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THE RIVERSIDE HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED STATES

WILLIAM E. DODD, EDITOR

THE RIVERSIDE HISTORY
OF THE UNITED STATES
WILLIAM E. DODD, EDITOR

I. BEGINNINGS OF THE AMERICAN PEO
PLE. By Carl Lotus Beckeb, Professor of European
History, University of Kansaa.
II. UNION AND DEMOCRACY. By Allen John
son, Professor of American History, Yale University.
III. EXPANSION AND CONFLICT. By William
E. Dodd, Professor of American History, University of
Chicago.
IV. THE NEW NATION. By Frederic L. Paxson,
Professor of History, University of Wisconsin.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

Uopjlll-it. IIU'J. Muffttt, CIiWh<>

THE NEW NATION

BY
FREDERIC L. PAXSON
PnOFEBSOIl OF HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
0}t fliberj-fiDe pwiM Cambriboe

COPYRIGHT, I915, BY FREDERIC L, PAXSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

tripe p-pMbtr-Jftu -Pre-.*
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

PREFACE
A new nation has appeared within the United
States since the Civil War, but it has been only ac
cidentally connected with that catastrophe. The Con
stitution emerged from the confusion of strife and
reconstruction substantially unchanged, but the eco
nomic development of the United States in the sixties
and seventies gave birth to a society that was, by
1885, already national in its activities and necessi
ties. In many ways the history of the United States
since the Civil War has to do with the struggle be
tween this national fact and the old legal system that
was based upon state autonomy and federalism ; and
the future depends upon the discovery of a means to
readjust the mechanics of government, as well as
its content, to the needs of life. This book attempts
to narrate the facts of the last half-century and to
show them in their relations to the larger truths of
national development. Frederic L. Paxson.

CONTENTS
I. The Civil War  1
II. The West and the Greenbacks . . 20
III. The Restoration of Home Rule in the
South  39
IV. The Panic of 1873  59
V. The Hayes Administration .... 75
VI. Business and Politics  92
VII. The New Issues . . . . . . .108
VIII. Grover Cleveland  126
IX. The Last of the Frontier . . . . 142
X. National Business  .162
XI. The Farmers' Cause  177
XII. The New South  192
XIII. Populism  208
XIV. Free Silver  225
XV. The "Counter-Reformation" . . . 244
XVI. The Spanish War  258
XVH. Theodore Roosevelt  276
XVIH. Bio Business  293
XIX. The "Muck-Rakers"  309
XX. New Nationalism  824
Index ..,..,,,.. i

MAPS AND CHARTS
The Railways of the "Old Northwest" . .13
The Western Railway Land Grants, 1850-1871 23
The Solid South, 1880-1912  53
The Political Situation at Washington, 1869-
1917  76,77
Population and Immigration, 1850-1910 . . . 120
The Western Railroads and the Continental
Frontier, 1870-1890  146, 147
The Distribution of the Public Domain, 1789-
1904  153
The Congressional Election of 1890 between 186 and 187
The Flood of Silver, 1861-1911 . . . .227
Alaska, the Philippines, and the Seat of the
Spanish War  259
North America in 1915 . . . between 340 and 341

THE NEW NATION

THE NEW NATION
CHAPTER I
THE CIVIL WAR
The military successes of the United States in
its Civil War maintained the Union, but entailed
readjustments in politics, finance, and business that
shifted the direction of public affairs for many years.
In tho oyos of contemporaries thcso changes were
obscured by tho vivid scones of tho battlefield, whoso
intonso impressions wore not forgotten for a gen
eration. It soomod as though tho war were every
thing, as though the Republican party had preserved
the nation, as though the nation itself had arisen
with new plumage from the stress and struggle of
its crisis. The realities of history, however, whicli
are ever different from the facts seen by the partici
pant, are in this period further from the tradition of
the survivor than in any other stage of the develop
ment of the United States. As the Civil War is
viewed from the years that followed it, the actu
alities that must be faced are the facts that the
dominant party saved neither the nation nor itself
except by changing its identity ; that economic and
industrial progress continued through the war with
unabated speed, and that out of the needs of a new
economic life arose the new nation.

2 THE NEW NATION
The Republican party, whose older spokesmen had
been trained as Whigs or Democrats, had by 1861
seasoned its younger leaders in two national cam
paigns. It had lost the first flush of the new enthu
siasm which gave it birth as a party opposed to the
extension of slavery. Tho signs of the times had
been so clear between 1856 and 1860 that many
politicians had turned their coats loss from a moral
principle than from a desire to win. When Lincoln
took up the organization of his Administration, these
clamored for their rewards. There was nothing in the
political ethics of the sixties that discountenanced
the use of the spoils of office, and Lincoln himself,
though he resented the drain of office-seeking Upon
his time, appears not to have seen that the spoils
system was at variance with the fundamentals of
good government.
It was a Republican partisan administration that
bore the first brunt of the Civil War, but the strug
gle was still young when Lincoln realized that the
Union could not stand on the legs of any single
party. To develop a general Union sentiment be
came an early aim of his policy and is a key to his
period. He was forced to consider and reconcile the
claims of all shades of Republican opinion, from
that of the most violent abolitionist to that of the
mere unionist. In the Democracy, opinion ranged
from that of the strong war Democrat to that of the
Copperhead whose real sympathies were with the
Confederacy. To conciliate a working majority of the voters of
the Union States, a majority which must embrace

THE CIVIL WAR 3
many Union Democrats, Lincoln steadily loosened
the partisan bonds. The congressional elections of
1862 showed that he was still far from success. His
overtures to the Democrats of the border States fell
into line with his general scheme. His tolerance of
McClellan and his support of Stanton, both of whom
by sympathy and training were Democrats, reveal
the comprehensive power of his endurance. As the
election of 1864 approached to test the success of
his generalship, he had to fight not only for a ma
jority in the general canvass but for the nomination
by his own party.
There were many men in 1864 who believed that
the war was a mistake and that Lincoln was a
failure. The peace Democrats denounced him as a
military dictator ; to the radical Republicans he was
spineless and irresolute. Within his own Cabinet
there was dissension that would have unnerved a less
steady man. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury,
wanted to be President, and had allowed his f rieuds
to intrigue in his behalf, yet had not withdrawn
from the counsels of his rival. At various times he
had threatened to resign, but Lincoln had shut his
eyes to this infidelity and had coaxed him back.
Not until after the President had been renominated
did he accept the resignation of Chase, and even
then he was willing to make the latter Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court.
Chase, in the Cabinet and in touch with dissatis
fied Republicans outside, was a menace to impartial
administration. Less distressing, but noisier than he,
was John C. Fremont, the first nominee of the

4 THE NEW NATION
party, who had sulked in the midst of admiring
friends since Lincoln had removed him from im
portant military service in 1861. About him the ex
treme abolitionists were gathered, and in his favor
there was held a convention in May, 1864. But this
dissenting movement collapsed upon itself before
the elections in November.
The Republicans went into convention at Balti
more, on June 7, 1864. The candidacy of Chase
had faded, that of Fremont was already unimpor
tant, and the renomination of Lincoln was assured.
But the party carefully concealed its name and, cater
ing to loyalists of whatever brand, it called itself
" Union," and invited to its support all men to
whom the successful prosecution of the war was the
first great duty. It was a Union party in fact as
well as name. Delegations of Democrats came to it
from the border States, and from one of these tho
convention picked a loyal Democrat for the Vice-
Presidency. With Lincoln and Andrew Johnson on
its ticket, with a platform silent upon the protective
tariff, and with an organization so imperfect that no
roll of delegates could be made until the convention
had been called to order, the Administration party
of 1864 was far from being the same organization that
had, in 1856, voiced its protest against the Kansas-
Nebraska Bill.
The excesses of the Democrats aided Lincoln al
most as much as the efforts of the party which nom
inated him. A convention at Chicago, in August,
presided over by Governor Seymour, of New York,
and under tho dominanco of Clement L. Vallandig-

THE CIVIL WAR 5
ham, did not need to denounce the war as a failure
in order to disappoint the Union Democrats. Not
even the nomination of McClellan, nor his repudia
tion of the -platform, could undo the result of such
leadership. It was far from certain which ticket
would receive the greater vote in November, but it
was clear that union against disunion was the issue,
and that men would vote according to their hopes and
fears. The former were in the ascendant when the
polls were opened, for Sherman had gained a decisive
victory in his occupation of Atlanta, while Farragut
had gained another at Mobile Bay. On the strength
of these successes the Union ticket carried every
State but Delaware, Kentucky, and New Jersey.
Chase, who left the Treasury during the presi
dential campaign, had by that time finished the
work which carried the financial burdens of the
Civil War and provided party texts for another
generation. He had come to his task without special
fitness, but had speedily mastered the essentials of
war finance. In his reports he outlined the policy
which Congress followed, more or less closely. Taxes
ought to be increased, he urged, to meet all the
costs of civil administration, interest on the debt, and
sinking fund for the same. These were current
burdens which the country ought not to try to
escape. But the extra cost of the war, which was
to be regarded as a permanent investment by the
Union for its own defense, might fairly be made a
charge upon posterity. To meet these he urged the
creation of a" sufficient bonded debt.
The Thirty-seventh Congress (1861-63) had been

6 THE NEW NATION
more ready to borrow than to tax. In all its expe
rience until 1801 the United States had mot no
crisis in which large revenues had been required. In
the thirty preceding years its total annual receipts
had ranged from $20,000,000 to $81,000,000, while
in the fiscal year in which the war began the total
had reached $83,000,000, of which $41,000,000
were loans rather than revenue. Since the panic of
1857 the Treasury had faced a deficit at the end of
each year, and had been compelled not only to spend
its accumulated surplus on current needs, but to
borrow heavily. The tariff duties, collected at the
custom-houses, were, as they always had been, the
mainstay of the revenue. But these had not met
the needs of the three lean years before the war.
Had there been no war, the disordered finances of
the United States might, in 1861, have called for
corrective measures and new taxes, and these could
not have become effective before 1862 or 1863. As
it was, loans were resorted to for first-aid. In 1862
they alone were more than six times as great as the
total receipts of 1861 ; in 1865 they were nearly
three times as great as in 1862. Taxes were author
ized more reluctantly than loans, they became pro
fitable more slowly, and did not, until the last year
of war, reveal the fiscal capacities of the United
States. The favorite national tax of the United States had
always been the tariff. Supplemented by miscella
neous items which included no internal revenue after
1849, and no direct tax after 1839, it carried most
of the financial burdens. Whether parties preferred

THE CIVIL WAR 7
it high or low, or levied it for protection or for rev
enue, they had continued to cherish it as a fiscal
device, and had acquired no experience with alter
nate sources of supply. Like the army of the United
States, which in time of war had to break in its vol
unteer levies before it could win. victories, the Treas
ury and Congress had to learn how to tax before
they could bring the taxable resources of the United
States to supplement the loans.
The tariff was revised and increased several times
between 1861 and 1865, and yielded its greatest
return, $102,000,000, in 1864. The result was due
to both the swelling volume of imports and the
higher rates. Like all panics, that of 1857 had less
ened the buying capacity of the American people.
In hard times luxuries were sacrificed and treasury
receipts were thereby greatly curtailed. A return to
normal conditions of business would have been visi
ble by 1861 had not war obscured it. Steadily
through the war a prosperous North and West bought
more foreign goods regardless of the price.
The rate of tariff was based upon the probable
revenue, the protective principle, and the tax bur
dens already imposed upon American manufacturers.
Not until 1863 were the internal or direct taxes
noticeable, but in 1864 these passed the tariff as a
source of revenue, with a total of $116,000,000. In
1866 this total was swollen to $211,000,000. Like
the tariff, the income, excise, and direct taxes were
often revised and raised, and many of the tariff in
creases were dependent upon them. When the
American manufacturer, who already declared that

8 THE NEW NATION
he could stay in business only because the tariff pro
tected him from European competition, found himself
burdened with a tax on his income and with others
upon his commercial transactions and his output, he
complained bitterly of the disadvantage at which he
was placed. To equalize his burdens, the import
rates were repeatedly raised against the foreigner.
By the end of the war, the tariff exceeded anything
known in American experience, and was fixed less
with the intention of raising revenue than of ena
bling the American producer to pay his internal tax.
Less than $85,000,000 were collected from the cus
toms in 1865; while $211,000,000 came from inter
nal sources.
By taxing and borrowing the United States accu
mulated $88,000,000 in 1861, $589,000,000 in
1862, $888,000,000 in 1863, $1,408,000,000 in
1864, and $1,826,000,000 in 1865. The Treasury,
unimportant in the world's affairs before 1861, sud
denly became one of the greatest dealers in credit.
Its debt of $2,808,000,000, outstanding in October,
1865, affected the interests and solidity of interna
tional finance, and indicated, as well, resources of
which even boastful Americans had been unaware in
1861. One item in the debt, however, Was a menace
to the security of the whole, which was but little
stronger than its weakest part.
The physical currency in which the debt was to
be created and the expenses paid was as difficult to
find in 1861 as the wealth which it measured. After
Jackson destroyed the second Bank of the United
States there had been no national currency but coin,

THE CIVIL WAR 0
and too little of that. Gold and silver had been
coined at the mint,, and the former had given the
standard to the dollar. In intrinsic worth the gold
dollar, as defined in 1834 at the ratio of sixteen to
one, was slightly inferior to its silver associate, and
by the law of human nature, which induces men to
hold the better and pass the cheaper money, the
value of the gold coin had become the measure of
exchange. The coined money did not circulate gonorally. It
was dovotod to a part of tho business of government,
and to tho needs of tho banks which provided the
actual circulating medium. Scattered over all the
States, hundreds of state and private banks issued
their own notes to serve as money. At best, and in
theory, these were exchangeable for gold at par; at
worst, they were a total loss ; yet as they were, vari
ant and depreciated since the panic of 1857, they
were the money of the people when the Civil War
began. Before the end of .1861 the banks gave up
the pretense of redeeming their notes in coin. The
United States Treasury suspended the payment of
specie early in 1862, and thereafter for seventeen
years the paper money in circulation depended for
its value on the hope that it would some day be re
deemed. The needs of the Treasury, in the crisis of suspen
sion, induced Congress to authorize the emission of
$450,000,000 of legal-tender paper money. These
notes, soon known as the "greenbacks," became the
measure of the difference between standard money
and coin. Issued at par, they sank in value and

10 THE NEW NATION
fluctuated until in the darkest days of 1864 a dollar
in gold could be exchanged for $2.85 in greenbacks.
Yet they were called dollars, and the creditor was
forced to accept them in payment of his debts. They
were themselves a forced loan, borrowed by compul
sion from the people, and constituting $433,000,000
in the total debts of the United States in 1865.
The greenback element in the national debt
threatened the integrity of the whole. Should re
demption take place at par, and at once, the credit
of the United States could not fail to be strength
ened. But should the greenbacks be allowed to re
main below par, should more of them be issued, or
should the United States avail itself of its technical
privilege to pay off part of the bonded debt in " law
ful money " manufactured by the printing-press, the
weakest item in the total might easily depress the
whole. The future of American politics after 1865 was
largely determined by the methods through which
the revenue had been increased and by the fate of
the greenbacks, but more important for the immedi
ate future than either of these was the great fact
that in five years the United States had been able
to incur its net debt of $2,808,000,000, and had
raised in addition more than $700,000,000 through
taxation. It was a prosperous Union that emerged
from the Civil War, and every region but the South
was strong in its conscious wealth.
The whole of the United States had shared in the
unusual growth in the period following the Mexican
War, in which the new railroads were tying the Mis-

THE CIVIL WAR 11
sissippi Valley to the seaboard. The census of 1860
reported an increase of 36 per cent in total popula
tion in ten years, somewhat unevenly divided, since
the Confederate area had increased but 25 per cent,
as compared with 89 por cent in the North and West,
yet large enough everywhere to keep up the tradi
tions of a growing population. The growth continued
in the next decade, despite the Civil War. It is not
to bo expected that it should have touched the record
of the fifties, for 2,500,000 men wore drawn from
production for at least three years — the three years
in which most of them would have grown to man
hood and married, had there been no war. The South,
desolated by war, and with nearly every able-bodied
white man in the ranks, stood still, with under 9 per
cent increase. But the whole country grew in popu
lation from 31,443,321 to 38,558,371 (22 per cent),
while the North and West, in spite of war, grew 27
per cent, — more than the South had done in its
most brilliant decade.
How far the. North and West would have gone
had they not been hampered by the depression after
1857 cannot be stated. These regions had suffered
most from the panic, since in them railroads and
banks, factories and cities, and all the agents of a
complex industrial organization had been most active.
The industrial disturbance had disarranged for the
time the elaborate Northern system. The simpler
South, with its staple crops, its rural population, and
its few railways, had suffered less. Southerners be
fore the war had seen in their immunity from the
effects of panic a proof of tteir superiority over

12 THE NEW NATION
other social orders ; they had misread the times and
prophesied the disintegration of the industrial organ
ization of the North.
The South seceded before the rest of the United
States emerged from the panic period. In the next
four years the treasury receipts show the resources
of the loyal States. Industry, recovered from its de
pression, went ahead unnoticed in the noise of war,
yet little impeded by the fact of war.
Communication by rail brought the most significant
of the single changes into the Northern States. Be
fore the panic of 1857 the trunk-line railways had
completed their net of tracks between the Mississippi
and tidewater. Nearly ten thousand miles had been
built in the Old Northwest alone in the ten preced
ing years. But the effect of this on business, certain
to come in any event, was not seen until secession
closed tho Mississippi to the agricultural exports of
tho Northwest. For a part of 1861 and 1862 traffic
piled up along the young railroads extending from
St. Louis, and Chicago to Buffalo, Pittsburg, New
York, and Philadelphia. But before 1863 these lines,
notably the New York Central, the Erie, and the
Pennsylvania, had adapted themselves to the trade
which the South had thrust upon them ; and never
since secession has New Orleans regained her place
as the great outlet of the Mississippi Valley.
Tho fundamental change in tho direction of its
trade added to the prosperity of the North. In tho
additions to tho transportation system, made to ac
commodate the new business, new railroads were
less prominent than second tracks, bridges, tunnels,

.__ _,„_ Uallroads In operation
Jan..l, 1848
IIIIHIIIHiilmRaH roads completed
during 1848

BallroatU In operation
Jon. 1,1800
IHHIIiillllllll Railroads comploted
 during 1800

THE RAILWAYS OF THE "OLD NORTHWEST"
Showing the development between 1848 and 1860, upon which the Civil
War prosperity of the region was based

14 THE NEW NATION
and terminal facilities. The experimental years of
railroading had passed before most of the lines
learned the importance of city terminals. The growth
of the cities and the rising price of land made the
attainment of these more difficult than they need
have been, while city governments and their officials
learned that illicit profits could bo made out of the
necessities of the railroads. Tho great lines, active
in the development of their plants, and consolidating
during the sixties to get the benefits of unified man
agement, added to the bustle in the cities in the North.
The United States was an agricultural country
until the beginning of manufacturing and the revolu
tion in communication made it profitable to concen
trate people and capital in the cities. Between 1850
and 1880 the number of cities with a population of
50,000 more than doubled. The actual construction
of the houses, the water and lighting systems, and
the sewers for these communities gave employment
to labor. As cities grew, their more generous dis
tances brought in the street-car companies, whose
occupation of the public streets added to the tempta
tions and opportunities of the officials of govern
ment. The swelling manufactures increased the city
groups and gave them work.
The country life itself began to change. The
typical farming families, developed by pioneer con
ditions, had remained the social unit for several gen
erations, but these felt the lure of the cities which
drew their boys and girls into the factories. Domes
tic manufactures could not compete in quality, ap
pearance, or price with the output of the new fac-

THE CIVIL WAR 15
tories. The farmer began to give up his slaughtering
and butter-making, as he had. already abandoned his
spinning and weaving, and devoted himself more
exclusively to raising crops. Here, too, the mechani
cal improvements touched his life. Agricultural
machinery was coming into general use, while the
new railroads carried off his produce to the great
markets which the rising cities created.
The number of employees of American factories
increased more than half between 1860 and 1870,
while the capital invested and the goods turned out
were more than doubled. The United Spates was for
the first time looking to a day when all the ordinary
necessities of life could be made within its limits.
At Chicago, St. Louis, New York, Boston, Phila
delphia, and a host of cities in the interior, men
were not disturbed by the war in their attempt to
exploit the abundant resources of the continent.
The manufacture of food began to shift from the
household to the city factory, to the advantage of
the cities lying near the great fresh areas of farm
lands. The flour mills of the Northwest, the meat
packing establishments at Chicago and elsewhere,
the distilleries of central Illinois, utilized the agri
cultural staples and transformed them for export.
Tho presence of factories forced upon the eity gov
ernments, East and West, already embarrassed by
the pains of rapid growth, the problems of police
power and good government. Charters written for
semi-rural villages were inadequate when the vil
lages became cities.
Clothing, no less than food, passed into the factory,

16 THE NEW NATION
thanks to Elias Howe and his sewing-machine and
the shoe machinery of McKay. Before the war the
influences of this change were visible in the increas
ing demand for cotton. Now came the great growth
of the textile regions of the East, around Fall River
and Philadelphia, and of the shoe factories in the
Lynn district.
The use and manufacture of machines gave new
stimulus to those regions where coal and iron, placed
conveniently with reference to transportation, had
fixed the location of smelters and rolling-mills. In
the middle of the sixties Henry Bessemer's commer
cial process for the manufacture of steel marks the
beginning of a revolution in the construction of rail
roads and bridges, as well as in public and private
architecture. Pittsburg became the heart of the steel
industry, and the young men who controlled it fixed
their hands upon the commercial future of the United
States. The newest of industries, the trade in petro
leum and its oils, reached fifteen millions in Pittsburg
alone in 1864.
The trunk-line railways with their spurs and
branches adjusted themselves early in the war to the
new direction of business currents. They then began
to carry the new inhabitants into the cities, the new
manufactures to their markets, and to press upon iron,
coal, and timber for their own supplies. Men of
business laid the foundations of huge fortunes in
supplying the new and growing demands. The stock
company, with negotiable shares and bonds, made it
possible for the small investor to share in the larger
commercial profits and losses.

THE CIVIL WAR 17
The growth and elaboration of companies and
commerce were projected upon a legal system that
was most accustomed to small enterprises and local
trade. Not only had the corporations to establish cus
toms and precedents among themselves, but courts,
legislatures, and city councils had to face the need for
an amplification of American law. The speed with
which the new life swept upon the country, the in
experience of both business men and jurists, the pub
lic ignorance of the extent to which the revolution
was to go, and the cross^purposes inevitable when
States tried to regulate the affairs of corporations
larger than themselves, make it unnecessary to search
further for the key to the confusing half-century that
followed the Civil War.
The rapid changes in manufacturing, transporta
tion, urban life, and business law that came with the
prosperity of the early sixties gave to these years an
appearance of materialism that has misled many ob
servers. None of the developments received full con
temporary notice, for war filled the front pages of the
newspapers. The men who directed them were not
under scrutiny, and could hardly fail to bring into
business and speculation that main canon of wartime
that the end is everything and that it justifies the
means. But though war was not the sole American
occupation between 1861 and 1865, and though a
new industrial revolution was begun, material things
often gave way in the American mind to altruistio
concepts and the service of the ideal.
Congress endowed the agricultural colleges in the
early years of the war, and the state universities,

18 THE NEW NATION
though thinned by the enlistment of their boys, es
tablished themselves. The creation of new universi
ties, the endowment of older foundations, and the
beginning of an education that should fit not only for
law, medicine, and theology, but for business, agri
culture, engineering, and teaching, all bear testimony
to the real interests of American democracy. The
ideal was as yet far removed from the fact, and the
intellectual leaders of the United States were yet to
pass through a period of black pessimism, but the
people were still firm in their faith that education is
the mainstay of popular government, and gave their
full devotion to both.
The four years of the Civil War carried the United
States over a period of social and economic transition
and left it well started on the new course. They en
larged and expanded the activities of government,
hastening that day when there should exist a public
conviction that government is a matter of technical
expertness and must be run in a scientific manner for
the common good. They raised tho problems of taxa
tion and currency to a new importance, and impressed
their significance upon tho men who directed the in
dustries of the country. In their prosperity they made
it possible to save the Union ; and at their close a
Union party, uncertain of its strength and its per
sonnel, faced the problems of a united country which
included an industrial North, a desolated South, and
a vanishing frontier.

THE CIVIL WAR 19

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
For further references upon the Civil War period, consult
William E. Dodd, Expansion and Conflict (in this series), and
F. L. Paxson, The Civil War (1911). The best and most ex
haustive narrative is J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States
from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home
Rule at the South in 1877 (7 vols., 1892r-1906), and this may be
supplemented to advantage by E. D. Fite, Social and Indus-
trial Conditions in the North during the Civil War (1910). There
is a convenient account of the election of 1864, with platforms
and tables of votes, in E. Stjmwood, A History of the Presidency
(1898) and there are many valuable documents in E. McPher-
son's annual Political Manual. The biographies of W. H. Sew
ard, by F. Bancroft, and Jay Cooke, by E. P. Oberholtzer, are
among the best of the period. There are no better summaries
of finances than D. R. Dewey's Financial History of the United
States (1903, etc.) ; W. C. Mitcbell's History of the Greenbacks
(1903) ; and J. A. Woodburn's Thaddem Stevens (1913). In
tho Annual Cyclopaedia (published by D. Appleton & Co., 1861-
1902) are useful and accurate accounts of current affairs.
E. L. Godkin began to publish the Nation in New York in the
summer of 1865, and H. Y. Foore issued tbe first volume of hia
annual Manual of the Railroads of the United States, in 1868.

CHAPTER II
THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS
The activity of the North and the East between
1861 and 1865 was imitated and magnified among
the youthful communities that made up the western
border and ranged in age from a few weeks to
thirty years. These had been mostly agricultural
in 1857. Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Kansas
had been the frontier before the Civil War. In place
of these, now grown to be populous and more or less
sedate, a new group appeared farther west, within
what had been believed to be the " American Des
ert." By 1868 Congress completed the subdivision
of the last lands between the Missouri River and
the Pacific, since which date only one new political
division has appeared in tho United States.
The last frontier, that doveloped after 1857, was
novel as well as new. It was made up of mining-
camps. Everywhere in the Rocky Mountains pros
pectors staked out claims and introduced their free-
and-easy life. Before 1857 the group of Mormons
around the Great Salt Lake was the only considerable
settlement between eastern Kansas and California.
Now came in quick succession the rush to Pike's
Peak and Colorado Territory (1861), the rush from
California to the Carson Valley and Nevada Ter
ritory (1861), and the creation of the agricultural

THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS 21
territory of Dakota (1861) for the up-river Mis
souri country, where in a few more years were re
vealed the riches of the Black Hills. In 1863 the
mines of the lower Colorado River gave excuse for
Arizona Territory. Those of the northern Continen
tal Divide were grouped in Idaho in the same year,
and divided in 1864 when Montana was created.
Wyoming, the last of the subdivisions, was the prod
uct of mines and railroads in 1868. Oklahoma was
not named for twenty years more, but had existed in
its final shape since the passage of the Kansas-Ne
braska Bill in 1854.
The legitimate influence of these mining-camps
upon the United States was great. It was no new
thing for Congress to solve its national problems on
the initiative of the West. Since the passage of the
Ordinance of 1787 this had been a frequent occur
rence, and the history of the public lands had always
been directed by Western demands. In 1862 the
agricultural West, whose capacity to cultivate land
had been magnified by the new reaper of McCor
mick, had obtained its Homestead Act, by which land
titles were conveyed to the farmer who cleared the
land and used it. Thomas H. Benton had fought for
this through a long lifetime. He died too soon to see
the full apotheosis of the squatter, who gradually
developed, in point of law, from the criminal steal
ing the public land to the public-spirited pioneer in
whose interest a wise Congress ought to shape its
laws. Under the influence of this new Homestead
Law, aided by the Preemption Law, which remained
in force, land titles were established in the Moun-

n THE NEW NATION
tain States as rapidly as the Indians could be re
moved. The frontier mining territories were loud in de
manding that Congress should give them more land,
remove the Indians, extend police protection, and
give them mails and railroads. The miner disliked
the isolation which his speculations brought upon
him, and Congress unfolded new powers to remove
it for him. In 1858 it organized the great overland
mail that ran coaches to California in less than
twenty-five days. The pony express provided faster
service in 1860-61. And after private money had
built the telegraph line to the Pacific, both Congress
and the West took up the subject of a continental
railway. In the summer of 1862 a group of railroad com
panies was authorized to build a track from the
Missouri River (which had already been reached at
St. Joseph by a railway from the East) to Califor
nia. As modified by law in 1864 the contract pro
vided for extensive government aid in the specula
tion : twenty sections of land for every mile of track,
and a loan of United States bonds at the rate of at
least $16,000 per mile. But the West had little cap
ital, and the prosperous East had better investments
at home, so that money could hardly be got into this
scheme on any terms. The Western promoters were
driven to shifty extremes before they overcame the
Eastern belief that no continental railroad could
pay. Not until 1866 was the construction work begun
in earnest.
Between 1866 and 1869 the building of the Union

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THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS 25
Pacific was the most picturesque enterprise in Amer
ica. Across the great plains, the desert, and the
mountains, from Council Bluffs to Sacramento, it was
pushed. In the West, Stanford and his group of
California visionaries carried the burden. The east
ern end brought out no single great promoter. Both
ends fought the problem of timber and stone and
railroad iron, but most of all of labor. Stanford
finally imported the Chinese coolie for the job. Civil
War veterans and new immigrants did most of the
work on the eastern end. And along the eastern
stretches the Indian tribes of the plains watched the
work with jealous eyes. The Pawnee, the Sioux, the
Arapaho, and the Cheyenne saw in the new road
the end of a tribal life based upon wild game.
Severe Indian outbreaks accompanied the con
struction of tho railroad, as the tribes made their
last stand in Wyoming, Colorado, and tho Indian
Territory. Before the line was done, the tribes of the
plains were under control in two great concentration
camps, in South Dakota and Indian Territory, and
the worst of the Indian fighting in the West was over.
In the spring of 1869 the railroad was finished
and a spectacular celebration was held near Ogden,
in Utah Territory. The finishing stroke was every
where regarded as national, since not only had Con
gress given aid, but the union of the oceans was an
object of national ambition. With the completion,
the problem shifted from tho exciting risks of con
struction and finance to the prosaic duties of paying
the bills, and with the shift came a natural falling-
off in enthusiasm.

26 THE NEW NATION
The Union Pacific was the longest railroad of the
sixties, and aroused the greatest interest. In an eco
nomic way it is merely typical of the speculative
expansion of the North that began early in the Civil
War and continued increasingly thereafter. The
United States was engaged in a period of hopeful
growth such as has followed every panic. After a few
years of depression, stagnation, and enforced econ
omy, business had revived about 1861. Confidence
had increased, loans had been made more freely, and
capital had taken up again its search for profitable
investment. In the newer regions, where permanent
improvements were least numerous, the field for ex
ploitation had been great. The climax of exploitation
was reached throughout the West.
As had been true at all the stages of the west
ward movement, the West was heavily in debt, and
upon a forced balance would generally have shown
an excess of liabilities over assets. Borrowed money
paid much of the cost of emigration. During the first
year the pioneer often raised no crops and lived upon
his savings or his borrowings. He and his local mer
chant and his bank and his new railroad had bor
rowed all they could, while the creditor, living neces
sarily in the older communities where saving had
created a surplus for investment, lived in the East,
or even in Europe. The necessary conditions of set
tlement and development had prepared the way for
a new sectional alignment of business interests, those
of the Far West and the Northwest taking their tone
from the interests of a debtor class, while those of
the East represented those of the creditor. The pos-

THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS 27
siblo cloavago was rovoalod as real when tho United
States Treasury Department, in its work toward
financial reconstruction, approached tho subject of
tho greenbacks.
Tho logal-tondor greenbacks, which woro in cir
culation to tho oxtont of $483,000,000 in 1866,
constituted not only a part of the debt of the war,
but the foundation of the currency in circulation.
Throughout most of the war they were supple
mented by the notes of state banks, local token-
money, and fractional currency, or " shinplasters,"
of the United States. Coin ceased to circulate in
1862 and was used only by those whose contracts
obliged them to pay in gold or silver. In 1863
Secretary Chase inaugurated a system of national
banks, to circulate a uniform currency, secured by
United States bonds, but these did not become a
factor in business until the state bank notes had
been taxod out of existence in 1865. After this time
national banks were formed in large numbers, re
placing the uncertain notes of the state banks with
their own notes, which were quite as good as green
backs. But all paper money was below par in 1865,
and gold remained out of circulation, at a premium,
until the end of 1878.
The depreciation of the greenbacks reflected a
popular doubt as to the outcome of the Civil War.
They entailed hardship upon all who received them
as dollars, since their purchasing value was below
the standard of one hundred cents in gold. When
the Government, desperate in war time, forced its
creditors to accept them at par, it did an injustice

28 THE NEW NATION
which it regarded as real, though necessary. The
speedy restoration of the greenbacks to par received
the immediate attention of the Treasury upon the
return of peace.
Hugh McCulloch, of Indiana, who became Secre
tary of the Treasury in 1865, was a banker of long
experience and success. lie proposed, if allowed, to
reduce the whole war debt, including the green
backs, to long-term bonds bearing a low rate of in
terest, and to create a sinking fund which should
redeem them as they fell due. This involved the
withdrawal from circulation of the greenbacks, and
the destruction of that amount of the money used
in business. Congress authorized it, however, and
McCulloch canceled greenbacks from month to month
until he had reduced the total to $356,000,000 in
February, 1868.
The withdrawal of the legal tenders had not been
long under way before protests began to come in
upon tho Treasury and Congress from the West.
Bad as the depreciated currency was, it was the only
currency available for the active business of the
country. If tho greenbacks should go there would be
nothing to take their place until coin should finally
emerge from hiding. The reduction of the volume
of money in a time of increasing business would en
force upon each dollar an enlarged activity and a
greater market value. The price of money rising,
the price of all commodities measured in money
would necessarily fall, and in a period of falling
prices the West thought it saw financial catastrophe.
There was enough real truth in the contention that

THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS 29
resumption meant a fall in prices for the Treasury to
be compelled to make the difficult choice between
this evil and the other evil of a depreciated cur
rency forced upon the people.
The creditor East regarded the possible increase
in tho purchasing value of the dollar with entire
complacency. Its selfish interests harmonized with
sound theories of finance. But in the debtor West
the process had so different an aspect that the finan
cial obligations* of the United States were obscured
by the local interest.
The great " boom " of the West began after the
depreciation had commenced. Most of the Western
debts, whether on the farm of the settler, the stock
of the merchant, or the bonds of the industrial cor
poration, had been created in legal-tender dollars of
the value of the depreciated greenbacks. Any appre
ciation which might come to the greenbacks must in
crease the content-value of the debt. If " dollars,"
borrowed when they were worth sixty cents in gold,
were to be repaid in " dollars " worth eighty or more
cents in gold, the debtor was repaying one third
more than he had received, and no appeal to the im
portance of public credit could make him forget his
loss. He resented not only the decrease in the actual
amount of money, but the appreciated value of the
remainder. McCulloch, trained in finance, was ready to sacri
fice the debtor for the sake of national solvency, —
and, indeed, one or the other had to yield. But Con
gress felt the pressure, which was strong from all
the West, and most strong from the Northwest, be-

SO THE NEW NATION
tween Pittsburg and Chicago, whose industry had
been reorganized during the years of war. In Febru
ary, 1868, the retirement of more greenbacks was
forbidden by law, the amount then in circulation
being $356,000,000. The inflation which war had
brought about was legalized in time of joeace, and the
Supreme Court ultimately ruled 1 that the issue of
legal tenders, in either war or peace, is at the free
discretion of Congress.
Like every other West, the West of 1868 was in
debt; like every other debtor community, it was
liable to yield to theories of inflation, and was prone
to look to politics for redress of grievances. The
farmers of Massachusetts and Connecticut had fol
lowed Shays for this purpose in 1786 ; Ohio and
Kentucky had attacked the second Bank of the
United States when it forced their banks to pay
their debts ; and now the Northwest listened to poli
ticians who told them that more greenbacks would
cure their ills.
The advocates of the Greenback movement urged
that the legal tenders be retained as the foundation
of the currency, and that all bonds and interest pay
able in "lawful money" be paid in paper. By thus
increasing the volume of greenbacks in circulation
they hoped to avoid a fall in prices or an increased
pressure on the debtor. Wherever men were heavily
in debt, they accepted this doctrine. George H. Pen
dleton, of Ohio, became its most prominent spokes
man, though it received the support of men as far
apart as Thaddeus Stevens and B. F. Butler, and on it
1 In the cases of Knox vs. Lee and Juilliard vs. Greenman.

THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS 31
as an issue Pendleton sought to obtain for himself the
Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1868.
The aspirations of Pendleton, when his friends
brought his "Ohio Idea" to the national conven
tion, in Tammany Hall, New York, on July 4, were
opposed by the similar desires of Chief Justice
Chase, who still wanted the Presidency, and Horatio
Seymour, the Democratic war Governor of New
York. In its leader, commenting on the convention,
Harper's Weekly asserted that " The Democratic
Convention of 1864 declared the war a failure. The
loyal people scorned the words and fought on to an
unconditional victory. The Democratic Convention
of 1868 declares that the war debt shall be repu
diated. And their words will be equally spurned by
the same honorable people." Pendleton failed to
secure the nomination, which went to Seymour, on
the twenty-second ballot, with Francis P. Blair, Jr.,
for the Vice-Presidency, but the " Ohio idea" was em
bodied in the platform of the party, although Sey
mour distinctly disavowed it.
Pledged to what the East commonly regarded as
repudiation, the Democratic party was severely
handicapped at .the beginning of the campaign. Not
only could their opponents reproach Seymour as a
Copperhead, but they could profess to be frightened
by Wade Hampton and the " hundred other rebel
officers who sat in the Convention." Already in
cluding " treason," and disloyalty, the indictment was
amended to include dishonor, by the Republicans,
who scarcely needed the strong popularity of Grant
to carry them into office.

32 THE NEW NATION
The Republican party was compelled to disguise
itself as " Union " in 1864, and it paid for the dis
guise during the next four years. Upon the death
of Lincoln, the Tennessee Democrat, Andrew John
son, took the oath of office. The bond which kept
Democrats and Republicans together as Unionists
had dissolved with the surrender of Lee, so that
Johnson was enabled to follow his natural bent as a
strict constructionist. His policies had carried him
far away from the radical Republicans before Con
gress convened for its session of 1865-66, and led
to a positive breach with that body in 1866.
The quarrel between Johnson and the Republican
leaders was occasioned by his views upon the rights
of the Southern States, conquered in war and held
within the military grasp of the United States. It
was his belief, as it had been Lincoln's, that these
States were still States and were in the Union, even
though in a temporarily deranged condition. As
President, entrusted with force to be used in execut
ing the laws, he regarded himself as sole judge of
the time when force should no longer be needed.
And in this spirit he offered pardon to many leaders
of the Confederacy in May, 1865. He followed am
nesty with provisional governments, and proclaimed
rules according to which the conquered States should
revise their constitutions and reestablish orderly and
loyal governments. He had reorganized the last of
the eleven States before Congress could interfere
with him.
The difference between Johnson and his Repub
lican associates lay in the character of the restored

THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS 33
electorates in the South. The whole white popula
tion had, in most States, been implicated in seces
sion. There was no Union faction in the South that
remained loyal throughout the war. Pardoned and
restored to a full share in the Government, these
Southern leaders would come back into Congress as
Democrats, and with increased strength. The Thir
teenth Amendment abolished slavery, and raised the
representation of the negroes in the South from the
old three-fifths ratio to par. Every State would come
back with more Representatives than it had had be
fore the war, and with the aid of Northern Demo
crats it was not unlikely that a control of Congress
might be obtained.
To Northern Republicans it was unreasonable
that the conquered South should be rewarded instead
of punished, and that any theory of reconstruction
should risk bringing into power the party that
Union men, headed by Lincoln, had defeated in
1864. Politicians, interested in the spoils of office,
were. enraged at the thought of losing them. Dis
interested Northerners, who had sacrificed much to
save the Union, believed it unsafe at once to hand
it over to a combination of peace Democrats and
former " rebels." Yet this was Johnson's plan, and
Congress, with radical Republicans in control, set
about to prevent it.
Although Johnson, as President, controlled the
patronage, Congress possessed the power, if not the
moral right, to limit him in its use. No appointment
could be made without the consent of the Senate,
which was Republican. In 1867 Congress enacted

34 THE NEW NATION
that no removal should be made without the same
consent, in a Tenure-of-Office Bill that brought the
dispute to a climax. More important than this power
of concurrence was the exclusive right of each house
to judge of " the elections, returns, and qualifica
tions " of its own members. So long as the Southern
Senators and Representatives were out of Congress
no power could get them in without the consent of
either house. Violent advisers of the President argued
that a Congress excluding the members of eleven
States by prearrangement was a " rump," and with
out authority, but they failed to influence either the
conduct of the majority or the acts of Johnson.
In tho Thirty-ninth Congress, which sat in 1865
and 1866, it was the problem of the leaders, Charles
Sumner in the Senate and Thaddeus Stevens in the
House, to hold the party together and to block the
designs of the President. In the House, the heavy
Republican majority made this easy. In the Senate
the majority was slighter, and could be kept at two
thirds only by unseating a Democratic Senator from
New Jersey, after which event both houses were able
to defy Johnson and to pass measures over his veto.
The vetoes began when Johnson refused his consent
to the Freedmen's Bureau and the Civil Rights Bills.
These and all other important acts of reconstruction
were forced upon the President by the two-thirds
vote. The split, so far as founded upon honest diver
gence in legal theory, was embarrassing. It was made
disgraceful by the violence of the radical Republicans
and the intemperate retorts of Johnson. In 1866

THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS 35
Congress sent the Fourteenth Amendment to the
States for ratification. In 1867 it passed its bills for
actual reconstruction under the control of the army
of tho United States, and defied Johnson to inter
fere by refusing to allow him to remove officials
from office.
Johnson carried himself through the partisan
struggle with ability and success. His language was
often extreme, but he enforced the acts which Con
gress passed as vigorously as if they had been his
own. So far as any theory of the Constitution met
the facts of reconstruction, his has the advantage,
but in a situation not foreseen by the Constitution
force outranked logic, and the radical Republicans
with two-thirds in each house possessed the force.
There was no lapse in the President's diligence and
no flaw in his official character which his enemies
could use. They began to talk of impeachment in
1866, but could find no basis for it.
The Tenure-of-Office Act furnished the pretext
for impeachment. Advised by his Attorney-General
that it was unconstitutional, Johnson dismissed the
Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, for whose
protection the law had been passed. In removing
Stanton he broke with Grant, commanding the army,
over a question of veracity, and gave to Congress its
chance. In February, 1868, the House of Represent
atives voted to impeach him.
The trial of Andrew Johnson before the Senate
dragged through April and May. The artioles of
impeachment were long and detailed in their descrip
tion of the unquestioned bad manners of the Presi-

36 THE NEW NATION
dent, but the only specific violation of law cited was
in the case of Stanton, and here it could bo urged
both that the law was unconstitutional and that it
was so loosely drawn that it did not really cover this
case. In brief, it was the policy of Johnson that was
on trial, and it was finally impossible to persuade
two-thirds of tho Senators that this constituted a
high crime or a misdemeanor. The President was
acquitted in the middle of May, while the Repub
lican party turned to the more hopeful work of elect
ing his successor.
In the fight over Johnson party lines had been
strengthened and defined so that no Unionist, not in
sympathy with congressional reconstruction, could
hope for the nomination. No other issue equaled this
in strength. The greenback issue was condemned in
a plank that denounced " all forms of repudiation as
a national crime," but ran second to the basis of re
construction. No other candidate than Ulysses S.
Grant was considered at the Chicago Convention.
Few men have emerged from deserved obscurity
to deserved prominence as rapidly as General Grant.
In 1861 he was a retired army officer, and a failure.
In 1863, as the victor at Fort Donelson and at Vicks
burg, he loomed up in national proportions. In the
hammering of 1864 and 1865 it was his persist
ence and moral courage that won the day. In 1868,
as commander of the army, and fortunate in his
quarrel with Johnson, he was the coveted candi
date of both parties, for he had no politics. Held by
his associations to the Republican leaders, he was
nominated at Chicago on the first ballot, with

THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS 37
Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, as his Vice-Presi
dent. The nomination of Grant occurred as the impeach
ment trial was drawing to a close. Before Congress
adjourned it readmitted several of tho Southern States
that had been restored under the control of Republi
can majorities. Tennessee was already back; the new
States were North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Only
three States remained under provisional control when
Grant was elected in November and seated in the
following March. As he took the oath of office there
were few, North, South, or West, who did not rejoice
in his election ; he had defeated the Greenback
pretension, which endeared him to the East; the
West remembered that he had been born and bred
in the Mississippi Valley ; and to tho South he pre
sented tho clean hands of tho regular army officer,
and tho welcome promise of his letter of acceptance,
" Let us have peace."
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
For general accounts of the Far West in this period consult
K. Coraan, Economic Beginnings of the Far West (2 vols., 1912),
and F. L. Paxson, The Last American Frontier (1910). These
should be supplemented by £. L. Bogart, Economic History of
the United States (1907), K. Comaii, Industrial History of the
United States (2d ed., 1910), W. A. Scott, The Repudiation of
State Debts (1893), and W. C. Mitchell, History of the Green
backs. The more valuable memoirs include H. McCulloch,
Men and Measures of Half a Century (1888), and J, G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress (2 vols., 1884). A brilliant analysis
of the financial interests of the debtor sections is M. 8. Wild-
man, Money Inflation in the United States (1905). Rhodes oon-

38 THE NEW NATION
tinues to furnish a comprehensive narrative, and is parallele
by tbe shorter W. A. Dunning, Reconstruction, Political an
Economic, 1865-1877 (in The American Nation, vol. 22, 1907]
A detailed account of impeachment politics is in D. M. Do Wit
Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1903), and in J. A
Woodburn, The Life of Thaddeus Stevens (1913). J. P. Davii
The Union Pacific Railway (1894), is tho standard account c
the early movement for a continental railroad. S. L. Clemen
(Mark Twain) presents a vivid picture of frontier life in Rough
ing lt (1872), while A. B. Paine, Mark Twain (3 vols., 1912)
contains much material of general historical interest for thi
period.

CHAPTER III
THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE IN THE SOUTH
The eight Southern States whose votes were cast
in 1868 were far different from the States of the
same names in 1860, and were, like the three still
outside the Uniou, largely under the control of rad
ical Republicans. Restoration, after a fashion, they
had received, but it had been accompanied by a rev
olution in society, in politics, and in economic life.
"Reconstruction" is an inappropriate name for what
took place.
Many efforts have been made to show the price
paid by the South for its attempt at independence,
but these have always failed to be exact. No scheme
of accounting can uncover all the costs. It is a suffi
cient suggestion as to the total, that a million men,
at the prime of life, were diverted from ordinary pro
duction for about three years. Not only did the South
lose, the products of their labor, but it lost many of
them, while its houses, barns, and other permanent
improvements wore out, were burned, or went to
pieces from lack of care. Its slave property was de
stroyed. Poverty was universal within the region of
the Confederacy when Johnson issued his amnesty
proclamation and the troops came home.
The most immediate problems before the Southern
planter in the spring of 1865 were his dilapidated

40 THE NEW NATION
buildings, his spring crops, and his labor supply.
Without money or credit, he needed all the stiffness
of a proud casto to hold off bankruptcy. The daugh
ter of a prominent Mississippi planter told later how
her father, at seventy years, did the family washing
to keep his daughters from the tub. A society whose
men and women took this view of housework (for the
daughters let their father have his way) had much
to learn before it could reestablish itself. Yet this
same stubbornness carried the South through the
twenty trying years after the war.
The system of slave labor was gone, but the ne
groes were still the chief reliance for labor. It appears
from the scanty records that are available that the
planters expected to reopen the plantations using the
freedmen as hired laborers. In 1865 and 1866 they
tried this, only to find that the negro had got beyond
control and would not work. Supervision had become
hateful to him. A vagrant life appealed to his desire
for change. At best, he was unintelligent and indo
lent. In a few years it became clear that the old type
of plantation had vanished, and that the substitute
was far from satisfactory.
Failing at hiring the negro for wages, the planter
tried to rent to him a part of the estate. But since
the tenant was penniless the landlord had to find
much or all of the tools and stock, and too often had
to see the crops deserted while the negro went riding
around the county on his mule, full of his new inde
pendence. The census records show the decline of
the plantation as the labor system changed. In 1860
the average American farm contained 199 acres,

THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE 41
while those of the eleven seceding States ranged in
average from 245 in Arkansas, to 430 in Georgia,
and 591 in Texas. All were far above the national
average, for the economics of the plantation system
impelled the owner ever to increase his holdings. In
1870, and again in 1880, the reports show a rapid
decline. The average for the whole country went
down from 199 to 134 acres in the twenty years, as
intensive agriculture advanced, but the South de
clined more rapidly than the whole, and in 1880, in
all but two States, the average farm was less than
half its size before the Civil War.
The vagrant, shiftless freedman was a social prob
lem as well as economic. To fix his new status was
the effort of the legislatures that convened in 1865,
under the control of those who had qualified as loyal
in Johnson's scheme. In several States laws were
passed relating to contracts, apprenticeship, and va
grancy, under which the negro was to be held to
regular work and the employer was given the right
to punish him. The laws represented the opinion of
the white citizens that special provisions were needed
to control and regulate the negro population now
that the personal bond of the owner for the good be
havior of his slaves was canceled. To the North,
still excited and nervous in 1865, the laws appeared
to embody an overt attempt to restore the essentials
of slavery. They served to embitter Congress toward
Johnson's plans, and to convince Republicans that
the professed loyalty of former Confederates was
hypocritical, — that these must not be permitted to
return at once to federal office or to Congress.

42 THE NEW NATION
It was not until the summer of 1867 that Con
gress substituted governments of its own design for
those which Johnson had erected by proclamation.
These, meanwhile, had proceeded to revise their con
stitutions and to adopt the Thirteenth Amendment,
which was proclaimed as part of the Constitution in
December, 1865. The direct hand of Congress was
shown in the strengthening of the Freedmen's Bu
reau in the spring of 1866, and the passage of the
Fourteenth Amendment in the following summer.
The Freedmen's Bureau had its excuse in the
poverty and ignorance of the negroes who crowded
about the invading armies. Toward the end of the
war it was authorized to administer abandoned
property, and to aid the freedmen in farming upon
tho same. It did wide charitable and educational
work in easing the abrupt change from slavery to
freedom, and would have been dissolved a year after
the return of peace had not Congress maintained it
to offset the tendencies of Johnson's administration.
Hereafter the agents of the Bureau were thrown
into politics until 1872.
The permanent government of the conquered
South by the army was repugnant to even radical
Northerners, yet the white inhabitants were Demo
cratic almost to the last man, and if restored to civil
rights would control their States. The only means
of developing a Southern Republican party that
might keep the South " loyal " was the enfranchise
ment of the freedman, for which purpose the Four
teenth Amendment was submitted. The agents of
-the Bureau were expected not only to feed and

THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE 43
clothe the negroes, but to impress upon them the fact
that they owed their freedom to the Republicans.
Some spread the belief that the Democrats desired
to restore slavery. Many built up personal machines.
The responsibility upon these white directors of the
negro vote was great, and was too often betrayed.
Generally not natives, and with no stake in the
Southern community, they lined their own pockets
and earned the unkindly name of " carpet-baggers."
The Territories had always known something of this
type of ruler, but the States, hitherto, had known
bad government only when they made it themselves.
The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 ordered the
President to divide the South into five military dis
tricts, whose commanders should supersede all the
state officers whom Johnson had restored. With
troops behind them, these commanders were, first, i
to enroll on the voting list all males over twenty-one.
The negroes, before the adoption of the Fourteenth
Amendment, were thus given by Congress the right
to vote in their respective States, and were included
in the lists. Excluded from the lists were the lead- ^
ers of every Southern community, those whites who
had hold important office in the Confederacy ; and
none was to bo enrolled, white or black, until he had
taken an ironclad and offensive oath of allegiance.
Based upon the list of voters thus made up, state ¦->
conventions were to be summoned to revise the con- "*
stitutions. In every case they must modify the laws
to admit the status of the freedmen, must ratify the
Fourteenth Amendment with its guaranty of civil
rights, and must extend the right of suffrage to the

44 THE NEW NATION
blacks. When all these things had been done, with
army officers constantly in supervision, the resulting
constitutions were to be submitted to Congress for
final approval or rejection.
No constitutional theory ever met all the problems
of reconstruction. The war had been fought on the
basis that no State can get out of the Union. If
this was true, then all the States were still States,
and it was a reasonable presidential function to re
store order and withdraw the troops. The unreason
able result of this theory was the immediate restora
tion of an enlarged influence to those very men who
had tried to break the Union, at a moment when the
greenback movement threatened the foundations of
public faith. Yet Congress, by pretending to read
mit or restore States, denied that they were still
States, and by implication conceded the principle for
which the Confederacy had contended : that the
members of the Union could get outside it. The
power of Congress to seat or unseat members, how
ever, placed it beyond all control. Every effort to
get the courts to interfere broke down, when the
suits were directed against the President (Missis
sippi vs. Andrew Johnson), or the Secretary of War
(Georgia vs. Stanton). A personal suit that pro
mised some relief (JEx parte McCardle) was evaded
by a sudden amendment of the law relating to
appeals. The situation was unpremeditated, and the
Constitution made no provision for its facts. In tho
end, reconstruction must be judged by its results
rather than by its legality. If it brought peace,
restored prosperity, safeguarded the Union, and

THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE 45
created no now grievances of its own, it was good,
whatever the Constitution.
Johnson enforced the Reconstruction Acts with
care, and the Southern conventions, meeting in the
autumn of 1867, sat into the following winter. In
five of the States the roll of electors showed a ma
jority of negroes, and in none were conservatives
able to control the election of delegates. The old
leaders were still disfranchised, and many of them
could not believe that tho North would permit the
radicals to subject thorn to the control of illiterate
negroes. Tho resulting conventions contained many
negroes and wero dominated by white Republicans,
carpot-baggors, or scalawags as the case might bo.
An active part in directing them was taken by the
officers of the Freedmen's Bureau, while the freed
men were consolidated by the secret ritual of the
Union League. Only Tennessee escaped the ordeal,
she having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment so
promptly that Congress could not evade admitting
her in 1866.
An analysis of the conventions of 1867 reveals the
oxtont of tho political revolution which Congress in-
tendod to thrust upon tho South, whoso industrial
revolution was now well advanced. Planters had
begun already to broak up their estates and entrust
small holdings to cash renters, or share tenants,
known as " croppers." Their financial burdens were
heavy, but with intelligent government and reason
able commercial credits from the North, the prob
lems of labor and capital might be met. But the men
who must control the economic future of the South

46 THE NEW NATION
were excluded from the Government as traitors.
Their places were filled by Northern adventurers and
by negroes. Tho Mississippi convention included
seventeen negroes, and was called tho " black and
tan." Inexperience and incompetence were in con
trol, leading to extravagance and dishonesty, but tho
conventions were generally superior to the legisla
tures which followed them.
Framing new constitutions, most of the States had
met the demands of Congress by the summer of 1868,
with the respectable portion of the South looking on
in desperate silence.. The war had left no grievances
equal to those now being suffered. Seven of the new
constitutions were adopted in time for the radicals to
give to their States votes in the election of 1868. Al
abama, making the eighth, was allowed to vote under
a constitution which Congress had forced upon her
after it had failed of ratification by the people. Only
Georgia and Louisiana, of these eight, did not give
their votes to Grant. Only Virginia, Mississippi, and
Texas remained without the pale when Grant was in
augurated in 1869.
The completion of reconstruction in its formal
sense was reached during Grant's first Congress.
Mississippi completed her process in February, 1870.
She had in 1868 voted down the reconstruction con
stitution, taking courage in the leadership of a conser
vative governor, Humphreys. When he was removed,
and replaced by a Northern governor, tho conserva
tives lost heart and ratified the constitution that they
had rejected. Their delay cost the State one more
humiliation, since in tlie interval the Fifteenth

THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE 47
Amendment had been submitted by Congress and
made a condition of readmission for the recalcitrant
States. A Republican legislature, the first fruit of
reconstruction, accepted this and sent to Washington
as the new Mississippi Senators the Northern mili
tary governor, Ames, and a negro preacher named
Revels. Virginia was readmitted in January, 1870. Her
original loyal government under Pierpont, which Lin
coln had respected, had been supplanted by a military
rdgime, having lost its last chance for recognition
when it rejected tho Fourteenth Amendment in 1867.
Undor congressional direction a nogro-radical conven
tion made a new constitution which was forced upon
the people in January, 1870. Texas, too, was in her
final stage of restoration in 1870, and like Virginia
and Mississippi was readmitted upon conditions that
had become more onerous since the passage of the
Reconstruction Acts in 1867.
Eleven States, all the old Confederacy, had been
restored by the spring of 1870 ; but one, Georgia,
was ejected after restoration, and thus became the
last item in congressional reconstruction. In 1868
Georgia had ratified her new constitution and moved
her capital from its ante-bellum location at Milledge
ville to the new town growing upon the ashes of
Atlanta. She had ratified the Fourteenth Amend
ment, but her first legislature had so poorly read
the meaning of Congress that it expelled every negro
whom the radicals had elected to membership. Con
gress had thereupon declined to seat the Georgia
delegation at Washington, and had renewed the pro-

48 THE NEW NATION
bationary period until the legislature, humbled and
browbeaten, had undone the expulsion, whereupon
Georgia received her final recognition.
The arbitrary acts of Congress, passed by the radi
cals over the unvarying vetoes of Johnson, find little
sanction in the Constitution, but it is to be expected
that the laws should suffer in a time of war. Congress
held off the day of restoration until it saw in the South
what its majority believed to be loyal governments. Its
majority could not believe that any party but its own
was loyal, and was thus led to a policy much more de
batable than that of actual reconstruction. Step by
step it moved. The abolition of slavery, in the Thir
teenth Amendment (effective December 18, 1865),
was expected by all and accepted without a fight.
The next amendment, inspired by a fear that the
freedmen would be oppressed and by a hope that
they might be converted into a political ally of the
Republicans, was submitted to the States before the
Reconstruction Acts were passed, and was pro
claimed as part of the Constitution July 28, 18CT8.
Only compulsion upon the Southern States procured
its ratification. It left negro suffrage optional with
the States, but threatened them with a reduction in
representation in Congress if they refrained from
granting it. In the Southern States Congress had
already planted a negro electorate by law. The Fif
teenth Amendment forbade the denial of the right
to vote on grounds of race, color, or previous condi
tion of servitude, and was not submitted to the States
until after the inauguration, of General Grant. A
fear that the South would disfranchise the freedmen,

THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE 49
pay the price, and revert to Democratic control seems
to have been the prime motive in its adoption. When
it was proclaimed, March 30, 1870, the radical Re
publicans had done everything in their power to save
themselves, and had inflicted on the conquered States,
in malice, . ignorance, or mistaken philanthropy, a
condition that in the North, with its trifling number
of negroes, was tolerated with reluctance.
The South was in name completely restored in
1870, but neither restoration nor reconstruction was
in fact far advanced. In the latter process it was yet
clearing away the wreckage of the institution of
slavery, breaking up the plantations, devising new
systems of tenure and wage, rebuilding the material
equipment that the war had left desolate. The former
process was only commenced. It was unthinkable
that an American community should permit itself to
remain subject to the absolute control of its least
respected members, yet this was the aim of white
disfranchisement and negro suffrage. Law or no law,
the restoration of the South was not complete until
its government was back in the control of its re
sponsible white population.
Almost without exception, until 1870, the South
ern State Governments were what Congress had
chosen to make them. Their Senators and Representa
tives in Congress were Republican, commonly of the
carpet-bag variety. Their governors, administrative
officers, and legislatures were Republican, too. Rarely
were they persons of property or standing in their
communities, and often, as their records show, they
were both black and illiterate. Had all possessed

50 THE NEW NATION
good intentions they could hardly have hoped to meet
the local needs, which called for a wise revision of
law in order that the community might recover and
live. That their work should be accompanied by er
ror and waste was inevitable.
From the contemporary accounts of travelers in
the South, from public documents, from the growing
body of Southern biography and reminiscence, it is
easy to gather a mass of detail upon the extravagance
of the Reconstruction Governments. Printing bills
and salary lists rose without a corresponding increase
in service done. When expenditures exceeded the rev
enues, loans were created carelessly and recklessly.
For negroes, only a few months out of the cotton -
field, there was an irresistible attraction in the plush
carpets, the mahogany desks, and the imported cus
pidors that the taxpayers might be forced to provide
for the comfort of their servants. A free and continu
ous lunch, with ample food and drink, was set up in
one of the capitols. Gratuitous waste was the least of
the burdens inflicted upon the South.
It is unreasonable to lay all the corruption of the
Reconstruction Governments to the account of the
congressional policy. The period of the Civil War
was one of abuse of power by local officials every
where. It took a Tweed in New York to drive a
Northern public to revolt, and a Nast to focus pub
lic attention upon the crime. In other States, where
rogues were less brutal in their methods, or prose
cutors less acute, the evil ran, not unnoticed but
unchecked. In the South the same phenomena were
resented with greater vigor than in the North be-

THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE 51
cause the crimes were more openly and clumsily
committed, and because they were the work of " out
siders." .
Deliberate theft of public money was so common
as to occasion no surprise. In no State were books
so kept that the modern student can be sure he
knows where all the money went. Graft in con
tracts, fraud in the administration of schools and
negro-relief schemes, sale of charters and votes, ille
gal issues of bonds, improvident loans to railroads,
combined to enrich the office-holder and to increase
the volume of public debts. A long series of repudi
ations of these debts injured Southern credit for
many years. South Carolina occasioned the most
vivid description of the orgy in a book entitled The
Prostrate State, by a Maine abolitionist and Repub
lican, named Pike ; but several other States would
have furnished similar materials to a similar his
torian. So far as law was concerned, the South was help
less in those regions in which the negroes approached
a majority. The military garrisons which Congress
kept on duty saw to it that the freedmen were pro
tected, yet were unable in the long run to control
the white population. It is a vexed question whether
negro violence or white was the first to appear, but by
1867 events had begun to point the way to the elimi
nation of negro control by force or fraud. By law
it could not be destroyed unless the whites struggled
and argued for negro votes, treating the negroes as
citizens and equals, which was generally as impossi
ble as an acceptance of their control.

