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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34253-8.txt b/34253-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..107fed6 --- /dev/null +++ b/34253-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11639 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Contemporary American History, 1877-1913, by +Charles A. Beard + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Contemporary American History, 1877-1913 + + +Author: Charles A. Beard + + + +Release Date: November 8, 2010 [eBook #34253] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY, +1877-1913*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by +Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://www.archive.org/details/contamerihist00bearrich + + + + + +CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY + +1877-1913 + +by + +CHARLES A. BEARD + +Associate Professor Of Politics in Columbia University + + + + + + + +New York +The Macmillan Company +1914 +All rights reserved + +Copyright, 1914, +By The Macmillan Company. + +Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1914. + +Norwood Press +J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +PREFACE + + +In teaching American government and politics, I constantly meet large +numbers of students who have no knowledge of the most elementary facts +of American history since the Civil War. When they are taken to task for +their neglect, they reply that there is no textbook dealing with the +period, and that the smaller histories are sadly deficient in their +treatment of our age. + +It is to supply the student and general reader with a handy guide to +contemporary history that I have undertaken this volume. I have made no +attempt to present an "artistically balanced" account of the last +thirty-five years, but have sought rather to furnish a background for +the leading issues of current politics and to enlist the interest of the +student in the history of the most wonderful period in American +development. The book is necessarily somewhat "impressionistic" and in +part it is based upon materials which have not been adequately sifted +and evaluated. Nevertheless, I have endeavored to be accurate and fair, +and at the same time to invite on the part of the student some of that +free play of the mind which Matthew Arnold has shown to be so helpful in +literary criticism. + +Although the volume has been designed, in a way, as a textbook, I have +thrown aside the methods of the almanac and chronicle, and, at the risk +of displeasing the reader who expects a little about everything +(including the Sioux war and the San Francisco earthquake), I have +omitted with a light heart many of the staples of history in order to +treat more fully the matters which seem important from the modern point +of view. I have also refused to mar the pages with black type, paragraph +numbers, and other "apparatus" which tradition has prescribed for +"manuals." Detailed election statistics and the guide to additional +reading I have placed in an appendix. + +In the preparation of the book, I have made extensive use of the volumes +by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, and Latané, in the American Nation +Series, and I wish to acknowledge once for all my deep debt to them. My +colleague, Mr. B. B. Kendrick, read all of the proofs and saved me from +many an error. Professor R. L. Schuyler gave me the benefit of his +criticisms on part of the proof. To Dr. Louis A. Mayers, of the College +of the City of New York, I am under special obligations for valuable +suggestions as to arrangement and for drafting a large portion of +Chapter III. The shortcomings of the book fall to me, but I shall be +recompensed for my indiscretions, if this volume is speedily followed by +a number of texts, large and small, dealing with American history since +the Civil War. It is showing no disrespect to our ancestors to be as +much interested in our age as they were in theirs; and the doctrine that +we can know more about Andrew Jackson whom we have not seen than about +Theodore Roosevelt whom we have seen is a pernicious psychological +error. + + CHARLES A. BEARD. + + COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, + November, 1913. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE RESTORATION OF WHITE DOMINION IN THE SOUTH 1 + + II. THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION 27 + + III. THE REVOLUTION IN POLITICS AND LAW 50 + + IV. PARTIES AND PARTY ISSUES, 1877-1896 90 + + V. TWO DECADES OF FEDERAL LEGISLATION, 1877-1896 117 + + VI. THE GROWTH OF DISSENT 143 + + VII. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896 164 + + VIII. IMPERIALISM 199 + + IX. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM 229 + + X. THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 254 + + XI. THE REVIVAL OF DISSENT 283 + + XII. MR. TAFT AND REPUBLICAN DISINTEGRATION 317 + + XIII. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 344 + + APPENDIX 382 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 383 + + INDEX 391 + + + + +CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE RESTORATION OF WHITE DOMINION IN THE SOUTH + + +When President Hayes was inaugurated on March 4, 1877, the southern +whites had almost shaken off the Republican rule which had been set up +under the protection of Federal soldiers at the close of the Civil War. +In only two states, Louisiana and South Carolina, were Republican +governors nominally in power, and these last "rulers of conquered +provinces" had only a weak grip upon their offices, which they could not +have maintained for a moment without the aid of Union troops stationed +at their capitals. By secret societies, like the Ku Klux Klan, and by +open intimidation, the conservative whites had practically recovered +from the negroes, whom the Republicans had enfranchised, the political +power which had been wrested from the old ruling class at the close of +the War. In this nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal +Constitution and other measures designed to secure the suffrage for the +former bondmen, President Grant had acquiesced, and it was openly +rumored that Hayes would put an end to the military régime in Louisiana +and South Carolina, leaving the southern people to fight out their own +battles. + +Nevertheless, the Republicans in the North were apparently loath to +accept accomplished facts. In their platform of 1876, upon which Hayes +was elected, they recalled with pride their achievement in saving the +Union and purging the land of slavery; they pledged themselves to pacify +the South and protect the rights of all citizens there; they pronounced +it to be a solemn obligation upon the Federal government to enforce the +Civil War amendments and to secure "to every citizen complete liberty +and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public +rights." Moreover, they charged the Democratic party with being "the +same in character and spirit as when it sympathized with treason." + +But this vehement declaration was only the death cry of the gladiators +of the radical Republican school. Stevens and Sumner, who championed the +claims of the negroes to full civil and political rights, were gone; and +the new leaders, like Conkling and Blaine, although they still waxed +eloquent over the wrongs of the freedmen, were more concerned about the +forward swing of railway and capitalist enterprises in the North and +West than they were about maintaining in the South the rule of a handful +of white Republicans supported by negro voters. Only a few of the +old-school Republicans who firmly believed in the doctrine of the +"natural rights" of the negro, and the officeholders and speculators who +were anxious to exploit the South really in their hearts supported a +continuance of the military rule in "the conquered provinces." + +Moreover, there were special circumstances which made it improbable that +President Hayes would permit the further use of troops in Louisiana and +South Carolina. His election had been stoutly disputed and it was only a +stroke of good fortune that permitted his inauguration at all. It was +openly charged that his managers, during the contest over the results of +the election in 1876, had promised the abolition of the military régime +in the South in return for aid on the part of certain Democrats in +securing a settlement of the dispute in his favor. Hayes himself had, +however, maintained consistently that vague attitude so characteristic +of practical politicians. In his speech of acceptance, he promised to +help the southern states to obtain "the blessings of honest and capable +self-government." But he added also that the advancement of the +prosperity of those states could be made most effectually by "a hearty +and generous recognition of the rights of all by all." Moreover, he +approved a statement by one of his supporters to the effect that he +would restore all freemen to their rights as citizens and at the same +time obliterate sectional lines--a promise obviously impossible to +fulfill. + +Whether there was any real "bargain" between Hayes and the Democratic +managers matters little, for the policy which he adopted was inevitable, +sooner or later, because there was no active political support even in +the North for a contrary policy. A few weeks after his inauguration +Hayes sent a commission of eminent men to Louisiana to investigate the +claims of the rival governments there--for there were two legislatures +and two governors in that commonwealth contending for power. The +commission found that the Republican administration, headed by Governor +Packard, was little more than a sham, and advised President Hayes of +the fact. Thereupon the President, on April 9, 1877, ordered the +withdrawal of the Federal troops from the public buildings, and +Louisiana began the restoration of her shattered fortunes under the +conservative white leadership. A day later, the President also withdrew +the troops from the capitol at Columbia, South Carolina, and the +Democratic administration under Governor Wade Hampton, a former +Confederate veteran, was duly recognized. Henceforward, the freedmen of +the South were to depend upon the generosity of the whites and upon +their own collective efforts, aided by their sympathizers, for whatever +civil and political rights they were permitted to enjoy. + + +_The Disfranchisement of the Negro_ + +Having secured the abolition of direct Federal military interference +with state administrations in the South, the Democrats turned to the +abrogation of the Federal election laws that had been passed in +1870-1871, as a part of the regular reconstruction policy for protecting +the negroes in the exercise of the suffrage. These election laws +prescribed penalties for intimidation at the polls, provided for the +appointment, by Federal circuit courts, of supervisors charged with the +duty of scrutinizing the entire election process, and authorized the +employment of United States marshals, deputies, and soldiers to support +and protect the supervisors in the discharge of their duties and to keep +the peace at the polls. + +These laws, the Republican authors urged, were designed to safeguard +the purity of the ballot, not only in the South but also in the North, +and particularly in New York, where it was claimed that fraud was +regularly employed by the Democratic leaders. John Sherman declared that +the Democrats in Congress would be a "pitiful minority, if those elected +by fraud and bloodshed were debarred," adding that, "in the South one +million Republicans are disfranchised." Democrats, on the other hand, +replied that these laws were nothing more than a part of a gigantic +scheme originated by the Republicans to fasten their rule upon the +country forever by systematic interference with elections. Democratic +suspicions were strengthened by reports of many scandals--for instance, +that the supervisors in Louisiana under the Republican régime had +registered "eight thousand more colored voters than there were in the +state when the census was taken four years later." Undoubtedly, there +were plenty of frauds on both sides, and it is an open question whether +Federal interference reduced or increased the amount. + +At all events, the Democrats, finding themselves in a majority in the +House of Representatives in 1877, determined to secure the repeal of the +"force laws," and in their desperation they resorted to the practice of +attaching their repeal measures to appropriation bills in the hope of +compelling President Hayes to sign them or tying up the wheels of +government by a stoppage in finances. Hayes was equal to the occasion, +and by a vigorous use of the veto power he defeated the direct assaults +of the Democrats on the election laws. At length, however, in June, +1878, he was compelled to accept a "rider" in the form of a proviso to +the annual appropriation bill for the army making it impossible for +United States marshals to employ federal troops in the execution of the +election laws. While this did not satisfy the Democrats by any means, +because it still left Federal supervision under the marshals, their +deputies and the election supervisors, it took away the main prop of the +Republicans in the South--the use of troops at elections. + +The effect of this achievement on the part of the Democrats was apparent +in the succeeding congressional election, for they were able to carry +all of the southern districts except four. This cannot be attributed, +however, entirely to the suppression of the negro vote, for there was a +general landslide in 1878 which gave the Democrats a substantial +majority in both the House and the Senate. Inasmuch as a spirit of +toleration was growing up in Congress, the clause of the Fourteenth +Amendment excluding from Congress certain persons formerly connected +with the Confederacy, was not strictly enforced, and several of the most +prominent and active representatives of the old régime found their way +into both houses. Under their vigorous leadership a two years' political +war was waged between Congress and the President over the repeal of the +force bills, but Hayes won the day, because the Democrats could not +secure the requisite two-thirds vote to carry their measures against the +presidential veto. + +However, the Supreme Court had been undermining the "force laws" by +nullifying separate sections, although it upheld the general principle +of the election laws against a contention that elections were wholly +within the control of state authorities. In the case of United States +_v._ Reese, the Court, in 1875, declared void two sections of the law of +1870 "because they did not strictly limit Federal jurisdiction for +protection of the right to vote to cases where the right was denied _by +a state_," but extended it to denials by private parties. In the same +year in the case of United States _v._ Cruikshank the Court gave another +blow to Federal control, in the South. A number of private citizens in +Louisiana had waged war on the blacks at an election riot, and one of +them, Cruikshank, was charged with conspiracy to deprive negroes of +rights which they enjoyed under the protection of the United States. The +Supreme Court, however, held that the Federal government had no +authority to protect the citizens of a state _against one another_, but +that such protection was, as always, a duty of the state itself. Seven +years later the Supreme Court, in the case of United States _v._ Harris, +declared null that part of the enforcement laws which penalized +conspiracies of two or more citizens to deprive another of his rights, +on the same ground as advanced in the Louisiana case.[1] + +On the withdrawal of Federal troops and the open abandonment of the +policy of military coercion, the whites, seeing that the Federal courts +were not inclined to interfere, quickly completed the process of +obtaining control over the machinery of state government. That process +had been begun shortly after the War, taking the form of intimidation +at the polls. It was carried forward another step when the "carpet +baggers" and other politicians who had organized and used the negro vote +were deprived of Federal support and driven out. When this active +outside interference in southern politics was cut off, thousands of +negroes stayed away from the polls through sheer indifference, for their +interest in politics had been stimulated by artificial forces--bribery +and absurd promises. Intimidation and indifference worked a widespread +disfranchisement before the close of the seventies. + +These early stages in the process of disfranchisement were described by +Senator Tillman in his famous speech of February 26, 1900. "You stood up +there and insisted that we give these people a 'free vote and a fair +count.' They had it for eight years, as long as the bayonets stood +there.... We preferred to have a United States army officer rather than +a government of carpet baggers and thieves and scallywags and scoundrels +who had stolen everything in sight and mortgaged posterity; who had run +their felonious paws into the pockets of posterity by issuing bonds. +When that happened we took the government away. We stuffed the ballot +boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it. With that system--force, +tissue ballots, etc.--we got tired ourselves. So we had a constitutional +convention, and we eliminated, as I said, all of the colored people whom +we could under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments." The experience +of South Carolina was duplicated in Mississippi. "For a time," said the +Hon. Thomas Spight, of that state, in Congress, in 1904, "we were +compelled to employ methods that were extremely distasteful and very +demoralizing, but now we are accomplishing the same and even better +results by strictly constitutional and legal procedure." It should be +said, however, that in the states where the negro population was +relatively smaller, violence was not necessary to exclude the negroes +from the polls. + +A peaceful method of disfranchising negroes and poor whites was the +imposition of a poll tax on voters. Negroes seldom paid their taxes +until the fight over prohibition commenced in the eighties and nineties. +Then the liquor interests began to pay the negroes' poll taxes and by a +generous distribution of their commodities were able to carry the day at +the polls. Thereupon the prohibitionists determined to find some +effective constitutional means of excluding the negroes from voting. + +This last stage in the disfranchisement process--the disqualification of +negroes by ingenious constitutional and statutory provisions--was +hastened by the rise during the eighties and nineties of the radical or +Populist party in the South, which evenly balanced the Democratic party +in many places and threatened for a time to disintegrate the older +organization. In this contest between the white factions a small number +of active negroes secured an extraordinary influence in holding the +balance of power; and both white parties sought to secure predominance +by purchasing the venal negro vote which was as large as, or perhaps +larger than, the venal white vote in such northern states as +Connecticut, Rhode Island, or Indiana. The conservative wing of the +white population was happy to take advantage of the prevailing race +prejudice to secure the enactment of legislation disfranchising a +considerable number of the propertyless whites as well as the negroes; +and the radicals grew tired of buying negro voters. + +Out of this condition of affairs came a series of constitutional +conventions which devised all sorts of restrictions to exclude the +negroes and large numbers of the "lower classes" from voting altogether, +without directly violating the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal +Constitution providing against disfranchisement on account of race, +color, or previous condition of servitude. + +The series of conventions opened in Mississippi in 1890, where the +Populistic whites were perhaps numerically fewest. At that time +Mississippi was governed under the constitution of 1868, which provided +that no property or educational test should be required of voters, at +least not before 1885, and also stipulated that no amendment should be +made except by legislative proposal ratified by the voters. +Notwithstanding this provision, the legislature in February, 1890, +called a convention to amend the constitution "or enact a new +constitution." This convention proceeded to "ordain and establish" a new +frame of government, without referring it to the voters for +ratification; and the courts of the state set judicial sanction on the +procedure, saying that popular ratification was not necessary. This +constitution provides that every elector shall, in addition to +possessing other qualifications, "be able to read any section of the +constitution of this state; or he shall be able to understand the same +when read to him or to give a reasonable interpretation thereof." Under +such a general provision everything depends upon the attitude of the +election officials toward the applicants for registration, for it is +possible to disfranchise any person, no matter how well educated, by +requiring the "interpretation" of some obscure and technical legal +point. + +Five years later South Carolina followed the example of Mississippi, and +by means of a state convention enacted a new constitution disfranchising +negroes; and put it into force without submitting it to popular +ratification.[2] The next year (1896) the legislature of Louisiana +called a convention empowered to frame a new constitution and to put it +into effect without popular approval. This movement was opposed by the +Populists, one of whom declared in the legislature that it was "a step +in the direction of taking the government of this state out of the hands +of the masses and putting it in the hands of the classes." In spite of +the opposition, which was rather formidable, the convention was +assembled, and ordained a new frame of government (1898) disfranchising +negroes and many whites. The Hon. T. J. Symmes, addressing the +convention at the close, frankly stated that their purpose was to +establish the supremacy of the Democratic party as the white man's +party. + +Four principal devices are now employed in the several constitutional +provisions disfranchising negroes: (1) a small property qualification, +(2) a prerequisite that the voter must be able to read any section of +the state constitution or explain it, when read, to the satisfaction of +the registering officers, (3) the "grandfather clause," as in Louisiana +where any person, who voted on or before 1867 or the son or grandson of +such person, may vote, even if he does not possess the other +qualifications; and (4) the wide extension of disfranchisement for +crimes by including such offenses as obtaining money under false +pretenses, adultery, wife-beating, petit larceny, fraudulent breach of +trust, among those which work deprivation of the suffrage. + +The effect of these limitations on the colored vote has been to reduce +it seriously in the far South. If the negro has the amount of taxable +property required by the constitution, he is caught by the provision +which requires him to explain a section of the state constitution to the +satisfaction of the white registering officers. The meanest white, +however, can usually get through the net with the aid of his +grandfather, or by showing his expertness in constitutional law. Mr. J. +C. Rose has published the election statistics for South Carolina and +Mississippi;[3] it appears that in those states there were, in 1900, +about 350,796 adult male negroes and that the total Republican vote in +both commonwealths in the national election of that year was only 5443. +At a rough guess perhaps 2000 votes of this number were cast by white +men, and the conclusion must be that about ninety-nine out of every +hundred negroes failed to vote for President in those states. It is +fair to state, however, that indifference on the part of the negroes was +to some extent responsible for the small vote. + +The legal restrictions completed the work which had been begun by +intimidation. Under the new constitution of 1890 in Mississippi, only +8615 negroes out of 147,000 of a voting age were registered. In four +years, the number registered in Louisiana fell from 127,000 in 1896 to +5300 in 1900. This was the exact result which the advocates of white +supremacy desired to attain, and in this they were warmly supported by +eminent Democrats in the North. "The white man in the South," said Mr. +Bryan in a speech in New York, in 1908, "has disfranchised the negro in +self-protection; and there is not a Republican in the North who would +not have done the same thing under the same circumstances. The white men +of the South are determined that the negro will and shall be +disfranchised everywhere it is necessary to prevent the recurrence of +the horrors of carpet bag rule." + +Several attempts have been made to test the constitutionality of these +laws in the Supreme Court of the United States, but that tribunal has +been able to avoid coming to a direct decision on the merits of the +particular measures--and with a convincing display of legal reasoning. +The Constitution of the United States simply states that no citizen +shall be deprived of the right to vote on account of race, color, or +previous condition of servitude, and that the representation of any +state in Congress shall be reduced in the proportion to which it +deprives adult male citizens of the franchise. The ingenious provisions +of the southern constitutions do not deprive the negro of the right to +vote on account of his color, but on account of his grandfather, or his +inability to expound the constitution, or his poverty. In one of the +cases before the Supreme Court, the plaintiff alleged that the Alabama +constitution was in fact designed to deprive the negro of the vote, but +the Court answered that it could not afford the remedy, that it could +not operate the election machinery of the state, and that relief would +have to come from the state itself, or from the legislative and +political departments of the Federal government.[4] + + +_Social Discrimination against the Negro_ + +The whites in the South were even less willing to submit to anything +approaching social equality with the negro than they were to accept +political equality. Discriminations against the negro in schools, inns, +theaters, churches, and other public places had been common in the North +both before and after the Civil War, and had received judicial sanction; +and it may well be imagined that the southern masters were in no mood, +after the War, to be put on the same social plane as their former +slaves, and the poor whites were naturally proud of their only +possession--a white skin. Knowing full well that this temper prevailed +in the South the radical Republicans in Congress had pushed through on +March 1, 1875, a second Civil Rights Act designed to establish a certain +social equality, so far as that could be done by law. + +The spirit of this act was reflected in the preamble: "Whereas it is +essential to just government, we recognize the equality of all men +before the law, and hold that it is the duty of government in its +dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of +whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political; +and it being the appropriate object of legislation to enact great +fundamental principles into law." After this profession of faith, the +act proceeds to declare that all persons within the jurisdiction of the +United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the +accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public +conveyances on land or water, theaters and other places of amusement, +subject to limitations applied to all alike, regardless of race or +color. The act further provided that in the selection of jurors no +discrimination should be made on account of race, color, or previous +condition of servitude under a penalty of not more than $5,000. +Jurisdiction over offenses was conferred upon the district and circuit +courts of the United States, and heavy penalties were imposed upon those +who violated the law. This measure was, of course, hotly resisted, and, +in fact, nullified everywhere throughout the Union, north and +south--except in some of the simple rural regions. + +The validity of the act came before the Supreme Court for adjudication +in the celebrated Civil Rights Cases in 1883 and a part of the law was +declared unconstitutional in an opinion of the Court rendered by Mr. +Justice Bradley. According to his view, the Fourteenth Amendment did not +authorize Congress to legislate upon subjects which were in the domain +of state legislation--that is to create a code of municipal law for the +regulation of private rights; but it merely authorized Congress to +provide modes of relief against state legislation and the action of +state officers, executive or judicial, which were subversive of the +fundamental rights specified in the amendment. "Until some state law has +been passed," he said, "or some state action through its officers or +agents has been taken, adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be +protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, no legislation of the United +States under said Amendment, nor any proceeding under such legislation +can be called into activity: for the prohibitions of the Amendment are +against state laws and acts done under state authority." + +The question as to whether the equal enjoyment of the accommodations in +inns, conveyances, and places of amusement was an essential right of the +citizen which no state could abridge or interfere with, Justice Bradley +declined to examine on the ground that it was not necessary to the +decision of the case. He did, however, inquire into the proposition as +to whether Congress, in enforcing the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing +slavery and involuntary servitude, could secure the social equality +contemplated by the act, under the color of sweeping away all the badges +and incidents of slavery. And on this point he came to the conclusion +that mere discriminations on account of race or color could not be +regarded as badges of slavery. "There were," he added, "thousands of +free colored people in this country before the abolition of slavery, +enjoying all of the essential rights of life, liberty, and property the +same as white citizens; and yet no one at that time thought that it was +any invasion of his personal status as a freeman because he was not +admitted to all of the privileges enjoyed by white citizens, or because +he was subjected to discriminations in the enjoyment of accommodations +in inns, public conveyances, and places of amusement." + +Clearly, there was no authority in either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth +Amendment for the section of the Civil Rights Act relative to inns, +conveyances, and places of amusement, at least so far as its operation +in the several states was concerned. If, however, any state should see +fit to make or authorize unlawful discriminations amenable to the +prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress had the power to +afford a remedy or the courts in enforcing the Amendment could give +judicial relief. Thus, while the Justice did not definitely say that the +elements of social equality provided in the Civil Rights Act were not +guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, his line of reasoning and his +language left little doubt as to what was the view of the Court. + +Section four of the Civil Rights Act forbidding, under penalty, +discrimination against any person on account of race, color, or previous +condition of servitude in the selection of jurors had been passed upon +by the Supreme Court in the case of _Ex parte_ Virginia, decided in +1879, in which the section was held to be constitutional as providing +not a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights, but a +mode of redress against the operation of state laws. The ground of +distinction between the two cases is clear. A section forbidding +discrimination in inns and conveyances is in the nature of a code of +private law, but a section forbidding discrimination in the selection of +jurors under penalty simply provides a mode of redress against +violations of the Fourteenth Amendment by state authorities. + +Undoubtedly there is an admissible distinction between discrimination +against negroes in the selection of juries and the discrimination +against them in inns and public conveyances, for the former may have +definite connection with the security of those civil rights of person +and property--as distinct from social rights--which the Fourteenth +Amendment was clearly designed to enforce. This was the principle which +was brought out by the Court in the two decisions.[5] But if Justice +Bradley in the Civil Rights cases had frankly made the distinction +between _civil_ and _social_ rights, and declared the act +unconstitutional on the ground that it attempted to secure social rights +which the Fourteenth Amendment was not intended to establish, then the +decisions of the Court would have been far more definite in character. + +Even if the Supreme Court had not declared the social equality provision +of the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional, it is questionable whether any +real attempt would have been made to enforce it. As it turned out, the +Court gave judicial sanction to a view undoubtedly entertained by the +major portion of the whites everywhere, and it encouraged the South to +proceed with further discriminatory legislation separating the races in +all public and quasi-public places. Railroads and common carriers were +compelled to provide separate accommodations for whites and blacks, "Jim +Crow Cars," as they are called in popular parlance, and to furnish +special seats in street railway cars. These laws have also been upheld +by the courts; but not without a great strain on their logical +faculties. + +Undoubtedly there are mixed motives behind such legislation. It is in +some part a class feeling, for whites are allowed to take their colored +servants in the regular coaches and sleeping cars. Nevertheless, the +race feeling unquestionably predominates. As the author of the Louisiana +"Jim Crow Car" law put it: "It is not only the desire to separate the +whites and blacks on the railroads for the comfort it will provide, but +also for the moral effect. The separation of the races is one of the +benefits, but the demonstration of the superiority of the white man over +the negro is the greater thing. There is nothing that shows it more +conclusively than the compelling of negroes to ride in cars marked for +their especial use." + + +_The Attitude of the North_ + +Although all possibility of northern interference with the southern +states in the management of their domestic affairs seemed to have +disappeared by Cleveland's first administration, the negro question was +continuously agitated by Republican politicians, and at times with great +vigor. They were much distressed at losing their Federal patronage +after the election of Cleveland in 1884; and this first Democratic +presidential victory after the War led many of them to believe that they +could recover their lost ground only by securing to the negro the right +to vote. The Republicans were also deeply stirred by the +over-representation of the South in the House of Representatives under +the prevailing system of apportionment. They pointed out that the North +was, in this respect, at even a greater disadvantage than before the +Civil War and emancipation. + +Under the original Constitution of the United States, only three fifths +of the slaves were counted in apportioning representatives among the +states; under the Fourteenth Amendment all the negroes were counted, +thus enlarging the representation of the southern states. And yet the +negroes were for practical purposes as disfranchised as they were when +they were in servitude. It was pointed out that "in the election of 1888 +the average vote cast for a member of Congress in five southern states +was less than eight thousand; in five northern states, over thirty-six +thousand. Kansas, which cast three times the vote of South Carolina, had +only the same number of congressmen." The discrepancy tended to +increase, if anything. In 1906, a Mississippi district with a population +of 232,174 cast 1540 votes, while a New York district with 215,305 cast +29,119 votes. + +The Republicans have several times threatened to alter this anomalous +condition of affairs. In 1890, Mr. Lodge introduced in the House of +Representatives a bill providing for the appointment of federal election +commissioners, on petition of local voters, endowed with powers to +register and count all votes, even in the face of the opposition of +local officers. This measure, which passed the House, was at length +killed in the Senate. In their platform of 1904, the Republicans +declared in favor of restoring the negro to his rights under the +Constitution, and for political purposes the party in the House later +coupled a registration and election law with the measure providing for +publicity of campaign contributions. It was not acted upon in the +Senate. In 1908, the Republicans in their platform declared "once more +and without reservation, for the enforcement in letter and spirit of the +Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution +which were designed for the protection and advancement of the negro," +and condemned all devices designed to disfranchise him on grounds of +color alone. Although they have been in possession of all branches of +the Federal government several times, the Republicans have deemed it +inexpedient to carry out their campaign promises. + +With the decline in the influence of the Civil War veterans in politics, +the possibility of Federal interference has steadily decreased. The +North had never been abolitionist in temper or political belief, as the +vote of the Free Soil party demonstrates. The Republican party was a +homestead, railway, and protectionist party opposed to slavery in the +territories, and its great leader, Lincoln, had long been on record as +opposed to political and social equality for the negro. Emancipation had +come as a stroke of fortune--not because a majority of the people had +deliberately come to the conclusion that it was a measure of justice. As +in the French Revolution at its height, the extreme radicals forged to +the front for a time, so during the Civil War and its aftermath, +"radical" Republicans held the center of the stage and gave to politics +a flavor of talk about "human rights" which was foreign to practical +statesmen like Clay and Webster. In a little while, practical men came +to the helm once more, and they were primarily interested in economic +matters--railways, finance, tariff, corporations, natural resources, and +western development. The cash nexus with the South was formed once more, +and made far stronger and subtler than in olden days. Agitation of the +negro question became bad form in the North, except for quadrennial +political purposes. + + +_The Negro Problem_ + +Thus the negro, suddenly elevated to a great height politically, was +almost as suddenly dropped by his new friends and thrown largely upon +his own ingenuity and resources for further advance. His emancipation +and enfranchisement had come almost without effort on his own part, +without that development of economic interest and of class consciousness +that had marked the rise of other social strata to political power. It +was fortuitous and had no solid foundation. It became evident, +therefore, that any permanent advance of the race must be built on +substantial elements of power in the race itself. The whites might help +with education and industrial training, but the hope of the race lay in +the development of intellectual and economic power on its own account. + +In relative numerical strength the negro is not holding his own, because +of the large immigration from Europe. In 1790, the negro population +formed 19.3 per cent of the whole, and since that time it has almost +steadily declined, reaching at the last census 10.7 per cent of the +whole. Even in the southern states where the stream of foreign +immigration is the least, the negro population has fallen from 35.2 per +cent in 1790 to 29.8 per cent in 1910. In education, the negro has +undoubtedly made great progress since the War, but it must be remembered +that he was then at the bottom of the scale. The South, though poor as +compared with the North, has made large expenditures for negro +education, but it is authoritatively reported that "nearly half of the +negro children of school age in the South never get inside of the +schoolhouse."[6] The relative expenditures for the education of white +and colored children there are not ascertainable, but naturally the +balance is heavily in favor of the former. When we recall, however, the +total illiteracy of the race under slavery and then discover that in +1910 there was an average daily attendance of 1,105,629 colored children +in the southern schools, we cannot avoid the conclusion that decided +changes are destined to be made in the intellectual outlook of the race. + +Reports also show that negroes are accumulating considerable property +and are becoming in large numbers the holders of small farms. +Nevertheless a very careful scholar, Dr. Walter Willcox, believes that +the figures "seem to show that the negro race at the South, in its +competition with the whites, lost ground between 1890 and 1900 in the +majority of skilled occupations which can be distinguished by the aid of +the census figures." Taking the economic status of the race as a whole, +the same authority adds: "The conclusion to which I am brought is that +relatively to the whites in the South, if not absolutely as measured by +any conceivable standard, the negro as a race is losing ground, is being +confined more and more to the inferior and less remunerative +occupations, and is not sharing proportionately to his numbers in the +prosperity of the country as a whole or of the section in which he +mainly lives." + +The conclusions of the statistician are confirmed by the impressions of +such eminent champions of the negro as Dr. W. B. Dubois and Mr. Thomas +Fortune. The former declares that "in well-nigh the whole rural South +the black farmers are peons, bound by law and custom to an economic +slavery, from which the only escape is death or the penitentiary." The +latter holds that the negro has simply passed from chattel to industrial +slavery "with none of the legal and selfish restraints upon the employer +which surrounded and actuated the master." These writers attribute the +slow advance of the race to the bondage of law and prejudice to which it +is subjected in the South, and everywhere in the country, as a matter of +fact. Whatever the cause may be, there seems to be no doubt that the +colored race has not made that substantial economic advance and achieved +that standard of life which its friends hoped would follow from +emancipation. Those writers who emphasize heredity in social evolution +point to this as an evidence of the inherent disabilities of the race; +while those who emphasize environment point out the immense handicap +everywhere imposed on the race by law, custom, and prejudice. + +Whatever may be the real truth about the economic status of the race, +and after all it is the relative progress of the mass that determines +the future of the race, there can be no doubt that there is an +increasing "race consciousness" which will have to be reckoned with. The +more conservative school, led by Booker T. Washington, is working to +secure for the negro an industrial training that will give him some kind +of an economic standing in the community, and if this is achieved for +large numbers, a radical change in social and political outlook will +follow, unless all signs of history fail. On the other hand, there is +growing up a radical party, under the inspiration of Dr. W. B. Dubois, +which pleads for unconditional political and social equality as a +measure of immediate justice. Dr. Dubois demands "the raising of the +negro in America to full rights and citizenship. And I mean by this no +halfway measures; I mean full and fair equality. That is, a chance to +work regardless of color, to aspire to position and preferment on the +basis of desert alone, to have the right to use public conveniences, to +enter public places of amusement on the same terms as other people, and +to be received socially by such persons as might wish to receive them." + +With both of these influences at work and all the forces of modern life +playing upon the keener section of the colored population, nothing but +congenital disabilities can prevent a movement which ruling persons, +North and South, will have to take into account. How serious this +movement becomes depends, however, upon the innate capacity of colored +masses to throw off the shiftlessness and indifference to high standards +of life that, their best friends admit, stand in the way of their +gaining a substantial economic basis, without which any kind of a solid +political superstructure is impossible. The real negro question now is: +"Can the race demonstrate that capacity for sustained economic activity +and permanent organization which has lifted the white masses from +serfdom?" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] In 1894 the Democrats during Cleveland's administration completed +the demolition of the system by repealing the remaining provisions. + +[2] Disfranchising provisions were adopted in other southern states as +follows: North Carolina, in 1900; Alabama and Virginia, in 1901; +Georgia, in 1908. See Lobingier, _The People's Law_, pp. 301 ff.; W. F. +Dodd, _Revision and Amendment of State Constitutions_. + +[3] _The Political Science Review_, November, 1906, p. 20. + +[4] Giles _v._ Harris, 189 U. S., 474. + +[5] See a Massachusetts case decided before the Civil War upholding +similar discriminations against negroes. Thayer, _Cases on +Constitutional Law_, Vol. I, p. 576. + +[6] This is partly due to the absence of compulsory attendance laws. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION + + +Long before the Civil War, steam and machinery had begun to invade +American industries and statesmen of the new commercial and industrial +order had appeared in Washington. The census of 1860 reported nearly a +million and a half wage earners in the United States, and more than a +billion dollars invested in manufacturing. By that year over thirty +thousand miles of railway had been constructed, including such important +lines as the New York Central, the Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the +Pennsylvania. Politicians of the type of Stephen A. Douglas, who +discussed slavery in public and devoted their less obvious activities to +securing grants of public lands and mineral resources to railway and +manufacturing corporations, had begun to elbow the more cultivated and +respectable leaders like Calhoun, Webster, and Alexander Stephens, who +belonged to the old order. + +But the spectacular conflict over slavery prevented the political +results of the economic transformation from coming to the surface. Those +who had occasion to watch the proceedings of Congress during the two +decades just before the War discovered the manipulations of railway +corporations seeking land grants and privileges from the Federal +Government and the operations of the "protected" interests in behalf of +increased tariffs. Those were also harvest days for corporations and +companies in the state legislatures where special charters and +privileges were being bartered away by the wholesale. There was emerging +in a number of the larger industrial centers a small, though by no means +negligible, labor movement. But the slavery issue overshadowed +everything. The annexation of Texas, slavery in the territories, the +Compromise of 1850, the Nebraska bill, and Bleeding Kansas kept the mind +of the North from the consideration of the more fundamental economic +problems connected with the new order. The politicians, to be sure, did +not live by the slavery agitation alone, but it afforded the leading +topics for public discussion and prevented the critical from inquiring +too narrowly into the real staples of politics. + +The Civil War sharply shifted the old scenery of politics. It gave a +tremendous impetus to industry and railway construction. The tariff +measures during the War gave to manufacturers an unwonted protection +against foreign competition; the demand for war supplies, iron, and +steel, railway materials, textiles, and food supplies, quickened every +enterprise in the North; the great fortunes made out of speculations in +finances, contracts for government supplies, and land-grants placed an +enormous capital in private hands to carry forward business after the +War was over. + +Within little more than a quarter of a century the advance of industry +and commerce had made the United States of Lincoln's day seem small and +petty. The census of 1905 showed over twelve billion dollars invested in +factories and nearly five and one half million wage earners employed. In +that year, the total value of manufactured products was over fourteen +billion dollars--fifteen times the amount turned out in 1860. As late as +1882 the United States imported several hundred thousand tons of steel +rails annually, but within ten years the import had fallen to 134 tons +and no less than 15,000 tons were exported. At the close of the Civil +War about 3000 tons of Bessemer steel were produced annually, but within +twenty years over two million tons were put out every twelve months. + +The building of railways more than kept pace with the growth of the +population and the increase in manufacturing. There were 30,000 miles of +lines in 1860; 52,000 in 1870; 166,000 in 1890; and 242,000 in 1910. +Beginning at first with the construction of lines between strategic +centers like Boston and Albany, and Philadelphia and Reading, the +leaders in this new enterprise grew more bold. They pushed rapidly into +the West where there were no cities of magnitude and no prospect of +developing a profitable business within the immediate future. Capital +flowed into the railways like water; European investors caught the +fever; farmers and merchants along prospective lines bought stocks and +bonds, expecting to reap a harvest from increased land values and +business, only to find their paper valueless on account of preferred +claims for construction; and the whole West was aflame with dreams of a +new Eldorado to be created by transportation systems. + +The era of feverish construction was shortly followed by the combination +of lines and the formation of grand trunk railways and particular +"systems." In 1869, Cornelius Vanderbilt united the Hudson River and New +York Central lines, linking the metropolis and Buffalo, and four years +later he opened the way to Chicago by leasing the Lake Shore Michigan +and Southern. About the same time two other eastern companies, the +Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio secured western connections which +let them into Chicago. + +It must not be thought that this rapid railway expansion was due solely +to private enterprise, for, as has been the standing custom in American +politics, the cost of doubtful or profitless undertakings was thrown as +far as possible upon the public treasury. Up to 1872, the Federal +Government had granted in aid of railways 155,000,000 acres of land, an +area estimated as "almost equal to the New England states, New York, and +Pennsylvania combined; nineteen different states had voted sums +aggregating two hundred million dollars for the same purpose; and +municipalities and individuals had subscribed several hundred million +dollars to help railway construction." To the Union Pacific concern +alone the Federal Government had granted a free right of way through +public lands, twenty sections of land with each mile of railway, and a +loan up to fifty million dollars secured by a second mortgage on the +company's property. The Northern Pacific obtained lands which a railway +official estimated to be worth enough "to build the entire railroad to +Puget Sound, to fit out a fleet of sailing vessels and steamers for the +China and India trade and leave a surplus that would roll up into the +millions." Cities, townships, counties, and states voted bonds to help +build railways within their limits or granted rights of way and lands, +in addition, with a lavish hand. + +The chronicle of all the frauds connected with the manipulation of land +grants to railways and the shameless sale of legal privileges cannot be +written, because in most instances no tangible records have been left. +Perhaps the most notorious of all was the Crédit Mobilier scandal +connected with the Union Pacific. The leading stockholders in that +company determined to secure for themselves a large portion of the +profits of construction, which were enormous on account of the prodigal +waste; and they organized a sham concern known as the Crédit Mobilier in +which they had full control and to which the construction profits went. +Inasmuch as the Federal Government through its grants and loans was an +interested party that might interfere at any time, the concern, through +its agent in Congress, Oakes Ames, a representative from Massachusetts, +distributed generous blocks of stock to "approachable" Senators and +Representatives. News of the transaction leaked out, and a congressional +investigation in 1872 showed that a number of men of the highest +standing, including Mr. Colfax, the Vice President, were deeply +implicated. Nothing was done, however; the leading conspirator, Ames, +was merely censured by the House, and the booty, for the most part, +remained in the hands of those connected with the scandal. When the +road was complete, "it was saddled with interest payments on $27,000,000 +first mortgage bonds, $27,000,000 government bonds, $10,000,000 income +bonds, $10,000,000 land grant bonds, and if anything were left, dividend +payments on $36,000,000 of stock." + + * * * * * + +It would be easy to multiply figures showing astounding gains in +industry, business, foreign trade, and railways; or to multiply stories +of scandalous and unfair practices on the part of financiers, but we are +not primarily concerned here with the technique of inventions or the +history of promotion.[7] The student of social and political evolution +is concerned rather with the effect of such material changes upon the +structure of society, that is, with the rearrangements of classes and +the development of new groups of interests, which are brought about by +altered methods of gaining a livelihood and accumulating fortunes. It is +this social transformation that changes the relation of the individual +to the state and brings new forces to play in the struggle for political +power. The social transformation which followed the Civil War embraced +the following elements. + +In the first place, capital, as contrasted with agriculture, increased +enormously in amount and in political influence. Great pecuniary +accumulations were thenceforward made largely in business +enterprise--including the work of the entrepreneur, financier, +speculator, and manipulator under that general term. Inevitably, the +most energetic and the keenest minds were attracted by the dominant mode +of money-making. Agricultural regions were drained of large numbers of +strenuous and efficient men, who would otherwise have been their natural +leaders in politics. To these were added the energetic immigrants from +the Old World. That forceful, pushing, dominating section of society +historically known as the "natural aristocracy" became the agents of +capitalism. The scepter of power now passed definitively from the +masters of slaves to the masters of "free laborers." The literary and +professional dependents of the ruling groups naturally came to the +defense of the new order.[8] The old contest between agrarianism and +capitalism now took on a new vigor.[9] + +On the side of the masses involved in the transition this economic +revolution meant an increasing proportion of wage workers as contrasted +with agriculturalists, owning and operating their farms, and with +handicraftsmen. This increase is shown by the following table, giving +the number of wage earners in _manufacturing_ alone: + + POPULATION WAGE EARNERS + + 1850 23,191,876 957,059 + 1860 31,443,321 1,311,246 + 1870 38,558,371 2,053,996 + 1880 50,155,783 2,732,595 + 1890 62,947,714 4,251,535 + 1900 75,994,575 5,306,143 + 1910 91,972,266 6,615,046 + +In terms of social life, this increase in wage workers meant, in the +first place, a rapid growth of city populations. In 1860, the vast +majority of the people were agriculturists; in 1890, 36.1 per cent of +the population lived in towns of over 2500; in 1900, 40.5 per cent; in +1910, 46.3 per cent. In the forty years between the beginning of the +Civil War and the close of the century, Chicago had grown from 109,260 +to 1,698,575; Greater New York from 1,174,779 to 3,437,202; San +Francisco from 56,802 to 342,782. + +In the next place, the demand for labor stimulated immigration from +Europe. It is true there was a decline during the Civil War, and the +panic of 1873 checked the tide when it began to flow, but by 1880 it had +nearly touched the half-a-million mark, and by 1883 it reached the +astounding figure of 788,992. Almost all of this immigration was from +Germany, Ireland, Great Britain, and Scandinavian countries, less than +one in twenty of the total number coming from Austria-Hungary, Italy, +and Poland in 1880. On the Pacific coast, railway building and +industrial enterprise, in the great dearth of labor, resorted to the +Orient for large supplies of Chinese coolies. + +This industrial development meant the transformation of vast masses of +the people into a proletariat, with all the term implies: an immense +population housed in tenements and rented dwellings, the organization of +the class into trades-unions, labor parties, and other groups; poverty +and degradation on a large scale; strikes, lockouts, and social warfare; +the employment of large numbers of women and children in factories; the +demand for all kinds of legislation mitigating the evils of the +capitalist process; and finally attacks upon the very basis of the +industrial system itself. + +This inevitable concomitant of the mechanical revolution, the industrial +proletariat, began to make itself felt as a decided political and +economic factor in the decade that followed the War. Between 1860 and +1870, the railway engineers, firemen, conductors, bricklayers, and cigar +makers had formed unions. In the campaign of 1872 a party of Labor +Reformers appeared; and a few years later the Knights of Labor, a grand +consolidated union of all trades and grades of workers, came into +existence as an active force, conducting an agitation for labor bureaus, +an eight hour day, abolition of contract labor systems, and other +reforms, and at the same time engineering strikes. + +In 1877 occurred the first of the great labor struggles in that long +series of campaigns which have marked the relations of capitalists and +workingmen during the past four decades. In that year, trouble began +between the management of the Baltimore and Ohio railway and its +employees over a threatened reduction in wages--the fourth within a +period of seven years. From this starting point the contest spread +throughout the East and Middle West, reaching as far as Texas. Inasmuch +as there was already considerable unemployment, the strikers saw that +only by violence and intimidation could they hope to prevent the +companies from moving their trains. Troops were called out by the +governors of several states and Federal assistance was invoked. +Pittsburgh fell almost completely into the hands of the strikers; +railway buildings were burned and property to the value of more than ten +million dollars destroyed. Everywhere the raw militia of the states was +found to be inefficient for such a serious purpose, and the superior +power of the Federal Government's regular troops was demonstrated. Where +railways were in the hands of receivers, Federal courts intervened by +the use of injunctions and the first blood in the contest between the +judiciary and labor was drawn. + +The last, but perhaps most significant, result of the industrial +revolution above described has been the rise of enormous combinations +and corporations in industry as well as in transportation. An increasing +proportion of the business of the country has passed steadily into +corporate, as contrasted with individual, ownership;[10] and this +implies a momentous change in the rights, responsibilities, and economic +theories of the owners of capital. Moreover, it involves the creation of +a new class of men, not entrepreneurs in the old sense, but organizers +of already established concerns into larger units. + +The industrial revolution had not advanced very far before an intense +competition began to force business men to combine to protect themselves +against their own weapons. As early as 1879 certain oil interests of +Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other centers had begun to +control competition by making agreements through their officers. Three +years later, they devised an excellent scheme for a closer organization +in the formation of a "trust." They placed all their stocks in the hands +of nine trustees, including John D. Rockefeller, who issued in return +certificates representing the proportionate share of each holder in the +concern, and managed the entire business in the interests of the +holders. + +The trust proved to be an attractive proposition to large business +concerns. Within five years combinations had been formed in cotton oil, +linseed oil, lead, sugar, whisky, and cordage, and it was not long +before a system of interlocking interests began to consolidate the +control of all staple manufactures in the hands of a few financiers. Six +years after its formation the Standard Oil Company was paying to a small +group of holders about $20,000,000 annually in dividends on a capital of +$90,000,000, and the recipients of these large dividends began to invest +in other concerns. In 1879, one of them, H. M. Flagler, became a +director of the Valley Railroad; in 1882, William Rockefeller appeared +as one of the directors of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul; in +1887, John D. Rockefeller was connected with a syndicate which absorbed +the Minnesota Iron Company, and about the same time representatives of +the Oil Trust began to figure in the Northern Pacific, the Missouri, +Kansas, and Texas, and the Ohio River railways. Thus a perfect network +of financial connections throughout the country was built up. + +But on the whole the decades following the Civil War were characterized +by economic anarchy, _laissez faire_ with a vengeance. There were +prolonged industrial crises accompanied by widespread unemployment and +misery among the working classes. In the matter of railway management +the chaos was unparalleled. + +Shortly after 1870 a period of ruinous competition set in and was +followed by severe financial crises among the railways. Passenger and +freight rate "wars" for the "through" traffic brought many roads to the +verge of bankruptcy, in spite of their valiant efforts to save +themselves by exorbitant charges on subsidiary branches where they had +no competition. Crooked financiering, such as the watering of stocks, +misappropriation of construction funds by directors, and the purchase of +bankrupt lines by directors of larger companies and their resale at +great advances, placed a staggering burden of interest charges against +practically all of the lines. In 1873 nearly half of the mileage in the +country was in the hands of court receivers, and between 1876 and 1879 +an average of more than one hundred roads a year were sold under the +foreclosure of mortgages. In all this distress the investors at large +were the losers while the "inside" operators such as Jay Gould, +Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Russell Sage doubled their already +over-topping fortunes. + +A very good example of this "new finance" is afforded by the history of +the Erie Railway. In 1868, Vanderbilt determined to secure possession of +this line which ran across New York State in competition with the New +York Central and Hudson River lines. Jay Gould and a group of operators, +who had control of the Erie, proceeded to water the stock and "unload" +upon Vanderbilt, whose agents bought it in the hope of obtaining the +coveted control. After a steeple chase for a while the two promoters +came to terms at the expense of the stockholders and the public. Between +July 1 and October 24, 1868, the stock of the Erie was increased from +$34,000,000 to $57,000,000, and the price went downward like a burnt +rocket. During the short period of Gould's administration of the Erie +"the capital stock of the road had been increased $61,425,700 and the +construction account had risen from $49,247,700 in 1867 to $108,807,687 +in 1872. Stock to the amount of $40,700,000 had been marketed by the +firm of Smith, Gould, and Martin, and, incredible as it may seem, its +sale had netted the company only $12,803,059."[11] + +The anarchy in railway financing, which characterized the two decades +after the War, was also accompanied by anarchy in management. A Senate +investigating committee in 1885 enumerated the following charges against +the railroads: that local rates were unreasonably high as compared with +through rates; that all rates were based apparently not on cost of +service but "what the traffic would bear"; that discriminations between +individuals for the same services were constant; that "the effect of the +prevailing policy of railroad management is, by an elaborate system of +secret special rates, rebates, drawbacks, and concessions, to foster +monopoly, to enrich favorite shippers, to prevent free competition in +many lines of trade in which the item of transportation is an important +factor;" that secret rate cutting was constantly demoralizing business; +that free passes were so extensively issued as to create a privileged +class, thus increasing the cost to the passenger who paid; that the +capitalization and bonded indebtedness of companies largely exceeded the +actual cost of construction; and that railway corporations were engaged +in other lines of business and discriminating against competitors by +unfair rate manipulations. In a word, the theories about competition +written down in the books on political economy were hopelessly at +variance with the facts of business management; the country was at the +mercy of the sharp practices of transportation promoters. + + * * * * * + +However, emphasis upon this great industrial revolution should not be +allowed to obscure the no less remarkable development in agriculture. +The acreage in improved farm lands rose from 113,032,614 in 1850 to +478,451,750 in 1910. In the same period the number of farms increased +from 1,449,073 to 6,361,502. Notwithstanding the significant fact that +"whereas the total population increased 21 per cent between 1900 and +1910, the urban population increased 34.8 per cent and the rural +population 11.2 per cent," the broad basis of the population during the +half a century here under consideration has remained agricultural, and +in 1913 it was estimated that at the present rate of transformation "it +will take a generation before the relative number of industrial wage +workers will have reached half of all bread winners." + + +_The Development of the West_ + +When Hayes was inaugurated, a broad wedge of territory separated the +organized states of the East from their sister commonwealths in the far +West--Oregon, California, and Nevada. Washington, Idaho, Montana, +Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Dakota, and Indian Territory still +remained territories. Their combined population in 1870 was under half a +million, less than that of the little state of Connecticut. New Mexico +with 91,000 and Utah with 86,000 might, with some show of justification, +have claimed a place among the states because Oregon was inhabited by +only 90,000 people. The commonwealth of Nevada, with 42,000, was an +anomaly; it had been admitted to the Union in 1864 to secure the +ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. + +This vast and sparsely settled region was then in the second stage of +its economic evolution. The trapper, hunter, and explorer had gathered +most of their harvest, and the ranchmen and cowboys with their herds of +cattle were roaming the great grazing areas, waging war on thieves, land +syndicates, and finally going down to defeat in the contest with the +small farmer who fenced off the fertile fields and planted his homestead +there. So bitter were the contests among the cattle kings, and so +extensive was the lawlessness in these regions during the seventies and +early eighties that Presidents were more than once compelled to warn the +warlike parties and threaten them with the Federal troops. + +Of course, the opening of the railways made possible a rapidity in the +settlement of the remaining territories which outrivaled that of the +older regions. The first Pacific railroad had been completed in 1869; +the Southern Pacific connecting New Orleans with the coast was opened in +1881; and two years later the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe was +finished, and the last stroke was put on the Northern Pacific, +connecting Chicago and Portland, Oregon. Thus four lines of +communication were established with the coast, traversing the best +agricultural regions of the territories and opening up the +mineral-bearing regions of the mountains as well. Lawless promoters fell +upon the land and mineral resources with that rapacity which Burke +attributed to Hastings. + + * * * * * + +Utah presented, in the eighties, the elements of an ordered and +well-advanced civilization and could with some show of reason ask for +admission as a state. The territory had been developed by the Mormons +who settled there, after suffering "persecution" for their religious +opinions and their plural marriages, in Illinois and Missouri. +Notwithstanding an act of Congress passed in 1862 prohibiting polygamy, +it continued to flourish. The territorial officers were nearly all +Mormons and the remoteness of the Federal authority prevented an +enforcement of the law. Consequently, it remained a dead letter until +1882, when Congress enacted the Edmunds law prescribing heavy penalties, +including the loss of citizenship, for polygamous practices. Hundreds of +prosecutions and convictions followed, but plural marriages were openly +celebrated in defiance of the law. At length, in 1887, Congress passed +the Edmunds-Tucker act authorizing the Federal Government to seize the +property of the Mormon church. + +Meanwhile the gentile population increased in the territory; and at +length the Mormons, seeing that the country was determined to suppress +polygamy and that, while the institution was maintained, statehood could +not be secured, decided upon at least an outward acquiescence in the +law. After much discussion in Congress, and notwithstanding the repeated +contention that the Mormons were not sincere in their promises, Utah was +admitted as a state in 1895 under a constitution which, in accordance +with the provisions of the enabling act of Congress, forbade polygamous +and plural marriages forever. Thus the inhabitants of the new state were +bound by a solemn contract with the Union never to restore the marriage +practices which had caused them so much trouble and "persecution," as +they called it. + + * * * * * + +Although the Mormons were the original pioneers and homestead makers in +that great region, theirs was in fact the last of the middle tier of +territories to receive statehood. They had left the advancing frontier +line far behind. To the northward that advance was checked by the +enormous Sioux reservation in Dakota, but the discovery of gold in the +Black Hills marked the doom of the Indian rights. Miners and +capitalists demanded that the way should be made clear for their +enterprise and the land hungry were clamoring for more farms. Indeed, +before Congress could act, pioneers were swarming over the regions +around the Indian lands. Farmers from the other northern states, +Norwegians, Germans, and Canadians were planting their homesteads amid +the fertile Dakota fields; the population of the territory jumped from +14,181 in 1870 to 135,177 in 1880, and before the close of the next +decade numbered more than half a million. It was evident that the region +was destined to be principally agricultural in character, inhabited by +thrifty farmers like those of Iowa and Nebraska. Pretensions to +statehood therefore rose with the rising tide of population. + +Far over on the western coast, the claims of Washington to statehood +were being urged. The population there had increased until it rivaled +Oregon and passed the neighboring commonwealth in 1890. In addition to +rich agricultural areas, it possessed enormous timber resources which +were to afford the chief industry for a long time; and keen-sighted men +foresaw a swift development of seaward trade. Between the Dakotas and +Washington lay the narrow point of Idaho and the mountainous regions of +Montana, now rapidly filling up with miners and capitalists exploiting +the gold, silver, coal, copper, and other mineral resources, and +rivaling the sheep and cattle kings in their contest for economic +supremacy. + +After the fashion of enterprising westerners, the citizens of these +territories began to boast early of their "enormous" populations and +their "abounding" wealth, and to clamor for admission as states. Finding +their pleas falling upon unheeding ears, the people of the southern +Dakota took matters into their own hands in 1885, called a convention, +framed a constitution, and failing to secure the quick and favorable +action of Congress threatened to come into the Union unasked. Sober +counsels prevailed, however, and the impatient Dakotans were induced to +wait awhile. Meantime the territory was divided into two parts in 1887, +after a popular vote had been taken on the matter. + +As had been the case almost from the beginning of the Republic, the +admission of these new states was a subject of political controversy and +intrigue at the national capital. During Cleveland's first +administration the House was Democratic and the Senate Republican. +Believing that Dakota was firmly Republican, the Senate passed the +measure admitting the southern region in 1886, but the Democratic House +was unable to see eye to eye with the Senate on this matter. In the +elections of 1888, the Republicans carried the House, and it was evident +that the new Congress would take some action with regard to the +clamoring territories. Montana was probably Democratic, and Washington +was uncertain. At all events the Democrats thought it wise to come to +terms, and accordingly on February 22, 1889, the two Dakotas, +Washington, and Montana were admitted simultaneously. + +With less claim to statehood than any commonwealths admitted up to that +time, except Nevada, the two territories of Idaho and Wyoming were soon +enabled, by the assistance of the politicians, to secure admission to +the Union. Republican politics and the "silver interests" were +responsible for this step. Although neither territory had over 40,000 +inhabitants in 1880, extravagant claims were made by the advocates of +admission--claims speedily belied by the census of 1890, which gave +Idaho 88,000 and Wyoming 62,000. At last in July, 1890, they were +admitted to the Union, and the territorial question was settled for a +time, although Arizona and New Mexico felt that their claims were +unjustly treated. It was not until seventeen years later that another +new state, Oklahoma, modeled out of the old Indian Territory, was added +to the Union. Finally, in 1912, the last of the continental territories, +Arizona and New Mexico, were endowed with statehood.[12] + + +_The Economic Advance of the South_ + +Notwithstanding the prominence given to the negro question during and +after Reconstruction, the South had other problems no less grave in +character to meet. Industry and agriculture were paralyzed by the +devastations of the War. A vast amount of material capital--railways, +wharves, bridges, and factories--had been destroyed during the conflict; +and fluid capital seeking investment had been almost destroyed as well. +The rich with ready money at their command had risked nearly all their +store in confederate securities or had lost their money loaned in other +ways through the wreck of the currency. Plantations had depreciated in +value, partly because of the destruction of equipment, but especially on +account of the difficulties of working the system without slave labor. +The South had, therefore, to rehabilitate the material equipment of +industry and transportation and to put agriculture on another basis than +that of slave labor. Surely this was a gigantic task. + +The difficulties of carrying forward the plantation system with free +negro labor compelled the holders of large estates (many of which were +heavily mortgaged) to adopt one of two systems: the leasing or renting +of small plots to negroes or poor whites, or the outright sale in small +quantities which could be worked by one or two hands. This +disintegration of estates went forward with great rapidity. In 1860 the +average holding of land in the southern states was 335.4 acres; in 1880 +it had fallen to 153.4; and in 1900 it had reached 138.2. The great +handicap was the difficulty of securing the capital to develop the small +farm, and no satisfactory system for dealing with this problem has yet +been adopted. + +The very necessities of the South served to bind that section to the +North in a new fashion. Fluid capital had to be secured, in part at +least, from the North, and northern enterprise found a new outlet in the +reconstruction of the old, and the development of the new, industries in +the region of the former confederacy. The number of cotton spindles in +the South increased from about 300,000 in 1860 to more than 4,000,000 at +the close of the century; the number of employees rose from 10,000 to +nearly 100,000; and the value of the output leaped from $8,460,337 +annually to $95,002,059. This rapid growth was, in part, due to the +abundance of water power in the hill regions, the cheap labor of women +and children, the low cost of living, and the absence of labor laws +interfering with the hours and conditions of work in the factories. + +Even in the iron and steel industry, West Virginia and Alabama began to +press upon the markets of the North within less than twenty years after +the close of the War. In 1880, the latter state stood tenth among the +pig-iron producing states; in 1890 it stood third. The southern states +alone now produce more coal, iron ore, and pig iron than all of the +states combined did in 1870. The census of 1909 reports 5685 +manufacturing establishments in Virginia, 4931 in North Carolina, 4792 +in Georgia, and 3398 in Alabama. + +The social effects which accompany capitalist development inevitably +began to appear in the South. The industrial magnate began to contest +with the old aristocracy of the soil for supremacy; many former slave +owners and their descendants drifted into manufacturing and many poor +whites made their way upward into wealth and influence. The census of +1909 reports more than thirty thousand proprietors and firm members in +the South Atlantic states, an increase over the preceding report almost +equal to that in the New England states. The same census reports in the +southern states more than a million wage earners--equal to almost two +thirds the entire number in the whole country at the opening of the +Civil War. The percentage of increase in the wage earners of the South +Atlantic states between 1904 and 1909 was greater than in New England or +the Middle Atlantic states. + +With this swift economic development, northern capital streamed into the +South; northern money was invested in southern public and industrial +securities in enormous amounts; and energetic northern business men were +to be found in southern market places vying with their no less +enterprising southern brethren. The men concerned in creating this new +nexus of interest between the two regions naturally deprecated the +perpetual agitation of sectional issues by the politicians, and +particularly northern interference in the negro question. Business +interest began to pour cold water on the hottest embers which the Civil +War had left behind. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] The following brief chronology of inventions illustrates the +rapidity in the technical changes in the new industrial development: + + 1875--Bell's telephone in operation between Boston and + Salem. + + 1879--Brush arc street lighting system installed in San + Francisco. + + 1882--Edison's plant for incandescent lighting opened in New + York City. + + 1882--Edison's electric street car operated at Menlo Park, + New Jersey. + + 1885--Electric street railways in operation at Richmond, + Virginia, and Baltimore. + + [8] For the keenest analysis of this social transformation, + see Veblen, _Theory of the Leisure Class_ and _Theory of + Business Enterprise_. + + [9] See below, Chaps. VI and VII. + + [10] See below, p. 234. + + [11] Youngman, _The Economic Causes of Great Fortunes_, p. + 75. + + [12] By an act passed in August, 1912, Congress provided a + territorial legislature for Alaska, which had been governed + up to that time by a governor appointed by the President and + Senate, under acts of Congress. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE REVOLUTION IN POLITICS AND LAW + + +The economic revolution that followed the War, the swift and potent +upswing of capitalism, and the shifting of political power from the +South to the North made their impress upon every branch of the Federal +Government. Senators of the old school, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Roger +Baldwin, John P. Hale, James Mason, and Jefferson Davis were succeeded +by the apostles of the new order: Roscoe Conkling and Thomas Platt, +James Donald Cameron, Leland Stanford, George Hearst, Arthur P. Gorman, +William D. Washburn, John R. McPherson, Henry B. Payne, Matthew S. Quay, +Philetus Sawyer, John H. Mitchell, and James G. Blaine. The new Senate +was composed of men of affairs--practical men, who organized gigantic +enterprises, secured possession of natural resources and franchises, +collected and applied capital on a large scale to new business +undertakings, built railways, established cities with the advancing line +of the western frontier--or represented such men as counsel in the +courts of law. + +Not many of them were great orators or widely known as profound students +of politics in its historical and comparative aspects. A few, like +Blaine, Hoar, and Conkling, studied the classic oratory of the older +generation and sought to apply to the controverted issues of the hour +that studious, orderly, and sustained eloquence which had adorned the +debates of earlier years; but the major portion cultivated only the arts +of management and negotiation. Few of them seem to have given any +thought to the lessons to be learned from European politics. On the +contrary, they apparently joined with the multitude in the assumption +that we had everything to teach Europe and nothing to learn. Bismarck +was to them, if we may judge from their spoken words, simply a great +politician and the hero of a war; the writings of German economists, +Wagner and Schmoller, appear never to have penetrated their studies. +That they foresaw in the seventies and eighties the turn that politics +was destined to take is nowhere evident. They commanded respect and +admiration for their practical achievements; but it is questionable +whether the names of more than two or three will be known a century +hence, save to the antiquarian. + +Of this group, Roscoe Conkling was undoubtedly typical, just as Marcus +A. Hanna represented the dominant politicians of a later time. He was an +able lawyer and an orator of some quality, but of no permanent fame. He +took his seat in the Senate in 1867 and according to his biographer +"during the remainder of his life his legal practice was chiefly +connected with corporations that were litigants in the district and +circuit courts of the United States,"[13]--the judges of which courts he +was, as Senator, instrumental in appointing. His practice was lucrative +for his day, amounting to some $50,000 a year.[14] He counted among his +clients the first great capitalists of the country. When he was forced +to retire from New York politics, "the first person who came to see him +on business was Mr. Jay Gould, who waited upon him early one morning at +his hotel."[15] He was counsel for Mr. Collis P. Huntington in his +contest against the state legislation which railway interests deemed +unjust and unconstitutional.[16] He was among the keen group of legal +thinkers who invoked and extended the principle of the Fourteenth +Amendment to cover all the varieties of legislation affecting corporate +interests adversely.[17] + +Criticism of the Republican party, and particularly of the policies for +which he stood, Mr. Conkling regarded as little short of treason. For +example, when Mr. George William Curtis, in the New York state +convention of 1877, sought to endorse the administration of President +Hayes, whose independence in office had been troublesome to Mr. +Conkling, the latter returned in a passionate attack on the whole party +of opposition: "Who are these men who in newspapers and elsewhere are +'cracking their whips' over Republicans and playing schoolmaster to the +Republican party and its conscience and convictions. They are of various +sorts and conditions. Some of them are the man-milliners, the dilettanti +and carpet knights of politics, men whose efforts have been expended in +denouncing and ridiculing and accusing honest men.... Some of these +worthies masquerade as reformers and their vocation and ministry is to +lament the sins of other people. Their stock in trade is rancid, canting +self-righteousness. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. Their real +object is office and plunder. When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the +last refuge of a scoundrel, he was then unconscious of the then +undeveloped capabilities of the word 'reform.'"[18] + +The political philosophy of this notable group of political leaders was +that of their contemporaries in England, the Cobden-Bright school. They +believed in the widest possible extension of the principle of private +property, and the narrowest possible restriction of state interference, +except to aid private property to increase its gains. They held that all +of the natural resources of the country should be transferred to private +hands as speedily as possible, at a nominal charge, or no charge at all, +and developed with dashing rapidity. They also believed that the great +intangible social property created by community life, such as franchises +for street railways, gas, and electricity, should be transformed into +private property. They supplemented their philosophy of property by a +philosophy of law and politics, which looked upon state interference, +except to preserve order, and aid railways and manufacturers in their +enterprises, as an intrinsic evil to be resisted at every point, and +they developed a system of jurisprudence which, as Senators having the +confirming power in appointments and as counsel for corporations before +the courts of the United States, they succeeded in transforming into +judicial decisions. Some of them were doubtless corrupt, as was +constantly charged, but the real explanation of their resistance to +government intervention is to be found in their philosophy, which, +although consonant with their private interests, they identified with +public good. + + +_Writing Laissez Faire into the Constitution_ + +Inasmuch as the attacks on private rights in property, franchises, and +corporate privileges came principally from the state legislatures, it +was necessary to find some way to subject them to legal control--some +juristic process for translating _laissez faire_ into a real restraining +force. These leading statesmen and lawyers were not long in finding the +way. The Federal courts were obviously the proper instrumentalities, and +the broad restrictions laid upon the states by the Fourteenth Amendment +no less obviously afforded the constitutional foundation for the science +of legislative nihilism. "No state," ran the significant words of that +Amendment, "shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the +privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any +state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due +process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal +protection of the laws." + +What unseen implications lay within these phrases the most penetrating +thinkers divined at once. Protest was made by the New Jersey legislature +against the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866 on the ground that it would +destroy all the essential rights of a state to control its internal +affairs; and such opinion was widespread. But the most common view was +to the effect that the Amendment would be used principally to surround +the newly emancipated slaves with safeguards against their former +masters who might be tempted to restore serfdom under apprentice and +penal laws and other legal guises. Still there is plenty of evidence to +show that those who framed the Fourteenth Amendment and pushed it +through Congress had in mind a far wider purpose--that of providing a +general restraining clause for state legislatures. + +The problem of how best to check the assaults of state legislatures on +vested rights was not new when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. On +the contrary, it was one of the first concerns of the Convention of 1787 +which drafted the original Constitution of the United States, and it was +thought by the framers that security had been attained by forbidding +states to emit bills of credit and make laws impairing the obligation of +contract. Under Chief Justice Marshall, these clauses were so generously +interpreted as to repel almost any attack which a state legislature +might make on acquired rights. However, in the closing years of +Marshall's service, the Supreme Court, then passing into the hands of +states' rights justices, rendered an opinion in the case of Ogden _v._ +Saunders, which clearly held that the contract clause did not prevent +the legislature from stipulating that _future_ contracts might be +practically at its mercy. When a legislature provides by general law +that all charters of corporations are subject to repeal and alteration, +such provision becomes a part of all new contracts. Marshall delivered +in this case a vigorous and cogent dissenting opinion in which he +pointed out that the decision had in effect destroyed the virtue of the +obligation of contract clause. + +The case of Ogden _v._ Saunders was decided in 1827. Between that year +and the Civil War the beginnings of corporate enterprise were securely +laid in the United States; and the legislatures of the several states +began the regulation of corporations from one motive or another, +sometimes for the purpose of blackmailing them and sometimes for the +laudable purpose of protecting public interests. At all events, large +propertied concerns began to feel that they could not have a free hand +in developing their enterprises or enjoy any genuine security unless the +legislatures of the states were, by some constitutional provision, +brought again under strict Federal judicial control. + +The opportunity to secure this judicial control was afforded during the +Civil War when the radical Republicans were demanding Federal protection +for the newly emancipated slaves of the South. The drastic legislation +relative to negroes adopted by the southern states at the close of the +War showed that even in spite of the Thirteenth Amendment a substantial +bondage could be reëstablished under the color of criminal, apprentice, +and vagrant legislation. The friends of the negroes, therefore, +determined to put the substantial rights of life, liberty, and property +beyond the interference of state legislatures forever, and secure to all +persons the equal protection of the law. + +Accordingly, the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, enunciating the +broad legal and political doctrine that no state "shall abridge the +privileges or immunity of citizens of the United States; nor shall any +state deprive any _person_ of life, liberty, or property without due +process of law; nor deny to any _person_ within its jurisdiction the +equal protection of the law." + +Here was a restriction laid upon state legislatures which might be +substantially limitless in its application, in the hands of a judiciary +wishing to place the broadest possible interpretation upon it. What are +privileges and immunities? What are life, liberty, and property? What is +due process of law? What is the equal protection of the law? Does the +term "person" include not only natural persons but also artificial +persons, namely, corporations? That the reconstruction committee of +Congress which framed the instrument intended to include within the +scope of this generous provision not only the negro struggling upward +from bondage, but also corporations and business interests struggling +for emancipation from legislative interference, has been often asserted. +In arguing before the Supreme Court in the San Matteo County case, on +December 19, 1882, Mr. Roscoe Conkling, who had been a member of the +committee which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment, unfolded for the first +time the deep purpose of the committee, and showed from the journal of +that committee that it was not their intention to confine the amendment +merely to the protection of the colored race. In the course of his +argument, Mr. Conkling remarked, "At the time the Fourteenth Amendment +was ratified, as the records of the two Houses will show, individuals +and joint-stock companies were appealing for congressional and +administrative protection against invidious and discriminating state and +local taxes. One instance was that of an express company, whose stock +was owned largely by citizens of the State of New York, who came with +petitions and bills seeking Acts of Congress to aid them in resisting +what they deemed oppressive taxation in two states, and oppressive and +ruinous rules of damages applied under state laws. That complaints of +oppression in respect of property and other rights, made by citizens of +Northern States who took up residence in the South, were rife, in and +out of Congress, none of us can forget; that complaints of oppression in +various forms, of white men in the South,--of 'Union men,'--were heard +on every side, I need not remind the Court. The war and its results, the +condition of the freedmen, and the manifest duty owed to them, no doubt +brought on the occasion for constitutional amendment; but when the +occasion came and men set themselves to the task, the accumulated evils +falling within the purview of the work were the surrounding +circumstances, in the light of which they strove to increase and +strengthen the safeguards of the Constitution and laws."[19] + +In spite of important testimony to the effect that those who drafted the +Fourteenth Amendment really intended "to nationalize liberty," that is +_laissez faire_, against state legislatures, the Supreme Court at first +refused to accept this broad interpretation, and it was not until after +several of the judges of the old states' rights school had been replaced +by judges of the new school that the claims of Mr. Conkling's group as +to the Fourteenth Amendment were embodied in copious judicial decisions. + + +_The Slaughter-House Cases_ + +The first judicial interpretation of the significant phrases of the +Fourteenth Amendment which were afterward to be the basis of judicial +control over state economic legislation of every kind was made by the +Supreme Court in the Slaughter-House cases in 1873--five years after +that Amendment had been formally ratified. These particular cases, it is +interesting to note, like practically all other important cases arising +under the Fourteenth Amendment, had no relation whatever to the newly +emancipated slaves; but, on the contrary, dealt with the regulation of +business enterprises. + +In 1869, the legislature of Louisiana passed an act designed to protect +the health of the people of New Orleans and certain other parishes. This +act created a corporation for the purpose of slaughtering animals within +that city, forbade the establishment of any other slaughterhouses or +abattoirs within the municipality, and conferred the sole and exclusive +privilege of conducting the live-stock landing and slaughterhouse +business, under the limitations of the act, upon the company thus +created. The company, however, was required by the law to permit any +persons who wished to do so to slaughter in its houses and to make full +provision for all such slaughtering at a reasonable compensation. This +drastic measure, the report of the case states, was denounced "not only +as creating a monopoly and conferring odious and exclusive privileges +upon a small number of persons at the expense of the great body of the +community of New Orleans, but ... it deprives a large and meritorious +class of citizens--the whole of the butchers of the city--of the right +to exercise their trade, the business to which they have been trained +and on which they depend for the support of themselves and their +families." + +The opinion of the court was rendered by Mr. Justice Miller. The Justice +opened by making a few remarks upon the "police power," in the course of +which he said that the regulation of slaughtering fell within the +borders of that mysterious domain and without doubt constituted one of +the powers enjoyed by all states previous to the adoption of the Civil +War amendments. After commenting upon the great responsibility devolved +upon the Court in construing the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments +and remarking on the careful deliberation with which the judges had +arrived at their conclusions, Justice Miller then turned to an +examination of the historical purpose which underlay the adoption of the +amendments in question. After his recapitulation of recent events, he +concluded: "On the most casual examination of the language of these +amendments, no one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading +purpose found in them all, lying at the foundation of each, and without +which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom +of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, +and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the +oppression of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over +him. It is true that only the Fifteenth Amendment, in terms, mentions +the negro by speaking of his color and his slavery. But it is just as +true that each of the other articles was addressed to the grievances of +that race and designed to remedy them as the Fifteenth. We do not say +that no one else but the negro can share in this protection. Both the +language and spirit of these articles are to have their fair and just +weight in any question of construction.... What we do wish to say and +what we wish to be understood as saying is, that in any fair and just +construction of any section or phrase of these amendments, it is +necessary to look to the purpose, which as we have said was the +pervading spirit of them all, the evil which they were designed to +remedy, and the process of continued addition to the Constitution until +that purpose was supposed to be accomplished as far as constitutional +law can accomplish it." + +Justice Miller dismissed with a tone of impatience the idea of the +counsel for the plaintiffs in error that the Louisiana statute in +question imposed an "involuntary servitude" forbidden by the Thirteenth +Amendment. "To withdraw the mind," he said, "from the contemplation of +this grand yet simple declaration of the personal freedom of all the +human race within the jurisdiction of this government--a declaration +designed to establish the freedom of four million slaves--and with a +microscopic search endeavor to find it in reference to servitudes which +may have been attached to property in certain localities, requires an +effort, to say the least of it." + +In Justice Miller's long opinion there is no hint of that larger and +more comprehensive purpose entertained by the framers of the Fourteenth +Amendment which was asserted by Mr. Conkling a few years later in his +argument before the Supreme Court. If he was aware that the framers had +in mind not only the protection of the freedmen in their newly won +rights, but also the defense of corporations and business enterprises +generally against state legislation, he gave no indication of the fact. +There is nowhere in his opinion any sign that he saw the broad economic +implications of the Amendment which he was expounding for the first time +in the name of the Court. On the contrary, his language and the opinion +reached in the case show that the judges were either not cognizant of +the new economic and political duty placed upon them, or, in memory of +the states' rights traditions which they had entertained, were unwilling +to apply the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments in such a manner as +narrowly to restrict the legislative power of a commonwealth. + +In taking up that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides that +no state shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or +immunities of citizens of the United States, Justice Miller declared +that it was not the purpose of that provision to transfer the security +and protection of all fundamental civil rights from the state +government to the Federal Government. A citizen of the United States as +such, he said, has certain privileges and immunities, and _it was these +and these only_ which the Fourteenth Amendment contemplated. He +enumerated some of them: the right of the citizen to come to the seat of +government, to assert any claim he may have upon that government, to +transact any business he may have with it, to seek its protection, share +its offices, engage in administering its functions, to have free access +to its seaports, subtreasuries, land offices, and courts of justice, to +use the navigable waters of the United States, to assemble peaceably +with his fellow citizens and petition for redress of grievances, and to +enjoy the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus. It was rights of this +character, the learned justice argued, and not all the fundamental +rights of person and property which had been acquired in the evolution +of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, that were placed by the Fourteenth +Amendment under the protection of the Federal Government. + +Within this view, all the ordinary civil rights enjoyed by citizens were +still within the control of the organs of the state government and not +within Federal protection at all. If the privileges and immunities, +brought within the protection of the Federal Government by the +Fourteenth Amendment, were intended to embrace the whole domain of +personal and property rights, then, contended the justice, the Supreme +Court would be constituted "a perpetual censor upon all legislation of +the states, on the civil rights of their own citizens, with authority to +nullify such as it did not approve as consistent with those rights as +they existed at the time of the adoption of this Amendment.... We are +convinced that no such results were intended by the Congress which +proposed these amendments nor by the legislatures which ratified them." + +In two short paragraphs, Justice Miller disposed of the contention of +the plaintiffs in error to the effect that the Louisiana statute +deprived the plaintiffs of their property without due process of law. He +remarked that inasmuch as the phraseology of this clause was also to be +found in the Fifth Amendment and in some form in the constitutions of +nearly all of the states, it had received satisfactory judicial +interpretation; "and it is sufficient to say," he concluded on this +point, "that under no construction of that provision that we have ever +seen or any that we deem admissible, can the restraint imposed by the +state of Louisiana upon the exercise of their trade by the butchers of +New Orleans be held to be a deprivation of private property within the +meaning of that provision." + +Coming now to that clause requiring every state to give all persons +within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws, Justice Miller +indulged in the false prophecy: "We doubt very much whether any action +of a state not directed by way of discrimination against the negroes as +a class or on account of their race will ever be held to come within the +purview of this provision." An emergency might arise, he admitted, but +he found no such a one in the case before him. + +Concluding his opinion, he expressed the view that the American Federal +system had come out of the Civil War with its main features unchanged, +and that it was the duty of the Supreme Court then as always to hold +with a steady and an even hand the balance between state and Federal +power. "Under the pressure of all the excited feeling growing out of the +War," he remarked, "our statesmen have still believed that the existence +of the states with powers for domestic and local government, including +the regulation of civil rights--the rights of person and property--was +essential to the perfect working of our complex form of government, +though they have thought proper to impose additional limitations upon +the states and to confer additional power on that of the nation." + +Under this strict interpretation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth +amendments, all the fundamental rights of persons and property remained +subject to the state governments substantially in the same way as before +the Civil War. The Supreme Court thus could not become the final arbiter +and control the social and economic legislation of states at every +point. Those champions of the amendments who looked to them to establish +Federal judicial supremacy for the defense of corporations and business +enterprises everywhere throughout the American empire were sadly +disappointed. + +Nowhere was that disappointment more effectively and more cogently +stated than in the opinions of the judges who dissented from the +doctrines announced by the majority of the court. Chief Justice Chase +and Justices Field, Bradley, and Swayne refused to accept the +interpretation and the conclusions reached by the majority, and the last +three judges wrote separate opinions of their own expressing their +grounds for dissenting. The first of these, Justice Field, contended +that the Louisiana statute in question could not legitimately come under +the police power and was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, +inasmuch as it denied to citizens of the United States the fundamental +rights which belonged to citizens of all free governments--protection +against monopolies and equality of rights in the pursuit of the ordinary +avocations of life. In his opinion, the privileges and immunities put +under the supervision of the Federal Government by the Fourteenth +Amendment comprised generally "protection by the government, the +enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess +property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety, +subject, nevertheless, to such restraint as the government may justly +prescribe for the general good of the whole." In other words, Justice +Field would have carried the Amendment beyond the specific enumeration +of any definitely ascertained legal rights into the field of moral law, +which, in final analysis, would have meant the subjection of the state +legislation solely to the discretion of the judicial conscience. The +future, as we shall see, was with Justice Field. + +In the opinion of Justice Bradley, the Louisiana statute not only +deprived persons of the equal protection of the laws, but also of +liberty and property--the right of choosing, in the adoption of lawful +employments, being a portion of their liberty, and their occupation +being their property. In the opinion of Mr. Justice Swayne, who +dissented also, the word liberty as used in the Fourteenth Amendment +embodied freedom from all restraints except such as were "justly" +imposed by law. In his view, property included everything that had an +exchange value, including labor, and the right to make property +available was next in importance to the rights of life and liberty. + + +_The Granger Cases_ + +Three years after the decision in the Slaughter-House cases, the Supreme +Court again refused to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment so broadly as +to hold unconstitutional a state statute regulating business +undertakings. This case, Munn _v._ Illinois, decided in 1876, involved +the validity of a statute passed under the constitution of that state, +which declared all elevators where grain was stored to be public +warehouses and subjected them to strict regulation, including the +establishment of fixed maximum charges. It was contended by the +plaintiffs in error, Munn and Scott, that the statute violated the +Fourteenth Amendment in two respects: (1) that the business attempted to +be regulated was not a public calling and was, therefore, totally +outside of the regulatory or police power of the state; and (2) that +even if the business was conceded to be public in character, and +therefore by the rule of the common law was permitted to exact only +"reasonable" charges for its services, nevertheless the determination of +what was reasonable belonged to the judicial branch of the government +and could not be made by the legislature without violating the principle +of "due process." + +Both of these contentions were rejected by the Court, and the +constitutionality of the Illinois statute was upheld. The opinion of the +Court was written by Chief Justice Waite, who undertook an elaborate +examination of the "due process" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The +principle of this Amendment, he said, though new in the Constitution of +the United States, is as old as civilized government itself; it is found +in Magna Carta in substance if not in form, in nearly all of the state +constitutions, and in the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. +In order to ascertain, therefore, what power legislatures enjoyed under +the new amendment, it was only necessary to inquire into the limitations +which had been historically imposed under the due process clause in +England and the United States; and after an examination of some cases in +point the Chief Justice came to the conclusion that "down to the time of +the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment it was not supposed that +statutes regulating the use or even the price of the use of private +property necessarily deprived an owner of his property without due +process of law." When private property "is affected with public +interest" and is used in a manner to make it of public consequence, the +public is in fact granted an interest in that use, and the owner of the +property in question "must submit to be controlled by the public for the +common good, to the extent of the interest he has thus created." + +But it was insisted on behalf of the plaintiffs that the owner of +property is entitled to a reasonable compensation for its use even when +it is clothed with the public interest, and that the determination of +what is reasonable is a _judicial, not a legislative_, matter. To this +Chief Justice Waite replied that the usual practice had been otherwise. +"In countries where the common law prevails," he said, "it has been +customary from time immemorial for the legislature to declare what shall +be a reasonable compensation under such circumstances, or perhaps more +properly speaking to fix a maximum beyond which any charge made would be +unreasonable.... The controlling fact is the power to regulate at all. +If that exists, the right to establish the maximum of charge as one of +the means of regulation is implied. In fact, the common law rule which +requires the charge to be reasonable is itself a regulation as to +price.... To limit the rate of charge for services rendered in a public +employment, or for the use of property in which the public has an +interest, is only changing a regulation which existed before. It +establishes no new principle in the law, but only gives a new effect to +an old one. We know that this is a power which may be abused; but that +is no argument against its existence. _For protection against abuses by +legislatures the people must resort to the polls, not to the +courts._"[20] + +The principle involved in the Munn case also came up in the same year +(1876) in Peik _v._ Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company, in which +Chief Justice Waite, speaking of an act of Wisconsin limiting passenger +and freight charges on railroads in the state, said: "As to the claim +that the courts must decide what is reasonable and not the legislature, +this is not new to this case. It has been fully considered in Munn _v._ +Illinois. Where property has been clothed with a public interest, the +legislature may fix a limit to that which shall be in law reasonable for +its use. This limit binds the courts as well as the people. If it has +been improperly fixed, the legislature, not the courts, must be appealed +to for the change." + +The total results of the several Granger cases, decided in 1876, may be +summed up as follows: + +(1) That the regulatory power of the state over "public callings" is not +limited to those businesses over which it was exercised at common law, +but extends to any business in which, because of its necessary character +and the possibilities for extortion afforded by monopolistic control, +the public has an interest. + +(2) That such regulatory power will not be presumed to have been +contracted away by any legislature, unless such intention is +unequivocally expressed. + +(3) That the exercise of such regulatory power belongs to the +legislature, and not to the judiciary. + +(4) And the _dictum_ that the judiciary can grant no relief from an +unjust exercise of this regulatory power by the legislature. + +Although the denial of the right of the judiciary to review the +"reasonableness" of a rate fixed by the legislature in the Granger cases +had been _dictum_, a case was not long arising in which the issue was +squarely raised. Had this case gone to the Supreme Court, the question +of judicial review would have been decided a full decade or more before +it really was. In this case, the Tilley case, a bondholder of a railroad +operating in Georgia sought to restrain the railroad from putting into +force a tariff fixed by the state railroad commission, on the ground +that it was so unreasonably low as to be confiscatory. Judge Woods, of +the Federal circuit court, refused to grant the injunction, basing his +decision squarely upon the dictum in Munn _v._ Illinois, and declaring +that the railroad must seek relief from unjust action on the part of the +commission at the hands of the legislature or of the people. + +It was not till seven years after the Granger cases that another case +involving rate regulation was presented to the Federal courts.[21] The +Ruggles case, brought to the Supreme Court by writ of error to the +supreme court of Illinois, in 1883, involved a conviction of one of the +agents of the Illinois Central Railway for violating a maximum passenger +fare statute of that state, and raised substantially the same question +as all of the Granger cases except the Munn case--the right of the +legislature to regulate the rates of a railroad which was itself +empowered by its charter to fix its own rates. The Court affirmed the +doctrine of the Granger cases, Chief Justice Waite again writing the +opinion. The case is noteworthy only for the opinion of Justice Harlan, +concurring in the judgment, but dissenting from the opinion, of the +Court, in so far as that opinion expressed, as he declared, the doctrine +that the legislature of Illinois could regulate the rates of the railway +concerned, in any manner it saw fit. Justice Harlan argued that inasmuch +as the charter of the railroad had conferred upon it the right to demand +"reasonable" charges, the legislature, when it resumed the power of +fixing charges, was estopped from fixing less than "reasonable" charges; +and should charges lower than "reasonable" be fixed, it would be within +the province of the judicial branch to give relief against such an +impairment of the obligation of contract. + +Justice Harlan's opinion is interesting not only because it touches upon +the possibility of a _judicial_ review of the rate fixed by the +legislature; but because the learned Justice bases his contention on the +_contract_ between the railroad and the state to the effect that rates +should be "reasonable." This indicates plainly that not even in the mind +of Justice Harlan, who later became the firm exponent of the power of +judicial review, was there any clear belief that the Fourteenth +Amendment as such gave the Court any power to review the +"reasonableness" of a rate fixed by the legislature. In other words, he +derived his doctrine of judicial review from the power of the Federal +judiciary to enforce the obligation of contracts, and not from its power +to compel "due process of law." + +It is impossible to trace here the numerous decisions following the +Ruggles case in which the Supreme Court was called upon to consider the +power of state legislatures to control and regulate corporations, +particularly railways. It is impossible also to follow out all of the +fine and subtle distinctions by which the _dictum_ of Chief Justice +Waite, in the Munn case, to the effect that private parties must appeal +to the people, and not to the courts, for protection against state +legislatures, was supplanted by the firm interpretation of the +Fourteenth Amendment in such a manner as to confer upon the courts the +final power to review all state legislation regulating the use of +property and labor. Of course we do not have, in fact, this clear-cut +reversal of opinion by the Court, but rather a slow working out of the +doctrine of judicial review as opposed to an implication that the Court +could not grant to corporations the relief from legislative interference +which they sought. There are but few clear-cut reversals in law; but the +political effect of the Court's decisions has been none the less clear +and positive. + + +_The Minnesota Rate Case_ + +It seems desirable, however, to indicate some of the leading steps by +which the Court moved from the doctrine of non-interference with state +legislatures to the doctrine that it is charged with the high duty of +reviewing all and every kind of economic legislation by the states. One +of the leading cases in this momentous transition is that of the +Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway Company _v._ Minnesota, decided +in 1889, which made a heavy contribution to the doctrine of judicial +review of questions of political economy as well as law. This case +involved the validity of a Minnesota law which conferred upon a state +railway commission the power to fix "reasonable" rates. The commission, +acting under this authority, had fixed a rate on the transportation of +milk between two points. + +The railroad having refused to put the rate into effect, the commission +applied to the supreme court of the state for a writ of mandamus. In its +answer the railroad claimed, among other contentions, that the rate +fixed was unreasonably low. The supreme court of the state refused to +listen to this contention, saying that the statute by its terms made the +order of the commission conclusively reasonable; accordingly it issued +the mandamus. By writ of error, the case was brought to the Supreme +Court of the United States, which, by a vote of six to three, ordered +the decree of the state court vacated, on the ground that the statute as +construed by the supreme court of the state was unconstitutional, as a +deprivation of property without due process of law. + +The opinion of the Court, written by Justice Blatchford, has frequently +been interpreted to hold, and was indeed interpreted by the dissenting +minority to hold, that the judiciary must, to satisfy the requirements +of "due process," have the power of final review over the reasonableness +of all rates, however fixed. It is doubtful whether the language of the +opinion sustains this reading; but the strong emphasis on the place of +the judiciary in determining the reasonableness of rates lent color to +the contention that Mr. Justice Blatchford was setting up "judicial +supremacy." In the course of his opinion, he said: "The question of the +reasonableness of a rate of charge for transportation by a railroad +company, involving as it does the element of reasonableness both as +regards the company and as regards the public, is eminently a question +for judicial investigation requiring due process of law for its +determination. If the company is deprived of the power of charging +reasonable rates for the use of its property, and such deprivation takes +place in the absence of an investigation by judicial machinery, it is +deprived of the lawful use of its property, and thus in substance and +effect, of the property itself without due process of law and in +violation of the Constitution of the United States." + +The dissenting members of the Court in this case certainly saw in +Justice Blatchford's opinion an assertion of the doctrine that whatever +the nature of the commission established by law or the form of procedure +adopted, the determination of rates was subject to review by a strictly +judicial tribunal. In his dissent, Mr. Justice Bradley declared that the +decision had practically overruled Munn _v._ Illinois and the other +Granger cases. "The governing principle of those cases," he said, "was +that the regulation and settlement of the affairs of railways and other +public accommodations is a legislative prerogative and not a judicial +one.... The legislature has the right, and it is its prerogative, if it +chooses to exercise it, to declare what is reasonable. This is just +where I differ from the majority of the Court. They say in effect, if +not in terms, that the final tribunal of arbitrament is the judiciary; I +say it is the legislature. I hold that it is a legislative question, not +a judicial one, unless the legislature or the law (which is the same +thing) has made it judicial by prescribing the rule that the charges +shall be reasonable and leaving it there. It is always a delicate thing +for the courts to make an issue with the legislative department of the +government, and they should never do it, if it is possible to avoid it. +By the decision now made we declare, in effect, that the judiciary, and +not the legislature, is the final arbiter in the regulation of fares and +freights of railroads and the charges of other public accommodations. It +is an assumption of authority on the part of the judiciary which, it +seems to me, with a due reverence to the judgment of my brethren, it has +no right to make.... Deprivation of property by mere arbitrary power on +the part of the legislature or fraud on the part of the commission are +the only grounds on which judicial relief may be sought against their +action. There was in truth no deprivation of property in these cases at +all.... It may be that our legislatures are invested with too much +power, open as they are to influences so dangerous to the interests of +individuals, corporations, and societies. But such is the Constitution +of our republican form of government, and we are bound to abide by it +until it can be corrected in a legitimate way." + + +_The Development of Judicial Review_ + +A further step toward judicial review even still more significant was +taken, in the case of Reagan _v._ Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, +decided by the Supreme Court in 1894. This case came up from the Federal +circuit court of Texas which had enjoined the state railway +commissioners from fixing and putting into effect railway rates which +the Trust Company, as a bondholder and interested party, contended were +too low, although not confiscatory. + +The opinion of the Court, written by Justice Brewer, who, as Federal +circuit judge, had already taken advanced ground in favor of judicial +review, went the whole length in upholding the right of the judiciary to +review the reasonableness, not only of a rate fixed by a commission, as +in the case in hand, but even of one fixed by the legislature. The case +differed in no essential way, declared the justice, from those cases in +which it had been the age-long practice of the judiciary to act as final +arbiters of reasonableness--cases in which a charge exacted by a common +carrier was attacked by a shipper or passenger as unreasonable. The +difference between the two cases was merely that in the one the rate +alleged to be unreasonable was fixed by the carrier; in the other it was +fixed by the commission or by the legislature. In support of this +remarkable bit of legal reasoning, the opinion adduced as precedents +merely a few brief excerpts, from previous decisions of the Court, +nearly all of which were pure _dicta_. + +The absence of any dissent from this opinion, in spite of the fact that +Judge Gray, who had concurred in Justice Bradley's vigorous dissenting +opinion in the Chicago-Minnesota case four years before, was still on +the bench, indicates that the last lingering opposition to the doctrine +of judicial review in the minds of any of the Court had been dissolved. +Henceforth it was but the emphatic affirmation and consistent +development of that doctrine that was to be expected. + +If we leave out of account Mr. Justice Brewer's _dicta_ and consider the +Court to have decided merely the issues squarely presented, the Reagan +case left much to be done before the doctrine of judicial review could +be regarded as established beyond all possibility of limitation and +serious qualification. Other cases on the point followed quickly, but it +was not until the celebrated case of Smyth _v._ Ames, decided in 1898, +that the two leading issues were fairly presented and settled. In this +case the rate attacked was not fixed by a commission, but by a state +legislature itself; and the rate was not admitted by the counsel for the +state to be unreasonable, but was strongly defended as wholly reasonable +and just. The Court had to meet the issues. + +The original action in the case of Smyth _v._ Ames was a bill in equity +brought against the attorney-general and the Nebraska state board of +transportation, in the Federal circuit court, by certain bondholders of +the railroads affected, to restrain the enforcement of the statute of +that state providing a comprehensive schedule of freight rates. The +bills alleged, and attempted to demonstrate by elaborate calculations, +that the rates fixed were _confiscatory_, inasmuch as a proportionate +reduction on all the rates of the railroads affected by them would so +reduce the income of the companies as to make it impossible for them to +pay any dividends; and in the case of some of them, even to meet all +their bonded obligations. On behalf of the state, it was urged that the +reduction in rates would increase business, and, therefore, increase +net earnings, and that some at least of the companies were bonded far +in excess of their actual value. Supreme Court Justice Brewer, sitting +in circuit, on the basis of the evidence submitted to him, consisting +mainly of statements of operating expenses, gross receipts, and inter- +and intra-state tonnage, found the contention of the railroads well +taken, and issued the injunctions applied for. + +The opinion of the Supreme Court, affirming the decree of Judge Brewer, +was, in the essential part of it--that asserting the principle of +judicial review in its broadest terms--singularly brief. Contenting +himself with citing a few short _dicta_ from previous decisions, Justice +Harlan, speaking for the Court, declared that the principle "must be +regarded as settled" that the reasonableness of a rate could not be so +conclusively determined by a legislature as to escape review by the +judiciary. Equally well settled, it was declared, was the principle that +property affected with a public interest was entitled to a "fair return" +on its "fair" valuation. These principles regarded as established, the +Court proceeded to examine the evidence, although it admitted that it +lacked the technical knowledge necessary to a completely equitable +decision; and sustained the finding of the lower court in favor of the +railroads. There was no dissent. + +With Smyth _v._ Ames the doctrine of judicial review may be regarded as +fully established. No portion of the judicial prerogative could now be +surrendered without not merely "distinguishing" but flatly overruling a +unanimous decision of the Court. + +The significance of Smyth _v._ Ames was soon observable in the +activities of the lower Federal courts. Within the nine months of 1898 +that followed that decision, there were at least four applications for +injunctions against alleged unreasonable rates, and in three of these +cases the applications were granted. During the years that followed +Smyth _v._ Ames, Federal courts all over the country were tying the +hands of state officers who attempted to put into effect legislative +measures regulating railway concerns. In Arkansas, Florida, Alabama, +Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Oregon, +rates fixed by statute, commission, or ordinance were attacked by the +railways in the Federal courts and their enforcement blocked. In several +instances the injunctions of the lower courts were made permanent, and +no appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States. With +Smyth _v._ Ames staring them in the face, state attorneys accepted the +inevitable. + +The decision in Smyth _v._ Ames left still one matter in doubt. The +allegation of the railroads in that case had been that the rates fixed +were actually confiscatory--that is, so low as to make dividends +impossible. In the course of his opinion, Justice Harlan had stated, +however, that the railroads were entitled to a "fair return," an opinion +that had been expressed also in the Reagan case, where indeed it had +been necessary to the decision, and still earlier, but with little +relevancy, in the Chicago-Minnesota case. In none of these cases, +however, had any precise definition of the terms "reasonable" or "fair" +return been necessary, and none had been made. + +The first direct suggestion of the development of the judicial +reasoning on this point that was to take place is found in the Milwaukee +Electric Railway case, also decided in 1898. In that case Judge Seaman, +of the Federal circuit court, found from the evidence that the dividends +of the street railway company for several years past had been from 3.3 +to 4.5 per cent, while its bonds bore interest at 5 per cent. Anything +less than these returns, the judge declared, would be unreasonable, +inasmuch as money loaned on real estate, secured by a first mortgage, +was at that time commanding 6 per cent in Milwaukee. + +Eleven years later, in 1909, the Supreme Court sustained virtually the +same rule in the New York Consolidated Gas case, holding, with the lower +court, that the company was entitled to _six_ per cent return on a fair +value of its property (including franchises and the high values of the +real estate used by it in the business), because six per cent was the +"customary" rate of interest at that time in New York City. On the same +day the court decided that a return of six per cent on waterworks +property in Knoxville, Tennessee, was also not unreasonable. In neither +of these cases, however, did the Court attempt any examination or +explanation of the evidence on which it rested its determination that +six per cent was the "customary" rate in the places named; nor did it +attempt to explain the principle on which such "customary" rate could be +determined for other times and places. Plainly there is still room for a +great deal of "distinguishing" on this point. The extreme vagueness of +the rule was exemplified by the decision of Federal circuit Judge +Sanborn in the Shephard case (1912), in which he decided that, for a +railroad running through Minnesota, _seven_ per cent was no more than a +"fair" return, and that any reduction in rates which would diminish the +profits of the road below that figure was unreasonable. + +Equally important and of as great difficulty are the questions entering +into the determination of a "fair" valuation. This point is both too +unsettled and too technical to render any discussion of it profitable +here. Attention may, however, be called to two of the holdings in the +Consolidated Gas case. In arriving at a "fair" valuation of the gas +company's property, the Court allowed a large valuation to be placed +upon the franchises of the company--none of which had been paid for by +the companies to which they had originally been issued, and which had +not been paid for by the Consolidated Company when it took them over, +except in the sense that a large amount of stock, more than one sixth of +the total stock issued by the company, had been issued against them, +when the consolidation was formed. The particular facts surrounding this +case are such as to make it very easy for the Court to "distinguish" +this case from the usual one, for the consolidation was formed, and its +stock issued, under a statute that authorized the formation of +consolidations, and forbade such consolidations to issue stock in excess +of the fair value of the "property, franchises, and rights" of the +constituent companies. This last prohibition the Court construed as +indicative of the legislative intention that the franchises should be +capitalized. Equally plain is it, however, that this particular +circumstance of the Consolidated Gas case is so irrelevant that it will +offer no obstacle whatever to the Court's quoting that case as a +precedent for the valuation of franchises obtained _gratis_, should it +so desire. + +Another holding of great importance in the Gas case was that the company +was entitled to a fair return on the value of real estate used in the +business, that value having appreciated very greatly since the original +purchase of the real estate, and there being no evidence to show that +real estate of so great value was essential to the conduct of the +business. + +The importance of these two holdings is exemplified by the fact that in +this particular case the combined value attributed to the franchises and +the appreciation of real estate was over $15,000,000--more than one +fourth of the total valuation arrived at by the Supreme Court. It will +readily be seen that if these two items had been struck from the +valuation by the Court, it would be possible for the state to make a +still further substantial reduction in the rate charged for gas in New +York City without violating the Court's own canon of reasonableness--a +six per cent return. + +The steps in the evolution of the doctrine of judicial review may be +summarized in the following manner: + +The Supreme Court first declared that the legislative determination of +what was a "reasonable" rate was not subject to review by the courts. + +The first departure from this view was an intimation, confirmed with +increasing emphasis in several cases, that a rate so low as to make any +return whatever impossible was confiscatory and would be set aside by +the Court as violating the Fourteenth Amendment. For a time, however, +the Court took the position (steadily undermined in subsequent +decisions) that a rate which allowed some, even though an "unreasonably +low" return, was not prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment and could +not be set aside by the Court. + +Next in order came the holding that the determination of a commission as +to what was reasonable could not be made conclusive upon the courts, at +least when the commission had acted without the forms and safeguards of +judicial procedure, and, probably, even when it had acted with them. + +In the same decision appeared an intimation, which in subsequent +decisions became crystallized into "settled law," that not only were +totally confiscatory rates prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment, but +also any rates which deprived the owners of the property regulated of a +return equal to what was "customary" in private enterprises. + +This rule was applied by the Court for the first time against a rate +fixed by a commission, and where the rate was admitted by the pleadings +to be confiscatory. But it was shortly thereafter applied to a rate +fixed by a legislature, and where the "reasonableness" (not the +confiscatory character) of the rate was a direct issue on the facts and +evidence. + +Finally, the principle that what is a "fair" or "reasonable" rate is to +be measured by the customary return in private enterprises under similar +conditions, has been applied in several cases to warrant the requirement +of a definite rate of interest; but no precise rules have been laid down +for the determination of such rate in all cases. + +The most striking feature, perhaps, of the development of the doctrine +of judicial review here traced, as seen in the opinions of the Supreme +Court, is the brevity and almost fortuitous character of the reasoning +given in support of the most important and novel holdings. A comparison +of the reasoning in Smyth _v._ Ames, for example, with that in Marbury +_v._ Madison, in which Chief Justice Marshall first held a law of +Congress unconstitutional, will forcibly exemplify this. The explanation +is to be found largely in the fact that each step in advance in the +building up of the doctrine had been foreshadowed in _dictum_ before it +was established as decision. It was thus possible for the judge writing +the opinion in a case when a new rule was actually established, to +quote, as "settled law," a mere _dictum_ from a previous opinion. +Justice Gray's citation, in this fashion, in the Dow case, of Chief +Justice Waite's _dictum_ in the Ruggles case (although he might, with +equal cogency, have cited the Chief Justice's contrary _dictum_ in the +Munn or Peik cases), is a good instance of this curious use of +"precedent"; and parallel instances could be adduced from virtually +every one of the important subsequent cases on this subject.[22] + +It is apparent from this all too brief and incomplete account of the +establishment of judicial review over every kind and class of state +legislation affecting private property rights that no layman can easily +unravel the mysterious refinements, distinctions, and logical subtleties +by which the fact was finally established that property was to be free +from all interference except such as might be allowed by the Supreme +Court (or rather five judges of that Court) appointed by the President +and Senate, thus removed as far as possible from the pressure of public +sentiment. Had a bald veto power of this character been suddenly vested +in any small group of persons, there can be no doubt that a political +revolt would have speedily followed. But the power was built up by +gradual accretions made by the Court under the stimulus of skilful +counsel for private parties, and finally clothed in the majesty of +settled law. It was a long time before the advocates of leveling +democracy, leading an attack on corporate rights and privileges, +discovered that the courts were the bulwarks of _laissez faire_ and +directed their popular battalions in that direction. + +Those who undertake to criticize the Supreme Court for this assumption +of power do not always distinguish between the power itself and the +manner of its exercise. What would have happened if the state +legislatures had been given a free hand to regulate, penalize, and +blackmail corporations at will during the evolution of our national +economic system may be left to the imagination of those who recall from +their history the breezy days of "wild-cat" currency, repudiation, and +broken faith which characterized the thirty years preceding the Civil +War when the Federal judiciary was under the dominance of the states' +rights school. The regulation of a national economic system by forty or +more local legislatures would be nothing short of an attempt to combine +economic unity with local anarchy. It is possible to hold that the Court +has been too tender of corporate rights in assuming the power of +judicial review, and at the same time recognize the fact that such a +power, vested somewhere in the national government, is essential to the +continuance of industries and commerce on a national scale. + + * * * * * + +Thus far attention has been directed to the activities of the Federal +Supreme Court in establishing the principle of judicial review +particularly in connection with legislation relative to railway +corporations, but it should be noted that judicial review covers all +kinds of social legislation relative to hours and conditions of labor as +well as the charges of common carriers. In 1905, for example, the +Supreme Court in the celebrated case of Lochner _v._ New York declared +null and void a New York law fixing the hours of work in bakeshops at +ten per day, basing its action on the principle that the right to +contract in relation to the hours of labor was a part of the liberty +which the individual enjoyed under the Fourteenth Amendment. Mr. Justice +Holmes, who dissented in the case, declared that it was decided on an +economic theory which a large part of the country did not entertain, and +protested that the Fourteenth Amendment did not "enact Mr. Herbert +Spencer's _Social Statics_." + +As a matter of fact, however, the Supreme Court of the United States has +declared very little social legislation invalid, and has been inclined +to take a more liberal view of such matters than the supreme courts of +the states. The latter also have authority to declare state laws void as +violating the Federal Constitution, and when a state court of proper +jurisdiction invalidates a state law, there is, under the Federal +judiciary act, no appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. +Consequently, the Fourteenth Amendment means in each state what the +highest court holds it to mean, and since the adoption of that Amendment +at least one thousand state laws have been nullified by the action of +state courts, under the color of that Amendment or their respective +state constitutions. + +As examples, in New York a law prohibiting the manufacture of cigars in +tenement houses, in Pennsylvania a law prohibiting the payment of wages +in "scrip" or store orders, and in Illinois a statute forbidding mining +and manufacturing corporations to hold back the wages of their employees +for more than a week were declared null and void. Such laws were +nullified not only on the ground that they deprived the employer of +property without due process, but also on the theory that they deprived +workingmen of the "liberty" guaranteed to them to work under any +conditions they chose. In one of these cases, a Pennsylvania court +declared the labor law in question to be "an insulting attempt to put +the laborer under a legislative tutelage which is not only degrading to +his manhood but subversive of his rights as a citizen of the United +States." + +Where the state court nullified under the state constitution, it was of +course relatively easy to set aside the doctrines of the court by +amending the constitution, but where the state court nullified on the +ground of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, there +was no relief for the state and even no appeal for a review of the case +to discover whether the Supreme Court of the United States would uphold +the state tribunal in its view of the national law. Under such +circumstances, the highest state court became the supreme power in the +state, for its decrees based on the Federal Constitution were final. It +was the freedom, one may say, recklessness, with which the courts +nullified state laws that was largely responsible for the growth of the +popular feeling against the judiciary, and led to the demand for the +recall of judges.[23] + +FOOTNOTES: + + [13] A. R. Conkling, _Life of Roscoe Conkling_, p. 297. + + [14] A. R. Conkling, _Life of Roscoe Conkling_, p. 699. + + [15] _Ibid._, p. 671. + + [16] _Ibid._, pp. 679 ff. + + [17] See below, p. 57. + + [18] _Ibid._, p. 540. + + [19] Taylor, _Origin and Growth of the American + Constitution_, p. 355. As a matter of fact, Conkling, who was + a member of the committee that drafted the Fourteenth + Amendment, voted against these provisions in Committee. + + [20] It is to be noted that the demand of the warehousemen on + the second point was not for a judicial _review_ of the + reasonableness of a rate fixed by the legislature, but a + total _denial_ of the _power_ of a _legislature_ to act in + the matter. The question of the propriety of a judicial + review of the reasonableness of the rates in question was not + raised in the pleadings. It was not difficult, therefore, for + judges in subsequent cases in which the question of judicial + review was squarely raised to explain away as mere _dictum_ + this solemn statement by Chief Justice Waite to the effect + that the power of the legislature to regulate being conceded, + the determination of the legislature was binding on the + courts and not subject to review. + + [21] Except for two unimportant cases decided in the lower + courts. + + [22] It should be noted that the Supreme Court not only + undertook to pass upon the reasonableness of such rates as + the states were permitted to make, but also added in 1886 + that no state could regulate the rates on goods transported + within its borders, when such goods were in transit to or + from a point in another state. Such regulation was held in + the Wabash, etc., Railway Company _v._ Illinois (118 U. S. + 557) to be an interference with interstate commerce which was + subject to control by Congress only. + + [23] Below, p. 287. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PARTIES AND PARTY ISSUES, 1877-1896 + + +It was a long time before the conditions created by the great economic +revolution were squarely reflected in political literature and party +programs. Indeed, they were but vaguely comprehended by the generation +of statesmen who had been brought up in the days of the stagecoach and +the water mill. It is true that the inevitable drift of capitalism in +the United States might have been foreseen by turning to Europe, +particularly to England, where a similar economic revolution had +produced clearly ascertainable results; but American politicians +believed, or at least contended, that the United States lived under a +special economic dispensation and that the grave social problems which +had menaced Europe for more than a generation when the Civil War broke +out could never arise on American soil. + +From 1861 to 1913, the Republican party held the presidential office, +except for eight years. That party had emerged from the Civil War +fortified by an intense patriotism and by the support of the +manufacturing interests which had flourished under the high tariffs and +of capitalists anxious to swing forward with the development of railways +and new enterprises. Its origin had been marked by a wave of moral +enthusiasm such as has seldom appeared in the history of politics. It +came to the presidency as a minority party, but by the fortunes of war +it became possessed of instruments of power beyond all calculation. Its +leading opponents from the South deserted in a mass giving it in a short +time possession of the field--all the Federal branches of government. It +had the management of the gigantic war finances, through which it +attached to itself the interests and fortunes of the great capitalists +and bankers throughout the North. It raised revenues by a high tariff +which placed thousands of manufacturers under debt to it and linked +their fortunes also with its fate. It possessed the Federal offices, +and, therefore, railway financiers and promoters of all kinds had to +turn to it for privileges and protection. Finally, millions of farmers +of the West owed their homes to its generous policy of giving away +public lands. Never had a party had its foundations on interests +ramifying throughout such a large portion of society. + +And over all it spread the mantle of patriotism. It had saved the Union, +and it had struck the shackles from four million bondmen. In a baptism +of fire it had redeemed a nation. Europe's finger of scorn could no +longer be pointed to the "slave republic paying its devotions to liberty +and equality within the sound of the bondman's wail." The promises of +the Declaration of Independence had been fulfilled and the heroic deeds +of the Revolution rivaled by Republican leaders. As it declared in its +platform of 1876, the Republican party had come into power "when in the +economy of Providence this land was to be purged of human slavery and +when the strength of the government of the people, by the people, and +for the people was to be demonstrated." Incited by the memories of its +glorious deeds "to high aims for the good of our country and mankind," +it looked forward "with unfaltering courage, hope, and purpose." + +Against such a combination of patriotism and economic interest, the +Democratic party had difficulty in making headway, for its former +economic mainstay, the slave power, was broken and gone; it was charged +with treason, and it enjoyed none of the spoils of national office. But +in spite of all obstacles it showed remarkable vitality. Though divided +on the slave question in 1860, those who boasted the name of "Democrat" +were in an overwhelming majority, and even during the Civil War, with +the southern wing cut off completely, the party was able to make a +respectable showing in the campaign which resulted in Lincoln's second +election. When the South returned to the fold, and white dominion drove +the negro from the polls, the Democratic party began to renew its youth. +In the elections of 1874, it captured the House of Representatives; it +narrowly missed the presidency in 1876; and it retained its control of +the lower house of Congress in the elections of 1876 and 1878. + + * * * * * + +The administration of President Hayes did little to strengthen the +position of the Republicans. His policy of pacification in the South +alienated many partisans who believed that those who had saved the Union +should continue to rule it; but it is difficult to say how much +disaffection should be attributed to this cause. It seems to have been +quietly understood within official circles that support would be +withdrawn from the Republican administrations in Louisiana and South +Carolina. Senator Hoar is authority for the statement "that General +Grant, before he left office, had determined to do in regard to these +state governments exactly what Hayes afterward did, and that Hayes acted +with his full approval. Second, I have the authority of President +Garfield for saying that Mr. Blaine had come to the same conclusion." + +Charges based on sectional feeling were also brought forward in +criticism of some of Hayes' cabinet appointments. He terrified the +advocates of "no concession to rebels" by appointing David M. Key, an +ex-Confederate soldier of Tennessee, to the office of Postmaster-General; +and his selection of Carl Schurz, a leader of the Liberal Republican +Movement of 1872 and an uncertain quantity in politics, as Secretary of +the Interior, was scarcely more palatable in some quarters. He created +further trouble in Republican ranks by his refusal to accede to the +demands of powerful Senators, like Cameron of Pennsylvania and Conkling +of New York, for control over patronage in their respective states. No +other President for more than a generation had so many nominations +rejected by the Senate. + +On the side of legislation, Hayes' administration was nearly barren. +During his entire term the House of Representatives was Democratic, and +during the last two years the Senate was Democratic also by a good +margin. Had he desired to carry out a large legislative policy, he could +not have done so; but he was not a man of great capacity as an initiator +of public policies. He maintained his dignity and self-possession in +the midst of the most trying party squabbles; but in a democracy other +qualities than these are necessary for effective leadership. + + * * * * * + +In their desperation, the conservative leaders of the Republican party +resolved to have no more "weak and goody-goody" Presidents, incapable of +fascinating the populace and keeping it in good humor, and they made a +determined effort to secure the renomination of Grant for a third term, +in spite of the tradition against it. Conkling captured the New York +delegation to the national convention in 1880 for Grant; Cameron swung +Pennsylvania into line; and Logan carried off Illinois. Grant's consent +to be a candidate was obtained, and Conkling placed his name in +nomination in a speech which Senator Hoar describes as one of "very +great power." + +Strong opposition to Grant developed, however, partly on account of the +feeling against the third term, and particularly on account of the +antagonism to the Conkling faction which was backing him. Friends of +Blaine, then Senator from Maine, and supporters of John Sherman of Ohio, +thought that Grant had had enough honors at the hands of the party, and +that their turn had come. As a result of a combination of circumstances, +Grant never received more than 313 of the 378 votes necessary to +nomination at the Republican convention. After prolonged balloting, the +deadlock was broken by the nomination of James A. Garfield, of Ohio, as +a "dark horse." The Grant contingent from New York received a sop in +the shape of the nomination of Chester A. Arthur, a politician of the +Conkling school, to the office of Vice President. + +In spite of the promising signs, the Democrats were unable to defeat the +Republicans in 1880. The latter found it possible to heal, at least for +campaign purposes, the breaches created by Hayes' administration. It is +true that Senator Conkling and the "Stalwart" faction identified with +corporation interests were sorely disappointed in their failure to +secure the nomination of Grant for a third term, and that Garfield as a +"dark horse" did not have a personal following like that of his chief +opponents, the Hero of Appomattox, Blaine of Maine, and Sherman of Ohio. +But he had the advantage of escaping the bitter factional feeling within +the party against each of these leaders. He had risen from humble +circumstances, and his managers were able to make great capital out of +his youthful labors as a "canal-boat boy." He had served several terms +in Congress acceptably; he had been intrusted with a delicate place as a +member of the electoral commission that had settled the Hayes-Tilden +dispute; and he was at the time of his nomination Senator-elect from +Ohio. Though without the high qualities of leadership that distinguished +Blaine, Garfield was a decidedly "available" candidate and his +candidature was strengthened by the nomination of Arthur, who was +acceptable to the Conkling group and the spoilsmen generally. + +The Republican fortunes in 1880 were further enhanced by the divisions +among the Democrats and their inability to play the game of practical +politics. Two sets of delegates appeared at the convention from New +York, and the Tammany group headed by "Boss" Kelly was excluded, thus +offending a powerful section of the party in that pivotal state. The +candidate nominated, General Hancock, was by no means a skilful leader. +In fact, he had had no public experience outside of the Army, where he +had made a brilliant record, and he showed no ability at all as a +campaigner. Finally, the party made its fight principally on the "great +fraud of 1876," asking vindication at the hands of the people on the +futile theory that the voters would take an interest in punishing a +four-year-old crime. In its platform, reported by Mr. Watterson, of +Kentucky, it declared that the Democrats had submitted to that outrage +because they were convinced that the people would punish the crime in +1880. "This issue precedes and dwarfs every other; it imposes a more +sacred duty upon the people of the Union than ever addressed to the +conscience of a nation of freemen." Notwithstanding this narrow issue, +Hancock fell behind Garfield only about ten thousand votes, although his +electoral vote was only 155 to 214 for his opponent. + +Whether Garfield would have been able to consolidate his somewhat +shattered party by effective leadership is a matter of speculation, for, +on July 2, 1881, about four months after his inauguration, he was shot +by Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed and half-crazed office seeker, and +he died on September 19. His successor, Vice President Arthur, though a +man of considerable ability, who managed his office with more acumen and +common honesty than his opponents attributed to him, was unable to clear +away the accumulating dissatisfaction within his party or convince the +country that the party would do its own reforming. + +In fact, Arthur, notwithstanding the taint of "spoils" associated with +his career, proved to be by no means the easy-going politician that had +been expected. He took a firm stand against extravagant appropriations +as a means of getting rid of the Treasury surplus, and in 1882 he vetoed +a river and harbor appropriation bill which was specially designed to +distribute funds among localities on the basis of favoritism. In the +same year, he vetoed a Chinese exclusion act as violating the treaty +with China, and made recommendations as to changes which were accepted +by Congress. Arthur also advocated legislation against the spoils +system, and on January 16, 1883, signed the Civil Service law.[24] He +recommended a revision of the tariff, including some striking reductions +in schedules, but the tariff act of 1883 was even less satisfactory to +the public than such measures usually are. Judging by past standards, +however, Arthur had a claim upon his party for the nomination in 1884. + + * * * * * + +But Arthur was not a magnetic leader, and the election of Grover +Cleveland as governor of New York in 1882 and Democratic victories +elsewhere warned the Republicans that their tenure of power was not +indefinite. Circumspection, however, was difficult. A "reform" faction +had grown up within the party, protesting against the gross practices of +old leaders like Conkling and urging at least more outward signs of +propriety. In this faction were Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, George +William Curtis, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt--the last of +whom had just begun his political career with his election to the New +York legislature in 1881. Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, was the leader of +this group, and his nomination was warmly urged in the Republican +convention at Chicago in 1884. + +The hopes of the Republican reformers were completely dashed, however, +by the nomination of Blaine. This "gentleman from Maine" was a man of +brilliant parts and the idol of large sections of the country, +particularly the Middle West; but some suspicions concerning his +personal integrity were widely entertained, and not without reason, by a +group of influential leaders in his party. In 1876, he was charged with +having shared in the corruption funds of the Union Pacific Railroad +Company, and as Professor Dunning cautiously puts it, "the facts +developed put Mr. Blaine under grave suspicion of just that sort of +wealth-getting, if nothing worse, which had ruined his colleagues in the +Crédit Mobilier." Moreover, Mr. Blaine's associations had been with that +wing of his party which had been involved or implicated in one scandal +after another. Partly on this account, he had been defeated for +nomination in 1876, when he was decidedly the leading aspirant and again +in 1880 when he received 285 votes in the convention. But in 1884, +leaders like Senator Platt, of New York, declared "it is now Blaine's +turn," and he was nominated in spite of a threatened bolt. + +The Democrats were fortunate in their selection of Grover Cleveland as +their standard bearer. He had been mayor of Buffalo and governor of New +York, but he had taken no part in national politics and had the virtue +of having few enemies in that field. He was not a man of any large +comprehension of the economic problems of his age, but he was in every +way acceptable to financiers in New York, for he had showed his +indifference to popular demands by vetoing a five-cent fare bill for the +New York City elevated roads which were then being watered and +manipulated by astute speculators, like Jay Gould. Moreover, Mr. +Cleveland possessed certain qualities of straightforwardness and homely +honesty which commended him to a nation wearied of scandalous +revelations and the malodorous spoils system. + +These qualities drew to Cleveland the support of a group of eminent +Republicans, like Carl Schurz who had been Secretary of the Interior +under Hayes, George William Curtis, the civil service reformer, Henry +Ward Beecher, and William Everett, who were nicknamed "Mugwumps" from an +Indian word meaning "chief." Although the "reformers" talked a great +deal about "purity" in politics, the campaign of 1884 was principally +over personalities; and, as a contemporary newspaper put it, it took on +the tone of "a pothouse quarrel." There was no real division over +issues, as will be seen by a comparison of platforms, and scandalous +rumors respecting the morals of the two candidates were freely employed +as campaign arguments. Indeed, the spirit of the fray is reflected in +the words of the Democratic platform: "The Republican party, so far as +principle is concerned, is a reminiscence. In practice, it is an +organization for enriching those who control its machinery. The frauds +and jobbery which have been brought to light in every department of the +government are sufficient to have called for reform within the +Republican party; yet those in authority, made reckless by the long +possession of power, have succumbed to its corrupting influence and have +placed in nomination a ticket against which the independent portion of +the party are in open revolt. Therefore a change is demanded." Having +enjoyed no opportunities for corruption worthy of mention, except in New +York City where they had reaped a good harvest during the sunshine, the +Democrats could honestly pose as the party of "purity in politics." + +Their demand for a change was approved by the voters, for Cleveland +received 219 electoral votes as against 182 cast for Blaine. A closer +analysis of the vote, however, shows no landslide to the Democrats, for +had New York been shifted to the Republican column, the result would +have been 218 for Blaine and 183 for Cleveland. And the Democratic +victory in New York was so close that a second count was necessary, upon +which it was discovered that the successful candidate had only about +eleven hundred votes more than the vanquished Blaine. Taking the country +as a whole, the Democrats had a plurality of a little more than twenty +thousand votes. + +Cleveland's administration was beset by troubles from the beginning. The +civil service reformers were early disappointed with his performances, +as they might have expected. It is true that the Democratic party had +posed in general as the party of "reform," because forsooth having no +patronage to dispense nor favors to grant it could readily make a +virtue of necessity; but it is fair to say that the party had in fact +been somewhat noncommittal on civil service reform, and Cleveland, +though friendly, was hardly to be classed as ardent. The test came soon +after his inauguration. More than one hundred thousand Federal offices +were in the hands of Republicans; the Senate which had to pass upon the +President's chief nominations was Republican and the clash between the +two authorities was spectacular. The pressure of Democrats for office +was naturally strong, and although the civil service reformers got a few +crumbs of comfort, the bald fact stood forth that within two years only +about one third of the former officeholders remained. "Of the chief +officers," says Professor Dewey, "including the fourth class +post-masters, collectors, land officers, numbering about 58,000, over +45,000 were changed. All of the 85 internal revenue collectors were +displaced; and of the 111 collectors of customs, 100 were removed or not +reappointed." + +Cleveland's executive policy was negative rather than positive. He +vigorously applied the veto to private pension bills. From the +foundation of the government until 1897, it appears that 265 such bills +were denied executive approval; and of these five were vetoed by Grant +and 260 by Cleveland--nearly all of the latter's negatives being in his +first administration. Cleveland also vetoed a general dependent pension +bill in 1887 on the ground that it was badly drawn and ill considered. +Although his enemies attempted to show that he was hostile to the old +soldiers, his vetoes were in fact based rather upon a careful +examination of the merits of the several acts which showed extraordinary +carelessness, collusion, and fraud. At all events, the Grand Army +Encampment in 1887 refused to pass a resolution of censure. Cleveland +also killed the river and harbor bill of 1887 by a pocket veto, and he +put his negative on a measure, passed the following year, returning to +the treasuries of the northern states nearly all of the direct taxes +which they had paid during the Civil War in support of the Federal +government. + +On the constructive side, Cleveland's first administration was marked by +a vigorous land policy under which upwards of 80,000,000 acres of land +were recovered from private corporations and persons who had secured +their holdings illegally. He was also the first President to treat the +labor problem in a special message (1886); and he thus gave official +recognition to a new force in politics, although the sole outcome of his +recommendations was the futile law of 1888 providing for the voluntary +arbitration of disputes between railways and their employees. The really +noteworthy measure of his first administration was the interstate +commerce law of 1887, but that could hardly be called a partisan +achievement.