged; the product was more
valuable; and more workmen were employed. Nevertheless the number of
establishments which were in operation had shown a considerable decline
in many industries. An army of 100,000 employees represented the
expansion of the wage-earning force in the iron and steel works, for
example, and $270,000,000 the increase in the value of their products;
yet the number of establishments engaged showed a shrinkage of nearly
fourteen per cent. The workers in the textile mills grew from 275,000 to
512,000, and the capital outlay from $300,000,000 to $750,000,000, but
the number of factories declined from 4,790 to 4,114. A cartoon in
_Puck_ on January 26, 1881, remarked that "the telegraph companies have
been consolidated, which in simple language means that Mr. Jay Gould
controls every wire in the United States over which a telegram can be
sent."

Some of the reasons for the prevalent tendency toward combination were
not hard to discover. In the first place, although industrial
organizations fought one another with the utmost bitterness, it was in
the nature of things for them to combine if threatened by any common
foe. Moreover, production on a large scale made possible savings and
improvements that were outside the grasp of more modest enterprises;
buying and selling large quantities of goods commanded opportunities for
profit; waste products could be made use of and costly scientific
investigations conducted in order to discover improved methods, overcome
difficulties and open new avenues of activity; large salaries and
important positions could be offered to men of executive capacity; and
expensive equipment could be purchased and utilized.[1] An effective
force which tended to drive industries to combine was the cut-throat
competition which prevailed. Herbert Croly in his stimulating book _The
Promise of American Life_ vividly describes the bitter, warlike
character of industrial competition after 1865. Competition was battle
to the knife and tomahawk. The leaders were constantly seeking bigger
operations, to which the bigger risks only added zest. A company might
be making unbelievable profits one year and "skirting" bankruptcy the
next. Exciting as all this was, however, the desire for adventure was
not as powerful as the desire for profits, and cut-throat competition in
industry led as naturally to combination, as rate-wars on the railroads
led to pooling agreements.

An important factor in the development of large corporations was the
increasing use of the corporation form of industrial organization, as
contrasted with the co-partnership plan. If a few men enter a
copartnership, each of them must supply a considerable amount of
capital; but if a corporation is formed and stock is sold, the par value
of the shares may be placed at a low figure--$100 or less, for
example--and thus a large number of persons may be able to establish an
industry which is far beyond the financial resources of any individual
or small group among them. The corporation, moreover, is relatively
permanent, for the death of one stock-holder among many is unimportant
as compared with that of one member of a co-partnership. In case of
disaster to the enterprise the liability of the stock-holder in a
corporation is limited to the amount which he has invested, while any
member of a partnership may be legally held for all the debts of the
organization. With such advantages in its favor the corporation plan
largely dominated the organization of industry.

The most famous example of combination before 1890 was the Standard Oil
Company, which was the cause of more litigation, more study and more
complaint than any other industrial organization that has ever existed
in America. In 1865 Rockefeller & Andrews started an oil-refining
business in Cleveland, Ohio. Samuel Andrews was a mechanical genius and
he attended to the technical end of the industry; John D. Rockefeller
had bargaining capacity, and to him fell the task of buying the crude
oil, providing barrels and other materials and selling the product. The
firm prospered. H.M. Flagler was taken into the company and a branch was
established in New York. In 1870 these three with a few others organized
the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, with a capitalization of a million
dollars. It controlled not over ten percent. of the business of
oil-refining in the United States at that time. But the oil business was
so profitable that capital flowed into it and competition became keen.
Rockefeller and some associates, therefore, devised the South
Improvement Company of Pennsylvania, a combination of refiners, headed
and controlled by the Standard, the purpose of which was to make
advantageous arrangements With the railroads for transportation
facilities. Early in 1872, a most remarkable contract was signed between
the company and the important railroads of the oil country--the
Pennsylvania, the New York Central and the Erie. By it the roads agreed
to establish certain freight rates from the crude-oil producing region
of western Pennsylvania to such refining and shipping centers as New
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg and Cleveland. From these rates
the South Improvement Company was to receive substantial rebates,
amounting to forty or fifty per cent. on crude oil and twenty-five to
forty-five per cent. on refined. On their side the railroads were
promised the entire freight business of the Company, each to have an
assured proportion of the traffic, with freedom from rate-cutting
competition. All this was the common railroad practice of the times.

But another portion of the contract was not so common. It provided that
the roads should give the South Improvement Company rebates on all oil
shipped by its competitors and furnish it with full way-bills of all
such shipments each day. In other words, the Company was to know exactly
the amount of the business of its competitors and with whom it was being
done. The contract allowed the roads to make similar rebates with
anybody offering an equal amount of traffic, but the likelihood of such
an outcome was slender in the extreme. Armed with this powerful weapon,
Rockefeller entered upon a campaign to eliminate competition by offering
to buy out independent refiners either with cash or with Standard Oil
stock, at his estimate of the value of their property. Those who
objected to selling were shown that the alliance between the South
Improvement Company and the railroads was so strong that they faced the
alternative of giving way or being crushed. Of the twenty-six refineries
in Cleveland, at least twenty-one yielded. The capacity of the Standard
leaped from 1,500 to 10,000 barrels a day and it controlled a fifth of
the refining business of the country. When these facts came to be known
in the oil country, the bitter Oil War of 1872 began. Independent
producers joined to fight for existence, and at length the railroads
gave way and agreed to abandon the contract with the South Improvement
Company, and the legislature of Pennsylvania annulled its charter,
although in one way or another rebates continued and the absorption of
rivals went on. In 1882 the entire combination--thirty-nine refiners,
controlling ninety to ninety-five per cent. of the product--was
organized as the Standard Oil Trust. All stock-holders in the combining
companies surrendered their certificates and received in return receipts
or "trust-certificates," which showed the amount of the owner's interest
in the trust. In order to secure unity of purpose and management, the
affairs of the combination were put into the hands of nine trustees,
with Rockefeller at the head.

The wonderful success of the Standard Oil Company, however, was not due
solely to the alliance with the railroads, although this advantage came
at a strategic time when it was fighting for supremacy. Its marketing
department gave it an unenviable reputation, but achieved amazing
success. The department was organized to cover the country, find out
everything possible about competitors, and then kill them off by
price-cutting or other means. The great resources of the Company enabled
it to undersell rivals, going below cost if necessary, and thus wearing
out opposition. Continuity of control, also, contributed to Standard
success; the narrow limits of the area in which the crude oil was
produced before 1890 rendered the problem of securing a monopoly
somewhat easier; the organization was extremely efficient and the
constituent companies were stimulated to a high degree of productivity
by encouraging the spirit of emulation; men of ability were called to
its high positions; the policy of gaining the mastery over the trade in
petroleum and its products was kept definitely and persistently to the
front; and then there was John D. Rockefeller.

Rockefeller was what used to be called a "self-made" man. He began his
business life in Cleveland as a clerk at an extremely modest salary.
Capacity for details and for shrewd bargaining, patience, frugality,
seriousness, secretiveness, caution, an instinctive sense for business
openings, self-control--all these were characteristic both of the
Cleveland clerk and the later oil-refiner. In the bigger field he
developed a daring caution, a quick understanding of the value of new
inventions, a capacity for organization, quick grasp of essentials and a
resourcefulness that dominated the entire Standard combination. He built
his own barrels, owned the pipe-lines, tank-cars, tank-wagons and
warehouses. Consolidation, magnitude and financial returns were his
aims, and in achieving these he and his associates were so successful as
to make the Standard a leader in all branches of business, except the
ethics of industry. Litigation has been the constant accompaniment of
Standard progress.

Following the Standard Oil Company, other combinations found the trust
form of organization a convenient one. The cotton trust, the whiskey
trust, and the sugar, cotton bagging, copper and salt trusts made the
public familiar with the term. Moreover, popular suspicion and hostility
became aroused, and the word "trust" began to acquire something of the
unpleasant connotation which it later possessed.

Although it was upon the Standard Oil Company that people turned when
they denounced the trusts and feared or condemned their practices, the
principles to which the Standard adhered when under the strain of
competition were the practices which were followed by their
contemporaries, both big and little. When the Diamond Match Company, for
example, was before the Courts of Michigan in 1889, it appeared that the
organization was built up for the purpose of controlling the manufacture
and trade in matches in the United States and Canada. Its policy was to
buy up and "remove" competition, so that it might monopolize the
manufacture and sale of matches. It could then fix the price of its
commodity at such a point that it could recoup itself for the expense of
eliminating competitors and also make larger profits than were possible
when its rivals were active.