52 THE NEW NATION
The Ku-Klux Klan was a secret movement, with
slight organization, that appeared earliest in Ten
nessee, but spread to nearly every crossroads in the
South. It began in the hazing of negroes and carpet
baggers who were insolent or offensive to their
neighbors. Its members rode by night, in mask, with
improvised pomp and ritual, and played as much
upon the imagination of their victims as upon their
bodies. Frequently it revenged private grievances
and went to extremes of violence or murder. From
hazing it was an easy step to intimidation at election
time, the Ku-Klux Klan proving to be an efficient
means of reducing the negro vote. It was so effi
cient, indeed, that Grant asked and Congress voted,
in 1871, special powers for the policing of the South.
In this summer a committee of Congress visited
Southern centers and accumulated a great mass of
testimony from which a picture of both the Ku-Klux
Klan outrages and the workings of reconstruction
may easily be drawn. The reign of terror subsided
by 1872, but it had done much to dissuade the negro
from using his new right, and had started the move
ment for home rule in the South.
That the normal politics of the South was Demo
cratic is shown by the votes of the border States,
where a population of freedmen had to be assimilated
and Congress could not interfere. Delaware, Mary
land, and Kentucky voted against Grant in 1868,
although all the restored Confederate States but two
voted for him. In Georgia the Democrats swallowed
their pride, electioneered among the negroes, and
elected a conservative State Government in 1870.

54 THE NEW NATION
Tennessee escaped negro domination from the start.
Virginia, late to be readmitted, had consolidated her
white population as she watched the troubles in South
Carolina and Mississippi, and never elected a radical
administration. In North Carolina, after a fight that
approached a civil war, a Democratic State Govern
ment was chosen in 1870. The rest of the Con
federate States followed as opportunity offered ; after
1872 the process was rapid, and after 1876 there
was no Republican administration in the old South.
The Republican party, itself, almost disappeared from
the South at this time. A bare organization, largely
manned by negroes, endured to enjoy the offices
which a Republican National Administration could
bestow, and to contribute pliant delegations to the
national conventions of the party. But the South
had become solid in the sense that its votes were
recorded almost automatically for the Democratic
ticket. Force and fraud played a large part in the res
toration of white control, but it could not have been
effective without some connivance from the North.
Before 1872 the keenness of Northern radicalism
was blunted. Thoughtful Republicans began to ex
amine their work and criticize it. " We can never re
construct the South," wrote Lowell, " except through
its own leading men, nor ever hope to have them on
our side till we make it for their interest and com-
patiblo with their honor to bo so." A social order
which needed tho constant support of troops lost tho
confidence of political independents. These, as tho
presidential campaign of 1872 drew near, openly ex-

THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE 55
pressed their hostility to reconstruction as carried
out by Grant, and threatened to prevent his reelec
tion. The first term of Grant ended unsatisfactorily.
His appointments to office were marked by favorit
ism and incapacity. He appointed the only really
inferior man who has ever represented the United
States in London, — one who thought it not incom
patible with his high office to publish a treatise on
draw-poker, and to appear as bellwether in a min
ing prospectus. Grant's personal intimates included
shifty financiers. Corruption .and misgovernment at
the South were held against him, though Congress
was properly to blame for them. Only in his stand
for honest finance, his effort to improve the Indian
service, and his conclusion of the disputes with Great
Britain, could his supporters take great pride.
The settlement with England was his greatest
achievement. Since the summer of 1862, when the
Alabama had evaded the British officials and had
gone to sea, the American Minister in London had
continued to press for damages. The Alabama claims
were based on the assertion that the law of neutrals
required Great Britain to prevent any hostile vessel
from starting, in her waters, upon a cruise against
the United States. In the face of official rebuff and
popular sneers Charles Francis Adams formulated
the claims. His successor, Reverdy Johnson, reached
a sort of settlement which the Senate declined to
ratify, and which Sumner denounced. It was Sum
ner's contention that the Civil War was prolonged
by British aid and that a demand for national dam-

56 THE NEW NATION
ages (perhaps $2,000,000,000, or Canada, by way
of substitute) ought to be advanced. So tense did
the international situation become in 1869 and 1870
that friends of peace were frightened. Boundaries,
fisheries, and general claims aggravated the situa
tion, which was given into the hands of a Joint High
Commission, hastily summoned to meet in Washing
ton in 1870. The resulting Treaty of Washington,
and the successful arbitrations which followed it,
eliminated Sumner's extreme contention but vindi
cated the main American claims and founded Anglo-
American relations on a more secure basis than they
had ever known. It was Grant's great triumph, but
it was a political danger as well, for the negotiator
in charge, Charles Francis Adams, loomed up as the
possible presidential candidate of the Republican
dissenters. The Liberal Republicans included the enemies of
Grant as well as dissatisfied reformers of all sorts.
Carl Schurz, the great German-American indepen
dent, was their leader. Horace Greeley, whose Tri
bune had done much to make the Republican party
possible, gave them his support. Charles Francis
Adams was not indifferent to them. Salmon P. Chase
wanted their nomination. Young newspaper men, like
Whitelaw Reid and Henry Watterson, tried to con
trol them. And the new group of civil service re
formers, disappointed in Grant, hoped that the new
party would take a step toward better government.
At Cincinnati, in May, 1872, they met in mass con
vention, and nominated Horace Greeley and Gratz
Brown. Their platform denounced Republican re-

THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE 57
construction, urged the return to self-government in
the South, and advocated civil service reform, specie
payments, and maintenance of public credit. The
schism became more threatening when the Demo
crats saw a chance through fusion, and nominated
the same candidates at Baltimore in July.
No quainter political figure has appeared in Amer
ica than Horace Greeley, thus transferred from his
editorial office to the stump. Long used to the free
dom of the press, he had advocated many things in
his lifetime, had examined and exploited unpopular
social reforms, had contradicted himself and retraced
his tracks repeatedly. The biting cartoons of Nast
exploited all these ; but no contrast was so absurd as
that which brought to the great denouncer of slavery
and the South the support of the party of the South.
The Republican Convention renominated Grant
at Philadelphia without opposition, refused Colfax a
second term, and picked Henry Wilson for Vice-
President. Its platform, as in 1868, was retrospec
tive, taking pride in its great achievements and
assuming full credit for the war, reconstruction, and
financial honor. It offered its ticket to all the States
for the first time since 1860, and elected Grant with
ease. The inharmonious Democrat-Liberal-Repub
lican alliance increased the Republican majority,
but the returns from the South confirmed the sus
picion that home rule was in sight.
Restored completely to themselves, four years
later, the Southern Governments ceased to play
much part in national affairs and continued the
economic rebuilding of their region. It was thirty

58 THE NEW NATION
years after the war before the South, in population
and business, had recovered from its devastation,
and even then it was far from subordinating its local
politics to national issues.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The writings of Rhodes and Dunning contain the best com
prehensive accounts of political reconstruction. For greater
detail, the series of doctoral dissertations on reconstruction in
the several States, directed by Professor Dunning and printed
generally in tho Columbia University Studies, has great value.
In W. L. Fleming, Documentary History of Reconstruction (2
vols., 190G), important selections from the sources have been
printed ; the same writer's Civil War and Reconstruction in
Alabama (1905) is the best account of the process in a single
State. J. A. Woodburn, Thaddeus Stevens, is useful. The old
and new economic systems of the South receive their keenest
interpretation in the works of U. B. Phillips and A. H. Stone.
The Annual Cyclopaedia continues valuable ; the Report of the
Ku-Klux Committee is invaluable (42d Congress, 2d Session,
Senate Report, No. 41, 13 vols.). Harper's Weekly, which sup
ported Grant in 1872, was the most prominent journal of the
period: C. F. Adams, Jr., has contributed to the diplomatic
history of these years his Charles Francis Adams (1900, in
American Statesmen Series), and his " Treaty of Washing
ton " (in Lee and Appomattox, 1902). Elaborate details of the
arbitrations are in J. B. Moore, History and Digest of the In
ternational Arbitrations to which the United States has been a
Party (6 vols., 1898). An interesting series of recollections of
reconstruction events, by Watterson, Reid, Edmunds, and oth
ers, was printed in the Century Magazine during 1913.

CHAPTER IV
THE PANIC OF 1873
" Are not all the great communities of the West
ern World growing more corrupt as they grow in
wealth?" asked a critical and thoughtful journalist,
Edwin L. Godkin, in 1868, as he considered the re
lations of business and politics. He answered him
self in the affirmative and found comrades in his
pessimism throughout that intellectual class in whose
achievements America has taken conscious pride.
For at least ten years they despaired of the return
of honesty. James Russell Lowell, decorated with
the D.C.L. of Oxford, and honored everywhere in
the world of letters, was filled with doubt and dis
may as late as 1876, at " the degradation of the
moral tone. Is it, or is it not," he asked, " a result
of democracy ? Is ours a ' government of the people
by the people for the people,' or . . . for the bene
fit of knaves at the cost of fools ? "
It was not without reason that serious men were
fearful in the years in which miKtary heroes domin
ated in politics, and in which commerce struggled
with its revolution. Had they foreseen the course of
the next generation, noted the progress of new ideas
in government, the extension of philanthropy and
social relief, and the passion for education that swept
the country, they need not have despaired. Godkin,

60 THE NEW NATION
himself, could not have made a living from his Na
tion, with its high ideals, its criticism, and its de
spondency, in a land that was wholly rotten. The
young college presidents of the period could not have
found a livelihood in a country that was not funda
mentally sound. At Harvard, Charles William Eliot
broke down the old technique of culture and enlarged
its range ; at Michigan, James Burrill Angell proved
it possible to maintain sound, scholarly, and non-
political education, in a public institution supported
by taxation ; in a new university a private benefactor,
Johns Hopkins, gave to Daniel Coit Gilman a chance
to show that creative scholarship can flourish in a de
mocracy. But the essential soundness of the Republic
was as much obscured in 1868 as its wealth had been
in 1861, and for the present the objects on the sur
face, brought there by violent convulsion, represented
its less creditable part.
The years of Grant's Presidency Were filled with
unsightly episodes, that were scandalous then and
have been discouraging always. In his first year of
office, Jay Gould and James Fisk, tempted by the
premium on gold, tried to corner the market, and
Grant's public association with the speculators
brought upon him fair reproach. Tweed, exposed
and jailed after a long fight, revealed the close alli
ance between crooked politics and business in the
cities, and became a national disgrace. Less promi
nent than these but far from proper were Schenck
and Fremont. The latter was arrested in France,
charged with promoting a railroad on the strength of
land grants that did not exist. He had been close to

THE PANIC OF 1873 61
the old Republican organization, and the figurehead
of the radicals in 1864, so that his notoriety was
great. Schenck, while Minister in London, posed as
director of a mining company, and borrowed from
the promoters of the scheme the money with which
he bought his shares. When the company proved
insolvent, and perhaps fraudulent, Grant was forced
to recall him. Critics who saw dishonesty or low
ethical standards in these men were ready to see in
the carnival of the Reconstruction. Governments
wholesale proofs of decadence.
During the campaign of 1872 yet another item
was added to the unpleasant list. Letters were made
public showing how Congressmen had taken pay, or
its equivalent, from men behind the Union Pacifio
Railroad. The scandal of the Crddit Mobilier touched
men in all walks of life, beginning with Schuyler
Colfax, Vice-President of the United States, includ
ing Blaine, Allison, and Garfield, Wilson and Dawes,
and other men who no longer held office. Some of
these denied the charges and proved their innocence.
But none entirely escaped the suspicion that their
sense of official propriety was low, and their list
sampled the Republican party at all its levels. One
of the victims, Colfax, talked freely in 1870 of gifts
received — a carriage from a Congressman and
horses from an express company.
In 1872 the notorious Butler aimed at the gov
ernorship of Massachusetts. He failed to get the
Republican nomination, but the strength of his can
didacy showed the uncritical devotion of many vot
ers to success. He resumed his seat in Congress,

62 THE NEW NATION
unabashed, and put through an act properly increas
ing the salaries of Washington officials, but applying
also to the men who voted for it and to the session
just ending. Its makers went home to explain their
part in the " salary grab " to their constituents, and
many never returned to Congress.
Other improprieties of the first Administration of
Grant came to light in his second term. His Secre
tary of War, Belknap, confessed to the sale of offices.
In the Treasury Department were uncovered the
whiskey frauds which tainted even Grant's private
secretary. And the Speaker of the House, Blaine,
was shown to have urged a railroad company to
recognize his official aid, promising not to be a " dead
head in the enterprise " in its future service.
There is no better illustration of the commercial
ethics of the sixties than may be found in the letters
of Jay Cooke, philanthropist and financier. With a
lively and sincere piety, and an unrestrained gener
osity, he at once extended hospitalities to the politi
cal leaders of the day, carried their private specula
tions on his books, and performed official services to
the Government. It was impossible to tell where his
public service ended and his private emolument
began, but there was nothing in his life of which he
was ashamed. A friend of General Grant, and liberal
patron of his children, Cooke was actually entertain
ing the President at his country home just outside
of Philadelphia when the failure of his banking
house precipitated the panic of 1873.
There had been financial uneasiness abroad and
in the United States for several months, but few had

THE PANIC OF 1873 63
anticipated the collapse of credit that followed the
suspension of Jay Cooke and Company, September
18, 1873. If this house failed, none could be re
garded as safe. Jay Cooke had established his repu
tation during the Civil War through his ability to
find a market for Unitod States bonds. After tho
war he had carried his activity and prestige into
railways. In 1869 he had become the financial agent
of the Northern Pacific, and customers, encouraged
by their good bargains in the past, continued to in
vest through him as ho directed. His personal fol
lowers, numorous and confident, had been taught to
boliovo his credit as sound as that of the Govern
ment whoso bonds ho had handled. When ho col
lapsed, overloaded with Northorn Pacific securities,
in which his confidence was enthusiastic, the panio
was so acute that the New York Stock Exchange
closed its doors for ten days, to prevent the ruinous
prices that forced sales might have created. Thirty
or more banking houses were drawn down by the
crash within forty-eight hours. Others followed in all
the business centers, while trade stood still through
the paralysis of its banking agents.
The distribution of the panic throughout the
United States followed the usual course. In the first
crisis, banking houses broke down, unable to meet
the runs of their depositors or their original obliga
tions. The depositors next, unable to secure their
own funds or to obtain their usual loans, were driven
to insolvency. After the failure of banks came that of
railroads, the wholesale houses, and the factories. As
these last defaulted, the loss was spread over their

64 THE NEW NATION
employees, their contractors, and their creditors.
Confidence was everywhere destroyed. Investments
were lost, or lessened, or put off indefinitely in their
payments. After a few days the acute crisis was
over, but the resulting depression brought stagna
tion to business. Industries marked time, at best;
expansions were out of the question ; new enter
prises were not heard of. From 1873 until 1879
the United States was engaged in recovery from the
injury which the panic had done and from the weak
ness which it had revealed.
The panic, followed by five years of economic
prostration, was only occasioned by the failure of
Cooke. Its real causes lie throughout the period of
Civil War expansion. Never had the daily necessi
ties of the United States equaled its production, and
the resulting surplus, available for permanent im
provements, was larger than ever in the sixties be
cause of the growing use of machinery. Funds for
investment, produced at home and increased through
the strong foreign credit of the United States,
tempted and aided the speculative development of
the North and West. Yearly greater sums were sunk
in municipal improvements that brought in no return,
or in railroads that were slow in paying, or in errors
that were a dead loss. The loss from the Civil War
was an added charge upon the surplus. Great fires
in Boston and Chicago consumed more of it. By
1870 the United States was using surplus at a rate
that threatened soon to exhaust it. When the limit
should be reached, new enterprises must necessarily
cease, and all that were not wisely planned must fall,

THE PANIC OF i873 65
dragging down others in their ruins. For months be
fore the failure of Jay Cooke, business had been
dangerously near this margin. His failure, caused by
his inability to find a market for Northern Pacific,
merely precipitated the inevitable crash.
The faulty currency, outstanding since the war,
and adding to the business uncertainty, now aggra
vated the panic when it broke. The greenbacks were
slowly rising in value. They profited by the growing
credit of the United States, and received a special
increase because of the development of business.
After 1865 business transactions grew in number
and volume more rapidly than the amount of avail
able money, and this, driven to greater activity in
circulation, rose in value from the increased demand.
As the purchasing value of the dollar increased,
prices, measured by the greenbacks, necessarily fell,
while the equivalent of every debt that had to be
paid in a specified number of dollars as steadily rose.
Indeed, so great was the increase of production from
the new farms, reached by the new railroads, and
supplying raw materials for the new factory pro
cesses, that prices fell, even when stated in terms of
gold. In a period of falling prices and appreciating
currency, the gap between the poor and the rich was
widened. The debtor carried a growing burden while
tho creditor harvested an unearned increase. Persons
who lived on fixed salary or income profited by the
fluctuations, but commercial transactions were made
more difficult for the debtor.
The organized Greenback movement had figured
in politics during the campaign of 1868, and made a

66 THE NEW NATION
special appeal to the debtor section during the hard
times after 1873. The Republican Congress had, in
1869, sealed the professions of the party's platform
by passing a resolution "to strengthen the public
credit," in which it declared "that the faith of the
United States is solemnly pledged to the payment in
coin or its equivalent," of the greenbacks, and that
the United States would not take advantage of its
creditors by paying off its " lawful-money " bonds in
depreciated paper. All debts created before the war or
during its early years had lost through depreciation,
just as the later debts had gained through the reverse.
Despite this pledge, advocates of greenback infla
tion, with Butler among their leaders, became more
numerous in both parties after the panic, and an at
tempt was made to have Congress reverse itself.
Grant's Secretary of the Treasury gave a new con
struction to the law by reissuing during the critical
days of the panic some $26,000,000 of greenbacks
that had been called in by McCulloch. He raised the
total outstanding to $382,000,000, and Congress
in 1874 passed a law increasing the amount to
$400,000,000, in an act named by its opponents the
" Inflation Bill." To the surprise of many, Grant
sharply vetoed the act, adhering to his views of 1869
on the evils of an irredeemable paper currency.
During the next winter John Sherman, Senator from
Ohio, induced Congress to take a step in fulfillment
of tho guaranty which Grant had saved. On Janu
ary 14, 1875, it was provided that the Treasury
should resume the payment of specie on demand on
January 1, 1879.

THE PANIC OF 1873 67
Ultimately Congress was saved from the act of
repudiation which the Greenbackers urged upon it,
but while the movement flourished it added another
to the catalogue of troubles with which men like
Godkin and Lowell were distressed. Easterners, in
general, had as little understanding of the West as
they had had of the race problem in the South. They
were disposed to attribute to inherent dishonesty the
inflation movement, and to ignore the real economic
grievance upon which it was founded. The suspicions
directed against the ethical standards of the West
were increased by the Granger movement, to which
the panic gave volume and importance.
Among the social phenomena of 1873-74 was the
sudden emergence in the Northwest of a semi-secret,
ritualistic society, calling itself the " Patrons of Hus
bandry," but popularly known as the " Grange." It
was founded locally upon the soil, in farmers' clubs,
or granges, at whose meetings the men talked poli
tics, while their wives prepared a picnic supper and
the children played outdoors. It had had a nominal
existence since 1867, but during the panic it unex
pectedly met a new need and grew rapidly, creating
1000 or more local granges a month, until at its max
imum in 1874 it embraced perhaps 20,000 granges
and 1,600,000 persons. In theory the granges were
grouped by States, which latter were consolidated in
the National Grange ; in fact, the movement was
almost entirely confined to the region north of the
Ohio River, and even to the district northwest of
Chicago. Such a movement as the Grange, revealing a com-

68 THE NEW NATION
mon purpose over a wide area and in a great number
of citizens, could not but affect party allegiance and
the conduct of party leaders. Simultaneously with
its development the legislatures of the Northwest —
Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa — became restive under
existing conditions, and assumed an attitude which
became oharacteristio of the Grange, — one of hos
tility to railroads and their management. With the
approval of the people, these States passed, between
1871 and 1874, a series of regulative acts respecting
the railways, which were known at the start as the
"Granger Laws," and which became a permanent
contribution to American government.
To Eastern opinion the Greenback movement had
been barefaced repudiation ; the Granger movement
seemed to be confiscation ; for every law provided
a means by which public authority should fix the
charge imposed by the railroad upon its customer.
Both movements need to be studied in their local
environment, which at least explains the Western
zeal in clamoring for the greenbacks, and shows that
in the Granger movement the West saw farther than
it knew.
The Civil War period marks a new era in the his
tory of American railways. Prior to the panic of
1837, the few lines that were built were' local. Few
could foresee that the railway would ever be more
than an adjunct to the turnpike and canal in bring
ing the city centers closer to their environs. In the
revival of industry after the panic of 1837, the
mileage increased progressively, and before the next
panic checked business in 1857 the tidewater region

THE PANIC OF 1873 69
was well provided, and the Alleghanies had been
crossed by several trunk lines whose heads extended
to the Lakes and to the Mississippi. But in these
years the- change was of degree rather than of kind.
The lines were built to supplement existing routes,
like the Erie Canal, the Lakes, the Ohio River, or
the Mississippi. They connected communities already
well developed and prosperous, and in undertaking
new enterprises promoters had figured upon captur
ing the profits of existing trade.
In the new epoch of the sixties there were only
new fields to conquer. The great enterprises were
forced to speculate upon the development of the pub
lic domain and to find their profits in the business
of communities to which they themselves gave birth.
Natural waterways and roads extended little west of
Chicago. The new fields were entered by the rail
roads without prospect of any competition but that
of other railroads. The resulting communities, born
and developed between 1857 and 1873, were pecu
liarly the creatures of, and dependent on, the rail
way lines.
This inevitable dependence on railways colored
the history of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, and,
to a lesser degree, of all the West. While men were
yet prosperous and sanguine and without adequate
railway service, they offered high inducements to
promoters of railways. Once the roads were built
and the communities began to pay for them and to
maintain them, the dependence was realized and anti-
railway agitation began. The fact that they were
commonly built on money borrowed from the East

70 THE NEW NATION
threw debtors and creditors into sectional classes in
jurious to both.
The antagonism to railways was increased because
these yet regarded their trade as private, to be con
ducted in secrecy, with transportation to be sold at
the best rates that could be got from the individual
customer. The big shipper got the wholesale rate ;
the small shipper paid the maximum. Favoritism, dis
crimination, rebates, were the life of railway trade,
and railway managers objected to them only because
they endangered profits, not because they felt any
obligation to maintain uniformity in charges.
In a community as dependent on the railways as
the Northwest was, the iniquity of discriminatory or
extortionate rates was soon seen. The East, with
rival routes and less dependence on staple interests,
saw it less clearly. The charges were paid grumb-
lingly in good times ; in bad times, when the rising
greenbacks squeezed the debtor West and the panic
of 1873 stopped business everywhere, the farmers
soon made common cause. They seized upon the
skeleton organization of the grange and gave it life.
In 1874 their organized discontent compelled at
tention. The Granger Laws were an attempt to establish
a new legal doctrine that railways are quasi-publio
because of the nature of the service which they
render and the privileges they enjoy. This principle
was overlaid in many cases by the human desire to
punish the railroads as the cause of economic dis
tress, but it was visible in all the laws. It is an old
rule of the common law that the ferryman, the baker,

THE PANIC OF 1873 71
and the innkeeper are subject to public control, and
railways were now classified with these. In Wiscon
sin, the "Potter" Law established a schedule with
classified rates, superseding all rate-cards of rail
roads in that State. Illinois created a railroad and
warehouse commission with power to fix rates and
annul warehouse charters. In Iowa the maximum
rates were fixed by law.
The railroads failed to realize at once what the
new laws meant. They denounced them as confisca
tory, and attacked them in court as wrong in theory
and bad in application. Even admitting the principle
of regulation, the laws were so crudely shaped as to
be nearly unworkable. Farmer legislators, chosen on
the issue of opposition to railways, were not likely
to show either fairness or scientific knowledge. Com
ing at the same time with the panic of 1873, it is
impossible to measure the precise effect of any of
these laws, and all were modified before many years.
But the railroads' objection lay beneath the detail,
and the fundamental fight turned on two points —
the right of public authority to regulate a rate at all,
and whether state regulation was compatible with
the power of Congress over interstate commerce.
By 1876 the appeals of the railroads against the
constitutionality of these Granger Laws had gone
through the highest state courts to the Supreme
Court of the United States. In the spring of 1877
that body handed down a definitive decision in the
case of Munn vs. the State of Illinois in which it
recognized that the " controlling fact is the power to
regulate at all." It held that when the institutions

72 THE NEW NATION
in question (in this case warehouses) established
themselves, they did so " from the beginning subject
to the power of the body politic to require them to
conform to such regulations as might be established
by the proper authorities for the common good."
It upheld the rate laws, declared that they were
not an infringement upon the powers of Congress,
and thus gave formal sanction to a new doctrine in
American law.
The legal consequences of the " Granger Cases "
extended through the ensuing generation. The need
for public intervention grew steadily stronger, and
as time went on it became clear that this control
could not be administered by orators or spoilsmen,
but called for scientific training and permanence of
policy. It was one of many influences working to
reshape American administrative practice.
The Granger movement had close relations with
the panic of 1873, although it must anyway have
appeared in the Northwest at no remote date. As a
political force it soon died out, leaving the principle
of regulation as its memorial. With the gradual re
currence of prosperity the Northwest found new in
terests, and as early as 1877, when the decisions
were made, tho passion had subsided.
It was, however, a gloomy United States that
faced the end of its first century of independence, in
1876. Pessimism was widely spread among the best
educated in the East. Public life was everywhere
discredited by the conduct of high officials. The
South was in the midst of its struggle for home rule,
which it could win only through wholesale force and

THE PANIC OF 1873 73
fraud. The West was discouraged over finance and
still depressed by the panic. Yet Philadelphia went
ahead to celebrate the centennial as though it were
ending the century as hopefully as it had begun.
The Exposition at Philadelphia this year was a
revelation to the United States. Though far sur
passed by later "world's fairs," it displayed tho
wide resources of tho Unitod States and brought
home the difference betwoon American and European
civilization. The foreign exhibits first had a chasten
ing influence upon American exuberance, and then
stimulated the development of higher artistic stand
ards. In ingenuity the American mind held its own
against all competition. But few Americans had trav
eled, the cheap processes of illustration were yet
unknown, and in the resulting ignorance the United
States had been left to its assumption of a superior
ity unjustified by the facts. From the centennial
year may be dated the closer approach of American
standards to those of the better classes of Europe.
In the summer of 1876 the thirty-eighth State,
Colorado, was added to the Union. It had been sev
enteen years since the miners thronged the Kansas
and Nebraska plains, bound for "Pike's Peak or
Bust ! " In the interval the mining camps had be
come permanent communities. Authorized in 1864
to form a State, they had declined to accept the
responsibility and had lingered for many years with
only a handful of inhabitants. Now and then entirely
isolated from the United States by Indian wars, they
had prayed for the continental railroad, only to be
disappointed when the Union Pacific went through

74 THE NEW NATION
Cheyenne instead of Denver. One of the branches
of the Union Pacific was extended to Denver in
1870, and thereafter Colorado grew in spite of the
panic of 1873. Grant began to urge its admission in
his first Administration, and signed a proclamation
admitting it in 1876. It came in in time to cast three
Republican electoral votes in the most troublesome
presidential contest the United States had seen.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Among the more valuable books of biography and reminis
cence for this period are R, Ogden, Life and Letters of Edwin
Lawrence Godkin (2 vols., 1907) ; H. E. Scuddor, James Rus
sell Lowell (2 vols., 1901) ; C. E. Norton, od., Letters of J. Ii.
Lowell (1894) ; Reminiscences of James D. Angell (1912) ; J.
T. Auston, Moses Coit Tyler, 1835-1900 (1911); J. G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress ; E. P. Oberholtzer, Jay Cooke /
and A. B. Paine, Th. Nast (1904). The Credit Mobilier may
best be studied in Rhodes, in J. B. Crawford, Credit Mobilier
of America (1880), and in the reports of the committees of
Congress that investigated the scandal (42d Congress, 2d Ses
sion, House Report no. 77). J. W. Million, State Aid to Rail
ways in Missouri (1896), gives a good view of railroad promo
tion schemes. F. Carter, When Railroads were New (1909), is
a popular summary. In J. R. Commons (ed.), Documentary
History of American Industrial Society (10 vols., 1910- ), are
various documents relating to the Grange, which organization
received its classic treatment in E. W. Martin, History of the
Granger Movement (1874 ; his illustrations should be com
pared with those in J. H. Beadle, Our Undeveloped West, in
which some of them had originally appeared in 1873). There
are numerous economic discussions of the Grange in the peri
odicals, which may be found through Poole's Indexes, the best
work having been done by S; J. Buck. The Chapters of Erie
(18G9), by C. F. Adams, is a valuable picture of railroad ethics.
Much light is thrown upon financial matters by the Annual
Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury and J. D. Richard-
eon (ed.), Messages and Papers of the Presidents (10 vols.).

CHAPTER V
THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION
The reelection of Grant in 1872 was almost auto
matic. No new issue had forced itself into politics to
stir up the old party fires or light new ones. The old
issues had begun to lose their force. Men ceased to
respond when told that the Union was in danger ;
they questioned or ignored the statement. Many of
them contradicted it and voted for Greeley in 1872,
but they were impelled to this by repulsion from Re
publican practice rather than by attraction to Demo
cratic promise. Yet, on the whole, the habit of voting
the Union or Republican ticket retained its hold
on so many in the North that Grant's second term
was insured, and it was even possible that a Repub
lican successor might profit by the same political
inertia. The second term (1873-77) added no strength to
Grant or to his party. Throughout its course, admin
istrative scandals continued to come to light, striking
at times dangerously near the President, but failing
to injure him other than in his repute for judgment.
The period was one of financial depression and dis
couragement. The best intellect of the United States
was directed into business, the professions, and edu
cational administration. Politics was generally left
to the men who had already controlled it, and these

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78 THE NEW NATION
were the men who had risen into prominence in the
period of the Civil War.
A new and not a better type was brought into
American politics by the Civil War. Notwithstand
ing the bad manners and excesses of ante-bellum
politics, the leaders had been men of defined policy,
only occasionally reaching high office through trickery
or personal appeal. Now came the presence of an in
tense issue which smoothed out other differences,
magnified a single policy, — the saving of the Union,
— and gave opportunity to a new type of intense,
patriotic, narrow mind. Men of this type dominated
in the reconstruction days. As the sixties advanced,
their number was recruited by men who had won
prominence and popularity on the battlefield, who
used military fame as a step into politics, and who
came into public life with qualifications adapted to
an issue that was closed.
Few of the leaders of the period 1861 to 1876 ever
grew into an understanding of problems other than
those of the Civil War. The most eminent of them
were gone before the latter year. Lincoln was dead ;
Grant had had two terms; Stevens was gone: Sumner
had been driven from party honor before his death ;
Chase had died Chief Justice, but unhappy. With
these men living, lesser men had remained obscure.
As they dropped out, a host of minor leaders,
trained to a disproportionate view of the war and
ignorant of other things, controlled affairs.
About these men the scandals of the Grant Admin
istrations clustered, and their standards came to be
those of the Republican party organization. They

THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION 79
represented a dead issue, which they had never di
rected when it was alive, and were chosen by voters
whose choice had become automatic. In their hands
office tended to become a thing to be enjoyed for its
own sake, not a trust to be fulfilled.
If the Republican organization was drifting into
the control of second-rate men who misrepresented
the rank and file, the status of the opposition was no
better. At the South the Democratic party was openly
founded on force and fraud. In the deliberate judg
ment of the white population of the South, negro
control was intolerable and worse than any variety
of political corruption that might be necessary to
prevent it. The leaders of the party in this section
had borne so important a part in the Confederacy
that it was hopeless to think of them for national
leaders, while they could meet the Northern charge of
fraud only by the assertion of a greater alternate
evil, which their opponents would not recognize as
such. The South could be counted on for Demo
cratic votes, but not as yet for leaders.
In the North and West the Democratic party was
still weakened by its past. Its leaders of the early
sixties, where they had not joined the Union party,
were Copperheads, and were as little available as ex-
Confederates. One of them, Seymour, whose loyalty,
though he was in opposition to Lincoln, is above ques
tion, had been nominated and defeated in 1868. So
few had been available in 1872 that the party had
been reduced to the indorsement of Horace Greeley.
Even the scandals of the Republican administration
could not avail the Democrats unless a leader could be

80 THE NEW NATION
found free from the taint of treason and copperhead-
ism and strong enough to hold the party North and
South. In the paucity of leaders during Grant's second
Administration the Democrats turned to New York
where a reform governor was producing actual results
and restoring the prestige of his party. Like other
Democrats of his day, Samuel J. Tilden had few
events in his life during the sixties to which he could
"point with pride" in the certain assurance that
his fellow citizens would recognize and reward them.
He had been a civilian and a lawyer. He had not
broken with his party on its "war a failure" issue
in 1864. He had acted harmoniously with Tammany
Hall while it began its scheme of plunder, in New York
City. But he had turned upon that organization and
by prosecuting the Tweed Ring had made its real
nature clear. Within the party he had led the de
mand to turn the rascals out, and had been elected
Governor of New York on this record in 1874. As
Governor he had proved that public corruption was
non-partisan and had exposed fraud among both par
ties so effectively that ho was clearly the most avail
able candidate when the Democratic Convention met
in St. Louis in 1876.
The only competitors of Tilden for the Demo
cratic nomination wore " favorite sons." Thomas A.
Hendricks, a Greenbacker, was offered by Indiana
and pushed on the supposition that this doubtful
State could not be carried otherwise. Pennsylvania
presented the hero of Gettysbui'g, General Winfield
Scott Hancock, through whom it was hoped to bring

THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION 81
to the Democratic ticket the aid of a good war record.
The other candidates received local and scattering
votes, and altogether they postponed the nomination
for only one ballot. On the first ballot Tilden started
with more than half the votes ; on the second he had
nearly forty more than the necessary two thirds.
Hendricks got the Vice-Presidency, and the party
entered the campaign upon a program of reform.
The Republicans had completed their nominations
some weeks before the Democrats met, and having
no unquestioned leader had been forced to adjust the
claims of several minor men. Six different men re
ceived as many as fifty votes on one ballot or another,
but only three factions in the party stood out clearly.
The Administration group had sounded the public
on a third term for Grant, and receiving scanty sup
port had brought forward Conkling, a shrewd New
York leader, and Morton, war Governor of Indiana.
The out-and-out reformers were for Bristow, who had
made a striking reputation as Secretary of the Treas
ury, over the frauds of the Whiskey Ring. Between
the two groups was the largest single faction, which
stood for James G. Blaine from first to last.
The political fortunes of James G. Blaine prove
the difficulty with which a politician brought up in
the Civil War period retained his leadership in the
next era. Blaine had been a loyal and radical Re
publican through the war. Gifted with personal
charms of high order, he had built up a political fol
lowing which his unswerving orthodoxy and his serv-
ioe as Speaker of the House of Representatives
served to widen. Never a rich man, he had felt

82 THE NEW NATION
forced to add to his salary by speculations and
earnings on the side. In these he had come into con
tact with railroad promoters and had not seen the
line beyond which a public man must not go, even
in the sixties. His indiscretions had imperiled his
reputation at the time of the Credit Mobilier scandal.
They became common property when an old associ
ate forced him to the defensive on the eve of the
convention of 1876. In the dramatic scene in the
House of Representatives when Blaine read the hu
miliating "Mulligan" letters that he had written
years before, tried to explain them, and denounced
his enemies, he convinced his friends of his innocence,
and evidenced to all his courage and assurance. But
his critics, reading the letters in detail, were con
firmed in their belief that if his official conduct was
not criminal, it was at least improper, and that no
man with a blunted sense of propriety ought to be
President. Despite all opposition, Blaine might have won the
nomination had not a sunstroke raised a question
as to his physical availability. He led for six ballots
in the convention, and only on the seventh could
his opponents agree upon the favorite son of Ohio,
General Rutherford B. Hayes, who added to mili
tary distinction a good record as Governor of his
State. Neither Hayes nor Tilden represented a political
issue. Each had been nominated because of availa
bility, and each party contained many voters on
each side of every question before tho public Even
tho appeal to loyalty and Union, which had worked

THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION 83
in three campaigns, failed to stir the States. Blaine,
expert in the appeal, had revived it over the propo
sition to extend pardon and amnesty to Jefferson
Davis, but his frantic efforts, as he waved the
" bloody shirt," evoked no general enthusiasm. The
war and reconstruction were over, but the old par
ties had not learned it.
There was doubt throughout the canvass as to
tho nature of the issue, and when the votes were
counted there was equal doubt as to which of the
candidates had been elected. Tilden had received a
popular plurality over Hayes of about 250,000
votes, but it was not certain that these carried with
them a majority of the electoral college. Of the 369
electoral votes, Tilden and Hendricks had, without
question, 184; while Hayes and Wheeler were
equally secure in 166. The remaining 19 (Florida,
Louisiana, and South Carolina) were claimed by
both parties, and it appeared that both claims were
founded on widespread fraud. Unless all these 19
votes could be secured, Hayes was defeated, and to
obtain them the Republican party set to work.
For weeks botwoon tho election and tho counting
of the electoral votes the United States debated
angrily over the result. The Constitution required
that when Congress should meet in joint session to
hear the returns, the Vice-President should preside,
and should open the certificates from the several
States ; and that the votes should then be counted.
It was silent as to the body which should do the
counting, or should determine which of two doubtful
returns to count. Since the outcome of the election

84 THE NEW NATION
would turn upon tho answer to this question, it was
necessary to find some solution before Mareh 4,
1877. Failing to find in the Constitution a rule for de
termining cases such as this, Congress made its own,
and created an Electoral Commission to which the
doubtful cases were to be submitted. This body,
fifteen in number, five each from Senate, House, and
Supreme Court, failed, as historians have since
failed, to convince the United States that the claims
of either Republican or Democratic electors were
sound. Honest men still differ in their beliefs. The
members came out of the Commission as they went
in, firm in the acceptance of their parties' claims,
and since eight of the fifteen members were Re
publican, the result was a decision giving none of
the nineteen contests to Tilden, and making possible
the inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes.
There was bitter partisanship shown over the
contest, and the Democrats, with a real majority of
popular votes, maintained that they had been robbed
of the Presidency. Excepting this, there was no
issue that clearly separated the followers of Hayes
from those of Tilden when the former took the oath
of office. There was likewise, unhappily for Hayes,
no common bond by which the President could hold
his own party together and make a successful adminis
tration. Like three of his predecessors, John Adams, John
Quincy Adams, and Martin Van Buren, Hayes was
carried into office by the weight of a well-organized
machine, rather than by his own hold upon the

THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION 85
people. Like all of them he fought faction as a con
sequence, and every new step in administration
forced upon him increased his embarrassment in con
ducting the Government. At the start, he alienated
many Republicans by his policy toward the South.
Before the election Hayes had reached the con
clusion that coercion in the South must be aban
doned. The people must be left in control of their
own institutions, and if they mishandled them must
take the consequences. This meant that the last of
the States, in which only the army garrisons had
kept the Republicans in office, must revert to the
control of the Democrats. It also meant an attack
upon the President by those who still believed the
South a menace, and those who cherished it as a po
litical issue, — the " sentimentalists controlled by
knaves," in Godkin's language. Hayes acted upon
his conviction as soon as he took office, withdrew
the troops, and turned over to the South her own
problems. Political reconstruction, as shaped by Con
gress, had broken down in every part, and it re
mained to be seen whether the constitutional recon
struction, as embodied in the amendments, would be
more permanently effective.
In addition to taking their issue from them, Hayes
deprived the politicians of their plunder. The per
sonal conduct of his household added nothing to his.
popularity in Washington, for his wife served no
wines and gave to the White House the atmosphere
of the standard middle-class American family. His
official family struck a blow at the political use of
offices.

86 THE NEW NATION
Although many of the Liberal Republicans of
1872 were still dissatisfied and saw no prospect of a
change of heart for their party, most of them had
voted for Hayes, and one of them was taken into the
new Cabinet. Carl Schurz became Secretary of the
Interior, bringing into office for the first time an
active desire to reform the civil service. Congress had
made a timid experiment in civil service reform early
in the seventies, but had soon wearied of it. Schurz
announced that his subordinates would be chosen on
merit, and acted upon the announcement.
The storm broke at once upon the Secretary over
the issue of the patronage, and soon reached the
President. The offices were not only valued assets
of Senators and Representatives, who held control
over their followers through them, but had come to
be regarded as the cement that held the national
party organization together. In the absence of an
issue, the binding force of the offices had an enlarged
importance. But Hayes generally backed up Schurz
in the fight. The Indian Bureau, in particular, prof
ited by the new policy. Two serious outbreaks had
recently occurred as the result of bad administra
tion. In one, Custer had been led to his destruction ;
in the other Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce's had
worried the regular army through a long campaign.
The Democratic House of Representatives had in this
very period been striking at the army appropriations
in order to shape Grant's Southern policy. It had
enabled Nast to draw, in one of his biting cartoons, a
picture of the savage, the Ku-Klux, and the Con
gressman shaking hands over a common policy.

THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION 87
Schurz and his Indian Commissioner foresaw the
changes needed, now that the range Indians had all
been consolidated on reserves, and took this time to
reorganize the service.
Hayes refused to give over all the offices as spoils,
and removed some officials for pernicious political
activity. The most important removal was that of
Chester A. Arthur, Collector of the Port of New
York, whose enraged friends, Conkling among them,
became the center of the attack on the titular head
of the party. Sneering at the sincerity of the new
policy, Conkling cynically declared that " when Doc
tor Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge
of a scoundrel, he ignored the enormous possibilities
of the word reform." But because Hayes did not in
every case follow an ideal that no other President
had even set, he lost the support of the reformers
who soon denounced him nearly as fiercely as did the
" Stalwarts." Even if Hayes had been able to keep a united
party behind him, his Administration could scarcely
have been marked by constructive legislation. His
party had lost control of the House of Represent
atives in the election of 1874. The Forty-fifth Con
gress, chosen with Hayes in 1876, and the Forty-
sixth, in 1878, were Democratic, and delighted to
embarrass the Administration. Dissatisfied Repub
licans saw the deadlock and laid it upon the shoul
ders of the President. The Democratic Congress
checked Administration measures, and managed to
advance opposition measures of its own. Twice
Hayes had to summon special sessions because of the

88 THE NEW NATION
failure of appropriation bills, and in his first winter
the opposition endangered those policies of finance to
which the Republican party had become pledged.
The Greenback agitation, rising about 1868 and
stimulated by the panic of 1873, had not subsided
when Hayes became President. It had lost much of
its force, but there continued throughout the West,
in both parties, a spirit that encouraged inflation of
every sort. In Congress there were repeated efforts
to repeal the Resumption Act of 1875, which the
Democratic platform had denounced the next year.
And when a sudden increase in the production of
silver reduced its price, a silver inflation movement
was placed beside the Greenback movement.
The United States had used almost no silver coin
between 1834 and 1862 because the coinage ratio,
sixteen to one, undervalued silver and made it waste
ful to coin it. No specie was used as currency be
tween 1862 and 1879, and the relative market prices
of bullion remained close to their usual average until
the year of panic. During the seventies the price of
silver fell as new mines were opened in the West.
The ratio rose above sixteen to one, and silver, from
being undervalued at that ratio, came to be over
valued. It would now have paid owners of silver
bullion to coin it into dollars at the legal rate, but
Congress had in 1873, after a generation of disuse
of silver, dropped the silver dollar from the list of
standard coins. As silver fell in value, mine-owners
asked for a renewal of coinage, and inflationists joined
them, hoping for more money of any kind. During
the winter of 1878 a free silver coinage bill, passed

THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION 89
by the Democratic House under the guidance of
Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, was under consider
ation in the Republican Senate.
John Sherman, the defender of gold resumption,
was no longer in the Senate to fight this Bland Act.
He had become Hayes's Secretary of the Treasury,
and in this capacity was working toward resumption
and upholding Hayes in his war on the spoilsmen.
In his place, Allison, of Iowa, forced an amendment
to the Bland Bill, taking away its free-coinage char
acter and substituting a requirement to buy a speci
fied amount of silver bullion each month — from
$2,000,000 to $4,000,000 worth — and coin it. Thus
amended, the House concurred in the act, which
Hayes vetoed in February, 1878. It became a law
over his veto.
The Administration was embarrassed in its finan
cial policy, but not defeated. The Resumption Bill
withstood attacks and, as the day for the resumption
of specie payment approached, the price of green
backs reflected the growing credit of the United
States. It reached par two weeks before the ap
pointed day. When that day arrived, Wednesday,
January 1, 1879, John Sherman had the satisfaction
of seeing the change to a coin basis effected without a
shock. More gold was turned into tho Treasury for
exchange with greenbacks than greenbacks for re
demption in gold. It appeared that Horace Greeley
had been right when he had maintained that "the
way to resume is to resume," ¦ — that few would want
gold if they could get it.
The adherence of Hayes to the gold standard and

00 THE NEW NATION
resumption drove from his side another body of Re
publicans. He had now lost the reformers and the
spoilsmen, the radical Republicans and the inflation
ists, and no one hoped or believed that he would re
call his pledge for a single term and be renominated
in 1880 to succeed himself. The disintegration of
his party was as complete as tho collapse of its issues.
On no subjoot, between 1870 and 1880, was it possible
to bring before tho publio a distinctive party issue.
Tho uncertainties of tho campaign of 1876 wore in
creased during tho next four years.
Both parties had ceased to represent either poli
cies or the people. The office-holders were in no
sense the leaders of their communities. Industry, so
cial life, education, and religion had parted company
with politics since the decline of the Union issue,
and unless a new political alignment could be found
there was a prospect of continued rivalry for offices
alone. Yet men were beginning to realize that a new
period of growth had begun during the Hayes Ad
ministration, and that American institutions, formu
lated before the Civil War, had ceased to meet in
dustrial needs. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
J. F. Rhodes terminates his great history with the election
of 1876, and although he bas promised sometime to continue
it, he has as yet published only a few scattered essays upon the
later period. A. M. Gibson, A Political Crime (1885), is a con
temporary and partisan account of the electoral contest ; P. L.
Haworth, The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election
(1900), is a recent work of critical scholarship ; E. Stanwood
may bo relied upon for platforms, tables of votes, and other

xrxu

HAYES ADMINISTRATION 91

formal details, in his History of the Presidency. The Writings
and Speeches of S. J. Tilden (2 vols., ed. by J. Bigelow, 1885)
nro usofu), as aro tho Blaino books: J. G. Blaino, Twenty Yean
of Congress, E. Stanwood, James Gillespie Blaine (1905, in
American Statesmen Series); G. Hamilton (pseud, for M. A.
Dodgo), James G. Blaine (1895, a domestio biography) ; and
tho spicy Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine (edited by H. S. B.
Beale, 2 vols., 1908). Other useful biographies or memoirs
exist for R. P. Bland, Roseoe Conkling, Robert G. Ingersoll,
0. H. Platt, T. C. Platt, John Sherman, and Carl Sohurz, eto.

CHAPTER VI
BUSINESS AND POLITICS
A great commercial revival, affecting the whole
United States, began during the Administration of
Hayes. Ingersoll had predicted it, in defining his
candidate in 1876, when he declared: " The Republi
cans of the United States demand a man who knows
that prosperity and resumption, when they come,
must come together ; that when they come, they will
come hand in hand through the golden harvest-fields ;
hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turn
ing wheels ; hand in hand past the open furnace doors ;
hand in hand by the flaming forges ; hand in hand
by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and
grasped by the countless sons of toil." In every sec
tion and in every occupation commerce revived during
1878 and 1879. Manufactures began to invade the
South ; mining-booms gave now life to tho camps of
the Far West ; the wheat-lands of the Northwest,
reached by the "Granger" railroads and cultivated
by groat power machines, produced a new type of
bonanza farming ; in the Southwost and on tho
plains great droves of cattle produced a new type of
cattle king ; and the factory towns of the East began
again to grow. Connecting tho various sections, the
railroads played a new part, and built more miles of
track in the next ten years than in any decade before

BUSINESS AND POLITICS 93
or since. The whole country awoke as from an anaes
thetic, tested its muscles to find that they were
stronger than ever, and set to work again.
The silent evidence of the United States Treasury
testifies to the prosperity of the next ten years. The
average expenditures of the United States from 1850
to 1860 were under $60,000,000; they ranged between
1880 to 1890 from $244,000,000 to $297,000,000
without exhausting the supply. Yearly, despite the
heavy drains upon it, a surplus accumulated to the
embarrassment of the Government and the demoral
ization of Congress. The aggregate accumulation for
ten years was over $1,000,000,000.
The disbursements of the United States were
growing at a higher rate than its population, though
this was keeping up the traditions of a new country.
From 31,443,321 inhabitants, with which the na
tion faced the Civil War in 1860, it had grown
to 38,558,371 in 1870, and it was now, in 1880,
50,155,783. In mobility and activity it had increased
even more rapidly than this, for it was served by
nearly three times as many miles of railway (87,000)
in 1880 as when the war broke out. Along the old
frontier the percentage figures for population and
railway mileage were highest, but everywhere a larger
population was moving more actively, and studying
itself more intently than ever before. It was also
generating more internal friction than ever. In the
silver mines at Leadville in 1878 had occurred one of
the great forerunners of economic clash. This had
been preceded in 1877 by the railway strikes of
Pennsylvania and the East. In California, Dennis

94 THE NEW NATION
Kearney and the Irish were driving the Chinese from
society in the interest of " America for Americans."
The murders by the " Molly Maguires " had brought
condign punishment upon the lawless in the anthra
cite region ; and throughout the East men were vaguely
conscious of a secret society that called itself the
Knights of Labor.
Complexity, class interest, and the problems at
once of labor and of capital, thrust themselves upon
a society that had occupied its continent and used
most of its free land. The Centennial had revived
the study of American history from patriotic reasons.
An intense interest in self-analysis now kept this
alive, as Henry Adams, James Schouler, and John
Bach McMaster devoted themselves to a scrutiny of
historic facts, as colleges began to create chairs of
American history, as James Ford Rhodes retired from
his office to his study to write the history of his own
times. In the next few years associations for the
study of political economy, political science, sociology,
and history multiplied the testimonies to the existence
of a new nation.
It was many years before the study of history and
institutions reached the eighties and began to place
events in their true proportion. Then it appeared that
there was in fact a fundamental economic problem
and that the political issues of the decade faced it
from various angles.
The United States had nearly reached its greatest
capacity in production by 1880, and was no longer
able to consume its output. Through its first century
there had been a rough plenty everywhere, — -enough

BUSINESS AND POLITICS 95
food, enough work, and free land, — so that the in
dustrious citizen need never go hungry, although he
was rarely able to acquire great wealth. Men had
worked with their own hands and with the labor of
their beasts of burden, as men had ever worked.
Their land had appeared, indeed, to be the land of
opportunity. Population had doubled itself in a short
generation, and America had called upon the op
pressed of Europe to aid in reclaiming the plains and
forests. With all the labor and opportunity, there
had rarely been either an overproduction or a lack
of work.
The industrial revolution changed the nature of
American society in many directions. Through an
improved system of communication, whose results
were first visible between 1857 and 1873, it had
broadened the realm to be exploited, brought the
rich plains of the West into agricultural competition
with the Middle West and the East, and enabled an
increased production of staples by lessening freights
and widening the area of choice. As the result of
rapid communication grain, cotton, and food animals
increased more rapidly than population. The use of
manures and a more careful agriculture on the smaller
farms — and all the farms were growing smaller —
further swelled the productivity of the individual
farmer. Machinery increased the capacity of the laborer as
transportation widened his choice of home. The fac
tories, as they were reorganized in the new period of
prosperity, found that invention had lessened the need
for labor and increased the product. Machine tools in

96 THE NEW NATION
agriculture, in iron and steel, in textiles, in shoemak-
ing, rendered the course of manufacture nearly auto
matic, and when steam neared its limit in dexterity
active minds could see electricity holding out a new
promise. In 1880 population and the capacity to consume
American products were growing less rapidly than
the power to produce. The United States was finding
every year greater difficulty in selling all its output.
It was possible to foresee the day when overproduc
tion might be a menace unless there should be some
reorganization of society to meet the new problem.
Pending the arrival of that reorganization, prices fell.
A study of the prices of standard commodities
shows that there was a constant, moderate decline
after the Civil War. During the war nominal prices,
expressed in depreciated greenbacks, rose far above
the normal, but when corrected to a gold basis they
show little change. At the end of the war, however,
the steady decline set in; by 1880 it was perceptible,
and by 1890 it had come to be generally admitted.
It continued until 1900, when the larger production
of gold and an extended use of bank credits and
checks, increased the volume and mobility of cur
rency and started a general rise in prices. Inflation
ists believed, in the eighties, that the falling prices
were due to an appreciation of gold, and demanded
more money because they so believed ; but overpro
duction appears to give a better explanation of the
decline than gold appreciation. In the falling prices
may be seen a proof of the enlarged production and a
justification of serious study of remedial measures.