[25] + + * * * * * + +Holding his place by no overwhelming mandate and having none of those +qualities of brilliant leadership which arouse the multitude, Cleveland +was unable to intrench his party, and he was forced to surrender his +office at the end of four years' tenure, although his party showed its +confidence by renominating him in 1888. He had a Democratic House during +his administration, but he was embarrassed by party divisions there and +by a Republican Senate. Under such circumstances, he was able to do +little that was striking, and in his message of December, 1887, he +determined to set an issue by a vigorous attack on the tariff--a subject +which had been treated in a gingerly fashion by both parties since the +War. While he disclaimed adherence to the academic theory of free trade +as a principle, his language was readily turned by his enemies into an +attack on the principle of the protective tariff. Although the +performance of the Democrats in the passage of the Mills tariff bill by +the House in 1888 showed in fact no strong leanings toward free trade, +the Republicans were able to force a campaign on the "American doctrine +of protection for labor against the pauper millions of Europe." + +On this issue they carried the election of 1888. Passing by Blaine once +more, the Republicans selected Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, a United +States Senator, a shrewd lawyer, and a reticent politician. Mr. +Wanamaker, a rich Philadelphia merchant, was chosen to raise campaign +funds, and he successfully discharged the functions of his office. As he +said himself, he addressed the business men of the country in the +following language: "How much would you pay for insurance upon your +business? If you were confronted by from one to three years of general +depression by a change in our revenue and protective measures affecting +our manufactures, wages, and good times, what would you pay to be +insured for a better year?" The appeal was effective and with a full +campaign chest and the astute Matthew S. Quay as director of the +national committee, the Republicans outwitted the Democrats, winning 233 +electors' votes against 168 for Cleveland, although the popular vote for +Harrison was slightly under that for his opponent. + +Harrison's administration opened auspiciously in many ways. The +appointment of Blaine as Secretary of State was a diplomatic move, for +undoubtedly Blaine was far more popular with the rank and file of his +party than was Harrison. The civil service reformers were placated by +the appointment of Theodore Roosevelt as president of the Civil Service +Commission, for he was a vigorous champion of reform, who brought the +whole question forcibly before the country by his speeches and articles, +although it must be said that no very startling gains were made against +the spoils system under his administration of the civil service law. It +required time to educate the country to the point of supporting the +administrative heads in resisting the clamor of the politicians for +office. + +Harrison's leadership in legislation was not noteworthy. The Republicans +were in power in the lower house in 1889 for the first time since 1881, +but their majority was so small that it required all of the +parliamentary ingenuity which Speaker Reed could command to keep the +legislative machine in operation. Nevertheless, several important +measures were enacted into law. The McKinley tariff act based upon the +doctrine of high protection was passed in 1890. In response to the +popular outcry against the trusts, the Sherman anti-trust law was +enacted the same year; and the silver party was thrown a sop in the form +of the Sherman silver purchase act. The veterans of the Civil War +received new recognition in the law of 1890 granting pensions for all +disabled soldiers whether their disabilities were incurred in service or +not. Negro voters were taken into account by an attempt to get a new +"force bill" through Congress, which would insure a "free ballot and a +fair count everywhere." + + * * * * * + +There had been nothing decisive, however, about the Republican victory +in 1888, for a few thousand votes in New York changed the day as four +years before. Harrison had not proved to be a very popular candidate, +and there was nothing particularly brilliant or striking about his +administration to enhance his reputation. He was able to secure a +renomination in 1892, largely because he controlled so many +officeholding delegates to the Republican convention, and there was no +other weighty candidate in the field, Blaine being unwilling to make an +open fight at the primaries. + +In the second contest with Cleveland, Harrison was badly worsted, +receiving only 145 electoral votes against 277 cast for the Democratic +candidate and 22 for the Populist, Weaver. The campaign was marked by no +special incidents, for both Cleveland and Harrison had been found safe +and conservative and there was no very sharp division over issues. The +tariff, it is true, was vigorously discussed, but Cleveland made it +clear that no general assault would be made on any protected interests. +The million votes cast for the Populist candidate, however, was a solemn +warning that the old game of party see-saw over personalities could not +go on indefinitely. The issues springing from the great economic +revolution were emerging, not clearly and sharply, but rather in a vague +unrest and discontent with the old parties and their methods. + +President Cleveland went into power for the second time on what appeared +to be a wave of business prosperity, but those who looked beneath the +surface knew that serious financial and industrial difficulties were +pending. Federal revenues were declining and a deficit was staring the +government in the face at a time when there was, for several reasons, a +stringency in the gold market. The Treasury gold reserve was already +rapidly diminishing, and Harrison was on the point of selling bonds when +the inauguration of Cleveland saved the day for him. Congress was +deadlocked on the money question, though called in a special session to +grant relief; and Cleveland at length resorted to the sale of bonds +under an act of 1875 to procure gold for the Treasury. The first sale +was made in January, 1894, and the financiers, to pay for the bonds, +drew nearly half of the amount of gold out of the Treasury itself. + +The "endless chain" system of selling bonds to get gold for the +Treasury, only to have it drawn out immediately, aroused a great hue and +cry against the financial interests. In November, 1894, a second sale +was made with similar results, and in February, 1895, Cleveland in sheer +desperation called in Mr. J. P. Morgan and arranged for the purchase of +gold at a fixed price by the issue of bonds, with an understanding that +the bankers would do their best to protect the Treasury. To the silver +advocates and the Populists this was the climax of "Cleveland's +iniquitous career of subserviency to Wall Street," for it seemed to show +that the government was powerless before the demands of the financiers. +This criticism forced the administration to throw open the issue of +January 6, 1896, to the public, and the result was decidedly +advantageous to the government--apparently an indictment of Cleveland's +policy. Congress in the meantime did nothing to relieve the +administration. + +While the government was wrestling with the financial problem, the +country was in the midst of an industrial crisis. The number of +bankruptcies rose with startling rapidity, hundreds of factories were +closed, and idle men thronged the streets hunting for work. According to +a high authority, Professor D. R. Dewey, "never before had the evil of +unemployment been so widespread in the United States." It was so +pressing that Jacob Coxey, a business man from Ohio, planned a march of +idle men on Washington in 1894 to demand relief at the hands of the +government. His "army," as it was called, ended in a fiasco, but it +directed the attention of the country to a grave condition of affairs. + +Reductions in wages produced severe strikes, one of which--the Pullman +strike of Chicago--led to the paralysis of the railways entering +Chicago, because the Pullman employees were supported by the American +Railway Union. The disorders connected with the strike--which are now +known to have been partially fomented by the companies themselves for +the purpose of inducing Federal interference--led President Cleveland to +dispatch troops to Chicago, against the ardent protest of Governor +Altgeld, who declared that the state of Illinois was able to manage her +own affairs without intermeddling from Washington. The president of the +union, Mr. E. V. Debs, was thrown into prison for violating a "blanket +injunction"[26] issued by the local Federal court, and thus the strike +was broken, leaving behind it a legacy of bitterness which has not yet +disappeared. + +The most important piece of legislation during Cleveland's second +administration was the Wilson tariff bill--a measure which was so +objectionable to the President that he could not sign it, and it +therefore became law without his approval. The only popular feature in +it was the income tax provision, which was annulled the following year +by the Supreme Court. Having broken with his party on the money +question, and having failed to secure a revision of the tariff to suit +his ideas, Cleveland retired in 1897, and one of his party members +declared that he was "the most cordially hated Democrat in the country." + + +_Party Issues_ + +The tariff was one of the issues bequeathed to the parties from +ante-bellum days, but there was no very sharply defined battle over it +until the campaign of 1888. The Republicans, in their platform of 1860, +had declared that "sound policy requires such an adjustment of these +imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of +the whole country"; and although from time to time they advocated tariff +reductions, they remained consistently a protectionist party. The high +war-tariffs, however, were revenue measures, although the protection +feature was by no means lost sight of. In the campaign of 1864, both +parties were silent on the question; four years later it again emerged +in the Democratic platform, but it was not hotly debated in the ensuing +contest. The Democrats demanded "a tariff for revenue upon foreign +imports and such equal taxation under the internal revenue laws as will +afford incidental protection to domestic manufactures." + +From that campaign forward the Democrats appeared to favor a "revenue +tariff" in their platforms. It is true they accepted the Liberal +Republican platform in 1872, which frankly begged the question by +acknowledging the wide differences of opinion on the subject and +remitted the discussion of the matter "to the people in their +congressional districts and the decision of Congress thereon." But in +1876, the Democrats came back to the old doctrine and demanded "that all +custom-house taxation shall be only for revenue." In their victorious +campaign of 1884, however, they were vague. They pledged themselves "to +revise the tariff in a spirit of fairness to all interests"; but they +promised, in making reductions, not "to injure any domestic industries, +but rather to promote their healthy growth," and to be mindful of +capital and labor at every step. Subject to these "limitations" they +favored confining taxation to public purposes only. It was small wonder +that Democratic orators during the campaign could promise "no +disturbance of business in case of victory." + +Cleveland, in the beginning of his administration, faithfully followed +his platform, for in his first message he "placed the need of tax +reduction solely on the ground of excess revenue and declared that there +was no occasion for a discussion of the wisdom or expediency of the +protective system." But within two years he had seen a new light, and he +devoted his message of December, 1887, exclusively to a discussion of +the tariff issue, in vague and uncertain language it is true, but still +characterized by such a ringing denunciation of the "vicious, illegal, +and inequitable" system of taxation then in vogue, that the Republicans +were able to call it, with some show of justification, a "free trade +document." The New York _Tribune_ announced with evident glee that +Cleveland had made "the issue boldly and distinctly and that the +theories and aims of the ultra-opponents of protection have a new and +zealous advocate." Of course, Cleveland hotly denied that he was trying +to commit his party to a simple doctrine of free trade or even the old +principle of the platform, "tariff for revenue only." Moreover, the +Democrats, in their platform of the following year, while indorsing +Cleveland's messages, renewed the tariff pledges of their last platform +and promised to take "labor" into a careful consideration in any +revision. + +In spite of the equivocal position taken by the Democrats, the +Republicans made great political capital out of the affair, apparently +on the warranted assumption that the voters would not read Cleveland's +message or the platform of his party. In their declaration of principles +in 1888, the Republicans made the tariff the leading issue: "We are +uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection. We +protest against its destruction, as proposed by the President and his +party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interest +of America. We accept the issue and confidently appeal to the people for +their judgment. The protective system must be maintained.... We favor +the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any +part of our protective system, at the joint behest of the whisky trusts +and the agents of foreign manufacturers." Again, in 1892, the +Republicans attempted to make the tariff the issue: "We reaffirm the +American doctrine of protection. We call attention to its growth abroad. +We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due +to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican Congress," _i.e._ the +McKinley bill. + +The effect of this Republican hammering on the subject was to bring out +a solemn declaration on the part of the Democrats. "We denounce," they +say in 1892, "the Republican protection as a fraud, a robbery of the +great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few. We +declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that +the Federal government has no constitutional power to impose and collect +tariff duties, except for the purposes of revenue only, and we demand +that the collection of such taxes shall be limited to the necessities of +the government when honestly and economically administered." Although +elected on this platform, the Democrats did not regard their mandate as +warranting a serious attack on the protective system, for the Wilson +tariff act of 1894 was so disappointing to moderate tariff reformers +that Cleveland refused to sign it. + +A close analysis of the platforms and performances of the parties from +1876 to 1896 shows no clear alignment at all on the tariff. Both parties +promise reductions, but neither is specific as to details. The +Republicans, while making much of the protective system, could not +ignore the demand for tariff reform; and the Democrats, while repeating +the well-worn phrases about tariff for revenue, were unable to overlook +the fact that a drastic assault upon the protective interests would mean +their undoing. In Congress, the Republicans made no serious efforts to +lower the duties, and the attempts of the Democrats produced meager +results. + + * * * * * + +Among the new issues raised by the economic revolution was the control +of giant combinations of capital. Although some of the minor parties had +declaimed against trusts as early as 1876, and the Democratic party, in +1884, had denounced "land monopolies," industrial combinations did not +figure as distinct issues in the platforms of the old parties until +1888. In that year, the Democrats vaguely referred to unnecessary +taxation as a source of trusts and combinations, which, "while unduly +enriching the few that combine, rob the body of our citizens by +depriving them of the benefits of natural competition." Here appears the +favorite party slogan that "the tariff is the mother of the trusts," and +the intimation that the remedy is the restoration of "natural +competition" by a reduction of the tariff. The Republicans in 1888 also +recognized the existence of the trust problem by declaring against all +combinations designed to control trade arbitrarily, and recommended to +Congress and the states legislation within their jurisdictions to +"prevent the execution of all schemes to oppress the people by undue +charges on their supplies or by unjust rates for the transportation of +their products to market." + +Both old parties returned to the trust question again in 1892. The +Democrats recognized "in the trusts and combinations which are designed +to enable capital to secure more than its just share of the joint +product of capital and labor, a natural consequence of the prohibitive +taxes which prevent the free competition which is the life of honest +trade, but we believe the worst evils can be abated by law." Thereupon +follows a demand for additional legislation restraining and controlling +trusts. The Republicans simply reaffirmed their declaration of 1888, +indorsed the Sherman anti-trust law already enacted by Congress in 1890, +and favored new legislation remedying defects and rendering the +enforcement of the law more complete. + +The railway issue emerged in 1880 when the Republicans, boasting that +under their administration railways had increased "from thirty-two +thousand miles in 1860 to eighty-two thousand miles in 1879," pronounced +against any further grants of public domain to railway corporations. The +Democrats went on record against discriminations in favor of +transportation lines, but left the subject with that pronouncement. Four +years later the subject had taken on more precision. The Republicans +favored the public regulation of railway corporations and indorsed +legislation preventing unjust discriminations and excessive charges for +transportation, but in the campaign of 1888 the overshadowing tariff +issue enabled them to omit references to railway regulation. The +Democrats likewise ignored the subject in 1884 and 1888. In 1892 the +question was overlooked by the platforms of both parties, although the +minor parties were loudly demanding action on the part of the Federal +Government. The old parties agreed, however, on the necessity of +legislation protecting the life and limb of employees engaged in +interstate transportation. + + * * * * * + +Even before the Civil War, the labor vote had become a factor that could +not be ignored, and both old parties consistently conciliated it by many +references. The Republicans in 1860 commended that "policy of national +exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages." The defense of +the protective system was gradually shifted by the Republicans, until, +judging from the platforms, its continuation was justifiable principally +on account of their anxiety to safeguard the American workingman against +"the pauper labor of Europe." The Democrats could not overlook the +force of this appeal, and in their repeated demands for the reduction of +the tariff they announced that no devotion to free trade principles +would allow them to pass legislation which might put American labor "in +competition with the underpaid millions of the Old World." In 1880, the +Democratic party openly professed itself the friend of labor and the +laboring man and pledged itself to "protect him against the cormorant +and the commune." In their platform of 1888, the Democrats promised to +make "due allowance for the difference between the wages of American and +foreign labor" in their tariff revisions; and in 1892 they deplored the +fact that under the McKinley tariff there had been ten reductions in the +wages of the workingmen to one increase. In the latter year, the +Republicans urged that on articles competing with American products the +duties should "equal the difference between wages abroad and at home." + +Among the more concrete offerings to labor were the promises of +homesteads in the West by the Republicans--promises which the Democrats +reiterated; protection against Chinese and coolie labor, particularly in +the West, safety-appliance laws applicable to interstate carriers, the +establishment of a labor bureau at Washington, the prohibition of the +importation of alien laborers under contract, and the abolition of +prison contract labor. On these matters there was no marked division +between the two old parties; each advocated measures of its own in +general terms and denounced the propositions of the other in equally +general terms. + +The money question bulked large in the platforms, but until 1896 there +was nothing like a clean-cut division.[27] Both parties hedged and +remained consistently vague. The Republicans in 1888 declared in favor +of "the use of both gold and silver as money," and condemned "the policy +of the Democratic administration in its efforts to demonetize silver." +Again, in 1892, the Republicans declared: "The American people, from +tradition and interest, favor bimetallism, and the Republican party +demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with such +restriction and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, +as will secure the maintenance of the parity of values of the two +metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar, +whether of silver, gold, or paper, shall be at all times equal." The +Democrats likewise hedged their profession of faith about with +limitations and provisions. They declared in favor of both metals and no +discrimination for mintage; but the unit of coinage of both metals "must +be of equal intrinsic or exchangeable value, or be adjusted through +international agreement or by such safeguards of legislation as shall +insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals." Thus both of +the platforms of 1892 are paragons of ambiguity. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [24] See below, p. 130. + + [25] Below, p. 133. The tenure of office law was repealed in + 1887. The presidential succession act was passed in 1886. + + [26] A judicial order to all and sundry forbidding them to + interfere with the movement of the trains. + + [27] See below, p. 119. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +TWO DECADES OF FEDERAL LEGISLATION, 1877-1896 + + +_Financial Questions_ + +It was inevitable that financial measures should occupy the first place +in the legislative labors of Congress for a long time after the War. +That conflict had left an enormous debt of more than two billion eight +hundred million dollars, and the taxes were not only high, but they +reached nearly every source which was open to the Federal government. +There were outstanding more than four hundred millions of legal tender +treasury notes, "greenbacks," which had seriously depreciated and, on +account of their variability as compared with gold, offered unlimited +opportunities for speculation and jugglery in Wall Street--of which Jay +Gould's attempt to corner the gold market and the precipitation of the +disaster of Black Friday in 1869 were only spectacular incidents. + +Three distinct problems confronted the national administration: the +refunding of the national debt at lower rates of interest, the final +determination of the place and basis of the paper money in the currency +system, and the comparative treatment of gold and silver coinage. The +first of these tasks was undertaken by Congress during Grant's +administration, when, by the refunding acts of 1870 and 1871, the +Treasury was empowered to substitute four, four and one-half, and five +per cent bonds for the war issues at the high rates of five, six, and +even seven per cent. + +The two remaining problems were by no means so easy of solution, because +they went to the root of the financial system of the country. Most of +the financial interests of the East were anxious to return to a specie +basis for the currency by retiring the legal tender notes or by placing +them on a metallic foundation. The Treasury under President Johnson +began to withdraw the greenbacks from circulation under authority of an +act of Congress passed in 1866; but it soon met the determined +resistance of the paper money party, which looked upon contraction as a +banker's device to appreciate the value of gold and reduce the amount of +money in circulation, thus bringing low prices for labor and +commodities. Within two years Congress peremptorily stopped the +withdrawal of additional Treasury notes.[28] + +Shortly after forbidding the further retirement of legal tender notes, +Congress reassured the hard money party by passing, on March 18, 1869, +an act promising, on the faith of the United States, to pay in coin "all +obligations not otherwise redeemable," and to redeem the legal tender +notes in specie "as soon as practicable." A further gain for hard money +was made in 1875 by the passage of the Resumption Act, providing that on +and after January 1, 1879, "the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem +in coin the United States legal tender notes then outstanding, on their +presentation for redemption at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of +the United States in the City of New York, in sums of not less than +fifty dollars." When the day set for redemption arrived, the Secretary +of the Treasury was prepared with a large hoard of gold, and public +confidence in the government was so high that comparatively little paper +was presented in exchange for specie. + +Out of the conflict over the inflation and contraction of the currency +grew the struggle over "free silver" which was not ended until the +campaign of 1900. To understand this controversy we must go back beyond +the Civil War. The Constitution, as drafted in 1787, gives Congress the +power to coin money and regulate the value thereof and forbids the +states to issue bills of credit or make anything but the gold and silver +coin of the United States legal tender in the payment of debts. Nothing +is said in that instrument about the power of Congress to issue paper +money, and it is questionable whether the framers intended to leave the +door open for legal tenders or notes of any kind. + +In 1792, the new Federal government began to coin gold and silver at the +ratio of 1 to 15, but it was soon found that at this ratio gold was +undervalued, and consequently little or no gold was brought to the +Treasury to be coined. At length, in 1834, Congress, by law, fixed the +ratio between the two metals approximately at 16 to 1; but this was +found to be an overvaluation of gold or an undervaluation of silver, as +some said, and as a result silver was not brought to the Treasury for +coinage and almost dropped out of the monetary system. Finally, in 1873, +when the silver dollar was already practically out of circulation, +Congress discontinued the coinage of the standard silver dollar +altogether--"demonetized" it--and left gold as the basis of the monetary +system.[29] + +It happened about this time that the price of silver began to decline +steadily, until within twenty years it was about half the price it was +in 1870. Some men attributed this fall in the price of silver to the +fact that Germany had demonetized it in 1871, and that about the same +time rich deposits of silver were discovered in the United States. +Others declared that silver had not fallen so much in price, but that +gold, in which it was measured, had risen on account of the fact that +silver had been demonetized and gold given a monopoly of the coinage +market. On this matter Republicans and Democrats were both divided, for +it brought a new set of economic antagonisms into play--the debtor and +the creditor--as opposed to the antagonisms growing out of slavery and +reconstruction. + +Some Republicans, like Senator Morrill, of Vermont, firmly believed that +no approach could be made to a genuine bimetallic currency, both metals +freely and equally circulating, without the coöperation of the leading +commercial nations of the world; and they also went so far as to doubt +whether it would be possible even then to adjust the "fickle ratio" +finely enough to prevent supply and demand from driving one or the other +metal out of circulation. Other Republicans, like Blaine, declared that +the Constitution required Congress to make both gold and silver coin the +money of the land, and that the only question was how best to adjust the +ratio. In a speech in the Senate on February 7, 1878, Blaine said: "I +believe then if Germany were to remonetize silver and the kingdoms and +states of the Latin Union were to reopen their mints, silver would at +once resume its former relation with gold.... I believe the struggle now +going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold +standard would, if successful, produce widespread disaster throughout +the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money and +establishment of gold as the sole unit of value must have a ruinous +effect on all forms of property, _except those investments which yield a +fixed return in money_." + +It was this exception made by Blaine that formed the crux of the whole +issue. The contest was largely between creditors and debtors. Indeed, it +is thus frankly stated by Senator Jones of Nevada in a speech in the +Senate on May 12, 1890: "Three fourths of the business enterprises of +this country are conducted on borrowed capital. Three fourths of the +homes and farms that stand in the name of the actual occupants have been +bought on time, and a very large proportion of them are mortgaged for +the payment of some part of the purchase money. Under the operation of a +shrinkage in the volume of money, this enormous mass of borrowers, at +the maturity of their respective debts, though nominally paying no more +than the amount borrowed, with interest, are, in reality, in the amount +of the principal alone, returning a percentage of value greater than +they received--more in equity than they contracted to pay, and +oftentimes more in substance than they profited by the loan.... It is a +remarkable circumstance that throughout the entire range of economic +discussion in gold-standard circles, it seems to be taken for granted +that a change in the value of the money unit is a matter of no +significance, and imports no mischief to society, _so long as the change +is in one direction_. Who ever heard from an Eastern journal any +complaint against a contraction of our money volume, any admonition that +in a shrinking volume of money lurk evils of the utmost magnitude?... In +all discussions of the subject the creditors attempt to brush aside the +equities involved by sneering at the debtors." Both parties to the +conflict assumed a monopoly of virtue and economic wisdom, and the +controversy proceeded on that plane, with no concessions except where +necessary to secure some practical gain. + +By 1877, silver had fallen to the ratio of seventeen to one as compared +with gold, and silver mine owners were anxious to have the government +buy their bullion at the old rate existing before the "demonetization" +of 1873. In this they were supported by the farmers and the debtor +classes generally, who thought that the gold market was substantially +controlled by a relatively few financiers and that the appreciation of +the yellow metal meant lower prices for their commodities and the +maintenance of high interest rates. Criticism was leveled particularly +against the bondholders, who demanded the payment of interest and +principal in gold, in spite of the fact that, at the time the bonds were +issued, the government had not demonetized silver and could have paid +in silver dollars containing 412-˝ grains each. In addition to the +holders of the national debt, there were the owners of industrial, +state, and municipal bonds and railway and other securities who likewise +sought payment in a metal that was appreciating in value. + +In the Forty-fourth Congress, the silver party, led by Bland, of +Missouri, attempted to force the passage of a law providing for the free +and unlimited coinage of silver approximately at the ratio of sixteen to +one, but their measure was amended on the motion of Allison, of Iowa, in +the Senate, in such a manner as simply to authorize the Secretary of the +Treasury to purchase not less than two million nor more than four +million dollars' worth of silver each month to be coined into silver +dollars. The measure thus amended was vetoed by Hayes, but was repassed +over his protest and became a law in 1878, popularly known as the +Bland-Allison Act. The opponents of contraction were able to secure the +passage of another act in the same year forbidding the further +retirement of legal tender notes and providing that the Treasury, +instead of canceling such notes on receiving them, should reissue them +and keep them in circulation. + +None of the disasters prophesied by the gold advocates followed the +enactment of the Bland-Allison bill, but no one was satisfied with it. +The value of silver as compared with gold steadily declined, until the +ratio was twenty-two to one in 1887. The silver party claimed that the +trouble was not with silver, but that the appreciation of gold had been +largely induced by the government's discriminating policy. The gold +party pointed to the millions of silver dollars coined and unissued +filling the mints and storage vaults to bursting, all for the benefit of +the silver mine owners. The retort of the silver party was a law issuing +silver certificates in denominations of one, two, and five dollars, in +1886. This was supplemented four years later by the Sherman silver +purchase act of 1890 (repealed in 1893), which provided for the purchase +of 4,500,000 ounces of silver monthly and the issue of notes on that +basis redeemable in gold or silver at the discretion of the Treasury. +Congress took occasion to declare also that it was the intention of the +United States to maintain the two metals on a parity--a vague phrase +which was widely used by both parties to conciliate all factions. +Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were as yet ready for a +straight party fight on the silver issue. + + +_Tariff Legislation_ + +At the opening of Hayes' administration the Civil War tariff was still +in force. It is true, there had been some slight reduction in 1872, but +this was offset by increases three years later. During the two decades +following, there was much political controversy over protection, as we +have seen, and there were three important revisions of the protective +system: in 1883 on the initiation of the Senate, in 1890 when the +McKinley bill was passed, and in 1894 when the Wilson bill was enacted +under Democratic auspices. + +The first of these revisions was induced largely by the growing surplus +in the Federal Treasury and the inability of Congress to dispose of it, +even by the most extravagant appropriations. In 1882, the surplus rose +to the startling figure of $145,000,000, and a tariff commission was +appointed to consider, among other things, some method of cutting down +the revenues by a revision of duties. This commission reported a revised +schedule of rates providing for considerable reductions, but still on a +highly protective basis. The House at that time was Republican, and the +Senate was equally divided, with two independents holding the balance of +power. The upper house took the lead in the revision and escaped the +constitutional provision requiring the initiation of revenue bills in +the lower house by tacking their measure to a bill which the House had +passed at the preceding session. + +Under the circumstances neither party was responsible for the measure, +and it is small wonder that it pleased no one, after the fashion of +tariff bills. There was a slight reduction on coarse woolens, cottons, +iron, steel, and several other staple commodities, but not enough to +place the industries concerned on a basis of competition with European +manufactures. New England agricultural products were carefully +protected, but the wool growers of Ohio and other middle western states +lost the ad valorem duties on wool. The Democrats in the House denounced +the measure, and most of them voted against it because, they alleged, it +did not go far enough. William McKinley, of Ohio, then beginning his +career, opposed it on other grounds; and Senator Sherman from the same +state afterward regretted that he had not defeated the bill altogether. +The tariff was "revised but not changed," as a wag put it, and no one +was enthusiastic about the measure. + +Almost immediately attempts were made to amend the law of 1883. For two +years the Democrats, under the leadership of W. R. Morrison, chairman of +the Ways and Means Committee, pottered about with the tariff, but +accomplished nothing, partially on account of the opposition of +protectionist Democrats, like Randall, of Pennsylvania. In 1886, +President Cleveland, in his second message, took up the tariff +seriously; and under the leadership of Roger Q. Mills, of Texas, the +Democratic House, two years later, passed the "Mills bill" only to see +it die in the Senate. The Republican victory of 1888, though narrow, was +a warning that no compromise would be made with those who struck a blow +at protection. + +The Republican House set to work upon a revision of the tariff with a +view to establishing high protection, and in May, 1890, Mr. McKinley, +chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, introduced his bill increasing +the duties generally. In the preparation of this measure, the great +manufacturing interests had been freely consulted, and their requests +for rates were frequently accepted without change, or made the basis for +negotiations with opposing forces, as in the case, for example, of the +binding twine trust and the objecting farmers. On the insistence of Mr. +Blaine, then Secretary of State, a "reciprocity" clause was introduced +into the bill, authorizing the President to place higher duties on +certain commodities coming from other countries, in case he deemed their +retaliatory tariffs "unreasonable or unjust." + +The opposition to the McKinley bill was unusually violent, and no +opportunity was given to test its working before the country swung again +to the Democrats in the autumn of 1890; but the Republican majority in +the Senate prevented the House from carrying through any of its attacks +on the system. The election of Cleveland two years later and the capture +of the Senate as well by the Democrats seemed to promise that the +long-standing threat of a general downward revision would be carried +out. William Wilson, of West Virginia, reported the new bill from the +Ways and Means Committee in December, 1893. Although it made numerous +definite reductions in duties, it was by no means a drastic "free trade" +measure, such as the Republicans had prophesied in their campaign +speeches. The bill passed the House by a large majority, with only a few +Democrats voting against it. Even radical Democrats from the West, who +would have otherwise demanded further reductions, were conciliated by +the provision for a tax on all incomes over $4000. + +When the Wilson bill left the House of Representatives, it had some of +the appearances at least of a "tariff-for-revenue" measure. Reductions +had been made all along the line, not without regard, of course, for +sectional interests, in memory of the principle that the "tariff is a +local issue." But the Senate made short work of it. There the individual +member counted for more. He had the right to talk as long as he pleased, +and he could trade his vote on schedules in which he was not personally +interested for votes on his own schedules. Thus by forceful and +ingenious manipulation, the Wilson bill was shorn of its most drastic +features (not without some rejoicing in the House as well as in the +Senate), and it went to President Cleveland in such a form that he +refused to accept it as a tariff reform measure and simply allowed it to +become a law without his signature. + +The action of the Democratic Senate is easily accounted for. Hill, of +New York, was almost rabid in his opposition to the income tax +provision. Louisiana was a great sugar-growing state, and her Senators +had their own notion as to what were the proper duties on sugar. Alabama +had rising iron industries, and her Senators shared the emotions of the +representatives from Pennsylvania as the proposed reductions on iron +products were contemplated. Senator Gorman, of Maryland, had no more +heart in "attacking the interests" than did Senator Quay, of +Pennsylvania, who, by the way, used his "inside information" during the +passage of the bill to make money by speculating in sugar stocks. + +With glee the Republicans taunted the Democrats that their professions +were one thing and their performances another. "This is not a protective +bill," said Senator O. H. Platt, of Connecticut. "It is not in any sense +a recognition of the doctrine of protection high or low. It is not a +bill for revenue with incidental protection. It is a bill (and the truth +may as well be told in the Senate of the United States) which proceeds +upon free trade principles, except as to such articles as it has been +necessary to levy protective duties upon to get the votes of the +Democratic Senators to pass the bill.... No such marvel has ever been +seen under the sun as all the Democratic Senators, with the possible +exception of the Senator from Texas (Mr. Mills), giving way to this +demand of the sugar trust. How this chamber has rung with the +denunciations of the sugar trust! How the ears of waiting and listening +multitudes in Democratic political meetings have been vexed with +reiterated denunciations of this sugar trust! And here every Democratic +Senator, with one exception, is ready to vote for a prohibitive duty +upon refined sugar." + +Twenty years of tariff agitation and tinkering had thus ended in general +dissatisfaction with the promises and performances of both parties. The +Republicans had advanced to a position of high protection based +principally upon the demands of manufacturing interests themselves, +modified by such protests on the part of consumers as became vocal and +effective in politics. The Democrats had been driven, under Mr. +Cleveland's leadership, to what seemed to be a disposition to reduce the +tariff to something approaching a revenue basis, but when it came to an +actual performance, their practical views, as manifested in the +Wilson-Gorman act, were not far behind those of the opposing party. +Representatives of both parties talked as if the issue was a contest +between tariff-for-revenue and protection, but in fact it was not. The +question was really, "which of the several regions shall receive the +most protection?" Of attempts to get the tariff upon a "scientific +basis," striking a balance among all the interests of the country, +there was none. Ten years of political warfare over free silver and +imperialism were to elapse before there could be a renewed examination +of protection as a system. + + +_The Civil Service Law of 1883_ + +The "spoils system" of making Federal offices the reward for partisan +services began to draw a strong fire of criticism in Grant's first +administration. It was natural that the Democrats should view with +disfavor a practice which excluded them entirely from serving their +country in an official capacity, and the reformers regarded it as a +menace to American institutions because it was the basis of a "political +machine" which controlled primaries and elections and shut out the +discussion of real issues. In response to this combined attack, Congress +passed in 1871 a law authorizing the President to prescribe regulations +for admission to the civil service and provide methods for ascertaining +the fitness of candidates--a law which promised well while the +distinguished champion of reform, George William Curtis, was head of the +board in charge of its administration. Congress, however, had accepted +the reform reluctantly and refused to give it adequate financial +support. After two years' experience with the law, Curtis resigned, and +within a short time the whole scheme fell to the ground. + +The reformers, however, did not give up hope, for they were sufficiently +strong to compel the respect of the Democrats, and the latter, by their +insistence on a reform that cost them nothing, forced the Republicans +to give the merit system some prominence in their campaign promises. +But practical politicians in both parties had small esteem for a plan +that would take away the incentive to work for victory on the part of +their followers. It was scornfully called "snivel service" and +"goody-goody reform"; and the old practices of distributing offices to +henchmen and raising campaign funds by heavy assessments on +officeholders were continued. + +Never was the spoils system more odious than when the assassination of +Garfield by a disappointed office hunter startled the country from its +apathy. Within a year, a Senate committee had reported favorably on a +civil service reform bill. It declared that the President had to wear +his life out giving audiences to throngs of beggars who besieged the +executive mansion, and that the spectacle of the chief magistrate of the +nation dispensing patronage to "a hungry, clamorous, crowding, and +jostling multitude" was humiliating to the patriotic citizen. And with +the Congressman the system "is ever present. When he awakes in the +morning it is at his door, and when he retires at night it haunts his +chamber. It goes before him, it follows after him, and it meets him on +the way." The only relief, concluded the report, was to be found in a +thoroughgoing merit system of appointing civil servants. + +At length in 1883 Congress passed the civil service act authorizing, but +not commanding, the President to appoint a commission and extend the +merit system to certain Federal offices. The commission was to be +composed of three members, not more than two of the same party, +appointed by the President and Senate, and was charged with the duty of +aiding the President, at his request, in preparing suitable rules for +competitive examinations designed to test the fitness of applicants for +offices in the public service, already classified or to be classified by +executive order or by further legislation. The act itself brought a few +offices under the merit system, but it left the extension of the +principle largely to the discretion of the President. When the law went +into force, it applied only to about 14,000 positions, but it was +steadily extended, particularly by retiring Presidents anxious to secure +the jobs already held by their partisans or to improve the efficiency of +the service. Neither Cleveland nor Harrison enforced the law to the +satisfaction of the reformers, for the pressure of the office seekers, +particularly under Cleveland's first administration, was almost +irresistible. + + +_Railway and Trust Regulation_ + +In the beginning of the railway era in the United States, Congress made +no attempt to devise a far-sighted plan of public control, but +negligently devoted its attention to granting generous favors to +railways. It was not until the stock-watering, high-financing, +discriminations and rebates had disgraced the country that Congress was +moved to act. It is true that President Grant in his message of 1872 +recommended, and a Senate committee approved, a comprehensive plan for +regulating railways, but there was no practical outcome. The railway +interests were too strong in Congress to permit the enactment of any +drastic regulatory laws. But at length the Granger movement, which had +produced during the seventies so much railway regulation in the +States,[30] appeared in Congress, and stirred by a long report by a +Senate committee enumerating a terrifying list of abuses against +shippers particularly, Congress passed, in 1887, the first important +interstate commerce law. + +This act was a timid, halting measure, and the Supreme Court almost +immediately sheared away its effectiveness by decisions in favor of the +railway companies. The law created a commission of five members +empowered to investigate the operations of common carriers and order +those who violated the law to desist. The act itself forbade +discriminations in rates, pooling traffic, and the charging of more for +"short" than "long hauls" over the same line, except under special +circumstances. In spite of the good intentions of the commission, the +law was practically a dead letter. According to a careful scholar, +Professor Davis R. Dewey, "By 1890 the practice of cut rates to favored +shippers and cities was all but universal at the West; passes were +generally issued; rebates were charged up to maintenance of way account; +special privileges of yardage, loading, and cartage were granted; +freight was underbilled or carried under a wrong classification and +secret notification of intended reduction of rates was made to favored +shippers.... The ingenuity of officials in breaking the spirit of the +law knew no limit, and is a discouraging commentary on the dishonesty +which had penetrated into the heart of business enterprise."[31] + +The critics of railway policy who were able to force the passage of the +interstate commerce act usually coupled the denunciation of the +industrial monopolies with their attacks on common carriers; and, three +years after the establishment of the interstate commerce commission, +Congress, feeling that some kind of action was demanded by the political +situation, passed the Sherman anti-trust law of 1890. There was no +consensus of opinion among the political leaders as to the significance +of the trust. Blaine declared that "trusts were largely a private affair +with which neither the President nor any private citizen had any +particular right to interfere." Speaker Reed dismissed the subject by +announcing that he had heard "more idiotic raving, more pestiferous +rant, on that subject than on all others put together." Judge Cooley, on +seeing "the utterly heartless manner in which the trusts sometimes have +closed many factories and turned men willing to be industrious into the +streets in order that they may increase profits already reasonably +large," asked whether the trust "as we see it is not a public enemy; +whether it is not teaching the laborer dangerous lessons; whether it is +not helping to breed anarchy." + +In the midst of this general confusion of opinion on the trust, it is +not surprising that Congress in the Sherman law of 1890 enunciated no +clear principles. Apparently it intended to restore competition by +declaring illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or +otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the +several states or with foreign nations." But a study of the debates over +the law fails to show any consistent opinion as to what combinations +were included within the prohibition or as to the exact meaning of +"restraint of trade." Of course, the lawyers pointed at once to the +simplicity of the old common law doctrine that conspiracies in restraint +of trade are illegal, but this was an answer in verbiage which gave no +real clew to concrete forms of restraint under the complex conditions of +modern life. + +The vagueness of the Sherman anti-trust law was a subject of remark +during its passage through Congress. O. H. Platt, in the Senate, +criticized the bill as attacking all combinations, no matter what their +practices or forms. "I believe," he said, "that every man in business--I +do not care whether he is a farmer, a laborer, a miner, a sailor, +manufacturer, a merchant--has a right, a legal and a moral right, to +obtain a fair profit upon his business and his work; and if he is driven +by fierce competition to a spot where his business is unremunerative, I +believe it is his right to combine for the purpose of raising prices +until they shall be fair and remunerative. This bill makes no +distinction. It says that every combination which has the effect in any +way to advance prices is illegal and void.... The theory of this bill is +that prices must never be advanced by two or more persons, no matter how +ruinously low they may be. That theory I denounce as utterly untenable, +as immoral." + +Senator Platt then went on to say that the whole subject had not been +adequately considered and that the bill was a piece of politics, not of +statesmanship. "I am sorry, Mr. President," he continued, "that we have +not had a bill which had been carefully prepared, which had been +thoughtfully prepared, which had been honestly prepared, to meet the +object which we all desire to meet. The conduct of the Senate for the +past three days--and I make no personal allusions--has not been in the +line of the honest preparation of a bill to prohibit and punish trusts. +It has been in the line of getting some bill with that title that we +might go to the country with. The questions of whether the bill would be +operative, of how it would operate, or whether it was within the power +of Congress to enact it, have been whistled down the wind in this Senate +as idle talk, and the whole effort has been to get some bill headed: 'A +Bill to Punish Trusts,' with which to go to the country." + +Senator Hoar, who claimed that he was the author of the Sherman +anti-trust law, says, however, that the act was not directed against +_all_ combinations in business. "It was expected," he says, "that the +court in administering that law would confine its operations to cases +which are contrary to the policy of the law, treating the words +'agreements in restraint of trade' as having a technical meaning, such +as they are supposed to have in England. The Supreme Court of the United +States went in this particular farther than was expected.[32] ... It has +not been carried to its full extent since, and I think will never be +held to prohibit those lawful and harmless combinations which have been +permitted in this country and in England without complaint, like +contracts of partnership, which are usually considered harmless." + +The immediate effects of the Sherman anti-trust law were wholly +negligible. Seven of the eight judicial decisions under the law during +Harrison's administration were against the government, and no indictment +of offenders against the law went so far as a trial. During Cleveland's +second term the law was a dead letter. Meanwhile trusts and combinations +continued to multiply. + + +_The Income Tax Law of 1894_ + +In the debates over tariff reduction, silver, and paper money, evidences +of group and class conflicts were almost constantly apparent, but it was +not until the enactment of the income tax provision of 1894 that +political leaders of national standing frankly avowed a class +purpose--the shifting of a portion of the burden of national taxes from +the commodities consumed by the poor to the incomes of the rich. + +The movement for an income tax found its support especially among the +farmers of the West and South and the working classes of the great +cities. The demand for it had been appearing for some time in the +platforms of the agrarian and labor parties. The National or Greenback +party, in its platform of 1884, demanded "a graduated income tax" and "a +wise revision of the tariff laws with a view to raising revenues from +luxury rather than necessity." The Anti-monopoly party, in the same +year, demanded, "a graduated income tax and a tariff, which is a tax +upon the people, that shall be so levied as to bear as lightly as +possible upon necessaries. We denounce the present tariff as being +largely in the interest of monopolies and demand that it be speedily and +radically reformed in the interest of labor instead of capital." The +Union Labor convention at Cincinnati in 1888 declared in its platform: +"A graduated income tax is the most equitable system of taxation, +placing the burden of government upon those who can best afford to pay, +instead of laying it upon the farmers and producers and exempting +millionaire bondholders and corporations." + +In the campaign of 1892, the demand for an income tax was made by the +Populist party and by the Socialist Labor party. The former frankly +declared war on the rich, proclaiming in its platform that, "The fruits +of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes +for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors +of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty." Among the +remedies for this dire condition of things the Populists demanded "a +graduated income tax." The Democrats, at their convention of that year, +denounced the McKinley tariff law "as the culminating atrocity of class +legislation," and declared that "The Federal government has no +constitutional power to impose and collect tariff duties except for the +purpose of revenue only." + +When it was discovered in the ensuing election that the Democratic +party, with its low tariff pronunciamento was victorious, and that the +Populists with their radical platform had carried four western states +and polled more than a million votes, shrewd political observers saw +that some revision in the revenue system of the Federal government was +imperative. President Cleveland, in his message of December, 1893, in +connection with the recommendation for a revision of the tariff, stated +that, "the committee ... have wisely embraced in their plans a few +additional revenue taxes, including a small tax upon incomes derived +from certain corporate investments." It is not clear what committee the +President had in mind, and Senator Hill declared that the Ways and Means +Committee had not agreed "upon any income tax or other internal +taxation"; although it had undoubtedly been considering the subject in +connection with the revision of the tariff. + +When the tariff bill was introduced in Congress, on December 19, 1893, +it contained no provision for an income tax, and it was not until +January 29 that an income tax amendment to the Wilson bill was +introduced in behalf of the Committee. In defending his amendment, the +mover, Mr. McMillin, declared that the purpose of the tax was to place a +small per cent of the enormous Federal burden "upon the accumulated +wealth of the country instead of placing all upon the consumption of the +people." He announced that they did not come there in any spirit of +antagonism to wealth, that they did not intend to put an undue embargo +upon wealth, but that they did intend to make accumulated wealth pay +some share of the expenses of the government. The tariff, in his +opinion, taxed want, not wealth. He was impatient with the hue and cry +that was raised, "when it is proposed to shift this burden from those +who cannot bear it to those who can; to divide it between consumption +and wealth; to shift it from the laborer who has nothing but his power +to toil and sweat to the man who has a fortune made or inherited." The +protective tariff, he added, had made colossal fortunes by levying +tribute upon the many for the enrichment of the few; and yet the +advocates of an income tax were told that this accumulated wealth was a +sacred thing which should go untaxed forever. In announcing this +determination to tax the rich, Mr. McMillin disclaimed any intention of +waging a class war, by declaring that the income tax, in his opinion, +would "diminish the antipathy that now exists between the classes," and +sweep away the ground for that "iconoclastic complaint which finds +expression in violence and threatens the very foundations upon which our +whole institution rests." + +The champions of property against this proposal to tax incomes in order +to relieve the burden upon consumption summoned every device of oratory +and argument to their aid. They ridiculed and denounced, and endeavored +to conjure up before Congress horrible visions of want, anarchy, +socialism, ruin, and destruction. J. H. Walker, of Massachusetts, +declared that, "The income tax takes from the wealth of the thrifty and +the enterprising and gives to the shifty and the sluggard." Adams, of +Pennsylvania, found the income tax "utterly distasteful in its moral and +political aspects, a piece of class legislation, a tax upon the thrifty, +and a reward to dishonesty." In the Senate, where there is supposed to +be more sobriety, the execrations heaped upon the income tax proposal +were marked by even more virulence. Senator Hill declared that, "The +professors with their books, the socialists with their schemes, the +anarchists with their bombs, are instructing the people of the United +States in the organization of society, the doctrines of democracy, and +the principles of taxation. No wonder if their preaching can find ears +in the White House." In his opinion, also, the income tax was an +"insidious and deadly assault upon state rights, state powers, and state +independence." Senator Sherman particularly objected to the high +exemption, declaring, "In a republic like ours, where all men are equal, +this attempt to array the rich against the poor, or the poor against the +rich, is socialism, communism, devilism." + +In spite of this vigorous opposition, the House passed the provision by +a vote of 204 to 140 and the Senate by a vote of 39 to 34. In its final +form the law imposed a tax of two per cent on all incomes above +$4000--an exemption under which the farmer and the lower middle class +escaped almost entirely. Cleveland did not like a general income tax, +and he was dissatisfied with the Wilson tariff bill to which the tax +measure was attached. He, therefore, allowed it to go into effect +without his signature. + + +_Labor Legislation_ + +The only measures directly in the interests of labor generally passed +during this period were the Chinese exclusion act, the law creating a +labor bureau at Washington, and the prohibition of the importation of +alien workingmen under contract. Shortly after the Civil War, protests +were heard against cheap Chinese labor, not only in the western states, +but also in the East, where manufacturers were beginning to employ +coolies to break strikes and crush unions. At length, early in 1882, +Congress passed a measure excluding Chinese laborers for a period of +twenty years, the Republicans from the eastern districts voting +generally against it. President Arthur vetoed the bill, holding in +particular that it was a violation of treaty provisions with China, and +suggested a limitation of the application of the principle to ten years. +This was accepted by Congress, and the law went into force in August of +that year. More stringent identification methods were later applied to +returning Chinese, and in 1892, the application of the principle of +exclusion was further extended for a term of ten years. In 1884, a +Federal bureau of labor statistics was created to collect information +upon problems of labor and capital. In 1885, Congress passed a law +prohibiting the importation of laborers under contract, which was +supplemented by later legislation.[33] + +FOOTNOTES: + + [28] See below, p. 123. + + [29] The Silver Democrats declared that this demonetization + was secretly brought about by a "conspiracy" on the part of + gold advocates, and named the act in question "the crime of + '73." + + [30] See above, p. 167. + + [31] _National Problems_, p. 103. + + [32] See below, p. 332. + + [33] In 1887, Congress enacted a law providing for counting + the electoral vote in presidential elections. This measure + grew out of the disputed election of 1876. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE GROWTH OF DISSENT + + +Important as was the legislation described in the preceding chapter, +there were sources of discontent which it could not, in the nature of +things, dry up. With the exception of the income tax, there had been no +decisive effort to placate the poorer sections of the population by +distinct class legislation. It is true, the alien contract labor law and +the Chinese exclusion act were directed particularly to the working +class, but their effects were not widely felt. + +The accumulation of vast fortunes, many of which were gained either by +fraudulent manipulations, or shady transactions within the limits of the +law but condemned by elementary morals, and the massing of millions of +the proletariat in the great industrial cities were bound in the long +run to bring forth political cleavages as deep as the corresponding +social cleavage. The domination of the Federal government by the +captains of machinery and capital was destined to draw out a counter +movement on the part of the small farmers, the middle class, and the +laborers. Mutterings of this protest were heard in the seventies; it +broke forth in the Populist and Socialist movement in the nineties; it +was voiced in the Democratic campaign of 1896; silenced awhile by a +wave of imperialism, it began to work a transformation in all parties at +the opening of the new century. + + * * * * * + +This protest found its political expression in the organization of +"third" or minor parties. The oldest and most persistent of all these +groups is the Prohibitionist party, which held its first national +convention at Columbus, Ohio, in 1872, and nominated Mr. Black, of +Pennsylvania, as its candidate. In its platform, it declared the +suppression of the liquor traffic to be the leading issue, but it also +proposed certain currency reforms and the regulation of transportation +companies and monopolies. + +Although their popular vote in 1872 was less than six thousand, the +Prohibitionists returned to their issue at each succeeding campaign with +Spartan firmness, but their gains were painfully slow. They reached 9522 +in 1876, and 10,305 in 1880. In the campaign of 1884, when many +Republicans were dissatisfied with the nomination of Blaine, and +unwilling to follow Curtis and Schurz into the Democratic camp, the +Prohibition vote rose to 150,369. A further gain of nearly one hundred +thousand votes in the next election, to which a slight addition was made +in 1892, encouraged the Prohibitionists to hope that the longed-for +"split" had come, and they frightened the Republican politicians into +considering concessions, especially in the states where the temperance +party held the balance of power. In fact, in their platform of 1892 the +Republicans announced in a noncommittal fashion that they sympathized +with "all wise and legitimate efforts to lessen and prevent the evils of +intemperance and promote morality." The scare was unwarranted, however, +for the Prohibition party had about reached its high-water mark. Being +founded principally on one moral issue and making no appeal to any +fundamental economic divisions, it could not make headway against the +more significant social issues, and its strength was further reduced by +the growth of state and local prohibition. + + * * * * * + +Almost immediately after the Civil War, labor entered politics in a +small way on its own account. In 1872, a party known as the "Labor +Reformers" held a national convention at Columbus which was attended by +delegates from seventeen states. It declared in favor of restricting the +sale of public lands to homesteaders, Chinese exclusion, an eight-hour +day in government employments, civil service reform, one term for each +President, regulation of railway and telegraph rates, and the subjection +of the military to the civil authorities. The party nominated Justice +Davis, who had been appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States +by Lincoln and had shown Populist leanings immediately after the War; +but Mr. Davis declined to serve, and O'Connor of New York, to whom the +place was then tendered, only polled about 29,000 votes. + +This early labor party was simply a party of mild protest. It originated +in Massachusetts, where there had been a number of serious labor +disputes and a certain shoe manufacturer had imported a carload of +Chinese to operate his machinery. Although Wendell Phillips, who had +declared the emancipation of labor to be the next great issue after the +emancipation of slaves, was prominently identified with it and stood +next to Justice Davis on the first poll in the convention, the party as +a whole manifested no tendency to open a distinct class struggle, and +the leading planks of its program were shortly accepted by both of the +old parties. + +Standing upon such a temporary platform, and unsupported by any general +philosophy of politics, the labor reform party inevitably went to +pieces. Its dissolution was facilitated by the rise of an agrarian +party, the Greenbackers, who, in their platform of 1880, were more +specific and even more extensive in their declaration of labor's rights +than the "Reformers" themselves had been. It was not until 1888 that +another "labor" group appeared, but since that date there has been one +or more parties making a distinct appeal to the working class. In that +year, there were two "labor" factions, the Union Labor party and the +United Labor party. Both groups came out for the public ownership of the +means of transportation and communication and a code of enlightened +labor legislation. The former advocated the limitation of land ownership +and the latter the application of the single tax. Both agreed in +denouncing the "Democratic and Republican parties as hopelessly and +shamelessly corrupt, and, by reason of their affiliation with +monopolies, equally unworthy of the suffrages of those who do not live +upon public plunder." The vote of both groups in the ensuing election +was slightly over 150,000. + +The labor groups which had broken with the old parties took a more +definite step toward socialism in 1892, when they frankly assumed the +name of the Socialist Labor party[34] and put forward a declaration in +favor of the public ownership of utilities and a general system of +protective labor legislation. Although the socialism of Karl Marx had by +this time won a wide influence among the working classes of Europe, +there are few if any traces of it in the Socialist Labor platform of +1892. That platform says nothing about the inevitable contest between +labor and capitalism, or about the complete public ownership of all the +means of transportation and production. On the contrary, it confines its +statements to concrete propositions, including the political reforms of +the initiative, referendum, and recall, all of which have since been +advocated by leaders in the old parties. The small vote received in 1892 +by the socialistic candidate, 21,532, is no evidence of the strength of +the labor protest, for the Populist party in that year included in its +program substantially the same principles and made a distinct appeal to +the working class, as well as to the farmers. + + * * * * * + +Indeed, the discontent of the two decades from 1876 to 1896 was confined +principally to the small farmers, who waged, in fact, a class war upon +capitalists and financiers, although they nowhere formulated it into a +philosophy. They chose to rely upon the inflation of the currency as +their chief weapon of offense. A precursor to the agrarian movement in +politics is to be found in the "Granger Movement," which began with the +formation of an association known as the "Patrons of Husbandry" in +1867. This society, which organized local lodges on a secret basis and +admitted both men and women, was originally designed to promote +agricultural interests in a general and social way, and its political +implications were not at first apparent. It naturally appealed, however, +to the most active and socially minded farmers, and its leaders soon +became involved in politics. + +The sources of agrarian discontent were obvious. During the War, prices +had been high and thousands of farm "hands" and mechanics had become +land owners, thanks to the homestead laws enacted by the Republican +party; but they had little capital to start with, and their property was +heavily mortgaged. When the inflated War prices collapsed, they found +themselves compelled to pay interest at the old rate, and they figured +it out that capitalists and bondholders were the chief beneficiaries of +the Federal financial legislation. In spite of all that had been paid on +the national and private debts, the amount still due, they reckoned, +measured in the products of toil, wheat and corn, was greater than ever. +They, therefore, hit on the conclusion that the chief source of trouble +was in the contraction of the currency which reduced the money value of +their products. The remedy obviously was inflation in some form.[35] + +While the currency thus became the chief agrarian issue, the farmers +attributed a part of their troubles to the railway companies whose +heavily "watered" capital made high freight rates necessary, and whose +discriminations in charges fell as heavy burdens on shippers outside of +the zones of competition. The agrarians, therefore, resorted to railway +legislation in their respective states--the regulation of rates and +charges for transportation and the conditions under which grain should +be warehoused and handled. In Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and other +states, the law makers yielded to the pressure of the farmers for this +kind of legislative relief, and based their legal contentions on the +ground that the railways "partook of the nature of public highways." The +Grangers were strengthened in their convictions by the violence of the +opposition offered on the part of the railways to the establishment of +rates and charges by public authority, and by their constant appeals to +the courts for relief.[36] + +Of course, the fixing of flat rates without any inquiry into the cost of +specific services was open to grave objections; but the opposition of +the companies was generally based on the contention that they had a +right to run their business in their own way. The spirit of this +opposition is reflected in an editorial published in the _Nation_, of +New York, in January, 1875: "We maintain that the principle of such +legislation is either confiscation, or, if another phrase be more +agreeable, the change of railroads from pieces of private property, +owned and managed for the benefit of those who have invested their money +in them, into eleemosynary or charitable corporations, managed for the +benefit of a particular class of applicants for outdoor relief--the +farmers. If, in the era of progress to which the farmers' movement +proposes to introduce us, we are going back to a condition of society in +which the only sort of property which we can call our own is that which +we can make our own by physical possession, it is certainly important to +every one to know it, and the only body which can really tell us is the +Supreme Court at Washington." + +Not content with their achievements in the state legislatures, the +agrarians entered national politics in 1876 in the form of the +Independent National or Greenback party, designed to "stop the present +suicidal and destructive policy of contraction." They declared their +belief that "a United States note, issued directly by the government and +convertible on demand into United States obligations, bearing a rate of +interest not exceeding one cent a day on each one hundred dollars and +exchangeable for United States notes at par, will afford the best +circulating medium ever devised." In spite of the small vote polled by +their standard bearer, Peter Cooper, of New York, they put forward a +candidate in the next campaign[37] and made a third attempt in 1884, +growing more and more radical in tone. In their last year, they +declared: "Never in our history have the banks, the land-grant +railroads, and other monopolies been more insolent in their demands for +further privileges--still more class legislation. In this emergency the +dominant parties are arrayed against the people and are the abject tools +of the corporate monopolies." The Greenbackers demanded, in addition to +currency reform, the regulation of interstate commerce, a graduated +income tax, labor legislation, prohibition of importation of contract +laborers, and the reduction of the terms of United States Senators. +Although their candidate, B. F. Butler, polled 175,000 votes in 1884, +the Greenbackers gave up the contest, and in 1888 yielded their place to +the Union Labor party. + +The agrarian interest was, however, still the chief source of conscious +discontent, and the disappearance of the Greenbackers was shortly +followed by the establishment of two societies, the National Farmers' +Alliance and Industrial Union and the National Farmers' Alliance, the +former strong in the South and West, and the latter in the North. In +1890, these orders claimed over three million members, and in several of +the southern states they had dominated or split the Democratic party. +The Northern Alliance was likewise busy with politics, and in Kansas and +Nebraska, by independence or fusion, carried a large number of +legislative districts. + +Although professing to be non-political in the beginning, the leaders of +these alliances called a national convention at Omaha in 1892 and put +forth the most radical platform that had yet appeared in American +politics. It declared that the newspapers were subsidized, corruption +dominated the ballot box, homes were covered with mortgages, labor was +impoverished and tyrannized over by a hireling standing army, and the +nation stood on the verge of ruin. "The fruits of the toils of +millions," runs the platform, "are boldly stolen to build up colossal +fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the +possessors of these in turn despise the republic and endanger liberty. +From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed two +classes of tramps and millionaires." Their demands included the free +coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, postal-savings banks, +government ownership of railways, telegraph and telephones; they +declared their sympathy with organized labor in its warfare for better +conditions and its struggle against "Pinkerton hirelings"; and they +commended the initiative, referendum, and popular election of United +States Senators. On this program, the Populists polled over a million +votes and captured twenty-two presidential electors. Evidently the +indifference of the old parties to such issues could not remain +undisturbed much longer. + + * * * * * + +Fuel was added to the discontent in the spring of 1895, when the Supreme +Court declared null and void the income tax law of the previous +year.[38] The opponents of the tax, having lost in the Congress, made +their last stand in the highest Federal tribunal, and marshaled on their +side an array of legal talent seldom seen in an action at law, including +Senator Edmunds, Mr. Joseph H. Choate, and other attorneys prominently +identified with railway and corporation litigation. No effort was spared +in bringing pressure to bear on the Court, and no arguments, legal, +political, and social, were neglected in the attempt to impress upon the +Court the importance of stopping Populism by a judicial pronunciamento. +Conservative New York papers, like the _Herald_, boldly prophesied in +the summer of 1894 that "the income tax will be blotted from the statute +books before the people are cursed with its inquisitorial enforcement." + +No easy victory lay before the opponents of the income tax, for the law +seemed to be against them. In 1870, the Supreme Court had upheld the +Civil War income tax without a dissenting voice, and had distinctly +said: "Our conclusions are that direct taxes, within the meaning of the +Constitution, are only capitation taxes as expressed in that instrument +and taxes on real estate, and that the tax of which the plaintiff in +error complains [the income tax] is within the category of an excise or +duty." Of course, the terms of the new law were not identical with those +of the Civil War measure, and the Supreme Court had been known to +reverse itself. + +The attorneys against the tax left no stone unturned. As Professor +Seligman remarks, "Some of the important financial interests now engaged +a notable array of eminent counsel to essay the arduous task of +persuading the Supreme Court that it might declare the income tax a +direct tax without reversing its previous decisions. The effort was made +with the most astonishing degree of ability and ingenuity, and the +briefs and arguments of the opposing counsel fill several large +volumes.... The counsel's arguments abound in historical errors and +economic inaccuracies.... Errors and misstatements which might be +multiplied pale into insignificance compared with the misinterpretation +put upon the origin and purpose of the direct-tax clause--a +misinterpretation which like most of the preceding mistakes was bodily +adopted by the majority of the Court, who evidently found no time for an +independent investigation of the subject." Having exhausted their +ingenuity in the matter of technicalities and imposing historical and +economic and legal arguments, the counsel appealed to every class fear +and prejudice that might be entertained by the Court. + +The introduction of the passions of a social conflict into what +purported to be a legal contest was intrusted to Mr. Choate. He +threatened the Court with the declaration that if it approved the law, +and "the communistic march" went on, a still higher exemption of $20,000 +might be made and a rate of 20 per cent imposed--a highly important +statement, but one that had no connection with the question whether an +income tax was a direct tax. "There is protection now or never," he +exclaimed. The very keystone of civilization, he continued, was the +preservation of the rights of private property, and this fundamental +principle was scattered to the winds by the champions of the tax. Mr. +Choate concluded by warning the Court not to pay any attention to the +popular passions enlisted on the side of the law, and urged it not to +hesitate in declaring the law unconstitutional, "no matter what the +threatened consequences of popular or populistic wrath may be." + +The Court was evidently moved by the declamation of Mr. Choate, for +Justice Field, in his opinion, replied in kind. "The present assault +upon capital," he said, "is but the beginning. It will be but the +stepping stone to others larger and more sweeping till our political +conditions will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war +growing in intensity and bitterness." If such a law were upheld, he +gravely announced, boards of walking delegates would be fixing tax rates +in the near future. Mr. Justice Harlan, in his dissenting opinion, +however, replied in behalf of the populace by saying: "The practical +effect of the decision to-day is to give certain kinds of property a +position of favoritism and advantage inconsistent with the fundamental +principles of our social organization, and to invest them with power and +influence that may be perilous to that portion of the American people +upon whom rests the larger part of the burdens of government and who +ought not to be subjected to the dominion of aggregated wealth any more +than the property of the country should be at the mercy of the lawless." + +At the best, the nullification of the income tax law was not an easy +task. There were eight justices on the bench when the decision of the +Court was handed down on April 8, 1895. All of them agreed that the law +was unconstitutional in so far as it laid a tax on revenues derived from +state and municipal bonds; five of them agreed that a tax on rent or +income from land was a direct tax and hence unconstitutional unless +apportioned among the states on the basis of population--which was +obviously impolitic; and the Court stood four to four on the important +point as to the constitutionality of taxes on incomes derived from +mortgages, interest, and personal property generally. The decision of +the Court was thus inconclusive on the only point that interested +capitalists particularly, and it was so regarded by the Eastern press. + +On April 9, the day following the decision of the Court, the New York +_Sun_ declared: "Twice in great national crises the Supreme Court of the +United States has failed to meet the expectations of the people or to +justify its existence as the ultimate tribunal of right and law. In both +instances the potent consideration has been neither right nor law, but +the supposed demands of political expediency.... Yesterday the failure +of the Supreme Court to decide the main question of constitutionality +submitted to it was brought about by political considerations. It was +not Democracy against Republicanism as before, but Populism and +Clevelandism against Democracy, and the vote was four to four." The +_Tribune_, on April 10, declared that "the Court reached a finding which +is as near an abdication of its power to interpret the Constitution and +a confession of its unfitness for that duty as anything well can be." + +In view of the unsatisfactory condition created by its decision, the +Court consented to a rehearing, and, on May 20, 1895, added its opinion +that the tax on incomes from personal property was also a direct tax, +thus bringing the whole law to the ground by a vote of five to four. +Justice Jackson, who was ill when the first decision was made, had in +the meantime returned to the bench, and he was strongly in favor of +declaring the law constitutional. Had the Court stood as before, the +personal property income tax would have been upheld, but one Justice, +who had sustained this particular provision in the first case, was +induced to change his views and vote against it on the final count. Thus +by a narrow vote of five to four, brought about by a Justice who +changed his mind within the period of a few days, all of the essential +parts of the income tax law were declared null and void. + +The temper of the country over the affair was well manifested in the +press comments on the last decision. The New York _Sun_, which had +roundly denounced the Court in the first instance, now joined in a +chorus of praise: "In a hundred years the Supreme Court of the United +States has not rendered a decision more important in its immediate +effect or reaching further in its consequences than that which the _Sun_ +records this morning. There is life left in the institutions which the +founders of this republic devised and constructed. There is a safe +future for the national system under which we were all born and have +lived and prospered according to individual capacity. The wave of +socialistic revolution has gone far, but it breaks at the foot of the +ultimate bulwark set up for protection of our liberties. Five to four, +the court stands like a rock." + +The _Tribune_, on May 24, added: "The more the people study the +influences behind this attempt to bring about a communistic revolution +in modes of taxation, the more clearly they will realize that it was an +essential part of the distinctly un-American and unpatriotic attempt to +destroy the American policy of defense for home industries, in the +interest of foreigners.... Thanks to the Court, our government is not to +be dragged into communistic warfare against rights of property and the +rewards of industry while the Constitution of its founders remains a +bulwark of the rights of states and of individual citizens." + +The New York _World_, on the other hand, which had so stoutly championed +the tax in behalf of "the masses," represented the decision of the Court +as "the triumph of selfishness over patriotism. It is another victory of +greed over need. Great and rich corporations, by hiring the ablest +lawyers in the land and fighting against a petty tax upon superfluity as +other men have fought for their liberties and their lives, have secured +the exemption of wealth from paying its just share towards the support +of the government that protects it.... The people at large will bow to +this decision as they habitually do to all the decrees of their highest +courts. But they will not accept law as justice. No dictum or decision +of any wrong can make wrong right, and it is not right that the entire +cost of the Federal government shall rest upon consumption.... Equity +demands that citizens shall contribute to the support of the government +with some regard to benefits received and ability to pay." + + * * * * * + +Although the conservative elements saw in the annulment of the income +tax nothing but a wise and timely exercise of judicial authority in +defense of the Constitution and sound policy, the radical elements +regarded it as an evidence "that the judicial branch of the government +was under the control of the same interests that had mutilated the +Wilson tariff bill in the Senate." The local Federal courts augmented +this popular feeling by frequently issuing injunctions ordering +workingmen in time of strikes not to interfere with their employers' +business, thus crippling them in the coercion of employers, by +imprisoning without jury trial those who disobeyed judicial orders. + +Although the injunction was an ancient legal device, it was not until +after the Civil War that it was developed into a powerful instrument in +industrial disputes; and it became particularly effective in the hands +of Federal judges. They were not popularly elected, but were appointed +by the President and the Senate (where corporate influences were ably +represented). Under the provisions of the law giving Federal courts +jurisdiction in cases involving citizens of different states, they were +called upon to intervene with increasing frequency in industrial +disputes, for railway and other corporations usually did business in +several states, and they could generally invoke Federal protection by +showing that they were "non-residents" of the particular states in which +strikes were being waged. Moreover, strikers who interfered with +interstate commerce were likely to collide with Federal authorities +whose aid was invited by the employers affected. Whenever a corporation +was in bankruptcy, control over its business fell into the hands of the +Federal courts. + +The effectiveness of Federal judicial intervention in labor troubles +became apparent in the first great strikes of the seventies, when the +state authorities proved unable to restrain rioting and disorder by the +use of the local militia. During the railway war of 1877 a Federal judge +in southern Illinois ordered the workingmen not to interfere with a +railway for which he had appointed a receiver, and he then employed +Federal troops under the United States marshal to execute his mandate. +About the same time other Federal judges intervened effectively in +industrial disputes by the liberal use of the injunction, and the +president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company pointed out in an article +published in the _North American Review_ for September, 1877, how much +more potent Federal authority was in such trying crises to give railway +corporations efficient protection. + +From that time forward the injunction was steadily employed by Federal +and state courts, but it was not until the great railway strike of 1894 +in Chicago that it was brought prominently before the country as a +distinct political issue. In that strike, the Democratic governor, Mr. +Altgeld, believing that the employers had fomented disorder for the +purpose of invoking Federal intervention (as was afterward pretty +conclusively shown), refused to employ the state militia speedily and +effectively, contending that the presence of troops would only make +matters worse. The postal authorities, influenced by a variety of +motives, of which, it was alleged, a desire to break the strike was one, +secured prompt Federal intervention on the part of President Cleveland +and the use of Federal troops. Thus the labor unions were quickly +checkmated. + +This action on the part of President Cleveland was supplemented in July, +1894, by a general blanket injunction issued from the Federal district +court in Chicago to all persons concerned, ordering them not to +interfere with the transmission of the mails or with interstate commerce +in any form. Mr. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, who was +directing the strike which was tying up interstate commerce, was +arrested, fined, and imprisoned for refusing to obey this injunction. +Mr. Debs, thereupon, through his counsel, claimed the right to jury +trial, asserting that the court could not impose a penalty which was not +provided by statute, but which depended solely upon the will of the +judge. On appeal, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the +lower court and declared that imprisonment for contempt of court did not +violate the principle of jury trial. + +It was not merely labor leaders who were stirred to wrath by this +development in judicial authority. Many eminent lawyers saw in it an +attack upon the ancient safeguards of the law which provided for regular +proceedings, indictment, the hearing of witnesses, jury trial, and the +imposition of only such punishments as could be clearly ascertained in +advance. On the other hand others held it to be nothing new at all, but +simply the application of the old principle that injunctions could issue +in cases where irreparable injury might otherwise ensue. They pointed +out that its effectiveness depended upon speedy application, and that +the delays usually incident to regular judicial procedure would destroy +its usefulness altogether. To workingmen it appeared to be chiefly an +instrument for imprisoning their leaders and breaking strikes by the +prevention of coercion, peaceful or otherwise. At all events, the +decision of the Supreme Court upholding the practice and its doctrines +added to the bitterness engendered by the income tax decision--a +bitterness manifested at the Democratic convention at Chicago the +following year. + +The crowning cause of immediate discontent was the financial policy +pursued by President Cleveland,[39] which stirred the wrath of the +agrarians already agitated over inflation, and gave definiteness to an +issue on which both parties had been judiciously ambiguous in their +platforms in 1892. The farmers pointed out that, notwithstanding the +increased output of corn, the total amount of money received in return +was millions less than it had been in the early eighties. They +emphasized the fact that more than half of the taxable acreage of Kansas +and Nebraska was mortgaged, and that many other western states were +nearly as badly off. The falling prices and their inability to meet +their indebtedness they attributed to the demonetization of silver and +the steady enhancement of gold. + +For the disease, as they diagnosed it, they had a remedy. The +government, they said, had been generous to Wall Street and financial +interests at large by selling bonds at rates which made great fortunes +for the narrow group of purchasers, and by distributing its deposits +among the banks in need of assistance. The power of the government could +also be used for the benefit of another class--namely, themselves. Gold +should be brought down and the currency extended by the free coinage of +silver on a basis of sixteen to one. The value of crops, when measured +in money, would thus mount upwards, and it would be easier to pay the +interest on mortgages and discharge their indebtedness. Furthermore, +while the government was in the business of accommodating the public it +might loan money to the farmers at a low rate of interest.[40] But the +inflation of the currency and the increase of prices of farm products by +the free coinage of silver were the leading demands of the discontented +agrarians--an old remedy for an old disease. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [34] See below, p. 296. + + [35] See above, p. 121. + + [36] See above, pp. 67 ff. + + [37] They polled about a million votes in the congressional + elections of 1878. + + [38] See above, p. 137. + + [39] See above, p. 106. + + [40] It is interesting to note that agricultural credit--a + subject in which European countries are far advanced--is just + now beginning to receive some attention in quarters where the + demands of the farmers for better terms on borrowed money + were once denounced as mere vagaries. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896 + + +It does not require that distant historical perspective, which is +supposed to be necessary for final judgments, to warrant the assertion +that the campaign of 1896 marks a turning point in the course of +American politics. The monetary issue, on which events ostensibly +revolved, was, it is true, an ancient one, but the real conflict was not +over the remonetization of silver or the gold standard. Deep, underlying +class feeling found its expression in the conventions of both parties, +and particularly that of the Democrats, and forced upon the attention of +the country, in a dramatic manner, a conflict between great wealth and +the lower middle and working classes, which had hitherto been recognized +only in obscure circles. The sectional or vertical cleavage of American +politics was definitely cut by new lines running horizontally through +society, and was also crossed at right angles by another line running +north and south, representing the western protest against eastern +creditors and the objectionable methods of great corporations which had +been rapidly unfolded to public view by merciless criticism and many +legislative investigations. + +Even the Republican party, whose convention had been largely prepared in +advance by the vigorous labors of Mr. Marcus A. Hanna,[41] was not +untouched by the divisions which later rent the Democratic party in +twain. When the platform was reported to the duly assembled Republican +delegates by Mr. Foraker, of Ohio, its firm declaration of opposition to +free silver, except by international agreement, was greeted by a divided +house, although, as the record runs, there was a "demonstration of +approval on the part of a large majority of the delegates which lasted +several minutes." When a vote was taken on the financial plank, it was +discovered that 110 delegates favored silver as against 812 in support +of the proposition submitted by the platform committee. The defeated +contingent then withdrew from the convention after having presented a +statement in which they declared that "the people cry aloud for relief; +they are bending under a burden growing heavier with the passing hours; +endeavour no longer brings its just reward ... and unless the laws of +the country and the policies of political parties shall be converted +into mediums of redress, the effect of human desperation may sometime be +witnessed here as in other lands and in other ages." + +This threat was firmly met by the body of the convention which remained. +In nominating Mr. Thomas B. Reed, Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts, declared: +"Against the Republican party are arrayed not only that organized +failure, the Democratic party, but all the wandering forces of political +chaos and social disorder.... Such a man we want for our great office in +these bitter times when the forces of disorder are loose and the +wreckers with their false lights gather at the shore to lure the ship +of state upon the rocks." Mr. Depew, in nominating Mr. Levi P. Morton, +decried all of the current criticism of capital. Mr. Foraker, in +presenting the name of Mr. McKinley, was more conciliatory: distress and +misery were abroad in the land and bond issues and bond syndicates had +discredited and scandalized the country; but McKinley was the man to +redeem the nation. + +This conciliatory attitude was hardly necessary, for there were no +radical elements in the Republican assembly after the withdrawal of the +silver faction. The proceedings of the convention were in fact then +extraordinarily harmonious, brief, and colorless. The platform, apart +from the sound money plank, contained no sign of the social conflict +which was being waged in the world outside. Tariff, pensions, civil +service, temperance, and the usual formalities of party programs were +treated after the fashion consecrated by time. Railway and trust +problems were overlooked entirely. Even the money plank was not put +first, and it was not so phrased as to constitute the significant +challenge which it became in the campaign. "The Republican party," it +ran, "is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the +law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then +every dollar has been good as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every +measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our +country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver except +by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the +world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such an agreement +can be obtained the existing gold standard must be maintained." + +This clear declaration on the financial issue was apparently not a part +of the drama as Mr. Hanna and Mr. McKinley had staged it. The former was +in favor of the gold standard so far as he understood it, but he was not +a student of finance, and he was more interested "in getting what we +got," to use his phrase, than in any very fine distinctions in the gold +plank. Mr. McKinley, on the other hand, was widely known as a +bimetallist; but his reputation throughout the country rested +principally upon his high protective doctrines. He, therefore, wished to +avoid the monetary issue by straddling it in such a way as not to +alienate the large silver faction in the West. Mr. Hanna's biographer +tells us that Mr. Kohlsaat claims to have spent hours on Sunday, June 7, +"trying to convince Mr. McKinley of the necessity of inserting the word +'gold' in the platform. The latter argued in opposition that 90 per cent +of his mail and his callers were against such decisive action, and he +asserted emphatically that thirty days after the convention was over the +currency question would drop out of sight and the tariff would become +the sole issue. The currency plank, tentatively drawn by Mr. McKinley +and his immediate advisers, embodied his resolution to keep the currency +issue subordinate and vague."[42] The leaders in the convention, +however, refused to accept Mr. McKinley's view and forced him to take +the step which he had hoped to avoid. + +In his speech of acceptance, McKinley deprecated and sought to smooth +over the class lines which had been drawn. "It is a cause for painful +regret and solicitude," he said, "that an effort is being made by those +high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the people of this +country into classes and create distinctions among us which in fact do +not exist and are repugnant to our form of government.... Every attempt +made to array class against class, 'the classes against the masses,' +section against section, labor against capital, 'the poor against the +rich,' or interest against interest in the United States is in the +highest degree reprehensible." In the Populist features of the +Democratic platform he saw a grave menace to our institutions, but he +accepted the challenge. "We avoid no issues. We meet the sudden, +dangerous, and revolutionary assault upon law and order and upon those +to whom is confided by the Constitution and laws the authority to uphold +and maintain them, which our opponents have made, with the same courage +that we have faced every emergency since our organization as a party +more than forty years ago." + + +_The Democratic Convention_ + +No doubt the decisive action of the Republican convention helped to +consolidate the silver forces in the Democratic party; but even if the +Republicans had obscured the silver question by a vague declaration, +their opponents would have come out definitely against the gold +standard. This was so apparent weeks before the Democratic national +assembly met, that conservatives in the party talked of refusing to +participate in the party councils, called at Chicago on July 7. They +were aware also that other and deeper sources of discontent were bound +to manifest themselves when the proceedings got under way. + +The storm which broke over the party had long been gathering. The Grange +and Greenback movements did not disappear with the disappearance of the +outward signs of organization; they only merged into the Populist +movement with cumulative effect. The election of 1892 was ominous, for +the agrarian party had polled a million votes. It had elected members of +Congress and presidential electors; it was organized and determined. It +arose from a mass of discontent which was justified, if misdirected. It +was no temporary wave, as superficial observers have imagined. It had +elements of solidity which neither of the old parties could ignore or +cover up. No one was more conscious of this than the western and +southern leaders in the Democratic party. They had been near the base of +action, and they thought that what the eastern leaders called a riot was +in fact the beginning of a revolution. Unwilling to desert their +traditional party, they decided to make the party desert its traditions, +and they came to the Democratic convention in Chicago prepared for war +to the hilt. + +From the opening to the close, the Democratic convention in Chicago in +1896 was vibrant with class feeling. Even in the prayer with which the +proceedings began, the clergyman pleaded: "May the hearts of all be +filled with profound respect and sympathy for our toiling multitudes, +oppressed with burdens too heavy for them to bear--heavier than we +should allow them to bear,"--a prayer that might have been an echo of +some of the speeches made in behalf of the income tax in Congress. + +The struggle began immediately after the prayer, when the presiding +officer, on behalf of the retiring national committee, reported as +temporary chairman of the convention, David B. Hill, of New York, the +unrelenting opponent of the income tax and everything that savored of +it. Immediately afterward, Mr. Clayton, speaking in behalf of +twenty-three members of the national committee as opposed to +twenty-seven, presented a minority report which proposed the Honorable +John W. Daniel, of Virginia, as chairman. Pleas were made that the +traditions of the party ought not to be violated by a refusal to accept +the recommendations of the national committee. + +After a stormy debate, the minority report of the national committee, +proposing Mr. Daniel for chairman, was carried by a vote of 556 to 349. +The states which voted solidly or principally for Mr. Hill were +Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, +New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, +Wisconsin, and Alaska--all of the New England and Central seaboard +states, which represented the accumulated wealth of the country. The +official proceedings of the convention state, "When the result of this +vote was announced, there was a period of nearly twenty minutes during +which no business could be transacted, on account of the applause, +cheers, noise and confusion." + +In his opening speech as chairman, Mr. Daniel declared that they were +witnessing "an uprising of the people for American emancipation from the +conspiracies of European kings led by Great Britain, which seek to +destroy one half of the money of the world." He declared in favor of +bimetallism and devoted most of his speech to the monetary question and +to repeated declarations of financial independence in behalf of the +United States. He also attacked, however, the tax system which the +Democrats inherited from the Republicans in 1893, and in speaking of the +deficit which was incurred under the Democratic tariff act he declared +that it would have been met by the income tax incorporated in the tariff +bill "had not the Supreme Court of the United States reversed its +settled doctrines of a hundred years." On the second day of the +convention, while the committees were preparing their reports, Governor +Hogg, of Texas, Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, Governor Altgeld, of +Illinois, and other gentlemen were invited to address the convention. + +The first of these speakers denounced the Republican party as a "great +class maker and mass smasher"; he scorned that "farcical practice" which +had given governmental protection to the wealthy and left the laborer to +protect himself. "This protected class of Republicans," he exclaimed, +"proposes now to destroy labor organizations. To that end it has +organized syndicates, pools, and trusts, and proposes through the +Federal courts, in the exercise of their unconstitutional powers by the +issuance of extraordinary unconstitutional writs, to strike down, to +suppress, and to overawe those organizations, backed by the Federal +bayonet.... Men who lived there in their mansions and rolled in luxuries +were the only ones to get the benefit of this Republican [sugar] bounty +called protection." Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, exclaimed that +"Christ with a lash drove from the temple a better set of men than those +who for twenty years have shaped the financial policy of this country." +Governor Altgeld declared: "We have seen the streets of our cities +filled with idle men, with hungry women, and with ragged children. The +country to-day looks to the deliberations of this convention to promise +some form of relief." This relief was to be secured by the +remonetization of silver and the emancipation of the country from +English capitalists and eastern financiers. + + * * * * * + +On the third day of the convention, Senator Jones, of Arkansas, chairman +of the committee on platform, reported the conclusions of the majority +of his committee. In the platform, as reported, there were many +expressions of class feeling. It declared that the act of 1873 +demonetizing silver caused a fall in the price of commodities produced +by the people, a heavy increase in the public taxation and in all debts, +public and private, the enrichment of the money-lending class at home +and abroad, the prostration of industry, and the impoverishment of the +people. The McKinley tariff was denounced as "a prolific breeder of +trusts and monopolies" which had "enriched the few at the expense of +the many." + +The platform made the money question, however, the paramount issue, and +declared for "the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at +the present legal ratio of sixteen to one without waiting for the aid or +consent of any other nation." It stated that, until the monetary +question was settled, no changes should be made in the tariff laws +except for the purpose of meeting the deficit caused by the adverse +decision of the Supreme Court in the income tax cases. The platform at +this point turned upon the Court and asserted that the income tax law +had been passed "by a Democratic Congress in strict pursuance of the +uniform decisions of that Court for nearly a hundred years." It then +hinted at a reconstruction of the Court, declaring that, "it is the duty +of Congress to use all the constitutional power which remains after that +decision or which may come from its reversal by the Court, as it may +hereafter be constituted, so that the burden of taxation may be equally +and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may bear its due proportion +of the expense of the government." + +The platform contained many expressions of sympathy with labor. "As +labor creates the wealth of the country," ran one plank, "we demand the +passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect it in all its +rights." It favored arbitration for labor conflicts in interstate +commerce. Referring to the recent Pullman strike and the labor war in +Chicago, it denounced "arbitrary interference by Federal authorities in +local affairs as a violation of the Constitution of the United States +and a crime against free institutions, and we specially object to +government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of +oppression by which Federal judges, in contempt of the laws of the +states and rights of citizens, become at once legislators, judges, and +executioners; and we approve the bill passed by the last session of the +United States Senate, and now pending in the House of Representatives, +relative to contempt in Federal courts and providing for trials by jury +in certain cases of contempt." + +The platform did not expressly attack the administration of President +Cleveland, but the criticism of the intervention by Federal authorities +in local affairs was directed particularly to his interference in the +Chicago strike. The departure from the ordinary practice of praising the +administration of the party's former leader itself revealed the feeling +of the majority of the convention. + +A minority of the platform committee composed of sixteen delegates +presented objections to the platform as reported by Senator Jones and +offered amendments. In their report the minority asserted that many +declarations in the majority report were "ill-considered and ambiguously +phrased, while others are extreme and revolutionary of the +well-recognized principles of the party." The free coinage of silver +independently of other nations, the minority claimed, would place the +United States at once "upon a silver basis, impair contracts, disturb +business, diminish the purchasing powers of the wages of labor, and +inflict irreparable evils upon our nation's commerce and industry." The +minority, therefore, proposed the maintenance of the existing gold +standard; and concluded by criticizing the report of the majority as +"defective in failing to make any recognition of the honesty, economy, +courage, and fidelity of the present Democratic administration." This +minority report was supplemented by two amendments proposed by Senator +Hill, one to the effect that any change in the monetary standard should +not apply to existing contracts and the other pledging the party to +suspend, within one year from its enactment, the law providing for the +independent free coinage of silver, in case that coinage did not realize +the expectation of the party to secure a parity between gold and silver +at the ratio of sixteen to one. + +After the presentation of the platform and the proposed changes, an +exciting and disorderly debate followed. The discussion was opened by +Mr. Tillman, who exclaimed that the Civil War had emancipated the black +slaves and that they were now in convention to head a fight for the +emancipation of the white slaves, even if it disrupted the Democratic +party as the Civil War had disrupted it. Without any equivocation and +amid loud and prolonged hissing, he declared that the new issue like the +old one was sectional--a declaration of political war on the part of the +hewers of wood and the drawers of water in the southern and western +states against the East. He compared the growth of fifteen southern +states in wealth and population with the growth of Pennsylvania; he +compared Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri with Massachusetts; +to these five western states he added Kentucky, Tennessee, Kansas, and +Nebraska, and compared them all with the state of New York. The upshot +of his comparison was that the twenty-five southern and western states +were in economic bondage to the East and that we now had a money +oligarchy more insolent than the slave oligarchy which the Civil War had +overthrown. + +Mr. Tillman could scarcely contain his wrath when he came to a +consideration of the proposal to indorse Cleveland's administration. He +denounced the Democratic President as "a tool of Wall Street"; and +declared that they could not indorse him without writing themselves down +as "asses and liars." "They ask us to indorse his courage," exclaimed +Mr. Tillman. "Well, now, no one disputes the man's boldness and +obstinacy, because he had the courage to ignore his oath of office, and +redeem, in gold, paper obligations of the government, which were payable +in coin--both gold and silver, and, furthermore, he had the courage to +override the Constitution of the United States and invaded the state of +Illinois with the United States army and undertook to override the +rights and liberties of his fellow citizens. They ask us to indorse his +fidelity. He has been faithful unto death, or rather unto the death of +the Democratic party, so far as he represents it, through the policy of +the friends that he had in New York and ignored the entire balance of +the Union." Mr. Tillman was dissatisfied with the platform because it +did not attack Mr. Cleveland's policies, and, amid great confusion +throughout the hall, he proposed that the platform should "denounce the +administration of President Cleveland as undemocratic and tyrannical." +He warned the convention that, "If this Democratic ship goes to sea on +storm-tossed waves without fumigating itself, without express +repudiation of this man who has sought to destroy his party, then the +Republican ship goes into port and you go down in disgrace, defeated in +November." In his proposed amendment to the platform, he asserted that +Cleveland had used the veto power to thwart the will of the people, and +the appointive power to subsidize the press and debauch Congress. The +issue of bonds to purchase gold, to discharge obligations payable in +coin at the option of the government, and the use of the proceeds for +ordinary expenses, he denounced as "unlawful and usurpations of +authority deserving of impeachment." + +After Senator Jones was given the floor for a few moments to repudiate +the charge brought by Mr. Tillman that the fight was sectional in +character, Senator Hill, of New York, began the real attack upon the +platform proposed by the majority. The Senator opened by saying that he +was a Democrat, but not a revolutionist, that the question before them +was one of business and finance, not of bravery and loyalty, and that +the first step toward monetary reform should be a statement in favor of +international bimetallism. He followed this by a special criticism of +the declaration in favor of the ratio of sixteen to one which was, in +his opinion, not only an unwise and unnecessary thing, but destined to +return to plague them in the future. + +Senator Hill then turned to the income tax which he had so vigorously +denounced on the floor of the Senate two years before. "What was the +necessity," he asked, "for putting into the platform other questions +which have never been made the tests of Democratic loyalty before? Why +revive the disputed question of the policy and constitutionality of an +income tax?... Why, I say, should it be left to this convention to make +as a tenet of Democratic faith belief in the propriety and +constitutionality of an income tax law? + +"Why was it wise to assail the Supreme Court of your country? Will some +one tell what that clause means in this platform? 'If you meant what you +said and said what you meant,' will some one explain that provision? +That provision, if it means anything, means that it is the duty of +Congress to reconstruct the Supreme Court of the country. It means, and +such purpose was openly avowed, it means the adding of additional +members to the Court or the turning out of office and reconstructing the +whole Court. I said I will not follow any such revolutionary step as +that. Whenever before in the history of this country has devotion to an +income tax been made the test of Democratic loyalty? Never! Have you not +undertaken enough, my good friends, now without seeking to put in this +platform these unnecessary, foolish, and ridiculous things?" + +"What further have you done?" continued the Senator. "In this platform +you have declared, for the first time in the history of this country, +that you are opposed to any life tenure whatever for office. Our fathers +before us, our Democratic fathers, whom we revere, in the establishment +of this government, gave our Federal judges a life tenure of office. +What necessity was there for reviving this question? How foolish and how +unnecessary, in my opinion. Democrats, whose whole lives have been +devoted to the service of the party, men whose hopes, whose ambitions, +whose aspirations, all lie within party lines, are to be driven out of +the party upon this new question of life tenure for the great judges of +our Federal courts. No, no; this is a revolutionary step, this is an +unwise step, this is an unprecedented step in our party history." + +Senator Hill then turned to a defense of President Cleveland's policy, +denouncing the attempt to bring in the bond issue as foolish and +calculated to put them on the defensive in every school district in the +country. He closed by begging the convention not "to drive old Democrats +out of the party who have grown gray in the service, to make room for a +lot of Republicans and Populists, and political nondescripts." + +Senator Hill's protest was supported by Senator Vilas from Wisconsin, +who saw in the proposed free coinage of silver no difference, except in +degree, between "the confiscation of one half of the credits of the +nation for the benefit of debtors," and "a universal distribution of +property." In this radical scheme there was nothing short of "the +beginning of the overthrow of all law, of all justice, of all security +and repose in the social order." He warned the convention that the +American people would not tolerate the first steps toward the atrocities +of the French Revolution, although "in the vastness of this country +there may be some Marat unknown, some Danton or Robespierre." He asked +the members of the convention when and where robbery by law had come to +be a Democratic doctrine, and with solemn earnestness he pleaded with +them not to launch the old party out on a wild career or to "pull down +the pillars of the temple and crush us all beneath the ruins." He +declared that the gold standard was not responsible for falling prices; +that any stable standard had "no more to do with prices than a yard +stick or a pair of scales." He begged them to adopt the proposed +amendment which would limit the effect of the change of standards to +future contracts and thus deliver the platform from an imputation of a +purpose to plunder. + +The closing speech for the platform was then made by Mr. William +Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska, who clothed his plea in the armor of +righteousness, announcing that he had come to speak "in defense of a +cause as holy as the cause of liberty--the cause of humanity." The +spirit and zeal of a crusader ran through his speech. Indeed, when +speaking of the campaign which the Silver Democrats had made to capture +the party, he referred to that frenzy which inspired the crusaders under +the leadership of Peter the Hermit. He spoke in defense of the wage +earner, the lawyer in the country town, the merchant at the crossroads +store, the farmer and the miner,--naming them one after the other and +ranging himself on their side. "We stand here," he said, "representing +people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the +state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we +shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed +our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made +too limited in its application the definition of a business man. The man +who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer. The +attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation +counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is +as much a business man as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes +forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils +all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural +resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a business man as +the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of +grain. The miners who go a thousand feet into the earth or climb two +thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places +the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade, are as much +business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner +the money of the world. + +"We come to speak for this broader class of business men. Ah, my +friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic +coast; but those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the +wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose--those +pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature's heart, +where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds--out +there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their +children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the +cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead--are as deserving of the +consideration of this party as any people in this country. + +"It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is +not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our +families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have +been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been +disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity +came. + +"We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy +them!" + +Mr. Bryan then took up the income tax. He repudiated the idea that the +proposed platform contained a criticism of the Supreme Court. He said, +"We have simply called attention to what you know. If you want +criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the court." He denied that +the income tax law was unconstitutional when it was passed, or even when +it went before the Supreme Court for the first time. "It did not become +unconstitutional," he exclaimed, "until one judge changed his mind; and +we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind." + +The monetary question was the great paramount issue. But Mr. Bryan did +not stop to discuss any of the technical points involved in it. +Protection had slain its thousands, and the gold standard had slain its +tens of thousands; the people of the United States did not surrender +their rights of self-government to foreign potentates and powers. The +common people of no land had ever declared in favor of the gold +standard, but bondholders had. If the gold standard was a good thing, +international bimetallism was wrong; if the gold standard was a bad +thing, the United States ought not to wait for the help of other nations +in righting a wrong--this was the line of Mr. Bryan's attack. And he +concluded by saying: "Mr. Carlisle said, in 1878, that this was a +struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling +masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and, my +friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side +shall the Democratic party fight? Upon the side of the idle holders of +idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? That is the +question that the party must answer first; and then it must be answered +by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as +described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who +have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party. + +"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if +you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity +will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if +you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find +its way up and through every class that rests upon it. + +"You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the +gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad +and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and +your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms, +and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in this country. + +"My friends, we shall declare that this nation is able to legislate for +its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent +of any other nation on earth, and upon that issue we expect to carry +every single State in this Union. + +"I shall not slander the fair State of Massachusetts, nor the State of +New York, by saying that when its citizens are confronted with the +proposition, 'Is this nation able to attend to its own business?'--I +will not slander either one by saying that the people of those States +will declare our helpless impotency as a nation to attend to our own +business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but +3,000,000, had the courage to declare their political independence of +every other nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants, when we have +grown to 70,000,000, declare that we are less independent than our +forefathers? No, my friends, it will never be the judgment of this +people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If +they say bimetallism is good, but we cannot have it till some nation +helps us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because +England has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then let England have +bimetallism because the United States have. + +"If they dare to come out and in the open defend the gold standard as a +good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the +producing masses of the Nation and the world. Having behind us the +commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling +masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to +them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of +thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." + +The record of the convention states that "the conclusion of Mr. Bryan's +speech was the signal for a tremendous outburst of noise, cheers, etc. +The standards of many states were carried from their places and +gathered about the Nebraska delegation." Never in the history of +convention oratory had a speaker so swayed the passions of his auditors +and so quickly made himself unquestionably "the man of the hour." + +After some parliamentary skirmishing, Mr. Hill succeeded in securing +from the convention a vote on the proposition of the minority in favor +of the maintenance of the gold standard, "until international +coöperation among the leading nations in the coinage of silver can be +secured." For this proposition the eastern states voted almost solidly, +with some help from the western states. Connecticut gave her twelve +votes for the substitute amendment; Delaware, five of her six votes; +Maine, ten out of twelve; Maryland, twelve out of sixteen; +Massachusetts, twenty-seven out of thirty; New Hampshire, New Jersey, +New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont gave their entire vote +for the gold standard. The eastern states secured a little support in +the West and South. Minnesota gave eleven out of seventeen votes for the +amendment; Wisconsin voted solidly for it; Florida gave three out of +eight votes; Washington gave three out of eight; Alaska voted solidly +for it; the District of Columbia and New Mexico each cast two out of the +six votes allotted to them in the convention. Out of a total of 929 +votes cast, 303 were for the minority amendment and 626 against it. + +The minority proposition to commend "the honesty, economy, courage, and +fidelity of the present Democratic administration" was then put to the +convention and received a vote of 357 to 564--nine not voting. The +additional support to the eastern states came this time principally from +California, Michigan, and Minnesota; but the division between the +Northeast and the West and South was sharply maintained. The adoption of +the platform as reported by the majority of the committee was then +effected by a vote of 628 to 301. + + * * * * * + +In the evening the convention turned to the selection of candidates. In +the nominating speeches, the character of the revolution in American +politics came out even more clearly than in the debates on the platform. +The enemy had been routed, and the convention was in the hands of the +radicals, and they did not have to compromise and pick phrases in the +hope of harmony. + +Richard Bland, of Missouri, was the first man put before the convention, +and he was represented as "the living, breathing embodiment of the +silver cause"--a candidate chosen "not from the usurer's den, nor temple +of Mammon where the clink of gold drowns the voice of patriotism; but +from the farm, the workshop, the mine--from the hearts and homes of the +people." Mr. Overmeyer, of Kansas, seconded the nomination of Mr. +Bland--"that Tiberius Gracchus"--"in the name of the farmers of the +United States; in the name of the homeless wanderers who throng your +streets in quest of bread; in the name of that mighty army of the +unemployed; in the name of that mightier army which has risen in +insurrection against every form of despotism." + +Mr. Bryan was presented as that young giant of the West, that friend of +the people, that champion of the lowly, that apostle and prophet of +this great crusade for financial reform--a new Cicero to meet the new +Catilines of to-day--to lead the Democratic party, the defender of the +poor, and the protector of the oppressed, which this day sent forth +"tidings of great joy to all the toiling millions of this overburdened +land." + +On the first ballot, fourteen candidates were voted for, but Mr. Bland +and Mr. Bryan were clearly in the lead. On the fifth ballot, Mr. Bryan +was declared nominated by a vote of 652 out of 930. Throughout the +balloting, most of the eastern states abstained from voting. Ten +delegates from Connecticut, seventeen or eighteen from Massachusetts, a +majority from New Jersey, all of the delegates from New York, and a +majority of the delegates from Wisconsin refused to take any part at +all. Pennsylvania remained loyal throughout to the nominee from that +state, Pattison, although it was a forlorn hope. Thus in the balloting +for candidates, we discover the same alignment of the East against the +West and South which was evident in the vote on the platform. In the +vote on the Vice President which followed, the eastern states refused to +participate--from 250 to 260 delegates abstaining during the five +ballots which resulted in the nomination of Sewall. New York +consistently abstained; so did New Jersey; while a majority of the +delegates from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts refused to take part. + +In the notification speech delivered by Mr. Stone at Madison Square +Garden in New York on August 12, the Democratic party was represented as +the champion of the masses and their leader as "a plain man of the +people." He defended the men of the Chicago convention against the +charge of being cranks, anarchists, and socialists, declaring them to be +the representatives of the industrial and producing classes who +constituted "the solid strength and safety of the state" against the +combined aggressions of foreign money changers and Anglicized American +millionaires--"English toadies and the pampered minions of corporate +rapacity." Against the selfish control of the privileged classes, he +placed the sovereignty of the people, declaring that within both of the +old parties there was a mighty struggle for supremacy between those who +stood for the sovereignty of the people and those who believed in "the +divinity of pelf." He took pride in the fact that the convention +represented "the masses of the people, the great industrial and +producing masses of the people. It represented the men who plow and +plant, who fatten herds, who toil in shops, who fell forests, and delve +in mines. But are these to be regarded with contumely and addressed in +terms of contempt? Why, sir, these are the men who feed and clothe the +nation; whose products make up the sum of our exports; who produce the +wealth of the republic; who bear the heaviest burdens in times of peace; +who are ready always to give their lifeblood for their country's +flag--in short, these are the men whose sturdy arms and faithful hands +uphold the stupendous fabric of our civilization." + +Mr. Bryan's speech of acceptance was almost entirely devoted to a +discussion of the silver question. But he could not ignore the charge, +which had then become widespread throughout the country, that his party +meditated an attack upon the rights of property and was the foe of +social order and national honor. He repudiated the idea that his party +believed that equality of talents and wealth could be produced by human +institutions; he declared his belief in private property as the stimulus +to endeavor and compensation for toil; but he took his stand upon the +principle that all should be equal before the law. Among his foes he +discovered "those who find a pecuniary advantage in advocating the +doctrines of non-interference when great aggregations of wealth are +trespassing upon the rights of individuals." The government should +enforce the laws against all enemies of the public weal, not only the +highwayman who robs the unsuspecting traveler, but also the +transgressors who "through the more polite and less hazardous means of +legislation appropriate to their own use the proceeds of the toil of +others." + +In his opinion, the Democratic income tax was not based upon hostility +to the rich, but was simply designed to apportion the burdens of +government more equitably among those who enjoyed its protection. As to +the matter of the Supreme Court, there was no suggestion in the platform +of a dispute with that tribunal. For a hundred years the Court had +upheld the underlying principle of the income tax, and twenty years +before "this same Court sustained without a dissenting voice an income +tax law almost identical with the one recently overthrown." The platform +did not propose an attack on the Supreme Court; some future Court had as +much right "to return to the judicial precedents of a century as the +present Court had to depart from them. When Courts allow rehearings +they admit that error is possible; the late decision against the income +tax was rendered by a majority of one after a rehearing." + +Discussing the monetary question, Mr. Bryan confined his argument to a +few principles which he deemed fundamental. He disposed of international +bimetallism by questioning the good faith of those who advocated it and +declaring that there was an impassable gulf between a universal gold +standard and bimetallism, whether independent or international. He +rejected the proposition that any metal represented an absolutely just +standard of value, but he argued that bimetallism was better than +monometallism because it made a nearer approach to stability, honesty, +and justice than a gold standard possibly could. Any legislation +lessening the stock of standard money increased the purchasing power of +money and lowered the monetary value of all other forms of property. He +endeavored to show the advantages to be derived from bimetallism by +farmers, wage earners, and the professional classes, and asked whether +the mass of the people did not have the right to use the ballot to +protect themselves from the disastrous consequences of a rising +standard, particularly in view of the fact that the relatively few whose +wealth consisted largely in fixed investments had not hesitated to use +the ballot to enhance the value of their investments. + +On the question of the ratio, sixteen to one, Mr. Bryan declared that, +because gold and silver were limited in the quantities then in hand and +in annual production, legislation could fix the ratio between them, +simply following the law of supply and demand. The charge of +repudiation he met with an argument in kind, declaring it to come "with +poor grace from those who are seeking to add to the weight of existing +debts by legislation which makes money dearer, and who conceal their +designs against the general welfare under the euphonious pretense that +they are upholding public credit and national honor." He concluded with +a warning to his hearers that they could not afford to join the money +changers in supporting a financial policy which destroyed the purchasing +power of the product of toil and ended with discouraging the creation of +wealth. + +In a letter of acceptance of September 9, 1896, Mr. Bryan added little +to the speeches he had made in the convention and in accepting the +nomination. He attacked the bond policy of President Cleveland and +declared that to assert that "the government is dependent upon the good +will or assistance of any portion of the people other than a +constitutional majority is to assert that we have a government in form +but without vital force." Capital, he urged, was created by labor, and +"since the producers of wealth create the nation's prosperity in time of +peace and defend the nation's flag in time of peril, their interests +ought at all times to be considered by those who stand in official +positions." He criticized the abuses in injunction proceedings and +favored the principle of trial by jury in such cases. He declared that +it was not necessary to discuss the tariff at that time because the +money question was the overshadowing issue, and all minor matters must +be laid aside in favor of united action on that moot point. + +A few of the advocates of the gold standard in the Democratic party, who +could not accept the Chicago platform and were yet unwilling to go over +to the Republicans, held a convention at Indianapolis in September, and +nominated a ticket, headed by John M. Palmer for President, and Simon +Buckner for Vice President. This party, through the address of its +executive committee calling the convention, declared that Democrats were +absolved from all obligations to support the Chicago platform because +the convention had departed from the recognized Democratic faith and had +announced doctrines which were "destructive of national honor and +private obligation and tend to create sectional and class distinctions +and engender discord and strife among the people." The address +repudiated the doctrine of majority rule in the party, declaring that +when a Democratic convention departed from the principles of the party, +no Democrat was under any moral obligation to support its action. + +The principles of the party which, the address declared, had been +adhered to from Jefferson to Cleveland "without variableness or a shadow +of turning" were summed up in a policy of _laissez faire_. A true +Democrat, ran the address, "believes, and this is the cardinal doctrine +of his political faith, in the ability of every individual unassisted, +if unfettered by law, to achieve his own happiness, and therefore that +to every citizen there should be secured the right and opportunity +peaceably to pursue whatever course of conduct he would, provided such +conduct deprived no other individual of the equal enjoyment of the same +right and opportunity. He stood for freedom of speech, freedom of +conscience, freedom of trade, and freedom of contract, all of which are +implied by the century-old battle cry of the Democratic party +'Individual Liberty!' ... Every true Democrat ... profoundly disbelieves +in the ability of the government, through paternal legislation, or +supervision, to increase the happiness of the nation." + +In the platform adopted at the convention, the "National Democratic +party" was pledged to the general principles enunciated in the address +and went on record as "opposed to all paternalism and all class +legislation." It declared that the Chicago convention had attacked +"individual freedom, the right of private contract, the independence of +the judiciary, and the authority of the President to enforce Federal +laws." It denounced protection and the free coinage of silver as two +schemes designed for the personal profit of the few at the expense of +the masses; it declared in favor of the gold standard, indorsed +President Cleveland's administration, and went to the support of the +Supreme Court by condemning "all efforts to degrade that tribunal or to +impair the confidence and respect which it has deservedly held." + +This platform received the support of President Cleveland, who, in +response to an invitation to attend the meeting at which the candidates +were to be notified, said: "As a Democrat, devoted to the principles and +integrity of my party, I should be delighted to be present on an +occasion so significant and to mingle with those who are determined that +the voice of true Democracy shall not be smothered and who insist that +the glorious standard shall be borne aloft as of old in faithful +hands." + +In their acceptance speeches, Palmer and Buckner devoted more attention +to condemning the Chicago platform than to explaining the principles for +which they stood. General Buckner said: "The Chicago Convention would +wipe virtually out of existence the Supreme Court which interprets the +law, forgetting that our ancestors in England fought for hundreds of +years to obtain a tribunal of justice which was free from executive +control. They would wipe that out of existence and subject it to the +control of party leaders to carry out the dictates of the party--they +would paralyze the arm of the general government and forbid the powers +to protect the lives and property of its citizens. That convention in +terms almost placed a lighted torch in the hands of the incendiary and +urged the mob to proceed without restraint to pillage and murder at +their discretion." + + +_The Campaign_ + +The campaign which followed the conventions was the most remarkable in +the long history of our quadrennial spectacles. Terror is always a +powerful instrument in politics, and it was never used with greater +effect than in the summer and autumn of 1896. Some of Mr. Bryan's +utterances, particularly on the income tax, frightened the rich into +believing, or pretending to believe, that his election would be the +beginning of a wholesale confiscation. The Republicans replied to Mr. +Bryan's threats by using the greatest of all terrors, the terror of +unemployment, with tremendous effect. Everywhere they let the country +understand that the defeat of Mr. McKinley would close factories and +throw thousands of workingmen out of employment, and manufacturers and +railways were accused by Mr. Bryan of exercising coercion on a large +scale. + +To this terror from above, the Democrats responded by creating terror +below, by stirring deep-seated class feeling against the Republican +candidate and his managers. In a letter given out from the Democratic +headquarters in Chicago, on September 12, 1896, Mr. Jones, chairman of +the Democratic national committee, said: "Against the people in this +campaign are arrayed the consolidated forces of wealth and corporate +power. The classes which have grown fat by reason of Federal legislation +and the single gold standard have combined to fasten their fetters still +more firmly upon the people and are organizing every precinct of every +county of every state in the Union with this purpose in view. To meet +and defeat this corrupt and unholy alliance the people themselves must +organize and be organized.... It will minimize the effect of the +millions of dollars that are being used against us, and defeat those +influences which wealth and corporate power are endeavoring to use to +override the will of the people and corrupt the integrity of free +institutions." + +Owing to the nature of the conflict enormous campaign funds were +secured. The silver miners helped to finance Mr. Bryan, but their +contributions were trivial compared with the immense sums raised by Mr. +Hanna from protected interests, bankers, and financiers. With this great +fund, speakers were employed by the thousands, newspapers were +subsidized, party literature circulated by the ton, whole states polled +in advance, and workers employed to carry the Republican fight into +every important precinct in the country. The God of battles was on the +side of the heaviest battalions. With all the most powerful engines for +creating public sentiment against him, Mr. Bryan, in spite of his +tremendous popular appeal, was doomed to defeat. + +Undoubtedly, as was said at the time, most of the leading thinkers in +finance and politics were against Mr. Bryan, and if there is anything in +the verdict of history, the silver issue could not stand the test of +logic and understanding. But it must not be presumed that it was merely +a battle of wits, and that demagogic appeals to passions which were +supposed to be associated with Mr. Bryan's campaign were confined to his +partisans. On the contrary, the Republicans employed all of the forms of +personal vituperation. For example, that staid journal of Republicanism, +the _New York Tribune_, attributed the growth of Bryanism to the +"assiduous culture of the basest passions of the least worthy member of +the community.... Its nominal head was worthy of the cause. Nominal +because the wretched, rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid vanity and +mouthing resounding rottenness, was not the real leader of that league +of hell. He was only a puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld, the +anarchist, and Debs, the revolutionist, and other desperadoes of that +stripe. But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was,--willing and eager. None +of his masters was more apt than he at lies and forgeries and +blasphemies and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign against +the Ten Commandments." That such high talk by those who constituted +themselves the guardians of public credit, patriotism, and the Ten +Commandments was not calculated to sooth the angry passions of their +opponents needs no demonstration here. + + * * * * * + +Argument, party organization and machinery, the lavish use of money, and +terror won the day for the Republicans. The solid East and Middle West +overwhelmed Mr. Bryan, giving Mr. McKinley 271 electoral votes and +7,111,607 popular votes, as against 176 electoral and 6,509,052 popular +votes cast for the Democratic candidate. + +The decisive defeat of Mr. Bryan put an end to the silver issue for +practical purposes, although, as we shall see, it was again raised in +1900. The Republicans, however, delayed action for political reasons, +and it was not until almost four years had elapsed that they made the +gold dollar the standard by an act of Congress approved on March 4, +1900. Thus the war of the standards was closed, but the question of the +currency was not settled, and the old issue of inflation and contraction +continued to haunt the paths of the politicians. From time to time, the +prerogatives of the national banks, organized under the law of 1863 +(modified in 1901), were questioned in political circles, and in 1908 an +attempt was made by act of Congress to give the currency more elasticity +by authorizing the banks to form associations and issue notes on the +basis of certain securities. Nevertheless, no serious changes were made +in the financial or banking systems before the close of the year 1912. +The attention of the country, shortly after the campaign of 1896, was +diverted to the spectacular events of the Spanish War, and for a time +appeals to patriotism subdued the passions of the radicals. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [41] See below, p. 239. + + [42] H. Croly, _M. A. Hanna_, p. 195. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IMPERIALISM + + +The Republicans triumphed in 1896, but the large vote for Mr. Bryan and +his platform and the passions aroused by the campaign made it clear to +the far-sighted that, whatever might be the fate of free silver, new +social elements had entered American politics. It was fortunate for the +conservative interests that the quarrel with Spain came shortly after +Mr. McKinley's election, and they were able to employ that ancient +political device, "a vigorous foreign policy," to divert the public mind +from domestic difficulties. This was particularly acceptable to the +populace at the time, for there had been no war for more than thirty +years, and, contrary to their assertions on formal occasions, the +American people enjoy wars beyond measure, if the plain facts of history +are allowed to speak.[43] + +Since 1876 there had been no very spectacular foreign affair to fix the +attention of the public mind, except the furor worked up over the +application of the Monroe Doctrine to Venezuela during President +Cleveland's second administration. For a long time that country and +Great Britain had been waging a contest over the western boundary of +British Guiana; and the United States, on the appeal of Venezuela, had +taken a slight interest in the dispute, generally assuming that the +merits of the case were on the side of the South American republic. In +1895, it became apparent that Great Britain did not intend to yield any +points in the case, and Venezuela began to clamor again for protection, +this time with effect. In July of that year, the Secretary of State, +Richard Olney, demanded that Great Britain answer whether she was +willing to arbitrate the question, and announced that the United States +was master in this hemisphere by saying: "The United States is +practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the +subjects to which it confines its interposition. Why? It is not because +of the pure friendship or good will felt for it. It is not simply by +reason of its high character as a civilized state, nor because wisdom +and equity are the invariable characteristics of the dealings of the +United States. It is because in addition to all other grounds, its +infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master +of the situation and practically invulnerable against any or all other +powers." + +This extraordinary document, to put it mildly, failed to arouse the +warlike sentiment in England which its language invited, and Lord +Salisbury replied for the British government that this startling +extension of the Monroe Doctrine was not acceptable in the present +controversy and that the arbitration of the question could not be +admitted by his country. This moderate reply brought from President +Cleveland a message to Congress on December 17, 1895, which created in +the United States at least all the outward and visible signs of the +preliminaries to a war over the matter. He asked Congress to create a +commission to ascertain the true boundary between Venezuela and British +Guiana, and then added that it would be the duty of the United States +"to resist by every means in its power, as a wilful aggression upon its +rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or +the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which, +after investigation, we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela." +He declared that he was conscious of the responsibilities which he thus +incurred, but intimated that war between Great Britain and the United +States, much as it was to be deplored, was not comparable to "a supine +submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national +self-respect and honor." In other words, we were to decide the dispute +ourselves and go to war on Great Britain if we found her in possession +of lands which in our opinion did not belong to her. + +This defiant attitude on the part of President Cleveland, while it +aroused a wave of enthusiasm among those sections of the population +moved by bold talk about the unimpeachable integrity of the United +States and its daring defense of right everywhere, called forth no +little criticism in high places. Contrary to expectation, it was not met +by bluster on the part of Great Britain, but it was rather deplored +there as threatening a breach between the two countries over an +insignificant matter. Moreover, when the commission created by Congress +set to work on the boundary dispute, the British government courteously +replied favorably to a request for assistance in the search for +evidence. Finally, Great Britain yielded and agreed to the earlier +proposition on the part of the United States that the issue be +submitted to arbitration; and this happy outcome of the matter +contributed not a little to Mr. Cleveland's reputation as "a sterling +representative of the true American spirit." This was not diminished by +the later discovery that Great Britain was wholly right in her claims in +South America. + + * * * * * + +The Venezuelan controversy was an echo of the time-honored Monroe +Doctrine and was without any deeper economic significance. There were +not wanting, however, signs that the United States was prepared +economically to accept that type of imperialism that had long been +dominant in British politics and had sprung into prominence in Germany, +France, and Italy during the generation following the Franco-Prussian +War. This newer imperialism does not rest primarily upon a desire for +more territory, but rather upon the necessity for markets in which to +sell manufactured goods and for opportunities to invest surplus +accumulations of capital. It begins in a search for trade, advances to +intervention on behalf of the interests involved, thence to +protectorates, and finally to annexation. By the inexorable necessity of +the present economic system, markets and safe investment opportunities +must be found for surplus products and accumulated capital. All the +older countries being overstocked and also forced into this new form of +international rivalry, the drift is inevitably in the direction of the +economically backward countries: Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South +America. Economic necessity thus overrides American isolation and +drives the United States into world politics. + +Although the United States had not neglected the protection of its +interests from the days when it thrashed the Barbary pirates, sent Caleb +Cushing to demand an open door in China, and dispatched Commodore Perry +to batter down Japanese exclusiveness, the relative importance of its +world operations was slight until manufacturing and commerce gained +their ascendancy over agriculture. + +The pressure of the newer interests on American foreign policy had +already been felt when the demand for the war with Spain came. In 1889, +the United States joined with Great Britain and Germany in a +protectorate over the Samoan Islands, thus departing, according to +Secretary Gresham, from our "traditional and well-established policy of +avoiding entangling alliances with foreign powers in relation to objects +remote from this hemisphere."[44] Preparations had been made under +Harrison's administration for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, +after a revolution, largely fomented by American interests there, had +overthrown the established government; but this movement was blocked for +the time being by President Cleveland, who learned through a special +commissioner, sent to investigate the affair, that the upheaval had been +due principally to American disgust for the weak and vacillating +government of the Queen. It was not until the middle of the Spanish War +that Congress, recognizing the importance of the Hawaiian Islands in +view of the probable developments resulting from Admiral Dewey's victory +in the Philippines, annexed them to the United States by joint +resolution on July 6, 1898.