Politics and Government and Thought in the Gilded Age

• "What is the chief end of man?--to get rich. In what way?--dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must."– Mark Twain-1871

Mainstream Politics: Politics as Entertainment

• Political Theater• High Turnout• Competition• Party Methods: Revivalism Inspired• No Secret Ballot• Veteran Dominated• Women

Partisanship

• Regionalized Parties• Swing States: NY, NJ, IN, OH• Close Contests• Party Culture

Republican Factions

• Evangelical Middle-Class Protestants• Middle to Upper Classes (Urban)• Old-stock Americans and Germans• Appealed to:

– Patriotism / Anti-Confederate sentiment– Industrial Economy– Evangelical / Middle-Class Social Control– Nativism

Democratic Factions

• Catholics• Irish and newer Immigrants• Urban Workers and Southern/Western Farmers• Pro-European Immigrant / Anti-Black and

Chinese• Pro-Memory of Confedracy• Anti-Government Imposition of Morality

Political Groups

• Machine Politics• Associational Politics

– Labor– Capital

• Women’s Associations– National American Women’s Suffrage Association

(1890)– Labor Reform– Temperance

The Weaknesses of Government

• The Weak Presidency• Inefficient Congress• Small, Corrupt Bureaucracy• Widening State Action

Charles J. Guiteau Shot President Garfield

Dominant Political Issues (I)

• Civil Service Reform– Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883)

• The Tariff– High to protect Industry?– Low to enable cheap imports for workers?– Protect Farm Prices?

Dominant Political Issues (II):Federal Regulation of Business

• Interstate Commerce Commission (1887)– Maximum Freight Rates Case (1897)

• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)– United States v. E.C. Knight (1895)

• “The [Interstate Commerce] commission, as its functions have now been limited by the courts is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the public clamor for a government supervision of railroads, at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal.” -- Richard Olney, Attorney General under Grover Cleveland, advising a railroad president

Dominant Political Issues (III): Hard vs. Soft Money

• Debtors want inflation– Paper Money or Silver / Free Silver

• Creditors want deflation– Hard Money / Gold / Sound Money

• Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890)

Crisis of the 1890s

• Populist or People’s Party (1889)– Greenbacks and free silver– Economy in government– Confiscation of excess railroad lands– Public ownership of the means of

communication and transportation

Omaha Convention (1890)

• Attacks “The Money Power”• Free Silver• Electoral Reforms• Labor Reforms• Credit and Shipping Reforms• 1892: 1 million out of 17 million votes / 22

electoral votes. But Cleveland wins (D).

Depression of 1893-7

• 20% Unemployed• Cleveland Does Nothing• Coxey’s Army (1894)• Labor Turmoil: 1400 Strikes with 700,000

workers in 1894

Currency Crisis

• Unused Silver piling up / Bank Rush beginning

• SSPA is repealed by Cleveland• Shows he helps bankers, lets everyone else

go die• JP Morgan now has to bail out the feds

financially.

• “Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people.” -- Grover Cleveland

JP Morgan

• I've got to get to the top of the hill. -- John Pierpont Morgan, Final Words

• “No one can earn a million dollars honestly.” -- William Jennings Bryan

Bryan’s 1896 Campaign

• William Jennings Bryan• Currency Conflict• “A CROSS OF GOLD”• Populist / Democratic Fusion• Gold Democrats• Campaigning Styles• McKinley wins, ushering in Republican rule

Reform Movements

• Women’s Christian Temperance Union• Settlement Houses• Florence Kelly• Illinois Consumer’s League (1898)

Radical Thought

• Socialism– Marxist Stages– Non-Marxist– Socialist Parties– Conservative Reaction

• Anarchism• Henry George• Edward Bellamy--Looking Backwards

• "The life of the law has not been logic, but experience.” -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Intellectuals

• William James• John Dewey• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. • Louis Brandeis• Political Science and Economists• Social Gospel