Still more dangerous was the combination of the hard coal operators. By
1873, six corporations owned both the hard coal deposits of Pennsylvania
and the railroads which made it possible to haul the coal out to the
markets. In the same year and later these companies made agreements
which determined the amounts of coal that they would mine, the price
which they would charge, and the proportion of the whole output that
each company would be allowed to handle. Independent operators--that is,
operators not in the combination--found their existence precarious in
the extreme, for their means of transportation was in the hands of the
six coal-carrying railroads, who could raise rates almost at will and
find reasons even for refusing service. The states were powerless to
remedy the situation because their authority did not extend to
interstate commerce, yet it was intolerable for a small group of
interested parties to have power to fix the output of so necessary a
commodity as coal, on no other basis than that provided by their own
desires.

Other abuses appeared which showed that industrial combinations were
open to many of the complaints which, in connection with the railroads,
had led to the Interstate Commerce Act. Industrial pools resembled
railroad pools and were objected to for similar reasons. Bankers and
others who organized combinations were given returns that seemed as
extravagant as the prices paid to railroad construction companies; the
issues of the stock of corporations were bought and sold by their own
officers for speculative purposes; and stock-watering was as common as
in railroading. The industrial combinations also had somewhat the same
effect on politics that the railroads had. Lloyd declared that the
Standard Oil Company had done everything with the Pennsylvania
legislature except refine it.

One of the most noted cases of corporation influence in politics was
that of the election of Senator Henry B. Payne of Ohio. In 1886 the
legislature of the state requested the United States Senate to
investigate the election of Payne because of charges of Standard Oil
influence. The debate over the case showed clearly the belief on the
part of many that the Standard, which controlled "business, railroads,
men and things" was also choosing United States senators. Senator Hoar
raised the question whether the Standard was represented in the Senate
and even in the Cabinet. In denying any connection with the Oil Company,
Payne himself declared that no institution or association had been "to
so large an expense in money" to accomplish his defeat when he was a
candidate for election to the lower house. Popular suspicion seemed
confirmed, therefore, that the Company was taking an active share in
government. Whether the trust was for or against Payne made little
difference.

A complaint that brought the trust problem to the attention of many who
were not interested in its other aspects was the treatment accorded
independent producers. The rough-shod methods employed by the Standard
Oil Company, the Diamond Match Company and the coal operators were
concretely illustrated in many a city and town by such incidents as that
of a Pennsylvania butcher mentioned by Lloyd. An agent of the great meat
slaughtering firms ordered the butcher to cease slaughtering cattle, and
when he refused the agent informed him that his business would be
destroyed. He then found himself unable to buy any meat whatever from
Chicago, the meat-packing center, and discovered that the railroad would
not furnish cars to transport his supplies. Faced by such overwhelming
force, the independent producer was generally compelled to give way to
the demands of the big concerns or be driven to the wall. The
helplessness of the individual under such conditions was strikingly
expressed by Mr. Justice Harlan of the Supreme Court in a decision in a
suit against the Standard Oil Company:

    All who recall the condition of the country in 1890 will remember
    that there was everywhere, among the people generally, a deep
    feeling of unrest. The Nation had been rid of human slavery ...
    but the conviction was universal that the country was in real danger
    from another kind of slavery sought to be fastened on the American
    people, namely, the slavery that would result from aggregations of
    capital in the hands of a few ... controlling, for their own ...
    advantage exclusively, the entire business of the country, including
    the production and sale of the necessaries of life.

Observers noted that fortunes which outstripped the possessions of
princes were being amassed for the few by combinations which sometimes,
if not frequently, resorted to illegal and unfair practices, and they
compared these conditions with the labor unrest, the discontent and the
poverty which was the lot of the many.

In the meanwhile there had arisen a growing demand for action which
would give relief from the conditions just described. As early as 1879
the Hepburn committee appointed by the New York Assembly had
investigated the railroads and had made public a mass of information
concerning the relation of the transportation system to the industrial
combinations. In 1880 Henry George had published _Progress and Poverty_
in which he had contended that the entire burden of taxation should be
laid upon land values, in order to overcome the advantage which the
ownership of land gave to monopoly. In 1881 Henry D. Lloyd had fired
his first volley, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," an attack on the
Standard Oil Company which was published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ and
which caused that number of the periodical to go through seven
editions.[2] In 1888 Edward Bellamy's _Looking Backward_ had pictured
a socialized Utopian state in which the luxuries as well as the
necessities of life were produced for the common benefit of all the
people. Societies had been formed for the propagation of Bellamy's
ideas, and the parlor study of socialism had become popular.

The platforms of the political parties had given evidence of a
continuing unrest without presenting any definite proposals for relief.
As far back as 1872 the Labor Reformers had condemned the "capitalists"
for importing Chinese laborers; in the same year the Republicans and
Democrats had opposed further grants of public land to corporations and
monopolies--referring in the main to the railroads; in 1880 the
Greenbackers and in 1884 the Anti-Monopolists, the Prohibitionists and
the Democrats had denounced the corporations and called for government
action to prevent or control them; and in 1888 the Union Labor party,
the Prohibitionists and the Republicans had urged legislation for doing
away with or regulating trusts and monopolies. By 1890 eight states had
already passed anti-trust laws. Among unorganized forces, possibly the
independent producers were as effective as any. Although usually
overcome by the superior strength of their big opponents, they
frequently conducted vigorous contests and sometimes carried the issue
to the courts where damaging evidence was made public.

The solution of the problem of trust control was not easy to discover.
The amount of property involved was so great that forceful legislation
would be fought to the last ditch; while legislation that was obviously
weak, on the other hand, would not satisfy public opinion. Public
officials were hopelessly divergent in their views. Cleveland had
called attention to the evils of the trusts in his tariff message of
1887, but had laid his emphasis on the need of reduced taxation rather
than upon control of the great combinations. Blaine was opposed to
federal action. Thomas B. Reed had characteristically ridiculed the
idea that monopolies existed:

    And yet, outside the Patent Office there are no monopolies in this
    country, and there never can be. Ah, but what is that I see on the
    far horizon's edge, with tongue of lambent flame and eye of forked
    fire, serpent-headed and griffin-clawed?

Surely it must be the great new chimera "Trust." Quick, cries every
masked member of the Ways and Means. Quick, let us lower the tariff.
Let us call in the British. Let them save our devastated homes.

More serious was the almost universal lack of knowledge of the elements
involved in the situation. Industrial leaders were unenlightened and
wrapped up in the attempt to outdo rivals who were equally
unenlightened and absorbed; the nation needed instruction and
leadership, and neither was to be found. Instead, the poorer classes
became more and more hostile to big business interests; the capitalist
class set itself stolidly to the preservation of its interests. The one
saw only the abuses, the other only the benefits of combinations.
Thoughtful men felt that industrialism was afflicted with a malady
which would kill the nation unless a remedy were found.

The legal and constitutional position of the trusts was almost
impregnable. Ever since the decision of the Supreme Court in the
Dartmouth College case, handed down in 1819, franchises and charters
granted by states to corporations had been regarded as contracts which
could not be altered by subsequent legislation. Moreover, the Court had
so interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, as has been seen, that the
states had found great difficulty in framing regulatory legislation
that would pass muster before the judiciary.[3] It was doubtful
whether federal attempts at regulation would be more fortunate. More
fundamental still, for public opinion underlies even constitutional
interpretation, American industrial and commercial expansion had run
ahead of our conception of the possible and proper functions of
government. Government as the protector of property was an ancient
concept and commonly held in the United States; government as the
guardian of the individual against the powerful holder of a great deal
of property was a new idea and not generally looked upon with favor.

It has already been seen that the prevailing economic theory, _laissez
faire_, was diametrically opposed to government regulation of the
economic activities of the individual. According to this view,
unrestricted industrial liberty would result in adjustment by business
itself on honorable lines. Men whose integrity was such that they were
in control of great enterprises, asserted an attorney for the Standard
Oil Company, would be the first to realize that a fair policy toward
competitors and the public was the most successful policy. Combination
was declared to be inevitable in modern life and reductions in the
price of many commodities were pointed to as a justification for
leaving the trusts unhampered.

Public opinion, however, was reaching the point where it was prepared
to brush aside theoretical difficulties. President Harrison, Senator
Sherman and others urged action. Large numbers of anti-monopoly bills
were presented in Congress. The indifference of some members and the
opposition of others was somewhat neutralized by the fiery zeal of such
men as Senator Jones of Arkansas, who declared that the fortunes made
by the Standard Oil Company did not represent a single dollar of honest
toil or one trace of benefit to mankind. "The sugar trust," declared
the senator, "has its 'long, felonious fingers' at this moment in every
man's pocket in the United States, deftly extracting with the same
audacity the pennies from the pockets of the poor and the dollars from
the pockets of the rich."