[45] + + +_The Spanish War_ + +It required, however, the Spanish War and the acquisition of the insular +dependencies to bring imperialism directly into politics as an +overshadowing issue and to secure the frank acknowledgment of the new +emphasis on world policy which economic interests demanded. It is true +that Cuba had long been an object of solicitude on the part of the +United States. Before the Civil War, the slave power was anxious to +secure its annexation as a state to help offset the growing predominance +of the North; and during the ten years' insurrection from 1868 to 1878, +when a cruel guerilla warfare made all life and property in Cuba unsafe, +intervention was again suggested. But it was not until the renewal of +the insurrection in 1895 that American economic interests in Cuba were +strong enough to induce interference. Slavery was gone, but capital, +still more dominant, had taken its place. + +In 1895, Americans had more than fifty million dollars invested in Cuban +business, and our commerce with the Island had risen to one hundred +millions annually. The effect of the Cuban revolt against Spain was not +only to diminish trade, but also to destroy American property. The +contest between the rebels and Spanish troops was characterized by +extreme cruelty and a total disregard for life and property. Gomez, the +leader of the revolt, resorted to the policy made famous by Sherman on +his march to the sea. He laid waste the land to starve the Spaniards and +compel American interference if possible. By a proclamation of November +6, 1895, he ordered that plantation buildings and railway connections +should be destroyed and sugar factories closed everywhere; what he left +undone was finished by the Spanish general, Weyler, who concentrated the +inhabitants of the rural districts in the centers occupied by the +troops. Under such a policy, business was simply paralyzed; and within +less than two years Americans had filed against Spain claims amounting +to sixteen million dollars for property destroyed in the revolution. + +The atrocities connected with the insurrection attracted the sympathy of +the American people at once. Sermons were preached against Spanish +barbarism; orators demanded that the Cuban people be "succored in their +heroic struggle for the rights of men and of citizens"; Mr. Hearst's +newspapers appealed daily to the people to compel governmental action at +once, and denounced the tedious methods of negotiation, in view of an +inevitable war. Cuban juntas formed in American cities raised money and +supplied arms for the insurrectionists. All the enormous American +property interests at stake in the Island, with their widespread and +influential ramifications in the United States, demanded action. The +war fever, always quick to be kindled, rose all over the country. + +Even amid the exciting campaign of 1896, the Democrats found time to +express sympathy with the Cubans, and the Republicans significantly +remarked that inasmuch as Spain was "unable to protect the property or +lives of resident American citizens," the good offices of the United +States should be tendered with a view to pacification and independence. +Perhaps, not unaware of the impending crisis, the Republicans also +favored a continued enlargement of the navy to help maintain the +"rightful influence" of the United States among the nations of the +earth. + +President Cleveland, repudiated by his own party and having no desire to +"play the game of politics," assumed an attitude of neutrality in the +conflict and denied to the Cubans the rights of belligerents. He offered +to Spain the good offices of the United States in mediation with the +insurgents--a tender which was rejected by Spain with the suggestion +that the United States might more vigorously suppress the unlawful +assistance which some of its citizens were lending to the +revolutionists. Mr. Cleveland's second administration closed without any +positive action on the Cuban question. + +Within four months after his inauguration, President McKinley protested +strongly to Spain against her policy in Cuba, and during the summer and +autumn and winter he conducted a running fire of negotiations with +Spain. Congress was impatient for armed intervention and fretted at the +tedious methods of diplomacy. Spain shrewdly made counter thrusts to +every demand advanced by the United States, but made no outward sign of +improvement in the affairs of Cuba, even after the recall of General +Weyler. In February, 1898, a private letter, written by De Lôme, the +Spanish minister at Washington, showing contempt for Mr. McKinley and +some shifty ideas of diplomacy, was acquired by the _New York Journal_ +and published. This stirred the country and led to the recall of the +minister by his home government. Meanwhile the battleship _Maine_ was +sent to Havana, officially to resume friendly relations at Cuban ports, +but not without an ulterior regard for the necessity of protecting the +lives and property of Americans in jeopardy. The incident of the Spanish +minister's letter had hardly been closed before the _Maine_ was blown up +and sunk on the evening of February 15, 1898. The death of two officers +and two hundred and fifty-eight of the crew was a tragedy which moved +the nation beyond measure, and with the cry "Remember the _Maine_" +public opinion was worked up to a point of frenzy. + +A commission was appointed at once to inquire into the cause of the +disaster, and on March 21 it reported that the _Maine_ had been +destroyed by an explosion of a submarine mine which set off some of the +ship's magazines. Within a week, negotiations with Spain were resumed, +and that country made generous promises to restore peace in the Island +and permit a Cuban parliament to be established in the interests of +local autonomy. None of Spain's promises were regarded as satisfactory +by the administration, and on April 4, General Woodford, the American +representative in that country, was instructed to warn the ministry that +no effective armistice had been offered the Cubans and that President +McKinley would shortly lay the matter before Congress--which meant war. +After some delay, during which representatives of the European powers +and the Pope were at work in the interests of peace, Spain promised to +suspend hostilities, call a Cuban parliament, and restore a reasonable +autonomy. + +On the day after the receipt of this promise, President McKinley sent +his war message to Congress without explaining fully the latest +concessions made by Spain. It was claimed by the Spanish government that +it had yielded absolutely everything short of independence and that all +of the demands of the United States had been met. Some eminent editors +and publicists in the United States have since accepted this view of the +affair and sharply criticized the President for not making public the +full text of Spain's last concession on the day that he sent his war +message to Congress. Those who take this view hold that President +McKinley believed war to be inevitable and desirable all along, but +merely wished to bring public opinion to the breaking point before +shifting the responsibility to Congress. The President's defenders, +however, claim that no credence could be placed in the good faith of +Spain and that the intolerable conditions in Cuba would never have been +removed under Spanish administration, no matter what promises might have +been made. + +In his war message of April 11, 1898, Mr. McKinley brought under review +the conditions in Cuba and the history of the controversy, coming to +the conclusion that the dictates of humanity, the necessity of +protecting American lives and property in Cuba, and the chronic +disorders in the Island warranted armed intervention. Congress responded +by an overwhelming vote on April 19, in favor of a resolution declaring +that Cuba should be free, that Spain's withdrawal should be demanded, +and the President be authorized to use the military and naval forces of +the country to carry the decree into effect. In the enthusiasm of the +hour, Congress also specifically disclaimed any intention of exercising +"sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the +pacification thereof." Thus war was declared on the anniversary of the +battle of Lexington. + +In the armed conflict which followed, the most striking and effective +operations were on the sea. In anticipation of the war, Commodore Dewey, +in command of the Asiatic station, had been instructed as early as +February to keep his squadron at Hongkong, coaled, and ready, in event +of a declaration of hostilities, to begin offensive operations in the +Philippine Islands. The battleship _Oregon_, then off the coast of +Washington, was ordered to make the long voyage around the Horn, which +has now become famous in the annals of the sea. At the outbreak of the +war, Rear Admiral Sampson, in charge of the main squadron at Key West, +was instructed to blockade important stretches of the coast of Cuba and +to keep watch for the arrival of the Spanish fleet, under Admiral +Cervera, which was then on the high seas, presumably bound for Cuba. + +The first naval blow was struck by Admiral Dewey, who had left Chinese +waters on receiving news of the declaration of war and had reached +Manila Bay on the evening of April 30. Early the following morning he +opened fire on the inferior Spanish fleet under the guns of Cavité and +Manila, and within a few hours he had destroyed the enemy's ships, +killed nearly four hundred men, and silenced the shore batteries without +sustaining the loss of a single man or suffering any injuries to his own +ships worthy of mention. News of this extraordinary exploit reached the +United States by way of Hongkong on May 6, and the hero of the day was, +by popular acclaim, placed among the immortals of our naval history. + +While celebrating the victory off Manila, the government was anxiously +awaiting the arrival of the Spanish fleet in American waters which were +being carefully patrolled. In spite of the precautions of Admiral +Sampson, Cervera was able to slip into the harbor of Santiago on May 19, +where he was immediately blockaded by the American naval forces. An +attempt was made to stop up the mouth of the harbor by sending +Lieutenant Richmond P. Hobson to sink a collier at the narrow entrance, +but this spectacular move, carried out under a galling fire, failed to +accomplish the purpose of the projectors, and Hobson and his men fell +into the hands of the Spaniards. + +The time had now come for bringing the land forces into coöperation with +the navy for a combined attack on Santiago, and on June 14 a large body +of troops, principally regulars, embarked from Tampa, where men and +supplies had been concentrating for weeks. The management of the army +was in every respect inferior to the administration of the navy. +Secretary Alger, of the War Department, was a politician of the old +school, who could not allow efficiency to interfere with the "proper" +distribution of patronage; and as a result of his dilatory methods (to +put it mildly) and the general unpreparedness of the army, the camp at +Tampa was grossly mismanaged. Sanitary conveniences were indescribably +bad, supply contractors sold decayed meat and wretched food to the +government, heavy winter clothing was furnished to men about to fight in +the summer time in a tropical climate, and, to cap the climax of +blundering, inadequate provisions were made for landing the troops when +they reached Cuba on June 22. + +The forces dispatched to Cuba were placed under the command of General +Shafter, but owing to his illness the fighting was principally carried +on under Generals Lawton and Wheeler. The most serious conflicts in the +land campaign occurred at El Caney and San Juan Hill, both strategic +points near Santiago. At the second of these places the famous "Rough +Riders" under Colonel Roosevelt distinguished themselves by a charge up +the hill under heavy fire and by being the first to reach the enemy's +intrenchments. In spite of several engagements, in which the fortunes of +the day were generally on the side of the Americans, sickness among the +soldiers and lack of supplies caused General Shafter to cable, on July +3, that without additional support he could not undertake a successful +storming of Santiago. + +At this critical juncture, the naval forces once more distinguished +themselves, and made further bloody fighting on land unnecessary, by +destroying Cervera's fleet which attempted to make its escape from the +Santiago harbor on the morning of July 3. The American ships were then +in charge of Commodore Schley, for Admiral Sampson had left watch early +that morning for a conference with General Shafter; and the sailors +acquitted themselves with the same skill that marked Dewey's victory at +Manila. Within less than four hours' fighting all the Spanish ships were +destroyed or captured with a loss of about six hundred killed and +wounded, while the Americans sustained a loss of only one man killed and +one wounded. This victory, of course, marked the doom of Santiago, +although it did not surrender formally until July 17, after two days' +bombardment by the American ships. + +The fall of Santiago ended military operations in Cuba, and General +Miles, who had come to the front in time to assist General Shafter in +arranging the terms of the surrender of Santiago, proceeded at once to +Porto Rico. He was rapidly gaining possession of that Island in an +almost bloodless campaign when news came of the signing of the peace +protocol on August 12. Unfortunately it required longer to convey the +information to the Philippines that the war was at an end, and on the +day after the signature of the protocol, that is, August 13, General +Merritt and Admiral Dewey carried Manila by storm. + +As early as July 26, 1898, the Spanish government approached President +McKinley through M. Cambon, the French ambassador at Washington, and +asked for a preliminary statement of the terms on which the war could +be brought to a close. After some skirmishing, in which Spain +reluctantly yielded to the American ultimatum, a peace protocol was +signed on August 12, to the effect that Cuba should be independent, +Porto Rico ceded to the United States, and Manila occupied pending the +final negotiations, which were opened at Paris by special commissioners +on October 1. + +When the commissioners met according to arrangements, the government of +the United States apparently had not come to a conclusion as to the +final disposition of the Philippines. The administration was anxious not +to go too far in advance of public opinion, at least so far as official +pronunciamento was concerned, although powerful commercial interests +were busy impressing the public mind with the advantages to be derived +from the retention of the distant Pacific Islands. In his instructions +to the peace commissioners, on the eve of their departure, Mr. McKinley, +while denying that there had originally been any intention of conquest +in the Pacific, declared that the march of events had imposed new duties +upon us, and added: "Incidental to our tenure in the Philippines is the +commercial opportunity to which American statesmanship cannot be +indifferent. It is just to use every legitimate means for the +enlargement of American trade." While stating that the possession of +territory was less important than an "open door" for trade purposes, he +concluded by instructing the commissioners that the United States could +not "accept less than the cession in full right and sovereignty of the +Island of Luzon." + +The peace commissioners were divided among themselves as to the policy +to be pursued with regard to the Philippines; but in the latter part of +October they received definite instructions from the Secretary of State, +Mr. John Hay, that the cession of Luzon alone could not be justified "on +political, commercial, or humanitarian grounds," and that the entire +archipelago must be surrendered by Spain. The Spanish commissioners +protested vigorously against this demand, on the theory that it was +outside of the terms of the peace protocol, but they were forced to +yield, receiving as a sort of consolation prize the payment of twenty +million dollars in compensation for the loss. + +The final treaty, as signed on December 10, 1898, embodied the following +terms: the independence of Cuba, the cession of Porto Rico, Guam, and +the Philippines to the United States, the cancellation of the claims of +the citizens of the two countries against each other, the United States +undertaking to settle the claims of its citizens against Spain, the +payment of twenty million dollars for the Philippines by the United +States, and the determination of the civil and political status of the +inhabitants of the ceded territories by Congress. + +When the treaty of peace was published, the contest over the retention +of the Philippines took on new bitterness--at least in public speeches +and editorials. The contentions on both sides were so vehement that it +was almost impossible to secure any frank discussion of the main issue: +"Does the United States want a foothold in the Pacific in order to +secure the trade of the Philippines and afford American capital an +opportunity to develop the dormant natural resources, and in order also +to have a station from which to give American trade and capital a better +chance in the awakening Orient?" Democrats demanded self-government for +the Philippines, "in recognition of the principles of the immortal +Declaration of Independence." Republicans talked in lofty strains about +"the mysterious hand of Providence which laid this burden upon the +Anglo-Saxon race." + +The proposal to retain the Philippines, in fact, gave the southern +statesmen just the opportunity they had long wanted to taunt the +Republicans with insincerity on the race question. "Republican leaders," +said Senator Tillman, "do not longer dare to call into question the +justice or necessity of limiting negro suffrage in the South." And on +another occasion he exclaimed in querulous accents: "I want to call your +attention to the remarkable change that has come over the spirit of the +dream of the Republicans. Your slogans of the past--brotherhood of man +and fatherhood of God--have gone glimmering down through the ages. The +brotherhood of man exists no longer." To such assertions, Republicans of +the old school, like Senator Hoar, opposed to imperialism, replied +sadly, "The statements of Mr. Tillman have never been challenged and +never can be." But Republicans of the new school, unvexed by charges of +inconsistency, replied that high talk about the rights of man and of +self-government came with poor grace from southern Democrats who had +disfranchised millions of negroes that were just as capable of +self-government as the bulk of the natives in the Philippines. + +Senator Vest, on December 6, introduced in the Senate a resolution to +the effect "that under the Constitution of the United States, no power +is given to the Federal Government to acquire territory to be held and +governed permanently as colonies." He was ably supported by Senator +Hoar, from Massachusetts, who took his stand upon the proposition that +"governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." +On the other side, Senator O. H. Platt, of Connecticut, expounded the +gospel of manifest destiny: "Every expansion of our territory has been +in accordance with the irresistible law of growth. We could no more +resist the successive expansions by which we have grown to be the +strongest nation on earth than a tree can resist its growth. The history +of territorial expansion is the history of our nation's progress and +glory. It is a matter to be proud of, not to lament. We should rejoice +that Providence has given us the opportunity to extend our influence, +our institutions, and our civilization into regions hitherto closed to +us, rather than contrive how we can thwart its designs." + +At length on February 6, 1899, the treaty was ratified by the Senate, +but it must not be assumed that all of the Senators who voted for the +ratification of the treaty favored embarking upon a policy of +"imperialism." Indeed, at the time of the approval of the treaty, a +resolution was passed by the Senate to the effect that the policy to be +adopted in the Philippines was still an open question; but the outbreak +of an insurrection there led to an immediate employment of military rule +in the Islands and criticism was silenced by the cry that our national +honor was at stake. + +The revolt against American dominion might have been foreseen, for the +conduct of Generals Anderson and Merritt at Manila had invited trouble. +For a long time before the War, native Filipinos had openly resisted +Spanish rule, and particularly the dominance of the monks and priests, +who held an enormous amount of land and managed civil as well as +ecclesiastical affairs. Just before the outbreak of the Spanish War, +there had been a revolt under the leadership of Aguinaldo which had been +brought to an end by the promise to pay a large sum to the revolutionary +leaders and to introduce extensive administrative reforms. The promises, +however, had not been carried out, and Admiral Dewey had invited the +coöperation of Aguinaldo and his insurgents in the attack on Manila. +When the land assault was made on the city, in August, Aguinaldo joined +with a large insurgent army under the banner of the Filipino republic +which had been proclaimed in July, but he was compelled to take a +subordinate position, and received scant respect from the American +commanders, who gave him to understand that he had no status in the war +or the settlement of the terms of capitulation. + +As may be imagined, Aguinaldo was in no happy frame of mind when the +news came in January, 1899, that the United States had assumed +sovereignty over the islands; but it is not clear that some satisfactory +adjustment might not have been made then, if the United States had been +willing to accept a sort of protectorate and allow the revolutionaries +to establish a local government of their own. However, little or nothing +was done to reach a peaceful adjustment, and on February 4, some +Filipino soldiers were shot by American troops for refusing to obey an +order to halt, on approaching the American lines. This untoward incident +precipitated the conflict which began with some serious regular fighting +and dwindled into a vexatious guerilla warfare, lasting three years and +costing the United States heavily in men and money. Inhuman atrocities +were committed on both sides, resembling in brutality the cruel deeds +which had marked frontier warfare with the Indians. Reports of these +gruesome barbarities reached the United States and aroused the most +severe criticism of the administration, not only from the opponents of +imperialism, but also from those supporters of the policy, who imagined +that it could be carried out with rose water. + + * * * * * + +The acquisition of the insular dependencies raised again the old problem +as to the power of Congress over territories, which had been so +extensively debated during the slavery conflict. The question now took +the form: "Does the Constitution restrict Congress in the government of +the Islands as if they were physically and politically a part of the +United States, and particularly, do the limitations in behalf of private +rights, freedom of press, trial by jury, and the like, embodied in the +first ten Amendments, control the power of Congress?" Strict +constitutionalists answered this question in the affirmative without +hesitation, citing the long line of constitutional decisions which had +repeatedly affirmed the doctrine that Congress is limited everywhere, +even in the territories by the Amendments providing for the protection +of personal and property rights; but practical politicians, supporting +the McKinley administration, frankly asserted that the Constitution and +laws of the United States did not of their own force apply in the +territories and could not apply until Congress had expressly extended +them to the insular possessions. + +The abstract question was given concrete form in several decisions by +the Supreme Court, known as "the Insular Cases." The question was +speedily raised whether importers of commodities from Porto Rico should +be compelled to pay the duties prescribed by the Dingley act, and the +Court answered in the case of De Lima _v._ Bidwell in 1901 that the +Island was "domestic" within the meaning of the tariff act and that the +duties could not be collected. In the course of his remarks, the +Justice, who wrote the opinion, said that territory was either domestic +or foreign, and that the Constitution did not recognize any halfway +position. Four Justices dissented, however; and American interests, +fearing this new competition, had dissented in advance,--so vigorously, +in fact, that Congress during the previous year had passed the Foraker +act imposing a tariff on goods coming into the United States from Porto +Rico and _vice versa_. + +This concession to the protected interests placed the Supreme Court in a +dilemma. If Porto Rico was domestic territory,--a part of the United +States,--was not the Foraker act a violation of the constitutional +provision that duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout +the United States? This question was judicially answered by the Court +in the case of Downes _v._ Bidwell, decided on May 27, 1901, which +upheld the Foraker act on grounds so various that the only real point +made by the Court was that the law was constitutional. None of the four +justices who concurred with Justice Brown in the opinion agreed with his +reasoning, and the four judges, who dissented entirely from the decision +and the opinion, vigorously denied that there could be any territory +under the flag of the United States which was not subject to the +limitations of the Constitution. + +In other cases involving freedom of the press in the Philippines and +trial by jury in the Hawaiian Islands, the Supreme Court upheld the +doctrine that Congress, in legislating for the new dependencies, was not +bound by all those constitutional limitations which had been hitherto +applied in the continental territories of the United States. The upshot +of all these insular decisions is that the Constitution may be divided +into two parts, "fundamental" and "formal"; that only the fundamental +parts control the Federal authorities in the government of the +dependencies; and that the Supreme Court will decide, from time to time +as specific cases arise, what parts of the Federal Constitution are +"fundamental" and what parts are merely "formal." In two cases, the +Court has gone so far as to hold that indictment by grand jury and trial +by petit jury with unanimous verdict are not "fundamental" parts of the +Constitution, "but merely concern a method of procedure." In other +words, the practical necessities of governing subject races of different +origins and legal traditions forced that eminent tribunal to resort to +painful reasoning in an effort not to hamper unduly the power of +Congress by constitutional limitations. + + * * * * * + +In the settlement which followed the Spanish War, three general problems +were presented. In the first place, our relations to Cuba required +definition. It is true that in the declaration of war on Spain Congress +had disclaimed "any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, +jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the pacification +thereof, and asserts its determination when that is accomplished to +leave the government and control of the Island to its people"; but +American economic interests in the Island were too great to admit of the +actual fulfillment of this promise. Consequently, Cuba was forced to +accept, as a part of her constitution, several provisions, known as the +Platt amendment, adopted by the Congress of the United States on March +2, 1901, restricting her relations with foreign countries, limiting her +debt-creating power, securing the right of the United States to +intervene whenever necessary to protect life and property, and reserving +to the United States the right to acquire coaling stations at certain +points on the Island to be agreed upon. + +Under the constitution, to which the Platt reservations on behalf of the +United States were attached, the Cubans held a general election in +December, 1901, choosing a president and legislature; and in the spring +of the following year American troops were withdrawn, leaving the +administration in the hands of the natives. It was not long, however, +before domestic difficulties began to disturb the peace of the Island, +and in the summer of 1906 it was reported that the government of +President Palma was about to be overthrown by an insurrection. Under the +circumstances, Palma resigned, and the Cuban congress was unable to +secure a quorum for the transaction of business. After due warning, +President Roosevelt intervened, under the provisions of the Platt +amendment, and instituted a temporary government supported by American +troops. American occupation of the Island continued for a few months, +but finally the soldiers were withdrawn and native government was once +more put on trial. + +The second problem was presented by Porto Rico, where military rule was +put into force after the occupation in 1898. At length, on May 1, 1900, +an "organic act," instituting civil government in that Island, was +approved by the President. This law did not confer citizenship on the +Porto Ricans, but assured them of the protection of the United States. +It set up a government embracing a governor, appointed by the President +and Senate of the United States, six executive secretaries appointed in +the same manner as the governor, and a legislature of two houses--one +composed of the six secretaries and five other persons selected by the +President and Senate, acting as the upper house, and a lower house +elected by popular vote. Under this act, the practice of appointing +Americans to the chief executive offices took the final control of +legislative matters out of the hands of the natives, leaving them only +an initiatory power. This produced a friction between the appointive +and elective branches of the government, which became so troublesome +that the dispute had to be carried to Washington in 1909, and Congress +enacted a measure providing that, in case the lower house of the Porto +Rican legislature refused to pass the budget, the financial arrangements +of the previous year should continue. + +The problem of governing the Philippines was infinitely more complicated +than that of governing Porto Rico, because the archipelago embraced more +than three thousand islands and about thirty different tribes and +dialects. The evolution of American control there falls into three +stages. At first, they were governed by the President of the United +States under his military authority. In 1901, a civil commission, with +Mr. W. H. Taft at the head, took over the civil administration of all +the pacified provinces. In 1902, Congress passed an "organic act" for +the Islands, providing that, after their pacification, a legislative +assembly should be erected. At length, in 1907, this assembly was duly +instituted, and the government now consists of the governor, a +commission appointed by the President and Senate, and a legislature +composed of the commission and a lower house of representatives elected +by popular vote. + + * * * * * + +Important as are the problems of governing dependencies, they are not +the sole or even the most significant aspects of imperialism. The +possession of territories gives a larger control over the development of +their trade and resources; but capital and enterprise seeking an outlet +flow to those countries where the advantages offered are the greatest, +no matter whoever may exercise political dominion there. The acquisition +of the Philippines was simply an episode in the development of American +commercial interests in the Orient. + +It was those interests which led the United States to send Caleb Cushing +to China in 1844 to negotiate a treaty with that country securing for +Americans rights of trade in the ports which had recently been blown +open by British guns in the famous "Opium War." It was those interests +which induced the United States government to send Commodore Perry to +Japan in 1853 and led to the opening of that nation--long closed to the +outside world--to American trade and enterprise. After 1844 in China, +and 1854 in Japan, American trade steadily increased, and American +capital seeking investments soon began to flow into Chinese business and +railway undertakings. Although the United States did not attempt to +follow the example of Great Britain, Russia, France, and Germany in +seizing Chinese territory, it did obtain a sufficient economic interest +in that Empire to warrant the employment of American soldiers in +coöperation with Russian, English, French, Japanese, and other +contingents at the time of the Boxer insurrection at Peking in the +summer of 1900. + +The policy of the United States at the time won no little praise from +the Chinese government. Having no territorial ambitions in the Empire, +the administration at Washington, through Mr. John Hay, Secretary of +State, was able to announce that the United States favored an "open +door" for trade and the maintenance of the territorial integrity of +China. "The policy of the Government of the United States," said Mr. Hay +to the Powers, in the summer of 1900, "is to seek a solution which may +bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese +territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to +friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the +world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the +Chinese empire." This friendly word, which was much appreciated by +China, was later supplemented by the generous action of the United +States government in returning to that country a large sum of money +which had been collected as an indemnity for the injury to American +rights in the Boxer uprising, and was discovered to be an overcharge due +to excessive American claims. + +While thus developing American interests in the Orient, the United +States government was much embarrassed by the legislation of some of the +western states against Orientals. Chinese and Japanese laborers were +excluded from the country by law or agreements, but in spite of this +fact there were large numbers of Orientals on the coast. This was +resented by many whites, particularly trade unionists with whom the +cheap labor came into competition, and from time to time laws were +enacted by state legislatures that were alleged to violate the rights +which the United States had guaranteed to the Chinese or Japanese by +treaties with their respective countries. + +Such a dispute occurred a few years ago over an attempt to exclude +Japanese children from the regular public schools in San Francisco, and +again in 1912 in connection with a law of California relative to the +acquisition of lands by aliens--the naturalization of Orientals being +forbidden by Federal law. These legal disputes arose from the fact that +the Federal government has the power to make treaties with foreign +countries relative to matters which are entirely within the control of +state legislatures. The discriminations against the Orientals, coupled +with the pressure of American interests in the Far East and the presence +of American dominion in the Philippines, caused no little friction +between certain sections of the United States and of Japan; and there +were some who began, shortly after the Spanish War, to speak of the +"impending conflict" in the Orient. + + +_The Campaign of 1900_ + +It was inevitable that the new issues, raised by the Spanish War, the +acquisition of the insular possessions, and the insurrection against +American rule in the Philippines, should find their way almost +immediately into national politics. By the logic of their situation, the +Republicans were compelled to defend their imperialist policy, although +it was distasteful to many of the old leaders; and at their national +convention, at Philadelphia in June, 1900, they renominated President +McKinley by acclamation, justified their methods in the dependencies, +approved the new commercial advances in the Orient, advocated government +aid to the merchant marine, and commended the acquisition of the +Hawaiian Islands. The trust plank, couched in vague and uncertain terms, +was, interestingly enough, drafted by Mr. Hanna, who appropriately +levied the campaign collections for his party in Wall Street.[46] Mr. +Roosevelt, then governor of New York, was nominated for Vice President, +although he had refused to agree to accept the office. The desire of +Senator Platt, the Republican "boss" in New York, to put him out of the +state threw the "machine" in his favor, and this, combined with +enthusiasm for him in the West, gave him every vote in the convention +save his own. Under the circumstances he was forced to accept the +nomination. + +The Democrats took up the challenge on "imperialism"; but Mr. Bryan was +determined not to allow the silver question to sink into an early grave, +and he accordingly forced the adoption of a free silver plank, as the +price of his accepting the nomination. The platform was strong in its +denunciation of Republican "imperialist" policy, in general and in +detail. It favored promising the Filipinos stable government, +independence, and, finally, protection from outside interference. It was +also more positive on the trust question, and it advocated an increase +in the powers of the interstate commerce commission, enabling it "to +protect individuals and communities from discriminations and the people +from unjust and unfair transportation rates." An effort was made to +placate the conservative section of the party by offering the nomination +to the Vice Presidency to David B. Hill, of New York, and on his +refusal of the honor it was given to Adlai Stevenson, who had held that +office during Cleveland's second administration. + +Although many Republicans supported Mr. Bryan on account of their +dislike of imperialism and its works, the result of the campaign was a +second victory for Mr. McKinley, even greater than that of 1896. He +received a larger popular vote and Mr. Bryan a smaller vote than in that +year. Of the 447 electors, Mr. McKinley received 292. This happy outcome +he naturally regarded as a vindication of his policies, and he was +evidently turning toward the future with renewed confidence (as his +Buffalo speech on reciprocity indicated) when on September 6, 1901, he +was shot by an anarchist at the Buffalo exposition and died eight days +later. + +Mr. Roosevelt immediately took the oath of office, and promised to +continue "absolutely unbroken" the policy of his predecessor. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [43] J. B. Moore, _Four Phases of American Development_, p. + 195. + + [44] In 1899, the tripartite arrangement was dissolved and + the United States obtained outright possession of Tutuila. + + [45] The Hawaiian Islands are ruled by a governor appointed + by the President and Senate and by a legislature of two + houses elected by popular vote. + + [46] Croly, _Life of Marcus Hanna_, p. 307. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM + + +The years immediately following the War with Spain were marked by +extraordinary prosperity in business. The country recovered from the +collapse of the nineties and entered with full swing into another era of +inflation and promotion. The Dingley tariff law, enacted July 24, 1897, +had incidentally aided in the process by raising the protection +principle to its highest point since the Civil War, but the causes of +the upward movement lay deeper. The Spanish War, of course, stimulated +trade, for destruction on such a large scale always creates a heavy +demand for commodities and capital--a demand which was partially met, as +usual, by huge drafts on the future in the form of an increased national +debt. But the real cause lay in the nature of the economic processes +which had produced the periodical cycles of inflation and collapse +during the nineteenth century. Having recovered from a collapse previous +to the War, inflation and capitalization on a gigantic scale set in and +did not run their course until a débâcle in 1907. + +The formation of trusts and the consolidation of older combinations in +this period were commensurate in scale with the gigantic financial power +created by capitalist accumulations. The period of the later seventies +and eighties, as has been shown, was a period of hot competition +followed by pools, combinations, and trusts. The era which followed the +Spanish War differed in degree rather than in kind, but it was marked by +financial operations on a scale which would have staggered earlier +promoters. Perhaps it would be best to say that the older school merely +found its real strength at the close of the century, for the new +financing was done by the Vanderbilt, Astor, Gould, Morgan, and +Rockefeller interests, the basis of which had been laid earlier. There +was, in fact, no break in the process, save that which was made by the +contraction of the early nineties. But the operations of the new era +were truly grand in their conception and execution. + +A few examples will serve to illustrate the process. In 1900, the +National Sugar Refining Company of New Jersey was formed with a capital +of $90,000,000, and "from its inception it adopted the policy of issuing +no public statements to its stockholders regarding earnings or financial +conditions. The only statement ... is simply an annual balance sheet, +showing the assets and liabilities of the corporation in a greatly +condensed form." In 1904, the total capital of parent and affiliated +concerns was approximately $145,000,000. The Copper Trust was +incorporated under New Jersey laws in 1899, and in 1904 its par value +capital was $175,000,000. In 1899, the Smelters' Trust with an +authorized capital of about $65,000,000 was formed. In the same year the +Standard Oil Company, as the successor to the Trust, was organized with +$102,233,700 capital. + +The process of consolidation may best be shown by turning from +generalities to a brief study of the United States Steel Corporation, a +great portion of whose business was laid bare in 1911-12 by a Federal +investigation. It appears that until about 1898 there was a large number +of steel concerns actively engaged in a competition which was modified +at times by pools and price agreements; and that each of them was +vigorously reaching out, not only for more trade, but for control over +the chief source of strength--supply of ore. Finally, in the closing +days of the nineties, this competition and stress for control became so +great that the steel men and the associated financial interests began to +fear that the increased facilities for production would result in +flooding the market and in ruining a number of concerns. The rough steel +manufacturers began to push into the field of finished products, and the +wire, nail, plate, and tube concerns were crowding into the rough steel +manufacturing. All were scrambling for ore beds. In this "struggle of +the giants" the leading steel makers saw nothing but disaster, and they +set to work to consolidate a dozen or more companies. Their labors were +crowned with success on April 1, 1901, when the new corporation with a +capital of a little more than $1,400,000,000 began business. + +In the consolidation of the several concerns an increase of more than +$400,000,000 was made in the total capital; and a stock commission of +the cash value of $62,500,000 was given to the Morgan underwriting +syndicate for financing the enterprise. It is, of course, impossible to +discover now the physical value of the properties consolidated, many of +which were already heavily "watered." Of the Carnegie concern, a Federal +report says, "The evidence on the whole tends to show that bonds were +issued substantially up to the full amount of the physical assets +acquired and that the stock was issued merely against good will and +other intangible considerations." How much of the total capital was +"water" is impossible to determine, but the Bureau of Corporations +estimates "that more than $150,000,000 of the stock of the Steel +Corporation (this including more than $41,000,000 of preferred stock and +$109,000,000 of common stock) was issued, either directly or indirectly +(through exchange) for mere promotion or underwriting services. This +total, moreover, as noted does not include anything for the American +Sheet Steel Company ... nor is anything added in the case of the Shelby +Steel Tube Company. It should be repeated that this enormous total of +over $150,000,000 does not include common stock issued as bonus with +preferred for property or for cash, but simply what may be termed the +promotion and organization commissions in the strict sense. In other +words, nearly one seventh of the total capital stock of the Steel +Corporation appears to have been issued, either directly or indirectly, +to promoters for their services." How much more of the $440,000,000 +additional capital represented something other than physical values is +partially a matter of guesswork. The Bureau of Corporations valued the +tangible property of the corporation at $682,000,000 in 1901, as against +$1,400,000,000 issued securities; and computed the rate of profit from +1901 to 1910 on the actual investment at 12 per cent. It should be +noted, also, that shortly after the formation of the concern the common +stock which had been issued fell with a crash, and the outsiders who +risked their fortunes in the concern were ruined.[47] + +All of the leading trusts and railways were, even at their inception, +intimately connected through cross investments and interlocking +directorates. Writing in 1904, Mr. Moody, an eminent financial +authority, said: "Around these two groups [the Morgan-Rockefeller +interests], or what must ultimately become one greater group, all other +smaller groups of capitalists congregate. They are all allied and +intertwined by their various mutual interests. For instance, the +Pennsylvania Railroad interests are on the one hand allied with the +Vanderbilts and on the other with the Rockefellers. The Vanderbilts are +closely allied with the Morgan group, and both the Pennsylvania and +Vanderbilt interests have recently become the dominating factors in the +Reading system, a former Morgan road and the most important part of the +anthracite coal combine which has always been dominated by the Morgan +people.... Viewed as a whole, we find the dominating influences in the +trusts to be made up of an intricate network of large and small +capitalists, many allied to another by ties of more or less importance, +but all being appendages to or parts of the greater groups which are +themselves dependent on and allied with the two mammoth, or Rockefeller +and Morgan, groups. These two mammoth groups jointly ... constitute the +heart of the business and commercial life of the nation."[48] + +How tremendous is this corporate control over business, output, and wage +earners is indicated by the census of 1909. Of the total number of +establishments reported as engaged in manufacturing in 1904, 23.6 per +cent were under corporate ownership, while in 1909 the percentage had +increased to 25.9. Although they controlled only about one fourth of the +total number of establishments, corporations employed 70.6 per cent of +all the wage earners reported in 1904 and 75.6 per cent in 1909. Still +more significant are the figures relative to the output of corporations. +Of the total value of the product of all establishments, 73.7 per cent +was turned out by corporations in 1904 and 79 per cent in 1909. "In most +of the states," runs the Census Report, "between three fifths and nine +tenths of the total value of manufactured products in 1909 was reported +by establishments under corporate ownership." Of the 268,491 +establishments reported in 1909, there were 3061 which produced 43.8 per +cent of the total value of all products and employed 30.5 per cent of +the wage earners. It is, in fact, this absorption of business by a small +number of concerns which marks the great concentration of modern +industry. The mere number of corporations is not of much significance, +for most of them are petty. + +In addition to gaining control of the leading manufacturing concerns and +the chief natural resources of the country, the great capitalist +interests seized upon social values to the amount of billions of dollars +through stock watering and manipulations of one kind or another. +"Between 1868 and 1872, for example, the share capital of the Erie was +increased from $17,000,000 to $78,000,000, largely for the purpose of +stock-market manipulation.... The original Central Pacific Railroad, for +instance, actually cost only $58,000,000; it is a matter of record that +$120,000,000 was paid a construction company for the work. The syndicate +which financed the road received $62,500,000 par value in securities as +profits, a sum greater than it actually cost to build the property. The +80 per cent stock dividend of the New York Central in 1868; scrip +dividends on the Reading in the seventies; the 50 per cent dividend of +the Atchison in 1881; the 100 per cent stock dividends of the Louisville +and Nashville in 1880, by a pen stroke adding $20,000,000 to 'cost of +road' upon the balance sheet; the notorious 100 per cent dividend of the +Boston and Albany in 1882 [are further examples].... Recent inflations +of capitalization in connection with railroad consolidation are headed +by the case of the Rock Island Company. In 1902 this purely financial +corporation bought up the old Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railway, +capitalized at $75,000,000 and substituted therefor its own stock to the +amount of $117,000,000, together with $75,000,000 of collateral trust +bonds, secured by the stock of the property acquired. The entire history +of the New York traction companies is studded with similar occurrences. +One instance may suffice. In 1906 the Interborough-Metropolitan Company +purchased $105,540,000 in securities of the merged lines, and issued in +place thereof $138,309,000 of its own stock and $70,000,000 in bonds.... +E. H. Harriman and three associates ... expanded the total +capitalization of the [Alton] road from $33,950,000 to $114,600,000, an +increase of over $80,000,000. In improvements and additions to the +property out of this augmented capitalization, their own accounts showed +only about $18,000,000 expended. It thus appears that securities +aggregating $62,600,000 were put forth during this time [seven years, +beginning in 1898], without one dollar of consideration. This sum is +equal to about $66,000 per mile of line owned--a figure considerably in +excess of the average net capitalization of the railroads of the +country."[49] + +It is not necessary to cite further evidence to show that billions of +dollars of fictitious values were saddled upon the country between the +end of the Civil War and the close of the century. A considerable +portion of the amount of stocks and bonds issued was doubtless based on +the dividend-paying power of the concerns in question. In many instances +the stock was not purchased in large quantities by the investing public, +but was simply issued to promoters, and when values collapsed they only +lost so much worthless paper. It is apparent, therefore, that all the +stock watering is not of the same character or effect; but nevertheless +it remains a fact that the buying public and the working class are +paying millions in annual tribute to the holders of paper which +represents no economic service whatever. If the water were all squeezed +out of railway, franchise, and industrial stocks and bonds and the +mineral and other resources which have been actually secured at a +nominal value, or fraudulently were returned to the government, there +would be a shrinkage in the necessary dividends paid out that would +startle the world. + + * * * * * + +Those who followed the literature of political economy during this +period of gigantic consolidation and high finance could not help +discovering a decided change in the views of leading men about the +nature of industrial evolution. The old practice of indiscriminate abuse +of all trusts began to undergo a decided modification; only persons from +the backward industrial regions of the West and South continued the +inordinate clamor for the immediate and unconditional dissolution of all +of them, on the theory that they were "artificial" products, brought +forth and nourished by malicious men bent solely upon enhancing their +personal fortunes. The socialist contention (set forth by Marx and +Engels in 1848) that competition destroyed itself, and that the whole +movement of industry was inevitably toward consolidation, began to +receive attention, although the socialist solution of the problem was +not accepted. + +This change in attitude was the result partly of the testimony of +practical business men before the Industrial Commission in 1900, which +was summarized in the following manner by the Commission: "Among the +causes which have led to the formation of industrial combinations, most +of the witnesses were of the opinion that competition, so vigorous that +profits of nearly all competing establishments were destroyed, is to be +given the first place. Even Mr. Havemeyer said this, though, as he +believed that in many cases competition was brought about by the fact +that the too high protective tariff had tempted too many rivals into +the field, he named the customs tariff law as the primal cause. Many of +the witnesses say that their organization was formed to make economies, +to lessen competition, and to get higher profits--another way of saying +that competition is the cause without conceding that the separate plants +were forced to combine." + +In a careful and thoughtful analysis of the problem, published in 1900 +by Professor J. W. Jenks, then of Cornell University, the wastes of +competition and the economies of combination (within limits) were +pointed out with clarity and precision. The Industrial Commission had +reported that rebates and discriminations by railways had been declared +to be a leading cause of combination by several witnesses appearing +before it; but Professor Jenks at the close of his survey came to the +positive conclusion "that, whenever the nature of the industry is one +which is peculiarly adapted for organization on a large scale, these +peculiarities will so strengthen the tendency toward a virtual monopoly +that, without legal aid and special discriminations or advantages being +granted by either the State or any other influence, a combination will +be made, and if shrewdly managed can and, after more experience in this +line has been gained, probably will practically control permanently the +market, unless special legal efforts better directed than any so far +attempted shall prevent."[50] The logical result of this conclusion is +at least government supervision, and this Mr. Jenks advocated. + +Whether some special privileges beyond the ownership of basic natural +resources was necessary to bring about combinations on a large scale, +the leaders in such combinations seem to have engaged extensively in +politics, contributing to the campaign funds of both parties, helping to +select their candidates, and maintaining expensive lobbies at Washington +and at the capitals of the several states. Mr. Havemeyer admitted before +a Senate committee in 1893 that the Sugar Trust was "a Democrat in a +Democratic state and a Republican in a Republican state"; and added that +in his opinion all other large corporations made contributions to the +two leading parties as a matter of course, for "protection." The +testimony taken by the New York insurance investigating committee in +1905 and by the Clapp committee of the United States Senate in 1912 +revealed the fact that during the period between 1896 and 1912 millions +of dollars had been contributed to the Republican party by the men who +had been most active in organizing the great industrial combinations, +and that representatives of the same group had also given aid and +comfort to the Democratic party,[51] although the latter, being out of +power at Washington, could not levy tribute with the same effectiveness. + +The statesman of the new capitalism was Mr. Marcus A. Hanna. Mr. Hanna +was born in 1837 of pioneer stock of the second or third generation, +after the roughness of the earlier days was somewhat smoothed away +without injury to the virility of the fiber. He entered business in +Cleveland in 1858 at a time when a remarkable group of business men, +including Mr. John D. Rockefeller, were laying the foundation of their +fortunes. Endowed with hard, practical, economic sense, he refused to be +carried away by the enthusiasm that was sweeping thousands of young men +of his age into the Union army, and he accordingly remained at his post +of business.[52] It was fortunate for his career that he did not lose +those four years, for it was then that he made the beginnings of his +great estate in coal, iron, oil, and merchandising. + +Mr. Hanna, like most of the new generation of northern business men, was +an ardent Republican. "He went into politics as a citizen," remarks his +biographer. "The motive, in so far as it was conscious, was undoubtedly +patriotic. That he should wish to serve his country as well as himself +and his family was rooted in his make-up. If he proposed to serve his +country, a man of his disposition and training could only do so by +active work in party politics. Patriotism meant to him Republicanism. +Good government meant chiefly Republican government. Hence the extreme +necessity of getting good Republicans elected and the absolute identity +in his mind and in the minds of most of his generation between public +and party service."[53] In his early days, therefore, he participated in +politics in a small way, but it was not until 1891, during the candidacy +of Mr. McKinley for governor of Ohio and Mr. Sherman for the Senate, +that he began to serve his party in a large way by raising campaign +funds.[54] + +In 1895 Mr. Hanna retired from active business and set about the task +of elevating Mr. McKinley to the Presidency. He spent a great deal of +time at first in the South securing Republican delegates from the states +where the Republican party was a shadow, and other than party +considerations entered largely into selection of delegates to the +Republican convention. While laying a solid foundation in the South, Mr. +Hanna bent every effort in capturing the delegates in northern states. +According to Mr. Croly, "Almost the whole cost of the campaign for Mr. +McKinley's nomination was paid by Mr. Hanna.... He did receive some help +from Mr. McKinley's personal friends in Ohio and elsewhere, but its +amount was small compared to the total expenses. First and last Mr. +Hanna contributed something over $100,000 toward the expense of the +canvass."[55] + +Mr. Hanna firmly believed, and quite naturally too, that the large +business concerns which had prospered under the policies of the +Republican party should contribute generously to its support. As early +as 1888, when the tariff scare seized certain sections of the country, +he was selected as financial auxiliary to the Republican national +committee, and raised about $100,000 in Cleveland, Toledo, Mahoning +Valley, and adjacent territory.[56] + +But Mr. Hanna's greatest exploits in financing politics were in +connection with Mr. McKinley's campaigns. In 1896 he at first +encountered some difficulties because of his middle western connections +and the predilection of Wall Street for Mr. Levi P. Morton in preference +to Mr. McKinley. "Mr. James J. Hill states that on August 15, just when +the strenuous work of the campaign was beginning, he met Mr. Hanna by +accident in New York and found the chairman very much discouraged. Mr. +Hanna described the kind of work which was planned by the Committee and +its necessarily heavy expense. He had been trying to raise the needed +money, but with only small success. The financiers of New York would not +contribute. It looked as if he might have to curtail his plan of +campaign, and he was so disheartened that he talked about quitting. Mr. +Hill immediately offered to accompany Mr. Hanna on a tour through the +high places of Wall Street, and during the next five days they succeeded +in collecting as much money as was immediately necessary. Thereafter Mr. +Hanna did not need any further personal introduction to the leading +American financiers."[57] + +Many grave charges were brought against Mr. Hanna to the effect that he +had no scruples in the use of money for corrupt purposes, but such +charges have never been substantiated to the satisfaction of his +friends. That in earlier days he employed the methods which were common +among public service corporations, is admitted by his biographer, but +condoned on the ground that practically every other street railway +company in the country was confronted with the alternative of buying +votes or influence. Mr. Hanna's Cleveland company "the West Side Street +Railway Company and its successors were no exception to this rule. It +was confronted by its competitors, who had no scruples about employing +customary methods, and if it had been more scrupulous than they, its +competitors would have carried off all the prizes. Mr. Hanna had, as I +have said, a way of making straight for his goal.... He and his company +did what was necessary to obtain the additional franchises needed for +the development of the system. The railroad contributed to local +campaign committees and the election expenses of particular councilmen; +and it did so for the purpose of exercising an effective influence over +the action of the council in street railway matters."[58] + +Grave charges were also made at the time of Mr. Hanna's candidacy for +the United States Senate that he employed the methods which he had found +so advantageous in public-service-corporation politics, but his +biographer, Mr. Croly, indignantly denies the allegation, showing very +conclusively that Mr. Hanna won his nomination squarely on the issue put +before the Republican voters and was under the rules of politics +entitled to the election by the legislature. Mr. Hanna's career, says +Mr. Croly, "demanded an honorable victory. Like every honest man he had +conscientious scruples about buying votes for his own political benefit, +and his conscience when aroused was dictatorial.... It does not follow +that no money was corruptly used for Mr. Hanna's benefit. Columbus +[Ohio] was full of rich friends less scrupulous than he.... They may +have been willing to spend money in Mr. Hanna's interest and without his +knowledge. Whether as a matter of fact any such money was spent I do not +know, but under the circumstances the possibility thereof should be +frankly admitted."[59] + +In his political science as well as his business of politics, Mr. Hanna +looked to the instant need of things. He does not seem to have been a +student of history or of the experience of his own or other countries in +the field of social legislation. As United States Senator he made +practically no speeches, if we except his remarks in favor of ship +subsidies and liberal treatment of armor plate manufacturers. On the +stump, for in later years he developed some facility in popular +addresses, he confined his reflections to the customary generalizations +about prosperity and his chief contribution to political phraseology was +the slogan, "Stand pat."[60] When not engaged in actual labor of +partisan contests, Mr. Hanna seems to have enjoyed the pleasure of the +table and good company rather than the arduous researches of the student +of politics. He had an immense amount of shrewd practical sense, and he +divined a good deal more by his native powers of quick perception than +many a statesman of the old school, celebrated for his profundity as a +"constitutional lawyer and jurist." + +The complete clew to Mr. Hanna's philosophy of politics is thus summed +up by his penetrating and sympathetic biographer, Mr. Croly: "We must +bear in mind that (1) he was an industrial pioneer and instinctively +took to politics as well as to business; (2) that in politics as in +business he wanted to accomplish results; (3) that politics meant to him +active party service; (4) that successful party service meant to him the +acceptance of prevailing political methods and abuses; and (5) finally +that he was bound by the instinctive consistency of his nature to +represent in politics, not merely his other dominant interest, but the +essential harmony between the interests of business and that of the +whole community." In other words, Mr. Hanna believed consistently and +honestly in the superior fitness of business men to conduct the politics +of a country which was predominantly commercial in character. He was not +unaware of the existence of a working class; in fact he was said to be a +generous and sympathetic employer of labor; but he could not conceive +the use of government instrumentalities frankly in behalf of that class. +Indeed, he thought that the chief function of the government was to help +business and not to inquire into its methods or interfere with its +processes. + +An illustration of Mr. Hanna's theory of governmental impotence in the +presence of the dominant private interests was afforded in the debate in +the Senate over the price to be paid for armor plate, in the summer of +1900. The Senate proposed that not more than a stipulated price should +be paid to the two steel companies, Carnegie and Bethlehem, which were +not competing with each other; and that, in case they failed to accept, +a government manufacturing plant should be erected. Mr. Hanna's +proposition was that the price of steel should be left, as the House had +proposed, with the Secretary of the Navy, and he warmly resisted all +government interference. When it was brought out in debate that the +steel companies had refused the government officers the data upon which +to determine whether the price charged was too high, Mr. Hanna +declared: "They did perfectly right in not disclosing those facts. That +is their business; and if they chose not to give the information to the +public, that was their business also." In short, he took the position +that the government should provide ample protection to the steel +interests against foreign competition, and pay substantially whatever +the steel companies might charge for armor plate (for without proper +data the Secretary of the Navy could not know when prices were +reasonable), and then ask them no questions whatever. Here we have both +_laissez faire_ and capitalism in their simplest form. + +Mr. Hanna, however, had none of the arts of the demagogue, not even the +minor and least objectional arts. His bluntness and directness in labor +conflicts won for him the respect of large numbers of his employees. His +frank and open advocacy of ship subsidies and similar devices commanded +the regard, if not the esteem, of his political enemies. His chief +faults, as viewed by his colleagues as well as his enemies, were in many +instances his leading virtues. If some of the policies and tactics which +he resorted to are now discredited in politics, it must be admitted that +he did not invent them, and that it was his open and clean-cut advocacy +of them that first made them clearly intelligible to the public. When +all the minor and incidental details and personalities of the conflicts +in which he was engaged are forgotten, Mr. Hanna will stand out in +history as the most resourceful and typical representative of the new +capitalism which closed the nineteenth century and opened the new. + + +_The Development of the Urban Population_ + +The rapid advance of business enterprise which followed the Spanish War +made more striking than ever the social results of the industrial +revolution.[61] In the first place, there was a notable growth in the +urban as contrasted with the rural population. At the close of the +century more than one third of the population had become city dwellers. +The census of 1910 classified as urban all thickly populated areas of +more than 2500 inhabitants, including New England towns which are in +part rural in character, and on this basis reported 46.3 per cent of the +population of the United States as urban and 53.7 rural. On this basis, +92.8 per cent of the population of Massachusetts was reported as urban, +78.8 per cent in New York, and 60.4 per cent in Pennsylvania. That +census also reported that "the rate of increase for the population of +urban areas was over three times that for the population living in rural +territory." + +The industrial section of this urban population was largely composed of +non-home owners. The census of 1900 reported "that the largest +proportion of hired homes, 87.9 per cent, is found in New York City. In +Manhattan and Bronx boroughs the proportion is even higher, 94.1 per +cent, as compared with 82 per cent for Brooklyn.... There is also a very +large proportion of hired homes in Boston, Fall River, Jersey City, and +Memphis, constituting in each of them four fifths of all the homes in +1900." Of the great cities having a large proportion of home owners, +Detroit stood at the head, with 22.5 per cent of the population owning +homes free of mortgage. + +Another feature of the evolution of the working class was the influx of +foreign labor, and the change in its racial character. The total alien +immigration between 1880 and 1900 amounted to about 9,000,000; and in +1905 the immigration for the fiscal year reached 1,026,449. For the +fiscal year 1910 it reached 1,198,037. During this period the racial +composition of the immigration changed decidedly. Before 1880 Celtic and +Teutonic nations furnished three fourths of the immigrants; but in 1905 +the proportions were reversed and Slavic and Iberian nations, Italy +leading, sent three fourths of the immigrants. + +This alien population drifted naturally to the industrial cities, and +the census of 1910 reported that of the 229 cities having 25,000 +inhabitants and more, the native whites of native parentage furnished +only 35.6 per cent, and that the foreign-born whites constituted 44.5 +per cent in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 40.4 per cent in New York City, and +35.7 per cent in Chicago. From the standpoint of politics, a significant +feature of this development is the manning of American industries +largely by foreign laborers who as aliens possess no share in the +government. + +A third important aspect of this transformation in the mass of the +population is the extensive employment of women in industries. The +census of 1910 reported that 19.5 per cent of the industrial wage +earners were women, and that the proportion of women breadwinners was +steadily increasing. The proportion of females who were engaged in +gainful pursuits was 14.7 per cent in 1870, 16 per cent in 1880, 19 per +cent in 1890, and 20.6 per cent in 1900. At the last date, about one +third of the females over ten years of age in Philadelphia were engaged +in gainful pursuits, and one eighth were employed in industries. At the +same time about 15,000 out of 42,000 women at Fall River, Massachusetts, +were in industries. + + +_The Labor Movement_ + +The centralization of capital and the development of the new statesmen +of Mr. Hanna's school were accompanied by a consolidation of the +laboring classes and the evolution of a more definite political program +for labor. As has been pointed out above, the economic revolution which +followed the Civil War was attended by the formation of unions in +certain trades and by the establishment of the Knights of Labor. This +national organization was based on the principle that all of the working +class could be brought together in a great society, equipped for waging +strikes in the field of industry and advancing a program of labor +legislation at the same time. This society, like a similar one promoted +by Robert Owen in England half a century before, fell to pieces on +account of its inherent weaknesses, particularly the inability of the +leaders to overcome the indifference of the workingmen in prosperous +trades to the struggles of their less fortunate brethren. + +Following the experience of England also, the labor leaders began to +build on a more secure foundation; namely, the organization of the +members of specific trades into local unions followed by their +amalgamation into larger societies. Having failed to stir a class +consciousness, they fell back upon the trade or group consciousness of +identical interests. In 1881, ninety-five trade-unions were federated on +a national scale, and in 1886 this society was reorganized as the +American Federation of Labor. The more radical labor men went on with +the Knights, but the foundations of that society were sapped by the more +solidly organized rival, which, in spite of many defeats and reverses, +steadily increased in its membership and strength. In 1910 the +Federation reported that its affiliations included 120 international +unions, 39 state federations, 632 city central bodies, 431 local +trade-unions, and 216 Federal labor unions, with a membership totaling +1,744,444 persons. + +Unlike German and English trade-unionists, the American Federation of +Labor steadily refused to go into politics as a separate party +contesting at the polls for the election of "labor" representatives. +This abstention from direct political action was a matter of expediency, +it seems, rather than of set principle. Mr. John Mitchell, the eminent +former leader of the miners, declared that "wage earners should in +proportion to their strength secure the nomination and election of a +number of representatives to the governing bodies of city, state, and +nation"; but he added that "a third Labor Party is not for the present +desirable, because it could not obtain a majority and could not +therefore force its will upon the community at large." This view, Mr. +Mitchell admitted, was merely temporary and due to circumstances, for +he frankly said: "Should it come to pass that the two great American +political parties oppose labor legislation as they now favor it, it +would be the imperative duty of unionists to form a third party to +secure some measure of reform." This was also substantially the position +taken by the President of the American Federation, Mr. Gompers. + +But it is not to be supposed that the American Federation of Labor +refused to consider the question of labor in politics. Its prominent +leaders were affiliated with the American Civic Federation, composed +largely of employers of labor, professional men, and philanthropists, +and known as one of the most powerful anti-socialist organizations in +the United States. Not only were Mr. Gompers and other labor leaders +associated with this society which strongly opposed the formation of a +class party in the United States, but they steadily waged war on the +socialists who were attempting to organize the working class +politically. The leaders in the American Federation, with a few +exceptions, were thus definitely anti-socialist and were on record on +this political issue. Moreover, while warning workingmen against +political action, Mr. Gompers and Mr. Mitchell openly identified +themselves with the Democratic party and endeavored to swing the working +class vote to that party. Mr. Gompers was especially active in the +support of Mr. Bryan in 1908, and boasted that 80 per cent of the voting +members of the Federation cast their ballots for the Democratic +candidate. + +In fact, a study of the writings and speeches of the leaders in the +American Federation of Labor shows that they had a fairly definite +politico-economic program, although they did not admit it. They favored +in general municipal and government ownership of what are called +"natural" monopolies, and they sympathized with the smaller business men +in their attempt to break up the great industrial corporations against +which organized labor had been able to make little headway. They +supported all kinds of labor legislation, such as a minimum wage, +workmen's compensation, sanitary laws for factories, the shortening of +hours, prohibition of child labor, insurance against accidents, sickness +and old age pensions, and industrial education. They were also on record +in favor of such political reforms as the initiative, referendum, and +recall, and they were especially vigorous in their efforts to curtail +the power of the courts to issue injunctions against strikers. In other +words, they leaned decidedly toward "state socialism" and expected to +secure their ends by supporting the Democratic party, historically the +party of individualism, and _laissez faire_. This apparent anomaly is +explained by the fact that state socialism does not imply the political +triumph of the working class, but rather the strengthening of the petty +bourgeoisie against great capitalists. + +It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the American Federation +of Labor was solidly in support of Mr. Gompers' program. On the +contrary, at each national convention of the Federation the socialist +members attempted to carry the organization over into direct political +action. These attempts were defeated each year, but close observers of +the labor movement discovered that the socialists were electing a large +number of local and state trade-union officials, and those who hope to +keep the organization in the old paths are anxious about the outcome at +the end of Mr. Gompers' long service. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [47] _Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Steel + Industry_, July 1, 1911. + + [48] Moody, _The Truth about the Trusts_, p. 493. + + [49] Professor W. Z. Ripley, _Political Science Quarterly_, + March, 1911. + + [50] _The Trust Problem_ (1900 ed.), p. 210. + + [51] See the Parker episode, below, p. 268. + + [52] Mr. Hanna was drafted in 1864, but saw no actual + service. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_, p. 44. + + [53] Croly, p. 113. + + [54] _Ibid._, p. 160. + + [55] Croly, p. 183. + + [56] _Ibid._, p. 149. + + [57] Croly, p. 219. + + [58] Croly, p. 81. + + [59] _Ibid._, p. 264. + + [60] Croly, p. 417. + + [61] See above, Chap. II. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT + + +The administrations of Mr. Roosevelt cannot be characterized by a +general phrase, although they will doubtless be regarded by historians +as marking an epoch in the political history of the United States. If we +search for great and significant social and economic legislation during +that period, we shall hardly find it, nor can we discover in his +numerous and voluminous messages much that is concrete in spite of their +immense suggestiveness. The adoption of the income tax amendment, the +passage of the amendment for popular election of Senators, the +establishment of parcel post and postal savings banks, and the +successful prosecution of trusts and combinations,--all these +achievements belong in time to the administration of Mr. Taft, although +it will be claimed by some that they were but a fruition of plans laid +or policies advocated by Mr. Roosevelt. + +One who attempts to estimate and evaluate those eight years of +multifarious activity will find it difficult to separate the transient +and spectacular from the permanent and fundamental. In the foreground +stand the interference in the coal strike, the acquisition of the Panama +Canal strip, voluminous messages discussing every aspect of our complex +social and political life, vigorous and spirited interference with state +elections, as in the case of Mr. Hearst's campaign in New York, and in +city politics, as in the case of Mr. Burton's contest in Cleveland, +Ohio, the pressing of the idea of conserving natural resources upon the +public mind, acrimonious disputes with private citizens like Mr. +Harriman, and, finally, the closing days of bitter hostilities with +Congress over the Tennessee Coal and Iron affair and appropriations for +special detectives to be at executive disposal. + + +_Mr. Roosevelt's Doctrines_ + +During those years the country was much torn with the scandals arising +from investigations, such as the life insurance inquest in New York, +which revealed grave lapses from the paths of rectitude on the part of +men high in public esteem, and gross and vulgar use of money in +campaigns. No little of the discredit connected with these affairs fell +upon the Republican party, not because its methods were shown to be +worse in general than those of the Democrats, but because it happened to +be in power. The great task of counteracting this discontent fell upon +Mr. Roosevelt, who smote with many a message the money changers in the +temple of his own party, and convinced a large portion of the country +that he had not only driven them out but had refused all association +with them. + +Mr. Roosevelt was thus quick to catch the prevailing public temper. "It +makes not a particle of difference," he said in 1907, "whether these +crimes are committed by a capitalist or by a laborer, by a leading +banker or manufacturer or railroad man, or by a leading representative +of a labor union. Swindling in stocks, corrupting legislatures, making +fortunes by the inflation of securities, by wrecking railroads, by +destroying competitors through rebates,--these forms of wrongdoing in +the capitalist are far more infamous than any ordinary form of +embezzlement or forgery.... The business man who condones such conduct +stands on a level with the labor man who deliberately supports a corrupt +demagogue and agitator." + + * * * * * + +Any one who takes the trouble to examine with care Mr. Roosevelt's +messages and other public utterances during the period of his +administration will discover the elements of many of his policies which +later took more precise form. + +In his first message to Congress, on December 3, 1901, Mr. Roosevelt +gave considerable attention to trusts and collateral economic problems. +He refused to concede the oft-repeated claim that great fortunes were +the product of special legal privileges. "The creation of these great +corporate fortunes," he said, "has not been due to the tariff nor to any +other governmental action, but to natural causes in the business world, +operating in other countries as they operate in our own. The process has +aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without +warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer, the poor +have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, +the wage worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in +this country at the present time. There have been abuses connected with +the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune +accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person +specially benefitted only on condition of conferring immense incidental +benefits upon others." + +While thus contending that large fortunes in the main were the product +of "natural economic forces," Mr. Roosevelt admitted that some grave +evils had arisen in connection with combinations and trusts, and +foreshadowed in his proposed remedial legislation the policy of +regulation and new nationalism. "When the Constitution was adopted, at +the end of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom could foretell the +sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions, which +were to take place by the beginning of the twentieth century. At that +time it was accepted as a matter of course that the several states were +the proper authorities to regulate ... the comparatively insignificant +and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are +now wholly different, and a wholly different action is called for." The +remedy he proposed was publicity for corporate affairs, the regulation, +not the prohibition, of great combinations, the elimination of specific +abuses such as overcapitalization, and government supervision. If the +powers of Congress, under the Constitution, were inadequate, then a +constitutional amendment should be submitted conferring the proper +power. The Interstate Commerce Act should likewise be amended. "The +railway is a public servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all +shippers alike. The Government should see to it that within its +jurisdiction this is so." Conservation of natural resources, irrigation +plans, the creation of a department of Commerce and Labor, army and navy +reform, and the construction of the Panama Canal were also recommended +at the same time (1901). + +In this message, nearly all of Mr. Roosevelt's later policies as +President are presaged, and in it also are marked the spirit and +phraseology which have done so much to make him the idol of the American +middle class, and particularly of the social reformer. There are, for +instance, many little aphorisms which appeal to the moral sentiments. +"When all is said and done," he says, "the rule of brotherhood remains +as the indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national +life for which we are to strive. Each man must work for himself, and +unless he so works no outside help can avail him; but each man must +remember also that he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that, while no +man who refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to himself or any +one else, yet each at times stumbles or halts, each at times needs to +have the helping hand outstretched to him." The "reckless agitator" and +anarchist are dealt with in a summary fashion, and emphasis is laid on +the primitive virtues of honesty, sobriety, industry, and +self-restraint. The new phrases of the social reformer also appear side +by side with the exclamations of virtuous indignation: "social +betterment," "sociological law," "rule of brotherhood," "high aims," +"foolish visionary," "equity between man and man"--in fact the whole +range of the terminology of social "uplift." + +None of Mr. Roosevelt's later messages added anything new by way of +economic doctrine or moral principle. The same notions recurred again +and again, often in almost identical language and frequently in the form +of long quotations from previous messages. But there appeared from time +to time different concrete proposals, elaborating those already +suggested to Congress. The tariff he occasionally touched upon, but +never at great length or with much emphasis. He frequently reiterated +the doctrine that the country was committed to protection, that the +tariff was not responsible for the growth of combinations and trusts, +and that no economic question of moment could be solved by its revision +or abandonment. + +As to the trusts, Mr. Roosevelt consistently maintained the position +which he had taken as governor of New York and had stated in his first +message; namely, that most of the legislation against trusts was futile +and that publicity and governmental supervision were the only methods of +approaching the question which the logic of events admitted. In his +message of December, 1907, he said: "The anti-trust law should not be +repealed; but it should be made more efficient and more in harmony with +actual conditions. It should be so amended as to forbid only the kind of +combination which does harm to the general public, such amendment to be +accompanied by, or to be an incident of, a grant of supervisory power to +the Government over these big concerns engaged in interstate business. +This should be accompanied by provision for the compulsory publication +of accounts and the subjection of books and papers to the inspection of +the Government officials.... The Congress has the power to charter +corporations to engage in interstate and foreign commerce, and a general +law can be enacted under the provisions of which existing corporations +could take out federal charters and new federal corporations could be +created. An essential provision of such a law should be a method of +predetermining by some federal board or commission whether the applicant +for a federal charter was an association or combination within the +restrictions of the federal law. Provision should also be made for +complete publicity in all matters affecting the public, and complete +protection to the investing public and the shareholders in the matter of +issuing corporate securities. If an incorporation law is not deemed +advisable, a license act for big interstate corporations might be +enacted; or a combination of the two might be tried. The supervision +established might be analogous to that now exercised over national +banks. At least, the anti-trust act should be supplemented by specific +prohibitions of the methods which experience has shown have been of most +service in enabling monopolistic combinations to crush out competition. +The real owners of a corporation should be compelled to do business in +their own name. The right to hold stock in other corporations should be +denied to interstate corporations, unless on approval by the proper +Government officials, and a prerequisite to such approval should be the +listing with the Government of all owners and stockholders, both by the +corporation owning such stock and by the corporation in which such stock +is owned." + +With that prescience which characterized his political career from his +entrance into politics, Mr. Roosevelt foresaw that it was impossible +for capitalists in the United States to postpone those milder reforms, +such as employers' liability, which had been accepted in the enlightened +countries of Europe long before the close of the nineteenth century. In +his message of December 3, 1907, he pointed out that "the number of +accidents to wage-workers, including those that are preventable and +those that are not, has become appalling in the mechanical, +manufacturing and transportation operations of the day. It works grim +hardship to the ordinary wage-worker and his family to have the effect +of such an accident fall solely upon him." Mr. Roosevelt thereupon +recommended the strengthening of the employers' liability law which had +been recently passed by Congress, and urged upon that body "the +enactment of a law which will ... bring federal legislation up to the +standard already established by all European countries, and which will +serve as a stimulus to the various states to perfect their legislation +in this regard." + +As has been pointed out above, Mr. Roosevelt, in all of his +recommendations, took the ground that the prevailing system of +production and distribution of wealth was essentially sound, that +substantial justice was now being worked out between man and man, and +that only a few painful excrescences needed to be lopped off. Only on +one occasion, it seems, did he advise the adoption of any measures +affecting directly the distribution of acquired wealth. In his message +of December 3, 1907, he declared that when our tax laws were revised, +the question of inheritance and income taxes should be carefully +considered. He spoke with diffidence of the latter because of the +difficulties of evasion involved, and the decision of the Supreme Court +in 1895. "Nevertheless," he said, "a graduated income tax of the proper +type would be a desirable feature of federal taxation, and it is to be +hoped that one may be devised which the Supreme Court will declare +constitutional." The inheritance tax was, in his opinion, however, +preferable; such a tax had been upheld by the Court and was "far more +important for the purpose of having the fortunes of the country bear in +proportion to their increase in size a corresponding increase and burden +of taxation." He accordingly approved the principle of a progressive +inheritance tax, increasing to perhaps 25 per cent in the case of +distant relatives. + +While advocating social reforms and castigating wrong-doers at home, Mr. +Roosevelt was equally severe in dealing with Latin-American states which +failed to discharge their obligations to other countries faithfully. In +his message of December, 1905, he said: "We must make it evident that we +do not intend to permit the Monroe doctrine to be used by any nation on +this continent as a shield to protect it from the consequences of its +own misdeeds against foreign nations. If a republic to the south of us +commits a tort against a foreign nation, such as an outrage against a +citizen of that nation, then the Monroe doctrine does not force us to +interfere to prevent the punishment of the tort, save to see that the +punishment does not assume the form of territorial occupation in any +shape. The case is more difficult when it refers to a contractual +obligation.... The country would certainly decline to go to war to +prevent a foreign government from collecting a just debt; on the other +hand it is very inadvisable to permit any foreign power to take +possession, even temporarily, of the custom houses of an American +republic in order to enforce the payment of its obligations; for such a +temporary occupation might turn into a permanent occupation. The only +escape from these alternatives may at any time be that we must ourselves +undertake to bring about some arrangement by which so much as possible +of a just obligation shall be paid." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Roosevelt's messages and various activities while he was serving the +unexpired term of President McKinley upset all of the conservative +traditions of the executive office. He intervened, without power, in the +anthracite coal strike of 1902, and had the satisfaction of seeing the +miners make substantial gains at the hands of a commission appointed by +himself, to which the contestants had agreed to submit the issues. He +began a prosecution of the Northern Securities Company at a time when +such actions against great combinations of capital were unfashionable. +He forced an investigation of the post-office administration in 1903, +which revealed frauds of huge dimensions; and he gave the administration +of public lands a turning over which led to the successful criminal +prosecution of two United States Senators. Citizens acquired the habit +of looking to the headlines of the morning paper for some new and +startling activity on the part of the President. Politicians of the old +school in both parties, who had been used to settling difficulties by +quiet conferences within the "organization," stood aghast. They did not +like Mr. Roosevelt's methods which they characterized as "erratic"; but +the death of Mr. Hanna in February, 1904, took away the only forceful +leader who might have consolidated the opposition within Republican +ranks. + + +_The Campaign of 1904_ + +Nevertheless the rumor was vigorously circulated that Mr. Roosevelt was +violently opposed by "Wall Street and the Trusts." Whatever may have +been the source of this rumor it only enhanced the President's +popularity. In December, 1903, Senator O. H. Platt wrote: "I do not know +how much importance to attach to the current opposition to Roosevelt by +what are called the 'corporate and money influences' in New York.... +There is a great deal said about it, as if it were widespread and +violent. I know that it does not include the whole of that class of +people, because I know many bankers and capitalists, railroad and +business men who are his strong, good friends, and they are not among +the smaller and weaker parties, either.... Now it is a great mistake for +capitalistic interests to oppose Roosevelt.... I think he will be +nominated by acclamation, so what is to be gained by the Wall Street +contingent and the railroad interests in this seeming opposition to +him?... There is no Republican in the United States who can be elected +except Roosevelt.... He is going to be the people's candidate, not the +candidate of the trusts or of the hoodlums, but of the conservative +elements." + +The Republican convention in 1904 was uneventful beyond measure. Though +Mr. Roosevelt was disliked by many members of his party, his nomination +was unavoidable, and even his opponents abstained from any word or deed +that might have disturbed the concord of the occasion. The management of +the convention was principally in the hands of the men from whom Mr. +Roosevelt afterward broke and stigmatized as "reactionary." Mr. Elihu +Root was temporary chairman, Mr. Joseph G. Cannon was permanent +chairman, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge was chairman of the committee on +resolutions which reported the platform, Mr. W. M. Crane and Mr. Boies +Penrose were selected as members of the national committee from their +respective states, and Mr. Frank S. Black, of New York, made the speech +nominating Mr. Roosevelt. Throughout, the proceedings were harmonious; +the platform and the nomination were accepted vociferously without a +dissenting vote. + +The Republican platform of 1904 gave no recognition of any of the newer +social and economic problems which were soon to rend that party in +twain. After the fashion of announcements made by parties already in +power, it laid great emphasis upon Republican achievements since the +great victory of 1896. A protective tariff under which all industries +had revived and prospered had been enacted; public credit was now +restored, Cuban independence established, peace, freedom, order, and +prosperity given to Porto Rico, the Philippine Islands endowed with the +largest civil liberty ever enjoyed there, the laws against unjust +discriminations by vast aggregations of capital fearlessly enforced, +and the gold standard upheld. The program of positive action included +nothing new: extension of foreign markets, encouragement of American +shipping, enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment wherever the suffrage +had been curtailed, and indorsement of civil service, international +arbitration, and liberal pensions. The trust plank was noncommittal as +to concrete policy: "Combinations of capital and of labor are the +results of the economic movement of the age, but neither must be +permitted to infringe the rights and interests of the people. Such +combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are alike +entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are subject to the laws +and neither can be permitted to break them." + +In their campaign book for 1904, the Republican leaders exhibited Mr. +Roosevelt as the ideal American in a superlative degree. "Theodore +Roosevelt's character," runs the eulogy, "is no topic for difference +of opinion or for party controversy. It is without mystery or +concealment. It has the primary qualities that in all ages have been +admired and respected: physical prowess, great energy and vitality, +straightforwardness and moral courage, promptness in action, talent for +leadership.... Theodore Roosevelt, as a typical personality, has won the +hearty confidence of the American people; and he has not shrunk from +recognizing and using his influence as an advocate of the best standards +of personal, domestic, and civic life in the country. He has made these +things relating to life and conduct a favorite theme in speech and essay +and he has diligently practiced what he preached. Thus he has become a +power for wholesomeness in every department of our life as a people." + + * * * * * + +The Democratic nominee, Mr. Alton B. Parker, failed to elicit any +enthusiasm in the rank and file of the party. He had supported the +Democratic candidate at a time when many of his conservative friends had +repudiated Mr. Bryan altogether, and thus he could not be branded as a +"bolter." But Mr. Parker's long term of service as judge of the highest +court of New York, his remoteness from actual partisan controversies, +his refusal to plunge into a whirlwind stumping campaign, and his +dignified reserve, all combined to prevent his getting a grip upon the +popular imagination. His weakness was further increased by the +half-hearted support given by Mr. Bryan who openly declared the party to +be under the control of the "Wall Street element," but confessed that he +intended to give his vote to Mr. Parker, although the latter, in a +telegram to the nominating convention at St. Louis, had announced his +unflinching adherence to the gold standard. + +The Democratic platform, except in its denunciation of the Republican +administration, was as indefinite as the occasion demanded. Independence +should be promised to the Filipinos at the proper time and under proper +circumstances; there should be a revision and gradual reduction of the +tariff by "the friends of the masses"; United States Senators should be +elected by popular vote; combinations and trusts which restrict +competition, control production, or fix prices and wages should be +forbidden and punished by law. The administration of Mr. Roosevelt was +denounced as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and +arbitrary," and the proposal of the Republican platform to enforce the +Fourteenth Amendment was condemned as "Bourbon-like, selfish, and +narrow," and designed to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional +strife. Constitutional, simple, and orderly government was promised, +affording no sensations, offering no organic changes in the political or +economic structure, and making no departures from the government "as +framed and established by the fathers of the Republic." + + * * * * * + +The only extraordinary incident in the campaign of 1904 occurred toward +the closing days, when Mr. Parker repeatedly charged that the Republican +party was being financed by contributions from corporations and trust +magnates. The Democratic candidate also declared that Mr. Cortelyou, as +Secretary of Commerce and Labor, had acquired through the use of +official inquisitorial powers inside information as to the practices of +trusts, and that as chairman of the Republican national committee, he +had used his special knowledge to extort contributions from +corporations. These corrupt and debasing methods had, in the opinion of +Mr. Parker, threatened the integrity of the republic and transformed the +government of the people into "a government whose officers are +practically chosen by a handful of corporate managers, who levy upon the +assets of the stockholders whom they represent such sums of money as +they deem requisite to place the conduct of the Government in such +hands as they consider best for their private interests." + +These grave charges were made as early as October 24, and it was +expected that Mr. Cortelyou would reply immediately, particularly as Mr. +Parker was repeating and amplifying them. However, no formal answer came +until November 5, three days before the election, when a countercharge +was impossible. On that date Mr. Roosevelt issued a signed statement, +analyzing the charges of his opponent, and closing with the positive +declaration that "the statements made by Mr. Parker are unqualifiedly +and atrociously false." + +No doubt it would have been difficult for Mr. Parker to have +substantiated many of the details in his charges, but the general truth +of his contention that the Republican campaign was financed by railway +and trust magnates was later established by the life insurance +investigation in New York in 1905, by the exposures of trust methods by +Mr. Hearst in the publication of Standard Oil Letters, and by the +revelations made before the Clapp committee of the Senate in 1912. It is +true, Mr. Roosevelt asserted that he knew nothing personally about the +corporation contributions, particularly the Standard Oil gifts, and +although he convinced his friends of his entire innocence in the matter, +seasoned politicians could hardly understand a naďveté so far outside +the range of their experience. + +The Democratic candidate and his friends took open pleasure in the +discomfiture produced in Republican ranks by these unpleasant +revelations, but no little bitterness was added to their cup of joy by +the other side of the story. During the life insurance investigation +one of the life insurance officers declared: "My life was made weary by +the Democratic candidates chasing for money in that campaign. Some of +the very men who to-day are being interviewed in the papers as +denouncing the men who contribute to campaigns,--their shadows were +crossing my path every step I took." Later, before the Clapp committee +in 1912, Mr. August Belmont and Mr. T. F. Ryan, corporation magnates +with wide-reaching financial interests,--the latter particularly famous +for his Tobacco Trust affiliations,--testified that they had +underwritten Mr. Parker's campaign to the amount of several hundred +thousand dollars. Independent newspapers remarked that it seemed to be +another case of the kettle and the pot. + +That the conservative interests looked to the Republican party, if not +to Mr. Roosevelt, for the preservation of good order in politics and the +prevention of radical legislation, is shown by the campaign +contributions on the part of those who had earlier financed Mr. Hanna. +In 1907 a letter from the railroad magnate, Mr. E. H. Harriman, was made +public, in which the writer declared that Mr. Roosevelt had invited him +to Washington in the autumn of 1904, just before the election, that at +the President's request he had raised $250,000 to help carry New York +state, and that he had paid the money over to the Republican treasurer, +Mr. Bliss. Mr. Roosevelt indignantly denied that he had requested Mr. +Harriman to raise a dollar for "the Presidential campaign of 1904." It +will be noted that Mr. Roosevelt here made a distinction between the +state and national campaign. This distinction he again drew during the +United States Senate investigation in 1912, when it became apparent that +the Standard Oil Trust had made a large contribution to the Republican +politicians in 1904. From his testimony, it would appear that Mr. +Roosevelt was unaware of the economic forces which carried him to +victory in 1904. Indeed, from the election returns, he was justified in +regarding his victory as a foregone conclusion, even if the financiers +of the party had not taken such extensive precautions. + +The election returns in 1904 showed that the Democratic candidate had +failed to engage the enthusiasm of his party, for the vote cast for him +was more than a million and a quarter short of that cast for Mr. Bryan +in 1900. The personal popularity of Mr. Roosevelt was fully evidenced in +the electoral and popular votes. Of the former he secured 336 against +140 cast for his opponent, and of the latter he polled nearly 400,000 +more than Mr. McKinley. Nevertheless the total vote throughout the +country was nearly half a million under that of 1900, showing an +undoubted apathy or a dissatisfaction with the two old parties. This +dissatisfaction was further demonstrated in a startling way by the heavy +increase in the socialist ranks, a jump from about 95,000 in 1900 to +more than 400,000. + + +_The Achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's Administrations_ + +Doubtless the most significant of all the laws enacted during Mr. +Roosevelt's administrations was the Hepburn Act passed in 1906. This law +increased the number of the Interstate Commerce Commission[62] to +seven, extended the law to cover pipe lines, express companies, and +sleeping car companies, and bridges, ferries, and railway terminals. It +gave the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to reduce a rate found +to be unreasonable or discriminatory in cases in which complaints were +filed by shippers adversely affected; it abolished "midnight tariffs" +under which favored shippers had been given special rates, by requiring +proper notice of all changes in schedules; and it forbade common +carriers to engage in the transportation of commodities owned by +themselves, except for their own proper uses. + +The Hepburn bill, however, did not confer upon the Interstate Commerce +Commission that power over rates which the Commission had long been +urging as necessary to give shippers the relief they expected. Senator +La Follette, fresh from a fight with the railways in Wisconsin, proposed +several radical amendments in the Senate, and endeavored without avail +to secure the open support of President Roosevelt.[63] The Senator +insisted that it would be possible under the Hepburn bill "for the +commission to determine whether rates were _relatively reasonable_, but +not that they were _reasonable per se_; that one rate could be compared +with another, but that the Commission had no means of determining +whether either rate so compared was itself a reasonable rate." No one +can tell, urged the Senator, whether a rate is reasonable until the +railway in question has been evaluated. This point he pressed with great +insistence, and though defeated at the time, he had the consolation of +having the principle of physical valuation enacted into law in +1913.[64] At all events, the railways found little or no fault with the +Hepburn law, and shortly afterward began to raise their rates in the +face of strong opposition from shippers. + +Two laws relative to foodstuffs, the meat inspection act and the pure +food act, were passed in 1906 in response to the popular demand for +protection against diseased meats and deleterious foods and drugs--a +demand created largely by the revelation of shocking conditions in the +Chicago stockyards and of nefarious practices on the part of a large +number of manufacturers. The first of the measures was intended to +guarantee that the meat shipped in interstate commerce should be derived +from animals which were sound at the time of slaughter, prepared under +sanitary conditions in the packing houses, and adequately inspected by +Federal employees. The second measure covered foods and drugs, and +provided that such articles "must not contain any injurious or +deleterious drug, chemical or preservative, and that the label on each +package must state the exact facts and not be misleading or false in any +particular." The effect of the last of these measures was felt in the +extinction of a large number of patent medicine and other +quasi-fraudulent concerns engaged in interstate trade. + +The social legislation enacted during Mr. Roosevelt's administrations is +not very extensive, although it was accompanied by much discussion at +the time. The most significant piece of labor legislation was the +employers' liability law enacted in 1906, which imposed a liability upon +common carriers engaged in interstate commerce for injuries sustained by +employees in their service. On January 6, 1908, the Supreme Court +declared the act unconstitutional on the ground that it interblended the +exercise of legitimate powers over interstate commerce and interference +with matters outside the scope of such commerce. The act was again taken +up in Congress, and in April of that year a second law, omitting the +objectionable features pointed out by the Court, was enacted. + +A second piece of Federal legislation which is commonly called a labor +measure was the law which went into effect on March 4, 1908, limiting +the hours of railway employees engaged as trainmen or telegraph +operators. As a matter of fact, however, it was not so much the long +hours of trainmen which disturbed Congress as the appalling number of +railway disasters from which the traveling public suffered. At least it +was so stated by the Republican leaders in their campaign of 1908, for +they then declared that "although the great object of the Act is to +promote the safety of travellers upon railroads, by limiting the hours +of service of employees within reasonable bounds, it is none the less +true that in actual operation it enforces humane and considerate +treatment to employees as well as greater safety to the public."[65] + +That public policy with which Mr. Roosevelt's administrations will be +most closely associated is unquestionably the conservation of natural +resources. It is true that he did not originate it or secure the +enactment of any significant legislation on the subject. The matter had +been taken up in Congress and out as early as Mr. Cleveland's first +administration, and the first important law on conservation was the act +of March 3, 1891, which authorized the President to reserve permanently +as forest lands such areas as he deemed expedient. Under this law +successive Presidents withdrew from entry enormous areas of forest +lands. This beginning Mr. Roosevelt enlarged, and by his messages and +speeches, he brought before the country in an impressive and enduring +manner the urgent necessity of abandoning the old policy of drift and of +withholding from the clutches of grasping corporations the meager domain +still left to the people. Without inquiring into what may be the wisest +final policy in the matter of our natural resources, all citizens will +doubtless agree that Mr. Roosevelt's service in this cause was valuable +beyond calculation. + +Among the proudest achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's administration was +the beginning of the actual construction of the Panama Canal. A short +route between the two oceans had long been considered by the leading +commercial nations of the world. In 1850, by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, +the United States and Great Britain had agreed upon the construction of +a canal by a private corporation, under the supervision of the two +countries and other states, which might join the combination, on a basis +of neutralization. The complete failure of the French company organized +by De Lesseps, the hero of the Suez Canal, discouraged all practical +attempts for a time, but the naval advantages of such a waterway was +forced upon public attention in a dramatic manner during the Spanish War +when the battleship _Oregon_ made her historical voyage around the +Horn.[66] + +After the Spanish War was over, Mr. John Hay, Secretary of State, began +the negotiation of a new treaty with Great Britain, which, after many +hitches in the process of coming to terms, was finally ratified by the +Senate in December, 1901. This agreement, known as the Hay-Pauncefote +treaty, set aside the old Clayton-Bulwer convention, and provided that a +canal might be constructed under the supervision of the United States, +either at its own cost or by private enterprise subject to the +stipulated provisions. The United States agreed to adopt certain rules +as the basis of the neutralization of the canal, and expressly declared +that "the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of +war of all nations, observing these Rules, on terms of entire equality, +so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its +citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic +or otherwise."[67] A proposal to forbid the fortification of the canal +was omitted from the final draft, and provision was made for "policing" +the district by the United States. The canal was thus neutralized under +a guarantee of the United States, and certain promises were made in +behalf of that country. + +The exact effect of this treaty was a subject of dispute from the +outset. On the one side, it was said by Mr. Latané that "a unilateral +guarantee amounts to nothing; the effect of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, +therefore, is to place the canal politically as well as commercially +under the absolute control of the United States."[68] On the other hand, +it was contended that this treaty superseded a mutually binding +convention, and that, although it was unilateral in character, the rules +provided in it were solemn obligations binding upon the conscience of +the American nation. Whatever may be the merits of this controversy, it +is certain that the Hay-Pauncefote agreement cleared the way for speedy +and positive action on the part of the United States with regard to the +canal. + +The great question then confronting the country was where and how should +the canal be built. One party favored cutting the channel through +Nicaragua, and in fact two national commissions had reported in favor of +this route. Another party advocated taking over the old French concern +and the construction of the waterway through Panama, a district then +forming a part of Colombia. As many influential Americans had become +interested in the rights of the French company, they began a campaign in +the lobbies of Congress to secure the adoption of that route. At length +in June, 1902, the merits of the Panama case or the persistency of the +lobby, or both, carried through a law providing for the purchase of the +French company's claims at a cost of not more than $40,000,000 and the +acquisition of a canal strip from the republic of Colombia--and failing +this arrangement, the selection of the Nicaragua route. + +On the basis of this law, which was signed June 28, 1902, negotiations +were begun with Colombia, but they ended in failure because that country +expected to secure better terms than those offered by the United States. +The Americans who were interested in the French concern and expected to +make millions out of the purchase of property that was substantially +worthless, were greatly distressed by the refusal of Colombia to ratify +the treaty which had been negotiated. Residents of Panama were likewise +disturbed at this delay in an enterprise which meant great prosperity +for them, and with the sympathy if not the support of the American +administration, a revolt was instigated at the Isthmus and carried out +under the protection of American arms on November 3, 1903. Three days +later, President Roosevelt recognized the independence of the new +revolutionary government. In his message in December, Mr. Roosevelt +explained the great necessity under which he labored, and convinced his +friends of the wisdom and justice of his course. + +By a treaty proclaimed on February 26, 1904, between Panama and the +United States, provision was made for the construction of the canal. The +independence of the former country was guaranteed, and the latter +obtained "in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control" of a canal +zone, and the right to construct, maintain, and operate the canal and +other means of transportation through the strip. Panama was paid +$10,000,000 for her concession and promised $250,000 a year after the +lapse of nine years. The full $40,000,000 was paid over to the French +concern and its American underwriters; the lock type instead of the +sea-level canal was agreed upon in 1906; construction by private +contractors was rejected in favor of public direct employment under +official engineers; and the work was pushed forward with great rapidity +in the hope that it might be completed before 1915. + + * * * * * + +The country had not settled down after the Panama affair before popular +interest was again engaged in a diplomatic tangle with Santo Domingo. +That petty republic, on account of its many revolutions, had become +deeply involved in debt, and European creditors, through their +diplomatic agents, had practically threatened the use of armed force in +collecting arrears, unless the United States would undertake the +supervision of the Dominican customs and divide the revenues in a +suitable manner. In an agreement signed in February, 1905, between the +United States and Santo Domingo, provisions were made for carrying such +an arrangement into effect. The Senate, having failed to sanction the +treaty, Mr. Roosevelt practically carried out the program unofficially +and gave it substantial support in the form of American battleships. + +Against this independent executive action there was a strong protest in +the Senate. The spirit of this opposition was fully expressed by Mr. +Rayner in a speech in that chamber, in which he said: "This policy may +be all right--perhaps the American people are in favor of this new +doctrine; it may be a wonderful accomplishment--Central America may +profit by it; it may be a great benefit to us commercially and it may be +in the interest of civilization, but as a student and follower of the +Constitution, I deprecate the methods that have been adopted, and I +appeal to you to know whether we propose to sit silently by, and by our +indifference or tacit acquiescence submit to a scheme that ignores the +privileges of this body; that is not authorized by statute; that does +not array itself within any of the functions of the Executive; that +vests the treaty-making power exclusively in the President, to whom it +does not belong; that overrides the organic law of the land, and that +virtually proclaims to the country that, while the other branches of the +Government are controlled by the Constitution, the Executive is above +and beyond it, and whenever his own views or policies conflict with it, +he will find some way to effectuate his purposes uncontrolled by its +limitations." + +Notwithstanding such attacks on his authority, the President had not in +fact exceeded his constitutional rights, and the boldness and directness +of his policy found plenty of popular support. The Senate was forced to +accept the situation with as good grace as possible, and a compromise +was arranged in a revised treaty in February, 1907, in which Mr. +Roosevelt's action on material points received official sanction from +that authority. The wisdom of the policy of using the American navy to +assist European and other creditors in collecting their debts in +Latin-American countries was thoroughly thrashed out, as well as the +constitutional points; and a new stage in the development of the Monroe +Doctrine was thus reached. Those who opposed the policy pointed to +another solution of the perennial difficulties arising in the countries +to the southward; that is, the submission of pecuniary claims to the +Hague Court or special tribunals for arbitration.[69] + +Another very dramatic feature of Mr. Roosevelt's administration was his +action in bringing Russia and Japan together in 1905 and thus helping to +terminate the terrible war between these two powers. Among the +achievements of the Hague conference, called by the Tsar in 1899, was +the adoption of "A Convention for the Peaceful Adjustment of +International Differences" which provided for a permanent Court of +Arbitration, for international commissions of inquiry in disputes +arising from differences of opinion on facts, and for the tendering of +good offices and mediation. "The right to offer good offices or +mediation," runs the convention, "belongs to Powers who are strangers to +the dispute, even during the course of hostilities. The exercise of this +right shall never be considered by one or the other parties to the +contest as an unfriendly act." + +It was under this last provision that President Roosevelt dispatched on +June 8, 1905, after making proper inquiries, identical notes to Russia +and Japan, urging them to open direct negotiations for peace with each +other. The fact that the great European financiers had already +substantially agreed that the war must end and that both combatants were +in sore straits for money, clearly facilitated the rapidity with which +the President's invitation was accepted. In his identical note, Mr. +Roosevelt tendered his services "in arranging the preliminaries as to +the time and place of meeting," and after some delay Portsmouth, New +Hampshire, was determined upon. The President's part in the opening +civilities of the conference between the representatives of the two +powers, and the successful outcome of the negotiations, combined to make +the affair, in the popular mind, one of the most brilliant achievements +of his administration. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [62] See above, p. 133. + + [63] La Follette, _Autobiography_, 399 ff. + + [64] The law ordered the Interstate Commerce Commission to + ascertain the cost of the construction of all interstate + railways, the cost of their reconstruction at the present + time, and also the amount of land and money contributed to + railways by national, state, and local governments. + + [65] _Campaign Textbook, 1908_, p. 45. + + [66] See above, p. 209. + + [67] Notwithstanding this arrangement, Congress in 1912 + enacted a law exempting American coastwise vessels from canal + tolls. + + [68] _America as a World Power_, p. 207. + + [69] Latané, _America as a World Power_, pp. 282 ff. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE REVIVAL OF DISSENT + + +On the morning of March 4, 1901, when Mr. McKinley took the oath of +office to succeed himself as President, it appeared to the superficial +observer that the Populist movement had spent its strength and +disappeared. Such was the common remark of the time. To discredit a new +proposition it was only necessary to observe that it was as dead as +Populism. Twice had the country repudiated Mr. Bryan and his works, the +second time even more emphatically than the first; and the radical ideas +which had been associated with his name, often quite erroneously, seemed +to be permanently laid to rest. The country was prosperous; it +congratulated itself on the successful outcome of the war with Spain and +accepted the imperialist policies which followed with evident +satisfaction. Industries under the protection of the Dingley Act and +undisturbed by threats of legislative interference went forward with +renewed vigor. Capital began to reach out for foreign markets and +investments as never before. Statesmen of Mr. Hanna's school looked upon +their work and pronounced it good. + +But Populism was not dead. Defeated in the field of national politics, +it began to work from the ground upward, attacking one piece of +political machinery after another and pressing upon unwilling state +legislatures new forms of agrarian legislation. The People's party, at +its convention in 1896, had declared in favor of "a system of direct +legislation through the initiative and referendum, under proper +constitutional safeguards"; and Mr. Bryan two years later announced his +belief in the system, saying: "The principle of the initiative and +referendum is democratic. It will not be opposed by any Democrat who +indorses the declaration of Jefferson that the people are capable of +self-government; nor will it be opposed by any Republican who holds to +Lincoln's idea that this should be a government of the people, by the +people, and for the people."[70] + +The first victory of "direct democracy" came in the very year of Mr. +Bryan's memorable defeat. In 1896, the legislature of South Dakota was +captured by a Democratic-Populist majority, and at the session beginning +in the following January, it passed an amendment to the state +constitution, establishing a system of initiative and referendum. Some +leaders of the old Knights of Labor and the president of the Farmers' +Alliance were prominently identified with the campaign for this +innovation. The resolution was "passed by a strict party vote, and to +the Populists is due the credit of passing it," reported "The Direct +Legislation Record" in June, 1897. In the contest over ratification at +the polls a party division ensued. The Democratic state convention in +1898 adopted a plank favoring direct legislation, on "the principle that +the people should rule"; and the Republicans contented themselves with +urging party members "to study the legislative initiative and +referendum." At the ensuing election the amendment was carried by a vote +of 23,876 to 16,483; but ten years elapsed before any use was made of +the new device.[71] + +A cloud no bigger than a man's hand had appeared on the horizon of +representative government. East, West, North, and South, advocates of +direct government were busy with their propaganda, Populists and +Democrats taking the lead, with Republican politicians not far in the +rear. The year following the adoption of the South Dakota amendment a +combination of Democrats and Populists carried a similar provision +through the state legislature of Utah and obtained its ratification in +1900. This victory was a short-lived triumph, for the Republicans soon +regained their ascendancy and stopped the progress of direct legislation +by refusing to enact the enabling law putting the amendment into force. +But this check in Utah did not dampen the ardor of reformers in other +commonwealths. In 1902, Oregon adopted the new system; four years later +Montana followed; in 1907, Oklahoma came into the Union with the device +embodied in the Constitution; and then the progress of the movement +became remarkably rapid. It was adopted by Missouri and Maine in 1908, +Arkansas and Colorado in 1910, Arizona and California in 1911, +Washington, Nebraska, Idaho, and Ohio in 1912. By this time Populists +and Democrats had ceased to monopolize the agitation for direct +government; it had become respectable, even in somewhat conservative +Republican circles. + +It should be pointed out, however, that there is a conservative and a +radical system of initiative and referendum: one which fixes the +percentage necessary to initiate and adopt a measure at a point so high +as to prevent its actual operation, and another which places it so low +as to make its frequent use feasible. The older and more radical group +of propagandists, finding their general scheme so widely taken up in +practical politics, soon began to devote their attention rather to +attacking the stricter safeguards thrown up by those who gave their +support to direct government in theory only. + +In its simple form of initiation by five per cent of the voters and +adoption by a majority of those voting on the measure submitted, this +new device was undoubtedly a revolutionary change from the American +system of government as conceived by the framers of the Constitution of +the United States--with its checks and balances, indirect elections, and +judicial control over legislation. The more radical of the advocates of +direct government frankly admitted that this was true, and they sought +to strengthen this very feature of their system by the addition of +another device, known as the recall, which, when applied to judges as +well as other elective officers, reduced judicial control over +legislation to a practical nullity. Where judges are elected for short +terms by popular vote and made subject to the recall, and where laws +are made by popular vote of the same electors who choose the judges, it +is obvious that the very foundations of judicial supremacy are +undermined. + +The recall, like direct democracy, was not new to American politics. +Both were understood, at least in principle, by the framers of the +Federal Constitution and rejected decisively. The recall seems to have +made its appearance first in local form,--in the charter of Los Angeles, +adopted in 1903. From there it went to the Seattle charter of 1906, and +two years later it was adopted as a state-wide system applicable to all +elective officers by Oregon. Its progress was swiftest in municipal +affairs, for it quite generally accompanied "the commission form" of +city government as a check on the commissioners in their exercise of +enlarged powers. + +The state-wide recall, however, received a remarkable impetus in 1911 +from the controversy over the admission of Arizona, which attracted the +attention of the nation. That territory had framed a constitution +containing a radical form of the recall based on the Oregon plan, and in +August, 1911, Congress passed a resolution admitting the applicant, on +condition that the provision relating to the recall should be +specifically submitted to the voters for their approval or rejection. +President Taft was at once stirred to action, and on August 15 he sent +Congress a ringing message, displaying unwonted vigor and determination, +vetoing the resolution and denouncing the recall of judges in unmeasured +terms. "Constitutions," he said, "are checks upon the hasty action of +the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people +upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the +rights of the minority.... In order to maintain the rights of the +minority and the individual and to preserve our constitutional balance +we must have judges with courage to decide against the majority when +justice and law require.... As the possibilities of such a system [as +the recall] pass in review, is it too much to characterize it as one +which will destroy the judiciary, its standing, and its usefulness?" + +Acting upon the recommendation of President Taft, Congress passed a +substitute resolution for admitting Arizona only on condition that the +obnoxious recall of judges be stricken from the constitution of the +state.[72] The debates in Congress over the admission of Arizona covered +the whole subject of direct government in all its aspects, and these, +coupled with the President's veto message, brought the issue prominently +to the front throughout the country. Voters to whom it had previously +been an obscure western device now began to take a deep interest in it; +the press took it up; and one more test for "progressive" and +"reactionary" was put in the popular program. + + * * * * * + +The movement for direct popular participation in state and local +government was inevitably accompanied by a demand for more direct +government within the political party; in other words, by a demand for +the abandonment of the representative convention in favor of the +selection of candidates by direct primary. During the decade of the +great Populist upheaval, legislation relative to political parties was +largely confined to the introduction of the Australian ballot and the +establishment of safeguards around the primaries at which delegates to +party conventions were chosen. The direct primary, like the initiative +and referendum, grew out of a discontent with social and economic +conditions, which led to an attack on the political machinery that was +alleged to be responsible for them. Like the initiative and referendum, +also, it was not an altogether new device, for it had been used for a +long time in some of the states as a local institution established by +party custom; but when it was taken up by the state legislatures, it +made a far more rapid advance. + +It was not, however, until the opening of the new century that primary +legislation began to engross a large share of legislative activities. In +1903, "the first state-wide primary law with fairly complete provisions +for legal supervision was enacted by the state of Wisconsin"; Oregon, +making use of the new initiative system, enacted a thoroughgoing primary +law in 1904; and the following year Illinois adopted a state-wide +measure. Other states, hesitating at such an extensive application of +the principle, contented themselves at first with laws instituting local +primaries, such, for example, as the Nebraska law of 1905 covering +cities of over 125,000, or the earlier law of Minnesota covering only +Hennepin county. "So rapid was the progress of public opinion and +legislation," says Mr. Merriam, "that in many instances a compromise law +of one session of the legislature was followed by a thoroughgoing law +in the next. For example, the North Dakota law of 1905 authorized direct +primaries for all district nominations, but did not include state +offices; but in 1907, a sweeping act was passed covering practically all +offices." + +The vogue of the direct primary was confined largely to the West at +first, but it steadily gained in favor in the East. Governor Hughes, of +New York, in his contest with the old organization of the Republican +party, became a stanch advocate of the system, recommended it to the +legislature in his messages, campaigned through the state to create +public sentiment in favor of the reform, and labored unsuccessfully to +secure the passage of a primary law, until he closed his term to accept +an appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1911, the +Democratic party, which had carried New York state at the preceding +election, enacted a primary law applicable to local, but not to state, +offices. About the same time Massachusetts, Maine, and New Jersey joined +the long list of direct primary states. Within almost ten years the +principle in its state-wide form had been accepted in two thirds of the +states, and in some local form in nearly all of the other commonwealths. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, the theory and practice of direct government made their way +upward into the Federal government. As early as 1826, Mr. Storrs, a +representative from New York, introduced in the House a constitutional +amendment providing for the popular election of United States Senators, +and from time to time thereafter the proposal was urged upon Congress. +President Johnson, who had long been an advocate of this change in the +Federal government, made it the subject of a special message to Congress +in 1868; but in his contest with that body the proposed measure was lost +to sight. Not long afterward it appeared again in the House and the +Senate, and at length the lower house in 1893 passed an amendment +providing for popular election by the requisite two-thirds vote, but the +Senate refused to act. Again in 1894, in 1898 (by a vote of 185 to 11), +in 1900 (240 to 15), and in 1902 by practically a unanimous vote, there +being no division, the House passed the amendment; still the Senate +resisted the change. + +In the Senate itself were found occasional champions of popular +election, principally from the West and South. Mitchell, of Oregon, +Turpie, of Indiana, Perkins, of California, Berry, of Arkansas, and +Bailey, of Texas, took the leadership in this contest for reform. +Chandler, of New Hampshire, Depew, of New York, Penrose, of +Pennsylvania, Hoar, of Massachusetts, Foraker, of Ohio, and Spooner, of +Wisconsin, leveled their batteries against it. State after state +legislature passed resolutions demanding the change, until at length +three fourths had signified their demand for popular election. + +The Senate as a whole remained obdurate. When in the Fifty-third +Congress the resolution of the House came before that body, Mr. Hoar, of +Massachusetts, made, on April 6 and 7, 1893, one of his most eloquent +and impassioned pleas for resisting this new proposal to the uttermost. +He declared that it would transfer the seat of power to the "great +cities and masses of population," that it would create new temptations +to fraud and corrupt practices, that it implied that the Senate had been +untrue to its trust, that it would lead to the election of the President +and the judiciary by popular majorities, and that it would "result in +the overthrow of the whole scheme of the Senate and in the end of the +whole scheme of the national Constitution as designed and established by +the framers of the Constitution and the people who adopted it." With +impatience, he refused to listen to the general indictment which had +been brought against the Senate as then constituted. "The greatest +victories of constitutional liberty since the world began," he +concluded, "are those whose battle ground has been the American Senate, +and whose champions have been the Senators who for a hundred years, +while they have resisted the popular passions of the House, have led, +represented, guided, obeyed, and made effective the deliberate will of a +free people." + +Having failed to make an impression on the Senate by a frontal attack, +the advocates of popular election set to work to capture that citadel by +a rear assault. They began to apply the principle of the direct primary +in the nomination of candidates for the Senate, and this development at +length culminated in the Oregon scheme for binding the legislature to +accept the "people's choice." This movement gained rapid headway in the +South, where the real contest was over nomination, not election, on +account of the absence of party divisions. As early as 1875, the +Nebraska constitution had provided for taking a popular preferential +vote on candidates for the Senate; but no considerable interest seems +to have been taken in it at the time. In 1899, Nevada passed a law +entitled "an act to secure the election of United States Senators in +accordance with the will of the people and the choice of the electors of +the state." Shortly afterward, Oregon enacted her famous statute which +attempted to compel the legislature to accept the popular nominee; and +from that time forward the new system spread rapidly. By 1910, at least +three fourths of the states nominated candidates for the Senate by some +kind of a popular primary. + +It was not until 1911 that the Senate yielded to the overwhelming +popular demand for a change in the methods of election provided in the +Constitution. In December, 1909, Senator Bristow, of Kansas, introduced +a resolution designed to effect this reform, and after a hot debate it +was defeated on February 28, 1911, by a vote of 54 to 33, four short of +the requisite two thirds. In the next Congress, which convened on April +4, ten Senators who had voted against the amendment had been retired, +and the champions of the measure, taking it up again with renewed +energy, were able to force it through the upper house on June 12, 1911, +by a margin of five more than the two thirds. The resolution went to the +House and a deadlock arose between the two chambers for a time over +Federal control of elections, provided in the Senate resolution, which +was obnoxious to many southern representatives. At length, however, on +May 13, 1912, the opponents in the House gave way, and the resolution +passed by an overwhelming vote. Within a year, the resolution was +ratified by the requisite three fourths of the state legislatures, and +it was proclaimed on May 31, 1913. + + * * * * * + +The advance of direct democracy in the West was accompanied by a revival +of the question of woman suffrage. That subject had been earnestly +agitated about the time of the Civil War; and under the leadership of +Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and others it made +considerable headway among those sections of the population which had +favored the emancipation of the slaves. Indeed, it was inevitably linked +with the discussion of "natural rights," extensively carried on during +the days when attempts were being made to give political rights to the +newly emancipated bondmen. Woman suffrage was warmly urged before the +New York state constitutional convention in 1867 by Mr. George William +Curtis, in a speech which has become a classic among the arguments for +that cause. During the seventies suffrage petitions bearing the +signatures of thousands of men and women were laid before Congress, and +an attempt was made to secure from the Supreme Court an interpretation +of the Fourteenth Amendment which would force the states to grant the +ballot to women. + +At length the movement began to subside, and writers who passed for keen +observers declared it to be at an end. The nineteenth century closed +with victories for the women in only four states, Wyoming, Colorado, +Utah, and Idaho. The first of these states had granted the vote to women +while yet a territory, and on its admission to the Union in 1890, it +became the first state with full political equality. Three years later, +Colorado enfranchised women, and in 1896 Utah and Idaho joined the equal +suffrage commonwealths. Meanwhile, a very large number of northern and +eastern states had given women the right to vote in local or school +elections, Minnesota and Michigan in 1875 and other states in quick +succession. Nevertheless, these gains were, relatively speaking, small, +and there seemed to be little widespread enthusiasm about the further +extension of the right. + +Of course, the agitation continued, but in somewhat obscure circles, +under a running fire of ridicule whenever it appeared in public. At +length it broke out with unprecedented vigor, shortly after the tactics +adopted by militant English women startled the world. Within a short +time new and substantial victories gave the movement a standing which +could not be ignored either by its positive opponents or the indifferent +politicians. In 1910, the suffragists carried the state of Washington; +in 1911, they carried California; in 1912, they won in Arizona, Kansas, +and Oregon; but lost Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. These victories gave +them nine states and of course a considerable influence in the House of +Representatives and the right to participate in the election of eighteen +out of ninety-six Senators. But the defeat in the three middle states +led the opponents of woman suffrage to believe that the movement could +be confined to the far West. This hope was, however, dashed in 1913 when +the legislature of Illinois gave women the right to vote for all +statutory officers, including electors for President of the United +States. Determined to make use of the political power thus obtained, +the suffragists, under the leadership of Alice Paul, renewed with great +vigor the agitation at Washington for a national amendment forbidding +states to disqualify women from voting merely on account of sex. + + +_The Rise and Growth of Socialism_ + +With the spread of direct elections and the initiative and referendum, +and the adoption of the two amendments to the Federal Constitution +authorizing an income tax[73] and the popular election of Senators, the +milder demands of Populism were secured. At the same time, the +prosperity of the farmers and the enormous rise in ground values which +accompanied the economic advance of the country removed some of the most +potent causes of the discontent on which Populism thrived. Organized +Populism died a natural death. Those Populists who advocated only +political reforms went over to the Republican and Democratic parties; +the advocates of radical economic changes, on the other hand, entered +the Socialist ranks. + +Socialism, as an organized movement in the United States, runs back to +the foundation of the Social-Democratic Workingmen's party in New York +City, in 1874, which was changed into the Socialist Labor party three +years later,--a party that still survives. This group did not enter into +national politics until 1892, although its branches occasionally made +nominations for local offices or fused with other labor groups, as in +the New York mayoralty campaign of 1886. In its vigorous propaganda +against capitalism, this party soon came into collision with the +American Federation of Labor, established in 1886, and definitely broke +with it four years later when the latter withheld a charter from the New +York Central Federation for the alleged reason that the Socialist Labor +party of that city was an affiliated organization. After the break with +the American Federation, this Socialist group turned for a time to the +more radical Knights of Labor, but this new flirtation with labor was no +more successful than the first, and in time the Socialist Labor party +declared war on all the methods of American trades-unionism. Its gains +numerically were not very significant; it polled something over twenty +thousand votes in 1892 and over eighty thousand in 1896--the high-water +mark in its political career. Its history has been a stormy one, marked +by dissensions, personal controversies, and splits, but the party is +still maintained by a decreasing band of loyal adherents. + +The growth of interest in socialism, however, was by no means confined +to the membership of the Socialist Labor party. External events were +stirring a consciousness that grave labor problems had arisen within the +American Commonwealth. The bloody strikes at Homestead, Coeur d'Alene, +Buffalo, and Pullman in the eighties and early nineties moved the +country as no preachments of abstract socialist philosophy could ever +have done. That such social conflicts were full of serious portent was +recognized even by such a remote and conservative thinker as President +Cleveland in his message of 1886 to Congress. In that very year, the +Society of Christian Socialists was formed, with Professor R. T. Ely and +Professor G. D. Herron among its members, and about the same time +"Nationalist" clubs were springing up all over the country as a result +of the propaganda created by Bellamy's _Looking Backward_, published in +1887. The decline of the Populist party, which had indorsed most of the +socialistic proposals that appealed to Americans tinged with radicalism, +the formation of local labor and socialist societies of one kind or +another, and the creation of dissatisfaction with the methods and +program of the Socialist Labor party finally led to the establishment of +a new national political organization. + +This was effected in 1900 when a general fusion was attempted under the +name of the Social Democratic party, which nominated Mr. Eugene V. Debs +for President at a convention held in Indianapolis. The Socialist Labor +party, however, declined to join the organization and went on its own +way. The vote of the new party, ninety-six thousand, induced the leaders +in the movement to believe that they were on the right track, for this +was considerably larger than the rival group had ever secured. Steps +were immediately taken to put the party on a permanent basis; the name +Socialist party was assumed in 1901; local branches were established in +all sections of the country with astonishing rapidity; and a vigorous +propaganda was undertaken. In the national election of 1904 over four +hundred thousand votes were polled; in 1908, when Mr. Bryan and Mr. +Roosevelt gave a radical tinge to the older parties, a gain of only +about twenty-five thousand was made; but in 1912, despite Mr. Wilson's +flirtation with western democracy and the candidacy of Mr. Roosevelt on +a socialistic platform, the Socialist party more than doubled its vote. + +During these years of growth the party began to pass from the stage of +propaganda to that of action. In 1910, the Socialists of Milwaukee +carried the city, secured twelve members of the lower house of the state +legislature, elected two state Senators, and returned Mr. Victor Berger +to Congress. This victory, which was hailed as a turning point in the +march of socialism, was largely due, however, to the divided condition +of the opposition, and thus the Socialists really went in as a +plurality, not a majority party. The closing of the Republican and +Democratic ranks in 1912 resulted in the ousting of the Socialist city +administration, although the party polled a vote considerably larger +than that cast two years previously. In other parts of the country +numerous municipal and local officers were elected by the Socialists, +and in 1912 they could boast of several hundred public offices.[74] + +While there was no little difference of opinion among the Socialists as +to the precise character of their principles and tactics,--a condition +not peculiar to that party,--there were certain general ideas running +through their propaganda and platforms. Modern industry, they all held, +creates necessarily a division of society into a relatively few +capitalists, on the one hand, who own, control, and manipulate the +machinery of production and the natural resources of the country, and +on the other hand, a great mass of landless, toolless, and homeless +working people dependent upon the sale of their labor for a livelihood. +There is an inherent antagonism between these two classes, for each +seeks to secure all that it can from the annual output of wealth; this +antagonism is manifest in labor organizations, strikes, and industrial +disputes of every kind. Out of this contest, the former class gains +wealth, luxury, safety, and the latter, poverty, slums, and misery. +Finally, if the annual toll levied upon industry by the exploiters and +the frightful wastes due to competition and maladjustment were +eliminated, all who labor with hand or brain could enjoy reasonable +comfort and security, and also leisure for the cultivation of the nobler +arts of civilization. + +At the present time, runs the Socialist platform of 1912, "the +capitalist class, though few in numbers, absolutely controls the +government--legislative, executive, and judicial. This class owns the +machinery of gathering and disseminating news through its organized +press. It subsidizes seats of learning,--the colleges and the +schools,--even religious and moral agencies. It has also the added +prestige which established customs give to any order of society, right +or wrong." But the working class is becoming more and more discontented +with its lot; it is becoming consolidated by coöperation, political and +economic, and in the future it will become the ruling class of the +country, taking possession, through the machinery of the government, of +the great instrumentalities of production and distribution. This final +achievement of socialism is being prepared by the swift and inevitable +consolidation of the great industries into corporations, managed by paid +agents for the owners of the stocks and bonds. The transition from the +present order will take the form of municipal, state, and national +assumption of the various instrumentalities of production and +distribution--with or without compensation to the present owners, as +circumstances may dictate.[75] Such are the general presuppositions of +socialism. + +The Socialist party had scarcely got under way before it was attacked +from an unexpected quarter by revolutionary trade-unionists, known as +the Industrial Workers of the World, who revived in part the old +principle of class solidarity (as opposed to trade solidarity) which lay +at the basis of the Knights of Labor. The leaders of this new unionism, +among whom Mr. W. D. Haywood was prominent, did not repudiate altogether +the Socialist labors to secure control of the organs of government by +the ballot, but they minimized their importance and pressed to the front +the doctrine that by vigorous and uncompromising mass strikes a +revolutionary spirit might be roused in the working class and the actual +control of business wrested from the capitalists, perhaps without the +intervention of the government at all. + +This new unionism was launched at a conference of radical labor leaders +in 1904, at which the following program was adopted: "The working class +and the employing class have nothing in common. Between these two +classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as +a class, take possession of the earth and machinery of production and +abolish the wage system. We find that the centering of the management of +industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to +cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade +unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be +pitted against another set of workers in the same industry.... Moreover +the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the +belief that the working class have interests in common with their +employers. These conditions can be changed and the interest of the +working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that +all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, +cease work whenever a strike or a lockout is on in any department +thereof.... We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, +'Abolish the wage system.'" + +This new society made a disturbance in labor circles entirely out of +proportion to its numerical strength. Its leaders managed strikes at +McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, at Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912, and at +other points, laying emphasis on the united action of all the working +people of all the trades involved in the particular industry. The "new +unionism" appealed particularly to the great mass of foreign laborers +who had no vote and therefore perhaps turned with more zeal to "direct" +action. It appeared, however, that the membership of the Industrial +Workers was not over 70,000 in 1912, and that it had little of the +stability of the membership of the old unions. + +What the effect of this new unionism will be on the Socialist party +remains to be seen. That party at its convention in 1912 went on record +against the violent tactics of revolutionary unionism, and by a party +vote "recalled" Mr. Haywood from his membership on the executive +committee. The appearance of this more menacing type of working-class +action and the refusal of the Socialist party to accept it with open +arms gave a new turn to the attitude of the conservative press toward +regular political socialism of the strict Marxian school. + + +_The Counter-Reformation_ + +Just as the Protestant Revolt during the sixteenth century was followed +by a counter-reformation in the Catholic Church which swept away many +abuses, while retaining and fortifying the essential principles of the +faith, so the widespread and radical discontent of the working classes +with the capitalist system hitherto obtaining produced a +counter-reformation on the part of those who wish to preserve its +essentials while curtailing some of its excesses. This counter-reformation +impress upon American political thinking and made a deep legislation at +the turning of the new century. More than once during his presidency Mr. +Roosevelt warned the capitalists that a reform of abuses was the price +which they would have to pay in order to save themselves from a socialist +revolution. Eminent economists turned aside from free trade and _laissez +faire_ to consider some of the grievances of the working class, and many +abandoned the time-honored discussions of "economic theories," in favor +of legislative programs embracing the principles of state socialism, to +which countries like Germany and Great Britain were already committed. + +Charity workers whose function had been hitherto to gather up the wrecks +of civilization and smooth their dying days began to talk of "a war for +the prevention of poverty," and an examination of their concrete +legislation proposals revealed the acceptance of some of the principles +of state socialism. Unrestricted competition and private property had +produced a mass of poverty and wretchedness in the great cities which +constituted a growing menace to society, and furnished themes for +socialist orators. Social workers of every kind began the detailed +analysis of the causes of specific cases of poverty and arrived at the +conclusion that elaborate programs of "social legislation" were +necessary to the elimination of a vast mass of undeserved poverty. + +Under the stimulus of these and other forces, state legislatures in the +more industrially advanced commonwealths began to pour out a stream of +laws dealing with social problems. These measures included employers' +liability and workmen's compensation laws, the prohibition of child +labor, minimum hours for dangerous trades like mining and railroading, +minimum wages for women and girls, employment bureaus, and pensions for +widows with children to support. While none of the states went so far +as to establish old-age pensions and general sickness and accident +insurance, it was apparent from an examination of the legislation of the +first decade of the twentieth century that they were well in the paths +of nations like Germany, England, and Australia. + + +_Criticism of the Federal System_ + +All this unsettlement in economics and politics could not fail to bring +about a reconsideration of the fundamentals in the American +constitutional system--particularly the distribution of powers between +the Federal and state governments, which is made by a constitution +drafted when economic conditions were totally different from what they +are to-day. In fact, during the closing years of the nineteenth century +there appeared, here and there in American political literature, +evidence of a discontent with the Federal system scarcely less keen and +critical than that which was manifested with the Articles of +Confederation during those years of our history which John Fiske has +denominated "The Critical Period." + +Manufacturing interests which, at the time the Federal Constitution was +framed, were so local in character as to be excluded entirely from the +control of the Federal government had now become national or at all +events sectional, having absolutely no relation to state lines. As +Professor Leacock remarks, "The central fact of the situation is that +economically and industrially the United States is one country or at +best one country with four or five great subdivisions, while politically +it is broken into a division of jurisdictions holding sway to a great +extent over its economic life, but corresponding to no real division +either of race, of history, of unity, of settlement, or of commercial +interest."[76] For example, in 1900 the boot and shoe industry, instead +of being liberally distributed among the several states, was so +concentrated, that out of the total product 44.9 per cent was produced +by Massachusetts; nearly one half of the agricultural implements for +that year were made in Illinois; two thirds of the glass of the whole +country was made in Pennsylvania and Indiana; while Pennsylvania alone +produced 54 per cent of the iron and steel manufactured. The political +significance of this situation was simply this: the nation on which each +of these specialized industries depended for its existence had +practically no power through the national government to legislate +relative to them; but in each case a single legislature representing a +small fraction of the people connected with the industry in question +possesses the power of control. + +The tendency of manufacturers to centralize was accompanied, as has been +pointed out above, by a similar centralization in railways. At the close +of the nineteenth century, the Vanderbilt system operated "some 20,000 +miles reaching from New York City to Casper, Wyoming, and covering the +lake states and the area of the upper Mississippi; the Pennsylvania +system with 14,000 miles covers a portion of the same territory, +centering particularly in Ohio and Indiana; the Morgan system, +operating 12,000 miles, covers the Atlantic seaboard and the interior of +the Southern States from New York to New Orleans; the Morgan-Hill system +operates 20,000 miles from Chicago and St. Louis to the state of +Washington; the Harriman system with 19,000 miles runs from Chicago +southward to the Gulf and westward to San Francisco, including a +Southern route from New Orleans to Los Angeles; the Gould system with +14,000 miles operates chiefly in the center of the middle west extending +southward to the Gulf; in addition to these great systems are a group of +minor combinations such as the Atchinson with 7,500 or the Boston and +Maine with 3,300 miles of road." + +Corresponding to this centralization in industries and railways there +was, as we have pointed out, a centralization in the control of capital, +particularly in two large groups, the Standard Oil and the Morgan +interests. As an expert financier, Mr. Moody wrote in 1904: "Viewed as a +whole, we find the dominating influences in the trusts to be made up of +an intricate network of large and small groups of capitalists, many +allied to one another by ties of more or less importance, but all being +appendages to, or parties of the greater groups which are themselves +dependent on and allied with the two mammoth or Rockefeller and Morgan +groups." + + * * * * * + +Facing this centralized national economy was a Federal system made for +wholly different conditions--a national system of manufacturing, +transportation, capital, and organized labor, with a national government +empowered, expressly, at least, to regulate only one of those +interests, transportation--the other fundamental national interests +being referred to the mercy of forty-six separate and independent state +legislatures. But it is to be noted, these several legislatures were by +no means free to work out their own program of legislation; all of them +were, at every point, subjected to Federal judicial control under the +general phrases of the Fourteenth Amendment relative to due process of +law and the equal protection of the laws.[77] To state it in another +way, the national government was powerless to act freely with regard to +nearly all of the great national interests, but it was all powerful +through its judiciary in striking down state legislation. + +A few concrete illustrations[78] will show the lack of correspondence +between the political system and the economic system. Each state bids +against the others to increase the number of factories which adds to its +wealth and increases the value of property within its borders, although +it makes no difference to the total wealth of the nation and the +happiness of the whole people whether a particular concern is located in +New Jersey or in Pennsylvania. As the national government enjoys no +power to regulate industries--even those which are national in +character--the states use their respective powers under the pressure +which comes from those who are interested in increasing the industry of +the commonwealth. For example, it is stated "the glass workers of New +Jersey oppose any attempt to prohibit night work for boys under sixteen +years of age on the ground that such work is permitted in the +neighboring state of Pennsylvania." In 1907, in South Carolina, Georgia, +and Alabama, a ten year old child could, under the law, work for twelve +hours a day; North Carolina had sixty-six mills where twelve year old +children could do twelve hours' night work under the law. Although this +situation was somewhat remedied later, the advocates of reform were +resisted at every point by the interested parties who contended that in +competing with New England, the southern states had to take advantage of +every opportunity, even at the expense of the children. + +The situation may be described in the language of the chief factory +inspector of Ohio: "Industrially as well as geographically we of the +Ohio Valley are one people and our laws should be uniform, not only that +they may be the easier enforced, but in justice to the manufacturers who +pursue the same industry in the several states and therefore come into +close competition with one another." Moreover, if a state enacts an +important industrial law, it may find its work in vain as the result of +a decision of the national Supreme Court, or of the state courts, +interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment. + +Another example of a national interest which is wholly beyond the reach +of the Federal government, under a judicial decision reached in the case +of Paul _v._ Virginia in 1868, is that of insurance. Although Hamilton +and earlier writers on the Constitution believed that the insurance +business was a branch of interstate commerce whose regulation was vested +in Congress, the Supreme Court in this case dealing with fire insurance +declared that the act of issuing a policy of insurance was not a +transaction of commerce. "The policies," said the Court, "are simple +contracts of indemnity against loss by fire, entered into between the +corporations and the assured for a consideration paid by the latter. +These contracts are not articles of commerce in any proper meaning of +the word; they are not subjects of trade and barter offered in the +market as something having an existence and value independent of the +parties to them.... Such contracts are not interstate transactions, +though the parties may be domiciled in different states.... They are +then local transactions and are governed by the local laws. They do not +constitute a part of the commerce between the states any more than a +contract for the purchase and sale of goods in Virginia by a citizen of +New York whilst in Virginia would constitute a portion of such +commerce." + +As a result of this narrow interpretation of the commerce clause, the +vast insurance business of the country, national in character, was put +beyond the reach of Congress, and at the mercy of the legislatures of +the several commonwealths. Under these circumstances, the insurance laws +of the United States were in splendid chaos. "If a compilation of these +laws were attempted," says Mr. Huebner, "a most curious spectacle would +result. It would be found that fifty-two states and territories are all +acting along independent lines and that each, as has been correctly +said, possessed its own schedule of taxations, fees, fines, penalties, +obligations and prohibitions, and a retaliatory or reciprocal provision +enabled it to meet the highest charges any other state may require of +the companies of any other states." + +A still better example of confusion in our system is offered by the +corporation laws of the several states. Great industrial corporations +are formed under state laws. While many contend that Congress has the +power to compel the Federal incorporation of all concerns doing an +interstate business and thus to occupy the whole domain of corporation +law involving interstate commerce, this radical step has not yet been +taken. Congress has confined itself to the more or less fruitless task +of forbidding combinations in restraint of interstate trade. + +Under these circumstances, there appeared the anomalous condition of +states actually advertising in the newspapers and bidding against each +other in offering the corporations special opportunities and low fees +for the privilege of incorporating. If the conscience of one state +became enlightened and a strict corporation law was enacted, the result +was simply to drive the irregular concerns into some other state which +was willing to sell its privileges for the small fee of incorporation, +and ask no questions. As might have been expected, every variety of +practice existed in the forty-eight jurisdictions in which corporations +might be located. + +Not only was there the greatest diversity in these practices, but +special discriminations were often made in particular states against +concerns incorporated in other states; and on top of all this there was +a vast mass of anti-trust legislation, frequently drastic in character +or loose and futile. Often it was the product of a popular clamor +against large business undertakings, and often it was the result of the +effort of legislators to "strike" at corporations. Whatever the +underlying motive, it was generally characterized at the outset by lack +of uniformity and absence of any large view of public policy, and then +it was glossed over by judicial decisions, state and Federal, until it +was a fortunate corporation official, indeed, who knew either his rights +or his duties under the law. Moreover, it was a particularly obtuse +attorney who could not lead his client unscathed through this wonderland +of legal confusion. + +The position of railway corporations, if possible, was more anomalous +still. Their interstate business was subject to the regulations of +Congress and their intra-state business to the control of the state +legislatures. Although there existed, in theory, a dividing line between +these two classes of business, there were always arising concrete cases +where it was difficult to say on which side of the line they would fall +in the opinion of the Supreme Court. States were constantly being +enjoined on the application of the railways for their "interference with +interstate commerce"; and when far-reaching legislation was proposed in +Congress, the cry went up that the rights of states were being trampled +upon. If X shipped a carload of goods to Y within the borders of his +state, he paid one rate; if he shipped it to Z, two miles farther on in +another state, he paid a different rate, perhaps less than in the first +instance. In a number of states companies owning parallel lines might +consolidate; in others, consolidation was forbidden. According to a +report of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1902, the states were +equally divided on this proposition as to the consolidation of +competing lines. According to the same report, if a railway company was +guilty of unjust discrimination in one state, it paid a fine of $50, and +in other states it was mulcted to the tune of $25,000. At the same time, +whoever obstructed a railway track in Mississippi was liable to three +months in jail; for the same offense in New York he might get three +years; if, perchance, after serving three years and three months in +these two commonwealths, he tried the experiment again in Wyoming, he +might in the mercy of the court be sentenced to death. + +A further element of confusion was added by the intervention of the +Federal judiciary in declaring state laws invalid, not merely when they +conflicted clearly with the execution of Federal law, but on +constitutional grounds which meant, for practical purposes, whenever the +said laws were not in harmony with the ideas of public policy +entertained by the courts at the time. The Federal judiciary in regard +to state legislation relative to corporations was, therefore, a +destructive, not a constructive, body. To use the language of the +street, state legislation was simply "shot to pieces" by judicial +decisions. That which was chaotic, disjointed, and founded upon no +uniformity of purpose or policy to begin with was riddled and torn by a +body which had no power for positive action. + +As the Interstate Commerce Commission declared in 1903, "One of the +chief embarrassments in the exercise of adequate government control over +the organization, the construction, and the administration of railways +in the United States is found in the many sources of statutory +authority recognized by our form of government. The Federal Constitution +provides for uniformity in statutory control, so far as interstate +commerce is concerned, but it does not touch commerce within the states, +nor, as at present interpreted, does it cover the organization of +railroad corporations or the construction of railroad properties. These +matters, as well as the larger part of that class of activities included +under the police jurisdiction, are left to the states. Such being the +case, the development of an harmonious and uniform railroad system must +be attained, if at all, by one of two methods. The states must +relinquish to the Federal government their reserved rights over internal +commerce, or having first agreed upon fundamental principles, they must, +through comity and convention, work out an harmonious system of +statutory regulation." + + * * * * * + +This was the situation that called forth the demand for the national +regulation of large corporate enterprises, and brought about the demand +for a strengthening of the Federal government, either by a +constitutional amendment or judicial interpretation, which received the +name of "New Nationalism." Wide currency was given to this term by Mr. +Roosevelt, in his speech delivered at Ossawatomie on August 31, 1910. +After outlining a legislative policy which he deemed to be demanded by +the changed economic conditions of our time, Mr. Roosevelt attacked the +idea of "a neutral zone between the national and state legislatures," +guarded only by the Federal judiciary; and pleaded for the +strengthening of the Federal government so as to make it competent for +every national purpose. + +"There must remain no neutral ground," he said, "to serve as a refuge +for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can +hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both +jurisdictions. It is a misfortune when the national legislature fails to +do its duty in providing a national remedy so that the only national +activity is the purely negative activity of the judiciary in forbidding +the state to exercise the power in the premises. + +"I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that we work in a +spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what +concerns our people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common +interests are as broad as the continent. I speak to you here exactly as +I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital problems are +those which affect us all alike. The national government belongs to the +whole American people, and where the whole American people are +interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the +national government. The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, +I believe, mainly through the national government. + +"The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism without +which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts +the national need before sectional or personal advantages. It is +impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures +attempting to treat national issues as local issues. It is still more +impatient of the impotence which springs from overdivision of +government powers, the impotence which makes it impossible for local +selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to +bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards +the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of +the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare +rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body +shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of +the people." + +FOOTNOTES: + + [70] The political history of the initiative and referendum + has never been written. Some valuable materials are to be + found in _Direct Legislation_, Senate Document No. 340, 55th + Cong., 2d Sess. (1898); and in "The Direct Legislation + Record," founded in May, 1894; and in the "Equity Series," + now published at Philadelphia. See also Oberholtzer, _The + Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in America_, ed. 1911. + + [71] _The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall_, Annals of the + American Academy of Political and Social Science, September, + 1912, pp. 84 ff. + + [72] Arizona was admitted without the judicial recall + provision, but immediately set to work and reinserted it in + the constitution, and devised a plan for the recall of + Federal district judges as well. + + [73] See below, p. 325. + + [74] See list in the _National Municipal Review_ for July, + 1912. + + [75] The Socialist party does not at present contemplate + public ownership of petty properties or of farm lands tilled + by their possessors. This is one part of its program not yet + definitely worked out. + + [76] _Proceedings of the American Political Science + Association_, 1908, Vol. V, p. 42. + + [77] See above, p. 54. + + [78] Taken from Professor Leacock's paper in the _Proceedings + of the American Political Science Association_, 1908, pp. 37 + ff. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MR. TAFT AND REPUBLICAN DISINTEGRATION + + +In spite of the stirring of new economic and political forces which +marked Mr. Roosevelt's administration and his somewhat radical +utterances upon occasion, there was no prominent leader in the +Republican party in 1908, except Mr. La Follette of Wisconsin, who was +identified with policies which later came to be known as "progressive." +Although Mr. Hughes, as governor of New York, had enlisted national +interest in his "fight with the bosses," he was, by temperament, +conservative rather than radical, and his doctrines were not primarily +economic in character. Other Republican aspirants were also of a +conservative cast of mind, Mr. Fairbanks, of Indiana, Mr. Knox, of +Pennsylvania, Mr. Cannon, of Illinois, all of whom were indorsed for the +presidency by their respective states. The radical element among the +Republicans hoped that Mr. Roosevelt would consent to accept a "second +elective term"; but his flat refusal put an end to their plans for +renomination. + +Very early in his second administration, Mr. Roosevelt made it clear +that he wanted to see Mr. W. H. Taft, then Secretary of War, designated +as his successor; and by the judicious employment of publicity and the +proper management of the Federal patronage and the southern Republican +delegates, he materially aided in the nomination of Mr. Taft at Chicago, +in June, 1908. The Republican platform of that year advocated a revision +of the tariff, not necessarily downward, but with a due regard to +difference between the cost of production at home and abroad; it favored +an amendment of the Sherman anti-trust law in such a manner as to give +more publicity and the Federal government more supervision and control; +it advocated the regulation of the issuance of injunctions by the +Federal courts; it indorsed conservation and pledged the party to +"unfailing adherence" to Mr. Roosevelt's policies. This somewhat +noncommittal platform was elaborated by Mr. Taft in his speech, after a +conference with Mr. Roosevelt; the popular election of Senators was +favored, an income tax of some kind indorsed, and a faintly radical +tinge given to the party document. + +The nomination of Mr. Bryan by the Democrats was a foregone conclusion. +The débâcle of 1904 had demonstrated that the breach of 1896 could not +be healed by what the western contingent called "the Wall Street crowd"; +and Mr. Bryan had secured complete control of the party organization. +The convention at Denver was a personal triumph from beginning to end. +Mr. Bryan mastered the proceedings and wrote the platform, and received +the most telling ovation ever given to a party leader by a national +convention. + +Having complete control, Mr. Bryan attempted what the politicians who +talked most aggressively about the trusts had consistently refused to +do--he attempted to define and precisely state the remedies for +objectionable combinations. Other leaders had discussed "good" and +"bad" trusts, but they had not attempted the mathematics of the problem. +In the platform of his party, Mr. Bryan wrote: "A private monopoly is +indefensible and intolerable. We therefore favor the vigorous +enforcement of the criminal law against guilty trust magnates and +officials and demand the enactment of such additional legislation as may +be necessary to make it impossible for private monopoly to exist in the +United States." In this paragraph, there is of course nothing new; but +it continues: "Among the additional remedies we specify three: first, a +law preventing the duplication of directors among competing +corporations; second, a license system which will, without abridging the +rights of each state to create corporations or its right to regulate as +it will foreign corporations doing business within its limits, make it +necessary for a manufacturing or trading corporation engaged in +interstate commerce to take out a federal license before it shall be +permitted to control as much as 25 per cent of the product in which it +deals, a license to protect the public from watered stock and to +prohibit the control by such corporation of more than 50 per cent of the +total amount of any product consumed in the United States; and third, a +law compelling such licensed corporations to sell to all purchasers in +all parts of the country on the same terms after making due allowance +for cost of transportation." + +In dealing with railway corporations, the Democratic platform proposed +concretely the valuation of railways, taking into consideration the +physical as well as other elements; an increase in the power of the +Interstate Commerce Commission, giving it the initiative with reference +to rates and transportation charges and the power to declare any rate +illegal on its own motion, and to inspect railway tariffs before +permitting them to go into effect; and finally an efficient supervision +and regulation of railroads engaged in interstate commerce. + +Mr. Bryan's proposals, particularly with regard to trusts, were greeted +with no little derision on the part of many practical men of affairs, +but they had, at least, the merit of being more definite in character +than any statement of anti-trust policy which had been made hitherto, +except by the Socialists in advocating public ownership. The +Republicans, for example, contented themselves with simply proposing the +amendment of the Sherman law in such a manner as to "give to the federal +government greater supervision and control over and secure greater +publicity in the management of that class of corporations engaged in +interstate commerce having power and opportunity to effect monopolies." + +The campaign of 1908 was without any specially dramatic incidents. The +long stumping tours by all candidates did not seem to elicit the +old-time enthusiasm. The corporation interests that had long financed +the Republican party once more poured out treasure like water (as the +Clapp investigation afterward revealed in 1912); and Mr. Bryan attempted +a counter-movement by asking for small contributions from each member of +his party, but he was sadly disappointed by the results. The Democratic +national committee announced that it would receive no contributions from +corporations, that it would accept no more than $10,000 from any +individual, and that it would make public, before the election, all +contributions above $100. Mr. Bryan also challenged Mr. Taft to make +public the names of the contributors to his fund and the amount received +from each. The Republican managers replied that they would make known +their contributors in due time as required by the law of the state of +New York where the headquarters were located, and Mr. Taft added that he +would urge upon Congress the enactment of a law compelling full +publicity of campaign contributions.