BUSINESS AND POLITICS 97
Solutions, intended to restore good prices and to
correct social evils, became numerous as. the eighties
advanced. Tariff reformers claimed that the tariff
was a vexatious interference with proper freedom of
trade, without which a foreign market for American
surplus could not be obtained. The protected manu
facturers retorted that only through a higher tariff
could manufactures be developed and an enlarged
consuming population of factory workers be created
at home. A Western economist brushed both these
aside and found the key to the situation in the disap
pearance of free land, and urged a single tax upon
land as a panacea. United labor found the cause to
be unrestricted immigration. Too much government,
with its extravagance and corruption, was a cause in
the mind of extreme theoretical democrats. Too little
government was equally responsible for the discords,
in the eyes of growing groups of socialists and com
munists. Before 1890 the United States was involved in an
elaborate discussion of its troubles and their causes,
but in 1880 the period had only just begun and its
trend was not clear to the political leaders who were
yet quarreling over the spoils of office. Hayes was
ending his term in disfavor, and was passing into the
jurisdiction of the historians, which was much more
kindly disposed toward him than was that of his con
temporaries. He had gone into office without being
the leader of his party and without having a single
definitive issue. He had alienated one faction after
another; while in Congress, in which both houses
were never Republican, it was never possible to pass

98 THE NEW NATION
constructive laws. The fight for the next nomination
began soon after his inauguration.
Grant and Blaine were the most probable candi
dates for the Republican nomination as the spring of
1880 advanced. For the former there was a feeling of
affection among the senatorial crowd, headed byRos-
coe Conkling, who had been so severely disciplined
by Hayes. The refusal of the President to allow the
officials of the United States to engage too actively
in politics had brought about the dismissal of Arthur
and Cornell from their posts, and a prolonged quarrel
with the Senate. Hayes had won here, but the de
feated leaders turned upon his Southern policy, de
manded a " strong " candidate who would really keep
the South in check, and called for Grant as the only
strong man who could lead his party. Grant was will
ing in 1880 as he would have been in 1876. Upon
his return from his trip around the world his candi
dacy was pressed and had strong support among Civil
War veterans and men who were displeased with
Hayes. Blaine, too, was still a candidate, drawing his
strength from men of the same type as those who stood
for Grant. He might have secured the nomination had
he not been opposed by the Secretary of the Treasury,
John Sherman, whose friends thought his distin
guished service in the cause of hard money entitled
him to a reward. A special element in Sherman's
strength was a group of pliant negro delegates, from
the Southern wing of the party, which was brought
to Chicago under close guard, fed and entertained in
a suite at the Palmer House, and voted in a block as

BUSINESS AND POLITICS 99
Sherman's managers directed. None of these three,
Grant, Blaine, and Sherman, could please the reform
element, that found its choice in Senator George F.
Edmunds of Vermont.
The convention at Chicago was marked by the
fight of Conkling to secure unity and the nomination
for Grant, and by the stubbornness with which the
opposing delegates held out against a third term and
for their own candidates. In the end the deadlock
was broken when the followers of Blaine and Sher
man shifted to the latter's floor manager, James A.
Garfield, and gave him the nomination on the thirty-
sixth ballot. The Vice-Presidency was thrown to the
Conkling men, falling upon Chester A. Arthur, who
accepted it against the desires of his leader. The plat
form was a " code of memories " as it had been in 1876
and 1872, congratulating the party on its successes
of tho past and having no clear vision of the future.
The Democratic party in 1880 was without leader
or issue, as it had been since 1860. Tilden, who
might have been renominated and run on the charge
that he was counted out in 1876, was sick. He was
unwilling to run unless the demand were more spon
taneous than it appeared to be. In its perplexity the
party turned to a military hero who called himself a
Democrat and had been passed over in 1876. General
Winfield Scott Hancock had never been in active
politics, but was now nominated over a long list of
local candidates. William H. English, of Indiana,
who was known to have money, and was believed to
be ready to use it in the campaign, was the vice-presi
dential oandidate.

100 THE NEW NATION
The canvass of 1880 was fought during a prosper
ous summer on issues that were largely personal. As
Sherman said of Ohio in 1879, so he might have said
of the country in 1880, that " the revival of industries
and peace and happiness was a shrewd political trick
of the Republicans to carry " the United States. Fol
lowing their practice for three campaigns, the old line
speakers dwelt upon the conditions in the South. An
Indiana rhyme " for young Democrats " ran : —
" Sing a song of shotguns,
Pocket full of knives,
Four-and-twenty black men,
Running for their lives ;
When the polls are open
Shut the nigger's mouth,
Is n't that a bully way
To make a solid South ? "
But the audiences were unresponsive. An old politi
cal reporter remembers being in the national head
quarters late in the campaign, and hearing Blaine, who
had been stumping for Garfield, say, " You want to
fold up the bloody shirt and lay it away. It 's of no
use to us. You want to shift the main issue to pro
tection." Not until the campaign was nearly over did
a real issue emerge.
The protective tariff had not played a large part
in any campaign since 1800. In 1868 and 1872 both
parties had looked forward to the reduction of revenue
to a peace basis, adopting mild planks to that effect.
In 1876 the topic had been more prominent in the
platforms, but not in the canvass. In 1880 Hancock
was questioned on the tariff during one of his speeches.
The question was probably unpremeditated, but it took

BUSINESS AND POLITICS 101
the candidate unaware, for as an officer in the regular
army he had never given the matter thought. His
evasive answer, that the tariff was a local issue only,
gave an opening to his opponents, who forced tho
tariff to a prominent place in the few remaining
days before election. Thoy made much of Hancock's
ignorance, and perhaps by this maneuver offset the
disadvantage done to Garfield by a forged letter,
which purported to show him as a friend of cheap
labor and Chinese immigration. Garfield and Arthur
were elected by a small plurality over Hancock. No
one received a popular majority, for a third candidate,
named Weaver, headed a Greenback-Labor ticket and
polled 308,000 votes.
General James A. Garfield would have become
Senator from Ohio in 1881 had not his election trans
ferred him to the Presidency. The fifty years of his
life covered a career that was typically American.
The son of a New England emigrant, he was born in
the Connecticut Reserve in Ohio. He worked his
way from the farm through the log school to college.
His service on the towpath of the Ohio Canal, in
the course of his education, became a strong adjunct
to his popularity among the common people. He
taught Latin and Greek after leaving college, stud
ied law, worked into politics, and went to the front
upon the call for troops. He left the war a major-
general to enter Congress, in 1863, where he sat
until his election to the Senate in 1880. He was the
friend of John Sherman and had been the manager
of his campaign. Like his friend, and like most Ohio
Republicans, he believed that the tariff was one of

102 THE NEW NATION
the bases of prosperity in his State. In his campaign
a young Cleveland merchant named Hanna raised
funds among tho local manufacturers on the plea
that Republican success and their interests would go
hand in hand. In his inaugural address, however,
Garfield said nothing of the now issue which was
threatening to enter politics, but dwelt upon the su
premacy of law, the status of the South, hard money,
religious freedom, and the civil service.
The Republican party had been left broken and
in hostile camps by President Hayes ; Garfield tried
in his Cabinet to change this and " to have a party
behind him." The State Department went to his
rival and ally, Blaine, whose personal following was
larger than that of any other American politician.
The independent Republicans, who had seceded in
1872 and had muttered ever since, were pleased by
the elevation of Wayne MacVeagh, a Pennsylvania
lawyer, to the post of Attorney-General. A friend of
Conkling, who had made a striking record in the
New York Post-Office through two terms, Thomas
L. James, became Postmaster-General. The sensi
bilities of tho West, always jealous of tho East in
matters of finance, were appeased by the selection of
William L. Windom, of Minnesota, as Secretary of
the Treasury, for " any Eastern man would be accused
of being an agent or tool of the * money kings ' and
4 gold-bugs ' of New York and Europe." The Cabi
net as a whole was received with favor, but the har
mony which its members promised Was soon disturbed.
The appointment of Blaine as Secretary of State,
which Garfield had determined upon a few days after

BUSINESS AND POLITICS 103
his election, was a blow to Roscoe Conkling. Hayes
had struck at Conkling in removing Arthur and
Cornell. Now when Garfield decided to please him
self in the New York collectorship, Conkling saw in
the act. the hand of Blaine. He fell back upon the
practice of senatorial courtesy, and held up the con
firmation of the appointment. When he found him
self unable to coerce the President, he broke with
him as he had broken with Hayes, and this time he
and his colleague from New York, Thomas Collier
Platt, resigned their seats and appealed to the New
York Legislature, then in session. The move was not
without promise. Cornell was now Governor of New
York. Arthur, with the prestige of the Vice-Presi
dency, left his chair in the Senate to work for the
reelection and triumphant return of Conkling and
Platt, on the doctrine that the appointments of a
President must be personally acceptable to the Sen
ators from the State concerned. But the New York
Legislature failed to give the martyrs their vindica
tion, and permitted them to remain in private life.
Their friends, the "Stalwarts," ceased to support
Garfield. James, who was not enough a follower of Conk
ling to emulate him, remained in the Post-Office,
where he had already found wholesale corruption.
It had been the practice of the Post-Office to class
ify, the mail routes according to their method of
transportation, and to mark those running by stage
or rider by a star on the general list. These had
come to be known as the " star routes." The con
tracts for the star routes were flexible in order to

104 THE NEW NATION
meet the shifting needs of the Western population
that lived away from railways and depended upon
the stage-coach. When the business of any route jus
tified a better service than it was receiving, the De
partment was at liberty to increase the service,
hasten speed, and raise the pay without a re-letting
of the contract. During the latter seventies the
growth of settlement throughout the remoter West
had justified a large increase in star-route costs, but
James discovered not only legitimate increase but
collusive fraud. The official in charge, in collusion
with former Congressmen who " knew the ropes,"
and with the mail contractors, had awarded original
contracts to low bidders who had no intention of
fulfilling their bids. After the letting of contracts
the compensation had been increased without investi
gation or reference to actual needs.
The unearned profits had been shared by the
promoters and the dishonest officials, and some of it
had gone into the Republican campaign fund. A
former Senator, Dorsey by name, who was indicted
for fraud in 1882, had been Secretary of the Repub
lican National Committee in 1880, and had been
hurried to Indiana to save that State. He did this so
effectively that his friends gave him a dinner, which
Arthur attended, and at which the allusions to his
methods in Indiana were but loosely veiled. Brady,
the official in the Post-Office, had collected the usual
assessments on federal office-holders for Garfield's
campaign fund. When he and others were threat
ened with criminal prosecution they produced letters
by which they hoped to prove that Garfield was cog-

BUSINESS AND POLITICS 105
nizant of and had approved their financial methods.
How far they might have succeeded in blackening
the President, and stopping his prosecutions must
remain unknown, for he was shot on July 2, 1881,
while on his way to a college celebration, and died on
September 19.
The murderer of Garfield declared to the police
man who arrested him, " I am a Stalwart and want
Arthur for President." It was soon learned that he
was a disappointed candidate for office, and irrespon
sible Washington gossip soon had it that Garfield's
friends wanted him to hang, while Arthur's thought
he was only insane. The murderer's sister, in an inco
herent book based on his story, asserted, " Yes, the
* Star-Route ' business killed Garfield I The claim,
* The Stalwarts are my friends,' hung Guiteau 1 " He
was perhaps insane, and was certainly irresponsible,
but his crime, coming simultaneously with the noto
riety of the star-route frauds and the demands of Conk
ling, emphasized the pettiness of factions and the
need for a reform in the civil service.
The illness of Garfield dragged on through eleven
weeks in the summer of 1881, with bulletins one
day up and the next down. The strain told on every
one in the Administration. The prospect of Arthur's
succession called attention to the fact that the Vice-
President is rarely nominated for fitness, but is
chosen at the end of a hot convention, in careless
ness, or to placate a losing side. It led soon to the
passage of an adequate Presidential Succession Act.
The death of Garfield threw the control to the Re
publican faction that disliked him most.

106 THE NEW NATION
Blaine, the head of Garfield's Cabinet, was most
directly affected by the. catastrophe. He had stepped
from the Senate into the State Department at Gar
field's request. While he was a receptive Candidate
for the Presidency this post suited his needs and
gratified his taste. He loved business and liked to
associate with men. He had a diplomatic vision that
led him to formulate a more constructive policy than
most Secretaries have had.
With England, Blaine found negotiations upon
the Isthmian Canal pending, having been taken up
by Hayes. His attitude in his notes of 1881 failed
to meet the approval of Great Britain, and ignored
obligations that the United States had long before
accepted. But it pointed to an American canal and
was part of his larger scheme. His America was in
clusive of both continents, and drew him to hope for
larger trade relations in the Western Hemisphere.
With the approval of Garfield he had started to
mediate in South America, in a destructive war be
tween Chile and Peru. He had on foot, when Gar
field died, a scheme for a congress of the American
States in the interest of a greater friendliness among
them. The invitations for this gathering had just
been issued when Arthur reorganized his Cabinet,
brought F. T. Frelinghuysen in as Secretary of State,
and let Blaine out. There was no public office ready
for him at this time, so he retired to private life
and the historical research upon which his Twenty
Years of Congress was founded. Jefferson Davis
had just brought out his Rise and Fall of the Con
federate Government, while the Yorktown cente-

BUSINESS AND POLITICS 107
nary, like the centennial of independence, had stimu
lated the market for historical works.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The United States Census of 1880 is more elaborate and re
liable than its predecessor of 1870, and may be supplemented
to advantage by H. V. Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the
United States for 1880, which contains a good sketch of railroad
construction, and by R. P. Porter, The West from the Census
of 1880 (1882). E. E. Sparks, National Development (in The
American Nation, vol. 23, 1907), is a useful survey of the
years 1877 to 1885, and contains a good bibliographical chap
ter. The bibliographies in Channing, Hart, and Turner's Guide
to the Study and Reading of American History (1912) are speci
ally valuable for the years 1876 to 1912. E. B. Andrews, The
United States in Our Own Time (1903), is discursive and enter
taining. Special phases of material development may be reached
through D. R. Dewey, Financial History of the United States ;
T. V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor (1889); H. George, Pro
gress and Poverty (1879 ; and often reprinted), and the Aldrich
Report on Prices (52d Congress, 2d session, Senate Report, No.
1394). Many interesting details are to be found in W. C. Hud
son, Random Recollections of an Old Political Reporter (1911) ;
and J. F. Rhodes has touched upon this period in his essays,
among which are " A Review of President Hayes's Adminis
tration in- the Light of Thirty Years" (Century Magazine,
October, 1909); "The Railroad Riots of 1877" (Scribner's
Magazine, July, 1911) ; and ''The National Republican Con
ventions of 1880 and 1884 " (Scribner's Magazine, September,
1911). Among the economic journals started in tbe eighties,
and containing a wealth of scholarly detail for contemporary
history, are the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Po
litical Science Quarterly.

CHAPTER VII
THE new issues
Garfield died before he met his first Congress,
the Forty-seventh, which was elected with him in
1880, but he lived long enough to foresee the first
chance to do party business that had appeared since
1875. WThen Grant lost the lower house at the
election of 1874, the Democrats gained control of
that body and Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, sup
planted Blaine as Speaker. On Kerr's death in 1876,
Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, took the place,
and was continued in it through the next two
Congresses, in the latter of which, the Forty-sixth,
his party controlled the Senate too. It had been
impossible to produce an agreement between the
Senate, the House, and the President on important
new matters. They could not always agree even on
appropriations, and all Republicans felt with Mrs.
Blaine when she wrote, after the election of 1880,
" Do you take in that the House is Republican, and
the Senate a tie, which gives the casting vote to the
Republican V.P. ? Oh, how good it is to win and
to be on the strong side 1 "
When the new Congress organized, Randall ceased
to be Speaker and became leader of the minority,
while J. Warren Keifcr, of Ohio, took his place, with
a small Republican majority behind him. In the

THE NEW ISSUES 109
Senate the predictions of Mrs. Blaine were fulfilled,
although the accident which made a President of
Arthur left the Senate without a Vice-President. In
the even division of the Senate, the two independent
members controlled the whole. Judge David Davis,
transferred " from the Supreme Bench to the Fence,"
became the presiding officer, and generally voted
with tho Republicans, though elected as a Demoorat.
Mahone, of Virginia, an Irishman and an ex-Confeder
ate, called himself a " Readjuster," and voted with
the Administration. These two men made it possible
to carry party measures through Congress.
Shortly after Congress met in 1881, Arthur re
organized his Cabinet, allowing the friends of Gar
field to resign and putting his own Stalwart friends
in their places. The new Secretary of State, Fre-
linghuysen, took up Blaine's policies and mangled
them. Pie adhered to the general view of an Ameri
can canal, as Blaino had done. He pushed the influ
ence of the United States in Europe as far as he
could, keeping Lowell, in England, busy in behalf
of Irish-Americans whose lust for Home Rule got
them into trouble with the British police. But he
dropped the South American policy, recalled the in
vitations to the Pan-American Congress, and kept
hands off the Chilean war. Blaine protested in vain
against this humiliating reversal.
The decision of Arthur to take counsel from the
Stalwarts aroused fears among others of the party
that his. would be the administration of a spoils
man. His first message, however, somewhat allayed
these fears, for it dwelt at length upon the unsatis-

110 THE NEW NATION
factory status of the civil service, and the need for
a merit system that should govern removals and ap
pointments. He promised his support to measures
even more thoroughgoing than the reformers had
asked, and, in January, 1883, signed the "magna
carta " of civil service reform.
The use of public offices for party purposes had
been regarded as a scandal by independents of both
parties for four administrations. The long list of
breaches of trust, revealed in the seventies, had
made reformers feel that incompetence and spoils
endangered the life of the nation. As late as 1880,
they had heard a delegate in the Republican Con
vention, when asked to vote for a civil service plank,
exclaim indignantly : " Mr. President, Texas has had
quite enough of the civil service . . . We are not
here, sir, for the purpose of providing offices for the
Democracy. . . . After we have won the race, as we
will, we will give those who are entitled to positions
office. What are we up here for ? " And they had
become used to the silent or outspoken resistance
to their demands from men in " practical " politics.
The history of the civil servants of the United
States falls into three periods: Before 1829, 1829-
65, and 1865-83. In the first period they were com
monly treated as permanent officials. Rarely had
they been removed for partisan purposes, although it
had been the wail of Jefferson that " few die, and
none resign." Appointments had often been given
as the reward for past services, but none had felt a
need for a general proscription of officials upon the
entry of a new President.

THE NEW ISSUES 111
Andrew Jackson brought a new practice into use
in 1829. His election followed a political revolution,
in which it was believed by his supporters that the
National Republican party had become corrupt. It
was a matter of faith and pledge to turn the incum
bents out of office. Hungry patriots crowded round
the jobs, while Jackson's advisers included men who
in New York and Pennsylvania had already learned
how to use the offices as retainers for future service.
Advocacy of the Democratic principle of rotation in
office was in practice easily converted into the main
tenance of the maxim that " to the victors belong
the spoils."
Every President after Jackson used the offices for
partisan purposes, and few objected to the practice
on theoretical grounds. The simplicity of the National
Government made the habit less destructive than it
otherwise would have been. The spoils system did
not enter the army or navy, the only extensive tech
nical departments of the United States. In other
branches of the Government a large majority of the
officials were unskilled penmen, whose places could
easily be filled with others as little skilled as them
selves. Always a few clerks who knew the business
were saved to guide the recruits, and the depart
ments were generally working again before a Presi
dent met his first Congress.
Lincoln was not different from his predecessors in
the use of offices. He permitted the most complete
sweep that had yet been made, being forced to an
unusually high percentage of new appointments by
the necessity of removing Southerners. In his hands

112 THE NEW NATION
tho patronage became an additional weapon for the
Union, upholding the leaders in Congress, and strik
ing at the backsliders. In the election of 1864 the
Union party carried all the branches of the Govern
ment, and it had a vision of four years of complete
control of the offices when the death of Lincoln
brought a Tennessee Democrat into the White
House. The discussion of civil service reform, on theoret
ical grounds, began about 1865, when the evil of
removals for party purposes was shown to the Sen
ate. Johnson was trying to use the patronage for his
own ends, in opposition to the will of the radicals in
Congress. Reformers who maintained the iniquity
of this custom now found temporary converts among
the Republicans. They got a committee appointed
on the civil service in 1866, and President Grant
announced his conversion to the principle early in
his Administration.
In 1871 Congress tried the experiment of a mod
est appropriation ($25,000) for a reform of the civil
service, and Grant placed the test in the hands of
George William Curtis, a leader of the new reform.
The commission breasted the whole current of poli
tics, found that Grant would not support it in cri
tical cases, and was abandoned by Congress after a
short trial. The demand, however, increased, receiv
ing the support of the independents who were Liberal
Republicans in 1872, and who thereafter constituted
a menace to party regularity. Schurz, Godkin, and
Curtis were their admitted leaders. In 1872 and
1876 they persuaded the great parties to put gen-

THE NEW ISSUES 113
eral pledges for civil service reform into theix plat
forms. Schurz, as Secretary of the Interior under
Hayes, put their ideal partly into practice. In 1881
they were a well-recognized body of advocates, with
a definite doctrine of non-partisan efficiency, which
few politicians denied in principle or liked in fact.
Public attention was focused upon the civil serv
ice by the events of 1881. The fight between Gar
field and Conkling raised not only the question of
the relative rights of President and Senate in ap
pointments, but that of the use of offices for the
support of political machines. The frauds uncovered
in postal administration by the star-route investiga
tions could hardly have occurred in a department
administered by experienced and competent officials.
The murder of Garfield by a disappointed office-
seeker gave additional emphasis to the need for re
form, and these things coming together made possi
ble the passage of a civil service act earlier than its
advocates expected.
President Arthur recommended the reform in
1881, and his party, chastened by the fall election
of 1882, took up a law in the session of 1882-83.
Eaton, one of the leading reformers, and first chair
man of the Civil Service Commission, wrote the bill
which Congress passed with little real debate. Men
who hated the measure knew the unwisdom of oppos
ing it. A board of three commissioners, was created
in 1883 to classify the civil servants, prepare rules
and lists, and conduct examinations. The classified
service, removed from politics, began with 13,780
officers in 1884 ; by 1896 it contained 87,044 ; by

114 THE NEW NATION
1911, 227,657. It grew most actively toward the
end of each administration, as outgoing Presidents
transferred to it the offices that they had filled. Its
best recommendation was to be found in the opposi
tion of politicians toward it.
Arthur did better than the reformers had hoped
in urging and administering the Civil Service Act.
He prosecuted the star-route trials, even among his
Stalwart friends.
In 1882 Congress, with Arthur's approval, took
up a revision of the tariff. Neither of the great par
ties had, in 1882, received a clear mandate touching
the tariff, although it was true that most Republicans
were content with the system in its general outlines,
while a considerable number of Democrats were lis
tening to tariff reform and asking for a tariff for
revenue only. It had been eighteen years since the
last general revision had taken place, and in that
period unforeseen conditions had developed, whose
tendency was at once to point the need for a read
justment of schedules and to create a class of citi
zens whose profits would be touched thereby. The
course of financial reconstruction between 1865 and
1875 had raised the rate of actual protection beyond
the expectations of its advocates.
In 1865 the revenues of the United States, amount
ing to $322,000,000, and far exceeding the needs of
the Treasury in time of peace, came chiefly from the
tariff and the internal revenue. The two taxes were
dependent upon each other. Each increase in the
latter had forced an increase in the former, lest
special burdens should be laid upon American m'anu-

THE NEW ISSUES 115
facture. The ideal of protection had never been lack
ing, nor had special interests failed to look out for
themselves, but the dominant spirit in the war taxes
was revenue.
When Congress undertook to reduce the revenue
to a peace basis, it found that every approach to the
tariff aroused classes of interested manufacturers,
while every attack upon the internal revenue was
welcomed by the public. As a result, following the line
of least resistance, most of the internal taxes were re
moved by 1870, leaving the tariff rates where they had
been, and higher than any protectionist had asked.
A large part of the tariff rate had been intended
to equalize the internal revenue tax ; the removal of
the latter created to that extent an incidental protec
tion, which was unexpected but was none the less ac
ceptable. Some few details of the tariff were modified
by special acts, and there was a flat reduction of ten
per cent in 1872. But the panic of 1873 reduced
the revenues and frightened Congress, in 1875, into
restoring the ten per cent. In 1882 the rates of 1865
remained substantially unchanged, leaving the pro
tected industries in the enjoyment of an incidental
protection never intended for them and created only
by accident in the general reduction of revenue.
Spasmodic attacks were made upon the tariff sys
tem throughout the seventies, but since few defended
it on principle they failed to affect the public. The
tariff was not a political issue. Opposition to it was
confined to members of the Democratic party, in
search for weapons to turn against the Republicans,
and to theorists and economists who had little con-

116 THE NEW NATION
nection with politics. There were free-trade clubs
after 1868, though few ever wanted to establish real
free trade. All that the free-trader Commonly de
sired was a mitigation of protection and the estab
lishment of reasonable rates. Godkin, Schurz, Sum
ner of Yale, David A. Wells, Edward Atkinson, and
Henry D. Lloyd taught the tariff-for-revenue theory
wherever they could find listeners. Wells wrote on
« The Creed of Free Trade," in the Atlantic Monthly
in 1875, and was sure he had found the issue of
1876. But in neither this nor the next campaign did
the parties face the issue. In 1880 the tariff figured
only as a means of embarrassing Hancock, while
Garfield did not even mention it in his inaugural.
The forces that compelled a revision of the tariff
in 1882-83 had to do with revenue and expendi
tures. Following the new prosperity the receipts
increased beyond the ability of Congress to spend
them. There was a small surplus in 1879. In 1880
it was $68,000,000 ; in 1881, $101,000,000 ; in 1882,
$145,000,000 ; in 1883, $132,000,000. The surplus
was a constant incentive to extravagance and deranged
the currency. If it was allowed to remain in the
Treasury, its millions were withheld from circulation,
and contraction was the result ; if it was applied to
the purchase or redemption of bonds, the national
bank currency was contracted, for this was founded
upon bonds owned by the banks; and it could not be
spent without the invention of new channels. The
temptation to increase pension payments was strength
ened, while public works multiplied without reason.
Tho waste of money on public works induced

THE NEW ISSUES 117
Arthur to advertise the need for a reduction of the
revenue. The annual River and Harbor Bill had con
sumed $3,900,000 in 1870, and $8,900,000 in 1880.
In 1882 the bill was swollen to over $18,000,000 by
greed and log-rolling. Arthur vetoed it as unreason
able and unconstitutional in August, 1882. It passed
over his veto, but the defeat of his party in the fol
lowing November was construed as a vindication of
the President. The Republicans lost control of the
House of Representatives, Democratic governors were
elected in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, in New
York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Indiana, and
critics began to ask if this was the beginning of the
end of the party. The certainty that party bills could
not be passed in the next Congress, with the control
divided, stimulated the Republicans to act while they
could. The Civil Service Act was passed early in
1883, and on the same day the House took up the
consideration of a new tariff.
Arthur, in 1881, had urged that the revenues
be reduced and the tariff be revised, and Congress
had created a commission to investigate the needed
changes, in May, 1882. This committee was in
session throughout the following summer, sitting in
manufacturing centers all over the East and hearing
testimony from all varieties of manufacturers. It had
been organized on a conservative basis, containing
members familiar with the needs of sheep-raisers and
wool manufacturers, and iron and sugar, as well as
experts on administration. Its enemies thought that
it was pledged to protection at the start. The com
mission expressed a belief that the country desired

118 THE NEW NATION
to adhere to the general idea of protection, but it
early learned the force of the demand for revision
and reduction, and sent into the House, in Decem
ber, 1882, a project for a bill intended to reduce
the tariff at least twenty per cent. The bill based on
this was reported from the Committee on Ways and
Means on January 16, 1883, and was debated until
February 20, and then abandoned in the House for
a bill which had passed the Senate.
The Senate Bill was in the form of an amendment
to an Internal Revenue Bill already before that
house. It was passed on February 20 under the
leadership of the young Senator from Rhode Island,
Nelson W. Aldrich, and was sent to conference by
the House a week later. In conference a new bill
was substituted for tho Senate Bill. This was hurried
through both houses in time to receive the signature
of Arthur on March 3, 1883.
The tariff of 1883 failed to meet the demand for
a revision. Its debates show the difficulties attendant
upon the construction of any tariff. Congress was
divided upon the theory of protection, both parties
including high protectionists as well as tariff-for-
revenue men. The revenue-producing side of the
tariff increased the complexities, since every change
in a rate might affect the standing of the Treasury.
In addition to the economic and the fiscal needs,
quite serious enough, there was the tireless influence
of the lobby of manufacturers, pressing for single
rates which should aid this business or that. Few
Congressmen wore sufficiently detached in interests
to be entirely dispassionate as they framed the sched-

THE NEW ISSUES 119
ules. Many did not even try to disguise their desire
to promote local interests. Neither party had a man
date on the tariff in 1882, but when the act had be
come a law it was clear that most of the Republican
leaders voted cheerfully for all the protection they
could get, that the intent to reduce the revenue had
failed, and that what little hope of revision remained
was in the opposition party. "The kaleidoscope has
been turned a hair's breadth," said the Nation,
" and the colors transposed a little, but the compo
nent parts are the same." It was deliberate bad
faith throughout, urged a Democratic leader, and
" finished this magnificent shaft [of the tariff policy]
which they had been for years erecting, and crowned
it with the last stone by repealing the internal tax on
playing cards and putting a twenty per cent tax upon
the Bible."
Throughout the tariff debate no argument had
been used more steadily than that of the protection
ists that protection to labor was their aim. The de
gradation of "pauper labor" in Europe was con
trasted repeatedly with that prosperity that was
typical of America. The insistence upon the argument
revealed the desire to conciliate a Class that was being
noticed in American society for the first time.
The great labor problem before the Civil War
had been that of getting enough laborers and meet
ing the competition which the abundant free lands
of the West had offered. Labor organizations and
strikes had been so unusual that publie opinion had
not yet come to regard them as normal features of
society. But the manufacturing development of the

POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION, 1800-1010
(Table and Diagram baaed upon Thirteenth Census, 1010, Population,
Vol. 1, pp. 129, 130.)

Total
Population.

Foreign
and Mixed
Parentage.

Foreign Born.

1910 .
1900
1890 .
IHHO1870 . .
1800IHQO .

91,972,200 75,994,075
02,947,71400,100,78389,818,449
81,443,32123,191,870

18,897,83710,640,017
11,003,075 8,274,8075,324,208

13,345,54510,213,817 0,121,8070,009,0706,493,712
4,090,703 2,240,036

00,000,000

80,000,000

70,000,000

00,000,000

60,000,000

40,000,000

30,000,000

20,000,000

10,000,000

18o0 1800 1870 1880 18U0 1000 1010

THE NEW ISSUES 121
sixties in iron and steel, in textiles, and in other
machine industries, threw workmen together in in
creasing number, taught them their interests as a
class, and set the scene for an outbreak of strikes
when the shops shut down or reduced wages in the
depression of the seventies. About 1877 these strikes
shocked society by their violence. Neither had the
public been educated to the strike itself, nor the
labor leaders to that moderation, without which pub
lic sympathy cannot be retained or strikes won. A
feeling adverse to organized labor swept the country
and endangered the existence of the labor movement.
The Knights of Labor received the heaviest weight
of disfavor. This was an industrial union, founded
in 1869, embracing labor of all trades, and held to
gether by a secret organization. Dismissal so often
followed admitted membership in a union that se
crecy was defensible, but secrecy mystified and fright
ened the public. The policy of secrecy was abandoned
in 1882, after the excesses of the " Molly Maguires"
had brought discredit upon all organized labor.
Under the leadership of Grand Master Workman
Powderly the Knights carried on an open and ag
gressive campaign of education for labor and inspec
tion laws throughout the Union. The American
Federation of Labor, founded in 1881 and reorgan
ized in 1886, aided in this general work, and with
the Knights helped to reconcile the public to the
principle of unionism.
State bureaus of labor appeared in many States
as the result of the general agitation. An eight-hour
law, for federal employees, had been gained in 1868,

122 THE NEW NATION
while in 1884 a Commissioner of Labor was created
in the Department of the Interior. Arthur was urged
to give the post to Powderly, but selected instead
an economist less actively identified with the propa
ganda, Carroll D. Wright, under whose direction
the Bureau grew steadily in importance. Its reports
became quarries for statistical information on the
labor problem, and its success justified its incorpora
tion in the new Department of Commerce and Labor
in 1903.
The " Army of the Discontented," as Powderly
called the workers, demanded education and protec
tive laws, and turned their attention to competition
about 1882. The cutting of wages by peasant labor
ers, newly arrived in America, was a grievance as
soon as labor became class-conscious. Opposition
to this became virulent in the Far West, where the
foreigner was also a Mongolian. The Chinese of the
Pacific Slope, more frugal and industrious than
Americans, were harried in the early eighties, and
violence was done them in many quarters. Garfield
had been weakened in 1880 by a forged letter seem
ing to show that he favored the introduction of more
Chinese. So numerous were the persecutors that Con
gress responded to the demand for a Chinese Exclu
sion Bill, in spite of the Treaty of 1880, which
guaranteed fair treatment. Arthur vetoed the first
bill, but accepted a second, less stringent in its
terms. After this victory, the labor forces turned
upon immigration in general.
No idea had been fixed more firmly in the Amer
ican mind than that the oppressed of Europe were

THE NEW ISSUES 123
here to find opportunity. Immigrants had always
been welcomed and assimilated, while Congress had,
in 1864, organized a bureau to encourage and safe
guard immigration. The influx always increased in
prosperous, and declined in adverse, years. After
1878 the annual number broke all records. Western
railway corporations were inviting immigrants to use
their lands, manufacturers called them to the mills,
and the total rose from 177,000 in 1879 to 788,000
in 1882. This latter year was the greatest of the
century, its newcomers attracting the attention of
the press, of the city charities who felt their grow
ing responsibilities, and of the unions who felt their
competition. Nearly all the immigrants were pro
ducers, a high percentage being able-bodied young
men and women. The greatest number came from
Great Britain, among whom the Irish settled in the
Eastern cities. Next were the Germans, who moved
toward Chicago or St. Louis, while the Scandi
navians filled up the wheat-lands of the Northwest.
Under the demand of the labor vote, Congress
provided, in 1882, for the inspection of immigrants
and the deportation of undesirable aliens, and in
1885 it forbade the importation of skilled laborers
under contract. As yet the labor movement was
largely aristocratic, safeguarding the skilled work
men, but disregarding the common laborers.
The labor and immigration movement in its new
aspect widened the field for economic legislation, for
few States had factory laws, employers' liability laws,
or laws protecting the weak, — the women and the
children. It also complicated the situation in politics.

124 THE NEW NATION
The Germans and Scandinavians, settling in centers
which had been strongly Unionist in the Civil War,
were believed to absorb the doctrines of the Repub
licans from their compatriots already in America.
The Irish were generally Democrats, and the only
Republican leader who had a large following among
them was Blaine. He had fraternized with the Cali
fornia Irish leader, Dennis Kearney ; as Secretary
of State he had protected naturalized Irishmen who
went home to fight for Home Rule; some of his
immediate family were Catholics ; and his insistence
on an American canal won him friends who were
already disposed to hate Great Britain.
The votes of 1876 and 1880 showed that the two
parties were nearly even in strength, so that any
slight popularity or accident might decide an elec
tion. As politicians prepared for 1884 the attitude
of naturalized foreigners assumed a new importance
which the friends of the various candidates tried to
measure. The campaign could not be fought on any
of the old issues, but which of the new — civil serv
ice, tariff, or labor — was in doubt.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The best history of civil service reform is C. R. Fish, The
Civil Service and the Patronage (1905). This supplants all pre
vious accounts, and may itself be supplemented in detail by
the Annual Reports of the United States Civil Service Com
mission (1883- ), by the Memoirs of Carl Schurz (3 vols.,
1907-08), the Writings of Carl Schurz (7 vols., Frederic Ban
croft, ed., 1912), the biographies of J. R. Lowell, E. L. Godkin,
and George William Curtis, and the files of Harper's Weekly,
the Nation, and the North American Review. The general nar-

THE NEW ISSUES 125
rative of the eighties is covered by E. E. Sparks, National
Development, and D. R. Dewey, National Problems (in The Amer
ican Nation, vols. 23 and 24, 1907), and E. B. Andrews, The
United States in Our Own Time. A thoughtful economic analysis
of the period is D. A. Wells, Recent Economic Changes (1890).
The Report of the Tariff Commission of 1882 is valuable for the
study of tariff revision, as are also the standard tariff histories
by E. Stanwoqd, I. M. Tarbell, and F. W. Taussig. The An
nual Reports of the Commissioner of Labor (1884- ) are
fundamental for the labor problem. Useful monographs are
C. D. Wright, An Historical Sketch of the Knights of Labor (in
Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. i), T. V. Powderly, Thirty
Years of Labor (1889), G. E. McNeill, The Labor Movement
(1887), and M. A. Aldrieh, The American Federation of Labor
(in American Economio Association, Economic Studies, voL in).

CHAPTER Vin
GROVER CLEVELAND
The Administration of Chester A. Arthur proved
that the President had never been so discreditable a
spoilsman as the reformers had believed, or else that
he had changed his spots. The term ended in dig
nity and Arthur hoped to secure a personal vindica
tion through renomination by his party. His struggle
precipitated a contest of leaders, and until the nom
inations were made, none could say where either
party stood.
The independents, chiefly of Republican anteced
ents, hoped to retain what had been gained in the
last Administration. They hoped to extend the re
form in the civil service and to focus attention upon
the tariff. The failure of downward revision in 1883
had strengthened their hands and increased their
hopes. They had dallied with bolting movements
and threats so long that party regularity meant lit
tle to them. Either party could obtain their support
by nominating men who could be trusted to stick to
their platform. Arthur was not acceptable to them,
and Blaine was anathema.
The candidacy of Arthur was doomed to failure.
He had alienated the Stalwarts by his independence,
while he had failed to win the reformers because he
had not invariably refrained from playing the poli-

GROVER CLEVELAND 127
tician. In the fall of 1882 he had interfered in the
campaign in New York, allowing his Secretary of
the Treasury, Charles J. Folger, while retaining that
office, to be the Republican candidate for governor.
This had led to the belief that the patronage was
being used for local purposes, and had stirred up an
opposition to Folger which defeated him. Arthur's
veto of the Chinese Exclusion Bill and the River and
Harbor Bill further increased his unpopularity in
various sections. He failed to win over the Blaine
faction, who regarded him as an intrusive accident
and waited impatiently for the next national conven
tion. Blaine was the leader of the Republican party in
1884, so far as it had a leader, and he possessed all
the weaknesses of such a leader as well as personal
weaknesses of his own. Rarely has it been possible
to nominate or to elect one who has gained a domin
ant place through party struggles. Such men, Clay,
Webster, Calhoun, and their kind, have commonly
created enough enemies, as they have risen, to make
them unavailable as leaders of a national ticket.
Blaine was handicapped like these. His prolonged
fight against Conkling and the Stalwarts oreated a
broach too deep to fill, while the old questions re
specting his honor would not down.
Early in 1884 Blaine was the leading candidate
for the nomination in spite of all opposition. The
Republican National Committee was in charge of
men who sympathized with him. Dorsey had re
signed as its secretary after the star-route exposure,
though his associate in land speculations, Stephen

128 THE NEW NATION
B. Elkins, remained as one of the managers. The
control was in the hands of men who had close affi
liation with the old organization, and of the manu
facturers who had blocked tariff revision in 1883.
It was improbable, in the opinion of many inde
pendents, that a tariff reduction could be got from
an Administration headed by Blaine ; they ques
tioned his sincerity upon civil service reform ; and
they thought it not right that any man, concerning
whose character there was a doubt, should be Presi
dent. They put forward, within the party, Senator
George F. Edmunds, whom they had desired in 1880,
and who had since become President of the Senate.
Other candidates with local followings were General
John A. Logan, of Illinois, John Sherman, and the
President himself.
The Chicago Convention of the Republican party,
meeting early in June, was the scene of a battle be
tween the two elements in the party. At the outset,
the old independents, headed by Curtis, and rein
forced by younger men like Henry Cabot Lodge, of
Massachusetts, and Theodore Roosevelt, of Now
York, broke the slate of tho National Committee and
seated a chairman of their own choice. But the
regulars rallied, controlled the platform, and made
the nomination. Blaine and John A. Logan were
selected, the former accepting the honor with secret
misgivings, for he had a clear understanding of the
intensity of the opposition within the party. The
reformers went home discouraged, many of them
determined not to let party regularity hold them to
Blaino.

GROVER CLEVELAND 129
Out of the nomination of Blaine grew the " Mug
wump " movement, whose influence was greater than
that of the last bolt. The origin of the name " Mug
wump " is not entirely clear, but it was well known
as an opprobrious epithet, and was applied now by
party regulars to the " holier-than-thou " reformers.
One of the regulars later quoted Revelation at them :
" Thou art neither hot nor cold ... so, then, I will
spew thee out of my mouth." They were more offen
sive to Republicans than were the Democrats, while
the latter were bewildered but cynical. " I know that
to-day we are living in a very highly scented atmos
phere of political reform," said one of the Demo
cratic Senators a little later, " I know that under
the saintly leadership of the Eatonian school of
political philosophers we are all ceasing to be parti
sans, that we no longer recognize party obligations,
party duty, party discipline, and party devoirs ;
that we are all to become reconciled to a life of
political monasticism ; but I will continue to have
one failing, and that is in my humble way to be as
watchful and as vigilant of the purposes, designs,
and craft of the Republican leaders as I have en
deavored to be in the past."
The Mugwumps left Chicago and at once opened
negotiations with the Democratic leaders. The Na
tion and the Evening Post were already with them.
Harper's Weekly, which had been a Union journal
in the war, and Republican ever since, abandoned
the party ticket. George William Curtis, its editor,
led in the revolt, and the Mugwumps met at the
house of one of the Harpers for organization, on

130 THE NEW NATION
June 17, 1884. Their problem was whether to nom
inate an independent ticket and be defeated, or to
support and help elect a Democratic President, in
case the Democrats should be willing to cooperate
with them.
Not all the reformers turned from Blaine. White-
law Reid, the successor of Horace Greeley on the
New York Tribune, remained regular. Lodge went
back to Massachusetts and persuaded himself to
take part in the canvass. Roosevelt, discouraged by
the nomination of Blaine, remained regular, but
stepped out of the campaign and began his ranch
life in the Far West. With him, as with many
others, it was a matter of conviction that reform,
to be effective, must be urged within the party.
But enough of the reformers went with the Mug
wumps to lessen Blaine's chances of election.
When the Mugwumps made overtures for fusion
to the Democratic leaders, they had in mind as a
candidate a young Democratic lawyer who had ap
peared as Mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and had been
elected as reform Governor of New York in 1882.
He had secured the aid of independent reformers in
that campaign, — men who resented the candidacy
of Folger and the intrusion of the National Admin
istration in local politics. As governor he had speed
ily established his reputation for stubborn honesty
and independent judgment. Grover Cleveland had
become, like Tilden, the most promising candidate
in a party that had no admitted leader.
The opposition from two elements in his party, at
the Democratic Convention in Chicago, strengthened

GROVER CLEVELAND 131
Cleveland as the candidate of reform. Ben Butler, who
had himself been nominated for the Presidency by an
Anti-Monopoly Convention, denounced him as a foe
of labor ; and such was Butler's reputation that his
enmity was one of Cleveland's assets. John Kelly,
the chief of Tammany Hall, opposed him, too, having
learned to know him as Governor of New York.
Well might Cleveland's friends say, " We love him
for the enemies he has made." They nominated him
on the second ballot, selecting Thomas A. Hen
dricks, of Indiana, to run with him. Their platform
was full of reform, even of the tariff, but on the
latter subject it was less specific than the tariff
reformers had hoped.
As the parties stood in 1884, personal character
meant more than platform or party name. Cleveland
possessed qualities that made his appeal to independ
ents quite as strong as it was to Democrats. With
older brothers in the army he had supported his
mother during the war, and had kept clear of copper-
headism. He stood for sound money ; he believed in
a tariff for revenue ; he had proved his devotion to
civil service reform ; he lacked the factional enemies
who weakened the candidacy of a prominent leader
like Blaine ; and his peculiar appeal to Republican
dissenters led the canvass away from issues into the
field of personalities.
The charge of the independents upon Blaine's per
sonal honor caused the Republican schism and drove
the party regulars into a retort in kind. The private
life of the candidates was uncovered to the annoy
ance of both and to the greater embarrassment

132 THE NEW NATION
of Cleveland. Nothing discreditable to his honesty
could be found, but an apparent lapse in his private
conduct gave the pretext for wild and dishonest at
tacks upon his character. A few years later the nov
elist, Paul Leicester Ford, in a keen study of New
York politics entitled The Honorable Peter Stirling,
portrayed a situation somewhat resembling that
of Cleveland, though disclaiming Cleveland as his
model. The Boston Journal led in the exploitation
of the charges, and partisans forgot decency on both
sides. Nast, having formerly cartooned Blaine in the
" Bloody Shirt," now turned to " A Roaring Farce
— The Plumed Knight in a Clean Shirt," while
others pointed out the fact that the admirer who
coined the "plumed knight" epithet had been coun
sel for the fraudulent star-route contractors.
Attempts were made to appeal to class hatred on
both sides. Butler had hesitated for several weeks
in his acceptance of the nomination by the Anti-
Monopoly Convention. Greenbackers and a few labor
leaders made up his following, and it was supposed
that they would draw votes from the Democrats.
After conference with Republican leaders, Butler
agreed to run, and it was freely charged that these
leaders financed his campaign to injure Cleveland.
Republicans appealed to the Irish vote by recalling
Blaine's vigorous diplomacy against Great Britain;
their opponents caricatured Blaine by representing
him as consorting with Irish thugs and dynamiters.
At the very end of the canvass a chance remark may
have decided the result.
So much had been said of character in the cam-

GROVER CLEVELAND 133
paign that both candidates brought out the clergy
to give them certificates of excellence. In October a
meeting of clergymen of all denominations was held
at the Fifth Avenue Hotel .to greet Blaine. The old
est minister, Burchard by name, was asked to deliver
the address, and while he spoke Blaine thought of
other matters. He thus missed a phrase which other
hearers caught and which the Democrats immedi
ately advertised. It denounced the Democrats as ad
herents of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion," and
was reported as conveying a gratuitous insult to the
Irish vote. How many Irish turned from Blaine to
Cleveland in the last week of the campaign cannot
be said, but the election was so close that a few votes,
swung either way, could have determined it. Cleve
land carried New York and won a majority of the
electoral college, but his popular plurality over Blaine
was only 23,000, while he had some 800,000 fewer
than his combined rivals. Butler drew 175,000 votes
without defeating Cleveland. Purists, disgusted with
the personalities of the campaign, swelled the Pro
hibition vote to 150,000.
On March 4, 1885, Grover Cleveland was inau
gurated as the first Democrat elected President
since James Buchanan. His Cabinet was necessarily
filled with men inexperienced in national adminis
tration, for the party had been proscribed for six
terms. The greatest attention was attracted by the
two former Confederates, Garland and Lamar, whose
career did much to disprove the " gloomy and base
less superstition " of twenty years, " that one half of
the nation had become the irreconcilable enemies

134 THE NEW NATION
of the national unity and the national will." It was
an American Administration, and of its chief, James
Russell Lowell, who had known men in many lands,
wrote, " He is a truly American type of the best
kind — a type very dear to me, I confess."
The State Department was entrusted to Thomas
F. Bayard, who had been a competitor for the nom
ination in 1884, and who sustained the tradition that
only first-rate men shall fill this office. Bayard pro
ceeded at once to undo the work of the last five
years and to reverse a policy of Blaine. A treaty
with Nicaragua, negotiated by Frelinghuysen in De
cember, 1884, ran counter to the English treaty of
1850. After a vain attempt to persuade Great Britain
to abandon the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty respecting
an isthmian canal, Frelinghuysen had disregarded it
and acquired a complete right-of-way from Nicaragua.
This was pending in the Senate when Cleveland was
inaugurated, and was withdrawn at once. The United
States reverted to the old Whig policy of a neutral
ized canal.
In all departments the new Administration was
forced to test the strength of its convictions upon
civil service reform. During its long years of oppo
sition the party had often voiced a demand for re
form, but now in office its workers demanded the
usual rewards of success. Cleveland had fought the
spoils politicians in New York, and had taken counsel
of Carl Schurz after his election as President. In the
next four years he nearly doubled the number in
the classified service in the face of opposition from
his most intimate associates.

GROVER CLEVELAND 135
The problems of prosperity and national growth,
developing in the eighties and culminating between
1885 and 1889, involved administrative efficiency
rather than party policy. On every side the Govern
ment was forced to expand its activities, and Cleve
land was occupied in getting new machinery into
operation and meeting conditions for which no pre
cedents existed.
Organized labor had gained concessions from Con
gress in a Bureau of Labor, in 1884, and an Anti-
Contract Labor Law in 1885. These called for sym
pathetic administration and encouraged labor to hope
for more. During 1886 and 1887 the views of labor
leaders attracted much attention because of a series
of strikes and riots. In the greatest of these the
local chapters of the Knights of Labor fought against
the Gould railways of the Southwest — the Missouri
Pacifio and the Texas Pacific. The strike originated
in March, 1886, in sympathy with labor organizers
who had been discharged by the railroad. Under the
leadership of Martin Irons it spread over the South
west, causing distress in those regions which were
dependent upon the railroad for fuel and food and
causing disorder in the towns where the idle work
men congregated. Powderly and the other chief
officials of the Knights tried to stop tho strike, but
were ineffective, while the railroad managers shaped
events so as to divert the sympathies of the Western
people against the strikers. The Knights never re
covered from the blow which the loss of the strike
inflicted upon them.
In May, 1886, a general demonstration in favor

136 THE NEW NATION
of the eight-hour day was planned and carried out.
In Milwaukee riots ensued, the militia was called
out by Governor Rusk, and a volley was fired into
the mob. In Chicago the union movement was com
bined with anarchy and socialism, and opponents of
all did not discriminate among them. A meeting of
the anarchists was broken up by the police, several
of whom were killed by the explosion of a bomb
thrown in the tumult. In 1887 a group of the an
archist leaders were hanged, having been convicted
of what may be called constructive conspiracy. The
unrest revealed by the strikes and riots showed that
the old period of uniform well-being and satisfaction
was over.
The demands made upon politics by organized
labor were exceeded by the demands of organized
patriotism. The veterans of the Civil War, who
were in early manhood in 1865, were now in middle
life, were possessed of political influence, and turned
to the National Government for personal advantage.
Advocates of protection acted upon the theory that
for national purposes special advantages ought to be
given to manufacturers. The same idea of govern
ment readily bestowed these advantages in return
for a past service.
The machinery of the veterans was the Grand
Army of the Republic, which, from being an unim
portant, reminiscent league, had grown to be an in
strument for the procuring of pensions. The surplus
tempted citizens to make demands upon it; the num
ber of soldier votes encouraged politicians to comply
with the demands. In 1879 the movement began

GROVER CLEVELAND 137
with an Arrears of Pensions Act, by which pension
ers were entitled to back pay from their mustering-
out dates, regardless of the period at which their in
capacity set in. The next step involved the issuing of
pensions for incapacity and dependence, regardless of
their cause, and opened the way for pensions for serv
ice only. In 1887 Cleveland vetoed a pension bill of
this oharactor, and pro von tod its passago until thotorm
of his successor, in 18-90. lie had already offended
many of his supporters by guarding tho offices ; his
pension veto offended more by checking the attack
of the old soldiers on the Treasury. No one opposed
the granting of pensions to soldiers who had been
injured in the Civil War, but the demands of the
leaders of the Grand Army, supported by the inter
ests of hundreds of attorneys who lived on pension
claims, now assumed the appearance of an organized
raid on the Treasury. The general laws were sup
plemented by special private pension laws, of which
1871 were sent to Cleveland in four years. He
vetoed 228 of these, often to his political injury. In
many cases these made allowances to persons whose
claims had been rejected by the Pension Bureau as
inadequate or fraudulent. In the course of time
Cleveland became *' thoroughly tired of disapprov
ing gifts of public money to individuals who in my
view have no right or claim to the same." The pen
sion fund, he maintained, was " the soldiers' fund,"
and should be distributed so as to " exclude perver
sion as well as to insure a liberal and generous ap
plication of grateful and benevolent designs." In
the ten years ending in 1889, Congress spent

138 THE NEW NATION
$644,000,000 on pensions ; in the next ten it spent
$1,850,000,000. The surplus incited extravagance, and its reduc
tion had been demanded on this ground, the tariff
appearing to afford the best method of reduction.
When the Democratic party gained control of the
House, in 1888, it proceeded at once to discuss re
vision, and promptly uncovered a difference of opin
ion among its members. The last Democratic Speaker
of the House had been Samuel J. Randall, of Penn
sylvania, a Democrat who had been trained in the
philosophy of Henry Clay and in the interests of a
great manufacturing State. He was by conviction
and association a protectionist, and was a candidate
for his party's nomination as Speaker in the Forty-
eighth Congress, which mot in December, 1883.
From this date ho ceased to lead his party in the
I Iouho and became tho loader of an internal fuction.
John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky, supplanted him, was
elected Speaker, and organized the House in the in
terest of a tariff for revenue only. For the next six
years the Democratic organization of the House was
pledged to revision, but operated in the face of a
growing Republican opposition, and with Randall
and tho protectionist Democrats attacking from the
rear. The election of Cleveland gave the Democrats
control of two branches of the Government, but left
the Senate in the hands of the Republicans. It was
vain to talk of serious revision or any other party
measuro in a divided administration, yet tho Presi
dent chafed under his inability to fulfill party pledges.

GROVER CLEVELAND 139
The surplus continued to accumulate, to permit ex
travagance in Congress, and to arouse the cupidity
of citizens. In his message to his second Congress,
in 1887, Cleveland startled the country by devoting
his undivided attention to this single topic. He set
his party a text which could not be evaded, although
there was even yet no reason to believe that a tariff
bill could pass both houses. He had taken Carlisle
into his confidence before sending the message ; the
latter entrusted the leadership in revision to Roger
Q. Mills, of Texas, a free-trader, whom he appointed
as chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means.
With the opening of the debate on the Mills Bill,
in April, 1888, there began " the first serious attempt
since the war to reduce toward a peace basis the
customs duties imposed during that conflict almost
solely for purposes of revenue." Mills and William
L. Wilson, who had been a college president in
West Virginia, bore the burden of advocacy of a
reduction of the revenue to the extent of $50,000,000.
They were opposed by a united Republican party,
both frightened and gratified because the issue had
been made so clear. It was charged that the Com
mittee on Ways and Means had drawn up the bill
in secrecy, and that a majority of its Democratic
members were Southerners who knew nothing of the
needs of manufactures. The danger to American
labor from the competition of the pauper labor of
Europe was urged against it. It was asserted to be
a pro-British measure, and stories were circulated of
British gold, coming from the Cobden Club, a free-
trade organization, to subvert American institutions.

140 THE NEW NATION
The Democratic organization drove the bill through
the House of Representatives in spite of all resist
ance. In the Senate, with the Republicans in con
trol, the bill never came to a vote, and was used to
manufacture campaign materials for the campaign
then pending. Many of the advisers of Cleveland
had urged him to withhold the tariff message, lest
he arouse the enemy and defeat himself, but he had
risked personal and party defeat in order to get an
issue definitively accepted — the first issue so ac
cepted in politics since 1864.
The Mills Bill fiasco was the most important
party measure of Cleveland's Administration, yet it
served only to accentuate tho difficulties in tariff
legislation which had been experienced in 1883, and
to provide an issue for the campaign of 1888. The
laws that were passed between 1885 and 1889 were
generally non-partisan in their character and were
of most influence when they helped to readjust fed
eral law to national economic problems. The Federal
Government was unfolding and testing powers that
had existed since the adoption of the Constitution,
but had not been needed hitherto in an agricultural
republic. The change that forced the resort to these
powers came largely from the completion of a na
tional system of communication.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
For the election of 1884, consult, in addition to Stanwood,
J. F. Rhodes, " The National Republican Conventions of 1880
and 1884 " (Scribner's Magazine, September, 1911), and " Cleve
land's Administrations " (Scribner's Magazine, October, 1911).

GROVER CLEVELAND 141
There is an annotated reprint of the " Mulligan Letters " in
Harper's Weekly (1884, pp. 643-46). The biographies of Blaine
by Hamilton and Stanwood should be examined, as well as the
sketches of Cleveland (who left few literary remains), by J. L.
Williams, G. F. Parker, and R. W. Gilder. Among partisan
party histories, the best are F. Curtis, The Republican Party,
(2 vols., 1904), and W. L. Wilson, The National Democratic
Party (1888). J. H. Harper recounts details of the Mugwump
split in his history of The House of Harper (1912). The stand
ard compilation on the pension system, which has not yet re
ceived adequate treatment, is W. H. Glasson, Military Pension
Legislation in the United States (in Columbia University Stud
ies, vol. xii). C. F. Adams and W. B. Hale published useful
essays on the pension system in World's Work, 1911. H. T.
Peck begins his popular Twenty Years of the Republic (1907)
with the inauguration of Cleveland in 1885. Consult also
Sparks, Dewey, Andrews, and the Annual Cyclopaedia.