After much study of the mass of suggested legislation, Congress relied
upon its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the several
states and passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, which received President
Harrison's signature on July 2, 1890. Its most significant portions are
the following:

    Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or
    otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among
    the several States, or with foreign nations, is ... illegal.

    Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize,
    or combine or conspire with any other such person ... to monopolize
    any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with
    foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanor.

The purpose of the framers of the Act seems clearly to have been to
draw up a general measure whose terms should be those usual in the
English common law and then rest on the assurance that the courts would
interpret its meaning in the light of former practice. For some
centuries restraint of trade had been considered illegal in England,
but no contract was held to be contrary to law if it provided only a
_reasonable_ restraint--that is, if the restraint was merely minor and
subsidiary. The Sherman act was a Senate measure, was presented from
the Judiciary Committee and was passed precisely as drawn up by it. In
speaking from the Committee, both Edmunds and Hoar took the attitude
which the latter expressed as follows: "The great thing that this bill
does ... is to extend the common-law principles, which protected fair
competition ... in England, to international and interstate commerce in
the United States." Just how far the members of Congress who were not
on the Judiciary Committee of the Senate shared in this view or really
understood the bill can not be said. Indeed, many members of both
chambers absented themselves when the bill came to a vote.[4]

For a long time the Sherman Act like the Interstate Commerce Act was
singularly ineffective and futile. Trusts were nominally dissolved, but
the separate parts were conducted under a common and uniform policy by
the same board of managers. The Standard Oil Company changed its form
by selecting the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey as a "holding
corporation." Stock of the members of the combination was exchanged for
stock in the New Jersey organization, leaving control in the same hands
as before. The "same business was carried on in the same way but 'under
a new sign.'" The wide variety of conditions tolerated under the
corporation laws of the several states made confusion worse confounded.
In its early attempts to convict corporations of violation of the law,
the government was uniformly defeated.

In 1893 came the climax of futility. The American Sugar Refining
Company had purchased refineries in Philadelphia which enabled it to
control, with its other plants, ninety-eight per cent. of the refining
business in the country. The government asked the courts to cancel the
purchase on the ground that it was contrary to the Sherman law, and to
order the return of the properties to their former owners. The Supreme
Court declared that the mere purchase of sugar refineries was not an
act of interstate commerce and that it could not be said to restrain
such trade, and it refused to grant the request of the government.
Unhappily the prosecuting officers of the Attorney-General's office had
drawn up their case badly, making their complaint the purchase, not the
resulting restraint. No direct evidence was presented to show that
interstate commerce in sugar and the control of the sugar business and
of prices were the chief objects of the combination. To the public it
seemed that the corporations were impregnable, for even the United
States government could not control them.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The early history of anti-trust agitation centers about Henry D. Lloyd.
His earliest article, "The Story of a Great Monopoly," is in _The
Atlantic Monthly_ (Mar., 1881); his classic account of trust abuses is
_Wealth against Commonwealth_ (1894); consult also C.A. Lloyd, _Henry
D. Lloyd_ (2 vols., 1912). Early and valuable articles in periodicals
are in _Political Science Quarterly_, 1888, pp. 78-98; 1889, pp.
296-319; W.Z. Ripley, _Trusts, Pools, and Corporations_ (rev. ed.,
1916), is useful; B.J. Hendrick, _Age of Big Business_ (1919), is
interesting and contains a bibliography. Ida M. Tarbell, _History of
the Standard Oil Company_ (2 vols., 1904), is carefully done and a
pioneer work. Other valuable accounts are: S.C.T. Dodd, _Trusts_
(1900), by a former Standard Oil attorney; Eliot Jones, _The Anthracite
Coal Combination in the United States_ (1914); J.W. Jenks, _Trust
Problem_ (1900), contains a summary of the economies of large scale
production; J.W. Jenks and W.E. Clark, _The Trust Problem_ (4th ed.,
1917), is scholarly and complete; J.D. Rockefeller, _Random
Reminiscences of Men and Events_ (1916), is a brief defence of the
Standard Oil Company; W.H. Taft, _Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court_
(1914), summarizes a few important decisions on the Sherman law. Edward
Bellamy, _Looking Backward_ (1888), describes an economic Utopia. Early
proposed anti-trust laws, together with the Congressional debates on
the subject are in _Senate Documents_, 57th Congress, 2nd session, vol.
14, No. 147 (Serial Number 4428). No complete historical study has yet
been made of the effects of industrial development, immediately after
the Civil War, on politics and the structure of American society.

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] Charles M. Schwab mentions an unusual example. Under the direction
of Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy steel magnate, he had a new mill
erected, which seemed likely to meet all the demands which would be
placed upon it. But in the process of building it Schwab had seen a
single way in which it could be improved. Carnegie at once gave orders
to have the mill taken down before being used at all, and rebuilt on
the improved plan.

[2] It was not until 1894 that Lloyd published _Wealth Against
Commonwealth_, but his pen had been busy constantly between 1881 and
1894.

[3] Cf. above, pp. 89-93, on Fourteenth Amendment.

[4] The authorship of the Sherman law has often been a source of
controversy. Senator John Sherman, as well as other members, introduced
anti-trust bills in the Senate in 1888. Senator Sherman's proposal was
later referred to the Judiciary Committee, of which he was not a
member. The Committee thoroughly revised it. Senator Hoar, who was on
the Committee, thought he remembered having written it word for word as
it was adopted. Recent investigation seems to prove that the senator's
recollection was faulty and that Edmunds wrote most of it, while Hoar,
Ingalls and George wrote a section each and Evarts part of a sentence.
If this is the fact, it seems most nearly accurate to say that Sherman
started the enterprise and that almost every member of the Judiciary
committee, especially Edmunds, shared in its completion.




CHAPTER XII


DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION

In view of the fact that Harrison had been successful in 1888 and that
Cleveland had been the most able Democratic leader since the Civil War,
it seemed natural that their parties should renominate them in 1892.
Yet the men at the oars in the Republican organization were far from
enthusiastic over their leader. It is probable that Harrison did not
like the role of dispenser of patronage and that he indicated the fact
in dealing with his party associates; at any rate, he estranged such
powerful leaders as Platt, Quay and Reed by his neglect of them in
disposing of appointments. The reformers were no better satisfied; much
had been expected of him because his party had taken so definite a
stand in 1888, and when his choice of subordinates failed to meet
expectations, the scorn of the Independents found forceful vent. Among
the rank and file of his party, Harrison had aroused respect but no
great enthusiasm.

The friends of Blaine were still numerous and active, and they wished
to see their favorite in the executive chair. Perhaps Blaine felt that
there would be some impropriety in his becoming an active candidate
against his chief, while remaining at his post as Secretary of State;
at any rate he notified the chairman of the National Republican
Committee, early in 1892, that he was not a candidate for the
nomination. The demand for him, nevertheless, continued and relations
between him and Harrison seem to have become strained. Senator Cullom,
writing nearly twenty years afterward, related a conversation which he
had had with Harrison at the time. In substance, according to the
senator, the President declared that he had been doing the work of the
Department of State himself for a year or more, and that Blaine had
given out reports of what was being done and had taken the credit
himself. Cullom's recollection seems to have been accurate, at least as
far as relations between the two men were concerned, for three days
before the meeting of the Republican nominating convention Blaine sent
a curt note to the President resigning his office without giving any
reason, and asking that his withdrawal take effect immediately. The
President's reply accepting the resignation was equally cool and
uninforming. If Blaine expected to take any steps to gain the
nomination, the available time was far too short. That the act would be
interpreted as hostile to the interests of Harrison, however, admitted
of no doubt, and it therefore seems probable that Blaine had changed
his mind at a late day and really hoped that the party might choose
him.[1]

Despite Blaine's apparent change of purpose, it seemed necessary to
renominate Harrison in order to avoid the appearance of discrediting
his administration, and on the first ballot Harrison received 535 votes
to Blaine's 183 and was nominated. The only approach to excitement was
over the currency plank in the platform. Western delegates demanded the
free coinage of silver, which the East opposed. The plank adopted
declared that

    The Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as
    standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions,
    to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of
    the parity of values of the two metals.

It was a meaningless compromise, but it seems to have satisfied both
sides.

