Chapter 19 APUSH part 1

Populists' demands

1.) called for abolition of national banks 2.) the end of absentee ownership of land 3.) direct election of the US senators (which would weaken the power of conservative state legislatures) 4.) regulation and (after 1892) government ownership of railroads, telephones, and telegraphs. 5.) a system of government-operated postal savings banks 6.) a graduated income tax 7.) inflation of currency 8.) embraced the demand of its western members for the remonetization of silver

William H. Harvey

A graphic illustration of the popularity of the silver issue was the enormous success of ___________'s "Coin's Financial School", published in 1894, which became one of the great best-sellers of its age. The fictional Professor Coin ran an imaginary school specializing in finance, and the book consisted of his lectures and his dialogues with his students. The professor's brilliant discourses left even his most vehement opponents dazzled as he persuaded his listeners, with simple logic, of the almost miraculous restorative qualities of free silver: "It means the reopening of closed factories, the relighting of fires in darkened furnaces; it means hope instead of despair; comfort in place of suffering; life instead of death."

Battle of the standards

And so the "______" ended in victory for the forces of conservatism. Economic developments at the time seemed to vindicate the Republicans. Prosperity began to return in 1898. Foreign crop failures sent farm prices surging upward, and American business entered another cycle of expansion. Prosperity and the gold standard, it seemed, were closely allied.

Farmers' Alliances

As early as 1875, farmers in parts of the South most notably in Texas) were banding together in so-called _____. By 1880, the Southern Alliance had more than 4 million members; and a comparable Northwestern Alliance was taking root in the plains states and the Midwest and developing ties with its southern counterpart. These organizations were principally concerned with local problems. They formed cooperatives and other marketing mechanisms. They established stores, banks, processing plants, and other facilities for their members -- to free them from the hated "furnishing merchants" who kept so many farmers in debt. Some leaders, however, also saw the movement as an effort to build a society in which economic competition might give way to cooperation. They argued for a sense of mutual, neighborly responsibility that would enable farmers to resist oppressive outside forces. The lecturers traveled throughout rural areas attacking the concentration of power in great corporations and financial institutions and promoting cooperation as an alternative economic system. From the beginning, women were full voting members in these groups and held offices and served as lecturers. Problems of these groups: cooperatives didn't always work well, partly because the market forces operating against them were sometimes too strong to be overcome, partly because the cooperatives were mismanaged.

William McKinley

As the election of 1896 approached, Republicans, watching failure of the Democrats to deal effectively with depression, were confident of success. Party leaders led by the Ohio boss Marcus A. Hanna, settled on governor _____ of Ohio, who had as a member of Congress authored the 1890 tariff act, as the party's presidential candidate.

1.5%

Beginning in 1876, the average popular-vote margin separating the Democratic and Republican candidates was ____

Stood

Bryan showed no such restraint. He became the first presidential candidate in American history to stump every section of the country systematically, to appear in villages and hamlets, indeed the first to say frankly to the voters that he wanted to be president. He traveled 18,000 miles and addressed an estimated 5 million people. But Bryan may have done himself more harm than good. By violating a long-standing tradition of presidential candidates' remaining aloof from their own campaigns (the tradition by which they ____ for office rather than "running" for it), Bryan helped establish the modern form of presidential politics. But he antagonized many voters, who considered his campaign undignified.

Sherman Antitrust Act

By the mid-1880s, fifteen western and southern states had adopted laws prohibiting combinations that restrained competition. But corporations found it easy to escape limitations by incorporating in states, such as New Jersey and Delaware, that offered them special privileges. If antitrust legislation was to be effective, its supporters believed, it would have to come from the national government. Responding to growing popular demands, both house of Congress passed this act in July 1890, almost without dissent. Most members of Congress saw this act as a symbolic measure, one that would helped deflect public criticism but was not likely to have any real effect on corporation power. For over a decade after its passage, this act -- indifferently enforced and steadily weakened by the courts -- had almost no impact.