[79] + +In the election which followed, Mr. Bryan was defeated for the third +time. His vote was somewhat larger than it was in 1900, and nearly a +million and a half above that cast for Mr. Parker in 1904. But Mr. Taft +more than held the strength of his predecessor as measured by the +popular vote, and he received 321 electoral votes against 162 cast for +his opponent. Once more, the conservative press announced, the country +had repudiated Populism and demonstrated its sound, conservative +instincts. + +When Mr. Taft took the oath of office on March 4, 1909, he fell heir, on +his own admission, to more troublesome problems than had been the lot of +any President since Lincoln's day. His predecessor had kept the country +interested and entertained by the variety of his speeches and +recommendations and by his versatility in dealing with all the social +questions which were pressing to the front during his administration. +Mr. Roosevelt was brilliant in his political operations, although he had +been careful about attempting to bring too many things to concrete +issue. Mr. Taft was matter-of-fact in his outlook and his expectations. +The country had been undergoing a process of education, as he put it, +and now the time had come for taking stock. The time had come for +putting the house in order and settling down to a period of rest. If +there were signs on the horizon which warned Mr. Taft against this +comfortable view, his spoken utterances gave no sign of recognition. + + +_Legislative Measures_ + +The first task which confronted him was the thorny problem of the +tariff. His predecessor had given the matter little attention during his +administration, apparently for the reason that it was, in his opinion, +of little consequence as compared with the questions of railways, +trusts, great riches, and labor. But action could not be indefinitely +postponed. Undoubtedly there was a demand in many parts of the country +for a tariff revision. How widespread it was, how much it was the +creation of the politicians, how intelligent and deep-seated it was, no +one could tell. Nevertheless, more than ten years had elapsed since the +enactment of the Dingley law of 1897, and many who did not entertain +radical views on the subject at all joined in demanding a revision on +the ground that conditions had materially changed. The Republican +platform had promised revision on the basis that the true principle of +protection was best maintained by the imposition of such duties "as +will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and +abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries." Mr. +Taft in his speech of acceptance had promised revision, on the theory +that some schedules were too high and others too low; and his language +during the campaign had been interpreted to mean a more severe downward +revision than he had doubtless contemplated. + +In accordance with party pledges Mr. Taft called Congress in a special +session on March 11, 1909, and after a hotly contested battle the +Payne-Aldrich tariff act was passed. The President made no considerable +effort to force the hand of Congress one way or the other, and he +accepted the measure on the theory that it was the best tariff law that +could be got at the time. Indeed, it was pointed out by members of his +party that the bill contained "654 decreases in duty, 220 increases, and +1150 items of the dutiable list in which the rates were unchanged." It +was also stated that the bill was framed in accordance with the spirit +of the party platform which had made no promise of a general sweeping +reduction. It was admitted, however, that precise information upon the +difference between the cost of production at home and abroad could not +have been obtained in time for this revision, but a tariff board was +created by law for the purpose of obtaining the desired information, on +the basis of which readjustments in schedules could be made from time to +time. + +On April 9, 1909, the Payne tariff act passed the House, one Republican +voting against it and four Democrats from Louisiana voting in favor of +it. This vote, however, was of no significance; the real test was the +vote on the several amendments proposed from time to time to the +original bill, and on these occasions the Democratic lines were badly +broken. On April 12, Mr. Aldrich introduced in the Senate a tariff bill +which had been carefully prepared by the finance committee of which he +was chairman. This measure followed more closely the Dingley law, making +no recommendations concerning some of the commodities which the House +had placed on the free list, and passing over the subject of income and +inheritance taxes without remark. The Aldrich measure was bitterly +attacked by insurgent Republicans from the West,--Senators Dolliver and +Cummins, of Iowa, La Follette, of Wisconsin, Beveridge, of Indiana, and +Bristow, of Kansas,--who held out to the last and voted against the +bill, even as amended, on its final passage, July 8. The conference +committee of the two Houses settled their differences by July 30, and on +August 5 the tariff bill became a law. + +There were several features of the transaction which deserve special +notice. Very early in the Senate proceedings on the bill, an income tax +provision was introduced by Senators Cummins and Bailey, and it looked +as if enough support could be secured from the two parties to enact it +into law. Although President Taft, in his acceptance speech, had +expressed an opinion to the effect that an income tax could be +constitutionally enacted notwithstanding the decision of the Supreme +Court in the Income Tax cases, he blocked the proposal to couple an +income tax measure with the tariff bill, by sending a special message +on June 16, recommending the passage of a constitutional amendment +empowering Congress to levy a general income tax, and advising a tax on +the earnings of corporations. His suggestions were accepted by Congress. +The proposed amendment to the Constitution was passed unanimously by the +Senate, and by an overwhelming majority in the House,[80] and a tax on +the net incomes of corporations was also adopted. A customs court to be +composed of five judges to hear appeals in customs cases was set up, and +a tariff commission to study all aspects of the question, particularly +the differences between cost of production in the United States and +abroad, was created. + +Revision of the tariff had always been a thankless task for any party. +The Democrats had found it such in 1894 when their bill had failed to +please any one, including President Cleveland, and when for collateral +or independent reasons a period of industrial depression had set in. The +McKinley bill of 1890 had aroused a storm of protest which had swept the +Republicans out of power, and it is probable that the Dingley tariff of +1897 would have created similar opposition if it could have been +disentangled from the other overshadowing issues growing out of the +Spanish War. The Payne-Aldrich tariff likewise failed to please; but its +failure was all the more significant because its passage was opposed by +such a large number of prominent party members. The Democrats, as was +naturally to be expected, made all they could out of the situation, and +cried "Treason." Even what appeared to be a concession to the radicals, +the adoption of a resolution providing for an amendment to the +Constitution authorizing the imposition of an income tax, was not +accepted as a consolation, but was looked upon as a subterfuge to escape +the probable dilemma of having an income tax law passed immediately and +submitted to the Supreme Court again. + +Notwithstanding the dissensions within his party, Mr. Taft continued +steadily to press a legislative policy which he had marked out. In a +special message on January 7, 1910, he recommended the creation of a +court of commerce to have jurisdiction, among other things, over appeals +from the Interstate Commerce Commission. This proposal was enacted into +law on June 18, 1910; and the appointments were duly made by the +President. The career of the tribunal was not, however, particularly +happy. Some of its decisions against the rulings of the Commission were +popularly regarded as too favorable to railway interests; one of the +judges, Mr. Archbald, of Pennsylvania, was impeached and removed on the +ground that his private relations with certain railway corporations were +highly questionable; and at length Congress in 1913 terminated its short +life. + +Acting upon a recommendation of the President, Congress, in June, 1910, +passed a law providing for the establishment of a postal savings system, +in connection with the post offices. The law authorized the payment of +two per cent interest on money deposited at the designated post offices +and the distribution of all such deposits among state and national +banks under the protection of bonds placed with the Treasurer of the +United States. The scheme was applied experimentally at a few offices +and then rapidly extended, until within two years it was in operation at +more than 12,000 offices and over $20,000,000 was on deposit. The plan +which had been branded as "socialistic" a few years before when +advocated by the Populists was now hailed as an enlightened reform, even +by the banks as well as business men, for they discovered that it +brought out secret hoardings and gave the banks the benefit at a low +rate of interest--lower than that paid by ordinary savings concerns. + +The postal savings system was shortly supplemented by a system of +parcels post. Mr. Taft strongly advocated the establishment of such a +system, and it had been urged in Congress for many years, but had been +blocked by the opposition of the express companies, for obvious reasons, +and by country merchants who feared that they would be injured by the +increased competition of the mail order departments of city stores. +Finally, by a law approved on August 24, 1912, Congress made provision +for the establishment of this long-delayed service, and it was put into +effect on January 1, 1913, thus enabling the United States to catch up +with the postal systems of other enlightened nations. Although the +measure was sharply criticized for its rates and classifications, it was +generally approved and regarded as the promising beginning of an +institution long desired. + +While helping to add these new burdens to the post-office +administration, Mr. Taft directed his attention to the urgent necessity +for more businesslike methods on the part of the national administration +in general, and, on his recommendation, Congress appropriated in 1910 +$100,000 "to enable the President to inquire into the methods of +transacting the public business of the Executive Department and other +government establishments, and to recommend to Congress such legislation +as may be necessary." A board of experts, known as the Economy and +Efficiency Commission, was thereupon appointed, and it set to work +examining the several branches of administration with a view to +discovering wasteful and obsolete methods in use and recommending +changes and practices which would result in saving money and producing +better results. Among other things, the Commission undertook an +examination of the problem of a national budget along lines followed by +the best European governments, and it suggested the abandonment of the +time-honored "log-rolling" process of making appropriations, in favor of +a consistent, consolidated, and businesslike budget based upon national +needs and not the demands of localities for Federal "improvements," +regardless of their utility. + +Although he was sharply attacked by the advocates of conservation for +appointing and supporting as Secretary of the Interior, Mr. R. A. +Ballinger, who was charged with favoring certain large corporations +seeking public land grants, Mr. Taft devoted no little attention to the +problem of conserving the natural resources. In 1910, Congress enacted +two important laws bearing on the subject. By a measure approved June +22, it provided for agricultural entries on coal lands and the +separation of the surface from the mineral rights in such lands. By +another law, approved three days later, Congress made provision for the +withdrawal of certain lands for water-power sites, irrigation, +classification of lands, and other public purposes. These laws settled +some questions of legality which had been raised with reference to +earlier executive action in withdrawing lands from entry and gave the +President definite authority to control important aspects of +conservation. + +From the opening of his administration Mr. Taft used his influence in +every legitimate way to assist in the development of the movement for +international peace. In his acceptance speech, at the opening of his +campaign for election, he had remarked upon the significance and +importance of the arbitration treaties which had been signed between +nations and upon the contribution of Mr. Roosevelt's administration to +the cause of world peace. Following out his principles, Mr. Taft signed +with France and England in August, 1911, general arbitration treaties +expanding the range of the older agreements so as to include all +controversies which were "justiciable" in character, even though they +might involve questions of "vital interest and national honor." The +treaties, which were hailed by the peace advocates with great acclaim, +met a cold reception in the Senate which ratified them on March 7, 1912, +only after making important amendments that led to their abandonment. + + * * * * * + +Among the most significant of Mr. Taft's acts were his appointments of +the Supreme Court judges. On the death of Chief Justice Fuller, in 1910, +he selected for that high post Associate Justice White. In the course +of his administration, Mr. Taft also had occasion to select five +associate justices, and he appointed Mr. Horace H. Lurton, of Tennessee, +Charles E. Hughes, governor of New York, Mr. Willis Van Devanter, of +Wyoming, Mr. Joseph R. Lamar, of Georgia, and Mr. Mahlon Pitney, of New +Jersey. Thus within four years the President was able to designate a +majority of the judges of the most powerful court in the world, and to +select the Chief Justice who presided over it. + +It was hardly to be expected that the exercise of such a significant +power would escape criticism, particularly in view of the nature of the +cases which are passed upon by that Court. Mr. Bryan was particularly +severe in his attacks, charging the President with deliberately packing +the Court. "You appointed to the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme +Court," he said, "Justice White who thirteen years ago took the trusts' +side of the trust question.[81] ... You appointed Governor Hughes to the +Supreme Court bench after he had interpreted your platform to suit the +trusts." Mr. Bryan also demanded that Mr. Taft let the people know "the +influences" that dictated his appointments. Mr. Bryan attacked +particularly the selection of Mr. Van Devanter, declaring that the +latter, by his decisions in the lower court, was a notorious favorite of +corporation interests. Mr. Taft looked upon these attacks as insults to +himself and the judges, and treated them with the scant courtesy which, +in his opinion, they deserved. The episode, however, was of no little +significance in stirring up public interest in the constitution of a +tribunal that was traditionally supposed to be "non-political" in its +character. + + +_The Anti-Trust Cases_ + +Mr. Taft approached the trust problem with the pre-conceptions of the +lawyer who believes that the indefinite dissolution of combinations is +possible under the law. His predecessor had, it is true, instituted many +proceedings against trusts, but there was a certain lack of sharpness in +his tone, which was doubtless due to the fact that he believed and +openly declared that indiscriminate prosecutions under the Sherman law +(which was, in his opinion, unsound in many features) were highly +undesirable. Mr. Taft, on the other hand, apparently looked at the law +and not the economics of the problem. During Harrison's administration +there had been four bills in equity and three indictments under the +Sherman law; during Cleveland's administration, four bills in equity, +two indictments, two informations for contempt; during McKinley's +administration, three bills in equity. Mr. Roosevelt had to his record, +eighteen bills in equity, twenty-five indictments, and one forfeiture +proceeding. Within three years, Mr. Taft had twenty-two bills in equity +and forty-five indictments to his credit. + +The very vigor with which Mr. Taft pressed the cases against the trusts +did more, perhaps, to force a consideration of the whole question by the +public than did Mr. Roosevelt's extended messages. As has been pointed +out, the members of Congress who enacted the Sherman law were very much +confused in their notions as to what trusts really were and what +combinations and practices were in fact to be considered in restraint of +trade.[82] And it must be confessed that the decisions and opinions of +the courts, up to the beginning of Mr. Taft's administration, had not +done much to clarify the law. In the Trans-Missouri case, decided in +1897, the Supreme Court had declared in effect that all combinations in +restraint of trade, whether reasonable or unreasonable, were in fact +forbidden by the law, Justice White dissenting.[83] + +This was not done by the Court inadvertently. Mr. Justice Peckham, +speaking for the majority of the Court, distinctly marked the fact that +arguments had been directed to that tribunal, "against the inclusion of +all contracts in restraint of trade, as provided for by the language of +the act ... upon the alleged presumption that Congress, notwithstanding +the language of the act, could not have intended to embrace all +contracts, but only such as were in unreasonable restraint of trade. +Under these circumstances we are, therefore, asked to hold that the act +of Congress excepts contracts which are not in unreasonable restraint of +trade, and which only keep rates up to a reasonable price, +notwithstanding the language of the act makes no such exception. In +other words, we are asked to read into the act by way of judicial +legislation an exception that is not placed there by the lawmaking +branch of the government.... It may be that the policy evidenced by the +passage of the act itself will, if carried out, result in disaster to +the roads.... Whether that will be the result or not we do not know and +cannot predict. These considerations are, however, not for us. If the +act ought to read as contended for by the defendants, Congress is the +body to amend it, and not this Court by a process of judicial +legislation wholly unjustifiable." + +It was no doubt fortunate for the business interests of the country that +no earlier administration undertook a searching and drastic prosecution +of combinations under the Sherman law; for in the view of the language +of the Court it is difficult to imagine any kind of important +interconcern agreement which would not be illegal. This very delay in +the vigorous enforcement of the law enabled the country at large to take +a new view of the trusts and to throw aside much of the prejudice which +had characterized politics in the eighties and early nineties. The +lawless practices of the great combinations and their corrupting +influence were extensively discovered and understood; but it became +increasingly difficult for demagogues to convince the public that any +good could accrue to anybody from the ruthless attempts to disintegrate +all large combinations in business. The more radical sections, which had +formerly applauded the platform orator in his tirades against trusts, +were turning away from indiscriminate abuse and listening more +attentively than ever to the Socialists who held, and had held for half +a century, to the doctrine that the trusts were a natural product of +economic evolution and were merely paving the way to national ownership +on a large scale. + +Consequently, between the two forces, the representatives of corporate +interests on the one hand and the spokesmen for socialistic doctrines on +the other, the old demand for the immediate and unconditional +destruction of the trusts was sharply modified. Corporations came to see +that undesirable as "government regulation" might be, it was still more +desirable than destruction. They, therefore, drew to themselves a large +support from sections of the population which did not share socialistic +ideas, and still could see nothing but folly in attempting to resist +what seemed to have the force of nature. Many working-class +representatives ceased to wage war on the trusts as such, for they did +not expect to get into the oil, copper, or steel business for +themselves; and the farmers, on account of rising prices and a large +appreciation in land values, listened with less gladness to the +"war-to-the-hilt" orator. Nevertheless, a large section of the +population, composed particularly of business men and manufacturers of +the lesser industries, hoped to "reëstablish" what they called "fair +conditions of competition" by dissolving into smaller units the huge +corporations that dominated industry. + +In response to this demand, Mr. Taft pushed through the cases against +the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company; and in May, +1911, the Supreme Court handed down decisions dissolving these +combinations. In the course of his opinions, Chief Justice White, who +had dissented in the Trans-Missouri case mentioned above, gave an +interpretation of the Sherman Act which was regarded quite generally as +an abandonment of the principles enunciated by the Court in that case. +He said: "The statute, under this view, evidenced the intent not to +restrain the right to make and enforce contracts, whether resulting from +combinations or otherwise, which did not _unduly restrain_ interstate +and foreign commerce, but to protect the commerce from being restrained +by methods, whether new or old, which would constitute an interference +that is an _undue_ restraint." Thus the Chief Justice restated the +doctrine of "reasonableness" which he had formulated in his dissenting +opinion in the earlier case, but this time as the spokesman of the +Court. It is true, he attempted with great dialectic skill to reconcile +the old and the new opinions, and make it appear that there had been no +change in the theories of the Court; but his attempt was not convincing +to every one, for many shared the view expressed by Justice Harlan, to +the effect that the attempt at reconciliation partook of the nature of a +statement that black is white and white is black. + +The effect of these decisions was the dissolution of the two concerns +into certain constituent parts which were supposed to reëstablish +competition; but no marvelously beneficial economic results seem to have +accrued. The inner circles of the two combinations made huge sums from +the appreciation of stocks; the prices of gasoline and some other oil +products mounted with astonishing speed to a higher rate than ever +before; and smaller would-be competitors declared that the constituent +companies were so large that competition with them was next to +impossible. No one showed any great enthusiasm about the results of the +prosecution and decisions, except perhaps some eminent leaders in the +business world, who shared the opinion of Mr. J. P. Morgan that the +doctrines of the Court were "entirely satisfactory," and to be taken as +meaning that indiscriminate assaults on large concerns, merely because +of their size, would not be tolerated by the Court. Radical +"trust-breakers" cried aloud that they had been betrayed by the eminent +tribunal, and a very large section of the population which had come to +regard trusts as a "natural evolution" looked upon the whole affair as +an anticlimax. Mr. Taft, in a speech shortly after the decisions of the +Court, expressed his pleasure at the outcome of the action and invited +the confidence of the country in the policy announced. He had carried a +great legal battle to its conclusion, only to find those who cheered the +loudest in the beginning, indifferent at the finish. + + +_The Overthrow of Speaker Cannon_ + +From the beginning of his administration, it was apparent that Mr. +Taft's party in Congress was not in that state of harmony which presaged +an uneventful legislative career. The vote on the tariff bill, both in +the Senate and the House, showed no little dissatisfaction with the way +in which the affairs of the party were being managed. The acrimony in +the tariff debate had been disturbing, and the attacks on Speaker Cannon +from his own party colleagues increased in frequency and virulence +inside and outside of Congress. + +Under this astute politician and keen parliamentary manager, a system of +legislative procedure had grown up in the House, which concentrated the +management of business in the hands of a few members, while preserving +the outward signs of democracy within the party. The Speaker enjoyed the +power of appointing all of the committees of the House and of +designating the chairmen thereof. Under his power to object to a request +for "unanimous consent," he could refuse to recognize members asking for +the ear of the chamber under that privilege. He, furthermore, exercised +his general right of recognition in such a manner as to favor those +members who were in the good graces of the inner circle, which had +naturally risen to power through long service. + +In addition, there had been created a powerful engine, known as the +"rules committee" which could, substantially at any time, set aside the +regular operations of the House, fix the limits of debate, and force the +consideration of any particular bill. This committee was composed of the +Speaker and two colleagues selected by himself, for, although there were +two Democratic representatives on the committee, they did not enjoy any +influence in its deliberations. The outward signs of propriety were +given to this enginery by the election of the Speaker by the party +caucus, but the older members and shrewd managers had turned the caucus +into a mere ratifying machine. + +Under this system, which was perfected through the long tenure of power +enjoyed by the Republicans, a small group of managers, including Mr. +Cannon, came to a substantial control over all the business of the +House. A member could not secure recognition for a measure without +"seeing" the Speaker in advance; the older members monopolized the +important committees; and a measure introduced by a private member had +no chance for consideration, to say nothing of passage, unless its +sponsor made his peace with the party managers. This system was by no +means without its advantages. It concentrated authority in a few eminent +party spokesmen and the country came to understand that some one was at +last responsible for what happened in the House. The obvious +disadvantage was the use of power to perpetuate a machine and policies +which did not in fact represent the country or the party. Furthermore, +the new and younger members could not expect to achieve anything until +they had submitted to the proper "party discipline." + +If anything went wrong, it soon became popular to attribute the evil to +"Cannon and his system." Attacks upon them became especially bitter in +the campaign of 1908 and particularly venomous after the passage of the +Aldrich-Payne tariff act. At length, in March, 1910, by a clever piece +of parliamentary manipulation, some "insurgent" Republicans were able to +present an amendment to the rules ousting the Speaker from membership in +the rules committee, increasing the number, and providing for election +by the House. Mr. Cannon was forced to rule on the regularity of this +amendment, and he decided against it. On appeal from the decision of the +chair, the Speaker was defeated by a combination of Democrats and +insurgent Republicans, and the committee on rules was reconstructed. A +motion to declare the Speakership vacant was defeated, however, because +only eight insurgents supported it, and accordingly Mr. Cannon was +permitted to serve out his term. Although this was heralded as "a great +victory," it was of no consequence in altering the management of +business in that session; but it was a solemn portent of the defeat for +the Republican party which lay ahead in the autumn. + + +_Dissensions_ + +The second half of Mr. Taft's administration was marked by the failure +to accomplish many results on which he had set his mind. The election of +1910 showed that the country was swinging back to the Democratic party +once more. In that year, the Democrats elected governors in +Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and some +other states which had long been regarded as Republican. The Democrats +also carried the House of Representatives, securing 227 members to 163 +Republicans and 1 Socialist, Mr. Berger, of Wisconsin. Although many +conservative Republican leaders, like Mr. Cannon, Mr. Payne, and Mr. +Dalzell, were returned, their position in the minority was seriously +impaired by the election of many "insurgent" Republicans from the West, +who were out of harmony with the old methods of the party. + +In view of this Democratic victory, it was inevitable that Mr. Taft +should have trouble over the tariff. In accordance with the declarations +of the Republican platform, he had recommended and secured the creation, +in 1909, of a tariff board designed to obtain precise information on the +relation of the tariff to production and labor at home and abroad. The +work of this board fell into three main divisions. It was, in the first +place, instructed to take each article in the tariff schedule and +"secure concise information regarding the nature of the article, the +chief sources of supply at home and abroad, the methods of its +production, its chief uses, statistics of production, imports and +exports, with an estimate of the ad valorem equivalent for all specific +duties." In the second place, it was ordered to compile statistics on +the cost of production at home and abroad so that some real information +might be available as to the difference, with a view to discovering the +amount of protection necessary to accomplish the real purposes of a +"scientific" tariff. Finally, the board was instructed to secure +accurate information as to prices at home and abroad and as to the +general conditions of competition in the several industries affected by +the tariff. + +If there was to be any protection at all, it was obvious that an immense +amount of precise information was necessary to the adjustment of +schedules in such a manner as not to give undue advantages to American +manufacturers and thus encourage sloth and obsolete methods on their +part. Such was the view taken by Mr. Taft and the friends of the tariff +board; but the Democratic Congress elected in 1910 gave the outward +signs of a determination to undertake a speedy and considerable +"downward revision," regardless of any "scientific" information that +might be collected by the administration. There was doubtless some +demand in the country for such a revision, and furthermore it was "good +politics" for the leaders of the new House to embarrass the Republican +President as much as possible. The opportunity was too inviting to be +disregarded, particularly with a presidential election approaching. + +Consequently, the House, in 1911, passed three important tariff +measures: a farmers' free list bill placing agricultural implements, +boots and shoes, wire fence, meat, flour, lumber, and other commodities +on the free list; a measure revising the famous "Schedule K," embracing +wool and woolen manufactures; and a law reducing the duties on cotton +manufactures, chemicals, paints, metals, and other commodities. With the +support of the "insurgent" Republicans in the Senate these measures were +passed with more speed than was expected by their sponsors, and Mr. Taft +promptly vetoed them on the ground that some of them were loosely drawn +and all of them were based upon inadequate information. The following +year, an iron and steel measure and a woolens bill were again presented +to the President and as decisively vetoed. In his veto messages, Mr. +Taft pointed out that the concise information collected by the tariff +board was now at the disposal of Congress and that it was possible to +undertake a revision of many schedules which would allow a considerable +reduction without "destroying any established industry or throwing any +wage earners out of employment." These last veto messages, sent in +August, 1912, received scant consideration from members of Congress +already engaged in a hot political campaign. + +Mr. Taft was equally unfortunate in his attempt to secure reciprocity +with Canada. In January, 1911, through the Secretary of State, he +concluded a reciprocity agreement with that country by the exchange of +notes, providing for a free list of more than one hundred articles and a +reduction of the tariff on more than four hundred articles. The +agreement was submitted to the legislatures of the two countries. A bill +embodying it passed the House, in February, by a Democratic vote, the +insurgent Republicans standing almost solidly against it, on the ground +that it discriminated against the farmers by introducing Canadian +competition, while benefiting the manufacturers who had no considerable +competition from that source. The Senate failed to act on the bill until +the next session of the new Congress when it was passed in July with +twelve insurgent and twelve regular Republicans against it. After having +wrought this serious breach in his own party in Congress, Mr. Taft was +sorely disappointed by seeing the whole matter fall to the ground +through the overthrow of the Liberals in Canada at the election in +September, 1911, and the rejection by that country of the measure for +which he had so laboriously contended. + +During the closing days of his administration, Mr. Taft was seriously +beset by troubles with Mexico. Under the long and severe rule of General +Porfirio Diaz in that country, order had been set up there (at whatever +cost to humanity) and American capital had streamed into Mexican mines, +railways, plantations, and other enterprises. In 1911, Diaz was +overthrown by Francisco Madero and the latter was hardly installed in +power before he was assassinated and a dictatorship set up under General +Huerta, in February, 1913. After the overthrow of Diaz in 1911, Mexico +was filled with revolutionary turmoil, and American lives and property +were gravely menaced. In April, 1912, Mr. Taft solemnly warned the +Mexican government that the United States would hold it responsible for +the destruction of American property and the taking of American life, +but this warning was treated with scant courtesy by President Madero. +The disorders continued to increase, and demands for intervention on the +part of the United States were heard from innumerable interested +quarters, but Mr. Taft refused to be drawn into an armed conflict. The +Mexican trouble he bequeathed to his successor. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [79] Congress by an act of 1907 forbade campaign + contributions by corporations, in connection with Federal + elections, and in 1910 and 1911 enacted laws providing for + the publicity of expenses in connection with elections to + Congress. + + [80] The Sixteenth Amendment was proclaimed in force on + February 25, 1913. + + [81] See below, p. 332. + + [82] See above, p. 135. + + [83] United States _v._ Trans-Missouri Freight Assn., 166 U. + S. 290. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 + + +Long before the opening of the campaign of 1912, the dissenters in the +Republican party who had added the prefix of "Progressive" to the old +title, began to draw together for the purpose of resisting the +renomination of Mr. Taft and putting forward a candidate more nearly in +accord with their principles. As early as January 21, 1911, a National +Progressive Republican League was formed at the residence of Senator La +Follette in Washington and a program set forth embracing the indorsement +of direct primaries, direct elections, and direct government generally +and a criticism of the recent failures to secure satisfactory +legislation on the tariff, trusts, banking, and conservation. Only on +the changes in our machinery of government did the League take a +definite stand; on the deeper issues of political economy it was silent, +at least as to positive proposals. Mr. Roosevelt was invited to join the +new organization, but he declined to identify himself with it. + +For a time the Progressives centered their attacks upon Mr. Taft's +administration. Their bill of indictment may be best stated in the +language of Senator La Follette: "In his campaign for election, he [Mr. +Taft] had interpreted the platform as a pledge for tariff revision +downward. Five months after he was inaugurated he signed a bill that +revised the tariff upward.... The President started on a tour across the +country in September, 1909. At the outset in an address at Boston he +lauded Aldrich as the greatest statesman of his time. Then followed his +Winona speech, in which he declared the Payne-Aldrich bill to be the +best tariff ever enacted, and in effect challenged the Progressives in +Congress who had voted against the measure.... During the succeeding +sessions of Congress, President Taft's sponsorship for the +administration railroad bill, with its commerce court, its repeal of the +anti-trust act in its application to railroads, its legalizing of all +watered railroad capitalization; his course regarding the Ballinger and +Cunningham claims, and the subterfuges resorted to by his administration +in defense of Ballinger; his attempt to foist upon the country a sham +reciprocity measure; his complete surrender to the legislative +reactionary program of Aldrich and Cannon and the discredited +representatives of special interests who had so long managed +congressional legislation, rendered it utterly impossible for the +Progressive Republicans of the country to support him for +reëlection."[84] + +A second positive step in the organization of the Progressive +Republicans was taken in April, 1911, at a conference held in the +committee room of Senator Bourne, of Oregon, at the Capitol. At this +meeting a number of Republican Senators, Representatives, newspaper men, +and private citizens were present, and it was there agreed that the +Progressives must unite upon some candidate in opposition to Mr. Taft. +The most available man at the time was Senator La Follette, who had been +an uncompromising and vigorous exponent of progressive doctrines since +his entrance to the Senate in 1906; and the members of this conference, +or at least most of them, assured him of their support in case he would +consent to become a candidate for nomination. The Senator was informed +by men very close to Mr. Roosevelt that the latter would, under no +circumstances, enter the field; and he was afforded the financial +assistance necessary to open headquarters for the purpose of advancing +his candidacy. No formal announcement of the adherence of the group to +Mr. La Follette was then made, for the reason that Senator Cummins, of +Iowa, and some other prominent Republicans declined to sign the call to +arms.[85] + +In July, 1911, Senator La Follette began his active campaign for +nomination as an avowed Progressive Republican, and within a few months +he had developed an unexpected strength, particularly in the Middle +West, which indicated the depth of the popular dissatisfaction with Mr. +Taft's administration. In October of that year a national conference of +Progressive Republicans assembled at Chicago, on the call of Mr. La +Follette's campaign manager, and indorsed the Senator in unmistakable +language, declaring him to be "the logical Republican candidate for +President of the United States," and urging the formation of +organizations in all states to promote his nomination. In spite of these +outward signs of prosperity, however, Mr. La Follette was by no means +sure of his supporters, for several of the most prominent, including Mr. +Gifford Pinchot and Mr. James R. Garfield, were not whole-hearted in +their advocacy of his cause and were evidently unwilling to relinquish +the hope that Mr. Roosevelt might become their leader after all. + +Indeed, Senator La Follette came to believe that many of his supporters, +who afterward went over to Mr. Roosevelt, never intended to push his own +candidacy to the end, but employed him as a sort of "stalking horse" to +interest and measure progressive sentiment for the purpose of putting +the ex-President into the field at the opportune moment, if the signs +proved auspicious. This was regarded by Mr. La Follette not merely as +treachery to himself, but also as treason to genuine progressive +principles. In his opinion, Mr. Roosevelt's long administration of seven +years had failed to produce many material results. He admitted that the +ex-President had done something to promote conservation of natural +resources, but called attention to the fact that the movement for +conservation had been begun even as early as Harrison's +administration.[86] He pointed out that Mr. Roosevelt had vigorously +indorsed the Payne-Aldrich tariff in the New York state campaign of +1910; and that during his administration the formation and +overcapitalization of gigantic combinations had gone forward with +unprecedented speed, in spite of the denunciation of "bad trusts" in +executive messages. Furthermore, the Senator directly charged Mr. +Roosevelt with having used the power of the Federal patronage against +him in his fight for progressive reforms in Wisconsin. + +So decided was Senator La Follette's distrust of Mr. Roosevelt's new +"progressivism," that nothing short of a lengthy quotation can convey +the spirit of it. "While Mr. Roosevelt was President," says the Senator, +"his public utterances through state papers, addresses, and the press +were highly colored with rhetorical radicalism. His administrative +policies as set forth in his recommendations to Congress were vigorously +and picturesquely presented, but characterized by an absence of definite +economic conception. One trait was always pronounced. His most savage +assault upon special interests was invariably offset with an equally +drastic attack upon those who were seeking to reform abuses. These were +indiscriminately classed as demagogues and dangerous persons. In this +way he sought to win approval, both from the radicals and the +conservatives. This cannonading, first in one direction and then in +another, filled the air with noise and smoke, which confused and +obscured the line of action, but when the battle cloud drifted by and +quiet was restored, it was always a matter of surprise that so little +had really been accomplished.... He smeared the issue, but caught the +imagination of the younger men of the country by his dash and mock +heroics. Taft coöperated with Cannon and Aldrich on legislation. +Roosevelt coöperated with Aldrich and Cannon on legislation. Neither +President took issue with the reactionary bosses of the Senate upon any +legislation of national importance. Taft's talk was generally in line +with his legislative policy. Roosevelt's talk was generally at right +angles to his legislative policy. Taft's messages were the more directly +reactionary; Roosevelt's the more 'progressive.' But adhering to his +conception of a 'square deal,' his strongest declarations in the public +interest were invariably offset with something comforting for Privilege; +every phrase denouncing 'bad' trusts was deftly balanced with praise for +'good' trusts." It is obvious that a man so deeply convinced of Mr. +Roosevelt's insincerity of purposes and instability of conviction could +not think of withdrawing in his favor or of lending any countenance to +his candidacy for nomination. To Senator La Follette the "directly +reactionary" policy of Mr. Taft was far preferable to the "mock heroics" +of Mr. Roosevelt. + +Nevertheless, at the opening of the presidential year, 1912, all +speculations turned upon the movements of Mr. Roosevelt. His long trip +to Africa and Europe and his brief abstention from politics on his +return in June, 1910, led many, who did not know him, to suppose that he +might emulate the example set by Mr. Cleveland in retiring from active +affairs. If he entertained any such notions, it was obvious that the +exigencies of affairs in his party were different from those in the +Democratic party after 1897. Indeed, during the very summer after his +return, the cleavage between the reformist Hughes wing of the +Republicans in New York and the "regular" group headed by Mr. William +Barnes had developed into an open breach; and at the earnest entreaty of +the representatives of the former faction, Mr. Roosevelt plunged into +the state contest, defeated Vice President Sherman in a hot fight for +chairmanship of the state convention, and secured the nomination of Mr. +H. A. Stimson as the Republican candidate for governor. The platform +which was adopted by the convention was colorless enough for the most +conservative party member and gave no indication of the radical drift +manifested two years later at Chicago. The defeat of Mr. Stimson gave no +little satisfaction to the ex-President's opponents, particularly to +those who hoped that he had at last been "eliminated." + +They had not, however, counted on their man. During the New York +gubernatorial campaign, he made a tour of the West, and in a series of +remarkable speeches, he stirred that region by the enunciation of +radical doctrines which were listened to gladly by the multitude. In an +address at Ossawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910, he expounded his +principles under the title of "the New Nationalism." He there advocated +Federal regulation of trusts, a graduated income tax, tariff revision +schedule by schedule, conservation, labor legislation, the direct +primary, recall of elective officers, and the adjustment of state and +Federal relations in such a form that there might be no neutral ground +to serve as the refuge for lawbreakers.[87] In editorials in the +_Outlook_, of which he was the contributing editor, and in his speeches, +Mr. Roosevelt continued to discuss Mr. Taft's policies and the current +issues of popular government. At length, in February, 1912, in an +address before the constitutional convention of Ohio, he came out for a +complete program of "direct" government, the initiative, referendum, +and recall; but with such careful qualifications that the more radical +progressives were still unconvinced.[88] + +Notwithstanding his extensive discussion of current issues and his great +popularity with a large section of the Progressive group, Mr. Roosevelt +steadily put away all suggestions that he should become a candidate in +1912. In a letter to the Pittsburgh _Leader_, of August 22, 1911, he +said: "I must ask not only you, but every friend I have, to see to it +that no movement whatever is made to bring me forward for nomination in +1912.... I should esteem it a genuine calamity if such a movement were +undertaken." Nevertheless, all along, men who were very close to him +believed that he would not refuse the nomination if it were offered to +him under proper circumstances. As time went on his utterances became +more pronounced, particularly in his western speeches, and friendly as +well as unfriendly newspapers insisted on viewing his conduct as a +distinct appeal for popular support for the Republican nomination. + +The climax came in February, 1912, when seven Republican Governors, +Glasscock, of West Virginia, Aldrich, of Nebraska, Bass, of New +Hampshire, Carey, of Wyoming, Stubbs, of Kansas, Osborn, of Michigan, +and Hadley, of Missouri, issued a statement that the requirements of +good government demanded his candidature, that the great majority of +Republican voters desired it, that he stood for the principles and +policies most conducive to public happiness and prosperity, and finally +that it was his plain duty to accept regardless of his personal +interests or preferences. To this open challenge, he replied on February +24 by saying that he would accept the nomination if tendered and abide +by this decision until the convention had expressed its preference. The +only political doctrine which he enunciated was belief "in the rule of +the people," and on this principle he expressed a desire for direct +primaries to ascertain the will of the party members. + + +_The Nomination of Candidates in 1912_ + +A new and unexpected turn was given to the campaign for nomination by +the adoption of the preferential primary in a number of states, East as +well as West. As we have seen, the direct primary[89] was brought into +action by men who found themselves outside of the old party +intrenchments. La Follette, in Wisconsin, Stubbs, in Kansas, Hughes, in +New York, and the other advocates of the system, having failed to +capture the old strongholds, determined to blow them up; the time had +now come for an attack on the national convention. President Taft and +the regular Republican organization were in possession of the enormous +Federal patronage, and they knew how to use it just as well as had Mr. +Roosevelt in 1908 when he forced the nomination of Mr. Taft. True to +their ancient traditions, the Republican provinces in the South began, +early in 1912, to return "representatives" instructed to vote for a +second term for President Taft. But the Progressives were forearmed as +well as forewarned. + +As early as February 27, 1912, Senator Bourne had warned the country +that the overthrow of "the good old ways" of nominating presidential +candidates was at hand. In a speech on that date, he roundly denounced +the convention and described the new Oregon system. He declared that +nominations in national conventions were made by the politicians, and +that the "electorate of the whole United States is permitted only to +witness in gaping expectancy, and to ratify at the polls in the +succeeding November." The flagrancy of this abuse, however, paled into +insignificance, added Mr. Bourne, "in the presence of that other abuse +against partisan conscience and outrage upon the representative system +which is wrought by the Republican politician in hopelessly Democratic +states and by the Democratic politician in hopelessly Republican states +in dominating the national conventions with the presence of these +unrepresentative delegations that represent neither party, people, nor +principle." + +The speaker then elaborated these generalities by reference to details. +He pointed out that the southern states and territories which (except +Maryland) gave no electoral votes to Mr. Taft had 338 delegates in the +convention, only 153 less than a majority of the entire party assembly, +four more than the combined votes of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, +Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Iowa with 334 delegates. Moreover, +equal representation of states and territories on the national committee +and on the committee on credentials--the two bodies which, in the first +instance, pass upon the rights of delegates to their seats--gave undue +weight to the very states where wrongs were most likely to be +committed. As to the power of the Republican President of the United +States to control these delegates from the South, the Senator was in no +doubt. + +To the anomalous southern delegates were added the delegates selected in +northern states by the power of patronage. Mr. Bourne was specific: +"Three years ago," he said, "we had a convincing exhibition of the power +of a President to dictate the selection of his successor. At that time, +three fourths of the Republican voters of my state were in favor of the +renomination of Mr. Roosevelt, and believing that their wishes should be +observed, I endeavored to secure a delegation from that state favorable +to his nomination for a second elective term. But through the tremendous +power of the Chief Executive and of the Federal machine the delegates +selected by our state convention were instructed for Mr. Taft. After all +the delegates were elected and instructed, a poll was taken by one of +the leading newspapers in Portland, which city contains nearly one third +of the entire population of the state. The result indicated that the +preference of the people of the state was 11 to 1 in favor of Mr. +Roosevelt as against Mr. Taft." It was this personal experience with the +power of Federal patronage that induced Mr. Bourne to draft the Oregon +presidential primary law which was enacted by the use of the initiative +and referendum in 1910. + +The provisions of the Oregon law follow: + +(1) At the regular primary held on the forty-fifth day before the first +Monday in June of the presidential year, each voter is given an +opportunity to express his preference for one candidate for the office +of President and one for that of Vice President, either by writing the +names or by making crosses before the printed names on the ballot. + +(2) The names of candidates for the two offices are placed on the ballot +without their consent, if necessary, by petitions filed by their +supporters, just as in the case of candidates for governor and United +States Senator. + +(3) The committee or organization which places a presidential aspirant +on the primary ballot is provided, on payment therefor, four pages in +the campaign book issued by the state, and electors who oppose or +approve of any such aspirant for nomination are likewise given space in +the campaign book. + +(4) Delegates to national conventions and presidential electors must be +nominated at large at the primary. + +(5) Every delegate is paid his expenses to the national convention; in +no case, however, more than $200. + +(6) Every delegate must take an oath to the effect that he will "to the +best of his judgment and ability faithfully carry out the wishes of his +political party as expressed by its voters at the time of his election." + +The initial move of Oregon to secure a preferential vote on candidates +and the instruction of delegates was followed in 1911 by New Jersey, +Nebraska, California, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, and in 1912 by +Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland. + +The other presidential primary laws show some variations on the Oregon +plan although they agree in affording the voter an opportunity to +express his preference. Nebraska, for example, refused to disregard the +Republican system of district representation, and provided that "four +delegates shall be elected by the voters of the state at large; the +remainder of the delegates shall be equally divided between the various +congressional districts in the state and district delegates shall be +elected by the voters of the various congressional districts in the +state." Massachusetts follows Nebraska in this rule, but California +prefers the Oregon plan of election at large. It was this provision in +the law of California that caused the controversy over the seating of +two district delegates at Chicago in June, 1912. Although Mr. Roosevelt +carried the state, one of the districts went for Mr. Taft, and the +convention seated the delegates from this district, on the ground that +the rules of the party override a state statute. + +The Illinois law does not attempt to bind the delegates to a strict +observance of the results of the primary. On the contrary it expressly +states "that the vote for President of the United States as herein +provided for shall be for the sole purpose of securing an expression of +the sentiment and will of the party voters with respect to the candidate +for nomination for said office, and the vote of the state at large shall +be taken and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates at +large to the national conventions of the respective political parties; +and the vote of the respective congressional districts shall be taken +and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates of the said +congressional districts to the national convention of the respective +political parties." + + * * * * * + +The existence of these laws in several strategic states made it +necessary for the Republican and Democratic candidates to go directly +before the voters to discuss party issues. The country witnessed the +unhappy spectacle of two former friends, Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt, +waging bitter war upon each other on the hustings. The former denounced +the Progressives as "political emotionalists or neurotics." The latter +referred to his candidacy in the words, "My hat is in the ring"; and +during his campaign fiercely turned upon Mr. Taft. He gave to the public +a private letter in which Mr. Taft acknowledged that Mr. Roosevelt had +voluntarily transferred to him the presidential office, and added the +comment, "It is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you." + +Mr. Roosevelt's candidature was lavishly supported by Mr. G. W. Perkins, +of the Steel and Harvester Trusts, and by other gentlemen of great +wealth who had formerly indorsed Mr. Hanna's methods; and all of the old +engines of politics were brought into play. While making the popular +appeal in the North, Mr. Roosevelt's managers succeeded in securing a +large quota of "representatives" from the southern Republican provinces +to contest those already secured by Mr. Taft. As the matter was put by +the Washington _Times_, a paper owned by Mr. Munsey, one of Mr. +Roosevelt's ardent supporters: "For psychological effect, as a move in +practical politics, it was necessary for the Roosevelt people to start +contests on these early Taft selections, in order that a tabulation of +strength could be put out that would show Roosevelt holding a good hand +in the game. A table showing 'Taft, 150, Roosevelt, 19; contested none,' +would not be likely to inspire confidence. Whereas one showing 'Taft, +23, Roosevelt, 19; contested, 127,' looked very different." + +The results of the Republican presidential primaries were astounding. +Mr. Roosevelt carried Illinois by a majority of 100,000; he obtained 67 +of the 76 delegates from Pennsylvania; the state convention in Michigan +broke up in a riot; he carried California by a vote of two to one as +against Mr. Taft; he swept New Jersey and South Dakota; and he secured +the eight delegates at large in Massachusetts, although Mr. Taft carried +the preferential vote by a small majority. Connecticut and New York were +strongly for Mr. Taft, and Mr. La Follette carried Wisconsin and North +Dakota. Mr. Taft's supporters called attention to the fact that a very +large number of Republicans had failed to vote at all in the +preferential primaries, but they were speedily informed by the +opposition that they would see the shallowness of this contention if +they inquired into the number who voted for delegates to the conventions +which indorsed Mr. Taft. + +When the Republican convention assembled in Chicago, 252 of the 1078 +seats were contested; 238 of these were held by Mr. Taft's delegates and +14 by Mr. Roosevelt's supporters. The national committee, after the +usual hearings, decided the contests in such a manner as to give Mr. +Taft a safe majority. No little ingenuity was expended on both sides to +show the legality or the illegality of the several decisions. Mr. +Taft's friends pointed out that they had been made in a constitutional +manner by the proper authority, the national committee "chosen in 1908 +when Roosevelt was the leader of the party, at a time when his influence +dominated the convention." Mr. Roosevelt's champions replied by cries of +"fraud." Independent newspapers remarked that there was no more +"regularity" about one set of southern delegates than another; that the +national committee had followed the example set by Mr. Roosevelt when he +forced Mr. Taft's nomination in 1908 by using southern delegations +against the real Republican states which had instructed for other +candidates; and that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the +gander. Whatever may be the merits of the technical claims made on both +sides, it seems fair to say that Mr. Roosevelt, according to all +available signs, particularly the vote in the primaries in the strategic +states, was the real choice of the Republican party. + +The struggle over the contested seats was carried into the convention, +and after a hot fight, Mr. Taft's forces were victorious. When at +length, as Mr. Bryan put it, "the credentials committee made its last +report and the committee-made majority had voted itself the convention," +Mr. Roosevelt's supporters on Saturday, June 22, after a week's +desperate maneuvering, broke with the Republican assembly. A statement +prepared by Mr. Roosevelt was read as a parting shot. "The convention," +he said, "has now declined to purge the roll of the fraudulent delegates +placed thereon by the defunct national committee, and the majority which +has thus indorsed the fraud was made a majority only because it +included the fraudulent delegates themselves who all sat as judges on +one another's cases.... The convention as now composed has no claim to +represent the voters of the Republican party.... Any man nominated by +the convention as now constituted would merely be the beneficiary of +this successful fraud; it would be deeply discreditable to any man to +accept the convention's nomination under these circumstances; and any +man thus accepting it would have no claim to the support of any +Republican on party grounds and would have forfeited the right to ask +the support of any honest man of any party on moral grounds." + +Mr. Roosevelt's severe arraignment of men who had been his bosom friends +and chief political advisers and supporters filled with astonishment +many thoughtful observers in all parties who found it difficult to +account for his conduct. In Mr. Roosevelt's bitter speech at the +Auditorium mass meeting on the evening of June 17, 1912, a sharp line +was drawn between the "treason" of the Republican "Old Guard" and the +"purity" of his supporters. Of this, Mr. Bryan said, with much irony: +"He carried me back to the day when I first learned of this world-wide, +never-ending contest between the beneficiaries of privilege and the +unorganized masses; and I can appreciate the amazement which he must +feel that so many honest and well-meaning people seem blind or +indifferent to what is going on. I passed through the same period of +amazement when I first began to run for President. My only regret is +that we have not had the benefit of his powerful assistance during the +campaigns in which we have protested against the domination of politics +by predatory corporations. He probably feels more strongly stirred to +action to-day because he was so long unconscious of the forces at work +thwarting the popular will. The fact, too, that he has won prestige and +position for himself and friends through the support of the very +influences which he now so righteously denounces must still further +increase the sense of responsibility which he feels at this time.... He +ought to find encouragement in my experience. I have seen several +campaigns end in a most provoking way, and yet I have lived to see a +Republican ex-President cheered by a Republican audience for denouncing +men who, only a few years ago, were thought to be the custodians of the +nation's honor."[90] + +When Mr. Roosevelt definitely broke with the Republican convention, most +of his followers left that assembly, and the few that stayed behind +there refused to vote on roll call. The substantial "rump" which +remained proceeded with the business as if nothing had happened, and +renominated Mr. Taft and Mr. Sherman as the candidates of the Republican +party. The regulars retained the battle field, but they could not fail +to recognize how forlorn was the hope that led them on. + +On examining the vote on Mr. Root and Mr. McGovern, as candidates for +temporary chairman, it becomes apparent that the real strength of the +party was with Mr. Roosevelt. The former candidate, representing the +conservative wing, received the overwhelming majority of the votes of +the southern states, like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and +Virginia, where the Republican organization was a political sham; he did +not carry the majority of the delegates of a single one of the strategic +Republican states of the North except Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and New +York. Massachusetts and Wisconsin were evenly divided; but the other +great Republican states were against him. Minnesota, Nebraska, New +Jersey, North and South Dakota were solid for McGovern. Ohio gave +thirty-four of her thirty-eight votes for him; Illinois, forty-nine out +of fifty-eight; California, twenty-four out of twenty-six; Kansas, +eighteen out of twenty; Oregon, six out of nine; Pennsylvania, +sixty-four out of seventy-six. In nearly every state where there had +been a preferential primary Mr. Roosevelt had carried the day. Mr. Root +won by a vote of 558 to 501 for Mr. McGovern. It was a victory, but it +bore the sting of death. When he stepped forward to deliver his address, +the applause that greeted him was broken by cries of "Receiver of stolen +goods." + +If the supporters of Mr. Taft in the convention had any doubts as to the +character of the methods employed to secure his nomination or the +conduct of the convention itself, they were more than repaid for their +labors by what they believed to be the salvation of the party in the +hour of a great crisis. To them, the attacks on the judiciary, +representative institutions, and the established order generally were so +serious and so menacing that if high-handed measures were ever justified +they were on that occasion. The instruments which they employed were +precisely those which had been developed in party usage and had been +wielded with kindred results in 1908 by the eminent gentleman who +created so much disturbance when he fell a victim to them. Mr. Taft's +supporters must have foreseen defeat from the hour when the break came, +but they preferred defeat in November to the surrender of all that the +party had stood for since the Civil War. + +The Republican platform was not prolix or very specific, but on general +principles it took a positive stand. It adhered to the traditional +American doctrine of individual liberty, protected by constitutional +safeguards and enforced by the courts; and it declared the recall of +judges to be "unnecessary and unwise." It announced the purpose of the +party to go forward with a program of social legislation, but it did not +go into great detail on this point. President Taft's policy of +submitting justiciable controversies between nations to arbitration was +indorsed. The amendment of the Sherman law in such a manner as to make +the illegal practices of trusts and corporations more specific was +favored, and the creation of a Federal trade commission to deal with +interstate business affected with public use was recommended. The +historic views of the party on the tariff were restated and sound +currency and banking legislation promised. The insinuation that the +party was reactionary was repudiated by a declaration that it had always +been a genuinely progressive party, never stationary or reactionary, but +always going from the fulfillment of one pledge to another in response +to public need and popular will. + +In his acceptance speech, Mr. Taft took issue with all the radical +tendencies of the time and expressed his profound gratitude for the +righteous victory at Chicago, where they had been saved from the man +"whose recently avowed political views would have committed the party to +radical proposals involving dangerous changes in our present +constitutional form of representative government and our independent +judiciary." The widespread popular unrest which forced itself upon the +attention of even the most indifferent spectators, Mr. Taft attributed +to the sensational journals, muckraking, and demagogues, and he declared +that the equality of opportunity preached by the apostles of social +justice "involves a forced division of property and that means +socialism." In fact, in his opinion, the real contest was at bottom one +over private property, and the Democratic and Progressive parties were +merely aiding the Socialists in their attack upon this institution. He +challenged his opponents to show how the initiative, referendum, and +recall would effect significant economic changes: "Votes are not bread, +constitutional amendments are not work, referendums do not pay rent or +furnish houses, recalls do not furnish clothes, initiatives do not +supply employment, or relieve inequalities of condition or of +opportunity." In other words he took a firm stand against the whole +range of "radical propositions" advanced by "demagogues" to "satisfy +what is supposed to be popular clamor." + + * * * * * + +The Democrats looked upon the Republican dissensions with evident +satisfaction. When the time for sifting candidates for 1912 arrived, +there was unwonted bustle in their ranks, for they now saw a greater +probability of victory than at any time in the preceding sixteen years. +The congressional elections of 1910, the division in the Republican +party, and discontent with the prevailing order of things manifest +throughout the country, all pointed to a possibility of a chance to +return to the promised land from which they had been driven in 1897. And +there was no lack of strong presidential "timber." Two of the recently +elected Democratic governors, Harmon, of Ohio, and Wilson, of New +Jersey, were assiduously "boomed" by their respective contingents of +supporters. Mr. Bryan, though not an avowed candidate, was still +available and strong in his western battalions. Mr. Champ Clark, Speaker +of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Oscar Underwood, chairman of +the ways and means committee, likewise loomed large on the horizon as +possibilities. + +In the primaries at which delegates to the convention were chosen a +great division of opinion was manifested, although there was a +considerable drift toward Mr. Clark. No one had anything like a majority +of the delegates, but the Speaker's popular vote in such significant +states as Illinois showed him to be a formidable contestant. But Mr. +Clark soon alienated Mr. Bryan by refusing to join him in a movement to +prevent the nomination of a conservative Democrat, Mr. Alton B. Parker, +as temporary chairman of the convention which met at Baltimore on June +25. Although at one time Mr. Clark received more than one half of the +votes (two thirds being necessary to nominate) his doom was sealed by +Mr. Bryan's potent opposition. + +Mr. Wilson, on the other hand, gained immensely by this predicament in +which the Speaker found himself. He was easily the second candidate in +the race, as the balloting showed, and his availability was in many +respects superb. He was new to politics, and thus had few enemies. He +had long been known as a stanch conservative of the old school; and +although he apparently had not broken with his party in the stormy days +of 1896, it was publicly known that he had wished Mr. Bryan to be +"knocked into a cocked hat." In his printed utterances he was on record +against the newer devices, such as the initiative and referendum, and he +therefore commanded the respect and confidence of eastern Democrats. As +governor of New Jersey, however, his policies had appealed to the +progressive sections of his party, without seriously alienating the +other wing. He had pushed through an elaborate system of direct primary +legislation, a public utilities bill after the fashion of the Wisconsin +system, and a workmen's compensation law. On a western tour he met Mr. +Bryan on such happy terms that their cordiality seemed to be more than +ostensible, and at about the same time he declared himself in favor of +the initiative and referendum. His friends held that the conservative +scholar had been made "progressive" by practical experience; his enemies +contended that he was playing the political game; and his managers were +able to make use of one record effectively in the West and another +effectively in the East. Having the confidence, if not the cordial +support, of the conservatives and the great weight of Mr. Bryan's +influence on his side, he was able to win the nomination on the +forty-sixth ballot taken on the seventh day of the convention. + +The Democratic platform adopted at Baltimore naturally opened with a +consideration of the tariff question, reiterating the ancient principle +that the government "under the Constitution has no right or power to +impose or collect tariff duties except for the purpose of revenue." +President Taft's action in vetoing the tariff bills was denounced, and +an immediate, downward revision was demanded. Recognizing the intimate +connection between the tariff and business, the Democrats proposed to +reach their ultimate ideal by "legislation that will not injure or +destroy legitimate industry." On the trust question, the platform took a +positive stand, demanding the enforcement of the criminal provisions of +the law against trust officials and the enactment of additional +legislation to make it "impossible for a private monopoly to exist in +the United States." The action of the Republican administration in +"compromising with the Standard Oil Company and the Tobacco Trust" was +condemned, and the judicial construction of the Sherman law criticized. +The valuation of railways was favored; likewise a single term for the +President of the United States, anti-injunction laws, currency +legislation, presidential primaries, and the declaration of the nation's +purpose to establish Philippine independence at the earliest practicable +moment. + +Mr. Wilson's speech of acceptance partook of the character of an essay +in political science rather than of a precise definition of party +policies. He spoke of an awakened nation, impatient of partisan +make-believe, hindered in its development by circumstances of privilege +and private advantage, and determined to undertake great things in the +name of right and justice. Departing from traditions, he refused to +discuss the terms of the Baltimore platform, which he dismissed with the +short notice that "the platform is not a program." He devoted no little +attention to the spirit of "the rule of the people" as opposed to the +rule by an inner coterie of the privileged, but he abstained from +discussing directly such matters as the initiative, referendum, and +recall. He announced his clear conviction that the only safe and +legitimate object of a tariff was to raise duties, but he cautioned his +party against radical and sudden legislation. He promised to support +legislation against the unfair practices of corporations in destroying +competition; but he gave no solace to those who expected a vigorous +assault on trusts as such. + +Indeed, Mr. Wilson refused to commit himself to the old concept of +unrestricted competition and petty business. "I am not," he said, "one +of those who think that competition can be established by law against +the drift of a world-wide economic tendency.... I am not afraid of +anything that is normal. I dare say we shall never return to the old +order of individual competition and that the organization of business +upon a great scale of coöperation is, up to a certain point, itself +normal and inevitable." Nevertheless, he hoped to see "our old free, +coöperative life restored," and individual opportunity widened. To the +working class he addressed a word of assurance and confidence: "The +working people of America ... are of course the backbone of the Nation. +No law that safeguards their lives, that improves the physical and moral +conditions under which they live, that makes their hours of labor +rational and tolerable, that gives them freedom to act in their own +interest, and that protects them where they cannot protect themselves, +can properly be regarded as class legislation." As to the Philippines, +he simply said that we were under obligations to make any arrangement +that would be serviceable to their freedom and development. The whole +address was characterized by a note of sympathy and interest in the +common lot of the common people, and by an absence of any concrete +proposals that might discourage or alarm the business interests of the +country. It was a call to arms, but it did not indicate the weapons. + +Mr. Wilson's speech had that delightful quality of pleasing all sections +of his party. The _New York Times_ saw in it a remarkable address, in +spite of what seemed to be a certain remoteness from concrete issues, +and congratulated the country that its tone and argument indicated a +determination on the part of the candidate to ignore the Baltimore +platform. Mr. Bryan, on the other hand, appeared to be immensely pleased +with it. "Governor Wilson's speech accepting the Democratic nomination," +he said, "is original in its method of dealing with the issues of the +campaign. Instead of taking up the platform plank by plank, he takes the +central idea of the Denver platform [of 1908, Mr. Bryan's own, more +radical still]--an idea repeated and emphasized in the Baltimore +platform--and elaborates it, using the various questions under +consideration to illustrate the application of the principle.... Without +assuming to formulate a detailed plan for dealing with every condition +which may arise, he lifts into a position of extreme importance the +dominating thought of the Baltimore platform and appeals to the country +for its coöperation in making popular government a reality throughout +the land."[91] + + * * * * * + +While the Republicans and Democrats were bringing their machinery into +action, the supporters of Mr. Roosevelt were busy forming the +organization of a new party. At a conference held shortly after the +break with the Republican convention, a provisional committee had been +appointed, and on July 8, a call was issued for the "Progressive" +convention, which duly assembled on August 5 at Chicago. This party +assembly was sharply marked by the prominence assigned to women for the +first time in a political convention. Eighteen of the delegates were +women, and Miss Jane Addams, of the Hull House, made one of the +"keynote" speeches of the occasion. Even hostile newspapers were forced +to admit that no other convention in our history, except possibly the +first Republican convention of 1856, rivaled it in the enthusiasm and +devotion of the delegates. The typical politician was conspicuous by his +absence, and a spirit of religious fervor rather than of manipulation +characterized the proceedings. Mr. Roosevelt made a long address, his +"Confession of Faith," in which he took a positive stand on many +questions which he had hitherto met in evasive language, and a platform +was adopted which marked a departure from the old party pronouncements, +in that it stated the principles with clarity and in great detail. + +The Progressive platform fell into three parts: political reforms, labor +and social measures, and control of trusts and combinations. The first +embraced declarations in favor of direct primaries, including +preferential presidential primaries, popular election of United States +Senators, the short ballot, the initiative, referendum, and recall, an +easier method of amending the Federal Constitution, woman suffrage, +limitation and publicity of campaign expenditures, and the recall of +judicial decisions in the form of a popular review of any decision +annulling a law passed under the police power of the state. The program +of labor and social legislation included the limitation of the use of +the injunction in labor disputes, prohibition of child labor, minimum +wage standards for women, the establishment of minimum standards as to +health and safety of employees and conditions of labor generally, the +creation of a labor department at Washington, and the improvement of +country life. + +The Progressives took a decided stand against indiscriminate trust +dissolutions, declaring that great combinations were in some degree +inevitable and necessary for national and international efficiency. The +evils of stock watering and unfair competitive methods should be +eliminated and the advantages and economies of concentration conserved. +To this end, they urged the establishment of a Federal commission to +maintain a supervision over corporations engaged in interstate commerce, +analogous to that exercised by the Interstate Commerce Commission. As to +railway corporations, they favored physical valuation. They demanded the +retention of the natural resources, except agricultural lands, by the +governments, state and national, and their utilization for public +benefit. They favored a downward revision of the tariff on a protective +basis, income and inheritance taxes, the protection of the public +against stock gamblers and promoters and public ownership of railways in +Alaska. + + * * * * * + +In spite of the exciting contests over nomination in both of the old +parties, the campaign which followed was extraordinarily quiet.[92] The +popular vote shows that the issues failed to enlist confidence or +enthusiasm. Mr. Roosevelt polled about 700,000 more votes than Mr. Taft, +but their combined vote was less than that polled by the latter in 1908, +and slightly less than that received by the former in 1904. Mr. Wilson's +vote was more than 100,000 less than that received by Mr. Bryan in 1896 +or 1908. The combined Progressive and Republican vote was 1,300,000 +greater than the Democratic vote. If we add the votes cast for Mr. Debs, +the Socialist candidate, and the vote received by the other minor +candidates to the Progressive and Republican vote we have a majority of +nearly two and one half millions against Mr. Wilson. Yet Mr. Wilson, +owing to the division of the opposition, secured 435 of the 531 +electoral votes. The Democrats retained possession of the House of +Representatives and secured control of the Senate. The surprise of the +election was the large increase in the Socialist vote, from 420,000 in +1908 to 898,000, and this in spite of the socialistic planks in the +Progressive platform which were expected to capture a large share of the +voters who had formerly gone with the Socialists by way of protest +against the existing parties. + +These figures should not be taken to imply that had either Mr. Taft or +Mr. Roosevelt been eliminated the Democrats would have been defeated. On +the contrary, Mr. Wilson would have doubtless been elected if the +Republicans had nominated Mr. Roosevelt or if the Progressives had +remained out of the field. Nevertheless, the vote would seem to indicate +that the Democratic party had no very clear and positive majority +mandate on any great issue. However that may be, the policy of the party +as outlined by its leader and victorious candidate deserves the most +careful analysis. + + * * * * * + +In the course of the campaign, Mr. Wilson discussed in general terms all +of the larger issues of the hour, emphasizing particularly the fact that +an economic revolution had changed the questions of earlier years, but +always speaking of "restoration" and a "recurrence" to older +liberties.[93] "Our life has broken away from the past. The life of +America is not the life that it was twenty years ago; it is not the life +that it was ten years ago. We have changed our economic conditions, +absolutely, from top to bottom; and with our economic society, the +organization of our life. The old political formulas do not fit present +problems; they read like documents taken out of a forgotten age. The +older cries sound as if they belonged to a past which men have almost +forgotten.... Society is looking itself over, in our day, from top to +bottom; is making fresh and critical analysis of its very elements; is +questioning its oldest practices as freely as its newest, scrutinizing +every arrangement and motive of its life; and it stands ready to attempt +nothing less than a radical reconstruction which only frank and honest +counsels and the forces of generous coöperation can hold back from +becoming a revolution." + +One of the most significant of the many changes which constituted this +new order was, in Mr. Wilson's opinion, the mastery of the government by +the great business interests. "Suppose you go to Washington and try to +get at your government. You will always find that while you are politely +listened to, the men really consulted are the men who have the biggest +stake--the big bankers, the big manufacturers, the big masters of +commerce, the heads of railroad corporations and of steamship +corporations.... The government of the United States at present is a +foster-child of the special interests. It is not allowed to have a will +of its own.... The government of the United States in recent years has +not been administered by the common people of the United States." + +Nevertheless, while deploring the control of the government by "big +business," Mr. Wilson made no assault on that type of economic +enterprise as such. On the contrary, he differentiated between big +business and the trust very sharply in general terms. "A trust is an +arrangement to get rid of competition, and a big business is a business +that has survived competition by conquering in the field of +intelligence and economy. A trust does not bring efficiency to the aid +of business; it buys efficiency out of business. I am for big business +and I am against the trusts. Any man who can survive by his brains, any +man who can put the others out of the business by making the thing +cheaper to the consumer at the same time that he is increasing its +intrinsic value and quality, I take off my hat to, and I say: 'You are +the man who can build up the United States, and I wish there were more +of you.'" Whether any big business in the staple industries had been +built up by this process, he did not indicate; neither did he discuss +the question as to whether monopoly might not result from the +destruction of competitors as well as from the fusion of competitors +into a trust. + +On this distinction between big business and trusts Mr. Wilson built up +his theory of governmental policy. The trust, he said, was not a product +of competition at all, but of the unwillingness of business men to meet +it--a distinction which some were inclined to regard as academic. +Because the formation of no great trusts had been unaccompanied by +unfair practices, Mr. Wilson seemed to hold that no such concern would +have been built up had unfair practices been prohibited. Obviously, +therefore, the problem is a simple one--dissolve the trusts and prevent +their being reëstablished by prohibiting unfair practices and the arts +of high finance. + +Indeed, such was Mr. Wilson's program. "Our purpose," he says, "is the +restoration of freedom. We purpose to prevent private monopoly by law, +to see to it that the methods by which monopolies have been built up +are made impossible." Mr. Wilson's central idea was to clear the field +for the restoration of competition as it existed in the early days of +mechanical industry. "American industry is not free, as it once was +free; American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little +capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more +impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this +country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak." + +"Absolutely free enterprise" was Mr. Wilson's leading phrase. "We design +that the limitations on private enterprise shall be removed, so that the +next generation of youngsters, as they come along, will not have to +become protégés of benevolent trusts, but will be free to go about +making their own lives what they will; so that we shall taste again the +full cup, not of charity, but of liberty." The restoration of freedom +for every person to go into business for himself was the burden of his +appeal: "Are you not eager for the time when the genius and initiative +of all the people shall be called into the service of business?... when +your sons shall be able to look forward to becoming not employees, but +heads of some small, it may be, but hopeful business, where their best +energies shall be inspired by the knowledge that they are their own +masters with the paths of the world before them ... and every avenue of +commercial and industrial activity leveled for the feet of all who would +tread it?" + +Mr. Wilson's economic system seems to be susceptible of the following +summary. The great trusts are "unnatural products," not of competition, +but of the unwillingness of men to face competition and of unfair +practices. Big business is the product of genuine services to the +community, and it should be allowed to destroy whom it can by fairly +underselling honest goods. The enemy is, therefore, the trust; it is the +trust which prevents everybody who would from becoming his own master in +some small business; it is the trust that has taken away the "freedom" +which we once had in the United States. The remedy is inevitably the +dissolution of the trusts, the prohibition of unfair practices in +competition--then will follow as night the day that perfect freedom +which is as new wine to a sick nation. With competition "restored" and +maintained by government prosecution of offenders, no one need have a +master unless he chooses. + +Mr. Wilson's opponents saw in this simple industrial program nothing +more than the old gospel of Adam Smith and Ricardo--the gospel of +_laissez faire_ and individualism. They asked him to specify, for +example, into how many concerns the Steel Trust should be dissolved in +order to permit the man with brains and a few thousand dollars capital +to get into the steel business. They asked him to name a catalogue of +"unfair practices" which were to be prohibited in order to put +competition on a "free and natural" basis. They asked him to state just +how, with the present accumulation of great capitals in the hands of a +relatively few, the poor but industrious person with small capital could +meet the advantages afforded by large capitals. They inquired whether +England in the middle of the nineteenth century, with this perfect +industrial ideal and free trade besides, presented the picture of +utopian liberty which the new freedom promised. + +To this demand for more particulars, Mr. Wilson replied that he was not +discussing "measures or programs," but was merely attempting "to express +the new spirit of our politics and to set forth, in large terms, which +may stick in the imagination, what it is that must be done if we are to +restore our politics to their full spiritual vigor again, and our +national life whether in trade, in industry, or in what concerns us only +as families and individuals, to its purity, its self-respect, and its +pristine strength and freedom." + +For the concrete manifestation of his general principles Mr. Wilson +referred to his practical achievements in New Jersey, although at the +time of the campaign he had not yet put through his program of trust +legislation--a fact which was not overlooked by his opponents. He +referred to his public service commission law, modeled on that which had +been in effect for some time in Wisconsin. "A year or two ago we got our +ideas on the subject enacted into legislation. The corporations involved +opposed the legislation with all their might. They talked about +ruin,--and I really believe they did think they would be somewhat +injured. But they have not been. And I hear I cannot tell you how many +men in New Jersey say: 'Governor, we were opposed to you; we did not +believe in the things you wanted to do, but now that you have done them, +we take off our hats. That was the thing to do, it did not hurt us a +bit; it just put us on a normal footing; it took away suspicion from +our business.' New Jersey, having taken the cold plunge, cries out to +the rest of the states, 'Come on in! The water's fine.'" + +In another place, Mr. Wilson summed up his program of redemption in New +Jersey: a workman's compensation act, a public service corporations law, +and a corrupt practices act. This program of legislation was viewed by +Mr. Wilson as an extraordinary achievement. "What was accomplished?" he +asked. "Mere justice to classes that had not been treated justly +before.... When the people had taken over the control of the government, +a curious change was wrought in the souls of a great many men; a sudden +moral awakening took place, and we simply could not find culprits +against whom to bring indictments; it was like a Sunday School, the way +they obeyed the laws." + +It was on his theory of the trusts that Mr. Wilson based his opposition +to all attempts at government regulation. Under the plan of regulation, +put forward by the Progressives, said Mr. Wilson, "there will be an +avowed partnership between the government and the trusts. I take it the +firm will be ostensibly controlled by the senior member. For I take it +that the government of the United States is at least the senior member, +though the younger member has all along been running the business.... +There is no hope to be seen for the people of the United States until +the partnership is dissolved. And the business of the party now +intrusted with power is to dissolve it." In other words, the government +was, in his opinion, too weak to force the trusts to obey certain rules +and regulations, but it was strong enough to take their business away +from them and prevent their ever getting together again. Apparently, Mr. +Wilson did not expect to find that cordial coöperation from the national +trust magnates which he found on the part of New Jersey public service +corporations when he undertook to regulate them. + +Mr. Wilson's political program was more definite. His short experience +in New Jersey politics had evidently wrought great changes in his +earlier academic views. In 1907, he thought that the United States +Senate, "represents the country as distinct from the accumulated +populations of the country, much more fully and much more truly than the +House of Representatives does." In the presidential campaign, he +advocated popular election of United States Senators, principally on the +ground "that a little group of Senators holding the balance of power has +again and again been able to defeat programs of reform upon which the +whole country has set its heart." He did not attack the Senate as a +body, but he thought sinister influences had often been at work there. +However, Mr. Wilson declared that the popular election of Senators was +not inconsistent with "either the spirit or the essential form of the +American government." + +As to those other devices of direct democracy, the initiative, +referendum, and recall, Mr. Wilson admitted that there were some states +where it was premature to discuss them, and added that in some states it +might never be necessary to discuss them. The initiative and referendum, +he approved as a sort of "gun behind the door," to be used rarely when +representative institutions failed; and as to the recall he remarked, +"I don't see how any man grounded in the traditions of American affairs +can find any valid objection to the recall of administrative officers." +The recall of judges, however, he opposed positively and without +qualification, pointing out that the remedy for evils in the judicial +system lay in methods of nomination and election. + +Such was the economic and political philosophy of the new Democratic +President inaugurated on March 4, 1913. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [84] _Autobiography_, p. 476. + + [85] La Follette, _Autobiography_, pp. 516 ff. + + [86] _Autobiography_, pp. 480 ff., 543 f., 551, 700, 740. + + [87] See above, p. 314. + + [88] La Follette, _Autobiography_, p. 616. + + [89] Above, p. 288. + + [90] _A Tale of Two Conventions_, p. 27. + + [91] W. J. Bryan, _A Tale of Two Conventions_, p. 228. + + [92] The most startling incident was the attempt of a maniac + at Milwaukee to assassinate Mr. Roosevelt. + + [93] These speeches were reprinted in _The New Freedom_ after + the election. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 1876-1912 + + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + YEAR | | | | | | | + OF | CANDIDATES | |POLIT-| | |ELEC-| + ELEC-| FOR | | ICAL | POPULAR | |TORAL| + TION | PRESIDENT |STATES|PARTY | VOTE |PLURALITY|VOTE | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1876 |Samuel J. Tilden |N. Y. |Dem. |4,284,885| 250,935| 184 | + |Rutherford B. Hayes*|O. |Rep. |4,033,950| | 185 | + |Peter Cooper |N. Y. |Gre'nb| 81,740| | | + |Green Clay Smith |Ky. |Pro. | 9,522| | | + |James B. Walker |Ill. |Amer. | 2,636| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1880 |James A. Garfield* |O. |Rep. |4,449,053| 7,018| 214 | + |W. S. Hancock |Pa. |Dem. |4,442,035| | 155 | + |James B. Weaver |Iowa |Gre'nb| 307,306| | | + |Neal Dow |Me. |Pro. | 10,305| | | + |John W. Phelps |Vt. |Amer. | 707| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1884 |Grover Cleveland* |N. Y. |Dem. |4,911,017| 62,683| 219 | + |James G. Blaine |Me. |Rep. |4,848,334| | 182 | + |John P. St. John |Kan. |Pro. | 151,809| | | + |Benjamin F. Butler |Mass. |Gre'nb| 133,825| | | + |P. D. Wigginton |Cal. |Amer. | | | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1888 |Grover Cleveland |N. Y. |Dem. |5,440,216| | 168 | + |Benjamin Harrison* |Ind. |Rep. |5,538,233| 98,017| 233 | + |Clinton B. Fisk |N. J. |Pro. | 249,907| | | + |Alson J. Streeter |Ill. |U. L. | 148,105| | | + |R. H. Cowdry |Ill. |U'd L.| 2,808| | | + |James L. Curtis |N. Y. |Amer. | 1,591| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1892 |Grover Cleveland* |N. Y. |Dem. |5,556,918| 380,810| 277 | + |Benjamin Harrison |Ind. |Rep. |5,176,108| | 145 | + |James B. Weaver |Iowa |Peop. |1,041,028| | 22 | + |John Bidwell |Cal. |Pro. | 264,133| | | + |Simon Wing |Mass. |Soc L.| 21,164| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1896 |William McKinley* |O. |Rep. |7,104,779| 601,854| 271 | + |William J. Bryan |Neb. |Dem. }|6,502,925| | 170 | + |William J. Bryan |Neb. |Peop.}| | | | + |Joshua Levering |Md. |Pro. | 132,007| | | + |John M. Palmer |Ill. |N Dem.| 133,148| | | + |Charles H. Matchett |N. Y. |Soc L.| 30,274| | | + |Charles E. Bentley |Neb. |Nat. | 13,969| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1900 |William McKinley* |O. |Rep. |7,207,923| 849,790| 292 | + |William J. Bryan |Neb. |Dem P.|6,358,133| | 155 | + |John G. Woolley |Ill. |Pro. | 208,914| | | + |Wharton Barker |Pa. |MP. | 50,373| | | + |Eugene V. Debs |Ind. |Soc D.| 87,815| | | + |Jos. F. Malloney |Mass. |Soc L.| 39,739| | | + |J. F. R. Leonard |Ia. |UC. | 1,059| | | + |Seth H. Ellis |O. |UR. | 5,698| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1904 |Theodore Roosevelt* |N. Y. |Rep. |7,623,486|2,545,515| 336 | + |Alton B. Parker |N. Y. |Dem. |5,077,911| | 140 | + |Eugene V. Debs |Ind. |Soc. | 402,283| | | + |Silas C. Swallow |Pa. |Pro. | 258,536| | | + |Thomas E. Watson |Ga. |Peop. | 117,183| | | + |Charles H. Corrigan |N. Y. |Soc L.| 31,249| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1908 |William H. Taft* |O. |Rep. |7,678,908|1,269,804| 321 | + |William J. Bryan |Neb. |Dem. |6,409,104| | 162 | + |Eugene V. Debs |Ind. |Soc. | 420,793| | | + |Eugene W. Chafin |Ariz. |Pro. | 253,840| | | + |Thomas E. Watson |Ga. |Peo. | 29,100| | | + |August Gillhaus |N. Y. |Soc L.| 13,825| | | + |Thos. L. Hisgen |Mass. |Ind. | 82,872| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1912 |Woodrow Wilson* |N. J. |Dem. |6,292,718|2,235,289| 435 | + |William H. Taft |O. |Rep. |3,369,221| | 15 | + |Theodore Roosevelt |N. Y. |Prog. |4,057,429| | 81 | + |Eugene V. Debs |Ind. |Soc. | 812,731| | | + |Eugene W. Chafin |Ariz. |Pro. | 170,626| | | + |Arthur E. Reimer |Mass. |Soc L.| 17,312| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + YEAR | | | | + OF | CANDIDATES | |POLIT-|ELEC- + ELEC-| FOR | | ICAL |TORAL + TION | VICE PRESIDENT |STATES|PARTY |VOTE + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1876 |T. A. Hendricks |Ind. |Dem. | 184 + |William A. Wheeler* |N. Y. |Rep. | 185 + |Samuel F. Cary |O. |Gre'nb| + |Gideon T. Stewart |O. |Pro. | + |D. Kirkpatrick |N. Y. |Amer. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1880 |Chester A. Arthur* |N. Y. |Rep. | 214 + |William H. English |Ind. |Dem. | 155 + |B. J. Chambers |Tex. |Gre'nb| + |H. A. Thompson |O. |Pro. | + |S. C. Pomeroy |Kan. |Amer. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1884 |T. A. Hendricks* |Ind. |Dem. | 219 + |John A. Logan |Ill. |Rep. | 182 + |William Daniel |Md. |Pro. | + |A. M. West |Miss. |Gre'nb| + | | | | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1888 |Allen G. Thurman |O. |Dem. | 168 + |Levi P. Morton* |N. Y. |Rep. | 233 + |John A. Brooks |Mo. |Pro. | + |C. E. Cunningham |Ark. |U. L. | + |W. H. T. Wakefield |Kan. |U'd L.| + |James B. Greer |Tenn. |Amer. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1892 |Adlai E. Stevenson* |Ill. |Dem. | 277 + |Whitelaw Reid |N. Y. |Rep. | 145 + |James G. Field |Va. |Peop. | 22 + |James B. Cranfill |Tex. |Pro. | + |Charles H. Matchett |N. Y. |Soc L.| + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1896 |Garret A. Hobart* |N. J. |Rep. | 271 + |Arthur Sewall |Me. |Dem. | 149 + |Thomas E. Watson |Ga. |Peop. | 27 + |Hale Johnson |Ill. |Pro. | + |Simon B. Buckner |Ky. |N Dem.| + |Matthew Maguire |N. J. |Soc L.| + |James H. Southgate |N. C. |Nat. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1900 |Theodore Roosevelt* |N. Y. |Rep. | 292 + |Adlai E. Stevenson |Ill. |Dem P.| 155 + |Henry B. Metcalf |O. |Pro. | + |Ignatius Donnelly |Minn. |MP. | + |Job Harriman |Cal. |Soc D.| + |Valentine Rommel |Pa. |Soc L.| + |John G. Woolley |Ill. |UC. | + |Samuel T. Nicholson |Pa. |UR. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1904 |Charles W. Fairbanks*|Ind. |Rep. | 336 + |Henry G. Davis |W. Va.|Dem. | 140 + |Benjamin Hanford |N. Y. |Soc. | + |George W. Carroll |Tex. |Pro. | + |Thomas H. Tibbles |Neb. |Peop. | + |William W. Cox |Ill. |Soc L.| + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1908 |James S. Sherman* |N. Y. |Rep. | 321 + |John W. Kern |Ind. |Dem. | 162 + |Benjamin Hanford |N. Y. |Soc. | + |Aaron S. Watkins |O. |Pro. | + |Samuel Williams |Ind. |Peo. | + |Donald L. Munro |Va. |Soc L.| + |John Temple Graves |Ga. |Ind. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1912 |Thomas R. Marshall* |Ind. |Dem. | 435 + |Herbert S. Hadley |Mo. |Rep. | 15 + |Hiram W. Johnson |Cal. |Prog. | 81 + |Emil Seidel |Wis. |Soc. | + |Aaron S. Watkins |O. |Pro. | + |August Gillhaus |N. Y. |Soc L.| + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + * The candidates starred were elected. This table is from the + _World Almanac_. The figures are in some cases slightly different + from those used in the text, which are taken from Stanwood, _History + of the Presidency_. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +_Guide to Literature of Current History_ + +The best general bibliography for handy use is Channing, Hart, and +Turner, _Guide to the Study and Reading of American History_ (new ed. +1912). + +G. E. Howard, _Present Political Questions_ (1913)--a valuable syllabus +of current questions with discriminating and full bibliographies +(published by the University of Nebraska). + +The Library of Congress publishes useful bibliographies on special +topics of current political and historical interest. A list may be +obtained by addressing the Librarian, Washington, D.C. + +An important annual review of the current literature of American history +is to be found in _Writings on American History_; published by +Macmillan, 1906-1908; by the American Historical Association, 1909-1911; +and now by the Yale University Press. + +Excellent topical bibliographies are to be found in each of the volumes +in Hart, American Nation Series. The four volumes by Dunning, Sparks, +Dewey, and Latané should be consulted for the period here covered. + + +_General Works_ + +The best general treatment of the period from 1877 to 1907 is to be +found in the four volumes of the American Nation Series edited by A. B. +Hart: W. A. Dunning, _Reconstruction: Political and Economic_; E. E. +Sparks, _National Development, 1877-1885_; D. R. Dewey, _National +Problems; 1885-1897_; J. H. Latané, _America as a World Power, +1897-1907_. Each of these volumes contains an excellent bibliography of +political and economic materials. + +H. T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the Republic_ (1906)--readable work +covering the period from Cleveland's first administration to 1905. + +Edward Stanwood, _History of the Presidency_ (1896 ed.). A second volume +(1912) brings the work down to 1909 and contains the platforms of +1912--useful for political sketches and the platforms and election +statistics. + +_The American Year Book_, published since 1910, contains an annual +survey of American political history and constitutional and social +development. + +For political and economic matters see the current publications and +proceedings of the American Political Science Association, the American +Economic Association, and the American Sociological Society. + + +_Personal and Biographical Works_ + +J. P. Altgeld, _Live Questions_ (1890)--valuable for the radical +movement within the Democratic party. + +F. Bancroft, _Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl +Schurz_ (1913), 6 vols. + +John Bigelow, _Life of Samuel J. Tilden_ (1896). + +G. S. Boutwell, _Reminiscences of Sixty Years_ (1902). + +Grover Cleveland, _The Independence of the Executive_ (1900); +_Presidential Problems_ (1904)--particularly valuable for the Chicago +strike and the bond issues; G. F. Parker, _Writings and Speeches of +Grover Cleveland_ (1892); A. E. Bergh, _Addresses, State Papers, and +Letters of Grover Cleveland_ (1909). + +J. A. Garfield, _Currency Speeches in the House, 1868-1870_; B. A. +Hinsdale, _Works of J. A. Garfield_ (1882-1883) 2 vols.; _Great Speeches +of J. A. Garfield_ (1881). + +Benjamin Harrison, _Public Papers and Addresses_ (Govt. Printing Office, +1893); _This Country of Ours_ (1897)--a popular view of the national +government; J. S. Shriver, _Speeches of Benjamin Harrison_ (1891); M. L. +Harrison, _Views of an Ex-President_ [Harrison] (1901). + +G. F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_ (1903). + +R. M. La Follette, _Autobiography_ (1913)--particularly valuable for the +history of the radical movement within the Republican party and the +origin of the Progressive party. + +Wm. McKinley, _Speeches and Addresses from Election to Congress to the +Present Time_ (1893); _Speeches and Addresses, 1897-1900_ (1900); _The +Tariff--a Review of Its Legislation from 1812 to 1896_ (1904); J. S. +Ogilvie, _Life and Speeches of McKinley_ (1896). + +L. A. Coolidge, _An Old-Fashioned Senator_ [O. H. Platt] (1910). + +Thomas C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910). + +Theodore Roosevelt, _The New Nationalism_ (1910) contains the famous +speech on that subject and other essays; _An Autobiography_ (1913)--an +intimate view of his political career. + +John Sherman, _Recollections of Forty Years_ (1897). + +Edward Stanwood, _James G. Blaine_ (1905). + +W. H. Taft, _Political Issues and Outlooks_ (1909); _Presidential +Addresses and State Papers_ (1910). + +Woodrow Wilson, _The New Freedom_ (1913). An edited collection of +President Wilson's campaign speeches arranged to exhibit in systematic +form his political and economic doctrines. + + +_Topical Bibliography_ + +THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION: Coman, _Economic History of the United +States_ (1911 ed.)--several useful chapters on the period since the +Civil War; R. T. Ely, _Evolution of Industrial Society_ (1906). + +TARIFF: Edward Stanwood, _American Tariff Controversies in the +Nineteenth Century_ (1903); F. W. Taussig, _Tariff History of the United +States_ (1910 ed.). + +FINANCE: See the annual review in the _American Year Book_; D. +R. Dewey, _Financial History of the United States_ (1903); A. B. +Hepburn, _History of Coinage and Currency in the United States_ (1903); +J. L. Laughlin, _History of Bimetallism in the United States_ (1897); W. +H. Harvey, _Coin's Financial School_ (1894)--the famous work which did +so much to stir up popular sentiment in favor of free silver; W. J. +Bryan, _The First Battle_ (1897)--invaluable for the political aspects +of the question. + +TRUSTS: I. M. Tarbell, _The History of the Standard Oil +Company_ (1904); G. H. Montague, _The Rise and Progress of the Standard +Oil Company_ (1903)--more favorable to trusts than the preceding work; +H. D. Lloyd, _Wealth against Commonwealth_ (1894)--a critical attack on +the evil practices of trusts; J. W. Jenks, _The Trust Problem_ (1905 +ed.)--study of the methods and causes of trusts; John Moody, _The Truth +about the Trusts_ (1904)--full of valuable historical and statistical +data; W. Z. Ripley, _Trusts, Pools, and Corporations_ (1905)--a useful +collection of historical and descriptive materials. + +RAILWAYS: W. Z. Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulation_ +(1913)--a monumental and scholarly treatise; E. R. Johnson, _American +Railway Transportation_ (1903); H. S. Haines, _Restrictive Railway +Legislation in the United States_ (1905); B. H. Meyer, _Railway +Legislation in the United States_ (1903). + +CIVIL SERVICE: C. R. Fish, _Civil Service and the Patronage_ +(1905, Harvard Studies); L. G. Tyler, _Parties and Patronage_ (1888). + +POPULISM: S. J. Buck, _The Granger Movement ... 1870-1880_ +(1913, Harvard Studies)--important for all aspects of agrarianism for +the period; F. L. McVey, _The Populist Movement_ (1896). + +LABOR: R. T. Ely, _The Labor Movement in America_ (1902); T. V. +Powderly, _Thirty Years of Labor_ (1889); John Mitchell, _Organized +Labor_ (1903); T. S. Adams and H. Sumner, _Labor Problems_ (1906). + +IMMIGRATION: Frank Warne, _The Immigrant Invasion_ (1913); +Peter Roberts, _The New Immigration_ (1912)--a study of the social and +industrial life of Southeastern Europeans in America; H. P. Fairchild, +_Greek Immigration_ (1911), and _Immigration: a World Movement and its +American Significance_ (1913); P. F. Hall, _Immigration and Its Effects +on the United States_ (1908); I. A. Hourwich, _Immigration and Labor_ +(1912)--a study of the economic aspects of immigration and favorable to +a liberal immigration policy; J. W. Jenks and W. J. Lauck, _The +Immigration Problem_ (1912)--particularly valuable for the data +presented. + +SOCIALISM: Morris Hillquit, _History of Socialism in the United +States_ (1910); W. J. Ghent, _Mass and Class_ (1904); J. W. Hughan, +_American Socialism of To-day_ (1912); W. E. Walling, _Socialism as It +Is_ (1912). On the newer aspects of socialism and trades-unionism: John +Spargo, _Syndicalism, Industrial Unionism, and Socialism_ (1913); A. +Tridon, _The New Unionism_ (1913); J. G. Brooks, _American Syndicalism_ +(1913); W. H. Haywood and F. Bohn, _Industrial Socialism_ (1911); James +O'Neal, _Militant Socialism_ (1912). + +WOMEN: Edith Abbott, _Women in Industry_ (1909); E. D. Bullock, +_Selected Articles on the Employment of Women_ (1911); E. B. Butler, +_Women in the Trades_ (1909); R. C. Dorr, _What Eight Million Women +Want_ (1910); I. H. Harper, _Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony_ +(1899-1908), _History of the Movement for Woman Suffrage in the United +States_ (1907); E. R. Hecker, _Short History of Woman's Rights_ (1910); +G. E. Howard, _A History of Matrimonial Institutions_ (1904); Helen +Sumner, _Equal Suffrage_ (1909)--a study of woman suffrage in Colorado; +C. P. Gilman, _Woman and Economics_ (1900). + +CONTROVERSY OVER THE JUDICIARY: Gilbert Roe, _Our Judicial +Oligarchy_ (1912)--a criticism of recent tendencies in the American +judicial system; B. F. Moore, _The Supreme Court and Unconstitutional +Legislation_ (1913)--a historical survey; W. L. Ransom _Majority Rule +and the Judiciary_ (1912); F. R. Coudert, _Certainty and Justice_ +(1913); G. G. Groat, _Attitude of American Courts in Labor Cases_ +(1911); C. G. Haines, _The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy_ +(1914). + +POPULAR GOVERNMENT: G. H. Haynes, _The Election of Senators_ +(1906)--valuable for the question of popular election; C. A. Beard and +Birl Shultz, _Documents on the Initiative, Referendum and Recall_ +(1912); E. P. Oberholtzer, _Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in +America_ (1911); Walter Weyl, _The New Democracy_ (1912); H. Croly, _The +Promise of American Life_ (1909). + +THE SOUTH: A. B. Hart, _The Southern South_ (1910); E. G. +Murphy, _Problems of the Present South_ (1904); H. W. Grady, _The New +South_ (1890); W. G. Brown, _The Lower South_ (1902). + +THE NEGRO PROBLEM: The Annals of the American Academy of +Political and Social Science for September, 1913, is devoted to articles +on the progress of the negro race during the last fifty years. A. P. C. +Griffin, _Select List of References on the Negro Question_ (1906, +Library of Congress); R. S. Baker, _Following the Color Line_ +(1908)--valuable for the handicaps imposed on the negro in the South; J. +M. Mathews, _Legislative and Judicial History of the Fifteenth +Amendment_ (1909); M. W. Ovington, _Half a Man_ (1911)--status of the +negro in New York; T. N. Page, _The Negro_ (1904)--viewed as a Southern +problem; A. H. Stone, _Studies in the American Race Problem_ +(1908)--discouraging view of the economic capacities of the negro; B. T. +Washington, _The Negro in the South_ (1907)--useful for economic +matters; and _The Future of the Negro_ (1900); A. B. Hart, _Realities of +Negro Suffrage_ (1905); G. T. Stephenson, _Race Distinctions in American +Law_ (1910). + +THE GROWTH OF THE WEST: H. H. Bancroft, _Chronicles of the +Builders of the Commonwealth_ (1891-1892), 7 vols.; J. C. Birge, _The +Awakening of the Desert_ (1912); C. C. Coffin, _The Seat of Empire_ +(1871); Katharine Coman, _Economic Beginnings of the Far West_ (1912), 2 +vols.--exploration and settlement; J. H. Eckels, _The Financial Power of +the New West_ (1905); F. V. Hayden, _The Great West_ (1880)--resources, +climate, Mormons, and Indians; J. S. Hittell, _The Commerce and +Industries of the Pacific Coast_ (1882); R. P. Porter and others, _The +West_ (1882)--review of social and economic development from the census +of 1880; L. E. Quigg, _New Empires in the Northwest_ (1889)--Dakotas, +Montana, and Washington; Julian Ralph, _Our Great West_ (1893)--survey +of conditions; Joseph Schafer, _A History of the Pacific Northwest_ +(1905); W. E. Smyth, _The Conquest of Arid Arizona_ (1900). + +MONROE DOCTRINE: J. B. Moore, _History of American Diplomacy_ +(1905); J. W. Foster, _A Century of American Diplomacy_ (1901); J. H. +Latané, _Diplomatic Relations of the United States and Spanish America_ +(1900); A. B. Hart, _Foundations of American_ _Diplomacy_ (1901); Hiram +Bingham, _The Monroe Doctrine_ (1913)--a severe criticism of the +Doctrine. + +THE SPANISH WAR: F. E. Chadwick, _Relations of the United +States and Spain_--excellent for diplomatic affairs; H. C. Lodge, _The +War with Spain_ (1899)--an interesting popular account; H. D. Flack, +_Spanish-American Diplomatic Relations Preceding the War of 1898_ +(1906)--a careful analysis of the causes of intervention; George Dewey, +_Autobiography_ (1913). + +IMPERIALISM: D. C. Worcester, _The Philippines: Past and +Present_ (1914), 2 vols.--a great and authoritative work by the former +Secretary of the Interior in the Philippines; H. P. Willis, _Our +Philippine Problem_ (1905)--a study of American Colonial policy; J. A. +Leroy, _The Americans in the Philippines_ (1914)--a large and +authoritative work on the early stages of American occupation; F. C. +Chamberlin, _The Philippine Problem_ (1913); J. G. Schurman, _Philippine +Fundamentals_ (1901); Elihu Root, _Collection of Documents Relating to +the United States and Porto Rico_ (1898-1905, Washington); L. S. Rowe, +_The United States and Porto Rico_ (1904); E. S. Wilson, _Political +Development of Porto Rico_ (1906); W. F. Willoughby, _Territories and +Dependencies of the United States_ (1905)--a general work on the +government of the territories. + +THE PANAMA CANAL: J. B. Bishop, _The Panama Gateway_ (1913)--an +authoritative general account; W. F. Johnson, _Four Centuries of the +Panama Canal_ (1906). + +THE PEACE CONFERENCES: Joseph Choate, _The Two Hague +Conferences_ (1913); J. B. Scott, _The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 +and 1907_ (1909). + +AMERICAN INTERESTS IN THE ORIENT: F. F. Millard, _The New Far +East_ (1906)--special reference to American interests in China; P. S. +Reinsch, _World Politics_ (1900). + + + + +INDEX + + + Aguinaldo, 217 + + Alabama, disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + Aliens, proportion of, 248 + + Altgeld, Governor, 108, 160 + + American Civic Federation, 251 + + American Federation of Labor, 250 + + Anti-monopoly party, 138 + + Anti-trust cases, 331 ff. + + Anti-trust law (1890), 134 + + Arbitration in labor disputes, federal law, 102 + + Arbitration, treaties, 1911, 329 + + Archbald, Judge, impeachment of, 326 + + Arizona, 41 ff.; + contest over recall of judges, 287 + + Army. _See_ Spanish War + + Arthur, Chester A., nomination, 95; + administration, 97 + + + Ballinger, R. A., 328 + + Blaine, James G., 95; + candidacy in 1884, 98; + on silver question, 121 + + Bland-Allison bill, 123 + + Bonds, sales under Cleveland, 106 + + Bourne, Senator, attacks on convention system, 353 ff. + + Bryan, W. J., speech in Democratic convention of 1896, 180; + nomination of, 187; + acceptance speech in 1896, 188; + favors initiative and referendum, 284; + candidacy in 1900, 227; + candidacy in 1908, 318 ff.; + program in 1908, 318; + attacks Taft's judicial appointments, 330 + + + Campaign funds, 239, 240 ff.; + controversy over, in 1904, 268; + in 1908, 320; + in 1912, 357 + + Campaign, 1896, 195 + + Canada, reciprocity with, 342 + + Cannon, Speaker, overthrow of, 336 ff. + + Capital, influence of, in politics, 33 + + Capitalism, in South, 48; evolution of, 229 ff. + _See_ Industry _and_ Labor. + + Cervera, Admiral, 210 ff. + + China, opening of, 203; + American interests in, 224 + + Chinese coolies, 35 + + Cities, growth of population, 34, 247 + + Civil rights act, 14 ff. + + Civil rights cases, 15 + + Civil service, and Theodore Roosevelt, 104; + law of 1883, 130 + + Clark, Champ, candidacy of, 365 + + Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 276 + + Cleveland, Grover, career of, 97; + nomination and first administration, 98 ff.; + second administration, 105 ff.; + tariff message of 1887, 110; + and income tax, 139; + bond issues, 162; + supports Gold Democrats, 193; + and Venezuela affair, 199; + and negotiations with Spain, 206 + + Coastwise vessels, exemption of, 276 + + Colombia, failure of negotiations with, 278 + + Combinations, in business, origin of, 36 + + Commerce, growth of, 202; + interstate, 312 + + Conkling, Roscoe, sketch of, 51 ff.; + and Grant's candidacy, 95 + + Conservation, Roosevelt's policy, 275 + + Consolidated Gas case, 81 + + Constitution, provisions relative to money, 119; + criticism of, 305 ff. + + Convention, presidential, attacks on, 353 ff. + + Corporations, growth of, 235; + regulation of, 310. + _See_ Trusts. + + Court, commerce, 326 + + Courts, criticism of, 89 + + Coxey's army, 107 + + Crédit Mobilier affair, 31 + + Cuba, conditions in, 204; + war over, 209 ff.; + settlement of, after the war, 221; + interference in (1906), 222 + + Currency, law of 1908, 197 + + + Dakota, 41 ff. + + Daniel, J. W., temporary chairman of Democratic convention, 171 + + Debs, E. V., imprisonment of, 108; + and injunctions, 160; + candidate for President, 298 + + Debt, national, refunding of, 117 + + De Lôme incident, 207 + + Democrats, contest against election laws, 4 ff.; + party platforms, 108 ff.; + convention of 1896, 168 ff.; + platform of 1896, 172; + Gold, convention of 1896, 192 ff.; + convention and platform of 1904, 267; + victory in 1910, 339; + in 1912, 372 + + Dewey, victory at Manila, 209 + + Dingley tariff, 229 + + Direct primary, 289 + + Due process. _See_ Fourteenth amendment. + + + Economy and efficiency commission, 328 + + El Caney, 211 + + Election laws, federal, contest over repeal of, 4 ff. + + Employers' liability, federal, 274 + + Erie Railway, capitalization of, 39 + + + Farmers, discontent of, 162 + + Farmers' Alliance, 151 + + Farm population, 40 + + Farms, increase in number, 40; + size of, in South, 47 + + Fifteenth amendment, nullification of, in the South, 1; + schemes to avoid, 9 ff. + + Finance, high, early experiments in, 39 + + Fourteenth Amendment, interpretation of, 54 ff. + + Free silver, discussion by W. J. Bryan, 180 ff. + + Free silver. _See_ Bryan, W. J. + + + Garfield, nomination and administration of, 94 ff.; + assassination, 96 + + Georgia, disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + Gold Democrats, 192 ff. + + Gold standard, Republicans favor in 1896, 166; + established by law (1900), 197; + Parker telegram on, 267 + + Gompers, Samuel, 251 + + Gould, Jay, 38 + + Granger cases, 67 ff. + + Granger movement, 147 + + Grant, third term contest, 94 + + Great Britain, and Venezuela affair, 199 + + Greenback party, on income tax, 137; + doctrines of, 150 + + Greenbacks, amount of, 117; + reissue of, 123 + + Guiteau, assassinates Garfield, 96 + + + Hague conference, 281 + + Hancock, General, candidate for the Presidency, 96 + + Hanna, M. A., convention of 1895, 165; + and campaign of 1900, 227; + career and policies of, 239 ff. + + Harriman, E. H., and controversy with Roosevelt, 270 + + Harrison, Benjamin, candidacy and administration, 103 ff. + + Hawaiian Islands, 203 + + Hayes, and the South, 1 ff.; + vetoes repeal of election laws, 5; + administration of, 92 ff. + + Hay-Pauncefote treaty, 276 + + Haywood, W. D., 301 + + Hepburn act, 271 + + Hill, D. B., in Democratic convention of 1896, 170 ff. + + Hobson, R. P., 210 + + + Idaho, 41 ff. + + Immigration, 34, 248 + + Imperialism, 199 ff.; + in American politics, 227 + + Income tax, law of 1894, 127; 137 ff.; + annulled by Supreme Court, 152 ff.; + W. J. Bryan on, 189; + advocated by Roosevelt, 262; + amendment to federal constitution, 325 + + Industry, in 1860, 29; + in South, 48. _See_ Labor. + + Industrial Workers of the World, 301 + + Initiative and referendum, origin and growth of, 284 ff.; + in Progressive platform, 371; + favored by Wilson, 380 + + Injunctions, use of, in labor disputes, 36; + an issue in politics, 158 ff. + + Insular cases, 218 ff. + + Insurance, regulation of, 310 + + + Japan, opening of, 203; + American interests in, 224 + + Jenks, J. W., on trusts, 238 + + Jim Crow cars, 19 + + Judicial review, growth of doctrine of, 67 ff. + + Judiciary. _See_ Supreme Court and Recall. + + + Knights of Labor, 35, 249 + + Ku Klux Klan, 1 + + + Labor, number of wage earners, 34; + in South, 48; + in party platforms, 114; + and tariff, 115; + regulation of, 249 ff., 304, 308 + + Labor legislation and the courts, 87 ff.; + Federal, 141 + + Labor movement, 249 + + Labor problem, rise of, 35 + + Labor, Knights of, 35, 249 + + Labor Reformers, 35, 145 ff. + + La Follette, R. M., candidacy of, 344 ff. + + _Laissez faire_, and the Constitution, 54 ff.; + Gold Democrats defend, 192; + decline of, 304; + Wilson's view of, 377 + + Liberal Republicans, 109 + + Lincoln, on social equality for the negro, 21 + + Lochner v. New York, 87 + + Louisiana, Republican rule in, overthrown, 1 ff.; + disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + + _Maine_, the battleship, 207 + + Manila, naval battle of, 209 + + Massachusetts, primary law in, 356 + + McKinley, Wm., tariff bill, 126; + and the gold standard, 167; + election of, 197; + administration of, 199 ff.; + and Spanish war, 206 ff.; + renomination in 1900, 227; + election, 228; + campaign funds of, 241 + + Merritt, General, 212 + + Mexico, relations with, 342 + + Miles, General, 212 + + Mills, tariff bill, 126 + + Minnesota rate case, 73 ff. + + Mississippi, disfranchisement of negroes in, 10 + + Mitchell, John, 250 + + Money question. _See_ Silver question. + + Monroe Doctrine, 199 ff.; + Roosevelt on, 262; 280 + + Montana, 41 ff. + + Morgan, J. P., 231 + + Mormons, 42 ff. + + Morrison, W. R., and tariff, 126 + + Mugwumps, 99 + + Munn v. Illinois, 67 ff. + + + Nebraska, primary law in, 356 + + Negro, disfranchisement of, 1 ff., 7 ff.; + social discriminations against, 14 ff.; + attitude of the North toward, 19 ff.; + problem, 22 ff.; education of, 23; + in industries, 24; + movement, 25 + + New Mexico, 41 ff. + + New nationalism, 314 ff. + + North Carolina, disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + North Dakota, 41 ff. + + Northern Pacific, 42 + + + Oregon, primary law in, 354 + + + Palmer, J. M., candidate for President, 192 + + Panama, canal, sketch of, 275 ff.; + revolution in, 278 + + Paper money. _See_ Greenbacks. + + Parcels post, 327 + + Parker, Alton B., nomination and candidacy of, 267 ff. + + Payne-Aldrich tariff, 323 ff. + + Pensions, vetoes by Cleveland, 101; + law of 1890, 105 + + Philippines, military operations in, 209 ff.; + revolt against the United States, 217; + government of, 223; + in American politics, 227; + Republican platform of 1904 on, 265; + Democratic platform of 1904 on, 267 + + Platt amendment, 221 + + Poll tax, to disfranchise negroes, 9 + + Populist party, origin of, 149 ff. + + Populists, and disfranchisement of negroes, 9; + on income tax, 138 + + Porto Rico, conquest of, 212; + government of, 222 + + Postal savings banks, 326 + + Primary, direct, origin and growth of, 288; + presidential, 352 ff.; + presidential, in 1912, 358 + + Progressive party, origin of, 357 ff.; 370 ff. + + Progressive Republican League, 344 + + Prohibition party, 144 ff. + + Pullman strike, 107 + + Pure food law, 273 + + + Railways, construction of, 29 ff.; + land grants to, 30; + frauds connected with, 31; + anarchy among, 39; + state regulation of, 67 ff.; + party platforms on, 113 ff.; + regulation, federal, 133; + state regulation of, 149; + and stock watering, 234; + regulation of, 272; + physical valuation of, 273; + consolidation of, 306 + + Reagan _v._ Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 76 ff. + + Recall, of judges, origin of, 89; + origin and growth of, 287; + Wilson on, 380 + + Reciprocity with Canada, 341 + + Reed, T. B., speakership, 104; + candidate for President, 165 + + Republicans, platform of 1876, 2; + radical school, 2; + favor new "force" bill, 20; + favor enforcing the Civil War amendments, 21; + doctrines of, 1880-1896, 90 ff.; + party platforms, 108 ff.; + convention of 1896, 164 ff.; + convention of 1900, 226; + convention of 1904, 265; + convention of 1912, 357 ff. + + Resumption act, 118 + + Rockefeller, J. D., 37 + + Roosevelt, at San Juan Hill, 211; + nominated for Vice President, 227; + succeeds to the Presidency, 228; + administrations of, 254 ff.; + doctrines of, 255 ff.; + characterization of, by Republicans in 1904, 266; + Democratic criticism of, in 1904, 268; + Parker charges as to campaign funds of, 269; + La Follette's criticism of, 347; + candidacy of, in 1912, 349 ff.; + new nationalism, 350; + breaks with Republicans, 360 + + Rough Riders, 211 + + Rules committee, powers of, 337 + + Russo-Japanese war, Roosevelt's part in ending, 281 + + + Samoan Islands, 203 + + San Juan Hill, 211 + + Santiago, military and naval operations near, 210 ff. + + Santo Domingo, affair of, 279 + + Senators, U. S., direct election of, 290 ff.; + popular election favored by Wilson, 380 + + Shafter, General, 211 f. + + Sherman, silver purchase act, 124; + anti-trust law, 134 + + Silver question, party platforms on, 116, 162; + origin and development of, 119 ff.; + in campaign of 1896, 165 ff. + + Sixteen to one. _See_ Silver question. + + Slaughter-House cases, 59 ff. + + Smyth _v._ Ames, 78 + + Socialism, opposition to, 251; + rise and growth of, 296 f. + + Socialist Labor party, 147, 297 + + Socialist party, rise of, 298; + vote in 1912, 372 + + Socialists, vote of, increase in 1904, 271 + + South, Republican rule in, 1 ff.; + new constitutions providing for disfranchisement of negroes, 10 ff.; + over-representation of, in Congress, 20; + economic advance of, 46 ff.; + Republican delegates from, 354 + + South Carolina, Republican rule in, overthrown, 1 ff.; + disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + South Dakota, 41 ff.; + initiative and referendum in, 284 + + Southern Pacific, 42 + + Spain, war with, 204 ff. + + Spanish War, close of, 212 ff. + + Speakership. _See_ Reed _and_ Cannon. + + Standard Oil Company, 37 + + State socialism, 252 + + Steel trust, 230 + + Stock watering, 234 + + Strikes, of 1877, 35; + Pullman, 107 + + Suffrage, woman, growth of, 294 + + Sugar trust, 239 + + Supreme Court, declares parts of election laws invalid, 6 f.; + and disfranchisement of negroes, 13; + civil rights cases, 15; + and Fourteenth Amendment, 54 ff.; + criticism of, 86; + and income tax, 152; + Democratic attack on, in 1806, 173 ff.; + defense of, 178; + W. J. Bryan on, 189; + Gold Democrats defend, 193; + Taft's appointments, 329 + + + Taft, W. H., on recall of judges, 287; + in Philippines 223; + nomination and election of, 317 ff.; + administration of, 322 ff.; + nomination of, in 1912, 362; + acceptance speech, 364; + Progressive criticism of, 345 + + Tariff, in Cleveland's first administration, 103; + Wilson bill, 108; + party doctrines on, 1877-1896, 108 ff.; + legislation, 1877-1896, 124 ff.; + Republican platform of 1908 on, 318; + Payne-Aldrich act, 323 ff.; + board, 339 f.; + Democratic attacks on in 1911-1912, 341 + + Third term contest, 94 + + Tillman, on negro suffrage, 8; + attack on Cleveland in Democratic convention of 1896, 175 + + Trusts, origin of, 37; + party platforms on, 112; + law against (1890), 134; + growth of, 229 ff.; + views as to cause of, 237; + Roosevelt on, 257 ff.; + Bryan on, in 1908, 319; + Republican platform of 1912, 363; + Progressive party's platform, 371; + Wilson's view of, 375 ff. + + + Unemployment, in 1894, 107 + + Union Labor party, 138, 146 + + Union Pacific, scandal of, 31 + + Unions, Trade, 301 ff. + + United Labor Party, 146 + + United States _v._ Cruikshank, 7 + + United States _v._ Harris, 7 + + United States _v._ Reese, 7 + + Utah, 41 ff.; + initiative and referendum in, 285 + + + Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 38 + + Venezuela affair, 199 + + Vetoes, by Cleveland, 101 f. + + Vilas, Senator, in Democratic convention of 1896, 179 + + Virginia, disfranchisement of negroes in, 11; + _ex parte_, 17 + + + Wage earners, number of, 34 + + Washington, state of, 41 ff. + + West, development of, 41 + + Wilson, Wm., tariff bill, 127 + + Wilson, Woodrow, candidacy of, 365; + acceptance speech, 367; + policies of, 373 ff. + + Women in industries, 248 + + Woman suffrage, growth of, 294 ff.; + endorsed by Progressives, 371 + + Wyoming, 41 ff. + + + + + +------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | + | original document have been preserved. | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | + | | + | Page 38 financeering changed to financiering | + | Page 50 enterprizes changed to enterprises | + +------------------------------------------------+ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY, +1877-1913*** + + +******* This file should be named 34253-8.txt or 34253-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/4/2/5/34253 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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+ clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Contemporary American History, 1877-1913, by +Charles A. Beard</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Contemporary American History, 1877-1913</p> +<p>Author: Charles A. Beard</p> +<p>Release Date: November 8, 2010 [eBook #34253]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY, 1877-1913***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4 class="pg">E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker<br /> + and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> + from page images generously made available by<br /> + Internet Archive<br /> + (<a href="http://www.archive.org/">http://www.archive.org</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/contamerihist00bearrich"> + http://www.archive.org/details/contamerihist00bearrich</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1> CONTEMPORARY<br /> AMERICAN HISTORY</h1> + +<h3> 1877-1913</h3> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4> BY</h4> + +<h2> CHARLES A. BEARD</h2> + +<h4> ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICS IN<br /> + COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4> NEW YORK<br /> + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> + 1914</h4> + +<h5> <i>All rights reserved</i></h5> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h5><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1914</span>,<br /> + +<span class="smcap">By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.<br /> + +Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1914.</h5> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h5>Norwood Press<br /> +J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.<br /> +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</h5> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> +<br /> + +<p>In teaching American government and politics, I constantly meet large +numbers of students who have no knowledge of the most elementary facts +of American history since the Civil War. When they are taken to task for +their neglect, they reply that there is no textbook dealing with the +period, and that the smaller histories are sadly deficient in their +treatment of our age.</p> + +<p>It is to supply the student and general reader with a handy guide to +contemporary history that I have undertaken this volume. I have made no +attempt to present an "artistically balanced" account of the last +thirty-five years, but have sought rather to furnish a background for +the leading issues of current politics and to enlist the interest of the +student in the history of the most wonderful period in American +development. The book is necessarily somewhat "impressionistic" and in +part it is based upon materials which have not been adequately sifted +and evaluated. Nevertheless, I have endeavored to be accurate and fair, +and at the same time to invite on the part of the student some of that +free play of the mind which Matthew Arnold has shown to be so helpful in +literary criticism.</p> + +<p>Although the volume has been designed, in a way, as a textbook, I have +thrown aside the methods of the almanac and chronicle, and, at the risk +of displeasing the reader who expects a little about everything +(including the Sioux war and the San Francisco earthquake), I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> +omitted with a light heart many of the staples of history in order to +treat more fully the matters which seem important from the modern point +of view. I have also refused to mar the pages with black type, paragraph +numbers, and other "apparatus" which tradition has prescribed for +"manuals." Detailed election statistics and the guide to additional +reading I have placed in an appendix.</p> + +<p>In the preparation of the book, I have made extensive use of the volumes +by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, and Latané, in the American Nation +Series, and I wish to acknowledge once for all my deep debt to them. My +colleague, Mr. B. B. Kendrick, read all of the proofs and saved me from +many an error. Professor R. L. Schuyler gave me the benefit of his +criticisms on part of the proof. To Dr. Louis A. Mayers, of the College +of the City of New York, I am under special obligations for valuable +suggestions as to arrangement and for drafting a large portion of +Chapter III. The shortcomings of the book fall to me, but I shall be +recompensed for my indiscretions, if this volume is speedily followed by +a number of texts, large and small, dealing with American history since +the Civil War. It is showing no disrespect to our ancestors to be as +much interested in our age as they were in theirs; and the doctrine that +we can know more about Andrew Jackson whom we have not seen than about +Theodore Roosevelt whom we have seen is a pernicious psychological +error.</p> + +<p class="right">CHARLES A. BEARD.<br /></p> + +<p class="noin smcap"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Columbia University,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">November, 1913.</span><br /> +</p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="80%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp" width="10%" style="font-size: 80%;">CHAPTER</td> + <td class="tdl" width="80%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="10%" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">I.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The Restoration of White Dominion in the South</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">II.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The Economic Revolution</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">III.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The Revolution in Politics and Law</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">IV.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">Parties and Party Issues, 1877-1896</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">V.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">Two Decades of Federal Legislation, 1877-1896</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VI.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The Growth of Dissent</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VII.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The Campaign of 1896</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VIII.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">Imperialism</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">IX.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The Development of Capitalism</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">X.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The Administrations of Theodore Roosevelt</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XI.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The Revival of Dissent</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XII.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">Mr. Taft and Republican Disintegration</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XIII.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The Campaign of 1912</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" colspan="2">APPENDIX</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_382">382</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" colspan="2">BIBLIOGRAPHY</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_385">385</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" colspan="2">INDEX</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_393">393</a></td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY</h2> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h2>THE RESTORATION OF WHITE DOMINION<br /> IN THE SOUTH</h2> +<br /> + +<p>When President Hayes was inaugurated on March 4, 1877, the southern +whites had almost shaken off the Republican rule which had been set up +under the protection of Federal soldiers at the close of the Civil War. +In only two states, Louisiana and South Carolina, were Republican +governors nominally in power, and these last "rulers of conquered +provinces" had only a weak grip upon their offices, which they could not +have maintained for a moment without the aid of Union troops stationed +at their capitals. By secret societies, like the Ku Klux Klan, and by +open intimidation, the conservative whites had practically recovered +from the negroes, whom the Republicans had enfranchised, the political +power which had been wrested from the old ruling class at the close of +the War. In this nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal +Constitution and other measures designed to secure the suffrage for the +former bondmen, President Grant had acquiesced, and it was openly +rumored that Hayes would put an end to the military régime in Louisiana +and South Carolina, leaving the southern people to fight out their own +battles.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>Nevertheless, the Republicans in the North were apparently loath to +accept accomplished facts. In their platform of 1876, upon which Hayes +was elected, they recalled with pride their achievement in saving the +Union and purging the land of slavery; they pledged themselves to pacify +the South and protect the rights of all citizens there; they pronounced +it to be a solemn obligation upon the Federal government to enforce the +Civil War amendments and to secure "to every citizen complete liberty +and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public +rights." Moreover, they charged the Democratic party with being "the +same in character and spirit as when it sympathized with treason."</p> + +<p>But this vehement declaration was only the death cry of the gladiators +of the radical Republican school. Stevens and Sumner, who championed the +claims of the negroes to full civil and political rights, were gone; and +the new leaders, like Conkling and Blaine, although they still waxed +eloquent over the wrongs of the freedmen, were more concerned about the +forward swing of railway and capitalist enterprises in the North and +West than they were about maintaining in the South the rule of a handful +of white Republicans supported by negro voters. Only a few of the +old-school Republicans who firmly believed in the doctrine of the +"natural rights" of the negro, and the officeholders and speculators who +were anxious to exploit the South really in their hearts supported a +continuance of the military rule in "the conquered provinces."</p> + +<p>Moreover, there were special circumstances which made it improbable that +President Hayes would permit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>the further use of troops in Louisiana and +South Carolina. His election had been stoutly disputed and it was only a +stroke of good fortune that permitted his inauguration at all. It was +openly charged that his managers, during the contest over the results of +the election in 1876, had promised the abolition of the military régime +in the South in return for aid on the part of certain Democrats in +securing a settlement of the dispute in his favor. Hayes himself had, +however, maintained consistently that vague attitude so characteristic +of practical politicians. In his speech of acceptance, he promised to +help the southern states to obtain "the blessings of honest and capable +self-government." But he added also that the advancement of the +prosperity of those states could be made most effectually by "a hearty +and generous recognition of the rights of all by all." Moreover, he +approved a statement by one of his supporters to the effect that he +would restore all freemen to their rights as citizens and at the same +time obliterate sectional lines—a promise obviously impossible to +fulfill.</p> + +<p>Whether there was any real "bargain" between Hayes and the Democratic +managers matters little, for the policy which he adopted was inevitable, +sooner or later, because there was no active political support even in +the North for a contrary policy. A few weeks after his inauguration +Hayes sent a commission of eminent men to Louisiana to investigate the +claims of the rival governments there—for there were two legislatures +and two governors in that commonwealth contending for power. The +commission found that the Republican administration, headed by Governor +Packard, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>was little more than a sham, and advised President Hayes of +the fact. Thereupon the President, on April 9, 1877, ordered the +withdrawal of the Federal troops from the public buildings, and +Louisiana began the restoration of her shattered fortunes under the +conservative white leadership. A day later, the President also withdrew +the troops from the capitol at Columbia, South Carolina, and the +Democratic administration under Governor Wade Hampton, a former +Confederate veteran, was duly recognized. Henceforward, the freedmen of +the South were to depend upon the generosity of the whites and upon +their own collective efforts, aided by their sympathizers, for whatever +civil and political rights they were permitted to enjoy.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Disfranchisement of the Negro</i></p> + +<p>Having secured the abolition of direct Federal military interference +with state administrations in the South, the Democrats turned to the +abrogation of the Federal election laws that had been passed in +1870-1871, as a part of the regular reconstruction policy for protecting +the negroes in the exercise of the suffrage. These election laws +prescribed penalties for intimidation at the polls, provided for the +appointment, by Federal circuit courts, of supervisors charged with the +duty of scrutinizing the entire election process, and authorized the +employment of United States marshals, deputies, and soldiers to support +and protect the supervisors in the discharge of their duties and to keep +the peace at the polls.</p> + +<p>These laws, the Republican authors urged, were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>designed to safeguard +the purity of the ballot, not only in the South but also in the North, +and particularly in New York, where it was claimed that fraud was +regularly employed by the Democratic leaders. John Sherman declared that +the Democrats in Congress would be a "pitiful minority, if those elected +by fraud and bloodshed were debarred," adding that, "in the South one +million Republicans are disfranchised." Democrats, on the other hand, +replied that these laws were nothing more than a part of a gigantic +scheme originated by the Republicans to fasten their rule upon the +country forever by systematic interference with elections. Democratic +suspicions were strengthened by reports of many scandals—for instance, +that the supervisors in Louisiana under the Republican régime had +registered "eight thousand more colored voters than there were in the +state when the census was taken four years later." Undoubtedly, there +were plenty of frauds on both sides, and it is an open question whether +Federal interference reduced or increased the amount.</p> + +<p>At all events, the Democrats, finding themselves in a majority in the +House of Representatives in 1877, determined to secure the repeal of the +"force laws," and in their desperation they resorted to the practice of +attaching their repeal measures to appropriation bills in the hope of +compelling President Hayes to sign them or tying up the wheels of +government by a stoppage in finances. Hayes was equal to the occasion, +and by a vigorous use of the veto power he defeated the direct assaults +of the Democrats on the election laws. At length, however, in June, +1878, he was compelled to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>accept a "rider" in the form of a proviso to +the annual appropriation bill for the army making it impossible for +United States marshals to employ federal troops in the execution of the +election laws. While this did not satisfy the Democrats by any means, +because it still left Federal supervision under the marshals, their +deputies and the election supervisors, it took away the main prop of the +Republicans in the South—the use of troops at elections.</p> + +<p>The effect of this achievement on the part of the Democrats was apparent +in the succeeding congressional election, for they were able to carry +all of the southern districts except four. This cannot be attributed, +however, entirely to the suppression of the negro vote, for there was a +general landslide in 1878 which gave the Democrats a substantial +majority in both the House and the Senate. Inasmuch as a spirit of +toleration was growing up in Congress, the clause of the Fourteenth +Amendment excluding from Congress certain persons formerly connected +with the Confederacy, was not strictly enforced, and several of the most +prominent and active representatives of the old régime found their way +into both houses. Under their vigorous leadership a two years' political +war was waged between Congress and the President over the repeal of the +force bills, but Hayes won the day, because the Democrats could not +secure the requisite two-thirds vote to carry their measures against the +presidential veto.</p> + +<p>However, the Supreme Court had been undermining the "force laws" by +nullifying separate sections, although it upheld the general principle +of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>the election laws against a contention that elections were wholly +within the control of state authorities. In the case of United States +<i>v.</i> Reese, the Court, in 1875, declared void two sections of the law of +1870 "because they did not strictly limit Federal jurisdiction for +protection of the right to vote to cases where the right was denied <i>by +a state</i>," but extended it to denials by private parties. In the same +year in the case of United States <i>v.</i> Cruikshank the Court gave another +blow to Federal control, in the South. A number of private citizens in +Louisiana had waged war on the blacks at an election riot, and one of +them, Cruikshank, was charged with conspiracy to deprive negroes of +rights which they enjoyed under the protection of the United States. The +Supreme Court, however, held that the Federal government had no +authority to protect the citizens of a state <i>against one another</i>, but +that such protection was, as always, a duty of the state itself. Seven +years later the Supreme Court, in the case of United States <i>v.</i> Harris, +declared null that part of the enforcement laws which penalized +conspiracies of two or more citizens to deprive another of his rights, +on the same ground as advanced in the Louisiana case.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>On the withdrawal of Federal troops and the open abandonment of the +policy of military coercion, the whites, seeing that the Federal courts +were not inclined to interfere, quickly completed the process of +obtaining control over the machinery of state government. That process +had been begun shortly after the War, taking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>the form of intimidation +at the polls. It was carried forward another step when the "carpet +baggers" and other politicians who had organized and used the negro vote +were deprived of Federal support and driven out. When this active +outside interference in southern politics was cut off, thousands of +negroes stayed away from the polls through sheer indifference, for their +interest in politics had been stimulated by artificial forces—bribery +and absurd promises. Intimidation and indifference worked a widespread +disfranchisement before the close of the seventies.</p> + +<p>These early stages in the process of disfranchisement were described by +Senator Tillman in his famous speech of February 26, 1900. "You stood up +there and insisted that we give these people a 'free vote and a fair +count.' They had it for eight years, as long as the bayonets stood +there.... We preferred to have a United States army officer rather than +a government of carpet baggers and thieves and scallywags and scoundrels +who had stolen everything in sight and mortgaged posterity; who had run +their felonious paws into the pockets of posterity by issuing bonds. +When that happened we took the government away. We stuffed the ballot +boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it. With that system—force, +tissue ballots, etc.—we got tired ourselves. So we had a constitutional +convention, and we eliminated, as I said, all of the colored people whom +we could under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments." The experience +of South Carolina was duplicated in Mississippi. "For a time," said the +Hon. Thomas Spight, of that state, in Congress, in 1904, "we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>were +compelled to employ methods that were extremely distasteful and very +demoralizing, but now we are accomplishing the same and even better +results by strictly constitutional and legal procedure." It should be +said, however, that in the states where the negro population was +relatively smaller, violence was not necessary to exclude the negroes +from the polls.</p> + +<p>A peaceful method of disfranchising negroes and poor whites was the +imposition of a poll tax on voters. Negroes seldom paid their taxes +until the fight over prohibition commenced in the eighties and nineties. +Then the liquor interests began to pay the negroes' poll taxes and by a +generous distribution of their commodities were able to carry the day at +the polls. Thereupon the prohibitionists determined to find some +effective constitutional means of excluding the negroes from voting.</p> + +<p>This last stage in the disfranchisement process—the disqualification of +negroes by ingenious constitutional and statutory provisions—was +hastened by the rise during the eighties and nineties of the radical or +Populist party in the South, which evenly balanced the Democratic party +in many places and threatened for a time to disintegrate the older +organization. In this contest between the white factions a small number +of active negroes secured an extraordinary influence in holding the +balance of power; and both white parties sought to secure predominance +by purchasing the venal negro vote which was as large as, or perhaps +larger than, the venal white vote in such northern states as +Connecticut, Rhode Island, or Indiana. The conservative wing of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>the +white population was happy to take advantage of the prevailing race +prejudice to secure the enactment of legislation disfranchising a +considerable number of the propertyless whites as well as the negroes; +and the radicals grew tired of buying negro voters.</p> + +<p>Out of this condition of affairs came a series of constitutional +conventions which devised all sorts of restrictions to exclude the +negroes and large numbers of the "lower classes" from voting altogether, +without directly violating the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal +Constitution providing against disfranchisement on account of race, +color, or previous condition of servitude.</p> + +<p>The series of conventions opened in Mississippi in 1890, where the +Populistic whites were perhaps numerically fewest. At that time +Mississippi was governed under the constitution of 1868, which provided +that no property or educational test should be required of voters, at +least not before 1885, and also stipulated that no amendment should be +made except by legislative proposal ratified by the voters. +Notwithstanding this provision, the legislature in February, 1890, +called a convention to amend the constitution "or enact a new +constitution." This convention proceeded to "ordain and establish" a new +frame of government, without referring it to the voters for +ratification; and the courts of the state set judicial sanction on the +procedure, saying that popular ratification was not necessary. This +constitution provides that every elector shall, in addition to +possessing other qualifications, "be able to read any section of the +constitution of this state; or he shall be able to understand the same +when read to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>him or to give a reasonable interpretation thereof." Under +such a general provision everything depends upon the attitude of the +election officials toward the applicants for registration, for it is +possible to disfranchise any person, no matter how well educated, by +requiring the "interpretation" of some obscure and technical legal +point.</p> + +<p>Five years later South Carolina followed the example of Mississippi, and +by means of a state convention enacted a new constitution disfranchising +negroes; and put it into force without submitting it to popular +ratification.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> The next year (1896) the legislature of Louisiana +called a convention empowered to frame a new constitution and to put it +into effect without popular approval. This movement was opposed by the +Populists, one of whom declared in the legislature that it was "a step +in the direction of taking the government of this state out of the hands +of the masses and putting it in the hands of the classes." In spite of +the opposition, which was rather formidable, the convention was +assembled, and ordained a new frame of government (1898) disfranchising +negroes and many whites. The Hon. T. J. Symmes, addressing the +convention at the close, frankly stated that their purpose was to +establish the supremacy of the Democratic party as the white man's +party.</p> + +<p>Four principal devices are now employed in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>several constitutional +provisions disfranchising negroes: (1) a small property qualification, +(2) a prerequisite that the voter must be able to read any section of +the state constitution or explain it, when read, to the satisfaction of +the registering officers, (3) the "grandfather clause," as in Louisiana +where any person, who voted on or before 1867 or the son or grandson of +such person, may vote, even if he does not possess the other +qualifications; and (4) the wide extension of disfranchisement for +crimes by including such offenses as obtaining money under false +pretenses, adultery, wife-beating, petit larceny, fraudulent breach of +trust, among those which work deprivation of the suffrage.</p> + +<p>The effect of these limitations on the colored vote has been to reduce +it seriously in the far South. If the negro has the amount of taxable +property required by the constitution, he is caught by the provision +which requires him to explain a section of the state constitution to the +satisfaction of the white registering officers. The meanest white, +however, can usually get through the net with the aid of his +grandfather, or by showing his expertness in constitutional law. Mr. J. +C. Rose has published the election statistics for South Carolina and +Mississippi;<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> it appears that in those states there were, in 1900, +about 350,796 adult male negroes and that the total Republican vote in +both commonwealths in the national election of that year was only 5443. +At a rough guess perhaps 2000 votes of this number were cast by white +men, and the conclusion must be that about ninety-nine out of every +hundred negroes failed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>to vote for President in those states. It is +fair to state, however, that indifference on the part of the negroes was +to some extent responsible for the small vote.</p> + +<p>The legal restrictions completed the work which had been begun by +intimidation. Under the new constitution of 1890 in Mississippi, only +8615 negroes out of 147,000 of a voting age were registered. In four +years, the number registered in Louisiana fell from 127,000 in 1896 to +5300 in 1900. This was the exact result which the advocates of white +supremacy desired to attain, and in this they were warmly supported by +eminent Democrats in the North. "The white man in the South," said Mr. +Bryan in a speech in New York, in 1908, "has disfranchised the negro in +self-protection; and there is not a Republican in the North who would +not have done the same thing under the same circumstances. The white men +of the South are determined that the negro will and shall be +disfranchised everywhere it is necessary to prevent the recurrence of +the horrors of carpet bag rule."</p> + +<p>Several attempts have been made to test the constitutionality of these +laws in the Supreme Court of the United States, but that tribunal has +been able to avoid coming to a direct decision on the merits of the +particular measures—and with a convincing display of legal reasoning. +The Constitution of the United States simply states that no citizen +shall be deprived of the right to vote on account of race, color, or +previous condition of servitude, and that the representation of any +state in Congress shall be reduced in the proportion to which it +deprives adult male citizens of the franchise. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>The ingenious provisions +of the southern constitutions do not deprive the negro of the right to +vote on account of his color, but on account of his grandfather, or his +inability to expound the constitution, or his poverty. In one of the +cases before the Supreme Court, the plaintiff alleged that the Alabama +constitution was in fact designed to deprive the negro of the vote, but +the Court answered that it could not afford the remedy, that it could +not operate the election machinery of the state, and that relief would +have to come from the state itself, or from the legislative and +political departments of the Federal government.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Social Discrimination against the Negro</i></p> + +<p>The whites in the South were even less willing to submit to anything +approaching social equality with the negro than they were to accept +political equality. Discriminations against the negro in schools, inns, +theaters, churches, and other public places had been common in the North +both before and after the Civil War, and had received judicial sanction; +and it may well be imagined that the southern masters were in no mood, +after the War, to be put on the same social plane as their former +slaves, and the poor whites were naturally proud of their only +possession—a white skin. Knowing full well that this temper prevailed +in the South the radical Republicans in Congress had pushed through on +March 1, 1875, a second Civil Rights Act designed to establish a certain +social equality, so far as that could be done by law.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>The spirit of this act was reflected in the preamble: "Whereas it is +essential to just government, we recognize the equality of all men +before the law, and hold that it is the duty of government in its +dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of +whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political; +and it being the appropriate object of legislation to enact great +fundamental principles into law." After this profession of faith, the +act proceeds to declare that all persons within the jurisdiction of the +United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the +accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public +conveyances on land or water, theaters and other places of amusement, +subject to limitations applied to all alike, regardless of race or +color. The act further provided that in the selection of jurors no +discrimination should be made on account of race, color, or previous +condition of servitude under a penalty of not more than $5,000. +Jurisdiction over offenses was conferred upon the district and circuit +courts of the United States, and heavy penalties were imposed upon those +who violated the law. This measure was, of course, hotly resisted, and, +in fact, nullified everywhere throughout the Union, north and +south—except in some of the simple rural regions.</p> + +<p>The validity of the act came before the Supreme Court for adjudication +in the celebrated Civil Rights Cases in 1883 and a part of the law was +declared unconstitutional in an opinion of the Court rendered by Mr. +Justice Bradley. According to his view, the Fourteenth Amendment did not +authorize Congress to legislate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>upon subjects which were in the domain +of state legislation—that is to create a code of municipal law for the +regulation of private rights; but it merely authorized Congress to +provide modes of relief against state legislation and the action of +state officers, executive or judicial, which were subversive of the +fundamental rights specified in the amendment. "Until some state law has +been passed," he said, "or some state action through its officers or +agents has been taken, adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be +protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, no legislation of the United +States under said Amendment, nor any proceeding under such legislation +can be called into activity: for the prohibitions of the Amendment are +against state laws and acts done under state authority."</p> + +<p>The question as to whether the equal enjoyment of the accommodations in +inns, conveyances, and places of amusement was an essential right of the +citizen which no state could abridge or interfere with, Justice Bradley +declined to examine on the ground that it was not necessary to the +decision of the case. He did, however, inquire into the proposition as +to whether Congress, in enforcing the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing +slavery and involuntary servitude, could secure the social equality +contemplated by the act, under the color of sweeping away all the badges +and incidents of slavery. And on this point he came to the conclusion +that mere discriminations on account of race or color could not be +regarded as badges of slavery. "There were," he added, "thousands of +free colored people in this country before the abolition of slavery, +enjoying all of the essential <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>rights of life, liberty, and property the +same as white citizens; and yet no one at that time thought that it was +any invasion of his personal status as a freeman because he was not +admitted to all of the privileges enjoyed by white citizens, or because +he was subjected to discriminations in the enjoyment of accommodations +in inns, public conveyances, and places of amusement."</p> + +<p>Clearly, there was no authority in either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth +Amendment for the section of the Civil Rights Act relative to inns, +conveyances, and places of amusement, at least so far as its operation +in the several states was concerned. If, however, any state should see +fit to make or authorize unlawful discriminations amenable to the +prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress had the power to +afford a remedy or the courts in enforcing the Amendment could give +judicial relief. Thus, while the Justice did not definitely say that the +elements of social equality provided in the Civil Rights Act were not +guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, his line of reasoning and his +language left little doubt as to what was the view of the Court.</p> + +<p>Section four of the Civil Rights Act forbidding, under penalty, +discrimination against any person on account of race, color, or previous +condition of servitude in the selection of jurors had been passed upon +by the Supreme Court in the case of <i>Ex parte</i> Virginia, decided in +1879, in which the section was held to be constitutional as providing +not a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights, but a +mode of redress against the operation of state laws. The ground of +distinction between the two cases is clear. A section forbidding +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>discrimination in inns and conveyances is in the nature of a code of +private law, but a section forbidding discrimination in the selection of +jurors under penalty simply provides a mode of redress against +violations of the Fourteenth Amendment by state authorities.