Cleveland, during the Harrison administration, had been an object of
much interest and not a little speculation. After seeing President
Harrison safely installed in office, he went to New York city where he
engaged in the practice of law. He himself thought that he was retiring
permanently and not a few enemies were quite willing that this should
be the case. The eminent Democratic editor, Henry Watterson, remarked
that Cleveland in New York was like a stone thrown into a river, "There
is a 'plunk,' a splash, and then silence.". He was constantly invited,
nevertheless, to address public assemblies, which provided ample
opportunity for him to express his thoughts to the country. Moreover,
the McKinley Act of 1890 and the political reversal which followed
brought renewed attention to the tariff message of 1887 and to its
author. In February, 1891, Cleveland was asked to address a meeting of
New York business men which had been called by the Reform Club to
express opposition to the free coinage of silver. The question of the
increased use of silver as a circulating medium, as has been seen, was
a controverted one; neither party was prepared to take a definite
stand, and, indeed, division of opinion had taken place on sectional
rather than partisan lines. While the subject was in this unsettled
condition Cleveland received his invitation to the Reform Club, and was
urged by some of his advisors not to endanger his chances of
renomination by taking sides on the issue. The counsel had no more
effect than similar advice had produced in 1887 when the tariff was in
the same unsettled condition. Although unable to attend, Cleveland
wrote a letter in which he characterized the experiment of free coinage
as "dangerous and reckless." Whether right or wrong, he was definite;
people who could not understand the intricacies of currency standards
and the arguments of the experts understood exactly what Cleveland
meant. Little doubt now existed but that the name of the ex-president
would be a powerful one before the nominating convention, for he would
have the populous East with him on the currency issue--unless David B.
Hill should upset expectations.

Hill was an example of the shrewd politician. Like Platt, whom he
resembled in many ways, he was absorbed in the machinery and
organization of politics, rather than in issues and policies. Beginning
in 1870, when he was but twenty-seven years of age, he had held public
office almost continuously. In the state assembly, as Mayor of Elmira,
as Lieutenant-Governor with Cleveland and later as Governor, he
developed an unrivalled knowledge of New York as a political arena. In
1892 he was at the height of his power and the presidency seemed to be
within his grasp. The methods which he used were typical of the
man--the manipulation of the machinery of nomination.

The national Democratic nominating convention was called for June 21,
but the New York state Democratic committee announced that the state
convention for the choice of delegates would meet on February 22. So
early a meeting, four months before the national convention, was
unprecedented, and at once it became clear that a purpose lay behind
the call. It was to procure the election of members to the state
convention who would vote for Hill delegates to the nominating
convention, before Cleveland's supporters could organize in opposition.
Furthermore, it was expected that the action of New York would
influence other states where sentiment for Cleveland was not strong.
Hill's plan worked out as he had expected--at least in so far as the
state convention was concerned--for delegates pledged to him were
chosen. Cleveland's supporters, however, denounced the "snap
convention" and a factional quarrel arose between the "snappers" and
the "anti-snappers"; outside of New York it was so obvious that the
snap convention was a mere political trick that the Hill cause was
scarcely benefited by it. Delegates were chosen in other parts of the
country who desired the nomination of Cleveland.

The convention met in Chicago on June 21 and proceeded at once to adopt
a platform of principles. The silver plank was hardly distinguishable
from that of the Republicans, except that it was enshrouded with a
trifle more of ambiguity. The adoption of a tariff plank elicited
considerable difference of opinion, but the final result was an extreme
statement of Democratic belief. Instead of adopting the cautious
position taken in 1884, the convention declared that the constitutional
power of the federal government was limited to the collection of tariff
duties for purposes of revenue only, and denounced the McKinley act as
the "culminating atrocity of class legislation."

Although it was evident when the convention met, that the chances of
Hill for the nomination were slight indeed, the battle was far from
over. Hill was a "straight" party man, a fact which he reiterated again
and again in his famous remark, "I am a Democrat." Cleveland was not
strictly regular, a fact which Hill apparently intended to emphasize by
constant reference to his own beliefs. The oratorical champion of the
Hill delegation was Bourke Cockran, an able and appealing stump
speaker. For two hours he urged that Cleveland could not carry the
pivotal state, New York, and that it was folly to attempt to elect a
man who was so handicapped. Eloquence, however, was of no avail. The
first ballot showed that the Hill strength was practically confined to
New York, and Cleveland was easily the party choice. For the
vice-presidency Adlai E. Stevenson, a partisan of the old school, was
chosen.

Among the smaller parties there appeared for the first time the
"People's Party," later and better known as the "Populists." Their
nominee was James B. Weaver, who had led the Greenbackers in 1880.
Their platform emphasized the economic burdens under which the poorer
classes were laboring and listed a series of extremely definite
demands.

The campaign was a quiet one as both Cleveland and Harrison had been
tried out before. So unenthusiastic were the usual political leaders
that Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll declared that each party would like
to beat the other without electing its own candidates. Although the
financial issue was kept in the background, the tariff was fought out
again somewhat as it had been in 1888. The New York _Sun_ shed some
asperity over the contest by calling the friends of Cleveland "the
adorers of fat witted mediocrity," and the nominee himself as the
"perpetual candidate" and the "stuffed prophet"; and then added a ray
of humor by advocating the election of Cleveland. The adoption of the
Australian ballot, before the election, in thirty-four states and
territories constituted an important reform; thereafter it was
impossible for "blocks of five" to march to the polls and deposit their
ballots within the sight of the purchaser. The Homestead strike near
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, somewhat aided the Democrats. The Carnegie
Steel Company, having reduced wages, precipitated a strike which was
settled only through the use of the state militia. As the steel
industry was highly protected by the tariff, it appeared that the wages
of the laboring man were not so happily affected as Republican orators
had been asserting.[2]

The result of the election was astonishing. Cleveland carried not
merely the South but Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana,
Illinois, Wisconsin and California, while five of Michigan's fourteen
electoral votes and one of Ohio's twenty-three went to him. In the
last-named state, which had never gone against the Republicans, their
vote exceeded that of the Democrats by only 1,072. For the first time
since Buchanan's day, both Senate and House were to be Democratic. More
surprising and more significant for the future, was the strength of the
People's Party. Over a million ballots, twenty-two electoral votes, two
senators and eleven representatives were included among their trophies.
It was an important fact, moreover, that twenty-nine out of every
thirty votes cast for the People's Party were cast west of Pennsylvania
and south of Maryland. Something apparently was happening, in which the
East was not a sharer. The politician, particularly in the East, was
quite content to dismiss the Populists as "born-tired theorists,"
"quacks," "a clamoring brood of political rainmakers," and "stump
electricians," but the student of politics and history must appraise
the movement less provincially and with more information.

It was in the nature of things that the Populist movement should come
out of the West. From the days of Clay and Jackson the westerner had
been characterized by his self-confidence, his assertiveness and his
energy. He had possessed unlimited confidence in ordinary humanity,
been less inclined to heed authority and more ready to disregard
precedents and experience. He had expressed his ideals concretely, and
with vigor and assurance. He had broken an empire to the plow, suffered
severely from the buffetings of nature and had gradually worked out his
list of grievances. One or another of his complaints had been presented
before 1892 in the platforms of uninfluential third parties, but not
until that year did the dissenting movement reach large proportions.

It has already been seen that the people of the West were in revolt
against the management of the railroads. They saw roads going bankrupt,
to be sure, but the owners were making fortunes; they knew that lawyers
were being corrupted with free passes and the state legislatures
manipulated by lobbyists; and they believed that rates were
extortionate. The seizure and purchase of public land, sometimes
contrary to the letter of the law, more often contrary to its spirit,
was looked upon as an intolerable evil. Moreover, the westerner was in
debt. He had borrowed from the East to buy his farm and his machinery
and to make both ends meet in years when the crops failed. In 1889 it
was estimated that seventy-five per cent. of the farms of Dakota were
mortgaged to a total of $50,000,000. Boston and other cities had scores
of agencies for the negotiation of western farm loans; Philadelphia
alone was said to absorb $15,000,000 annually. The advantage to the
West, if conditions were right, is too manifest to need explanation.
But sometimes the over-optimistic farmer borrowed too heavily;
sometimes the rates demanded of the needy westerners were usurious;
often it seemed as if interest charges were like "a mammoth sponge,"
constantly absorbing the labor of the husbandman. The demand of the
West for a greater currency supply has already been seen, for it
appeared in the platforms of minor parties immediately after the Civil
War. Sometimes it seemed as if nature, also, had entered a conspiracy
to increase the hardships of the farmer. During the eighties a series
of rainy years in the more arid parts of the plains encouraged the idea
that the rain belt was moving westward, and farmers took up land beyond
the line where adequate moisture could be relied upon. Then came drier
years; the corn withered to dry stalks; farms were more heavily
mortgaged or even abandoned; and discontent in the West grew fast.