Interstate Commerce Act

Congress responded to public pressure over railroad regulation in 1887 with this act, which banned discrimination in rates between long and short hauls, which required the railroads to publish their rate schedule and file them with the government, and declared that all interstate rail rates must be "reasonable and just" -- although the act did not define what that meant. A five-person agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was to administer the act. But it had to rely on the courts to enforce its rulings. For almost twenty years after it passage, the act had little practical effect.

William Jennings Bryan

Defenders of the gold standard seemed to dominate the debate, until the final speech. Then _____, a handsome, 36 year old congressman from Nebraska already well known as an effective orator, mounted the podium to address the convention. His great voice echoed through the hall as he defended "free silver" in what became one of the most famous political speeches in American history, known as the "Cross of Gold" speech. In the aftermath of his speech, the convention voted to adopt a pro-silver platform. And the following day, he was nominated for president on the fifth ballot. He was, and remains, the youngest person ever nominated for president by a major party. republican and conservative Democrats attacked this man as a dangerous demagogue. But his many admirers hailed from the Great Commoner. He was a potent symbol of rural, Protestant, middle-class America.

Bimetallism

During most of its existence of a nation, the United States had recognized two metals -- gold and silver -- as a basis for the dollar, a situation known as _____.

Crime of '73

In 1873, Congress passed a law that seemed to simply recognize the existing situation by officially discontinuing silver coinage. Few people objected at the time. But in the course of the 1870s, the market value of silver fell well below the official mint ratio of 16 to 1. Silver became attractive for coinage again. In discontinuing silver coinage, Congress had eliminated a potential method of expanding the currency (and had eliminated a potential market for silver miners). Before long, many Americans concluded that a conspiracy of big bankers had been responsible for the "demonetization" of silver and referred to the law as the "______".

Pendleton Act

In 1883, Congress passed the first national civil service measure which required that some federal jobs be filled by competitive written examinations rather than by patronage. Relatively few officers fell under civil service at first, but its reach extended steadily.

Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railway Co. vs. Illinois (AKA the Wabash Case)

In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled in this one of the Granger Laws in Illinois unconstitutional. According to the Court, the law was an attempt to control interstate commerce and thus infringed on the exclusive power of Congress. Later, the courts limited the powers of the states to regulate commerce even within their own boundaries.

Ocala Demands

In 1890, the Alliances held a convention at Ocala, Florida, and issued the so-called ________, which were, in effect, a party platform. In the 1890 off-year election, candidates supported by the Alliances won partial or complete control of the legislatures in twelve states. They also won six governorships, three seats in the US Senate, and approximately fifty in the US House of Representatives. Many of the successful Alliance candidates were Democrats who had benefited -- often passively -- from Alliance endorsements.

Jacob S. Coxey

In 1894, an Ohio businessman and Populist, began advocating a massive public works program to create jobs for the unemployed and an inflation of the currency. When it became clear that his proposals were making no progress in Congress, he announced that he would "send a petition to Washington with boots on" -- a march of the unemployed to the capital to present their demands to the government. "Coxey's Army", as it was known, numbered only about 500 when it reached Washington, after having marched from Masillon, Ohio. Armed police barred them from the Capital and arrested him. He and his followers were hereded into camps because their presence supposedly endangered public health. Congress took not action on their demands.

Southern demagogue

In the South, in particular, Populism produced the first generation of what was to become a distinctive and enduring political breed -- the "____".

Colored Alliances

In the South, white Populists struggled with the question of whether to accept African Americans into the party. Their numbers and poverty made black farmers possibly valuable allies. There was an important black component to the movement, a network of "_____" that by 1890 had more than one and a quarter million members. But most white Populists were willing to accept the assistance of African Americans only as long as it was clear that whites would remain indisputably in control. When southern conservatives began to attack the Populists for undermining white supremacy, the interracial character of the movement quickly faded.

Presidential election of 1892

In this election, Benjamin Harrison once again supported protection; Grover Cleveland, renominated by the Democrats, once again opposed it. A new third party, the People's Party, with James B. Weaver as its candidate, advocated substantial economic reform. Cleveland won 277 electoral votes to Harrison's 145 and had a popular margin of 380,000. Weaver ran far behind. For the first time since 1878, the Democrats won a majority of both houses of Congress.

