The United States Since The Civil War by Charles Ramsdell Lingley

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The national Democratic nominating convention was called for June 21,
but the New York state Democratic committee announced that the state
convention for the choice of delegates would meet on February 22. So
early a meeting, four months before the national convention, was
unprecedented, and at once it became clear that a purpose lay behind
the call. It was to procure the election of members to the state
convention who would vote for Hill delegates to the nominating
convention, before Cleveland's supporters could organize in opposition.
Furthermore, it was expected that the action of New York would
influence other states where sentiment for Cleveland was not strong.
Hill's plan worked out as he had expected--at least in so far as the
state convention was concerned--for delegates pledged to him were
chosen. Cleveland's supporters, however, denounced the "snap
convention" and a factional quarrel arose between the "snappers" and
the "anti-snappers"; outside of New York it was so obvious that the
snap convention was a mere political trick that the Hill cause was
scarcely benefited by it. Delegates were chosen in other parts of the
country who desired the nomination of Cleveland.

The convention met in Chicago on June 21 and proceeded at once to adopt
a platform of principles. The silver plank was hardly distinguishable
from that of the Republicans, except that it was enshrouded with a
trifle more of ambiguity. The adoption of a tariff plank elicited
considerable difference of opinion, but the final result was an extreme
statement of Democratic belief. Instead of adopting the cautious
position taken in 1884, the convention declared that the constitutional
power of the federal government was limited to the collection of tariff
duties for purposes of revenue only, and denounced the McKinley act as
the "culminating atrocity of class legislation."

Although it was evident when the convention met, that the chances of
Hill for the nomination were slight indeed, the battle was far from
over. Hill was a "straight" party man, a fact which he reiterated again
and again in his famous remark, "I am a Democrat." Cleveland was not
strictly regular, a fact which Hill apparently intended to emphasize by
constant reference to his own beliefs. The oratorical champion of the
Hill delegation was Bourke Cockran, an able and appealing stump
speaker. For two hours he urged that Cleveland could not carry the
pivotal state, New York, and that it was folly to attempt to elect a
man who was so handicapped. Eloquence, however, was of no avail. The
first ballot showed that the Hill strength was practically confined to
New York, and Cleveland was easily the party choice. For the
vice-presidency Adlai E. Stevenson, a partisan of the old school, was
chosen.

Among the smaller parties there appeared for the first time the
"People's Party," later and better known as the "Populists." Their
nominee was James B. Weaver, who had led the Greenbackers in 1880.
Their platform emphasized the economic burdens under which the poorer
classes were laboring and listed a series of extremely definite
demands.

The campaign was a quiet one as both Cleveland and Harrison had been
tried out before. So unenthusiastic were the usual political leaders
that Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll declared that each party would like
to beat the other without electing its own candidates. Although the
financial issue was kept in the background, the tariff was fought out
again somewhat as it had been in 1888. The New York _Sun_ shed some
asperity over the contest by calling the friends of Cleveland "the
adorers of fat witted mediocrity," and the nominee himself as the
"perpetual candidate" and the "stuffed prophet"; and then added a ray
of humor by advocating the election of Cleveland. The adoption of the
Australian ballot, before the election, in thirty-four states and
territories constituted an important reform; thereafter it was
impossible for "blocks of five" to march to the polls and deposit their
ballots within the sight of the purchaser. The Homestead strike near
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, somewhat aided the Democrats. The Carnegie
Steel Company, having reduced wages, precipitated a strike which was
settled only through the use of the state militia. As the steel
industry was highly protected by the tariff, it appeared that the wages
of the laboring man were not so happily affected as Republican orators
had been asserting.[2]