The complaints of the westerner naturally found expression in the
agricultural organizations which already existed in many parts of the
country. The Grange had attacked some of the farmer's problems, but
interest in it as a political agency had died out. The National
Farmers' Alliance of 1880 and the National Farmers' Alliance and
Industrial Union somewhat later were both preceded and followed by many
smaller societies. Altogether their combined membership began to mount
into the millions. When, therefore, the Alliances began to turn away
from the mere discussion of agricultural grievances and toward the
betterment of conditions by means of legislation, and when their
principles began to be taken up by discontented labor organizations, it
looked as if they might constitute a force to be reckoned with.

The remedies which the Alliances suggested for current ills were
definite. Fundamentally they believed that the government, state and
federal, could remedy the economic distresses of the people and that it
ought to do so. At the present day such a suggestion seems commonplace
enough, but in the eighties the dominant theory was individualism--each
man for himself and let economic law remedy injustices--and the
Alliance program seemed like dreaded "socialism." The counterpart of
the demand for larger governmental activity was a call for the greater
participation of the people in the operation of the machinery of
legislation. This lay back of the demand for the initiative, the
referendum, and the popular election of senators. Currency ills could
be remedied, the farmers believed, by a national currency which should
be issued by the federal government only--not by national banks. They
desired the free coinage of silver and gold until the amount in
circulation should reach fifty dollars per capita. Lesser
recommendations were for an income tax and postal savings banks. In
relation to the transportation system, they declared that "the time has
come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the
people must own the railroads." In order to prevent the waste of the
public land and to stop its being held for speculative purposes, they
urged that none be allowed to remain in the hands of aliens and that
all be taken away from the railroads and corporations which was in
excess of actual needs.

The power of the new movement first became evident in 1890 and
distinctly disturbed both the Republican and the Democratic leaders.
Determined to right their wrongs, the farmers deserted their parties in
thousands, flocked to conventions and crowded the country schoolhouses
for the discussion of methods and men. Perhaps it was true, as one of
their critics asserted, that they put a "gill of fact and grievance
into a gallon of falsehood and lurid declamation" so as to make an
"intoxicating mixture." If so, the mixture took immediate effect.
Alliance governors were elected in several southern states; many state
legislatures in the South and West had strong farmer delegations; and
several congressmen and senators were sent to Washington. Success in
1890 made the Alliances jubilant and they looked to the possibility of
a countrywide political organization and a share in the campaign of
1892. The first national convention was held in Omaha in July, 1892, at
which many of the farmers' organizations together with the Knights of
Labor and other groups were represented. The name "People's party" was
adopted, the principles just mentioned were set forth in a platform and
candidates nominated. In the ensuing election the party exhibited the
surprising strength which has been seen.

It has taken more time to describe the Populist movement than its
degree of success in 1892 would justify. But it deserves attention for
a variety of reasons. Its reform demands were important; it was a
striking indication of sectional economic interests; it gave evidence
of an effective participation in politics by the small farmers, the
mechanics and the less well-to-do professional people--the "middle
class," in a word; it was a long step toward an expansion of the
activities of the central government in the fields of economic and
social legislation; and finally it emphasized the significance of the
West, as a constructive force in American life. If the Populists should
capture one of the other parties or be captured by it, nobody could
foresee what the results would be on American political history.

The second administration of Grover Cleveland, from 1893 to 1897, was
the most important period of four years for half a century after the
Civil War. For twenty-five years after 1865 American politicians had
been sowing the wind. Issues had rarely been met man-fashion, in direct
combat; instead, they had been evaded, stated with skilful ambiguity,
or beclouded with ignorance and prejudice. Politics had been concerned
with the offices--the plunder of government. It could not be that the
whirlwind would never be reaped.

The situation in 1893 was one that might well have shaken the stoutest
heart. International difficulties were in sight that threatened unusual
dangers; labor troubles of unprecedented complexity and importance were
at hand; the question of the currency remained unsettled, the treasury
was in a critical condition, and an industrial panic had already begun.
Each of these difficulties will demand detailed discussion at a later
point.[3]

To no small degree, the settlement of the political and economic issues
before the country was complicated by the unmistakable drift toward
sectionalism, and by the particular characteristics of the President.
If the administration pressed a tariff reduction policy, it would
please the South and West but bring hostility in the East. The demands
of the West, so far as the Populists represented them, were for the
increased use of the powers of the federal government and the
application of those powers to social and economic problems; but the
party in power was traditionally attached to the doctrine of restricted
activity on the part of the central authority. The sectional aspects of
the silver question were notorious; and only the eastern Democrats
fully supported their leader in his stand on the issue.

The personal characteristics of President Cleveland have already
appeared.[4] He had a burdensome consciousness of his own individual
duty to conduct the business of his office with faithfulness; a
courageous sense of justice which impelled him to fight valiantly for a
cause that he deemed right, however unimportant or hopeless the cause
might be; a reformer's contempt for hypocrisy and shams, and a blunt
directness in freeing his mind about wrong of every kind. He had the
faults of his virtues, likewise. Sure of himself and of the right of
his position, he had the impatience of an unimaginative man with any
other point of view; he was intransigent, unyielding, rarely giving
way a step even to take two forward. It seems likely that his political
experience had accentuated this characteristic. For years he had thrown
aside the advice of his counsellors and had shown himself more nearly
right than they. As Mayor of Buffalo he had used the veto and had been
made Governor of the state; as Governor he had ruggedly made enemies
and had become President; as President he had flown in the face of
caution with his tariff message and his Reform Club letter and had
three times received a larger popular vote than his competitor. And
each time his plurality was greater than it had been before. If he
tended to become over-sure of himself, it should hardly occasion
surprise. Furthermore he looked upon the duties and possibilities of
the presidential office as fixed and stationary, rather than elastic
and developing. He was a strict constructionist and a rigid believer in
the checks and balances of the Constitution. Although constantly aware
of the needs and rights of the common people, such as composed the
Populist movement, his adherence to strict construction was so complete
that he was unable to advocate much of the federal legislation desired
by them. It was only with hesitation and constitutional doubts, for
example, that he had been able to sign even the Interstate Commerce
Act. In brief, then, the western demand for social and economic
legislation on a novel and unusual scale was to take its chances with
an honest, dogged believer in a restricted federal authority.

The experience of the administration with the patronage question
illustrates how much progress had been made in the direction of reform
since the beginning of Cleveland's first term in 1885. In the earlier
year it had required a bitter contest to make even the slightest
advance; in his second term he retained Roosevelt, a Republican
reformer, on the Commission and gradually extended the rules so as to
cover the government printing office, the internal revenue service, the
pension agencies, and messengers and other minor officials in the
departments in Washington. Finally on May 6, 1896, he approved an order
revising the rules, simplifying them and extending them to great
numbers of places not hitherto included, "the most valuable addition
ever made at one stroke to the competitive service." The net result was
that the number of positions in the classified service was more than
doubled between 1893 and 1897, making a total of 81,889 in a service of
somewhat over 200,000.[5] By the latter year the argument against
reform had largely been silenced. The dismal prediction of opponents
who had feared the establishment of an office-holding aristocracy had
turned out to have no foundation. Agreement was widespread that the
government service was greatly improved. There were still branches of
the service for the reformers to work upon but the great fight was over
and won.[6]

Although the Democrats came into power in 1893 largely on the tariff
issue, Cleveland felt that the most urgent need at the beginning of the
administration was the repeal of the part of the Sherman silver law
that provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver each
month. The financial and monetary aspects of this controversy demand
relation at another point.[7] Politically its results were important.
Western and southern Democrats, friendly to silver, fought bitterly
against the repeal, and became thoroughly hostile to Cleveland whom
they began to distrust as allied to the "money-power" of the East. At
the time, then, when the President was most in need of united partisan
support, he found his party crumbling into factions.

Other circumstances which have been mentioned combined to make the time
inauspicious for a revision of the tariff--the slight Democratic
majority in the Senate, the deficit caused by rising expenditure and
falling revenue, the imminent industrial panic and the prevailing labor
unrest. Nevertheless it seemed necessary to make the attempt. If the
results of the election of 1892 meant anything, they meant that the
Democrats were commissioned to revise the tariff.

The chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means was William L.
Wilson, a sincere and well-read tariff reformer who had been a lawyer
and a college president, in addition to taking a practical interest in
politics. The measure which he presented to the House on December 19,
1893, was not a radical proposal, but it provided for considerable
tariff reductions and a tax on incomes over $4,000. There was a slight
defection in party support, but it was unimportant because of the large
majority which the Democrats possessed, and the bill passed the House
without unusual difficulty.

