Cleveland’s Second

Presidency

1893-1897

GROVER CLEVELAND

1893-1897

Democrat

Lived 1837-1908 (71)

Vp- Adali Stevenson

New Jersey ***Only President to serve two non-consecutive terms***

“Public office is a public trust.”

I like my new “clean shaven” look!- no more

sideburns…

POLITICAL ISSUES

(1) Election of 1892

Remember:1. Grover Cleveland (Democrat)

2. Benjamin Harrison (Republican) running for re-election

3. James Weaver (Populist)

4. Cleveland wins! (2) First and only President in history to get elected to two non-consecutive terms

LABOR UNIONS

(6) EUGENE V. DEBS

a. Debs became the president of the American Railway Union in 1893

b. The ARU was the first successful industrial union in the United States.

c. ARU makes its mark in 1894 with the Pullman Strike.

d. FYI: Debs will run for president 4 times- unsuccessfully.

(6 cont) PULLMAN STRIKEa. May 1894- Workers at Pullman

Sleeping-car factory in Pullman, Illinois declare a strike because George Pullman, the owner cut wages, but refused to lower rents and other prices in his company town.

b. President Cleveland called out federal troops because the strike blocked delivery of the US mail

c. Debs was arrested and jailed

(3) Panic of 1893• Started by the failure of the Pennsylvania and

Reading railroads• Also causes (1) dwindling gold reserves (2)

industrial overexpansion (3) poor crop harvest in South and West (4) economic slump in Europe (5) HIGH tariffs

• An economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time

ECONOMIC ISSUES

(3) PANIC OF 18931. Like most major financial downturns, the depression

of the 1890s was preceded by a series of shocks that undermined public confidence and weakened the economy.

2. In the last days of the Harrison administration, the Reading Railroad, a major eastern line, went into bankruptcy.

3. That collapse was soon magnified by the failures of hundreds of banks and businesses dependent upon the Reading and other railroads. The stock market reacted with a dramatic plunge.

4. Fearing further collapse, European investors pulled their funds from the United States, but depression soon gripped the other side of the Atlantic as well.

5. The ongoing agricultural depression in the West and South deepened, spreading the misery to those regions.

6. Although thousands of businesses were ruined and more than

four million were left unemployed, (3) continued Cleveland did little to end the depression. He believed, like most

people of both major parties, that the business cycle was a natural occurrence and should not be tampered with by politicians. The economy would fix itself

7. The nation’s gold reserve had been steadily declining during the last years of the Harrison administration. The lavish spending of the Harrison’s “Billion Dollar Congress” and the gold drain caused by the Sherman Silver Purchase Act were the prime factors of the money surplus reduction.

8. Shortly after Cleveland is inaugurated, the nation’s reserve drops below $100 million.

9. (5) Cleveland repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893- “too little- too late”

10. The president acted to rescue the gold standard, but in the process divided the Democratic Party and alienated the silver forces of the South and West.

11. The depression will not subside completely until 1897.

SOCIAL ISSUES

(11)PLESSY V. FERGUSON

1. Supreme Court ruling in 1896 thatestablished the “separate but equal” treatmentof African Americans.2. This seals the segregation that will continue

to grip the country for 60 years.

(4) The Great Northern Railroad

1. The Great Northern was built slowly to create profitable lines before extending the road further into undeveloped territory. Running from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Seattle, Washington- more than 1,700 miles was the creation of the 19th century railroad tycoon James J. Hill. It was the most northern transcontinental railroad route in the US.

2. It was a privately funded transcontinental railroad, though some other railroads received land grants. It was one of the few transcontinental railroads to avoid bankruptcy following the Panic of 1893.

(8) The Atlanta Compromise

1. 1895, African-American spokesman and leader Booker T. Washington spoke before a predominantly white audience in Atlanta. His “Atlanta Compromise” address, as it came to be called, was one of the most important and influential speeches in American history.

2. Washington soothed his listeners’ concerns about “uppity” blacks by claiming that his race would content itself with living “by the productions of our hands.”

(9) Journalistic Competition1. The major newspapers often used large, dramatic headlines, graphics, and exaggerated stories to sell newspapers in the late 1800s.

2. William Randolph Hearst/ New York Journal

3. Joseph Pulitzer/ New York World.

(13) “Cross of Gold”William Jennings Bryan will be gaining popularity to attempt a run for President next election- he was the editor of a small western newspaper and after his speech he was the Populist favorite and eventually a Democratic Presidential nominee!

(10) Utah becomes 44th state• It was January 4, 1896. On joining the Union,

Utah was already more populous than five of her sister states. Of her people, 8 out of 10 were American-born and nearly 9 out of 10 were Latter-day Saints (Mormon). Apart from approximately 3,000 Indians, mostly on reservations, the 571 blacks and 768 Chinese counted in the 1895 territorial census were the largest racial minorities. Perhaps 2,000 polygamous families remained, but a considerable number of single men in the mining communities produced a small male preponderance in the total population of 247,324.

(12)Up-rise of the Populists• Farmers were in

trouble because of...– High tariffs– No railroad regulation– Gold standard– Corporate Greed:

Barbed wire trust, Harvester Trust, Fertilizer Trust, Banks, and Railroads

• Why?

"The Iron Horse Which Eats Up The Farmers' Produce.” 1873

(7) Coxey’s ArmyA. A protest march by unemployed

workers led by the POPULIST Jacob Coxey. They marched to Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year depression

B. The purpose of the march was to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893 and to lobby for the government to create jobs which would involve building roads and other public works improvements- paid by US taxes

C. Coxey and other leaders of the movement were arrested the next day for walking on the grass of the US Capitol, and the rest of the men scattered.

D. Among the people observing the march was L. Frank Baum, before he gained fame. There are political interpretations of his book, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which have often been related to Coxey's Army. In the novel, Dorothy, the Scarecrow (the American farmer), Tin Woodman (the industrial worker), and Cowardly Lion (political leader), march on the yellow brick road to Oz, the Capitol (or Washington DC), demanding relief from the Wizard, who is interpreted to be the President. Dorothy's shoes are interpreted to symbolize using free silver instead of the gold standard (the road of yellow brick) because the shortage of gold precipitated the Panic of 1893.