Dingley Tariff

McKinley and his allies committed themselves fully to only one issue, one on which they knew virtually all Republicans agreed: the need for higher tariff rates. Within weeks of his inauguration, the administration won approval of the _____, raising duties to the highest point in American history. The administration dealt more gingerly with the explosive silver question.

Currency Act

McKinley sent a commission to Europe to explore the possibility of a silver agreement with Great Britain and France. As he and everyone else anticipated, the effort produced no agreement. The Republicans then enacted the ____, or Gold Standard, Act of 1900, which confirmed the nation's commitment to the gold standard by assigning a specific gold value to the dollar and requiring all currency issued by the United States to hew to that value.

Election of 1896

On election day, McKinley polled 271 electoral votes to Bryan's 176 and 51.1% of the popular vote to Bryan's 47.7. Bryan carried the areas of the South and West where miners or struggling staple farmers predominated. The Democratic program, like that of Populists, had been to narrow to win a national election.

Middle men

People who managed the sale of farmers' crops, taking a large cut of the profits for themselves.

"Free Silver"

Populism never attracted significant labor support, in part because the economic interests of labor and the interests of farmers were often at odds. One exception was the Rocky Mountain states, where the Populists did have some significant success in attracting miners to their cause. They did so partly because local Populist leaders endorsed a demand for ______, the idea of permitting silver to become, along with gold, the basis of the currency so as to expand the money supply.

Ignatius Donnelly

Populist member who wrote one book locating the lost isle of Atlantis, another claiming that Bacon had written Shakespeare's plays, and still another -- "Caesar's Column" (1891) -- presenting a deranged vision of bloody revolution and the creation of a populist utopia.

Rutherford Hayes

President from 1877-1881 who proved that it was impossible to avoid offending the various functions within their own party. He tried to satisfy the Stalwarts and Half-Breeds and ended up satisfying neither. The battle over patronage overshadowed all else during his presidency. His one important substantive initiative -- an effort to create a civil service system -- attracted no support from either party. And his early announcement that he would not seek reelection only weakened him further. His popularity in Washington was not enhanced by the decision of his wife, a temperate advocate widely known as "Lemonade Lucy", to ban alcoholic beverages from the White House. Overall, this man's presidency was a study of frustration.

McKinley Tariff

Representative William McKinley of Ohio and Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island drafted the highest protective measured ever proposed to Congress, which became law in October 1890. The Republicans did this believing that the tariff won them the election of 1888, but they misinterpreted public sentiment.The party suffered a stunning reversal in the 1890 congressional election and in the presidential election of 1892. The Republicans were not able to recover in the next two years.

People's Party

Sentiment for a third party was strongest among the members of the Northwestern Alliance. But several southern leaders supported the idea as well -- among them Tom Watson of Georgia, the only southern congressman elected in 1890 openly to identify with the Alliance, and Leonidas L. Polk of North Carolina, perhaps the ablest mind in the movements. Alliance leaders discussed plans for a third party at meetings in Cincinnati in May 1891 and St. Louis in February 1892. Then in July 1892, 1,000 exultant delegates poured into Omaha, Nebraska, to proclaim the creation of the new party, approve an official set of principles, and nominate candidates for presidency and vice presidency. The new organization's name was ____, but its members were more commonly known as Populists. The election of 1892 demonstrated the potential power of the new movements. The Populist presidential candidates was James B. Weaver of Iowa, a former Greenbacker who received the nomination after the death of Leonidas Polk, the early favorite. Weaver polled more than 1 million votes, 8.5% of the total, and carried six mountains and plains states for 22 electoral votes. Nearly 1,5000 Populist candidates won election to seats in state legislatures. The party elected three governors, five senators, and ten congressman. It could also claim the support of many Republicans and Democrats in Congress who had been elected by appealing to populist sentiment. Populists emphatically rejected the laissez-faire orthodoxies of their time, including the idea that the rights of ownership are absolute. They raised one of the most overt and powerful challenges of the era to the direction in which American industrial capitalism was moving.