In the Senate a different situation presented itself. The Democratic
majority over the Republicans, provided the Populists voted with the
former, was only nine; and in case the Populists became disaffected,
the Democrats could outvote the opposition only by the narrow margin of
three, even if every member remained with his party. Such a degree of
unanimity, in the face of prevailing conditions, was extremely
unlikely. The Louisiana senators were insistent upon protection for
their sugar; Maryland, West Virginia and Alabama senators looked out
for coal and iron ore; Senator Hill of New York was unalterably opposed
to an income tax; Senator Murphy, of the same state, obtained high
duties on linen collars and cuffs; and Senators Gorman and Brice were
ready to aid the opposition unless appeased by definite bits of
protection which they demanded. Many years later Senator Cullom, a
Republican, explained the practical basis on which the Senate
proceeded: "The truth is, we were all--Democrats as well as
Republicans--trying to get in amendments in the interest of protecting
the industries of our respective States."

The 634 changes made in the Senate were, therefore, mainly in the
direction of lessening the reductions made by the House. After the bill
had passed the Senate, it was put into the hands of a conference
committee, where further changes were made. At this stage of the
proceedings, Wilson read to the House a letter from the President
condemning the form which the bill had taken under Senate management,
and branding the abandonment of Democratic principles as an example of
"party perfidy and party dishonor." The communication had no effect
except to intensify differences within the party, and senators made it
evident that they would have their way or kill the measure. The House
thereupon capitulated and accepted what became known as the
Wilson-Gorman act--a law which was only less protectionist than the
McKinley act. The President, chagrined at the breakdown of the party
program, allowed the act to pass without his signature, but expressed
his mingled disappointment and disgust in a letter to Representative
T.C. Catchings:

    There are provisions in this bill which are not in line with honest
    tariff reform.... Besides, there were ... incidents accompanying the
    passage of the bill ... which made every sincere tariff reformer
    unhappy.... I take my place with the rank and file of the Democratic
    party ... who refuse to accept the results embodied in this bill as
    the close of the war, who are not blinded to the fact that the
    livery of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and worn in the
    service of Republican protection, and who have marked the places
    where the deadly blight of treason has blasted the counsels of the
    brave in their hour of might.

A few phases of the attempt at tariff reduction indicate the extent to
which political decay and especially Democratic demoralization had
gone. As it passed the House, the Wilson bill left both raw and refined
sugar on the free list. This was unsatisfactory to the Louisiana sugar
growers, who desired a protective duty on the raw product, and was
objected to by the Louisiana senators. On the other hand, the American
Sugar Refining Company, usually known as the "Sugar Trust," desired
free raw materials but sought protective duties on refined sugar. In
the Senate, a duty was placed on raw sugar, partly for revenue and
partly to satisfy the Louisiana senators. On refined sugar, rates were
fixed which were eminently satisfactory to the Trust. Rumors at once
began to be spread broadcast over the country that the sugar interests
had manipulated the Senate. The people were the more ready to believe
charges of this sort because of experience with previous tariff
legislation and because the Sugar Trust had been one of the earliest
and most feared of the monopolies which had already caused so much
uneasiness. A Senate committee was appointed, composed of two
Democrats, two Republicans and a Populist, to investigate these and
other rumors. Their report, which was agreed to by all the members,
made public a depressing story. It appeared that one lobbyist had
offered large sums of money for votes against the tariff bill on
account of the income tax provision. Henry O. Havermeyer, president of
the American Sugar Refining Company, testified that the company was in
the habit of contributing to the campaign funds of one political party
or the other in the states, depending on which party was in the
ascendancy; that these contributions were carried on the books as
expense; and that they were given because the party in power "could
give us the protection we should have." Further, one or more officers
of the company were in Washington during the entire time when the
tariff act was pending in the Senate and had conferred with senators
and committees. Senator Quay testified that he had bought and sold
sugar stocks while the Senate was engaged in fixing the schedules and
added: "I do not feel that there is anything in my connection with the
Senate to interfere with my buying or selling the stock when I please;
and I propose to do so." Finally the committee summarized the results
of its investigation, taking the occasion to

    strongly deprecate the importunity and pressure to which Congress
    and its members are subjected by the representatives of great
    industrial combinations, whose enormous wealth tends to suggest
    undue influence, and to create in the public mind a demoralizing
    belief in the existence of corrupt practices.

Yet one more drop remained to fill the cup of Democratic humiliation to
overflowing. The constitutionality of the income tax had been assumed
to have been settled by previous decisions of the Supreme Court,
especially that in the case Springer _v._ United States, which had been
decided in 1880, and in which the Court had upheld the law. The new tax
was brought before the Court in 1894, in Pollock _v._ Farmers' Loan and
Trust Company. The argument against the tax was pressed with great
vigor, not merely on constitutional grounds, but for evident social and
economic reasons. Important financial interests engaged powerful legal
talent and it became clear that the question to be settled was as much
a class and sectional controversy as a constitutional problem. Counsel
urged the Court that the tax scattered to the winds the fundamental
principles of the rights of private property. Justice Field, deciding
against the tax, declared it an "assault upon capital" and a step
toward a war of the poor against the rich. There was fear among some
that the exemption of the smaller incomes might result in placing the
entire burden of taxation on the wealthy. Justice Field, for example,
felt that taxing persons whose income was $4,000 and exempting those
whose income was less than that amount was like taxing Protestants, as
a class, at one rate and Catholics at another. The sectional aspects of
the controversy were brought out in objections that the bulk of the tax
would fall on the Northeast. The most important point involved was the
meaning of the word "direct" as used in the Constitution in the phrase
"direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States ... according
to their respective Numbers." If an income tax is a direct tax, it must
be apportioned among the states according to population. Unhappily the
framers of the Constitution were not clear as to what they meant by
the word direct, and specifically they could not have told whether an
income tax was direct or not, because no such tax existed in England
or America at that time. Hence the Supreme Court was placed in the
awkward position of defining a word which the framers themselves could
not define, although the uniform practice hitherto had been to regard
the income tax as indirect and therefore constitutional, even if not
apportioned according to population.

The Pollock case was heard twice. The result of the first trial was
inconclusive and on the central point the Court divided four to four.
After a rehearing, Justice Jackson, who had been ill and not present at
the first trial, gave his vote in favor of constitutionality, but in
the meantime another justice had changed his opinion and voted against
it. By the narrow margin of five to four, then, and under such
circumstances, the income tax provision of the Wilson-Gorman act was
declared null and void. Probably no decision since the Dred Scott case,
with the single exception of the Legal Tender cases, has put the
Supreme Court in so unfortunate a light. Certainly in none has it
seemed more swayed by class prejudice, and so insecure and vacillating
in its opinion.

Before the question regarding the constitutionality of the income tax
was settled, the Democrats reaped the political results of the
Wilson-Gorman tariff act. The law went into force on August 27, 1894;
the congressional elections came in November. The Democrats were almost
utterly swept out of the House, except for those from the southern
states, their number being reduced from 235 to 105. Reed was replaced
in the speaker's chair; tariff reform had turned out to be
indistinguishable from protection; and the Democracy, after its only
opportunity since 1861 to try its hand at government, was demoralized,
discredited, and in opposition again.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The election of 1892 is described in the standard histories of the
period, and especially well in Peck.

The rise and growth of the Populist movement resulted in a considerable
literature of which the following are best: S.J. Buck, _The Agrarian
Crusade_ (1920), is founded on wide knowledge of the subject and
contains bibliography; F.J. Turner in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (Sept.,
1896), gives a brief but keen account; other articles in periodicals
are F.E. Haynes, in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269, W.F.
Mappin, in _Political Science Quarterly_, IV, 433, and F.B. Tracy, in
_Forum_, XVI, 240; F.E. Haynes, _Third Party Movements_ (1916), is
detailed; M.S. Wildman, _Money Inflation in the United States_ (1905),
presents the psychological and economic basis of inflation; J.A.
Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_ (1914); F.L. Paxson,
_New Nation_ (1915).

Cleveland's administration is well discussed by D.R. Dewey, _National
Problems_ (1907), and by H.T. Peck, who also presents an unusual
analysis of Cleveland in _The Personal Equation_ (1898). The income tax
is best handled by E.R.A. Seligman, _The Income Tax_ (1914).
Cleveland's own account of the chief difficulties of the administration
are in his _Presidential Problems_.

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] Blaine died on Jan. 27, 1893.

[2] Below, p. 320, for an account of the strike as an industrial
dispute.

[3] Below, Chaps. XIII, XIV, XV.

[4] Above, Chap. VIII.

[5] The sweeping reform order of Cleveland late in his second term
illustrated the most common and effective method of making advance.
Late in his administration the President adds to the classified
service; his successor withdraws part of the additions, but more than
makes up at the end of his term,--a sort of two steps forward and one
backward process.

