Gender discrimination firsthand when she was refused permission to speak at a temperance rally. Realizing that as long as women were propertyless and voteless they would also remain powerless, Anthony began devoting her considerable energies to securing equal rights for women. Throughout the four decades from the end of the Civil War to her death, she was the nation's foremost crusader for a woman's right to vote.
Candidates competed for these jobs through examinations. Appointments could be made only from the list of those who took the exams. A civil service official could not be removed for political reasons.
Although President Arthur was a veteran of machine politics, he supported the Pendleton Act, placing 14,000 jobs (about one-tenth of the total) under the control of the civil service. The federal government had finally begun a shift away from the spoils system. m.
The reform movement begun by Hayes and continued by Garfield and Arthur did not stop. Thus, the major theme of the presidential election of 1884 was honesty in politics.
The Republican nominee, Representative James G. Blaine, was a man of great ability and personal charm. However, his reputation was clouded by charges that he had taken money for helping a railroad. As a result some independent reformers in the Republican party, called "Mugwumps," did not support him. The Democrats won
Mugwump support by nominating Grover Cleveland, who earned a reputation for integrity as mayor of Buffalo and governor of New York.
The campaign of 1884 was a negative one, focusing less on issues and more on character assassination. Blaine was portrayed as a "tattooed man" with railroad stocks and bonds indelibly engraved on his skin. Cleveland was attacked on the grounds that he had hired a substitute to fight for him in the Civil War and that he had fathered an illegitimate child. Republicans chanted:
Ma! Ma! Where's my pa?
Gone to the White House,
Ha! Ha! Ha!
To which the Democrats countered:
Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine,
The continental liar from the State of Maine.
Cleveland won the election by a narrow margin, becoming the first Democratic President elected since 1856. Balloting in New York was close. Had 600 voters switched to Blaine, he would have won the state—and the presidency. The Republicans retained control of the Senate, but the Democrats gained a majority in the House of Representatives.
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CHAPTER 10 The Gilded Age: 1865-1900
A Grover Cleveland
Unskillful in political maneuvering, Cleveland often met defeat in his dealings with Congress. Nevertheless, his devotion to the public good did much to restore the prestige of the presidency. Cleveland's first problem was to deal with the Democratic office seekers who swarmed to Washington seeking the fruits of his victory. If he were to make appointments on merit alone, he would split his party wide open. If he were to give in to the spoils system, he would lose the support of the Mugwumps and other reformers who had played a decisive part in electing him. As a compromise Cleveland appointed many "deserving Democrats" to office. He also made every effort to see that the new appointees were qualified.
Cleveland entered office with a weak understanding of most national issues but worked intensely at the job. Few Presidents have put in more study to determine what course of action to follow. His Republican predecessors, for example, had signed hundreds of private bills giving pensions to veterans unable to qualify under regular laws. Examining such bills with care, Cleveland found many of them fraudulent. One veteran, for example, asked for a pension for an
Injury suffered while intending to enlist. Cleveland disapproved of so many pension bills that his vetoes totaled more than those of all previous Presidents.
Cleveland worked to improve government efficiency and integrity. He supported the Presidential Succession Act, which established a line of succession to the presidency in the event of the death of the Vice President. He also won repeal of the Tenure of Office Act, which strengthened presidential independence. Interested in preserving public lands, Cleveland reclaimed land from private companies that had not lived up to the terms of their land grants.
$ Economics
¦ Tariffs and the Election of 1888
The public question that Cleveland studied most seriously was the tariff. During the Civil War, duties had been raised from an
T Political cartoon on 1888 campaign
Visualizing
Istory
Average of 19 percent in 1861 to more than 40 percent in 1865.
High tariff rates, which benefited manufacturers, were constantly attacked by farmers, consumers, shippers, and importers. These free-traders argued that a protective tariff was unfair government interference with the normal laws of supply and demand. Tariffs, they said, were subsidies paid to manufacturers out of the pockets of consumers.
Protectionists, on the other hand, defended the tariff as a means of nurturing fledgling industries in the United States. They argued that tariffs kept wages high by shielding them from competition with cheap foreign labor. Previous bills to lower the tariff had been defeated.
