1. Cover Slide
The American Pageant
Chapter 23
Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age,
Adapted from: Ms. Susan M. Pojer Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua, NY
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

2. The
Grant
Administration
( )

3. The 1868 Republican Ticket

4. The 1868 Democratic Ticket

5. Waving the Bloody Shirt!

6. Waving the Bloody Shirt!
Republicans nominated Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant
great soldier
had no political experience
Democrats?
could only denounce military Reconstruction
couldn’t agree on anything els e= were disorganized.

7. Waving the Bloody Shirt!
The Republicans got Grant elected (barely) by “waving the bloody shirt”
=reliving his war victories
used his popularity to elect him
popular vote was only slightly ahead of rival Horatio Seymour.
Seymour = Democratic candidate
didn’t accept a redemption-of-greenbacks-for-maximum-value platform, and thus doomed his party.
Since election = close Republicans could not take future victories for granted.

8. 1868 Presidential Election

9. President Ulysses S. Grant

10. The Era of Good Stealings
Despite the Civil War, the population grew
Partially due to immigration
politics became very corrupt
Railroad promoters cheated gullible customers.
Too many judges and legislators put their power up for hire.

11. The Era of Good Stealings
Jim Fisk and Jay Gould
notorious millionaires
In 1869, they concocted a plot to corner the gold market
Plan would only work if the treasury stopped selling gold
they worked on President Grant directly and through his brother-in-law
plan failed when the treasury sold gold.

12. The Era of Good Stealings
Tweed Ring (AKA, “Tammany Hall) of NYC
Headed by “Boss” Tweed
Used bribery, graft, and fake elections to cheat the city of as much as $200 million
caught when The New York Times secured evidence of his misdeeds
died in jail.

13. The Tweed Ring in NYC
William Marcy Tweed (notorious head of Tammany Hall’s political machine)
[Thomas Nast  crusading cartoonist/reporter]

14. Who Stole the People’s Money?

15. A Carnival of Corruption
Grant
failed to see corruption going on
many of his friends wanted offices
his cabinet was totally corrupt

16. Credit Mobilier
railroad construction company that paid itself huge sums of money for small railroad construction
Tarred Grant
NY newspaper reported it
2 members of Congress were formally censured
company had given some of its stock to the congressmen
Vice President was shown to have accepted 20 shares of stock

17. Whiskey Ring
1875- public learned that the Whiskey Ring had robbed the Treasury of millions
group of officials were importing whiskey & using their offices to avoid paying the taxes on it, cheating the treasury out of millions of dollars.
when Grant’s own private secretary was shown to be one of the criminals, Grant retracted his earlier statement of “Let no guilty man escape.”
1876, Secretary of War William Belknap was shown to have pocketed some $24,000 by selling junk to Indians

18. And They Say He Wants a Third Term

19. The Election of 1872
Rumors of corruption during Grant’s first term discredit Republicans.
Horace Greeley runs as a Democrat/Liberal Republican candidate.
Greeley attacked as a fool and a crank.
Greeley died on November 29, 1872!

20. 1872 Presidential Election

21. Popular Vote for President: 1872

22. The Panic of 1873 Causes: Started when…
Unrestrained speculation on the railroads
Too easy credit
Started when…
failure of the NY banking firm Jay Cooke & Company, which was headed by the rich Jay Cooke, a financier of the Civil War.

23. Depression, Deflation, & Inflation
Greenbacks that had been issued in the Civil War were being recalled
but now, during the panic
“cheap-money” supporters wanted greenbacks to be printed en mass again, to create inflation.
 supporters of “hard-money” (actual gold and silver) persuaded Grant to veto a bill that would print more paper money

24. Depression, Deflation, & Inflation
Resumption Act of 1875
government would withdraw greenbacks & maKe all further redemption of paper money in gold at face value, starting in 1879.
Debtors now cried that silver was under-valued (another call for inflation),
Grant refused to coin more silver dollars, which (stopped in 1873)
new silver discoveries in the later 1870s shot the price of silver way down. Grant’s name remained fused to sound money, though not sound government.

25. Depression, Deflation, & Inflation
greenbacks regain their value
few greenback holders exchange their more convenient bills for gold when Redemption Day came in 1879
1878, the Bland-Allison Act instructed the Treasury to buy and coin between $2 million and $4 million worth of silver bullion each month. The minimum was actually coined and its effect was minimal on creating “cheap money.”

26. Depression, Deflation, & Inflation
Republican hard-money policy,
led to the election of a Democratic House of Representatives in 1874
Spawned the Greenback Labor Party in 1878
primarily composed of prairie farmers who went into debt during the Panic of 1873
fought for increased monetary circulation through issuance of paper currency and bimetallism (using both gold and silver as legal tender)
supported inflationary
sought benefits for labor such as shorter working hours and a national labor bureau.
wanted the government to print more greenbacks.

