Lecture 5--Politics and Government in the Gilded Age
Mainstream Politics:
Entertainment: Politics served as entertainment as well as a political process, offering many opportunities for participation--parades, speeches, door-to-door activism, etc.
High Turnout: 80% between 1876 and 1900
Competition: Both parties were able to compete on fairly even terms, power swaying back and forth. Not until 1896 did one party dominate the White House AND Congress for long.
Parties: Parties organized voters, using methods initially developed in the 1820s and 30s by Martin Van Buren in New York State.
Revivalism: A lot of political rallying methods were rooted in methods of mass meetings, public speakers, songs, printed words and images, developed in the early 19th century by religious revivalists.
No Secret Ballot: There were no secret ballots; parties provided their own ballots, often coded by color. This could get tricky if you wanted to mix parties in your voting.
Veterans: The Veteran vote was crucial as so many had served in the civil war. Republicans gave generous pensions to Union veterans when possible.
Women: While most women could not vote, they could give speeches, persuade friends, families, and strangers, write campaign propaganda, etc.
Partisanship:
Regional: Republicans stronger in North and Midwest, Democrats in South.
Swing States: New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Ohio
Close contests: Garfield wins in 1880 by 9000 out of 9.2 million votes.
Party Culture: Party affiliation was often more traditional than rational
Party Factions: Republicans appealed to evangelical Protestants, old-stock Americans and German immigrants and blacks. Democrats drew strength from Catholics, newer immigrants, the Irish, urban workers and Southern farmers. The Republicans based their appeal on patriotism, the industrial economy, middle to upper class social values (which was intertwined with middle-class evangelical protestantism), and nativism. The Democrats were pro-European immigrant, pro-rural, pro-small government, and anti-government imposition of morality. (But also pro-racism, anti-Chinese, and anti-Indian).
Machine Politics: Politics was, especially at the local level, dominated by political machines which used their ability to reliably deliver votes to take over cities and states. They were typically fairly corrupt.
Associational Politics: This is a period in which both workers and capital formed associations to fight for their rights, ranging from the Grange to Unions to the American Protective Tariff League.
Women's Associations: Many women formed groups which became involved in politics to advance their goals.
1890: National American Women's Suffrage Association. United many smaller groups to fight for the vote. By 1900, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho allowed women to vote. (Some argue this was done in part to try to give an incentive for women to actually GO to these states...)
Labor Reform: Women's groups addressed issues of unsafe factories, long work hours, women and children's labor, and fair wages.
Temperance: The Women's Christian Temperance Union fought to make alcohol production and consumption illegal.
The Weaknesses of Government:
The Weak Presidency: Unlike the modern presidency, presidents usually came to office with very little legislative agenda. In domestic affairs, they largely tended to let Congress play the tune, wielding a veto if they thought it out of line. But except for Cleveland (vetoed 2/3rds of all bills), most didn't even veto too often. Their main job was administrative.
Inefficient Congress: High turnover, poor organization, and rules which hampered speedy action contributed to Congress having trouble dealing with ever increasing business.
Small, Corrupt Bureaucracy: Government officials were chosen on the basis of having contributed to campaigns or getting out the local vote, not on their skills, from top to bottom of federal government. And the federal government was pretty small, with much of it being the Post Office.
Widening State Action: State governments took action to deal with the problems of industrialization. Sometimes. States definitely tended to be more active and often more powerful than the Federal Government.
Dominant Political Issues:
Civil Service Reform: Mugwumps and other reformers wanted to end the spoils system. Garfield's assassination by a disappointed spoils seeker in 1881 led to the Pendleton Civil Service Act in 1883, which blocked solicitation of contributions from government workers (and donations by them) and created the Civil Service Commission to create and administer tests which had to be passed to get various jobs, about 10% of the government. This opened new opportunities for women.
The Tariff: Industry wanted protective tariffs (taxes on imports) to keep prices high. Urban workers and farmers wanted low tariffs on manufactured goods so they could buy cheaper goods. But farmers wanted high tariffs on food. Each party protected some interests and not others.
Federal Regulation of Business: Workers and farmers cried out for regulation of big business and big finance. Big business and big finance called for an unrestricted free market. The first fumbling steps of regulation are now taken.