Shortly after Cleveland took office, Carl Schurz asked him about his views on the tariff issue. "You know I really don't know anything about it," replied the President. Cleveland investigated the problem thoroughly. His studies convinced him that the existing tariff was responsible for the treasury's large surplus. Cleveland argued that the surplus was a sign of overtaxation. He proposed a reduction of the tariff—not because he was a free-trader, but because he was in favor of limited government. Excess money in the treasury, he said, was not good for the economy; it was a temptation to Congress, which was apt to spend it wastefully. The President's dramatic effort to lower the tariff was blocked by House Republicans.
The tariff became the major issue in the presidential election of 1888. Openly avowing protection for the first time, the Republicans collected a record-breaking campaign fund. "Put all the manufacturers of Pennsylvania under the fire," said a Republican campaign manager, "and fry that fat out of them." The Republicans revived Henry Clay's name for the protective tariff, calling their economic program the "American system." Renominating Cleveland, the Democrats campaigned against unnecessary taxation. As in 1880 and 1884, the result was
Extremely close. Although he got fewer popular votes than Cleveland, the Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison, won a majority in the electoral college.
The new President was a quiet, reserved man, whom one observer called a "human iceberg." Harrison was too reserved to make a good Gilded Age politician. Still, he had an able legal mind and a distinguished career as an attorney in Indiana. He had been elected to the Senate in 1881.
Harrison had fought under Sherman at Atlanta and was not shy about "waving the bloody shirt" for votes. An ardent protectionist, he was conservative in fiscal policy and liberal when it came to veterans' pensions.
Treasury Surplus and the Tariffs
Once in office the Republicans promptly disposed of the treasury surplus by spending it, and it was the last time in history that the government held a surplus. Within two years the "Billion-Dollar Congress" had
A President Harrison Unlike Cleveland before him, President Benjamin Harrison favored attempts to freely spend the mounting treasury surplus. How long did it take the "Billion-Dollar Congress" to convert the surplus into a deficit?
Created a deficit, mostly through handouts to special-interest groups. The number of Civil War pensioners increased by more than half—many of them the same ones whom Cleveland had turned down.
Moving on to the election-winning tariff issue, the Republicans passed the McKinley Tariff of 1890, which was the highest in the country's history. It dried up revenue by levying rates so high that some foreign products were kept entirely out of the country.
Nearly every foreign product that competed with American-made products was heavily taxed, including such items as food, clothing, furniture, and tools. Western silver states supported the tariff in exchange for the passage of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which authorized the federal government to buy up 4.5 million ounces of silver a month.
Millions of dollars were spent on the improvement of waterways, coastal defenses, federal buildings, and naval expansion. Congress also passed the Sherman Antitrust Act and provided for admission to the Union of North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming. $
Several Issues Hurt Republicans
The Republicans' position on protective tariffs, which had helped them win the presidency in 1888, hurt them two years later. Because there was little competition in the market, prices generally were falling; thus, debts were harder to repay.
Republicans also were hurt nationally by local Republicans in such states as Wisconsin and Massachusetts, who supported compulsory school attendance where instruction was in English. Many Catholic and Lutheran immigrant families in these states wanted public funding for their parochial schools, in which students were taught in their first language. Republicans also pushed Prohibition at the grassroots level.
Democrats used these issues, together with that of a backfiring tariff, to attack the Republicans. The congressional elections of 1890 resulted in a Democratic landslide.
By 1892 the Republicans' position was even worse. Dispiritedly, they renominated Harrison, and the Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland again. Popular discontent with the Republicans was so high that for the first time since before the Civil War Democrats won not only the White House but both houses of Congress.
This time, however, Cleveland won by more than 350,000 popular votes and an electoral majority of 277 to 145. Cleveland became the only President in American history to serve two nonconsecutive terms.
Of larger importance than Cleveland's margin of victory was the support given to a third-party candidate, James B. Weaver. Weaver, who had been the candidate for the Greenback party in 1880, ran in 1892 under the banner of the new People's party, better known as the Populist party. By this time, many Americans were already responding to the Populist philosophy.
Political Reforms
1. Define patronage, rider, free-trader, protectionist.
2. Explain the controversy over raising or lowering the tariff.
3. Evaluating Reforms How could the civil service system limit the patronage system and cut down on corruption?
4. Analyzing Issues Re-create the chart shown here, and describe the political reforms made during the 1870s and 1880s.
5. Government Prepare a time line showing the Presidents of the United States from 1876 to 1900.
World History