The result of the election was astonishing. Cleveland carried not
merely the South but Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana,
Illinois, Wisconsin and California, while five of Michigan's fourteen
electoral votes and one of Ohio's twenty-three went to him. In the
last-named state, which had never gone against the Republicans, their
vote exceeded that of the Democrats by only 1,072. For the first time
since Buchanan's day, both Senate and House were to be Democratic. More
surprising and more significant for the future, was the strength of the
People's Party. Over a million ballots, twenty-two electoral votes, two
senators and eleven representatives were included among their trophies.
It was an important fact, moreover, that twenty-nine out of every
thirty votes cast for the People's Party were cast west of Pennsylvania
and south of Maryland. Something apparently was happening, in which the
East was not a sharer. The politician, particularly in the East, was
quite content to dismiss the Populists as "born-tired theorists,"
"quacks," "a clamoring brood of political rainmakers," and "stump
electricians," but the student of politics and history must appraise
the movement less provincially and with more information.

It was in the nature of things that the Populist movement should come
out of the West. From the days of Clay and Jackson the westerner had
been characterized by his self-confidence, his assertiveness and his
energy. He had possessed unlimited confidence in ordinary humanity,
been less inclined to heed authority and more ready to disregard
precedents and experience. He had expressed his ideals concretely, and
with vigor and assurance. He had broken an empire to the plow, suffered
severely from the buffetings of nature and had gradually worked out his
list of grievances. One or another of his complaints had been presented
before 1892 in the platforms of uninfluential third parties, but not
until that year did the dissenting movement reach large proportions.

It has already been seen that the people of the West were in revolt
against the management of the railroads. They saw roads going bankrupt,
to be sure, but the owners were making fortunes; they knew that lawyers
were being corrupted with free passes and the state legislatures
manipulated by lobbyists; and they believed that rates were
extortionate. The seizure and purchase of public land, sometimes
contrary to the letter of the law, more often contrary to its spirit,
was looked upon as an intolerable evil. Moreover, the westerner was in
debt. He had borrowed from the East to buy his farm and his machinery
and to make both ends meet in years when the crops failed. In 1889 it
was estimated that seventy-five per cent. of the farms of Dakota were
mortgaged to a total of $50,000,000. Boston and other cities had scores
of agencies for the negotiation of western farm loans; Philadelphia
alone was said to absorb $15,000,000 annually. The advantage to the
West, if conditions were right, is too manifest to need explanation.
But sometimes the over-optimistic farmer borrowed too heavily;
sometimes the rates demanded of the needy westerners were usurious;
often it seemed as if interest charges were like "a mammoth sponge,"
constantly absorbing the labor of the husbandman. The demand of the
West for a greater currency supply has already been seen, for it
appeared in the platforms of minor parties immediately after the Civil
War. Sometimes it seemed as if nature, also, had entered a conspiracy
to increase the hardships of the farmer. During the eighties a series
of rainy years in the more arid parts of the plains encouraged the idea
that the rain belt was moving westward, and farmers took up land beyond
the line where adequate moisture could be relied upon. Then came drier
years; the corn withered to dry stalks; farms were more heavily
mortgaged or even abandoned; and discontent in the West grew fast.

The complaints of the westerner naturally found expression in the
agricultural organizations which already existed in many parts of the
country. The Grange had attacked some of the farmer's problems, but
interest in it as a political agency had died out. The National
Farmers' Alliance of 1880 and the National Farmers' Alliance and
Industrial Union somewhat later were both preceded and followed by many
smaller societies. Altogether their combined membership began to mount
into the millions. When, therefore, the Alliances began to turn away
from the mere discussion of agricultural grievances and toward the
betterment of conditions by means of legislation, and when their
principles began to be taken up by discontented labor organizations, it
looked as if they might constitute a force to be reckoned with.