Interstate Commerce Commission: Created in 1887 to enforce the Interstate Commerce Act, which tried to force railroads to charge everyone uniform rates, which would be just. It blocked rebates and differential charges for differnce distances. But it was staffed by business people who failed to do anything. And the 1897 Maximum Freight Rates case gutted it.
Sherman Anti-Trust Act: 1890. It made trusts illegal and subjected persons to fine or imprisonment. Illegal combinations would be dissolved. But it proved ineffective. United States vs. E.C. Knight (1895) declared the American Sugar Refining Company, which held 98% of American sugar refining, was involved in manufacturing, not commerce, therefore was exempt.
Hard vs. Soft Money: Debtors wanted paper or silver money which would promote more inflation by expanding the money supply. This would lessen the value of their debts. Creditors wanted hard money--GOLD--which would keep the money owed them from losing value. They called this 'sound money'. They forced the withdrawal of Civil War era paper money--'greenbacks'. Westerners demanded 'Free Silver'--unlimited coinage of silver. In 1890, they secured passage of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act to force the government to buy silver, but the government simply paid for it all with gold and held the silver without coining it.
The Crisis of the 1890s
Farmers' Crisis: Farmers across the West and South were in serious economic trouble; high interest rates and freight rates plus collapsing farm prices put them in a bind. This leads to the Farmer's Alliances.
Populist Party: Founded by alliance members in 1889 in Saint Louis. Their platform called for:
Greenbacks and free silver
Economy in government
Confiscation of excess railroad lands
Public ownership of the means of communication and transportation
July 1890: Omaha Convention meets to plan for the 1892 election. Many women activists, four black delegates.
"The Money Power": The convention platform attacked the 'Money Power' as the enemy of the American farmer and labor.
Free and Unlimited Coinage of Silver
Graduated Income Tax
Government Ownership of the Railroads and Telegraph Lines
Postal Savings Bank
Direct Election of Senators
Secret Ballot
Restraints on Immigration
Initiatives and Referendums
Attacks on Pinkertons
Lower Work Hours per day
Endorsement of the Knights of Labor
Federal Grain Storage Facilities
James B. Weaver for President
1892 Election: Populists took 1 million out of 17 million votes and 22 electoral votes. They were strong in the West, but weak in the South, Mid-West, and North-East. But Grover Cleveland wins (Democrat).
Depression of 1893: From 1893-7, depression wracked the nation, changing American politics.
Collapse: A combination of European depression, business and rail overexpansion, falling farm prices, and tight credit wrecked the economy. 20% unemployed.
Cleveland: Cleveland could care less so long as he had plenty to eat. And he did, while others starved.
Coxey's Army: Jacob Coxey of Ohio led a march on Washington, the first of many, in order to publicize hardships and to call for a 500 million greenback issue to pay for a public works program. Cleveland's response was to send in the army and the police to beat and arrest the protestors.
Labor Turmoil: 1400 strikes with 700,000 workers in 1894. Cleveland's response--send the police and the army to kill them.
Currency: Silver was piling up from the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and many were withdrawing gold from treasury and banks, leading to a possible gold crisis.
Repeal: Cleveland now had the SSPA repealed. This angered many, showing Cleveland was happy to help bankers while leaving the average american to be shot or starved. This failed, however to do anything at all about the depression. Instead...
Morgan: He had to turn to JP Morgan to bail out the Gold Standard. 162 million dollars in gold were sold in two allotments in return for bonds.
Bryan's 1896 Campaign:
William Jennings Bryan: A devout Christian lawyer from Nebraska. He saw the world in simple moral terms. Humanity was, in his opinion, oppressed by the "money power".
Currency Conflict: East and west democrats clashed over the currency plank of the 1896 platform.
Cross of Gold: Bryan's speech put the issue in terms of a conflict between the rich East and the struggling South and West, between productive labor and idle capital. Make the masses prosperous and all will prosper. The cities cannot survive without the countryside, but the countryside doesn't need them. "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"
Populists: They chose to nominate Bryan as well as he embodied many of their ideals. But by doing so, they made themselves irrelevant.
Gold Democrats: The gold faction of the party ran its own ticket.