[6] Cleveland's second cabinet was composed of the following: W.Q.
Gresham, Ill., Secretary of State; J.G. Carlisle, Ky., Secretary of
the Treasury; D.S. Lamont, N.Y., Secretary of War; R. Olney, Mass.,
Attorney-General; W.S. Bissell, N.Y., Postmaster-General; H.A. Herbert,
Ala., Secretary of the Navy; Hoke Smith, Ga., Secretary of the
Interior; J.S. Morton, Neb., Secretary of Agriculture.

[7] Below, pp. 336-340.




CHAPTER XIII


THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY

After the international issues arising from the Civil War were settled,
and before foreign relations began to become more important late in the
nineties, our diplomatic history showed the same lack of definiteness
and continuity that stamped the history of politics during the same
years. Eleven different men held the post of Secretary of State during
the thirty-four years from 1865 to 1898, one of them, Blaine, serving
at two separate times. The political situation in Washington changed
frequently, few men of outstanding capacity as diplomatists were in the
cabinets, and most of the problems which arose were not such as would
excite the interest of great international minds. That any degree of
unity in our foreign relations was attained is due in part to the
continuous service of such men as A.A. Adee, who was connected with the
state department from 1878, and Professor John Bassett Moore, long in
the department and frequently available as a counselor.[1]

Even before the Civil War, Americans had been interested in the affairs
of the nations whose shores were touched by the Pacific Ocean.
Missionaries and traders had long visited China and Japan. During the
years when the transcontinental railroads were built, as has been seen,
the construction companies looked to China for a labor supply, and
there followed a stream of Chinese immigrants who were the cause of
a difficult international problem. Our relations with Japan were
extremely friendly. Until the middle of the nineteenth century the
Japanese had been almost completely cut off from the remainder of the
world, desiring neither to give to the rest of humanity nor to take
from them. In 1854 Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States
Navy had succeeded in obtaining permission for American ships to take
coal and provisions at two Japanese ports. Townsend Harris shortly
afterwards had been appointed consul-general to Japan and his knowledge
of the East and his tactful diplomacy had procured increased trade
rights and other privileges. In 1863 a Japanese prince had sought to
close the strait of Shimonoseki which connects the inland sea of Japan
with the outside ocean. American, French and Dutch vessels had been
fired upon, and eventually an international expedition had been sent to
open the strait by force. Seventeen ships of war had quickly brought
the prince to terms. An indemnity had been demanded, of which the
United States had received a share. The fund remained in the treasury
untouched until 1883 when it was returned to Japan. The latter received
the refund as "a strong manifestation of that spirit of justice and
equity which has always animated the United States in its relations
with Japan."

The purchase of Alaska in 1867, stretched a long, curved finger out
towards the Asiatic coast, but there was little interest in the new
acquisition and no knowledge of its size or resources.[2]

The first tangible and permanent indication that the United States
might extend its interests into the sphere of the Pacific Ocean
appeared as early as 1872, when an arrangement with a Samoan chief gave
us the right to use the harbor of Pagopago on the island of Tutuila.
Tutuila is far from American shores, being below the equator on the
under side of the world, but the harbor of Pagopago is an unusually
good one and its relation to the extension of American commerce in the
South Pacific was readily seen. Not long afterward, similar trading
privileges were granted to Germany and Great Britain. Conditions in the
islands had by no means been peaceful even before the advent of the
foreigners with their intrigues and jealousies, and in 1885 the
Germans, taking advantage of a native rebellion, hauled down the Samoan
flag on the government building in Apia and seemed about to take
control. In the following year, at the request of the Samoan king, the
American consul Greenebaum proclaimed a protectorate and hoisted the
United States flag. The act was unauthorized and was disavowed at once
by the government at Washington. In the hope of establishing order in
the islands, Bayard, Secretary of State in President Cleveland's first
administration, suggested a triple conference of Germany, Great Britain
and the United States in Washington. During a recess in the conference
a native rebellion overturned the Samoan government and Germany assumed
virtual control. While civil war raged among native factions, the
Germans landed armed forces for the protection of their interests. The
American and British governments, fearful of danger to their rights,
already had war vessels in the harbor of Apia and armed conflict seemed
almost inevitable when a sudden hurricane on March 16, 1889, destroyed
all the vessels except one. The _Calliope_, (English), steamed out to
sea in the teeth of the great storm and escaped in safety. In the face
of such a catastrophe all smaller ills were forgotten and peace reigned
for the moment in Samoa.

Meanwhile, just as Cleveland was retiring from office for the first
time, another conference of the three powers was arranged which
provided a somewhat complicated triple protectorate. After a few years
of quiet, another native insurrection called attention to the islands.
Cleveland was again in the presidential chair, and in a message to
Congress he expressed his belief that the United States had made a
mistake in departing from its century-old policy of avoiding entangling
alliances with foreign powers. A year later he returned to the subject
more earnestly than ever. A report from the Secretary of State
presented the history of our Samoan relations and ventured a judgment
that the only fruits which had fallen to the United States were
expense, responsibility and entanglement. The President thereupon
invited an expression of opinion from Congress on the advisability of
withdrawing from our engagements with the other powers. For the time
nothing came of Cleveland's recommendation, but the continuance of
native quarrels later necessitated another commission to the islands.
The American member reported that the harbor of Apia was full of war
vessels and the region about covered with armed men, but that "not the
sail or smoke of a single vessel of commerce was to be seen there or
about the coasts of these beautiful islands." In 1899, the triple
protectorate was abandoned, as it had complicated the task of governing
the islands. The United States received Tutuila with the harbor of
Pagopago, Germany took the remainder of the group, and England retired
altogether. The trend of Samoan relations was significant: our
connection with the islands began with the desire to possess a coaling
station; the possession first resulted in entanglements with other
nations, and later in the question whether we ought not to withdraw;
and eventually we withdrew from some of the responsibilities, but not
from all. Despite its traditional policy of not contracting entangling
alliances, the United States was in the Pacific to stay.

When Cleveland came into power the first time, he found a long-standing
disagreement with Canada over the fisheries of the northeastern coast.
An arrangement which had resulted from the Treaty of Washington in 1871
came to an end in 1885, and the rights of American fishermen in
Canadian waters then rested upon a treaty of 1818. This treaty was
inadequate owing to various changes which had taken place during the
nearly seventy years that had elapsed since it was drawn up. Several
difficulties lay in the way of the arrangement of a new treaty, an
important one being the readiness of the Republican Senate to embarrass
the President and thus discredit his administration. Matters came to a
critical point in 1886 when Canadian officials seized two American
vessels engaged in deep-sea fishing. Cleveland then arranged a treaty
which provided for reciprocal favors, and when the Senate withheld its
assent the administration made a temporary agreement, (_modus
vivendi_), under which American ships were allowed to purchase bait and
supplies and to use Canadian bays and harbors by paying a license
fee.[3]

The peculiar geographical configuration of Alaska was, meanwhile,
bringing the United States into another diplomatic controversy. An arm
or peninsula of the possession extends far out into the Pacific and is
continued by the Aleutian Islands, which resemble a series of
stepping-stones reaching toward Siberia.[4] The Bering Sea is almost
enclosed by Alaska and the Islands. Within the Sea and particularly on
the islands of St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof group, large
numbers of seals gathered during the spring and summer to rear their
young. In the autumn the herds migrated to the south, passing out
through the narrow straits between the members of the Aleutian group,
and were particularly open to attack at these points. As early as 1870
the United States government leased the privilege of hunting fur seals
on St. Paul and St. George to the Alaska Commercial Company, but the
business was so attractive that vessels came to the Aleutian straits
from many parts of the Pacific, and it looked as if the United States
must choose between the annihilation of the herds and the adoption of
some means for protecting them. The revenue service thereupon began the
seizure in 1886 of British sealing vessels, taking three in that year
and six during the next. The British government protested against the
seizures on the ground that they had taken place more than three miles
from shore--three miles being the limit to the jurisdiction of any
nation, according to international law. The Alaskan Court which upheld
the seizures justified itself by the claim that the whole Bering Sea
was part of the territory of Alaska and thus was comparable to a harbor
or closed sea (_mare clausum_), but Secretary Blaine disavowed this
contention. The United States then requested the governments of several
European countries, together with Japan, to cooperate for the better
protection of the fisheries, but no results were reached.