Good government

Some reformers -- believers in "_____" -- saw elimination of the pension system as a way to fight graft, corruption, and party rule.

Supporters of silver philosophy

Supporters of free silver considered the gold standard an instrument of tyranny. "Free silver" became to them a symbol of liberation. Silver would be a "people's money", as opposed to gold, the money of oppression and exploitation. It would eliminate the indebtedness of farmers and of whole regions of the country.

Supporters of gold philosophy

Supporters of the gold standards considered its survival essential to the honor and stability of the nation.

Election of 1888

The Democrats renominated Cleveland and supported tariff reductions. The Republicans settled on former senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, who was obscure but respectable (the grandson of president William Henry Harrison); he endorsed high tariffs. The campaign was the first since the Civil War to involve a clear question of economic difference between the parties. It was also one of the most corrupt (and closest) election in American history. Harrison won an electoral majority of 233 to 168, but Cleveland's popular vote exceeded Harrison's by 100,000.

Election of 1880

The Republicans managed to retain this presidency in part because they agreed on a ticket that included a Stalwart and a Half-Breed. They nominated James A. Garfield, a veteran congressman from Ohio and a Half-Breed, for president and Chester A. Arthur of New York, a Stalwart, for vice president. The Democrats nominated General Winfield Scott Hancock, a minor Civil War commander with no national following. Benefiting from the end of recession of 1879, Garfield won a decisive electoral victory, although his popular-vote margin was very thin. The Republicans also captured both houses of Congress.

Congressional election of 1890

The Republicans' substantial Senate majority was slashed to 8; in the House, the party retained only 88 of 323 seats. McKinley went down in defeat.

Panic of 1893

The _____ precipitated the most severe depression the nation had yet experienced. It began in March 1893, when the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, unable to meet payments on loans, declared bankruptcy. Two months later, the National Cordage Company failed as well. Together, the two corporate failures triggered a collapse of the stock market. And since many of major New York banks were heavy investors in the stock market, a wave of bank failures soon began. The new, aggressive, and loan-dependent businesses soon went bankrupt.

Democratic convention

The ______ of 1896 was the scene of unusual drama. Southern and western delegates, eager to neutralize the challenge of the People's Party, were determined to seize control of the party from conservative easterners and incorporate some Populist demands -- among them free silver -- into the Democratic platform. They wanted as well to nominate a pro-silver presidential candidate.

Market ratio

The actual commercial value of silver was much higher than the mint ratio (16:1). Owners if silver could get more by selling it for manufacture into jewelry and other objects than they could by taking it to the mint conversion for coins. So they stopped taking it to the mint, and the mint stopped coining silver.

Fusion

The choice of Bryan and the nature of Democratic platform created a quandary for the Populists. They had expected both major parties to adopt conservative programs and nominate conservative candidates, leaving the Populists to represent the glowing forces of protest. But now the Democrats had stolen much of the thunder. The Populists faced the choice of naming their own candidate and splitting the protest vote or endorsing Bryan and losing their identify as a party. By now, the Populists had embraced the free-silver cause, but most Populists still believed that other issues were more important. Many argued that "____" with the Democrats -- who had endorsed free silver but ignored most of the other Populist demands -- would destroy their party. But the majority concluded that there was no viable alternative. Amid considerable acrimony, the convention voted to support Bryan.

Civil War Pension System

The federal government administered a system for Union Civil War veterans who had retired from work and for their widows. At its peak, this system was making payments to a majority of the male citizens (black and white) of the North and many women as well. Some reformers hoped to make the system permanent and universal. But, their efforts failed, in part because it was awash in party patronage and corruption.

Free silver

The inflationists demanded that the government return at once the "_____" -- that is, to the "free and unlimited coinage of silver" at the old ratio of 16 to 1. But by the time the depression began in 1893, Congress had made no more than a token response to their demands.