The remedies which the Alliances suggested for current ills were
definite. Fundamentally they believed that the government, state and
federal, could remedy the economic distresses of the people and that it
ought to do so. At the present day such a suggestion seems commonplace
enough, but in the eighties the dominant theory was individualism--each
man for himself and let economic law remedy injustices--and the
Alliance program seemed like dreaded "socialism." The counterpart of
the demand for larger governmental activity was a call for the greater
participation of the people in the operation of the machinery of
legislation. This lay back of the demand for the initiative, the
referendum, and the popular election of senators. Currency ills could
be remedied, the farmers believed, by a national currency which should
be issued by the federal government only--not by national banks. They
desired the free coinage of silver and gold until the amount in
circulation should reach fifty dollars per capita. Lesser
recommendations were for an income tax and postal savings banks. In
relation to the transportation system, they declared that "the time has
come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the
people must own the railroads." In order to prevent the waste of the
public land and to stop its being held for speculative purposes, they
urged that none be allowed to remain in the hands of aliens and that
all be taken away from the railroads and corporations which was in
excess of actual needs.

The power of the new movement first became evident in 1890 and
distinctly disturbed both the Republican and the Democratic leaders.
Determined to right their wrongs, the farmers deserted their parties in
thousands, flocked to conventions and crowded the country schoolhouses
for the discussion of methods and men. Perhaps it was true, as one of
their critics asserted, that they put a "gill of fact and grievance
into a gallon of falsehood and lurid declamation" so as to make an
"intoxicating mixture." If so, the mixture took immediate effect.
Alliance governors were elected in several southern states; many state
legislatures in the South and West had strong farmer delegations; and
several congressmen and senators were sent to Washington. Success in
1890 made the Alliances jubilant and they looked to the possibility of
a countrywide political organization and a share in the campaign of
1892. The first national convention was held in Omaha in July, 1892, at
which many of the farmers' organizations together with the Knights of
Labor and other groups were represented. The name "People's party" was
adopted, the principles just mentioned were set forth in a platform and
candidates nominated. In the ensuing election the party exhibited the
surprising strength which has been seen.

It has taken more time to describe the Populist movement than its
degree of success in 1892 would justify. But it deserves attention for
a variety of reasons. Its reform demands were important; it was a
striking indication of sectional economic interests; it gave evidence
of an effective participation in politics by the small farmers, the
mechanics and the less well-to-do professional people--the "middle
class," in a word; it was a long step toward an expansion of the
activities of the central government in the fields of economic and
social legislation; and finally it emphasized the significance of the
West, as a constructive force in American life. If the Populists should
capture one of the other parties or be captured by it, nobody could
foresee what the results would be on American political history.

The second administration of Grover Cleveland, from 1893 to 1897, was
the most important period of four years for half a century after the
Civil War. For twenty-five years after 1865 American politicians had
been sowing the wind. Issues had rarely been met man-fashion, in direct
combat; instead, they had been evaded, stated with skilful ambiguity,
or beclouded with ignorance and prejudice. Politics had been concerned
with the offices--the plunder of government. It could not be that the
whirlwind would never be reaped.

The situation in 1893 was one that might well have shaken the stoutest
heart. International difficulties were in sight that threatened unusual
dangers; labor troubles of unprecedented complexity and importance were
at hand; the question of the currency remained unsettled, the treasury
was in a critical condition, and an industrial panic had already begun.
Each of these difficulties will demand detailed discussion at a later
point.[3]

To no small degree, the settlement of the political and economic issues
before the country was complicated by the unmistakable drift toward
sectionalism, and by the particular characteristics of the President.
If the administration pressed a tariff reduction policy, it would
please the South and West but bring hostility in the East. The demands
of the West, so far as the Populists represented them, were for the
increased use of the powers of the federal government and the
application of those powers to social and economic problems; but the
party in power was traditionally attached to the doctrine of restricted
activity on the part of the central authority. The sectional aspects of
the silver question were notorious; and only the eastern Democrats
fully supported their leader in his stand on the issue.