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly there is an admissible distinction between discrimination +against negroes in the selection of juries and the discrimination +against them in inns and public conveyances, for the former may have +definite connection with the security of those civil rights of person +and property—as distinct from social rights—which the Fourteenth +Amendment was clearly designed to enforce. This was the principle which +was brought out by the Court in the two decisions.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> But if Justice +Bradley in the Civil Rights cases had frankly made the distinction +between <i>civil</i> and <i>social</i> rights, and declared the act +unconstitutional on the ground that it attempted to secure social rights +which the Fourteenth Amendment was not intended to establish, then the +decisions of the Court would have been far more definite in character.</p> + +<p>Even if the Supreme Court had not declared the social equality provision +of the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional, it is questionable whether any +real attempt would have been made to enforce it. As it turned out, the +Court gave judicial sanction to a view undoubtedly entertained by the +major portion of the whites everywhere, and it encouraged the South to +proceed with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>further discriminatory legislation separating the races in +all public and quasi-public places. Railroads and common carriers were +compelled to provide separate accommodations for whites and blacks, "Jim +Crow Cars," as they are called in popular parlance, and to furnish +special seats in street railway cars. These laws have also been upheld +by the courts; but not without a great strain on their logical +faculties.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly there are mixed motives behind such legislation. It is in +some part a class feeling, for whites are allowed to take their colored +servants in the regular coaches and sleeping cars. Nevertheless, the +race feeling unquestionably predominates. As the author of the Louisiana +"Jim Crow Car" law put it: "It is not only the desire to separate the +whites and blacks on the railroads for the comfort it will provide, but +also for the moral effect. The separation of the races is one of the +benefits, but the demonstration of the superiority of the white man over +the negro is the greater thing. There is nothing that shows it more +conclusively than the compelling of negroes to ride in cars marked for +their especial use."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Attitude of the North</i></p> + +<p>Although all possibility of northern interference with the southern +states in the management of their domestic affairs seemed to have +disappeared by Cleveland's first administration, the negro question was +continuously agitated by Republican politicians, and at times with great +vigor. They were much distressed at losing their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>Federal patronage +after the election of Cleveland in 1884; and this first Democratic +presidential victory after the War led many of them to believe that they +could recover their lost ground only by securing to the negro the right +to vote. The Republicans were also deeply stirred by the +over-representation of the South in the House of Representatives under +the prevailing system of apportionment. They pointed out that the North +was, in this respect, at even a greater disadvantage than before the +Civil War and emancipation.</p> + +<p>Under the original Constitution of the United States, only three fifths +of the slaves were counted in apportioning representatives among the +states; under the Fourteenth Amendment all the negroes were counted, +thus enlarging the representation of the southern states. And yet the +negroes were for practical purposes as disfranchised as they were when +they were in servitude. It was pointed out that "in the election of 1888 +the average vote cast for a member of Congress in five southern states +was less than eight thousand; in five northern states, over thirty-six +thousand. Kansas, which cast three times the vote of South Carolina, had +only the same number of congressmen." The discrepancy tended to +increase, if anything. In 1906, a Mississippi district with a population +of 232,174 cast 1540 votes, while a New York district with 215,305 cast +29,119 votes.</p> + +<p>The Republicans have several times threatened to alter this anomalous +condition of affairs. In 1890, Mr. Lodge introduced in the House of +Representatives a bill providing for the appointment of federal election +commissioners, on petition of local voters, endowed with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>powers to +register and count all votes, even in the face of the opposition of +local officers. This measure, which passed the House, was at length +killed in the Senate. In their platform of 1904, the Republicans +declared in favor of restoring the negro to his rights under the +Constitution, and for political purposes the party in the House later +coupled a registration and election law with the measure providing for +publicity of campaign contributions. It was not acted upon in the +Senate. In 1908, the Republicans in their platform declared "once more +and without reservation, for the enforcement in letter and spirit of the +Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution +which were designed for the protection and advancement of the negro," +and condemned all devices designed to disfranchise him on grounds of +color alone. Although they have been in possession of all branches of +the Federal government several times, the Republicans have deemed it +inexpedient to carry out their campaign promises.</p> + +<p>With the decline in the influence of the Civil War veterans in politics, +the possibility of Federal interference has steadily decreased. The +North had never been abolitionist in temper or political belief, as the +vote of the Free Soil party demonstrates. The Republican party was a +homestead, railway, and protectionist party opposed to slavery in the +territories, and its great leader, Lincoln, had long been on record as +opposed to political and social equality for the negro. Emancipation had +come as a stroke of fortune—not because a majority of the people had +deliberately come to the conclusion that it was a measure of justice. As +in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>French Revolution at its height, the extreme radicals forged to +the front for a time, so during the Civil War and its aftermath, +"radical" Republicans held the center of the stage and gave to politics +a flavor of talk about "human rights" which was foreign to practical +statesmen like Clay and Webster. In a little while, practical men came +to the helm once more, and they were primarily interested in economic +matters—railways, finance, tariff, corporations, natural resources, and +western development. The cash nexus with the South was formed once more, +and made far stronger and subtler than in olden days. Agitation of the +negro question became bad form in the North, except for quadrennial +political purposes.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Negro Problem</i></p> + +<p>Thus the negro, suddenly elevated to a great height politically, was +almost as suddenly dropped by his new friends and thrown largely upon +his own ingenuity and resources for further advance. His emancipation +and enfranchisement had come almost without effort on his own part, +without that development of economic interest and of class consciousness +that had marked the rise of other social strata to political power. It +was fortuitous and had no solid foundation. It became evident, +therefore, that any permanent advance of the race must be built on +substantial elements of power in the race itself. The whites might help +with education and industrial training, but the hope of the race lay in +the development of intellectual and economic power on its own account.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>In relative numerical strength the negro is not holding his own, because +of the large immigration from Europe. In 1790, the negro population +formed 19.3 per cent of the whole, and since that time it has almost +steadily declined, reaching at the last census 10.7 per cent of the +whole. Even in the southern states where the stream of foreign +immigration is the least, the negro population has fallen from 35.2 per +cent in 1790 to 29.8 per cent in 1910. In education, the negro has +undoubtedly made great progress since the War, but it must be remembered +that he was then at the bottom of the scale. The South, though poor as +compared with the North, has made large expenditures for negro +education, but it is authoritatively reported that "nearly half of the +negro children of school age in the South never get inside of the +schoolhouse."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> The relative expenditures for the education of white +and colored children there are not ascertainable, but naturally the +balance is heavily in favor of the former. When we recall, however, the +total illiteracy of the race under slavery and then discover that in +1910 there was an average daily attendance of 1,105,629 colored children +in the southern schools, we cannot avoid the conclusion that decided +changes are destined to be made in the intellectual outlook of the race.</p> + +<p>Reports also show that negroes are accumulating considerable property +and are becoming in large numbers the holders of small farms. +Nevertheless a very careful scholar, Dr. Walter Willcox, believes that +the figures "seem to show that the negro race at the South, in its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>competition with the whites, lost ground between 1890 and 1900 in the +majority of skilled occupations which can be distinguished by the aid of +the census figures." Taking the economic status of the race as a whole, +the same authority adds: "The conclusion to which I am brought is that +relatively to the whites in the South, if not absolutely as measured by +any conceivable standard, the negro as a race is losing ground, is being +confined more and more to the inferior and less remunerative +occupations, and is not sharing proportionately to his numbers in the +prosperity of the country as a whole or of the section in which he +mainly lives."</p> + +<p>The conclusions of the statistician are confirmed by the impressions of +such eminent champions of the negro as Dr. W. B. Dubois and Mr. Thomas +Fortune. The former declares that "in well-nigh the whole rural South +the black farmers are peons, bound by law and custom to an economic +slavery, from which the only escape is death or the penitentiary." The +latter holds that the negro has simply passed from chattel to industrial +slavery "with none of the legal and selfish restraints upon the employer +which surrounded and actuated the master." These writers attribute the +slow advance of the race to the bondage of law and prejudice to which it +is subjected in the South, and everywhere in the country, as a matter of +fact. Whatever the cause may be, there seems to be no doubt that the +colored race has not made that substantial economic advance and achieved +that standard of life which its friends hoped would follow from +emancipation. Those writers who emphasize heredity in social evolution +point to this as an evidence of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>inherent disabilities of the race; +while those who emphasize environment point out the immense handicap +everywhere imposed on the race by law, custom, and prejudice.</p> + +<p>Whatever may be the real truth about the economic status of the race, +and after all it is the relative progress of the mass that determines +the future of the race, there can be no doubt that there is an +increasing "race consciousness" which will have to be reckoned with. The +more conservative school, led by Booker T. Washington, is working to +secure for the negro an industrial training that will give him some kind +of an economic standing in the community, and if this is achieved for +large numbers, a radical change in social and political outlook will +follow, unless all signs of history fail. On the other hand, there is +growing up a radical party, under the inspiration of Dr. W. B. Dubois, +which pleads for unconditional political and social equality as a +measure of immediate justice. Dr. Dubois demands "the raising of the +negro in America to full rights and citizenship. And I mean by this no +halfway measures; I mean full and fair equality. That is, a chance to +work regardless of color, to aspire to position and preferment on the +basis of desert alone, to have the right to use public conveniences, to +enter public places of amusement on the same terms as other people, and +to be received socially by such persons as might wish to receive them."</p> + +<p>With both of these influences at work and all the forces of modern life +playing upon the keener section of the colored population, nothing but +congenital disabilities can prevent a movement which ruling persons, +North and South, will have to take into account. How <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>serious this +movement becomes depends, however, upon the innate capacity of colored +masses to throw off the shiftlessness and indifference to high standards +of life that, their best friends admit, stand in the way of their +gaining a substantial economic basis, without which any kind of a solid +political superstructure is impossible. The real negro question now is: +"Can the race demonstrate that capacity for sustained economic activity +and permanent organization which has lifted the white masses from +serfdom?"</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> In 1894 the Democrats during Cleveland's administration +completed the demolition of the system by repealing the remaining +provisions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Disfranchising provisions were adopted in other southern +states as follows: North Carolina, in 1900; Alabama and Virginia, in +1901; Georgia, in 1908. See Lobingier, <i>The People's Law</i>, pp. 301 ff.; +W. F. Dodd, <i>Revision and Amendment of State Constitutions</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>The Political Science Review</i>, November, 1906, p. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Giles <i>v.</i> Harris, 189 U. S., 474.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See a Massachusetts case decided before the Civil War +upholding similar discriminations against negroes. Thayer, <i>Cases on +Constitutional Law</i>, Vol. I, p. 576.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> This is partly due to the absence of compulsory attendance +laws.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h2>THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Long before the Civil War, steam and machinery had begun to invade +American industries and statesmen of the new commercial and industrial +order had appeared in Washington. The census of 1860 reported nearly a +million and a half wage earners in the United States, and more than a +billion dollars invested in manufacturing. By that year over thirty +thousand miles of railway had been constructed, including such important +lines as the New York Central, the Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the +Pennsylvania. Politicians of the type of Stephen A. Douglas, who +discussed slavery in public and devoted their less obvious activities to +securing grants of public lands and mineral resources to railway and +manufacturing corporations, had begun to elbow the more cultivated and +respectable leaders like Calhoun, Webster, and Alexander Stephens, who +belonged to the old order.</p> + +<p>But the spectacular conflict over slavery prevented the political +results of the economic transformation from coming to the surface. Those +who had occasion to watch the proceedings of Congress during the two +decades just before the War discovered the manipulations of railway +corporations seeking land grants and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>privileges from the Federal +Government and the operations of the "protected" interests in behalf of +increased tariffs. Those were also harvest days for corporations and +companies in the state legislatures where special charters and +privileges were being bartered away by the wholesale. There was emerging +in a number of the larger industrial centers a small, though by no means +negligible, labor movement. But the slavery issue overshadowed +everything. The annexation of Texas, slavery in the territories, the +Compromise of 1850, the Nebraska bill, and Bleeding Kansas kept the mind +of the North from the consideration of the more fundamental economic +problems connected with the new order. The politicians, to be sure, did +not live by the slavery agitation alone, but it afforded the leading +topics for public discussion and prevented the critical from inquiring +too narrowly into the real staples of politics.</p> + +<p>The Civil War sharply shifted the old scenery of politics. It gave a +tremendous impetus to industry and railway construction. The tariff +measures during the War gave to manufacturers an unwonted protection +against foreign competition; the demand for war supplies, iron, and +steel, railway materials, textiles, and food supplies, quickened every +enterprise in the North; the great fortunes made out of speculations in +finances, contracts for government supplies, and land-grants placed an +enormous capital in private hands to carry forward business after the +War was over.</p> + +<p>Within little more than a quarter of a century the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>advance of industry +and commerce had made the United States of Lincoln's day seem small and +petty. The census of 1905 showed over twelve billion dollars invested in +factories and nearly five and one half million wage earners employed. In +that year, the total value of manufactured products was over fourteen +billion dollars—fifteen times the amount turned out in 1860. As late as +1882 the United States imported several hundred thousand tons of steel +rails annually, but within ten years the import had fallen to 134 tons +and no less than 15,000 tons were exported. At the close of the Civil +War about 3000 tons of Bessemer steel were produced annually, but within +twenty years over two million tons were put out every twelve months.</p> + +<p>The building of railways more than kept pace with the growth of the +population and the increase in manufacturing. There were 30,000 miles of +lines in 1860; 52,000 in 1870; 166,000 in 1890; and 242,000 in 1910. +Beginning at first with the construction of lines between strategic +centers like Boston and Albany, and Philadelphia and Reading, the +leaders in this new enterprise grew more bold. They pushed rapidly into +the West where there were no cities of magnitude and no prospect of +developing a profitable business within the immediate future. Capital +flowed into the railways like water; European investors caught the +fever; farmers and merchants along prospective lines bought stocks and +bonds, expecting to reap a harvest from increased land values and +business, only to find their paper valueless on account of preferred +claims for construction; and the whole West was aflame with dreams <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>of a +new Eldorado to be created by transportation systems.</p> + +<p>The era of feverish construction was shortly followed by the combination +of lines and the formation of grand trunk railways and particular +"systems." In 1869, Cornelius Vanderbilt united the Hudson River and New +York Central lines, linking the metropolis and Buffalo, and four years +later he opened the way to Chicago by leasing the Lake Shore Michigan +and Southern. About the same time two other eastern companies, the +Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio secured western connections which +let them into Chicago.</p> + +<p>It must not be thought that this rapid railway expansion was due solely +to private enterprise, for, as has been the standing custom in American +politics, the cost of doubtful or profitless undertakings was thrown as +far as possible upon the public treasury. Up to 1872, the Federal +Government had granted in aid of railways 155,000,000 acres of land, an +area estimated as "almost equal to the New England states, New York, and +Pennsylvania combined; nineteen different states had voted sums +aggregating two hundred million dollars for the same purpose; and +municipalities and individuals had subscribed several hundred million +dollars to help railway construction." To the Union Pacific concern +alone the Federal Government had granted a free right of way through +public lands, twenty sections of land with each mile of railway, and a +loan up to fifty million dollars secured by a second mortgage on the +company's property. The Northern Pacific obtained lands which a railway +official estimated to be worth enough "to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>build the entire railroad to +Puget Sound, to fit out a fleet of sailing vessels and steamers for the +China and India trade and leave a surplus that would roll up into the +millions." Cities, townships, counties, and states voted bonds to help +build railways within their limits or granted rights of way and lands, +in addition, with a lavish hand.</p> + +<p>The chronicle of all the frauds connected with the manipulation of land +grants to railways and the shameless sale of legal privileges cannot be +written, because in most instances no tangible records have been left. +Perhaps the most notorious of all was the Crédit Mobilier scandal +connected with the Union Pacific. The leading stockholders in that +company determined to secure for themselves a large portion of the +profits of construction, which were enormous on account of the prodigal +waste; and they organized a sham concern known as the Crédit Mobilier in +which they had full control and to which the construction profits went. +Inasmuch as the Federal Government through its grants and loans was an +interested party that might interfere at any time, the concern, through +its agent in Congress, Oakes Ames, a representative from Massachusetts, +distributed generous blocks of stock to "approachable" Senators and +Representatives. News of the transaction leaked out, and a congressional +investigation in 1872 showed that a number of men of the highest +standing, including Mr. Colfax, the Vice President, were deeply +implicated. Nothing was done, however; the leading conspirator, Ames, +was merely censured by the House, and the booty, for the most part, +remained in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>hands of those connected with the scandal. When the +road was complete, "it was saddled with interest payments on $27,000,000 +first mortgage bonds, $27,000,000 government bonds, $10,000,000 income +bonds, $10,000,000 land grant bonds, and if anything were left, dividend +payments on $36,000,000 of stock."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It would be easy to multiply figures showing astounding gains in +industry, business, foreign trade, and railways; or to multiply stories +of scandalous and unfair practices on the part of financiers, but we are +not primarily concerned here with the technique of inventions or the +history of promotion.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The student of social and political evolution +is concerned rather with the effect of such material changes upon the +structure of society, that is, with the rearrangements of classes and +the development of new groups of interests, which are brought about by +altered methods of gaining a livelihood and accumulating fortunes. It is +this social transformation that changes the relation of the individual +to the state and brings new forces to play in the struggle for political +power. The social transformation which followed the Civil War embraced +the following elements.</p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> + +<p>In the first place, capital, as contrasted with agriculture, increased +enormously in amount and in political influence. Great pecuniary +accumulations were thenceforward made largely in business +enterprise—including the work of the entrepreneur, financier, +speculator, and manipulator under that general term. Inevitably, the +most energetic and the keenest minds were attracted by the dominant mode +of money-making. Agricultural regions were drained of large numbers of +strenuous and efficient men, who would otherwise have been their natural +leaders in politics. To these were added the energetic immigrants from +the Old World. That forceful, pushing, dominating section of society +historically known as the "natural aristocracy" became the agents of +capitalism. The scepter of power now passed definitively from the +masters of slaves to the masters of "free laborers." The literary and +professional dependents of the ruling groups naturally came to the +defense of the new order.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> The old contest between agrarianism and +capitalism now took on a new vigor.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>On the side of the masses involved in the transition this economic +revolution meant an increasing proportion of wage workers as contrasted +with agriculturalists, owning and operating their farms, and with +handicraftsmen. This increase is shown by the following table, giving +the number of wage earners in <i>manufacturing</i> alone:</p> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="60%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="png040"> + <tr> + <td class="tdctb" width="20%"> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap" width="40%">Population</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap" width="40%">Wage Earners</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">1850</td> + <td class="tdcl">23,191,876</td> + <td class="tdcl"> 957,059</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">1860</td> + <td class="tdcl">31,443,321</td> + <td class="tdcl">1,311,246</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">1870</td> + <td class="tdcl">38,558,371</td> + <td class="tdcl">2,053,996</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">1880</td> + <td class="tdcl">50,155,783</td> + <td class="tdcl">2,732,595</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">1890</td> + <td class="tdcl">62,947,714</td> + <td class="tdcl">4,251,535</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">1900</td> + <td class="tdcl">75,994,575</td> + <td class="tdcl">5,306,143</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb">1910</td> + <td class="tdclb">91,972,266</td> + <td class="tdclb">6,615,046</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>In terms of social life, this increase in wage workers meant, in the +first place, a rapid growth of city populations. In 1860, the vast +majority of the people were agriculturists; in 1890, 36.1 per cent of +the population lived in towns of over 2500; in 1900, 40.5 per cent; in +1910, 46.3 per cent. In the forty years between the beginning of the +Civil War and the close of the century, Chicago had grown from 109,260 +to 1,698,575; Greater New York from 1,174,779 to 3,437,202; San +Francisco from 56,802 to 342,782.</p> + +<p>In the next place, the demand for labor stimulated immigration from +Europe. It is true there was a decline during the Civil War, and the +panic of 1873 checked the tide when it began to flow, but by 1880 it had +nearly touched the half-a-million mark, and by 1883 it reached the +astounding figure of 788,992. Almost all of this immigration was from +Germany, Ireland, Great Britain, and Scandinavian countries, less than +one in twenty of the total number coming from Austria-Hungary, Italy, +and Poland in 1880. On the Pacific coast, railway building and +industrial enterprise, in the great dearth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>of labor, resorted to the +Orient for large supplies of Chinese coolies.</p> + +<p>This industrial development meant the transformation of vast masses of +the people into a proletariat, with all the term implies: an immense +population housed in tenements and rented dwellings, the organization of +the class into trades-unions, labor parties, and other groups; poverty +and degradation on a large scale; strikes, lockouts, and social warfare; +the employment of large numbers of women and children in factories; the +demand for all kinds of legislation mitigating the evils of the +capitalist process; and finally attacks upon the very basis of the +industrial system itself.</p> + +<p>This inevitable concomitant of the mechanical revolution, the industrial +proletariat, began to make itself felt as a decided political and +economic factor in the decade that followed the War. Between 1860 and +1870, the railway engineers, firemen, conductors, bricklayers, and cigar +makers had formed unions. In the campaign of 1872 a party of Labor +Reformers appeared; and a few years later the Knights of Labor, a grand +consolidated union of all trades and grades of workers, came into +existence as an active force, conducting an agitation for labor bureaus, +an eight hour day, abolition of contract labor systems, and other +reforms, and at the same time engineering strikes.</p> + +<p>In 1877 occurred the first of the great labor struggles in that long +series of campaigns which have marked the relations of capitalists and +workingmen during the past four decades. In that year, trouble began +between the management of the Baltimore and Ohio railway and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>its +employees over a threatened reduction in wages—the fourth within a +period of seven years. From this starting point the contest spread +throughout the East and Middle West, reaching as far as Texas. Inasmuch +as there was already considerable unemployment, the strikers saw that +only by violence and intimidation could they hope to prevent the +companies from moving their trains. Troops were called out by the +governors of several states and Federal assistance was invoked. +Pittsburgh fell almost completely into the hands of the strikers; +railway buildings were burned and property to the value of more than ten +million dollars destroyed. Everywhere the raw militia of the states was +found to be inefficient for such a serious purpose, and the superior +power of the Federal Government's regular troops was demonstrated. Where +railways were in the hands of receivers, Federal courts intervened by +the use of injunctions and the first blood in the contest between the +judiciary and labor was drawn.</p> + +<p>The last, but perhaps most significant, result of the industrial +revolution above described has been the rise of enormous combinations +and corporations in industry as well as in transportation. An increasing +proportion of the business of the country has passed steadily into +corporate, as contrasted with individual, ownership;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and this +implies a momentous change in the rights, responsibilities, and economic +theories of the owners of capital. Moreover, it involves the creation of +a new class of men, not entrepreneurs in the old sense, but organizers +of already established concerns into larger units.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>The industrial revolution had not advanced very far before an intense +competition began to force business men to combine to protect themselves +against their own weapons. As early as 1879 certain oil interests of +Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other centers had begun to +control competition by making agreements through their officers. Three +years later, they devised an excellent scheme for a closer organization +in the formation of a "trust." They placed all their stocks in the hands +of nine trustees, including John D. Rockefeller, who issued in return +certificates representing the proportionate share of each holder in the +concern, and managed the entire business in the interests of the +holders.</p> + +<p>The trust proved to be an attractive proposition to large business +concerns. Within five years combinations had been formed in cotton oil, +linseed oil, lead, sugar, whisky, and cordage, and it was not long +before a system of interlocking interests began to consolidate the +control of all staple manufactures in the hands of a few financiers. Six +years after its formation the Standard Oil Company was paying to a small +group of holders about $20,000,000 annually in dividends on a capital of +$90,000,000, and the recipients of these large dividends began to invest +in other concerns. In 1879, one of them, H. M. Flagler, became a +director of the Valley Railroad; in 1882, William Rockefeller appeared +as one of the directors of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul; in +1887, John D. Rockefeller was connected with a syndicate which absorbed +the Minnesota Iron Company, and about the same time representatives of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>the Oil Trust began to figure in the Northern Pacific, the Missouri, +Kansas, and Texas, and the Ohio River railways. Thus a perfect network +of financial connections throughout the country was built up.</p> + +<p>But on the whole the decades following the Civil War were characterized +by economic anarchy, <i>laissez faire</i> with a vengeance. There were +prolonged industrial crises accompanied by widespread unemployment and +misery among the working classes. In the matter of railway management +the chaos was unparalleled.</p> + +<p>Shortly after 1870 a period of ruinous competition set in and was +followed by severe financial crises among the railways. Passenger and +freight rate "wars" for the "through" traffic brought many roads to the +verge of bankruptcy, in spite of their valiant efforts to save +themselves by exorbitant charges on subsidiary branches where they had +no competition. Crooked financiering, such as the watering of stocks, +misappropriation of construction funds by directors, and the purchase of +bankrupt lines by directors of larger companies and their resale at +great advances, placed a staggering burden of interest charges against +practically all of the lines. In 1873 nearly half of the mileage in the +country was in the hands of court receivers, and between 1876 and 1879 +an average of more than one hundred roads a year were sold under the +foreclosure of mortgages. In all this distress the investors at large +were the losers while the "inside" operators such as Jay Gould, +Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Russell Sage doubled their already +over-topping fortunes.</p> + +<p>A very good example of this "new finance" is afforded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>by the history of +the Erie Railway. In 1868, Vanderbilt determined to secure possession of +this line which ran across New York State in competition with the New +York Central and Hudson River lines. Jay Gould and a group of operators, +who had control of the Erie, proceeded to water the stock and "unload" +upon Vanderbilt, whose agents bought it in the hope of obtaining the +coveted control. After a steeple chase for a while the two promoters +came to terms at the expense of the stockholders and the public. Between +July 1 and October 24, 1868, the stock of the Erie was increased from +$34,000,000 to $57,000,000, and the price went downward like a burnt +rocket. During the short period of Gould's administration of the Erie +"the capital stock of the road had been increased $61,425,700 and the +construction account had risen from $49,247,700 in 1867 to $108,807,687 +in 1872. Stock to the amount of $40,700,000 had been marketed by the +firm of Smith, Gould, and Martin, and, incredible as it may seem, its +sale had netted the company only $12,803,059."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>The anarchy in railway financing, which characterized the two decades +after the War, was also accompanied by anarchy in management. A Senate +investigating committee in 1885 enumerated the following charges against +the railroads: that local rates were unreasonably high as compared with +through rates; that all rates were based apparently not on cost of +service but "what the traffic would bear"; that discriminations between +individuals for the same services were constant; that "the effect of the +prevailing policy of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>railroad management is, by an elaborate system of +secret special rates, rebates, drawbacks, and concessions, to foster +monopoly, to enrich favorite shippers, to prevent free competition in +many lines of trade in which the item of transportation is an important +factor;" that secret rate cutting was constantly demoralizing business; +that free passes were so extensively issued as to create a privileged +class, thus increasing the cost to the passenger who paid; that the +capitalization and bonded indebtedness of companies largely exceeded the +actual cost of construction; and that railway corporations were engaged +in other lines of business and discriminating against competitors by +unfair rate manipulations. In a word, the theories about competition +written down in the books on political economy were hopelessly at +variance with the facts of business management; the country was at the +mercy of the sharp practices of transportation promoters.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>However, emphasis upon this great industrial revolution should not be +allowed to obscure the no less remarkable development in agriculture. +The acreage in improved farm lands rose from 113,032,614 in 1850 to +478,451,750 in 1910. In the same period the number of farms increased +from 1,449,073 to 6,361,502. Notwithstanding the significant fact that +"whereas the total population increased 21 per cent between 1900 and +1910, the urban population increased 34.8 per cent and the rural +population 11.2 per cent," the broad basis of the population during the +half a century here under consideration has remained agricultural, and +in 1913 it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>was estimated that at the present rate of transformation "it +will take a generation before the relative number of industrial wage +workers will have reached half of all bread winners."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Development of the West</i></p> + +<p>When Hayes was inaugurated, a broad wedge of territory separated the +organized states of the East from their sister commonwealths in the far +West—Oregon, California, and Nevada. Washington, Idaho, Montana, +Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Dakota, and Indian Territory still +remained territories. Their combined population in 1870 was under half a +million, less than that of the little state of Connecticut. New Mexico +with 91,000 and Utah with 86,000 might, with some show of justification, +have claimed a place among the states because Oregon was inhabited by +only 90,000 people. The commonwealth of Nevada, with 42,000, was an +anomaly; it had been admitted to the Union in 1864 to secure the +ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery.</p> + +<p>This vast and sparsely settled region was then in the second stage of +its economic evolution. The trapper, hunter, and explorer had gathered +most of their harvest, and the ranchmen and cowboys with their herds of +cattle were roaming the great grazing areas, waging war on thieves, land +syndicates, and finally going down to defeat in the contest with the +small farmer who fenced off the fertile fields and planted his homestead +there. So bitter were the contests among the cattle <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>kings, and so +extensive was the lawlessness in these regions during the seventies and +early eighties that Presidents were more than once compelled to warn the +warlike parties and threaten them with the Federal troops.</p> + +<p>Of course, the opening of the railways made possible a rapidity in the +settlement of the remaining territories which outrivaled that of the +older regions. The first Pacific railroad had been completed in 1869; +the Southern Pacific connecting New Orleans with the coast was opened in +1881; and two years later the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe was +finished, and the last stroke was put on the Northern Pacific, +connecting Chicago and Portland, Oregon. Thus four lines of +communication were established with the coast, traversing the best +agricultural regions of the territories and opening up the +mineral-bearing regions of the mountains as well. Lawless promoters fell +upon the land and mineral resources with that rapacity which Burke +attributed to Hastings.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Utah presented, in the eighties, the elements of an ordered and +well-advanced civilization and could with some show of reason ask for +admission as a state. The territory had been developed by the Mormons +who settled there, after suffering "persecution" for their religious +opinions and their plural marriages, in Illinois and Missouri. +Notwithstanding an act of Congress passed in 1862 prohibiting polygamy, +it continued to flourish. The territorial officers were nearly all +Mormons and the remoteness of the Federal authority prevented an +enforcement of the law. Consequently, it remained a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>dead letter until +1882, when Congress enacted the Edmunds law prescribing heavy penalties, +including the loss of citizenship, for polygamous practices. Hundreds of +prosecutions and convictions followed, but plural marriages were openly +celebrated in defiance of the law. At length, in 1887, Congress passed +the Edmunds-Tucker act authorizing the Federal Government to seize the +property of the Mormon church.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the gentile population increased in the territory; and at +length the Mormons, seeing that the country was determined to suppress +polygamy and that, while the institution was maintained, statehood could +not be secured, decided upon at least an outward acquiescence in the +law. After much discussion in Congress, and notwithstanding the repeated +contention that the Mormons were not sincere in their promises, Utah was +admitted as a state in 1895 under a constitution which, in accordance +with the provisions of the enabling act of Congress, forbade polygamous +and plural marriages forever. Thus the inhabitants of the new state were +bound by a solemn contract with the Union never to restore the marriage +practices which had caused them so much trouble and "persecution," as +they called it.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Although the Mormons were the original pioneers and homestead makers in +that great region, theirs was in fact the last of the middle tier of +territories to receive statehood. They had left the advancing frontier +line far behind. To the northward that advance was checked by the +enormous Sioux reservation in Dakota, but the discovery of gold in the +Black Hills marked the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>doom of the Indian rights. Miners and +capitalists demanded that the way should be made clear for their +enterprise and the land hungry were clamoring for more farms. Indeed, +before Congress could act, pioneers were swarming over the regions +around the Indian lands. Farmers from the other northern states, +Norwegians, Germans, and Canadians were planting their homesteads amid +the fertile Dakota fields; the population of the territory jumped from +14,181 in 1870 to 135,177 in 1880, and before the close of the next +decade numbered more than half a million. It was evident that the region +was destined to be principally agricultural in character, inhabited by +thrifty farmers like those of Iowa and Nebraska. Pretensions to +statehood therefore rose with the rising tide of population.</p> + +<p>Far over on the western coast, the claims of Washington to statehood +were being urged. The population there had increased until it rivaled +Oregon and passed the neighboring commonwealth in 1890. In addition to +rich agricultural areas, it possessed enormous timber resources which +were to afford the chief industry for a long time; and keen-sighted men +foresaw a swift development of seaward trade. Between the Dakotas and +Washington lay the narrow point of Idaho and the mountainous regions of +Montana, now rapidly filling up with miners and capitalists exploiting +the gold, silver, coal, copper, and other mineral resources, and +rivaling the sheep and cattle kings in their contest for economic +supremacy.</p> + +<p>After the fashion of enterprising westerners, the citizens of these +territories began to boast early of their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>"enormous" populations and +their "abounding" wealth, and to clamor for admission as states. Finding +their pleas falling upon unheeding ears, the people of the southern +Dakota took matters into their own hands in 1885, called a convention, +framed a constitution, and failing to secure the quick and favorable +action of Congress threatened to come into the Union unasked. Sober +counsels prevailed, however, and the impatient Dakotans were induced to +wait awhile. Meantime the territory was divided into two parts in 1887, +after a popular vote had been taken on the matter.</p> + +<p>As had been the case almost from the beginning of the Republic, the +admission of these new states was a subject of political controversy and +intrigue at the national capital. During Cleveland's first +administration the House was Democratic and the Senate Republican. +Believing that Dakota was firmly Republican, the Senate passed the +measure admitting the southern region in 1886, but the Democratic House +was unable to see eye to eye with the Senate on this matter. In the +elections of 1888, the Republicans carried the House, and it was evident +that the new Congress would take some action with regard to the +clamoring territories. Montana was probably Democratic, and Washington +was uncertain. At all events the Democrats thought it wise to come to +terms, and accordingly on February 22, 1889, the two Dakotas, +Washington, and Montana were admitted simultaneously.</p> + +<p>With less claim to statehood than any commonwealths admitted up to that +time, except Nevada, the two territories of Idaho and Wyoming were soon +enabled, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>by the assistance of the politicians, to secure admission to +the Union. Republican politics and the "silver interests" were +responsible for this step. Although neither territory had over 40,000 +inhabitants in 1880, extravagant claims were made by the advocates of +admission—claims speedily belied by the census of 1890, which gave +Idaho 88,000 and Wyoming 62,000. At last in July, 1890, they were +admitted to the Union, and the territorial question was settled for a +time, although Arizona and New Mexico felt that their claims were +unjustly treated. It was not until seventeen years later that another +new state, Oklahoma, modeled out of the old Indian Territory, was added +to the Union. Finally, in 1912, the last of the continental territories, +Arizona and New Mexico, were endowed with statehood.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Economic Advance of the South</i></p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the prominence given to the negro question during and +after Reconstruction, the South had other problems no less grave in +character to meet. Industry and agriculture were paralyzed by the +devastations of the War. A vast amount of material capital—railways, +wharves, bridges, and factories—had been destroyed during the conflict; +and fluid capital seeking investment had been almost destroyed as well. +The rich with ready money at their command had risked nearly all their +store in confederate securities or had lost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>their money loaned in other +ways through the wreck of the currency. Plantations had depreciated in +value, partly because of the destruction of equipment, but especially on +account of the difficulties of working the system without slave labor. +The South had, therefore, to rehabilitate the material equipment of +industry and transportation and to put agriculture on another basis than +that of slave labor. Surely this was a gigantic task.</p> + +<p>The difficulties of carrying forward the plantation system with free +negro labor compelled the holders of large estates (many of which were +heavily mortgaged) to adopt one of two systems: the leasing or renting +of small plots to negroes or poor whites, or the outright sale in small +quantities which could be worked by one or two hands. This +disintegration of estates went forward with great rapidity. In 1860 the +average holding of land in the southern states was 335.4 acres; in 1880 +it had fallen to 153.4; and in 1900 it had reached 138.2. The great +handicap was the difficulty of securing the capital to develop the small +farm, and no satisfactory system for dealing with this problem has yet +been adopted.</p> + +<p>The very necessities of the South served to bind that section to the +North in a new fashion. Fluid capital had to be secured, in part at +least, from the North, and northern enterprise found a new outlet in the +reconstruction of the old, and the development of the new, industries in +the region of the former confederacy. The number of cotton spindles in +the South increased from about 300,000 in 1860 to more than 4,000,000 at +the close of the century; the number of employees rose <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>from 10,000 to +nearly 100,000; and the value of the output leaped from $8,460,337 +annually to $95,002,059. This rapid growth was, in part, due to the +abundance of water power in the hill regions, the cheap labor of women +and children, the low cost of living, and the absence of labor laws +interfering with the hours and conditions of work in the factories.</p> + +<p>Even in the iron and steel industry, West Virginia and Alabama began to +press upon the markets of the North within less than twenty years after +the close of the War. In 1880, the latter state stood tenth among the +pig-iron producing states; in 1890 it stood third. The southern states +alone now produce more coal, iron ore, and pig iron than all of the +states combined did in 1870. The census of 1909 reports 5685 +manufacturing establishments in Virginia, 4931 in North Carolina, 4792 +in Georgia, and 3398 in Alabama.</p> + +<p>The social effects which accompany capitalist development inevitably +began to appear in the South. The industrial magnate began to contest +with the old aristocracy of the soil for supremacy; many former slave +owners and their descendants drifted into manufacturing and many poor +whites made their way upward into wealth and influence. The census of +1909 reports more than thirty thousand proprietors and firm members in +the South Atlantic states, an increase over the preceding report almost +equal to that in the New England states. The same census reports in the +southern states more than a million wage earners—equal to almost two +thirds the entire number in the whole country at the opening of the +Civil War. The percentage of increase <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>in the wage earners of the South +Atlantic states between 1904 and 1909 was greater than in New England or +the Middle Atlantic states.</p> + +<p>With this swift economic development, northern capital streamed into the +South; northern money was invested in southern public and industrial +securities in enormous amounts; and energetic northern business men were +to be found in southern market places vying with their no less +enterprising southern brethren. The men concerned in creating this new +nexus of interest between the two regions naturally deprecated the +perpetual agitation of sectional issues by the politicians, and +particularly northern interference in the negro question. Business +interest began to pour cold water on the hottest embers which the Civil +War had left behind.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The following brief chronology of inventions illustrates +the rapidity in the technical changes in the new industrial development: +</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="noin">1875—Bell's telephone in operation between Boston and +Salem. +</p><p class="noin"> +1879—Brush arc street lighting system installed in San +Francisco. +</p><p class="noin"> +1882—Edison's plant for incandescent lighting opened in New +York City. +</p><p class="noin"> +1882—Edison's electric street car operated at Menlo Park, +New Jersey. +</p><p class="noin"> +1885—Electric street railways in operation at Richmond, +Virginia, and Baltimore.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> For the keenest analysis of this social transformation, see +Veblen, <i>Theory of the Leisure Class</i> and <i>Theory of Business +Enterprise</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See below, Chaps. VI and VII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See below, p. 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Youngman, <i>The Economic Causes of Great Fortunes</i>, p. 75.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> By an act passed in August, 1912, Congress provided a +territorial legislature for Alaska, which had been governed up to that +time by a governor appointed by the President and Senate, under acts of +Congress.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h2>THE REVOLUTION IN POLITICS AND LAW</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The economic revolution that followed the War, the swift and potent +upswing of capitalism, and the shifting of political power from the +South to the North made their impress upon every branch of the Federal +Government. Senators of the old school, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Roger +Baldwin, John P. Hale, James Mason, and Jefferson Davis were succeeded +by the apostles of the new order: Roscoe Conkling and Thomas Platt, +James Donald Cameron, Leland Stanford, George Hearst, Arthur P. Gorman, +William D. Washburn, John R. McPherson, Henry B. Payne, Matthew S. Quay, +Philetus Sawyer, John H. Mitchell, and James G. Blaine. The new Senate +was composed of men of affairs—practical men, who organized gigantic +enterprises, secured possession of natural resources and franchises, +collected and applied capital on a large scale to new business +undertakings, built railways, established cities with the advancing line +of the western frontier—or represented such men as counsel in the +courts of law.</p> + +<p>Not many of them were great orators or widely known as profound students +of politics in its historical and comparative aspects. A few, like +Blaine, Hoar, and Conkling, studied the classic oratory of the older +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>generation and sought to apply to the controverted issues of the hour +that studious, orderly, and sustained eloquence which had adorned the +debates of earlier years; but the major portion cultivated only the arts +of management and negotiation. Few of them seem to have given any +thought to the lessons to be learned from European politics. On the +contrary, they apparently joined with the multitude in the assumption +that we had everything to teach Europe and nothing to learn. Bismarck +was to them, if we may judge from their spoken words, simply a great +politician and the hero of a war; the writings of German economists, +Wagner and Schmoller, appear never to have penetrated their studies. +That they foresaw in the seventies and eighties the turn that politics +was destined to take is nowhere evident. They commanded respect and +admiration for their practical achievements; but it is questionable +whether the names of more than two or three will be known a century +hence, save to the antiquarian.</p> + +<p>Of this group, Roscoe Conkling was undoubtedly typical, just as Marcus +A. Hanna represented the dominant politicians of a later time. He was an +able lawyer and an orator of some quality, but of no permanent fame. He +took his seat in the Senate in 1867 and according to his biographer +"during the remainder of his life his legal practice was chiefly +connected with corporations that were litigants in the district and +circuit courts of the United States,"<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>—the judges of which courts he +was, as Senator, instrumental in appointing. His practice was lucrative +for his day, amounting to some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>$50,000 a year.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> He counted among his +clients the first great capitalists of the country. When he was forced +to retire from New York politics, "the first person who came to see him +on business was Mr. Jay Gould, who waited upon him early one morning at +his hotel."<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> He was counsel for Mr. Collis P. Huntington in his +contest against the state legislation which railway interests deemed +unjust and unconstitutional.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> He was among the keen group of legal +thinkers who invoked and extended the principle of the Fourteenth +Amendment to cover all the varieties of legislation affecting corporate +interests adversely.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>Criticism of the Republican party, and particularly of the policies for +which he stood, Mr. Conkling regarded as little short of treason. For +example, when Mr. George William Curtis, in the New York state +convention of 1877, sought to endorse the administration of President +Hayes, whose independence in office had been troublesome to Mr. +Conkling, the latter returned in a passionate attack on the whole party +of opposition: "Who are these men who in newspapers and elsewhere are +'cracking their whips' over Republicans and playing schoolmaster to the +Republican party and its conscience and convictions. They are of various +sorts and conditions. Some of them are the man-milliners, the dilettanti +and carpet knights of politics, men whose efforts have been expended in +denouncing and ridiculing and accusing honest men.... Some of these +worthies masquerade as reformers and their vocation and ministry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>is to +lament the sins of other people. Their stock in trade is rancid, canting +self-righteousness. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. Their real +object is office and plunder. When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the +last refuge of a scoundrel, he was then unconscious of the then +undeveloped capabilities of the word 'reform.'"<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<p>The political philosophy of this notable group of political leaders was +that of their contemporaries in England, the Cobden-Bright school. They +believed in the widest possible extension of the principle of private +property, and the narrowest possible restriction of state interference, +except to aid private property to increase its gains. They held that all +of the natural resources of the country should be transferred to private +hands as speedily as possible, at a nominal charge, or no charge at all, +and developed with dashing rapidity. They also believed that the great +intangible social property created by community life, such as franchises +for street railways, gas, and electricity, should be transformed into +private property. They supplemented their philosophy of property by a +philosophy of law and politics, which looked upon state interference, +except to preserve order, and aid railways and manufacturers in their +enterprises, as an intrinsic evil to be resisted at every point, and +they developed a system of jurisprudence which, as Senators having the +confirming power in appointments and as counsel for corporations before +the courts of the United States, they succeeded in transforming into +judicial decisions. Some of them were doubtless corrupt, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>as was +constantly charged, but the real explanation of their resistance to +government intervention is to be found in their philosophy, which, +although consonant with their private interests, they identified with +public good.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Writing Laissez Faire into the Constitution</i></p> + +<p>Inasmuch as the attacks on private rights in property, franchises, and +corporate privileges came principally from the state legislatures, it +was necessary to find some way to subject them to legal control—some +juristic process for translating <i>laissez faire</i> into a real restraining +force. These leading statesmen and lawyers were not long in finding the +way. The Federal courts were obviously the proper instrumentalities, and +the broad restrictions laid upon the states by the Fourteenth Amendment +no less obviously afforded the constitutional foundation for the science +of legislative nihilism. "No state," ran the significant words of that +Amendment, "shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the +privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any +state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due +process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal +protection of the laws."</p> + +<p>What unseen implications lay within these phrases the most penetrating +thinkers divined at once. Protest was made by the New Jersey legislature +against the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866 on the ground that it would +destroy all the essential rights of a state to control <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>its internal +affairs; and such opinion was widespread. But the most common view was +to the effect that the Amendment would be used principally to surround +the newly emancipated slaves with safeguards against their former +masters who might be tempted to restore serfdom under apprentice and +penal laws and other legal guises. Still there is plenty of evidence to +show that those who framed the Fourteenth Amendment and pushed it +through Congress had in mind a far wider purpose—that of providing a +general restraining clause for state legislatures.</p> + +<p>The problem of how best to check the assaults of state legislatures on +vested rights was not new when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. On +the contrary, it was one of the first concerns of the Convention of 1787 +which drafted the original Constitution of the United States, and it was +thought by the framers that security had been attained by forbidding +states to emit bills of credit and make laws impairing the obligation of +contract. Under Chief Justice Marshall, these clauses were so generously +interpreted as to repel almost any attack which a state legislature +might make on acquired rights. However, in the closing years of +Marshall's service, the Supreme Court, then passing into the hands of +states' rights justices, rendered an opinion in the case of Ogden <i>v.</i> +Saunders, which clearly held that the contract clause did not prevent +the legislature from stipulating that <i>future</i> contracts might be +practically at its mercy. When a legislature provides by general law +that all charters of corporations are subject to repeal and alteration, +such provision becomes a part of all new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>contracts. Marshall delivered +in this case a vigorous and cogent dissenting opinion in which he +pointed out that the decision had in effect destroyed the virtue of the +obligation of contract clause.</p> + +<p>The case of Ogden <i>v.</i> Saunders was decided in 1827. Between that year +and the Civil War the beginnings of corporate enterprise were securely +laid in the United States; and the legislatures of the several states +began the regulation of corporations from one motive or another, +sometimes for the purpose of blackmailing them and sometimes for the +laudable purpose of protecting public interests. At all events, large +propertied concerns began to feel that they could not have a free hand +in developing their enterprises or enjoy any genuine security unless the +legislatures of the states were, by some constitutional provision, +brought again under strict Federal judicial control.</p> + +<p>The opportunity to secure this judicial control was afforded during the +Civil War when the radical Republicans were demanding Federal protection +for the newly emancipated slaves of the South. The drastic legislation +relative to negroes adopted by the southern states at the close of the +War showed that even in spite of the Thirteenth Amendment a substantial +bondage could be reëstablished under the color of criminal, apprentice, +and vagrant legislation. The friends of the negroes, therefore, +determined to put the substantial rights of life, liberty, and property +beyond the interference of state legislatures forever, and secure to all +persons the equal protection of the law.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>enunciating the +broad legal and political doctrine that no state "shall abridge the +privileges or immunity of citizens of the United States; nor shall any +state deprive any <i>person</i> of life, liberty, or property without due +process of law; nor deny to any <i>person</i> within its jurisdiction the +equal protection of the law."</p> + +<p>Here was a restriction laid upon state legislatures which might be +substantially limitless in its application, in the hands of a judiciary +wishing to place the broadest possible interpretation upon it. What are +privileges and immunities? What are life, liberty, and property? What is +due process of law? What is the equal protection of the law? Does the +term "person" include not only natural persons but also artificial +persons, namely, corporations? That the reconstruction committee of +Congress which framed the instrument intended to include within the +scope of this generous provision not only the negro struggling upward +from bondage, but also corporations and business interests struggling +for emancipation from legislative interference, has been often asserted. +In arguing before the Supreme Court in the San Matteo County case, on +December 19, 1882, Mr. Roscoe Conkling, who had been a member of the +committee which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment, unfolded for the first +time the deep purpose of the committee, and showed from the journal of +that committee that it was not their intention to confine the amendment +merely to the protection of the colored race. In the course of his +argument, Mr. Conkling remarked, "At the time the Fourteenth Amendment +was ratified, as the records of the two Houses will show, individuals +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>and joint-stock companies were appealing for congressional and +administrative protection against invidious and discriminating state and +local taxes. One instance was that of an express company, whose stock +was owned largely by citizens of the State of New York, who came with +petitions and bills seeking Acts of Congress to aid them in resisting +what they deemed oppressive taxation in two states, and oppressive and +ruinous rules of damages applied under state laws. That complaints of +oppression in respect of property and other rights, made by citizens of +Northern States who took up residence in the South, were rife, in and +out of Congress, none of us can forget; that complaints of oppression in +various forms, of white men in the South,—of 'Union men,'—were heard +on every side, I need not remind the Court. The war and its results, the +condition of the freedmen, and the manifest duty owed to them, no doubt +brought on the occasion for constitutional amendment; but when the +occasion came and men set themselves to the task, the accumulated evils +falling within the purview of the work were the surrounding +circumstances, in the light of which they strove to increase and +strengthen the safeguards of the Constitution and laws."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>In spite of important testimony to the effect that those who drafted the +Fourteenth Amendment really intended "to nationalize liberty," that is +<i>laissez faire</i>, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>against state legislatures, the Supreme Court at first +refused to accept this broad interpretation, and it was not until after +several of the judges of the old states' rights school had been replaced +by judges of the new school that the claims of Mr. Conkling's group as +to the Fourteenth Amendment were embodied in copious judicial decisions.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Slaughter-House Cases</i></p> + +<p>The first judicial interpretation of the significant phrases of the +Fourteenth Amendment which were afterward to be the basis of judicial +control over state economic legislation of every kind was made by the +Supreme Court in the Slaughter-House cases in 1873—five years after +that Amendment had been formally ratified. These particular cases, it is +interesting to note, like practically all other important cases arising +under the Fourteenth Amendment, had no relation whatever to the newly +emancipated slaves; but, on the contrary, dealt with the regulation of +business enterprises.</p> + +<p>In 1869, the legislature of Louisiana passed an act designed to protect +the health of the people of New Orleans and certain other parishes. This +act created a corporation for the purpose of slaughtering animals within +that city, forbade the establishment of any other slaughterhouses or +abattoirs within the municipality, and conferred the sole and exclusive +privilege of conducting the live-stock landing and slaughterhouse +business, under the limitations of the act, upon the company thus +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>created. The company, however, was required by the law to permit any +persons who wished to do so to slaughter in its houses and to make full +provision for all such slaughtering at a reasonable compensation. This +drastic measure, the report of the case states, was denounced "not only +as creating a monopoly and conferring odious and exclusive privileges +upon a small number of persons at the expense of the great body of the +community of New Orleans, but ... it deprives a large and meritorious +class of citizens—the whole of the butchers of the city—of the right +to exercise their trade, the business to which they have been trained +and on which they depend for the support of themselves and their +families."</p> + +<p>The opinion of the court was rendered by Mr. Justice Miller. The Justice +opened by making a few remarks upon the "police power," in the course of +which he said that the regulation of slaughtering fell within the +borders of that mysterious domain and without doubt constituted one of +the powers enjoyed by all states previous to the adoption of the Civil +War amendments. After commenting upon the great responsibility devolved +upon the Court in construing the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments +and remarking on the careful deliberation with which the judges had +arrived at their conclusions, Justice Miller then turned to an +examination of the historical purpose which underlay the adoption of the +amendments in question. After his recapitulation of recent events, he +concluded: "On the most casual examination of the language of these +amendments, no one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading +purpose <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>found in them all, lying at the foundation of each, and without +which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom +of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, +and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the +oppression of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over +him. It is true that only the Fifteenth Amendment, in terms, mentions +the negro by speaking of his color and his slavery. But it is just as +true that each of the other articles was addressed to the grievances of +that race and designed to remedy them as the Fifteenth. We do not say +that no one else but the negro can share in this protection. Both the +language and spirit of these articles are to have their fair and just +weight in any question of construction.... What we do wish to say and +what we wish to be understood as saying is, that in any fair and just +construction of any section or phrase of these amendments, it is +necessary to look to the purpose, which as we have said was the +pervading spirit of them all, the evil which they were designed to +remedy, and the process of continued addition to the Constitution until +that purpose was supposed to be accomplished as far as constitutional +law can accomplish it."</p> + +<p>Justice Miller dismissed with a tone of impatience the idea of the +counsel for the plaintiffs in error that the Louisiana statute in +question imposed an "involuntary servitude" forbidden by the Thirteenth +Amendment. "To withdraw the mind," he said, "from the contemplation of +this grand yet simple declaration of the personal freedom of all the +human race within the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>jurisdiction of this government—a declaration +designed to establish the freedom of four million slaves—and with a +microscopic search endeavor to find it in reference to servitudes which +may have been attached to property in certain localities, requires an +effort, to say the least of it."</p> + +<p>In Justice Miller's long opinion there is no hint of that larger and +more comprehensive purpose entertained by the framers of the Fourteenth +Amendment which was asserted by Mr. Conkling a few years later in his +argument before the Supreme Court. If he was aware that the framers had +in mind not only the protection of the freedmen in their newly won +rights, but also the defense of corporations and business enterprises +generally against state legislation, he gave no indication of the fact. +There is nowhere in his opinion any sign that he saw the broad economic +implications of the Amendment which he was expounding for the first time +in the name of the Court. On the contrary, his language and the opinion +reached in the case show that the judges were either not cognizant of +the new economic and political duty placed upon them, or, in memory of +the states' rights traditions which they had entertained, were unwilling +to apply the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments in such a manner as +narrowly to restrict the legislative power of a commonwealth.</p> + +<p>In taking up that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides that +no state shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or +immunities of citizens of the United States, Justice Miller declared +that it was not the purpose of that provision to transfer the security +and protection of all fundamental civil rights <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>from the state +government to the Federal Government. A citizen of the United States as +such, he said, has certain privileges and immunities, and <i>it was these +and these only</i> which the Fourteenth Amendment contemplated. He +enumerated some of them: the right of the citizen to come to the seat of +government, to assert any claim he may have upon that government, to +transact any business he may have with it, to seek its protection, share +its offices, engage in administering its functions, to have free access +to its seaports, subtreasuries, land offices, and courts of justice, to +use the navigable waters of the United States, to assemble peaceably +with his fellow citizens and petition for redress of grievances, and to +enjoy the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus. It was rights of this +character, the learned justice argued, and not all the fundamental +rights of person and property which had been acquired in the evolution +of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, that were placed by the Fourteenth +Amendment under the protection of the Federal Government.</p> + +<p>Within this view, all the ordinary civil rights enjoyed by citizens were +still within the control of the organs of the state government and not +within Federal protection at all. If the privileges and immunities, +brought within the protection of the Federal Government by the +Fourteenth Amendment, were intended to embrace the whole domain of +personal and property rights, then, contended the justice, the Supreme +Court would be constituted "a perpetual censor upon all legislation of +the states, on the civil rights of their own citizens, with authority to +nullify such as it did not approve as consistent with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>those rights as +they existed at the time of the adoption of this Amendment.... We are +convinced that no such results were intended by the Congress which +proposed these amendments nor by the legislatures which ratified them."</p> + +<p>In two short paragraphs, Justice Miller disposed of the contention of +the plaintiffs in error to the effect that the Louisiana statute +deprived the plaintiffs of their property without due process of law. He +remarked that inasmuch as the phraseology of this clause was also to be +found in the Fifth Amendment and in some form in the constitutions of +nearly all of the states, it had received satisfactory judicial +interpretation; "and it is sufficient to say," he concluded on this +point, "that under no construction of that provision that we have ever +seen or any that we deem admissible, can the restraint imposed by the +state of Louisiana upon the exercise of their trade by the butchers of +New Orleans be held to be a deprivation of private property within the +meaning of that provision."</p> + +<p>Coming now to that clause requiring every state to give all persons +within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws, Justice Miller +indulged in the false prophecy: "We doubt very much whether any action +of a state not directed by way of discrimination against the negroes as +a class or on account of their race will ever be held to come within the +purview of this provision." An emergency might arise, he admitted, but +he found no such a one in the case before him.</p> + +<p>Concluding his opinion, he expressed the view that the American Federal +system had come out of the Civil <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>War with its main features unchanged, +and that it was the duty of the Supreme Court then as always to hold +with a steady and an even hand the balance between state and Federal +power. "Under the pressure of all the excited feeling growing out of the +War," he remarked, "our statesmen have still believed that the existence +of the states with powers for domestic and local government, including +the regulation of civil rights—the rights of person and property—was +essential to the perfect working of our complex form of government, +though they have thought proper to impose additional limitations upon +the states and to confer additional power on that of the nation."</p> + +<p>Under this strict interpretation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth +amendments, all the fundamental rights of persons and property remained +subject to the state governments substantially in the same way as before +the Civil War. The Supreme Court thus could not become the final arbiter +and control the social and economic legislation of states at every +point. Those champions of the amendments who looked to them to establish +Federal judicial supremacy for the defense of corporations and business +enterprises everywhere throughout the American empire were sadly +disappointed.</p> + +<p>Nowhere was that disappointment more effectively and more cogently +stated than in the opinions of the judges who dissented from the +doctrines announced by the majority of the court. Chief Justice Chase +and Justices Field, Bradley, and Swayne refused to accept the +interpretation and the conclusions reached by the majority, and the last +three judges wrote separate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>opinions of their own expressing their +grounds for dissenting. The first of these, Justice Field, contended +that the Louisiana statute in question could not legitimately come under +the police power and was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, +inasmuch as it denied to citizens of the United States the fundamental +rights which belonged to citizens of all free governments—protection +against monopolies and equality of rights in the pursuit of the ordinary +avocations of life. In his opinion, the privileges and immunities put +under the supervision of the Federal Government by the Fourteenth +Amendment comprised generally "protection by the government, the +enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess +property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety, +subject, nevertheless, to such restraint as the government may justly +prescribe for the general good of the whole." In other words, Justice +Field would have carried the Amendment beyond the specific enumeration +of any definitely ascertained legal rights into the field of moral law, +which, in final analysis, would have meant the subjection of the state +legislation solely to the discretion of the judicial conscience. The +future, as we shall see, was with Justice Field.</p> + +<p>In the opinion of Justice Bradley, the Louisiana statute not only +deprived persons of the equal protection of the laws, but also of +liberty and property—the right of choosing, in the adoption of lawful +employments, being a portion of their liberty, and their occupation +being their property. In the opinion of Mr. Justice Swayne, who +dissented also, the word liberty as used in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>the Fourteenth Amendment +embodied freedom from all restraints except such as were "justly" +imposed by law. In his view, property included everything that had an +exchange value, including labor, and the right to make property +available was next in importance to the rights of life and liberty.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Granger Cases</i></p> + +<p>Three years after the decision in the Slaughter-House cases, the Supreme +Court again refused to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment so broadly as +to hold unconstitutional a state statute regulating business +undertakings. This case, Munn <i>v.</i> Illinois, decided in 1876, involved +the validity of a statute passed under the constitution of that state, +which declared all elevators where grain was stored to be public +warehouses and subjected them to strict regulation, including the +establishment of fixed maximum charges. It was contended by the +plaintiffs in error, Munn and Scott, that the statute violated the +Fourteenth Amendment in two respects: (1) that the business attempted to +be regulated was not a public calling and was, therefore, totally +outside of the regulatory or police power of the state; and (2) that +even if the business was conceded to be public in character, and +therefore by the rule of the common law was permitted to exact only +"reasonable" charges for its services, nevertheless the determination of +what was reasonable belonged to the judicial branch of the government +and could not be made by the legislature without violating the principle +of "due process."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>Both of these contentions were rejected by the Court, and the +constitutionality of the Illinois statute was upheld. The opinion of the +Court was written by Chief Justice Waite, who undertook an elaborate +examination of the "due process" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The +principle of this Amendment, he said, though new in the Constitution of +the United States, is as old as civilized government itself; it is found +in Magna Carta in substance if not in form, in nearly all of the state +constitutions, and in the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. +In order to ascertain, therefore, what power legislatures enjoyed under +the new amendment, it was only necessary to inquire into the limitations +which had been historically imposed under the due process clause in +England and the United States; and after an examination of some cases in +point the Chief Justice came to the conclusion that "down to the time of +the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment it was not supposed that +statutes regulating the use or even the price of the use of private +property necessarily deprived an owner of his property without due +process of law." When private property "is affected with public +interest" and is used in a manner to make it of public consequence, the +public is in fact granted an interest in that use, and the owner of the +property in question "must submit to be controlled by the public for the +common good, to the extent of the interest he has thus created."</p> + +<p>But it was insisted on behalf of the plaintiffs that the owner of +property is entitled to a reasonable compensation for its use even when +it is clothed with the public interest, and that the determination of +what is reasonable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>is a <i>judicial, not a legislative</i>, matter. To this +Chief Justice Waite replied that the usual practice had been otherwise. +"In countries where the common law prevails," he said, "it has been +customary from time immemorial for the legislature to declare what shall +be a reasonable compensation under such circumstances, or perhaps more +properly speaking to fix a maximum beyond which any charge made would be +unreasonable.... The controlling fact is the power to regulate at all. +If that exists, the right to establish the maximum of charge as one of +the means of regulation is implied. In fact, the common law rule which +requires the charge to be reasonable is itself a regulation as to +price.... To limit the rate of charge for services rendered in a public +employment, or for the use of property in which the public has an +interest, is only changing a regulation which existed before. It +establishes no new principle in the law, but only gives a new effect to +an old one. We know that this is a power which may be abused; but that +is no argument against its existence. <i>For protection against abuses by +legislatures the people must resort to the polls, not to the +courts.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>The principle involved in the Munn case also came up in the same year +(1876) in Peik <i>v.</i> Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company, in which +Chief Justice Waite, speaking of an act of Wisconsin limiting passenger +and freight charges on railroads in the state, said: "As to the claim +that the courts must decide what is reasonable and not the legislature, +this is not new to this case. It has been fully considered in Munn <i>v.</i> +Illinois. Where property has been clothed with a public interest, the +legislature may fix a limit to that which shall be in law reasonable for +its use. This limit binds the courts as well as the people. If it has +been improperly fixed, the legislature, not the courts, must be appealed +to for the change."</p> + +<p>The total results of the several Granger cases, decided in 1876, may be +summed up as follows:</p> + +<p>(1) That the regulatory power of the state over "public callings" is not +limited to those businesses over which it was exercised at common law, +but extends to any business in which, because of its necessary character +and the possibilities for extortion afforded by monopolistic control, +the public has an interest.</p> + +<p>(2) That such regulatory power will not be presumed to have been +contracted away by any legislature, unless such intention is +unequivocally expressed.</p> + +<p>(3) That the exercise of such regulatory power belongs to the +legislature, and not to the judiciary.</p> + +<p>(4) And the <i>dictum</i> that the judiciary can grant no relief from an +unjust exercise of this regulatory power by the legislature.</p> + +<p>Although the denial of the right of the judiciary to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>review the +"reasonableness" of a rate fixed by the legislature in the Granger cases +had been <i>dictum</i>, a case was not long arising in which the issue was +squarely raised. Had this case gone to the Supreme Court, the question +of judicial review would have been decided a full decade or more before +it really was. In this case, the Tilley case, a bondholder of a railroad +operating in Georgia sought to restrain the railroad from putting into +force a tariff fixed by the state railroad commission, on the ground +that it was so unreasonably low as to be confiscatory. Judge Woods, of +the Federal circuit court, refused to grant the injunction, basing his +decision squarely upon the dictum in Munn <i>v.</i> Illinois, and declaring +that the railroad must seek relief from unjust action on the part of the +commission at the hands of the legislature or of the people.</p> + +<p>It was not till seven years after the Granger cases that another case +involving rate regulation was presented to the Federal courts.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> The +Ruggles case, brought to the Supreme Court by writ of error to the +supreme court of Illinois, in 1883, involved a conviction of one of the +agents of the Illinois Central Railway for violating a maximum passenger +fare statute of that state, and raised substantially the same question +as all of the Granger cases except the Munn case—the right of the +legislature to regulate the rates of a railroad which was itself +empowered by its charter to fix its own rates. The Court affirmed the +doctrine of the Granger cases, Chief Justice Waite again writing the +opinion. The case is noteworthy only for the opinion of Justice Harlan, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>concurring in the judgment, but dissenting from the opinion, of the +Court, in so far as that opinion expressed, as he declared, the doctrine +that the legislature of Illinois could regulate the rates of the railway +concerned, in any manner it saw fit. Justice Harlan argued that inasmuch +as the charter of the railroad had conferred upon it the right to demand +"reasonable" charges, the legislature, when it resumed the power of +fixing charges, was estopped from fixing less than "reasonable" charges; +and should charges lower than "reasonable" be fixed, it would be within +the province of the judicial branch to give relief against such an +impairment of the obligation of contract.</p> + +<p>Justice Harlan's opinion is interesting not only because it touches upon +the possibility of a <i>judicial</i> review of the rate fixed by the +legislature; but because the learned Justice bases his contention on the +<i>contract</i> between the railroad and the state to the effect that rates +should be "reasonable." This indicates plainly that not even in the mind +of Justice Harlan, who later became the firm exponent of the power of +judicial review, was there any clear belief that the Fourteenth +Amendment as such gave the Court any power to review the +"reasonableness" of a rate fixed by the legislature. In other words, he +derived his doctrine of judicial review from the power of the Federal +judiciary to enforce the obligation of contracts, and not from its power +to compel "due process of law."</p> + +<p>It is impossible to trace here the numerous decisions following the +Ruggles case in which the Supreme Court was called upon to consider the +power of state <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>legislatures to control and regulate corporations, +particularly railways. It is impossible also to follow out all of the +fine and subtle distinctions by which the <i>dictum</i> of Chief Justice +Waite, in the Munn case, to the effect that private parties must appeal +to the people, and not to the courts, for protection against state +legislatures, was supplanted by the firm interpretation of the +Fourteenth Amendment in such a manner as to confer upon the courts the +final power to review all state legislation regulating the use of +property and labor. Of course we do not have, in fact, this clear-cut +reversal of opinion by the Court, but rather a slow working out of the +doctrine of judicial review as opposed to an implication that the Court +could not grant to corporations the relief from legislative interference +which they sought. There are but few clear-cut reversals in law; but the +political effect of the Court's decisions has been none the less clear +and positive.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Minnesota Rate Case</i></p> + +<p>It seems desirable, however, to indicate some of the leading steps by +which the Court moved from the doctrine of non-interference with state +legislatures to the doctrine that it is charged with the high duty of +reviewing all and every kind of economic legislation by the states. One +of the leading cases in this momentous transition is that of the +Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway Company <i>v.</i> Minnesota, decided +in 1889, which made a heavy contribution to the doctrine of judicial +review of questions of political economy as well as law. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>This case +involved the validity of a Minnesota law which conferred upon a state +railway commission the power to fix "reasonable" rates. The commission, +acting under this authority, had fixed a rate on the transportation of +milk between two points.</p> + +<p>The railroad having refused to put the rate into effect, the commission +applied to the supreme court of the state for a writ of mandamus. In its +answer the railroad claimed, among other contentions, that the rate +fixed was unreasonably low. The supreme court of the state refused to +listen to this contention, saying that the statute by its terms made the +order of the commission conclusively reasonable; accordingly it issued +the mandamus. By writ of error, the case was brought to the Supreme +Court of the United States, which, by a vote of six to three, ordered +the decree of the state court vacated, on the ground that the statute as +construed by the supreme court of the state was unconstitutional, as a +deprivation of property without due process of law.</p> + +<p>The opinion of the Court, written by Justice Blatchford, has frequently +been interpreted to hold, and was indeed interpreted by the dissenting +minority to hold, that the judiciary must, to satisfy the requirements +of "due process," have the power of final review over the reasonableness +of all rates, however fixed. It is doubtful whether the language of the +opinion sustains this reading; but the strong emphasis on the place of +the judiciary in determining the reasonableness of rates lent color to +the contention that Mr. Justice Blatchford was setting up "judicial +supremacy." In the course of his opinion, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>he said: "The question of the +reasonableness of a rate of charge for transportation by a railroad +company, involving as it does the element of reasonableness both as +regards the company and as regards the public, is eminently a question +for judicial investigation requiring due process of law for its +determination. If the company is deprived of the power of charging +reasonable rates for the use of its property, and such deprivation takes +place in the absence of an investigation by judicial machinery, it is +deprived of the lawful use of its property, and thus in substance and +effect, of the property itself without due process of law and in +violation of the Constitution of the United States."</p> + +<p>The dissenting members of the Court in this case certainly saw in +Justice Blatchford's opinion an assertion of the doctrine that whatever +the nature of the commission established by law or the form of procedure +adopted, the determination of rates was subject to review by a strictly +judicial tribunal. In his dissent, Mr. Justice Bradley declared that the +decision had practically overruled Munn <i>v.</i> Illinois and the other +Granger cases. "The governing principle of those cases," he said, "was +that the regulation and settlement of the affairs of railways and other +public accommodations is a legislative prerogative and not a judicial +one.... The legislature has the right, and it is its prerogative, if it +chooses to exercise it, to declare what is reasonable. This is just +where I differ from the majority of the Court. They say in effect, if +not in terms, that the final tribunal of arbitrament is the judiciary; I +say it is the legislature. I hold that it is a legislative question, not +a judicial one, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>unless the legislature or the law (which is the same +thing) has made it judicial by prescribing the rule that the charges +shall be reasonable and leaving it there. It is always a delicate thing +for the courts to make an issue with the legislative department of the +government, and they should never do it, if it is possible to avoid it. +By the decision now made we declare, in effect, that the judiciary, and +not the legislature, is the final arbiter in the regulation of fares and +freights of railroads and the charges of other public accommodations. It +is an assumption of authority on the part of the judiciary which, it +seems to me, with a due reverence to the judgment of my brethren, it has +no right to make.... Deprivation of property by mere arbitrary power on +the part of the legislature or fraud on the part of the commission are +the only grounds on which judicial relief may be sought against their +action. There was in truth no deprivation of property in these cases at +all.... It may be that our legislatures are invested with too much +power, open as they are to influences so dangerous to the interests of +individuals, corporations, and societies. But such is the Constitution +of our republican form of government, and we are bound to abide by it +until it can be corrected in a legitimate way."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Development of Judicial Review</i></p> + +<p>A further step toward judicial review even still more significant was +taken, in the case of Reagan <i>v.</i> Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, +decided by the Supreme Court in 1894. This case came up from the Federal +circuit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>court of Texas which had enjoined the state railway +commissioners from fixing and putting into effect railway rates which +the Trust Company, as a bondholder and interested party, contended were +too low, although not confiscatory.</p> + +<p>The opinion of the Court, written by Justice Brewer, who, as Federal +circuit judge, had already taken advanced ground in favor of judicial +review, went the whole length in upholding the right of the judiciary to +review the reasonableness, not only of a rate fixed by a commission, as +in the case in hand, but even of one fixed by the legislature. The case +differed in no essential way, declared the justice, from those cases in +which it had been the age-long practice of the judiciary to act as final +arbiters of reasonableness—cases in which a charge exacted by a common +carrier was attacked by a shipper or passenger as unreasonable. The +difference between the two cases was merely that in the one the rate +alleged to be unreasonable was fixed by the carrier; in the other it was +fixed by the commission or by the legislature. In support of this +remarkable bit of legal reasoning, the opinion adduced as precedents +merely a few brief excerpts, from previous decisions of the Court, +nearly all of which were pure <i>dicta</i>.</p> + +<p>The absence of any dissent from this opinion, in spite of the fact that +Judge Gray, who had concurred in Justice Bradley's vigorous dissenting +opinion in the Chicago-Minnesota case four years before, was still on +the bench, indicates that the last lingering opposition to the doctrine +of judicial review in the minds of any of the Court had been dissolved. +Henceforth it was but the emphatic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>affirmation and consistent +development of that doctrine that was to be expected.</p> + +<p>If we leave out of account Mr. Justice Brewer's <i>dicta</i> and consider the +Court to have decided merely the issues squarely presented, the Reagan +case left much to be done before the doctrine of judicial review could +be regarded as established beyond all possibility of limitation and +serious qualification. Other cases on the point followed quickly, but it +was not until the celebrated case of Smyth <i>v.</i> Ames, decided in 1898, +that the two leading issues were fairly presented and settled. In this +case the rate attacked was not fixed by a commission, but by a state +legislature itself; and the rate was not admitted by the counsel for the +state to be unreasonable, but was strongly defended as wholly reasonable +and just. The Court had to meet the issues.</p> + +<p>The original action in the case of Smyth <i>v.</i> Ames was a bill in equity +brought against the attorney-general and the Nebraska state board of +transportation, in the Federal circuit court, by certain bondholders of +the railroads affected, to restrain the enforcement of the statute of +that state providing a comprehensive schedule of freight rates. The +bills alleged, and attempted to demonstrate by elaborate calculations, +that the rates fixed were <i>confiscatory</i>, inasmuch as a proportionate +reduction on all the rates of the railroads affected by them would so +reduce the income of the companies as to make it impossible for them to +pay any dividends; and in the case of some of them, even to meet all +their bonded obligations. On behalf of the state, it was urged that the +reduction in rates would increase business, and, therefore, increase +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>net earnings, and that some at least of the companies were bonded far +in excess of their actual value. Supreme Court Justice Brewer, sitting +in circuit, on the basis of the evidence submitted to him, consisting +mainly of statements of operating expenses, gross receipts, and inter- +and intra-state tonnage, found the contention of the railroads well +taken, and issued the injunctions applied for.</p> + +<p>The opinion of the Supreme Court, affirming the decree of Judge Brewer, +was, in the essential part of it—that asserting the principle of +judicial review in its broadest terms—singularly brief. Contenting +himself with citing a few short <i>dicta</i> from previous decisions, Justice +Harlan, speaking for the Court, declared that the principle "must be +regarded as settled" that the reasonableness of a rate could not be so +conclusively determined by a legislature as to escape review by the +judiciary. Equally well settled, it was declared, was the principle that +property affected with a public interest was entitled to a "fair return" +on its "fair" valuation. These principles regarded as established, the +Court proceeded to examine the evidence, although it admitted that it +lacked the technical knowledge necessary to a completely equitable +decision; and sustained the finding of the lower court in favor of the +railroads. There was no dissent.</p> + +<p>With Smyth <i>v.</i> Ames the doctrine of judicial review may be regarded as +fully established. No portion of the judicial prerogative could now be +surrendered without not merely "distinguishing" but flatly overruling a +unanimous decision of the Court.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>The significance of Smyth <i>v.</i> Ames was soon observable in the +activities of the lower Federal courts. Within the nine months of 1898 +that followed that decision, there were at least four applications for +injunctions against alleged unreasonable rates, and in three of these +cases the applications were granted. During the years that followed +Smyth <i>v.</i> Ames, Federal courts all over the country were tying the +hands of state officers who attempted to put into effect legislative +measures regulating railway concerns. In Arkansas, Florida, Alabama, +Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Oregon, +rates fixed by statute, commission, or ordinance were attacked by the +railways in the Federal courts and their enforcement blocked. In several +instances the injunctions of the lower courts were made permanent, and +no appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States. With +Smyth <i>v.</i> Ames staring them in the face, state attorneys accepted the +inevitable.</p> + +<p>The decision in Smyth <i>v.</i> Ames left still one matter in doubt. The +allegation of the railroads in that case had been that the rates fixed +were actually confiscatory—that is, so low as to make dividends +impossible. In the course of his opinion, Justice Harlan had stated, +however, that the railroads were entitled to a "fair return," an opinion +that had been expressed also in the Reagan case, where indeed it had +been necessary to the decision, and still earlier, but with little +relevancy, in the Chicago-Minnesota case. In none of these cases, +however, had any precise definition of the terms "reasonable" or "fair" +return been necessary, and none had been made.</p> + +<p>The first direct suggestion of the development of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>judicial +reasoning on this point that was to take place is found in the Milwaukee +Electric Railway case, also decided in 1898. In that case Judge Seaman, +of the Federal circuit court, found from the evidence that the dividends +of the street railway company for several years past had been from 3.3 +to 4.5 per cent, while its bonds bore interest at 5 per cent. Anything +less than these returns, the judge declared, would be unreasonable, +inasmuch as money loaned on real estate, secured by a first mortgage, +was at that time commanding 6 per cent in Milwaukee.</p> + +<p>Eleven years later, in 1909, the Supreme Court sustained virtually the +same rule in the New York Consolidated Gas case, holding, with the lower +court, that the company was entitled to <i>six</i> per cent return on a fair +value of its property (including franchises and the high values of the +real estate used by it in the business), because six per cent was the +"customary" rate of interest at that time in New York City. On the same +day the court decided that a return of six per cent on waterworks +property in Knoxville, Tennessee, was also not unreasonable. In neither +of these cases, however, did the Court attempt any examination or +explanation of the evidence on which it rested its determination that +six per cent was the "customary" rate in the places named; nor did it +attempt to explain the principle on which such "customary" rate could be +determined for other times and places. Plainly there is still room for a +great deal of "distinguishing" on this point. The extreme vagueness of +the rule was exemplified by the decision of Federal circuit Judge +Sanborn in the Shephard case (1912), in which he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>decided that, for a +railroad running through Minnesota, <i>seven</i> per cent was no more than a +"fair" return, and that any reduction in rates which would diminish the +profits of the road below that figure was unreasonable.</p> + +<p>Equally important and of as great difficulty are the questions entering +into the determination of a "fair" valuation. This point is both too +unsettled and too technical to render any discussion of it profitable +here. Attention may, however, be called to two of the holdings in the +Consolidated Gas case. In arriving at a "fair" valuation of the gas +company's property, the Court allowed a large valuation to be placed +upon the franchises of the company—none of which had been paid for by +the companies to which they had originally been issued, and which had +not been paid for by the Consolidated Company when it took them over, +except in the sense that a large amount of stock, more than one sixth of +the total stock issued by the company, had been issued against them, +when the consolidation was formed. The particular facts surrounding this +case are such as to make it very easy for the Court to "distinguish" +this case from the usual one, for the consolidation was formed, and its +stock issued, under a statute that authorized the formation of +consolidations, and forbade such consolidations to issue stock in excess +of the fair value of the "property, franchises, and rights" of the +constituent companies. This last prohibition the Court construed as +indicative of the legislative intention that the franchises should be +capitalized. Equally plain is it, however, that this particular +circumstance of the Consolidated Gas case is so irrelevant that it will +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>offer no obstacle whatever to the Court's quoting that case as a +precedent for the valuation of franchises obtained <i>gratis</i>, should it +so desire.</p> + +<p>Another holding of great importance in the Gas case was that the company +was entitled to a fair return on the value of real estate used in the +business, that value having appreciated very greatly since the original +purchase of the real estate, and there being no evidence to show that +real estate of so great value was essential to the conduct of the +business.</p> + +<p>The importance of these two holdings is exemplified by the fact that in +this particular case the combined value attributed to the franchises and +the appreciation of real estate was over $15,000,000—more than one +fourth of the total valuation arrived at by the Supreme Court. It will +readily be seen that if these two items had been struck from the +valuation by the Court, it would be possible for the state to make a +still further substantial reduction in the rate charged for gas in New +York City without violating the Court's own canon of reasonableness—a +six per cent return.</p> + +<p>The steps in the evolution of the doctrine of judicial review may be +summarized in the following manner:</p> + +<p>The Supreme Court first declared that the legislative determination of +what was a "reasonable" rate was not subject to review by the courts.</p> + +<p>The first departure from this view was an intimation, confirmed with +increasing emphasis in several cases, that a rate so low as to make any +return whatever impossible was confiscatory and would be set aside by +the Court as violating the Fourteenth Amendment. For a time, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>however, +the Court took the position (steadily undermined in subsequent +decisions) that a rate which allowed some, even though an "unreasonably +low" return, was not prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment and could +not be set aside by the Court.</p> + +<p>Next in order came the holding that the determination of a commission as +to what was reasonable could not be made conclusive upon the courts, at +least when the commission had acted without the forms and safeguards of +judicial procedure, and, probably, even when it had acted with them.</p> + +<p>In the same decision appeared an intimation, which in subsequent +decisions became crystallized into "settled law," that not only were +totally confiscatory rates prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment, but +also any rates which deprived the owners of the property regulated of a +return equal to what was "customary" in private enterprises.</p> + +<p>This rule was applied by the Court for the first time against a rate +fixed by a commission, and where the rate was admitted by the pleadings +to be confiscatory. But it was shortly thereafter applied to a rate +fixed by a legislature, and where the "reasonableness" (not the +confiscatory character) of the rate was a direct issue on the facts and +evidence.</p> + +<p>Finally, the principle that what is a "fair" or "reasonable" rate is to +be measured by the customary return in private enterprises under similar +conditions, has been applied in several cases to warrant the requirement +of a definite rate of interest; but no precise rules have been laid down +for the determination of such rate in all cases.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>The most striking feature, perhaps, of the development of the doctrine +of judicial review here traced, as seen in the opinions of the Supreme +Court, is the brevity and almost fortuitous character of the reasoning +given in support of the most important and novel holdings. A comparison +of the reasoning in Smyth <i>v.</i> Ames, for example, with that in Marbury +<i>v.</i> Madison, in which Chief Justice Marshall first held a law of +Congress unconstitutional, will forcibly exemplify this. The explanation +is to be found largely in the fact that each step in advance in the +building up of the doctrine had been foreshadowed in <i>dictum</i> before it +was established as decision. It was thus possible for the judge writing +the opinion in a case when a new rule was actually established, to +quote, as "settled law," a mere <i>dictum</i> from a previous opinion. +Justice Gray's citation, in this fashion, in the Dow case, of Chief +Justice Waite's <i>dictum</i> in the Ruggles case (although he might, with +equal cogency, have cited the Chief Justice's contrary <i>dictum</i> in the +Munn or Peik cases), is a good instance of this curious use of +"precedent"; and parallel instances could be adduced from virtually +every one of the important subsequent cases on this subject.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>It is apparent from this all too brief and incomplete <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>account of the +establishment of judicial review over every kind and class of state +legislation affecting private property rights that no layman can easily +unravel the mysterious refinements, distinctions, and logical subtleties +by which the fact was finally established that property was to be free +from all interference except such as might be allowed by the Supreme +Court (or rather five judges of that Court) appointed by the President +and Senate, thus removed as far as possible from the pressure of public +sentiment. Had a bald veto power of this character been suddenly vested +in any small group of persons, there can be no doubt that a political +revolt would have speedily followed. But the power was built up by +gradual accretions made by the Court under the stimulus of skilful +counsel for private parties, and finally clothed in the majesty of +settled law. It was a long time before the advocates of leveling +democracy, leading an attack on corporate rights and privileges, +discovered that the courts were the bulwarks of <i>laissez faire</i> and +directed their popular battalions in that direction.</p> + +<p>Those who undertake to criticize the Supreme Court for this assumption +of power do not always distinguish between the power itself and the +manner of its exercise. What would have happened if the state +legislatures had been given a free hand to regulate, penalize, and +blackmail corporations at will during the evolution of our national +economic system may be left to the imagination of those who recall from +their history the breezy days of "wild-cat" currency, repudiation, and +broken faith which characterized the thirty years preceding the Civil +War when the Federal judiciary was under the dominance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>of the states' +rights school. The regulation of a national economic system by forty or +more local legislatures would be nothing short of an attempt to combine +economic unity with local anarchy. It is possible to hold that the Court +has been too tender of corporate rights in assuming the power of +judicial review, and at the same time recognize the fact that such a +power, vested somewhere in the national government, is essential to the +continuance of industries and commerce on a national scale.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Thus far attention has been directed to the activities of the Federal +Supreme Court in establishing the principle of judicial review +particularly in connection with legislation relative to railway +corporations, but it should be noted that judicial review covers all +kinds of social legislation relative to hours and conditions of labor as +well as the charges of common carriers. In 1905, for example, the +Supreme Court in the celebrated case of Lochner <i>v.</i> New York declared +null and void a New York law fixing the hours of work in bakeshops at +ten per day, basing its action on the principle that the right to +contract in relation to the hours of labor was a part of the liberty +which the individual enjoyed under the Fourteenth Amendment. Mr. Justice +Holmes, who dissented in the case, declared that it was decided on an +economic theory which a large part of the country did not entertain, and +protested that the Fourteenth Amendment did not "enact Mr. Herbert +Spencer's <i>Social Statics</i>."</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, however, the Supreme Court of the United States has +declared very little social <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>legislation invalid, and has been inclined +to take a more liberal view of such matters than the supreme courts of +the states. The latter also have authority to declare state laws void as +violating the Federal Constitution, and when a state court of proper +jurisdiction invalidates a state law, there is, under the Federal +judiciary act, no appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. +Consequently, the Fourteenth Amendment means in each state what the +highest court holds it to mean, and since the adoption of that Amendment +at least one thousand state laws have been nullified by the action of +state courts, under the color of that Amendment or their respective +state constitutions.</p> + +<p>As examples, in New York a law prohibiting the manufacture of cigars in +tenement houses, in Pennsylvania a law prohibiting the payment of wages +in "scrip" or store orders, and in Illinois a statute forbidding mining +and manufacturing corporations to hold back the wages of their employees +for more than a week were declared null and void. Such laws were +nullified not only on the ground that they deprived the employer of +property without due process, but also on the theory that they deprived +workingmen of the "liberty" guaranteed to them to work under any +conditions they chose. In one of these cases, a Pennsylvania court +declared the labor law in question to be "an insulting attempt to put +the laborer under a legislative tutelage which is not only degrading to +his manhood but subversive of his rights as a citizen of the United +States."</p> + +<p>Where the state court nullified under the state <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>constitution, it was of +course relatively easy to set aside the doctrines of the court by +amending the constitution, but where the state court nullified on the +ground of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, there +was no relief for the state and even no appeal for a review of the case +to discover whether the Supreme Court of the United States would uphold +the state tribunal in its view of the national law. Under such +circumstances, the highest state court became the supreme power in the +state, for its decrees based on the Federal Constitution were final. It +was the freedom, one may say, recklessness, with which the courts +nullified state laws that was largely responsible for the growth of the +popular feeling against the judiciary, and led to the demand for the +recall of judges.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> A. R. Conkling, <i>Life of Roscoe Conkling</i>, p. 297.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> A. R. Conkling, <i>Life of Roscoe Conkling</i>, p. 699.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 671.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 679 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See below, p. 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 540.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Taylor, <i>Origin and Growth of the American Constitution</i>, +p. 355. As a matter of fact, Conkling, who was a member of the committee +that drafted the Fourteenth Amendment, voted against these provisions in +Committee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> It is to be noted that the demand of the warehousemen on +the second point was not for a judicial <i>review</i> of the reasonableness +of a rate fixed by the legislature, but a total <i>denial</i> of the <i>power</i> +of a <i>legislature</i> to act in the matter. The question of the propriety +of a judicial review of the reasonableness of the rates in question was +not raised in the pleadings. It was not difficult, therefore, for judges +in subsequent cases in which the question of judicial review was +squarely raised to explain away as mere <i>dictum</i> this solemn statement +by Chief Justice Waite to the effect that the power of the legislature +to regulate being conceded, the determination of the legislature was +binding on the courts and not subject to review.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Except for two unimportant cases decided in the lower +courts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> It should be noted that the Supreme Court not only +undertook to pass upon the reasonableness of such rates as the states +were permitted to make, but also added in 1886 that no state could +regulate the rates on goods transported within its borders, when such +goods were in transit to or from a point in another state. Such +regulation was held in the Wabash, etc., Railway Company <i>v.</i> Illinois +(118 U. S. 557) to be an interference with interstate commerce which was +subject to control by Congress only.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Below, p. 287.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h2>PARTIES AND PARTY ISSUES, 1877-1896</h2> +<br /> + +<p>It was a long time before the conditions created by the great economic +revolution were squarely reflected in political literature and party +programs. Indeed, they were but vaguely comprehended by the generation +of statesmen who had been brought up in the days of the stagecoach and +the water mill. It is true that the inevitable drift of capitalism in +the United States might have been foreseen by turning to Europe, +particularly to England, where a similar economic revolution had +produced clearly ascertainable results; but American politicians +believed, or at least contended, that the United States lived under a +special economic dispensation and that the grave social problems which +had menaced Europe for more than a generation when the Civil War broke +out could never arise on American soil.</p> + +<p>From 1861 to 1913, the Republican party held the presidential office, +except for eight years. That party had emerged from the Civil War +fortified by an intense patriotism and by the support of the +manufacturing interests which had flourished under the high tariffs and +of capitalists anxious to swing forward with the development of railways +and new enterprises. Its origin had been marked by a wave of moral +enthusiasm such as has seldom appeared in the history of politics. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>It +came to the presidency as a minority party, but by the fortunes of war +it became possessed of instruments of power beyond all calculation. Its +leading opponents from the South deserted in a mass giving it in a short +time possession of the field—all the Federal branches of government. It +had the management of the gigantic war finances, through which it +attached to itself the interests and fortunes of the great capitalists +and bankers throughout the North. It raised revenues by a high tariff +which placed thousands of manufacturers under debt to it and linked +their fortunes also with its fate. It possessed the Federal offices, +and, therefore, railway financiers and promoters of all kinds had to +turn to it for privileges and protection. Finally, millions of farmers +of the West owed their homes to its generous policy of giving away +public lands. Never had a party had its foundations on interests +ramifying throughout such a large portion of society.</p> + +<p>And over all it spread the mantle of patriotism. It had saved the Union, +and it had struck the shackles from four million bondmen. In a baptism +of fire it had redeemed a nation. Europe's finger of scorn could no +longer be pointed to the "slave republic paying its devotions to liberty +and equality within the sound of the bondman's wail." The promises of +the Declaration of Independence had been fulfilled and the heroic deeds +of the Revolution rivaled by Republican leaders. As it declared in its +platform of 1876, the Republican party had come into power "when in the +economy of Providence this land was to be purged of human slavery and +when the strength of the government of the people, by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>people, and +for the people was to be demonstrated." Incited by the memories of its +glorious deeds "to high aims for the good of our country and mankind," +it looked forward "with unfaltering courage, hope, and purpose."</p> + +<p>Against such a combination of patriotism and economic interest, the +Democratic party had difficulty in making headway, for its former +economic mainstay, the slave power, was broken and gone; it was charged +with treason, and it enjoyed none of the spoils of national office. But +in spite of all obstacles it showed remarkable vitality. Though divided +on the slave question in 1860, those who boasted the name of "Democrat" +were in an overwhelming majority, and even during the Civil War, with +the southern wing cut off completely, the party was able to make a +respectable showing in the campaign which resulted in Lincoln's second +election. When the South returned to the fold, and white dominion drove +the negro from the polls, the Democratic party began to renew its youth. +In the elections of 1874, it captured the House of Representatives; it +narrowly missed the presidency in 1876; and it retained its control of +the lower house of Congress in the elections of 1876 and 1878.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The administration of President Hayes did little to strengthen the +position of the Republicans. His policy of pacification in the South +alienated many partisans who believed that those who had saved the Union +should continue to rule it; but it is difficult to say how much +disaffection should be attributed to this cause. It seems to have been +quietly understood within official <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>circles that support would be +withdrawn from the Republican administrations in Louisiana and South +Carolina. Senator Hoar is authority for the statement "that General +Grant, before he left office, had determined to do in regard to these +state governments exactly what Hayes afterward did, and that Hayes acted +with his full approval. Second, I have the authority of President +Garfield for saying that Mr. Blaine had come to the same conclusion."</p> + +<p>Charges based on sectional feeling were also brought forward in +criticism of some of Hayes' cabinet appointments. He terrified the +advocates of "no concession to rebels" by appointing David M. Key, an +ex-Confederate soldier of Tennessee, to the office of +Postmaster-General; and his selection of Carl Schurz, a leader of the +Liberal Republican Movement of 1872 and an uncertain quantity in +politics, as Secretary of the Interior, was scarcely more palatable in +some quarters. He created further trouble in Republican ranks by his +refusal to accede to the demands of powerful Senators, like Cameron of +Pennsylvania and Conkling of New York, for control over patronage in +their respective states. No other President for more than a generation +had so many nominations rejected by the Senate.</p> + +<p>On the side of legislation, Hayes' administration was nearly barren. +During his entire term the House of Representatives was Democratic, and +during the last two years the Senate was Democratic also by a good +margin. Had he desired to carry out a large legislative policy, he could +not have done so; but he was not a man of great capacity as an initiator +of public policies. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>He maintained his dignity and self-possession in +the midst of the most trying party squabbles; but in a democracy other +qualities than these are necessary for effective leadership.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In their desperation, the conservative leaders of the Republican party +resolved to have no more "weak and goody-goody" Presidents, incapable of +fascinating the populace and keeping it in good humor, and they made a +determined effort to secure the renomination of Grant for a third term, +in spite of the tradition against it. Conkling captured the New York +delegation to the national convention in 1880 for Grant; Cameron swung +Pennsylvania into line; and Logan carried off Illinois. Grant's consent +to be a candidate was obtained, and Conkling placed his name in +nomination in a speech which Senator Hoar describes as one of "very +great power."</p> + +<p>Strong opposition to Grant developed, however, partly on account of the +feeling against the third term, and particularly on account of the +antagonism to the Conkling faction which was backing him. Friends of +Blaine, then Senator from Maine, and supporters of John Sherman of Ohio, +thought that Grant had had enough honors at the hands of the party, and +that their turn had come. As a result of a combination of circumstances, +Grant never received more than 313 of the 378 votes necessary to +nomination at the Republican convention. After prolonged balloting, the +deadlock was broken by the nomination of James A. Garfield, of Ohio, as +a "dark horse." The Grant contingent from New <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>York received a sop in +the shape of the nomination of Chester A. Arthur, a politician of the +Conkling school, to the office of Vice President.</p> + +<p>In spite of the promising signs, the Democrats were unable to defeat the +Republicans in 1880. The latter found it possible to heal, at least for +campaign purposes, the breaches created by Hayes' administration. It is +true that Senator Conkling and the "Stalwart" faction identified with +corporation interests were sorely disappointed in their failure to +secure the nomination of Grant for a third term, and that Garfield as a +"dark horse" did not have a personal following like that of his chief +opponents, the Hero of Appomattox, Blaine of Maine, and Sherman of Ohio. +But he had the advantage of escaping the bitter factional feeling within +the party against each of these leaders. He had risen from humble +circumstances, and his managers were able to make great capital out of +his youthful labors as a "canal-boat boy." He had served several terms +in Congress acceptably; he had been intrusted with a delicate place as a +member of the electoral commission that had settled the Hayes-Tilden +dispute; and he was at the time of his nomination Senator-elect from +Ohio. Though without the high qualities of leadership that distinguished +Blaine, Garfield was a decidedly "available" candidate and his +candidature was strengthened by the nomination of Arthur, who was +acceptable to the Conkling group and the spoilsmen generally.</p> + +<p>The Republican fortunes in 1880 were further enhanced by the divisions +among the Democrats and their inability to play the game of practical +politics. Two sets <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>of delegates appeared at the convention from New +York, and the Tammany group headed by "Boss" Kelly was excluded, thus +offending a powerful section of the party in that pivotal state. The +candidate nominated, General Hancock, was by no means a skilful leader. +In fact, he had had no public experience outside of the Army, where he +had made a brilliant record, and he showed no ability at all as a +campaigner. Finally, the party made its fight principally on the "great +fraud of 1876," asking vindication at the hands of the people on the +futile theory that the voters would take an interest in punishing a +four-year-old crime. In its platform, reported by Mr. Watterson, of +Kentucky, it declared that the Democrats had submitted to that outrage +because they were convinced that the people would punish the crime in +1880. "This issue precedes and dwarfs every other; it imposes a more +sacred duty upon the people of the Union than ever addressed to the +conscience of a nation of freemen." Notwithstanding this narrow issue, +Hancock fell behind Garfield only about ten thousand votes, although his +electoral vote was only 155 to 214 for his opponent.</p> + +<p>Whether Garfield would have been able to consolidate his somewhat +shattered party by effective leadership is a matter of speculation, for, +on July 2, 1881, about four months after his inauguration, he was shot +by Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed and half-crazed office seeker, and +he died on September 19. His successor, Vice President Arthur, though a +man of considerable ability, who managed his office with more acumen and +common honesty than his opponents attributed to him, was unable to clear +away the accumulating dissatisfaction within <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>his party or convince the +country that the party would do its own reforming.</p> + +<p>In fact, Arthur, notwithstanding the taint of "spoils" associated with +his career, proved to be by no means the easy-going politician that had +been expected. He took a firm stand against extravagant appropriations +as a means of getting rid of the Treasury surplus, and in 1882 he vetoed +a river and harbor appropriation bill which was specially designed to +distribute funds among localities on the basis of favoritism. In the +same year, he vetoed a Chinese exclusion act as violating the treaty +with China, and made recommendations as to changes which were accepted +by Congress. Arthur also advocated legislation against the spoils +system, and on January 16, 1883, signed the Civil Service law.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> He +recommended a revision of the tariff, including some striking reductions +in schedules, but the tariff act of 1883 was even less satisfactory to +the public than such measures usually are. Judging by past standards, +however, Arthur had a claim upon his party for the nomination in 1884.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But Arthur was not a magnetic leader, and the election of Grover +Cleveland as governor of New York in 1882 and Democratic victories +elsewhere warned the Republicans that their tenure of power was not +indefinite. Circumspection, however, was difficult. A "reform" faction +had grown up within the party, protesting against the gross practices of +old leaders like Conkling and urging at least more outward signs of +propriety. In this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>faction were Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, George +William Curtis, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt—the last of +whom had just begun his political career with his election to the New +York legislature in 1881. Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, was the leader of +this group, and his nomination was warmly urged in the Republican +convention at Chicago in 1884.</p> + +<p>The hopes of the Republican reformers were completely dashed, however, +by the nomination of Blaine. This "gentleman from Maine" was a man of +brilliant parts and the idol of large sections of the country, +particularly the Middle West; but some suspicions concerning his +personal integrity were widely entertained, and not without reason, by a +group of influential leaders in his party. In 1876, he was charged with +having shared in the corruption funds of the Union Pacific Railroad +Company, and as Professor Dunning cautiously puts it, "the facts +developed put Mr. Blaine under grave suspicion of just that sort of +wealth-getting, if nothing worse, which had ruined his colleagues in the +Crédit Mobilier." Moreover, Mr. Blaine's associations had been with that +wing of his party which had been involved or implicated in one scandal +after another. Partly on this account, he had been defeated for +nomination in 1876, when he was decidedly the leading aspirant and again +in 1880 when he received 285 votes in the convention. But in 1884, +leaders like Senator Platt, of New York, declared "it is now Blaine's +turn," and he was nominated in spite of a threatened bolt.</p> + +<p>The Democrats were fortunate in their selection of Grover Cleveland as +their standard bearer. He had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>been mayor of Buffalo and governor of New +York, but he had taken no part in national politics and had the virtue +of having few enemies in that field. He was not a man of any large +comprehension of the economic problems of his age, but he was in every +way acceptable to financiers in New York, for he had showed his +indifference to popular demands by vetoing a five-cent fare bill for the +New York City elevated roads which were then being watered and +manipulated by astute speculators, like Jay Gould. Moreover, Mr. +Cleveland possessed certain qualities of straightforwardness and homely +honesty which commended him to a nation wearied of scandalous +revelations and the malodorous spoils system.</p> + +<p>These qualities drew to Cleveland the support of a group of eminent +Republicans, like Carl Schurz who had been Secretary of the Interior +under Hayes, George William Curtis, the civil service reformer, Henry +Ward Beecher, and William Everett, who were nicknamed "Mugwumps" from an +Indian word meaning "chief." Although the "reformers" talked a great +deal about "purity" in politics, the campaign of 1884 was principally +over personalities; and, as a contemporary newspaper put it, it took on +the tone of "a pothouse quarrel." There was no real division over +issues, as will be seen by a comparison of platforms, and scandalous +rumors respecting the morals of the two candidates were freely employed +as campaign arguments. Indeed, the spirit of the fray is reflected in +the words of the Democratic platform: "The Republican party, so far as +principle is concerned, is a reminiscence. In practice, it is an +organization for enriching those who control its machinery. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>The frauds +and jobbery which have been brought to light in every department of the +government are sufficient to have called for reform within the +Republican party; yet those in authority, made reckless by the long +possession of power, have succumbed to its corrupting influence and have +placed in nomination a ticket against which the independent portion of +the party are in open revolt. Therefore a change is demanded." Having +enjoyed no opportunities for corruption worthy of mention, except in New +York City where they had reaped a good harvest during the sunshine, the +Democrats could honestly pose as the party of "purity in politics."</p> + +<p>Their demand for a change was approved by the voters, for Cleveland +received 219 electoral votes as against 182 cast for Blaine. A closer +analysis of the vote, however, shows no landslide to the Democrats, for +had New York been shifted to the Republican column, the result would +have been 218 for Blaine and 183 for Cleveland. And the Democratic +victory in New York was so close that a second count was necessary, upon +which it was discovered that the successful candidate had only about +eleven hundred votes more than the vanquished Blaine. Taking the country +as a whole, the Democrats had a plurality of a little more than twenty +thousand votes.</p> + +<p>Cleveland's administration was beset by troubles from the beginning. The +civil service reformers were early disappointed with his performances, +as they might have expected. It is true that the Democratic party had +posed in general as the party of "reform," because forsooth having no +patronage to dispense nor favors <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>to grant it could readily make a +virtue of necessity; but it is fair to say that the party had in fact +been somewhat noncommittal on civil service reform, and Cleveland, +though friendly, was hardly to be classed as ardent. The test came soon +after his inauguration. More than one hundred thousand Federal offices +were in the hands of Republicans; the Senate which had to pass upon the +President's chief nominations was Republican and the clash between the +two authorities was spectacular. The pressure of Democrats for office +was naturally strong, and although the civil service reformers got a few +crumbs of comfort, the bald fact stood forth that within two years only +about one third of the former officeholders remained. "Of the chief +officers," says Professor Dewey, "including the fourth class +post-masters, collectors, land officers, numbering about 58,000, over +45,000 were changed. All of the 85 internal revenue collectors were +displaced; and of the 111 collectors of customs, 100 were removed or not +reappointed."</p> + +<p>Cleveland's executive policy was negative rather than positive. He +vigorously applied the veto to private pension bills. From the +foundation of the government until 1897, it appears that 265 such bills +were denied executive approval; and of these five were vetoed by Grant +and 260 by Cleveland—nearly all of the latter's negatives being in his +first administration. Cleveland also vetoed a general dependent pension +bill in 1887 on the ground that it was badly drawn and ill considered. +Although his enemies attempted to show that he was hostile to the old +soldiers, his vetoes were in fact based <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>rather upon a careful +examination of the merits of the several acts which showed extraordinary +carelessness, collusion, and fraud. At all events, the Grand Army +Encampment in 1887 refused to pass a resolution of censure. Cleveland +also killed the river and harbor bill of 1887 by a pocket veto, and he +put his negative on a measure, passed the following year, returning to +the treasuries of the northern states nearly all of the direct taxes +which they had paid during the Civil War in support of the Federal +government.</p> + +<p>On the constructive side, Cleveland's first administration was marked by +a vigorous land policy under which upwards of 80,000,000 acres of land +were recovered from private corporations and persons who had secured +their holdings illegally. He was also the first President to treat the +labor problem in a special message (1886); and he thus gave official +recognition to a new force in politics, although the sole outcome of his +recommendations was the futile law of 1888 providing for the voluntary +arbitration of disputes between railways and their employees. The really +noteworthy measure of his first administration was the interstate +commerce law of 1887, but that could hardly be called a partisan +achievement.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Holding his place by no overwhelming mandate and having none of those +qualities of brilliant leadership which arouse the multitude, Cleveland +was unable to intrench his party, and he was forced to surrender <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>his +office at the end of four years' tenure, although his party showed its +confidence by renominating him in 1888. He had a Democratic House during +his administration, but he was embarrassed by party divisions there and +by a Republican Senate. Under such circumstances, he was able to do +little that was striking, and in his message of December, 1887, he +determined to set an issue by a vigorous attack on the tariff—a subject +which had been treated in a gingerly fashion by both parties since the +War. While he disclaimed adherence to the academic theory of free trade +as a principle, his language was readily turned by his enemies into an +attack on the principle of the protective tariff. Although the +performance of the Democrats in the passage of the Mills tariff bill by +the House in 1888 showed in fact no strong leanings toward free trade, +the Republicans were able to force a campaign on the "American doctrine +of protection for labor against the pauper millions of Europe."</p> + +<p>On this issue they carried the election of 1888. Passing by Blaine once +more, the Republicans selected Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, a United +States Senator, a shrewd lawyer, and a reticent politician. Mr. +Wanamaker, a rich Philadelphia merchant, was chosen to raise campaign +funds, and he successfully discharged the functions of his office. As he +said himself, he addressed the business men of the country in the +following language: "How much would you pay for insurance upon your +business? If you were confronted by from one to three years of general +depression by a change in our revenue and protective measures affecting +our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>manufactures, wages, and good times, what would you pay to be +insured for a better year?" The appeal was effective and with a full +campaign chest and the astute Matthew S. Quay as director of the +national committee, the Republicans outwitted the Democrats, winning 233 +electors' votes against 168 for Cleveland, although the popular vote for +Harrison was slightly under that for his opponent.</p> + +<p>Harrison's administration opened auspiciously in many ways. The +appointment of Blaine as Secretary of State was a diplomatic move, for +undoubtedly Blaine was far more popular with the rank and file of his +party than was Harrison. The civil service reformers were placated by +the appointment of Theodore Roosevelt as president of the Civil Service +Commission, for he was a vigorous champion of reform, who brought the +whole question forcibly before the country by his speeches and articles, +although it must be said that no very startling gains were made against +the spoils system under his administration of the civil service law. It +required time to educate the country to the point of supporting the +administrative heads in resisting the clamor of the politicians for +office.</p> + +<p>Harrison's leadership in legislation was not noteworthy. The Republicans +were in power in the lower house in 1889 for the first time since 1881, +but their majority was so small that it required all of the +parliamentary ingenuity which Speaker Reed could command to keep the +legislative machine in operation. Nevertheless, several important +measures were enacted into law. The McKinley tariff act based upon the +doctrine <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>of high protection was passed in 1890. In response to the +popular outcry against the trusts, the Sherman anti-trust law was +enacted the same year; and the silver party was thrown a sop in the form +of the Sherman silver purchase act. The veterans of the Civil War +received new recognition in the law of 1890 granting pensions for all +disabled soldiers whether their disabilities were incurred in service or +not. Negro voters were taken into account by an attempt to get a new +"force bill" through Congress, which would insure a "free ballot and a +fair count everywhere."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There had been nothing decisive, however, about the Republican victory +in 1888, for a few thousand votes in New York changed the day as four +years before. Harrison had not proved to be a very popular candidate, +and there was nothing particularly brilliant or striking about his +administration to enhance his reputation. He was able to secure a +renomination in 1892, largely because he controlled so many +officeholding delegates to the Republican convention, and there was no +other weighty candidate in the field, Blaine being unwilling to make an +open fight at the primaries.</p> + +<p>In the second contest with Cleveland, Harrison was badly worsted, +receiving only 145 electoral votes against 277 cast for the Democratic +candidate and 22 for the Populist, Weaver. The campaign was marked by no +special incidents, for both Cleveland and Harrison had been found safe +and conservative and there was no very sharp division over issues. The +tariff, it is true, was vigorously discussed, but Cleveland made it +clear <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>that no general assault would be made on any protected interests. +The million votes cast for the Populist candidate, however, was a solemn +warning that the old game of party see-saw over personalities could not +go on indefinitely. The issues springing from the great economic +revolution were emerging, not clearly and sharply, but rather in a vague +unrest and discontent with the old parties and their methods.</p> + +<p>President Cleveland went into power for the second time on what appeared +to be a wave of business prosperity, but those who looked beneath the +surface knew that serious financial and industrial difficulties were +pending. Federal revenues were declining and a deficit was staring the +government in the face at a time when there was, for several reasons, a +stringency in the gold market. The Treasury gold reserve was already +rapidly diminishing, and Harrison was on the point of selling bonds when +the inauguration of Cleveland saved the day for him. Congress was +deadlocked on the money question, though called in a special session to +grant relief; and Cleveland at length resorted to the sale of bonds +under an act of 1875 to procure gold for the Treasury. The first sale +was made in January, 1894, and the financiers, to pay for the bonds, +drew nearly half of the amount of gold out of the Treasury itself.</p> + +<p>The "endless chain" system of selling bonds to get gold for the +Treasury, only to have it drawn out immediately, aroused a great hue and +cry against the financial interests. In November, 1894, a second sale +was made with similar results, and in February, 1895, Cleveland in sheer +desperation called in Mr. J. P. Morgan and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>arranged for the purchase of +gold at a fixed price by the issue of bonds, with an understanding that +the bankers would do their best to protect the Treasury. To the silver +advocates and the Populists this was the climax of "Cleveland's +iniquitous career of subserviency to Wall Street," for it seemed to show +that the government was powerless before the demands of the financiers. +This criticism forced the administration to throw open the issue of +January 6, 1896, to the public, and the result was decidedly +advantageous to the government—apparently an indictment of Cleveland's +policy. Congress in the meantime did nothing to relieve the +administration.</p> + +<p>While the government was wrestling with the financial problem, the +country was in the midst of an industrial crisis. The number of +bankruptcies rose with startling rapidity, hundreds of factories were +closed, and idle men thronged the streets hunting for work. According to +a high authority, Professor D. R. Dewey, "never before had the evil of +unemployment been so widespread in the United States." It was so +pressing that Jacob Coxey, a business man from Ohio, planned a march of +idle men on Washington in 1894 to demand relief at the hands of the +government. His "army," as it was called, ended in a fiasco, but it +directed the attention of the country to a grave condition of affairs.</p> + +<p>Reductions in wages produced severe strikes, one of which—the Pullman +strike of Chicago—led to the paralysis of the railways entering +Chicago, because the Pullman employees were supported by the American +Railway Union. The disorders connected with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>strike—which are now +known to have been partially fomented by the companies themselves for +the purpose of inducing Federal interference—led President Cleveland to +dispatch troops to Chicago, against the ardent protest of Governor +Altgeld, who declared that the state of Illinois was able to manage her +own affairs without intermeddling from Washington. The president of the +union, Mr. E. V. Debs, was thrown into prison for violating a "blanket +injunction"<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> issued by the local Federal court, and thus the strike +was broken, leaving behind it a legacy of bitterness which has not yet +disappeared.</p> + +<p>The most important piece of legislation during Cleveland's second +administration was the Wilson tariff bill—a measure which was so +objectionable to the President that he could not sign it, and it +therefore became law without his approval. The only popular feature in +it was the income tax provision, which was annulled the following year +by the Supreme Court. Having broken with his party on the money +question, and having failed to secure a revision of the tariff to suit +his ideas, Cleveland retired in 1897, and one of his party members +declared that he was "the most cordially hated Democrat in the country."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Party Issues</i></p> + +<p>The tariff was one of the issues bequeathed to the parties from +ante-bellum days, but there was no very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>sharply defined battle over it +until the campaign of 1888. The Republicans, in their platform of 1860, +had declared that "sound policy requires such an adjustment of these +imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of +the whole country"; and although from time to time they advocated tariff +reductions, they remained consistently a protectionist party. The high +war-tariffs, however, were revenue measures, although the protection +feature was by no means lost sight of. In the campaign of 1864, both +parties were silent on the question; four years later it again emerged +in the Democratic platform, but it was not hotly debated in the ensuing +contest. The Democrats demanded "a tariff for revenue upon foreign +imports and such equal taxation under the internal revenue laws as will +afford incidental protection to domestic manufactures."</p> + +<p>From that campaign forward the Democrats appeared to favor a "revenue +tariff" in their platforms. It is true they accepted the Liberal +Republican platform in 1872, which frankly begged the question by +acknowledging the wide differences of opinion on the subject and +remitted the discussion of the matter "to the people in their +congressional districts and the decision of Congress thereon." But in +1876, the Democrats came back to the old doctrine and demanded "that all +custom-house taxation shall be only for revenue." In their victorious +campaign of 1884, however, they were vague. They pledged themselves "to +revise the tariff in a spirit of fairness to all interests"; but they +promised, in making reductions, not "to injure any domestic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>industries, +but rather to promote their healthy growth," and to be mindful of +capital and labor at every step. Subject to these "limitations" they +favored confining taxation to public purposes only. It was small wonder +that Democratic orators during the campaign could promise "no +disturbance of business in case of victory."</p> + +<p>Cleveland, in the beginning of his administration, faithfully followed +his platform, for in his first message he "placed the need of tax +reduction solely on the ground of excess revenue and declared that there +was no occasion for a discussion of the wisdom or expediency of the +protective system." But within two years he had seen a new light, and he +devoted his message of December, 1887, exclusively to a discussion of +the tariff issue, in vague and uncertain language it is true, but still +characterized by such a ringing denunciation of the "vicious, illegal, +and inequitable" system of taxation then in vogue, that the Republicans +were able to call it, with some show of justification, a "free trade +document." The New York <i>Tribune</i> announced with evident glee that +Cleveland had made "the issue boldly and distinctly and that the +theories and aims of the ultra-opponents of protection have a new and +zealous advocate." Of course, Cleveland hotly denied that he was trying +to commit his party to a simple doctrine of free trade or even the old +principle of the platform, "tariff for revenue only." Moreover, the +Democrats, in their platform of the following year, while indorsing +Cleveland's messages, renewed the tariff pledges of their last platform +and promised to take "labor" into a careful consideration in any +revision.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>In spite of the equivocal position taken by the Democrats, the +Republicans made great political capital out of the affair, apparently +on the warranted assumption that the voters would not read Cleveland's +message or the platform of his party. In their declaration of principles +in 1888, the Republicans made the tariff the leading issue: "We are +uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection. We +protest against its destruction, as proposed by the President and his +party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interest +of America. We accept the issue and confidently appeal to the people for +their judgment. The protective system must be maintained.... We favor +the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any +part of our protective system, at the joint behest of the whisky trusts +and the agents of foreign manufacturers." Again, in 1892, the +Republicans attempted to make the tariff the issue: "We reaffirm the +American doctrine of protection. We call attention to its growth abroad. +We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due +to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican Congress," <i>i.e.</i> the +McKinley bill.</p> + +<p>The effect of this Republican hammering on the subject was to bring out +a solemn declaration on the part of the Democrats. "We denounce," they +say in 1892, "the Republican protection as a fraud, a robbery of the +great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few. We +declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that +the Federal government has no constitutional power to impose and collect +tariff <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>duties, except for the purposes of revenue only, and we demand +that the collection of such taxes shall be limited to the necessities of +the government when honestly and economically administered." Although +elected on this platform, the Democrats did not regard their mandate as +warranting a serious attack on the protective system, for the Wilson +tariff act of 1894 was so disappointing to moderate tariff reformers +that Cleveland refused to sign it.</p> + +<p>A close analysis of the platforms and performances of the parties from +1876 to 1896 shows no clear alignment at all on the tariff. Both parties +promise reductions, but neither is specific as to details. The +Republicans, while making much of the protective system, could not +ignore the demand for tariff reform; and the Democrats, while repeating +the well-worn phrases about tariff for revenue, were unable to overlook +the fact that a drastic assault upon the protective interests would mean +their undoing. In Congress, the Republicans made no serious efforts to +lower the duties, and the attempts of the Democrats produced meager +results.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Among the new issues raised by the economic revolution was the control +of giant combinations of capital. Although some of the minor parties had +declaimed against trusts as early as 1876, and the Democratic party, in +1884, had denounced "land monopolies," industrial combinations did not +figure as distinct issues in the platforms of the old parties until +1888. In that year, the Democrats vaguely referred to unnecessary +taxation as a source of trusts and combinations, which, "while <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>unduly +enriching the few that combine, rob the body of our citizens by +depriving them of the benefits of natural competition." Here appears the +favorite party slogan that "the tariff is the mother of the trusts," and +the intimation that the remedy is the restoration of "natural +competition" by a reduction of the tariff. The Republicans in 1888 also +recognized the existence of the trust problem by declaring against all +combinations designed to control trade arbitrarily, and recommended to +Congress and the states legislation within their jurisdictions to +"prevent the execution of all schemes to oppress the people by undue +charges on their supplies or by unjust rates for the transportation of +their products to market."</p> + +<p>Both old parties returned to the trust question again in 1892. The +Democrats recognized "in the trusts and combinations which are designed +to enable capital to secure more than its just share of the joint +product of capital and labor, a natural consequence of the prohibitive +taxes which prevent the free competition which is the life of honest +trade, but we believe the worst evils can be abated by law." Thereupon +follows a demand for additional legislation restraining and controlling +trusts. The Republicans simply reaffirmed their declaration of 1888, +indorsed the Sherman anti-trust law already enacted by Congress in 1890, +and favored new legislation remedying defects and rendering the +enforcement of the law more complete.</p> + +<p>The railway issue emerged in 1880 when the Republicans, boasting that +under their administration railways <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>had increased "from thirty-two +thousand miles in 1860 to eighty-two thousand miles in 1879," pronounced +against any further grants of public domain to railway corporations. The +Democrats went on record against discriminations in favor of +transportation lines, but left the subject with that pronouncement. Four +years later the subject had taken on more precision. The Republicans +favored the public regulation of railway corporations and indorsed +legislation preventing unjust discriminations and excessive charges for +transportation, but in the campaign of 1888 the overshadowing tariff +issue enabled them to omit references to railway regulation. The +Democrats likewise ignored the subject in 1884 and 1888. In 1892 the +question was overlooked by the platforms of both parties, although the +minor parties were loudly demanding action on the part of the Federal +Government. The old parties agreed, however, on the necessity of +legislation protecting the life and limb of employees engaged in +interstate transportation.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Even before the Civil War, the labor vote had become a factor that could +not be ignored, and both old parties consistently conciliated it by many +references. The Republicans in 1860 commended that "policy of national +exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages." The defense of +the protective system was gradually shifted by the Republicans, until, +judging from the platforms, its continuation was justifiable principally +on account of their anxiety to safeguard the American workingman against +"the pauper labor of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>Europe." The Democrats could not overlook the +force of this appeal, and in their repeated demands for the reduction of +the tariff they announced that no devotion to free trade principles +would allow them to pass legislation which might put American labor "in +competition with the underpaid millions of the Old World." In 1880, the +Democratic party openly professed itself the friend of labor and the +laboring man and pledged itself to "protect him against the cormorant +and the commune." In their platform of 1888, the Democrats promised to +make "due allowance for the difference between the wages of American and +foreign labor" in their tariff revisions; and in 1892 they deplored the +fact that under the McKinley tariff there had been ten reductions in the +wages of the workingmen to one increase. In the latter year, the +Republicans urged that on articles competing with American products the +duties should "equal the difference between wages abroad and at home."</p> + +<p>Among the more concrete offerings to labor were the promises of +homesteads in the West by the Republicans—promises which the Democrats +reiterated; protection against Chinese and coolie labor, particularly in +the West, safety-appliance laws applicable to interstate carriers, the +establishment of a labor bureau at Washington, the prohibition of the +importation of alien laborers under contract, and the abolition of +prison contract labor. On these matters there was no marked division +between the two old parties; each advocated measures of its own in +general terms and denounced the propositions of the other in equally +general terms.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>The money question bulked large in the platforms, but until 1896 there +was nothing like a clean-cut division.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Both parties hedged and +remained consistently vague. The Republicans in 1888 declared in favor +of "the use of both gold and silver as money," and condemned "the policy +of the Democratic administration in its efforts to demonetize silver." +Again, in 1892, the Republicans declared: "The American people, from +tradition and interest, favor bimetallism, and the Republican party +demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with such +restriction and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, +as will secure the maintenance of the parity of values of the two +metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar, +whether of silver, gold, or paper, shall be at all times equal." The +Democrats likewise hedged their profession of faith about with +limitations and provisions. They declared in favor of both metals and no +discrimination for mintage; but the unit of coinage of both metals "must +be of equal intrinsic or exchangeable value, or be adjusted through +international agreement or by such safeguards of legislation as shall +insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals." Thus both of +the platforms of 1892 are paragons of ambiguity.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> See below, p. 130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Below, p. 133. The tenure of office law was repealed in +1887. The presidential succession act was passed in 1886.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> A judicial order to all and sundry forbidding them to +interfere with the movement of the trains.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See below, p. 119.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h2>TWO DECADES OF FEDERAL LEGISLATION, 1877-1896</h2> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Financial Questions</i></p> + +<p>It was inevitable that financial measures should occupy the first place +in the legislative labors of Congress for a long time after the War. +That conflict had left an enormous debt of more than two billion eight +hundred million dollars, and the taxes were not only high, but they +reached nearly every source which was open to the Federal government. +There were outstanding more than four hundred millions of legal tender +treasury notes, "greenbacks," which had seriously depreciated and, on +account of their variability as compared with gold, offered unlimited +opportunities for speculation and jugglery in Wall Street—of which Jay +Gould's attempt to corner the gold market and the precipitation of the +disaster of Black Friday in 1869 were only spectacular incidents.</p> + +<p>Three distinct problems confronted the national administration: the +refunding of the national debt at lower rates of interest, the final +determination of the place and basis of the paper money in the currency +system, and the comparative treatment of gold and silver coinage. The +first of these tasks was undertaken by Congress during Grant's +administration, when, by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>the refunding acts of 1870 and 1871, the +Treasury was empowered to substitute four, four and one-half, and five +per cent bonds for the war issues at the high rates of five, six, and +even seven per cent.