Sherman Silver Purchase Act

The nation's gold reserves were steadily dropping. President Cleveland believed that the chief cause of the weakening gold reserves was the _________of 1890, which had required the government to purchase silver and to pay for it in gold. Early in his second administration, therefore, a special session responded to Cleveland's request and repealed the _______ -- although only after a bitter and divisive battle that helped create a permanent split in the Democratic Party.

Mint ratio

The official ratio of the value of silver to the value of gold for purposes of creating currency was 16 to 1: sixteen ounces of silver equaled one ounce of gold.

Subtreasuries

The reform program of the Populists was spelled out first in the Ocala Demands of 1890 and then, even more clearly, in the Omaha platform of 1892. It proposed a system of "_____", which would help replace and strengthen the cooperatives of Grangers and Alliances that had been experimenting for years. The government would establish a network of warehouses, where farmers could deposit their groups. Using these crops as collateral, growers could then borrow money from the government at low rates of interest and wait for the price of their goods to go up before selling them.

Chester A. Arthur

The successor of Garfield had spent a political lifetime as a devoted, skilled, and open spoilsman and a close ally of Roscoe Conkling. But on becoming president, he tried -- like Hayes and Garfield before him -- to follow an independent course and even to promote reform, aware that the Garfield assassination had discredited the traditional spoils system. To the dismay of the Stalwarts, this man kept most of Garfield's appointees in office and support civil service reform.

Overexpansion and weak demand

There were other, longer-range causes of the financial collapse (the Panic of 1893) besides bank failures and bankrupt businesses. Depressed prices in agriculture since 1887 had weakened the purchasing power of farmers, the largest group in the population. Depressed conditions in Europe caused a loss of American markets abroad and a withdrawal by foreign investors of gold invested in the United States. Railroads and other major industries had expanded too rapidly, well beyond market demand. The depression reflected the degree to which the American economy was now interconnected, the degree to which failures in one area affected all other areas. And the depression showed how dependent the economy was on the health of the railroads, which remained the nation's most powerful corporate and financial institutions. When the railroads suffered, as they did beginning in 1893, everything suffered.

The Granger laws

This laws of the early 1870s imposed strict regulation on the railroad rates and practices. But the new regulations were soon destroyed by the courts. That defeat, combined with the political inexperience of many Granger leaders, and above all, the temporary return of agricultural prosperity in the late 1870s, produced a dramatic decline in the power of the association of the Grangers.

Garfield Assassination

This man began his presidency by trying to defy the Stalwarts in his appointments and by showing support for civil service reform. He soon found himself embroiled in an ugly public quarrel with Conkling and the Stalwarts. It was never resolved. On July 2, 1881, only four months after his inauguration, Garfield was short twice while standing in the Washington railroad station by an apparently deranged gunman who shouted, "I am a Stalwart and Arthur is president now!" This man lingered for nearly three months and finally died, a victim as much of inept medical treatment as of the wounds themselves.

James G. Blaine

This man competed in the election of 1884 as the Republican candidate (from Maine) and he was known to his admirers as "Plumed Knight" but to many others as a symbol of seamy party politics. Shortly before the election, a delegation of Protestant ministers called on this man in NYC; their spokesman, Dr. Samuel Burchard, referred to Democrats as the party of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion". This man was slow to repudiate Burchard's indiscretion, and Democrats quickly spread the news that this man had tolerated a slander on the Catholic Church. He lost the election to Cleveland and an unusually heavy Catholic voted for the Democrats in NY.

Grover Cleveland

This man was the Democrats nomination for president and the reform governor of New York. He differed from his opponent (Blaine) on no substantive issues but had acquired a reputation as an enemy of corruption. Partially due to the incident Blaine had with Burchard, this man won a narrow victory in the election of 1884. He won 219 electoral voters to Blaine's 182, his popular margin was only 23,000. During his presidency, he was respected, if not often liked, for his stern and righteous opposition to politicians, grafters, pressure groups, and Tammany Hall. He had become famous as the "veto governor", as an official who was not afraid to say no. He was the embodiment of an era in which few Americans believed the Federal government could, or should, do very much. He always doubted the wisdom of protective tariffs. He believed the existing rates were responsible for the annual surplus in federal revenues, which was tempting Congress to pass "reckless" and "extravagant" legislation, which he frequently vetoed. I December 1887, therefore, he asked Congress to reduce the tariff rates. Democrats in the House approved a tariff reduction, but Senate Republicans defiantly passed a bill of their own actually raising the rates. The resulting deadlock made the tariff an issue in the election of 1888, which he ended up losing to Benjamin Harrison.