27. Gilded
Age
Politics

28. Definition: Gilded Age
“The Gilded Age,”
term coined by Mark Twain
times looked good, yet if one scratched a bit below the surface, there were problems.
corruption.

29. The
Abandonment
of Reconstruction

30. Northern Support Wanes
“Grantism” & corruption.
Panic of 1873 [6-year depression].
Concern over westward expansion and Indian wars.
Key monetary issues:
should the government retire $432m worth of “greenbacks” issued during the Civil War.
should war bonds be paid back in specie or greenbacks.

31. 1876 Presidential Tickets

32. “Regional Balance?”

33. 1876 Presidential Election

34. The Political Crisis of 1877
“Corrupt Bargain” Part II?

35. Hayes Prevails

36. Alas, the Woes of Childhood…
Sammy Tilden—Boo-Hoo! Ruthy Hayes’s got my Presidency, and he won’t give it to me!

37. A Political Crisis: The “Compromise” of 1877

38. The
"Politics of
Equilibrium"

39. 1. A Two-Party Stalemate

40. 2. Intense Voter Loyalty to the Two Major Political Parties

41. 3. Well-Defined Voting Blocs
Democratic Bloc
Republican Bloc
White southerners (preservation of white supremacy)
Catholics
Recent immigrants (esp. Jews)
Urban working poor (pro-labor)
Most farmers
Northern whites (pro-business)
African Americans
Northern Protestants
Old WASPs (support for anti-immigrant laws)
Most of the middle class

42. 4. Very Laissez Faire Federal Govt.
From  Govt. did very little domestically.
Main duties of the federal govt.:
Deliver the mail.
Maintain a national military.
Collect taxes & tariffs.
Conduct a foreign policy.
Exception  administer the annual Civil War veterans’ pension.

43. 5. The Presidency as a Symbolic Office
Party bosses ruled.
Presidents should avoid offending any factions within their own party.
The President just doled out federal jobs.
1865  53,000 people worked for the federal govt.
1890  166,000 “ “ “ “ “ “

44. The Birth of Jim Crow in the Post-Reconstruction South
Reconstruction ended …military returned northward
whites asserted their power.
Literacy requirements for voting began,
voter registration laws emerged
poll taxes began
targeted at black voters.

45. The Birth of Jim Crow in the Post-Reconstruction South
Most blacks became sharecroppers
providing nothing but labor
Or tenant farmers
if they could provide their own tools
Plessy v. Ferguson:
1896, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of that “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional
“Jim Crow” segregation was legalized.

46. Class Conflicts & Ethnic Clashes
Railroad Strike:
Background:
1877, the presidents of the nation’s 4 largest railroads decided to cut wages by 10%.
Workers struck back, stopping work
President Hayes sent troops to stop this,
violence erupted
more than 100 people died in the several weeks of chaos.

47. Class Conflicts & Ethnic Clashes
Failure of the railroad strike?
showed weakness of the labor movement
Note: this was partly caused by friction between races, especially between the Irish and the Chinese.
In San Francisco, Irish-born Denis Kearney incited his followers to terrorize the Chinese

48. Class Conflicts & Ethnic Clashes
Anti-Chinese sentiment:
1879-Congress passed a bill severely restricting the influx of Chinese immigrants (most of whom were males who had come to California to work on the railroads
Hayes vetoed the bill
Said that it violated an existing treaty with China
After Hayes left office, the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882, was passed, barring any Chinese from entering the United States—the first law limiting immigration.

49. James A. Garfield 1880 : Republicans nominated James A. Garfield
from Ohio rose to the rank of major general in the Civil War
as his running mate, a notorious Stalwart (supporter of Roscoe Conkling) was chosen: Chester A. Arthur of New York
Democrats chose Winfield S. Hancock,
Civil War general (appealed to the South)
due to his fair treatment of it during Reconstruction & a veteran who had been wounded at Gettysburg, and thus appealed to veterans.

50. 1880 Presidential Election

51. James A. Garfield campaign avoided touchy issues
Garfield squeaked by in the popular vote (the electoral count was wider: 214 to 155).
Garfield was a good person, but he hated to hurt people’s feelings and say “no.”
Garfield named James G. Blaine to Secretary of the State
he made other anti-Stalwart acts, but on September 19, 1881, Garfield died after having been shot in the head by a crazy but disappointed office seeker, Charles J. Guiteau, who, after being captured, used an early version of the “insanity defense” to avoid conviction (he was hanged anyway).

52. Republican infighting
Stalwarts Republicans fighting for civil service reform during Garfield's term; they supported Cleveland.
Half-breeds Favored tariff reform and social reform, major issues from the Democratic and Republican parties. They did not seem to be dedicated members of either party

53. 1881: Garfield Assassinated!
Charles Guiteau: I Am a Stalwart, and Arthur is President now!