Campaigning Styles: Bryan went on an evangelism tour, one of the first by a presidential candidate, while McKinley ran the traditional 'home porch' style campaign.
McKinley Victory: McKinley wonsoundly, if not crushingly (7.1 million vs 6.492 million, 271 vs 176 electoral), and now we enter a period of Republican dominance of the White House. The economy was reviving and voter interest declined. 1900--Gold Standard reaffirmed.
Reform Movements:
WCTU: 1874--Women's Christian Temperance Union. By the 1920s, it had over a half million members. Attacking drunkeness was an attempt to defend public morality and the family. Americans connected it to immigration and poverty; the attack on it was part of 'social housekeeping'.
Settlement Houses: You also have the beginning of social work, with the creation of settlement houses, which deposited MC americans in working class communities who they would try to help out with a mix of social work, education, and charity. They taught skills and American values to immigrants.
Florence Kelly: 1891--Hull House. 1893--helped to pass laws to limit hours of women's and child labor in New York. 1894--Lawyer, prosecuted factory safety law violators. 1898--Helped to create the Illinois Consumer's League, which attacked factory safety violators through publicity and boycotts.
Radical Thought
Socialism: Developed originally in Europe from the ideas of Marx and Engels. The socialists believed that workers had become alienated from the means of production and that work had been reduced to a dehumanizing commercial activity. They sought to restore the dignity of labor and restore workers to control over the means of production. This meant stripping capital of its power over the means of production.
Marxist Stages: Marx believed that history moved through a dialectic in which opposing forces in each stage of history eventually produced a synthesis, a new class which rose to dominate the next stage before generating its antithesis. Labor and Capital were the opposing forces of the industrial stage, which would lead to the socialist era when class-conscious labor rose up and overthrew capital.
Non-Marxist Socialism: Where Marx called for eventual violent revolution, other socialists used it as a tool to critique capitalism. Some sought to organize political parties to achieve their goals peacefully.
Socialist Parties: Early American socialists were German, with limited influence. In 1899, labor leader Eugene Debs, former leader of the American Railway Union, helped to organize the Socialist Party of America. In 1904, they scored 400,000 votes with Debs as leader. By 1912, it peaked with 1 million votes out of roughly 15 million cast.
Conservative Reaction: Conservatives saw socialists as criminals and a threat to the fundamental structures of society and tried to paint them all as rampaging maniacs. Ultimately, too many Americans were too well off for Socialism to succeed; they believed in private property and feared Socialists would take it.
Anarchism: Properly speaking, Anarchists simply wanted to abolish government. Most were peaceful, but some called for armed force to bring it down. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, Anarcho-communists, were perhaps the most famous.
Henry George: Called for communal ownership of land and the imposition of a single tax to replace all the diverse ones, a tax on the use of land and the profits it brings.
Edward Bellamy: Author of Looking Backwards, which predicted a future in which good management is key--essentially a bureaucratic utopia. Cooperation would be the key to the future; Nationalist clubs were founded in the 1890s on his principles.
Intellectuals:
William James: Attacked Social Darwinism in his Principles of Psychology (1890). He endorsed pragmatism, the judgement of ideas by their flexibility and utility. Human creativity, the stream of consciousness, provides us with an endless array of ideas we can then shape into a useful form and test to see if they actually work, discarding the failures. True ideas are useful ideas that help us understand the pathway of our own thoughts.
John Dewey: Dewey applied pragmatism to the area of education. Dewey sought to teach children how to test their ideas through experimentation. 1896--He and his wife Alice found the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago. It used experiments in crafts, agriculture, and industry to show students the need for the conventional subjects taught in schools.
Oliver Wendell Holmes: Lawyer and Supreme Court Judge. He expounded legal realism--the law as a pragmatic basis for coping with modern problems and disputes instead of as a sacred body of law passed down from ancient legalists. It was the job of lawyers to anticipate how judges would likely rule. The law changes with the time; precedents only show the solutions which were useful in the past, not something for all time.
Louis Brandeis: 1908--Muller v. Oregon--His brief made heavy use of sociological data to show the effects of long work hours on women and children.
Political Science and Economists: Increasingly, social scientists moved from theory to the study of institutions as they are, not how they should be.