Chapter 21: The Gilded Age Politics and Agrarian Revolt

Paradoxical Politics

• Guilded Age: 35 years between the end of the Civil War and the end of the 19th century

• “Rings” small groups of powerful political insiders who managed the nominations and elections of candidates, conducted primaries, and influenced policy

• “Boss”

• Each ring has one

• Ran things using his “machine”

• Organized loyal neighborhood voters into wards or precincts

• Staged torchlight election parades

• Mediated disputes, helped the needy, and distributed patronage

• “Machine”

• A network of neighborhood activists or officials

• Governs the town or city

• Patronage: municipal jobs and contracts

• Elements of the Gilded Age Politics

• 1. National political parties during the Gilded Age  were much more dominant forces than they are today

• 2. Close divisions between Republicans and Democrats in congress → sense of a stalemate

• 3. Voters thought politics was very important → widespread political participation

• Democrats

• Party of white supremacy and state rights

• Heterogeneous

• Southern whites, northern immigrants, Roman Catholics, Jews, free thinkers, and those repelled by the “party of morality”

• Republicans

• “Waved the bloody shirt” (remind of democrat secession)

• Lincoln and Grant

• Blacks and Union veterans

• Nativist policies

• Nativist Policies

• Restrictions on immigration and the employment of foreigners

• Prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages

• Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU): Carry Nation - fiesty and militant member → attacked saloons, “Her husband is torn from her, she is robbed of her sons, her home, her food, and her virtue”

• 1872 - 1896 Presidential elections

• No one won a majority of the popular votes

• New York and Ohio- swing states

• (1881-1883 and 1889-1891) Republicans coincide with Republican congress

• (1893 and 1895) Democratic majority

• Currency regulations of big businesses, farm problems, civil service reform, and immigration - parties differed a little

• Vehicles for seeking office and dispensing patronage via government jobs

• Federal vs Local government

• Local government helped the people more

• 40% of taxes/spending was federal

• Local government realizes a need to control big businesses

Corruption and Reform: Hayes to Harrison

• “Spoils” the appointive political positions at the local and national levels

• Stalwarts

• Haye’s own party (Republican) was split between Stalwarts and Half-breeds

• Loyal to their support to President Grant

• Radical Reconstruction of the South

• Benefitted from the spoil system by distributing federal political jobs to party loyalists

• Senator R. Conkling

• Half-Breeds

• ½ loyal to Grant and ½ committed to the spoils system

• J. G. Blaine

• “Merit system”

• For hiring government employees

• Civil service jobs were filled by competitive written test rather than awarded as political favors

• Haye’s Presidency

• Conservative line

• Send troops to break strikes

• Vetoes the 1878 Bland-Allison Act (limited increase in the supply for silver coins)

• One term

• Ready to end presidency

• James A. Garfield

• Republican

• Native to Ohio

• Early foe of slavery

• Retired as Army major general

• Congress 1863

• Confirmed the Republicans had ended efforts to reconstruct the south and stamp out racism

• “Black on their own guardianship”

• (4 July 1881) shot by Charles Guiteau

• (9 Sept) dies

• Chester A. Arthur

• Vice President of Garfield → President post-Garfield (Republican)

• Head of New York customhouse

• Competent president

• Distance himself from Stalwarts and established a genuine independence

• Civil service and tariff reformer

• Winfield Scott Hancock

• Democrat

• Union general

• Counterbalance the Republican’s “Bloody shirt”

• Charles Guiteau

• Deranged man who got turned down for a federal job

• Shot Garfield

• pro-Arthur and Stalwart

• Believed God ordered him to kill the president

• Jury refused to believe he was insane

• Charged for murder

• (30 June 1882) hanged

• Autopsy revealed his brain was diseased

• Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act

• (1883) sponsored by “Gentleman George” H. Pendleton (Democratic Senator - Ohio)