CHAPTER IX
THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER
Five statutes that received the signature of Grover
Cleveland are documentary proof of the new prob
lems and the changing attitude of the National Ad
ministration during the eighties. They indicate that
the chief function of the National Government had
ceased to be to moderate among a group of self-
sufficient States and had come to be the direction of
such interests as were national in importance or ex
tent. On February 4, 1887, the Interstate Com
merce Law was passed in recognition of a transpor
tation system that had become national; and four
days later the Dawes Bill, providing that lands
should be issued to Indians in severalty, marked the
disappearance of the wild Indian from the border.
In 1889 a Department of Agriculture, with a seat
in the Cabinet, and a law for the survey of irriga
tion sites in the Far West, mark the interest of a
nation in the prosperity of its whole area and popu
lation; while laws of 1889 and 1890 admitting six
new States extended the chain of commonwealths
for the first time from ocean to ocean. A process
that' had been under way since Jamestown and
Plymouth Rock had culminated in the occupation of
the whole breadth of the continent.
The first continental railroad, the Union Pacific,

THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER 143
chartered in 1862 and finished in 1869, was ad
mittedly a national project. Its purpose was to bind
the Pacific Slope to the East in a period when sec
tionalism was a menace to national unity. Its open
ing was the first step in the completion of an intri
cate system of lines extending to the Pacific. Direct
federal aid was given to the road in the form of land
grants, right of way, and a loan of bonds.
Other continental railroads were authorized in the
later sixties. In 1864 a Northern Pacific, to con
nect Lake Superior and Puget Sound, made its
appearance. In 1866 the Atlantic & Pacific was
given the right to run from a southwestern terminal
at Springfield, Missouri, to southern California. In
1871 the Texas Pacific was designed to connect the
head of navigation on the Red River, near Shreve
port and Texarkana, with Fort Yuma and San
Diego. Additional lines with continental possibili
ties received charters from the Western States, —
the Denver & Rio Grande, the Chicago, Burlington
& Quincy, and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, —
and received indirectly a share of the public domain
as an inducement to build. Congress stopped mak
ing land grants for this purpose in 1871, but not
until more lines than could be used for twenty years
had been allowed.
All the continental railways were begun before
1878, were checked by the five years of depression,
and were revived about 1878. When they began
again to build there was associated with them a new
project for an old continental route.
The interoceanio canal had been foreseen ever

144 THE NEW NATION
since the first white man stood on the Isthmus and
gazed at the Pacific. Its construction had been
stimulated by the gold discoveries and the California
emigration of 1848-49, and had been arranged for
in a treaty signed with Great Britain in 1850. No
means to build the canal were found, however, and
the project drifted along until De Lesseps finished
his canal at Suez, and the new interest in continental
communication in America resuscitated the canal at
Panama. In 1878 a French company, with De Les
seps at its head, obtained a concession from Colom
bia. It began work in 1880, at once arousing the
jealousy of the United States which was shown in
the efforts of Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur to abro
gate the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and procure for
the United States a free hand at the Isthmus. Cleve
land reverted to the policy of a neutralized canal in
1885, but interest on either side was premature,
since no canal was built for thirty years.
The continental railways aroused keen interest in
problems of transportation by their completion be
tween 1881 and 1885. The Northern Pacific was
finished under the direction of Henry Villard, a Ger
man journalist who had been a correspondent in the
Civil War and had managed the interests of foreign
investors after 1873. He gained control of the partly
finished Northern Pacific and the local lines of Ore
gon through a holding company known as the Oregon
& Transcontinental. In September, 1883, he took a
special train, full of distinguished visitors, over his
lines to witness the driving of the last spike near
Helena, Montana. On the way out, they stopped at

THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER 145
Bismarck to help lay the corner-stone for an am
bitious new capitol of the Territory of Dakota. From
Duluth to Tacoma the new line brought in immi
grants whose freight made its chief business.
South of the Northern Pacific, the original main
line of the Union Pacific ran from Omaha up the
Platte Trail through Cheyenne to Ogden, with a
branch from Kansas City to Denver and Cheyenne.
Between the main line and the branch the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy constructed a road that reached
Denver in May, 1882. Here it met, in 1883, the
Denver & Rio Grande, a narrow-gauge road that
penetrated the divide by way of the cafion of the Ar
kansas River, and extended to the Great Salt Lake.
The two roads together offered a competition to the
Union Pacific for its whole length from the Missouri
River to Ogden, and drove that road to extend
feeder branches south to the Gulf and north into
Oregon. Farther south the Atchison, Topeka & Santa T6
stretched the whole length of Kansas and followed
the old trail to Santa Fe and the Rio Grande, and
thence to Old Mexico. Its owners cooperated with
the owners of the Atlantic & Pacific franchise, and
the Southern Pacific of California, to build a con
necting link between the Atchison, Topeka & Santa
Fe* at Albuquerque and the Colorado River at the
Needles. From this point the Southern Pacific trav
ersed the valleys of California. In October, 1883,
trains were running from San Francisco to St. Louis
over this road.
The Southern Pacific of California met the other

Of CANADA

By 1870 the railway net had covered the eastern half of the United
States and had just begun its Paclflo extension. There were 62,014
miles of railroad.

THE WESTERN RAIlROADS AND THE
(Based upon the maps showing density of population in the Eleventh
Rand-McNally Official Rail-

By 1800 the railway mileage of the United States had increased to
103,597, oxtcniling the railway net over the whole trans-Missouri region,
and reinforced by lines in Canada and Mexico.
CONTINENTAL FRONTIER, 1870-1890
Census, and upon Appleton's Railway Guide, November, 1871, and the
way Guide, August, 1891.)

148 THE NEW NATION
continental lines at the Fort Yuma crossing of the
Colorado River. The Texas Pacific had got only to
Fort Worth before the panic of 1873. It now built
across Texas toward El Paso. Subsidiary corpora
tions owned by the Southern Pacific men built the
line between El Paso and Fort Yuma, and enabled a
through service to start to St. Louis in January, and
to New Orleans in October, 1882. Yet another
Southern Pacific lino was oponcd through San An
tonio and Houston, tapping tho commerce of tho Gulf
shore, and running trains to Now Orleans in Feb
ruary, 1888.
Tho opening of groat linos in tho United States in
tho early eighties was part of a similar movement
throughout tho world. In Canada, Sir Donald Smith,
lator raised to tho peerage as Lord Strathcona, was
beginning tho Canadian Pacific from Port Arthur to
Vancouver, while on the Continent of Europe the
first train Of the " Orient Express " left Paris for
Constantinople in June, 1883. In November, 1883,
the American railroads, realizing that they were a
national system, agreed upon a scheme of standard
time by which to run their trains. Heretofore every
road had followed what local time it chose, to the
confusion of the traveling public.
Most of tho continental railways had extensive
land grants, of from twenty to forty sections por
mile of track, but whether they had lands to sell or
not they were vitally interested in the settlement of
the regions through which they ran. Each encouraged
immigration and colonization. Their literature, scat
tered over Europe, was one factor in the heavy drift

THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER 149
of population that started after 1878. Six new West
ern States were created in the ten years after their
completion. The youngest American Territory in the eighties
was Wyoming, created in 1868, and the youngest
State was Colorado, admitted in 1876. After Colo
rado, the political division of the West embraced eight
organized Territories : Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and
Washington along the Canadian line, Wyoming and
Utah in the middle, Arizona and New Mexico on the
Mexican border. Besides these Territories there was
the unorganized remnant of the Indian country known
as Indian Territory, and attracting the covetous
glances of frontiersmen in all the near-by Western
States. Agriculture was the main reliance of the wave of
pioneers that poured over the plains along the lines
of the railroads. In the valley of the Red River of
the North, wheat-farming was their staple industry.
As the Old South had devoted itself to the staple
crop of cotton, so this new region took up the single
crop of wheat, bringing to its cultivation great ma
chines, white labor, and a modified factory system.
South of the wheat country, corn dominated in Kan
sas, Iowa, and Nebraska, and went to market either
as grain or in the converted form of hogs or stock.
In Texas the cotton-fields pushed into new areas. The
farm lands completely surrounded the Indian Terri
tory, in which a diversified agriculture was known to
be both possible and profitable.
Across the United States, from Canada to Mexico,
the advance Une of farms pushed from the well-

150 THE NEW NATION
watered bottoms of the Mississippi Valley into the
plains that rise toward the Rocky Mountains. Near
the ninety-seventh meridian the rainfall of this re
gion becomes insufficient for general farming in
ordinary years. But the solicitations of land-sellers
brought settlers into the subhumid region, while for
a few years in the eighties tho rainfall was greater
than the average. Permauent climatic changes were
imagined by the hopeful. A Governor of Kansas
stated, in 1886, "with absolute certainty, that great
areas in the Western third of Kansas are becoming
more fertile," while an Eastern Senator, who was
generally well informed, believed in 1888 that "the
whole Territory of Dakota is as capable of sustaining
population as Iowa."
Between the farming frontier and the mountains
the cattlemen expanded the grazing industry, with
profits that were enlarged because of the markets
that the railroads brought them. The "long drive "
from Texas to Montana became a familiar idea on
the border, while the cowboys in their lonely watches
developed a folk-song literature that is typically
American. Between the cattlemen and the sheep
men there was permanent war, for the sheep injured
the grass they grazed over. Although both industries
were trespassers on the public lands the herders re
sented the appearance of the flocks as an intrusion
upon their domain.
Kansas City rose suddenly to prominence as the
meeting-place of the railways of the West and South
west with those of the East. Near to the line that
divided steady agriculture from the nomadic life of

THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER 151
the plains it became a convenient market for both.
Here the packers developed the traffic in fresh beef
that the new railways with their refrigerator cars
made possible. The cities of the East, in need
of more fresh meat than the local farmers could
provide, found their supply on the plains of the Far
West. Beyond the plains, the mountain regions changed
less from the advent of the railways than any other
section of the remote West. They had attracted
population to their camps during the Civil War, and
now they grew in size and permanence. But only
such regions reached permanent importance as had
valleys to be irrigated and fields to be cultivated.
Without agriculture no important region has flour
ished in the West.
Toward the end of the eighties the pressure of the
population for more homestead lands brought about
the opening of Oklahoma. Here, for over half a cen
tury, the Indian tribes had lived in full possession.
After the Civil War the plains tribes had been col
onized here too. Now, as the lands were awarded to
the Indians in severalty under the Dawes Act, the
old tribal holdings were surrendered and large areas
were offered to white settlement. After ten years of
ejectment and restraint the Oklahoma boomers were
let into the country in 1889. Guthrie and Oklahoma
City were created overnight, and in 1890 the Terri
tory of Oklahoma received permanent organization.
Before the last continental railway was finished,
the Territories were asking for statehood and were
showing advance in population to justify it. When

152 THE NEW NATION
Villard aided in the corner-stone laying at Bismarck
in 1883 there were already three clearly defined
groups of population in Dakota and an ultimate
division had been determined upon by the settlers.
Repeatedly, in the decade, the Dakota colonists
framed constitutions and signed petitions, and the
Republicans in Congress sought to give them state
hood. The Democratic House, which prevailed from
1883 to 1889, saw no reason for creating more Re
publican States, as these would likely be, and found
pretexts for holding up the bills. Montana, less ad
vanced than Dakota, and Idaho and Wyoming which
were yet more primitive, joined the forces of the
statehood advocates. Arizona and New Mexico did
the same, and Utah had been a suitor since 1850.
Washington, with a growing population on Puget
Sound and in the Spokane country, was obviously
not long to be denied.
For party purposes, the Democrats resisted the
demands for statehood until the election of 1888
insured Republican control through every branch of
the United States Government. Thereafter there
was no point to resistance, and Cleveland, in 1889,
signed an " omnibus " bill under which North Dakota,
South Dakota, Montana, and Washington were ad
mitted. Idaho and Wyoming, defeated at this time,
were let in by the Republicans in 1890. The un
organized frontier was now all but gone, and the
pioneers of these new States used Pullman cars and
read the monthly magazines like any other citizens.
Arizona and New Mexico were excluded from the
new States of 1889 and 1890 because a Republican

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333

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tills

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154 THE NEW NATION
Congress expected them to be Democratic, and both
remained Territories for more than twenty succeed
ing years. Utah, with ample population, was kept
where the Federal Government could control it be
cause of the practices taught by its Church. The
Mormons had made a prosperous Territory in Utah
by 1850. They had flourished ever since, but their
institution of polygamy frightened the United States
and created permanent hostility to their admission.
In 1882 the Territory was placed under a commis
sion, and thereafter polygamous citizens were brought
to punishment. In 1890 the Church gave up the
fight and formally abandoned the obnoxious doctrine,
but the surrender came too late to accomplish admis
sion at this time.
By 1890 the good agricultural lands of the United
States were nearly all in private hands. Their oc
cupation had been hastened in the last five years by
facility of access and the efforts of the railways.
With the disappearance of free lands a new period
in America began, as was recognized at the time,
and has become clearer ever since.
Out of forty-eight States comprising the United
States in 1912, and including about 1,902,000,000
acres, twenty-nine with 1,442,000,000 acres had been
erected in the public domain to which Congress had
once owned title. By cession, purchase, or conquest
this domain had been acquired between 1781 and
1853 ; it had been treated as a national asset and
governed with what efficiency Congress possessed.
By 1903 the United States had transferred to in
dividuals about half its public land and nearly all

THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER 155
its farm land. It retained many millions of acres,
but these were mountain or desert, and were not
usable by the individual farmer who had been the
typical unit in the occupation of the West.
Already, by 1880, the statisticians had recognized
that the period of free land was at an end, and had
turned their attention to the abuses which had arisen
in the administration of the estate. From the begin
ning, it had been difficult to compel the West to
respect national land laws. The squatter who oc
cupied lands without title had always been an obsta
cle to uniform administration. Evasion of the law
had rarely been frowned upon by Western opinion,
which had hoped to get the public lands into private
hands by the quickest route. In the region where
the laws had to be enforced, opinion prevented it,
while the National Administration, before the adop
tion of civil service reform, was incapable of direct
ing with accuracy and uniform policy any adminis
trative scheme which must be so highly technical as
a land office. The Preemption, Homestead, and
Timber Culture Laws were all framed in the interest
of the small holder, but were all perverted by fraud
and collusion. The United States invited much of
the fraud by making no provision by which those
industries which had a valid need for a large acre
age could get it legally.
Among the special abuses that were observed now
that it was too late to remedy them were the viola
tions of the law and the lawless seizures of the pub
lic lands. The cattle companies took and fenced what
they needed and drove out; " trespassers " by force.

156 THE NEW NATION
Mail contractors complained of illegal inclosures
which they dare not cross, but which diverted the
United States mail from its lawful course. Yet such
was the general land law that against all but the
United States Government the possessors could
maintain their possession. If the Government could
not or would not interfere, there was no redress.
These abuses had been noticed for many years,
and were specially advertised in the early eighties by
the enormous holdings of a few British noblemen.
The problem of absentee landlordism was exciting
Ireland in these years. When Cleveland became
President his Commissioner of the General Land
Office, Sparks, turned cheerfully and vigorously to
reform, and denounced the discreditable condition
tho moro readily because it had appeared under
Republican administration. Ho hold up tho granting
of homestead and preemption titles for the purpose
of examination and inspection, and demanded the
repeal of the Preemption Law. He was successful
in recovering some of the lands that had been offered
to the railways to aid in their construction.
The railway land grants were notorious because
the railways had rarely been done on contract time,
and had in theory forfeited their grants. The esti
mated area offered them was about 214,000,000
acres, and the question arose as to the extent to
which forfeiture should be imposed upon them. Tho
spectacular completion of their lines and their efforts
to bring a population into the West, and tho vast
size of the corporations that owned them, had aroused
a hostile opinion that supported the Democratic

THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER 157
Administration in its efforts to save what lands it
could. Some fifty million acres were restored to the
domain by this fight, but the restoration only em
phasized the fact that most of the good lands were
gone. Out of the demand for the reform of the publio
lands grew a new interest in the condition of the
lands that were left. The Department of Agri
culture was created at the end of Cleveland's term,
and Governor Jeremiah Rusk was appointed as its
first Secretary by Harrison. Rusk accepted cheer
fully his place as " the tail of the Cabinet," asserting
that as such he was expected " to keep the flies off,"
and set about rearranging or organizing a group of
scientific bureaus. Since most of the remaining
lands could not be used without irrigation, the sur
veys undertaken by Congress started a new phase
of public science, and led ultimately to the rise of a
positive theory of conservation.
£• The problems of national communication, Western
settlement, and public lands resulted from the com
pletion of the continental railways, while the rail
ways themselves gave a new significance to trans
portation in America. During the years of the
Granger movement the doctrine had been estab
lished that railroads are quasi-public and are subject
to regulation by public authority. In the Granger
Cases in 1877 the Supreme Court recognized the
right of the States to establish rates by law, even
when these rates, by becoming part of a through
rate, had an incidental effect upon interstate com
merce. The problem had been viewed as local or

158 THE NEW NATION
regional during the seventies. Most of the States had
passed railway laws and had proceeded to accumu
late a volume of statistical information upon the
railway business, that was increased by such publio
investigations as the Windom and Hepburn Re
ports and by lawsuits that revealed the nature of
special favors and rebates.
Before the States had gone far in the direction
of railway regulation it was discovered that no
State could regulate an interstate railway with pre
cision and justice. The great systems built up by
Villard and Gould and Vanderbilt and Huntington
dominated whole regions and precipitated the ques
tion of the effectiveness of state action. The conti
nental lines, necessarily long and traversing several
States, emphasized the inequality between the pow
ers of a Stato and the problem to bo mot. Their
national character pointed to national control.
In Congress there were repeated attempts after
1873 to secure the passage of an Interstate Com
merce Act. In continuation of this campaign a com
mittee headed by Senator Shelby M. Cullom, of
Illinois, made a new investigation in 1885, and
reported early in 1886 that supervision and pub
licity were required, and that these could best be
obtained through a federal commission with large
powers of taking testimony and examining books.
The committee was convinced, as the public was al
ready convinced, that the problem had become na
tional. The Supreme Court reached the same opinion in
1886 when it handed down a new decision in the

THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER 159
case of the Wabash Railway Company vs. Illinois.
Here it reversed or modified its own decision in the
Granger Cases. In 1877 it had ruled that railways
are subject to regulation and that the States under
their police powers may regulate. It now adhered to
its major premise, but declared that such regulation
as affected an interstate rate is exclusively a fed
eral function. In effect it determined that if there
was to be regulation of the great systems it could
only be at the hands of Congress.
The regulation of interstate commerce was not
a party measure. It had its advocates in both par
ties, and found its opponents in the railroad lobby
that resented any public interference with the busi
ness of the roads. The railway owners and directors
were slower than the public in accepting the doctrine
of the quasi-public nature of their business. It was a
powerful argument against them that their size and
influence were such that they could and did ruin or
enrich individual customers, and that they could
make or destroy whole regions of the West. Enough
positive proof of favoritism existed to give point to
the demand that the business must cease to dis
criminate. The Interstate Commerce Act became a law Feb
ruary 4, 1887. It created a commission of five, with
a six-year term and the proviso that not more than
three of the commissioners should belong to one
party. It forbade a group of practices which had
resulted in unfair discrimination and gave to the
commission considerable powers in investigation and
interference. The later interpretation of the law de-

160 THE NEW NATION
prived the commission of some of the powers that, it
was thought, had been given to it, but during the
next nineteen years the Interstate Commerce Com
mission was a central figure in the solution of the
railroad problem. The work of this commission, like
the work of irrigation and agriculture, was technical,
calling for expert service, and aiding in the process
that was changing the character of the National Ad
ministration as one function after another was called
into service for the first time.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
In 1893 F. J. Turner called attention to the Significance of
the Frontier in American History (in. American Historical As
sociation, Annual Report, 1893). His theory has been elabo
rated by F. L. Paxson, The Last American Frontier (1910),
and K. Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West (1912).
There is no good account of the public lands. T. Donaldson,
The Public Domain (1881), is inaccurate, antiquated, and
clumsy, but has not been supplanted. Many useful tables are
in the report of the Public Lands Commission created by
President Roosevelt (in 58th Congress, 3d session, Senate
Document, No. 189, Serial No. 4766). The general spirit of
the frontier in the eighties has been appreciated by Owen
Wister, in The Virginian (1902), and Members of the Family
(1911), and by E. Talbot, in My People of the Plains (1906).
J. A. Lomax has preserved some of its folklore in Cowboy
Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (1910). The best narratives
on the continental railways are J. P. Davis, Union Pacific Rail
way (1894), and E. V. Smalley, The Northern Pacific Railroad
(1883). Many contributory details are in H. Villard, Memoirs
(2 vols., 1904), E. P. Oberholtzer, Jay Cooke (2 vols., 1907),
and in the appropriate volumes of H. H. Bancroft, Works.
L. H. Haney has compiled the formal documents in his Con
gressional History of Railroads (in Bulletins of the University
of Wisconsin, Nos. 211 and 342). The debate over the Isth
mian Canal may be read in J. D. Richardson, Messages and

THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER 161
Papers of the Presidents; the Foreign Relations Reports, 1879-
83 ; L. M. Keasbey, The Nicaragua Canal and the Monroe
Doctrine (1896) ; J. B. Henderson, American Diplomatic Ques
tions (1901) ; and J. Latane1, Diplomatic Relations of the United
States and Spanish America (1900).

CHAPTER X

NATIONAL BUSINESS

Transportation was a fundamental factor in the
two greatest problems of the eighties. In the case of
the disappearance of free land and the frontier, it
produced phenomena that were most clearly visible
in the West, although affecting the whole United
States. In the case of concentration of capital and
the growth of trusts, its phenomena were mostly in
the East, where were to be found the accumulations
of capital, the great markets, and the supply of labor.
Through the improvements in communication it
became possible to conduct an efficient business in
every State and direct it from a single head office.
Not only railroad and telegraph helped in this, but
telephone, typewriter, the improved processes in
photography and printing, and the organization of
express service were of importance and touched
every aspect of life. Journalism both broadened
and concentrated. The effective range of the week
lies and monthlies and even of the city dailies was
widened, while the resulting competition tended to
weed out the weaker and more local. Illustrations
improved and changed the physical appearance of
periodical literature.
Social organizations of national scope or ambition
took advantage of the new communication. Trade

NATIONAL BUSINESS 163
unions, benevolent associations, and professional so
cieties multiplied their annual congresses and con
ventions, and increased the proportion of the popu
lation that knew something of the whole Union. A
few periodicals and pattern-makers began to circu
late styles, which clothing manufacturers imitated
and local shopkeepers sold at retail. Mail-order
business was aided by the same conditions. A new
uniformity in appearance began to enter American
life, weakening the old localisms in dress, speech,
and conduct. Until within a few years it had been
possible here and there to sit down to dinner " with
a gentleman in the dress of the early century —
ruffles, even bag-wig complete " ; but the new stand
ards were the standards of the mass, and it became
increasingly more difficult to keep up an aristocratio
seclusion or a style of life much different from that
of the community.
With the growth of national uniformity went also
the concentration of control. As the field of competi
tion widened, the number of possible winners declined.
Men measured strength, not only in their town or
State, but across the continent, and the handful of
leaders used the facilities of communication as the
basis for the further expansion of their industries.
Business was extended because it was possible and
because it was thought to pay.
Many of the economies of consolidation were so
obvious as to need no argument. If a single firm
could do the business of five, — or fifty — it increased
its profit through larger and better plants, greater
division of labor, and a more careful use of its by-

164 THE NEW NATIOK
products. It could cut down expenses by reducing the
army of competing salesmen and by lessening the
duplication of administrative offices. The same eco
nomics in management which had driven the Old
South to the large plantation as a type drove Ameri
can industrial society toward economic consolidation
and the trusts.
The technical form of organization of the trust was
unimportant. Strictly speaking, it was a combina
tion of competing concerns, in which the control of
all was vested in a group of trustees for the purpose
of uniformity. The name was thus derived, but it
spread in popular usage until it was regarded as gen
erally descriptive of any business so large that it
affected the course of the whole trade of which it was
a part. The logical outcome of the trust was mono
poly, and trusts appeared first in those industries in
which there existed a predisposition to monopoly, an
excessive loss through competition, or a controlling
patent or trade secret.
The first trust to arouse public notice was concerned
in the transportation and manufacture of petroleum
and its products. Commercial processes for refining
petroleum became available in the sixties, enabling
improvements in domestic illumination that insured
an increasing market for the product. The industry
was speculative by nature because of the low cost of
crude petroleum at the well and the high cost of de
livering it to the consumer. Slight rises in price
caused the market to be swamped by overproduction,
and threw the control of the industry into the hands
of those who controlled its transportation.

NATIONAL BUSINESS 165
Once above ground, the cheap and bulky oil had to
be hauled first to the refiner and then to the con
sumer. The receptacles were expensive, and the
methods of transportation that were cheapest in
operation had the greatest initial cost. Barrels were
relatively cheap to buy, but were costly to handle.
Tank-cars wore more expensive, but repaid those who
could afford them. Pipe-lines were beyond the means
of the individual, but brought in greater returns to
the corporations that owned them.
It was inevitable that some of the dealers who
competed in the oil-fields of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
West Virginia in the sixties should realize the stra
tegic value of the control of transportation and profit
by it. John D. Rockefeller happened to be more suc
cessful than others in manipulating transportation.
His refineries ;grew in size, as they bought out or
crushed their rivals, until by 1882 most of the traffio
in petroleum was under his control. Economy and
sagacity had much to do with the success, but were
less significant than transportation. Railway rates
were yet unfixed by law and every road sold trans
portation as best it could. Rockefeller learned to bar
gain in freight rates, and through a system of special
rates and rebates gained advantages over every com
petitor. His lobby made it difficult to weaken him
through legislative measures, while his attorneys were
generally more skillful than his prosecutors before
the courts. The recognition of the existence of re
bates did much to hasten the passage of the Interstate
Commerce Law. The group of corporations that
flourished beeause of them became the greatest of the

166 THE NEW NATIO>
trusts. By 1882 the affiliated Rockefeller companies
were so numerous and complicated that they were
given into the hands of a group of trustees to be
managed as a single business.
The Whiskey and Sugar Trusts, formed in 1887,
had to do with commodities in which transportation
was not the controlling element. These industries
suffered from overproduction and ruinous competi
tion, to eliminate which the distilleries and sugar re
fineries entered into trust agreements like that of the
Standard Oil companies. Other lines of manufacture
followed as best they could. Before Cleveland was
inaugurated the trend was noticed and attacked.
Most of the agitation against the trusts came from
individuals whose lives were touched by them. Com
petition was ruthless and often unscrupulous. Every
man who was crushed by it hated his destroyer.
There was much changing of occupations as firms
merged and reorganized and as plants grew in size
and ingenuity. Perhaps more workers changed the
character of their occupation in the eighties than in
any other decade. As each individual readjusted
himself to his now environment, ho added to tho
mass of public opinion that bolioved tho trusts to bo
a menace to society.
As early as 1881 there was a market for anti-trust
literature, for in March of that year the Atlantic
Monthly printed the " Story of a Great Monopoly,"
by Henry Demarest Lloyd, who became one of the
leaders in the attack. It had been fashionable to re
gard success as a vindication of Yankee cleverness
and worthy of emulation, without much examination

NATIONAL BUSINESS 167
of the methods by which it was attained. The Stand
ard Oil Company, attracting attention to itself,
raised the question of the effect of industry upon
society. The evils ascribed to the trusts were social or
political. In a social way they were believed to
check individualism and to create too large a pro
portion of subordinates to independent producers.
As monopolies, they were believed to threaten ex
tortion through high price. It was strongly suspected
of the largest trusts that having destroyed all com
petition they could fix prices at pleasure. Economists
pointed out that such price could hardly be high
and yet remunerative to the trusts, because the latter
did not dare to check consumption. But fear of op
pression could not be dispelled by any economio
law. The trust was believed to have an evil influence
in politics, and to obtain special favors through brib
ery or pressure. The United States was used to the
influence of money in politics, and distrusted public
officials. The state constitutions framed in this pe
riod were being expanded into codes of specific law
in the hope of safeguarding public interests. There
was little belief that corrupt overtures, if made by
the trusts,, would be resisted.
Lloyd, and men of his type, believed in regulation
and control. Some of them became socialists. Others
hoped to restore a competitive basis by law. The
greatest impression on the public was made by one
of their literary allies, Edward Bellamy.
Early in 1888 Edward Bellamy published a ro-

168 THE NEW NATION
manoe entitled Looking Baclcward, in whioh his
hero, Mr. Julian West, went to sleep in 1887, with
labor controversy and trust denunciation sounding
in his ears, to awake in the year 2000 a.d. The so
cialized state into which the hero was reborn was a
picture of an end to which industry was perhaps
drifting. It caught public attention. Clubs of en
thusiasts tried to hasten the day of nationalization
by forming Bellamistic societies. Those who were
repelled by a future in which the trusts and the
State were merged became more active in their de
mand for regulation.
The legislative side of trust regulation, like that
of railway regulation, was made more difficult because
of the division of powers between Congress and the
States. It was an interesting question whether one
State could control a monopoly as large as the na
tion. But the States passed anti-trust laws by the
score, as they had passed the railway laws. As in
the earlier case they found their model in the com
mon law, which had long prohibited conspiracies in
restraint of trade. One of the States, Ohio, with
only the common law to go upon, brought suit
against the Standard Oil Trust and secured a pro
hibition against it in 1892. It was relatively easy to
attack the formal organization of the trust, but in
spite of such attacks concentration continued to pro
duce ever greater combinations, as though it were
fulfilling some fundamental economic law.
Those of the anti-monopolists who were also tariff
reformers had a weapon to urge besides that of reg
ulation. They maintained that part of the power of

NATIONAL BUSINESS 169
the corporations was due to the needless favors of
protection, which deprived the United States of the
aid that competition from European manufacturers
might have given. They insisted that a revision of
the tariff would do much to remove the burden of
the trusts. The House ordered an investigation of the
trusts while it was engaged on the futile Mills Bill
in 1888, but it was the latter that furnished the text
for the ensuing presidential campaign.
So far as the parties were concerned the Repub
licans took the aggressive in 1888. Cleveland's em
phasis upon tariff reduction was personal and never
had the cheerful support of the whole party. The
manufacturers, however, were thoroughly scared by
the continued threats of revision. As they had come,
by supporting the party in power, to support the
Republicans, so they now organized within that party
to save themselves. Their leaders sang a new note
in 1888, no longer apologizing for the tariff or urg
ing reduction, but defending it on principle, — on
Clay's old principle of an American system, — and
asking that it be made more comprehensive. From
Florence, and then from Paris, Blaine replied to
Cleveland's Message of 1887, and his friends con"
tinued to urge his nomination for the Presidency.
Only after his positive refusal to be a candidate did
the Republican Convention at Chicago make its
choice from a list of candidates including Sherman,
Gresham, Depew, Alger, Harrison, and Allison.
The ticket finally nominated consisted of Benjamin
Harrison, a Senator from Indiana, and Levi P. Mor
ton, a New York banker. The platform was " un-

170 THE NEW NATION
compromisingly in favor of the American system of
protection." It denounced Cleveland and the revi
sionists as serving " the interests of Europe," and
condemned "the Mills Bill as destructive to the
general business, the labor, and the farming inter
ests of the country."
The Democrats, as is usual for the party in power,
had already held their convention before the Repub
licans met. They had renominated Grover Cleveland
by acclamation, and Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, as
Vice-President, and had indorsed, not the Mills Bill
by name, but the views of Cleveland and the efforts
of the President and Representatives in Congress to
secure a reduction. For many of the Democrats the
need to defend tariff reform was so distasteful that
they left the party, blaming Cleveland as the cause
of their defection.
The canvass of 1888 was not marred by the per
sonalities of 1884. The issue of protection was dis
cussed earnestly by both parties, Blaine, who re
turned from Europe, leading the Republican attack.
The only exciting incidents of the campaign had to
do with the " Murchison Letter " and the campaign
fund. Matthew S. Quay, whose career as Treasurer of
Pennsylvania had not been above reproach, was
chairman of the Republican campaign committee.
During the contest it was asserted that he was assess
ing the protected manufacturers and guaranteeing
them immunity in case of a Republican victory.
He was at least able to play Upon their fears and
bring a vigorous support to the protective promises

NATIONAL BUSINESS 171
of his party. His committee circulated stories of the
un-Americanism of Cleveland, charging that free-
trade was pro-British, and making capital out of the
pension vetoes. Toward the end of the canvass Sir
Lionel Sackville- West, the British Minister, fell
into a Republican trap and wrote to a pretended
naturalized Englishman, who called himself Murchi
son, that a vote for Cleveland would best serve Great
Britain. His tactless blunder caused his summary
dismissal from Washington and aided the Repub
lican cause much as the Burchard affair had injured
it four years before.
Harrison was elected in November as a minority
President, Cleveland actually receiving more pop
ular though fewer electoral votes. He came into
office with a Republican Senate and a Republican
House, able to carry out party intentions for the
first time since 1883.
Benjamin Harrison was never a leader of his
party. He had a good war record and had been Sen
ator for a single term. His nomination was not due
to his strength, but to his availability. Coming from
the doubtful State of Indiana, he was likely to carry
it, particularly since the Republican candidate for
governor was a leader of the Grand Army of the
Republic. Harrison's personal character and piety
were valuable assets in a time when party leaders
were under fire. Once in office he had a cold abrupt
ness that made it easy to lose the support of asso
ciates who felt that their own importance was greater
than his.
Blaine, the greatest oi these associates, became

172 THE NEW NATION
Secretary of State, and soon had the satisfaction of
meeting the Pan-American Congress that he had
called eight years before. In his interest in larger
American affairs he lost some of his keenness as a
protectionist and acquired a zeal for foreign trade.
With England he had another unsuccessful tilt, this
time over the seals of Bering Sea.
In some of the appointments Harrison paid the
party debts. Windom came back to the Treasury,
although ex-Senator Platt, of New York, claimed
that he had been promised it. John Wanamaker,
who had raised large sums in Philadelphia to aid
Quay in the campaign, became Postmaster-General.
The Pension Bureau, important through the alliance
with the soldiers, went to a leader of the Grand
Army of the Republic, one " Corporal " Tanner,
whose most famous utterance related to his inten
tions : " God save the surplus ! "
The Fifty-first Congress, convening in December,
1889, took up with enthusiasm the mandate of the
election, as the Republicans saw it, to revise the
tariff in the interest of protection. It chose as Speaker
Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, and revised its rules so
as to expedite legislation. William McKinley pre
pared a revision of the tariff in the House, while
another Ohioan, John Sherman, took up the matter
of the trusts in the Senate.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Law was enacted in
July, 1890, after nearly ten years of general discus
sion. Although formulated by Republicans — Sher
man, Edmunds, and Hoar — it was not more dis
tinctly a party measure than the Interstate Commerce

NATIONAL BUSINESS 173
Act had been. It relied upon the interstate commerce
clause of the Constitution as its authority to declare
illegal " every contract, combination in the form of
trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of com
merce among the several States, or with foreign na
tions," and it provided suitable penalties for violation.
The most significant debate in connection with it
occurred upon an amendment offered by Representa
tive Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, who desired to
extend the scope of the prohibition, specifically, to
railroads. The Senate excluded the amendment on
the ground that the law was general, covering the
railroads without special enumeration. The full
meaning of the law remained in doubt for nearly
fifteen years, for few private suitors invoked it and
the Attorneys-General were not hostile to the ordi
nary practices of business. A great financial depres
sion which appeared in 1893 acted well as a tem
porary deterrent of trusts. There was a suspicion
that the law had been intended not to be enforced,
but to act as a popular antidote to the McKinley
Tariff Bill which was pending while it passed.
There were two reasons for a revision of the tariff in
1890. The surplus, still a reason, added $105,000,000
in 1889, and continued to embarrass the Treasury
with a wealth of riches. Secondly, the election of
1888 had gone Republican, and party leaders chose
to regard this as a popular condemnation of Cleve
land and tariff reform, and a popular mandate for
higher protection, in spite of the fact that more
Americans voted for Cleveland than for Harrison.
A third reason, alleged by the opposition, was the

174 THE NEW NATION
necessity of fulfilling the pledges given by Quay and
the campaign managers to the manufacturers who
contributed to the campaign fund, — manufacturers
who were parodied as " Mary " : —
"Our Mary had a little lamb,
Hor l.o.irt was most intent
To make its wool, beyond its worth,
Bring 56 per cout."
In April, 1890, McKinley presented his act "to
equalize the duties upon imports and to reduce the
revenues." For five months Congress wrestled with
the details of the bill and the issues connected with
it. In June it rewarded the soldier allies of the
Administration with a Dependent Pension Act which
granted pensions to those who could show ninety
days of service and present dependence, and which,
aided by the previous laws, relieved the surplus of
$1,350,000,000 in the next ten years. Early in July
the Anti-Trust Act was passed. Two weeks later
Congress paused in its tariff deliberations to pass
the Sherman Silver Purchase Bill at the demand
of Republican Senators from the Rocky Mountain
States, who wanted their share of protection in this
form and were so numerous as to be able to produce
a deadlock. The tariff that became a law October 1, 1890, was
the first success in tariff legislation since the Civil
War. It enlarged protection and reduced the rev
enue. The latter was done by repealing the duty on
raw sugar, which had been the most remunerative
item of the old tariff, and by substituting a bounty
of two cents per pound to tho American sugar-grower,

NATIONAL BUSINESS 175
which further relieved the surplus. The sugar clause
was one of the notable features of the McKinley
Bill, and was closely related to a group of duties
upon agricultural imports. There had been complaint
among the farmers that protection did nothing for
them. The agricultural schedule was designed to
silence this complaint.
Another novelty in the bill was the extension of
protection to unborn industries. In the case of tin
plate, the President was empowered to impose a
duty whenever he should learn that American mills
were ready to manufacture it. This was an applica
tion of the principle that went beyond the demands
of most advocates of protection.
A final novelty, reciprocity, was the favorite
scheme of the Secretary of State. Blaine, in his for
eign policy, saw in the tariff wall an obstacle to
friendly trade relations, and induced Congress to
permit the duties on the chief imports from South
America to be admitted on a special basis in return
for reciprocal favors. McKinley, as his experience
widened, accepted this principle in full, and died with
an expression of it upon his lips. But in 1890 most
protectionists inclined toward absolute exclusion, re
gardless of foreign relations, and were ready to raise
the rate whenever tho imports were large.
In the passage of the McKinley Tariff Bill it was
noticed that a third body was sharing largely in such
legislation. After each house had passed the bill
and disagreements on amendments had been reached,
it was sent to a Joint Committee of Conference
whose report was, by rule, unamendable. In the

176 THE NEW NATION
Conferenoe Committoe the bill was finally shaped,
and so shaped that the Republican majority was
foroed to accept it or none. The party leaders who
sat on the Committee of Conference were a third
house with almost despotic power, and were, as well,
men whose association with manufacturing districts
or protected interests raised a fair question as to the
impartiality of their decisions. The Republican re
ply, in their hands, to the assertion that the tariff
was the mother of trusts was to raise the tariff still
higher and to forbid the trusts to engage in inter
state commerce. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The Life of Henry Demarest Lloyd, by C. Lloyd (2 vols.,
1912) contains an admirable and sympathetic survey of the
growth of anti-trust feeling, and should be supplemented by
the writings of H. D. Lloyd, more particularly, " The Story of
a Great Monopoly" (in Atlantic Monthly, March, 1881), and
Wealth against Commonwealth (1894). The philosophy of
Henry George is best stated in his Progress and Poverty (1879),
and is presented biographically by II. George, Jr., in his Life
of Henry George (1000). Tho most popular romance of tho
docado is bnsod upon au oconoinio hypothesis : E. Bollamy,
Looking Backward (1887). J. W. Jcnks, The Trust Problem
(1900, etc.), has become a classio sketch of tho economics of
industrial concentration. Tho historios of tho Standard Oil
Company, by I. M. Tarbell (2 vols., 1904) and G. H. Monta
gue (1903), are based largely upon judicial and congressional
investigations. The Sherman Law is discussed in the writings
and biographies of Sherman, Hoar, and Edmunds, and in A.
H. Walker, History of the Sherman Law (1910). For the elec
tion of 1888, consult Stanwood, Andrews, Peck, the Annual
Cyclopaedia, the tariff histories, and D. R. Dewey, National
Problems, 1885-1897 (in The American Nation, vol. 24, 1907).

CHAPTER XI

THE FARMERS' CAUSE

The Republican protective policy had its strong
est supporters among the industrial communities of
the East where the profits of manufacture were dis
tributed. In the West, where the agricultural staples
had produced a simplicity of interests somewhat re
sembling those of the Old South in its cotton crop,
the advantage of protection was questioned even in
Republican communities. The Granger States and
the Prairie States were normally Republican, but
they had experienced falling prices for their corn and
wheat, as the South had for its cotton, in the eighties,
and had listened encouragingly to the advocates of
tariff reform. Cleveland's Message of 1887 had af
fected them strongly. Through 1888 and 1889 coun
try papers shifted to the support of revision, while
farmers' clubs and agricultural journals began to de
nounce protection. The Republican leaders felt the
discontent, and brought forward the agricultural
schedules of the McKinley Bill to appease it, but
dissatisfaction increased in 1889 and 1890 through
most of the farming sections.
The farmer in the South was directly affected by
the falling price of cotton, and retained his heredi
tary aversion to the protective tariff. He could not
believe that either party was working in his interests.
The dominant issues of the eighties did not touch his

178 THE NEW NATION
problems. He was not interested in civil service re
form, which was a product of a differentiated society,
in which professional expertness was recognized and
valued. He knew and cared little about administra
tion, and being used to a multitude of different tasks
himself saw no reason why,the offices should not be
passed around. In this view American farmers gen
erally concurred.
The Southern farmer was without interest in the
pension system and was prone to criticize it. The
Fourteenth Amendment had forced the repudiation
of the whole Confederate debt, leaving the Southern
veterans compelled to pay taxes that were disbursed
for the benefit of Union veterans and debarred from
enjoying similar rewards. They could not turn Repub
lican, yet in their own party they saw men who failed
to represent them.
In the North agriculture was depressed and the
farmers were discontented. In many regions the farms
were worn out. Scientific farming was beginning
to be talked about to some extent, but was little
practiced. The improvements in transportation had
Drought the younger and more fertile lands of the
West into competition with tbe East for the city
markets. Cattle, raised on the plains and slaughtered
at Kansas City or Chicago, were offered for sale in
New York and Philadelphia. Western fruits of supe
rior quality were competing with the common varie
ties of the Eastern orchards. Here, as in the South,
the farmers saw the parties quarreling over issues
that touched the manufacturing classes, but disre
garding those of agriculture.

THE FARMERS' CAUSE 179
It was in the West, however, that agricultural dis
content was keenest. In no other region were uniform
conditions to be found over so large an area. The
Granger States had shown how uniformity in discon
tent may bring forth political readjustments. The
new region of the late eighties lay west of Missouri
and Iowa, where the railroads had stimulated settle
ment along the farther edge of the arable prairies.
Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and the Dakotas had passed
into a boom period about 1885, and had pushed new
farms into regions that could not in ordinary years
produce a crop. Only blinded enthusiasts believed
that the climate of the sub-humid plains was chang
ing. In good years crops will grow as far west as the
Rockies : in bad, they dry up in eastern Kansas.
It served the interest of the railroads to promote
new settlements, and speculation got the better of
prudence. The rainfall cooperated for a few years,
enabling the newcomers to break the sod and set up
their dwellings and barns. The quality of the settlers
increased the dangers attendant upon the community.
Under earlier conditions in the westward migration
each frontier had been settled, chiefly, by occupants
of the preceding frontier, who knew the climate and
understood the conditions of successful farming. The
greater distances in the farther West, and the ease of
access which the railroads gave, brought a less capa
ble class of farmers into the plains settlements.
Some were amateurs ; others knew a different type
of agriculture. The population which had to deal
with this new region was less likely to succeed than
that of any previous frontier.

180 THE NEW NATION
The frontier of the eighties presented new ob
stacles in its doubtful rainfall and its experimental
farmers. It contained as well the conditions that
had always prevailed along the edge of settlement.
Transportation was vital to its life, — as vital as it
had been in the Granger States, — yet was nearly as
unregulated. The Interstate Commerce Law of 1887
had little noticeable immediate effect. Discrimination,
unreasonable rates, and overcapitalization were still
grievances that affected the West. The new activity
of organized labor, shown in the Western strikes of
1885 and 1886, added another obstacle to the easy
prosperity of farmers who needed uninterrupted train
service. The germs of an anti-railroad movement
were well distributed.
An anti-corporation movement, too, might reason
ably be expected in this new frontier. Producing
only the raw products of agriculture, its inhabitants
bought most of the commodities in use from distant
sections. They were impressed with the cost of what
they had to buy and the low price of what they sold.
They were ready listeners to agitators against the
trusts. Like all frontiers, this one was financed on bor
rowed money. The pioneer was dependent on credit,
was hopeful and speculative in his borrowings, built
more towns and railroads than he needed, and loaded
himself with a mountain of debt that could be met
only after a long series of prosperous years.
By necessity he was readily converted by the argu
ments of inflation. Greenback inflation had run its
course, and after the resumption of specie payments

THE FARMERS' CAUSE 181
in 1879 had been only a political threat without
foundation or many followers. A Greenback party,
affiliating with labor and anti-monopoly interests, had
nominated Weaver in 1880 and Butler in 1884, but
even inflationists had not voted for the ticket in
large number. A new phase of inflation had become
more interesting than the greenbacks, and had led
to the demand for the free coinage of silver.
Among the demands of the Western farmer, whose
greatest problem was the payment of his debts, none
was more often heard than that for more and cheaper
money. The Eastern farmer, though less burdened
with debt, knew that more money would make higher
prices, and believed it would bring larger profits.
The Southern farmer, heavily in debt, not so much
for purposes of development and permanent improve
ments, as because he regularly mortgaged his crop in
advance and allowed the rural storekeeper to finance
him, was also interested in inflation as a common
remedy. Together the farmers of all sections kept
pressing on the parties for free silver after the pass
age of the Bland- Allison Bill in 1878. As the price
of silver declined the gain which silver inflation
would bring them increased, and they were joined
by another class of producers whose profits came
from mining the silver bullion.
The silver mines furnished important industries
in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona,
and California, and were highly valued in most of
the Western communities. As their output declined
in value after 1873, their owners turned to the
United States Government for aid and protection,

182 THE NEW NATION
not differing much from the manufacturers of the
East in their hope for aid. The restoration of silver
coinage was the method by which they desired their
protection, and they asserted that Congress could
coin all the silver and yet maintain it at a parity
with gold. They were allies with the farmer infla
tionists so far as means of relief were concerned,
and both failed to see how incompatible were their
real aims. The miners wanted free silver in order to
increase the price of silver and their profits ; the
farmers wanted it to increase the volume of money
and reduce its value. If either was correct in his
prophecy as to the result of free coinage, the other
was doomed to disappointment. But the combined
demand was reiterated through the eighties. While
times were good it was not serious, but any shock to
the prosperity or credit of the West was likely to
stimulate the one movement in which all the discon
tented concurred.
The crisis which precipitated Western discontent
into politics came in 1889 when rainfall declined
and crops failed. In the Arkansas Valley, with an
average fall of eighteen inches, the total for this
year was only thirteen inches. General Miles, who
had chased hostile Indians across the plains for more
than twenty years, and who had seen the new vil
lages push in, mile by mile, saw the terrible results
of drought. First suffering, then mortgage, then
foreclosure and eviction, he prophesied. " And should
this impending evil continue for a series of years,"
he wrote, " no one can anticipate what may follow."
The glowing promises of the early eighties were fal-

THE FARMERS' CAUSE 183
sified, whole towns and counties were deserted, and
the farmers turned to the Government for aid.
The Western upheaval followed a period in which
both great parties had been attacked as misrepre-
sentative. There was a widely spread belief that
politicians were dishonest and that the Government
was conducted for the favored classes. It was natural
that the discontented should take up one of the agri
cultural organizations already existing, as the Gran
gers had. done, and convert it to their political
purpose. Since the high day of the Granger movement
there had always been associations among the farm
ers and organizations striving to get their votes.
Tho Grange had itself continued as a social and
economio bond after its attack upon the railroads.
There had been a Farmers' Union and an Agricul
tural Wheel. The great success of the Knights of
Labor and the American Federation of Labor had
had imitators who were less successful because farm
ing had been too profitable to give much room for
organized discontent, while in times of prosperity
the farmer was an individualist. A new activity
among the farmers' papers was now an evidence of
a growing desire to get the advantage of cooperation.
The greatest farmer organization of the eighties
was the Farmers' Alliance, a loose federation of agri
cultural clubs that reflected local conditions, West
and South. In the South, it was noted in 1888 as
" growing rapidly," but " only incidentally of politi
cal importance." In Dakota, it had been active since
1885, conducting for its members fire and hail in-

184 THE NEW NATION
surance, a purchasing department, and an elevator
company. In Texas it was building cotton and woolen
mills. The machinery of this organization was used
by the farmers in stating their common cause, and
as their aims broadened it merged, during 1890, into
a People's Party. In Kansas, during the summer of
this year, the movement broke over the lines of both
old parties and had such success that its promoters
thought a new political party had been born.
Agricultural discontent, growing with the hard
times of 1889, had been noticed, but there had been
no means of measuring it until Congress adjourned
after the passage of the McKinley Bill and the mem
bers came home to conduct the congressional cam
paign of 1890. They found that the recent law had
become the chief issue before them. The so-called
popular demand for protection, revealed in the elec
tion of 1888, had after all been based upon a minor
ity of the votes cast. The tariff and the way it had
been passed were used against them by the Demo
crats and the Farmers' Alliance.
The act was passed so close to election day that
its real influence could not then be soon and its op
ponents could not bo confuted whon thoy told of the
evils it would do. Before tho election of 1888, as
again in 1892, Republican manufacturers frightened
their workmen by threats of closing down if free
traders won. This time tho tables were turned against
them by the recital of prospective high prices.
Corrupt methods in framing the schedules fur
nished an influential argument throughout the West.
Even in the East the tariff reformers asserted that

THE FARMERS' CAUSE 185
undue favors had been done for greedy interests; that
manufacturers who had bought immunity by their
contributions to Quay's campaign fund had been
rewarded with increased protection. The farmers
believed these charges, plausible though unprovable,
for they were disposed to believe that both the great
parties were interested only in selfish exploitation of
the Government to the advantage of politicians.
In every State Republican candidates had to meet
this fire as well as the local issues. In Maine, Reed
met it and was elected with enlarged majority from
a community that wanted protection. In Ohio, Mc
Kinley lost his seat, partly from the revulsion of feel
ing, but more because the Democrats, who controlled
the State Legislature, had gerrymandered his district
against him. Cannon, of Illinois, who had already
served nine terms and was to serve ten more, lost
his seat, and LaFollette, of Wisconsin, whom the
protectionists had made much of, was checked early
in a promising career because of an educational issue
in his State. Pennsylvania, protectionist at heart,
elected the Democratic ex-governor Pattison again
in one of its revulsions against the Quay machine.
The Democrats defeated the Republicans in the
East while the Farmers' Alliance undermined them
in the West. In Kansas and Nebraska the Alliance
controlled the result, sent their own men to Wash
ington, and secured the Kansas Legislature which
returned the first Populist Senator. In several States
fusion tickets were successful with Democratic and
Alliance support. In the South, Democrats found it
aided them in winning nomination — for the real

186 THE NEW NATION
Southern election was within this party and not at
the polls — to assert that they were and had been
farmers. When the votes were counted the extent of the
reaction was realized. The last Congress had con
tained a safe majority of Republicans in each house.
The new Congress, the Fifty-second, chosen in 1890,
had lost the high-tariff majority in the lower body.
Only 88 Republicans were elected, against 236 Dem
ocrats and 8 of the Alliance. The Republicans re
tained tho Senate partly because of the " rotten bor
ough " States, Idaho and Wyoming, which thoy had
just admitted.
Tho greatest factor in tho landslide was the tariff,
but this was, largely, only the occasion for an outburst
of discontent that had been piling up for a decade.
The dominant party was punished because things
went wrong, because the trusts throve and labor was
uneasy, because prices declined, because there were
scandals in the Public Lands and Pension Bureaus,
and because the rainfall had diminished on the plains.
The new House elected a Georgian, Crisp, as Speaker,
and the second half of Harrison's term passed quietly.
Among the people, however, there was much conjec
ture upon tho future of the Farmers' Alliance. A
convention at Cincinnati, six months after the elec
tion, tried to unite the new element and form a third
party of importance.
Union between the Knights of Labor and the
Farmers' Alliance for political purposes was the aim
of the promoters of the People's Party, a party that
was to right all the wrongs from which the plain

THE FARMERS' CAUSE 187
people suffered and restore the Government to their
hands. Until the next presidential election they had
time to organize for the crusade.
The United States, by 18.90, had begun to feel
the influence of the agencies of communication in
breaking down sectionalism and letting in the light
of comparative experience. Men who survived from
the generation that flourished before the war found
their cherished ideas undermined or shattered. In
public life, administration, literature, and religion
the old order was being swept away. The United
States had become a nation because it could not
avoid it. Even the Congregational churches, with
whom parish autonomy was vital, had seen fit to
erect a National Council. Every important activity
of trade had become national, and the only agency
that retained its old localism was the law, which
must cope with the new order. In many ways the
trust problem was the result of an inadequate legal
system which left a wide " twilight zone " between the
local capacity of the State and the activity of the
Nation. Yet the Nation was unfolding and expand
ing its powers. Railroad control, immigration and
labor control, agricultural experiment, irrigation, and
reclamation were only samples of the new lines of
activity that created new administrative machinery
and advanced abreast of the new idea of appointment
because of merit and tenure during good behavior.
Men who continued to see the center of political
gravity in the State Governments were behind the
times. An indigenous literature was rising in the United

188 THE NEW NATION
States. Dickens had lived long enough to recognize
the spirit of a new school in Tlie Luck of Roaring
Camp, and The Outcasts of Poker Flat, which ap
peared in 1868. Before 1890 the fame of their author,
Bret Harte, was secure. Samuel Langhorne Clemens
(Mark Twain), too, had seen the native field and had
exploited it. The New England school, Emerson and
Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell, lived into
or through the eighties, but were less robust in their
American flavor than their younger contemporaries
who picked subjects from the border. Tom Sawyer,
Huckleberry Finn, and the Connecticut Yankee were
life as well as art. Another writer of the generation,
William Dean Howells, gave Tlie Rise of Silas
Lapham to the world in 1885, and revealed a different
stratum of the new society, while the vogue of Little
Lord Fauntleroy tells less of the life therein de
scribed than of the outlook of American readers.
Pure literature was in 1890 turning more and more
to American subjects ; applied literature was searching
for causes and explanations. The writings of Henry
George, particularly his Progress and Poverty,
brought him from obscurity to prominence in six
years, and by 1885 had "formed a noteworthy epoch
in the history of economic thought." The success of
Bellamy's utopian romance proved the avidity of the
reading public. Parkman and Bancroft, of the older
generation, Henry Adams, McMaster, and Rhodes,
of the younger, led the way through history to an
understanding of American conditions. Economics,
sociology, and government were beginning to havo a
literature of their own, the last receiving its strong-

THE FARMERS' CAUSE 189
est impulse from the thoughtf id American Common-
wealth of James Bryce.
In the field of periodical, literature the rising
American taste was supporting a. wider range of
magazines. The old and dignified North American
Review was still an arena for political discussion.
During 1890 it printed an important interchange of
views between William E. Gladstone and James G.
Blaine, on the merits of a protective tariff. Harper's
Monthly and the Atlantic had given employment to
the leading men of letters since before the Civil War.
Leslie's and Harper's Weeklies had added illustra
tion to news, making their place during the sixties,
while the Independent held its own as the leading
religious newspaper and the Nation appeared as a
journal of criticism. Scribner's and the Century had
been added more recently to the list of monthlies,
the latter running its great series of reminiscences
of the battles and leaders of the Civil War and its
life of Lincoln by Nicolay and Hay. Improvements
in typography and illustration, combined with greater
ease in collecting the news and distributing the pro
duct, made all the periodicals more nearly national.
The periodicals, in a measure, took the place as
national leaders that the newspapers had before. The
newspaper as a personal expression was passing
away, as the great editors of Horace Greeley's gen
eration died. The younger editors were making in
vestments rather than journalistic tools out of their
papers. Trade and advertisement used this vehicle
to approach their customers. News collecting became
more prompt and adequate, but the opinion of the

190 THE NEW NATION
papers dwindled. They bought their news from syn
dicates or associations, as they bought paper or ink.
The counting-house was coming to outrank the edito
rial room in their management.
Through the new literature the changing nature
of American life was portrayed, and as tho life re
shaped itself under nationalizing influences theology
lost much of its old narrowness. Among religious
novels Robert Elsmere was perhaps most widely
read. The struggle between orthodoxy and the new
criticism had got out of the control of the professional
theologians and had permeated the laity. A revised
version of the Old and New Testaments gave new basis
for textual discussion. The influence of tho scientific
generalizations of Darwin and his school had reached
the Church and forced upon it a rephrasing of its
views. It was becoming less dangorous for mon to
admit their belief in scientific process. Tho orthodox
churches lost nothing in popularity as tho struggle
advanced, and outside thorn new teachers proclaimed
new religions as thoy had over done in America.
The greatest of the new religions was that of Mrs.
Mary Baker Eddy, in whose teachings may be found
a religious parallel to tho political revolt of the
People's Party. Christian Science was a reaction
from the " vertebrate Johovah " of tho Puritans to
a more comfortable and responsive Deity. It was
tho outgrowth of a well-fed and prosperous society,
presenting itself to the ordinary mind as " primarily
a religion of healing."
Intellectual, spiritual, economic, and political re
volt were common in America in 1890, as they must

THE FARMERS' CAUSE 191
have been after the industrial revolution of the last
ten years. The whole nation was once more acting
as a unit, for the South had outlived the worst re
sults of war and reorganization and was again devel
oping on independent lines. The immediate problem
was the effect of the revolt upon political control.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The materials upon the unrest of the later eighties are yet
uncollected, and must be pursued through the files of the jour
nals, many of which are named above in the text. The new
scientific periodicals : Quarterly Journal of Economics, Political
Science Quarterly, Yale Review, Journal of Political Economy,
etc., devoted much space to current economic and social analysis.
F. L. McVey, The Populist Movement (in American Economic
Association, Economic Studies, vol. i), is useful but only frag
mentary. The materials on free silver are mentioned in the
note to chapter xiv, below. A. B. Paine, Mark Twain, gives
many cross-references to the literary life of the decade. J. F.
Jameson discusses the fertile field of American religious his
tory in "The American Acta Sanctorum" (in the American
Historical Review, 1908).