The personal characteristics of President Cleveland have already
appeared.[4] He had a burdensome consciousness of his own individual
duty to conduct the business of his office with faithfulness; a
courageous sense of justice which impelled him to fight valiantly for a
cause that he deemed right, however unimportant or hopeless the cause
might be; a reformer's contempt for hypocrisy and shams, and a blunt
directness in freeing his mind about wrong of every kind. He had the
faults of his virtues, likewise. Sure of himself and of the right of
his position, he had the impatience of an unimaginative man with any
other point of view; he was intransigent, unyielding, rarely giving
way a step even to take two forward. It seems likely that his political
experience had accentuated this characteristic. For years he had thrown
aside the advice of his counsellors and had shown himself more nearly
right than they. As Mayor of Buffalo he had used the veto and had been
made Governor of the state; as Governor he had ruggedly made enemies
and had become President; as President he had flown in the face of
caution with his tariff message and his Reform Club letter and had
three times received a larger popular vote than his competitor. And
each time his plurality was greater than it had been before. If he
tended to become over-sure of himself, it should hardly occasion
surprise. Furthermore he looked upon the duties and possibilities of
the presidential office as fixed and stationary, rather than elastic
and developing. He was a strict constructionist and a rigid believer in
the checks and balances of the Constitution. Although constantly aware
of the needs and rights of the common people, such as composed the
Populist movement, his adherence to strict construction was so complete
that he was unable to advocate much of the federal legislation desired
by them. It was only with hesitation and constitutional doubts, for
example, that he had been able to sign even the Interstate Commerce
Act. In brief, then, the western demand for social and economic
legislation on a novel and unusual scale was to take its chances with
an honest, dogged believer in a restricted federal authority.

The experience of the administration with the patronage question
illustrates how much progress had been made in the direction of reform
since the beginning of Cleveland's first term in 1885. In the earlier
year it had required a bitter contest to make even the slightest
advance; in his second term he retained Roosevelt, a Republican
reformer, on the Commission and gradually extended the rules so as to
cover the government printing office, the internal revenue service, the
pension agencies, and messengers and other minor officials in the
departments in Washington. Finally on May 6, 1896, he approved an order
revising the rules, simplifying them and extending them to great
numbers of places not hitherto included, "the most valuable addition
ever made at one stroke to the competitive service." The net result was
that the number of positions in the classified service was more than
doubled between 1893 and 1897, making a total of 81,889 in a service of
somewhat over 200,000.[5] By the latter year the argument against
reform had largely been silenced. The dismal prediction of opponents
who had feared the establishment of an office-holding aristocracy had
turned out to have no foundation. Agreement was widespread that the
government service was greatly improved. There were still branches of
the service for the reformers to work upon but the great fight was over
and won.[6]

Although the Democrats came into power in 1893 largely on the tariff
issue, Cleveland felt that the most urgent need at the beginning of the
administration was the repeal of the part of the Sherman silver law
that provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver each
month. The financial and monetary aspects of this controversy demand
relation at another point.[7] Politically its results were important.
Western and southern Democrats, friendly to silver, fought bitterly
against the repeal, and became thoroughly hostile to Cleveland whom
they began to distrust as allied to the "money-power" of the East. At
the time, then, when the President was most in need of united partisan
support, he found his party crumbling into factions.

Other circumstances which have been mentioned combined to make the time
inauspicious for a revision of the tariff--the slight Democratic
majority in the Senate, the deficit caused by rising expenditure and
falling revenue, the imminent industrial panic and the prevailing labor
unrest. Nevertheless it seemed necessary to make the attempt. If the
results of the election of 1892 meant anything, they meant that the
Democrats were commissioned to revise the tariff.

The chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means was William L.
Wilson, a sincere and well-read tariff reformer who had been a lawyer
and a college president, in addition to taking a practical interest in
politics. The measure which he presented to the House on December 19,
1893, was not a radical proposal, but it provided for considerable
tariff reductions and a tax on incomes over $4,000. There was a slight
defection in party support, but it was unimportant because of the large
majority which the Democrats possessed, and the bill passed the House
without unusual difficulty.