• Government administration that valued merit over partisanship

• James Gillespie Blaine

• Maine

• Leader of the Republican Half-breeds

• Senator from Maine

• Orator

• Knew how to wheel and dual → sometimes evading the law

• Newspapers posted of corruption

• Railroad barons

• Party leaders decide not to endorse Blaine

• Dinner with big wigs

• Insulted Catholics

• Mugwumps

• anti-Blaine republicans

• Called by the editor of the New York Sun

• Algonquian Indian's word for self-important chieftain

• Self-conscious political elite dedicated to promoting the public welfare

• Large cities and major universities in the Northeast

• Opposed tariffs and championed free trade

• Opposed railroad regulations and coinage of silver to inflate money

• Writers and educators

• Mark Twain

• Grover Cleveland

• New York

• Minister’s son

• Reform candidate

• (1881) anti-corruption mayor of Buffalo

• (1882) governor of New York

• Fought New York’s Tammany Hall ring

• Vetoes bill for selfish interests

• Supported civil service reform and opposed expanding money supply

• Free trade → high tariffs

• Stocky 270lb man

• Little charisma and stubborn integrity

• Democrat

• Election of 1884

• Cleveland - 219 and 30,000 more votes

• Blaine - 182

• Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railroad Companies v Illinois

• States adopt laws regulating railroads, but in 1886, justices denied state rights to regulate interstate charges

• Cleveland urges congress to regulate rail industry

• Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

• 1887

• Five members help ensure freight prices are reasonable and just

• Weak

• Tariff arguments during Cleveland’s first presidency

• “Tariff help big businesses over people”

• Cleveland argued to lower tariffs

• Grand Old Party (GOP)

• Republican Party

• Emphasizing their longevity

• Benjamin Harrison

• His ability

• Indiana

• GOP nominee

• Good war record

• Carried the electoral college 233 to 168

• Wins presidency (1888)

• Dependant Pension Act

• Pension for Union Civil War Veterans

• Veterans getting pensions doubled between 1889-1893

• Sherman Anti-trust Act

• Named for Senator John Sherman (Ohio)

• Prohibited companies from conspiring to establish monopolies

• Greenback Party

• Signified the money issue

• Money wasn’t flexible and caused money to go down while goods inflated

• “Crime of ‘73”: farmers that advocated currency inflation accused the stop of silver coining as a means to suppress their status

• Role of silver: more silver = more greenbacks are worth

• McKinley Tariff Act of 1890

• William McKinley (Ohio)

• Raised duties on foreign manufactured goods ⇒ encouraged businesses to charge more

• Foreign competition diminished

• Caused a democratic majority in the senate

• McKinley also has a casualty during his election

The Farm Problem and Agrarian Protest Movements

• Populist

• Addressing the needs of small farmers

• Took 5 republican congressional seats

• Populists and democrats controlled congress as farmers' debt ↑ and crop prices ↓

• Economic problems of farmers: long decline in commodity prices caused by overproduction and international competition

• Enemies of farmers

• Railroads

• Food processors

• High tariffs

• Debt

• National Grande of Patrons of Husbandry (Grange)

• Started as a social and educational response to the farmer’s isolation → promoting buying and selling

• Free themselves from the high fees

• Regulate the rates charged by railroads and warehouses

• Munn v Illinois

• 1877

• Warehouse regulation, state has powers to regulate property that was clothed in a public interest

• “The people must resort to the polls, not the court”

• Rise and Fall of the Grange Movement: membership declined as members directed their energies into farm cooperatives and political action

• Greenback party

• Aka the Independent National Party

• Emphasis on the virtues of paper money

• Farmers Alliance

• Organized social and recreational activities, but also emphasized political action

• Addressing the hardship from indebtedness, declining crop prices, and droughts

• Largest and most dynamic farmer’s movement in history

• (1890) 1.5 million

• Colored Farmers National Alliance

• White minister in Texas organized this

• Economic justice, not social equality

• (1890) over 1 million

• “The farm problem”

• Crop price ↓

• Indebtedness

• Railroad prices ↑

• Bankers and creditors, wall street financiers, railroads, and corporate giants = tyrannical forces

• Independent Party

• Colorado 1890

• Formed by radicals, miners, and railroad workers

• People’s Independent Party: Nebraska Farmers

• Populist Party (People’s party)

• Kansas

• Claimed to represent small farmers and wage laborers

• Blacks and poor whites

• Against greedy banks, railroad, corporate monopolies, and corrupt politicians

• Mary Elizabeth Lease

• Fiery speaker

• Pennsylvania → Kansas

• Taught school

• Raised a family

• Failed at farming

• Studied law

• State attorney

• Public speaking- freedom for Ireland, temperance, and women’s suffrage

• Alliance member and KOL

• Pro-silver coining

• Tall, proud, and imposing

• Urban, industrial east = enemy

• Populist Convention of 1892

• Subtreasury plan, unlimited coinage of silver

• Income tax rates and deferral control over railroads

• Government to claim railroad and other excess land

• Forbid land ownership by non-citizen immigrants

• 8 hours work day

• Restriction of immigrants

• James B. Weaver

• Iowa

• Able and prudent

• Carried the stigma of his defeat on the Greenback ticket

• Populist nominee

• Union General

• Vice president for a former confederate

• Over 1 million votes and 22 electoral votes

The Economy and the Silver Solution

• Depression of 1893

• (Winter of 1893) Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad declare bankruptcy