CHAPTER XII
THE NEW SOUTH
The Old South, in which two parties had always
struggled on fairly equal terms, was destroyed during
the period of the Civil War, while reconstruction
failed completely to revive it. The New South, in
politics, had but one party of consequence. With few
exceptions white men of respectability voted with the
Democrats because of the influence of the race ques
tion which negro suffrage had raised. From the re-
establishment of Southern home rule until the advent
in politics of the Farmers' Alliance no issue appeared
in the Southern States that even threatened to split
the dominant vote. But under the economic pressure
of the late eighties the old white leaders parted com
pany and even contended with each other for the
negro vote to aid their plans.
The political influence of the Alliance cannot be
measured at the polls in the South as easily as in
the West. In most States, in 1888 and 1890,
Alliance tickets wei-e promoted, often in fusion with
the Republican party. The greater influence, how
ever, was within Democratic lines, at the primaries
or conventions of that party. Here, among the. candi
dates who presented themselves for nomination, the
professional politician found himself an object of sus
picion. The lawyer lost some of his political availabil-

THE NEW SOUTH 193
ity. Men who could claim to be close to the soil had
an advantage.
The value placed upon the dissatisfied farmer vote
is shown in the autobiographical sketches which Sen
ators and Representatives wrote for the Congres
sional Directory of the Fifty-second Congress. Some
who had never before held office stated the fact with
apparent pride. One, who appeared from the Texas
district which John H. Reagan had represented
through eight Congresses, announced that he "be
came a member of the Order of Patrons of Hus
bandry, and took an active interest in advocating
the cause of progress among his fellow laborers ; is
now Overseer of the Texas State Grange and Presi
dent of the Texas Farmer Cooperative Publishing
Association." From Georgia came several Repre
sentatives of this type. One " has devoted his time
exclusively [since 1886] to agricultural interests,
and is a member of the Farmers' Alliance." An
other was elected " as an Alliance man and Demo
crat." A third " was Vice-President of the Georgia
State Agricultural Society for eleven years, and
President of the same for four years; he is now
President of the Georgia State Alliance." A fourth,
Thomas E. Watson, lawyer, editor, historian, and
leader of the new movement, " has been, and still is,
largely interested in farming." A South Carolina
Representative covered himself with the generous
assertion that he was *' member of all the organiza
tions in his State designed to benefit agriculture."
The agricultural bases of the Southern political
disturbance lay in the changes in tenure and finance

194 THE NEW NATION
that had recently appeared. The South was not with
out a pioneer immigration resembling that of the
West. Many of the carpet-baggers had undertaken
to develop farms there. There was much opportu
nity for rural speculation that increased in attrac
tiveness as the area of free Western lands diminished.
So far as this went, it produced a debtor class and
prepared the way for inflation.
But the development of new areas in the South
was less significant than the method of its industry.
The disintegration of plantations continued steadily
through the seventies and eighties. The figures of
the census, showing tenure for the first time in 1880,
and color in 1890, exaggerated this, since many of
the small holdings there enumerated were to all in
tents farmed by hired labor and were only matters
of bookkeeping. Yet there was a marked diminution
in the size of the estates. A class of negro owners
was slowly developing to account for a part of the
diminution. Frugality and industry appeared in
enough of the freedmen to bring into negro owner
ship in 1900, within the slave area, 149,000 farms,
averaging 55 acres. There were at this time 2,700,000
farms in the South, and 5,700,000 in the whole United
States. Negro renters and negro croppers, many of
whom labored under the direct supervision of the
white landlords, increased the number of individual
farmers, and like the rest lived upon the proceeds of
the cotton crop that was not yet grown.
Much of the capital that was used in Southern
agriculture came from the North through the manu
facturers and wholesalers who supplied the retail

THE NEW SOUTH 195
merchants of the South. These merchants advanced
credit to their customers, measuring it by the esti
mated value of the next crop. Once the bargain had
been struck, the farmer bought all his supplies from
his banker-merchant, paying such prices as the latter
saw fit to charge. There could be little competition
among merchants under this system, since the bur
den of his debt kept the planter from seeking the
cheapest market. The double weight of extortionate
prices and heavy interest impressed a large section
of the South with the scarcity of cash and the evils
of existing .finance.
In agricultural method as well as in finance the
South was oppressed by its system. The merchant
wanted cotton, for cotton was marketable, and could
not be consumed by a tricky debtor. Single cropping
was thus unduly encouraged ; diversified agriculture
and rotation of crops made little progress. The use
of commercial fertilizers was greatly stimulated, but
agriculture as a whole could not advance.
Tied fast to a system nearly as inflexible as that
of the ante-bellum plantation, the South suffered dis
proportionately in years when cotton was low. De
pression in the later eighties and the early nineties
intensified the suffering of the debtor class and pro
duced an inflation movement that allied the South
and West in the demand for cheaper money and
more of it. The Farmers' Alliance, with its demands
for railroad control, trust regidation, banking reform,
and free silver, was the logical vehicle for the ex
pression of Southern discontent.
The white population of the South, undivided

196 THE NEW NATION
since the Civil War, was confronted in 1890 by an
issue that bore no relation to race and that divided
society into debtor and creditor classes. For twenty
years, by common agreement in which the North
had tacitly concurred, the negro had been suppressed
outside the law. Occasional negroes had got into
office and even to Congress in reconstruction days.
One, who described himself as " a bright mulatto,"
sat in the Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congresses,
but in most regions of the South the negro had not
been allowed to vote or had been " counted out " at
the polls, while only in sporadic cases, mostly in the
mountain sections, was the Republican party able to
get enough votes to elect its candidates.
The Farmers' Alliance split the white vote and
gave to the negro an unusual power. From being
suppressed by all to being courted by many involved
a change that raised his hopes only to destroy them.
The South no sooner saw the possibility that the
negro vote might hold a balance of power between
two equal white factions than it took steps to remove
itself from temptation and to disfranchise the un-
desired class.
The purpose of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments had been to raise the freedmen to civil
equality and protect them there. Pursuant to the
Fourteenth Amendment, Congress passed, in 1875,
a Civil Rights Bill, which forbade discrimination
against any citizen in " the full and equal enjoy
ment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities,
and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land
or water, theaters, and other places of public amuse-

THE NEW SOUTH 197
ment." It was restrained from imposing coeducation
of the races only by Northern philanthropists who
were interested in Southern education. Its compul
sion was disregarded at the South, where social
equality between the races could not be attained.
Innkeepers and railroads continued to separate their
customers, and in time a few of them were haled
into court to answer for violating the law. Their
defense was that the Fourteenth Amendment for
bade discrimination by the States, but did not touch
tho private act of any citizen ; that it protected the
rights of citizens, but that these rights, complete
before the law, did not extend to social relations, —
that attendance at a theater is not a civil right at
all, and may properly be regulated by the police
power without conflict with the Constitution. In the
Civil Rights Cases, decided in 1883, the Supreme
Court released the defendants, ruling that the Four
teenth Amendment was too narrow in its intention
to justify Congress in the passage of a code of social
relations at the South. This part of reconstruction
thus broke down, leaving the negro population at the
discretion of its white neighbors.
The Fifteenth Amendment, too, had been limited
in its protecting force before 1890. It forbade a
denial of the right to vote by any State. The Su
preme Court easily determined that no violation
could occur when a hostile mob excluded negroes
from the polls. It had been settled before 1890 that
the negro was defenseless against personal discrimina
tion. It remained to be seen whether he could be dis
franchised by law and yet have no redress. Not till

198 THE NEW NATION
the South found some of its people appealing for
the negro vote in the crisis of the Farmers' Alliance
did it take the last steps in the undoing of recon
struction. The Fifteenth Amendment was not explicit. In
stead of asserting the right of the negro to vote, it
said, by negation, that the right should not be denied
on account of " raee, color, or previous condition of
servitude." The three qualities of race, color, and
servitude separated the races, but the South learned
that they were separated by other qualities that were
not proscribed by the amendment as a basis for the
franchise. The negro was generally poor, and any
qualification based on property would exclude him.
He was shiftless, and often vagrant, and hence could
bo touched by poll-tax and residence requirements.
lie was illiterate, and was unablo to meet an educa
tional tost. Tired of using forco or fraud, tho South
began in 1890 a system of legal evasion of tho Fif
teenth Amendment.
Tho Stato of Mississippi, in a now constitution
framed in 1890, defined tho franchise in terms that
bore heavily upon the negro. In the debates of its
convention members talked frankly and freely of
their intention to disqualify the race ; the clause
bore no mention of discrimination. It permitted per
sons to vote who, being male citizens over twenty-
one, and having reasonable residenco qualifications,
had paid a poll or other tax for two years preceding
tho election, and could read, or understand and in
terpret when read to them, any section of tho con
stitution of tho State. Under this clause, between

THE NEW SOUTH 109
the cumulative tax and the large discretionary powers
vested in the officers of enrollment, the negro elect
orate was reduced until it was negligible in Missis
sippi ; and it was a subject of admiration for other
Southern States, which proceeded to imitate it.
All of the cotton States but Florida and Texas,
and most of the old slave States, revised their elect
oral clauses in the next twenty years. Arkansas, in
1893, based the franchise on a one-year poll-tax.
South Carolina, in 1895, used residence, enrollment,
and poll-tax, while the convention called to disfran
chise the negro passed resolutions of sympathy for
Cuban independence. Delaware, in 1897, established
an educational test. Louisiana, in 1898, established
education and a poll-tax; North Carolina, in 1900,
did the same. Alabama, in 1901, made use of resi
dence, registry, and poll-tax. Virginia based the suf
frage on property, literacy, or poll-tax in 1902.
Georgia did the same in 1908, and the new State of
Oklahoma followed the Southern custom in 1910.
It was relatively easy to exclude most of the
negroes by means of qualifications such as these, but
every convention was embarrassed by the fact that
each qualification excluded, as well, some of the white
voters. In nearly every case revisions were accom
panied by a determination to save the whites, and
for this purpose a temporary basis of enrollment
was created in addition to the permanent. Louisiana
devised the favorite method in 1898. Her constitu
tion provided that, for a given period, persons who
could not qualify under the general clause might be
placed upon the roll of voters if they had voted in

200 THE NEW NATION
the State before 1867 or were descended from such
voters. The " grandfather clause," as this was im
mediately called, saved the poor whites, and was imi
tated by North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, and
Georgia. Tho governor of Louisiana, in 1898, sang
the praises of tho now invention : " The white su
premacy for which wo havo so long struggled at the
cost of so much precious blood and treasure is now
crystallized into the constitution as a fundamental
part and parcel of that organio instrument, and that,
too, by no subterfuge or ovasions. With this groat
principle thus firmly embedded in the constitution
and honestly enforced, there need be no longer any
fear as to the honesty and purity of our future elec
tions." The Supremo Court, in Williams vs. Missis
sippi (1898), and Gileses. Teasley (1903), declined
to go behind the innocent phraseology of the clauses,
and refused to overthrow them.
Before the courts had shown their unwillingness
to interfere, Congress had done the same. Two meth
ods of redress were discussed during the years of
Republican ascendancy, 1889-91. One of these con
templated a reduction of the Southern representation
in the House, under that part of the Fourteenth
Amendment that requires such reduction in propor
tion to the number of citizens who are disfranchised.
Although urged angrily more than once, this action
was not taken, and would not have affected cases in
which the denial was by force and not by law. To meet
the former situation the Republican party pledged
itself in 1888. A Forco Bill, placing the control of
Southern elections in federal hands was considered.

THE NEW SOUTH 201
It received the enthusiastic support of Henry Cabot
Lodge, and was the occasion for another waviug of
the "bloody shirt." It passed the House, with the
aid of Speaker Reed, but in the Senate was aban
doned by the caucus and allowed to die in 1891. The
South was left alone with its negro problem. In
the words of a Southern governor, " There are only
two flags — the white and the black. Under which
will you enlist?"
The New South removed the negro from politics,
but he remained, in industry and society, a problem
to whose solution an increasing attention was paid.
At the time of emancipation he was almost universally
illiterate and lived in a bankrupt community. North
ern philanthropy saw an opportunity hero. The teach
ers sent south by the Freedmen's Bureau stirred up
interest by their letters home. In 1867 George Pea
body, already noted for his benefactions in England
and in Baltimore, created a large fund for the relief
of illiteracy in the destitute region. His board of
trustees became a clearing-house for educational ef
forts. Ex-President Hayes became, in 1882, the head
of a similar fund created by John F. Slater, of Con
necticut. Through the rest of the century these
boards, in close cooperation, studied and relieved the
educational necessities of the South. In 1901 the
men who directed them organized a Southern Edu
cational Board for the propagation of knowledge,
while in 1903 Congress incorporated a General Ed
ucation Board, to which John D. Rockefeller gave
many millions for the subsidizing of educational
attempts.

202 THE NEW NATION
The negro advanced in literacy under the pressure
of the new influences. In 1880 seventy per cent of
the American negroes over ten years old were illit
erate, but the proportion was reduced in the next
ten years to fifty-seven per cent ; to forty-five per
cent by 1900 ; and to thirty per cent by 1910. As
the negro advanced, his own leaders, as well as his
white friends, differed in the status to which they
would raise him and in the methods to be pursued.
Some of his ablest representatives, W. E. B. DuBois
among them, resented the discrimination and disfran
chisement from which they suffered, and insisted
upon equality as a preliminary. Others, like Booker
T. Washington, who founded a notable trade school
in .Alabama in 1881, worried little over discrimina
tion, and hoped to solve their problem through com
mon and technical education which might lead the
race to self-respect and independence.
Friction increased between the races at the South
after emancipation. Freedom and political pressure
demoralized many of the negroes, whose new feel
ing of independence exasperated many of the whites.
Southern society still possessed many border traits.
Men went armed and fought on slight provocation.
The duel and the public assault aroused little seri
ous criticism even in the eighties, and the freedmen
lived in a society in which self-restraint had never
been the dominant virtue. In Alabama, in 1880, the
assessed value of guns, dirks, and pistols was nearly
twice that of the libraries and five times that of the
farm implements of the State. The distribution of
the races varied exceedingly, from the Black Belt,

THE NEW SOUTH 203
where in the Yazoo bottom lands the negroes out
numbered the whites fifteen or more to one, to the
uplands and mountains, where the proportions were
reversed. But everywhere the less reputable of both
races retarded society by their excesses.
In spite of its unsolvable race problem the South
was reviving in the eighties and was changing under
the influence of the industrial revolution. Northern
capital was a mainstay of its agriculture. Transporta
tion, manufacture, and city development found stim
ulation from the same source. In 1884 the National
Planters' Association promoted a celebration of the
hundredth anniversary of the export of the first Amer
ican cotton. In a great exposition at New Orleans
they showed how far the New South had gone in its
development. In the twenty years after 1880 the South became
a modern industrial community. Its coal mines in
creased their annual output from 6,000,000 tons to
50,000,000 ; its output of pig iron grew from 397,000
tons to 2,500,000 ; its manufactures rose in annual
value from $338,000,000 to $1,173,000,000, with a
payroll swelling from $76,000,000 to $350,000,000.
The spindles in its cotton mills were increased from
610,000 to 4,298,000. With the industrial changes
there came a shifting of Southern population. The
census maps show a tendency in the black population
to concentrate in the Black Belt, and in the white
population to increase near the deposits of coal and
iron. Factory towns appeared in the Piedmont, where
cheap power could be obtained, and drew their oper
atives from the rural population of the neighbor-

204 THE NEW NATION
hood. Unembarrassed by the child-labor and factory
laws of the North, the new Southern mills exploited
the women and children, and were consuming one
seventh of the cotton crop by 1900. In Alabama,
Birmingham became a second Pittsburg.
The Southern railway system was completely re
built after the Civil War. In 1860 it included about
one third of the thirty thousand miles of track in the
United States, but war and neglect reduced it to
ruin. Partly under federal auspices it was restored
in the later sixties. After 1878 it suddenly expanded
as did all the American railway systems.
Texas experienced the most thorough change in
the fifty years after the Civil War. From 307 miles
her railways expanded to more than 14,000 miles.
Only one of the Confederate States, Arkansas, had
a slighter mileage in 1860, but in 1910 no one had
half as much as Texas. The totals for the Confed
erate area rose from 11,000 miles in 1870 to 17,000
in 1880, to 36,000 in 1890, to 45,000 in 1900, and
to 63,000 in 1910. After 1880 no Confederate State
equaled Texas, whose vast area, suddenly brought
within reach of railway service, poured forth cotton
until by the end of the century she alone raised one
fourth of the American crop. Through the expand
ing transportation system the area of profitable cot
ton culture rose more rapidly than the demand for
cotton, and in overproduction may be found one of
the reasons for the decline in cotton values in the
early nineties. In the decline may be found an in
centive toward diversified agriculture. When cotton
went down, farmers tried other crops. The corn

THE NEW SOUTH 205
acreage in the ten cotton States passed the cotton
acreage before 1899, and with the diversification
came no decrease in the total cotton output, but an
increase in general agricultural prosperity. In many
regions fruit culture and truck-raising forced their
way to the front among profitable types of agricul
ture. In spite of the changes in industry and transpor
tation the South remained in 1910 a rural commu
nity when compared with the rest of the United
States. Out of 114 cities of 50,000 population in
1910, only 15 were in the Confederate area. But
when compared with its own past the South was de
veloping cities at a rapid rate. Only New Orleans
and Richmond, in 1880, had 50,000 inhabitants.
Atlanta, Charleston, Memphis, and Nashville were
added to this class by 1890. Texas had no city of
this size until 19Q0. But in 1910 she possessed
four, Dallas, Forth Worth, Houston, and San An
tonio. As the cities increased in number, bound to
gether, and bound to the cities of the rest of the
United States by the ties of trade and society, the
localisms of the South diminished. The essential
fear of negro control remained untouched, but in
superficial ways the Southerner came to resemble
his fellow citizen of whatever section.
The sectionalism whioh had made a political unit
of the South before the war was weakened. In the
tariff debates of 1883 and later a group of South
ern protectionists made common cause with Northern
Republicans. Sugar, iron, and cotton manufactures
converted them from the old regional devotion to

206 THE NEW NATION
free trade. A fear of national power had kept the
old South generally opposed to internal improve
ments at the public cost. The Pacific railroads had
been postponed somewhat because of this. But this
repugnance had died away, and in the Mississippi
River the United States found a field for work that
was welcomed in the South.
The Mississippi never fully recovered the domin
ance that it had possessed before the war, but it re
mained an important highway for the Western cot
ton States. The whimsical torrent, washing away
its banks, cutting new channels at will, flooding
millions of acres every spring, was too great to be
controlled by States that had been impoverished by
war and reconstruction. In 1879 Congress created
a Mississippi River Commission. Unusual floods in
1882 attracted attention to the danger, and there
after Congress found the money for a levee system
that restrained the river between its banks from
Cairo to the Gulf.
The mouth of the river, always choked by mud
flats, was opened by the United States in 1879. A
Western engineer, James B. Eads, devised a scheme
by which the current scoured out its own channel
and converted itself into an ocean-going highway.
He had already proved his power over the Father of
Waters by building the railroad bridge that was
opened at St. Louis in 1874. In 1892 other en
gineers completed a bridge at Memphis.
The active development of the New South less
ened the difference between it and the rest of the
United States, and brought it within the general in-

THE NEW SOUTH 207
dustrial revolution. By 1884 the trend was not no
ticeable. By 1890 the white population had divided
over a political issue like the North and West. In
the years immediately following 1890 Populism was
as much a problem in the South as anywhere.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Most of the books relating to the South are partisan. The
most useful economic analyses are to be found in the writings
of W. L. Fleming, U. B. Phillips, and A. H. Stone. Special
points of view are presented in A. B. Hart, The Southern South
(1911), E. G. Murphy, Problems of the Present South (1904),
E. A. Alderman and A. C. Gordon, Life of J. L. M. Curry
(1911), J. L. M. Curry, A Brief Sketch of George Peabody
(1898), J. E. Cutler, Lynch Law (1905), B. T. Washington, Up
from Slavery (1905), W. E. B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folk
(1903), and J. L. Mathews, Remaking the Mississippi (1909).
The Annual Cyclopaedia is full of useful details. The Annual
Reports of the Peabody Fund, the Slater Fund, and the United
States Commissioner of Education contain statistics and dis
cussions upon Southern society. The Civil Rights Cases (109
U.S. Reports) give the best treatment of the legal status of
the negro, and are supplemented by J. C. Rose, " Negro Suf
frage " (in American Political Science Review, vol. i, pp. 17-43,
— a partial sketch only), and J. M. Mathews, Legislative and
Judicial History of the Fifteenth Amendment (in Johns Hopkins
University Studies, vol. xxvii). There were interesting ar
ticles on the New Orleans Exposition, by E. V. Snialley, in the
Century Magazine for April and May, 1885.

CHAPTER XIII
POPULISM
The election of 1890 stunned and bewildered
both old parties. The Republicans lost their control
of the Lower House, while the Democrats paid for
their victory the price of a partial alliance with a
new movement whose weight they could only esti
mate. Populism was engendered by local troubles
in the West and South, but its name now acquired
a national usage and its leaders were encouraged to
attempt a national organization.
In a series of conventions, held between 1889 and
1892, the People's Party developed into a finished
organization with state delegations and a national
committee. At St. Louis, in December, 1889, the
Farmers' Alliance held a national convention and
considered the basis for wider growth. The out
come was an attempt to combine in one party or
ganized labor, organized agriculture, and believers
in the single tax. The leaders of the Knights of
Labor and the American Federation of Labor were
not averse to such common action, although the lat
ter preferred their own Federation to any party.
The dangers of political action, seen in the decline
of the National Labor Union of 1866, did not check
the desires of the Knights in 1889, although the
leaders found it easier then, as later, to promise the

POPULISM 209
support of organized labor than to deliver it at
the polls. After the St. Louis Convention the name
Farmers' Alliance merged into the broader name of
the People's Party, though the attempt to win the
rank and file of the unions failed.
In December, 1890, the farmers met at Ocala,
Florida, to rejoice over the congressional victory and
to plan for 1892. Since each of the great parties was
believed to be indifferent to the people and corrupt,
a permanent third party was a matter of conviction,
and in May, 1891, this party was formally created
in a mass convention at Cincinnati. Miscellaneous
reforms were insisted upon here, but were over
shadowed by the demands of the inflationists. James
B. Weaver, of Iowa, the old presidential candidate
of the Greenbackers, was a leading spirit at Cin
cinnati. His best-known aide was Ignatius Donnelly,
of Minnesota, a devotee of the Baconian theory and
of the " Lost Atlantis," who was now devoting his
active mind to the support of free silver. A national
committee was created after another meeting, at St.
Louis in February, 1892, and on July 2, 1892, the
party met in that city in its first national nominat
ing convention.
The platform of the People's Party was based on
calamity. " We meet in the midst of a nation brought
to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin,"
it declared. " Corruption dominates the ballot-box,
the legislature, the Congress, and touches even the
ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized.
. . . The newspapers are largely subsidized or muz
zled; public opinion silenced; business prostrated;

210 THE NEW NATION
our homes covered with mortgages ; labor impover
ished ; and the land concentrating in the hands of the
capitalists." The greatest of the evils in sight was " the vast
conspiracy against mankind," which had demone
tized silver, added to the purchasing power of gold,
and abridged the supply of money " to fatten usu
rers." To correct the financial evils the platform de
manded " the free and unlimited coinage of silver at
the present legal ratio of sixteen to one," and an
issue of legal-tender currency until the circulation
should reach an average of fifty dollars per capita.
Postal savings banks, a graduated income tax, and
economy in government were the subsidiary de
mands. No demand of the Populists attracted so much
attention as this for free silver, but its platform
touched reform at every angle. In the field of trans
portation it asked for government ownership of rail
roads, telegraphs, and telephones. It asked that land
monopolies be prevented, that the public lands be
in part regained, and that alien ownership be for
bidden. It wanted the Australian ballot, liberal pen
sions, restriction of immigration, an eight-hour day,
a single term for President and Vice-President,
direct election of United States Senators, abolition
of the Pinkerton detectives, and was curious about
the initiative and referendum. It was in many re
spects a prophecy as to the workings of reform for
the next twenty years.
The People's Party entered the campaign of 1892
with this platform and with the support of advanced

POPULISM 211
reformers, with a considerable following in the West
and Southland with James B. Weaver and James
G. Field as candidates. Few of the workers for its
ticket were politicians of known standing, and its
voters had a preponderance of youth. In several
Western States the Democratic party supported it
with fusion tickets. In the South it often cooperated
with the Republicans. From the first the third party
found it harder to stand alone than to unite with the
weaker local party.
The disrupting force of hard times was increased
by the acts of the Republican party. Harrison's first
Congress had passed a series of laws that provoked
opposition and criticism. The Interstate Commerce
Law was still new when he took office. In quick
succession in 1890 came the new States, and Okla
homa Territory, the Dependent Pensions Bill, the
Sherman Anti-Trust Bill, the Silver Purchase Bill,
and the McKinley Tariff. The dominant majority
had used arbitrary methods to enforce its will and
had given to its enemies more than one text. After
1891 the Democratic majority in the House reduced
the Administration to the political incompetence that
had prevailed from 1883 to 1889.
Benjamin Harrison gained little prestige as the
result of the Administration. He had been nomi
nated for his availability, and the campaign songs had
said as much of his illustrious grandfather, the hero
of Tippecanoe, as of himself. His appointments had
pleased neither the politicians nor the reformers,
while there was much laughter at the presence in
the offices of numerous personal friends and relatives.

212 THE NEW NATION
The most notable of his appointments was the most
embarrassing. James G. Blaine, as Secretary of State, found no
topio in foreign relations as interesting as the canal
had been in his earlier term. The wranglings with
Great Britain and Germany over their treatment of
naturalized Americans had subsided. The fisheries of
the North Atlantic had been temporarily settled by
President Cleveland. The regulation of the seal fish
eries of Bering Sea brought no new glory to Blaine.
There was no doubt that the seal herd of the Pa
cific was being rapidly destroyed by careless and
wasteful hunters from most of the countries border
ing on that ocean. On the American islands the
herds could be protected, and here they gathered
every summer to mate and breed. But the men who
hunted with guns at sea, instead of with clubs on
land, could not be controlled unless the world would
consent to an American police beyond the three-mile
limit. In an arbitration with Great Britain, at Paris,
Blaine tried to prove that the seals were American,
and entitled to protection on the high seas, and that
the waters of the northern Pacific were mare clau-
sum. The arbitration went against him on every
material point.
The only episode that threatened war occurred in
Chile. Here Harrison had sent as Minister Patrick
Egan, a newly naturalized Irishman and follower of
Blaine. In a revolution of 1891 Egan sided with the
conservative party that lost. His enemies charged
him with improper interest in contracts and with
instinctive antagonism to British interests in Chile.

POPULISM 213
After the revolution a mob in Valparaiso showed its
dislike for Americans by attacking sailors on shore
leave. Egan's extreme demands for summary pun
ishment of the rioters were upheld by Harrison, who
prepared the navy for war. Finally the Chilean Gov
ernment was forced to make complete apologies.
In the same year an American mob in New Orleans
lynched several Italians, and Blaine repelled with
indignation the demand that indemnity be accorded
before trial and conviction. He could not even prom
ise trial because of the helplessness of the United
States in local criminal proceedings. The Italian
Minister, Baron Fava, was withdrawn from Wash
ington on this account, and returned only when Con
gress had healed the breach by making provision for
the families of the sufferers.
The internal relations of the Administration were
not happier than the external. Harrison chafed under
the influence of Blaine, and alienated so many of the
regular Republican leaders that it became doubtful
whether he could secure his own renomination. Both
Quay and Platt had been offended, and the former
had resigned his chairmanship of the National Com
mittee after the failure of a political bank in Phila
delphia. No one was anxious to manage the Pre
sident's campaign, and he showed little skill in
managing it himself. The future was still in doubt
when, on June 4, 1892, three days before the meet
ing of the convention at Minneapolis, Blaine resigned
his position without a word of explanation. Whether
he was only siok and unhappy, or whether he desired
the nomination, was uncertain.

214 THE NEW NATION
The strength of Blaine and the rising influence
of William McKinley were apparent in the Repub
lican Convention. Harrison was renominated on the
first ballot, but Blaine and McKinley received more
than one hundred and eighty votes apiece. The
former had reached the end of his career, and died
the next winter. The latter was now Governor of
Ohio. McKinley had lost his seat in the election of
1890, but had been raised to the governorship in
the next year. He was chairman of the convention
that renominated Harrison, reaffirmed the " Amer
ican doctrine of protection," and evaded the issue of
free silver.
The Democratic party had bred no national
leader but Grover Cleveland since the Civil War,
and he had earned the dislike of the organization
before his defeat in 1888. His insistence upon the
tariff offended the protectionist wing of his party,
and he left office unpopular and lonely. He retired
to New York City, where he took up the practice
of law and regained the confidence of the people.
Demands upon him for public speeches in 1891 re
vealed the recovery of his popularity. His friends
began to organize in his behalf during 1892, and
David B. Hill aided by his opposition.
The strength of Hill, who had been elected Gov
ernor of New York, and who was now Senator, was
based upon Tammany Hall and those elements in
the New York Democracy that reformers were con
stantly attacking. He was believed to have defeated
Cleveland in 1888 by entering into a deal with the
Republican machine by which Harrison received the

POPULISM 215
electoral and he the gubernatorial vote of New York.
Early in 1892, as interest in Cleveland revived, Hill
called a " snap " convention and secured the indorse
ment of New York for his own candidacy. The solid
New York delegation shouting for Hill was an item
in Cleveland's favor at the Democratic Convention
in Chicago. With tariff reformers in control, de
nouncing " Republican protection as a fraud, a rob
bery of the great majority of the American people
for the benefit of a few," and reasserting Cleveland's
phrase that "public office is a public trust," the
convention selected Cleveland and Adlai E. Steven
son, of Illinois, as the party candidates. Its coinage
plank, like that of the Republicans, meant what the
voter chose to read into it,.
There were two debates in the campaign of 1892.
On the surface was the renewed discussion of the
tariff, with the Republicans fighting for the McKin
ley Bill all the more earnestly because there was
danger of its repeal, and the Democrats officially de
manding reduction. " I would rather have seen Cleve
land defeated than to have had that fool free-trade
plank adopted," said one of the Eastern Democrats
to " Tom " Johnson after the convention. But the
Democratic protectionists were forced into surly ac
quiescence so long as Cleveland was the candidate
and William L. Wilson the chairman of the con
vention. The partial insincerity of the tariff debate
aided the Populists, who were directing a discussion
upon the general basis of reform.
Cleveland was elected with a majority of electoral
votes and a plurality of popular votes, but the vote

216 THE NEW NATION
for Weaver and Field measured the extent of the
revolt against both parties. The Populists carried
Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, and Kansas, gained twenty-
two electoral votes, and polled over a million popular
votes. Their protest, based on local hard times and
discontent, probably defeated Harrison, while their
organization was ready to receive a large following
should the hard times spread.
Harrison was not unwilling to surrender the Gov
ernment to Cleveland in March, 1893, for he had
been struggling for weeks to conceal the financial
weakness of tho United States and to avoid a panic.
The groat surplus that had been a motive for legis
lation for moro than ten years had nearly become a
deficit. Continuous prosperity had tempted Congress
to make lavish appropriations. The McKinley Bill
had reduced the revenue through changes in the
sugar schedule. The Pension Bill had used other
millions. Internal improvements had been distributed
to every section. The surplus, which had been at
$105,000,000 for 1890, feU to $37,000,000 in 1891,
and in the next two years to $9,900,000 and to
$2,300,000. In the spring of 1893 the Treasury was
so reduced that any unexpected shock might cause a
suspension. Cleveland's first duty was with causes
and cures.
The surplus had been affected both by increase in
expenditures and by decrease in revenues. The lat
ter had been due in part to the hard times, which
had forced a curtailment of imports, with a result
ing shrinkage in tariff receipts. At the same time an
increasing nervousness, based upon the deteriora-

POPULISM 217
tion in quality of the assets of the United States,
showed itself. The fear of free silver was hasten
ing the day of panic.
Silver and gold had always been traditional Ameri
can coins, but since 1834 little of the former had
been coined or circulated, while between 1862 and
1879 neither variety of specie was ordinarily used as
money. In 1873 a codification of coinage laws had
omitted from the standard list the silver dollar,
which had been unimportant for nearly forty years ;
and when, shortly thereafter, the decline in the
price of silver made its coinage at the ratio of six
teen to one profitable, it was impossible. The de
mand for a restoration of silver coinage began with
the silver miners who desired a stimulated market
for their output. Some believed coinage would raise
the price of bullion ; others thought the Government
would keep up the value of the silver coins, as it did
the greenbacks, by redemption in gold. In 1878 a
Free Coinage Act, pushed by R. P. Bland, was con
verted into the limited Bland-Allison Act. Under
this the Treasury bought the minimum amount of
silver bullion (two million dollars' worth) every
month for twelve years, and protested continually
that the silver coined from it was increasing the
burden of redemption on the gold reserve. As the
price of silver fell farther, the demand of the miners
increased, and toward 1890 it was reinforced by the
demands of inflationists who desired it for another
reason. In 1890 the free-silver movement was not political
in the sense that parties had declared for or against

218 THE NEW NATION
it. In eaoh groat party it had supporters, and few
politicians wore actively opposing it. A movement
in its favor, with the support of the Senate, was re
shaped under the influence of Sherman, and became
a law in July, 1890. Under this the Treasury was
forced to buy 4,500,000 ounces of silver each month,
and to pay for it in a new issue of treasury notes.
For the next three years the United States kept at
par with gold the Civil War greenbacks, the Bland-
Allison silver dollars, and the treasury notes of 1890.
Only by its constant willingness to pay out any
form of money at the option of the customer could
it prevent the Gresham Law from operating and the
currency from declining to the bullion value of silver.
Every creditor feared the establishment of the
silver basis because of the loss which it would entail
upon him. His dollars would shrink from their gold
value to their silver value. A depreciated currency
was bad enough when unavoidable, but the deliber
ate adoption of it would be frank repudiation. Con
tinually, after 1890, popular apprehension of this
grew more acute, discouraging the undertaking of
new enterprises and leading to the insertion of " gold
clauses " in contracts. Gold was hoarded whenever
possible. The receipts at the New York Custom-
I louse, which had been mostly gold before 1890,
contained less than four por cent of gold in the win
ter of 1892-93. As the Treasury found its expendi
tures noaring its receipts, and tho proportion of gold
in its assots lessoning, business men were badly wor
ried over the future of the currency, and an actual
limit of available capital appeared.

POPULISM 219
For fourteen years there had been prosperity in
the United States. Financial and economic disturb
ances had been relatively slight, and every year had
seen a greater business expansion than the last. In
vestment for permanent improvement had passed the
amount of annual savings, and before 1893 the
United States as a community had approached
the point at which its economic surplus would be
exhausted and an enforced liquidation would be
due. As banks curtailed in 1893 to save themselves,
stringency became general, and depression turned to
panic. In April the gold reserve in the Treasury, on
which the whole volume of silver and paper de
pended, passed below $100,000,000, which business
had come to regard as the limit of safety. In the
summer Great Britain closed her Indian mints to
silver and that bullion dropped farther in value.
Before July there was panic and failure everywhere
in the United States.
Panic had been imminent before Harrison left
office and remained for Cleveland to confront. Al
ready Cleveland had taken a solid stand against free
silver and the silver basis. He saw in the Sherman
Silver Purchase Act the most striking cause of dan
ger, and summoned Congress to meet in August,
1893, to repeal it, while he maintained the gold re
serve for the next two years by borrowing on bonds.
For the first time since the Civil War his party
controlled every branch of the Government, yet it
now met an issue on which it had not been elected
and over which it broke to pieces.
An angry minority opposed tbe Message in whioh

220 THE NEW NATION
Cleveland described the financial dangers and de
manded the repeal of the Sherman Law. It was a
sectional minority that included Western Represent
atives from both parties and many Democrats from
the South. Men who had fought the Populists since
1890 now fraternized with them and raised their
strength beyond their hopes. The President refused
compromise, even to save his party from destruction,
and found a majority for repeal among Easterners
of both parties. The Sherman Law was repealed in
•November, and the liquidation following the crisis
was effected during the next three years.
It was a bad beginning for tariff revision, to split
the party at its first session and to drive into opposi
tion those Democrats who were most genuinely in
terested in tariff reform. Cleveland had lost his
influence with Western Democrats before the repeal
of the McKinley Act was undertaken, and they, like
the Populists, had decided that he was the tool of the
corporations and the " gold-bugs " of the East. The
anti-corporation feelings of the West were increased
by the accident which threw the corporations and
the farmers into different sides upon the silver ques
tion. A tariff for revenue had been the winning issue
in 1890 and 1892, and the Democratic organization
was pledged to pass it. When Speaker Crisp made
William L. Wilson chairman of the Committee on
Ways and Means his act showed an intention to ful
fill the pledge, for which purpose Wilson brought in
his bill early in the regular session of 1893-94. Like
previous bills, this tariff was passed in the House,

POPULISM 221
rewritten in the Senate, and again changed in confer
ence committee. " The truth is," confessed Senator
Cullom long after, " we were all — Democrats as well
as Republicans — trying to get in amendments in
the interest of protecting the industries of our re
spective States." The surplus was no longer an argu
ment in favor of reduction. The free-trade arguments
were flatly contradicted by a group of Democratic
Senators under whose leadership the bill lost most
of its reducing tendency. Out of doors the Repub
licans attacked the measure and noisily charged it
with having produced the panic of 1893. Fourteen
years later a Republican President still described it
as the measure " under the influence of which wheat
went down below fifty cents." When it finally came
to the President it was so little different from the
McKinley Bill that he denounced it violently. He
had tried in vain to hold his party to an honest re
vision, and now, in July, 1894, refused to sign the
bill. It became a law without his signature. It con
tained no novelty but an income tax, which was a
concession to the Populists and which the Supreme
Court soon declared to be unconstitutional.
In the fight over the Wilson Bill, Cleveland af
fronted Eastern members of his party as he had the
Western members, in 1893, over the Sherman re
peal. In the summer of 1894 he offended the whole
body of organized labor by intervening in a West
ern strike.
The panic of 1893 had unsettled labor and cre
ated a floating element among the unemployed.
These drifted toward Chicago, attracted by the Co-

222 THE NEW NATION
lumbian Exposition held there during that summer,
and worried the police for many months. About
Easter, 1894, an " Army of the Unemployed "
marched on Washington under the command of
Jacob S. Coxey. A few weeks later a strike occurred
among the employees of the Pullman Palace Car
Company. The American Railroad Union, under the
leadership of Eugene V. Debs, established a sym
pathetic boycott against the Pullman cars. The
Knights of Labor indorsed the strike, and railway
travel was impeded over all the West. Around Chi
cago there was disorder and rioting which the Gov
ernor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, did not suppress.
He held the militia in readiness, but had not inter
vened when Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago
to remove obstructions to the carriage of the mails.
This federal intervention offended those who still
adhered to the doctrine of state rights, and angered
the strikers and organized labor as a whole. They
believed the President was a tool of the railroads,
and believed the same of the courts when a federal
judge issued an injunction to Debs forbidding him
to interfere in the strike. In the end the strikers
lost, leaving Cleveland's conduct in maintaining the
peace in sharp contrast with that of the Populist
Governor of Colorado, who intervened in a great
miners' strike at Cripple Creek to arrest, not the
strikers who had seized control of the mines, but the
sheriff and his posso who wishod to dislodgo them.
"It is hotter, infinitely better," Governor Waito had
declared, " that tho blood should flow to tho horses'
bridles than that our national liberties should bo

POPULISM 223
destroyed." Congress, made Labor Day a legal holi
day in 1894, but failed to placate the unions.
By the summer of 1894 Cleveland's . party was
split beyond repair, and his friends were mostly
among the Republicans. Consistent in his belief in
sound money, tariff revision, and law and order, he
had been forced by events to alienate the West, the
East, and organized labor. His course had aided the
Populist party by widening the belief that the Demo
crats had no interest in their welfare. The panic had
aided it yet more, by multiplying the discontented
who might be converted to the new faith. Every
month the Populist party increased in strength, the
East watching it with mingled fear and contempt
and ignorance. The comic papers pictured as the
typical Populist the raw-boned, booted, unkempt
farmer, in shirt-sleeves and with flowing beard. It
could not see the foundation of real reforms on
which the movement stood. A satirist pictured the
Populist as "The Kansas Bandit," declaiming
"The People's Party, to
Which me native instinct draws me because it
Loves the rule of mediocrity, is now on top. I
Love the rule of Ignorance."
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
F. J. Turner discussed "The Problems of the West," in the
Atlantic Monthly for September, 1896, and C. Beoker has in
terpreted a similar point of view under the title " Kansas " in
the Turner Essays (1910). Wildman and MoVey are valuable
guides. The external facts of the Populist movement are ac
cessible in the Annual Cyclopaedia; S tan wood, History of the
Presidency ; Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury ;

224 THE NEW NATION
and Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Stan
dard writings on the silver problem are J. L. Laughlin, His
tory of Bimetallism in the United States (1886, etc), and F.
W. Taussig, Silver Situation in the United States (1893). Use
ful details are added in the biographies of Blaine, Bland, Sher
man, and Vance. W. E. Connelley, Ingalls of Kansas (1909),
has included much material upon Populism, including E.
Ware's satirical verses, Alonzo, or the Kansas Bandit. Light is
thrown upon Governor J. P. Altgeld and his influence in the
Democratic party by B. Whitlock, " Forty Years of It " (1914),
and C. Lloyd, Henry Demarest Lloyd. The Memoirs of a Varied
Career, William F. Draper (1908), gives a glimpse of the rigid
protectionist attitude. A stimulating novel, based upon muni
cipal politics in the nineties, is P. L, Ford's The Honorable
Peter Stirling (1894).

CHAPTER XIV

FREE SILVER

Serious students of finance are almost unani
mous in their belief that the adoption of free silver
would have brought into operation the Gresham Law
and would have resulted in a reduction of the value
of the dollar. But the motives which divided the
United States were less economic law than personal
interest. The creditor foresaw the shrinkage of his
property, and feared it. The debtor saw the lighten
ing of his debt, and easily convinced himself that the
ethics of the case required such relief for him.
It appeared to the West that the declining prices
of the eighties had been due not so much to over
production and mechanical invention as to an ap
preciation of tbe dollar. The silver advocate claimed
that the money supply was inadequate to the demands
of increasing business, that the overworked dollars
were acquiring a scarcity value, and that their in
crease in value was placing an unfair burden upon
every person with a debt to pay. It was the old atti
tude of the Greenback Northwest, brought out by a
period of debt and depression. In accounting for the
scarcity of money the Act of 1873 seemed important
to the West. The demonetization of silver became a
crime, and justice from the Western standpoint de
manded the restoration of the dollar to its old
value, — the value of its silver. Before 1898 the

226 THE NEW NATION
discontent was serious, but had not come to be the
primary interest of the West. Men were not yet
willing to leave their parties for the sake of silver.
The panic drove them to the final step.
Through the campaign of 1892 the major parties
had dodged the issue of free silver by adopting eva
sive planks, while the general ignorance respecting
the laws of money prevented the evasion from being
seen. Until 1890 neither organization had been un
favorably disposed towards free silver and Congress
men catered to the movement when they dared. As
its accomplishment became more probable, the selfish
interests that would be adversely affected, and the
economists who saw its theoretical danger, and the
moralists who disliked repudiation, made common
cause in a wide campaign of education.
With the exception of extreme inflationists, all
had declared that thoy wanted " honest " or " sound "
money, and both parties insisted, in 1892, that all
dollars, of whatever sort, must remain equal in value
and interchangeable. They insisted, too, that silver
must be used as well as gold, and neither platform
saw that the demands were either inconsistent or
improbable of realization. The pledge of equality
pleased the creditor East, while that of equal use of
both metals satisfiod tho dobtor West and South.
Bimetallism was a cry of many who disliked froo
silver, yet feared that a demand for tho gold stand
ard would wreck tho party. As long as the traditional
ratio of sixteen to one remained the commercial ratio,
the free use of both metals was theoretically possible,
but the experience of the United States showed that

1  1  1 
The Flood of Silver
Gold and Silver Output

/

1801-1911
In Ounces
(Baitd on United State statMlcal Abitrsct,
_ 1(113 nn 70(1 7071

/

— Ouno.l
.....Qunoai

o. H.tln.d (
of Rtflntd (

lllvir .old

w
J
JT
• •
• ••*
.••
OUKCE/p.
240,000,000
220,000,000
200,000,000
180,000,000
160,000,000
140,000,000
120,000,000
100,000,000
80,000,000
60,000,000
40,000,000
20,000,000
1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911
228 THE NEW NATION
a slight variation in the commercial ratio inevitably
drove the more valuable dollar into retirement and
left the cheaper in use. The truth of Gresham's Law
was believed by most economists, who doubted whether
the commercial ratio was ovor sufficiently permanent
to make bimetallism possible. With the silver de
clining rapidly it was out of the question. If the
silver in circulation ever got beyond the power of the
government to control it through redemption in gold
nothing could avoid the silver standard. No law of
the United States could prevent it. There was only a
bare possibility that an international agreement
always to regard sixteen ounces of silver as worth
one ounce of gold might establish the ratio, but to
this straw tho bimetallist turned, trying to ward off
the demand for freo silver with his plea for interna
tional bimetallism.
The panic of 1898, the decline of silver, and the
repeal of the Sherman Law stimulated the activities
of those who believed in free silver and produced
formal steps to bring it into politics. A silver con
vention, held in Chicago in August, 1893, denounced
the "Crime of 1873," and Governor Waite recom
mended to the Colorado Legislature that it open a
mint of its own for the coinage of legal-tender silver
dollars. At state conventions, in 1893 and 1894,
both parties adopted silver planks. The Nebraska
Democrats rejected such a plank in 1893, but in
1894, after a caucus of free-silver Democrats in
Omaha, they adopted a demand for the immediate
restoration of free-silver coinage " without waiting
for the aid or consent of any nation on earth."

FREE SILVER 229
At the congressional election of 1894 the Republi
cans regained control of both Senate and House
and many of the silver candidates were left at home.
Some thirty, who had sat in the Fifty-third Congress,
joined in March, 1895, in a call for the adoption of
free silver as a party measure. To the iniquity al
leged to exist in the gold standard was added the
aggravating fact that its defenders had wealth and
were often directors of corporations. The measure
had become a class contest. Its textbook was found
in Coin's Financial School, a little book with
simple dialogue and graphic illustration, that popu
larized the Western view of free silver and reached
hundreds of thousands with its apparent frankness.
Free silver had by 1895 outgrown the Populists,
and had overshadowed other measures of reform be
fore either party had taken a frank attitude respect
ing it. " I have been more than usually despondent,"
wrote the originator of the W7ilson Bill, who had
lost his seat in 1894, " as I see how the folly of our
Southern people, in taking up a false and destructive
issue, and assaulting the very foundations of public
and private credit, are throwing away the solid fruits
of the great victory, solidifying the North as it never
was solid in the burning days of reconstruction, and
condemning the South to a position of inferiority
and lessening influence in the Union she has never
before reached."
When the Fifty-fourth Congress met in 1895,
Reed was again enthroned as Speaker, but the spread
of silver sentiment had undermined party loyalty.
Cleveland's annual Message contained the usual range

230 THE NEW NATION
of items upon government and foreign relations, and
devoted several pages to a resume of the financial
operations of the Treasury and the currency prob
lem. It closed with an appeal to the enthusiastic
multitude that approved free coinage to reexamine
their views "in the light of patriotic reason and
familiar experience." It gave no hint that any other
topic was likely to pass free silver in the public view.
Fifteen days later, on December 17, 1895, the Presi
dent sent a special Message to Congress, in reference
to an old dispute between Great Britain and Vene
zuela, that startled the world, upset the stock mar
kets, and brought to life once more the Monroe
Doctrine. For many years the unsettled boundary between
Venezuela and British Guiana had been a source of
irritation. The pretensions of both claimants were
great and vague, while the continuous encroachment
of British miners alarmed the weaker country. For
nearly twenty years Venezuela had vainly appealed
to the United States, asking that the dispute be ar
bitrated. The United States had taken a mild interest
in the wrangle, but no one before Cleveland had felt
vitally concerned. He undertook, in the summer of
1895, to persuade Great Britain to accept an ar
bitration, and pressed Lord Salisbury in a series
of notes drafted by Richard Olney, Secretary of
State. The contention of Olney was that the dispute was
suitable for arbitration because of the difference in
physical strength between the two countries, and
that the United States had an interest in an equita-

FREE SILVER 231
ble territorial adjustment. He stated the doctrine
that John Quincy Adams had advanced in the Ad
ministration of Monroe, that interference with the
destiny of the South American Republics affects the
United States, and asserted that this was now a part
of the public law of the United States. He listed
the precedents in which it had been advanced since
1823, finding none in which it had been flatly
checked. His long arguments upon the interests
and proper supremacy of the United States in all
American questions failed to convince the British
Foreign Office, which denied both Olney 's correct
ness in applying the Monroe Doctrine and the bind
ing force of the doctrine itself. Arbitration was
declined, and Cleveland, in submitting the corre
spondence to Congress, urged that an American
court be created to ascertain the true boundary and
that the United States afterward maintain it. " In
making these recommendations," he admitted, " I am
fully alive to the responsibility incurred and keenly
realize all the consequences that may follow."
The threat of war conveyed in the Message drove
silver from the publio mind. Business was aghast,
and judicious publicists either questioned the value of
the Monroe Doctrine or denied the propriety of its
application' The general publio supported the Presi
dent without question, but many of his closest ad
visers turned against him. His political enemies
charged him with raising a foreign issue to reunite
his party, or with creating a scare to help his specula
tions in stocks. Great Britain blustered in her press,
but opened her archives to the American Venezuelan

232 THE NEW NATION
Commission. In 1897 she allowed an arbitration to
tako place, and the affair passed over.
Whatever Cleveland's motive in the Venezuela
Message, it did not establish more than a transient
calm in either party. His own was doubly split by
silver and the tariff, while Republican plans for
1896 had become badly deranged. That party had
organized to play upon protection, but found interest
in its chosen subject silenced for the time.
In spite of its dofeats in 1890 and 1892, the Re
publican organization had kept up its fight for pro
tection. Quay had in 1888 completed the partnership
between the manufacturers who had a cash interest
in the tariff and the Republican voters. In manufac
turing communities the doctrine had been accepted
that prosperity and protection went together. Ruin
was prophesied if the Democrats should win. The
panic of 1893 seemed to prove this, and when the
Democrats passed the Wilson Bill the Republicans
asserted that the fear of this had caused the panic.
In private, the leaders agreed with the president of
the Home Market Club, who wrote in his memoirs,
" The bill . . . was much less destructive than there
was reason to fear." " Our business was not unprofit
able during these lean years, but much less profitable
than it had been and ought to have been." Prosperity
was clearly lacking and to be desired, and among
the candidates for the nomination in 1896 was the
author of the McKinley Bill, in whom an Ohio
cartoonist had discovered the " Advance Agent of
Prosperity." Associated with the name of William McKinley,

FREE SILVER 233
of Canton, Ohio, was that of Marcus Alonzo Hanna,
a citizen of Cleveland who had acted on the bor
derland between business and politics since 1880.
Hanna had been among the earliest to see the finan
cial interest of the manufacturers in the tariff and
to capitalize it for political purposes. For several
years he had collected money in Ohio for campaign
funds, assessing the manufacturers according to
their interests and impressing upon them the duty
of paying on demand. It had been a business trans
action. Hanna had no extraordinary stake in the
result, but combined a genuine interest in politics
with business standards of the prevailing type.
About 1890 he became a friend of the Ohio pro
tectionist and worked steadily thereafter for his elec
tion to the Presidency.
McKinley was a tactful and successful Congress
man. He believed in the tariff, spoke convincingly
in its favor, had few enemies and many warm friends,
and was widely advertised by the Tariff Bill of
1890. In public places after 1893 he was repeatedly
hailed as the next candidate, but as the silver issue
rose it appeared that there might be great difficulty
in adapting his record to the new problem. He had
favored bimetallism and free coinage in so many
debates that the East, where lay the strongholds of
the party, distrusted his soundness on the currency
question. Yet if he abandoned free silver it was
doubtful if he could hold the West. For months
his friends, steered by Hanna, who spent his own
money freely, endeavored to keep the tariff in the
foreground, while the candidate preserved a discreet

234 THE NEW NATION
and exasperating silence upon the dominant issue of
free silver.
The most important rivals of McKinley for the
nomination were Harrison and Reed, but neither of
these possessed a manager as shrewd and resourceful
as Hanna. McKinley was nominated on the first
ballot at St. Louis, with Garrett P. Hobart, of New
Jersey, a corporation lawyer who believed in the
gold standard, as his associate.
The nature of the Republican platform had been
in debate throughout the spring of 1896. The
organization was reluctant to take up the silver issue
and the predetermined candidate was uncertain upon
it. In the Platform Committee there was a contest
involving the opportunists, who wanted to continue
the policy of evasion ; the Westerners, who felt that
silver meant more to them than the party ; and the
representatives of the populous commercial East,
who were devoted to the gold standard. Bimetal! ists
had progressed in their education until most of them
saw that bimetallism must be international if it
could be at all. Various committeemen later assumed
the credit for the plank that was finally adopted.
After castigating the Democrats for producing the
panic and renewing the pledge for protection, the
party denounced the debasement of currency or
credit. It opposed the free coinage of silver, asserted
that all money must be kept at a "parity with
gold," and pledged itself to work for an international
agreement for bimetallism.
The fight for free silver was carried by the silver
state delegations to the floor of the convention, where

FREE SILVER 235
it was defeated by a vote of 818^ to 105£. At this
point, led by Senators from Colorado and Utah,
thirty-four members withdrew from the convention
in protest. Even the Prohibition party had already
been broken by the new issue. The humorous weekly,
Life, spoke seriously when it declared that " The
two great parties in the country at this writing are
the Gold party and the Silver party. The old parties
are in temporary eclipse." Few were satisfied with
the Republican result, for while the platform pointed
one way and the candidate's career pointed the other
on free silver, the real interest of the party, pro
tection, aroused no enthusiasm.
No Democrat was the predetermined candidate of
his party when it met at Chicago in July, 1896.
Cleveland, least of all, was not given even the scanty
notice of a commendatory plank. He stood alone as
no other President had done, at issue with the Re
publicans on their major policy, yet without followers
in his own organization. Slow, patient, courageous,
stubborn, he had twice held his party to its promise,
and he had refused to be carried away by the tran
sitory demand of the West for dangerous finance.
He had guided the National Administration through
eight years of expansion and reorganization, and had
been a devoted servant of civil service reform. In
May, 1896, he had aggravated his offenses in the
eyes of the politicians by issuing new rules that ex
tended the classified service to include some 31,000
new employees, making a total of 86,000 out of
178,000 federal employees. He passed out of party
politics at least two years before his term expired.