54. Chester Arthur Chester Arthur surprised many
Gave cold shoulder to Stalwarts (his chief supporters)
called for reform
Republican party slowly embraces reform

55. Pendleton Act (1883) Civil Service Act.
The “Magna Carta” of civil service reform.
1883  14,000 out of 117,000 federal govt. jobs became civil service exam positions.
1900  100,000 out of 200,000 civil service federal govt. jobs.

56. Republican “Mugwumps”
Reformers who wouldn’t re-nominate Chester A. Arthur.
Reform to them  create a disinterested, impartial govt. run by an educated elite like themselves.
Social Darwinists.
Laissez faire government to them:
Favoritism & the spoils system seen as govt. intervention in society.
Their target was political corruption, not social or economic reform!

57. The Mugwumps
Men may come and men may go, but the work of reform shall go on forever.
Will support Cleveland in the 1884 election.

58. 1884 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland James Blaine * (DEM) (REP)

59. A Dirty Campaign
Ma, Ma…where’s my pa? He’s going to the White House, ha… ha… ha…!

60. Little Lost Mugwump
Blaine in 1884

61. Rum, Romanism & Rebellion!
Led a delegation of ministers to Blaine in NYC.
Reference to the Democratic Party.
Blaine was slow to repudiate the remark.
Narrow victory for Cleveland [he wins NY by only 1149 votes!].
Dr. Samuel Burchard

62. 1884 Presidential Election

63. Cleveland’s First Term
The “Veto Governor” from New York.
First Democratic elected since 1856.
A public office is a public trust!
His laissez-faire presidency:
Opposed bills to assist the poor as well as the rich.
Vetoed over 200 special pension bills for Civil War veterans!

64. The Tariff Issue
After the Civil War, Congress raised tariffs to protect new US industries.
Big business wanted to continue this; consumers did not.
1885  tariffs earned the US $100 mil in surplus!
President Cleveland’s view on tariffs????
wasn’t really interested in the subject at first, but as he researched it, he became inclined towards lowering the tariff, so in late 1887, Cleveland openly tossed the appeal for lower tariffs into the lap of Congress.

65. The Billion Dollar Congress
Speaker of the House, Thomas B. Reed= tremendous debater & very critical man.
To solve the problem of reaching a quorum (having enough voters to vote) in Congress, Reed counted the Democrats who were present yet didn’t answer to the roll call, and after three days of such chaos, he finally prevailed, opening the 51st, or “Billion Dollar” Congress—one that legislated many expensive projects.

66. Filing the Rough Edges
Tariff of 1888

67. 1888 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland Benjamin Harrison (DEM) * (REP)

68. Disposing the Surplus

69. Populism:
An Agrarian
Revolt

70. Price Indexes for Consumer & Farm Products: 1865-1913

71. Founder of the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry (1867)

72. The Grange Movement
First organized in the 1870s in the Midwest, the south, and Texas.
Set up cooperative associations.
Social and educational components.
Succeeded in lobbying for “Granger Laws.”
Rapidly declined by the late 1870s.

73. The Farmers Alliances
Begun in the late 1880s (Texas first  the Southern Alliance; then in the Midwest  the Northern Alliance).
Built upon the ashes of the Grange.
More political and less social than the Grange.
Ran candidates for office.
Controlled 8 state legislatures & had 47 representatives in Congress during the 1890s.

74. Platform of Lunacy

75. The Populist (Peoples’) Party
Founded by James B. Weaver and Tom Watson.
Omaha, NE Convention in July, 1892.
Got almost 1 million popular votes.
Several Congressional seats won.
James B. Weaver, Presidential Candidate
& James G. Field, VP

76. Omaha Platform of 1892 Politically: Direct election of US Senators
Enacting state laws by voters themselves
Economically:
Unlimited coinage of silver increase money supply
Graduated income tax
Govt. ownership of RRs, telephone & telegraph companies.
Loans and federal warehouses for farmers to enable them to stabilize prices for their crops
8 hour day for industrial workers
Sub treasuries = Plan would have enabled farmers to borrow against their unsold crops from a public fund until their cotton could be profitably marketed
Politically:
Direct election of US Senators
Enatcing state laws by voters themselves
Economically:
Unlimited coinage of silver increase money supply
Graduated income tax
Govt. ownership of RRs, telephone & telegraph companies.
Loans and federal warehouses for farmers to enable them to stabilize prices for their crops
8 hour day for industrial workers

77. Govt.-Owned Companies

78. 1892 Election

79. The
Panic
of 1893

80. Causes of the 1893 Panic Begun 10 days after Cleveland took office.
Several major corps. went bankrupt.
Over 16,000 businesses disappeared.
Triggered a stock market crash.
Over-extended investments.
Bank failures followed causing a contraction of credit [nearly 500 banks closed].
By 1895, unemployment reached 3 million.
Americans cried out for relief, but the Govt. continued its laissez faire policies!!