</p> + +<p>The two remaining problems were by no means so easy of solution, because +they went to the root of the financial system of the country. Most of +the financial interests of the East were anxious to return to a specie +basis for the currency by retiring the legal tender notes or by placing +them on a metallic foundation. The Treasury under President Johnson +began to withdraw the greenbacks from circulation under authority of an +act of Congress passed in 1866; but it soon met the determined +resistance of the paper money party, which looked upon contraction as a +banker's device to appreciate the value of gold and reduce the amount of +money in circulation, thus bringing low prices for labor and +commodities. Within two years Congress peremptorily stopped the +withdrawal of additional Treasury notes.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>Shortly after forbidding the further retirement of legal tender notes, +Congress reassured the hard money party by passing, on March 18, 1869, +an act promising, on the faith of the United States, to pay in coin "all +obligations not otherwise redeemable," and to redeem the legal tender +notes in specie "as soon as practicable." A further gain for hard money +was made in 1875 by the passage of the Resumption Act, providing that on +and after January 1, 1879, "the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem +in coin the United States legal tender notes then outstanding, on their +presentation for redemption <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of +the United States in the City of New York, in sums of not less than +fifty dollars." When the day set for redemption arrived, the Secretary +of the Treasury was prepared with a large hoard of gold, and public +confidence in the government was so high that comparatively little paper +was presented in exchange for specie.</p> + +<p>Out of the conflict over the inflation and contraction of the currency +grew the struggle over "free silver" which was not ended until the +campaign of 1900. To understand this controversy we must go back beyond +the Civil War. The Constitution, as drafted in 1787, gives Congress the +power to coin money and regulate the value thereof and forbids the +states to issue bills of credit or make anything but the gold and silver +coin of the United States legal tender in the payment of debts. Nothing +is said in that instrument about the power of Congress to issue paper +money, and it is questionable whether the framers intended to leave the +door open for legal tenders or notes of any kind.</p> + +<p>In 1792, the new Federal government began to coin gold and silver at the +ratio of 1 to 15, but it was soon found that at this ratio gold was +undervalued, and consequently little or no gold was brought to the +Treasury to be coined. At length, in 1834, Congress, by law, fixed the +ratio between the two metals approximately at 16 to 1; but this was +found to be an overvaluation of gold or an undervaluation of silver, as +some said, and as a result silver was not brought to the Treasury for +coinage and almost dropped out of the monetary system. Finally, in 1873, +when the silver dollar was already <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>practically out of circulation, +Congress discontinued the coinage of the standard silver dollar +altogether—"demonetized" it—and left gold as the basis of the monetary +system.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>It happened about this time that the price of silver began to decline +steadily, until within twenty years it was about half the price it was +in 1870. Some men attributed this fall in the price of silver to the +fact that Germany had demonetized it in 1871, and that about the same +time rich deposits of silver were discovered in the United States. +Others declared that silver had not fallen so much in price, but that +gold, in which it was measured, had risen on account of the fact that +silver had been demonetized and gold given a monopoly of the coinage +market. On this matter Republicans and Democrats were both divided, for +it brought a new set of economic antagonisms into play—the debtor and +the creditor—as opposed to the antagonisms growing out of slavery and +reconstruction.</p> + +<p>Some Republicans, like Senator Morrill, of Vermont, firmly believed that +no approach could be made to a genuine bimetallic currency, both metals +freely and equally circulating, without the coöperation of the leading +commercial nations of the world; and they also went so far as to doubt +whether it would be possible even then to adjust the "fickle ratio" +finely enough to prevent supply and demand from driving one or the other +metal out of circulation. Other Republicans, like <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>Blaine, declared that +the Constitution required Congress to make both gold and silver coin the +money of the land, and that the only question was how best to adjust the +ratio. In a speech in the Senate on February 7, 1878, Blaine said: "I +believe then if Germany were to remonetize silver and the kingdoms and +states of the Latin Union were to reopen their mints, silver would at +once resume its former relation with gold.... I believe the struggle now +going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold +standard would, if successful, produce widespread disaster throughout +the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money and +establishment of gold as the sole unit of value must have a ruinous +effect on all forms of property, <i>except those investments which yield a +fixed return in money</i>."</p> + +<p>It was this exception made by Blaine that formed the crux of the whole +issue. The contest was largely between creditors and debtors. Indeed, it +is thus frankly stated by Senator Jones of Nevada in a speech in the +Senate on May 12, 1890: "Three fourths of the business enterprises of +this country are conducted on borrowed capital. Three fourths of the +homes and farms that stand in the name of the actual occupants have been +bought on time, and a very large proportion of them are mortgaged for +the payment of some part of the purchase money. Under the operation of a +shrinkage in the volume of money, this enormous mass of borrowers, at +the maturity of their respective debts, though nominally paying no more +than the amount borrowed, with interest, are, in reality, in the amount +of the principal alone, returning a percentage of value <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>greater than +they received—more in equity than they contracted to pay, and +oftentimes more in substance than they profited by the loan.... It is a +remarkable circumstance that throughout the entire range of economic +discussion in gold-standard circles, it seems to be taken for granted +that a change in the value of the money unit is a matter of no +significance, and imports no mischief to society, <i>so long as the change +is in one direction</i>. Who ever heard from an Eastern journal any +complaint against a contraction of our money volume, any admonition that +in a shrinking volume of money lurk evils of the utmost magnitude?... In +all discussions of the subject the creditors attempt to brush aside the +equities involved by sneering at the debtors." Both parties to the +conflict assumed a monopoly of virtue and economic wisdom, and the +controversy proceeded on that plane, with no concessions except where +necessary to secure some practical gain.</p> + +<p>By 1877, silver had fallen to the ratio of seventeen to one as compared +with gold, and silver mine owners were anxious to have the government +buy their bullion at the old rate existing before the "demonetization" +of 1873. In this they were supported by the farmers and the debtor +classes generally, who thought that the gold market was substantially +controlled by a relatively few financiers and that the appreciation of +the yellow metal meant lower prices for their commodities and the +maintenance of high interest rates. Criticism was leveled particularly +against the bondholders, who demanded the payment of interest and +principal in gold, in spite of the fact that, at the time the bonds were +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>issued, the government had not demonetized silver and could have paid +in silver dollars containing 412½ grains each. In addition to the +holders of the national debt, there were the owners of industrial, +state, and municipal bonds and railway and other securities who likewise +sought payment in a metal that was appreciating in value.</p> + +<p>In the Forty-fourth Congress, the silver party, led by Bland, of +Missouri, attempted to force the passage of a law providing for the free +and unlimited coinage of silver approximately at the ratio of sixteen to +one, but their measure was amended on the motion of Allison, of Iowa, in +the Senate, in such a manner as simply to authorize the Secretary of the +Treasury to purchase not less than two million nor more than four +million dollars' worth of silver each month to be coined into silver +dollars. The measure thus amended was vetoed by Hayes, but was repassed +over his protest and became a law in 1878, popularly known as the +Bland-Allison Act. The opponents of contraction were able to secure the +passage of another act in the same year forbidding the further +retirement of legal tender notes and providing that the Treasury, +instead of canceling such notes on receiving them, should reissue them +and keep them in circulation.</p> + +<p>None of the disasters prophesied by the gold advocates followed the +enactment of the Bland-Allison bill, but no one was satisfied with it. +The value of silver as compared with gold steadily declined, until the +ratio was twenty-two to one in 1887. The silver party claimed that the +trouble was not with silver, but that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>appreciation of gold had been +largely induced by the government's discriminating policy. The gold +party pointed to the millions of silver dollars coined and unissued +filling the mints and storage vaults to bursting, all for the benefit of +the silver mine owners. The retort of the silver party was a law issuing +silver certificates in denominations of one, two, and five dollars, in +1886. This was supplemented four years later by the Sherman silver +purchase act of 1890 (repealed in 1893), which provided for the purchase +of 4,500,000 ounces of silver monthly and the issue of notes on that +basis redeemable in gold or silver at the discretion of the Treasury. +Congress took occasion to declare also that it was the intention of the +United States to maintain the two metals on a parity—a vague phrase +which was widely used by both parties to conciliate all factions. +Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were as yet ready for a +straight party fight on the silver issue.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Tariff Legislation</i></p> + +<p>At the opening of Hayes' administration the Civil War tariff was still +in force. It is true, there had been some slight reduction in 1872, but +this was offset by increases three years later. During the two decades +following, there was much political controversy over protection, as we +have seen, and there were three important revisions of the protective +system: in 1883 on the initiation of the Senate, in 1890 when the +McKinley bill was passed, and in 1894 when the Wilson bill was enacted +under Democratic auspices.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>The first of these revisions was induced largely by the growing surplus +in the Federal Treasury and the inability of Congress to dispose of it, +even by the most extravagant appropriations. In 1882, the surplus rose +to the startling figure of $145,000,000, and a tariff commission was +appointed to consider, among other things, some method of cutting down +the revenues by a revision of duties. This commission reported a revised +schedule of rates providing for considerable reductions, but still on a +highly protective basis. The House at that time was Republican, and the +Senate was equally divided, with two independents holding the balance of +power. The upper house took the lead in the revision and escaped the +constitutional provision requiring the initiation of revenue bills in +the lower house by tacking their measure to a bill which the House had +passed at the preceding session.</p> + +<p>Under the circumstances neither party was responsible for the measure, +and it is small wonder that it pleased no one, after the fashion of +tariff bills. There was a slight reduction on coarse woolens, cottons, +iron, steel, and several other staple commodities, but not enough to +place the industries concerned on a basis of competition with European +manufactures. New England agricultural products were carefully +protected, but the wool growers of Ohio and other middle western states +lost the ad valorem duties on wool. The Democrats in the House denounced +the measure, and most of them voted against it because, they alleged, it +did not go far enough. William McKinley, of Ohio, then beginning his +career, opposed it on other grounds; and Senator <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>Sherman from the same +state afterward regretted that he had not defeated the bill altogether. +The tariff was "revised but not changed," as a wag put it, and no one +was enthusiastic about the measure.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately attempts were made to amend the law of 1883. For two +years the Democrats, under the leadership of W. R. Morrison, chairman of +the Ways and Means Committee, pottered about with the tariff, but +accomplished nothing, partially on account of the opposition of +protectionist Democrats, like Randall, of Pennsylvania. In 1886, +President Cleveland, in his second message, took up the tariff +seriously; and under the leadership of Roger Q. Mills, of Texas, the +Democratic House, two years later, passed the "Mills bill" only to see +it die in the Senate. The Republican victory of 1888, though narrow, was +a warning that no compromise would be made with those who struck a blow +at protection.</p> + +<p>The Republican House set to work upon a revision of the tariff with a +view to establishing high protection, and in May, 1890, Mr. McKinley, +chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, introduced his bill increasing +the duties generally. In the preparation of this measure, the great +manufacturing interests had been freely consulted, and their requests +for rates were frequently accepted without change, or made the basis for +negotiations with opposing forces, as in the case, for example, of the +binding twine trust and the objecting farmers. On the insistence of Mr. +Blaine, then Secretary of State, a "reciprocity" clause was introduced +into the bill, authorizing the President to place higher <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>duties on +certain commodities coming from other countries, in case he deemed their +retaliatory tariffs "unreasonable or unjust."</p> + +<p>The opposition to the McKinley bill was unusually violent, and no +opportunity was given to test its working before the country swung again +to the Democrats in the autumn of 1890; but the Republican majority in +the Senate prevented the House from carrying through any of its attacks +on the system. The election of Cleveland two years later and the capture +of the Senate as well by the Democrats seemed to promise that the +long-standing threat of a general downward revision would be carried +out. William Wilson, of West Virginia, reported the new bill from the +Ways and Means Committee in December, 1893. Although it made numerous +definite reductions in duties, it was by no means a drastic "free trade" +measure, such as the Republicans had prophesied in their campaign +speeches. The bill passed the House by a large majority, with only a few +Democrats voting against it. Even radical Democrats from the West, who +would have otherwise demanded further reductions, were conciliated by +the provision for a tax on all incomes over $4000.</p> + +<p>When the Wilson bill left the House of Representatives, it had some of +the appearances at least of a "tariff-for-revenue" measure. Reductions +had been made all along the line, not without regard, of course, for +sectional interests, in memory of the principle that the "tariff is a +local issue." But the Senate made short work of it. There the individual +member counted for more. He had the right to talk as long as he pleased, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>and he could trade his vote on schedules in which he was not personally +interested for votes on his own schedules. Thus by forceful and +ingenious manipulation, the Wilson bill was shorn of its most drastic +features (not without some rejoicing in the House as well as in the +Senate), and it went to President Cleveland in such a form that he +refused to accept it as a tariff reform measure and simply allowed it to +become a law without his signature.</p> + +<p>The action of the Democratic Senate is easily accounted for. Hill, of +New York, was almost rabid in his opposition to the income tax +provision. Louisiana was a great sugar-growing state, and her Senators +had their own notion as to what were the proper duties on sugar. Alabama +had rising iron industries, and her Senators shared the emotions of the +representatives from Pennsylvania as the proposed reductions on iron +products were contemplated. Senator Gorman, of Maryland, had no more +heart in "attacking the interests" than did Senator Quay, of +Pennsylvania, who, by the way, used his "inside information" during the +passage of the bill to make money by speculating in sugar stocks.</p> + +<p>With glee the Republicans taunted the Democrats that their professions +were one thing and their performances another. "This is not a protective +bill," said Senator O. H. Platt, of Connecticut. "It is not in any sense +a recognition of the doctrine of protection high or low. It is not a +bill for revenue with incidental protection. It is a bill (and the truth +may as well be told in the Senate of the United States) which proceeds +upon free trade principles, except as to such articles as it has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>been +necessary to levy protective duties upon to get the votes of the +Democratic Senators to pass the bill.... No such marvel has ever been +seen under the sun as all the Democratic Senators, with the possible +exception of the Senator from Texas (Mr. Mills), giving way to this +demand of the sugar trust. How this chamber has rung with the +denunciations of the sugar trust! How the ears of waiting and listening +multitudes in Democratic political meetings have been vexed with +reiterated denunciations of this sugar trust! And here every Democratic +Senator, with one exception, is ready to vote for a prohibitive duty +upon refined sugar."</p> + +<p>Twenty years of tariff agitation and tinkering had thus ended in general +dissatisfaction with the promises and performances of both parties. The +Republicans had advanced to a position of high protection based +principally upon the demands of manufacturing interests themselves, +modified by such protests on the part of consumers as became vocal and +effective in politics. The Democrats had been driven, under Mr. +Cleveland's leadership, to what seemed to be a disposition to reduce the +tariff to something approaching a revenue basis, but when it came to an +actual performance, their practical views, as manifested in the +Wilson-Gorman act, were not far behind those of the opposing party. +Representatives of both parties talked as if the issue was a contest +between tariff-for-revenue and protection, but in fact it was not. The +question was really, "which of the several regions shall receive the +most protection?" Of attempts to get the tariff upon a "scientific +basis," striking a balance among all the interests of the country, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>there was none. Ten years of political warfare over free silver and +imperialism were to elapse before there could be a renewed examination +of protection as a system.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Civil Service Law of 1883</i></p> + +<p>The "spoils system" of making Federal offices the reward for partisan +services began to draw a strong fire of criticism in Grant's first +administration. It was natural that the Democrats should view with +disfavor a practice which excluded them entirely from serving their +country in an official capacity, and the reformers regarded it as a +menace to American institutions because it was the basis of a "political +machine" which controlled primaries and elections and shut out the +discussion of real issues. In response to this combined attack, Congress +passed in 1871 a law authorizing the President to prescribe regulations +for admission to the civil service and provide methods for ascertaining +the fitness of candidates—a law which promised well while the +distinguished champion of reform, George William Curtis, was head of the +board in charge of its administration. Congress, however, had accepted +the reform reluctantly and refused to give it adequate financial +support. After two years' experience with the law, Curtis resigned, and +within a short time the whole scheme fell to the ground.</p> + +<p>The reformers, however, did not give up hope, for they were sufficiently +strong to compel the respect of the Democrats, and the latter, by their +insistence on a reform that cost them nothing, forced the Republicans +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>to give the merit system some prominence in their campaign promises. +But practical politicians in both parties had small esteem for a plan +that would take away the incentive to work for victory on the part of +their followers. It was scornfully called "snivel service" and +"goody-goody reform"; and the old practices of distributing offices to +henchmen and raising campaign funds by heavy assessments on +officeholders were continued.</p> + +<p>Never was the spoils system more odious than when the assassination of +Garfield by a disappointed office hunter startled the country from its +apathy. Within a year, a Senate committee had reported favorably on a +civil service reform bill. It declared that the President had to wear +his life out giving audiences to throngs of beggars who besieged the +executive mansion, and that the spectacle of the chief magistrate of the +nation dispensing patronage to "a hungry, clamorous, crowding, and +jostling multitude" was humiliating to the patriotic citizen. And with +the Congressman the system "is ever present. When he awakes in the +morning it is at his door, and when he retires at night it haunts his +chamber. It goes before him, it follows after him, and it meets him on +the way." The only relief, concluded the report, was to be found in a +thoroughgoing merit system of appointing civil servants.</p> + +<p>At length in 1883 Congress passed the civil service act authorizing, but +not commanding, the President to appoint a commission and extend the +merit system to certain Federal offices. The commission was to be +composed of three members, not more than two of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>same party, +appointed by the President and Senate, and was charged with the duty of +aiding the President, at his request, in preparing suitable rules for +competitive examinations designed to test the fitness of applicants for +offices in the public service, already classified or to be classified by +executive order or by further legislation. The act itself brought a few +offices under the merit system, but it left the extension of the +principle largely to the discretion of the President. When the law went +into force, it applied only to about 14,000 positions, but it was +steadily extended, particularly by retiring Presidents anxious to secure +the jobs already held by their partisans or to improve the efficiency of +the service. Neither Cleveland nor Harrison enforced the law to the +satisfaction of the reformers, for the pressure of the office seekers, +particularly under Cleveland's first administration, was almost +irresistible.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Railway and Trust Regulation</i></p> + +<p>In the beginning of the railway era in the United States, Congress made +no attempt to devise a far-sighted plan of public control, but +negligently devoted its attention to granting generous favors to +railways. It was not until the stock-watering, high-financing, +discriminations and rebates had disgraced the country that Congress was +moved to act. It is true that President Grant in his message of 1872 +recommended, and a Senate committee approved, a comprehensive plan for +regulating railways, but there was no practical outcome. The railway +interests were too strong in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>Congress to permit the enactment of any +drastic regulatory laws. But at length the Granger movement, which had +produced during the seventies so much railway regulation in the +States,<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> appeared in Congress, and stirred by a long report by a +Senate committee enumerating a terrifying list of abuses against +shippers particularly, Congress passed, in 1887, the first important +interstate commerce law.</p> + +<p>This act was a timid, halting measure, and the Supreme Court almost +immediately sheared away its effectiveness by decisions in favor of the +railway companies. The law created a commission of five members +empowered to investigate the operations of common carriers and order +those who violated the law to desist. The act itself forbade +discriminations in rates, pooling traffic, and the charging of more for +"short" than "long hauls" over the same line, except under special +circumstances. In spite of the good intentions of the commission, the +law was practically a dead letter. According to a careful scholar, +Professor Davis R. Dewey, "By 1890 the practice of cut rates to favored +shippers and cities was all but universal at the West; passes were +generally issued; rebates were charged up to maintenance of way account; +special privileges of yardage, loading, and cartage were granted; +freight was underbilled or carried under a wrong classification and +secret notification of intended reduction of rates was made to favored +shippers.... The ingenuity of officials in breaking the spirit of the +law knew no limit, and is a discouraging commentary on the dishonesty +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>which had penetrated into the heart of business enterprise."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> + +<p>The critics of railway policy who were able to force the passage of the +interstate commerce act usually coupled the denunciation of the +industrial monopolies with their attacks on common carriers; and, three +years after the establishment of the interstate commerce commission, +Congress, feeling that some kind of action was demanded by the political +situation, passed the Sherman anti-trust law of 1890. There was no +consensus of opinion among the political leaders as to the significance +of the trust. Blaine declared that "trusts were largely a private affair +with which neither the President nor any private citizen had any +particular right to interfere." Speaker Reed dismissed the subject by +announcing that he had heard "more idiotic raving, more pestiferous +rant, on that subject than on all others put together." Judge Cooley, on +seeing "the utterly heartless manner in which the trusts sometimes have +closed many factories and turned men willing to be industrious into the +streets in order that they may increase profits already reasonably +large," asked whether the trust "as we see it is not a public enemy; +whether it is not teaching the laborer dangerous lessons; whether it is +not helping to breed anarchy."</p> + +<p>In the midst of this general confusion of opinion on the trust, it is +not surprising that Congress in the Sherman law of 1890 enunciated no +clear principles. Apparently it intended to restore competition by +declaring illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the +several states or with foreign nations." But a study of the debates over +the law fails to show any consistent opinion as to what combinations +were included within the prohibition or as to the exact meaning of +"restraint of trade." Of course, the lawyers pointed at once to the +simplicity of the old common law doctrine that conspiracies in restraint +of trade are illegal, but this was an answer in verbiage which gave no +real clew to concrete forms of restraint under the complex conditions of +modern life.</p> + +<p>The vagueness of the Sherman anti-trust law was a subject of remark +during its passage through Congress. O. H. Platt, in the Senate, +criticized the bill as attacking all combinations, no matter what their +practices or forms. "I believe," he said, "that every man in business—I +do not care whether he is a farmer, a laborer, a miner, a sailor, +manufacturer, a merchant—has a right, a legal and a moral right, to +obtain a fair profit upon his business and his work; and if he is driven +by fierce competition to a spot where his business is unremunerative, I +believe it is his right to combine for the purpose of raising prices +until they shall be fair and remunerative. This bill makes no +distinction. It says that every combination which has the effect in any +way to advance prices is illegal and void.... The theory of this bill is +that prices must never be advanced by two or more persons, no matter how +ruinously low they may be. That theory I denounce as utterly untenable, +as immoral."</p> + +<p>Senator Platt then went on to say that the whole <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>subject had not been +adequately considered and that the bill was a piece of politics, not of +statesmanship. "I am sorry, Mr. President," he continued, "that we have +not had a bill which had been carefully prepared, which had been +thoughtfully prepared, which had been honestly prepared, to meet the +object which we all desire to meet. The conduct of the Senate for the +past three days—and I make no personal allusions—has not been in the +line of the honest preparation of a bill to prohibit and punish trusts. +It has been in the line of getting some bill with that title that we +might go to the country with. The questions of whether the bill would be +operative, of how it would operate, or whether it was within the power +of Congress to enact it, have been whistled down the wind in this Senate +as idle talk, and the whole effort has been to get some bill headed: 'A +Bill to Punish Trusts,' with which to go to the country."</p> + +<p>Senator Hoar, who claimed that he was the author of the Sherman +anti-trust law, says, however, that the act was not directed against +<i>all</i> combinations in business. "It was expected," he says, "that the +court in administering that law would confine its operations to cases +which are contrary to the policy of the law, treating the words +'agreements in restraint of trade' as having a technical meaning, such +as they are supposed to have in England. The Supreme Court of the United +States went in this particular farther than was expected.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> ... It has +not been carried to its full extent since, and I think will never be +held to prohibit those lawful and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>harmless combinations which have been +permitted in this country and in England without complaint, like +contracts of partnership, which are usually considered harmless."</p> + +<p>The immediate effects of the Sherman anti-trust law were wholly +negligible. Seven of the eight judicial decisions under the law during +Harrison's administration were against the government, and no indictment +of offenders against the law went so far as a trial. During Cleveland's +second term the law was a dead letter. Meanwhile trusts and combinations +continued to multiply.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Income Tax Law of 1894</i></p> + +<p>In the debates over tariff reduction, silver, and paper money, evidences +of group and class conflicts were almost constantly apparent, but it was +not until the enactment of the income tax provision of 1894 that +political leaders of national standing frankly avowed a class +purpose—the shifting of a portion of the burden of national taxes from +the commodities consumed by the poor to the incomes of the rich.</p> + +<p>The movement for an income tax found its support especially among the +farmers of the West and South and the working classes of the great +cities. The demand for it had been appearing for some time in the +platforms of the agrarian and labor parties. The National or Greenback +party, in its platform of 1884, demanded "a graduated income tax" and "a +wise revision of the tariff laws with a view to raising revenues from +luxury <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>rather than necessity." The Anti-monopoly party, in the same +year, demanded, "a graduated income tax and a tariff, which is a tax +upon the people, that shall be so levied as to bear as lightly as +possible upon necessaries. We denounce the present tariff as being +largely in the interest of monopolies and demand that it be speedily and +radically reformed in the interest of labor instead of capital." The +Union Labor convention at Cincinnati in 1888 declared in its platform: +"A graduated income tax is the most equitable system of taxation, +placing the burden of government upon those who can best afford to pay, +instead of laying it upon the farmers and producers and exempting +millionaire bondholders and corporations."</p> + +<p>In the campaign of 1892, the demand for an income tax was made by the +Populist party and by the Socialist Labor party. The former frankly +declared war on the rich, proclaiming in its platform that, "The fruits +of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes +for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors +of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty." Among the +remedies for this dire condition of things the Populists demanded "a +graduated income tax." The Democrats, at their convention of that year, +denounced the McKinley tariff law "as the culminating atrocity of class +legislation," and declared that "The Federal government has no +constitutional power to impose and collect tariff duties except for the +purpose of revenue only."</p> + +<p>When it was discovered in the ensuing election that the Democratic +party, with its low tariff pronunciamento <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>was victorious, and that the +Populists with their radical platform had carried four western states +and polled more than a million votes, shrewd political observers saw +that some revision in the revenue system of the Federal government was +imperative. President Cleveland, in his message of December, 1893, in +connection with the recommendation for a revision of the tariff, stated +that, "the committee ... have wisely embraced in their plans a few +additional revenue taxes, including a small tax upon incomes derived +from certain corporate investments." It is not clear what committee the +President had in mind, and Senator Hill declared that the Ways and Means +Committee had not agreed "upon any income tax or other internal +taxation"; although it had undoubtedly been considering the subject in +connection with the revision of the tariff.</p> + +<p>When the tariff bill was introduced in Congress, on December 19, 1893, +it contained no provision for an income tax, and it was not until +January 29 that an income tax amendment to the Wilson bill was +introduced in behalf of the Committee. In defending his amendment, the +mover, Mr. McMillin, declared that the purpose of the tax was to place a +small per cent of the enormous Federal burden "upon the accumulated +wealth of the country instead of placing all upon the consumption of the +people." He announced that they did not come there in any spirit of +antagonism to wealth, that they did not intend to put an undue embargo +upon wealth, but that they did intend to make accumulated wealth pay +some share of the expenses of the government. The tariff, in his +opinion, taxed want, not wealth. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>He was impatient with the hue and cry +that was raised, "when it is proposed to shift this burden from those +who cannot bear it to those who can; to divide it between consumption +and wealth; to shift it from the laborer who has nothing but his power +to toil and sweat to the man who has a fortune made or inherited." The +protective tariff, he added, had made colossal fortunes by levying +tribute upon the many for the enrichment of the few; and yet the +advocates of an income tax were told that this accumulated wealth was a +sacred thing which should go untaxed forever. In announcing this +determination to tax the rich, Mr. McMillin disclaimed any intention of +waging a class war, by declaring that the income tax, in his opinion, +would "diminish the antipathy that now exists between the classes," and +sweep away the ground for that "iconoclastic complaint which finds +expression in violence and threatens the very foundations upon which our +whole institution rests."</p> + +<p>The champions of property against this proposal to tax incomes in order +to relieve the burden upon consumption summoned every device of oratory +and argument to their aid. They ridiculed and denounced, and endeavored +to conjure up before Congress horrible visions of want, anarchy, +socialism, ruin, and destruction. J. H. Walker, of Massachusetts, +declared that, "The income tax takes from the wealth of the thrifty and +the enterprising and gives to the shifty and the sluggard." Adams, of +Pennsylvania, found the income tax "utterly distasteful in its moral and +political aspects, a piece of class legislation, a tax upon the thrifty, +and a reward to dishonesty." In the Senate, where there is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>supposed to +be more sobriety, the execrations heaped upon the income tax proposal +were marked by even more virulence. Senator Hill declared that, "The +professors with their books, the socialists with their schemes, the +anarchists with their bombs, are instructing the people of the United +States in the organization of society, the doctrines of democracy, and +the principles of taxation. No wonder if their preaching can find ears +in the White House." In his opinion, also, the income tax was an +"insidious and deadly assault upon state rights, state powers, and state +independence." Senator Sherman particularly objected to the high +exemption, declaring, "In a republic like ours, where all men are equal, +this attempt to array the rich against the poor, or the poor against the +rich, is socialism, communism, devilism."</p> + +<p>In spite of this vigorous opposition, the House passed the provision by +a vote of 204 to 140 and the Senate by a vote of 39 to 34. In its final +form the law imposed a tax of two per cent on all incomes above +$4000—an exemption under which the farmer and the lower middle class +escaped almost entirely. Cleveland did not like a general income tax, +and he was dissatisfied with the Wilson tariff bill to which the tax +measure was attached. He, therefore, allowed it to go into effect +without his signature.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Labor Legislation</i></p> + +<p>The only measures directly in the interests of labor generally passed +during this period were the Chinese <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>exclusion act, the law creating a +labor bureau at Washington, and the prohibition of the importation of +alien workingmen under contract. Shortly after the Civil War, protests +were heard against cheap Chinese labor, not only in the western states, +but also in the East, where manufacturers were beginning to employ +coolies to break strikes and crush unions. At length, early in 1882, +Congress passed a measure excluding Chinese laborers for a period of +twenty years, the Republicans from the eastern districts voting +generally against it. President Arthur vetoed the bill, holding in +particular that it was a violation of treaty provisions with China, and +suggested a limitation of the application of the principle to ten years. +This was accepted by Congress, and the law went into force in August of +that year. More stringent identification methods were later applied to +returning Chinese, and in 1892, the application of the principle of +exclusion was further extended for a term of ten years. In 1884, a +Federal bureau of labor statistics was created to collect information +upon problems of labor and capital. In 1885, Congress passed a law +prohibiting the importation of laborers under contract, which was +supplemented by later legislation.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> See below, p. 123.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The Silver Democrats declared that this demonetization was +secretly brought about by a "conspiracy" on the part of gold advocates, +and named the act in question "the crime of '73."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> See above, p. 167.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>National Problems</i>, p. 103.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> See below, p. 332.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> In 1887, Congress enacted a law providing for counting the +electoral vote in presidential elections. This measure grew out of the +disputed election of 1876.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h2>THE GROWTH OF DISSENT</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Important as was the legislation described in the preceding chapter, +there were sources of discontent which it could not, in the nature of +things, dry up. With the exception of the income tax, there had been no +decisive effort to placate the poorer sections of the population by +distinct class legislation. It is true, the alien contract labor law and +the Chinese exclusion act were directed particularly to the working +class, but their effects were not widely felt.</p> + +<p>The accumulation of vast fortunes, many of which were gained either by +fraudulent manipulations, or shady transactions within the limits of the +law but condemned by elementary morals, and the massing of millions of +the proletariat in the great industrial cities were bound in the long +run to bring forth political cleavages as deep as the corresponding +social cleavage. The domination of the Federal government by the +captains of machinery and capital was destined to draw out a counter +movement on the part of the small farmers, the middle class, and the +laborers. Mutterings of this protest were heard in the seventies; it +broke forth in the Populist and Socialist movement in the nineties; it +was voiced in the Democratic campaign of 1896; silenced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>awhile by a +wave of imperialism, it began to work a transformation in all parties at +the opening of the new century.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>This protest found its political expression in the organization of +"third" or minor parties. The oldest and most persistent of all these +groups is the Prohibitionist party, which held its first national +convention at Columbus, Ohio, in 1872, and nominated Mr. Black, of +Pennsylvania, as its candidate. In its platform, it declared the +suppression of the liquor traffic to be the leading issue, but it also +proposed certain currency reforms and the regulation of transportation +companies and monopolies.</p> + +<p>Although their popular vote in 1872 was less than six thousand, the +Prohibitionists returned to their issue at each succeeding campaign with +Spartan firmness, but their gains were painfully slow. They reached 9522 +in 1876, and 10,305 in 1880. In the campaign of 1884, when many +Republicans were dissatisfied with the nomination of Blaine, and +unwilling to follow Curtis and Schurz into the Democratic camp, the +Prohibition vote rose to 150,369. A further gain of nearly one hundred +thousand votes in the next election, to which a slight addition was made +in 1892, encouraged the Prohibitionists to hope that the longed-for +"split" had come, and they frightened the Republican politicians into +considering concessions, especially in the states where the temperance +party held the balance of power. In fact, in their platform of 1892 the +Republicans announced in a noncommittal fashion that they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>sympathized +with "all wise and legitimate efforts to lessen and prevent the evils of +intemperance and promote morality." The scare was unwarranted, however, +for the Prohibition party had about reached its high-water mark. Being +founded principally on one moral issue and making no appeal to any +fundamental economic divisions, it could not make headway against the +more significant social issues, and its strength was further reduced by +the growth of state and local prohibition.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Almost immediately after the Civil War, labor entered politics in a +small way on its own account. In 1872, a party known as the "Labor +Reformers" held a national convention at Columbus which was attended by +delegates from seventeen states. It declared in favor of restricting the +sale of public lands to homesteaders, Chinese exclusion, an eight-hour +day in government employments, civil service reform, one term for each +President, regulation of railway and telegraph rates, and the subjection +of the military to the civil authorities. The party nominated Justice +Davis, who had been appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States +by Lincoln and had shown Populist leanings immediately after the War; +but Mr. Davis declined to serve, and O'Connor of New York, to whom the +place was then tendered, only polled about 29,000 votes.</p> + +<p>This early labor party was simply a party of mild protest. It originated +in Massachusetts, where there had been a number of serious labor +disputes and a certain shoe manufacturer had imported a carload of +Chinese to operate his machinery. Although Wendell Phillips, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>who had +declared the emancipation of labor to be the next great issue after the +emancipation of slaves, was prominently identified with it and stood +next to Justice Davis on the first poll in the convention, the party as +a whole manifested no tendency to open a distinct class struggle, and +the leading planks of its program were shortly accepted by both of the +old parties.</p> + +<p>Standing upon such a temporary platform, and unsupported by any general +philosophy of politics, the labor reform party inevitably went to +pieces. Its dissolution was facilitated by the rise of an agrarian +party, the Greenbackers, who, in their platform of 1880, were more +specific and even more extensive in their declaration of labor's rights +than the "Reformers" themselves had been. It was not until 1888 that +another "labor" group appeared, but since that date there has been one +or more parties making a distinct appeal to the working class. In that +year, there were two "labor" factions, the Union Labor party and the +United Labor party. Both groups came out for the public ownership of the +means of transportation and communication and a code of enlightened +labor legislation. The former advocated the limitation of land ownership +and the latter the application of the single tax. Both agreed in +denouncing the "Democratic and Republican parties as hopelessly and +shamelessly corrupt, and, by reason of their affiliation with +monopolies, equally unworthy of the suffrages of those who do not live +upon public plunder." The vote of both groups in the ensuing election +was slightly over 150,000.</p> + +<p>The labor groups which had broken with the old <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>parties took a more +definite step toward socialism in 1892, when they frankly assumed the +name of the Socialist Labor party<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> and put forward a declaration in +favor of the public ownership of utilities and a general system of +protective labor legislation. Although the socialism of Karl Marx had by +this time won a wide influence among the working classes of Europe, +there are few if any traces of it in the Socialist Labor platform of +1892. That platform says nothing about the inevitable contest between +labor and capitalism, or about the complete public ownership of all the +means of transportation and production. On the contrary, it confines its +statements to concrete propositions, including the political reforms of +the initiative, referendum, and recall, all of which have since been +advocated by leaders in the old parties. The small vote received in 1892 +by the socialistic candidate, 21,532, is no evidence of the strength of +the labor protest, for the Populist party in that year included in its +program substantially the same principles and made a distinct appeal to +the working class, as well as to the farmers.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Indeed, the discontent of the two decades from 1876 to 1896 was confined +principally to the small farmers, who waged, in fact, a class war upon +capitalists and financiers, although they nowhere formulated it into a +philosophy. They chose to rely upon the inflation of the currency as +their chief weapon of offense. A precursor to the agrarian movement in +politics is to be found in the "Granger Movement," which began with the +formation of an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>association known as the "Patrons of Husbandry" in +1867. This society, which organized local lodges on a secret basis and +admitted both men and women, was originally designed to promote +agricultural interests in a general and social way, and its political +implications were not at first apparent. It naturally appealed, however, +to the most active and socially minded farmers, and its leaders soon +became involved in politics.</p> + +<p>The sources of agrarian discontent were obvious. During the War, prices +had been high and thousands of farm "hands" and mechanics had become +land owners, thanks to the homestead laws enacted by the Republican +party; but they had little capital to start with, and their property was +heavily mortgaged. When the inflated War prices collapsed, they found +themselves compelled to pay interest at the old rate, and they figured +it out that capitalists and bondholders were the chief beneficiaries of +the Federal financial legislation. In spite of all that had been paid on +the national and private debts, the amount still due, they reckoned, +measured in the products of toil, wheat and corn, was greater than ever. +They, therefore, hit on the conclusion that the chief source of trouble +was in the contraction of the currency which reduced the money value of +their products. The remedy obviously was inflation in some form.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>While the currency thus became the chief agrarian issue, the farmers +attributed a part of their troubles to the railway companies whose +heavily "watered" capital made high freight rates necessary, and whose +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>discriminations in charges fell as heavy burdens on shippers outside of +the zones of competition. The agrarians, therefore, resorted to railway +legislation in their respective states—the regulation of rates and +charges for transportation and the conditions under which grain should +be warehoused and handled. In Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and other +states, the law makers yielded to the pressure of the farmers for this +kind of legislative relief, and based their legal contentions on the +ground that the railways "partook of the nature of public highways." The +Grangers were strengthened in their convictions by the violence of the +opposition offered on the part of the railways to the establishment of +rates and charges by public authority, and by their constant appeals to +the courts for relief.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p>Of course, the fixing of flat rates without any inquiry into the cost of +specific services was open to grave objections; but the opposition of +the companies was generally based on the contention that they had a +right to run their business in their own way. The spirit of this +opposition is reflected in an editorial published in the <i>Nation</i>, of +New York, in January, 1875: "We maintain that the principle of such +legislation is either confiscation, or, if another phrase be more +agreeable, the change of railroads from pieces of private property, +owned and managed for the benefit of those who have invested their money +in them, into eleemosynary or charitable corporations, managed for the +benefit of a particular class of applicants for outdoor relief—the +farmers. If, in the era of progress to which the farmers' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>movement +proposes to introduce us, we are going back to a condition of society in +which the only sort of property which we can call our own is that which +we can make our own by physical possession, it is certainly important to +every one to know it, and the only body which can really tell us is the +Supreme Court at Washington."</p> + +<p>Not content with their achievements in the state legislatures, the +agrarians entered national politics in 1876 in the form of the +Independent National or Greenback party, designed to "stop the present +suicidal and destructive policy of contraction." They declared their +belief that "a United States note, issued directly by the government and +convertible on demand into United States obligations, bearing a rate of +interest not exceeding one cent a day on each one hundred dollars and +exchangeable for United States notes at par, will afford the best +circulating medium ever devised." In spite of the small vote polled by +their standard bearer, Peter Cooper, of New York, they put forward a +candidate in the next campaign<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> and made a third attempt in 1884, +growing more and more radical in tone. In their last year, they +declared: "Never in our history have the banks, the land-grant +railroads, and other monopolies been more insolent in their demands for +further privileges—still more class legislation. In this emergency the +dominant parties are arrayed against the people and are the abject tools +of the corporate monopolies." The Greenbackers demanded, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>addition to +currency reform, the regulation of interstate commerce, a graduated +income tax, labor legislation, prohibition of importation of contract +laborers, and the reduction of the terms of United States Senators. +Although their candidate, B. F. Butler, polled 175,000 votes in 1884, +the Greenbackers gave up the contest, and in 1888 yielded their place to +the Union Labor party.</p> + +<p>The agrarian interest was, however, still the chief source of conscious +discontent, and the disappearance of the Greenbackers was shortly +followed by the establishment of two societies, the National Farmers' +Alliance and Industrial Union and the National Farmers' Alliance, the +former strong in the South and West, and the latter in the North. In +1890, these orders claimed over three million members, and in several of +the southern states they had dominated or split the Democratic party. +The Northern Alliance was likewise busy with politics, and in Kansas and +Nebraska, by independence or fusion, carried a large number of +legislative districts.</p> + +<p>Although professing to be non-political in the beginning, the leaders of +these alliances called a national convention at Omaha in 1892 and put +forth the most radical platform that had yet appeared in American +politics. It declared that the newspapers were subsidized, corruption +dominated the ballot box, homes were covered with mortgages, labor was +impoverished and tyrannized over by a hireling standing army, and the +nation stood on the verge of ruin. "The fruits of the toils of +millions," runs the platform, "are boldly stolen to build up colossal +fortunes for a few, unprecedented <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>in the history of mankind; and the +possessors of these in turn despise the republic and endanger liberty. +From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed two +classes of tramps and millionaires." Their demands included the free +coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, postal-savings banks, +government ownership of railways, telegraph and telephones; they +declared their sympathy with organized labor in its warfare for better +conditions and its struggle against "Pinkerton hirelings"; and they +commended the initiative, referendum, and popular election of United +States Senators. On this program, the Populists polled over a million +votes and captured twenty-two presidential electors. Evidently the +indifference of the old parties to such issues could not remain +undisturbed much longer.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Fuel was added to the discontent in the spring of 1895, when the Supreme +Court declared null and void the income tax law of the previous +year.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> The opponents of the tax, having lost in the Congress, made +their last stand in the highest Federal tribunal, and marshaled on their +side an array of legal talent seldom seen in an action at law, including +Senator Edmunds, Mr. Joseph H. Choate, and other attorneys prominently +identified with railway and corporation litigation. No effort was spared +in bringing pressure to bear on the Court, and no arguments, legal, +political, and social, were neglected in the attempt to impress upon the +Court the importance of stopping Populism by a judicial pronunciamento. +Conservative New York papers, like the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span><i>Herald</i>, boldly prophesied in +the summer of 1894 that "the income tax will be blotted from the statute +books before the people are cursed with its inquisitorial enforcement."</p> + +<p>No easy victory lay before the opponents of the income tax, for the law +seemed to be against them. In 1870, the Supreme Court had upheld the +Civil War income tax without a dissenting voice, and had distinctly +said: "Our conclusions are that direct taxes, within the meaning of the +Constitution, are only capitation taxes as expressed in that instrument +and taxes on real estate, and that the tax of which the plaintiff in +error complains [the income tax] is within the category of an excise or +duty." Of course, the terms of the new law were not identical with those +of the Civil War measure, and the Supreme Court had been known to +reverse itself.</p> + +<p>The attorneys against the tax left no stone unturned. As Professor +Seligman remarks, "Some of the important financial interests now engaged +a notable array of eminent counsel to essay the arduous task of +persuading the Supreme Court that it might declare the income tax a +direct tax without reversing its previous decisions. The effort was made +with the most astonishing degree of ability and ingenuity, and the +briefs and arguments of the opposing counsel fill several large +volumes.... The counsel's arguments abound in historical errors and +economic inaccuracies.... Errors and misstatements which might be +multiplied pale into insignificance compared with the misinterpretation +put upon the origin and purpose of the direct-tax clause—a +misinterpretation which like most of the preceding mistakes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>was bodily +adopted by the majority of the Court, who evidently found no time for an +independent investigation of the subject." Having exhausted their +ingenuity in the matter of technicalities and imposing historical and +economic and legal arguments, the counsel appealed to every class fear +and prejudice that might be entertained by the Court.</p> + +<p>The introduction of the passions of a social conflict into what +purported to be a legal contest was intrusted to Mr. Choate. He +threatened the Court with the declaration that if it approved the law, +and "the communistic march" went on, a still higher exemption of $20,000 +might be made and a rate of 20 per cent imposed—a highly important +statement, but one that had no connection with the question whether an +income tax was a direct tax. "There is protection now or never," he +exclaimed. The very keystone of civilization, he continued, was the +preservation of the rights of private property, and this fundamental +principle was scattered to the winds by the champions of the tax. Mr. +Choate concluded by warning the Court not to pay any attention to the +popular passions enlisted on the side of the law, and urged it not to +hesitate in declaring the law unconstitutional, "no matter what the +threatened consequences of popular or populistic wrath may be."</p> + +<p>The Court was evidently moved by the declamation of Mr. Choate, for +Justice Field, in his opinion, replied in kind. "The present assault +upon capital," he said, "is but the beginning. It will be but the +stepping stone to others larger and more sweeping till our political +conditions will become a war of the poor against the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>rich; a war +growing in intensity and bitterness." If such a law were upheld, he +gravely announced, boards of walking delegates would be fixing tax rates +in the near future. Mr. Justice Harlan, in his dissenting opinion, +however, replied in behalf of the populace by saying: "The practical +effect of the decision to-day is to give certain kinds of property a +position of favoritism and advantage inconsistent with the fundamental +principles of our social organization, and to invest them with power and +influence that may be perilous to that portion of the American people +upon whom rests the larger part of the burdens of government and who +ought not to be subjected to the dominion of aggregated wealth any more +than the property of the country should be at the mercy of the lawless."</p> + +<p>At the best, the nullification of the income tax law was not an easy +task. There were eight justices on the bench when the decision of the +Court was handed down on April 8, 1895. All of them agreed that the law +was unconstitutional in so far as it laid a tax on revenues derived from +state and municipal bonds; five of them agreed that a tax on rent or +income from land was a direct tax and hence unconstitutional unless +apportioned among the states on the basis of population—which was +obviously impolitic; and the Court stood four to four on the important +point as to the constitutionality of taxes on incomes derived from +mortgages, interest, and personal property generally. The decision of +the Court was thus inconclusive on the only point that interested +capitalists particularly, and it was so regarded by the Eastern press.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>On April 9, the day following the decision of the Court, the New York +<i>Sun</i> declared: "Twice in great national crises the Supreme Court of the +United States has failed to meet the expectations of the people or to +justify its existence as the ultimate tribunal of right and law. In both +instances the potent consideration has been neither right nor law, but +the supposed demands of political expediency.... Yesterday the failure +of the Supreme Court to decide the main question of constitutionality +submitted to it was brought about by political considerations. It was +not Democracy against Republicanism as before, but Populism and +Clevelandism against Democracy, and the vote was four to four." The +<i>Tribune</i>, on April 10, declared that "the Court reached a finding which +is as near an abdication of its power to interpret the Constitution and +a confession of its unfitness for that duty as anything well can be."</p> + +<p>In view of the unsatisfactory condition created by its decision, the +Court consented to a rehearing, and, on May 20, 1895, added its opinion +that the tax on incomes from personal property was also a direct tax, +thus bringing the whole law to the ground by a vote of five to four. +Justice Jackson, who was ill when the first decision was made, had in +the meantime returned to the bench, and he was strongly in favor of +declaring the law constitutional. Had the Court stood as before, the +personal property income tax would have been upheld, but one Justice, +who had sustained this particular provision in the first case, was +induced to change his views and vote against it on the final count. Thus +by a narrow vote of five to four, brought about by a Justice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>who +changed his mind within the period of a few days, all of the essential +parts of the income tax law were declared null and void.</p> + +<p>The temper of the country over the affair was well manifested in the +press comments on the last decision. The New York <i>Sun</i>, which had +roundly denounced the Court in the first instance, now joined in a +chorus of praise: "In a hundred years the Supreme Court of the United +States has not rendered a decision more important in its immediate +effect or reaching further in its consequences than that which the <i>Sun</i> +records this morning. There is life left in the institutions which the +founders of this republic devised and constructed. There is a safe +future for the national system under which we were all born and have +lived and prospered according to individual capacity. The wave of +socialistic revolution has gone far, but it breaks at the foot of the +ultimate bulwark set up for protection of our liberties. Five to four, +the court stands like a rock."</p> + +<p>The <i>Tribune</i>, on May 24, added: "The more the people study the +influences behind this attempt to bring about a communistic revolution +in modes of taxation, the more clearly they will realize that it was an +essential part of the distinctly un-American and unpatriotic attempt to +destroy the American policy of defense for home industries, in the +interest of foreigners.... Thanks to the Court, our government is not to +be dragged into communistic warfare against rights of property and the +rewards of industry while the Constitution of its founders remains a +bulwark of the rights of states and of individual citizens."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>The New York <i>World</i>, on the other hand, which had so stoutly championed +the tax in behalf of "the masses," represented the decision of the Court +as "the triumph of selfishness over patriotism. It is another victory of +greed over need. Great and rich corporations, by hiring the ablest +lawyers in the land and fighting against a petty tax upon superfluity as +other men have fought for their liberties and their lives, have secured +the exemption of wealth from paying its just share towards the support +of the government that protects it.... The people at large will bow to +this decision as they habitually do to all the decrees of their highest +courts. But they will not accept law as justice. No dictum or decision +of any wrong can make wrong right, and it is not right that the entire +cost of the Federal government shall rest upon consumption.... Equity +demands that citizens shall contribute to the support of the government +with some regard to benefits received and ability to pay."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Although the conservative elements saw in the annulment of the income +tax nothing but a wise and timely exercise of judicial authority in +defense of the Constitution and sound policy, the radical elements +regarded it as an evidence "that the judicial branch of the government +was under the control of the same interests that had mutilated the +Wilson tariff bill in the Senate." The local Federal courts augmented +this popular feeling by frequently issuing injunctions ordering +workingmen in time of strikes not to interfere with their employers' +business, thus crippling them in the coercion of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>employers, by +imprisoning without jury trial those who disobeyed judicial orders.</p> + +<p>Although the injunction was an ancient legal device, it was not until +after the Civil War that it was developed into a powerful instrument in +industrial disputes; and it became particularly effective in the hands +of Federal judges. They were not popularly elected, but were appointed +by the President and the Senate (where corporate influences were ably +represented). Under the provisions of the law giving Federal courts +jurisdiction in cases involving citizens of different states, they were +called upon to intervene with increasing frequency in industrial +disputes, for railway and other corporations usually did business in +several states, and they could generally invoke Federal protection by +showing that they were "non-residents" of the particular states in which +strikes were being waged. Moreover, strikers who interfered with +interstate commerce were likely to collide with Federal authorities +whose aid was invited by the employers affected. Whenever a corporation +was in bankruptcy, control over its business fell into the hands of the +Federal courts.</p> + +<p>The effectiveness of Federal judicial intervention in labor troubles +became apparent in the first great strikes of the seventies, when the +state authorities proved unable to restrain rioting and disorder by the +use of the local militia. During the railway war of 1877 a Federal judge +in southern Illinois ordered the workingmen not to interfere with a +railway for which he had appointed a receiver, and he then employed +Federal troops under the United States marshal to execute his mandate. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>About the same time other Federal judges intervened effectively in +industrial disputes by the liberal use of the injunction, and the +president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company pointed out in an article +published in the <i>North American Review</i> for September, 1877, how much +more potent Federal authority was in such trying crises to give railway +corporations efficient protection.</p> + +<p>From that time forward the injunction was steadily employed by Federal +and state courts, but it was not until the great railway strike of 1894 +in Chicago that it was brought prominently before the country as a +distinct political issue. In that strike, the Democratic governor, Mr. +Altgeld, believing that the employers had fomented disorder for the +purpose of invoking Federal intervention (as was afterward pretty +conclusively shown), refused to employ the state militia speedily and +effectively, contending that the presence of troops would only make +matters worse. The postal authorities, influenced by a variety of +motives, of which, it was alleged, a desire to break the strike was one, +secured prompt Federal intervention on the part of President Cleveland +and the use of Federal troops. Thus the labor unions were quickly +checkmated.</p> + +<p>This action on the part of President Cleveland was supplemented in July, +1894, by a general blanket injunction issued from the Federal district +court in Chicago to all persons concerned, ordering them not to +interfere with the transmission of the mails or with interstate commerce +in any form. Mr. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, who was +directing the strike <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>which was tying up interstate commerce, was +arrested, fined, and imprisoned for refusing to obey this injunction. +Mr. Debs, thereupon, through his counsel, claimed the right to jury +trial, asserting that the court could not impose a penalty which was not +provided by statute, but which depended solely upon the will of the +judge. On appeal, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the +lower court and declared that imprisonment for contempt of court did not +violate the principle of jury trial.</p> + +<p>It was not merely labor leaders who were stirred to wrath by this +development in judicial authority. Many eminent lawyers saw in it an +attack upon the ancient safeguards of the law which provided for regular +proceedings, indictment, the hearing of witnesses, jury trial, and the +imposition of only such punishments as could be clearly ascertained in +advance. On the other hand others held it to be nothing new at all, but +simply the application of the old principle that injunctions could issue +in cases where irreparable injury might otherwise ensue. They pointed +out that its effectiveness depended upon speedy application, and that +the delays usually incident to regular judicial procedure would destroy +its usefulness altogether. To workingmen it appeared to be chiefly an +instrument for imprisoning their leaders and breaking strikes by the +prevention of coercion, peaceful or otherwise. At all events, the +decision of the Supreme Court upholding the practice and its doctrines +added to the bitterness engendered by the income tax decision—a +bitterness manifested at the Democratic convention at Chicago the +following year.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>The crowning cause of immediate discontent was the financial policy +pursued by President Cleveland,<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> which stirred the wrath of the +agrarians already agitated over inflation, and gave definiteness to an +issue on which both parties had been judiciously ambiguous in their +platforms in 1892. The farmers pointed out that, notwithstanding the +increased output of corn, the total amount of money received in return +was millions less than it had been in the early eighties. They +emphasized the fact that more than half of the taxable acreage of Kansas +and Nebraska was mortgaged, and that many other western states were +nearly as badly off. The falling prices and their inability to meet +their indebtedness they attributed to the demonetization of silver and +the steady enhancement of gold.</p> + +<p>For the disease, as they diagnosed it, they had a remedy. The +government, they said, had been generous to Wall Street and financial +interests at large by selling bonds at rates which made great fortunes +for the narrow group of purchasers, and by distributing its deposits +among the banks in need of assistance. The power of the government could +also be used for the benefit of another class—namely, themselves. Gold +should be brought down and the currency extended by the free coinage of +silver on a basis of sixteen to one. The value of crops, when measured +in money, would thus mount upwards, and it would be easier to pay the +interest on mortgages and discharge their indebtedness. Furthermore, +while the government was in the business of accommodating the public it +might loan money to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>farmers at a low rate of interest.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> But the +inflation of the currency and the increase of prices of farm products by +the free coinage of silver were the leading demands of the discontented +agrarians—an old remedy for an old disease.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> See below, p. 296.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> See above, p. 121.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> See above, pp. 67 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> They polled about a million votes in the congressional +elections of 1878.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> See above, p. 137.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> See above, p. 106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> It is interesting to note that agricultural credit—a +subject in which European countries are far advanced—is just now +beginning to receive some attention in quarters where the demands of the +farmers for better terms on borrowed money were once denounced as mere +vagaries.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h2>THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896</h2> +<br /> + +<p>It does not require that distant historical perspective, which is +supposed to be necessary for final judgments, to warrant the assertion +that the campaign of 1896 marks a turning point in the course of +American politics. The monetary issue, on which events ostensibly +revolved, was, it is true, an ancient one, but the real conflict was not +over the remonetization of silver or the gold standard. Deep, underlying +class feeling found its expression in the conventions of both parties, +and particularly that of the Democrats, and forced upon the attention of +the country, in a dramatic manner, a conflict between great wealth and +the lower middle and working classes, which had hitherto been recognized +only in obscure circles. The sectional or vertical cleavage of American +politics was definitely cut by new lines running horizontally through +society, and was also crossed at right angles by another line running +north and south, representing the western protest against eastern +creditors and the objectionable methods of great corporations which had +been rapidly unfolded to public view by merciless criticism and many +legislative investigations.</p> + +<p>Even the Republican party, whose convention had been largely prepared in +advance by the vigorous labors <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>of Mr. Marcus A. Hanna,<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> was not +untouched by the divisions which later rent the Democratic party in +twain. When the platform was reported to the duly assembled Republican +delegates by Mr. Foraker, of Ohio, its firm declaration of opposition to +free silver, except by international agreement, was greeted by a divided +house, although, as the record runs, there was a "demonstration of +approval on the part of a large majority of the delegates which lasted +several minutes." When a vote was taken on the financial plank, it was +discovered that 110 delegates favored silver as against 812 in support +of the proposition submitted by the platform committee. The defeated +contingent then withdrew from the convention after having presented a +statement in which they declared that "the people cry aloud for relief; +they are bending under a burden growing heavier with the passing hours; +endeavour no longer brings its just reward ... and unless the laws of +the country and the policies of political parties shall be converted +into mediums of redress, the effect of human desperation may sometime be +witnessed here as in other lands and in other ages."</p> + +<p>This threat was firmly met by the body of the convention which remained. +In nominating Mr. Thomas B. Reed, Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts, declared: +"Against the Republican party are arrayed not only that organized +failure, the Democratic party, but all the wandering forces of political +chaos and social disorder.... Such a man we want for our great office in +these bitter times when the forces of disorder are loose and the +wreckers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>with their false lights gather at the shore to lure the ship +of state upon the rocks." Mr. Depew, in nominating Mr. Levi P. Morton, +decried all of the current criticism of capital. Mr. Foraker, in +presenting the name of Mr. McKinley, was more conciliatory: distress and +misery were abroad in the land and bond issues and bond syndicates had +discredited and scandalized the country; but McKinley was the man to +redeem the nation.</p> + +<p>This conciliatory attitude was hardly necessary, for there were no +radical elements in the Republican assembly after the withdrawal of the +silver faction. The proceedings of the convention were in fact then +extraordinarily harmonious, brief, and colorless. The platform, apart +from the sound money plank, contained no sign of the social conflict +which was being waged in the world outside. Tariff, pensions, civil +service, temperance, and the usual formalities of party programs were +treated after the fashion consecrated by time. Railway and trust +problems were overlooked entirely. Even the money plank was not put +first, and it was not so phrased as to constitute the significant +challenge which it became in the campaign. "The Republican party," it +ran, "is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the +law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then +every dollar has been good as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every +measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our +country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver except +by international agreement with the leading commercial nations <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>of the +world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such an agreement +can be obtained the existing gold standard must be maintained."</p> + +<p>This clear declaration on the financial issue was apparently not a part +of the drama as Mr. Hanna and Mr. McKinley had staged it. The former was +in favor of the gold standard so far as he understood it, but he was not +a student of finance, and he was more interested "in getting what we +got," to use his phrase, than in any very fine distinctions in the gold +plank. Mr. McKinley, on the other hand, was widely known as a +bimetallist; but his reputation throughout the country rested +principally upon his high protective doctrines. He, therefore, wished to +avoid the monetary issue by straddling it in such a way as not to +alienate the large silver faction in the West. Mr. Hanna's biographer +tells us that Mr. Kohlsaat claims to have spent hours on Sunday, June 7, +"trying to convince Mr. McKinley of the necessity of inserting the word +'gold' in the platform. The latter argued in opposition that 90 per cent +of his mail and his callers were against such decisive action, and he +asserted emphatically that thirty days after the convention was over the +currency question would drop out of sight and the tariff would become +the sole issue. The currency plank, tentatively drawn by Mr. McKinley +and his immediate advisers, embodied his resolution to keep the currency +issue subordinate and vague."<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> The leaders in the convention, +however, refused to accept Mr. McKinley's view and forced him to take +the step which he had hoped to avoid.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>In his speech of acceptance, McKinley deprecated and sought to smooth +over the class lines which had been drawn. "It is a cause for painful +regret and solicitude," he said, "that an effort is being made by those +high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the people of this +country into classes and create distinctions among us which in fact do +not exist and are repugnant to our form of government.... Every attempt +made to array class against class, 'the classes against the masses,' +section against section, labor against capital, 'the poor against the +rich,' or interest against interest in the United States is in the +highest degree reprehensible." In the Populist features of the +Democratic platform he saw a grave menace to our institutions, but he +accepted the challenge. "We avoid no issues. We meet the sudden, +dangerous, and revolutionary assault upon law and order and upon those +to whom is confided by the Constitution and laws the authority to uphold +and maintain them, which our opponents have made, with the same courage +that we have faced every emergency since our organization as a party +more than forty years ago."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Democratic Convention</i></p> + +<p>No doubt the decisive action of the Republican convention helped to +consolidate the silver forces in the Democratic party; but even if the +Republicans had obscured the silver question by a vague declaration, +their opponents would have come out definitely against the gold +standard. This was so apparent weeks before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>the Democratic national +assembly met, that conservatives in the party talked of refusing to +participate in the party councils, called at Chicago on July 7. They +were aware also that other and deeper sources of discontent were bound +to manifest themselves when the proceedings got under way.</p> + +<p>The storm which broke over the party had long been gathering. The Grange +and Greenback movements did not disappear with the disappearance of the +outward signs of organization; they only merged into the Populist +movement with cumulative effect. The election of 1892 was ominous, for +the agrarian party had polled a million votes. It had elected members of +Congress and presidential electors; it was organized and determined. It +arose from a mass of discontent which was justified, if misdirected. It +was no temporary wave, as superficial observers have imagined. It had +elements of solidity which neither of the old parties could ignore or +cover up. No one was more conscious of this than the western and +southern leaders in the Democratic party. They had been near the base of +action, and they thought that what the eastern leaders called a riot was +in fact the beginning of a revolution. Unwilling to desert their +traditional party, they decided to make the party desert its traditions, +and they came to the Democratic convention in Chicago prepared for war +to the hilt.</p> + +<p>From the opening to the close, the Democratic convention in Chicago in +1896 was vibrant with class feeling. Even in the prayer with which the +proceedings began, the clergyman pleaded: "May the hearts of all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>be +filled with profound respect and sympathy for our toiling multitudes, +oppressed with burdens too heavy for them to bear—heavier than we +should allow them to bear,"—a prayer that might have been an echo of +some of the speeches made in behalf of the income tax in Congress.</p> + +<p>The struggle began immediately after the prayer, when the presiding +officer, on behalf of the retiring national committee, reported as +temporary chairman of the convention, David B. Hill, of New York, the +unrelenting opponent of the income tax and everything that savored of +it. Immediately afterward, Mr. Clayton, speaking in behalf of +twenty-three members of the national committee as opposed to +twenty-seven, presented a minority report which proposed the Honorable +John W. Daniel, of Virginia, as chairman. Pleas were made that the +traditions of the party ought not to be violated by a refusal to accept +the recommendations of the national committee.</p> + +<p>After a stormy debate, the minority report of the national committee, +proposing Mr. Daniel for chairman, was carried by a vote of 556 to 349. +The states which voted solidly or principally for Mr. Hill were +Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, +New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, +Wisconsin, and Alaska—all of the New England and Central seaboard +states, which represented the accumulated wealth of the country. The +official proceedings of the convention state, "When the result of this +vote was announced, there was a period of nearly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>twenty minutes during +which no business could be transacted, on account of the applause, +cheers, noise and confusion."</p> + +<p>In his opening speech as chairman, Mr. Daniel declared that they were +witnessing "an uprising of the people for American emancipation from the +conspiracies of European kings led by Great Britain, which seek to +destroy one half of the money of the world." He declared in favor of +bimetallism and devoted most of his speech to the monetary question and +to repeated declarations of financial independence in behalf of the +United States. He also attacked, however, the tax system which the +Democrats inherited from the Republicans in 1893, and in speaking of the +deficit which was incurred under the Democratic tariff act he declared +that it would have been met by the income tax incorporated in the tariff +bill "had not the Supreme Court of the United States reversed its +settled doctrines of a hundred years." On the second day of the +convention, while the committees were preparing their reports, Governor +Hogg, of Texas, Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, Governor Altgeld, of +Illinois, and other gentlemen were invited to address the convention.</p> + +<p>The first of these speakers denounced the Republican party as a "great +class maker and mass smasher"; he scorned that "farcical practice" which +had given governmental protection to the wealthy and left the laborer to +protect himself. "This protected class of Republicans," he exclaimed, +"proposes now to destroy labor organizations. To that end it has +organized syndicates, pools, and trusts, and proposes through the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>Federal courts, in the exercise of their unconstitutional powers by the +issuance of extraordinary unconstitutional writs, to strike down, to +suppress, and to overawe those organizations, backed by the Federal +bayonet.... Men who lived there in their mansions and rolled in luxuries +were the only ones to get the benefit of this Republican [sugar] bounty +called protection." Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, exclaimed that +"Christ with a lash drove from the temple a better set of men than those +who for twenty years have shaped the financial policy of this country." +Governor Altgeld declared: "We have seen the streets of our cities +filled with idle men, with hungry women, and with ragged children. The +country to-day looks to the deliberations of this convention to promise +some form of relief." This relief was to be secured by the +remonetization of silver and the emancipation of the country from +English capitalists and eastern financiers.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>On the third day of the convention, Senator Jones, of Arkansas, chairman +of the committee on platform, reported the conclusions of the majority +of his committee. In the platform, as reported, there were many +expressions of class feeling. It declared that the act of 1873 +demonetizing silver caused a fall in the price of commodities produced +by the people, a heavy increase in the public taxation and in all debts, +public and private, the enrichment of the money-lending class at home +and abroad, the prostration of industry, and the impoverishment of the +people. The McKinley tariff was denounced as "a prolific breeder of +trusts and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>monopolies" which had "enriched the few at the expense of +the many."</p> + +<p>The platform made the money question, however, the paramount issue, and +declared for "the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at +the present legal ratio of sixteen to one without waiting for the aid or +consent of any other nation." It stated that, until the monetary +question was settled, no changes should be made in the tariff laws +except for the purpose of meeting the deficit caused by the adverse +decision of the Supreme Court in the income tax cases. The platform at +this point turned upon the Court and asserted that the income tax law +had been passed "by a Democratic Congress in strict pursuance of the +uniform decisions of that Court for nearly a hundred years." It then +hinted at a reconstruction of the Court, declaring that, "it is the duty +of Congress to use all the constitutional power which remains after that +decision or which may come from its reversal by the Court, as it may +hereafter be constituted, so that the burden of taxation may be equally +and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may bear its due proportion +of the expense of the government."</p> + +<p>The platform contained many expressions of sympathy with labor. "As +labor creates the wealth of the country," ran one plank, "we demand the +passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect it in all its +rights." It favored arbitration for labor conflicts in interstate +commerce. Referring to the recent Pullman strike and the labor war in +Chicago, it denounced "arbitrary interference by Federal authorities in +local affairs as a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>violation of the Constitution of the United States +and a crime against free institutions, and we specially object to +government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of +oppression by which Federal judges, in contempt of the laws of the +states and rights of citizens, become at once legislators, judges, and +executioners; and we approve the bill passed by the last session of the +United States Senate, and now pending in the House of Representatives, +relative to contempt in Federal courts and providing for trials by jury +in certain cases of contempt."</p> + +<p>The platform did not expressly attack the administration of President +Cleveland, but the criticism of the intervention by Federal authorities +in local affairs was directed particularly to his interference in the +Chicago strike. The departure from the ordinary practice of praising the +administration of the party's former leader itself revealed the feeling +of the majority of the convention.</p> + +<p>A minority of the platform committee composed of sixteen delegates +presented objections to the platform as reported by Senator Jones and +offered amendments. In their report the minority asserted that many +declarations in the majority report were "ill-considered and ambiguously +phrased, while others are extreme and revolutionary of the +well-recognized principles of the party." The free coinage of silver +independently of other nations, the minority claimed, would place the +United States at once "upon a silver basis, impair contracts, disturb +business, diminish the purchasing powers of the wages of labor, and +inflict irreparable evils upon our nation's commerce and industry." The +minority, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>therefore, proposed the maintenance of the existing gold +standard; and concluded by criticizing the report of the majority as +"defective in failing to make any recognition of the honesty, economy, +courage, and fidelity of the present Democratic administration." This +minority report was supplemented by two amendments proposed by Senator +Hill, one to the effect that any change in the monetary standard should +not apply to existing contracts and the other pledging the party to +suspend, within one year from its enactment, the law providing for the +independent free coinage of silver, in case that coinage did not realize +the expectation of the party to secure a parity between gold and silver +at the ratio of sixteen to one.</p> + +<p>After the presentation of the platform and the proposed changes, an +exciting and disorderly debate followed. The discussion was opened by +Mr. Tillman, who exclaimed that the Civil War had emancipated the black +slaves and that they were now in convention to head a fight for the +emancipation of the white slaves, even if it disrupted the Democratic +party as the Civil War had disrupted it. Without any equivocation and +amid loud and prolonged hissing, he declared that the new issue like the +old one was sectional—a declaration of political war on the part of the +hewers of wood and the drawers of water in the southern and western +states against the East. He compared the growth of fifteen southern +states in wealth and population with the growth of Pennsylvania; he +compared Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri with Massachusetts; +to these five western states he added Kentucky, Tennessee, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>Kansas, and +Nebraska, and compared them all with the state of New York. The upshot +of his comparison was that the twenty-five southern and western states +were in economic bondage to the East and that we now had a money +oligarchy more insolent than the slave oligarchy which the Civil War had +overthrown.</p> + +<p>Mr. Tillman could scarcely contain his wrath when he came to a +consideration of the proposal to indorse Cleveland's administration. He +denounced the Democratic President as "a tool of Wall Street"; and +declared that they could not indorse him without writing themselves down +as "asses and liars." "They ask us to indorse his courage," exclaimed +Mr. Tillman. "Well, now, no one disputes the man's boldness and +obstinacy, because he had the courage to ignore his oath of office, and +redeem, in gold, paper obligations of the government, which were payable +in coin—both gold and silver, and, furthermore, he had the courage to +override the Constitution of the United States and invaded the state of +Illinois with the United States army and undertook to override the +rights and liberties of his fellow citizens. They ask us to indorse his +fidelity. He has been faithful unto death, or rather unto the death of +the Democratic party, so far as he represents it, through the policy of +the friends that he had in New York and ignored the entire balance of +the Union." Mr. Tillman was dissatisfied with the platform because it +did not attack Mr. Cleveland's policies, and, amid great confusion +throughout the hall, he proposed that the platform should "denounce the +administration of President Cleveland as undemocratic and tyrannical." +He warned the convention <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>that, "If this Democratic ship goes to sea on +storm-tossed waves without fumigating itself, without express +repudiation of this man who has sought to destroy his party, then the +Republican ship goes into port and you go down in disgrace, defeated in +November." In his proposed amendment to the platform, he asserted that +Cleveland had used the veto power to thwart the will of the people, and +the appointive power to subsidize the press and debauch Congress. The +issue of bonds to purchase gold, to discharge obligations payable in +coin at the option of the government, and the use of the proceeds for +ordinary expenses, he denounced as "unlawful and usurpations of +authority deserving of impeachment."</p> + +<p>After Senator Jones was given the floor for a few moments to repudiate +the charge brought by Mr. Tillman that the fight was sectional in +character, Senator Hill, of New York, began the real attack upon the +platform proposed by the majority. The Senator opened by saying that he +was a Democrat, but not a revolutionist, that the question before them +was one of business and finance, not of bravery and loyalty, and that +the first step toward monetary reform should be a statement in favor of +international bimetallism. He followed this by a special criticism of +the declaration in favor of the ratio of sixteen to one which was, in +his opinion, not only an unwise and unnecessary thing, but destined to +return to plague them in the future.</p> + +<p>Senator Hill then turned to the income tax which he had so vigorously +denounced on the floor of the Senate two years before. "What was the +necessity," he asked, "for putting into the platform other questions +which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>have never been made the tests of Democratic loyalty before? Why +revive the disputed question of the policy and constitutionality of an +income tax?... Why, I say, should it be left to this convention to make +as a tenet of Democratic faith belief in the propriety and +constitutionality of an income tax law?</p> + +<p>"Why was it wise to assail the Supreme Court of your country? Will some +one tell what that clause means in this platform? 'If you meant what you +said and said what you meant,' will some one explain that provision? +That provision, if it means anything, means that it is the duty of +Congress to reconstruct the Supreme Court of the country. It means, and +such purpose was openly avowed, it means the adding of additional +members to the Court or the turning out of office and reconstructing the +whole Court. I said I will not follow any such revolutionary step as +that. Whenever before in the history of this country has devotion to an +income tax been made the test of Democratic loyalty? Never! Have you not +undertaken enough, my good friends, now without seeking to put in this +platform these unnecessary, foolish, and ridiculous things?"</p> + +<p>"What further have you done?" continued the Senator. "In this platform +you have declared, for the first time in the history of this country, +that you are opposed to any life tenure whatever for office. Our fathers +before us, our Democratic fathers, whom we revere, in the establishment +of this government, gave our Federal judges a life tenure of office. +What necessity was there for reviving this question? How foolish and how +unnecessary, in my opinion. Democrats, whose <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>whole lives have been +devoted to the service of the party, men whose hopes, whose ambitions, +whose aspirations, all lie within party lines, are to be driven out of +the party upon this new question of life tenure for the great judges of +our Federal courts. No, no; this is a revolutionary step, this is an +unwise step, this is an unprecedented step in our party history."</p> + +<p>Senator Hill then turned to a defense of President Cleveland's policy, +denouncing the attempt to bring in the bond issue as foolish and +calculated to put them on the defensive in every school district in the +country. He closed by begging the convention not "to drive old Democrats +out of the party who have grown gray in the service, to make room for a +lot of Republicans and Populists, and political nondescripts."</p> + +<p>Senator Hill's protest was supported by Senator Vilas from Wisconsin, +who saw in the proposed free coinage of silver no difference, except in +degree, between "the confiscation of one half of the credits of the +nation for the benefit of debtors," and "a universal distribution of +property." In this radical scheme there was nothing short of "the +beginning of the overthrow of all law, of all justice, of all security +and repose in the social order." He warned the convention that the +American people would not tolerate the first steps toward the atrocities +of the French Revolution, although "in the vastness of this country +there may be some Marat unknown, some Danton or Robespierre." He asked +the members of the convention when and where robbery by law had come to +be a Democratic doctrine, and with solemn earnestness he pleaded with +them not to launch the old party out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>on a wild career or to "pull down +the pillars of the temple and crush us all beneath the ruins." He +declared that the gold standard was not responsible for falling prices; +that any stable standard had "no more to do with prices than a yard +stick or a pair of scales." He begged them to adopt the proposed +amendment which would limit the effect of the change of standards to +future contracts and thus deliver the platform from an imputation of a +purpose to plunder.</p> + +<p>The closing speech for the platform was then made by Mr. William +Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska, who clothed his plea in the armor of +righteousness, announcing that he had come to speak "in defense of a +cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity." The +spirit and zeal of a crusader ran through his speech. Indeed, when +speaking of the campaign which the Silver Democrats had made to capture +the party, he referred to that frenzy which inspired the crusaders under +the leadership of Peter the Hermit. He spoke in defense of the wage +earner, the lawyer in the country town, the merchant at the crossroads +store, the farmer and the miner,—naming them one after the other and +ranging himself on their side. "We stand here," he said, "representing +people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the +state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we +shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed +our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made +too limited in its application the definition of a business man. The man +who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer. The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation +counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is +as much a business man as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes +forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils +all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural +resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a business man as +the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of +grain. The miners who go a thousand feet into the earth or climb two +thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places +the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade, are as much +business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner +the money of the world.</p> + +<p>"We come to speak for this broader class of business men. Ah, my +friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic +coast; but those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the +wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose—those +pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature's heart, +where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds—out +there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their +children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the +cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead—are as deserving of the +consideration of this party as any people in this country.</p> + +<p>"It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is +not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our +families, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have +been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been +disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity +came.</p> + +<p>"We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy +them!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Bryan then took up the income tax. He repudiated the idea that the +proposed platform contained a criticism of the Supreme Court. He said, +"We have simply called attention to what you know. If you want +criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the court." He denied that +the income tax law was unconstitutional when it was passed, or even when +it went before the Supreme Court for the first time. "It did not become +unconstitutional," he exclaimed, "until one judge changed his mind; and +we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind."</p> + +<p>The monetary question was the great paramount issue. But Mr. Bryan did +not stop to discuss any of the technical points involved in it. +Protection had slain its thousands, and the gold standard had slain its +tens of thousands; the people of the United States did not surrender +their rights of self-government to foreign potentates and powers. The +common people of no land had ever declared in favor of the gold +standard, but bondholders had. If the gold standard was a good thing, +international bimetallism was wrong; if the gold standard was a bad +thing, the United States ought not to wait for the help of other nations +in righting a wrong—this was the line of Mr. Bryan's attack. And he +concluded by saying: "Mr. Carlisle said, in 1878, that this was a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling +masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and, my +friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side +shall the Democratic party fight? Upon the side of the idle holders of +idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? That is the +question that the party must answer first; and then it must be answered +by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as +described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who +have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party.</p> + +<p>"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if +you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity +will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if +you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find +its way up and through every class that rests upon it.</p> + +<p>"You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the +gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad +and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and +your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms, +and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in this country.</p> + +<p>"My friends, we shall declare that this nation is able to legislate for +its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent +of any other nation on earth, and upon that issue we expect to carry +every single State in this Union.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>"I shall not slander the fair State of Massachusetts, nor the State of +New York, by saying that when its citizens are confronted with the +proposition, 'Is this nation able to attend to its own business?'—I +will not slander either one by saying that the people of those States +will declare our helpless impotency as a nation to attend to our own +business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but +3,000,000, had the courage to declare their political independence of +every other nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants, when we have +grown to 70,000,000, declare that we are less independent than our +forefathers? No, my friends, it will never be the judgment of this +people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If +they say bimetallism is good, but we cannot have it till some nation +helps us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because +England has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then let England have +bimetallism because the United States have.</p> + +<p>"If they dare to come out and in the open defend the gold standard as a +good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the +producing masses of the Nation and the world. Having behind us the +commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling +masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to +them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of +thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."</p> + +<p>The record of the convention states that "the conclusion of Mr. Bryan's +speech was the signal for a tremendous outburst of noise, cheers, etc. +The standards <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>of many states were carried from their places and +gathered about the Nebraska delegation." Never in the history of +convention oratory had a speaker so swayed the passions of his auditors +and so quickly made himself unquestionably "the man of the hour."</p> + +<p>After some parliamentary skirmishing, Mr. Hill succeeded in securing +from the convention a vote on the proposition of the minority in favor +of the maintenance of the gold standard, "until international +coöperation among the leading nations in the coinage of silver can be +secured." For this proposition the eastern states voted almost solidly, +with some help from the western states. Connecticut gave her twelve +votes for the substitute amendment; Delaware, five of her six votes; +Maine, ten out of twelve; Maryland, twelve out of sixteen; +Massachusetts, twenty-seven out of thirty; New Hampshire, New Jersey, +New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont gave their entire vote +for the gold standard. The eastern states secured a little support in +the West and South. Minnesota gave eleven out of seventeen votes for the +amendment; Wisconsin voted solidly for it; Florida gave three out of +eight votes; Washington gave three out of eight; Alaska voted solidly +for it; the District of Columbia and New Mexico each cast two out of the +six votes allotted to them in the convention. Out of a total of 929 +votes cast, 303 were for the minority amendment and 626 against it.</p> + +<p>The minority proposition to commend "the honesty, economy, courage, and +fidelity of the present Democratic administration" was then put to the +convention and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>received a vote of 357 to 564—nine not voting. The +additional support to the eastern states came this time principally from +California, Michigan, and Minnesota; but the division between the +Northeast and the West and South was sharply maintained. The adoption of +the platform as reported by the majority of the committee was then +effected by a vote of 628 to 301.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the evening the convention turned to the selection of candidates. In +the nominating speeches, the character of the revolution in American +politics came out even more clearly than in the debates on the platform. +The enemy had been routed, and the convention was in the hands of the +radicals, and they did not have to compromise and pick phrases in the +hope of harmony.</p> + +<p>Richard Bland, of Missouri, was the first man put before the convention, +and he was represented as "the living, breathing embodiment of the +silver cause"—a candidate chosen "not from the usurer's den, nor temple +of Mammon where the clink of gold drowns the voice of patriotism; but +from the farm, the workshop, the mine—from the hearts and homes of the +people." Mr. Overmeyer, of Kansas, seconded the nomination of Mr. +Bland—"that Tiberius Gracchus"—"in the name of the farmers of the +United States; in the name of the homeless wanderers who throng your +streets in quest of bread; in the name of that mighty army of the +unemployed; in the name of that mightier army which has risen in +insurrection against every form of despotism."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bryan was presented as that young giant of the West, that friend of +the people, that champion of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>lowly, that apostle and prophet of +this great crusade for financial reform—a new Cicero to meet the new +Catilines of to-day—to lead the Democratic party, the defender of the +poor, and the protector of the oppressed, which this day sent forth +"tidings of great joy to all the toiling millions of this overburdened +land."</p> + +<p>On the first ballot, fourteen candidates were voted for, but Mr. Bland +and Mr. Bryan were clearly in the lead. On the fifth ballot, Mr. Bryan +was declared nominated by a vote of 652 out of 930. Throughout the +balloting, most of the eastern states abstained from voting. Ten +delegates from Connecticut, seventeen or eighteen from Massachusetts, a +majority from New Jersey, all of the delegates from New York, and a +majority of the delegates from Wisconsin refused to take any part at +all. Pennsylvania remained loyal throughout to the nominee from that +state, Pattison, although it was a forlorn hope. Thus in the balloting +for candidates, we discover the same alignment of the East against the +West and South which was evident in the vote on the platform. In the +vote on the Vice President which followed, the eastern states refused to +participate—from 250 to 260 delegates abstaining during the five +ballots which resulted in the nomination of Sewall. New York +consistently abstained; so did New Jersey; while a majority of the +delegates from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts refused to take part.</p> + +<p>In the notification speech delivered by Mr. Stone at Madison Square +Garden in New York on August 12, the Democratic party was represented as +the champion of the masses and their leader as "a plain man of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>people." He defended the men of the Chicago convention against the +charge of being cranks, anarchists, and socialists, declaring them to be +the representatives of the industrial and producing classes who +constituted "the solid strength and safety of the state" against the +combined aggressions of foreign money changers and Anglicized American +millionaires—"English toadies and the pampered minions of corporate +rapacity." Against the selfish control of the privileged classes, he +placed the sovereignty of the people, declaring that within both of the +old parties there was a mighty struggle for supremacy between those who +stood for the sovereignty of the people and those who believed in "the +divinity of pelf." He took pride in the fact that the convention +represented "the masses of the people, the great industrial and +producing masses of the people. It represented the men who plow and +plant, who fatten herds, who toil in shops, who fell forests, and delve +in mines. But are these to be regarded with contumely and addressed in +terms of contempt? Why, sir, these are the men who feed and clothe the +nation; whose products make up the sum of our exports; who produce the +wealth of the republic; who bear the heaviest burdens in times of peace; +who are ready always to give their lifeblood for their country's +flag—in short, these are the men whose sturdy arms and faithful hands +uphold the stupendous fabric of our civilization."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bryan's speech of acceptance was almost entirely devoted to a +discussion of the silver question. But he could not ignore the charge, +which had then become widespread throughout the country, that his party +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>meditated an attack upon the rights of property and was the foe of +social order and national honor. He repudiated the idea that his party +believed that equality of talents and wealth could be produced by human +institutions; he declared his belief in private property as the stimulus +to endeavor and compensation for toil; but he took his stand upon the +principle that all should be equal before the law. Among his foes he +discovered "those who find a pecuniary advantage in advocating the +doctrines of non-interference when great aggregations of wealth are +trespassing upon the rights of individuals." The government should +enforce the laws against all enemies of the public weal, not only the +highwayman who robs the unsuspecting traveler, but also the +transgressors who "through the more polite and less hazardous means of +legislation appropriate to their own use the proceeds of the toil of +others."</p> + +<p>In his opinion, the Democratic income tax was not based upon hostility +to the rich, but was simply designed to apportion the burdens of +government more equitably among those who enjoyed its protection. As to +the matter of the Supreme Court, there was no suggestion in the platform +of a dispute with that tribunal. For a hundred years the Court had +upheld the underlying principle of the income tax, and twenty years +before "this same Court sustained without a dissenting voice an income +tax law almost identical with the one recently overthrown." The platform +did not propose an attack on the Supreme Court; some future Court had as +much right "to return to the judicial precedents of a century as the +present Court had to depart from them. When <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>Courts allow rehearings +they admit that error is possible; the late decision against the income +tax was rendered by a majority of one after a rehearing."</p> + +<p>Discussing the monetary question, Mr. Bryan confined his argument to a +few principles which he deemed fundamental. He disposed of international +bimetallism by questioning the good faith of those who advocated it and +declaring that there was an impassable gulf between a universal gold +standard and bimetallism, whether independent or international. He +rejected the proposition that any metal represented an absolutely just +standard of value, but he argued that bimetallism was better than +monometallism because it made a nearer approach to stability, honesty, +and justice than a gold standard possibly could. Any legislation +lessening the stock of standard money increased the purchasing power of +money and lowered the monetary value of all other forms of property. He +endeavored to show the advantages to be derived from bimetallism by +farmers, wage earners, and the professional classes, and asked whether +the mass of the people did not have the right to use the ballot to +protect themselves from the disastrous consequences of a rising +standard, particularly in view of the fact that the relatively few whose +wealth consisted largely in fixed investments had not hesitated to use +the ballot to enhance the value of their investments.</p> + +<p>On the question of the ratio, sixteen to one, Mr. Bryan declared that, +because gold and silver were limited in the quantities then in hand and +in annual production, legislation could fix the ratio between them, +simply <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>following the law of supply and demand. The charge of +repudiation he met with an argument in kind, declaring it to come "with +poor grace from those who are seeking to add to the weight of existing +debts by legislation which makes money dearer, and who conceal their +designs against the general welfare under the euphonious pretense that +they are upholding public credit and national honor." He concluded with +a warning to his hearers that they could not afford to join the money +changers in supporting a financial policy which destroyed the purchasing +power of the product of toil and ended with discouraging the creation of +wealth.</p> + +<p>In a letter of acceptance of September 9, 1896, Mr. Bryan added little +to the speeches he had made in the convention and in accepting the +nomination. He attacked the bond policy of President Cleveland and +declared that to assert that "the government is dependent upon the good +will or assistance of any portion of the people other than a +constitutional majority is to assert that we have a government in form +but without vital force." Capital, he urged, was created by labor, and +"since the producers of wealth create the nation's prosperity in time of +peace and defend the nation's flag in time of peril, their interests +ought at all times to be considered by those who stand in official +positions." He criticized the abuses in injunction proceedings and +favored the principle of trial by jury in such cases. He declared that +it was not necessary to discuss the tariff at that time because the +money question was the overshadowing issue, and all minor matters must +be laid aside in favor of united action on that moot point.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>A few of the advocates of the gold standard in the Democratic party, who +could not accept the Chicago platform and were yet unwilling to go over +to the Republicans, held a convention at Indianapolis in September, and +nominated a ticket, headed by John M. Palmer for President, and Simon +Buckner for Vice President. This party, through the address of its +executive committee calling the convention, declared that Democrats were +absolved from all obligations to support the Chicago platform because +the convention had departed from the recognized Democratic faith and had +announced doctrines which were "destructive of national honor and +private obligation and tend to create sectional and class distinctions +and engender discord and strife among the people." The address +repudiated the doctrine of majority rule in the party, declaring that +when a Democratic convention departed from the principles of the party, +no Democrat was under any moral obligation to support its action.</p> + +<p>The principles of the party which, the address declared, had been +adhered to from Jefferson to Cleveland "without variableness or a shadow +of turning" were summed up in a policy of <i>laissez faire</i>. A true +Democrat, ran the address, "believes, and this is the cardinal doctrine +of his political faith, in the ability of every individual unassisted, +if unfettered by law, to achieve his own happiness, and therefore that +to every citizen there should be secured the right and opportunity +peaceably to pursue whatever course of conduct he would, provided such +conduct deprived no other individual of the equal enjoyment of the same +right and opportunity. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>He stood for freedom of speech, freedom of +conscience, freedom of trade, and freedom of contract, all of which are +implied by the century-old battle cry of the Democratic party +'Individual Liberty!' ... Every true Democrat ... profoundly disbelieves +in the ability of the government, through paternal legislation, or +supervision, to increase the happiness of the nation."</p> + +<p>In the platform adopted at the convention, the "National Democratic +party" was pledged to the general principles enunciated in the address +and went on record as "opposed to all paternalism and all class +legislation." It declared that the Chicago convention had attacked +"individual freedom, the right of private contract, the independence of +the judiciary, and the authority of the President to enforce Federal +laws." It denounced protection and the free coinage of silver as two +schemes designed for the personal profit of the few at the expense of +the masses; it declared in favor of the gold standard, indorsed +President Cleveland's administration, and went to the support of the +Supreme Court by condemning "all efforts to degrade that tribunal or to +impair the confidence and respect which it has deservedly held."</p> + +<p>This platform received the support of President Cleveland, who, in +response to an invitation to attend the meeting at which the candidates +were to be notified, said: "As a Democrat, devoted to the principles and +integrity of my party, I should be delighted to be present on an +occasion so significant and to mingle with those who are determined that +the voice of true Democracy shall not be smothered and who insist that +the glorious standard shall be borne aloft as of old in faithful +hands."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>In their acceptance speeches, Palmer and Buckner devoted more attention +to condemning the Chicago platform than to explaining the principles for +which they stood. General Buckner said: "The Chicago Convention would +wipe virtually out of existence the Supreme Court which interprets the +law, forgetting that our ancestors in England fought for hundreds of +years to obtain a tribunal of justice which was free from executive +control. They would wipe that out of existence and subject it to the +control of party leaders to carry out the dictates of the party—they +would paralyze the arm of the general government and forbid the powers +to protect the lives and property of its citizens. That convention in +terms almost placed a lighted torch in the hands of the incendiary and +urged the mob to proceed without restraint to pillage and murder at +their discretion."</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Campaign</i></p> + +<p>The campaign which followed the conventions was the most remarkable in +the long history of our quadrennial spectacles. Terror is always a +powerful instrument in politics, and it was never used with greater +effect than in the summer and autumn of 1896. Some of Mr. Bryan's +utterances, particularly on the income tax, frightened the rich into +believing, or pretending to believe, that his election would be the +beginning of a wholesale confiscation. The Republicans replied to Mr. +Bryan's threats by using the greatest of all terrors, the terror of +unemployment, with tremendous effect. Everywhere they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>let the country +understand that the defeat of Mr. McKinley would close factories and +throw thousands of workingmen out of employment, and manufacturers and +railways were accused by Mr. Bryan of exercising coercion on a large +scale.</p> + +<p>To this terror from above, the Democrats responded by creating terror +below, by stirring deep-seated class feeling against the Republican +candidate and his managers. In a letter given out from the Democratic +headquarters in Chicago, on September 12, 1896, Mr. Jones, chairman of +the Democratic national committee, said: "Against the people in this +campaign are arrayed the consolidated forces of wealth and corporate +power. The classes which have grown fat by reason of Federal legislation +and the single gold standard have combined to fasten their fetters still +more firmly upon the people and are organizing every precinct of every +county of every state in the Union with this purpose in view. To meet +and defeat this corrupt and unholy alliance the people themselves must +organize and be organized.... It will minimize the effect of the +millions of dollars that are being used against us, and defeat those +influences which wealth and corporate power are endeavoring to use to +override the will of the people and corrupt the integrity of free +institutions."</p> + +<p>Owing to the nature of the conflict enormous campaign funds were +secured. The silver miners helped to finance Mr. Bryan, but their +contributions were trivial compared with the immense sums raised by Mr. +Hanna from protected interests, bankers, and financiers. With this great +fund, speakers were employed by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>thousands, newspapers were +subsidized, party literature circulated by the ton, whole states polled +in advance, and workers employed to carry the Republican fight into +every important precinct in the country. The God of battles was on the +side of the heaviest battalions. With all the most powerful engines for +creating public sentiment against him, Mr. Bryan, in spite of his +tremendous popular appeal, was doomed to defeat.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly, as was said at the time, most of the leading thinkers in +finance and politics were against Mr. Bryan, and if there is anything in +the verdict of history, the silver issue could not stand the test of +logic and understanding. But it must not be presumed that it was merely +a battle of wits, and that demagogic appeals to passions which were +supposed to be associated with Mr. Bryan's campaign were confined to his +partisans. On the contrary, the Republicans employed all of the forms of +personal vituperation. For example, that staid journal of Republicanism, +the <i>New York Tribune</i>, attributed the growth of Bryanism to the +"assiduous culture of the basest passions of the least worthy member of +the community.... Its nominal head was worthy of the cause. Nominal +because the wretched, rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid vanity and +mouthing resounding rottenness, was not the real leader of that league +of hell. He was only a puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld, the +anarchist, and Debs, the revolutionist, and other desperadoes of that +stripe. But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was,—willing and eager. None +of his masters was more apt than he at lies and forgeries and +blasphemies and all the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>nameless iniquities of that campaign against +the Ten Commandments." That such high talk by those who constituted +themselves the guardians of public credit, patriotism, and the Ten +Commandments was not calculated to sooth the angry passions of their +opponents needs no demonstration here.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Argument, party organization and machinery, the lavish use of money, and +terror won the day for the Republicans. The solid East and Middle West +overwhelmed Mr. Bryan, giving Mr. McKinley 271 electoral votes and +7,111,607 popular votes, as against 176 electoral and 6,509,052 popular +votes cast for the Democratic candidate.</p> + +<p>The decisive defeat of Mr. Bryan put an end to the silver issue for +practical purposes, although, as we shall see, it was again raised in +1900. The Republicans, however, delayed action for political reasons, +and it was not until almost four years had elapsed that they made the +gold dollar the standard by an act of Congress approved on March 4, +1900. Thus the war of the standards was closed, but the question of the +currency was not settled, and the old issue of inflation and contraction +continued to haunt the paths of the politicians. From time to time, the +prerogatives of the national banks, organized under the law of 1863 +(modified in 1901), were questioned in political circles, and in 1908 an +attempt was made by act of Congress to give the currency more elasticity +by authorizing the banks to form associations and issue notes on the +basis of certain securities. Nevertheless, no serious changes were made +in the financial or banking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>systems before the close of the year 1912. +The attention of the country, shortly after the campaign of 1896, was +diverted to the spectacular events of the Spanish War, and for a time +appeals to patriotism subdued the passions of the radicals.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> See below, p. 239.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> H. Croly, <i>M. A. Hanna</i>, p. 195.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h2>IMPERIALISM</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The Republicans triumphed in 1896, but the large vote for Mr. Bryan and +his platform and the passions aroused by the campaign made it clear to +the far-sighted that, whatever might be the fate of free silver, new +social elements had entered American politics. It was fortunate for the +conservative interests that the quarrel with Spain came shortly after +Mr. McKinley's election, and they were able to employ that ancient +political device, "a vigorous foreign policy," to divert the public mind +from domestic difficulties. This was particularly acceptable to the +populace at the time, for there had been no war for more than thirty +years, and, contrary to their assertions on formal occasions, the +American people enjoy wars beyond measure, if the plain facts of history +are allowed to speak.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<p>Since 1876 there had been no very spectacular foreign affair to fix the +attention of the public mind, except the furor worked up over the +application of the Monroe Doctrine to Venezuela during President +Cleveland's second administration. For a long time that country and +Great Britain had been waging a contest over the western boundary of +British Guiana; and the United States, on the appeal of Venezuela, had +taken a slight <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>interest in the dispute, generally assuming that the +merits of the case were on the side of the South American republic. In +1895, it became apparent that Great Britain did not intend to yield any +points in the case, and Venezuela began to clamor again for protection, +this time with effect. In July of that year, the Secretary of State, +Richard Olney, demanded that Great Britain answer whether she was +willing to arbitrate the question, and announced that the United States +was master in this hemisphere by saying: "The United States is +practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the +subjects to which it confines its interposition. Why? It is not because +of the pure friendship or good will felt for it. It is not simply by +reason of its high character as a civilized state, nor because wisdom +and equity are the invariable characteristics of the dealings of the +United States. It is because in addition to all other grounds, its +infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master +of the situation and practically invulnerable against any or all other +powers."</p> + +<p>This extraordinary document, to put it mildly, failed to arouse the +warlike sentiment in England which its language invited, and Lord +Salisbury replied for the British government that this startling +extension of the Monroe Doctrine was not acceptable in the present +controversy and that the arbitration of the question could not be +admitted by his country. This moderate reply brought from President +Cleveland a message to Congress on December 17, 1895, which created in +the United States at least all the outward and visible signs of the +preliminaries to a war over the matter. He asked Congress to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>create a +commission to ascertain the true boundary between Venezuela and British +Guiana, and then added that it would be the duty of the United States +"to resist by every means in its power, as a wilful aggression upon its +rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or +the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which, +after investigation, we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela." +He declared that he was conscious of the responsibilities which he thus +incurred, but intimated that war between Great Britain and the United +States, much as it was to be deplored, was not comparable to "a supine +submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national +self-respect and honor." In other words, we were to decide the dispute +ourselves and go to war on Great Britain if we found her in possession +of lands which in our opinion did not belong to her.</p> + +<p>This defiant attitude on the part of President Cleveland, while it +aroused a wave of enthusiasm among those sections of the population +moved by bold talk about the unimpeachable integrity of the United +States and its daring defense of right everywhere, called forth no +little criticism in high places. Contrary to expectation, it was not met +by bluster on the part of Great Britain, but it was rather deplored +there as threatening a breach between the two countries over an +insignificant matter. Moreover, when the commission created by Congress +set to work on the boundary dispute, the British government courteously +replied favorably to a request for assistance in the search for +evidence. Finally, Great Britain yielded and agreed to the earlier +proposition on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>the part of the United States that the issue be +submitted to arbitration; and this happy outcome of the matter +contributed not a little to Mr. Cleveland's reputation as "a sterling +representative of the true American spirit." This was not diminished by +the later discovery that Great Britain was wholly right in her claims in +South America.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Venezuelan controversy was an echo of the time-honored Monroe +Doctrine and was without any deeper economic significance. There were +not wanting, however, signs that the United States was prepared +economically to accept that type of imperialism that had long been +dominant in British politics and had sprung into prominence in Germany, +France, and Italy during the generation following the Franco-Prussian +War. This newer imperialism does not rest primarily upon a desire for +more territory, but rather upon the necessity for markets in which to +sell manufactured goods and for opportunities to invest surplus +accumulations of capital. It begins in a search for trade, advances to +intervention on behalf of the interests involved, thence to +protectorates, and finally to annexation. By the inexorable necessity of +the present economic system, markets and safe investment opportunities +must be found for surplus products and accumulated capital. All the +older countries being overstocked and also forced into this new form of +international rivalry, the drift is inevitably in the direction of the +economically backward countries: Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South +America. Economic necessity thus overrides American <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>isolation and +drives the United States into world politics.</p> + +<p>Although the United States had not neglected the protection of its +interests from the days when it thrashed the Barbary pirates, sent Caleb +Cushing to demand an open door in China, and dispatched Commodore Perry +to batter down Japanese exclusiveness, the relative importance of its +world operations was slight until manufacturing and commerce gained +their ascendancy over agriculture.</p> + +<p>The pressure of the newer interests on American foreign policy had +already been felt when the demand for the war with Spain came. In 1889, +the United States joined with Great Britain and Germany in a +protectorate over the Samoan Islands, thus departing, according to +Secretary Gresham, from our "traditional and well-established policy of +avoiding entangling alliances with foreign powers in relation to objects +remote from this hemisphere."<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> Preparations had been made under +Harrison's administration for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, +after a revolution, largely fomented by American interests there, had +overthrown the established government; but this movement was blocked for +the time being by President Cleveland, who learned through a special +commissioner, sent to investigate the affair, that the upheaval had been +due principally to American disgust for the weak and vacillating +government of the Queen. It was not until the middle of the Spanish War +that Congress, recognizing the importance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>of the Hawaiian Islands in +view of the probable developments resulting from Admiral Dewey's victory +in the Philippines, annexed them to the United States by joint +resolution on July 6, 1898.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Spanish War</i></p> + +<p>It required, however, the Spanish War and the acquisition of the insular +dependencies to bring imperialism directly into politics as an +overshadowing issue and to secure the frank acknowledgment of the new +emphasis on world policy which economic interests demanded. It is true +that Cuba had long been an object of solicitude on the part of the +United States. Before the Civil War, the slave power was anxious to +secure its annexation as a state to help offset the growing predominance +of the North; and during the ten years' insurrection from 1868 to 1878, +when a cruel guerilla warfare made all life and property in Cuba unsafe, +intervention was again suggested. But it was not until the renewal of +the insurrection in 1895 that American economic interests in Cuba were +strong enough to induce interference. Slavery was gone, but capital, +still more dominant, had taken its place.</p> + +<p>In 1895, Americans had more than fifty million dollars invested in Cuban +business, and our commerce with the Island had risen to one hundred +millions annually. The effect of the Cuban revolt against Spain was not +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>only to diminish trade, but also to destroy American property. The +contest between the rebels and Spanish troops was characterized by +extreme cruelty and a total disregard for life and property. Gomez, the +leader of the revolt, resorted to the policy made famous by Sherman on +his march to the sea. He laid waste the land to starve the Spaniards and +compel American interference if possible. By a proclamation of November +6, 1895, he ordered that plantation buildings and railway connections +should be destroyed and sugar factories closed everywhere; what he left +undone was finished by the Spanish general, Weyler, who concentrated the +inhabitants of the rural districts in the centers occupied by the +troops. Under such a policy, business was simply paralyzed; and within +less than two years Americans had filed against Spain claims amounting +to sixteen million dollars for property destroyed in the revolution.</p> + +<p>The atrocities connected with the insurrection attracted the sympathy of +the American people at once. Sermons were preached against Spanish +barbarism; orators demanded that the Cuban people be "succored in their +heroic struggle for the rights of men and of citizens"; Mr. Hearst's +newspapers appealed daily to the people to compel governmental action at +once, and denounced the tedious methods of negotiation, in view of an +inevitable war. Cuban juntas formed in American cities raised money and +supplied arms for the insurrectionists. All the enormous American +property interests at stake in the Island, with their widespread and +influential ramifications in the United States, demanded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>action. The +war fever, always quick to be kindled, rose all over the country.</p> + +<p>Even amid the exciting campaign of 1896, the Democrats found time to +express sympathy with the Cubans, and the Republicans significantly +remarked that inasmuch as Spain was "unable to protect the property or +lives of resident American citizens," the good offices of the United +States should be tendered with a view to pacification and independence. +Perhaps, not unaware of the impending crisis, the Republicans also +favored a continued enlargement of the navy to help maintain the +"rightful influence" of the United States among the nations of the +earth.</p> + +<p>President Cleveland, repudiated by his own party and having no desire to +"play the game of politics," assumed an attitude of neutrality in the +conflict and denied to the Cubans the rights of belligerents. He offered +to Spain the good offices of the United States in mediation with the +insurgents—a tender which was rejected by Spain with the suggestion +that the United States might more vigorously suppress the unlawful +assistance which some of its citizens were lending to the +revolutionists. Mr. Cleveland's second administration closed without any +positive action on the Cuban question.</p> + +<p>Within four months after his inauguration, President McKinley protested +strongly to Spain against her policy in Cuba, and during the summer and +autumn and winter he conducted a running fire of negotiations with +Spain. Congress was impatient for armed intervention and fretted at the +tedious methods of diplomacy. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>Spain shrewdly made counter thrusts to +every demand advanced by the United States, but made no outward sign of +improvement in the affairs of Cuba, even after the recall of General +Weyler. In February, 1898, a private letter, written by De Lôme, the +Spanish minister at Washington, showing contempt for Mr. McKinley and +some shifty ideas of diplomacy, was acquired by the <i>New York Journal</i> +and published. This stirred the country and led to the recall of the +minister by his home government. Meanwhile the battleship <i>Maine</i> was +sent to Havana, officially to resume friendly relations at Cuban ports, +but not without an ulterior regard for the necessity of protecting the +lives and property of Americans in jeopardy. The incident of the Spanish +minister's letter had hardly been closed before the <i>Maine</i> was blown up +and sunk on the evening of February 15, 1898. The death of two officers +and two hundred and fifty-eight of the crew was a tragedy which moved +the nation beyond measure, and with the cry "Remember the <i>Maine</i>" +public opinion was worked up to a point of frenzy.</p> + +<p>A commission was appointed at once to inquire into the cause of the +disaster, and on March 21 it reported that the <i>Maine</i> had been +destroyed by an explosion of a submarine mine which set off some of the +ship's magazines. Within a week, negotiations with Spain were resumed, +and that country made generous promises to restore peace in the Island +and permit a Cuban parliament to be established in the interests of +local autonomy. None of Spain's promises were regarded as satisfactory +by the administration, and on April 4, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>General Woodford, the American +representative in that country, was instructed to warn the ministry that +no effective armistice had been offered the Cubans and that President +McKinley would shortly lay the matter before Congress—which meant war. +After some delay, during which representatives of the European powers +and the Pope were at work in the interests of peace, Spain promised to +suspend hostilities, call a Cuban parliament, and restore a reasonable +autonomy.</p> + +<p>On the day after the receipt of this promise, President McKinley sent +his war message to Congress without explaining fully the latest +concessions made by Spain. It was claimed by the Spanish government that +it had yielded absolutely everything short of independence and that all +of the demands of the United States had been met. Some eminent editors +and publicists in the United States have since accepted this view of the +affair and sharply criticized the President for not making public the +full text of Spain's last concession on the day that he sent his war +message to Congress. Those who take this view hold that President +McKinley believed war to be inevitable and desirable all along, but +merely wished to bring public opinion to the breaking point before +shifting the responsibility to Congress. The President's defenders, +however, claim that no credence could be placed in the good faith of +Spain and that the intolerable conditions in Cuba would never have been +removed under Spanish administration, no matter what promises might have +been made.</p> + +<p>In his war message of April 11, 1898, Mr. McKinley brought under review +the conditions in Cuba and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>history of the controversy, coming to +the conclusion that the dictates of humanity, the necessity of +protecting American lives and property in Cuba, and the chronic +disorders in the Island warranted armed intervention. Congress responded +by an overwhelming vote on April 19, in favor of a resolution declaring +that Cuba should be free, that Spain's withdrawal should be demanded, +and the President be authorized to use the military and naval forces of +the country to carry the decree into effect. In the enthusiasm of the +hour, Congress also specifically disclaimed any intention of exercising +"sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the +pacification thereof." Thus war was declared on the anniversary of the +battle of Lexington.</p> + +<p>In the armed conflict which followed, the most striking and effective +operations were on the sea. In anticipation of the war, Commodore Dewey, +in command of the Asiatic station, had been instructed as early as +February to keep his squadron at Hongkong, coaled, and ready, in event +of a declaration of hostilities, to begin offensive operations in the +Philippine Islands. The battleship <i>Oregon</i>, then off the coast of +Washington, was ordered to make the long voyage around the Horn, which +has now become famous in the annals of the sea. At the outbreak of the +war, Rear Admiral Sampson, in charge of the main squadron at Key West, +was instructed to blockade important stretches of the coast of Cuba and +to keep watch for the arrival of the Spanish fleet, under Admiral +Cervera, which was then on the high seas, presumably bound for Cuba.</p> + +<p>The first naval blow was struck by Admiral Dewey, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>who had left Chinese +waters on receiving news of the declaration of war and had reached +Manila Bay on the evening of April 30. Early the following morning he +opened fire on the inferior Spanish fleet under the guns of Cavité and +Manila, and within a few hours he had destroyed the enemy's ships, +killed nearly four hundred men, and silenced the shore batteries without +sustaining the loss of a single man or suffering any injuries to his own +ships worthy of mention. News of this extraordinary exploit reached the +United States by way of Hongkong on May 6, and the hero of the day was, +by popular acclaim, placed among the immortals of our naval history.</p> + +<p>While celebrating the victory off Manila, the government was anxiously +awaiting the arrival of the Spanish fleet in American waters which were +being carefully patrolled. In spite of the precautions of Admiral +Sampson, Cervera was able to slip into the harbor of Santiago on May 19, +where he was immediately blockaded by the American naval forces. An +attempt was made to stop up the mouth of the harbor by sending +Lieutenant Richmond P. Hobson to sink a collier at the narrow entrance, +but this spectacular move, carried out under a galling fire, failed to +accomplish the purpose of the projectors, and Hobson and his men fell +into the hands of the Spaniards.</p> + +<p>The time had now come for bringing the land forces into coöperation with +the navy for a combined attack on Santiago, and on June 14 a large body +of troops, principally regulars, embarked from Tampa, where men and +supplies had been concentrating for weeks. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>The management of the army +was in every respect inferior to the administration of the navy. +Secretary Alger, of the War Department, was a politician of the old +school, who could not allow efficiency to interfere with the "proper" +distribution of patronage; and as a result of his dilatory methods (to +put it mildly) and the general unpreparedness of the army, the camp at +Tampa was grossly mismanaged. Sanitary conveniences were indescribably +bad, supply contractors sold decayed meat and wretched food to the +government, heavy winter clothing was furnished to men about to fight in +the summer time in a tropical climate, and, to cap the climax of +blundering, inadequate provisions were made for landing the troops when +they reached Cuba on June 22.</p> + +<p>The forces dispatched to Cuba were placed under the command of General +Shafter, but owing to his illness the fighting was principally carried +on under Generals Lawton and Wheeler. The most serious conflicts in the +land campaign occurred at El Caney and San Juan Hill, both strategic +points near Santiago. At the second of these places the famous "Rough +Riders" under Colonel Roosevelt distinguished themselves by a charge up +the hill under heavy fire and by being the first to reach the enemy's +intrenchments. In spite of several engagements, in which the fortunes of +the day were generally on the side of the Americans, sickness among the +soldiers and lack of supplies caused General Shafter to cable, on July +3, that without additional support he could not undertake a successful +storming of Santiago.</p> + +<p>At this critical juncture, the naval forces once more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>distinguished +themselves, and made further bloody fighting on land unnecessary, by +destroying Cervera's fleet which attempted to make its escape from the +Santiago harbor on the morning of July 3. The American ships were then +in charge of Commodore Schley, for Admiral Sampson had left watch early +that morning for a conference with General Shafter; and the sailors +acquitted themselves with the same skill that marked Dewey's victory at +Manila. Within less than four hours' fighting all the Spanish ships were +destroyed or captured with a loss of about six hundred killed and +wounded, while the Americans sustained a loss of only one man killed and +one wounded. This victory, of course, marked the doom of Santiago, +although it did not surrender formally until July 17, after two days' +bombardment by the American ships.</p> + +<p>The fall of Santiago ended military operations in Cuba, and General +Miles, who had come to the front in time to assist General Shafter in +arranging the terms of the surrender of Santiago, proceeded at once to +Porto Rico. He was rapidly gaining possession of that Island in an +almost bloodless campaign when news came of the signing of the peace +protocol on August 12. Unfortunately it required longer to convey the +information to the Philippines that the war was at an end, and on the +day after the signature of the protocol, that is, August 13, General +Merritt and Admiral Dewey carried Manila by storm.</p> + +<p>As early as July 26, 1898, the Spanish government approached President +McKinley through M. Cambon, the French ambassador at Washington, and +asked for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>a preliminary statement of the terms on which the war could +be brought to a close. After some skirmishing, in which Spain +reluctantly yielded to the American ultimatum, a peace protocol was +signed on August 12, to the effect that Cuba should be independent, +Porto Rico ceded to the United States, and Manila occupied pending the +final negotiations, which were opened at Paris by special commissioners +on October 1.</p> + +<p>When the commissioners met according to arrangements, the government of +the United States apparently had not come to a conclusion as to the +final disposition of the Philippines. The administration was anxious not +to go too far in advance of public opinion, at least so far as official +pronunciamento was concerned, although powerful commercial interests +were busy impressing the public mind with the advantages to be derived +from the retention of the distant Pacific Islands. In his instructions +to the peace commissioners, on the eve of their departure, Mr. McKinley, +while denying that there had originally been any intention of conquest +in the Pacific, declared that the march of events had imposed new duties +upon us, and added: "Incidental to our tenure in the Philippines is the +commercial opportunity to which American statesmanship cannot be +indifferent. It is just to use every legitimate means for the +enlargement of American trade." While stating that the possession of +territory was less important than an "open door" for trade purposes, he +concluded by instructing the commissioners that the United States could +not "accept less than the cession in full right and sovereignty of the +Island of Luzon."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>The peace commissioners were divided among themselves as to the policy +to be pursued with regard to the Philippines; but in the latter part of +October they received definite instructions from the Secretary of State, +Mr. John Hay, that the cession of Luzon alone could not be justified "on +political, commercial, or humanitarian grounds," and that the entire +archipelago must be surrendered by Spain. The Spanish commissioners +protested vigorously against this demand, on the theory that it was +outside of the terms of the peace protocol, but they were forced to +yield, receiving as a sort of consolation prize the payment of twenty +million dollars in compensation for the loss.</p> + +<p>The final treaty, as signed on December 10, 1898, embodied the following +terms: the independence of Cuba, the cession of Porto Rico, Guam, and +the Philippines to the United States, the cancellation of the claims of +the citizens of the two countries against each other, the United States +undertaking to settle the claims of its citizens against Spain, the +payment of twenty million dollars for the Philippines by the United +States, and the determination of the civil and political status of the +inhabitants of the ceded territories by Congress.</p> + +<p>When the treaty of peace was published, the contest over the retention +of the Philippines took on new bitterness—at least in public speeches +and editorials. The contentions on both sides were so vehement that it +was almost impossible to secure any frank discussion of the main issue: +"Does the United States want a foothold in the Pacific in order to +secure the trade of the Philippines and afford American capital an +opportunity <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>to develop the dormant natural resources, and in order also +to have a station from which to give American trade and capital a better +chance in the awakening Orient?" Democrats demanded self-government for +the Philippines, "in recognition of the principles of the immortal +Declaration of Independence." Republicans talked in lofty strains about +"the mysterious hand of Providence which laid this burden upon the +Anglo-Saxon race."</p> + +<p>The proposal to retain the Philippines, in fact, gave the southern +statesmen just the opportunity they had long wanted to taunt the +Republicans with insincerity on the race question. "Republican leaders," +said Senator Tillman, "do not longer dare to call into question the +justice or necessity of limiting negro suffrage in the South." And on +another occasion he exclaimed in querulous accents: "I want to call your +attention to the remarkable change that has come over the spirit of the +dream of the Republicans. Your slogans of the past—brotherhood of man +and fatherhood of God—have gone glimmering down through the ages. The +brotherhood of man exists no longer." To such assertions, Republicans of +the old school, like Senator Hoar, opposed to imperialism, replied +sadly, "The statements of Mr. Tillman have never been challenged and +never can be." But Republicans of the new school, unvexed by charges of +inconsistency, replied that high talk about the rights of man and of +self-government came with poor grace from southern Democrats who had +disfranchised millions of negroes that were just as capable of +self-government as the bulk of the natives in the Philippines.</p> + +<p>Senator Vest, on December 6, introduced in the Senate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>a resolution to +the effect "that under the Constitution of the United States, no power +is given to the Federal Government to acquire territory to be held and +governed permanently as colonies." He was ably supported by Senator +Hoar, from Massachusetts, who took his stand upon the proposition that +"governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." +On the other side, Senator O. H. Platt, of Connecticut, expounded the +gospel of manifest destiny: "Every expansion of our territory has been +in accordance with the irresistible law of growth. We could no more +resist the successive expansions by which we have grown to be the +strongest nation on earth than a tree can resist its growth. The history +of territorial expansion is the history of our nation's progress and +glory. It is a matter to be proud of, not to lament. We should rejoice +that Providence has given us the opportunity to extend our influence, +our institutions, and our civilization into regions hitherto closed to +us, rather than contrive how we can thwart its designs."</p> + +<p>At length on February 6, 1899, the treaty was ratified by the Senate, +but it must not be assumed that all of the Senators who voted for the +ratification of the treaty favored embarking upon a policy of +"imperialism." Indeed, at the time of the approval of the treaty, a +resolution was passed by the Senate to the effect that the policy to be +adopted in the Philippines was still an open question; but the outbreak +of an insurrection there led to an immediate employment of military rule +in the Islands and criticism was silenced by the cry that our national +honor was at stake.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>The revolt against American dominion might have been foreseen, for the +conduct of Generals Anderson and Merritt at Manila had invited trouble. +For a long time before the War, native Filipinos had openly resisted +Spanish rule, and particularly the dominance of the monks and priests, +who held an enormous amount of land and managed civil as well as +ecclesiastical affairs. Just before the outbreak of the Spanish War, +there had been a revolt under the leadership of Aguinaldo which had been +brought to an end by the promise to pay a large sum to the revolutionary +leaders and to introduce extensive administrative reforms. The promises, +however, had not been carried out, and Admiral Dewey had invited the +coöperation of Aguinaldo and his insurgents in the attack on Manila. +When the land assault was made on the city, in August, Aguinaldo joined +with a large insurgent army under the banner of the Filipino republic +which had been proclaimed in July, but he was compelled to take a +subordinate position, and received scant respect from the American +commanders, who gave him to understand that he had no status in the war +or the settlement of the terms of capitulation.</p> + +<p>As may be imagined, Aguinaldo was in no happy frame of mind when the +news came in January, 1899, that the United States had assumed +sovereignty over the islands; but it is not clear that some satisfactory +adjustment might not have been made then, if the United States had been +willing to accept a sort of protectorate and allow the revolutionaries +to establish a local government of their own. However, little or nothing +was done to reach a peaceful adjustment, and on February <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>4, some +Filipino soldiers were shot by American troops for refusing to obey an +order to halt, on approaching the American lines. This untoward incident +precipitated the conflict which began with some serious regular fighting +and dwindled into a vexatious guerilla warfare, lasting three years and +costing the United States heavily in men and money. Inhuman atrocities +were committed on both sides, resembling in brutality the cruel deeds +which had marked frontier warfare with the Indians. Reports of these +gruesome barbarities reached the United States and aroused the most +severe criticism of the administration, not only from the opponents of +imperialism, but also from those supporters of the policy, who imagined +that it could be carried out with rose water.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The acquisition of the insular dependencies raised again the old problem +as to the power of Congress over territories, which had been so +extensively debated during the slavery conflict. The question now took +the form: "Does the Constitution restrict Congress in the government of +the Islands as if they were physically and politically a part of the +United States, and particularly, do the limitations in behalf of private +rights, freedom of press, trial by jury, and the like, embodied in the +first ten Amendments, control the power of Congress?" Strict +constitutionalists answered this question in the affirmative without +hesitation, citing the long line of constitutional decisions which had +repeatedly affirmed the doctrine that Congress is limited everywhere, +even in the territories by the Amendments <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>providing for the protection +of personal and property rights; but practical politicians, supporting +the McKinley administration, frankly asserted that the Constitution and +laws of the United States did not of their own force apply in the +territories and could not apply until Congress had expressly extended +them to the insular possessions.</p> + +<p>The abstract question was given concrete form in several decisions by +the Supreme Court, known as "the Insular Cases." The question was +speedily raised whether importers of commodities from Porto Rico should +be compelled to pay the duties prescribed by the Dingley act, and the +Court answered in the case of De Lima <i>v.</i> Bidwell in 1901 that the +Island was "domestic" within the meaning of the tariff act and that the +duties could not be collected. In the course of his remarks, the +Justice, who wrote the opinion, said that territory was either domestic +or foreign, and that the Constitution did not recognize any halfway +position. Four Justices dissented, however; and American interests, +fearing this new competition, had dissented in advance,—so vigorously, +in fact, that Congress during the previous year had passed the Foraker +act imposing a tariff on goods coming into the United States from Porto +Rico and <i>vice versa</i>.</p> + +<p>This concession to the protected interests placed the Supreme Court in a +dilemma. If Porto Rico was domestic territory,—a part of the United +States,—was not the Foraker act a violation of the constitutional +provision that duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout +the United States? This question <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>was judicially answered by the Court +in the case of Downes <i>v.</i> Bidwell, decided on May 27, 1901, which +upheld the Foraker act on grounds so various that the only real point +made by the Court was that the law was constitutional. None of the four +justices who concurred with Justice Brown in the opinion agreed with his +reasoning, and the four judges, who dissented entirely from the decision +and the opinion, vigorously denied that there could be any territory +under the flag of the United States which was not subject to the +limitations of the Constitution.</p> + +<p>In other cases involving freedom of the press in the Philippines and +trial by jury in the Hawaiian Islands, the Supreme Court upheld the +doctrine that Congress, in legislating for the new dependencies, was not +bound by all those constitutional limitations which had been hitherto +applied in the continental territories of the United States. The upshot +of all these insular decisions is that the Constitution may be divided +into two parts, "fundamental" and "formal"; that only the fundamental +parts control the Federal authorities in the government of the +dependencies; and that the Supreme Court will decide, from time to time +as specific cases arise, what parts of the Federal Constitution are +"fundamental" and what parts are merely "formal." In two cases, the +Court has gone so far as to hold that indictment by grand jury and trial +by petit jury with unanimous verdict are not "fundamental" parts of the +Constitution, "but merely concern a method of procedure." In other +words, the practical necessities of governing subject races of different +origins and legal traditions <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>forced that eminent tribunal to resort to +painful reasoning in an effort not to hamper unduly the power of +Congress by constitutional limitations.