236 THE NEW NATION
and in 1897 he took up his final abode in Princeton.
From Princeton he wrote and spoke for eleven years,
and before he died in 1908 the animosities of 1896
were forgotten, and he looked large in the American
mind as a statesman whose independence and sin
cerity wore beyond reproach.
Forcos beyond the control of politicians carried
tho Democrats toward an alliance with Populism
and free silver. As two minority parties they had
felt in 1892 a tendency to fuse against the Repub
licans. By conviction they were both obliged to fight
the party of Hanna and McKinley, in which the
forces of business, finance, and manufacture were
assembled in the joint cause of protection and the
gold standard. It was convenient to make this fight
in close alliance, the more so because the Populist
doctrine of free silver had permeated the Democratic
organization in tho West and South. In tho conven
tions of 1896 moro than thirty States, as Nobraska
had done in 1894, asked for immediate free coinage,
and a majority of the Democratic delegates were
pledged to this before they came to Chicago. They
gained control of the convention on the first vote,
determined contests in their own favor, and offered
a plank demanding " the free and unlimited coinage
of both silver and gold at the present legal ratio of
sixteen to one without waiting for the aid or consent
of any other nation."
The debate on the silver plank was long and bit
ter, although its passage was certain. It was closed
by the leader of the Nebraska delegation, Wrilliam
Jennings Bryan, who had been a former Congress-

FREE SILVER 237
man, and who later said, " An opportunity to close
such a debate had never come to me before, and I
doubt if as good an opportunity had ever come to
any other person during this generation." He took
advantage of the moment, in a tired convention that
had been wrangling in bitterness for several days, that
had deserted the old politicians, and that had no
candidate. He was only thirty-six years old, his face
was unfamiliar, and his name had rarely been heard
outside his State, but he had been preaching free
silver with religious intensity and oratorical skill.
His speech had grown through repeated speaking,
and reached its climax as he pleaded for free silver :
" If they dare to come out in the open field and de
fend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight
them to the uttermost. Having behind us the pro
ducing masses of this nation and the world, supported
by the commercial interests, the laboring interests,
and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their
demand for the gold standard by saying to them :
You shall not press down upon the brow of labor
this crown of thorns ; you shall not crucify mankind
upon a cross of gold." Swept off its feet by the en
thusiasm for silver, and having no other candidate
in view, the convention nominated Bryan on the fifth
ballot, selecting Arthur Sewall, of Maine, as his com
panion. The Populists met in St. Louis on July 22. " If
we fuse, we are sunk," complained one of the most
devoted leaders ; " if we don't fuse, all the silver
men will leave us for the more powerful Democrats."
Fusion controlled the convention, voting down the

238 THE NEW NATION
" Middle-of-the-Road " group that adhered to inde
pendence. Bryan was nominated, although Sewall
was rejected for Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia.
The organization of the People's Party continued
after 1896, but its vitality was gone forever.
The campaign of 1896 was an orgy of education,
emotion, and panic. McKinley was driven by the
opposition to defend the gold standard with increas
ing intensity. Protection ceased to arouse interest
and other issues were forgotten. The Bryan party
attracted to itself the silver wings of the Republicans
and Prohibitionists, and absorbed the Populists. The
gold Democrats, after several weeks of indecision
as to tactics, became bolters, held a convention at
Indianapolis in September, and nominated John M.
Palmer and Simon Buckner. To this ticket, Cleve
land and his Cabinet gave their support. Up and
down the land Bryan traveled, preaching his new gos
pel, which millions regarded as " the first great pro
test of the American people against monopoly — the
first great struggle of the masses in our country
against the privileged classes." " Probably no man
in civil life," said the Nation at the end of the fight,
" has succeeded in inspiring so much terror without
taking life."
As chairman of the National Committee, Marcus
A. Hanna directed the Republican campaign. He
encouraged the belief that Bryan was waging a
"campaign against the Ten Commandments." He
drew his sinews of war from the manufacturers, who
were used to such demands, and from a wide range
of panic-stricken contributors who feared repudia-

FREE SILVER 239
tion. Insurance companies and national banks were
assessed and paid with alacrity. The funds went into
the broadest campaign of education that the United
States had seen.
In contrast to the activity of Bryan, McKinley
stayed at home through the summer, and delegations
from afar were brought up to his veranda at Canton,
Ohio. To these he spoke briefly and with dignity,
gaining an assurance that grew with the campaign.
His arguments were taken over the country by a
horde of speakers whom Hanna organized, who
reached and educated every voter whose mind was
open on the silver question. In the closing days of
the campaign panic struck the conservative classes
and produced for Hanna campaign funds such as
had never been seen, and cries of corruption met the
charges of repudiation.
An English visitor in New York wrote on the
Sunday before election: "Of course nothing can be
done till Wednesday. All America is aflame with
excitement — and New York itself is at fever heat.
I have never seen such a sight as yesterday. The
whole city was a mass of flags and innumerable Re
publican and Democratic insignia — with tbe streets
thronged with over two million people. The whole
business quarter made a gigantic parade that took
seven hours in its passage — and the business men
alone amounted to over 100,000. Every one — as,
indeed, not only America, but Great Britain and all
Europe — is now looking eagerly for the final word
on Tuesday night. The larger issues are now
clearer : not merely that the Bryanite fifty-cent

240 THE NEW NATION
dollar (instead of the standard hundred-cent) would
have far-reaching disastrous effects, but that the
whole struggle is one of the anarchic and destructive
against the organic and constructive forces."
The vote was taken in forty-five States, Utah
having been admitted early in 1896, and no elec
tion had evoked a larger proportion of the possible
vote. Bryan received 6,500,000 votes, nearly a
million more than any elected President had ever
received, but he ran 600,000 votes behind McKin
ley. The Republican list included every State north
of Virginia and Tennessee, and east of the Missouri
River, except Missouri and South Dakota. The
solid South was confronted by a solid North and
East, while the West was divided. McKinley re
ceived 271 electoral votes ; Bryan, 176.
Education played a large part in the result, and
economic opinion believes that the better cause pre
vailed. But cool analysis had less effect than emo
tion and self-interest at the time. The lowest point
of depression had been reached during 189.4, while
the harvests of 1895 and 1896 were larger and
more profitable than had been known for several
years. Free silver was a hard-times movement that
weakened in the face of better crops. " Give us
good times," said Reed to Richard Watson Gilder,
"and all will come out right." Inflation was not
to be desired by the citizen who had in hand the
funds to pay his debts. When he became solvent he
could understand the theories of sound finance. It
is probable that nature as well as gold was a potent
aid to Hanna in procuring the result.

FREE SILVER 241
William McKinley was advertised as the "Ad
vance Agent of Prosperity," and before he was
inaugurated in March, 1897, prosperity was in
sight. His election had destroyed all fear that the
currency would be upset by legislative act, while
the liquidation after the panic of 1893 had nearly
run its course. Business was reviving, crops were
improving, and the luckless farmers of the Western
plains had abandoned their farms or learned how to
use them. After 1896 the financial danger was not
silver but gold inflation. In that year great mines
were opened in Alaska, drawing heavy immigration
to the valley of the Yukon and, a little later, to the
beach at Nome. Other discoveries increased the gold
output and flooded the world with the more precious
metal. By 1900 prices were rising instead of fall
ing, and public interest was turned upon the high
cost of living rather than the low prices of the pre
vious period. The average annual output of gold for
the fifteen years ending in 1896 was $132,000,000.
For the fifteen years beginning in 1896, it was
1337,000,000. The election of McKinley was in
name a victory for the Republican party, but was in
reality one for sound money. The organization upon
which he stood was an amalgamation of creditors
and manufacturers, reenforced by gold-standard men
of all parties. Without the aid of the last element
he could hardly have been elected, on this or any
other issue. When he took office the Republican
party had control in both houses of Congress, had
been elected on a money issue, but had a permanent
organization based upon the tariff propaganda. Be-

242 THE NEW NATION
fore his inauguration, Hanna declared that the elec
tion was a mandate for a new protective tariff, and
one of MoKinley's earliest official acts was to sum
mon Congress to meet in special session, to fulfill
that mandate, on March 15, 1897.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The most popular document in the free-silver propaganda
was W. H. Harvey, Coin's Financial School (c. 1894). This
was replied to by Horace White, Coin's Financial Fool ; or
the Artful Dodger Exposed (c. .1896); and the same author, in
Money and Banking (4th ed., 1911), discusses the economics
of free silver. The best economic arguments for free silver
came from the pens of Francis A. Walker and E. Benjamin
Andrews. The Reports of the International Monetary Con
ferences (at Paris, 1867 and 1881, and at Brussels, 1892) are
useful upon the attempt to establish a currency ratio by inter
national agreement. There is no good biography of William
McKinley, although the external facts of his career may be
obtained in the Annual Cyclopaedia, and in Who's Who in
America (a biennial publication which, since its first issue in
1899-1900, has been the standard source of biographical data
concerning living Americans). These may be strengthened by
D. Magie, Life of Garrett A. Hobart (1910). The best biog
raphy of the period is H. Croly, Marcus Alonzo Hanna
(1912), which gives an illuminating survey of Republican
politics, although based on only the public printed materials
and personal recollections. The opposition may be studied in
W. J. Bryan, The First Battle (1896). The platforms, as
always, are in Stanwood, and there are useful narratives in
Dewey, Latane*, Andrews, and Peck. From this period the
Outlook (January, 1897), and the Independent (July, 1898),
take on a modern magazine form and are to be added to the
list of valuable newspaper files, while the Literary Digest begins
to play the part carried by Niles's Register in the early part of
the century. They may generally be trusted as intelligent,
honest, and reasonably independent. The Venezuelan affair,

FREE SILVER 243
besides stimulating diplomatic correspondence (q.v., in Foreign
Relations Reports), led to the writing of W. F. Reddaway,
The Monroe Doctrine (1898), whioh is still one of the most
judicious discussions of the topic J. B. Henderson, American
Diplomatic Questions (1901), is useful alia

CHAPTER XV
THE " COUNTER-REFORMATION "
The mission of Populism did not end when free
silver had been driven like a wedge into all the
parties. Its more fundamental reforms outlasted
both the hard times and the recovery from them.
Although obscured by the shadow of the larger con
troversy, the reforms had been stated with convic
tion. The Populist party was not permitted to bring
the reformation that it promised, but it stimulated
within the parties in power a " counter-reformation,"
that was already under way. This counter-reforma
tion was largely within the Republican ranks be
cause that party dominated in every branch of the
National Government for fourteen years after 1897,
but it was essentially non-partisan. It derived its
advocates from the generation that had been edu
cated since the Civil War, and many of its leaders
bore the imprint of democratic higher education.
It derived its materials from historical, economic,
and sociological study of the forces of American
society. Practical politics in America was at its lowest
level in the thirty years after the Civil War. The
United States was politically fatigued after the
years of contest and turned eagerly to the business
speculations that opened in every direction. Offices

THE "COUNTER-REFORMATION" 245
were left to those who chose to run them, while pub
lic scrutiny of public acts was materially reduced.
The men in charge, unwatched in their business,
used it often for personal advantage, and were aided
in this by the character of both the electoral ma
chinery and the electorate. A multitude of offices
had to be kept filled in every State and city by
voters who could know little of the candidates and
who accepted the recommendation implied in the
party name. Control of the nominations meant con
trol of the elections, and was within reach of those
who were persistent in attending caucuses and con
ventions and were not too scrupulous in manipulat
ing them. The laws against bribery at the polls did
not touch corruption at the primaries. The cities,
rapidly growing through manufactures and immi
gration, were full of voters who could be trained to
support the " bosses " who befriended them.
The American " boss " made his appearance in
the cities about 1870. His power was based upon
his personal influence with voters of the lower and
more numerous class. Gaining control of party ma
chinery he dictated nominations and policies, and
used the government, as the exposures of the Tweed
Ring showed, to enrich his friends and to perpetuate
his power. Caring little for party principle, he made
a close alliance with the new business that continu
ally needed new laws, — building laws, transporta
tion laws, terminal rights, or franchises. From these
allies came the funds for managing elections, and,
too often, for direct bribery, although this last was
necessary only rarely.

246 THE NEW NATION
Exposures of the evil of boss government were
frequent after 1870, and in most cities occasional
revolts of outraged citizens overturned the machines,
but in the long run the citizen was no match for the
professional politician. In the unequal contest city
government became steadily worse in America at a
time when European city government was rapidly
improving. States, too, were afflicted with machine
politics, and before 1890 it appeared that the dom
inant national party derived its most valuable sup
port from organized business that profited by the
partnership. A minority of Americans fought continually for
better and cleaner government as tho evils of boss
rule became more visible. One of them, Bishop Pot
ter, of New York, gained wide hearing through a
sermon preached at the centennial of the Constitu
tion, in 1887, in which he turned from the usual
patriotic congratulation to discuss actual government.
The keenest interest in tho subject was aroused by
the American Commonwealth of James Bryce.
Not since Alexis de Tocqueville published his
Democracy in America, in 1835, had any foreign
observer made an equally intimate study of Ameri
can life, until James Bryce, a young English histo
rian, began a series of visits to the United States in
the early seventies. For nearly twenty years Bryce
repeated his visits, living at home a full life in his
Oxford professorate, in the House of Commons, and
in the Ministry. In America he. knew, every one
worth knowing, and he saw the remoter regions of
the West as well as the older society of the East. In

THE "COUNTER-REFORMATION" 247
1888 he brought out the result of his studies in two
volumes that were filled with admiration for the
United States and with disheartening observation
upon its practices. One of its chapters cut so close
that its victim brought suit for libel, but American
opinion accepted the book as a friendly picture and
regarded attacks upon it as further evidence of its
inherent truth. Probably no book in a generation so
profoundly influenced American thought and so spe
cifically directed the course of American reform. It
became a textbook at once, teaching the truth that
corruption and misgovernment were non-partisan,
and until the Populists took them up the movements
for reform were non-partisan as well.
The power of the boss lay largely in the structure
of American governmental machinery, and though
some preached the need for a reform in spirit, others
saw that only mechanical improvements could ac
complish results. A corruptible electorate, such as
had long confused British and American politics,
was one defect most easily improved. The prevailing
system for conducting elections made it easy for the
purchaser of votes to see that he got value for his
money. The State provided the polling-place, but
the candidate or the party provided the printed bal
lot. Party agents distributed these at the polls, and
the voters who received them could be watched until
the votes were cast. Intimidation of employees or
direct bribery were . easy and common, while secret
deals were not unknown. The loyal party voter de
posited the ballots provided for him ; the boss could
have these arranged to suit his needs. It was com-

248 THE NEW NATION
monly supposed that in 1888, through an agreement
between the Democratic and Republican bosses of
New York, Hill and Platt, many Republicans were
made to vote for Hill as Governor, while Democrats
voted for Harrison as President.
A secret ballot was so reasonable a reform that
once it had been suggested it spread rapidly over
the United States. In 1888 Massachusetts adopted
a system based upon the Australian Ballot Law,
while New York advertised its value in the same
year when Governor Hill vetoed a bill to establish it.
Before the next presidential election came in 1892,
open bribery or intimidation of voters was rapidly
becoming a thing of the past, for thirty-three States
had adopted the Australian ballot, provided by public
authority and voted in secrecy. " Quay and Platt and
Clarkson may find in this fact a fresh explanation of
President Harrison's willingness to divest himself of
their services," wrote Godkin in a caustic paragraph
in 1892.The Australian ballot enabled the honest citizen
to vote in secrecy and safety, but it failed to touch
the fact that the nominations were still outside the
law. " To find the honest men," Bryce wrote, " and
having found them, to put them in office and keep
them there, is the great problem of American poli
tics." So long as a boss could direct the nomination
he could tolerate an honest election. The movement
to legalize the party primaries was just beginning
when the ballot reform was accomplished. The most
extreme of the primary reformers saw the need for
a preliminary election conducted within each party,

THE "COUNTER-REFORMATION" 249
but under all the safeguards of law, to the end that
the voters might themselves determine their candi
dates. Direct primaries were discussed by the younger
men, who were often ambitious, but helpless because
of the rigor with which the bosses selected their own
candidates. In 1897 a young ex-Congressman, Rob
ert M. LaFollette, worked out a complete system of
local and national primaries, and found wide and
sympathetic hearing for it. The movement had to
face the bitter opposition of the machine politicians
because it struck directly at their power, but it pro
gressed slowly. In 1901 it won in Minnesota; a
little later it won in Wisconsin ; and in the next
ten years it became a central feature in reform plat
forms. The reforms of the primary and the ballot were
designed to improve the quality of public officers,
and were supplemented by a demand for direct legis
lation which would check up the result. In Switzer
land a scheme had been devised by which the peo
ple, by petition, could initiate new laws or obtain a
vote upon existing laws. The idea of submitting
special measures to popular vote, or referendum, was
old in the United States, for in this way state con
stitutions and constitutional amendments were ha
bitually adopted, and matters of city charters, loans
and franchises often determined. The initiative,
however, was new, and appealed to the reformer who
resented the refusal of the legislature to pass de
sired laws as well as the unwillingness to pass worthy
ones. The Populists, in 1892, recommended that the
system of direct legislation be investigated, and they

250 THE NEW NATION
favored its adoption in 1896. A journal for the pro
motion of the reform appeared in 1894. In 1898
the first State, South Dakota, adopted the principle
of initiative and referendum in a constitutional
amendment. To those who attacked the device as
only mechanical it was answered : " Direct legisla
tion is not a panacea for all national ills. In fact it
is not a panacea at all. It is merely a spoon with
which the panacea can be administered. Specific
legislation is the panacea for political ills."
The West was more ready than the East to break
from existing practice and take up the new reforms.
It had always been the liberal section of the United
States. Between 1800 and 1830 it had led in the
enlargement of the franchise and in the removal of
qualifications of wealth and religion. It now ap
proached the one remaining qualification of sex.
With the admission of Wyoming in 1890, full
woman suffrage appeared among the States. Colo
rado adopted an amendment establishing it in 1893.
Utah, in the words of the women, " completing the
trinity of true Republics at the summit of the Rock
ies," became the third suffrage State in January,
1896, while Idaho adopted woman suffrage in the
same year. It was fifteen years before a fifth State
was added to the list, but the women's movement was
advancing in all directions. A General Federation of
Women's Clubs was organized in 1890 as a clearing
house for the activities of the women, and through
organizations like the Consumers' League, the move
ment fell into line with the general course of reform.
A clearer vision of the defects in governmental ma-

THE "COUNTER-REFORMATION" 251
chinery and of the needs of society was spreading
rapidly. Hull House, opened in 1889 by Jane Ad-
dams, had a host of imitators in the cities, and
enabled social workers to study the results of indus
trial progress upon the laboring class.
The new reforms, mechanical and otherwise, estab
lished themselves about 1890, and were taken up by
the Populist party between 1892 and 1896. Neither
great party noticed the reforms before 1896, but in
each party the younger workers saw their point. As
non-partisan movements they gained adherents before
the Populist party died out, and were pressed more
and more seriously upon reluctant organizations. As
a whole they were an attempt to make government
more truly representative of the voters, and to take
the control of affairs from the hands of men who
might and often did use them for private aggran
dizement. They were overshadowed in 1896 by the
paramount issue of free silver, and were deferred in
their fulfilment for a decade by accidents which drove
them from the public mind. The Spanish War, re
viving prosperity, and the renewal of tariff legisla
tion, did not check the activities of the reformers, but
did divert the attention of the public.
William McKinley was inaugurated on March 4,
1897. He had served in five Congresses and had
been three times governor of Ohio. He "knew the
legislative body thoroughly, its composition, its meth
ods, its habits. of thought," said John Hay. " He had
the profoundest respect for its authority and an in
flexible belief in the ultimate rectitude of its pur
poses." He was not likely to embarrass business

252 THE NEW NATION
through bluntness or inexperience. He had risen
through a kindly disposition, a recognition of the
political value of tact, and an unusual skill as a
moderator of variant opinions. He believed that his
function was to represent the popular will as rapidly
as it expressed itself, differing fundamentally in this
from Cleveland, who thought himself bound to act
in the interest of the people as he saw it. His Cab
inet reflected the interests that secured his election.
The trend of issues had made the Republican
party, by 1897, the party of organized business.
For twelve years the alliance had grown steadily
closer. Marcus A. Hanna was its spokesman. The
burlesque of his sincere and kindly face, drawn by a
caricaturist, Davenport, for Eastern papers, created
for the popular eye the type of commercialized mag
nate, but it did him great injustice. Self-respecting
and direct, he believed it to be the first function of
government to protect property, and that property
should organize for this purpose. Without malevo
lence, he conducted business for the sake of its
profits, and regarded government as an adjunct to it.
Ho possessed great capacity for winning popularity,
and after his entry into public life in 1897 gained
reputation as an effective speaker. He destroyed,
before his death, much of the offensive notoriety that
had been thrust upon him during the campaign of
1896, but he remained the best representative of the
generation that believed government to be only a
business asset. He did not enter the Cabinet of
McKinley, but was appointed Senator from Ohio
when John Sherman Vacated his seat.

THE "COUNTER-REFORMATION" 253
The pledge of the Republicans for international
bimetallism created a need for a financial Secretary
of State, and John Sherman, though old and infirm,
was persuaded to undertake the office. The routine
of the department was assigned to an assistant sec
retary, William R. Day, an old friend of the Presi
dent. A magnate of the match trust, Russell A. Alger,
of Michigan, received the War Department. The
president of the First National Bank of Chicago,
Lyman J. Gage, received the Treasury. The other
secretaries, too, were men of solidity, generally self-
made, and likely to inspire confidence in the world
of business.
The new Senators who appeared at this time repre
sented the same alliance of trade and politics. Hanna,
in Ohio, and Thomas C. Platt, president of the United
States Express Company, in New York, were the
most striking instances. In Pennsylvania Quay was
able to nominate his colleague in spite of the opposi
tion of his old associate, John Wanamaker, and se
lected Boies Penrose. Only with the aid of the silver
Senators could a Republican majority be procured
in the Senate. This made currency legislation im
possible, but the managers hoped that there would be
a majority for a protective tariff when Congress met
in special session, two weeks after the inauguration.
Preparations for a revision of the tariff had been
made long before Cleveland left office. Reed was cer
tain to be reelected as Speaker by a large majority.
Nelson Dingley, of Maine, was equally certain to be
chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means,
and began to hold tariff hearings early in 1897. A

254 THE NEW NATION
rampant spirit for protection was revealed as the
manufacturers stated their wishes to the committee.
It was often told how the low rates of the Wilson
Bill had caused the panic of 1893, and a New York
maker of "Oriental rugs" created amusement by
asking to be protected from the competition, not of
the Orient, but of the German manufacturers. Since
1890 the strength of the Republican organization had
been directed toward this revision, and the leaders
had held back the silver issue lest it should derange
their plans. Now, though returned to power only on
the issue of the currency, they held themselves em
powered to act as though the tariff had been domi
nant in 1896. The call stated the need for tariff
legislation, and Reed held the House to its task by
refusing to appoint the committees without which
other business could not be undertaken.
The Dingley Bill passed tho House of Representa
tives after a perfunctory debate which every one
regarded as only preliminary to the real struggle
in Senate and Conference Committee. In the Sen
ate it became a new measure at the hands of the
Finance Committee, whose secretary, S. N. D. North,
was also secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' As
sociation. Revenue was everywhere subordinated to
protection, until the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics,
Worthington C. Ford, declared that the act would
prolong the deficit which it was designed to cure. On
its final passage, the Democratic Senator, McEnery,
of Louisiana, left his party to vote for protection to
. sugar. He was welcomed home in August, in spite
of his "treason," by a reception committee with

THE "COUNTER-REFORMATION" 255
four hundred vice-presidents. The silver Senators,
headed by Jones, of Nevada, were induced to sup
port the bill. They had procured the Sherman
Silver Bill in 1890 by the same tactics, and now,
holding the balance of power, secured a group of
amendments for themselves, covering hides, wool,
and ore. The measure passed the Senate early in
July and became a law July 24, 1897. Senator
William B. Allison, of Iowa, was largely responsible
for its final passage, although the law continued to
bear the name of its forgotten originator, Dingley.
The Republican party was in no condition in 1897
to become the vehicle of the non-partisan reforms
that the Populists advocated aud that many young
Republicans had taken up. The interest in tariff
legislation drove everything else from the national
organization, while returning prosperity destroyed
the mental attitude in which reforms had flourished.
Political introspection was less easy in 1897 and 1898
than it had been in the years of confusion and en
forced economy since 1890. The civil service and
ballot reforms had been started on the upward course,
but party machines continued in control of each great
organization. The conduct of the Senate discouraged many of
the reformers in the spring of 1897. Cleveland had
left in its hands a treaty of arbitration with Great
Britain, but no action had been taken upon it when
he left office. Arbitration had been a common inter
national tool between Great Britain and the United
States. Boundaries, fisheries, and claims had repeat
edly been submitted to courts or commissions of

256 THE NEW NATION
varying structure, and even the claims affecting the
honor of Great Britain had been settled by arbitra
tion at Geneva. After the Venezuela excitement
friends of peace gathered in a convention at Lake
Mohonk to discuss the extension of the method of
arbitration. When Great Britain had accepted the
principle in the case of Venezuela, Cleveland en
tered into a general arbitration treaty, which was
signed at Washington in February, 1897. Publio
opinion received it cordially, but the Senate was slow
to take it up. Late in the spring it was ratified with
amendments that destroyed its force and showed the
reluctance of Senators to accept the principle of
arbitration. International peace was thus postponed,
while the rising insurrection in Cuba drove it as well
as general reform from the center of public interest.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The American Commonwealth of James Bryce (1888) is the
starting-point for the study of political conditions of the nine
ties, and is to be reinforced by W. Wilson, Congressional
Government. (1885), T. Roosevelt, Essays on Practical Politics
(1888), and P. L. Ford, The Honorable Peter Stirling (1894).
Among the personal narratives the most useful are T. Roose
velt, Fifty Years of My Life (1913); R.M. LaFollette,^ Per
sonal Narrative of Political Experiences (1913; also published
serially in the American Magazine, 1911, as " Autobiography ") ;
Tom L. Johnson's My Story (1911; edited by E. J. Hauser);
C. Lloyd, Henry Demarest Lloyd (2 vols., 1912) ; Autobiography
of Thomas Collier Platt (1910 ; edited by L. J. Lang, and
highly unreliable); and Jane Addams, Twenty Years of Hull
House (1910). Much light is thrown upon the mechanics of
tariff legislation by I. M. Tarbell, The Tariff in Our Times
(1911), and by the lobby investigations conducted by commit
tees of Congress in 1913, and by the campaign fund investiga-

THE "COUNTER-REFORMATION" 257
tions conduoted by similar committees in 1912. The progress
of the Australian ballot reform must be traced through tbe
periodicals, as it has no good history. E. C. Meyer, Nominating
Systems : Direct Primaries versus Conventions in the United States
(1902), is standard in its field, as are E. P. Oberholtzer, The
Referendum in America (1893), and E. C. Stanton, S. B. Anthony,
and M. J. Gage, History of Woman Suffrage, 1848-1900(4: vols.,
1881-1902). The Annual Reports of the Lake Mohonk Confer
ences on International Arbitration are a useful aid in tracing
the principles of arbitration.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SPANISH WAR

Cuba broke out in one of her numerous insur
rections in 1895. The island had been nominally
quiet since the close of the Ten Years' War, in 1878,
but had always been an object of American interest.
More than once it had entered into American diplo
macy to bring out reiterations of different phases
of the Monroe Doctrine. Its purchase by the United
States had been desired to extend the slave area, or
to control the Caribbean, or to enlarge the fruit and
sugar plantation area. The free trade in sugar, which
the McKinley Bill had allowed, ended in 1894, and
almost immediately thereafter the native population
demanded independence.
The revolt of 1895 was defended and justified by
a recital of the faults of Spanish colonial government.
Caste and monopoly played a large part in Cuban
life. The Spanish-born held the offices, enjoyed the
profits, and owned or managed the commercial priv
ileges. The western end of the island, most thickly
settled and most under the influence of Spain, gave
least support to the uprising, but in the east, where
the Cubans and negroes raised and ground cane,
or grazed their herds, discontent at the system of
favoritism and race discrimination was an important
political force. Here the insurgents soon gained a

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SPANISH WAB

260 THE NEW NATION
foothold in the provinces of Santiago, Puerto Prin
cipe, and Santa Clara. From the jungle or the moun
tains they sent bands of guerrillas against the sugar
mills and plantations of the ruling class, and when
pursued their troops hid their weapons and became, os
tensibly, peaceful farmers. A revolutionary govern
ment, sitting safely in New York, directed the revolt,
raised money by playing on the American love of
freedom, and sent cargoes of arms, munitions, and
volunteers to the seat of war. Avoiding pitched bat
tles and living off the country, the patriot forces com
pelled Spain to put some 200,000 troops in Cuba
and to garrison every place that she retained.
Through 1895 and 1896 the war dragged on with
no prospect of victory for the authorities and with
growing interest on the part of the United States.
Public sympathy was with the Cubans, and news
from the front was so much desired that enterprising
papers sent their correspondents to the scene of ac
tion. The reports of these, almost without exception,
magnified the character and promise of the native
leaders and attacked the policy of the Spanish forces
of repression.
The insurgents began, in 1895, a policy of terror,
destroying the cane in the fields of loyalists and
burning their sugar mills. To protect the loyalists
and repress the rebels the Queen Regent sent Gen
eral Valeriano Weyler to the island in 1896, with
orders to end the war. Weyler replied to devasta
tion with concentration. Unable to separate the loyal
natives from the disloyal, or to prevent the latter
from aiding the rebels, he gathered the suspected

THE SPANISH WAR 261
population into huge concentration camps, fortified
his towns and villages with sentinels and barbed-
wire fences, and endeavored to depopulate the area
outside his lines. American public opinion, unused
for a generation to the sight of war, was shocked by
the suffering in the camps and was aroused in moral
protest. Sympathy with the insurgents grew in 1896
and 1897, as exaggerated tales of hardship and
brutality were circulated by the " yellow " newspa
pers. The evidence was one-sided and incomplete,
and often dishonest, but it was effective in steering
a rising public opinion toward ultimate interven
tion. The nearness of the contest brought the trouble
to the United States Government through the en
forcement of the neutrality laws. There was no pub
lic war, and Spain was thus unable to seize or ex
amine American vessels until they entered actual
Cuban waters. It was easy to run the Spanish block
ade and take supplies to the rebel forces, which was
a permissible trade. It was easy, too, to organize and
send out filibustering parties, which were highly
illegal, and which the United States tried to stop.
Out of seventy-one known attempts, the United States
broke up thirty-three, while other Powers, including
Spain, caught only eleven. Enough landed to be a
material aid to the natives and to embitter Spain
in her criticism of the United States. Cleveland
issued proclamations against the unfriendly acts of
citizens, and enforced the law as well as he could
in a population and with juries sympathizing with
the law-breakers. Even in Congress he found little

262 THE NEW NATION
sympathy in his attempt to maintain a sincere neu
trality. Congress felt the popular sympathy with the
Cubans and responded to it, as well as to the de
mands of Americans with investments in Cuba. In
the spring of 1896 both houses joined in a resolution
favoring the recognition of Cuban belligerency. This
Cleveland ignored. In December, 1896, the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations reported a resolu
tion for the recognition of Cuban independence, and
individual members of Congress often read from the
newspapers accounts of horror, and made impassioned
speeches for recognition and intervention. But Cleve
land kept his control over the situation until he left
office, as Grant had done during the Ten Years' War
and the excitement over the Virginius affair. He
loft the determination of the time and manner of
ultimate intervention to his successor.
Among the planks of the Republican platform of
1896 was one asserting the duty of the United States
to "use its influence and good offices to restore peace
and give independence to Cuba," but there is no
evidence that President McKinley contemplated a
forcible intervention when he organized his Cabinet.
John Sherman had, as Senator, spoken freely in
sympathy with Cuba. As Secretary of State he re
called Hannis Taylor from Madrid and sent out
General Stewart L. Woodford, with instructions
looking toward a peaceful mediation. Not until the
autumn of 1897 was it possible to press the Cuban
matter, for Spain suffered two changes of Ministry
and the murder of a Prime Minister. But by the

THE SPANISH WAR 263
end of September Spain had been notified that Mc
Kinley hoped to be able to give positive assurances
of peace to Congress when it met in December.
A Liberal Government, headed by Sagasta, took
office in Spain in October, 1897. It declined media
tion by the United States, retorting that if the
United States were to enforce the law of neutrality
the war would soon cease. It recalled Weyler, how
ever, sent out a new and milder governor-general,
modified the reconcentrado orders that had so en
raged the United States, and issued, on November
25, a proclamation establishing a sort of home
rule, or autonomy, for Cuba. In the winter of 1897
the Spanish Government was endeavoring to give
no excuse for American intervention, and at the
same time, by moderate means, to restore peace
in Cuba. The Spanish population of Cuba opposed
autonomy and made the establishment of autonomous
governments a farce. In January there were riots in
Havana among the loyal subjects. Outside the Span
ish lines the rebels laughed at autonomy, for they
were determined to have independence or nothing.
Woodford, in touch with the Spanish Government,
believed that in the long run the Spanish people
would let the Queen Regent go beyond autonomy
to independence, and that with patience Cuba might
be relieved of Spanish control.
There was no positive news for Congress in De
cember, 1897, but by February the conditions in
Cuba had become the most interesting current prob
lem. The New York Journal obtained and published
a private letter written by the Spanish Minister,

264 THE NEW NATION
De Lome, in which McKinley was characterized as a
temporizing politician. The Minister had no sooner
been recalled than the Maine, a warship that had
been, detached from the North Atlantio Squadron,
and sont to Cuba to safeguard American citizens
there, was destroyed by an explosion in tho harbor
of Havana, on February 15, 1898. There was no
evidence connecting the destruction of the Maine
with any person, but unscrupulous newspapers made
capital out of it, using the catch-phrase, " Remem
ber the Maine," to inflame a public mind already
aroused by sympathy and indignation. After Feb
ruary, only a determined courage could have with
stood tho demand for intervention and a Spanish
war. The negotiations with Spain continued rapidly in
tho two months after the loss of the Maine. Mc
Kinley avoided an arbitral inquiry into the accident,
urged by Spain, but pressed increasingly for an end
of concentration, for relief for the suffering popula
tion, and for full self-government. He did not ask
independence for Cuba, and every demand that he
made was assented to by Spain. Notwithstanding
this, on April 11, 1898, he sent the Cuban corres
pondence to Congress, urged an intervention, and
turned tho control of tho situation over to a body
that had for two years been clamoring for forcible
interference. Nino days later Congress resolved,
" That tho people of tho Island of Cuba are, and of
right ought to be, free and independent." On April
21 the Spanish War began.
The administrative branches of the Government

THE SPANISH WAR 265
had made some preparations for war before the decla
ration. The navy was small but modern. It dated
from the. early eighties, when Congress was roused
to a realization that the old Civil War navy was
obsolete and began to authorize the construction of
modern fighting ships. The " White Squadron " took
shape in the years after 1893. Only two armored
cruisers were in commission when Harrison left office,
but the number increased rapidly until McKinley
had available for use the second-class battleships
Maine and Texas, the armored cruiser Brooklyn, and
the first-class battleships Iowa, Indiana, Massachu
setts, and Oregon. From the beginning of the Mc
Kinley Administration these, as well as the lesser
vessels of all grades, were diligently drilled and or
ganized. The new Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
Theodore Roosevelt, had foreseen and hoped for war.
He spent the contingent funds on target practice, and
had the naval machine at its highest efficiency when
the Maine was lost. On March 9, 1898, Congress,
in a few hours, put $50,000,000 at the disposal of
the President for national defense, and the navy
spent its share of this for new vessels, transports, and
equipment. The vessels in the Orient were mobilized
at Hongkong under the command of Commodore
George Dewey ; the Oregon, on station in the Pacific,
was ordered home by the long route around the Horn ;
the ships in the Atlantic were assembled off the
Chesapeake. Part of the latter were organized as a
flying squadron, for patrol, under Commodore Win
field Scott Schley, while toward the end of March
Captain William T. Sampson was promoted over the

266 THE NEW NATION
heads of many ranking officers and given command
of the whole North Atlantic Squadron, including the
fleet of Schley.
Congress debated a new army bill while the navy
was being prepared for war. Not until April 22 did it
permit the enlargement of the little regular army of
25,000. Until war had begun the volunteers, of whom
some 216,000 were taken into the service, could not
be called out or made ready for the field. Some pre
parations were made within the War Department,
but the little staff of clerks, used to the small routine
of the peace basis, and having no plan of enlarge
ment or mobilization worked out, made little head
way. The navy was ready to strike the day war was
declared, but the army had yet to be planned, re
cruited, clothed, drilled, and transported to the front.
The men of the navy knew their duty and were ready
for it ; in the army thousands of civilians had to
blunder through the duties of strange offices. Wil
liam J. Bryan accepted the colonelcy in a Nebraska
regiment. Theodore Roosevelt resigned his office in
the Navy Department to raise a regiment of volun
teer cavalry. Politicians struggled for commissions
for themselves and friends. Civil War veterans fought
for reappointment, and enough soldiers of the Con
federacy put on the blue uniforms, or sent their sons,
to show that the breach had been healed between the
North and South. It was an enthusiastic rather than
an effective army that was brought together in the
two months after the war began.
Cuba, the cause of the war and its objective, was
the center of the scheme of strategy. The navy was

THE SPANISH WAR 267
called upon to protect the Atlantic seaboard from
the fleet of Spain, which was reputed to be superior
to that of the United States. It had also to maintain
a blockade of Cuba and prevent the landing of rein
forcements until the army could be prepared to in
vade the island. Dewey's fleet in the Pacific was
ordered to destroy the Spanish naval force in the
Philippine Islands, and moved immediately upon
Manila when Great Britain issued her proclamation
of neutrality and made it impossible to remain longer
in her waters at Hongkong.
On the morning of May 1 Dewey led his squadron
past the forts, over the submerged mines, and up the
channel of Manila Bay. The Spanish forces in the
islands, already contending with a native insurrection,
were helpless before evening, having lost the whole
fleet. Dewey was left in a position to take the city
when he chose, and sent home word to that effect.
He waited in the harbor until an army of occupation
had been got ready, hurried to the transports at San
Francisco, and sent out under General Wesley
Merritt. He brought the native leader Aguinaldo
back to the islands, whence he had been expelled, to
foment insurrection. The first American reinforce
ments arrived at Manila by the end of June. On
August 13 they took the city.
Before the news of the surprising victory at Manila
reached the United States there was nervousness
along the Atlantic Coast because of the uncertain
plans of the main Spanish fleet, which had left the
Cape Verde Islands, under Admiral Cervera, on April
29, and which might appear off New York or Boston

268 THE NEW NATION
at any time. The naval strategists knew it must be
headed for the West Indies, but seaboard Congress
men begged excitedly for protection, and the sensa
tional newspapers pictured the coast in ruins after
bombardment. To Sampson and Schley was assigned the task of
guarding the coast, keeping up the blockade, and
finding Cervera's fleet before it reached a harbor in
American waters. San Juan, Santiago de Cuba, Cien-
fuegos, and Havana were the only probable destina
tions. Sampson watched the north side of Cuba and
Porto Rico, while Schley and the flying squadron
moved to Key West, and on May 19 started around
the west end of Cuba to patrol the southern shore.
On that same day, entirely unobserved, Cervera
slipped into the port of Santiago, at the eastern ex
tremity of Cuba. When the rumor of his arrival
reached Sampson at Key West, Schley was already
well on his way and firm in his belief that Cervera
was heading for Cienfuegos.
The flying squadron, impeded by its colliers and
its tenders, moved deliberately around Cuba to Cien
fuegos, outside of whose harbor it remained for two
days. Here Sampson's orders to proceed immediately
to Santiago reached it. On May 26 the fleet was off
the entrance to Santiago Harbor, and in this vi
cinity it stayed for two more days. Schley could
get no news that Cervera was here ; he feared that
his coal would give out and that heavy seas would
prevent his getting what coal he had out of his col
liers. He decided, in spite of orders, to go back
to Key West; he started a retrograde movement,

THE SPANISH WAR 269
reconsidered it, and was again on blockade when,
early on Sunday morning, May 29, he discovered
the Spanish fleet at anchor in the channel, where it
had been for the last nine days.
The blockade of Santiago was strengthened on
June 1 by the arrival of Sampson, who had rushed
thither on hearing that Schley had decided to leave
the post. The two fleets were merged, and Schley,
outranked by Sampson, became a passenger on his
flagship Brooklyn. By day, the warships, ranged in
a great half-circle, watched the narrow outlet of the
harbor. By night they took turns standing close in,
with searchlights playing on the entrance. For five
weeks they kept this up, not entering the harbor
because of their positive orders not to risk the loss
of any fighting units, and waited for the arrival of
an army to cooperate with them against the land
defenses of Santiago.
Sampson asked for military aid early in June,
and on June 7 the War Department ordered the
army that had been mobilized at Tampa to go to his
assistance. General Nelson A. Miles, in command
of the army, was not allowed to head the expedition,
but was kept at home while General William R.
Shafter directed the field work. At Tampa there
was almost hopeless confusion. The single track
railway that supplied the camp was unable to move
promptly either men or munitions, the Quarter
master's Department sent down whole trainloads of
supplies without bills of lading, and. when the troops
were at last on board the fleet of transports they
were kept in the river for a week before they were

270 THE NEW NATION
allowed to start for Santiago. Sixteen thousand
men, mostly regulars, with nearly one thousand offi
cers and two hundred war correspondents, sailed on
June 14, and were in conference with Sampson six
days later.
A misunderstanding as to strategy arose in this
conference. Sampson left it believing that the army
would land and move directly along the shore against
the batteries that covered the entrance to the har
bor. Shafter, however, though he issued no general
order to that effect, was determined to march inland
upon the city of Santiago itself. On June 22 and
23 the army was landed by the navy, for it had
neither boats nor lighters of its own. The first
troops, climbing ashore at the railway pier at Dai
quiri, marched west along the coast to Siboney,
and then plunged inland, each regiment for itself,
along the narrow jungle trail leading to Santiago.
Shafter himself, corpulent and sick, followed as he
could. Before he established his control over the
army on land the head of the column had engaged
the enemy at Las Guasimas, nine miles from Santi
ago, on June 24. The First Volunteer Cavalry,
under the command of Colonel Leonard M. Wood,
with Theodore Roosevelt as lieutenant-colonel, had
marched most of the night in order to be in the
first fighting. After a sharp engagement the Span
ish retired and the American advance upon Santiago
continued in a more orderly fashion.
The narrow trail between Siboney, on the shore,
and Santiago, was some twelve miles long. There
were dense forests on both sides. Along this tho

THE SPANISH WAR 271
American army stretched itself at the end of June.
There were few ambulances or wagons, and they
could not have been used if they had been more
numerous. Rations for the front were paeked on
mules or horses. The troops, hurried to the tropics
in the heavy, dark, winter clothing of the regular
army, suffered from heat, rain, and irregular ra
tions. Before them the San Juan River crossed the
trail at right angles. BeyOnd this were low hills
carrying the fortifications, trenches, and wire fences
of Santiago, behind which the Spanish force could
fight with every advantage in its favor. Some five
miles to the right of the line of advance was the
Spanish left, in a blockhouse at El Caney. On the
night before July 1, the American army moved on
a concerted plan against the whole Spanish line.
Lawton, with a right wing, moved against El
Caney, with the idea of demolishing it and crum
pling up the Spanish left. The main column followed
the trail, crossed the San Juan River, and stormed
the hills beyond. The fight lasted all day on July 1,
leaving the American forces to sleep in the Spanish
trenches, and to re-face them the next day. There
was more fighting on July 2 and 8, after which
Santiago was besieged by land, as it had been by
sea since June 1.
Cervera watched the invading army with growing
desperation. He knew the inefficiency of his fleet,
that it had left Spain unprepared because publio
opinion demanded immediate action, that its guns
were lacking and its morale low, that if it stayed at
anchor in the harbor it would be taken by the army,

272 THE NEW NATION
and that if it went to sea it would be annihilated by
Sampson. His only chance was to rush out, scatter
in flight, and trust to luck. On Sunday, July 3, he led
his ships out of the harbor in single file, turned west
against the Brooklyn, which guarded the American
left, and endeavored to escape.
Sampson had already issued orders for battle in
case Cervera should come out. He had himself
started with his flagship, the New York, for a con
ference with Shafter, and was some seven miles east
of the entrance to the harbor when the fleet ap
peared and the battle began. He turned at once
to the long chase that pursued the Spanish vessels
along the Cuban shore. The Brooklyn, at which
Cervera had headed, instead of closing, circled to
tho right, and nearly rammed her neighbor, the
Texas, before she regained her place at the head of
the pursuit. Schley was the ranking officer in the
battle, but no one needed or heeded the orders
that he signaled to the other ships. Before sundown
the Spanish fleet was completely destroyed.
The land and naval battles at Santiago brought
the Spanish War to an end. For several weeks the
army kept up the investment, with health and
morale steadily deteriorating. On July 17 the Span
ish army at Santiago was surrendered. On July 27
an invasion of Porto Rico under General Miles took
place, and on August 12 the preliminaries of peace
were signed on behalf of Spain by the French Min
ister at Washington. Manila fell the next day, and
the War closed with the American army in possession
of the most valuable of Spain's remaining colonies.

THE SPANISH WAR 273
The Spanish and American peace commissioners
met in Paris in October to fix a basis for settlement.
An American demand that Cuba should be set free,
without debt, and left to the tutelage of the United
States, and that Porto Rico should become an
American possession, was formulated early in the
autumn. There was less certainty about the retention
of the Philippines, for here the desire for expansion
was checked by a conservative opposition to the adop
tion of foreign colonies. The evil effects of imperial
ism were already being pictured by those who had
opposed the war. The difficulties of returning the
islands to Spain were greater than those involved in
their retention, and McKinley finally determined
that the cession must include the Philippine Archi
pelago, and the island of Guam in the Ladrones.
The chief of the American commissioners was Wil
liam R. Day, who had become Secretary of State
early in the war, and who was succeeded in that post
by John Hay. Under his direction the Treaty of
Paris was signed December 10, 1898.
The war and the conquest of the Philippines
hastened another though peaceful expansion. The
Hawaiian Islands had been a matter of interest to
the United States since the American missionaries
had begun to work there in the thirties. A growing,
American, sugar-raising population had long hoped
for annexation and had carried out a successful revo
lution shortly before 1893. Harrison had concluded
a treaty of annexation with the provisional govern
ment, but Cleveland had refused to approve it. Oh
July 7, . 1898, however, the Newlands Resolution

274 THE NEW NATION
accomplished the annexation of the republic, and in
1900 a regular territorial government was provided
for the group of islands. The spectacular journey of
the Oregon around Cape Horn revived the demand
for an isthmian canal. Expansion suddenly took pos
session of the American mind, and a new idea of
duty, summed up by Rudyard Kipling in The White
Man' 8 Burden, filled a large portion of the press.
The United States had suddenly passed from in
ternal debate over free silver to war and conquest.
At the end of 1898 the War Department, that had
proved its inadequacy in nearly every phase of the
war, was forced to develop a colonial policy for Porto
Rico and the Philippines and to guide Cuba to inde
pendence. It was still under the direction of General
Russell A. Alger, but was torn by dissension and
criticism upon the conduct of the war. Not until
Alger was asked to retire, in 1899, and Elihu Root,
of New York, succeeded him, was the War Depart
ment made equal to its task.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The best account of the war with Spain is F. E. Chadwick,
Relations of the United States and Spain: Diplomacy (1909), and
Relations of the United States and Spain: The Spanish Ameri
can War (2 vols., 1911). These works have in large measure
superseded the earlier studies ; J. M. Callahan, Cuba and In
ternational Relations (1899); J. H. Latanti, The Diplomatic Re
lations of the United States and Spanish America (1900 : — so
far as it relates to Cuba) ; H. E. Flack, Spanish- American
Diplomatic Relations preceding the war of 1898 (in Johns Hop
kins University Studies, vol. xxiv) ; and E. J. Benton, Inter
national Law and Diplomacy of the Spanish-American War
(1908). Useful narratives relating to the army are R. A. Alger,

THE SPANISH WAR 275
The Spanish-American War (1901) ; H. H. Sargent, The
Campaign of Santiago de Cuba (3 vols., 1907) ; J. Wheeler, The
Santiago Campaign (1899) ; J. D. Miley, In Cuba with Shafter
(1899) ; and T. Roosevelt, The Rough Riders (1899). The
navy may be followed in J. D. Long, The New American Navy
(2 vols., 1903) ; E. S. Maclay, History of the United States Navy
(3 vols., 1901, the third volume containing allegations that
precipitated the Schley-Sampson controversy) ; 6. E. Graham,
Schley and Santiago (1902) ; W. S. Schley, Forty-five Years
under the Flag (1904) ; W. A. M. Goode, With Sampson through
the War (1899). The publio documents of the war are easily
accessible, especially in the Annual Reports for 1898 of the
Secretaries of War and Navy, and in the Foreign Relations
volume for that year. The controversies after the war illumi
nated many details, particularly the Schley Inquiry (57th Con
gress, 1st Session, House Document, no. 485, Serial nos. 4370,
4371), and the Miles-Eagan Inquiry (56th Congress, 1st Ses
sion, Senate Document, no. 270, Serial nos. 3870-3872).

CHAPTER XVII
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Out of the humiliating debates upon the war, on
the capacity of Alger and Shafter, on the manage
ment of the commissary and the field hospitals, on
the failure of Sampson and Shafter to cooperate, on
the tactics and the alleged weakness of Schley, and
on the diplomatic sincerity of McKinley, only one
name caught the public ear. The only career that
placed a soldier in line for political promotion was
that of Theodore Roosevelt, who was still under
forty years of age, although he had lived a keen,
aggressive, and public life for nearly twenty years.
Just out of Harvard in 1880, Roosevelt entered
the rough and tumble of New York politics. He
was a reform legislator when Cleveland was gov
ernor, and an opponent of the nomination of Blaine
in 1884. He did not fight the ticket or turn Mug
wump, for he had already formed a political philos
ophy, that only those who stayed within the party
could be efficient in reform ; but he dropped out of
the ranks and took up ranch life in the West. Har
rison made him a Civil Service Commissioner and
supported him in a stern administration of the merit
system. Before he left this office in 1895, to be
come Police Commissioner of New York City, the
breezy and vigorous assaults of Roosevelt upon

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 277
political corruption, had already marked him as a
reformer of a new type, who remained an active
politician and a party man without losing his interest
in reform. As police commissioner he gained new
fame and more admirers. In 1897 he took the post
of Assistant Secretary of the Navy and prepared for
war. He had already found time to write many
books on the West, reform, naval history, and out
door life. He resigned his post in April, 1898, on
the eve of war, raised a regiment of volunteers,
which the public speedily named the "Rough Riders,"
kept his men in the center of the stage while there
was fighting, risked and violated all theories of dis
cipline to attack the sanitary policy of the Adminis
tration in the autumn, and in October received the
nomination of his party for Governor of New York,
over the ill-concealed opposition of Thomas Collier
Platt. During the campaign of 1898 Roosevelt carried
his candidacy to the voter in every part of the State.
He spoke from rear platforms day after day. Rough
Riders, in uniform, accompanied his party and rein
forced his appeal to mixed motives of good gov
ernment and patriotic fervor. He was elected in
November, and on the same day the Republican con
trol of Congress was assured. It was made possible
for the party to fulfill the last of the obligations laid
upon it by the election of 1896.
A currency act, passed in March, 1900, was the
result of Republican success. It established the gold
dollar by law as the standard of value, legalized the
gold reserve at $150,000,000, and made it the duty

278 THE NEW NATION
of the Treasury to keep at a parity with gold
the $313,000,000 of Civil War greenbacks, the
$550,000,000 of silver and silver certificates, the
$75,000,000 of Sherman Act treasury notes, as
well as the national bank notes, which aggregated
$300,000,000 in 1900. The law left the currency
far from satisfactory in that it made it dependent
upon redemption, and hence liable to sudden changes
in value, but it silenced the fear of free-silver coinage.
In the spring of 1900 Congress was forced to con
sider the basis of colonial government. Governments
similar to those of the Territories were provided for
Hawaii and Porto Rico, but a troublesome revolt
prevented such treatment of the Philippine Islands.
There had been a native insurrection in these islands
before the Spanish War began, and the aid of the
rebels had made it easier for the United States to
overthrow the power of Spain. Instead of receiving
a pledge of independence, as Cuba did, the islands
became a territorial possession of the United States.
In February, 1899, under the native leader, Emilio
Aguinaldo, insurrection broke out against the United
States and received the sympathy of large numbers
of Americans. The spectacle of the United States
subduing a spirit of independence in the Philippines
aroused and stimulated the movement of anti-imperi
alism that had fought against tho acquisition of the
islands. The incompatibility of republican institu
tions and foreign colonies, the demoralizing influence
of ruling on the ruling class, the lesson of the fall of
Rome, were held up before the public. Carl Schurz
was one of the leaders in the protest, and his follow-

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 279
ers included many whose names were already well
known in the advocacy of tariff and civil service
reform. In 1901 the Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of expansion and imperial control.
The people had already decided in their favor in
1900. There was no contest for either nomination in the
campaign of 1900. Bryan had established his right
to the leadership that had come to him by chance in
1896. Although conservative Democrats still dis
trusted him, their voices were drowned by the popu
lar approval of his honesty and humanity. "Four
years ago," said Altgeld, in the Democratic Conven
tion at Kansas City, "we quit trimming, we quit
using language that has a double meaning. . . .
We went forth armed with that strength that comes
from candor and sincerity and we fought the great
est campaign ever waged on the American continent.
. . . [For] the first time in the history of this Re
public the Democracy of America have risen up in
favor of one man." On a platform that repeated the
currency demands of 1896 and denounced imperial
ism, Bryan was unanimously renominated, with Adlai
E. Stevenson for the Vice-Presidency.
The emphatic denunciation of imperialism brought
to Bryan and Stevenson the support of a group
of independents, — the ¦ " hold-your-nose-and-vote "
group, as the Republican press called them, — who
were strong for the gold standard, but believed that
currency was less fundamental than imperialism.
The Republican party had accepted and approved
the war and the benevolent intentions of the United

280 THE NEW NATION
States, and had renominated McKinley at Philadel
phia, without a dissenting voice. Vice-President
liobart had died in office, or the original ticket
might have been continued. As a substitute, rumor
had attacked the name of Governor Roosevelt, while
Senator Platt, preferring not to have him reelected
Governor of New York, had encouraged his boom
for the Vice-Presidency. Repeatedly, in the spring
of 1900, Roosevelt declared that he would not seek
or accept the Vice-Presidency. Hanna and McKinley
did not desire him on the ticket, but at the conven
tion the delegates broke down all resistance and
forced hirn to accept the nomination.
The policy of dignity, which McKinley had as
sumed in 1896, was continued by him in 1900, but
the vice-presidential candidate proved the equal of
Bryan as a campaigner. In hundreds of speeches,
reaching nearly every State, they carried their per
sonality to the voters. The two issues, imperialism
and free silver, divided the voters along different
lines, but tho Administration had an economic basis
for support in tho recovery of business on every
hand. The Republicans took credit for the general
and abundant prosperity, and their cartoonists em
phasized tho idea of the "full dinner pail" as a
reason for continued support. A smaller percentage
of citizens voted than in 1896, for tho issue was less
clear than it had been then. Many who were discon-
tented with both candidates voted with the Prohibi
tionists or Socialists. The Republican ticket was
elected, with 292 electoral votes, as against 155 re
ceived by Bryan and Stevenson. A continuance of

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 281
the Republican control of Congress was assured at
the same time.
William McKinley was the first President after
Grant to receive a second consecutive term. He made
few changes in his Cabinet in 1901. Elihu Root
remained in the War Department, for the sake of
which he had refused to consider the Vice-Presidency,
and strove for order in the Philippines, in Cuba, and
in the United States Army itself. John Hay, as
Secretary of State, continued his correspondence with
the Powers over the Chinese revolt, without a break.
Only Seward and John Quincy Adams can rival
John Hay as successful American Ministers of For
eign Affairs. Born in the Middle West in 1838, Hay
served in Lincoln's household as a private secretary
throughout the Civil War. He held minor appoint
ments after this and alternated diplomatic experience
with literary production. The monumental Life of
Abraham Lincoln was partly his work. His grace
ful verse gained for him a wide reading. His anony
mous novel, The Breadwinners, was an important
document in the early labor movement. McKinley
sent him to London as Ambassador in 1897, follow
ing the tradition that only the best in the United
States may go to the Court of St. James, and had
recalled him to be Secretary of State in the fall of
1898. The Boxer outbreak in China in 1900 gave
the first opening to the new diplomacy of the United
States, broadened out of its insularity by the Span
ish War and interested in the attainment of inter
national ideas. Hay led in the adjustment which
settled the Chinese claims, opened the door of China

282 THE NEW NATION
to the commerce of the world, and prevented her
dismemberment. He was still engaged in this cor
respondence when President McKinley was murdered
by an anarchist, and Theodore Roosevelt became
President of the United States, September 14, 1901.
In the hurried inaugural ceremony held in the
Buffalo residence in which McKinley died, Roose
velt declared his intention to continue the term as
his predecessor had begun it. He insisted that all
the members of the Cabinet should remain with him,
as they did for considerable periods. He took up the
work where it had been dropped, and for some
months it was not apparent that a change had been
made from a party administration to a personal
administration. Tho suave and cordial tolerance of
McKinley was succeeded by the aggressive certainty
of his successor. Through John Hay's skillful hand
this new tone made a deeper impression on the
politics of the world than had that of any President
since Washington gave forth the doctrine of neu
trality. Cuba was a pending problem. The American army,
under General Leonard Wood, had cleaned up the
island. The medical service had learned to isolate
the mosquito, and had expelled the scourge of yellow
fever. Tho natives formed a constitution which be-
camo offoctivo on May 20, 1902. On this day the
United States withdrew from the new Republic, leav
ing it to manage its own affairs, subject only to a
pledge that it would forever maintain its independ
ence, that it would incur no debt without providing
the means for settling it, and that the United States

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 283
might lawfully intervene to protect its independence or
maintain responsible government. Iu the winter of
1901-02 Roosevelt urged Congress to adopt a policy
of commercial reciprocity with Cuba. He was sup
ported in this by opinion in Cuba, and by officials
of the American Sugar Trust, but was opposed in
the Senate by a combination of beet-sugar Republi
cans and cane-sugar Democrats. The measure failed
in 1902, creating bad feeling between President
and Congress, but a treaty of modified reciprocity
was ratified in 1903.
In 1902 the United States became the first suitor
to test the efficacy of the new court of arbitration at
The Hague. In 1898 the Czar of Russia had invited
the countries represented at St. Petersburg to join
in a conference upon disarmament. His motives were
questioned and derided, but the conference met the
next summer at Huis ten Bosch, the summer palace
of the Queen of the Netherlands, at The Hague.
Here the plan of disarmament proved futile, but a
great treaty for the settlement of international dis
putes was accepted by the countries present. It
seemed probable that the Hague Court, thus created,
would die of neglect, but President Roosevelt, ap
pealed to by an advocate of peace, produced a tri
fling case and submitted it to arbitration. The Pious
Fund dispute, with Mexico and the United States as
suitors, involved the control of church funds in Cali
fornia. The suit was won by the United States, but
derived its chief importance from being the first
Hague settlement.
The pledge of the United States for Cuban inde-

284 THE NEW NATION
pendence had hardly been fulfilled when another
Latin Republic became involved in trouble. Vene
zuela, torn by war, had incurred obligations to Euro
pean creditors, and had defaulted in the payments
upon them. In December, 1902, Great Britain and
Germany announced a blockade of the Venezuelan
ports in retaliation, and they were soon joined by
other Powers with similar claims. Disclaiming intent
to protect Venezuela in defaulting, Roosevelt urged
the European claimants to abandon force for arbitra
tion. Under his leadership joint commissions were
finally established, and in 1903 the legal technicali
ties involved were sent to The Hague. The episode in
volved a new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine,
making it clear that unless the United States wished
to protect the South American Republics in the eva
sion of their debts it must assume some responsibility
for the honest settlement of them.
The boundary of Alaska next became a subject for
arbitration. Since the valley of the Yukon had at
tracted its first great migration in the summer of
1897 the mining-camps had steadily increased in im
portance. Many of these were on the Canadian side
of the meridian of 141°, and all were reached either
by the river steamers or the trails from the south.
The most important ports of entry were Dyea and
Skaguay, at the head of the Lynn Canal, a long fiord
projecting some ninety miles into the continent. From
these ports the prospector plunged inland, climbed
the Chilkoot or the Chilkat Pass, and followed one
of several overland trails to the Upper Yukon.
The importance given to Dyea and Skaguay re-

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 285
vived the question of their ownership and with this
the boundary of Alaska. When Seward bought
Alaska for the United States in 1867 he received it
with the boundaries agreed upon at St. Petersburg
between England and Russia in 1825. These fol
lowed the meridian of 141° from Mount St. Elias to
the Arctic Ocean, and followed the irregularities of
the shore-line southeast from that mountain to the
Pacific at 54° 40', North Latitude. The narrow coast
strip was described as following the windings (sinu-
osites) of the shore, bounded by the shore mountains
if possible, but in no case to be more than thirty miles
wide. The narrow Lynn Canal pierces the thirty-
mile strip, and the dispute turned chiefly upon inter
pretation : whether the canal should be regarded as a
sinuosite of the shore, around which the boundary
must go, or as a stream which it might properly
cross. For thirty years after 1867 the British and Cana
dian government maps treated the Lynn Canal and
other similar fiords as American, but it became con
venient for Canada, after 1897, to urge that the boun
dary should cross the canal and leave Dyea and
Skaguay on British soil. A Canadian and American
Joint High Commission, meeting in 1898, had been
unable to adjust the controversy. In 1903 it was
submitted to a tribunal, three to a side, which sat in
London. It was doubtful whether the three Ameri
can adjudicators, Root, Lodge, and Turner, were all
" jurists of repute," as the treaty provided, but the
arguments of the American counsel convinced Lord
Chief Justiee Alverstone, one of the British adjudi-

286 THE NEW NATION
cators, and his vote,' added to the American three,
gave a verdict that sustained most of the claims of
the. United States.
In Cuba and Venezuela, at The Hague, and in the
Alaskan matter, Roosevelt and Hay showed at once
a firmness and a reasonableness that attracted Euro
pean attention to American, diplomacy as never be
fore. The subject of American diplomacy became a
common study in American universities. England
and Germany appeared to be desirous of conciliating
the United States. The German Emperor bought a
steam yacht in the United States, sent his brother,
Prince Henry of Prussia, to attend the launching, and
sent as Ambassador a German nobleman who had
long been a personal friend of the President. The
reputation for firmness was enhanced, but that for
fairness was lessened by the next episode, which in
volved the Colombian State of Panama.
The dangerous voyage of the Oregon in 1898
completed the conviction of the United States that
an isthmian canal must be constructed, and that the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was no longer adequate. The
activity of De Lesseps and his French company at
Panama had raised the question about 1880, but
nothing had been done to weaken the treaty that
obstructed American construction and control until
Hay undertook a negotiation under the direction of
McKinley in the fall of 1899. Congress was in the
midst of a debate over a Nicaragua canal scheme
when it was announced that on February 5, 1900,
Hay and Lord Pauncefote had signed a treaty open
ing the canal to American construction, but provid-

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 287
ing for its neutralization. The treaty forbade the
fortification of the canal or its use as an instrument
of war. It was killed by amendment in the Senate,
but on November 18, 1901, Lord Pauncefote signed
a second treaty, by which Great Britain waived all
her old rights save that of equal treatment for all
users of the canal, and left .the future waterway to
the discretion of the United States. With the way
thus opened, — for the Senate promptly confirmed
this treaty, — -a new study of routes and methods
was hurried to completion.
An Isthmian Commission, created by the United
States in 1899, was ready to report upon a route
when the second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was con
cluded. The practicable routes had been reduced in
number to two, at Panama, and through Nicaragua.
The former was under the control of the French
company, which placed so high a price upon its con
cession that the commission recommended the Nicar
agua route as, on the whole, more available. In Con
gress there was a strong predisposition in favor of
this same route, but during 1902 this was weakened.
Senator Hanna preferred the Panama route and
worked effectively for it. The French Panama Com
pany, frightened by the popularity of the Nicaragua
route, reduced its price. The earthquake and vol
canic eruption on the Island of Martinique reminded
the world that Nicaragua was nearer the zone of
active volcanic life, and hence more exposed to dan
ger, than Panama. In June Congress empowered
the President to select the route and build a canal
at once.