• Worst depression

• over extended railroads collapsed taking banks with them

• 25% of unskilled workers lost their jobs

• (fall of 1893) 600 banks closed and 15,000 businesses failed

• Farm closure soared

• 15 Kansas counties 75% of people lost their farms

• ⅓ of farmers were tenants

• Lasted 4 years

• 20% unemployment

• New York - 35% unemployment and 20,000 homeless people

• Gold standard

• Cleveland's response

• Repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890

• Situation worsened

• Less money in circulation

• Investors exchange silver for gold

• Silverites

• Western states

• Reshaped politics

• Populists lured silverites

• Wanted unlimited coinage of silver

• Election of 1896

• Most dramatic election

• Populists disintegrate after endorsing Bryan 

• McKinley wins

• William McKinley

• Republican

• Gold-standard

• Farmer, congressman, and governor of Ohio

• Mainstream values

• Republican Platform

• McKinley

• “Front-porch” campaign

• Prepared responses

• Raised vast sums of money

• Army of republican speakers who travelled the country

• “Money question”: currency silver vs gold

• William Jennings Bryan

• 36 years old 

• Pro-silver

• Democrat (and populist)

• Nebraska

• 2 term congressman

• Unlimited coinage of silver and against Cleveland’s “do nothing” response

• Champion the poor

• Good speaker, “dark horse”

• Cross imagery

• Democrat/Populist Platform

• Bryan was nominee

• Crisscrossed the country

• Legalized strikes, federal subsidies for farmers

• Tax the rich

• Ban corporate campaign contributions

• Liquor should be outlawed

• Never challenged racial segregation and violence

• Overwhelmed by republican organizations

• Repelled Catholics

• Populists disintegrate

Race Relations during the 1890s

• Jim Crow Laws

• Separation of races in public places

• “Jump Jim Crow” an old song - Thomas D. Rice

• Means negro

• Poll Taxes (Head Taxes): “legal” device to disenfranchise black voters

• Literacy tests: designed to impede Black voters and poor whites

• Mississippi plan

• Residence in state - 2 years in state and 1 year in election district

• Convicted of crimes

• All taxes paid

• Had to be literate

• Grandfather clause

• Allowed whites (illiterate ones) to vote if fathers or grandfathers were eligible to vote on 1 January 1867

• Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, and Oklahoma adopted this

• Invited by Louisana (1898)

• Segregation

• Railroad passenger cars

• George Washington Cable - in South Carolina "black ride in first-class car as a right” and “presence excites no comments”

• Social sphere segregation

• Civil Rights Act of 1875

• States broke this law

• Forbids racial discrimination in public places

• (1883) Northern whites endorsed the resegregation of southern life

• “Separate but equal”

• Just a slogan

• Equal quality

• Plessy v Ferguson

• Homer Plessy (octoroon ½ African) sat in white only rail car

• Supreme court (1996) ruled the states had right to create laws segregating public places

• Lynching

• (1890-1899) average 188 per year, 82% in south

• (1900-1909) average 93 per year, 92% in south

• Whites 32% to 11% 

• Involved black men accused of a crime (rape)

• White mobs seize, torture, and kill (hanging) the accused

• Outdoor recreation for many

• Wilmington Insurrection

• (10 November 1898) some 2,000 armed whites rampaged the streets of Wilmington destroying the Daily Record and other black livelihoods (homes and businesses)

• Lawfully elected municipal government had been overthrown in the US

• African-American Churches

• Hub of black community

• Leadership roles for men (deacons)

• National Association of colored women

• Originally created to combat racism and segregation

• Mary Church Terrell (president) - serve the lowly

• Booker T. Washington: strive for economic improvement

• W.E.B. DuBois: strive for political reform

• Dingley Tariff of 1897

• McKinley

• Highest ever

• Due to gold from South Africa

• Gold Standard Act

• US money supply would be based only on gold

• (1897-1900) $439 million worth of gold flooded into the US treasury

Chapter 22