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the settlement which followed the Spanish War, three general problems +were presented. In the first place, our relations to Cuba required +definition. It is true that in the declaration of war on Spain Congress +had disclaimed "any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, +jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the pacification +thereof, and asserts its determination when that is accomplished to +leave the government and control of the Island to its people"; but +American economic interests in the Island were too great to admit of the +actual fulfillment of this promise. Consequently, Cuba was forced to +accept, as a part of her constitution, several provisions, known as the +Platt amendment, adopted by the Congress of the United States on March +2, 1901, restricting her relations with foreign countries, limiting her +debt-creating power, securing the right of the United States to +intervene whenever necessary to protect life and property, and reserving +to the United States the right to acquire coaling stations at certain +points on the Island to be agreed upon.</p> + +<p>Under the constitution, to which the Platt reservations on behalf of the +United States were attached, the Cubans held a general election in +December, 1901, choosing a president and legislature; and in the spring +of the following year American troops were withdrawn, leaving the +administration in the hands of the natives. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>It was not long, however, +before domestic difficulties began to disturb the peace of the Island, +and in the summer of 1906 it was reported that the government of +President Palma was about to be overthrown by an insurrection. Under the +circumstances, Palma resigned, and the Cuban congress was unable to +secure a quorum for the transaction of business. After due warning, +President Roosevelt intervened, under the provisions of the Platt +amendment, and instituted a temporary government supported by American +troops. American occupation of the Island continued for a few months, +but finally the soldiers were withdrawn and native government was once +more put on trial.</p> + +<p>The second problem was presented by Porto Rico, where military rule was +put into force after the occupation in 1898. At length, on May 1, 1900, +an "organic act," instituting civil government in that Island, was +approved by the President. This law did not confer citizenship on the +Porto Ricans, but assured them of the protection of the United States. +It set up a government embracing a governor, appointed by the President +and Senate of the United States, six executive secretaries appointed in +the same manner as the governor, and a legislature of two houses—one +composed of the six secretaries and five other persons selected by the +President and Senate, acting as the upper house, and a lower house +elected by popular vote. Under this act, the practice of appointing +Americans to the chief executive offices took the final control of +legislative matters out of the hands of the natives, leaving them only +an initiatory power. This produced a friction between <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>the appointive +and elective branches of the government, which became so troublesome +that the dispute had to be carried to Washington in 1909, and Congress +enacted a measure providing that, in case the lower house of the Porto +Rican legislature refused to pass the budget, the financial arrangements +of the previous year should continue.</p> + +<p>The problem of governing the Philippines was infinitely more complicated +than that of governing Porto Rico, because the archipelago embraced more +than three thousand islands and about thirty different tribes and +dialects. The evolution of American control there falls into three +stages. At first, they were governed by the President of the United +States under his military authority. In 1901, a civil commission, with +Mr. W. H. Taft at the head, took over the civil administration of all +the pacified provinces. In 1902, Congress passed an "organic act" for +the Islands, providing that, after their pacification, a legislative +assembly should be erected. At length, in 1907, this assembly was duly +instituted, and the government now consists of the governor, a +commission appointed by the President and Senate, and a legislature +composed of the commission and a lower house of representatives elected +by popular vote.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Important as are the problems of governing dependencies, they are not +the sole or even the most significant aspects of imperialism. The +possession of territories gives a larger control over the development of +their trade and resources; but capital and enterprise <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>seeking an outlet +flow to those countries where the advantages offered are the greatest, +no matter whoever may exercise political dominion there. The acquisition +of the Philippines was simply an episode in the development of American +commercial interests in the Orient.</p> + +<p>It was those interests which led the United States to send Caleb Cushing +to China in 1844 to negotiate a treaty with that country securing for +Americans rights of trade in the ports which had recently been blown +open by British guns in the famous "Opium War." It was those interests +which induced the United States government to send Commodore Perry to +Japan in 1853 and led to the opening of that nation—long closed to the +outside world—to American trade and enterprise. After 1844 in China, +and 1854 in Japan, American trade steadily increased, and American +capital seeking investments soon began to flow into Chinese business and +railway undertakings. Although the United States did not attempt to +follow the example of Great Britain, Russia, France, and Germany in +seizing Chinese territory, it did obtain a sufficient economic interest +in that Empire to warrant the employment of American soldiers in +coöperation with Russian, English, French, Japanese, and other +contingents at the time of the Boxer insurrection at Peking in the +summer of 1900.</p> + +<p>The policy of the United States at the time won no little praise from +the Chinese government. Having no territorial ambitions in the Empire, +the administration at Washington, through Mr. John Hay, Secretary of +State, was able to announce that the United States <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>favored an "open +door" for trade and the maintenance of the territorial integrity of +China. "The policy of the Government of the United States," said Mr. Hay +to the Powers, in the summer of 1900, "is to seek a solution which may +bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese +territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to +friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the +world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the +Chinese empire." This friendly word, which was much appreciated by +China, was later supplemented by the generous action of the United +States government in returning to that country a large sum of money +which had been collected as an indemnity for the injury to American +rights in the Boxer uprising, and was discovered to be an overcharge due +to excessive American claims.</p> + +<p>While thus developing American interests in the Orient, the United +States government was much embarrassed by the legislation of some of the +western states against Orientals. Chinese and Japanese laborers were +excluded from the country by law or agreements, but in spite of this +fact there were large numbers of Orientals on the coast. This was +resented by many whites, particularly trade unionists with whom the +cheap labor came into competition, and from time to time laws were +enacted by state legislatures that were alleged to violate the rights +which the United States had guaranteed to the Chinese or Japanese by +treaties with their respective countries.</p> + +<p>Such a dispute occurred a few years ago over an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>attempt to exclude +Japanese children from the regular public schools in San Francisco, and +again in 1912 in connection with a law of California relative to the +acquisition of lands by aliens—the naturalization of Orientals being +forbidden by Federal law. These legal disputes arose from the fact that +the Federal government has the power to make treaties with foreign +countries relative to matters which are entirely within the control of +state legislatures. The discriminations against the Orientals, coupled +with the pressure of American interests in the Far East and the presence +of American dominion in the Philippines, caused no little friction +between certain sections of the United States and of Japan; and there +were some who began, shortly after the Spanish War, to speak of the +"impending conflict" in the Orient.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Campaign of 1900</i></p> + +<p>It was inevitable that the new issues, raised by the Spanish War, the +acquisition of the insular possessions, and the insurrection against +American rule in the Philippines, should find their way almost +immediately into national politics. By the logic of their situation, the +Republicans were compelled to defend their imperialist policy, although +it was distasteful to many of the old leaders; and at their national +convention, at Philadelphia in June, 1900, they renominated President +McKinley by acclamation, justified their methods in the dependencies, +approved the new commercial advances in the Orient, advocated government +aid to the merchant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>marine, and commended the acquisition of the +Hawaiian Islands. The trust plank, couched in vague and uncertain terms, +was, interestingly enough, drafted by Mr. Hanna, who appropriately +levied the campaign collections for his party in Wall Street.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> Mr. +Roosevelt, then governor of New York, was nominated for Vice President, +although he had refused to agree to accept the office. The desire of +Senator Platt, the Republican "boss" in New York, to put him out of the +state threw the "machine" in his favor, and this, combined with +enthusiasm for him in the West, gave him every vote in the convention +save his own. Under the circumstances he was forced to accept the +nomination.</p> + +<p>The Democrats took up the challenge on "imperialism"; but Mr. Bryan was +determined not to allow the silver question to sink into an early grave, +and he accordingly forced the adoption of a free silver plank, as the +price of his accepting the nomination. The platform was strong in its +denunciation of Republican "imperialist" policy, in general and in +detail. It favored promising the Filipinos stable government, +independence, and, finally, protection from outside interference. It was +also more positive on the trust question, and it advocated an increase +in the powers of the interstate commerce commission, enabling it "to +protect individuals and communities from discriminations and the people +from unjust and unfair transportation rates." An effort was made to +placate the conservative section of the party by offering the nomination +to the Vice Presidency to David B. Hill, of New York, and on his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>refusal of the honor it was given to Adlai Stevenson, who had held that +office during Cleveland's second administration.</p> + +<p>Although many Republicans supported Mr. Bryan on account of their +dislike of imperialism and its works, the result of the campaign was a +second victory for Mr. McKinley, even greater than that of 1896. He +received a larger popular vote and Mr. Bryan a smaller vote than in that +year. Of the 447 electors, Mr. McKinley received 292. This happy outcome +he naturally regarded as a vindication of his policies, and he was +evidently turning toward the future with renewed confidence (as his +Buffalo speech on reciprocity indicated) when on September 6, 1901, he +was shot by an anarchist at the Buffalo exposition and died eight days +later.</p> + +<p>Mr. Roosevelt immediately took the oath of office, and promised to +continue "absolutely unbroken" the policy of his predecessor.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> J. B. Moore, <i>Four Phases of American Development</i>, p. +195.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> In 1899, the tripartite arrangement was dissolved and the +United States obtained outright possession of Tutuila.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> The Hawaiian Islands are ruled by a governor appointed by +the President and Senate and by a legislature of two houses elected by +popular vote.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Croly, <i>Life of Marcus Hanna</i>, p. 307.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h2>THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The years immediately following the War with Spain were marked by +extraordinary prosperity in business. The country recovered from the +collapse of the nineties and entered with full swing into another era of +inflation and promotion. The Dingley tariff law, enacted July 24, 1897, +had incidentally aided in the process by raising the protection +principle to its highest point since the Civil War, but the causes of +the upward movement lay deeper. The Spanish War, of course, stimulated +trade, for destruction on such a large scale always creates a heavy +demand for commodities and capital—a demand which was partially met, as +usual, by huge drafts on the future in the form of an increased national +debt. But the real cause lay in the nature of the economic processes +which had produced the periodical cycles of inflation and collapse +during the nineteenth century. Having recovered from a collapse previous +to the War, inflation and capitalization on a gigantic scale set in and +did not run their course until a débâcle in 1907.</p> + +<p>The formation of trusts and the consolidation of older combinations in +this period were commensurate in scale with the gigantic financial power +created by capitalist accumulations. The period of the later seventies +and eighties, as has been shown, was a period of hot competition +followed by pools, combinations, and trusts. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>era which followed the +Spanish War differed in degree rather than in kind, but it was marked by +financial operations on a scale which would have staggered earlier +promoters. Perhaps it would be best to say that the older school merely +found its real strength at the close of the century, for the new +financing was done by the Vanderbilt, Astor, Gould, Morgan, and +Rockefeller interests, the basis of which had been laid earlier. There +was, in fact, no break in the process, save that which was made by the +contraction of the early nineties. But the operations of the new era +were truly grand in their conception and execution.</p> + +<p>A few examples will serve to illustrate the process. In 1900, the +National Sugar Refining Company of New Jersey was formed with a capital +of $90,000,000, and "from its inception it adopted the policy of issuing +no public statements to its stockholders regarding earnings or financial +conditions. The only statement ... is simply an annual balance sheet, +showing the assets and liabilities of the corporation in a greatly +condensed form." In 1904, the total capital of parent and affiliated +concerns was approximately $145,000,000. The Copper Trust was +incorporated under New Jersey laws in 1899, and in 1904 its par value +capital was $175,000,000. In 1899, the Smelters' Trust with an +authorized capital of about $65,000,000 was formed. In the same year the +Standard Oil Company, as the successor to the Trust, was organized with +$102,233,700 capital.</p> + +<p>The process of consolidation may best be shown by turning from +generalities to a brief study of the United States Steel Corporation, a +great portion of whose <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>business was laid bare in 1911-12 by a Federal +investigation. It appears that until about 1898 there was a large number +of steel concerns actively engaged in a competition which was modified +at times by pools and price agreements; and that each of them was +vigorously reaching out, not only for more trade, but for control over +the chief source of strength—supply of ore. Finally, in the closing +days of the nineties, this competition and stress for control became so +great that the steel men and the associated financial interests began to +fear that the increased facilities for production would result in +flooding the market and in ruining a number of concerns. The rough steel +manufacturers began to push into the field of finished products, and the +wire, nail, plate, and tube concerns were crowding into the rough steel +manufacturing. All were scrambling for ore beds. In this "struggle of +the giants" the leading steel makers saw nothing but disaster, and they +set to work to consolidate a dozen or more companies. Their labors were +crowned with success on April 1, 1901, when the new corporation with a +capital of a little more than $1,400,000,000 began business.</p> + +<p>In the consolidation of the several concerns an increase of more than +$400,000,000 was made in the total capital; and a stock commission of +the cash value of $62,500,000 was given to the Morgan underwriting +syndicate for financing the enterprise. It is, of course, impossible to +discover now the physical value of the properties consolidated, many of +which were already heavily "watered." Of the Carnegie concern, a Federal +report says, "The evidence on the whole tends to show <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>that bonds were +issued substantially up to the full amount of the physical assets +acquired and that the stock was issued merely against good will and +other intangible considerations." How much of the total capital was +"water" is impossible to determine, but the Bureau of Corporations +estimates "that more than $150,000,000 of the stock of the Steel +Corporation (this including more than $41,000,000 of preferred stock and +$109,000,000 of common stock) was issued, either directly or indirectly +(through exchange) for mere promotion or underwriting services. This +total, moreover, as noted does not include anything for the American +Sheet Steel Company ... nor is anything added in the case of the Shelby +Steel Tube Company. It should be repeated that this enormous total of +over $150,000,000 does not include common stock issued as bonus with +preferred for property or for cash, but simply what may be termed the +promotion and organization commissions in the strict sense. In other +words, nearly one seventh of the total capital stock of the Steel +Corporation appears to have been issued, either directly or indirectly, +to promoters for their services." How much more of the $440,000,000 +additional capital represented something other than physical values is +partially a matter of guesswork. The Bureau of Corporations valued the +tangible property of the corporation at $682,000,000 in 1901, as against +$1,400,000,000 issued securities; and computed the rate of profit from +1901 to 1910 on the actual investment at 12 per cent. It should be +noted, also, that shortly after the formation of the concern the common +stock which had been issued fell with a crash, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>outsiders who +risked their fortunes in the concern were ruined.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p> + +<p>All of the leading trusts and railways were, even at their inception, +intimately connected through cross investments and interlocking +directorates. Writing in 1904, Mr. Moody, an eminent financial +authority, said: "Around these two groups [the Morgan-Rockefeller +interests], or what must ultimately become one greater group, all other +smaller groups of capitalists congregate. They are all allied and +intertwined by their various mutual interests. For instance, the +Pennsylvania Railroad interests are on the one hand allied with the +Vanderbilts and on the other with the Rockefellers. The Vanderbilts are +closely allied with the Morgan group, and both the Pennsylvania and +Vanderbilt interests have recently become the dominating factors in the +Reading system, a former Morgan road and the most important part of the +anthracite coal combine which has always been dominated by the Morgan +people.... Viewed as a whole, we find the dominating influences in the +trusts to be made up of an intricate network of large and small +capitalists, many allied to another by ties of more or less importance, +but all being appendages to or parts of the greater groups which are +themselves dependent on and allied with the two mammoth, or Rockefeller +and Morgan, groups. These two mammoth groups jointly ... constitute the +heart of the business and commercial life of the nation."<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>How tremendous is this corporate control over business, output, and wage +earners is indicated by the census of 1909. Of the total number of +establishments reported as engaged in manufacturing in 1904, 23.6 per +cent were under corporate ownership, while in 1909 the percentage had +increased to 25.9. Although they controlled only about one fourth of the +total number of establishments, corporations employed 70.6 per cent of +all the wage earners reported in 1904 and 75.6 per cent in 1909. Still +more significant are the figures relative to the output of corporations. +Of the total value of the product of all establishments, 73.7 per cent +was turned out by corporations in 1904 and 79 per cent in 1909. "In most +of the states," runs the Census Report, "between three fifths and nine +tenths of the total value of manufactured products in 1909 was reported +by establishments under corporate ownership." Of the 268,491 +establishments reported in 1909, there were 3061 which produced 43.8 per +cent of the total value of all products and employed 30.5 per cent of +the wage earners. It is, in fact, this absorption of business by a small +number of concerns which marks the great concentration of modern +industry. The mere number of corporations is not of much significance, +for most of them are petty.</p> + +<p>In addition to gaining control of the leading manufacturing concerns and +the chief natural resources of the country, the great capitalist +interests seized upon social values to the amount of billions of dollars +through stock watering and manipulations of one kind or another. +"Between 1868 and 1872, for example, the share <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>capital of the Erie was +increased from $17,000,000 to $78,000,000, largely for the purpose of +stock-market manipulation.... The original Central Pacific Railroad, for +instance, actually cost only $58,000,000; it is a matter of record that +$120,000,000 was paid a construction company for the work. The syndicate +which financed the road received $62,500,000 par value in securities as +profits, a sum greater than it actually cost to build the property. The +80 per cent stock dividend of the New York Central in 1868; scrip +dividends on the Reading in the seventies; the 50 per cent dividend of +the Atchison in 1881; the 100 per cent stock dividends of the Louisville +and Nashville in 1880, by a pen stroke adding $20,000,000 to 'cost of +road' upon the balance sheet; the notorious 100 per cent dividend of the +Boston and Albany in 1882 [are further examples].... Recent inflations +of capitalization in connection with railroad consolidation are headed +by the case of the Rock Island Company. In 1902 this purely financial +corporation bought up the old Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railway, +capitalized at $75,000,000 and substituted therefor its own stock to the +amount of $117,000,000, together with $75,000,000 of collateral trust +bonds, secured by the stock of the property acquired. The entire history +of the New York traction companies is studded with similar occurrences. +One instance may suffice. In 1906 the Interborough-Metropolitan Company +purchased $105,540,000 in securities of the merged lines, and issued in +place thereof $138,309,000 of its own stock and $70,000,000 in bonds.... +E. H. Harriman and three associates ... expanded the total +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>capitalization of the [Alton] road from $33,950,000 to $114,600,000, an +increase of over $80,000,000. In improvements and additions to the +property out of this augmented capitalization, their own accounts showed +only about $18,000,000 expended. It thus appears that securities +aggregating $62,600,000 were put forth during this time [seven years, +beginning in 1898], without one dollar of consideration. This sum is +equal to about $66,000 per mile of line owned—a figure considerably in +excess of the average net capitalization of the railroads of the +country."<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<p>It is not necessary to cite further evidence to show that billions of +dollars of fictitious values were saddled upon the country between the +end of the Civil War and the close of the century. A considerable +portion of the amount of stocks and bonds issued was doubtless based on +the dividend-paying power of the concerns in question. In many instances +the stock was not purchased in large quantities by the investing public, +but was simply issued to promoters, and when values collapsed they only +lost so much worthless paper. It is apparent, therefore, that all the +stock watering is not of the same character or effect; but nevertheless +it remains a fact that the buying public and the working class are +paying millions in annual tribute to the holders of paper which +represents no economic service whatever. If the water were all squeezed +out of railway, franchise, and industrial stocks and bonds and the +mineral and other resources which have been actually secured at a +nominal value, or fraudulently were returned to the government, there +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>would be a shrinkage in the necessary dividends paid out that would +startle the world.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Those who followed the literature of political economy during this +period of gigantic consolidation and high finance could not help +discovering a decided change in the views of leading men about the +nature of industrial evolution. The old practice of indiscriminate abuse +of all trusts began to undergo a decided modification; only persons from +the backward industrial regions of the West and South continued the +inordinate clamor for the immediate and unconditional dissolution of all +of them, on the theory that they were "artificial" products, brought +forth and nourished by malicious men bent solely upon enhancing their +personal fortunes. The socialist contention (set forth by Marx and +Engels in 1848) that competition destroyed itself, and that the whole +movement of industry was inevitably toward consolidation, began to +receive attention, although the socialist solution of the problem was +not accepted.</p> + +<p>This change in attitude was the result partly of the testimony of +practical business men before the Industrial Commission in 1900, which +was summarized in the following manner by the Commission: "Among the +causes which have led to the formation of industrial combinations, most +of the witnesses were of the opinion that competition, so vigorous that +profits of nearly all competing establishments were destroyed, is to be +given the first place. Even Mr. Havemeyer said this, though, as he +believed that in many cases competition was brought about by the fact +that the too high protective tariff had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>tempted too many rivals into +the field, he named the customs tariff law as the primal cause. Many of +the witnesses say that their organization was formed to make economies, +to lessen competition, and to get higher profits—another way of saying +that competition is the cause without conceding that the separate plants +were forced to combine."</p> + +<p>In a careful and thoughtful analysis of the problem, published in 1900 +by Professor J. W. Jenks, then of Cornell University, the wastes of +competition and the economies of combination (within limits) were +pointed out with clarity and precision. The Industrial Commission had +reported that rebates and discriminations by railways had been declared +to be a leading cause of combination by several witnesses appearing +before it; but Professor Jenks at the close of his survey came to the +positive conclusion "that, whenever the nature of the industry is one +which is peculiarly adapted for organization on a large scale, these +peculiarities will so strengthen the tendency toward a virtual monopoly +that, without legal aid and special discriminations or advantages being +granted by either the State or any other influence, a combination will +be made, and if shrewdly managed can and, after more experience in this +line has been gained, probably will practically control permanently the +market, unless special legal efforts better directed than any so far +attempted shall prevent."<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> The logical result of this conclusion is +at least government supervision, and this Mr. Jenks advocated.</p> + +<p>Whether some special privileges beyond the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>ownership of basic natural +resources was necessary to bring about combinations on a large scale, +the leaders in such combinations seem to have engaged extensively in +politics, contributing to the campaign funds of both parties, helping to +select their candidates, and maintaining expensive lobbies at Washington +and at the capitals of the several states. Mr. Havemeyer admitted before +a Senate committee in 1893 that the Sugar Trust was "a Democrat in a +Democratic state and a Republican in a Republican state"; and added that +in his opinion all other large corporations made contributions to the +two leading parties as a matter of course, for "protection." The +testimony taken by the New York insurance investigating committee in +1905 and by the Clapp committee of the United States Senate in 1912 +revealed the fact that during the period between 1896 and 1912 millions +of dollars had been contributed to the Republican party by the men who +had been most active in organizing the great industrial combinations, +and that representatives of the same group had also given aid and +comfort to the Democratic party,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> although the latter, being out of +power at Washington, could not levy tribute with the same effectiveness.</p> + +<p>The statesman of the new capitalism was Mr. Marcus A. Hanna. Mr. Hanna +was born in 1837 of pioneer stock of the second or third generation, +after the roughness of the earlier days was somewhat smoothed away +without injury to the virility of the fiber. He entered business in +Cleveland in 1858 at a time when a remarkable group of business men, +including Mr. John D. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>Rockefeller, were laying the foundation of their +fortunes. Endowed with hard, practical, economic sense, he refused to be +carried away by the enthusiasm that was sweeping thousands of young men +of his age into the Union army, and he accordingly remained at his post +of business.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> It was fortunate for his career that he did not lose +those four years, for it was then that he made the beginnings of his +great estate in coal, iron, oil, and merchandising.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hanna, like most of the new generation of northern business men, was +an ardent Republican. "He went into politics as a citizen," remarks his +biographer. "The motive, in so far as it was conscious, was undoubtedly +patriotic. That he should wish to serve his country as well as himself +and his family was rooted in his make-up. If he proposed to serve his +country, a man of his disposition and training could only do so by +active work in party politics. Patriotism meant to him Republicanism. +Good government meant chiefly Republican government. Hence the extreme +necessity of getting good Republicans elected and the absolute identity +in his mind and in the minds of most of his generation between public +and party service."<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> In his early days, therefore, he participated in +politics in a small way, but it was not until 1891, during the candidacy +of Mr. McKinley for governor of Ohio and Mr. Sherman for the Senate, +that he began to serve his party in a large way by raising campaign +funds.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p> + +<p>In 1895 Mr. Hanna retired from active business and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>set about the task +of elevating Mr. McKinley to the Presidency. He spent a great deal of +time at first in the South securing Republican delegates from the states +where the Republican party was a shadow, and other than party +considerations entered largely into selection of delegates to the +Republican convention. While laying a solid foundation in the South, Mr. +Hanna bent every effort in capturing the delegates in northern states. +According to Mr. Croly, "Almost the whole cost of the campaign for Mr. +McKinley's nomination was paid by Mr. Hanna.... He did receive some help +from Mr. McKinley's personal friends in Ohio and elsewhere, but its +amount was small compared to the total expenses. First and last Mr. +Hanna contributed something over $100,000 toward the expense of the +canvass."<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p> + +<p>Mr. Hanna firmly believed, and quite naturally too, that the large +business concerns which had prospered under the policies of the +Republican party should contribute generously to its support. As early +as 1888, when the tariff scare seized certain sections of the country, +he was selected as financial auxiliary to the Republican national +committee, and raised about $100,000 in Cleveland, Toledo, Mahoning +Valley, and adjacent territory.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<p>But Mr. Hanna's greatest exploits in financing politics were in +connection with Mr. McKinley's campaigns. In 1896 he at first +encountered some difficulties because of his middle western connections +and the predilection of Wall Street for Mr. Levi P. Morton in preference +to Mr. McKinley. "Mr. James J. Hill states that on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>August 15, just when +the strenuous work of the campaign was beginning, he met Mr. Hanna by +accident in New York and found the chairman very much discouraged. Mr. +Hanna described the kind of work which was planned by the Committee and +its necessarily heavy expense. He had been trying to raise the needed +money, but with only small success. The financiers of New York would not +contribute. It looked as if he might have to curtail his plan of +campaign, and he was so disheartened that he talked about quitting. Mr. +Hill immediately offered to accompany Mr. Hanna on a tour through the +high places of Wall Street, and during the next five days they succeeded +in collecting as much money as was immediately necessary. Thereafter Mr. +Hanna did not need any further personal introduction to the leading +American financiers."<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> + +<p>Many grave charges were brought against Mr. Hanna to the effect that he +had no scruples in the use of money for corrupt purposes, but such +charges have never been substantiated to the satisfaction of his +friends. That in earlier days he employed the methods which were common +among public service corporations, is admitted by his biographer, but +condoned on the ground that practically every other street railway +company in the country was confronted with the alternative of buying +votes or influence. Mr. Hanna's Cleveland company "the West Side Street +Railway Company and its successors were no exception to this rule. It +was confronted by its competitors, who had no scruples about employing +customary methods, and if it had been more scrupulous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>than they, its +competitors would have carried off all the prizes. Mr. Hanna had, as I +have said, a way of making straight for his goal.... He and his company +did what was necessary to obtain the additional franchises needed for +the development of the system. The railroad contributed to local +campaign committees and the election expenses of particular councilmen; +and it did so for the purpose of exercising an effective influence over +the action of the council in street railway matters."<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> + +<p>Grave charges were also made at the time of Mr. Hanna's candidacy for +the United States Senate that he employed the methods which he had found +so advantageous in public-service-corporation politics, but his +biographer, Mr. Croly, indignantly denies the allegation, showing very +conclusively that Mr. Hanna won his nomination squarely on the issue put +before the Republican voters and was under the rules of politics +entitled to the election by the legislature. Mr. Hanna's career, says +Mr. Croly, "demanded an honorable victory. Like every honest man he had +conscientious scruples about buying votes for his own political benefit, +and his conscience when aroused was dictatorial.... It does not follow +that no money was corruptly used for Mr. Hanna's benefit. Columbus +[Ohio] was full of rich friends less scrupulous than he.... They may +have been willing to spend money in Mr. Hanna's interest and without his +knowledge. Whether as a matter of fact any such money was spent I do not +know, but under the circumstances the possibility thereof should be +frankly admitted."<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>In his political science as well as his business of politics, Mr. Hanna +looked to the instant need of things. He does not seem to have been a +student of history or of the experience of his own or other countries in +the field of social legislation. As United States Senator he made +practically no speeches, if we except his remarks in favor of ship +subsidies and liberal treatment of armor plate manufacturers. On the +stump, for in later years he developed some facility in popular +addresses, he confined his reflections to the customary generalizations +about prosperity and his chief contribution to political phraseology was +the slogan, "Stand pat."<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> When not engaged in actual labor of +partisan contests, Mr. Hanna seems to have enjoyed the pleasure of the +table and good company rather than the arduous researches of the student +of politics. He had an immense amount of shrewd practical sense, and he +divined a good deal more by his native powers of quick perception than +many a statesman of the old school, celebrated for his profundity as a +"constitutional lawyer and jurist."</p> + +<p>The complete clew to Mr. Hanna's philosophy of politics is thus summed +up by his penetrating and sympathetic biographer, Mr. Croly: "We must +bear in mind that (1) he was an industrial pioneer and instinctively +took to politics as well as to business; (2) that in politics as in +business he wanted to accomplish results; (3) that politics meant to him +active party service; (4) that successful party service meant to him the +acceptance of prevailing political methods and abuses; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>and (5) finally +that he was bound by the instinctive consistency of his nature to +represent in politics, not merely his other dominant interest, but the +essential harmony between the interests of business and that of the +whole community." In other words, Mr. Hanna believed consistently and +honestly in the superior fitness of business men to conduct the politics +of a country which was predominantly commercial in character. He was not +unaware of the existence of a working class; in fact he was said to be a +generous and sympathetic employer of labor; but he could not conceive +the use of government instrumentalities frankly in behalf of that class. +Indeed, he thought that the chief function of the government was to help +business and not to inquire into its methods or interfere with its +processes.</p> + +<p>An illustration of Mr. Hanna's theory of governmental impotence in the +presence of the dominant private interests was afforded in the debate in +the Senate over the price to be paid for armor plate, in the summer of +1900. The Senate proposed that not more than a stipulated price should +be paid to the two steel companies, Carnegie and Bethlehem, which were +not competing with each other; and that, in case they failed to accept, +a government manufacturing plant should be erected. Mr. Hanna's +proposition was that the price of steel should be left, as the House had +proposed, with the Secretary of the Navy, and he warmly resisted all +government interference. When it was brought out in debate that the +steel companies had refused the government officers the data upon which +to determine whether the price <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>charged was too high, Mr. Hanna +declared: "They did perfectly right in not disclosing those facts. That +is their business; and if they chose not to give the information to the +public, that was their business also." In short, he took the position +that the government should provide ample protection to the steel +interests against foreign competition, and pay substantially whatever +the steel companies might charge for armor plate (for without proper +data the Secretary of the Navy could not know when prices were +reasonable), and then ask them no questions whatever. Here we have both +<i>laissez faire</i> and capitalism in their simplest form.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hanna, however, had none of the arts of the demagogue, not even the +minor and least objectional arts. His bluntness and directness in labor +conflicts won for him the respect of large numbers of his employees. His +frank and open advocacy of ship subsidies and similar devices commanded +the regard, if not the esteem, of his political enemies. His chief +faults, as viewed by his colleagues as well as his enemies, were in many +instances his leading virtues. If some of the policies and tactics which +he resorted to are now discredited in politics, it must be admitted that +he did not invent them, and that it was his open and clean-cut advocacy +of them that first made them clearly intelligible to the public. When +all the minor and incidental details and personalities of the conflicts +in which he was engaged are forgotten, Mr. Hanna will stand out in +history as the most resourceful and typical representative of the new +capitalism which closed the nineteenth century and opened the new.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span><i>The Development of the Urban Population</i></p> + +<p>The rapid advance of business enterprise which followed the Spanish War +made more striking than ever the social results of the industrial +revolution.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> In the first place, there was a notable growth in the +urban as contrasted with the rural population. At the close of the +century more than one third of the population had become city dwellers. +The census of 1910 classified as urban all thickly populated areas of +more than 2500 inhabitants, including New England towns which are in +part rural in character, and on this basis reported 46.3 per cent of the +population of the United States as urban and 53.7 rural. On this basis, +92.8 per cent of the population of Massachusetts was reported as urban, +78.8 per cent in New York, and 60.4 per cent in Pennsylvania. That +census also reported that "the rate of increase for the population of +urban areas was over three times that for the population living in rural +territory."</p> + +<p>The industrial section of this urban population was largely composed of +non-home owners. The census of 1900 reported "that the largest +proportion of hired homes, 87.9 per cent, is found in New York City. In +Manhattan and Bronx boroughs the proportion is even higher, 94.1 per +cent, as compared with 82 per cent for Brooklyn.... There is also a very +large proportion of hired homes in Boston, Fall River, Jersey City, and +Memphis, constituting in each of them four fifths of all the homes in +1900." Of the great cities having a large proportion of home owners, +Detroit stood at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>head, with 22.5 per cent of the population owning +homes free of mortgage.</p> + +<p>Another feature of the evolution of the working class was the influx of +foreign labor, and the change in its racial character. The total alien +immigration between 1880 and 1900 amounted to about 9,000,000; and in +1905 the immigration for the fiscal year reached 1,026,449. For the +fiscal year 1910 it reached 1,198,037. During this period the racial +composition of the immigration changed decidedly. Before 1880 Celtic and +Teutonic nations furnished three fourths of the immigrants; but in 1905 +the proportions were reversed and Slavic and Iberian nations, Italy +leading, sent three fourths of the immigrants.</p> + +<p>This alien population drifted naturally to the industrial cities, and +the census of 1910 reported that of the 229 cities having 25,000 +inhabitants and more, the native whites of native parentage furnished +only 35.6 per cent, and that the foreign-born whites constituted 44.5 +per cent in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 40.4 per cent in New York City, and +35.7 per cent in Chicago. From the standpoint of politics, a significant +feature of this development is the manning of American industries +largely by foreign laborers who as aliens possess no share in the +government.</p> + +<p>A third important aspect of this transformation in the mass of the +population is the extensive employment of women in industries. The +census of 1910 reported that 19.5 per cent of the industrial wage +earners were women, and that the proportion of women breadwinners was +steadily increasing. The proportion of females who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>were engaged in +gainful pursuits was 14.7 per cent in 1870, 16 per cent in 1880, 19 per +cent in 1890, and 20.6 per cent in 1900. At the last date, about one +third of the females over ten years of age in Philadelphia were engaged +in gainful pursuits, and one eighth were employed in industries. At the +same time about 15,000 out of 42,000 women at Fall River, Massachusetts, +were in industries.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Labor Movement</i></p> + +<p>The centralization of capital and the development of the new statesmen +of Mr. Hanna's school were accompanied by a consolidation of the +laboring classes and the evolution of a more definite political program +for labor. As has been pointed out above, the economic revolution which +followed the Civil War was attended by the formation of unions in +certain trades and by the establishment of the Knights of Labor. This +national organization was based on the principle that all of the working +class could be brought together in a great society, equipped for waging +strikes in the field of industry and advancing a program of labor +legislation at the same time. This society, like a similar one promoted +by Robert Owen in England half a century before, fell to pieces on +account of its inherent weaknesses, particularly the inability of the +leaders to overcome the indifference of the workingmen in prosperous +trades to the struggles of their less fortunate brethren.</p> + +<p>Following the experience of England also, the labor leaders began to +build on a more secure foundation; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>namely, the organization of the +members of specific trades into local unions followed by their +amalgamation into larger societies. Having failed to stir a class +consciousness, they fell back upon the trade or group consciousness of +identical interests. In 1881, ninety-five trade-unions were federated on +a national scale, and in 1886 this society was reorganized as the +American Federation of Labor. The more radical labor men went on with +the Knights, but the foundations of that society were sapped by the more +solidly organized rival, which, in spite of many defeats and reverses, +steadily increased in its membership and strength. In 1910 the +Federation reported that its affiliations included 120 international +unions, 39 state federations, 632 city central bodies, 431 local +trade-unions, and 216 Federal labor unions, with a membership totaling +1,744,444 persons.</p> + +<p>Unlike German and English trade-unionists, the American Federation of +Labor steadily refused to go into politics as a separate party +contesting at the polls for the election of "labor" representatives. +This abstention from direct political action was a matter of expediency, +it seems, rather than of set principle. Mr. John Mitchell, the eminent +former leader of the miners, declared that "wage earners should in +proportion to their strength secure the nomination and election of a +number of representatives to the governing bodies of city, state, and +nation"; but he added that "a third Labor Party is not for the present +desirable, because it could not obtain a majority and could not +therefore force its will upon the community at large." This view, Mr. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>Mitchell admitted, was merely temporary and due to circumstances, for +he frankly said: "Should it come to pass that the two great American +political parties oppose labor legislation as they now favor it, it +would be the imperative duty of unionists to form a third party to +secure some measure of reform." This was also substantially the position +taken by the President of the American Federation, Mr. Gompers.</p> + +<p>But it is not to be supposed that the American Federation of Labor +refused to consider the question of labor in politics. Its prominent +leaders were affiliated with the American Civic Federation, composed +largely of employers of labor, professional men, and philanthropists, +and known as one of the most powerful anti-socialist organizations in +the United States. Not only were Mr. Gompers and other labor leaders +associated with this society which strongly opposed the formation of a +class party in the United States, but they steadily waged war on the +socialists who were attempting to organize the working class +politically. The leaders in the American Federation, with a few +exceptions, were thus definitely anti-socialist and were on record on +this political issue. Moreover, while warning workingmen against +political action, Mr. Gompers and Mr. Mitchell openly identified +themselves with the Democratic party and endeavored to swing the working +class vote to that party. Mr. Gompers was especially active in the +support of Mr. Bryan in 1908, and boasted that 80 per cent of the voting +members of the Federation cast their ballots for the Democratic +candidate.</p> + +<p>In fact, a study of the writings and speeches of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>leaders in the +American Federation of Labor shows that they had a fairly definite +politico-economic program, although they did not admit it. They favored +in general municipal and government ownership of what are called +"natural" monopolies, and they sympathized with the smaller business men +in their attempt to break up the great industrial corporations against +which organized labor had been able to make little headway. They +supported all kinds of labor legislation, such as a minimum wage, +workmen's compensation, sanitary laws for factories, the shortening of +hours, prohibition of child labor, insurance against accidents, sickness +and old age pensions, and industrial education. They were also on record +in favor of such political reforms as the initiative, referendum, and +recall, and they were especially vigorous in their efforts to curtail +the power of the courts to issue injunctions against strikers. In other +words, they leaned decidedly toward "state socialism" and expected to +secure their ends by supporting the Democratic party, historically the +party of individualism, and <i>laissez faire</i>. This apparent anomaly is +explained by the fact that state socialism does not imply the political +triumph of the working class, but rather the strengthening of the petty +bourgeoisie against great capitalists.</p> + +<p>It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the American Federation +of Labor was solidly in support of Mr. Gompers' program. On the +contrary, at each national convention of the Federation the socialist +members attempted to carry the organization over into direct political +action. These attempts were defeated each year, but close observers of +the labor movement <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>discovered that the socialists were electing a large +number of local and state trade-union officials, and those who hope to +keep the organization in the old paths are anxious about the outcome at +the end of Mr. Gompers' long service.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> <i>Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Steel +Industry</i>, July 1, 1911.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Moody, <i>The Truth about the Trusts</i>, p. 493.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Professor W. Z. Ripley, <i>Political Science Quarterly</i>, +March, 1911.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>The Trust Problem</i> (1900 ed.), p. 210.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> See the Parker episode, below, p. 268.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Mr. Hanna was drafted in 1864, but saw no actual service. +Croly, <i>Marcus A. Hanna</i>, p. 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Croly, p. 113.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 160.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Croly, p. 183.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 149.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Croly, p. 219.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Croly, p. 81.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 264.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Croly, p. 417.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> See above, Chap. II.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h2>THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF<br /> THEODORE ROOSEVELT</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The administrations of Mr. Roosevelt cannot be characterized by a +general phrase, although they will doubtless be regarded by historians +as marking an epoch in the political history of the United States. If we +search for great and significant social and economic legislation during +that period, we shall hardly find it, nor can we discover in his +numerous and voluminous messages much that is concrete in spite of their +immense suggestiveness. The adoption of the income tax amendment, the +passage of the amendment for popular election of Senators, the +establishment of parcel post and postal savings banks, and the +successful prosecution of trusts and combinations,—all these +achievements belong in time to the administration of Mr. Taft, although +it will be claimed by some that they were but a fruition of plans laid +or policies advocated by Mr. Roosevelt.</p> + +<p>One who attempts to estimate and evaluate those eight years of +multifarious activity will find it difficult to separate the transient +and spectacular from the permanent and fundamental. In the foreground +stand the interference in the coal strike, the acquisition of the Panama +Canal strip, voluminous messages discussing every aspect of our complex +social and political life, vigorous and spirited interference with state +elections, as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>in the case of Mr. Hearst's campaign in New York, and in +city politics, as in the case of Mr. Burton's contest in Cleveland, +Ohio, the pressing of the idea of conserving natural resources upon the +public mind, acrimonious disputes with private citizens like Mr. +Harriman, and, finally, the closing days of bitter hostilities with +Congress over the Tennessee Coal and Iron affair and appropriations for +special detectives to be at executive disposal.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Mr. Roosevelt's Doctrines</i></p> + +<p>During those years the country was much torn with the scandals arising +from investigations, such as the life insurance inquest in New York, +which revealed grave lapses from the paths of rectitude on the part of +men high in public esteem, and gross and vulgar use of money in +campaigns. No little of the discredit connected with these affairs fell +upon the Republican party, not because its methods were shown to be +worse in general than those of the Democrats, but because it happened to +be in power. The great task of counteracting this discontent fell upon +Mr. Roosevelt, who smote with many a message the money changers in the +temple of his own party, and convinced a large portion of the country +that he had not only driven them out but had refused all association +with them.</p> + +<p>Mr. Roosevelt was thus quick to catch the prevailing public temper. "It +makes not a particle of difference," he said in 1907, "whether these +crimes are committed by a capitalist or by a laborer, by a leading +banker or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>manufacturer or railroad man, or by a leading representative +of a labor union. Swindling in stocks, corrupting legislatures, making +fortunes by the inflation of securities, by wrecking railroads, by +destroying competitors through rebates,—these forms of wrongdoing in +the capitalist are far more infamous than any ordinary form of +embezzlement or forgery.... The business man who condones such conduct +stands on a level with the labor man who deliberately supports a corrupt +demagogue and agitator."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Any one who takes the trouble to examine with care Mr. Roosevelt's +messages and other public utterances during the period of his +administration will discover the elements of many of his policies which +later took more precise form.</p> + +<p>In his first message to Congress, on December 3, 1901, Mr. Roosevelt +gave considerable attention to trusts and collateral economic problems. +He refused to concede the oft-repeated claim that great fortunes were +the product of special legal privileges. "The creation of these great +corporate fortunes," he said, "has not been due to the tariff nor to any +other governmental action, but to natural causes in the business world, +operating in other countries as they operate in our own. The process has +aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without +warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer, the poor +have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, +the wage worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in +this country at the present time. There have been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>abuses connected with +the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune +accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person +specially benefitted only on condition of conferring immense incidental +benefits upon others."</p> + +<p>While thus contending that large fortunes in the main were the product +of "natural economic forces," Mr. Roosevelt admitted that some grave +evils had arisen in connection with combinations and trusts, and +foreshadowed in his proposed remedial legislation the policy of +regulation and new nationalism. "When the Constitution was adopted, at +the end of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom could foretell the +sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions, which +were to take place by the beginning of the twentieth century. At that +time it was accepted as a matter of course that the several states were +the proper authorities to regulate ... the comparatively insignificant +and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are +now wholly different, and a wholly different action is called for." The +remedy he proposed was publicity for corporate affairs, the regulation, +not the prohibition, of great combinations, the elimination of specific +abuses such as overcapitalization, and government supervision. If the +powers of Congress, under the Constitution, were inadequate, then a +constitutional amendment should be submitted conferring the proper +power. The Interstate Commerce Act should likewise be amended. "The +railway is a public servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all +shippers alike. The Government should see to it that within its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>jurisdiction this is so." Conservation of natural resources, irrigation +plans, the creation of a department of Commerce and Labor, army and navy +reform, and the construction of the Panama Canal were also recommended +at the same time (1901).</p> + +<p>In this message, nearly all of Mr. Roosevelt's later policies as +President are presaged, and in it also are marked the spirit and +phraseology which have done so much to make him the idol of the American +middle class, and particularly of the social reformer. There are, for +instance, many little aphorisms which appeal to the moral sentiments. +"When all is said and done," he says, "the rule of brotherhood remains +as the indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national +life for which we are to strive. Each man must work for himself, and +unless he so works no outside help can avail him; but each man must +remember also that he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that, while no +man who refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to himself or any +one else, yet each at times stumbles or halts, each at times needs to +have the helping hand outstretched to him." The "reckless agitator" and +anarchist are dealt with in a summary fashion, and emphasis is laid on +the primitive virtues of honesty, sobriety, industry, and +self-restraint. The new phrases of the social reformer also appear side +by side with the exclamations of virtuous indignation: "social +betterment," "sociological law," "rule of brotherhood," "high aims," +"foolish visionary," "equity between man and man"—in fact the whole +range of the terminology of social "uplift."</p> + +<p>None of Mr. Roosevelt's later messages added <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>anything new by way of +economic doctrine or moral principle. The same notions recurred again +and again, often in almost identical language and frequently in the form +of long quotations from previous messages. But there appeared from time +to time different concrete proposals, elaborating those already +suggested to Congress. The tariff he occasionally touched upon, but +never at great length or with much emphasis. He frequently reiterated +the doctrine that the country was committed to protection, that the +tariff was not responsible for the growth of combinations and trusts, +and that no economic question of moment could be solved by its revision +or abandonment.</p> + +<p>As to the trusts, Mr. Roosevelt consistently maintained the position +which he had taken as governor of New York and had stated in his first +message; namely, that most of the legislation against trusts was futile +and that publicity and governmental supervision were the only methods of +approaching the question which the logic of events admitted. In his +message of December, 1907, he said: "The anti-trust law should not be +repealed; but it should be made more efficient and more in harmony with +actual conditions. It should be so amended as to forbid only the kind of +combination which does harm to the general public, such amendment to be +accompanied by, or to be an incident of, a grant of supervisory power to +the Government over these big concerns engaged in interstate business. +This should be accompanied by provision for the compulsory publication +of accounts and the subjection of books and papers to the inspection of +the Government officials.... The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>Congress has the power to charter +corporations to engage in interstate and foreign commerce, and a general +law can be enacted under the provisions of which existing corporations +could take out federal charters and new federal corporations could be +created. An essential provision of such a law should be a method of +predetermining by some federal board or commission whether the applicant +for a federal charter was an association or combination within the +restrictions of the federal law. Provision should also be made for +complete publicity in all matters affecting the public, and complete +protection to the investing public and the shareholders in the matter of +issuing corporate securities. If an incorporation law is not deemed +advisable, a license act for big interstate corporations might be +enacted; or a combination of the two might be tried. The supervision +established might be analogous to that now exercised over national +banks. At least, the anti-trust act should be supplemented by specific +prohibitions of the methods which experience has shown have been of most +service in enabling monopolistic combinations to crush out competition. +The real owners of a corporation should be compelled to do business in +their own name. The right to hold stock in other corporations should be +denied to interstate corporations, unless on approval by the proper +Government officials, and a prerequisite to such approval should be the +listing with the Government of all owners and stockholders, both by the +corporation owning such stock and by the corporation in which such stock +is owned."</p> + +<p>With that prescience which characterized his political career from his +entrance into politics, Mr. Roosevelt <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>foresaw that it was impossible +for capitalists in the United States to postpone those milder reforms, +such as employers' liability, which had been accepted in the enlightened +countries of Europe long before the close of the nineteenth century. In +his message of December 3, 1907, he pointed out that "the number of +accidents to wage-workers, including those that are preventable and +those that are not, has become appalling in the mechanical, +manufacturing and transportation operations of the day. It works grim +hardship to the ordinary wage-worker and his family to have the effect +of such an accident fall solely upon him." Mr. Roosevelt thereupon +recommended the strengthening of the employers' liability law which had +been recently passed by Congress, and urged upon that body "the +enactment of a law which will ... bring federal legislation up to the +standard already established by all European countries, and which will +serve as a stimulus to the various states to perfect their legislation +in this regard."</p> + +<p>As has been pointed out above, Mr. Roosevelt, in all of his +recommendations, took the ground that the prevailing system of +production and distribution of wealth was essentially sound, that +substantial justice was now being worked out between man and man, and +that only a few painful excrescences needed to be lopped off. Only on +one occasion, it seems, did he advise the adoption of any measures +affecting directly the distribution of acquired wealth. In his message +of December 3, 1907, he declared that when our tax laws were revised, +the question of inheritance and income taxes should be carefully +considered. He spoke with diffidence of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>latter because of the +difficulties of evasion involved, and the decision of the Supreme Court +in 1895. "Nevertheless," he said, "a graduated income tax of the proper +type would be a desirable feature of federal taxation, and it is to be +hoped that one may be devised which the Supreme Court will declare +constitutional." The inheritance tax was, in his opinion, however, +preferable; such a tax had been upheld by the Court and was "far more +important for the purpose of having the fortunes of the country bear in +proportion to their increase in size a corresponding increase and burden +of taxation." He accordingly approved the principle of a progressive +inheritance tax, increasing to perhaps 25 per cent in the case of +distant relatives.</p> + +<p>While advocating social reforms and castigating wrong-doers at home, Mr. +Roosevelt was equally severe in dealing with Latin-American states which +failed to discharge their obligations to other countries faithfully. In +his message of December, 1905, he said: "We must make it evident that we +do not intend to permit the Monroe doctrine to be used by any nation on +this continent as a shield to protect it from the consequences of its +own misdeeds against foreign nations. If a republic to the south of us +commits a tort against a foreign nation, such as an outrage against a +citizen of that nation, then the Monroe doctrine does not force us to +interfere to prevent the punishment of the tort, save to see that the +punishment does not assume the form of territorial occupation in any +shape. The case is more difficult when it refers to a contractual +obligation.... The country would certainly decline to go to war to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>prevent a foreign government from collecting a just debt; on the other +hand it is very inadvisable to permit any foreign power to take +possession, even temporarily, of the custom houses of an American +republic in order to enforce the payment of its obligations; for such a +temporary occupation might turn into a permanent occupation. The only +escape from these alternatives may at any time be that we must ourselves +undertake to bring about some arrangement by which so much as possible +of a just obligation shall be paid."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Mr. Roosevelt's messages and various activities while he was serving the +unexpired term of President McKinley upset all of the conservative +traditions of the executive office. He intervened, without power, in the +anthracite coal strike of 1902, and had the satisfaction of seeing the +miners make substantial gains at the hands of a commission appointed by +himself, to which the contestants had agreed to submit the issues. He +began a prosecution of the Northern Securities Company at a time when +such actions against great combinations of capital were unfashionable. +He forced an investigation of the post-office administration in 1903, +which revealed frauds of huge dimensions; and he gave the administration +of public lands a turning over which led to the successful criminal +prosecution of two United States Senators. Citizens acquired the habit +of looking to the headlines of the morning paper for some new and +startling activity on the part of the President. Politicians of the old +school in both parties, who had been used to settling difficulties by +quiet conferences within the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>"organization," stood aghast. They did not +like Mr. Roosevelt's methods which they characterized as "erratic"; but +the death of Mr. Hanna in February, 1904, took away the only forceful +leader who might have consolidated the opposition within Republican +ranks.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Campaign of 1904</i></p> + +<p>Nevertheless the rumor was vigorously circulated that Mr. Roosevelt was +violently opposed by "Wall Street and the Trusts." Whatever may have +been the source of this rumor it only enhanced the President's +popularity. In December, 1903, Senator O. H. Platt wrote: "I do not know +how much importance to attach to the current opposition to Roosevelt by +what are called the 'corporate and money influences' in New York.... +There is a great deal said about it, as if it were widespread and +violent. I know that it does not include the whole of that class of +people, because I know many bankers and capitalists, railroad and +business men who are his strong, good friends, and they are not among +the smaller and weaker parties, either.... Now it is a great mistake for +capitalistic interests to oppose Roosevelt.... I think he will be +nominated by acclamation, so what is to be gained by the Wall Street +contingent and the railroad interests in this seeming opposition to +him?... There is no Republican in the United States who can be elected +except Roosevelt.... He is going to be the people's candidate, not the +candidate of the trusts or of the hoodlums, but of the conservative +elements."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>The Republican convention in 1904 was uneventful beyond measure. Though +Mr. Roosevelt was disliked by many members of his party, his nomination +was unavoidable, and even his opponents abstained from any word or deed +that might have disturbed the concord of the occasion. The management of +the convention was principally in the hands of the men from whom Mr. +Roosevelt afterward broke and stigmatized as "reactionary." Mr. Elihu +Root was temporary chairman, Mr. Joseph G. Cannon was permanent +chairman, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge was chairman of the committee on +resolutions which reported the platform, Mr. W. M. Crane and Mr. Boies +Penrose were selected as members of the national committee from their +respective states, and Mr. Frank S. Black, of New York, made the speech +nominating Mr. Roosevelt. Throughout, the proceedings were harmonious; +the platform and the nomination were accepted vociferously without a +dissenting vote.</p> + +<p>The Republican platform of 1904 gave no recognition of any of the newer +social and economic problems which were soon to rend that party in +twain. After the fashion of announcements made by parties already in +power, it laid great emphasis upon Republican achievements since the +great victory of 1896. A protective tariff under which all industries +had revived and prospered had been enacted; public credit was now +restored, Cuban independence established, peace, freedom, order, and +prosperity given to Porto Rico, the Philippine Islands endowed with the +largest civil liberty ever enjoyed there, the laws against unjust +discriminations by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>vast aggregations of capital fearlessly enforced, +and the gold standard upheld. The program of positive action included +nothing new: extension of foreign markets, encouragement of American +shipping, enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment wherever the suffrage +had been curtailed, and indorsement of civil service, international +arbitration, and liberal pensions. The trust plank was noncommittal as +to concrete policy: "Combinations of capital and of labor are the +results of the economic movement of the age, but neither must be +permitted to infringe the rights and interests of the people. Such +combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are alike +entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are subject to the laws +and neither can be permitted to break them."</p> + +<p>In their campaign book for 1904, the Republican leaders exhibited Mr. +Roosevelt as the ideal American in a superlative degree. "Theodore +Roosevelt's character," runs the eulogy, "is no topic for difference of +opinion or for party controversy. It is without mystery or concealment. +It has the primary qualities that in all ages have been admired and +respected: physical prowess, great energy and vitality, +straightforwardness and moral courage, promptness in action, talent for +leadership.... Theodore Roosevelt, as a typical personality, has won the +hearty confidence of the American people; and he has not shrunk from +recognizing and using his influence as an advocate of the best standards +of personal, domestic, and civic life in the country. He has made these +things relating to life and conduct a favorite theme in speech and essay +and he has diligently <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>practiced what he preached. Thus he has become a +power for wholesomeness in every department of our life as a people."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Democratic nominee, Mr. Alton B. Parker, failed to elicit any +enthusiasm in the rank and file of the party. He had supported the +Democratic candidate at a time when many of his conservative friends had +repudiated Mr. Bryan altogether, and thus he could not be branded as a +"bolter." But Mr. Parker's long term of service as judge of the highest +court of New York, his remoteness from actual partisan controversies, +his refusal to plunge into a whirlwind stumping campaign, and his +dignified reserve, all combined to prevent his getting a grip upon the +popular imagination. His weakness was further increased by the +half-hearted support given by Mr. Bryan who openly declared the party to +be under the control of the "Wall Street element," but confessed that he +intended to give his vote to Mr. Parker, although the latter, in a +telegram to the nominating convention at St. Louis, had announced his +unflinching adherence to the gold standard.</p> + +<p>The Democratic platform, except in its denunciation of the Republican +administration, was as indefinite as the occasion demanded. Independence +should be promised to the Filipinos at the proper time and under proper +circumstances; there should be a revision and gradual reduction of the +tariff by "the friends of the masses"; United States Senators should be +elected by popular vote; combinations and trusts which restrict +competition, control production, or fix prices and wages <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>should be +forbidden and punished by law. The administration of Mr. Roosevelt was +denounced as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and +arbitrary," and the proposal of the Republican platform to enforce the +Fourteenth Amendment was condemned as "Bourbon-like, selfish, and +narrow," and designed to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional +strife. Constitutional, simple, and orderly government was promised, +affording no sensations, offering no organic changes in the political or +economic structure, and making no departures from the government "as +framed and established by the fathers of the Republic."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The only extraordinary incident in the campaign of 1904 occurred toward +the closing days, when Mr. Parker repeatedly charged that the Republican +party was being financed by contributions from corporations and trust +magnates. The Democratic candidate also declared that Mr. Cortelyou, as +Secretary of Commerce and Labor, had acquired through the use of +official inquisitorial powers inside information as to the practices of +trusts, and that as chairman of the Republican national committee, he +had used his special knowledge to extort contributions from +corporations. These corrupt and debasing methods had, in the opinion of +Mr. Parker, threatened the integrity of the republic and transformed the +government of the people into "a government whose officers are +practically chosen by a handful of corporate managers, who levy upon the +assets of the stockholders whom they represent such sums of money as +they deem requisite to place the conduct of the Government in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>such +hands as they consider best for their private interests."</p> + +<p>These grave charges were made as early as October 24, and it was +expected that Mr. Cortelyou would reply immediately, particularly as Mr. +Parker was repeating and amplifying them. However, no formal answer came +until November 5, three days before the election, when a countercharge +was impossible. On that date Mr. Roosevelt issued a signed statement, +analyzing the charges of his opponent, and closing with the positive +declaration that "the statements made by Mr. Parker are unqualifiedly +and atrociously false."</p> + +<p>No doubt it would have been difficult for Mr. Parker to have +substantiated many of the details in his charges, but the general truth +of his contention that the Republican campaign was financed by railway +and trust magnates was later established by the life insurance +investigation in New York in 1905, by the exposures of trust methods by +Mr. Hearst in the publication of Standard Oil Letters, and by the +revelations made before the Clapp committee of the Senate in 1912. It is +true, Mr. Roosevelt asserted that he knew nothing personally about the +corporation contributions, particularly the Standard Oil gifts, and +although he convinced his friends of his entire innocence in the matter, +seasoned politicians could hardly understand a naïveté so far outside +the range of their experience.</p> + +<p>The Democratic candidate and his friends took open pleasure in the +discomfiture produced in Republican ranks by these unpleasant +revelations, but no little bitterness was added to their cup of joy by +the other side <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>of the story. During the life insurance investigation +one of the life insurance officers declared: "My life was made weary by +the Democratic candidates chasing for money in that campaign. Some of +the very men who to-day are being interviewed in the papers as +denouncing the men who contribute to campaigns,—their shadows were +crossing my path every step I took." Later, before the Clapp committee +in 1912, Mr. August Belmont and Mr. T. F. Ryan, corporation magnates +with wide-reaching financial interests,—the latter particularly famous +for his Tobacco Trust affiliations,—testified that they had +underwritten Mr. Parker's campaign to the amount of several hundred +thousand dollars. Independent newspapers remarked that it seemed to be +another case of the kettle and the pot.</p> + +<p>That the conservative interests looked to the Republican party, if not +to Mr. Roosevelt, for the preservation of good order in politics and the +prevention of radical legislation, is shown by the campaign +contributions on the part of those who had earlier financed Mr. Hanna. +In 1907 a letter from the railroad magnate, Mr. E. H. Harriman, was made +public, in which the writer declared that Mr. Roosevelt had invited him +to Washington in the autumn of 1904, just before the election, that at +the President's request he had raised $250,000 to help carry New York +state, and that he had paid the money over to the Republican treasurer, +Mr. Bliss. Mr. Roosevelt indignantly denied that he had requested Mr. +Harriman to raise a dollar for "the Presidential campaign of 1904." It +will be noted that Mr. Roosevelt here made a distinction between the +state and national campaign. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>This distinction he again drew during the +United States Senate investigation in 1912, when it became apparent that +the Standard Oil Trust had made a large contribution to the Republican +politicians in 1904. From his testimony, it would appear that Mr. +Roosevelt was unaware of the economic forces which carried him to +victory in 1904. Indeed, from the election returns, he was justified in +regarding his victory as a foregone conclusion, even if the financiers +of the party had not taken such extensive precautions.</p> + +<p>The election returns in 1904 showed that the Democratic candidate had +failed to engage the enthusiasm of his party, for the vote cast for him +was more than a million and a quarter short of that cast for Mr. Bryan +in 1900. The personal popularity of Mr. Roosevelt was fully evidenced in +the electoral and popular votes. Of the former he secured 336 against +140 cast for his opponent, and of the latter he polled nearly 400,000 +more than Mr. McKinley. Nevertheless the total vote throughout the +country was nearly half a million under that of 1900, showing an +undoubted apathy or a dissatisfaction with the two old parties. This +dissatisfaction was further demonstrated in a startling way by the heavy +increase in the socialist ranks, a jump from about 95,000 in 1900 to +more than 400,000.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's Administrations</i></p> + +<p>Doubtless the most significant of all the laws enacted during Mr. +Roosevelt's administrations was the Hepburn Act passed in 1906. This law +increased the number of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>the Interstate Commerce Commission<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> to +seven, extended the law to cover pipe lines, express companies, and +sleeping car companies, and bridges, ferries, and railway terminals. It +gave the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to reduce a rate found +to be unreasonable or discriminatory in cases in which complaints were +filed by shippers adversely affected; it abolished "midnight tariffs" +under which favored shippers had been given special rates, by requiring +proper notice of all changes in schedules; and it forbade common +carriers to engage in the transportation of commodities owned by +themselves, except for their own proper uses.</p> + +<p>The Hepburn bill, however, did not confer upon the Interstate Commerce +Commission that power over rates which the Commission had long been +urging as necessary to give shippers the relief they expected. Senator +La Follette, fresh from a fight with the railways in Wisconsin, proposed +several radical amendments in the Senate, and endeavored without avail +to secure the open support of President Roosevelt.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> The Senator +insisted that it would be possible under the Hepburn bill "for the +commission to determine whether rates were <i>relatively reasonable</i>, but +not that they were <i>reasonable per se</i>; that one rate could be compared +with another, but that the Commission had no means of determining +whether either rate so compared was itself a reasonable rate." No one +can tell, urged the Senator, whether a rate is reasonable until the +railway in question has been evaluated. This point he pressed with great +insistence, and though defeated at the time, he had the consolation of +having the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>principle of physical valuation enacted into law in +1913.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> At all events, the railways found little or no fault with the +Hepburn law, and shortly afterward began to raise their rates in the +face of strong opposition from shippers.</p> + +<p>Two laws relative to foodstuffs, the meat inspection act and the pure +food act, were passed in 1906 in response to the popular demand for +protection against diseased meats and deleterious foods and drugs—a +demand created largely by the revelation of shocking conditions in the +Chicago stockyards and of nefarious practices on the part of a large +number of manufacturers. The first of the measures was intended to +guarantee that the meat shipped in interstate commerce should be derived +from animals which were sound at the time of slaughter, prepared under +sanitary conditions in the packing houses, and adequately inspected by +Federal employees. The second measure covered foods and drugs, and +provided that such articles "must not contain any injurious or +deleterious drug, chemical or preservative, and that the label on each +package must state the exact facts and not be misleading or false in any +particular." The effect of the last of these measures was felt in the +extinction of a large number of patent medicine and other +quasi-fraudulent concerns engaged in interstate trade.</p> + +<p>The social legislation enacted during Mr. Roosevelt's administrations is +not very extensive, although it was accompanied by much discussion at +the time. The most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>significant piece of labor legislation was the +employers' liability law enacted in 1906, which imposed a liability upon +common carriers engaged in interstate commerce for injuries sustained by +employees in their service. On January 6, 1908, the Supreme Court +declared the act unconstitutional on the ground that it interblended the +exercise of legitimate powers over interstate commerce and interference +with matters outside the scope of such commerce. The act was again taken +up in Congress, and in April of that year a second law, omitting the +objectionable features pointed out by the Court, was enacted.</p> + +<p>A second piece of Federal legislation which is commonly called a labor +measure was the law which went into effect on March 4, 1908, limiting +the hours of railway employees engaged as trainmen or telegraph +operators. As a matter of fact, however, it was not so much the long +hours of trainmen which disturbed Congress as the appalling number of +railway disasters from which the traveling public suffered. At least it +was so stated by the Republican leaders in their campaign of 1908, for +they then declared that "although the great object of the Act is to +promote the safety of travellers upon railroads, by limiting the hours +of service of employees within reasonable bounds, it is none the less +true that in actual operation it enforces humane and considerate +treatment to employees as well as greater safety to the public."<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<p>That public policy with which Mr. Roosevelt's administrations will be +most closely associated is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>unquestionably the conservation of natural +resources. It is true that he did not originate it or secure the +enactment of any significant legislation on the subject. The matter had +been taken up in Congress and out as early as Mr. Cleveland's first +administration, and the first important law on conservation was the act +of March 3, 1891, which authorized the President to reserve permanently +as forest lands such areas as he deemed expedient. Under this law +successive Presidents withdrew from entry enormous areas of forest +lands. This beginning Mr. Roosevelt enlarged, and by his messages and +speeches, he brought before the country in an impressive and enduring +manner the urgent necessity of abandoning the old policy of drift and of +withholding from the clutches of grasping corporations the meager domain +still left to the people. Without inquiring into what may be the wisest +final policy in the matter of our natural resources, all citizens will +doubtless agree that Mr. Roosevelt's service in this cause was valuable +beyond calculation.</p> + +<p>Among the proudest achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's administration was +the beginning of the actual construction of the Panama Canal. A short +route between the two oceans had long been considered by the leading +commercial nations of the world. In 1850, by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, +the United States and Great Britain had agreed upon the construction of +a canal by a private corporation, under the supervision of the two +countries and other states, which might join the combination, on a basis +of neutralization. The complete failure of the French company organized +by De Lesseps, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>the hero of the Suez Canal, discouraged all practical +attempts for a time, but the naval advantages of such a waterway was +forced upon public attention in a dramatic manner during the Spanish War +when the battleship <i>Oregon</i> made her historical voyage around the +Horn.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> + +<p>After the Spanish War was over, Mr. John Hay, Secretary of State, began +the negotiation of a new treaty with Great Britain, which, after many +hitches in the process of coming to terms, was finally ratified by the +Senate in December, 1901. This agreement, known as the Hay-Pauncefote +treaty, set aside the old Clayton-Bulwer convention, and provided that a +canal might be constructed under the supervision of the United States, +either at its own cost or by private enterprise subject to the +stipulated provisions. The United States agreed to adopt certain rules +as the basis of the neutralization of the canal, and expressly declared +that "the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of +war of all nations, observing these Rules, on terms of entire equality, +so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its +citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic +or otherwise."<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> A proposal to forbid the fortification of the canal +was omitted from the final draft, and provision was made for "policing" +the district by the United States. The canal was thus neutralized under +a guarantee of the United States, and certain promises were made in +behalf of that country.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>The exact effect of this treaty was a subject of dispute from the +outset. On the one side, it was said by Mr. Latané that "a unilateral +guarantee amounts to nothing; the effect of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, +therefore, is to place the canal politically as well as commercially +under the absolute control of the United States."<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> On the other hand, +it was contended that this treaty superseded a mutually binding +convention, and that, although it was unilateral in character, the rules +provided in it were solemn obligations binding upon the conscience of +the American nation. Whatever may be the merits of this controversy, it +is certain that the Hay-Pauncefote agreement cleared the way for speedy +and positive action on the part of the United States with regard to the +canal.</p> + +<p>The great question then confronting the country was where and how should +the canal be built. One party favored cutting the channel through +Nicaragua, and in fact two national commissions had reported in favor of +this route. Another party advocated taking over the old French concern +and the construction of the waterway through Panama, a district then +forming a part of Colombia. As many influential Americans had become +interested in the rights of the French company, they began a campaign in +the lobbies of Congress to secure the adoption of that route. At length +in June, 1902, the merits of the Panama case or the persistency of the +lobby, or both, carried through a law providing for the purchase of the +French company's claims at a cost of not more than $40,000,000 and the +acquisition <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>of a canal strip from the republic of Colombia—and failing +this arrangement, the selection of the Nicaragua route.</p> + +<p>On the basis of this law, which was signed June 28, 1902, negotiations +were begun with Colombia, but they ended in failure because that country +expected to secure better terms than those offered by the United States. +The Americans who were interested in the French concern and expected to +make millions out of the purchase of property that was substantially +worthless, were greatly distressed by the refusal of Colombia to ratify +the treaty which had been negotiated. Residents of Panama were likewise +disturbed at this delay in an enterprise which meant great prosperity +for them, and with the sympathy if not the support of the American +administration, a revolt was instigated at the Isthmus and carried out +under the protection of American arms on November 3, 1903. Three days +later, President Roosevelt recognized the independence of the new +revolutionary government. In his message in December, Mr. Roosevelt +explained the great necessity under which he labored, and convinced his +friends of the wisdom and justice of his course.</p> + +<p>By a treaty proclaimed on February 26, 1904, between Panama and the +United States, provision was made for the construction of the canal. The +independence of the former country was guaranteed, and the latter +obtained "in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control" of a canal +zone, and the right to construct, maintain, and operate the canal and +other means of transportation through the strip. Panama was paid +$10,000,000 for her concession and promised $250,000 a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>year after the +lapse of nine years. The full $40,000,000 was paid over to the French +concern and its American underwriters; the lock type instead of the +sea-level canal was agreed upon in 1906; construction by private +contractors was rejected in favor of public direct employment under +official engineers; and the work was pushed forward with great rapidity +in the hope that it might be completed before 1915.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The country had not settled down after the Panama affair before popular +interest was again engaged in a diplomatic tangle with Santo Domingo. +That petty republic, on account of its many revolutions, had become +deeply involved in debt, and European creditors, through their +diplomatic agents, had practically threatened the use of armed force in +collecting arrears, unless the United States would undertake the +supervision of the Dominican customs and divide the revenues in a +suitable manner. In an agreement signed in February, 1905, between the +United States and Santo Domingo, provisions were made for carrying such +an arrangement into effect. The Senate, having failed to sanction the +treaty, Mr. Roosevelt practically carried out the program unofficially +and gave it substantial support in the form of American battleships.</p> + +<p>Against this independent executive action there was a strong protest in +the Senate. The spirit of this opposition was fully expressed by Mr. +Rayner in a speech in that chamber, in which he said: "This policy may +be all right—perhaps the American people are in favor of this new +doctrine; it may be a wonderful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>accomplishment—Central America may +profit by it; it may be a great benefit to us commercially and it may be +in the interest of civilization, but as a student and follower of the +Constitution, I deprecate the methods that have been adopted, and I +appeal to you to know whether we propose to sit silently by, and by our +indifference or tacit acquiescence submit to a scheme that ignores the +privileges of this body; that is not authorized by statute; that does +not array itself within any of the functions of the Executive; that +vests the treaty-making power exclusively in the President, to whom it +does not belong; that overrides the organic law of the land, and that +virtually proclaims to the country that, while the other branches of the +Government are controlled by the Constitution, the Executive is above +and beyond it, and whenever his own views or policies conflict with it, +he will find some way to effectuate his purposes uncontrolled by its +limitations."</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding such attacks on his authority, the President had not in +fact exceeded his constitutional rights, and the boldness and directness +of his policy found plenty of popular support. The Senate was forced to +accept the situation with as good grace as possible, and a compromise +was arranged in a revised treaty in February, 1907, in which Mr. +Roosevelt's action on material points received official sanction from +that authority. The wisdom of the policy of using the American navy to +assist European and other creditors in collecting their debts in +Latin-American countries was thoroughly thrashed out, as well as the +constitutional points; and a new stage in the development of the Monroe +Doctrine <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>was thus reached. Those who opposed the policy pointed to +another solution of the perennial difficulties arising in the countries +to the southward; that is, the submission of pecuniary claims to the +Hague Court or special tribunals for arbitration.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p>Another very dramatic feature of Mr. Roosevelt's administration was his +action in bringing Russia and Japan together in 1905 and thus helping to +terminate the terrible war between these two powers. Among the +achievements of the Hague conference, called by the Tsar in 1899, was +the adoption of "A Convention for the Peaceful Adjustment of +International Differences" which provided for a permanent Court of +Arbitration, for international commissions of inquiry in disputes +arising from differences of opinion on facts, and for the tendering of +good offices and mediation. "The right to offer good offices or +mediation," runs the convention, "belongs to Powers who are strangers to +the dispute, even during the course of hostilities. The exercise of this +right shall never be considered by one or the other parties to the +contest as an unfriendly act."</p> + +<p>It was under this last provision that President Roosevelt dispatched on +June 8, 1905, after making proper inquiries, identical notes to Russia +and Japan, urging them to open direct negotiations for peace with each +other. The fact that the great European financiers had already +substantially agreed that the war must end and that both combatants were +in sore straits for money, clearly facilitated the rapidity with which +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>President's invitation was accepted. In his identical note, Mr. +Roosevelt tendered his services "in arranging the preliminaries as to +the time and place of meeting," and after some delay Portsmouth, New +Hampshire, was determined upon. The President's part in the opening +civilities of the conference between the representatives of the two +powers, and the successful outcome of the negotiations, combined to make +the affair, in the popular mind, one of the most brilliant achievements +of his administration.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> See above, p. 133.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> La Follette, <i>Autobiography</i>, 399 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> The law ordered the Interstate Commerce Commission to +ascertain the cost of the construction of all interstate railways, the +cost of their reconstruction at the present time, and also the amount of +land and money contributed to railways by national, state, and local +governments.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> <i>Campaign Textbook, 1908</i>, p. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> See above, p. 209.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Notwithstanding this arrangement, Congress in 1912 enacted +a law exempting American coastwise vessels from canal tolls.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> <i>America as a World Power</i>, p. 207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Latané, <i>America as a World Power</i>, pp. 282 ff.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h2>THE REVIVAL OF DISSENT</h2> +<br /> + +<p>On the morning of March 4, 1901, when Mr. McKinley took the oath of +office to succeed himself as President, it appeared to the superficial +observer that the Populist movement had spent its strength and +disappeared. Such was the common remark of the time. To discredit a new +proposition it was only necessary to observe that it was as dead as +Populism. Twice had the country repudiated Mr. Bryan and his works, the +second time even more emphatically than the first; and the radical ideas +which had been associated with his name, often quite erroneously, seemed +to be permanently laid to rest. The country was prosperous; it +congratulated itself on the successful outcome of the war with Spain and +accepted the imperialist policies which followed with evident +satisfaction. Industries under the protection of the Dingley Act and +undisturbed by threats of legislative interference went forward with +renewed vigor. Capital began to reach out for foreign markets and +investments as never before. Statesmen of Mr. Hanna's school looked upon +their work and pronounced it good.</p> + +<p>But Populism was not dead. Defeated in the field of national politics, +it began to work from the ground upward, attacking one piece of +political machinery after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>another and pressing upon unwilling state +legislatures new forms of agrarian legislation. The People's party, at +its convention in 1896, had declared in favor of "a system of direct +legislation through the initiative and referendum, under proper +constitutional safeguards"; and Mr. Bryan two years later announced his +belief in the system, saying: "The principle of the initiative and +referendum is democratic. It will not be opposed by any Democrat who +indorses the declaration of Jefferson that the people are capable of +self-government; nor will it be opposed by any Republican who holds to +Lincoln's idea that this should be a government of the people, by the +people, and for the people."<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p> + +<p>The first victory of "direct democracy" came in the very year of Mr. +Bryan's memorable defeat. In 1896, the legislature of South Dakota was +captured by a Democratic-Populist majority, and at the session beginning +in the following January, it passed an amendment to the state +constitution, establishing a system of initiative and referendum. Some +leaders of the old Knights of Labor and the president of the Farmers' +Alliance were prominently identified with the campaign for this +innovation. The resolution was "passed by a strict party vote, and to +the Populists is due the credit of passing it," reported "The Direct +Legislation Record" in June, 1897. In the contest over ratification at +the polls a party <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>division ensued. The Democratic state convention in +1898 adopted a plank favoring direct legislation, on "the principle that +the people should rule"; and the Republicans contented themselves with +urging party members "to study the legislative initiative and +referendum." At the ensuing election the amendment was carried by a vote +of 23,876 to 16,483; but ten years elapsed before any use was made of +the new device.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p> + +<p>A cloud no bigger than a man's hand had appeared on the horizon of +representative government. East, West, North, and South, advocates of +direct government were busy with their propaganda, Populists and +Democrats taking the lead, with Republican politicians not far in the +rear. The year following the adoption of the South Dakota amendment a +combination of Democrats and Populists carried a similar provision +through the state legislature of Utah and obtained its ratification in +1900. This victory was a short-lived triumph, for the Republicans soon +regained their ascendancy and stopped the progress of direct legislation +by refusing to enact the enabling law putting the amendment into force. +But this check in Utah did not dampen the ardor of reformers in other +commonwealths. In 1902, Oregon adopted the new system; four years later +Montana followed; in 1907, Oklahoma came into the Union with the device +embodied in the Constitution; and then the progress of the movement +became remarkably rapid. It was adopted by Missouri and Maine in 1908, +Arkansas and Colorado in 1910, Arizona and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>California in 1911, +Washington, Nebraska, Idaho, and Ohio in 1912. By this time Populists +and Democrats had ceased to monopolize the agitation for direct +government; it had become respectable, even in somewhat conservative +Republican circles.</p> + +<p>It should be pointed out, however, that there is a conservative and a +radical system of initiative and referendum: one which fixes the +percentage necessary to initiate and adopt a measure at a point so high +as to prevent its actual operation, and another which places it so low +as to make its frequent use feasible. The older and more radical group +of propagandists, finding their general scheme so widely taken up in +practical politics, soon began to devote their attention rather to +attacking the stricter safeguards thrown up by those who gave their +support to direct government in theory only.</p> + +<p>In its simple form of initiation by five per cent of the voters and +adoption by a majority of those voting on the measure submitted, this +new device was undoubtedly a revolutionary change from the American +system of government as conceived by the framers of the Constitution of +the United States—with its checks and balances, indirect elections, and +judicial control over legislation. The more radical of the advocates of +direct government frankly admitted that this was true, and they sought +to strengthen this very feature of their system by the addition of +another device, known as the recall, which, when applied to judges as +well as other elective officers, reduced judicial control over +legislation to a practical nullity. Where judges are elected for short +terms by popular vote and made subject to the recall, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>and where laws +are made by popular vote of the same electors who choose the judges, it +is obvious that the very foundations of judicial supremacy are +undermined.</p> + +<p>The recall, like direct democracy, was not new to American politics. +Both were understood, at least in principle, by the framers of the +Federal Constitution and rejected decisively. The recall seems to have +made its appearance first in local form,—in the charter of Los Angeles, +adopted in 1903. From there it went to the Seattle charter of 1906, and +two years later it was adopted as a state-wide system applicable to all +elective officers by Oregon. Its progress was swiftest in municipal +affairs, for it quite generally accompanied "the commission form" of +city government as a check on the commissioners in their exercise of +enlarged powers.</p> + +<p>The state-wide recall, however, received a remarkable impetus in 1911 +from the controversy over the admission of Arizona, which attracted the +attention of the nation. That territory had framed a constitution +containing a radical form of the recall based on the Oregon plan, and in +August, 1911, Congress passed a resolution admitting the applicant, on +condition that the provision relating to the recall should be +specifically submitted to the voters for their approval or rejection. +President Taft was at once stirred to action, and on August 15 he sent +Congress a ringing message, displaying unwonted vigor and determination, +vetoing the resolution and denouncing the recall of judges in unmeasured +terms. "Constitutions," he said, "are checks upon the hasty action of +the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people +upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the +rights of the minority.... In order to maintain the rights of the +minority and the individual and to preserve our constitutional balance +we must have judges with courage to decide against the majority when +justice and law require.... As the possibilities of such a system [as +the recall] pass in review, is it too much to characterize it as one +which will destroy the judiciary, its standing, and its usefulness?"</p> + +<p>Acting upon the recommendation of President Taft, Congress passed a +substitute resolution for admitting Arizona only on condition that the +obnoxious recall of judges be stricken from the constitution of the +state.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> The debates in Congress over the admission of Arizona covered +the whole subject of direct government in all its aspects, and these, +coupled with the President's veto message, brought the issue prominently +to the front throughout the country. Voters to whom it had previously +been an obscure western device now began to take a deep interest in it; +the press took it up; and one more test for "progressive" and +"reactionary" was put in the popular program.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The movement for direct popular participation in state and local +government was inevitably accompanied by a demand for more direct +government within the political party; in other words, by a demand for +the abandonment of the representative convention in favor of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>the +selection of candidates by direct primary. During the decade of the +great Populist upheaval, legislation relative to political parties was +largely confined to the introduction of the Australian ballot and the +establishment of safeguards around the primaries at which delegates to +party conventions were chosen. The direct primary, like the initiative +and referendum, grew out of a discontent with social and economic +conditions, which led to an attack on the political machinery that was +alleged to be responsible for them. Like the initiative and referendum, +also, it was not an altogether new device, for it had been used for a +long time in some of the states as a local institution established by +party custom; but when it was taken up by the state legislatures, it +made a far more rapid advance.</p> + +<p>It was not, however, until the opening of the new century that primary +legislation began to engross a large share of legislative activities. In +1903, "the first state-wide primary law with fairly complete provisions +for legal supervision was enacted by the state of Wisconsin"; Oregon, +making use of the new initiative system, enacted a thoroughgoing primary +law in 1904; and the following year Illinois adopted a state-wide +measure. Other states, hesitating at such an extensive application of +the principle, contented themselves at first with laws instituting local +primaries, such, for example, as the Nebraska law of 1905 covering +cities of over 125,000, or the earlier law of Minnesota covering only +Hennepin county. "So rapid was the progress of public opinion and +legislation," says Mr. Merriam, "that in many instances a compromise law +of one session <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>of the legislature was followed by a thoroughgoing law +in the next. For example, the North Dakota law of 1905 authorized direct +primaries for all district nominations, but did not include state +offices; but in 1907, a sweeping act was passed covering practically all +offices."</p> + +<p>The vogue of the direct primary was confined largely to the West at +first, but it steadily gained in favor in the East. Governor Hughes, of +New York, in his contest with the old organization of the Republican +party, became a stanch advocate of the system, recommended it to the +legislature in his messages, campaigned through the state to create +public sentiment in favor of the reform, and labored unsuccessfully to +secure the passage of a primary law, until he closed his term to accept +an appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1911, the +Democratic party, which had carried New York state at the preceding +election, enacted a primary law applicable to local, but not to state, +offices. About the same time Massachusetts, Maine, and New Jersey joined +the long list of direct primary states. Within almost ten years the +principle in its state-wide form had been accepted in two thirds of the +states, and in some local form in nearly all of the other commonwealths.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Meanwhile, the theory and practice of direct government made their way +upward into the Federal government. As early as 1826, Mr. Storrs, a +representative from New York, introduced in the House a constitutional +amendment providing for the popular election of United States Senators, +and from time to time thereafter the proposal was urged upon Congress. +President Johnson, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>who had long been an advocate of this change in the +Federal government, made it the subject of a special message to Congress +in 1868; but in his contest with that body the proposed measure was lost +to sight. Not long afterward it appeared again in the House and the +Senate, and at length the lower house in 1893 passed an amendment +providing for popular election by the requisite two-thirds vote, but the +Senate refused to act. Again in 1894, in 1898 (by a vote of 185 to 11), +in 1900 (240 to 15), and in 1902 by practically a unanimous vote, there +being no division, the House passed the amendment; still the Senate +resisted the change.</p> + +<p>In the Senate itself were found occasional champions of popular +election, principally from the West and South. Mitchell, of Oregon, +Turpie, of Indiana, Perkins, of California, Berry, of Arkansas, and +Bailey, of Texas, took the leadership in this contest for reform. +Chandler, of New Hampshire, Depew, of New York, Penrose, of +Pennsylvania, Hoar, of Massachusetts, Foraker, of Ohio, and Spooner, of +Wisconsin, leveled their batteries against it. State after state +legislature passed resolutions demanding the change, until at length +three fourths had signified their demand for popular election.</p> + +<p>The Senate as a whole remained obdurate. When in the Fifty-third +Congress the resolution of the House came before that body, Mr. Hoar, of +Massachusetts, made, on April 6 and 7, 1893, one of his most eloquent +and impassioned pleas for resisting this new proposal to the uttermost. +He declared that it would transfer the seat of power to the "great +cities and masses of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>population," that it would create new temptations +to fraud and corrupt practices, that it implied that the Senate had been +untrue to its trust, that it would lead to the election of the President +and the judiciary by popular majorities, and that it would "result in +the overthrow of the whole scheme of the Senate and in the end of the +whole scheme of the national Constitution as designed and established by +the framers of the Constitution and the people who adopted it." With +impatience, he refused to listen to the general indictment which had +been brought against the Senate as then constituted. "The greatest +victories of constitutional liberty since the world began," he +concluded, "are those whose battle ground has been the American Senate, +and whose champions have been the Senators who for a hundred years, +while they have resisted the popular passions of the House, have led, +represented, guided, obeyed, and made effective the deliberate will of a +free people."</p> + +<p>Having failed to make an impression on the Senate by a frontal attack, +the advocates of popular election set to work to capture that citadel by +a rear assault. They began to apply the principle of the direct primary +in the nomination of candidates for the Senate, and this development at +length culminated in the Oregon scheme for binding the legislature to +accept the "people's choice." This movement gained rapid headway in the +South, where the real contest was over nomination, not election, on +account of the absence of party divisions. As early as 1875, the +Nebraska constitution had provided for taking a popular preferential +vote on candidates for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>the Senate; but no considerable interest seems +to have been taken in it at the time. In 1899, Nevada passed a law +entitled "an act to secure the election of United States Senators in +accordance with the will of the people and the choice of the electors of +the state." Shortly afterward, Oregon enacted her famous statute which +attempted to compel the legislature to accept the popular nominee; and +from that time forward the new system spread rapidly. By 1910, at least +three fourths of the states nominated candidates for the Senate by some +kind of a popular primary.</p> + +<p>It was not until 1911 that the Senate yielded to the overwhelming +popular demand for a change in the methods of election provided in the +Constitution. In December, 1909, Senator Bristow, of Kansas, introduced +a resolution designed to effect this reform, and after a hot debate it +was defeated on February 28, 1911, by a vote of 54 to 33, four short of +the requisite two thirds. In the next Congress, which convened on April +4, ten Senators who had voted against the amendment had been retired, +and the champions of the measure, taking it up again with renewed +energy, were able to force it through the upper house on June 12, 1911, +by a margin of five more than the two thirds. The resolution went to the +House and a deadlock arose between the two chambers for a time over +Federal control of elections, provided in the Senate resolution, which +was obnoxious to many southern representatives. At length, however, on +May 13, 1912, the opponents in the House gave way, and the resolution +passed by an overwhelming vote. Within a year, the resolution was +ratified by the requisite <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>three fourths of the state legislatures, and +it was proclaimed on May 31, 1913.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The advance of direct democracy in the West was accompanied by a revival +of the question of woman suffrage. That subject had been earnestly +agitated about the time of the Civil War; and under the leadership of +Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and others it made +considerable headway among those sections of the population which had +favored the emancipation of the slaves. Indeed, it was inevitably linked +with the discussion of "natural rights," extensively carried on during +the days when attempts were being made to give political rights to the +newly emancipated bondmen. Woman suffrage was warmly urged before the +New York state constitutional convention in 1867 by Mr. George William +Curtis, in a speech which has become a classic among the arguments for +that cause. During the seventies suffrage petitions bearing the +signatures of thousands of men and women were laid before Congress, and +an attempt was made to secure from the Supreme Court an interpretation +of the Fourteenth Amendment which would force the states to grant the +ballot to women.</p> + +<p>At length the movement began to subside, and writers who passed for keen +observers declared it to be at an end. The nineteenth century closed +with victories for the women in only four states, Wyoming, Colorado, +Utah, and Idaho. The first of these states had granted the vote to women +while yet a territory, and on its admission to the Union in 1890, it +became the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>first state with full political equality. Three years later, +Colorado enfranchised women, and in 1896 Utah and Idaho joined the equal +suffrage commonwealths. Meanwhile, a very large number of northern and +eastern states had given women the right to vote in local or school +elections, Minnesota and Michigan in 1875 and other states in quick +succession. Nevertheless, these gains were, relatively speaking, small, +and there seemed to be little widespread enthusiasm about the further +extension of the right.</p> + +<p>Of course, the agitation continued, but in somewhat obscure circles, +under a running fire of ridicule whenever it appeared in public. At +length it broke out with unprecedented vigor, shortly after the tactics +adopted by militant English women startled the world. Within a short +time new and substantial victories gave the movement a standing which +could not be ignored either by its positive opponents or the indifferent +politicians. In 1910, the suffragists carried the state of Washington; +in 1911, they carried California; in 1912, they won in Arizona, Kansas, +and Oregon; but lost Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. These victories gave +them nine states and of course a considerable influence in the House of +Representatives and the right to participate in the election of eighteen +out of ninety-six Senators. But the defeat in the three middle states +led the opponents of woman suffrage to believe that the movement could +be confined to the far West. This hope was, however, dashed in 1913 when +the legislature of Illinois gave women the right to vote for all +statutory officers, including electors for President of the United +States. Determined to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>make use of the political power thus obtained, +the suffragists, under the leadership of Alice Paul, renewed with great +vigor the agitation at Washington for a national amendment forbidding +states to disqualify women from voting merely on account of sex.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Rise and Growth of Socialism</i></p> + +<p>With the spread of direct elections and the initiative and referendum, +and the adoption of the two amendments to the Federal Constitution +authorizing an income tax<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> and the popular election of Senators, the +milder demands of Populism were secured. At the same time, the +prosperity of the farmers and the enormous rise in ground values which +accompanied the economic advance of the country removed some of the most +potent causes of the discontent on which Populism thrived. Organized +Populism died a natural death. Those Populists who advocated only +political reforms went over to the Republican and Democratic parties; +the advocates of radical economic changes, on the other hand, entered +the Socialist ranks.</p> + +<p>Socialism, as an organized movement in the United States, runs back to +the foundation of the Social-Democratic Workingmen's party in New York +City, in 1874, which was changed into the Socialist Labor party three +years later,—a party that still survives. This group did not enter into +national politics until 1892, although its branches occasionally made +nominations for local offices or fused with other labor groups, as in +the New <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>York mayoralty campaign of 1886. In its vigorous propaganda +against capitalism, this party soon came into collision with the +American Federation of Labor, established in 1886, and definitely broke +with it four years later when the latter withheld a charter from the New +York Central Federation for the alleged reason that the Socialist Labor +party of that city was an affiliated organization. After the break with +the American Federation, this Socialist group turned for a time to the +more radical Knights of Labor, but this new flirtation with labor was no +more successful than the first, and in time the Socialist Labor party +declared war on all the methods of American trades-unionism. Its gains +numerically were not very significant; it polled something over twenty +thousand votes in 1892 and over eighty thousand in 1896—the high-water +mark in its political career. Its history has been a stormy one, marked +by dissensions, personal controversies, and splits, but the party is +still maintained by a decreasing band of loyal adherents.</p> + +<p>The growth of interest in socialism, however, was by no means confined +to the membership of the Socialist Labor party. External events were +stirring a consciousness that grave labor problems had arisen within the +American Commonwealth. The bloody strikes at Homestead, Cœur d'Alene, +Buffalo, and Pullman in the eighties and early nineties moved the +country as no preachments of abstract socialist philosophy could ever +have done. That such social conflicts were full of serious portent was +recognized even by such a remote and conservative thinker as President +Cleveland in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>his message of 1886 to Congress. In that very year, the +Society of Christian Socialists was formed, with Professor R. T. Ely and +Professor G. D. Herron among its members, and about the same time +"Nationalist" clubs were springing up all over the country as a result +of the propaganda created by Bellamy's <i>Looking Backward</i>, published in +1887. The decline of the Populist party, which had indorsed most of the +socialistic proposals that appealed to Americans tinged with radicalism, +the formation of local labor and socialist societies of one kind or +another, and the creation of dissatisfaction with the methods and +program of the Socialist Labor party finally led to the establishment of +a new national political organization.</p> + +<p>This was effected in 1900 when a general fusion was attempted under the +name of the Social Democratic party, which nominated Mr. Eugene V. Debs +for President at a convention held in Indianapolis. The Socialist Labor +party, however, declined to join the organization and went on its own +way. The vote of the new party, ninety-six thousand, induced the leaders +in the movement to believe that they were on the right track, for this +was considerably larger than the rival group had ever secured. Steps +were immediately taken to put the party on a permanent basis; the name +Socialist party was assumed in 1901; local branches were established in +all sections of the country with astonishing rapidity; and a vigorous +propaganda was undertaken. In the national election of 1904 over four +hundred thousand votes were polled; in 1908, when Mr. Bryan and Mr. +Roosevelt gave a radical tinge to the older parties, a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>gain of only +about twenty-five thousand was made; but in 1912, despite Mr. Wilson's +flirtation with western democracy and the candidacy of Mr. Roosevelt on +a socialistic platform, the Socialist party more than doubled its vote.</p> + +<p>During these years of growth the party began to pass from the stage of +propaganda to that of action. In 1910, the Socialists of Milwaukee +carried the city, secured twelve members of the lower house of the state +legislature, elected two state Senators, and returned Mr. Victor Berger +to Congress. This victory, which was hailed as a turning point in the +march of socialism, was largely due, however, to the divided condition +of the opposition, and thus the Socialists really went in as a +plurality, not a majority party. The closing of the Republican and +Democratic ranks in 1912 resulted in the ousting of the Socialist city +administration, although the party polled a vote considerably larger +than that cast two years previously. In other parts of the country +numerous municipal and local officers were elected by the Socialists, +and in 1912 they could boast of several hundred public offices.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p> + +<p>While there was no little difference of opinion among the Socialists as +to the precise character of their principles and tactics,—a condition +not peculiar to that party,—there were certain general ideas running +through their propaganda and platforms. Modern industry, they all held, +creates necessarily a division of society into a relatively few +capitalists, on the one hand, who own, control, and manipulate the +machinery of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>production and the natural resources of the country, and +on the other hand, a great mass of landless, toolless, and homeless +working people dependent upon the sale of their labor for a livelihood. +There is an inherent antagonism between these two classes, for each +seeks to secure all that it can from the annual output of wealth; this +antagonism is manifest in labor organizations, strikes, and industrial +disputes of every kind. Out of this contest, the former class gains +wealth, luxury, safety, and the latter, poverty, slums, and misery. +Finally, if the annual toll levied upon industry by the exploiters and +the frightful wastes due to competition and maladjustment were +eliminated, all who labor with hand or brain could enjoy reasonable +comfort and security, and also leisure for the cultivation of the nobler +arts of civilization.</p> + +<p>At the present time, runs the Socialist platform of 1912, "the +capitalist class, though few in numbers, absolutely controls the +government—legislative, executive, and judicial. This class owns the +machinery of gathering and disseminating news through its organized +press. It subsidizes seats of learning,—the colleges and the +schools,—even religious and moral agencies. It has also the added +prestige which established customs give to any order of society, right +or wrong." But the working class is becoming more and more discontented +with its lot; it is becoming consolidated by coöperation, political and +economic, and in the future it will become the ruling class of the +country, taking possession, through the machinery of the government, of +the great instrumentalities of production and distribution. This final +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>achievement of socialism is being prepared by the swift and inevitable +consolidation of the great industries into corporations, managed by paid +agents for the owners of the stocks and bonds. The transition from the +present order will take the form of municipal, state, and national +assumption of the various instrumentalities of production and +distribution—with or without compensation to the present owners, as +circumstances may dictate.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Such are the general presuppositions of +socialism.</p> + +<p>The Socialist party had scarcely got under way before it was attacked +from an unexpected quarter by revolutionary trade-unionists, known as +the Industrial Workers of the World, who revived in part the old +principle of class solidarity (as opposed to trade solidarity) which lay +at the basis of the Knights of Labor. The leaders of this new unionism, +among whom Mr. W. D. Haywood was prominent, did not repudiate altogether +the Socialist labors to secure control of the organs of government by +the ballot, but they minimized their importance and pressed to the front +the doctrine that by vigorous and uncompromising mass strikes a +revolutionary spirit might be roused in the working class and the actual +control of business wrested from the capitalists, perhaps without the +intervention of the government at all.</p> + +<p>This new unionism was launched at a conference of radical labor leaders +in 1904, at which the following <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>program was adopted: "The working class +and the employing class have nothing in common. Between these two +classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as +a class, take possession of the earth and machinery of production and +abolish the wage system. We find that the centering of the management of +industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to +cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade +unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be +pitted against another set of workers in the same industry.... Moreover +the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the +belief that the working class have interests in common with their +employers. These conditions can be changed and the interest of the +working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that +all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, +cease work whenever a strike or a lockout is on in any department +thereof.... We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, +'Abolish the wage system.'"</p> + +<p>This new society made a disturbance in labor circles entirely out of +proportion to its numerical strength. Its leaders managed strikes at +McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, at Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912, and at +other points, laying emphasis on the united action of all the working +people of all the trades involved in the particular industry. The "new +unionism" appealed particularly to the great mass of foreign laborers +who had no vote and therefore perhaps turned with more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>zeal to "direct" +action. It appeared, however, that the membership of the Industrial +Workers was not over 70,000 in 1912, and that it had little of the +stability of the membership of the old unions.</p> + +<p>What the effect of this new unionism will be on the Socialist party +remains to be seen. That party at its convention in 1912 went on record +against the violent tactics of revolutionary unionism, and by a party +vote "recalled" Mr. Haywood from his membership on the executive +committee. The appearance of this more menacing type of working-class +action and the refusal of the Socialist party to accept it with open +arms gave a new turn to the attitude of the conservative press toward +regular political socialism of the strict Marxian school.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Counter-Reformation</i></p> + +<p>Just as the Protestant Revolt during the sixteenth century was followed +by a counter-reformation in the Catholic Church which swept away many +abuses, while retaining and fortifying the essential principles of the +faith, so the widespread and radical discontent of the working classes +with the capitalist system hitherto obtaining produced a +counter-reformation on the part of those who wish to preserve its +essentials while curtailing some of its excesses. This +counter-reformation made a deep impress upon American political thinking +and legislation at the turning of the new century. More than once during +his presidency Mr. Roosevelt warned the capitalists that a reform of +abuses was the price which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>they would have to pay in order to save +themselves from a socialist revolution. Eminent economists turned aside +from free trade and <i>laissez faire</i> to consider some of the grievances +of the working class, and many abandoned the time-honored discussions of +"economic theories," in favor of legislative programs embracing the +principles of state socialism, to which countries like Germany and Great +Britain were already committed.</p> + +<p>Charity workers whose function had been hitherto to gather up the wrecks +of civilization and smooth their dying days began to talk of "a war for +the prevention of poverty," and an examination of their concrete +legislation proposals revealed the acceptance of some of the principles +of state socialism. Unrestricted competition and private property had +produced a mass of poverty and wretchedness in the great cities which +constituted a growing menace to society, and furnished themes for +socialist orators. Social workers of every kind began the detailed +analysis of the causes of specific cases of poverty and arrived at the +conclusion that elaborate programs of "social legislation" were +necessary to the elimination of a vast mass of undeserved poverty.</p> + +<p>Under the stimulus of these and other forces, state legislatures in the +more industrially advanced commonwealths began to pour out a stream of +laws dealing with social problems. These measures included employers' +liability and workmen's compensation laws, the prohibition of child +labor, minimum hours for dangerous trades like mining and railroading, +minimum wages for women and girls, employment bureaus, and pensions for +widows with children to support. While none of the states <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>went so far +as to establish old-age pensions and general sickness and accident +insurance, it was apparent from an examination of the legislation of the +first decade of the twentieth century that they were well in the paths +of nations like Germany, England, and Australia.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Criticism of the Federal System</i></p> + +<p>All this unsettlement in economics and politics could not fail to bring +about a reconsideration of the fundamentals in the American +constitutional system—particularly the distribution of powers between +the Federal and state governments, which is made by a constitution +drafted when economic conditions were totally different from what they +are to-day. In fact, during the closing years of the nineteenth century +there appeared, here and there in American political literature, +evidence of a discontent with the Federal system scarcely less keen and +critical than that which was manifested with the Articles of +Confederation during those years of our history which John Fiske has +denominated "The Critical Period."</p> + +<p>Manufacturing interests which, at the time the Federal Constitution was +framed, were so local in character as to be excluded entirely from the +control of the Federal government had now become national or at all +events sectional, having absolutely no relation to state lines. As +Professor Leacock remarks, "The central fact of the situation is that +economically and industrially the United States is one country or at +best one country with four or five great subdivisions, while politically +it is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>broken into a division of jurisdictions holding sway to a great +extent over its economic life, but corresponding to no real division +either of race, of history, of unity, of settlement, or of commercial +interest."<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> For example, in 1900 the boot and shoe industry, instead +of being liberally distributed among the several states, was so +concentrated, that out of the total product 44.9 per cent was produced +by Massachusetts; nearly one half of the agricultural implements for +that year were made in Illinois; two thirds of the glass of the whole +country was made in Pennsylvania and Indiana; while Pennsylvania alone +produced 54 per cent of the iron and steel manufactured. The political +significance of this situation was simply this: the nation on which each +of these specialized industries depended for its existence had +practically no power through the national government to legislate +relative to them; but in each case a single legislature representing a +small fraction of the people connected with the industry in question +possesses the power of control.</p> + +<p>The tendency of manufacturers to centralize was accompanied, as has been +pointed out above, by a similar centralization in railways. At the close +of the nineteenth century, the Vanderbilt system operated "some 20,000 +miles reaching from New York City to Casper, Wyoming, and covering the +lake states and the area of the upper Mississippi; the Pennsylvania +system with 14,000 miles covers a portion of the same territory, +centering particularly in Ohio and Indiana; the Morgan <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>system, +operating 12,000 miles, covers the Atlantic seaboard and the interior of +the Southern States from New York to New Orleans; the Morgan-Hill system +operates 20,000 miles from Chicago and St. Louis to the state of +Washington; the Harriman system with 19,000 miles runs from Chicago +southward to the Gulf and westward to San Francisco, including a +Southern route from New Orleans to Los Angeles; the Gould system with +14,000 miles operates chiefly in the center of the middle west extending +southward to the Gulf; in addition to these great systems are a group of +minor combinations such as the Atchinson with 7,500 or the Boston and +Maine with 3,300 miles of road."</p> + +<p>Corresponding to this centralization in industries and railways there +was, as we have pointed out, a centralization in the control of capital, +particularly in two large groups, the Standard Oil and the Morgan +interests. As an expert financier, Mr. Moody wrote in 1904: "Viewed as a +whole, we find the dominating influences in the trusts to be made up of +an intricate network of large and small groups of capitalists, many +allied to one another by ties of more or less importance, but all being +appendages to, or parties of the greater groups which are themselves +dependent on and allied with the two mammoth or Rockefeller and Morgan +groups."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Facing this centralized national economy was a Federal system made for +wholly different conditions—a national system of manufacturing, +transportation, capital, and organized labor, with a national government +empowered, expressly, at least, to regulate only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>one of those +interests, transportation—the other fundamental national interests +being referred to the mercy of forty-six separate and independent state +legislatures. But it is to be noted, these several legislatures were by +no means free to work out their own program of legislation; all of them +were, at every point, subjected to Federal judicial control under the +general phrases of the Fourteenth Amendment relative to due process of +law and the equal protection of the laws.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> To state it in another +way, the national government was powerless to act freely with regard to +nearly all of the great national interests, but it was all powerful +through its judiciary in striking down state legislation.</p> + +<p>A few concrete illustrations<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> will show the lack of correspondence +between the political system and the economic system. Each state bids +against the others to increase the number of factories which adds to its +wealth and increases the value of property within its borders, although +it makes no difference to the total wealth of the nation and the +happiness of the whole people whether a particular concern is located in +New Jersey or in Pennsylvania. As the national government enjoys no +power to regulate industries—even those which are national in +character—the states use their respective powers under the pressure +which comes from those who are interested in increasing the industry of +the commonwealth. For example, it is stated "the glass workers of New +Jersey oppose any attempt to prohibit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>night work for boys under sixteen +years of age on the ground that such work is permitted in the +neighboring state of Pennsylvania." In 1907, in South Carolina, Georgia, +and Alabama, a ten year old child could, under the law, work for twelve +hours a day; North Carolina had sixty-six mills where twelve year old +children could do twelve hours' night work under the law. Although this +situation was somewhat remedied later, the advocates of reform were +resisted at every point by the interested parties who contended that in +competing with New England, the southern states had to take advantage of +every opportunity, even at the expense of the children.</p> + +<p>The situation may be described in the language of the chief factory +inspector of Ohio: "Industrially as well as geographically we of the +Ohio Valley are one people and our laws should be uniform, not only that +they may be the easier enforced, but in justice to the manufacturers who +pursue the same industry in the several states and therefore come into +close competition with one another." Moreover, if a state enacts an +important industrial law, it may find its work in vain as the result of +a decision of the national Supreme Court, or of the state courts, +interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment.</p> + +<p>Another example of a national interest which is wholly beyond the reach +of the Federal government, under a judicial decision reached in the case +of Paul <i>v.</i> Virginia in 1868, is that of insurance. Although Hamilton +and earlier writers on the Constitution believed that the insurance +business was a branch of interstate commerce whose regulation was vested +in Congress, the Supreme <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>Court in this case dealing with fire insurance +declared that the act of issuing a policy of insurance was not a +transaction of commerce. "The policies," said the Court, "are simple +contracts of indemnity against loss by fire, entered into between the +corporations and the assured for a consideration paid by the latter. +These contracts are not articles of commerce in any proper meaning of +the word; they are not subjects of trade and barter offered in the +market as something having an existence and value independent of the +parties to them.... Such contracts are not interstate transactions, +though the parties may be domiciled in different states.... They are +then local transactions and are governed by the local laws. They do not +constitute a part of the commerce between the states any more than a +contract for the purchase and sale of goods in Virginia by a citizen of +New York whilst in Virginia would constitute a portion of such +commerce."</p> + +<p>As a result of this narrow interpretation of the commerce clause, the +vast insurance business of the country, national in character, was put +beyond the reach of Congress, and at the mercy of the legislatures of +the several commonwealths. Under these circumstances, the insurance laws +of the United States were in splendid chaos. "If a compilation of these +laws were attempted," says Mr. Huebner, "a most curious spectacle would +result. It would be found that fifty-two states and territories are all +acting along independent lines and that each, as has been correctly +said, possessed its own schedule of taxations, fees, fines, penalties, +obligations and prohibitions, and a retaliatory or reciprocal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>provision +enabled it to meet the highest charges any other state may require of +the companies of any other states."</p> + +<p>A still better example of confusion in our system is offered by the +corporation laws of the several states. Great industrial corporations +are formed under state laws. While many contend that Congress has the +power to compel the Federal incorporation of all concerns doing an +interstate business and thus to occupy the whole domain of corporation +law involving interstate commerce, this radical step has not yet been +taken. Congress has confined itself to the more or less fruitless task +of forbidding combinations in restraint of interstate trade.</p> + +<p>Under these circumstances, there appeared the anomalous condition of +states actually advertising in the newspapers and bidding against each +other in offering the corporations special opportunities and low fees +for the privilege of incorporating. If the conscience of one state +became enlightened and a strict corporation law was enacted, the result +was simply to drive the irregular concerns into some other state which +was willing to sell its privileges for the small fee of incorporation, +and ask no questions. As might have been expected, every variety of +practice existed in the forty-eight jurisdictions in which corporations +might be located.</p> + +<p>Not only was there the greatest diversity in these practices, but +special discriminations were often made in particular states against +concerns incorporated in other states; and on top of all this there was +a vast mass of anti-trust legislation, frequently drastic in character +or loose and futile. Often it was the product of a popular clamor +against large business undertakings, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>and often it was the result of the +effort of legislators to "strike" at corporations. Whatever the +underlying motive, it was generally characterized at the outset by lack +of uniformity and absence of any large view of public policy, and then +it was glossed over by judicial decisions, state and Federal, until it +was a fortunate corporation official, indeed, who knew either his rights +or his duties under the law. Moreover, it was a particularly obtuse +attorney who could not lead his client unscathed through this wonderland +of legal confusion.</p> + +<p>The position of railway corporations, if possible, was more anomalous +still. Their interstate business was subject to the regulations of +Congress and their intra-state business to the control of the state +legislatures. Although there existed, in theory, a dividing line between +these two classes of business, there were always arising concrete cases +where it was difficult to say on which side of the line they would fall +in the opinion of the Supreme Court. States were constantly being +enjoined on the application of the railways for their "interference with +interstate commerce"; and when far-reaching legislation was proposed in +Congress, the cry went up that the rights of states were being trampled +upon. If X shipped a carload of goods to Y within the borders of his +state, he paid one rate; if he shipped it to Z, two miles farther on in +another state, he paid a different rate, perhaps less than in the first +instance. In a number of states companies owning parallel lines might +consolidate; in others, consolidation was forbidden. According to a +report of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1902, the states were +equally <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>divided on this proposition as to the consolidation of +competing lines. According to the same report, if a railway company was +guilty of unjust discrimination in one state, it paid a fine of $50, and +in other states it was mulcted to the tune of $25,000. At the same time, +whoever obstructed a railway track in Mississippi was liable to three +months in jail; for the same offense in New York he might get three +years; if, perchance, after serving three years and three months in +these two commonwealths, he tried the experiment again in Wyoming, he +might in the mercy of the court be sentenced to death.</p> + +<p>A further element of confusion was added by the intervention of the +Federal judiciary in declaring state laws invalid, not merely when they +conflicted clearly with the execution of Federal law, but on +constitutional grounds which meant, for practical purposes, whenever the +said laws were not in harmony with the ideas of public policy +entertained by the courts at the time. The Federal judiciary in regard +to state legislation relative to corporations was, therefore, a +destructive, not a constructive, body. To use the language of the +street, state legislation was simply "shot to pieces" by judicial +decisions. That which was chaotic, disjointed, and founded upon no +uniformity of purpose or policy to begin with was riddled and torn by a +body which had no power for positive action.</p> + +<p>As the Interstate Commerce Commission declared in 1903, "One of the +chief embarrassments in the exercise of adequate government control over +the organization, the construction, and the administration of railways +in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>the United States is found in the many sources of statutory +authority recognized by our form of government. The Federal Constitution +provides for uniformity in statutory control, so far as interstate +commerce is concerned, but it does not touch commerce within the states, +nor, as at present interpreted, does it cover the organization of +railroad corporations or the construction of railroad properties. These +matters, as well as the larger part of that class of activities included +under the police jurisdiction, are left to the states. Such being the +case, the development of an harmonious and uniform railroad system must +be attained, if at all, by one of two methods. The states must +relinquish to the Federal government their reserved rights over internal +commerce, or having first agreed upon fundamental principles, they must, +through comity and convention, work out an harmonious system of +statutory regulation."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>This was the situation that called forth the demand for the national +regulation of large corporate enterprises, and brought about the demand +for a strengthening of the Federal government, either by a +constitutional amendment or judicial interpretation, which received the +name of "New Nationalism." Wide currency was given to this term by Mr. +Roosevelt, in his speech delivered at Ossawatomie on August 31, 1910. +After outlining a legislative policy which he deemed to be demanded by +the changed economic conditions of our time, Mr. Roosevelt attacked the +idea of "a neutral zone between the national and state legislatures," +guarded only by the Federal judiciary; and pleaded for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>the +strengthening of the Federal government so as to make it competent for +every national purpose.</p> + +<p>"There must remain no neutral ground," he said, "to serve as a refuge +for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can +hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both +jurisdictions. It is a misfortune when the national legislature fails to +do its duty in providing a national remedy so that the only national +activity is the purely negative activity of the judiciary in forbidding +the state to exercise the power in the premises.</p> + +<p>"I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that we work in a +spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what +concerns our people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common +interests are as broad as the continent. I speak to you here exactly as +I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital problems are +those which affect us all alike. The national government belongs to the +whole American people, and where the whole American people are +interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the +national government. The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, +I believe, mainly through the national government.</p> + +<p>"The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism without +which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts +the national need before sectional or personal advantages. It is +impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures +attempting to treat national issues as local issues. It is still more +impatient of the impotence <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>which springs from overdivision of +government powers, the impotence which makes it impossible for local +selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to +bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards +the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of +the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare +rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body +shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of +the people."</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> The political history of the initiative and referendum has +never been written. Some valuable materials are to be found in <i>Direct +Legislation</i>, Senate Document No. 340, 55th Cong., 2d Sess. (1898); and +in "The Direct Legislation Record," founded in May, 1894; and in the +"Equity Series," now published at Philadelphia. See also Oberholtzer, +<i>The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in America</i>, ed. 1911.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> <i>The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall</i>, Annals of the +American Academy of Political and Social Science, September, 1912, pp. +84 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Arizona was admitted without the judicial recall +provision, but immediately set to work and reinserted it in the +constitution, and devised a plan for the recall of Federal district +judges as well.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> See below, p. 325.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> See list in the <i>National Municipal Review</i> for July, +1912.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> The Socialist party does not at present contemplate public +ownership of petty properties or of farm lands tilled by their +possessors. This is one part of its program not yet definitely worked +out.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> <i>Proceedings of the American Political Science +Association</i>, 1908, Vol. V, p. 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> See above, p. 54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Taken from Professor Leacock's paper in the <i>Proceedings +of the American Political Science Association</i>, 1908, pp. 37 ff.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h2>MR. TAFT AND REPUBLICAN DISINTEGRATION</h2> +<br /> + +<p>In spite of the stirring of new economic and political forces which +marked Mr. Roosevelt's administration and his somewhat radical +utterances upon occasion, there was no prominent leader in the +Republican party in 1908, except Mr. La Follette of Wisconsin, who was +identified with policies which later came to be known as "progressive." +Although Mr. Hughes, as governor of New York, had enlisted national +interest in his "fight with the bosses," he was, by temperament, +conservative rather than radical, and his doctrines were not primarily +economic in character. Other Republican aspirants were also of a +conservative cast of mind, Mr. Fairbanks, of Indiana, Mr. Knox, of +Pennsylvania, Mr. Cannon, of Illinois, all of whom were indorsed for the +presidency by their respective states. The radical element among the +Republicans hoped that Mr. Roosevelt would consent to accept a "second +elective term"; but his flat refusal put an end to their plans for +renomination.</p> + +<p>Very early in his second administration, Mr. Roosevelt made it clear +that he wanted to see Mr. W. H. Taft, then Secretary of War, designated +as his successor; and by the judicious employment of publicity and the +proper management of the Federal patronage and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>southern Republican +delegates, he materially aided in the nomination of Mr. Taft at Chicago, +in June, 1908. The Republican platform of that year advocated a revision +of the tariff, not necessarily downward, but with a due regard to +difference between the cost of production at home and abroad; it favored +an amendment of the Sherman anti-trust law in such a manner as to give +more publicity and the Federal government more supervision and control; +it advocated the regulation of the issuance of injunctions by the +Federal courts; it indorsed conservation and pledged the party to +"unfailing adherence" to Mr. Roosevelt's policies. This somewhat +noncommittal platform was elaborated by Mr. Taft in his speech, after a +conference with Mr. Roosevelt; the popular election of Senators was +favored, an income tax of some kind indorsed, and a faintly radical +tinge given to the party document.</p> + +<p>The nomination of Mr. Bryan by the Democrats was a foregone conclusion. +The débâcle of 1904 had demonstrated that the breach of 1896 could not +be healed by what the western contingent called "the Wall Street crowd"; +and Mr. Bryan had secured complete control of the party organization. +The convention at Denver was a personal triumph from beginning to end. +Mr. Bryan mastered the proceedings and wrote the platform, and received +the most telling ovation ever given to a party leader by a national +convention.</p> + +<p>Having complete control, Mr. Bryan attempted what the politicians who +talked most aggressively about the trusts had consistently refused to +do—he attempted to define and precisely state the remedies for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>objectionable combinations. Other leaders had discussed "good" and +"bad" trusts, but they had not attempted the mathematics of the problem. +In the platform of his party, Mr. Bryan wrote: "A private monopoly is +indefensible and intolerable. We therefore favor the vigorous +enforcement of the criminal law against guilty trust magnates and +officials and demand the enactment of such additional legislation as may +be necessary to make it impossible for private monopoly to exist in the +United States." In this paragraph, there is of course nothing new; but +it continues: "Among the additional remedies we specify three: first, a +law preventing the duplication of directors among competing +corporations; second, a license system which will, without abridging the +rights of each state to create corporations or its right to regulate as +it will foreign corporations doing business within its limits, make it +necessary for a manufacturing or trading corporation engaged in +interstate commerce to take out a federal license before it shall be +permitted to control as much as 25 per cent of the product in which it +deals, a license to protect the public from watered stock and to +prohibit the control by such corporation of more than 50 per cent of the +total amount of any product consumed in the United States; and third, a +law compelling such licensed corporations to sell to all purchasers in +all parts of the country on the same terms after making due allowance +for cost of transportation."</p> + +<p>In dealing with railway corporations, the Democratic platform proposed +concretely the valuation of railways, taking into consideration the +physical as well as other elements; an increase in the power of the +Interstate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>Commerce Commission, giving it the initiative with reference +to rates and transportation charges and the power to declare any rate +illegal on its own motion, and to inspect railway tariffs before +permitting them to go into effect; and finally an efficient supervision +and regulation of railroads engaged in interstate commerce.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bryan's proposals, particularly with regard to trusts, were greeted +with no little derision on the part of many practical men of affairs, +but they had, at least, the merit of being more definite in character +than any statement of anti-trust policy which had been made hitherto, +except by the Socialists in advocating public ownership. The +Republicans, for example, contented themselves with simply proposing the +amendment of the Sherman law in such a manner as to "give to the federal +government greater supervision and control over and secure greater +publicity in the management of that class of corporations engaged in +interstate commerce having power and opportunity to effect monopolies."</p> + +<p>The campaign of 1908 was without any specially dramatic incidents. The +long stumping tours by all candidates did not seem to elicit the +old-time enthusiasm. The corporation interests that had long financed +the Republican party once more poured out treasure like water (as the +Clapp investigation afterward revealed in 1912); and Mr. Bryan attempted +a counter-movement by asking for small contributions from each member of +his party, but he was sadly disappointed by the results. The Democratic +national committee announced that it would receive no contributions from +corporations, that it would accept no more than $10,000 from any +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>individual, and that it would make public, before the election, all +contributions above $100. Mr. Bryan also challenged Mr. Taft to make +public the names of the contributors to his fund and the amount received +from each. The Republican managers replied that they would make known +their contributors in due time as required by the law of the state of +New York where the headquarters were located, and Mr. Taft added that he +would urge upon Congress the enactment of a law compelling full +publicity of campaign contributions.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> + +<p>In the election which followed, Mr. Bryan was defeated for the third +time. His vote was somewhat larger than it was in 1900, and nearly a +million and a half above that cast for Mr. Parker in 1904. But Mr. Taft +more than held the strength of his predecessor as measured by the +popular vote, and he received 321 electoral votes against 162 cast for +his opponent. Once more, the conservative press announced, the country +had repudiated Populism and demonstrated its sound, conservative +instincts.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Taft took the oath of office on March 4, 1909, he fell heir, on +his own admission, to more troublesome problems than had been the lot of +any President since Lincoln's day. His predecessor had kept the country +interested and entertained by the variety of his speeches and +recommendations and by his versatility in dealing with all the social +questions which were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>pressing to the front during his administration. +Mr. Roosevelt was brilliant in his political operations, although he had +been careful about attempting to bring too many things to concrete +issue. Mr. Taft was matter-of-fact in his outlook and his expectations. +The country had been undergoing a process of education, as he put it, +and now the time had come for taking stock. The time had come for +putting the house in order and settling down to a period of rest. If +there were signs on the horizon which warned Mr. Taft against this +comfortable view, his spoken utterances gave no sign of recognition.