81. Here Lies Prosperity

82. Written by a Farmer at the End of the 19c
When the banker says he's broke And the merchant’s up in smoke, They forget that it's the farmer who feeds them all. It would put them to the test If the farmer took a rest; Then they'd know that it's the farmer feeds them all.

83. Coxey’s Army, 1894
Jacob Coxey & his “Army of the Commonweal of Christ.”
March on Washington  “hayseed socialists!”
Wanted gov’t to relieve unemployment

84. Result of Election Returns
Populist vote increased by 40% in the bi-election year, 1894.
Democratic party losses in the West were catastrophic!
But, Republicans won control of the House.

85. The
1896
Election

86. Gold / Silver Bug Campaign Pins

87. William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)
The “Great Commoner”

88. William Jennings Bryan
Prairie avenger, mountain lion,
Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan,
Gigantic troubadour, speaking like a siege gun,
Smashing Plymouth Rock with his boulders from the West.
Revivalist style of oratory.

89. Bryant’s “Cross of Gold” Speech
You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!

90. Bryan: The Farmers Friend (The Mint Ratio)
18,000 miles of campaign “whistle stops.”

91. Democratic Party Taken Over by the Agrarian Left
Platform  tariff reductions; income tax; stricter control of the trusts (esp. RRs); free silver.

92. Mark Hanna: The “Front-Porch” Campaign

94. William McKinley ( )

95. Mark Hanna to Candidate McKinley

96. “A Giant Straddle”: Suggestion for a McKinley Political Poster

97. Joshua A. Levering: Prohibition Party

98. Into Which Box Will the Voter of ’96 Place His Ballot?

99. 1896 Election Results

100. Why Did Bryan Lose?
His focus on silver undermined efforts to build bridges to urban voters.
He did not form alliances with other groups.
McKinley’s campaign was well-organized and highly funded.

101. Gold Triumphs Over Silver
1900  Gold Standard Act
confirmed the nation’s commitment to the gold standard.
A victory for the forces of conservatism.

102. The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

103. Populism: A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.

104. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written as an allegory to the situation that was happening in the Midwest. Every main character can be traced to either a particular person or group of people. Even the word “Oz” is used to represent the measurement of gold.

105. Dorothy:
Represents everyman. She is an innocent Midwest girl who is able to see what is really going on in Oz.

106. Munchkins:
Represent the common people, controlled by the Wicked Witch of the East (who represented the Eastern Industrialists and Bankers.

107. Scarecrow:
Represents the wise but naïve western farmer, taken advantage of by the industrialists and bankers.

108. Tinman:
Represents the dehumanized industrial worker. He is turned into a machine back the industrialists because of his hard work ethic and not having another craft to succeed in. He eventually becomes unable to love.

109. Cowardly Lion:
Represents William Jennings Bryan, having a loud roar but was unable to back it up (bite).

110. Wicked Witch of the West:
Represents the Western industrial influence and is ultimately destroyed by water (representing pure nature, a removal of machines).

111. "Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert
"Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert.....If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country." Glinda explains, "All you have to do is knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go." (p.257).

112. "The Silver Shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost forever in the desert" (p.259).
The drive for the gold standard to be replaced with silver was lost when Bryan lost the election and the Populist party lost its motivation or drive.

113. Although the silver had been lost, the important message is a return to the Midwest farmer/family. It is where true happiness remains. Back in Oz, the Scarecrow now runs the Emerald City, the Tinman rules in the west, and the Lion rules over smaller animals in the forest. Power has been returned to the people.

114. 1964: Henry Littlefield’s “Thesis”?

115. Map 18.4 The Heyday of Western Populism, 1892 (p. 537)
This map shows the percentage of the popular vote won by James B. Waver, the People’s Party candidate in the presidential election of Except in California and Montana, the Populists won broad support across the West and genuinely threatened the established parties in that region.

116. Why Did Populism Decline?
The economy experienced rapid change.
The era of small producers and farmers was fading away.
Race divided the Populist Party, especially in the South.
The Populists were not able to break existing party loyalties.
Most of their agenda was co-opted by the Democratic Party.

117. Map 18.5 The Elections of 1892 & 1896 (p. 540)
In the 1890’s the age of political stalemate came to an end. Compare the 1892 map with the 1888 map an note especially Cleveland’s breakthrough in the normally Republican states of the upper Midwest. In 1896 the pendulum swung n the opposite direction, with McKinley’s consolidation of Republican control over the Northeast and Midwest far overbalancing the Democratic advances in the thinly populated western states. The 1896 election marked the beginning of forty years of Republican dominance in national politics.