288 THE NEW NATION
Negotiations with Colombia for the right to build
at Panama dragged on through 1902 and 1903.
Weakened by continuous revolution, that Republic
realized that the isthmian right of way was its most
valuable asset. Only after prolonged discussion did
its Government authorize its Minister at Washing
ton to sign a treaty reserving Colombian sovereignty
over the strip, but giving to the United States the
canal Concession in return for $10,000,000 in cash
and an annuity of $250,000. This treaty was signed
in Washington in January, 1903, and was received
as a triumph for the diplomacy of Hay and Roose
velt. It was ratified in March by the Senate, in spite
of a last filibuster by the friends of Nicaragua, but
the Colombian Congress rejected the treaty and ad
journed. By the autumn of 1903 Roosevelt had determined
upon the route at Panama, the French company had
become eager to sell, and the Colombians living on
the Isthmus were anxious to have the negotiations
ended and the digging begun. In October the Pres
ident wrote to an intimate friend hoping that there
might be a revolt of the Isthmus against Colombia,
though disclaiming any intent to provoke one. The
friend made the wish public over his own name, but
before it appeared in print the revolt had taken
place. It was known in advance to the State Depart
ment, which telegraphed on November 3, 1903, ask
ing when it was to be precipitated. It took place
later on this day, the independence of the Republic
of Panama was proclaimed, the United States pre
vented Colombia from repressing it by force, recog-

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 289
nized the new Republic by cable, and on November
18 signed at Washington a treaty with Panama
granting the canal concession. " I took Panama,"
boasted President Roosevelt some years later, when
critics denounced his policy as a robbery of a weak
neighbor. The construction of a canal proceeded rapidly,
once the diplomatic entanglements had been brushed
away. The incidental problems of sanitation, labor,
supplies, and engineering were solved promptly and
effectively. Congress poured money into the enter
prise without restraint, the first boats were passed
through the locks in 1914, and in 1915 the formal
opening of the canal was celebrated by a naval pro
cession at the Isthmus and an Exposition at San
Francisco. Vigor and certainty of purpose marked the con
duct of domestic affairs as well as foreign, but the
necessity for the concurrence in these by Congress
made the former results less striking than the latter.
The appointments of President Roosevelt were such
as might be expected from one who had himself de
voted six years to the Civil Service Commission.
Few of them met with opposition from the reform
element. In the South he became involved with local
public opinion, especially in the cases of a negro
postmistress at Indianola, Mississippi, and the negro
collector of the port of Charleston, in which he main
tained that although federal appointments ought
generally to go to persons acceptable in their dis
tricts, the door of opportunity must not be shut
against the negro. Within a few weeks of his in-

290 THE NEW NATION
auguration he precipitated a severe discussion upon
the status of the negro by entertaining Booker T.
Washington at the White House. He disciplined
Republican leaders in the South who endeavored to
exclude negroes from the party organization and to
build up a " lily-white " Republican machine.
The administrative duties of the United States
expanded rapidly after the Spanish War. The ex
tension of scientific functions beginning in the eighties
continued until the volume of work forced the crea
tion of new offices. Federal civil employees numbered
107,000 in 1880, 166,000 in 1890, 256,000 in 1900,
and 384,000 in 1910. Among the newer scientific
activities was included that of the reclamation of
the arid or semi-arid lands of the Southwest.
The region between the Missouri River and the
Sierra Nevada had been regarded as uninhabitable
since the days of Pike. Known as the " American
Desert," it figured in the atlases as a place of sand
and aridity, and became the home chosen for the In
dian tribes between 1825 and 1840. Under the in
fluence of migration to Oregon and California the
real character of the Far West became known, but
not until the continental railways were finished did
many inhabitants enter it. In 1889 and 1890 the
" Omnibus " States were admitted, embracing all the
northwest half of the old desert. Utah followed in
1896. Arizona and New Mexico and Oklahoma de
veloped rapidly after 1890 and were all demanding
statehood in 1902.
The advance of population into the Far West
revealed the existence of large areas in which an

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 291
abundant agriculture could be produced through ir
rigation. Private means were inadequate for this
and the land laws discouraged it. A demand for
federal reclamation appeared in the eighties. In
1889 a survey of available sites for reservoirs was
made by government engineers, and in 1902 Roose
velt cooperated with the Far- Western Congressmen
in securing the passage of the Newlands Reclama
tion Act. By this bill the proceeds of land sales in
the arid States became a fund to be used by the re
clamation service for the construction of great pub
lic irrigation works. In the succeeding years dams,
tunnels, and ditches were undertaken that were
rivaled in magnitude only by the railroad tunnels
at New York and the excavations at Panama.
The aggressive assurance with which the Roose
velt Administration handled the problems of diplo
macy and administration created for the President
a wide and unusual popularity, which was strongest
in the West. Many critics, also, were created, who
distrusted personal influence when injected into
government, and who doubted the solidity of Roose
velt's judgment. Personal altercations, in which the
President was often the aggressor, were numerous.
Among professional politicians dislike was mingled
with fear because the PresiHent had established per
sonal relations immediately with their constituents.
Under President McKinley the state delegations in
Congress had controlled the appointive federal offices
of their States, and had been secure in their personal
standing ; under Roosevelt their control of appoint
ments was less secure. When matters of legislation

292 THE NEW NATION
were taken up, this dissatisfaction among members
of Congress was a serious obstacle to the attainment
of constructive laws.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
After the Spanish War the secondary materials for the his
tory of the United States become fragmentary and unsatisfac
tory. Peck, Andrews, and J. H. Latane", America as a World
Power, 1897-1907 (in The American Nation, vol. 25, 1907),
are the best general guides. The facts of campaigns are con
tained in E. Stanwood's second volume, — History of the Pres
idency from 1897 to 1909 (1912, with an appendix containing
the platforms of 1912), but the Annual Cyclopaedia stopped
publication after 1902, and left no good successor. The vari
ous year-books should be consulted, and the files of the maga
zines, which steadily improve in historical value : Nation,
Harper's Weekly, Collier's Weekly, Independent, Outlook, Liter
ary Digest, and the Review of Reviews. Articles in these and
other periodicals, dealing with episodes occurring after 1898,
may be reached through Poole's Indexes. The American Jour
nal of International Law and the American Political Science
Review are typical of the new technical periodicals. Extensive
contributions to the history of international arbitration have
been made by F. W. Holls, J. B. Scott, and W. I. Hull. There
is, of course, no critical biography of Theodore Roosevelt,
although there are numerous panegyrics by F. E. Leupp, J. A.
Riis, J. Morgan, and others, and some autobiographical papers
which appeared first in the Outlook (1913), and later as Fifty
Years of My Life (1913). The later Messages of McKinley
and those of his successors are scattered among the govern
ment documents, which are to be found in many libraries.
The Second Battle (1900), by W. J. Bryan, is autobiographic,
as is A. E. Stevenson, Something of Men I Have Known (1909).

CHAPTER XVIII
BIG BUSINESS
The panic of 1893 ended the first period of the
trust problem. The preceding years had been years
of formation and experiment. They had been accom
panied by an increasing popular distaste for com
binations of capital and a growing activity in the
organization of labor. The Sherman Law of 1890
had temporarily quieted the anti-trust movement,
while economic depression had checked the extra
vagance of speculation that had been prevalent
everywhere. During the years of depression atten
tion was shifted to tariff and currency, but a new
.era began with the recurrence of prosperity about
1897. The industrial revival was marked by an exten
sion of the scope of industry, as every similar pe
riod had been. After the panic of 1837 the railroad
had appeared among the important new activities of
American society. Improvements in manufacturing
technique followed the panic of 1857. After 1873 the
varied applications of electricity to industry and com
munication gave a new direction to investment. After
1893, with every preceding activity stimulated and
extended, there came the first successful construction
of a trackless engine — the motor-car — and the re
building of the physical plants of cities, railways, and

294 THE NEW NATION
suburban residences^ The recovery of confidence came
after 1896, and before the end of the century specu
lation was at full blast.
The drift toward monopoly was marked. The trusts
had already shown their profitable character. Con
centration had been made possible by the develop
ment of communication in the eighties, and grew now
on a larger scale than the eighties had imagined.
Within the field of transportation the promoters
reorganized the railroads after the panic, reduced
their number, and gathered their control into the
hands of a few men.
The railway system by 1900, with 198,000 miles
of track, was directed by a few powerful groups
of roads. In the East the New York Central
and Pennsylvania systems were dominant. In the
West the continental railways formed the basis of
new organizations. The keenest interest gathered
round the reconstruction of the Union Pacific by
Edward H. Harriman, who reorganized its finances
after 1897. The Union Pacific had been forced into
combination by its location and its neighbors. Run
ning from Omaha to Ogden it was dependent for
through traffic upon the Central Pacific that ran
from Ogden to San Francisco. When the latter came
under the control of the California capitalists who
owned the Southern Pacific lines, the Union Pacific
was driven to build or buy outlets of its own, and
extended into Oregon and Texas as the result. Jay
Gould had begun the consolidation in the eighties
and Harriman continued it after the panic of 1893.
He rebuilt the main line and improved the value and

BIG BUSINESS 295
credit of his property. In 1901 his road borrowed
money with which to buy a controlling interest in tho
Central Pacifio and Southern Pacific — the Hunt
ington lines, — and thereafter the Harriman system,
with two complete railroads from the Mississippi to
tho Pacifio, was beyond the reach of hostile competi
tion. The Interstate Commerce Law of 1887 stimulated
combination among the railroads, since it made pools
and rate agreements illegal. The alternative to such
agreements was destructive competition, since no two
lines were of exactly equal strength. To avoid this,
the stronger linos bought or leased the weaker, with
which they might not cooperate, but which they might
buy outright. Harriman, successful with his South
western system, tried in 1901 to buy the Northern
Pacifio, too, and came into direct conflict with another
group of railway owners.
The Northern Pacifio had been supplemented after
1893 by the Great Northern, which James J. Hill
had built without a subsidy. These two roads, and
the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, covered the
Northwest as Harriman's lines covered the South
west. They were so placed that with common man
agement they could be more effective than with
rivalry. The owners of the Great Northern and the
Burlington, James J. Hill and J. Pierpont Morgan,
were on the verge of a general consolidation when
Harriman tried co buy a control of the Northern
Pacifio. They struggled to retain it and succeeded,
but their competition raised its stock to one thou
sand per share, causing a stock exchange panio on

296 THE NEW NATION
May 9, 1901. Only the speculators suffered by the
panic, but public attention was drawn by it to the
gigantic size of the combinations which held arbi
trary control over nearly half the United States.
Minor consolidations followed these in 1902 and
1903, but none aroused so much fear as the Northern
Securities Company of New Jersey, the holding com
pany in whose hands Hill and Morgan determined
to put the control of their lines. The fate of any
single company could be determined by the owner
ship of not over fifty-one per cent of its stock. If
this was owned by another corporation, a similar
proportion of the stock of the latter would control
the whole. The holding company was a machine
whereby capital could control property several times
its bulk. The Governors of the Northwest States,
alarmed at the monopolization of their railways, pro
tested and started suits. It was claimed that this sort
of merging of railroads was, after all, a conspiracy
in restraint of trade. In March, 1902, President
Roosevelt instructed his Attorney-General, Philan
der C. Knox, to test the Sherman Act of 1890, and
bring suit under it for the dissolution of the North
ern Securities Company. LFor several years after
1897 foreign affairs and big business had been dom
inant in the American mind, which had admired their
bigness and activity, but now the social consequences
of big business aroused the fears of the nation. In
1903 Congress passed the Elkins Law, forbidding
railroads to give rebates to favored customers, and
an Expedition Law, to make the wheels of justice
move more rapidly when prosecutions under the

BIG BUSINESS 297
Sherman and Interstate Commerce Laws were under
way. Industrial consolidation, like that of the railways,!
began again in 1897, and many of the new corpora
tions assumed a type that marked an evolution for
the trust. In the earlier period the aim of the trust)
had been to eliminate competition by gathering under]
a single control the whole of a given business. Oil,'
sugar, steel, whiskey, and tobacco were notable in
stances in which extreme consolidation had been
reached. Competition changed its character as con
solidation increased. It ceased to mean a struggle
between rivals in the same trade, and came to mean a
struggle between successive processes of manufacture, j
The mine-owner struggled for his profits with the
smelter who used his ore. The smelter struggled with
the steel manufacturer in the same way. Control of)
single industries left untouched this newer competi-;
tion, but an integration of great groups of related
processes promised to avoid it.
In 1901 the greatest of the integrated trusts, the
United States Steel Corporation, was created. The
iron and steel industry had been expanding since
the Bessemer and other commercial processes for the
manufacture of steel had made it available for rail
way, bridge, and architectural construction. Andrew
Carnegie, with his Pittsburg mills, was the most suc
cessful producer. His partnership controlled by 1901
about twenty-five per cent of the output of finished
steel. He already included many related and succes
sive processes, but now he allowed his works to be
merged with those of his rivals into a large com-

298 THE NEW NATION
pany. The resulting United States Steel Corporation
owned and operated the ore deposits and the mines,
the necessary coal fields, the local railways and freight
steamers, the smelters and the blast furnaces, the
rolling mills and the factories in which iron and steel
were manufactured into a multitude of shapes for
sale. Writh a New Jersey charter it was capital
ized at $1,100,000,000, and drew attention to the
industrial phase of the trust problem much as Har
riman, Hill, and Morgan had drawn it to the rail
roads. Promotion of new trusts, with billions of aggre
gated capital, was tho order of the day from 1897 to
1902. Tho fear of monopoly was speedily aroused,
and in 1898 Congress created an Industrial Com
mission, whose nineteen volumes of reports contain
tho facts upon which the history of the trusts must
be based. In the fall of 1899 there met in Chicago a
great conference on the trusts, where business men,
economists, and politicians discussed the economic
and social possibilities of the movement. A willing
ness to hear and perhaps to rely on the judgment
of experts was shown in the discussions over the
trusts. It marked a change in the American attitude
toward government. By 1902 the demand for a solu
tion of the trust problem was heard repeatedly, but
there was little agreement as to whether the trusts
were good or bad, or whether they should be abol
ished, regulated, or owned outright by tho Govern
ment. It was not even certain what powers the United
States possessed to regulate general industry, but a
group of Supreme Court cases suggested that the

BIG BUSINESS 299
power could be found. In the Trans-Missouri Freight
Case (1897), the Supreme Court declared that the
Sherman Law applied to railway conspiracies, and
in the Addystone Pipe Case (1898), a decision
against an industrial combination, written by Circuit
Judge William H. Taft, was upheld by the court of
last appeal. The Northern Securities Case, started
in 1902, was pushed to a successful end in 1904,
when it became apparent that legal control could be
exercised if Congress so desired.
Labor followed the course of industry and trans
portation, becoming stronger and better united, and
showing a keen jealousy of centralized control. The
years of trust promotion were years of notable strikes
and of episodes which drew attention to the social
results of industrial concentration. Sometimes the
trust had labor at a disadvantage, as was shown in
the strike against the Steel Corporation by the Amal
gamated Association in 1901. In 1892 this union had
conducted a great strike against the Carnegie Works
and had lost public sympathy and the strike. Its men
had committed open violence, and an anarchistic sym
pathizer had tried to murder Carnegie's representative
at Homestead, Henry C. Frick. In 1901 the strike
affected the unionized mills of the Steel Corporation,
but that trust had only to close down the mills in
volved and transfer pending contracts to other mills,
remote and non-unionized. The strike collapsed be
cause of the superior organization of the trust.
More important than the steel strike in its effect
upon the public was the strike of the miners in the
anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania. In 1900 these

300 THE NEW NATION
workors were organized by tho Unitod Mine Workers
of America, under the leadership of John Mitchell.
They gained concessions in a strike in this year,
partly because tho strike threatened to disturb politi
cal conditions and embarrass tho Republican national
ticket. Tho mine-owners, most of whom woro Repub
licans, were persuaded by Hanna and others to end the
quarrel. In the spring of 1902 the strike broke out again,
turning largely upon the question of the formal recog
nition of the union. All through the summer John
Mitchell held his followers together, gaining an un
usual degree of public sympathy for his cause. In
tho autumn, with both sides obstinate, a third party,
the public, took an interest in the strike. The pros
pect of a coalless winter alarmed political leaders and
citizens in general. It was felt that public interest was
.Superior to the claims of either contestant, but there
was neither law nor recognized machinery through
which the public could protect itself. At this stage,
in October, 1902, President Roosevelt secretly
reached the intention " to send in the United States
Army to take possession of the coal fields" if neces
sary. He called the operators and Mitchell to a
conference at the White House, spoke to them
as a citizen upon their duty to serve the public,
and with rising public opinion behind him and
supporting him, forced the owners to consent to
an arbitration of the points at issue. The men re
turned to work, pleased with the President, to
whose interference they and the public owed in
dustrial peace.

BIG BUSINESS 301
In 1903 another miners' union, the Western Fed
eration of Miners, conducted • a great . strike in the
mines of Cripple Creek. Public opinion in Colorado
knew no middle class. The miners and the operators
represented the two chief interests of the section.
Hard feeling and violence accompanied the strike.
The malicious murder of non-union men added to the
bitterness, which the presence of the militia and a
series of arbitrary arrests could not allay. The strike
was complicated by the presence among the workers
of a strong element of Socialists, whose ends were
political as well as economic. The leaders of the Fed
eration, Moyer and Haywood, were Socialists, and for
them the strike was only a beginning of political
revolution. The strike lasted until the outraged citi
zens of Cripple Creek formed a vigilance committee
and deported the chief agitators to Kansas.
Socialism played an increasing part in labor discus
sions after 1897. A Socialist Labor party had pre
sented a ticket and received a few votes in 1892 and
1896, but socialism had not taken a strong hold on
the American imagination. The swelling immigration
that followed the new prosperity brought new life to
socialism. In 1900 a Social Democratic party polled
94,000 votes for Eugene V. Debs for President. In
1904, with the same candidate, it received 402,000
votes. Society was reorganizing amid the industrial
changes, while the discontented classes were growing
more coherent and constructive.
President Roosevelt met the changes in transporta
tion, industry, and labor with vigor. He invoked the
Sherman Law against the Northern Securities Com-

302 THE NEW NATION
pany. He brought suits against certain of the trusts
which he stigmatized as the " bad trusts." Not all
concentration, he urged, was undesirable. Capital,
like labor, had its rights, but it must obey the law.
Partly through his efforts Congress created in 1903
a new administrative department of Commerce and
Labor. George B. Cortelyou became the first Secre
tary of this department. Through its Bureaus of Cor
porations and of Labor there was new activity in the
investigation of the facts of the industrial move
ment. The vigor with which the President directed for
eign relations, interfered in big business, and espoused
the cause of labor produced a breach between him
and many of the regular leaders of the party.
Through two campaigns Marcus A. Hanna had
worked on the theory that the Republican party was
the party of business, and had attracted to its support
all who believed this or had something to make out
of it. Many of these Republicans could not under
stand what Roosevelt was trying to do, and main
tained an opposition, silent or open, to his policies.
The popularity of Hanna was used by many Re
publicans to offset the popularity of Roosevelt. Before
1896 Hanna had taken little part in public politics.
Entering the Senate in 1897, he developed great in
fluence. By 1900 he began to speak in public with
directness and effect, and to undo the work of the
cartoonists who had misrepresented his character. He
interfered to bring peace in the anthracite regions in
1900, became interested in the labor problem on its
own account, and discovered that he was popular.

BIG BUSINESS 803
He was essentially a direct and honest man, who had
had no reason to doubt that it was the chief end of gov
ernment to- conserve business. As he came into touch
with public affairs he broadened, saw new responsi
bilities for capital, and had a new understanding of
the wants of labor. The only personality that even
threatened to rival that of Roosevelt in 1904 was
that of "Uncle Mark" Hanna.
Roosevelt had been made Vice-President to get rid
of him in New York. The single life that stood be
tween him and the White House was removed by an
assassin, and as a President by accident he desired to
establish himself and secure a nomination on his own
account in 1904. By the summer of 1902 he appre
ciated the growing interest in the problems of capi-\
tal and labor. A speaking tour in 1902 gave him a
chance to demand a " square deal " for all, and the
control of the trusts. From some sections of the ¦
West came the suggestion that the way to approach
the trusts was through the tariff.
The Dingley Tariff was unpopular with the Repub
lican farmers of the Northwest, and for some years
they tolerated it in silence as a test of party loyalty.
In 1902 a liberal faction, controlled by Governor
Albert B. Cummins, captured the Iowa convention
and demanded a revision of the more extreme sched
ules. The belief that the tariff was the " mother of
trusts" was spreading, and the Iowa idea gained
wide acceptance. In Congress, in the session of 1902,
the Republican organization had shown the stubborn
ness with whioh any opening in the tariff wall would
be opposed.

304 THE NEW NATION
Cuba was set free in the spring of 1902, her gov
ernment having been formed under the guidance of
the United States. The duty to aid the young Re
public, and in particular to mitigate the severities of
the Dingley Tariff impressed the President, who used
all his influence to get such legislation from Con
gress. He failed signally, raising only a new issue
by his attempt to coerce Congress. His speeches in
the summer showed a willingness to revise the tariff,
while his interference in the coal strike in the autumn
showed his willingness to oppose the ends of capital.
How far he would go in breaking with the leaders of
his party was unknown, but their disposition to "stand
pat "and do nothing with the tariff was marked be
fore the end of 1902.
In 1902 it became a habit of Republican state
conventions to demand the renomination of Roose
velt in 1904. Whatever his effect upon the party
leaders, the rank and file liked him and believed in
him, while his personal popularity among Democrats
led many to think his strength greater than it was.
His candidacy was formal and authorized, but his
opponents hoped that Hanna might be induced to try
to defeat him. In 1903 the Ohio convention, with the
consent of Hanna, approved the candidacy of Roose
velt, and early in 1904 the death of Hanna removed
the last hope of Roosevelt's Republican opponents.
The delegates went to a national convention in
Chicago, for which the procedure had all been ar
ranged at the White House, where it had been de
termined that Elihu Root should be temporary chair
man, and that Joseph G. Cannon, the Speaker, should

BIG BUSINESS 805
be permanent chairman. Through these the conven
tion registered the renomination of Roosevelt and
selected Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana, as Vice-
President. In the Democratic party the forces that had dom
inated in 1896 and 1900 had lost control. William
Jennings Bryan, after two defeats, was not a candi
date in 1904. He had become a lay preacher on
political subjects, lecturing and speaking constantly
in all parts of the United States, and reinforcing his
political views in the columnsof his weekly Commoner,
which he founded after his defeat in 1900. Roose
velt had adopted many of his fundamental themes,
but Bryan retained an increasing popularity as did
tho President, and, like the latter, had relations of
doubtful cordiality with the leaders of his own party.
The Cleveland wing of the Democrats still believed
Bryan to be dangerous and unsound upon financial
matters, and some of them made overtures to Cleve
land to be a candidate for a third term himself. His
emphatic refusal to reenter politics compelled the
conservatives to find a new candidate. Judge Alton
B. Parker, of New York, was their choice. The
owner of the most notorious of the sensational news
papers, William Randolph Hearst, offered himself.
Several other candidates were presented to the Demo
cratic Convention at Chicago, but Parker received
the nomination, over the bitter opposition of Bryan.
When a doubt arose as to his status on the silver issue,
Judge Parker telegraphed to the convention that he
regarded " the gold standard as firmly and irrevoc
ably established." Bryan supported the ticket, Parker

306 THE NEW NATION
and Henry G. Davis of West Virginia, but without
enthusiasm. There was no issue that clearly divided the parties
in the campaign of 1904. Roosevelt asked for an in
dorsement of his Administration and for approval
of his general theory of a " square deal," but it was
obvious that his party associates were less enthusi
astic for reform than he, and that only his great
personal popularity prevented some of them from
withdrawing their support. The Bryan Democrats
were drawn more toward Roosevelt than toward their
own party candidate. It was clear that Parker repre
sented, on the whole, the weight of conservatism,
while Roosevelt embodied the spirit of progress, and
that neither was typical of his party. Parker was
driven by the progressive Democrats to insist upon
a regulation of the trusts ; Roosevelt acquiesced in
the desire of the " stand-pat " Republicans and re
frained from advocating a lowering of the tariff.
The result of the election was proof of the publio
confidence in Roosevelt. He carried every State out
side the South, and Missouri and Maryland besides.
His popular vote was over 7,500,000, while his
plurality over Parker was moro than 2,500,000. In
the last week of the canvass Parker charged that the
trusts were supporting Roosevelt, and that the reform
demands were only a pose. He pointed out that the
Chairman of the Republican National Committee,
who had succeeded Hanna, George B. Cortelyou,
had been Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and
thus in a position to examine the books of corpora
tions. He hinted at a political blackmail of the

BIG BUSINESS 307
trusts, and many of the papers that supported
him were outspoken in their charges. An in
dignant denial of blackmail appeared over the
President's signature the Saturday before election.
Later investigation proved that many of the great
corporations had, as usual, contributed to the cam
paign fund, and that Roosevelt had urged the rail
road magnate, Harriman, to contribute toward the
campaign in New York.
As soon as the results of the election were known,
Roosevelt answered a question that was on the lips
of many. His three and a half years constituted his
first term. He was now elected for a second term, and
he characterized as a " wise custom " the limiting of
a President to two terms. " Under no circumstances
will I be a candidate for or accept another nomina
tion," he declared. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The history of the recent trust movement may be followed
in the writings upon the United States Steel Corporation by
E. S. Meade and H. L. Wilgus. There is a detailed and gossipy
Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company (1903), by J. H,
Bridge. W. F. Willoughby has made searching analyses of
Concentration and Integration, which may be found in tbe
Yale Review, vol. vn, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics,
vol. xvi. The prosecution of the Northern Securities Company
brought out many typical facts of railroad consolidation, and
is best described in B. H. Meyer, A History of the Northern
Securities Case (in University of Wisconsin Bulletin, no. 142).
More general material upon these topics may be found in E. R.
Johnson, American Railway Transportation (1903, etc.) ; F. A.
Cleveland and F. W. Powell, Railway Promotion and Capitaliz
ation in the United States (1909, with an admirable biblio
graphy); Poore's Railroad Manual; and the files of the Com-

308 THE NEW NATION
mercial and Financial Chronicle. The voluminous Report of the
Industrial Commission (19 vols., Washington, 1900-02) is a
storehouse of facts upon industry; labor conditions are illustrated
in the Annual Reports of the United States Commissioner of
Labor, who has also special reports upon individual strikes,
including that at Cripple Creek in 1903. The history of the
campaign fund in 1904 was partially revealed in an investiga
tion in 1912. H. Croly, Marcus A. Hanna, is invaluable for
these years.

CHAPTER XIX
THE "MUCK-RAKERS"
Before Roosevelt was inaugurated for his second
term, the national " revival," in which he and Bryan
and other preachers of civic virtue had played the
speaking parts, was sweeping over the country. The
menace of the trusts was seen and exaggerated as
railways, corporations, and labor availed themselves
of the means of cooperation. The connection between
the great financial interests and politics was believed
to be dangerous to public welfare. All the mechani
cal reforms for the recovery of government by the
people, that had been originated between 1889 and
1897, were revived once more, and there was added
to confidence in them a widespread belief in the ex
istence of a malevolent, plundering class.
It was not enough that the trust movement should
be explained as an unavoidable development from
modern communication. It was believed to consti
tute more than an economic evolution. The public
was prone to place an ethical responsibility upon an
individual or groups of individuals, and there came
a series of revelations or exposures that appeared, in
part, to fix the blame. All the old uprisings against
boss-rule were revivified, and capitalistic control was
placed upon the Index.
Miss Ida M. Tarbell, an historical student who

310 THE NEW NATION
had gained an audience through popular and dis
criminating lives of Napoleon and Lincoln, published
a history of the Standard Oil Company in McClure's
Magazine during 1903. She showed conclusively
the connection between transportation and monopoly
in the oil industry, revealing the mastery of the tools
of transportation, by rebates, by control of tank cars,
or by pipe lines, that had enabled John D. Rocke
feller to establish his great trust. She showed also
the unlovely methods of competition, long common
to all business, but magnified by their use in the
hands of a monopoly to establish itself. " What
we are witnessing," wrote Washington Gladden a
little later, "is a new apocalypse, an uncovering
of the iniquity of the land. . . . We have found
that no society can march hellward faster than a
democracy under the banner of unbridled individu
alism." Three years before Miss Tarbell displayed the
tendency of the trusts, President Hadley, of Yale,
had suggested that social ostracism, or social stigma,
might be made an efficient tool for reform. Other
writers used the tool. Lincoln Steffens, in a series
of articles on " The Shame of the Cities," exposed
the connection between graft and politics. Thomas
Lawson, with spectacular exaggeration, laid the
troubles of society at the feet of " Frenzied Finance."
Collier's Weekly undertook to reveal the worthless-
ness and fraud in the trade in patent medicines.
Many of the exposers encroached upon the fields of
fiction in their work, while books of avowed fiction ex
ploited the conditions they portrayed. Coniston, by

THE "MUCK-RAKERS" 311
Winston Churchill, was based upon the control of a
State by a railroad boss. Upton Sinclair wrote The
Jungle to expose the meat-packers.
A new journalism aided and was aided by the zeal
to expose and the greed of the public for literature
of exposure. In the later nineties city journalism was
reorganized under the influence of the " yellow " pa
pers, and sensational news was made a profitable
commodity as never before. The range of the daily
paper was, however, limited by a few hundred miles,
and its influence could not become national. A new
periodical literature, resembling the old literary
monthlies, but using many timely and journalistic
articles, sprang into life and gained national circula
tion and influence. S. S. McClure was ono of its pio
neers. Everybody's, the Cosmopolitan, Munscy's,
the American, and weeklies like Collier's, the Out
look, and the Independent were among the journals
that helped to spread the conclusions and advocate
reforms. Besides these a horde of imitators fattened
for a time upon exposure.
Journalism had a large part in directing the
American revival, and private investigators furnished
many of the facts. Public suits marked an attempt
to act upon the facts and remedy them. In Missouri
Joseph W. Folk conducted a series of prosecutions
against grafters in St. Louis that elevated him in a
few months to the head of his party and the govern
orship of his State. The Bureau of Corporations,
attached to the new Department of Commerce and
Labor in 1903, made a series of reports the most
notable of which showed that the charges against the

312 THE NEW NATION
Standard Oil Company for extorting rebates, and
against the meat-packers for unsanitary conditions,
were founded upon fact.
The most notable public exposure of indiscretion
and wrongdoing in high finance occurred in New
York. Here, during 1905, a quarrel over the manage
ment of the Equitable Life Insurance Company led
to a legislative investigation by a so-called Armstrong
Committee. One of the attorneys employed by
the committee, Charles E. Hughes, soon became the
spirit of the examination. One by one he called in
surance officers to the witness stand, and drew from
their reluctant lips the story of their relation to
banking, to speculative finance, and to politics. He
revealed the existence of a group among the bankers
not unlike a money trust. He proved that for at least
three national campaigns the insurance companies,
like other corporations, had given heavy subsidies to
the campaign funds, sometimes of both but always
of the Republican party.
Whenever an investigator rose above the level and
established his reputation for honesty and compe
tence, the aroused public seized upon him for use in
politics. In September, 1906, the Democrats of New
York nominated the most successful of the sensa
tional journalists, Hearst, for governor. On the same
day the Republican Convention, in which no delegate
had been instructed for him, nominated Hughes as
governor of New York, because public opinion in the
party would take no other candidate. Hughes Was
elected in 1906 and again in 1908, in spite of the
hostility of Republican party leaders. His adminis-

THE "MUCK-RAKERS" 313
trations were prophetio of the new spirit that was
entering politics.
Many of the problems raised by the investigations
were old and presented only a need for an honest
enforcement of the law against lawbreakers. Others
were simple and prescribed their own methods of
treatment. The evil of corporation contributions to
campaign funds was met in 1907 by a law forbidding
national banks to contribute to any election, or any
corporations to contribute to a presidential or con
gressional election. In 1906 the gift of free railroad
passes upon interstate railroads was prohibited by
law. The presidential candidates in 1908 pledged
themselves to publicity in the matter of contribu
tions, while the complaints of poverty-stricken cam
paign managers in 1908 and 1912 indicated that the
laws were generally obeyed. Still other problems
raised large questions of scientific investigation and
legislation. The reaction from the carelessness revealed by the
investigation of the meat-packers stimulated a pure-
food movement that had had its advocates for many
years. With the concentration of food manufacture
and the increase in the consumption of " package pro
ducts," the consumer had given up the preparation of
his own food and thrown himself upon the dealer.
The numerous domestio industries typical of the
American family in 1880 had been sorted out. The
sewing had gone to the sweat shop and the faotory,
the baking had gone to the publio baker, the laundry
was going, the killing and preservation of meat and
the preparation of canned vegetables and fruits were

314 THE NEW NATION
nearly gone. Population followed the industries to
work in the factories. Country life lost much of its
variety and interest, while the congested masses in the
cities were made dependent for their health and
strength upon private initiative. Rigorous bills for the
inspection of meats at the slaughter houses, and for the
proper labeling of manufactured foods and medicines,
were carried through Congress in 1906 on the strength
of the popular revulsion against the manufacturers.
Hereafter the Department of Agriculture stood be
tween the people and their food. James Wilson, of
Iowa, had been Secretary since 1897 and remained
in the office until 1913. He and his subordinates,
notably Dr. Harvey Wiley, in charge of the pure-
food work, administered the law amid the proddings
of consumers and the protests of manufacturers. With
much complaint, but with little difficulty because of
the consolidation of control, business adjusted itself
to the new requirements and labels in the next few
years. The anti-railroad movement reminded the public
that the Interstate Commerce Law of 1887 was an
imperfect statute. It had always done less than its
framers had intended. Judicial interpretation had
limited its scope. The commission did not have power
to fix a rate or to compel in the railroads the uni
formity of bookkeeping without which no scientific
rates could be established. After Roosevelt had
directed his speeches of 1903 and 1904 to the sub
ject, Congress responded to the public interest thus
aroused with a flood of projected railroad bills. One
of these passed the House of Representatives in 1905,

THE "MUCK-RAKERS" 315
but was held up in the Senate while a new investi
gation of interstate commerce, the most exhaustive
since the Cullom investigation of 1885, was under
taken. In 1906 the Hepburn Railway Bill was passed.
In its chief provisions it gave the Interstate Com
merce Commission power to fix rates and to pre
scribe uniform bookkeeping, and it forbade railways
to issue free passes or to own the freight they car
ried. The long railroad debate was made notable by
the speeches of a new Senator, Robert M. LaFollette,
of Wisconsin, who had fought his way to the gover
norship on this issue and gone through a prolonged
fight with the railroads of his own State. He insisted
that public rate-making could not succeed without a
preliminary physical valuation of the roads that would
show the extent of their real capitalization. He talked,
often, to empty chairs in the Senate, but he prophesied
that the people had a new interest in their affairs,
and that many of the seats, vacant because of the
indifference of their owners, would soon be filled with
Senators of a new type. In vacations he spoke to
public audiences on the same subject, reading his
" roll-call," and telling the people how their repre
sentatives voted for or against commercial privilege.
With its enlarged powers the Interstate Commerce
Commission made rapid headway against rebates and
discrimination. The popular revival was well advanced by 1905,
but was becoming more sensational every month.
Led on by an expectant public, the magazines manu
factured exposures to supply the market, and hysteria
often took the place of investigation. The real needs

316 THE NEW NATION
of reform were in danger of being lost in a flood of
denunciation. In the spring of 1906 President Roose
velt spoke out to check the indiscriminate abuse. He
drew his topic from Bunyan's " Man with the Muck-
Rake," pointed out that blame and exposure had run
its course, and demanded that enforcement of the
law be taken up, and that efforts be turned from
destruction to construction. He had done much him
self to "arouse the slumbering conscience of the
nation," and turned now to direct it toward a perma
nent advantage.
The trend of criticism injured the party under
whose administration corporate abuse had grown up.
The personal popularity of Roosevelt, and his asso
ciates, Root, Taft, Knox, and Hughes, saved the
party from defeat. In 1906 the congressional cam
paign was fought on the basis of holding on to pros
perity, enforcing the law against all violators, and
strengthening the hands of government. Roosevelt
wrote the substance of the platform, and his party
gained control of its sixth consecutive Congress since
|1896. The canvass over, Roosevelt departed from
'an old precedent, left the territory of the United
States, and visited tho Isthmus of Panama to inspoct
the work on tho canal.
Six months after the signing of the Panama Treaty
in 1903 the United States took possession of the
Canal Zone and began to dig. It had to learn les
sons of both management and tropical engineering.
One by one its chief engineers deserted the enterprise.
The choice between a sea-level and a lock canal di
vided the experts. The legislation by Congress was

THE "MUCK-RAKERS" 317
inadequate. In the spring of 1906 Roosevelt, with
the approval of Taft, who had been recalled from the
Philippines to be Secretary of War, determined to
build a lock canal. The President tramped over the
workings in November, 1906, and sent an illustrated
message about them to Congress on his return. In
1907 Major George W. Goethals was detailed from
the army to be benevolent despot and engineer of the
Canal Zone. Inspired and encouraged by repeated
visits from Taft, the work now made rapid progress
toward completion. Sir Frederick Treves, the great
English surgeon, visited the canal in 1908, and found
there not only gigantic engineering works, but a
triumph for the preventive medicine of Colonel
William C. Gorgas, chief of the sanitary officers.
The attention of the world, directed toward the
United States since 1898, was held by the canal and
by a continuation of a vigorous and open diplomacy.
In February, 1904, Russia and Japan, unable to
agree upon the conduct of the former in Manchuria,
had gone to war. Hostilities had continued until
Russian prestige was shattered and Japanese finance
was wavering. In June, 1905, the United States
directed identical notes to the belligerents, offering
a friendly mediation. The invitation was accepted,
and during the summer of 1905 the envoys of Russia
and Japan met in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to
conclude a treaty of peace. In 1906 the Nobel Com
mittee awarded to Roosevelt the annual prize for
services to peace.
Relations with all the world were friendly between
1905 and 1909. Great Britain contributed to the

318 THE NEW NATION
cordiality by sending to the United States as her
ambassador the best-fitted of her subjects, James
Bryce. Under his tactful management the next five
years werea period of unprecedented friendship. The
South American republics, always sensitive about the
headship of tho United States, wero brought to kind
lier feelings. There had been two congresses of all
the Americas, one in 1889, at the instigation of
Blaine, the next in Mexico in 1901. In 1906 the
American republics convened at Rio de Janeiro in
July. Secretary of State Elihu Root made a plea
for friendship before this congress. From Rio he went
to other capitals of South America, achieving notable
triumphs in his public speeches.
The Pan-American Conference at Rio was an
American preliminary to a larger meeting in which
the United States played an important part in 1907.
During 1904 Roosevelt had agreed to start a move
ment for a second conference at The Hague. He took
up the negotiation during the Russo-Japanese War,
deferred it at the instance of the Czar, and then
stood aside to let the latter issue the formal invita
tion. The American delegation at the Second Hague
Conference was led by Joseph H. Choate, leader of
the American Bar and former ambassador to Great
Britain. It forced the discussion throughout the ses
sion, tried in vain to produce an agreement to abol
ish the right of capture of enemy property on tho
high seas in time of war, and helped to strengthen
the permanent court of arbitration. In January,
1906, the United States had sat in conference at
Algeciras, over the affairs of Morocco. It had medi-

THE "MUCK-RAKERS" 319
ated in the Oriental war. It had strengthened its
position at home. It was no longer true that the
United States was entirely disinterested in the affairs
of Europe, for it had become a world power.
A visible emblem of power was afforded to the
world in 1907. Since the Treaty of Portsmouth
there had been friction with Japan over the treat
ment of Japanese subjects on the Pacific Coast, and
alarmists had drawn pictures of a possible war. Late
in 1907 the President announced a practice voyage
for the whole effective navy that would carry it around
South America and into the Pacific. In December he
reviewed the fleet, and saw it off from Hampton Roads.
From the Pacific it was ordered round the world,
visited Japan and China, and was received with keen
interest everywhere. It came home early in 1909,
having made a record for holding together without
breakdown or accident.
While the fleet was going round the world and
business was adjusting itself to the new constructive
laws, an old problem was formally ended. The tribal
sovereignty, which had made the Indians a problem,
was terminated. The Dawes Act of 1887 had substi
tuted severalty for tribal landholdings among the
Indians. Out of the first cessions which followed the
act Oklahoma Territory had been made in 1890.
This had developed more rapidly than any previous
Territory because of the railroads that crossed it in
every direction. By 19.00 it demanded statehood.
In 1906 it was enabled, and during 1907 it was ad
mitted, with the longest and most radical of state
constitutions. Fear of the activities of corporate

320 THE NEW NATION
wealth and distrust of the agents of government
were written into nearly every article.
In the spring of 1908 nearly all of the forty-six
governors met with President Roosevelt in the White
House and registered another problem upon which
agitation and revelation had led to public reflection.
The coal strikes of 1900 and 1902 had drawn atten
tion to the possible relation of government to the coal
supply of the people. The beginnings of reclamation
in 1902 had revealed the fact that public reclama
tion was impeded by large private and corporate
water rights. The natural resources of the country
were seen to be following the course of all business
and settling into the control of great corporations.
The waste of coal and timber and water and land itself
was unreasonable. The denudation of the hills led to
terrible floods along the rivers. The future was being
idarkened by the organized selfishness of the present.
A movement for conservation grew out of the confer
ence of governors, but Congress for the present
would not encourage it.
In popular education, in initiation of new admin
istrative policies, and in the passage of constructive
laws efforts were being made to adjust government
to the needs of modern industry and to safeguard
society. The business interests affected by the changes
obstructed the process when they could, and were
intensified in their opposition by the series of prose
cutions brought by Attorney-General Knox, and his
successor Charles J. Bonaparte, under the Sherman
Law. At no time in the earlier history of this law
had there been a strong disposition to test its merit,

THE "MUCK-RAKERS" 821
and no one of the notorious trusts had been attacked
before the Northern Securities case. In later years
it was turned against the Standard Oil Company,
the beef-packers, the Tobacco Trust, the Sugar Trust,
and the United States Steel Corporation, while rail
ways and smaller corporations, in great number, were
prosecuted. The enforcement of the law aroused
blind opposition among many of the victims, and
stimulated queries as to whether or not any attempt
to limit the size of business was sound public policy.
The debate upon regulation, as against prohibition
of trusts and monopolies, ran on with no sign of
victory for either side of the argument. Personal
hostility against the Administration for applying
the law gave color to the last two years of Roosevelt's
Administration. By 1907 there had been ten years of the prosper
ity that had begun with the election of McKinley.
Finance had developed with industry and trade. The
needs of corporations dealing in millions and hun
dreds of millions of capital had induced the consoli
dation of banks and the concentration of financial
power in the hands of a small group of men. The hold
ing companies were great aids in the furtherance of
this concentration. J. Pierpont Morgan and John
D. Rockefeller were best known as representative
of the inner circle. Their speculations and invest
ments were embarrassed by the weakening of public;
confidence. It was certain there would come a time'
when the whole surplus capital of the United States!
would be invested in permanent improvements. Such}
periods had followed eras of boom in 1837, 1857, and

322 THE NEW NATION
1873. It was too probable that some accident occur
ring in the period of liquidation would create a panic.
Suspicion had been directed against the controlling
agents of business by the revelations of 1902-07. It
was exaggerated by sensational journalism. It reached
a climax in the fall of 1907 when a group of banks,
reputed strong, failed through dishonesty and specu
lative management. The failure of the Mercantile
National Bank and the suspension of the Knicker
bocker Trust Company in New York brought the
crisis on October 22, 1907. The loss to the publio
was lessened by resolute and sympathetic coopera
tion among the clearing-houses, Morgan, Rockefeller,
and the United States Treasury, but a period of
enforced economy was begun for all.
The managers of big business attributed the panic
to "Theodore the Meddler." They claimed that busi
ness was sound and honest, and the upheaval was
caused by the agitation of demagogues. The Presi
dent, they asserted, had destroyed confidence by his
attack on the commercial class. Federal prosecutions,
new laws, and the enforcement of inquisitorial pure-
food regulations had made it impossible for business
to live. "Let us alone," they cried.
They convinced only themselves, a small minority
of the people of the United States. Since 1902 the
people as a body, regardless of the great parties, had
opened their eyes to the trend of business and had
decided that public authority must be summoned to
the defense of democracy. The independent vote
broke away from each party in increasingly numerous
cases. The old American view that democracy meant

THE "MUCK-RAKERS" 323
unrestrained individualism had given way to the
newer view that democratic opportunity was depen
dent upon the restriction of monopoly. The osten
sible leaders, from the President down,. were only
the mouths that spoke the new language. Without
them the same condition would have existed in larsre
degree. The attack of the financial interests and
Wall Street upon the President only convinced the
people that the Roosevelt policies were, on the whole,
their policies, and that individual interest and party
machinery must give way to their attainment.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The periodicals and special articlos alluded to in this chap*
tor constitute tho best sources as yet available for the period.
Thoro were numerous investigations by committees of Congress
that furnished facts in their reports. Certain of the depart
ments of government, notably the Bureau of Corporations and
the Department of Agriculture, were active in the publication
of facts. Thoughtful surveys of society in the United States
may be found in E. A.Ross, Changing America (1912); H.
Croly, The Promise of American Life (1909); A. B. Hart,
National Ideals Historically Traced (in The American Nation,
vol. 26, 1907). The autobiography of R. M. LaFollette is of
considerable value. A great number of books upon America
by foreign visitors bring out special viewpoints. Among these
are F. Klein, In the Land of the Strenuous Life (1905) ; A.
Bennett, Your United States (1912) ; W. Aroher, America To-
Day (1899); Anon., Asa Chinaman Saw Us (1904); and James
Bryce has revised and brought down to date his American Com
monwealth,

CHAPTER XX
NEW NATIONALISM
The process of adjusting national administration
and laws, to meet the needs of life and business that
knew no state lines, had been begun during the
Roosevelt period. For its completion it was neces
sary that a successor be found, convinced of the
Roosevelt policies and able to carry them out. Three
Republicans of this type were Often mentioned for
the Presidency in 1908. Elihu Root had been the
legal mainstay of three administrations, and had re
ceived the public commendation of Roosevelt often
and without restraint. His availability for the elective
office was, however, weakened by his prominence as
a corporation lawyer, which would be urged against
him in a campaign. William H. Taft, Secretary of
War, had a wider popularity than Root ; had, as fed
eral judge, long been identified with the enforcement
of law, and had been used repeatedly as the spokes
man of the President. He knew the colonies as no
other American knew them, and was in touch with
every detail of the Panama Canal. Neither he nor
Root had won a leadership in competitive politics as
had the third candidate, Charles E. Hughes, who, as
Governor of New York, had shown his capacity to
fight professional politicians on their own ground.
In 1907, President Roosevelt announced his pref
erence for Judge Taft, and fought off, as he had

NEW NATIONALISM 325
often done, suggestions that he accept another
term himself. He controlled the Republican conven
tion at Chicago, where his candidate was nominated
on the first ballot. A Republican Representative
from New York, James S. Sherman, was nominated
for the Vice-Presidency, and the party leaders were
driven to a platform of enthusiastic indorsement of
the Roosevelt policies.
The Democratic party, meeting at Denver in 1908,
was again under ithe control of the radical element,
and nominated William J. Bryan for the third time.
The career of Roosevelt had modified the emphasis
of the Bryan reforms. " Any Republican who, after
following Roosevelt, should object to Bryan as a
radical, would simply be laughed at consumedly,"
said one of the weeklies. In the ensuing campaign
both candidates professed ends that were nearly
identical, and their advocates were forced to explain
whether the Roosevelt policies would have a better
chance under Bryan or Taft. There was no clear issue,
and in each party there was a powerful minority that
wanted neither of the candidates. The election of
Taft had been discounted throughout the campaign,
but it was accompanied by a demonstration of inde
pendent voting that revealed the weakness of party
ties. Four Democratic governors were elected in
States that were carried by the Republican national
ticket. The Administration of President Taft was greeted
with cordial good will by the progressive elements in
both parties. His courage and sincerity had never
been questioned. Roosevelt was unlimited in his

326 THE NEW NATION
praiflO. Illn judicial training made impossible for
him typos of political activity that had made one-
mios for hid prodocosNor among many conservatives,
yet his devotion to policies of administrative reform
was beyond dispute. He immediately fulfilled one
pledge of the Republican platform by summoning
Congress to meet on March 15, 1909, to revise the
tariff, and on this subject he had for several years
avowed a desire that revision should bo downward,
to remove all trace of special tariff privilege.
Tho movement for tariff reform had begun in tho
Middle West about 1902, and had spread with tho
feeling against the trusts. Roosevelt had indicated a
sympathy with it in 1902 and 1903, and had fought
Congress for tariff modification in the interest of
Cuban reciprocity. But most of the party leaders
had opposed tampering with the protective system.
Speaker Cannon was an avowed protectionist and de
fended the attitude of the stand-pat tariff advocates.
After 1904 the President had ceased to discuss the
tariff, confining himself to other schemes for reform.
He left the problem of revision to his successor.
The tariff of 1909 bore the names of Sereno E.
Payne, of New York, chairman of the House Com
mittee of Ways and Means, and Nelson W. Aldrich,
chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance. As
it passed the House it embodied numerous reduc
tions from the Dingley rates. In the Senate it
was reframed and became an instrument of even
greater protection than tho existing law. It was de
bated in a stronger glare of publio interest than
any other tariff, and its details were explained and

NEW NATIONALISM 327
fought by a group of Republicans who refused to
accept the control of the inner circle of the party,
and who were determined that the revision should
be downward and sincere. They did less to affect the ,
bill, however, than President Taft, who forced the j
conference committee to accept a few reductions in i
the rates, notably on hides and lumber, and to include /
a provision for levying an income tax on corpora
tions. A constitutional amendment, authorizing a
general income tax, was a part of the agreement. The
bill became a law in August, 1909. " The bill, in its,<
final form," said the Outlook, which inclined toward]
free trade, "is by far the most enlightened protecv
tionist measure ever enacted in the history of thfe
country." " I think that the present tariff," wrote
Roosevelt, who had returned to private life, "is bet
ter than the last, and considerably better than the
one before the last."
Whatever its relation to earlier tariffs the Payne-'
Aldrich Act was distasteful to the country, which
had since 1897 become critical of the methods o :
tariff legislation. Seven Republican Senators ant
twenty Representatives voted against it on its final
passage. These represented the Middle West and
the new generation, and returned home to find their
constituents generally with them in denouncing the
measure as an instrument of privilege. Some of them
had broken with President Taft during the debate,
and the breach was deepened when the latter spoke
in the West, at Winona, Minnesota, and defended
the act as a compliance with the party pledge. It
became apparent that the new President was unable

328 THE NEW NATION
to procure party legislation and to maintain at the
same time an appearance of harmony in the party.
Roosevelt had dissatisfied but had overriden the con
servative wing ; Taft failed to satisfy the most pro
gressive wing and failed to silence them.
In the autumn of 1909 began a scHes of admin
istrative misunderstandings that greatly embarrassed
the Taft Administration. A prospective minister to
China was dismissed abruptly before he left the
United States, on account of a supposed indiscre
tion. In the Department of Agriculture there was
dissension between the Secretary, James Wilson, and
the chemist engaged in the enforcement of the Pure
Food Law, Harvey W. Wiley. The chief of the for
estry service, Gilford Pinchot, quarreled openly with
the Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger,
and raised the question of the future of the policy
of conservation.
The work of the forestry and reclamation services
was at the center of the scheme for conservation of
natural resources that had grown out of Roosevelt's
conference with the governors in 1908. A subordi
nate of the f orestry service attacked the Secretary of
the Interior in 1909, charging favoritism and lack
of interest in conservation. He was dismissed in
September, upon order of President Taft, whereupon
Collier's Weekly undertook an attack upon the
President as an enemy of conservation, receiving the
moral support of many of the progressives who dis
liked the tariff act. In January, 1910, the growing
controversy led the President to dismiss Pinchot
from the service, for insubordination, and Congress

NEW NATIONALISM 329
to erect a joint committee to investigate the Pinchot-
Ballinger dispute.
The Ballinger committee ultimately vindicated
the Secretary of the Interior, but the testimony
taken brought out a fundamental difference between
the theory of Taft, that the President could act only
in accordance with the law, and that of Roosevelt,
that he could do whatever was not forbidden by law.
Although Taft stood by his subordinate, claiming
that he and Ballinger were both active in conserva
tion, a large section of the public believed that the
aggressive movement for reform had lost momentum.
What Roosevelt thought of it was impossible to
learn, since he had gone to Africa in 1909, and re
mained Outside the sphere of American politics un
til the summer of 1910.
The progressive Republicans revolted in 1909 and
1910 against the domination of the "stand-pat"
group, and received the name " Insurgents." Sen
ators LaFollette and Cummins, both of whom de
sired to be President, were the avowed leaders. In
the House of Representatives, in March, 1910, the
Insurgents cooperated with the Democratic minority,
defeated a ruling of Speaker Cannon, and modified
the House rules in order to curtail the autocracy of
the presiding officer. They asked the country to be
lieve that Taft had ceased to be progressive and had
become the ally of the stand-pat interests. The split
in the Republican party enabled the Democrats to
carry the country in 1910, and to obtain a large
majority in the House of Representatives. Champ
Clark, of Missouri, and Oscar Underwood, of Ala-

330 THE NEW NATION
bama, both aspirants for the Democratic presiden
tial nomination, became, respectively, Speaker and
chairman of the Committee on Wrays and Means in the
new House. No one man controlled or led either party
by his personality as Theodore Roosevelt had done;
the rivalry of lesser leaders destroyed the harmony
of both parties, and neither party even approached
unanimity in regard to the great policies of the fu
ture. In January, 1911, the Insurgent Republi
cans organized a Progressive Republican League
for the purpose of capturing the nomination in
1912 for one of their number, presumably Senator
LaFollette. The Taft policies differed from those of his pre
decessor chiefly in the method of their advocacy.
Like Roosevelt, Taft had trouble in getting them
1 enacted, and unlike Roosevelt, he failed to magnet-
ize the people and carry them with him. He pro
cured, however, funds for the creation of a board of
tariff experts to aid in future revisions of schedules,
and for a commerce court, to handle appeals in in
terstate commerce cases. The income tax amendment
secured his support. He used his influence to pre
vent the seating of William Lorimer, a Senator
elected from Illinois under conditions of grave scan
dal. The Interstate Commerce Law was revised and
strengthened in 1910. An enabling act for Arizona
and New Mexico was passed in 1910, under which
both of these Territories became States in 1912. He
continued the series of anti-trust suits begun under
Roosevelt, and procured decisions ordering the dis
solution of the Southern Pacific merger, the Stand-

NEW NATIONALISM 331
ard Oil Company, and tho Tobaoco Trust, and tho
penalizing of many others.
In the field of administration President Taft
showed an instinct for ordorly and economical gov
ernment. He urged upon Congress the adoption of
a budget system for expenditures, and employed a
body of experts to aid in reducing tho cost and inef
ficiency of tho executive departments. He extended
the civil service until in 1912 only 56,000 of the
334,000 federal employees were still outside the
classified service.
The foreign negotiations of the Taft Administra
tion were most distinguished in respect to Latin-
American trade, to arbitration, to neutrality, and to
reciprocity. With the Latin-Americas he continued
the policy of friendly support, through Philander
C. Knox, his Secretary of State. The critics of this
policy stigmatized it as "dollar diplomacy," but
Taft and Knox defended it as leading these repub
lics through sound finance to stable government. A
protracted revolution in Mexico led to the expulsion
of President Porfirio Diaz in 1911, and was followed
by counter-revolutions in 1912. Throughout the dis
turbance Taft maintained a rigid neutrality, and in
duced Congress to permit him to prohibit the export
of arms for sale to the belligerents. This constituted
an advance upon the oustomary practice of neutrals,
who are permitted under international law to sell
munitions of war to either belligerent.
In 1908, Roosevelt had signed general arbitra
tion treaties with Great Britain and other countries,
containing the usual reservations of cases involving

332 THE NEW NATION
honor or national existence. In 1911, Taft signed
yet broader treaties with Great Britain and France,
providing for the arbitration of all justiciable dis
putes, and for a Commission to determine whether
disputed cases were justiciable or not. The Senate
declined to ratify these agreements.
Canadian reciprocity was a part of Taft's tariff
program. In 1911, he called Congress in special
session to approve an agreement for a modification
of the Payne- Aldrich rates with Canada. The Demo
cratic majority in the House of Representatives sup
ported this measure, as did enough of the regular
Republicans to insure its passage. But the Insur
gents opposed it as likely to injure the interests of
the farmer. In September, 1911, Canada rejected
the whole measure after a general election in which
a fear of annexation by the United States was an
important motive.
The Taft policies failed to thrill the party or the
people. They were less spectacular than the evils
which the muck-rakers had portrayed. They were
constructive and detailed, and aroused as opponents
many who had joined in the general clamor for re
form. They interested the party leaders little, for
these were more concerned with their own personal
fates, and were not overshadowed by the President
as they had been for eight preceding years. They
were all conceived in the spirit of a lawyer and judge,
and were passed in an alliance with the wing of the
Republican party that was most impervious to the
new reforms, and were hence open to the attack that
they were in spirit and intent reactionary.