In the Senate a different situation presented itself. The Democratic
majority over the Republicans, provided the Populists voted with the
former, was only nine; and in case the Populists became disaffected,
the Democrats could outvote the opposition only by the narrow margin of
three, even if every member remained with his party. Such a degree of
unanimity, in the face of prevailing conditions, was extremely
unlikely. The Louisiana senators were insistent upon protection for
their sugar; Maryland, West Virginia and Alabama senators looked out
for coal and iron ore; Senator Hill of New York was unalterably opposed
to an income tax; Senator Murphy, of the same state, obtained high
duties on linen collars and cuffs; and Senators Gorman and Brice were
ready to aid the opposition unless appeased by definite bits of
protection which they demanded. Many years later Senator Cullom, a
Republican, explained the practical basis on which the Senate
proceeded: "The truth is, we were all--Democrats as well as
Republicans--trying to get in amendments in the interest of protecting
the industries of our respective States."

The 634 changes made in the Senate were, therefore, mainly in the
direction of lessening the reductions made by the House. After the bill
had passed the Senate, it was put into the hands of a conference
committee, where further changes were made. At this stage of the
proceedings, Wilson read to the House a letter from the President
condemning the form which the bill had taken under Senate management,
and branding the abandonment of Democratic principles as an example of
"party perfidy and party dishonor." The communication had no effect
except to intensify differences within the party, and senators made it
evident that they would have their way or kill the measure. The House
thereupon capitulated and accepted what became known as the
Wilson-Gorman act--a law which was only less protectionist than the
McKinley act. The President, chagrined at the breakdown of the party
program, allowed the act to pass without his signature, but expressed
his mingled disappointment and disgust in a letter to Representative
T.C. Catchings:

There are provisions in this bill which are not in line with honest
tariff reform.... Besides, there were ... incidents accompanying the
passage of the bill ... which made every sincere tariff reformer
unhappy.... I take my place with the rank and file of the Democratic
party ... who refuse to accept the results embodied in this bill as
the close of the war, who are not blinded to the fact that the
livery of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and worn in the
service of Republican protection, and who have marked the places
where the deadly blight of treason has blasted the counsels of the
brave in their hour of might.

A few phases of the attempt at tariff reduction indicate the extent to
which political decay and especially Democratic demoralization had
gone. As it passed the House, the Wilson bill left both raw and refined
sugar on the free list. This was unsatisfactory to the Louisiana sugar
growers, who desired a protective duty on the raw product, and was
objected to by the Louisiana senators. On the other hand, the American
Sugar Refining Company, usually known as the "Sugar Trust," desired
free raw materials but sought protective duties on refined sugar. In
the Senate, a duty was placed on raw sugar, partly for revenue and
partly to satisfy the Louisiana senators. On refined sugar, rates were
fixed which were eminently satisfactory to the Trust. Rumors at once
began to be spread broadcast over the country that the sugar interests
had manipulated the Senate. The people were the more ready to believe
charges of this sort because of experience with previous tariff
legislation and because the Sugar Trust had been one of the earliest
and most feared of the monopolies which had already caused so much
uneasiness. A Senate committee was appointed, composed of two
Democrats, two Republicans and a Populist, to investigate these and
other rumors. Their report, which was agreed to by all the members,
made public a depressing story. It appeared that one lobbyist had
offered large sums of money for votes against the tariff bill on
account of the income tax provision. Henry O. Havermeyer, president of
the American Sugar Refining Company, testified that the company was in
the habit of contributing to the campaign funds of one political party
or the other in the states, depending on which party was in the
ascendancy; that these contributions were carried on the books as
expense; and that they were given because the party in power "could
give us the protection we should have." Further, one or more officers
of the company were in Washington during the entire time when the
tariff act was pending in the Senate and had conferred with senators
and committees. Senator Quay testified that he had bought and sold
sugar stocks while the Senate was engaged in fixing the schedules and
added: "I do not feel that there is anything in my connection with the
Senate to interfere with my buying or selling the stock when I please;
and I propose to do so." Finally the committee summarized the results
of its investigation, taking the occasion to