Continuance of the seizures in 1889 brought renewed protests from Lord
Salisbury, who was in charge of foreign affairs. Blaine retorted that
the destruction of the herds was _contra bonos mores_ and that it was
no more defensible even outside the three mile limit than destructive
fishing on the banks of Newfoundland by the explosion of dynamite would
be. Lord Salisbury replied that fur seals were wild animals, _ferae
naturae_, and not the property of any individual until captured. An
extended diplomatic correspondence ensued, which resulted in a treaty
of arbitration in 1892.[5]

A tribunal of seven arbitrators was established, two appointed by the
Queen of England, two by the President, and one each by the rulers of
France, Italy and Sweden and Norway, the last two being under one
sovereign at that time. Several questions were submitted to the
tribunal. What exclusive rights does the United States have in the
Bering Sea? What right of protection or property does the United States
have in the seals frequenting the islands in the Sea? If the United
States has no exclusive rights over the seals, what steps ought to be
taken to protect them? Great Britain also presented to the arbitrators
the question whether the seizures of seal-hunting ships had been made
under the authority of the government of the United States.

The decisions were uniformly against the American contention. It was
decided that our jurisdiction in the Bering Sea did not extend beyond
the three mile limit and that therefore the United States had no right
of protection or property in the seals. A set of regulations for the
protection of the herds was also drawn up. Another negotiation resulted
in the payment of $473,000 damages by the United States for the illegal
seizures of British sealers.[6]

Relations with the Latin American countries south of the Mexican border
had been unstable since the Mexican War, an unhappy controversy that
left an ineradicable prejudice against us. John Quincy Adams and Henry
Clay had hoped for a friendly union of the nations of North and South
America, led by the United States, but this ideal had turned out to
have no more substance than a vision. Moreover, the increasing trade
activity of Great Britain and later of Germany had made a commercial
bond of connection between South America and Europe which was, perhaps,
stronger than that which the United States had established. Yet some
progress was made. Disputes between European governments and the
governments of Latin American countries were frequently referred to the
United States for arbitration. An old claim of some British subjects,
for example, against Colombia was submitted for settlement in 1872 to
commissioners of whom the United States minister at Bogota was the most
important. The problem was studied with great care and the award was
satisfactory to both sides. In 1876 a territorial dispute between
Argentina and Paraguay was referred to the President of the United
States. In the case of a boundary controversy between Costa Rica and
Nicaragua, President Cleveland appointed an arbitrator; Argentina and
Brazil presented a similar problem which received the attention of
Presidents Harrison and Cleveland.

It fell to James. G. Blaine to revive the idea of a Pan-American
conference which had been first conceived by Adams and Clay. As a
diplomat, Blaine was possessed of outstanding patriotism and
enthusiastic imagination, even if not of vast technical capacity or of
an international mind. As Secretary of State under President Garfield
in 1881 he invited the Latin American countries to share with the
United States in a conference for the discussion of arbitration. The
early death of Garfield and the ensuing change in the state department
resulted in the abandonment of the project for the time being. Blaine,
however, and other interested persons continued to press the plan and
in 1888 Congress authorized the President to invite the governments of
the Latin American countries to send delegates to a conference to be
held in Washington in the following year. By that time President
Harrison was in power. Blaine was again Secretary of State and was
chosen president of the conference. Among the subjects for discussion
were the preservation of peace, the creation of a customs union,
uniform systems of weights, measures and coinage, and the promotion of
frequent inter-communication among the American states. Little was
accomplished, beyond a few recommendations, except the establishment of
the International Bureau of American Republics. This was to have no
governmental power, but was to be supported by the various nations
concerned and was to collect and disseminate information about their
laws, products and customs. The Bureau has become permanent under the
name Pan American Union and is a factor in the preservation of friendly
relations among the American republics. The reciprocity measure which
Blaine pressed upon Congress during the pendency of the McKinley tariff
bill was designed partly to further Pan-American intercourse.

In the case of a disagreement with Chile, Blaine was less successful. A
revolution against the Chilean President, Balmaceda, resulted in the
triumph of the insurgents in 1891. The American minister to Chile was
Patrick Egan, an Irish agitator who sympathized with President
Balmaceda against the revolutionists and who was _persona non grata_ to
the strong English and German colonies there. While Chilean affairs
were in this strained condition, the revolutionists sent a vessel, the
_Itata_, to San Diego in California for military supplies, and American
authorities seized it for violating the neutrality laws. While the
vessel was in the hands of our officers, the Chileans took control of
it and made their escape. The cruiser _Charleston_ was sent in pursuit
and thereupon the revolutionists surrendered the _Itata_. Not long
afterward, however, a United States Court decided that the pursuit had
been without justification under international law and ordered the
release of the _Itata_. The result was that the United States seemed to
have been over-ready to take sides against the revolutionists, and the
latter became increasingly hostile to Americans.

Relations finally broke under the strain of a street quarrel in the
city of Valparaiso in the fall of 1891. A number of sailors from the
United States ship _Baltimore_ were on shore leave and fell in with
some Chilean sailors in a saloon. A quarrel resulted--just how it
originated and just who was the aggressor could not be determined--but
at any rate the Americans were outnumbered and one was killed. The
administration pressed the case with vigor, declining to look upon the
incident as a sailors' brawl and considering it a hostile attack upon
the wearers of an American uniform. For a time the outbreak of war was
considered likely, but eventually Chile yielded, apologized for its
acts and made a financial return for the victims of the riot. Later
students of Chilean relations have not praised Egan as minister or
Blaine's conduct of the negotiations, but it is fair to note that the
Chileans were prejudiced against the American Secretary of State
because of an earlier controversy in which he had sided against them,
and that the affair was complicated by the presence of powerful
European colonies and by the passions which the revolution had aroused.

Blaine was compelled to face another embarrassing situation in dealing
with Italy in 1891-1892. In October, 1890, the chief of police of New
Orleans, D.C. Hennessy, had been murdered and circumstances indicated
that the deed had been committed by members of an Italian secret
society called the Mafia. A number of Italians were arrested, of whom
three were acquitted, five were held for trial and three were to be
tried a second time. One morning a mob of citizens, believing that
there had been a miscarriage of justice, seized the eleven and killed
all of them. The Italian government immediately demanded protection for
Italians in New Orleans, as well as punishment of the persons concerned
in the attack, and later somewhat impatiently demanded federal
assurance that the guilty parties would be brought to trial and an
acknowledgment that an indemnity was due to the relatives of the
victims of the mob. Failing to obtain these guarantees, the Italian
government withdrew its minister. When a grand jury in New Orleans
investigated the affair it excused the participants and none of them
was brought to trial.

The government at Washington was hampered by the fact that judicial
action in such a case lies with the individual state under our form of
government, whereas diplomatic action is of course entirely federal. If
the states are tardy or derelict in action, the national government is
almost helpless. President Harrison urged Congress to make offenses
against the treaty rights of foreigners cognizable in the federal
courts, but this was never done. Diplomatic activity, however, brought
better results, and an expression of regret on the part of the United
States, together with the payment of an indemnity of $24,000 closed the
incident.

Among the many troublesome questions that faced President Cleveland
when he entered upon the Presidency in 1893 for the second time, the
status of the Hawaiian Islands was important. Since the development of
the Pacific Coast of the United States in the forties and fifties,
there had been a growing trade between the islands and this country.
Reciprocity and even annexation had been projected. In 1875 a
reciprocity arrangement was consummated, a part of which was a
stipulation that none of the territory of Hawaii should be leased or
disposed of to any other power. In this way a suggestion was made of
ultimate annexation. Moreover the commercial results of the treaty were
such as to make a friendly connection with the United States a matter
of moment to Hawaii. The value of Hawaiian exports had increased,
government revenues enlarged, and many public improvements had been
made. In 1884 the grant of Pearl Harbor to the United States as a naval
station made still another bond of connection between the islands and
their big neighbor.

The King of Hawaii during this period of prosperity was Kalakaua.
During a visit to the United States, and later during a tour of the
world he was royally received, whereupon he returned to his island
kingdom with expanded theories of the position which a king should
occupy. Unhappily he dwelt more on the pleasures which a king might
enjoy than upon the obligations of a ruler to his people. At his death
in 1891 Princess Liliuokalani became Queen and at once gave evidence of
a disposition to rule autocratically. Because of her attempts to revise
the Hawaiian system of government so as to increase the power of the
crown, the more influential citizens assembled, appointed a committee
of public safety and organized for resistance. On January 17, 1893, the
revolutionary elements gathered, proclaimed the end of the monarchical
regime and established a provisional government under the leadership of
Judge S.B. Dole. The new authorities immediately proposed annexation to
the United States and a treaty was promptly drawn up in accord with
President Harrison's wishes, and presented to the Senate. At this point
the Harrison administration ended and Cleveland became President.

Cleveland immediately withdrew the treaty for examination and sent
James H. Blount to the islands to investigate the relation of American
officials to the recent revolution. The appointment of Blount was made
without the advice and consent of the Senate and was denounced by the
President's enemies, although such special missions have been more or
less common since the beginning of our hist