NEW NATIONALISM 333
In June, 1910, with the Republican schism well
advanced, Theodore Roosevelt returned to the United
States. A few weeks later he made a speaking trip
in the West, and at Osawatomie, Kansas, he laid
down a platform of reform that he called "New
Nationalism." This was in substance an evolution
from the history of forty years. It assumed the fact
of the development of business and society along
national lines, and demanded that the Government
meet the new problems. It believed that constitu
tional power already existed for most of the needed
functions of government, and demanded that where
the power was lacking it should be obtained by con
stitutional amendment. The platform was received
with equally violent commendation and attack.
Many Progressives hailed it as an exposition of
their faith. Conservatives were prone to call it so
cialistic or revolutionary. It restored Roosevelt to a
position of consequence in public affairs, and empha
sized the fact that Taft had developed no power of
popular leadership comparable to that of his friend
and predecessor. It gave the Progressives hope that
Roosevelt, debarred from the Presidency by his
pledge and by the unwritten third-term tradition,
would aid them in forcing the Republican party to
nominate a Progressive in 1912.
The concrete principles of the Progressive group
embraced a series of policies looking toward the
destruction of ring-controlled politics. They de-.
manded and generally concurred in the initiative
and referendum, the direct primary, and the direct:
election of delegates to national conventions, and

334 THE NEW NATION
the direct election of United States Senators. Many
of them believed in a new doctrine, the recall, which
was to be applied to administrative officials, to
judges, and even to judicial decisions. Woman suf
frage was commonly acceptable to them.
The cause of woman suffrage had made great
progress since Idaho became, in 1896, the fourth
suffrage State. A modified form of suffrage in local
or school elections had been allowed in many States.
A new period of agitation for unrestricted woman
suffrage had begun in England about 1906, and had
been given advertisement by the deliberate viola
tions of law and order by the militant suffragettes.
The agitation, though not the excess, had spread to
the United States. In 1910, Washington, and in
1911, California, had become woman suffrage States.
By 1914, the total was raised to twelve by the addi
tion of Arizona, Kansas, Oregon, Illinois,1 Nevada,
and Montana.
In the winter of 1911-12, the prospect of Repub
lican success in the next national campaign was
slight. The Democrats had gained the House in
1910, and they, with the aid of Progressive Repub
lican votes, had passed and sent up to the President
several tariff bills, reducing the rates, schedule by
schedule. Every one of these had been vetoed, each
veto tending to convince the Progressives that Taft
wa"s conservative, if not stand-pat in his sentiments.
The Progressive Republicans were pledged to work
against the renomination of Taft, and were unlikely
1 In Illinois tho right was somewhat restricted, yet included
tho voting for presidential electors and for local officials.

NEW NATIONALISM 335
to support him vigorously, if renominated. Many
regular Republicans believed he could not be re
elected. The section of the party that desired a Pro
gressive President became larger than the group that
believed in LaFollette, and demands that Roosevelt
return were heard from many sources.
In February, 1912, an appeal signed by seven
Republican governors, all of whom dwelt in States
now likely to go Democratic, urged Roosevelt to
withdraw his pledge and become a candidate for the
nomination. The demand was concurred in by ad
mirers who believed that only he could bring about
the new nationalism, by Progressives who distrusted
LaFollette's capacity to win, and by Republicans
who wanted to win at any price and saw only defeat
through Taft. On February 24, Roosevelt an
nounced his willingness to accept the nomination,
explained that his previous refusal to accept another
term had meant another consecutive term, and en
tered upon a canvass for delegates to the Republic-
can National Convention.
The campaign before the primaries was made dif
ficult because in most States the Republican ma
chinery was in the hands of politicians who disliked
Roosevelt, whether they cared for Taft or not. It
began too late for the voters to overturn the state ,
and national committees, or to register through the
existing party machinery their new desire. It brought
out the defects in methods of nomination which di
rect primaries were expected to remedy, and in some
States public opinion was strong enough to compel
a hasty passage of primary laws to permit the over-

336 THE NEW NATION
turn of the convention system. The LaFollette can
didacy was deprived of most of its supporters, through
the superior popularity of Roosevelt.
When the convention met at Chicago on June
18, 1912, there were some 411 Roosevelt delegates
among the 1078, and more than 250 more who,
though instructed for Taft, were contested by Roose
velt delegations. When the national Committee over
ruled the claims of these, Roosevelt denounced their
action as " naked theft." He had definitely allied
himself with the wing of the party that opposed Taft.
When the convention, presided over by Elihu Root,
and supported by nearly all the men whom Roosevelt
had brought into public prominence, finally renomi
nated Taft and Sherman, Roosevelt asserted that no
honest man could vote for a ticket based upon dis
honor. The Roosevelt Republicans did not bolt the
convention, but when it adjourned they held a mass
convention of their own, wore addressed by their
candidate, and went home to organize a new Pro
gressive party.
The Democratic counsels were affected by the
break-up of the Republican party and the success
of its conservative wing at Chicago. They met at
Baltimore the next week, with Bryan present and
active, but not himself a candidate. They had to
choose among Clark, the Speaker, Underwood, the
chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means,
and Governors Harmon, of Ohio, Marshall, of In
diana, and Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey.
The last of these had risen into national politics
since 1910. He had long been known as a brilliant

NEW NATIONALISM 337
essayist and historian. He was of Virginian birth,
and had left the presidency of Princeton University
to become Democratic candidate for Governor of
New Jersey in 1910. He had shown as governor
great capacity to lead his party in the direction of
the progressive reforms. He differed in these less
from Roosevelt and LaFollette than he or they did
from the reactionaries in their own parties. "The
President is at liberty, both in law and conscience,"
he had written long ago, " to be as big a man as he
can. His capacity will set the limit. . . . He has no
means of compelling Congress except through pub
lic opinion." Unembarrassed by previous attachment
to any faction of the Democratic party, with a clear
record against special privilege and corporation in
fluence in politics, and supported obstinately by
Bryan and the young men who had urged his candi-;
dacy, Woodrow Wilson was nominated on the forty-
sixth ballot, with Governor Thomas Marshall for
Vice-President. The conservative nomination by the
Republicans had thrown the Democrats into the
hands of their radical wing.
The Progressives held a convention in Chicago on
August 5, and nominated Theodore Roosevelt and
Governor Hiram Johnson, of California. Their plat
form included every important reform seriously
urged, and was built around the idea of social jus
tice and human rights. They denied that either of
the old parties was fitted to carry on the work of
progress. In the campaign their candidates and
speakers revealed the vigor and the bitterness of the
former Insurgents.

338 THE NEW NATION
The schism threw the election into the hands of
the Democrats, who retained the House, gained the
Senate, and elected Wilson, though the latter re
ceived fewer votes than Bryan had received in each
of his three attempts. The struggle was one of per
sonalities, since few openly attacked the avowed aim
of progressive legislation. The popularity of Roose
velt detached many Democratic votes from Wilson,
but his unpopularity among Republicans who feared
him and Progressive Republicans who resented his
return to politics, drove to Wilson votes that would
otherwise have gone to Taft. Taft received only eight
electoral votes in November, and ran far behind both
his rivals in the popular count. More than four mil
lion votes were polled by the new third party in an
independent movement that was without precedent.
The Socialist vote for Debs rose from 420,000 in
1908 to 895,000 in 1912.
The last year of the administration of President
Taft was overshadowed by the party war, and re
duced in effectiveness by the Democratic control of
the House. The prosecutions of the trusts were con
tinued, a parcel post was established as a postal
savings bank had been, the income tax amendment
became part of the Constitution, and an amendment
for the direct election of Senators made progress.
When Woodrow Wilson succeeded to the Presi
dency he formed a cabinet headed by William J.
Bryan as Secretary of State, and including only
Democrats of progressive antecedents. He called
Congress ih April, 1913, to revise the tariff once
more, and overturned a precedent of a century by

NEW NATIONALISM 339
delivering to it his message in person. With almost
no breathing space for eighteen months, he kept
Congress at its task of fulfilling his party's pledges
as he interpreted them.
Tariff, currency, and trust control were the main
topics upon which the Democrats had avowed posi
tive convictions, and upon which the great mass of
progressive citizens, regardless of party affiliation,
demanded legislation. One by one these were taken
up, the President revealing powers of coercive lead
ership hitherto unseen in his office. Only the fact
that non-partisan opinion was generally with him
made possible the mass of constructive legislation
that was placed upon the books. The tariff, which
became a law on October 3, 1913, was a revision
whose downward tendency was beyond dispute. The
Federal Reserve Act, revising the banking laws in
the interest of flexibility and decentralization, was
signed on December 23 of the same year. In Janu
ary, 1914, President Wilson laid before Congress
his plan of trust control, advocating a commission
with powers ovor trade coordinate with those of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, and an elabora
tion of the anti-trust laws to deal with unfair prac
tices and interlocking directorates. The Federal
Trade Commission and Clayton Anti-Trust bills ful
filled these recommendations in the autumn of 1914.
The Panama Canal Act of 1912 had meanwhile
been revised so as to eliminate a preference in rates
to American vessels which the President believed to
be in violation of the guaranty of equal treatment
pledged in the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. With a more

340 THE NEW NATION
portentous list of constructive laws than had been
passed by any Congress since 1890, the Democratic
majority allowed an adjournment on October 24,
1914, and its members went home to sound their
constituents upon the state of the Union.
The passage of economic laws had called for tact
and force upon the part of the President, whose
party, like the Republican party, was without a clear
vision of its policy and included many reactionaries.
Added embarrassments were found in the continu
ance of civil strife in Mexico. Here, shortly before
the inauguration of President Wilson, there had
been another revolution, followed by the elevation
by the army of General Victoriano Huerta to the
Presidency. The followers of the deposed Madero
went into revolt at once, and the new Government
was refused recognition by the United States on the
ground that it was not a Government de facto, and
that its title was smirched with blood. Patiently and
stubbornly the United States held to its refusal to
recognize the results of conspiracy in Mexico. In
April, 1914, Vera Cruz was occupied by American
forces in retaliation for acts of insult on the part of
the Huerta regime, and in July the steady pressure
of "watchful waiting" brought about the resigna
tion of the dictator. The Constitutionalists, succeed
ing him, quarreled shortly among themselves, but
the danger from Mexico appeared to be lessening as
the year advanced.
From Europe came other embarrassments in Au
gust. Here, the policy of national armament which
had been adopted in the middle of the nineteenth

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NEW NATIONALISM 341
century, reached its logical outcome in a great war
which was precipitated by Austria in an attack upon
Servia. Russia immediately came to the aid of her
Slavonic kinsmen, and upon her Germany declared
war on August 1. In a few more days Great Britain
and France had joined Russia against the German-
Austrian alliance, and most of Europe was at war.
To bring home the thousands of American tourists
whom the war had reduced to suffering was the first
work of the administration. The American ministers
in Europe became the custodians of the affairs of
the belligerents in every enemy country, and with
the aid of all the belligerent nations Americans were
carried home. After this came the problems of neu
trality and American business. Suffering, due to the
stoppage of the export trade, particularly that of
cotton, brought wide depression throughout the
United States. A new law for the transfer of for
eign-built vessels to American registry, and another
for federal insurance against war risks, were hur
riedly passed, and the question of a public-owned
line of merchant ships was discussed. All these
problems were distracting the attention of the United
States when Congress brought to an end its pro
longed labors, and adjourned.
The congressional election of 1914 was profoundly
affected by the European war. Early in the year it
appeared that conservative opposition to the Demo
cratic program was growing, and that the Democratic
majority was likely to be cut down. The Progressive
party appeared to be weakening, and the control of
the Republican party was settling back among those

342 THE NEW NATION
Republicans against whom the Insurgents had made
their protest. But President Wilson's precise neu
trality won the confidence of all parties, and al
though conservatives like Cannon, of Illinois, and
Penrose, of Pennsylvania, won over Democrats and
Progressives alike in a few cases, he retained for the
Sixty-fourth Congress a working majority in the
House and an enlarged majority in the Senate. His
election in 1912 had been, in part, due to the dis
persion of Republican strength caused by the Pro
gressive schism ; in 1914, the influence of the Pro
gressives was negligible and the Democrats retained
their power in the face of the whole Republican at
tack. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Between 1909 and 1914, the Outlook, to which Theodore
Roosevelt had been an occasional contributor, and which had
been a strong supporter of Republican policies since 1898, was
tlie regular organ through which Mr. Roosevelt addressed the
public, over his signature as Contributing Editor. In a similar
way William J. Bryan reached his followers through the Com
moner (1900-), and Robert M. LaFollette through his LaFol-
lette's Weekly (1909-). Collier's Weekly became a center of the
adverse criticism of President Taft. All of these, as well as
the more general periodicals, are indispensable sources for the
period, but are so highly partisan as to need constant correc
tion for prejudice. The election of 1908 is treated in Stan-
wood's History of the Presidency from 1897 to 1909, while that
of 1912 is excellently described in tho New International Year
Book for 1912. The theories of tho now nationalism arc iu
T. Roosevelt, The New Nationalism (1910).

INDEX

Adams, Charles Francis, 55, 56.
Agricultural colleges, beginning
of, 17.
Agriculture, changes in, 14, 15;
in the South after the War,
39, 40; Department of, cre
ated, 142, 157; main reliance
of Western pioneers, 149, 151;
discontent in North and West,
178, 179, 184; depression of, in
South, 195; diversified by de
cline of cotton values, 204, 205.
Aguinaldo, Emilio, 207, 278.
Alabama Claims, the, 55, 56.
Alaska, gold mines in, 241; set
tlement of boundary, 284, 285-
Aldrich, Nelson W., 118, 326.
Algeciras, United States in con
ference at, 318.
Alger, Russell A., 253, 274.
Allison, William B., 89, 255.
Altgeld, Gov. John P., 222, 279.
Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice,
285, 286.
Amendment, the Thirteenth,
33, 42, 48.
Amendment, the Fourteenth,
42, 43, 48, 196, 197.
Amendment, the Fifteenth, 46,
47, 48, 190, 198.
American diplomacy, 286.
American Federation of Labor,
121, 183, 208.
American Railroad Union, 222.
Ames, Adelbert, 47.
Angell, James B., 60.
Anti-Contract Labor Law, 185.
Anti-imperialism, 278, 270.
Anti-monopolists, 168, 169.
Anti-trust literature, 166.
Arbitration, 255, 256; treaties
refused by Senate, 331, 332.
Arizona, a Territory, 21, 152,
154; becomes a State, 830.

Army of the United States, at
outbreak of Spanish War, 266;
in poor condition during the
war, 269-72, 274; later ser
vice in Cuba, 282.
Arrears of Pension Act, 137.
Arthur, Chester A., removed
from office by Hayes, 87, 98,
103; Vice-President with Gar
field, 99; opposes Garfield,
103; as President, reorganizes
his Cabinet, 106, 109; his first
message, 109, 110; recom
mends civil service reform,
113, 114; approves revision of
the tariff, 114; vetoes River
and Harbor Bill, 117, 127;
hopes for renomination, 126;
reasons for failure of his candi
dacy, 126, 127; and the Pana
ma Canal, 144.
Australian ballot, 248.
Ballinger, Richard A., 328, 329.
Ballot reform, 248, 249.
Bayard, Thomas F., 134.
Belknap, William W., 62.
Bellamy, Edward, 167, 168, 188.
Benton, Thomas II., 21.
Bimetallism, 226; plea for in
ternational, 227, 234.
Black Belt, the, 202, 203.
Blaine, James G., improper
official conduct of, 62, 81; the
Mulligan letters, 82; and the
proposal to extend pardon to
Jefferson Davis, 83; candi
date for Presidential nomina
tion (1880), 98; his personal
following large, 102; Secre
tary of State under Garfield,
102, 103, 106; plans for Pan-
American Congress, 106; his
large following among Irish,

11

INDEX

124, 133; nominated for Presi
dent (1884), 127. 128; and the
Mugwumps, 130; caricatures
of, 132; defeated, 133; replies
to Cleveland's message on
tariff reduction (1887), 169;
refuses to be Presidential can
didate again, 169; Secretary
of State under Harrison, 171,
172; urges reciprocity, 175;
exchanges views with Glad
stone on protective tariff, 189;
in the seal fisheries contro
versy, 212; resigns Secretary
ship, 213; death, 214.
Blair, Francis P., Jr., 31.
Bland, Richard P., 88, 89, 173,
217.
Bland- Allison Bill, 181, 217, 218.
"Bloody shirt," the, 83. 100,
201.
Bonaparte, Charles J., 320.
"Boss," the, 245. 246; power of,
247, 248.
Boxer outbreak in China, 281.
Brady, Thomas J., 104, 105.
Bristow, Benjamin, 81.
Brown, B. Gratz, 56.
Bryan, William Jennings, nom
inated for President, 237;
wages vigorous campaign,238;
defeated, 240; colonel in
Spanish War, 266; renomi
nated for President, 279; de
nounces imperialism, 279;
again defeated, 280; a lay
preacher on political subjects,
305; nominated for Presi
dency third time, 325; made
Secretary of State by Wilson,
338.
Bryce, James, his American
Commonwealth, 188, 189, 246;
influence of, 247; ambassador
from Great Britain, 318.
Buckner, Simon B., 238.
Burchard, Rev. Samuel D., 133.
Bureau of Corporations, valua
ble reports of, 311, 312.
Butler, Benjamin F., advocates

the Greenback movement, 30,
66; aims at Governorship of
Massachusetts, 61; his rela
tion to the "salary grab," 62;
Anti-Monopoly candidate for
Presidency, 131, 132.
Canadian reciprocity, 332.
Cannon, Joseph G., defeated
for Congress, 185; Speaker of
the House, 304, 305; a stand-
pat protectionist, 827; ruling
as Speaker defeated, 329; re
turned to Congress, 342.
Carlisle, John G., 138, 139.
Carnegie, Andrew, 297.
"Carpet-baggers," 43, 45, 49,
194.
Centennial Exposition, at Phil
adelphia, 73.
Cervera, Admiral, 267, 268, 271,
272.
Chase, Salmon P., wishes to be
President, 3, 4, 31, 56; urges
creation of bonded debt to
provide for war expenses, 5;
inaugurates a system of na
tional banks, 27.
Chile, threatened war with, 212,
213.
Chinese, coolies imported into
California, 25; and Irish, 94;
harried, 122.
Chinese Exclusion Bill, 122, 127.
Choate, Joseph H., 318.
Christian Science, rise of, 190.
Churchill, Winston, writes Con-
iston, 310, 311.
Cities, growth of, 14; in the
New South, 205; government
of, 246.
Civil Rights Bill, 196, 197.
Civil Service Act, 113, 117.
Civil Service reform, 86, 110;
growth of, 112, 113, 114;
further extended by Cleve
land, 134, 235; and by Taft,
331.
Civil War, the, influence of its
military successes, 1; benefits

INDEX

in

of the four years of, 18; new
type brought into politics by,
78; veterans of, 130.
Clark, Champ, 329, 330, 336.
Clayton Anti-trust Bill, 839.
Clayton-Bulwcr treaty, 134,
144; inadequate, 280.
Cleveland, Grover, Mayor of
Buffalo and Governor of New
York, 130; favored by the In
dependents, 180, 131; nomi
nated for Presidency, 181; his
character attacked, 132; elect
ed and inaugurated, 133; his
Cabinet, 183; Lowell's tribute
to, 134; meets new problems,
185; vetoes pension bills, 137;
troubled by divided adminis
tration, 138, 139, 140; signs
"omnibus" bill for new
States, 152; his emphasis on
tariff reduction, 109; renomi
nated, 170; defeated by Harri
son, 171; again nominated for
Presidency, 214, 215; and
elected, 215; opposes free
silver and the silver basis, 210,
£20, 230; loses influence with
Western Democrats, 220; re
fuses to sign Wilson Bill, 221;
sends federal troops to Chi
cago, 221, 222; splits Demo
cratic party, 223; in Vene
zuela boundary dispute, 230,
231; abandoned by his party,
235; dies in Princeton, 236;
tries to maintain neutrality
in Cuban revolt, 261, 262.
Cobden Club, and British gold,
139.
Coin's Financial School, 229.
Colfax, Schuyler, Vice-President
with Grant, 37, 57, 61.
Colorado, Territory, 20; be
comes a State, 78, 74, 149.
Commissioner of Labor, 122.
Conkling, Roscoe, 81, 87; disci
plined by Hayes, 98; fights for
Grant, 90; resigns from Sen
ate, 108.

Conservation movement, 820,
828.
Consumers' League, the, 250.
Cooke, Jay, his connection with
panic of 1873, 62, 63, 64.
Cornell, Alonzo B., 08, 103.
Cortelyou, George B., 802, 306.
Cotton, the staple crop of the
Old South, 140; hundredth
anniversary of first export
celebrated, 208; overproduc
tion, 204.
Cowboys, develop a folk-song
literature, 150.
Coxcy, Jacob S., 222.
Credit Mobilier, scandal of, 01,
Cripple Creek, great miners'
strike at, 801.
Crisp, Charles F„ 180, 220.
Cuba, insurrections in, 258; re
volutionary government in
New York, 200; number of
Spanish troops in, 260; fili
bustering parties, 201; Con
gress favors recognition of
belligerency, 202; autonomy
proposed, 203; Congress rec
ognizes independence of, 264;
blockaded, 267, 268; freed
from Spain, 273; sanitary im
provement in, 282; adopts a
constitution, 282; makes reci
procity treaty with United
States, 283.
Cullom, Shelby M., 158, 221.
Cummins, Gov. Albert B., 803;
leader of Insurgent Republi
cans, 329.
Curtis, George William, leader
in civil-service reform, 112,
128; a Mugwump, 129.
Custer, Gen. George A., 86.
Czar of Russia, calls conference
on disarmament, 283.
Dakota Territory, 21 ; made into
two States, 152.
Darwin, Charles, his influence
on religious thought, 190.
Davenport, Homer C, 252.

IV

INDEX

Davis, Judge David, 100.
Davis, Henry G., 300.
Davis, Jefferson, 83, 100.
Dawes Act, the, awarding lands
to Indians in severalty, 142,
151, 819.
Day, William R., 253, 273.
Debs, Eugene V., 222; Social
Democratic candidate for
President, 301, 338.
De Lesseps, Ferdinand M., 144.
DeLome, Sefior, criticizes Mc
Kinley, 263, 264.
Democratic party, the, differ
ences in, during the Civil War,
2, 8; Chicago convention
(1864), 4, 5; nominates Sey
mour (1868), 31; gains control
of readmitted-Southern States,
52, 54; nominates Greeley
(1872), 57; weakened by its
past, 79; nominates Tilden
(1876), 80, 81; gets plurality
of popular vote, 83; gains con
trol of the House (1874), 87;
nominates Hancock (1880),
99; gains the Senate (1878),
108; loses the House (1880),
108; regains it (1882), 117;
elects Cleveland (1884), 130-
83; on tariff revision, 138,
220, 221; resists demands for
statehood, 152; casts plural
ity of votes in 1888, but loses
all branches of government,
171 ; regains the House (1890),
186; reelects Cleveland and
wins the Senate (1892), 215;
split by free silver and tariff
questions, 228, 229, 232; loses
both Senate and House (1894),
229; nominates Bryan on
free-silver platform (1896),
237; denounces imperialism
and renominates Bryan (1900),
279; nominates Parker on
conservative platform (1904),
305, 306; nominates Bryan for
third time (1908), 325; re
gains the House (1910), 329,

830; elects Wilson (1012),
337, 338.
Department of Agriculture, 142,
157.
Department of Commerce and
Labor, 122, 302.
Dependent Pension Act, 174.
Dewey, Commodore George,
205; destroys Spanish fleet at
Manila, 207.
Diaz, Porfirio, expelled from
Mexico, 331.
Dingley, Nelson, 253, 254.
Dingley Bill, the, 254, 255, 303,
304.
Dollar diplomacy, 831.
Donnelly, Ignatius, 209.
Dorsey, Senator Stephen W.,
in star route frauds, 104, 127.
Du Bois, W. E. B., 202.
Eads, James B., 206.
Eaton, Dorman B., 113.
Edmunds, George F., 99, 128.
Education Board, General, in
corporated by Congress, 201.
Educational Board, Southern,
organized, 201.
Egan, Patrick, Minister to Chile,
212, 213.
Eight-hour day, 135, 136.
Electoral Commission, the, 84.
Eliot, Charles W., 60.
Elkins, Stephen B., 127, 128.
English, William H., 99.
Equitable Life Insurance Com
pany, investigation of, 812.
Factories, American, growth of,
14, 15, 16; influenced by in
ventions, 95.
Fairbanks, Charles W., Vice-
President with Roosevelt, 805.
Farmers, condition of, in North
and South, contrasted, 178;
discontent keenest in West,
179; experimental, 180; de
mand cheaper money, 181;
desire cooperation, 182; be
lieve charges against both po-

INDEX

litical parties, 185; value of
vote of dissatisfied, 193.
Farmers' Alliance, the, in South
and West, 183, 184, 192, 193;
undermines Republicans in
West, 185; attempts union
with Knights of Labor, 180,
187; splits white vote in the
South, 192, 103, 100; used to
express Southern discontent,
195; holds national conven
tion at St. Louis, 208; merged
in People's Party, 209.
Farms, American, size of, 40, 41,
95; increase in number, 149,
150; decrease in size of South
ern, 194; number of, 194.
Farragut, Admiral David G., 5.
Fava, Baron, Italian Minister
at Washington, 213.
Federal Reserve Act, 339.
Federal Trade Commission, 839.
Field, James G , 211.
Fisk, James, Jr., 60.
Folger, Charles J., 127.
Folk, Joseph W., 311.
Force Bill, the, 200, 201.
Ford, Paul Leicester, The Hon
orable Peter Stirling, 132.
Ford, Worthington C, 254.
Forestry service, 328.
Free lands, disappearance of,
marks new period, 154, 155.
Free passes, on interstate rail
roads, forbidden by law, 813.
Free silver, demanded by Popu
lists, 209, 210; agitation for,
226, 228; textbook of, 229;
fight for, in Republican con
vention (1896), 234, 235; de
manded by Democratic con
vention, 236.
Freedmen's Bureau, 84, 201;
work of, 42, 43, 45.
Frelinghuysen, Frederick T.,
106, 109, 134.
Fremont, John C, candidate
for the Presidency, 8, 4; ar
rested in France, 60; charged
with land frauds, 60, 61.

"Frenzied finance," 310.
Frick, Henry C, 299.
"Full dinner pail, the," 280.
Gage, Lyman J., 253.
Garfield, James A., nominated
for Presidency (1880), 99;
forged letters against, 101,
104, 105, 122; sketch of, 101;
his Cabinet, 102; trouble with
Conkling, 103; death of, 105,
108; and the Panama Canal,
144.
Garland, Augustus H., 133.
George, Henry, 188.
Georgia, difficulties with Con
gress, 47, 48.
Gilman, Daniel Coit, 60.
Gladden, Washington, 810.
Gladstone, William E., 189.
Godkin, Edwin L., editor of the
Nation, 59, 67, 85; and civil
service reform, 112.
Goethals, Major George W.,
engineer of Canal Zone, 317.
Gold, at a premium, 27; hoarded,
218; great increase in pro
duction of, 241.
Gold dollar, ratio to silver, 9;
value in greenbacks, 10, 29.
Gorgas, Col. William C, chief
sanitary officer of Canal Zone,
317.
Gould, Jay, 60, 294.
Grand Army of the Republic,
used for procuring pensions,
136, 137.
Grandfather clause, the, 200.
Granger Laws, the, 68, 70, 157;
constitutionality of, 71, 72.
Granger movement, the, 67, 68,
183; relations with the panic
of 1873, 72; doctrine estab
lished by, 157.
Grant, Ulysses S., the coveted
candidate of- both parties, 36;
general' rejoicing .in his elec
tion, 87; inaugurated in 1869,
40; his first term ends un
satisfactorily, 65; success with

VI

INDEX

the Alabama claims, 55, 56;
renominated, 57; various un
savory episodes of his years
as President, 60, 02; vetoes
the Inflation Bill, 66; reelec
tion of (1872), 75; receives
scanty support for a third
term, 81, 98, 99; and civil
service reform, 112.
Greeley, Horace, nominated for
President by Liberal Repub
licans, 56; a quaint political
figure, 57; quoted, 89.
Greenback movement, the, ad
vocates of, 30, 65, 60; Eastern
opinion of, contrasted with
Western, 68; and silver infla
tion, 88, 180, 181.
Greenbacks, 9; value of, 10;
depreciation of, 27; with
drawal of, 28; further retire
ment of, forbidden by law,
SO; rising in value, 65; issued
during panic of 1873, 06.
Guam, ceded to Uuited States,
273.
Guitcau, William B., 105.
Hadley, Pres. Arthur T., 310.
Hague, the, court of arbitration
at, 283; Venezuelan claims
referred to, 284; second con
ference, 318.
Hancock, Gen. Winfield Scott,
80, 99, 100, 101.
Hanna, Marcus Alonzo, . raises
funds for Republicans, 102,
233, 238, 239; appointed Sen
ator, 252; helps settle coal
strike, 800, 302; grows in pop
ularity, 302, 303; death. 304.
Harmon, Gov. Judson, 830.
Harriman, Edward IL, 294, 295.
Harrison, Benjamin, nominated
for Presidency, 169; elected
as a minority President, 171,
211; friction with Chile, 212,
213; renominated, 214; de
feated, 215, 210.
Hawaiian Islands. 273, 274, 278.

Hay, John, on McKinley, 251;
Secretary of State, 273, 282;
career of, 281.
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, for
Isthmian canal, 286, 287.
Hayes, Rutherford B., receives
nomination for President, 82;
difficulties of his election, 83,
84; alienates many Republi
cans by his attitude toward
the South, 85; bis troubles
with Democratic congress, 87;
removes Chester A. Arthur
from office, 87, 98, 103; finan
cial policy of his administra
tion, 89, 90; a new period of
growth begun during his term
of office, 90, 92; end of his
term, 97, 102; and the Pan
ama Canal, 144; becomes
head of Slater fund, 201.
Hearst, William R., 305, 312.
Hendricks, 'Thomas A., candi
date for Vice-President, 80,
81, 131.
Hepburn Railway Bill, tho, 815.
Hill, Gov. David B., 214, 215,
248.
Hill, James J., 295, 290.
Hobart, Garrett P., Vice-Presi
dent with McKinley, 234;
dies in office, 280.
Homestead Act, the, 21, 155.
Hopkins, Johns, 60.
Howells, William Dean, 188.
Huerta, Victoriano, President
of Mexico, 840.
Hughes, Charles E., exposes
wrongdoing of insurance com
panies, 312; mentioned for
Presidency, 324.
Hull House, 251.
Humphreys, Benjamin G., 46.
Husbandry, Patrons of, 198.
Idaho, becomes a Territory, 21;
admitted to the Union, 152.
Immigration movement, ..the,
influences of, 123, 124.
Income tax, 221, 327, 338.

INDEX

vn

Indians, removal of, 22, 25; out
breaks of, 25, 86; Dawes Bill,
142, 151, 319.
Industrial Commission, 298.
Industrial consolidation, evolves
new type of trust, 297, 299.
Industrial revival, after 1897,
293, 294.
Industrial revolution, effects of,
95.
Inflation Bill, the, 66.
Ingersoll, Robert G., quoted, 92.
Initiative and referendum, 249,
250.
Interstate Commerce Act, the,
142, 158, 159; commission cre
ated, 159, 160; influence of
rebate system on, 165; had
little immediate effect, 180;
an imperfect statute, 314;
strengthened by Congress,
315, 330.
Irons, Martin, 135.
Irrigation, 142, 291.
Italians, lynched in New Or
leans, 213.
Jackson, Andrew, 8, 111.
James, Thomas L., 102, 103, 104.
Japan, at war with Russia, 317.
Johnson, Andrew, candidate for
the Vice-Presidency, 4; be
comes President upon death
of Lincoln, 82; opposition of
Congress to, 33, 34; impeached
by House, 35; acquitted, 80;
vetoes arbitrary acts of Con
gress, 48.
Johnson, Gov. Hiram, 337.
Johnson, Reverdy, 55.
Journalism, expansion of, 102;
reorganized in the later nine
ties, 311.
Kansas City, important as meet
ing place of railways, 150, 151.
Kearney, Dennis, 94, 124.
Keifer, J. Warren, 108.
Kelly, John, 131.
Kerr, Michael C, 108.

Kipling, Rudyard, The White
Mans Burden, 274.
Knickerbocker Trust Company,
suspension of, 322.
Knights of Labor, secret society
in the East, 94; meet with
disfavor, 121; demands of,
122; fight the Gould railways,
135; success of, 183; union
with Farmers' Alliance, 186,
187; in Pullman strike, 222.
Knox, Philander C, 296, 820,
331.
Ku-Kiux Klan, the, 52.
Labor, tariff supposed to pro
tect, 119; Commissioner of,
122; Bureau of, 135; danger
from European pauper, 139;
becomes better united, 299.
See also Knights of Labor,
Strikes.
La Follette, Robert M., de
feated for Congress, 185;
works out a system of prima
ries, 249; in the Senate debate
on railroads, 315; leader of
Insurgent Republicans, 329;
possible Presidential candi
date, 330, 335, 336.
Lamar, L. Q. C, 133.
Land grants, to railroads, 22,
24, 148, 156; discontinued,
143.
Land laws, difficulty in enforc
ing, 155, 156.
Lawson, Thomas W., 310.
Lawton, Gen. Henry W., 271.
Liberal Republicans, secede in
1872 and nominate Greeley
and Brown, 56; platform of,
56, 57; in Garfield's adminis
tration, 102; favor civil ser
vice reform and tariff revision,
112, 116, 126; put Edmunds
forward for Presidential can
didate (1884), 128.
Lincoln, Abraham, his view in
regard to the spoils system,
2; aims to develop a Union

Vlll

INDEX

sentiment, 2, 8; aided by ex
cesses of Democrats, 4, 5; his
use of offices, 111, 112.
Literature in United States, 187,
188; periodical, 189, 100; reli
gious, 100.
Lloyd, Henry D., 110, 106, 167.
Lodge, Henry Cabot, as an
independent, 128; supports
Blaine, 130; approves the
Force Bill, 200, 201.
Logan, John A., 128.
Lorimer, William, 330.
Lowell, James Russell, quoted,
54, 59; on Cleveland, 134.
McClellan, Gen. George B., 8, 5.
McClure, S. S., 311.
McCulloch, Hugh, 28, 29.
McEnery, Samuel D., 254.
McKinley, William, his Tariff
Bill. 172, 173, 174, 175; ac
cepts principle of reciprocity,
175; defeated for Congress,
185; Governor of Ohio, 214;
"advance agent of prosper
ity," 232, 241; a tactful Con
gressman, 233; nominated for
President (1890), 234; makes
no personal campaign, 239;
elected, 240; his election a
victory for sound money, 241 ;
calls special session of Con
gress for new tariff, 242; in
augurated as President, 251;
his theory of the office, 252;
action in the Cuban matter,
262, 264; reelected President,
280; murdered, 282.
McKinley Bill, the, 173, 174,
215, 210; sugar clause a nota
ble feature of, 175; opposition
to, 184.
MacVeagh, Wayne, 102.
Machinery, influence of, 15, 10,
95.
Mahone, William, 109.
Maine, the, blown up in Havana
harbor, 264.
Marshall, Thomas R., nomi

nated by Democrats for Vice-
Presidency, 837.
Merritt, Gen. Wesley, 267.
Mexico, revolutions in, 331, 840.
Miles, Gen. Nelson A., on tho
results of drought, 182; com
mander of army in Spanish
War, 269; invades Porto Rico,
272.
Mills, Roger Q., tariff leader,
139.
Mills Bill, the, 139, 140, 169, 170.
Mining camps, rapid develop
ment of, 20, 21, 22.
Mississippi, the process of re
construction in, 46, 47; dis
qualifies negroes, 198, 199.
Mississippi River Commission,
206.
Mitchell, John, 300.
"Molly Maguires," 94, 121.
Monroe Doctrine, in Venezuela
case, 230, 231, 284.
Montana, created a Territory,
21; becomes a State, 152.
Morgan, J. Pierpont, 295, 321.
Mormons, 20; make a prosper
ous Territory in Utah, 154.
Morton, Levi P., Vice-President
with Harrison, 169.
Morton, Oliver P., war Gover
nor of Indiana, 81.
Muck-raking, 315, 316.
Mugwumps, 129, 130.
Mulligan letters, the, 82.
Murchison letter, the, 170, 171.
Nast, Thomas, cartoonist, 50,
57, 86, 132.
National Labor Union, 208.
National Planters' Association,
203.
Navy, of the United States, at
outbreak of Spanish War,
205; sent round the world
without mishap, 319.
Negro, the, would not work at
close of war, 40; a social and
economic problem, 41, 42;
made a voter by Congress, 43,

INDEX

IX

45, 48; elimination of con
trol by, 51, 52, 54; a factor in
Republican national con
vention, 98, 99; becomes a
farm owner, 194; suppressed
outside the law, 196; bad
qualities of, 198; practically
disfranchised in South, 199,
200; advances in literacy, 202;
distribution of, 202, 203;
Roosevelt's attitude toward,
289, 290.
Newlands Reclamation Act, 291.
New Mexico, 152, 154; becomes
a State, 330.
New South, the, has but one
political party of consequence,
192; dissatisfied farmer vote
in, 193; disintegration of plan
tations, 194; oppressed by
its agricultural system, 195;
practically disfranchises ne
groes, 196-200; education in,
201, 202; border traits of, 202;
a modern industrial commu
nity, 203; development of
cities, 205.
Nez Perces, outbreak of, 86.
Nicaragua Canal, 134, 280.
North, S. N. D., and the Ding
ley Bill, 254.
North Dakota, admitted to
Union, 152.
Northern Pacific Railroad, 143,
295; and panic of 1873, 03, 05;
finished under direction of
Henry Villard, 144.
Northern Securities Company,
296, 299.
Oklahoma, Indians colonized in,
151; opened to white settlers,
151 ; becomes a State, 319.
Olney, Richard, 230, 231.
Oregon, the, spectacular voyage
of, 274, 286.
Overproduction, menace of, 06.
Palmer, John M., 238.
Panama, Republic of, 288.

Panama Canal, begun by De
Lesseps, 144, 286; determined
on by Congress and Presi
dent Roosevelt, 287, 288;
Panama grants concession,
289; first boats pass through,
289; dispute over sea-level
and lock systems, 316-17.
Pan-American Conference at
Rio de Janeiro, 318.
Pan-American Congress, 106,
109.
Panic of 1857, the, 0, 7, 9, 11, 12.
Panic of 1873, the, 62-74; Jay
Cooke's connection with, 62-
65; real causes of, 64, 65; re
duces revenues, 115; often
attributed to low rates of
Wilson Bill, 254.
Parker, Judge Alton B., Demo
cratic candidate for President
(1904), 305; defeated, 306.
Payne, Sereno E., 326.
Peabody, George, creates fund
to relieve negro illiteracy, 201.
Pendleton, George H, 30, 81.
Penrose, Boies, 253, 342.
Pension Bureau, 137; import
ant through alliance with the
soldiers, 172.
Pensions, influence of soldier
vote on, 130; for service only,
137; amounts spent on, 187,
138; system criticized by
Southern farmers, 178; used
millions of the national sur
plus, 218.
People's Party, 184; to right all
wrongs of the plain people,
186, 187; becomes a finished
organization, 208, 209; de
mands of, 210.
Petroleum trust, 164, 165.
Philippine Islands, ceded to
United States, 273; revolt in,
under Aguinaldo, 278.
Pierpont, Francis A., 47.
Pike, James S., author of The
Prostrate State, 51.
Pinchot, Gifford, 828.

INDEX

Pious Fund dispute, the, 283.
Platt, Thomas C, resigns from
Senate, 103; claims promise
of Secretaryship under Har
rison, 172; offended by Har
rison, 213; Senator from New
York, 253; opposes nomina
tion of Roosevelt for governor,
277; aids Roosevelt boom for
Vice-Presidency, 280.
Polygamy, in Utah, 154.
Populism, origin of, 208.
Populists, demands of, 210;
carry four States in Presiden
tial election (1892), 216; cari
catures of, 223; fuse with
Democrats, 237, 238; favor
direct legislation, 249, 250.
Porto Rico, invaded by United
States troops, 272; ceded to
United States, 273; Territori
al government provided, 278.
Post-office, the, corruption in,
103, 104, 105, 113, 114.
Potter, Bishop Henry C, 246.
Powderly, Terence V., 121, 122,
135.
Practical politics, 110.
Preemption Law, the, 21, 155,
156.
Presidential Succession Act, 105.
Primaries, direct, 249, 335.
Progressive Republicans, re
volt, 829; organize a- League,
830; principles of, 333; op
pose renomination of Taft,
334; urge Roosevelt to run,
335; organize Progressive
Party, 336; nominate Roose
velt and Johnson, 337; popu
lar vote of, 338; influence
negligible in 1914, 342.
Protection, in Republican plat
form (1888), 170, 171; ear
nestly discussed by both
parties, 170; enlarged by
McKinley Bill, 174, 176; of
unborn industries, 175;
strongest in East, 177; ram
pant spirit for, in 1897, 254.

Pure food movement, 813, 814,
828.
Quay, Matthew S., chairman
of Harrison campaign com
mittee, 170, 171, 174; of
fended by Harrison, 218;
completes partnership of man
ufacturers and voters, 232;
selects Penrose for Senator,
253.
Railroads, development of, 10,
12, 68, 69, 92, 93; importance
of, 16, 69; land grants to, 22,
24, 148; continental, 22, 25, 26,
143, 144, 145; hostility of the
Grange, 68, 70; rate laws, 71,
72; agree upon standard time,
148; encourage immigration
and colonization, 148, 149;
regarded as quasi-public, 157,
159; national control of, 158;
bargaining in rates, 165; and
the Sherman Anti-Trust Law,
173; promote new settle
ments, 179; in the South after
the Civil War, 204; controlled
by a few men, 294.
Rainfall, importance of, 150,
179, 180, 182, 186.
Randall, Samuel J., 108, 138.
Rebates, railroad, forbidden by
Elkins Law, 296.
Reciprocity, favorite scheme of
Blaine, 175.
Reclamation of arid lands of
the Southwest, 290, 291, 320.
Reconstruction, an inappropri
ate name for what took place,
39; no constitutional theory
adequate to meet problems of,
44; must be judged by results,
44, 45; completion of, in form
al sense, 46 ; not far advanced
by 1870,49; dominant type of
leaders, 78; political super
seded by constitutional, 85.
Reconstruction Acts of 1867,
the, 43, 45, 47.

INDEX

XI

Reconstruction Governments,
evils of, 50, 51, 61.
Reed, Thomas B., 172, 229,
240.
Referendum and initiative, 249,
250, 333, 334.
Regan, John H, 193.
Reid, Whitelaw, 50, 130.
Republican party, the, during
the Civil War, 1, 2; called it
self Union, 4, 32; paid for its
disguise, 32; in the South
after 1876, 54; new men in
control, 78, 79; regains con
trol of the House (1880), 108;
but loses it again (1882), 117;
dissensions in, 128; defeated
in 1884, 133; elects President
and majority in both houses
in 1888, 171; suffers a land
slide (1890), 185, 180; regains
control of Senate and House,
(1894), 229; platform in 1890,
234; dominates every branch
of National Government for
fourteen years, 244; the party
of organized business, 252;
approves the Spanish War,
279; elects Taft President
(1008), 324, 325; revises tariff,
820, 827; dissatisfaction in,
827, 328; loses tho House
(1010), 329; renominates Taft
(1912), 330.
Revels, Hiram R., negro Sena
tor from Mississippi, 47.
River and Harbor Bill, 117.
Rockefeller, John D., gains
chief control of petroleum
traffic, 105, 166; aids cause of
education in South, 201;
methods of, 310, 821.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 128; steps
out of Blaine campaign, 130;
Assistant Secretary of the
Navy, 265, 277; raises a regi
ment for Spanish War, 266; in
Cuba, 270; early public career
of, 270; Governor of New
York, 277; a reformer of a

new typ'., 277; Vice-President
with McKinley, 280; succeeds
to Presidency, 282; and the
Hague Court, 283, 281; ac
tivity in securing Panama
Canal, 286, 288; questionable
course toward Colombia, 286,
288; attitude toward negroes,
289, 290; widely popular, 291;
disliked by professional poli
ticians, 291; dissolves North
ern Securities Company, 290,
299; settles coal strike, 800;
alienates party leaders, 802;
wants nomination on his own
account, 803; tries to modify
Dingley Tariff, 804; nomi
nated for President, 805; and
elected, 300; declares he will
not accept another nomina
tion, 307; goes outside of
United States territory, 816-
17; receives the Nobel prize,
317; promotes second Hague
Conference, 318; sends navy
round the world, 319; holds
conference of state governors
at White House, 820; called
"Theodore the Meddler,"
822; his policies those of the
people, 323; secures nomina
tion of Taft for Presidency,
824, 325; goes to Africa, 329;
formulates New Nationalism,
333; defeated in Republican
convention, 330; nominated by
Progressives, 837.
Root, Elihu, becomes Secretary
of War, 274, 281; Secretary
of State, 818; mentioned for
Presidency, 824; presides over
Chicago convention, 330.
Rough Riders, the, 266, 270, 277.
"Rum, Romanism, and rebel
lion," 133.
Rusk, Jeremiah M., 136, 157.
Russia, at war with Japan, 817.
Sackville-Weit, Sir Lionel, 170.
Salary grab, in Congress, 62.

xn

INDEX

Salisbury, Lord, in Venezuela
case, 230, 231.
Sampson, Capt. William T., in
blockade of Cuba, 265, 208,
269, 270, 272.
Schenck, Robert C, 55, 61.
Schley, Commodore Winfield
Scott, in blockade of Cuba,
265, 268, 269, 272.
Schurz, Carl, leader of the Lib
eral Republicans, 56; intro
duces merit system, 86; reor
ganizes the Indian service, 86,
87; supports civil service re
form, 112, 113; an anti-
imperialist, 278.
Seal fisheries, 212.
Sewall, Arthur, 237.
Seymour, Horatio, 4; nominated
for Presidency, 31; loyalty
above question, 79.
Shafter, Gen. William R., 269,
270.
Sherman, James S., nominated
for Vice-Presidency, 325, 336.
Sherman, John, Senator from
Ohio, 66; Secretary of the
Treasury, 89; proposed for the
Presidency, 98, 99, 128; Sec
retary of State, 253.
Sherman, Gen. William T., 5.
Sherman Anti-Trust Law, the,
enacted, 172, 173, 293; en
forced under Roosevelt, 320,
321.
Sherman Silver Purchase Bill,
174, 218, 219, 220.
Silver, fall in value of, 88, 228;
free coinage demanded, 181,
182; mines, output of, 181;
coinage of, 217; demonetiza
tion of, called a crime, 225.
Sinclair, Upton, 311.
Slater, John F., creates fund for
education of negro, 201.
Social Democratic party, 301.
Socialist Labor party, 301, 338.
South, the, before the war, 11,
12; price of its attempt at in
dependence, S9; stubbornness

of, 40; decrease in size of
farms, 40, 41 ; government of,
by army, 42; divided into five
military districts, 43; new
constitutions of its States, 46;
rcadmission to Union, 47, 49;
repudiation of debts, 51;
normal politics Democratic,
52, 54, 79. See also New
South.
South Dakota, admitted to
Union, 152; first State to
adopt initiative and refer
endum, 250.
Southern Pacific Railroad, 145,
148; passes into control of
Union Pacific, 294, 295;
merger dissolved, 330.
Spain, sends Gen. Weyler to
Cuba, 260; embittered against
United States by filibustering
parties, 201; changes of Min
istry in, £62; declines media
tion, but recalls Gen. Weyler,
263; establishes a sort of au
tonomy for Cuba, 263; war
with United States begun,
264; loses fleet at Manila,
267; and another at Santiago,
272; army at Santiago sur
renders, 272; loses Cuba,
Porto Rico, the Philippine
Islands, and Guam, 273.
Squatters, 21, 155.
Stalwarts, the, support Conk
ling against Garfield, 103;
claimed as friends by Guiteau,
105; relations with Arthur,
^ 109, 126.
Standard Oil Company, the,
166, 167; suit against, brought
by Ohio, 168; history of, 310;
charges of extorting rebates,
311, 312; dissolved, 330, 331.
Standard time, adopted by
American railroads, 148.
Stanford, Leland, 25.
Stanton, Edwin M., 8, 35.
Star route frauds, 103, 104, 105,
113.

INDEX

xm

Steel industry, the, 10, 297, 208.
Steffons, Lincoln, 310.
Stevens, Thaddeus, 30. 34.
Stevenson, Adlai E., Vice-Pres
ident with Cleveland, 215;
nominated with Bryan, 279.
Strathcona, Lord, interested in
Canadian railways, 148.
Strikes, 121; Pullman, 222; at
Cripple Creek, 222, 301; at
Homestead, 299; in Pennsyl
vania coal fields, 299, 800.
Sumner, Charles, 34, 55.
Surplus, embarrassing, 93, 178;
an incentive to extravagance,
110, 188, 138; easily relieved,
174; nearly exhausted. 216.
Taft, William H., decision as
Circuit Judge against an in
dustrial combination, 299; re
called from Philippines to be
Secretary of War, 817;
Roosevelt's choice for Presi
dency, 324; nominated and
elected (1908), 825; urges
tariff revision, 320, 827; alien
ates some of the Republican
leaders, 327, 828; in the Pin-
chot-Ballingcr disputo, 328,
320; pushes anti-trust suits,
830, 831; extends civil ser
vice, 331 ; negotiates arbitra
tion treaties with Great Bri
tain and France, 831, 832; re
nominated (1012), 830; badly
defeated, 338.
Tanner, James ("Corporal"),
172.
Tarbell, Ida M., writes history
of Standard Oil Company,
809, 310.
Tariff, the favorite national tax,
6, 7; basis of the rate of, 7; at
the end of the war, 8; differ
ent views of, 97; influence of,
in Presidential campaigns,
100; revision of, 114, 110, 117;
as a source of revenue, 114,
115; attacks upon, 115, 110;

commission created to investi
gate needs of, 117, 118; diffi
culties of constructing, 118,
110, 140; revision demanded,
100; McKinley Bill, 172-75;
opposition to the new law,
184; a factor in political land
slide of 1890, 180; McKinley
Bill in danger, 215; tariff for
revenue the winning issue in
1890 and 1892, 220; financial
interest of manufacturers in,
233; the Dingley Bill, 253,
254, 255; the "mother of
trusts," 303; revised by Re-
Eublicans, 328, 827; reduced
y Democrats, 839.
Taxes, as means of. raising
money, 8, 114, 115; author
ized more reluctantly than
loans, fl; often revised and
increased, 7; difficulties of
Congress with, 115.
Taylor, Hannis, 202.
Tennessee, readmitted to the
Union, 45; escapes negro dom
ination, 54.
Tenure-of-Office Act, 84, 85.
Texas, readmitted to Union, 47;
thorough change in, after the
Civil War, 204, 205.
Thurman, Allen G., 170.
Tilden, Samuel J., prosecutes
the Tweed ring, 80; Demo
cratic candidate for President
in 1870, 80, 81; doubtful re
sult of the election, 83, 84;
unwilling to run in 1880, 00.
Timber Culture Laws, 155.
Tobacco Trust, 830, 831.
Transportation, a fundamental
factor, 162; creates new
standards of living, 162, 163;
relation to the trusts, 164, 165;
vital to frontier life, 180.
Treves, Sir Frederick, praises
work in Canal Zone, 817.
Trusts, formation of, 163, 104;
logical outcome of, 104; in
fluence of transportation, 164,

XIV

INDEX

105; whiskey and sugar, 100;
evils of, social or political,
107; difficulty of regulating,
108; investigation ordered,
109; the aim of, 297; Chicago
conference on, 298; and
strikes, 299, 300; not all
"bad," 302; tariff the mother
of, 303; the menace of, 309;
prosecution of, 320, 321.
Tweed, William M., 50, 60.
Underwood, Oscar W., 329, 330,
330.
Union League, of freedmen, 45.
Union Pacific Railroad, build
ing of,. 22, 24, 25; celebration
of completion, 25; scandals
of, 61; extended to Denver,
74; a national project, 142,
143; extended to the Gulf
and into Oregon, 145; recon
structed by Harriman, 294.
United Mine Workers of Amer
ica, 300.
United States Steel Corpora
tion, 297, 298.
Utah, polygamy in, 154; admit
ted to the Union, 240, 290.
Vallandigham, Clement L., 4.
Venezuela, boundary dispute
with Great Britain, 230-32;
before the Hague Court, 284.
Villard, Henry, 144, 145.
Virginia, readmitted to Union,
47.
Waite, Gov. Davis IL, 222, 228.
Wanamaker, John, 172, 253.
Washington, becomes a State,
152.
Washington, Booker T., 202,
290.

Watson, Thomas E., 193, 238.
Watterson, Henry, 66.
Weaver, James B., Greenback-
Labor candidate for the Pres
idency, 101; leader in the
People's Party, 209; Presi
dential candidate, 211, 216.
Wells, David A., 110.
Western Federation of Miners,
in Cripple Creek strike, 301.
Weyler, Gen. Valeriano, 200,
201, 263.
Wheeler, William A., Vice-Presi
dent with Hayes, 83.
Whiskey Ring, the, 62, 81.
Whiskey and Sugar Trusts, 166.
Wiley, Dr. Harvey, 814, 328.
Wilson, Henry, Vice-President
in Grant's second term, 57.
Wilson, James, 314, 328.
Wilson, William L., 215; leader
in tariff revision, 139, 220,
221 ; on free silver, 229.
Wilson, Woodrow, career of,
336, 337; nominated by Dem
ocrats for Presidency, 337;
elected, 338; delivers message
to Congress in person, 839; a
coercive leader, 339; attitude
toward Mexico, 340; neutral
ity in European war, 341, 842.
Windom, William L., 102, 172.
Woman suffrage, adopted by
several States, 250, 334.
Wood, Gen. Leonard, 270, 282.
Woodford, Gen. Stewart L.,
Minister .to Spain, 262, 263.
Wright, Carroll D., Commis
sioner of Labor, 122.
Wyoming, made a Territory,
149; a State, 152, 250.
Yellow fever, suppressed in
Cuba, 282.