Benjamin Harrison

This man's record as president was little more substantial than that of his grandfather, who had died a month after taking office. He had few visible convictions, and he made no effort to influence Congress. And yet during his passive administration, public opinion was beginning to force the government to confront some of the pressing social and economic issues of the day. Most notably, sentiment was rising in favor of legislation to curb the power of trusts.

Half-Breeds

This organization was established at the end of Hayes's presidency. It was captained by James G. Blaine of Maine. They were competing with the Stalwarts for control of the Republican Party.

Stalwarts

This organization was established at the end of Hayes's presidency. It was led by Roscoe Conkling of New York. They were competing with the Half-Breeds for control of the Republican Party.

National Government

This organization was responsible for delivering the mail, maintaining a military, conducting foreign policy, and collecting tariffs and taxes. However, the organization supported the economic development of the nation for decades. In the late nineteenth century, that mostly meant giving tremendous subsidies to railroads, usually in the form of grants of federal land, to encourage them to extend their lines deeper into the nation.

Republican Party

This party captured the presidency in all but two elections in the 1800's. They generally controlled the Senate as well. This party had loyalty from mostly southerners (including blacks and poor whites), as well as northern Protestants, citizens of old stock, and the middle class. In terms of immigration restriction, they supported it and they also favored temperance legislation, which many of them believed would help discipline immigrant communities.

Democratic Party

This party generally controlled the house. The party had loyalty from white southerners and they also had support from Catholic voters, recent immigrants, and poor workers. Also, they believed that immigration restriction (towards Catholics and immigrants) and temperance were assaults on those affected and their cultures, which led to opposition to immigration restriction.

The Grange

This was the first farm organization and it appeared in the 1860s. It had its origins shortly after the Civil War in a tour through the South by a minor Agricultural Development official, Oliver H. Kelley. Kelley was appalled by what he considered the isolation and drabness of rural life. In 1867 he left the government and, with other department employees, founded the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, to which he devoted years of labor as secretary and from which emerged a network of local organization. At first, the people in the organization defined their purposes modestly. They attempted to bring farmers together to learn new scientific agricultural techniques -- to keep farming "in step with the music of the age". They also hoped to create a feeling of community, to relieve the loneliness of rural life. It was strongest in the great staple-producing regions of the South and the Midwest. Usually, they operated through existing parties, although occasional they ran candidates under such independent party labels as "Antimonopoly" and "Reform". At their peak, they managed to gain control of the legislatures in most of the midwestern states. Their purpose was to subject the railroads to government controls.Eventually, it dwindled and the membership shrunk to 100,000 in 1880.

Mary Lease

This woman went on from the Farmers' Alliances to became a fiery Populist orator. She was famous for urging farmers to "raise less corn and more hell".

Crime of '73 groups

Two groups of Americans were especially determined to undo the "Crime of '73". One consisted of all the silver-mine owners, now understandably eager to have the government take their surplus silver and pay them much more than the market price. The other group consisted of discontented farmers, who wanted an increase in the quantity of money -- an inflation of the currency -- as a means of raising the prices of farm products and easing payment of the farmers' debts.

78%

Voter turnout in presidential elections between 1860 and 1900 average over ____ of all eligible voters.

Campaign of 1896

______ produced desperation among conservatives. The business and financial community, frightened beyond reason at the prospect of a Bryan victory, contributed lavishly to the Republican campaign, which may have spent as much as $7 million, as compared to the Democrats' $300,000. From his home at Canton, Ohio, McKinley hewed to the tradition by which candidates for president did not actively campaign for the office. He conducted a dignified "front-porch" campaign by receiving pilgrimages of the Republican faithful, organized and paid for by Hanna.