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Chapter 20 - Gilded Age Politics, 1877-1900

   I.    Introduction

The transformation of the nation between 1877 and 1900 created corruption and greed that tugged at the fabric of democracy. Special interests, corruption, and control by the wealthy shaped politics. Rural discontent and a deep economic depression brought changes to the political system.
   

 II.    The Nature of Party Politics

                  A.    Cultural?Political Alignments
     Between 1875 and 1895, neither major party gained control for any sustained period. Presidential elections were    
                      extremely close, and the outcome often hinged on the votes of a few states.
B.    Party Factions
The Republican Party divided into the “Stalwarts,” the “Half Breeds,” and the “Mugwumps.” The Democrats tended to split into white?supremacy southerners, immigrant-stock urban machine members, and business?oriented advocates of low tariffs.
   
III.    Politics in the Industrial Age

A.    Civil Service Reform
Many Americans expressed opposition to the spoils system of government appointments based on party affiliation. The Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1882 helped reform the civil service.
B.    Railroad Regulation
Railroad practices prompted reformers to demand government regulation of the indus­try. The Supreme Court eventually overturned state efforts to control railroads, leading to passage of the Interstate Commerce Act.
C.    Tariff Policy
Republicans supported high tariffs, but Democrats argued that the rates artificially raised prices. Nevertheless, manufacturing interests maintained control of tariff policy.
D.    Monetary Policy
Farmers favored the coinage of silver to increase the amount of currency in circulation. Creditors favored a limited money supply, based on a gold standard. This issue shaped political fights throughout the era.
E.    Legislative Accomplishments
The amount of legislation passed is surprising, and included laws strengthening the government’s influence in the national economy.
   
    IV.    The Presidency Restrengthened

A.    Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur
The presidents from 1877 to 1890 proved to be less forceful than their predecessors.
B.    Cleveland and Harrison
Grover Cleveland became the first Democratic president since James Buchanan. He used the veto extensively, promoted merit?based civil service, and urged tariff reform. Benjamin Harrison had a Republican majority in Congress, but he alienated many of his supporters. In Cleveland’s second term, the president proved unable to resolve the crises he faced.

    V.    Limits of Gilded Age Politics

A.    Violence Against African Americans
Black southerners endured economic and political oppression, and they often suffered the extreme violence characterized by lynching.
B.    Disfranchisement Begins
White politicians sought to limit African American access to the polls through such measures as the poll tax and literacy tests.
C.    Legal Segregation
With the decision in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the South began to institutionalize racism and segregation through the passage of Jim Crow laws.
D.    Woman Suffrage
The women’s suffrage movement split into two groups. The National Woman Suffrage  Association fought for suffrage on a national level, while the American Woman Suffrage Association worked on the state level.

    VI.    Agrarian Unrest and Populism

A.    Sharecropping and Tenant Farming in the South
In the post-Civil War period, southern agriculture was dominated by landlords who employed sharecroppers and tenants. Under the crop-lien system sharecroppers and tenants pledged their crops as collateral to gain operating capital, but often they could not repay the loans.
B.    Hardship in the Midwest and West
Midwestern farmers experienced falling prices for staple crops while expenses remained high. Western farmers and miners suffered due to railroad monopolies.
C.    Grange Movement
As agricultural prices dropped, farmers organized. Oliver H. Kelley helped start the Grange movement, but in the late 1870s its influence declined significantly.
D.    The White Hats
In the Southwest, Hispanics organized a group known as the White Hats to counter the movement of English-speaking ranchers into communal pastureland.
E.    Farmers’ Alliances
The Farmers’ Alliances constituted a genuine mass movement by 1890. Alliances sponsored political rallies, educational meetings, and cooperative marketing agreements.
F.    Subtreasury Plan
The Alliance proposed the subtreasury plan, in effect a federally sponsored subsidy program, to relieve shortages of cash and credit. The different Alliance groups could not unite, so they failed to bring about any change.
G.    Rise of Populism
In 1890, the Kansas Alliance held a “convention of the People” that formed the People’s Party. In 1892, the People’s Party, or Populists, developed a comprehensive platform addressing the needs of farmers and laborers.
   
    VII.    The Depression of the 1890s

A.    Continuing Currency Problems
The Panic of 1893 made the currency issue critical. Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893, and President Cleveland finally had to accept an offer of gold from J. P. Morgan to stem the run on the United States Treasury.
B.    Effects of a New Economic System
In the 1890s, new economic structures that emphasized consolidation emerged. Response to these new corporate institutions and the distress caused by the depression brought a call for reform.

    VIII.    Depression?Era Protests

A.    Socialists
With the depression of the 1890s, many workers became socialists.
B.    Eugene V. Debs
The Pullman Strike elevated Eugene V. Debs to a position of leadership within the socialist movement.
C.    Coxey’s Army
Jacob Coxey urged the government to issue unbacked paper money to stimulate spending. His “army” of unemployed workers numbered 500 when it reached Washington, D. C., on April 30, 1894. Congress refused to respond, and the police crushed the protest.
   
    IX.    Populists, the Silver Crusade, and the Election of 1896

A.    Stifling of Biracial Political Dissent
To stifle support for the Populists and the Alliances, southern Democrats curtailed black voting by requiring poll taxes and literacy tests.
B.    Free Silver
By 1896, the Populists made the free coinage of silver their primary issue. They believed that such a policy would end the privileged position of the rich.
C.    Republican Nomination of McKinley
William McKinley headed a Republican Party that supported the gold standard.
D.    William Jennings Bryan
The Democrats chose William Jennings Bryan to head their ticket for free silver. The Populists also nominated Bryan.
E.    Election Results
McKinley won the election in the most lopsided victory since 1872. Free silver did not provide the reform issue that would unite the masses.
F.    The McKinley Presidency
McKinley signed the Gold Standard Act in 1900, he oversaw an increase in the tariff, and he encouraged imperialistic ventures in Latin America and the Pacific.
 

 

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