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Legislative Measures</i></p> + +<p>The first task which confronted him was the thorny problem of the +tariff. His predecessor had given the matter little attention during his +administration, apparently for the reason that it was, in his opinion, +of little consequence as compared with the questions of railways, +trusts, great riches, and labor. But action could not be indefinitely +postponed. Undoubtedly there was a demand in many parts of the country +for a tariff revision. How widespread it was, how much it was the +creation of the politicians, how intelligent and deep-seated it was, no +one could tell. Nevertheless, more than ten years had elapsed since the +enactment of the Dingley law of 1897, and many who did not entertain +radical views on the subject at all joined in demanding a revision on +the ground that conditions had materially changed. The Republican +platform had promised revision on the basis that the true principle of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>protection was best maintained by the imposition of such duties "as +will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and +abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries." Mr. +Taft in his speech of acceptance had promised revision, on the theory +that some schedules were too high and others too low; and his language +during the campaign had been interpreted to mean a more severe downward +revision than he had doubtless contemplated.</p> + +<p>In accordance with party pledges Mr. Taft called Congress in a special +session on March 11, 1909, and after a hotly contested battle the +Payne-Aldrich tariff act was passed. The President made no considerable +effort to force the hand of Congress one way or the other, and he +accepted the measure on the theory that it was the best tariff law that +could be got at the time. Indeed, it was pointed out by members of his +party that the bill contained "654 decreases in duty, 220 increases, and +1150 items of the dutiable list in which the rates were unchanged." It +was also stated that the bill was framed in accordance with the spirit +of the party platform which had made no promise of a general sweeping +reduction. It was admitted, however, that precise information upon the +difference between the cost of production at home and abroad could not +have been obtained in time for this revision, but a tariff board was +created by law for the purpose of obtaining the desired information, on +the basis of which readjustments in schedules could be made from time to +time.</p> + +<p>On April 9, 1909, the Payne tariff act passed the House, one Republican +voting against it and four <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>Democrats from Louisiana voting in favor of +it. This vote, however, was of no significance; the real test was the +vote on the several amendments proposed from time to time to the +original bill, and on these occasions the Democratic lines were badly +broken. On April 12, Mr. Aldrich introduced in the Senate a tariff bill +which had been carefully prepared by the finance committee of which he +was chairman. This measure followed more closely the Dingley law, making +no recommendations concerning some of the commodities which the House +had placed on the free list, and passing over the subject of income and +inheritance taxes without remark. The Aldrich measure was bitterly +attacked by insurgent Republicans from the West,—Senators Dolliver and +Cummins, of Iowa, La Follette, of Wisconsin, Beveridge, of Indiana, and +Bristow, of Kansas,—who held out to the last and voted against the +bill, even as amended, on its final passage, July 8. The conference +committee of the two Houses settled their differences by July 30, and on +August 5 the tariff bill became a law.</p> + +<p>There were several features of the transaction which deserve special +notice. Very early in the Senate proceedings on the bill, an income tax +provision was introduced by Senators Cummins and Bailey, and it looked +as if enough support could be secured from the two parties to enact it +into law. Although President Taft, in his acceptance speech, had +expressed an opinion to the effect that an income tax could be +constitutionally enacted notwithstanding the decision of the Supreme +Court in the Income Tax cases, he blocked the proposal to couple an +income tax measure with the tariff bill, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>by sending a special message +on June 16, recommending the passage of a constitutional amendment +empowering Congress to levy a general income tax, and advising a tax on +the earnings of corporations. His suggestions were accepted by Congress. +The proposed amendment to the Constitution was passed unanimously by the +Senate, and by an overwhelming majority in the House,<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> and a tax on +the net incomes of corporations was also adopted. A customs court to be +composed of five judges to hear appeals in customs cases was set up, and +a tariff commission to study all aspects of the question, particularly +the differences between cost of production in the United States and +abroad, was created.</p> + +<p>Revision of the tariff had always been a thankless task for any party. +The Democrats had found it such in 1894 when their bill had failed to +please any one, including President Cleveland, and when for collateral +or independent reasons a period of industrial depression had set in. The +McKinley bill of 1890 had aroused a storm of protest which had swept the +Republicans out of power, and it is probable that the Dingley tariff of +1897 would have created similar opposition if it could have been +disentangled from the other overshadowing issues growing out of the +Spanish War. The Payne-Aldrich tariff likewise failed to please; but its +failure was all the more significant because its passage was opposed by +such a large number of prominent party members. The Democrats, as was +naturally to be expected, made all they could out of the situation, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>cried "Treason." Even what appeared to be a concession to the radicals, +the adoption of a resolution providing for an amendment to the +Constitution authorizing the imposition of an income tax, was not +accepted as a consolation, but was looked upon as a subterfuge to escape +the probable dilemma of having an income tax law passed immediately and +submitted to the Supreme Court again.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the dissensions within his party, Mr. Taft continued +steadily to press a legislative policy which he had marked out. In a +special message on January 7, 1910, he recommended the creation of a +court of commerce to have jurisdiction, among other things, over appeals +from the Interstate Commerce Commission. This proposal was enacted into +law on June 18, 1910; and the appointments were duly made by the +President. The career of the tribunal was not, however, particularly +happy. Some of its decisions against the rulings of the Commission were +popularly regarded as too favorable to railway interests; one of the +judges, Mr. Archbald, of Pennsylvania, was impeached and removed on the +ground that his private relations with certain railway corporations were +highly questionable; and at length Congress in 1913 terminated its short +life.</p> + +<p>Acting upon a recommendation of the President, Congress, in June, 1910, +passed a law providing for the establishment of a postal savings system, +in connection with the post offices. The law authorized the payment of +two per cent interest on money deposited at the designated post offices +and the distribution of all such <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>deposits among state and national +banks under the protection of bonds placed with the Treasurer of the +United States. The scheme was applied experimentally at a few offices +and then rapidly extended, until within two years it was in operation at +more than 12,000 offices and over $20,000,000 was on deposit. The plan +which had been branded as "socialistic" a few years before when +advocated by the Populists was now hailed as an enlightened reform, even +by the banks as well as business men, for they discovered that it +brought out secret hoardings and gave the banks the benefit at a low +rate of interest—lower than that paid by ordinary savings concerns.</p> + +<p>The postal savings system was shortly supplemented by a system of +parcels post. Mr. Taft strongly advocated the establishment of such a +system, and it had been urged in Congress for many years, but had been +blocked by the opposition of the express companies, for obvious reasons, +and by country merchants who feared that they would be injured by the +increased competition of the mail order departments of city stores. +Finally, by a law approved on August 24, 1912, Congress made provision +for the establishment of this long-delayed service, and it was put into +effect on January 1, 1913, thus enabling the United States to catch up +with the postal systems of other enlightened nations. Although the +measure was sharply criticized for its rates and classifications, it was +generally approved and regarded as the promising beginning of an +institution long desired.</p> + +<p>While helping to add these new burdens to the post-office +administration, Mr. Taft directed his attention to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>the urgent necessity +for more businesslike methods on the part of the national administration +in general, and, on his recommendation, Congress appropriated in 1910 +$100,000 "to enable the President to inquire into the methods of +transacting the public business of the Executive Department and other +government establishments, and to recommend to Congress such legislation +as may be necessary." A board of experts, known as the Economy and +Efficiency Commission, was thereupon appointed, and it set to work +examining the several branches of administration with a view to +discovering wasteful and obsolete methods in use and recommending +changes and practices which would result in saving money and producing +better results. Among other things, the Commission undertook an +examination of the problem of a national budget along lines followed by +the best European governments, and it suggested the abandonment of the +time-honored "log-rolling" process of making appropriations, in favor of +a consistent, consolidated, and businesslike budget based upon national +needs and not the demands of localities for Federal "improvements," +regardless of their utility.</p> + +<p>Although he was sharply attacked by the advocates of conservation for +appointing and supporting as Secretary of the Interior, Mr. R. A. +Ballinger, who was charged with favoring certain large corporations +seeking public land grants, Mr. Taft devoted no little attention to the +problem of conserving the natural resources. In 1910, Congress enacted +two important laws bearing on the subject. By a measure approved June +22, it provided for agricultural entries on coal lands and the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>separation of the surface from the mineral rights in such lands. By +another law, approved three days later, Congress made provision for the +withdrawal of certain lands for water-power sites, irrigation, +classification of lands, and other public purposes. These laws settled +some questions of legality which had been raised with reference to +earlier executive action in withdrawing lands from entry and gave the +President definite authority to control important aspects of +conservation.</p> + +<p>From the opening of his administration Mr. Taft used his influence in +every legitimate way to assist in the development of the movement for +international peace. In his acceptance speech, at the opening of his +campaign for election, he had remarked upon the significance and +importance of the arbitration treaties which had been signed between +nations and upon the contribution of Mr. Roosevelt's administration to +the cause of world peace. Following out his principles, Mr. Taft signed +with France and England in August, 1911, general arbitration treaties +expanding the range of the older agreements so as to include all +controversies which were "justiciable" in character, even though they +might involve questions of "vital interest and national honor." The +treaties, which were hailed by the peace advocates with great acclaim, +met a cold reception in the Senate which ratified them on March 7, 1912, +only after making important amendments that led to their abandonment.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Among the most significant of Mr. Taft's acts were his appointments of +the Supreme Court judges. On the death of Chief Justice Fuller, in 1910, +he selected for that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>high post Associate Justice White. In the course +of his administration, Mr. Taft also had occasion to select five +associate justices, and he appointed Mr. Horace H. Lurton, of Tennessee, +Charles E. Hughes, governor of New York, Mr. Willis Van Devanter, of +Wyoming, Mr. Joseph R. Lamar, of Georgia, and Mr. Mahlon Pitney, of New +Jersey. Thus within four years the President was able to designate a +majority of the judges of the most powerful court in the world, and to +select the Chief Justice who presided over it.</p> + +<p>It was hardly to be expected that the exercise of such a significant +power would escape criticism, particularly in view of the nature of the +cases which are passed upon by that Court. Mr. Bryan was particularly +severe in his attacks, charging the President with deliberately packing +the Court. "You appointed to the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme +Court," he said, "Justice White who thirteen years ago took the trusts' +side of the trust question.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> ... You appointed Governor Hughes to the +Supreme Court bench after he had interpreted your platform to suit the +trusts." Mr. Bryan also demanded that Mr. Taft let the people know "the +influences" that dictated his appointments. Mr. Bryan attacked +particularly the selection of Mr. Van Devanter, declaring that the +latter, by his decisions in the lower court, was a notorious favorite of +corporation interests. Mr. Taft looked upon these attacks as insults to +himself and the judges, and treated them with the scant courtesy which, +in his opinion, they deserved. The episode, however, was of no little +significance in stirring up <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>public interest in the constitution of a +tribunal that was traditionally supposed to be "non-political" in its +character.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Anti-Trust Cases</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Taft approached the trust problem with the pre-conceptions of the +lawyer who believes that the indefinite dissolution of combinations is +possible under the law. His predecessor had, it is true, instituted many +proceedings against trusts, but there was a certain lack of sharpness in +his tone, which was doubtless due to the fact that he believed and +openly declared that indiscriminate prosecutions under the Sherman law +(which was, in his opinion, unsound in many features) were highly +undesirable. Mr. Taft, on the other hand, apparently looked at the law +and not the economics of the problem. During Harrison's administration +there had been four bills in equity and three indictments under the +Sherman law; during Cleveland's administration, four bills in equity, +two indictments, two informations for contempt; during McKinley's +administration, three bills in equity. Mr. Roosevelt had to his record, +eighteen bills in equity, twenty-five indictments, and one forfeiture +proceeding. Within three years, Mr. Taft had twenty-two bills in equity +and forty-five indictments to his credit.</p> + +<p>The very vigor with which Mr. Taft pressed the cases against the trusts +did more, perhaps, to force a consideration of the whole question by the +public than did Mr. Roosevelt's extended messages. As has been pointed +out, the members of Congress who enacted the Sherman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>law were very much +confused in their notions as to what trusts really were and what +combinations and practices were in fact to be considered in restraint of +trade.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> And it must be confessed that the decisions and opinions of +the courts, up to the beginning of Mr. Taft's administration, had not +done much to clarify the law. In the Trans-Missouri case, decided in +1897, the Supreme Court had declared in effect that all combinations in +restraint of trade, whether reasonable or unreasonable, were in fact +forbidden by the law, Justice White dissenting.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p> + +<p>This was not done by the Court inadvertently. Mr. Justice Peckham, +speaking for the majority of the Court, distinctly marked the fact that +arguments had been directed to that tribunal, "against the inclusion of +all contracts in restraint of trade, as provided for by the language of +the act ... upon the alleged presumption that Congress, notwithstanding +the language of the act, could not have intended to embrace all +contracts, but only such as were in unreasonable restraint of trade. +Under these circumstances we are, therefore, asked to hold that the act +of Congress excepts contracts which are not in unreasonable restraint of +trade, and which only keep rates up to a reasonable price, +notwithstanding the language of the act makes no such exception. In +other words, we are asked to read into the act by way of judicial +legislation an exception that is not placed there by the lawmaking +branch of the government.... It may be that the policy evidenced by the +passage of the act itself will, if carried out, result in disaster to +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>roads.... Whether that will be the result or not we do not know and +cannot predict. These considerations are, however, not for us. If the +act ought to read as contended for by the defendants, Congress is the +body to amend it, and not this Court by a process of judicial +legislation wholly unjustifiable."</p> + +<p>It was no doubt fortunate for the business interests of the country that +no earlier administration undertook a searching and drastic prosecution +of combinations under the Sherman law; for in the view of the language +of the Court it is difficult to imagine any kind of important +interconcern agreement which would not be illegal. This very delay in +the vigorous enforcement of the law enabled the country at large to take +a new view of the trusts and to throw aside much of the prejudice which +had characterized politics in the eighties and early nineties. The +lawless practices of the great combinations and their corrupting +influence were extensively discovered and understood; but it became +increasingly difficult for demagogues to convince the public that any +good could accrue to anybody from the ruthless attempts to disintegrate +all large combinations in business. The more radical sections, which had +formerly applauded the platform orator in his tirades against trusts, +were turning away from indiscriminate abuse and listening more +attentively than ever to the Socialists who held, and had held for half +a century, to the doctrine that the trusts were a natural product of +economic evolution and were merely paving the way to national ownership +on a large scale.</p> + +<p>Consequently, between the two forces, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>representatives of corporate +interests on the one hand and the spokesmen for socialistic doctrines on +the other, the old demand for the immediate and unconditional +destruction of the trusts was sharply modified. Corporations came to see +that undesirable as "government regulation" might be, it was still more +desirable than destruction. They, therefore, drew to themselves a large +support from sections of the population which did not share socialistic +ideas, and still could see nothing but folly in attempting to resist +what seemed to have the force of nature. Many working-class +representatives ceased to wage war on the trusts as such, for they did +not expect to get into the oil, copper, or steel business for +themselves; and the farmers, on account of rising prices and a large +appreciation in land values, listened with less gladness to the +"war-to-the-hilt" orator. Nevertheless, a large section of the +population, composed particularly of business men and manufacturers of +the lesser industries, hoped to "reëstablish" what they called "fair +conditions of competition" by dissolving into smaller units the huge +corporations that dominated industry.</p> + +<p>In response to this demand, Mr. Taft pushed through the cases against +the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company; and in May, +1911, the Supreme Court handed down decisions dissolving these +combinations. In the course of his opinions, Chief Justice White, who +had dissented in the Trans-Missouri case mentioned above, gave an +interpretation of the Sherman Act which was regarded quite generally as +an abandonment of the principles enunciated by the Court in that case. +He said: "The statute, under this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>view, evidenced the intent not to +restrain the right to make and enforce contracts, whether resulting from +combinations or otherwise, which did not <i>unduly restrain</i> interstate +and foreign commerce, but to protect the commerce from being restrained +by methods, whether new or old, which would constitute an interference +that is an <i>undue</i> restraint." Thus the Chief Justice restated the +doctrine of "reasonableness" which he had formulated in his dissenting +opinion in the earlier case, but this time as the spokesman of the +Court. It is true, he attempted with great dialectic skill to reconcile +the old and the new opinions, and make it appear that there had been no +change in the theories of the Court; but his attempt was not convincing +to every one, for many shared the view expressed by Justice Harlan, to +the effect that the attempt at reconciliation partook of the nature of a +statement that black is white and white is black.</p> + +<p>The effect of these decisions was the dissolution of the two concerns +into certain constituent parts which were supposed to reëstablish +competition; but no marvelously beneficial economic results seem to have +accrued. The inner circles of the two combinations made huge sums from +the appreciation of stocks; the prices of gasoline and some other oil +products mounted with astonishing speed to a higher rate than ever +before; and smaller would-be competitors declared that the constituent +companies were so large that competition with them was next to +impossible. No one showed any great enthusiasm about the results of the +prosecution and decisions, except perhaps some eminent leaders in the +business world, who shared the opinion of Mr. J. P. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>Morgan that the +doctrines of the Court were "entirely satisfactory," and to be taken as +meaning that indiscriminate assaults on large concerns, merely because +of their size, would not be tolerated by the Court. Radical +"trust-breakers" cried aloud that they had been betrayed by the eminent +tribunal, and a very large section of the population which had come to +regard trusts as a "natural evolution" looked upon the whole affair as +an anticlimax. Mr. Taft, in a speech shortly after the decisions of the +Court, expressed his pleasure at the outcome of the action and invited +the confidence of the country in the policy announced. He had carried a +great legal battle to its conclusion, only to find those who cheered the +loudest in the beginning, indifferent at the finish.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Overthrow of Speaker Cannon</i></p> + +<p>From the beginning of his administration, it was apparent that Mr. +Taft's party in Congress was not in that state of harmony which presaged +an uneventful legislative career. The vote on the tariff bill, both in +the Senate and the House, showed no little dissatisfaction with the way +in which the affairs of the party were being managed. The acrimony in +the tariff debate had been disturbing, and the attacks on Speaker Cannon +from his own party colleagues increased in frequency and virulence +inside and outside of Congress.</p> + +<p>Under this astute politician and keen parliamentary manager, a system of +legislative procedure had grown up in the House, which concentrated the +management of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>business in the hands of a few members, while preserving +the outward signs of democracy within the party. The Speaker enjoyed the +power of appointing all of the committees of the House and of +designating the chairmen thereof. Under his power to object to a request +for "unanimous consent," he could refuse to recognize members asking for +the ear of the chamber under that privilege. He, furthermore, exercised +his general right of recognition in such a manner as to favor those +members who were in the good graces of the inner circle, which had +naturally risen to power through long service.</p> + +<p>In addition, there had been created a powerful engine, known as the +"rules committee" which could, substantially at any time, set aside the +regular operations of the House, fix the limits of debate, and force the +consideration of any particular bill. This committee was composed of the +Speaker and two colleagues selected by himself, for, although there were +two Democratic representatives on the committee, they did not enjoy any +influence in its deliberations. The outward signs of propriety were +given to this enginery by the election of the Speaker by the party +caucus, but the older members and shrewd managers had turned the caucus +into a mere ratifying machine.</p> + +<p>Under this system, which was perfected through the long tenure of power +enjoyed by the Republicans, a small group of managers, including Mr. +Cannon, came to a substantial control over all the business of the +House. A member could not secure recognition for a measure without +"seeing" the Speaker in advance; the older members monopolized the +important committees; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>and a measure introduced by a private member had +no chance for consideration, to say nothing of passage, unless its +sponsor made his peace with the party managers. This system was by no +means without its advantages. It concentrated authority in a few eminent +party spokesmen and the country came to understand that some one was at +last responsible for what happened in the House. The obvious +disadvantage was the use of power to perpetuate a machine and policies +which did not in fact represent the country or the party. Furthermore, +the new and younger members could not expect to achieve anything until +they had submitted to the proper "party discipline."</p> + +<p>If anything went wrong, it soon became popular to attribute the evil to +"Cannon and his system." Attacks upon them became especially bitter in +the campaign of 1908 and particularly venomous after the passage of the +Aldrich-Payne tariff act. At length, in March, 1910, by a clever piece +of parliamentary manipulation, some "insurgent" Republicans were able to +present an amendment to the rules ousting the Speaker from membership in +the rules committee, increasing the number, and providing for election +by the House. Mr. Cannon was forced to rule on the regularity of this +amendment, and he decided against it. On appeal from the decision of the +chair, the Speaker was defeated by a combination of Democrats and +insurgent Republicans, and the committee on rules was reconstructed. A +motion to declare the Speakership vacant was defeated, however, because +only eight insurgents supported it, and accordingly Mr. Cannon was +permitted to serve <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>out his term. Although this was heralded as "a great +victory," it was of no consequence in altering the management of +business in that session; but it was a solemn portent of the defeat for +the Republican party which lay ahead in the autumn.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Dissensions</i></p> + +<p>The second half of Mr. Taft's administration was marked by the failure +to accomplish many results on which he had set his mind. The election of +1910 showed that the country was swinging back to the Democratic party +once more. In that year, the Democrats elected governors in +Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and some +other states which had long been regarded as Republican. The Democrats +also carried the House of Representatives, securing 227 members to 163 +Republicans and 1 Socialist, Mr. Berger, of Wisconsin. Although many +conservative Republican leaders, like Mr. Cannon, Mr. Payne, and Mr. +Dalzell, were returned, their position in the minority was seriously +impaired by the election of many "insurgent" Republicans from the West, +who were out of harmony with the old methods of the party.</p> + +<p>In view of this Democratic victory, it was inevitable that Mr. Taft +should have trouble over the tariff. In accordance with the declarations +of the Republican platform, he had recommended and secured the creation, +in 1909, of a tariff board designed to obtain precise information on the +relation of the tariff to production and labor at home and abroad. The +work of this board fell <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>into three main divisions. It was, in the first +place, instructed to take each article in the tariff schedule and +"secure concise information regarding the nature of the article, the +chief sources of supply at home and abroad, the methods of its +production, its chief uses, statistics of production, imports and +exports, with an estimate of the ad valorem equivalent for all specific +duties." In the second place, it was ordered to compile statistics on +the cost of production at home and abroad so that some real information +might be available as to the difference, with a view to discovering the +amount of protection necessary to accomplish the real purposes of a +"scientific" tariff. Finally, the board was instructed to secure +accurate information as to prices at home and abroad and as to the +general conditions of competition in the several industries affected by +the tariff.</p> + +<p>If there was to be any protection at all, it was obvious that an immense +amount of precise information was necessary to the adjustment of +schedules in such a manner as not to give undue advantages to American +manufacturers and thus encourage sloth and obsolete methods on their +part. Such was the view taken by Mr. Taft and the friends of the tariff +board; but the Democratic Congress elected in 1910 gave the outward +signs of a determination to undertake a speedy and considerable +"downward revision," regardless of any "scientific" information that +might be collected by the administration. There was doubtless some +demand in the country for such a revision, and furthermore it was "good +politics" for the leaders of the new House to embarrass the Republican +President as much as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>possible. The opportunity was too inviting to be +disregarded, particularly with a presidential election approaching.</p> + +<p>Consequently, the House, in 1911, passed three important tariff +measures: a farmers' free list bill placing agricultural implements, +boots and shoes, wire fence, meat, flour, lumber, and other commodities +on the free list; a measure revising the famous "Schedule K," embracing +wool and woolen manufactures; and a law reducing the duties on cotton +manufactures, chemicals, paints, metals, and other commodities. With the +support of the "insurgent" Republicans in the Senate these measures were +passed with more speed than was expected by their sponsors, and Mr. Taft +promptly vetoed them on the ground that some of them were loosely drawn +and all of them were based upon inadequate information. The following +year, an iron and steel measure and a woolens bill were again presented +to the President and as decisively vetoed. In his veto messages, Mr. +Taft pointed out that the concise information collected by the tariff +board was now at the disposal of Congress and that it was possible to +undertake a revision of many schedules which would allow a considerable +reduction without "destroying any established industry or throwing any +wage earners out of employment." These last veto messages, sent in +August, 1912, received scant consideration from members of Congress +already engaged in a hot political campaign.</p> + +<p>Mr. Taft was equally unfortunate in his attempt to secure reciprocity +with Canada. In January, 1911, through the Secretary of State, he +concluded a reciprocity <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>agreement with that country by the exchange of +notes, providing for a free list of more than one hundred articles and a +reduction of the tariff on more than four hundred articles. The +agreement was submitted to the legislatures of the two countries. A bill +embodying it passed the House, in February, by a Democratic vote, the +insurgent Republicans standing almost solidly against it, on the ground +that it discriminated against the farmers by introducing Canadian +competition, while benefiting the manufacturers who had no considerable +competition from that source. The Senate failed to act on the bill until +the next session of the new Congress when it was passed in July with +twelve insurgent and twelve regular Republicans against it. After having +wrought this serious breach in his own party in Congress, Mr. Taft was +sorely disappointed by seeing the whole matter fall to the ground +through the overthrow of the Liberals in Canada at the election in +September, 1911, and the rejection by that country of the measure for +which he had so laboriously contended.</p> + +<p>During the closing days of his administration, Mr. Taft was seriously +beset by troubles with Mexico. Under the long and severe rule of General +Porfirio Diaz in that country, order had been set up there (at whatever +cost to humanity) and American capital had streamed into Mexican mines, +railways, plantations, and other enterprises. In 1911, Diaz was +overthrown by Francisco Madero and the latter was hardly installed in +power before he was assassinated and a dictatorship set up under General +Huerta, in February, 1913. After the overthrow of Diaz in 1911, Mexico +was filled with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>revolutionary turmoil, and American lives and property +were gravely menaced. In April, 1912, Mr. Taft solemnly warned the +Mexican government that the United States would hold it responsible for +the destruction of American property and the taking of American life, +but this warning was treated with scant courtesy by President Madero. +The disorders continued to increase, and demands for intervention on the +part of the United States were heard from innumerable interested +quarters, but Mr. Taft refused to be drawn into an armed conflict. The +Mexican trouble he bequeathed to his successor.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Congress by an act of 1907 forbade campaign contributions +by corporations, in connection with Federal elections, and in 1910 and +1911 enacted laws providing for the publicity of expenses in connection +with elections to Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> The Sixteenth Amendment was proclaimed in force on +February 25, 1913.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> See below, p. 332.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> See above, p. 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> United States <i>v.</i> Trans-Missouri Freight Assn., 166 U. S. +290.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h2>THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Long before the opening of the campaign of 1912, the dissenters in the +Republican party who had added the prefix of "Progressive" to the old +title, began to draw together for the purpose of resisting the +renomination of Mr. Taft and putting forward a candidate more nearly in +accord with their principles. As early as January 21, 1911, a National +Progressive Republican League was formed at the residence of Senator La +Follette in Washington and a program set forth embracing the indorsement +of direct primaries, direct elections, and direct government generally +and a criticism of the recent failures to secure satisfactory +legislation on the tariff, trusts, banking, and conservation. Only on +the changes in our machinery of government did the League take a +definite stand; on the deeper issues of political economy it was silent, +at least as to positive proposals. Mr. Roosevelt was invited to join the +new organization, but he declined to identify himself with it.</p> + +<p>For a time the Progressives centered their attacks upon Mr. Taft's +administration. Their bill of indictment may be best stated in the +language of Senator La Follette: "In his campaign for election, he [Mr. +Taft] had interpreted the platform as a pledge for tariff <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>revision +downward. Five months after he was inaugurated he signed a bill that +revised the tariff upward.... The President started on a tour across the +country in September, 1909. At the outset in an address at Boston he +lauded Aldrich as the greatest statesman of his time. Then followed his +Winona speech, in which he declared the Payne-Aldrich bill to be the +best tariff ever enacted, and in effect challenged the Progressives in +Congress who had voted against the measure.... During the succeeding +sessions of Congress, President Taft's sponsorship for the +administration railroad bill, with its commerce court, its repeal of the +anti-trust act in its application to railroads, its legalizing of all +watered railroad capitalization; his course regarding the Ballinger and +Cunningham claims, and the subterfuges resorted to by his administration +in defense of Ballinger; his attempt to foist upon the country a sham +reciprocity measure; his complete surrender to the legislative +reactionary program of Aldrich and Cannon and the discredited +representatives of special interests who had so long managed +congressional legislation, rendered it utterly impossible for the +Progressive Republicans of the country to support him for +reëlection."<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> + +<p>A second positive step in the organization of the Progressive +Republicans was taken in April, 1911, at a conference held in the +committee room of Senator Bourne, of Oregon, at the Capitol. At this +meeting a number of Republican Senators, Representatives, newspaper men, +and private citizens were present, and it was there agreed that the +Progressives must unite upon some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>candidate in opposition to Mr. Taft. +The most available man at the time was Senator La Follette, who had been +an uncompromising and vigorous exponent of progressive doctrines since +his entrance to the Senate in 1906; and the members of this conference, +or at least most of them, assured him of their support in case he would +consent to become a candidate for nomination. The Senator was informed +by men very close to Mr. Roosevelt that the latter would, under no +circumstances, enter the field; and he was afforded the financial +assistance necessary to open headquarters for the purpose of advancing +his candidacy. No formal announcement of the adherence of the group to +Mr. La Follette was then made, for the reason that Senator Cummins, of +Iowa, and some other prominent Republicans declined to sign the call to +arms.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p> + +<p>In July, 1911, Senator La Follette began his active campaign for +nomination as an avowed Progressive Republican, and within a few months +he had developed an unexpected strength, particularly in the Middle +West, which indicated the depth of the popular dissatisfaction with Mr. +Taft's administration. In October of that year a national conference of +Progressive Republicans assembled at Chicago, on the call of Mr. La +Follette's campaign manager, and indorsed the Senator in unmistakable +language, declaring him to be "the logical Republican candidate for +President of the United States," and urging the formation of +organizations in all states to promote his nomination. In spite of these +outward signs of prosperity, however, Mr. La Follette <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>was by no means +sure of his supporters, for several of the most prominent, including Mr. +Gifford Pinchot and Mr. James R. Garfield, were not whole-hearted in +their advocacy of his cause and were evidently unwilling to relinquish +the hope that Mr. Roosevelt might become their leader after all.</p> + +<p>Indeed, Senator La Follette came to believe that many of his supporters, +who afterward went over to Mr. Roosevelt, never intended to push his own +candidacy to the end, but employed him as a sort of "stalking horse" to +interest and measure progressive sentiment for the purpose of putting +the ex-President into the field at the opportune moment, if the signs +proved auspicious. This was regarded by Mr. La Follette not merely as +treachery to himself, but also as treason to genuine progressive +principles. In his opinion, Mr. Roosevelt's long administration of seven +years had failed to produce many material results. He admitted that the +ex-President had done something to promote conservation of natural +resources, but called attention to the fact that the movement for +conservation had been begun even as early as Harrison's +administration.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> He pointed out that Mr. Roosevelt had vigorously +indorsed the Payne-Aldrich tariff in the New York state campaign of +1910; and that during his administration the formation and +overcapitalization of gigantic combinations had gone forward with +unprecedented speed, in spite of the denunciation of "bad trusts" in +executive messages. Furthermore, the Senator directly charged Mr. +Roosevelt with having used the power of the Federal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>patronage against +him in his fight for progressive reforms in Wisconsin.</p> + +<p>So decided was Senator La Follette's distrust of Mr. Roosevelt's new +"progressivism," that nothing short of a lengthy quotation can convey +the spirit of it. "While Mr. Roosevelt was President," says the Senator, +"his public utterances through state papers, addresses, and the press +were highly colored with rhetorical radicalism. His administrative +policies as set forth in his recommendations to Congress were vigorously +and picturesquely presented, but characterized by an absence of definite +economic conception. One trait was always pronounced. His most savage +assault upon special interests was invariably offset with an equally +drastic attack upon those who were seeking to reform abuses. These were +indiscriminately classed as demagogues and dangerous persons. In this +way he sought to win approval, both from the radicals and the +conservatives. This cannonading, first in one direction and then in +another, filled the air with noise and smoke, which confused and +obscured the line of action, but when the battle cloud drifted by and +quiet was restored, it was always a matter of surprise that so little +had really been accomplished.... He smeared the issue, but caught the +imagination of the younger men of the country by his dash and mock +heroics. Taft coöperated with Cannon and Aldrich on legislation. +Roosevelt coöperated with Aldrich and Cannon on legislation. Neither +President took issue with the reactionary bosses of the Senate upon any +legislation of national importance. Taft's talk was generally in line +with his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>legislative policy. Roosevelt's talk was generally at right +angles to his legislative policy. Taft's messages were the more directly +reactionary; Roosevelt's the more 'progressive.' But adhering to his +conception of a 'square deal,' his strongest declarations in the public +interest were invariably offset with something comforting for Privilege; +every phrase denouncing 'bad' trusts was deftly balanced with praise for +'good' trusts." It is obvious that a man so deeply convinced of Mr. +Roosevelt's insincerity of purposes and instability of conviction could +not think of withdrawing in his favor or of lending any countenance to +his candidacy for nomination. To Senator La Follette the "directly +reactionary" policy of Mr. Taft was far preferable to the "mock heroics" +of Mr. Roosevelt.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, at the opening of the presidential year, 1912, all +speculations turned upon the movements of Mr. Roosevelt. His long trip +to Africa and Europe and his brief abstention from politics on his +return in June, 1910, led many, who did not know him, to suppose that he +might emulate the example set by Mr. Cleveland in retiring from active +affairs. If he entertained any such notions, it was obvious that the +exigencies of affairs in his party were different from those in the +Democratic party after 1897. Indeed, during the very summer after his +return, the cleavage between the reformist Hughes wing of the +Republicans in New York and the "regular" group headed by Mr. William +Barnes had developed into an open breach; and at the earnest entreaty of +the representatives of the former faction, Mr. Roosevelt plunged into +the state contest, defeated Vice President <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>Sherman in a hot fight for +chairmanship of the state convention, and secured the nomination of Mr. +H. A. Stimson as the Republican candidate for governor. The platform +which was adopted by the convention was colorless enough for the most +conservative party member and gave no indication of the radical drift +manifested two years later at Chicago. The defeat of Mr. Stimson gave no +little satisfaction to the ex-President's opponents, particularly to +those who hoped that he had at last been "eliminated."</p> + +<p>They had not, however, counted on their man. During the New York +gubernatorial campaign, he made a tour of the West, and in a series of +remarkable speeches, he stirred that region by the enunciation of +radical doctrines which were listened to gladly by the multitude. In an +address at Ossawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910, he expounded his +principles under the title of "the New Nationalism." He there advocated +Federal regulation of trusts, a graduated income tax, tariff revision +schedule by schedule, conservation, labor legislation, the direct +primary, recall of elective officers, and the adjustment of state and +Federal relations in such a form that there might be no neutral ground +to serve as the refuge for lawbreakers.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> In editorials in the +<i>Outlook</i>, of which he was the contributing editor, and in his speeches, +Mr. Roosevelt continued to discuss Mr. Taft's policies and the current +issues of popular government. At length, in February, 1912, in an +address before the constitutional convention of Ohio, he came out for a +complete program of "direct" government, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>initiative, referendum, +and recall; but with such careful qualifications that the more radical +progressives were still unconvinced.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p> + +<p>Notwithstanding his extensive discussion of current issues and his great +popularity with a large section of the Progressive group, Mr. Roosevelt +steadily put away all suggestions that he should become a candidate in +1912. In a letter to the Pittsburgh <i>Leader</i>, of August 22, 1911, he +said: "I must ask not only you, but every friend I have, to see to it +that no movement whatever is made to bring me forward for nomination in +1912.... I should esteem it a genuine calamity if such a movement were +undertaken." Nevertheless, all along, men who were very close to him +believed that he would not refuse the nomination if it were offered to +him under proper circumstances. As time went on his utterances became +more pronounced, particularly in his western speeches, and friendly as +well as unfriendly newspapers insisted on viewing his conduct as a +distinct appeal for popular support for the Republican nomination.</p> + +<p>The climax came in February, 1912, when seven Republican Governors, +Glasscock, of West Virginia, Aldrich, of Nebraska, Bass, of New +Hampshire, Carey, of Wyoming, Stubbs, of Kansas, Osborn, of Michigan, +and Hadley, of Missouri, issued a statement that the requirements of +good government demanded his candidature, that the great majority of +Republican voters desired it, that he stood for the principles and +policies most conducive to public happiness and prosperity, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>finally +that it was his plain duty to accept regardless of his personal +interests or preferences. To this open challenge, he replied on February +24 by saying that he would accept the nomination if tendered and abide +by this decision until the convention had expressed its preference. The +only political doctrine which he enunciated was belief "in the rule of +the people," and on this principle he expressed a desire for direct +primaries to ascertain the will of the party members.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>The Nomination of Candidates in 1912</i></p> + +<p>A new and unexpected turn was given to the campaign for nomination by +the adoption of the preferential primary in a number of states, East as +well as West. As we have seen, the direct primary<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> was brought into +action by men who found themselves outside of the old party +intrenchments. La Follette, in Wisconsin, Stubbs, in Kansas, Hughes, in +New York, and the other advocates of the system, having failed to +capture the old strongholds, determined to blow them up; the time had +now come for an attack on the national convention. President Taft and +the regular Republican organization were in possession of the enormous +Federal patronage, and they knew how to use it just as well as had Mr. +Roosevelt in 1908 when he forced the nomination of Mr. Taft. True to +their ancient traditions, the Republican provinces in the South began, +early in 1912, to return "representatives" instructed to vote for a +second term for President Taft. But the Progressives were forearmed as +well as forewarned.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>As early as February 27, 1912, Senator Bourne had warned the country +that the overthrow of "the good old ways" of nominating presidential +candidates was at hand. In a speech on that date, he roundly denounced +the convention and described the new Oregon system. He declared that +nominations in national conventions were made by the politicians, and +that the "electorate of the whole United States is permitted only to +witness in gaping expectancy, and to ratify at the polls in the +succeeding November." The flagrancy of this abuse, however, paled into +insignificance, added Mr. Bourne, "in the presence of that other abuse +against partisan conscience and outrage upon the representative system +which is wrought by the Republican politician in hopelessly Democratic +states and by the Democratic politician in hopelessly Republican states +in dominating the national conventions with the presence of these +unrepresentative delegations that represent neither party, people, nor +principle."</p> + +<p>The speaker then elaborated these generalities by reference to details. +He pointed out that the southern states and territories which (except +Maryland) gave no electoral votes to Mr. Taft had 338 delegates in the +convention, only 153 less than a majority of the entire party assembly, +four more than the combined votes of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, +Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Iowa with 334 delegates. Moreover, +equal representation of states and territories on the national committee +and on the committee on credentials—the two bodies which, in the first +instance, pass upon the rights of delegates to their seats—gave undue +weight <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>to the very states where wrongs were most likely to be +committed. As to the power of the Republican President of the United +States to control these delegates from the South, the Senator was in no +doubt.</p> + +<p>To the anomalous southern delegates were added the delegates selected in +northern states by the power of patronage. Mr. Bourne was specific: +"Three years ago," he said, "we had a convincing exhibition of the power +of a President to dictate the selection of his successor. At that time, +three fourths of the Republican voters of my state were in favor of the +renomination of Mr. Roosevelt, and believing that their wishes should be +observed, I endeavored to secure a delegation from that state favorable +to his nomination for a second elective term. But through the tremendous +power of the Chief Executive and of the Federal machine the delegates +selected by our state convention were instructed for Mr. Taft. After all +the delegates were elected and instructed, a poll was taken by one of +the leading newspapers in Portland, which city contains nearly one third +of the entire population of the state. The result indicated that the +preference of the people of the state was 11 to 1 in favor of Mr. +Roosevelt as against Mr. Taft." It was this personal experience with the +power of Federal patronage that induced Mr. Bourne to draft the Oregon +presidential primary law which was enacted by the use of the initiative +and referendum in 1910.</p> + +<p>The provisions of the Oregon law follow:</p> + +<p>(1) At the regular primary held on the forty-fifth day before the first +Monday in June of the presidential year, each voter is given an +opportunity to express his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>preference for one candidate for the office +of President and one for that of Vice President, either by writing the +names or by making crosses before the printed names on the ballot.</p> + +<p>(2) The names of candidates for the two offices are placed on the ballot +without their consent, if necessary, by petitions filed by their +supporters, just as in the case of candidates for governor and United +States Senator.</p> + +<p>(3) The committee or organization which places a presidential aspirant +on the primary ballot is provided, on payment therefor, four pages in +the campaign book issued by the state, and electors who oppose or +approve of any such aspirant for nomination are likewise given space in +the campaign book.</p> + +<p>(4) Delegates to national conventions and presidential electors must be +nominated at large at the primary.</p> + +<p>(5) Every delegate is paid his expenses to the national convention; in +no case, however, more than $200.</p> + +<p>(6) Every delegate must take an oath to the effect that he will "to the +best of his judgment and ability faithfully carry out the wishes of his +political party as expressed by its voters at the time of his election."</p> + +<p>The initial move of Oregon to secure a preferential vote on candidates +and the instruction of delegates was followed in 1911 by New Jersey, +Nebraska, California, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, and in 1912 by +Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland.</p> + +<p>The other presidential primary laws show some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>variations on the Oregon +plan although they agree in affording the voter an opportunity to +express his preference. Nebraska, for example, refused to disregard the +Republican system of district representation, and provided that "four +delegates shall be elected by the voters of the state at large; the +remainder of the delegates shall be equally divided between the various +congressional districts in the state and district delegates shall be +elected by the voters of the various congressional districts in the +state." Massachusetts follows Nebraska in this rule, but California +prefers the Oregon plan of election at large. It was this provision in +the law of California that caused the controversy over the seating of +two district delegates at Chicago in June, 1912. Although Mr. Roosevelt +carried the state, one of the districts went for Mr. Taft, and the +convention seated the delegates from this district, on the ground that +the rules of the party override a state statute.</p> + +<p>The Illinois law does not attempt to bind the delegates to a strict +observance of the results of the primary. On the contrary it expressly +states "that the vote for President of the United States as herein +provided for shall be for the sole purpose of securing an expression of +the sentiment and will of the party voters with respect to the candidate +for nomination for said office, and the vote of the state at large shall +be taken and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates at +large to the national conventions of the respective political parties; +and the vote of the respective congressional districts shall be taken +and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates of the said +congressional <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>districts to the national convention of the respective +political parties."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The existence of these laws in several strategic states made it +necessary for the Republican and Democratic candidates to go directly +before the voters to discuss party issues. The country witnessed the +unhappy spectacle of two former friends, Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt, +waging bitter war upon each other on the hustings. The former denounced +the Progressives as "political emotionalists or neurotics." The latter +referred to his candidacy in the words, "My hat is in the ring"; and +during his campaign fiercely turned upon Mr. Taft. He gave to the public +a private letter in which Mr. Taft acknowledged that Mr. Roosevelt had +voluntarily transferred to him the presidential office, and added the +comment, "It is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you."</p> + +<p>Mr. Roosevelt's candidature was lavishly supported by Mr. G. W. Perkins, +of the Steel and Harvester Trusts, and by other gentlemen of great +wealth who had formerly indorsed Mr. Hanna's methods; and all of the old +engines of politics were brought into play. While making the popular +appeal in the North, Mr. Roosevelt's managers succeeded in securing a +large quota of "representatives" from the southern Republican provinces +to contest those already secured by Mr. Taft. As the matter was put by +the Washington <i>Times</i>, a paper owned by Mr. Munsey, one of Mr. +Roosevelt's ardent supporters: "For psychological effect, as a move in +practical politics, it was necessary for the Roosevelt people to start +contests on these early Taft selections, in order <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>that a tabulation of +strength could be put out that would show Roosevelt holding a good hand +in the game. A table showing 'Taft, 150, Roosevelt, 19; contested none,' +would not be likely to inspire confidence. Whereas one showing 'Taft, +23, Roosevelt, 19; contested, 127,' looked very different."</p> + +<p>The results of the Republican presidential primaries were astounding. +Mr. Roosevelt carried Illinois by a majority of 100,000; he obtained 67 +of the 76 delegates from Pennsylvania; the state convention in Michigan +broke up in a riot; he carried California by a vote of two to one as +against Mr. Taft; he swept New Jersey and South Dakota; and he secured +the eight delegates at large in Massachusetts, although Mr. Taft carried +the preferential vote by a small majority. Connecticut and New York were +strongly for Mr. Taft, and Mr. La Follette carried Wisconsin and North +Dakota. Mr. Taft's supporters called attention to the fact that a very +large number of Republicans had failed to vote at all in the +preferential primaries, but they were speedily informed by the +opposition that they would see the shallowness of this contention if +they inquired into the number who voted for delegates to the conventions +which indorsed Mr. Taft.</p> + +<p>When the Republican convention assembled in Chicago, 252 of the 1078 +seats were contested; 238 of these were held by Mr. Taft's delegates and +14 by Mr. Roosevelt's supporters. The national committee, after the +usual hearings, decided the contests in such a manner as to give Mr. +Taft a safe majority. No little ingenuity was expended on both sides to +show the legality or the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>illegality of the several decisions. Mr. +Taft's friends pointed out that they had been made in a constitutional +manner by the proper authority, the national committee "chosen in 1908 +when Roosevelt was the leader of the party, at a time when his influence +dominated the convention." Mr. Roosevelt's champions replied by cries of +"fraud." Independent newspapers remarked that there was no more +"regularity" about one set of southern delegates than another; that the +national committee had followed the example set by Mr. Roosevelt when he +forced Mr. Taft's nomination in 1908 by using southern delegations +against the real Republican states which had instructed for other +candidates; and that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the +gander. Whatever may be the merits of the technical claims made on both +sides, it seems fair to say that Mr. Roosevelt, according to all +available signs, particularly the vote in the primaries in the strategic +states, was the real choice of the Republican party.</p> + +<p>The struggle over the contested seats was carried into the convention, +and after a hot fight, Mr. Taft's forces were victorious. When at +length, as Mr. Bryan put it, "the credentials committee made its last +report and the committee-made majority had voted itself the convention," +Mr. Roosevelt's supporters on Saturday, June 22, after a week's +desperate maneuvering, broke with the Republican assembly. A statement +prepared by Mr. Roosevelt was read as a parting shot. "The convention," +he said, "has now declined to purge the roll of the fraudulent delegates +placed thereon by the defunct national committee, and the majority which +has thus <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>indorsed the fraud was made a majority only because it +included the fraudulent delegates themselves who all sat as judges on +one another's cases.... The convention as now composed has no claim to +represent the voters of the Republican party.... Any man nominated by +the convention as now constituted would merely be the beneficiary of +this successful fraud; it would be deeply discreditable to any man to +accept the convention's nomination under these circumstances; and any +man thus accepting it would have no claim to the support of any +Republican on party grounds and would have forfeited the right to ask +the support of any honest man of any party on moral grounds."</p> + +<p>Mr. Roosevelt's severe arraignment of men who had been his bosom friends +and chief political advisers and supporters filled with astonishment +many thoughtful observers in all parties who found it difficult to +account for his conduct. In Mr. Roosevelt's bitter speech at the +Auditorium mass meeting on the evening of June 17, 1912, a sharp line +was drawn between the "treason" of the Republican "Old Guard" and the +"purity" of his supporters. Of this, Mr. Bryan said, with much irony: +"He carried me back to the day when I first learned of this world-wide, +never-ending contest between the beneficiaries of privilege and the +unorganized masses; and I can appreciate the amazement which he must +feel that so many honest and well-meaning people seem blind or +indifferent to what is going on. I passed through the same period of +amazement when I first began to run for President. My only regret is +that we have not had the benefit of his powerful assistance during the +campaigns <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>in which we have protested against the domination of politics +by predatory corporations. He probably feels more strongly stirred to +action to-day because he was so long unconscious of the forces at work +thwarting the popular will. The fact, too, that he has won prestige and +position for himself and friends through the support of the very +influences which he now so righteously denounces must still further +increase the sense of responsibility which he feels at this time.... He +ought to find encouragement in my experience. I have seen several +campaigns end in a most provoking way, and yet I have lived to see a +Republican ex-President cheered by a Republican audience for denouncing +men who, only a few years ago, were thought to be the custodians of the +nation's honor."<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> + +<p>When Mr. Roosevelt definitely broke with the Republican convention, most +of his followers left that assembly, and the few that stayed behind +there refused to vote on roll call. The substantial "rump" which +remained proceeded with the business as if nothing had happened, and +renominated Mr. Taft and Mr. Sherman as the candidates of the Republican +party. The regulars retained the battle field, but they could not fail +to recognize how forlorn was the hope that led them on.</p> + +<p>On examining the vote on Mr. Root and Mr. McGovern, as candidates for +temporary chairman, it becomes apparent that the real strength of the +party was with Mr. Roosevelt. The former candidate, representing the +conservative wing, received the overwhelming majority of the votes of +the southern states, like Alabama, Georgia, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>Louisiana, Mississippi, and +Virginia, where the Republican organization was a political sham; he did +not carry the majority of the delegates of a single one of the strategic +Republican states of the North except Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and New +York. Massachusetts and Wisconsin were evenly divided; but the other +great Republican states were against him. Minnesota, Nebraska, New +Jersey, North and South Dakota were solid for McGovern. Ohio gave +thirty-four of her thirty-eight votes for him; Illinois, forty-nine out +of fifty-eight; California, twenty-four out of twenty-six; Kansas, +eighteen out of twenty; Oregon, six out of nine; Pennsylvania, +sixty-four out of seventy-six. In nearly every state where there had +been a preferential primary Mr. Roosevelt had carried the day. Mr. Root +won by a vote of 558 to 501 for Mr. McGovern. It was a victory, but it +bore the sting of death. When he stepped forward to deliver his address, +the applause that greeted him was broken by cries of "Receiver of stolen +goods."</p> + +<p>If the supporters of Mr. Taft in the convention had any doubts as to the +character of the methods employed to secure his nomination or the +conduct of the convention itself, they were more than repaid for their +labors by what they believed to be the salvation of the party in the +hour of a great crisis. To them, the attacks on the judiciary, +representative institutions, and the established order generally were so +serious and so menacing that if high-handed measures were ever justified +they were on that occasion. The instruments which they employed were +precisely those which had been developed in party usage and had been +wielded with kindred results in 1908 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>by the eminent gentleman who +created so much disturbance when he fell a victim to them. Mr. Taft's +supporters must have foreseen defeat from the hour when the break came, +but they preferred defeat in November to the surrender of all that the +party had stood for since the Civil War.</p> + +<p>The Republican platform was not prolix or very specific, but on general +principles it took a positive stand. It adhered to the traditional +American doctrine of individual liberty, protected by constitutional +safeguards and enforced by the courts; and it declared the recall of +judges to be "unnecessary and unwise." It announced the purpose of the +party to go forward with a program of social legislation, but it did not +go into great detail on this point. President Taft's policy of +submitting justiciable controversies between nations to arbitration was +indorsed. The amendment of the Sherman law in such a manner as to make +the illegal practices of trusts and corporations more specific was +favored, and the creation of a Federal trade commission to deal with +interstate business affected with public use was recommended. The +historic views of the party on the tariff were restated and sound +currency and banking legislation promised. The insinuation that the +party was reactionary was repudiated by a declaration that it had always +been a genuinely progressive party, never stationary or reactionary, but +always going from the fulfillment of one pledge to another in response +to public need and popular will.</p> + +<p>In his acceptance speech, Mr. Taft took issue with all the radical +tendencies of the time and expressed his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>profound gratitude for the +righteous victory at Chicago, where they had been saved from the man +"whose recently avowed political views would have committed the party to +radical proposals involving dangerous changes in our present +constitutional form of representative government and our independent +judiciary." The widespread popular unrest which forced itself upon the +attention of even the most indifferent spectators, Mr. Taft attributed +to the sensational journals, muckraking, and demagogues, and he declared +that the equality of opportunity preached by the apostles of social +justice "involves a forced division of property and that means +socialism." In fact, in his opinion, the real contest was at bottom one +over private property, and the Democratic and Progressive parties were +merely aiding the Socialists in their attack upon this institution. He +challenged his opponents to show how the initiative, referendum, and +recall would effect significant economic changes: "Votes are not bread, +constitutional amendments are not work, referendums do not pay rent or +furnish houses, recalls do not furnish clothes, initiatives do not +supply employment, or relieve inequalities of condition or of +opportunity." In other words he took a firm stand against the whole +range of "radical propositions" advanced by "demagogues" to "satisfy +what is supposed to be popular clamor."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Democrats looked upon the Republican dissensions with evident +satisfaction. When the time for sifting candidates for 1912 arrived, +there was unwonted bustle in their ranks, for they now saw a greater +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>probability of victory than at any time in the preceding sixteen years. +The congressional elections of 1910, the division in the Republican +party, and discontent with the prevailing order of things manifest +throughout the country, all pointed to a possibility of a chance to +return to the promised land from which they had been driven in 1897. And +there was no lack of strong presidential "timber." Two of the recently +elected Democratic governors, Harmon, of Ohio, and Wilson, of New +Jersey, were assiduously "boomed" by their respective contingents of +supporters. Mr. Bryan, though not an avowed candidate, was still +available and strong in his western battalions. Mr. Champ Clark, Speaker +of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Oscar Underwood, chairman of +the ways and means committee, likewise loomed large on the horizon as +possibilities.</p> + +<p>In the primaries at which delegates to the convention were chosen a +great division of opinion was manifested, although there was a +considerable drift toward Mr. Clark. No one had anything like a majority +of the delegates, but the Speaker's popular vote in such significant +states as Illinois showed him to be a formidable contestant. But Mr. +Clark soon alienated Mr. Bryan by refusing to join him in a movement to +prevent the nomination of a conservative Democrat, Mr. Alton B. Parker, +as temporary chairman of the convention which met at Baltimore on June +25. Although at one time Mr. Clark received more than one half of the +votes (two thirds being necessary to nominate) his doom was sealed by +Mr. Bryan's potent opposition.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wilson, on the other hand, gained immensely by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>this predicament in +which the Speaker found himself. He was easily the second candidate in +the race, as the balloting showed, and his availability was in many +respects superb. He was new to politics, and thus had few enemies. He +had long been known as a stanch conservative of the old school; and +although he apparently had not broken with his party in the stormy days +of 1896, it was publicly known that he had wished Mr. Bryan to be +"knocked into a cocked hat." In his printed utterances he was on record +against the newer devices, such as the initiative and referendum, and he +therefore commanded the respect and confidence of eastern Democrats. As +governor of New Jersey, however, his policies had appealed to the +progressive sections of his party, without seriously alienating the +other wing. He had pushed through an elaborate system of direct primary +legislation, a public utilities bill after the fashion of the Wisconsin +system, and a workmen's compensation law. On a western tour he met Mr. +Bryan on such happy terms that their cordiality seemed to be more than +ostensible, and at about the same time he declared himself in favor of +the initiative and referendum. His friends held that the conservative +scholar had been made "progressive" by practical experience; his enemies +contended that he was playing the political game; and his managers were +able to make use of one record effectively in the West and another +effectively in the East. Having the confidence, if not the cordial +support, of the conservatives and the great weight of Mr. Bryan's +influence on his side, he was able to win the nomination on the +forty-sixth ballot taken on the seventh day of the convention.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>The Democratic platform adopted at Baltimore naturally opened with a +consideration of the tariff question, reiterating the ancient principle +that the government "under the Constitution has no right or power to +impose or collect tariff duties except for the purpose of revenue." +President Taft's action in vetoing the tariff bills was denounced, and +an immediate, downward revision was demanded. Recognizing the intimate +connection between the tariff and business, the Democrats proposed to +reach their ultimate ideal by "legislation that will not injure or +destroy legitimate industry." On the trust question, the platform took a +positive stand, demanding the enforcement of the criminal provisions of +the law against trust officials and the enactment of additional +legislation to make it "impossible for a private monopoly to exist in +the United States." The action of the Republican administration in +"compromising with the Standard Oil Company and the Tobacco Trust" was +condemned, and the judicial construction of the Sherman law criticized. +The valuation of railways was favored; likewise a single term for the +President of the United States, anti-injunction laws, currency +legislation, presidential primaries, and the declaration of the nation's +purpose to establish Philippine independence at the earliest practicable +moment.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wilson's speech of acceptance partook of the character of an essay +in political science rather than of a precise definition of party +policies. He spoke of an awakened nation, impatient of partisan +make-believe, hindered in its development by circumstances of privilege +and private advantage, and determined to undertake great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>things in the +name of right and justice. Departing from traditions, he refused to +discuss the terms of the Baltimore platform, which he dismissed with the +short notice that "the platform is not a program." He devoted no little +attention to the spirit of "the rule of the people" as opposed to the +rule by an inner coterie of the privileged, but he abstained from +discussing directly such matters as the initiative, referendum, and +recall. He announced his clear conviction that the only safe and +legitimate object of a tariff was to raise duties, but he cautioned his +party against radical and sudden legislation. He promised to support +legislation against the unfair practices of corporations in destroying +competition; but he gave no solace to those who expected a vigorous +assault on trusts as such.</p> + +<p>Indeed, Mr. Wilson refused to commit himself to the old concept of +unrestricted competition and petty business. "I am not," he said, "one +of those who think that competition can be established by law against +the drift of a world-wide economic tendency.... I am not afraid of +anything that is normal. I dare say we shall never return to the old +order of individual competition and that the organization of business +upon a great scale of coöperation is, up to a certain point, itself +normal and inevitable." Nevertheless, he hoped to see "our old free, +coöperative life restored," and individual opportunity widened. To the +working class he addressed a word of assurance and confidence: "The +working people of America ... are of course the backbone of the Nation. +No law that safeguards their lives, that improves the physical and moral +conditions under which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>they live, that makes their hours of labor +rational and tolerable, that gives them freedom to act in their own +interest, and that protects them where they cannot protect themselves, +can properly be regarded as class legislation." As to the Philippines, +he simply said that we were under obligations to make any arrangement +that would be serviceable to their freedom and development. The whole +address was characterized by a note of sympathy and interest in the +common lot of the common people, and by an absence of any concrete +proposals that might discourage or alarm the business interests of the +country. It was a call to arms, but it did not indicate the weapons.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wilson's speech had that delightful quality of pleasing all sections +of his party. The <i>New York Times</i> saw in it a remarkable address, in +spite of what seemed to be a certain remoteness from concrete issues, +and congratulated the country that its tone and argument indicated a +determination on the part of the candidate to ignore the Baltimore +platform. Mr. Bryan, on the other hand, appeared to be immensely pleased +with it. "Governor Wilson's speech accepting the Democratic nomination," +he said, "is original in its method of dealing with the issues of the +campaign. Instead of taking up the platform plank by plank, he takes the +central idea of the Denver platform [of 1908, Mr. Bryan's own, more +radical still]—an idea repeated and emphasized in the Baltimore +platform—and elaborates it, using the various questions under +consideration to illustrate the application of the principle.... Without +assuming to formulate a detailed plan for dealing with every condition +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>which may arise, he lifts into a position of extreme importance the +dominating thought of the Baltimore platform and appeals to the country +for its coöperation in making popular government a reality throughout +the land."<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>While the Republicans and Democrats were bringing their machinery into +action, the supporters of Mr. Roosevelt were busy forming the +organization of a new party. At a conference held shortly after the +break with the Republican convention, a provisional committee had been +appointed, and on July 8, a call was issued for the "Progressive" +convention, which duly assembled on August 5 at Chicago. This party +assembly was sharply marked by the prominence assigned to women for the +first time in a political convention. Eighteen of the delegates were +women, and Miss Jane Addams, of the Hull House, made one of the +"keynote" speeches of the occasion. Even hostile newspapers were forced +to admit that no other convention in our history, except possibly the +first Republican convention of 1856, rivaled it in the enthusiasm and +devotion of the delegates. The typical politician was conspicuous by his +absence, and a spirit of religious fervor rather than of manipulation +characterized the proceedings. Mr. Roosevelt made a long address, his +"Confession of Faith," in which he took a positive stand on many +questions which he had hitherto met in evasive language, and a platform +was adopted which marked a departure from the old party pronouncements, +in that it stated the principles with clarity and in great detail.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>The Progressive platform fell into three parts: political reforms, labor +and social measures, and control of trusts and combinations. The first +embraced declarations in favor of direct primaries, including +preferential presidential primaries, popular election of United States +Senators, the short ballot, the initiative, referendum, and recall, an +easier method of amending the Federal Constitution, woman suffrage, +limitation and publicity of campaign expenditures, and the recall of +judicial decisions in the form of a popular review of any decision +annulling a law passed under the police power of the state. The program +of labor and social legislation included the limitation of the use of +the injunction in labor disputes, prohibition of child labor, minimum +wage standards for women, the establishment of minimum standards as to +health and safety of employees and conditions of labor generally, the +creation of a labor department at Washington, and the improvement of +country life.</p> + +<p>The Progressives took a decided stand against indiscriminate trust +dissolutions, declaring that great combinations were in some degree +inevitable and necessary for national and international efficiency. The +evils of stock watering and unfair competitive methods should be +eliminated and the advantages and economies of concentration conserved. +To this end, they urged the establishment of a Federal commission to +maintain a supervision over corporations engaged in interstate commerce, +analogous to that exercised by the Interstate Commerce Commission. As to +railway corporations, they favored physical valuation. They demanded the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>retention of the natural resources, except agricultural lands, by the +governments, state and national, and their utilization for public +benefit. They favored a downward revision of the tariff on a protective +basis, income and inheritance taxes, the protection of the public +against stock gamblers and promoters and public ownership of railways in +Alaska.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In spite of the exciting contests over nomination in both of the old +parties, the campaign which followed was extraordinarily quiet.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> The +popular vote shows that the issues failed to enlist confidence or +enthusiasm. Mr. Roosevelt polled about 700,000 more votes than Mr. Taft, +but their combined vote was less than that polled by the latter in 1908, +and slightly less than that received by the former in 1904. Mr. Wilson's +vote was more than 100,000 less than that received by Mr. Bryan in 1896 +or 1908. The combined Progressive and Republican vote was 1,300,000 +greater than the Democratic vote. If we add the votes cast for Mr. Debs, +the Socialist candidate, and the vote received by the other minor +candidates to the Progressive and Republican vote we have a majority of +nearly two and one half millions against Mr. Wilson. Yet Mr. Wilson, +owing to the division of the opposition, secured 435 of the 531 +electoral votes. The Democrats retained possession of the House of +Representatives and secured control of the Senate. The surprise of the +election was the large increase in the Socialist vote, from 420,000 in +1908 to 898,000, and this in spite of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>socialistic planks in the +Progressive platform which were expected to capture a large share of the +voters who had formerly gone with the Socialists by way of protest +against the existing parties.</p> + +<p>These figures should not be taken to imply that had either Mr. Taft or +Mr. Roosevelt been eliminated the Democrats would have been defeated. On +the contrary, Mr. Wilson would have doubtless been elected if the +Republicans had nominated Mr. Roosevelt or if the Progressives had +remained out of the field. Nevertheless, the vote would seem to indicate +that the Democratic party had no very clear and positive majority +mandate on any great issue. However that may be, the policy of the party +as outlined by its leader and victorious candidate deserves the most +careful analysis.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the course of the campaign, Mr. Wilson discussed in general terms all +of the larger issues of the hour, emphasizing particularly the fact that +an economic revolution had changed the questions of earlier years, but +always speaking of "restoration" and a "recurrence" to older +liberties.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> "Our life has broken away from the past. The life of +America is not the life that it was twenty years ago; it is not the life +that it was ten years ago. We have changed our economic conditions, +absolutely, from top to bottom; and with our economic society, the +organization of our life. The old political formulas do not fit present +problems; they read like documents taken out of a forgotten age. The +older cries sound as if they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>belonged to a past which men have almost +forgotten.... Society is looking itself over, in our day, from top to +bottom; is making fresh and critical analysis of its very elements; is +questioning its oldest practices as freely as its newest, scrutinizing +every arrangement and motive of its life; and it stands ready to attempt +nothing less than a radical reconstruction which only frank and honest +counsels and the forces of generous coöperation can hold back from +becoming a revolution."</p> + +<p>One of the most significant of the many changes which constituted this +new order was, in Mr. Wilson's opinion, the mastery of the government by +the great business interests. "Suppose you go to Washington and try to +get at your government. You will always find that while you are politely +listened to, the men really consulted are the men who have the biggest +stake—the big bankers, the big manufacturers, the big masters of +commerce, the heads of railroad corporations and of steamship +corporations.... The government of the United States at present is a +foster-child of the special interests. It is not allowed to have a will +of its own.... The government of the United States in recent years has +not been administered by the common people of the United States."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, while deploring the control of the government by "big +business," Mr. Wilson made no assault on that type of economic +enterprise as such. On the contrary, he differentiated between big +business and the trust very sharply in general terms. "A trust is an +arrangement to get rid of competition, and a big business is a business +that has survived competition <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>by conquering in the field of +intelligence and economy. A trust does not bring efficiency to the aid +of business; it buys efficiency out of business. I am for big business +and I am against the trusts. Any man who can survive by his brains, any +man who can put the others out of the business by making the thing +cheaper to the consumer at the same time that he is increasing its +intrinsic value and quality, I take off my hat to, and I say: 'You are +the man who can build up the United States, and I wish there were more +of you.'" Whether any big business in the staple industries had been +built up by this process, he did not indicate; neither did he discuss +the question as to whether monopoly might not result from the +destruction of competitors as well as from the fusion of competitors +into a trust.</p> + +<p>On this distinction between big business and trusts Mr. Wilson built up +his theory of governmental policy. The trust, he said, was not a product +of competition at all, but of the unwillingness of business men to meet +it—a distinction which some were inclined to regard as academic. +Because the formation of no great trusts had been unaccompanied by +unfair practices, Mr. Wilson seemed to hold that no such concern would +have been built up had unfair practices been prohibited. Obviously, +therefore, the problem is a simple one—dissolve the trusts and prevent +their being reëstablished by prohibiting unfair practices and the arts +of high finance.</p> + +<p>Indeed, such was Mr. Wilson's program. "Our purpose," he says, "is the +restoration of freedom. We purpose to prevent private monopoly by law, +to see to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>it that the methods by which monopolies have been built up +are made impossible." Mr. Wilson's central idea was to clear the field +for the restoration of competition as it existed in the early days of +mechanical industry. "American industry is not free, as it once was +free; American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little +capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more +impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this +country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak."</p> + +<p>"Absolutely free enterprise" was Mr. Wilson's leading phrase. "We design +that the limitations on private enterprise shall be removed, so that the +next generation of youngsters, as they come along, will not have to +become protégés of benevolent trusts, but will be free to go about +making their own lives what they will; so that we shall taste again the +full cup, not of charity, but of liberty." The restoration of freedom +for every person to go into business for himself was the burden of his +appeal: "Are you not eager for the time when the genius and initiative +of all the people shall be called into the service of business?... when +your sons shall be able to look forward to becoming not employees, but +heads of some small, it may be, but hopeful business, where their best +energies shall be inspired by the knowledge that they are their own +masters with the paths of the world before them ... and every avenue of +commercial and industrial activity leveled for the feet of all who would +tread it?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Wilson's economic system seems to be susceptible of the following +summary. The great trusts are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>"unnatural products," not of competition, +but of the unwillingness of men to face competition and of unfair +practices. Big business is the product of genuine services to the +community, and it should be allowed to destroy whom it can by fairly +underselling honest goods. The enemy is, therefore, the trust; it is the +trust which prevents everybody who would from becoming his own master in +some small business; it is the trust that has taken away the "freedom" +which we once had in the United States. The remedy is inevitably the +dissolution of the trusts, the prohibition of unfair practices in +competition—then will follow as night the day that perfect freedom +which is as new wine to a sick nation. With competition "restored" and +maintained by government prosecution of offenders, no one need have a +master unless he chooses.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wilson's opponents saw in this simple industrial program nothing +more than the old gospel of Adam Smith and Ricardo—the gospel of +<i>laissez faire</i> and individualism. They asked him to specify, for +example, into how many concerns the Steel Trust should be dissolved in +order to permit the man with brains and a few thousand dollars capital +to get into the steel business. They asked him to name a catalogue of +"unfair practices" which were to be prohibited in order to put +competition on a "free and natural" basis. They asked him to state just +how, with the present accumulation of great capitals in the hands of a +relatively few, the poor but industrious person with small capital could +meet the advantages afforded by large capitals. They inquired whether +England in the middle of the nineteenth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>century, with this perfect +industrial ideal and free trade besides, presented the picture of +utopian liberty which the new freedom promised.</p> + +<p>To this demand for more particulars, Mr. Wilson replied that he was not +discussing "measures or programs," but was merely attempting "to express +the new spirit of our politics and to set forth, in large terms, which +may stick in the imagination, what it is that must be done if we are to +restore our politics to their full spiritual vigor again, and our +national life whether in trade, in industry, or in what concerns us only +as families and individuals, to its purity, its self-respect, and its +pristine strength and freedom."</p> + +<p>For the concrete manifestation of his general principles Mr. Wilson +referred to his practical achievements in New Jersey, although at the +time of the campaign he had not yet put through his program of trust +legislation—a fact which was not overlooked by his opponents. He +referred to his public service commission law, modeled on that which had +been in effect for some time in Wisconsin. "A year or two ago we got our +ideas on the subject enacted into legislation. The corporations involved +opposed the legislation with all their might. They talked about +ruin,—and I really believe they did think they would be somewhat +injured. But they have not been. And I hear I cannot tell you how many +men in New Jersey say: 'Governor, we were opposed to you; we did not +believe in the things you wanted to do, but now that you have done them, +we take off our hats. That was the thing to do, it did not hurt us a +bit; it just put us on a normal footing; it took away <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>suspicion from +our business.' New Jersey, having taken the cold plunge, cries out to +the rest of the states, 'Come on in! The water's fine.'"</p> + +<p>In another place, Mr. Wilson summed up his program of redemption in New +Jersey: a workman's compensation act, a public service corporations law, +and a corrupt practices act. This program of legislation was viewed by +Mr. Wilson as an extraordinary achievement. "What was accomplished?" he +asked. "Mere justice to classes that had not been treated justly +before.... When the people had taken over the control of the government, +a curious change was wrought in the souls of a great many men; a sudden +moral awakening took place, and we simply could not find culprits +against whom to bring indictments; it was like a Sunday School, the way +they obeyed the laws."</p> + +<p>It was on his theory of the trusts that Mr. Wilson based his opposition +to all attempts at government regulation. Under the plan of regulation, +put forward by the Progressives, said Mr. Wilson, "there will be an +avowed partnership between the government and the trusts. I take it the +firm will be ostensibly controlled by the senior member. For I take it +that the government of the United States is at least the senior member, +though the younger member has all along been running the business.... +There is no hope to be seen for the people of the United States until +the partnership is dissolved. And the business of the party now +intrusted with power is to dissolve it." In other words, the government +was, in his opinion, too weak to force the trusts to obey certain rules +and regulations, but it was strong <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>enough to take their business away +from them and prevent their ever getting together again. Apparently, Mr. +Wilson did not expect to find that cordial coöperation from the national +trust magnates which he found on the part of New Jersey public service +corporations when he undertook to regulate them.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wilson's political program was more definite. His short experience +in New Jersey politics had evidently wrought great changes in his +earlier academic views. In 1907, he thought that the United States +Senate, "represents the country as distinct from the accumulated +populations of the country, much more fully and much more truly than the +House of Representatives does." In the presidential campaign, he +advocated popular election of United States Senators, principally on the +ground "that a little group of Senators holding the balance of power has +again and again been able to defeat programs of reform upon which the +whole country has set its heart." He did not attack the Senate as a +body, but he thought sinister influences had often been at work there. +However, Mr. Wilson declared that the popular election of Senators was +not inconsistent with "either the spirit or the essential form of the +American government."</p> + +<p>As to those other devices of direct democracy, the initiative, +referendum, and recall, Mr. Wilson admitted that there were some states +where it was premature to discuss them, and added that in some states it +might never be necessary to discuss them. The initiative and referendum, +he approved as a sort of "gun behind the door," to be used rarely when +representative <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>institutions failed; and as to the recall he remarked, +"I don't see how any man grounded in the traditions of American affairs +can find any valid objection to the recall of administrative officers." +The recall of judges, however, he opposed positively and without +qualification, pointing out that the remedy for evils in the judicial +system lay in methods of nomination and election.</p> + +<p>Such was the economic and political philosophy of the new Democratic +President inaugurated on March 4, 1913.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 476.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> La Follette, <i>Autobiography</i>, pp. 516 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, pp. 480 ff., 543 f., 551, 700, 740.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> See above, p. 314.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> La Follette, <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 616.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Above, p. 288.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> <i>A Tale of Two Conventions</i>, p. 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> W. J. Bryan, <i>A Tale of Two Conventions</i>, p. 228.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> The most startling incident was the attempt of a maniac at +Milwaukee to assassinate Mr. Roosevelt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> These speeches were reprinted in <i>The New Freedom</i> after +the election.</p></div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>APPENDIX</h2> +<br /> + +<p class="cen">PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 1876-1912</p> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="100%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="png388"> + <tr> + <td class="tdctb smcap">Year of Election</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">Candidates for President</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">States</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">Political Party</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">Popular Vote</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">Plurality</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">Electoral Vote</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">Candidates for Vice President</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">States</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">Political Party</td> + <td class="tdctlb smcap">Electoral Vote</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz" width="9%">1876</td> + <td class="tdll" width="10%">Samuel J. Tilden</td> + <td class="tdllz" width="9%">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz" width="9%">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz" width="9%">4,284,885</td> + <td class="tdrlz" width="9%"> 250,935</td> + <td class="tdclz" width="9%">184</td> + <td class="tdll" width="9%">T. A. Hendricks</td> + <td class="tdllz" width="9%">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz" width="9%">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz" width="9%">184</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdll">Rutherford B. Hayes*</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">4,033,950</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz">185</td> + <td class="tdll">William A. Wheeler*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdclz">185</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Peter Cooper</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Gre'nb</td> + <td class="tdrlz">81,740</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdll">Samnuel F. Cary</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Gre'nb</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdll">Green Clay Smith</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ky.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">9,522</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdll">Gideon T. Stewart</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">James B. Walker</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Amer.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz">2,636</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">D. Kirkpatrick</td> + <td class="tdllbz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Amer.</td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz">1880</td> + <td class="tdll">James A. Garfield*</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">4,449,053</td> + <td class="tdrlz">7,018</td> + <td class="tdclz">214</td> + <td class="tdll">Chester A. Arthur*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdclz">185</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdll">W. S. Hancock</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pa.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">4,442,035</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz">155</td> + <td class="tdll">William H. English</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz">155</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdll">James B. Weaver</td> + <td class="tdllz">Iowa</td> + <td class="tdllz">Gre'nb</td> + <td class="tdrlz">307,306</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdll">B. J. Chambers</td> + <td class="tdllz">Tex.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Gre'nb</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Neal Dow</td> + <td class="tdllz">Me.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">10,305</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">H. A. Thompson</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">John W. Phelps</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Vt.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Amer.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz">707</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">S. C. Pomeroy</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Kan.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Amer.</td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz">1884</td> + <td class="tdllz">Grover Cleveland*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">4,911,017</td> + <td class="tdrlz">62,683</td> + <td class="tdclz">219</td> + <td class="tdllz">T. A. Hendricks*</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz">219</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">James G. Blaine</td> + <td class="tdllz">Me.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">4,848,334</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz">182</td> + <td class="tdllz">John A. Logan</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep. </td> + <td class="tdclz">182</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">John P. St. John</td> + <td class="tdllz">Kan.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">151,809</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">William Daniel</td> + <td class="tdllz">Md.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Benjamin F. Butler</td> + <td class="tdllz">Mass.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Gre'nb</td> + <td class="tdrlz">133,825</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">A. M. West</td> + <td class="tdllz">Miss.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Gre'nb</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">P. D. Wigginton</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Cal.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Amer.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz">1888</td> + <td class="tdllz">Grover Cleveland</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">5,440,216</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz">168</td> + <td class="tdllz">Allen G. Thurman</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz">168</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Benjamin Harrison*</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">5,538,235</td> + <td class="tdrlz">98,017</td> + <td class="tdclz">233</td> + <td class="tdllz">Levi P. Morton*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdclz">233</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Clinton B. Fisk</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. J.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">249,907</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">John A. Brooks</td> + <td class="tdllz">Mo.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Alson J. Streeter</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllz">U. L.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">148,105</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">C. E. Cunningham</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ark.</td> + <td class="tdllz">U. L.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">R. H. Cowdry</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllz">U'd L.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">2,808</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">W. H. T. Wakefield</td> + <td class="tdllz">Kan.</td> + <td class="tdllz">U'd L.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">James L. Curtis</td> + <td class="tdllbz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Amer.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz">1,591</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">James B. Greer</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Tenn.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Amer.</td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz">1892</td> + <td class="tdllz">Grover Cleveland*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">5,556,918</td> + <td class="tdrlz">380,810</td> + <td class="tdclz">277</td> + <td class="tdllz">Adlai E. Stevenson*</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz">277</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Benjamin Harrison</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">5,176,108</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz">145</td> + <td class="tdllz">Whitelaw Reid</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdclz">145</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">James B. Weaver</td> + <td class="tdllz">Iowa</td> + <td class="tdllz">Peop.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">1,041,028</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> 22</td> + <td class="tdllz">James G. Field</td> + <td class="tdllz">Va.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Peop.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> 22</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">John Bidwell</td> + <td class="tdllz">Cal.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">264,133</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">James B. Cranfill</td> + <td class="tdllz">Tex.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">Siimon Wing</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Mass.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz">21,164</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">Charles H. Matchett</td> + <td class="tdllbz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>1896</td> + <td class="tdllz">William McKinley*</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">7,104,779</td> + <td class="tdrlz">601,854</td> + <td class="tdclz">271</td> + <td class="tdllz">Garret A. Hobart*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. J.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdclz">271</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">William J. Bryan</td> + <td class="tdllz">Neb.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">6,502,925</td> + <td class="tdllz">}</td> + <td class="tdclz">170</td> + <td class="tdllz">Arthur Sewall</td> + <td class="tdllz">Me.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz">149</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">William J. Bryan</td> + <td class="tdllz">Neb.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Peop.</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">}</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Thomas E. Watson</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ga.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Peop.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> 27</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Joshua Levering</td> + <td class="tdllz">Md.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">132,007</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Hale Johnson</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">John M. Palmer</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllz">N Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">133,148</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Simon Buckner</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ky.</td> + <td class="tdllz">N Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Charles H. Matchett</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">30,274</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Matthew Maguire</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. J.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">Charles E. Bentley</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Neb.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Nat.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz">13,969</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">James H. Southgate</td> + <td class="tdllbz">N. C.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Nat.</td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz">1900</td> + <td class="tdllz">William McKinley*</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">7,207,923</td> + <td class="tdrlz">849,790</td> + <td class="tdclz">292</td> + <td class="tdllz">Theodore Roosesvelt*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdclz">292</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">William J. Bryan</td> + <td class="tdllz">Neb.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem P.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">6,358,133</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz">155</td> + <td class="tdllz">Adlai E. Stevenson</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem P.</td> + <td class="tdclz">155</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">John G. Woolley</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">208,914</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Henry B. Metcalf</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Wharton Barker</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pa.</td> + <td class="tdllz">MP.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">50,373</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Ignatius Donnelly</td> + <td class="tdllz">Minn.</td> + <td class="tdllz">MP.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Eugene V. Debs</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc D.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">87,815</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Job Harriman</td> + <td class="tdllz">Cal.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc D.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Jos. F. Malloney</td> + <td class="tdllz">Mass.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">39,739</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Valentine Rommel</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pa.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">J. F. R. Leonard</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ia.</td> + <td class="tdllz">UC.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">1,059</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">John G. Woolley</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllz">UC.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">Seth H. Ellis</td> + <td class="tdllbz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">UR.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz">5,698</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">Samuel T. Nicholson</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Pa.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">UR.</td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz">1904</td> + <td class="tdllz">Theodore Roosevelt*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">7,623,486</td> + <td class="tdrlz">2,545,515</td> + <td class="tdclz">336</td> + <td class="tdllz">Charles W. Fairbanks</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdclz">336</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Alton B. Parker</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">5,077,911</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz">140</td> + <td class="tdllz">Henry G. Davis</td> + <td class="tdllz">W. Va.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz">140</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Eugene V. Debs</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">402,283</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Benjamin Hanford</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Silas C. Swallow</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pa.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">258,536</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">George W. Carroll</td> + <td class="tdllz">Tex.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Thomas E. Watson</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ga.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Peop.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">117,183</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Thomas H. Tibbles</td> + <td class="tdllz">Neb.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Peop.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">Charles H. Corrigan</td> + <td class="tdllbz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz">31,249</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">William W. Cox</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Ill.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz">1908</td> + <td class="tdllz">William H. Taft*</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">7,678,908</td> + <td class="tdrlz">1,269,804</td> + <td class="tdclz">321</td> + <td class="tdllz">James S. Sherman*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdclz">321</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">William J. Bryan</td> + <td class="tdllz">Neb.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">6,409,104</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz">162</td> + <td class="tdllz">John W. Kern</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz">162</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Eugene V. Debs</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">420,793</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Benjamin Hanford</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Eugene W. Chafin</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ariz.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">253,840</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Aaron S. Watkins</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Thomas E. Watson</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ga.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Peo.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">29,100</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Samuel Williams</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Peo.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">August Gillhaus</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">13,825</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Donald L. Munro</td> + <td class="tdllz">Va.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">Thos. L. Hisgen</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Mass.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz">82,872</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">John Temple Graves</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Ga.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz">1912</td> + <td class="tdllz">Woodrow Wilson*</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. J.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">6,292,718</td> + <td class="tdrlz">2,235,289</td> + <td class="tdclz">435</td> + <td class="tdllz">Thomas R. Marshall</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Dem.</td> + <td class="tdclz">435</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">William H. Taft</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">3,369,221</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> 15</td> + <td class="tdllz">Herbert S. Hadley</td> + <td class="tdllz">Mo.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Rep.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> 15</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Theodore Roosevelt</td> + <td class="tdllz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Prog.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">4,057,429</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> 81</td> + <td class="tdllz">Hiram W. Johnson</td> + <td class="tdllz">Cal.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Prog.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> 81</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Eugene V. Debs</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ind.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">812,731</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Emil Seidel</td> + <td class="tdllz">Wis.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Soc.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Eugene W. Chafin</td> + <td class="tdllz">Ariz.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdrlz">170,626</td> + <td class="tdrlz"> </td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + <td class="tdllz">Aaron S. Watkins</td> + <td class="tdllz">O.</td> + <td class="tdllz">Pro.</td> + <td class="tdclz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdcb"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">Arthur E. Reimer</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Mass.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdrlbz">17,312</td> + <td class="tdrlbz"> </td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + <td class="tdllbz">August Gillhaus</td> + <td class="tdllbz">N. Y.</td> + <td class="tdllbz">Soc L.</td> + <td class="tdclbz"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" colspan="11">* The candidates starred were elected. This table is from the + <i>World Almanac</i>. The figures are in some cases slightly different from those used in + the text, which are taken from Stanwood, <i>History of the Presidency</i>.</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Guide to Literature of Current History</i></p> + +<p>The best general bibliography for handy use is Channing, Hart, and +Turner, <i>Guide to the Study and Reading of American History</i> (new ed. +1912).</p> + +<p>G. E. Howard, <i>Present Political Questions</i> (1913)—a valuable syllabus +of current questions with discriminating and full bibliographies +(published by the University of Nebraska).</p> + +<p>The Library of Congress publishes useful bibliographies on special +topics of current political and historical interest. A list may be +obtained by addressing the Librarian, Washington, D.C.</p> + +<p>An important annual review of the current literature of American history +is to be found in <i>Writings on American History</i>; published by +Macmillan, 1906-1908; by the American Historical Association, 1909-1911; +and now by the Yale University Press.</p> + +<p>Excellent topical bibliographies are to be found in each of the volumes +in Hart, American Nation Series. The four volumes by Dunning, Sparks, +Dewey, and Latané should be consulted for the period here covered.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>General Works</i></p> + +<p>The best general treatment of the period from 1877 to 1907 is to be +found in the four volumes of the American Nation Series edited by A. B. +Hart: W. A. Dunning, <i>Reconstruction: Political and Economic</i>; E. E. +Sparks, <i>National Development, 1877-1885</i>; D. R. Dewey, <i>National +Problems; 1885-1897</i>; J. H. Latané, <i>America as a World Power, +1897-1907</i>. Each of these volumes contains an excellent bibliography of +political and economic materials.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>H. T. Peck, <i>Twenty Years of the Republic</i> (1906)—readable work +covering the period from Cleveland's first administration to 1905.</p> + +<p>Edward Stanwood, <i>History of the Presidency</i> (1896 ed.). A second volume +(1912) brings the work down to 1909 and contains the platforms of +1912—useful for political sketches and the platforms and election +statistics.</p> + +<p><i>The American Year Book</i>, published since 1910, contains an annual +survey of American political history and constitutional and social +development.</p> + +<p>For political and economic matters see the current publications and +proceedings of the American Political Science Association, the American +Economic Association, and the American Sociological Society.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Personal and Biographical Works</i></p> + +<p>J. P. Altgeld, <i>Live Questions</i> (1890)—valuable for the radical +movement within the Democratic party.</p> + +<p>F. Bancroft, <i>Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl +Schurz</i> (1913), 6 vols.</p> + +<p>John Bigelow, <i>Life of Samuel J. Tilden</i> (1896).</p> + +<p>G. S. Boutwell, <i>Reminiscences of Sixty Years</i> (1902).</p> + +<p>Grover Cleveland, <i>The Independence of the Executive</i> (1900); +<i>Presidential Problems</i> (1904)—particularly valuable for the Chicago +strike and the bond issues; G. F. Parker, <i>Writings and Speeches of +Grover Cleveland</i> (1892); A. E. Bergh, <i>Addresses, State Papers, and +Letters of Grover Cleveland</i> (1909).</p> + +<p>J. A. Garfield, <i>Currency Speeches in the House, 1868-1870</i>; B. A. +Hinsdale, <i>Works of J. A. Garfield</i> (1882-1883) 2 vols.; <i>Great Speeches +of J. A. Garfield</i> (1881).</p> + +<p>Benjamin Harrison, <i>Public Papers and Addresses</i> (Govt. Printing Office, +1893); <i>This Country of Ours</i> (1897)—a popular view of the national +government; J. S. Shriver, <i>Speeches of Benjamin Harrison</i> (1891); M. L. +Harrison, <i>Views of an Ex-President</i> [Harrison] (1901).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>G. F. Hoar, <i>Autobiography of Seventy Years</i> (1903).</p> + +<p>R. M. La Follette, <i>Autobiography</i> (1913)—particularly valuable for the +history of the radical movement within the Republican party and the +origin of the Progressive party.</p> + +<p>Wm. McKinley, <i>Speeches and Addresses from Election to Congress to the +Present Time</i> (1893); <i>Speeches and Addresses, 1897-1900</i> (1900); <i>The +Tariff—a Review of Its Legislation from 1812 to 1896</i> (1904); J. S. +Ogilvie, <i>Life and Speeches of McKinley</i> (1896).</p> + +<p>L. A. Coolidge, <i>An Old-Fashioned Senator</i> [O. H. Platt] (1910).</p> + +<p>Thomas C. Platt, <i>Autobiography</i> (1910).</p> + +<p>Theodore Roosevelt, <i>The New Nationalism</i> (1910) contains the famous +speech on that subject and other essays; <i>An Autobiography</i> (1913)—an +intimate view of his political career.</p> + +<p>John Sherman, <i>Recollections of Forty Years</i> (1897).</p> + +<p>Edward Stanwood, <i>James G. Blaine</i> (1905).</p> + +<p>W. H. Taft, <i>Political Issues and Outlooks</i> (1909); <i>Presidential +Addresses and State Papers</i> (1910).</p> + +<p>Woodrow Wilson, <i>The New Freedom</i> (1913). An edited collection of +President Wilson's campaign speeches arranged to exhibit in systematic +form his political and economic doctrines.</p> +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><i>Topical Bibliography</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Economic Revolution</span>: Coman, <i>Economic History of the United +States</i> (1911 ed.)—several useful chapters on the period since the +Civil War; R. T. Ely, <i>Evolution of Industrial Society</i> (1906).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Tariff</span>: Edward Stanwood, <i>American Tariff Controversies in the +Nineteenth Century</i> (1903); F. W. Taussig, <i>Tariff History of the United +States</i> (1910 ed.).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Finance</span>: See the annual review in the <i>American Year Book</i>; D. +R. Dewey, <i>Financial History of the United States</i> (1903); A. B. +Hepburn, <i>History of Coinage and Currency in the United States</i> (1903); +J. L. Laughlin, <i>History of Bimetallism in the United States</i> (1897); W. +H. Harvey, <i>Coin's Financial School</i> (1894)—the famous work which did +so much to stir up popular sentiment in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>favor of free silver; W. J. +Bryan, <i>The First Battle</i> (1897)—invaluable for the political aspects +of the question.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Trusts</span>: I. M. Tarbell, <i>The History of the Standard Oil +Company</i> (1904); G. H. Montague, <i>The Rise and Progress of the Standard +Oil Company</i> (1903)—more favorable to trusts than the preceding work; +H. D. Lloyd, <i>Wealth against Commonwealth</i> (1894)—a critical attack on +the evil practices of trusts; J. W. Jenks, <i>The Trust Problem</i> (1905 +ed.)—study of the methods and causes of trusts; John Moody, <i>The Truth +about the Trusts</i> (1904)—full of valuable historical and statistical +data; W. Z. Ripley, <i>Trusts, Pools, and Corporations</i> (1905)—a useful +collection of historical and descriptive materials.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Railways</span>: W. Z. Ripley, <i>Railroads: Rates and Regulation</i> +(1913)—a monumental and scholarly treatise; E. R. Johnson, <i>American +Railway Transportation</i> (1903); H. S. Haines, <i>Restrictive Railway +Legislation in the United States</i> (1905); B. H. Meyer, <i>Railway +Legislation in the United States</i> (1903).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Civil Service</span>: C. R. Fish, <i>Civil Service and the Patronage</i> +(1905, Harvard Studies); L. G. Tyler, <i>Parties and Patronage</i> (1888).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Populism</span>: S. J. Buck, <i>The Granger Movement ... 1870-1880</i> +(1913, Harvard Studies)—important for all aspects of agrarianism for +the period; F. L. McVey, <i>The Populist Movement</i> (1896).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Labor</span>: R. T. Ely, <i>The Labor Movement in America</i> (1902); T. V. +Powderly, <i>Thirty Years of Labor</i> (1889); John Mitchell, <i>Organized +Labor</i> (1903); T. S. Adams and H. Sumner, <i>Labor Problems</i> (1906).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Immigration</span>: Frank Warne, <i>The Immigrant Invasion</i> (1913); +Peter Roberts, <i>The New Immigration</i> (1912)—a study of the social and +industrial life of Southeastern Europeans in America; H. P. Fairchild, +<i>Greek Immigration</i> (1911), and <i>Immigration: a World Movement and its +American Significance</i> (1913); P. F. Hall, <i>Immigration and Its Effects +on the United States</i> (1908); I. A. Hourwich, <i>Immigration and Labor</i> +(1912)—a study of the economic aspects of immigration and favorable to +a liberal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>immigration policy; J. W. Jenks and W. J. Lauck, <i>The +Immigration Problem</i> (1912)—particularly valuable for the data +presented.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Socialism</span>: Morris Hillquit, <i>History of Socialism in the United +States</i> (1910); W. J. Ghent, <i>Mass and Class</i> (1904); J. W. Hughan, +<i>American Socialism of To-day</i> (1912); W. E. Walling, <i>Socialism as It +Is</i> (1912). On the newer aspects of socialism and trades-unionism: John +Spargo, <i>Syndicalism, Industrial Unionism, and Socialism</i> (1913); A. +Tridon, <i>The New Unionism</i> (1913); J. G. Brooks, <i>American Syndicalism</i> +(1913); W. H. Haywood and F. Bohn, <i>Industrial Socialism</i> (1911); James +O'Neal, <i>Militant Socialism</i> (1912).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Women</span>: Edith Abbott, <i>Women in Industry</i> (1909); E. D. Bullock, +<i>Selected Articles on the Employment of Women</i> (1911); E. B. Butler, +<i>Women in the Trades</i> (1909); R. C. Dorr, <i>What Eight Million Women +Want</i> (1910); I. H. Harper, <i>Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony</i> +(1899-1908), <i>History of the Movement for Woman Suffrage in the United +States</i> (1907); E. R. Hecker, <i>Short History of Woman's Rights</i> (1910); +G. E. Howard, <i>A History of Matrimonial Institutions</i> (1904); Helen +Sumner, <i>Equal Suffrage</i> (1909)—a study of woman suffrage in Colorado; +C. P. Gilman, <i>Woman and Economics</i> (1900).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Controversy over the Judiciary</span>: Gilbert Roe, <i>Our Judicial +Oligarchy</i> (1912)—a criticism of recent tendencies in the American +judicial system; B. F. Moore, <i>The Supreme Court and Unconstitutional +Legislation</i> (1913)—a historical survey; W. L. Ransom <i>Majority Rule +and the Judiciary</i> (1912); F. R. Coudert, <i>Certainty and Justice</i> +(1913); G. G. Groat, <i>Attitude of American Courts in Labor Cases</i> +(1911); C. G. Haines, <i>The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy</i> +(1914).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Popular Government</span>: G. H. Haynes, <i>The Election of Senators</i> +(1906)—valuable for the question of popular election; C. A. Beard and +Birl Shultz, <i>Documents on the Initiative, Referendum and Recall</i> +(1912); E. P. Oberholtzer, <i>Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in +America</i> (1911); Walter Weyl, <i>The New Democracy</i> (1912); H. Croly, <i>The +Promise of American Life</i> (1909).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The South</span>: A. B. Hart, <i>The Southern South</i> (1910); E. G. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>Murphy, <i>Problems of the Present South</i> (1904); H. W. Grady, <i>The New +South</i> (1890); W. G. Brown, <i>The Lower South</i> (1902).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Negro Problem</span>: The Annals of the American Academy of +Political and Social Science for September, 1913, is devoted to articles +on the progress of the negro race during the last fifty years. A. P. C. +Griffin, <i>Select List of References on the Negro Question</i> (1906, +Library of Congress); R. S. Baker, <i>Following the Color Line</i> +(1908)—valuable for the handicaps imposed on the negro in the South; J. +M. Mathews, <i>Legislative and Judicial History of the Fifteenth +Amendment</i> (1909); M. W. Ovington, <i>Half a Man</i> (1911)—status of the +negro in New York; T. N. Page, <i>The Negro</i> (1904)—viewed as a Southern +problem; A. H. Stone, <i>Studies in the American Race Problem</i> +(1908)—discouraging view of the economic capacities of the negro; B. T. +Washington, <i>The Negro in the South</i> (1907)—useful for economic +matters; and <i>The Future of the Negro</i> (1900); A. B. Hart, <i>Realities of +Negro Suffrage</i> (1905); G. T. Stephenson, <i>Race Distinctions in American +Law</i> (1910).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Growth of the West</span>: H. H. Bancroft, <i>Chronicles of the +Builders of the Commonwealth</i> (1891-1892), 7 vols.; J. C. Birge, <i>The +Awakening of the Desert</i> (1912); C. C. Coffin, <i>The Seat of Empire</i> +(1871); Katharine Coman, <i>Economic Beginnings of the Far West</i> (1912), 2 +vols.—exploration and settlement; J. H. Eckels, <i>The Financial Power of +the New West</i> (1905); F. V. Hayden, <i>The Great West</i> (1880)—resources, +climate, Mormons, and Indians; J. S. Hittell, <i>The Commerce and +Industries of the Pacific Coast</i> (1882); R. P. Porter and others, <i>The +West</i> (1882)—review of social and economic development from the census +of 1880; L. E. Quigg, <i>New Empires in the Northwest</i> (1889)—Dakotas, +Montana, and Washington; Julian Ralph, <i>Our Great West</i> (1893)—survey +of conditions; Joseph Schafer, <i>A History of the Pacific Northwest</i> +(1905); W. E. Smyth, <i>The Conquest of Arid Arizona</i> (1900).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Monroe Doctrine</span>: J. B. Moore, <i>History of American Diplomacy</i> +(1905); J. W. Foster, <i>A Century of American Diplomacy</i> (1901); J. H. +Latané, <i>Diplomatic Relations of the United States and Spanish America</i> +(1900); A. B. Hart, <i>Foundations of American</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span><i>Diplomacy</i> (1901); Hiram +Bingham, <i>The Monroe Doctrine</i> (1913)—a severe criticism of the +Doctrine.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Spanish War</span>: F. E. Chadwick, <i>Relations of the United +States and Spain</i>—excellent for diplomatic affairs; H. C. Lodge, <i>The +War with Spain</i> (1899)—an interesting popular account; H. D. Flack, +<i>Spanish-American Diplomatic Relations Preceding the War of 1898</i> +(1906)—a careful analysis of the causes of intervention; George Dewey, +<i>Autobiography</i> (1913).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Imperialism</span>: D. C. Worcester, <i>The Philippines: Past and +Present</i> (1914), 2 vols.—a great and authoritative work by the former +Secretary of the Interior in the Philippines; H. P. Willis, <i>Our +Philippine Problem</i> (1905)—a study of American Colonial policy; J. A. +Leroy, <i>The Americans in the Philippines</i> (1914)—a large and +authoritative work on the early stages of American occupation; F. C. +Chamberlin, <i>The Philippine Problem</i> (1913); J. G. Schurman, <i>Philippine +Fundamentals</i> (1901); Elihu Root, <i>Collection of Documents Relating to +the United States and Porto Rico</i> (1898-1905, Washington); L. S. Rowe, +<i>The United States and Porto Rico</i> (1904); E. S. Wilson, <i>Political +Development of Porto Rico</i> (1906); W. F. Willoughby, <i>Territories and +Dependencies of the United States</i> (1905)—a general work on the +government of the territories.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Panama Canal</span>: J. B. Bishop, <i>The Panama Gateway</i> (1913)—an +authoritative general account; W. F. Johnson, <i>Four Centuries of the +Panama Canal</i> (1906).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Peace Conferences</span>: Joseph Choate, <i>The Two Hague +Conferences</i> (1913); J. B. Scott, <i>The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 +and 1907</i> (1909).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">American Interests in the Orient</span>: F. F. Millard, <i>The New Far +East</i> (1906)—special reference to American interests in China; P. S. +Reinsch, <i>World Politics</i> (1900).</p> + +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>INDEX</h2> +<br /> + +<ul><li> Aguinaldo, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li> Alabama, disfranchisement of negroes in, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + +<li> Aliens, proportion of, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li> Altgeld, Governor, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + +<li> American Civic Federation, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li> American Federation of Labor, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li> Anti-monopoly party, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li> Anti-trust cases, <a href="#Page_331">331</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Anti-trust law (1890), <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> + +<li> Arbitration in labor disputes, federal law, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li> Arbitration, treaties, 1911, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li> Archbald, Judge, impeachment of, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li> Arizona, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> contest over recall of judges, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Army. <i>See</i> Spanish War</li> + +<li> Arthur, Chester A., nomination, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> administration, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + </ul> +<br /> +</li> + + +<li> Ballinger, R. A., <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li> Blaine, James G., <a href="#Page_95">95</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> candidacy in 1884, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> + <li> on silver question, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Bland-Allison bill, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> + +<li> Bonds, sales under Cleveland, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li> Bourne, Senator, attacks on convention system, <a href="#Page_353">353</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Bryan, W. J., speech in Democratic convention of 1896, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> nomination of, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> + <li> acceptance speech in 1896, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</li> + <li> favors initiative and referendum, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</li> + <li> candidacy in 1900, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</li> + <li> candidacy in 1908, <a href="#Page_318">318</a> ff.;</li> + <li> program in 1908, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>;</li> + <li> attacks Taft's judicial appointments, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + </ul> +<br /> +</li> + + +<li> Campaign funds, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> controversy over, in 1904, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> + <li> in 1908, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</li> + <li> in 1912, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Campaign, 1896, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li> Canada, reciprocity with, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></li> + +<li> Cannon, Speaker, overthrow of, <a href="#Page_336">336</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Capital, influence of, in politics, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li> Capitalism, in South, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> evolution of, <a href="#Page_229">229</a> ff.</li> + <li> <i>See</i> Industry <i>and</i> Labor.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Cervera, Admiral, <a href="#Page_210">210</a> ff.</li> + +<li> China, opening of, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> American interests in, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Chinese coolies, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li> Cities, growth of population, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li> Civil rights act, <a href="#Page_14">14</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Civil rights cases, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li> Civil service, and Theodore Roosevelt, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> law of 1883, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Clark, Champ, candidacy of, <a href="#Page_365">365</a></li> + +<li> Clayton-Bulwer treaty, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li> Cleveland, Grover, career of, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> nomination and first administration, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> ff.;</li> + <li> second administration, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> ff.;</li> + <li> tariff message of 1887, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li> + <li> and income tax, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</li> + <li> bond issues, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> + <li> supports Gold Democrats, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> + <li> and Venezuela affair, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</li> + <li> and negotiations with Spain, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Coastwise vessels, exemption of, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li> Colombia, failure of negotiations with, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li> Combinations, in business, origin of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li> Commerce, growth of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> +<li> interstate, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li> Conkling, Roscoe, sketch of, <a href="#Page_51">51</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> and Grant's candidacy, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Conservation, Roosevelt's policy, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li> Consolidated Gas case, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li> Constitution, provisions relative to money, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> criticism of, <a href="#Page_305">305</a> ff.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Convention, presidential, attacks on, <a href="#Page_353">353</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Corporations, growth of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> regulation of, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> + <li> <i>See</i> Trusts.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Court, commerce, <a href="#Page_326">326</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span></li> + +<li> Courts, criticism of, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li> Coxey's army, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li> Crédit Mobilier affair, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li> Cuba, conditions in, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> war over, <a href="#Page_209">209</a> ff.;</li> + <li> settlement of, after the war, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> + <li> interference in (1906), <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Currency, law of 1908, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Dakota, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Daniel, J. W., temporary chairman of Democratic convention, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + +<li> Debs, E. V., imprisonment of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> and injunctions, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li> + <li> candidate for President, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Debt, national, refunding of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li> De Lôme incident, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + +<li> Democrats, contest against election laws, <a href="#Page_4">4</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> party platforms, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> ff.;</li> + <li> convention of 1896, <a href="#Page_168">168</a> ff.;</li> + <li> platform of 1896, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</li> + <li> Gold, convention of 1896, <a href="#Page_192">192</a> ff.;</li> + <li> convention and platform of 1904, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> + <li> victory in 1910, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</li> + <li> in 1912, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Dewey, victory at Manila, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> + +<li> Dingley tariff, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li> Direct primary, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li> Due process. <i>See</i> Fourteenth amendment.<br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Economy and efficiency commission, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li> El Caney, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li> Election laws, federal, contest over repeal of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Employers' liability, federal, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li> Erie Railway, capitalization of, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Farmers, discontent of, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + +<li> Farmers' Alliance, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li> Farm population, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li> Farms, increase in number, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> size of, in South, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Fifteenth amendment, nullification of, in the South, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> schemes to avoid, <a href="#Page_9">9</a> ff.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Finance, high, early experiments in, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li> Fourteenth Amendment, interpretation of, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Free silver, discussion by W. J. Bryan, <a href="#Page_180">180</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Free silver. <i>See</i> Bryan, W. J.<br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Garfield, nomination and administration of, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> assassination, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Georgia, disfranchisement of negroes in, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + +<li> Gold Democrats, <a href="#Page_192">192</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Gold standard, Republicans favor in 1896, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> established by law (1900), <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> + <li> Parker telegram on, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Gompers, Samuel, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li> Gould, Jay, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li> Granger cases, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Granger movement, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li> Grant, third term contest, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li> Great Britain, and Venezuela affair, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li> Greenback party, on income tax, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> doctrines of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Greenbacks, amount of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> reissue of, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Guiteau, assassinates Garfield, <a href="#Page_96">96</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Hague conference, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li> Hancock, General, candidate for the Presidency, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + +<li> Hanna, M. A., convention of 1895, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> and campaign of 1900, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</li> + <li> career and policies of, <a href="#Page_239">239</a> ff.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Harriman, E. H., and controversy with Roosevelt, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li> Harrison, Benjamin, candidacy and administration, <a href="#Page_103">103</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Hawaiian Islands, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + +<li> Hayes, and the South, <a href="#Page_1">1</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> vetoes repeal of election laws, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li> + <li> administration of, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> ff.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Hay-Pauncefote treaty, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li> Haywood, W. D., <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li> Hepburn act, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> + +<li> Hill, D. B., in Democratic convention of 1896, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Hobson, R. P., <a href="#Page_210">210</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Idaho, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Immigration, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li> Imperialism, <a href="#Page_199">199</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> in American politics, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Income tax, law of 1894, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>; <a href="#Page_137">137</a> ff.;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> + <ul class="nest"> + <li> annulled by Supreme Court, <a href="#Page_152">152</a> ff.;</li> + <li> W. J. Bryan on, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> + <li> advocated by Roosevelt, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</li> + <li> amendment to federal constitution, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Industry, in 1860, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> in South, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>. <i>See</i> Labor.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Industrial Workers of the World, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li> Initiative and referendum, origin and growth of, <a href="#Page_284">284</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> in Progressive platform, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>;</li> + <li> favored by Wilson, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Injunctions, use of, in labor disputes, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> an issue in politics, <a href="#Page_158">158</a> ff.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Insular cases, <a href="#Page_218">218</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Insurance, regulation of, <a href="#Page_310">310</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Japan, opening of, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> American interests in, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Jenks, J. W., on trusts, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li> Jim Crow cars, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li> Judicial review, growth of doctrine of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Judiciary. <i>See</i> Supreme Court and Recall.<br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Knights of Labor, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li> Ku Klux Klan, <a href="#Page_1">1</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Labor, number of wage earners, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> in South, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> + <li> in party platforms, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</li> + <li> and tariff, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</li> + <li> regulation of, <a href="#Page_249">249</a> ff., <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Labor legislation and the courts, <a href="#Page_87">87</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> Federal, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Labor movement, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li> Labor problem, rise of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li> Labor, Knights of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li> Labor Reformers, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a> ff.</li> + +<li> La Follette, R. M., candidacy of, <a href="#Page_344">344</a> ff.</li> + +<li> <i>Laissez faire</i>, and the Constitution, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> Gold Democrats defend, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> + <li> decline of, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li> Wilson's view of, <a href="#Page_377">377</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Liberal Republicans, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li> Lincoln, on social equality for the negro, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> + +<li> Lochner v. New York, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li> Louisiana, Republican rule in, overthrown, <a href="#Page_1">1</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> disfranchisement of negroes in, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + </ul> +<br /> +</li> + + +<li> <i>Maine</i>, the battleship, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + +<li> Manila, naval battle of, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> + +<li> Massachusetts, primary law in, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> + +<li> McKinley, Wm., tariff bill, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> and the gold standard, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li> + <li> election of, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> + <li> administration of, <a href="#Page_199">199</a> ff.;</li> + <li> and Spanish war, <a href="#Page_206">206</a> ff.;</li> + <li> renomination in 1900, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</li> + <li> election, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</li> + <li> campaign funds of, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Merritt, General, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + +<li> Mexico, relations with, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></li> + +<li> Miles, General, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + +<li> Mills, tariff bill, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li> Minnesota rate case, <a href="#Page_73">73</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Mississippi, disfranchisement of negroes in, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> + +<li> Mitchell, John, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li> Money question. <i>See</i> Silver question.</li> + +<li> Monroe Doctrine, <a href="#Page_199">199</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> Roosevelt on, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>; <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Montana, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Morgan, J. P., <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li> Mormons, <a href="#Page_42">42</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Morrison, W. R., and tariff, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li> Mugwumps, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li> Munn v. Illinois, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> ff.<br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Nebraska, primary law in, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> + +<li> Negro, disfranchisement of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a> ff., <a href="#Page_7">7</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> social discriminations against, <a href="#Page_14">14</a> ff.;</li> + <li> attitude of the North toward, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> ff.;</li> + <li> problem, <a href="#Page_22">22</a> ff.;</li> + <li> education of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> + <li> in industries, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> + <li> movement, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> New Mexico, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.</li> + +<li> New nationalism, <a href="#Page_314">314</a> ff.</li> + +<li> North Carolina, disfranchisement of negroes in, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + +<li> North Dakota, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Northern Pacific, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Oregon, primary law in, <a href="#Page_354">354</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Palmer, J. M., candidate for President, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li> Panama, canal, sketch of, <a href="#Page_275">275</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> revolution in, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Paper money. <i>See</i> Greenbacks.</li> + +<li> Parcels post, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li> Parker, Alton B., nomination and candidacy of, <a href="#Page_267">267</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Payne-Aldrich tariff, <a href="#Page_323">323</a> ff.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></li> + +<li> Pensions, vetoes by Cleveland, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> law of 1890, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Philippines, military operations in, <a href="#Page_209">209</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> revolt against the United States, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</li> + <li> government of, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> + <li> in American politics, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</li> + <li> Republican platform of 1904 on, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> + <li> Democratic platform of 1904 on, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Platt amendment, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> + +<li> Poll tax, to disfranchise negroes, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li> Populist party, origin of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Populists, and disfranchisement of negroes, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> on income tax, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Porto Rico, conquest of, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> government of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Postal savings banks, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li> Primary, direct, origin and growth of, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> presidential, <a href="#Page_352">352</a> ff.;</li> + <li> presidential, in 1912, <a href="#Page_358">358</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Progressive party, origin of, <a href="#Page_357">357</a> ff.; <a href="#Page_370">370</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Progressive Republican League, <a href="#Page_344">344</a></li> + +<li> Prohibition party, <a href="#Page_144">144</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Pullman strike, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li> Pure food law, <a href="#Page_273">273</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Railways, construction of, <a href="#Page_29">29</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> land grants to, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li> + <li> frauds connected with, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> + <li> anarchy among, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> + <li> state regulation of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> ff.;</li> + <li> party platforms on, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> ff.;</li> + <li> regulation, federal, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li> + <li> state regulation of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> + <li> and stock watering, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</li> + <li> regulation of, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> + <li> physical valuation of, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> + <li> consolidation of, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Reagan <i>v.</i> Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, <a href="#Page_76">76</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Recall, of judges, origin of, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> origin and growth of, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> + <li> Wilson on, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Reciprocity with Canada, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li> Reed, T. B., speakership, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> candidate for President, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Republicans, platform of 1876, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> radical school, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li> + <li> favor new "force" bill, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li> + <li> favor enforcing the Civil War amendments, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> + <li> doctrines of, 1880-1896, <a href="#Page_90">90</a> ff.;</li> + <li> party platforms, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> ff.;</li> + <li> convention of 1896, <a href="#Page_164">164</a> ff.;</li> + <li> convention of 1900, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</li> + <li> convention of 1904, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> + <li> convention of 1912, <a href="#Page_357">357</a> ff.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Resumption act, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li> Rockefeller, J. D., <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + +<li> Roosevelt, at San Juan Hill, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> nominated for Vice President, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</li> + <li> succeeds to the Presidency, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</li> + <li> administrations of, <a href="#Page_254">254</a> ff.;</li> + <li> doctrines of, <a href="#Page_255">255</a> ff.;</li> + <li> characterization of, by Republicans in 1904, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li> + <li> Democratic criticism of, in 1904, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> + <li> Parker charges as to campaign funds of, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</li> + <li> La Follette's criticism of, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;</li> + <li> candidacy of, in 1912, <a href="#Page_349">349</a> ff.;</li> + <li> new nationalism, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>;</li> + <li> breaks with Republicans, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Rough Riders, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li> Rules committee, powers of, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> + +<li> Russo-Japanese war, Roosevelt's part in ending, <a href="#Page_281">281</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li> Samoan Islands, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + +<li> San Juan Hill, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li> Santiago, military and naval operations near, <a href="#Page_210">210</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Santo Domingo, affair of, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li> Senators, U. S., direct election of, <a href="#Page_290">290</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> popular election favored by Wilson, <a href="#Page_380">380</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Shafter, General, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> f.</li> + +<li> Sherman, silver purchase act, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> anti-trust law, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Silver question, party platforms on, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> origin and development of, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> ff.;</li> + <li> in campaign of 1896, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> ff.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Sixteen to one. <i>See</i> Silver question.</li> + +<li> Slaughter-House cases, <a href="#Page_59">59</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Smyth <i>v.</i> Ames, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li> Socialism, opposition to, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> rise and growth of, <a href="#Page_296">296</a> f.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Socialist Labor party, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li> Socialist party, rise of, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> vote in 1912, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Socialists, vote of, increase in 1904, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> + +<li> South, Republican rule in, <a href="#Page_1">1</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> new constitutions providing for disfranchisement of negroes, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> ff.;</li> + <li> over-representation of, in Congress, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li> + <li> economic advance of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a> ff.;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></li> + <li> Republican delegates from, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> South Carolina, Republican rule in, overthrown, <a href="#Page_1">1</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> disfranchisement of negroes in, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> South Dakota, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> initiative and referendum in, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Southern Pacific, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li> Spain, war with, <a href="#Page_204">204</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Spanish War, close of, <a href="#Page_212">212</a> ff.</li> + +<li> Speakership. <i>See</i> Reed <i>and</i> Cannon.</li> + +<li> Standard Oil Company, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + +<li> State socialism, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li> Steel trust, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li> Stock watering, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li> Strikes, of 1877, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> Pullman, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Suffrage, woman, growth of, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li> Sugar trust, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li> Supreme Court, declares parts of election laws invalid, <a href="#Page_6">6</a> f.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> and disfranchisement of negroes, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li> + <li> civil rights cases, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li> + <li> and Fourteenth Amendment, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> ff.;</li> + <li> criticism of, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> + <li> and income tax, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</li> + <li> Democratic attack on, in 1806, <a href="#Page_173">173</a> ff.;</li> + <li> defense of, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> + <li> W. J. Bryan on, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> + <li> Gold Democrats defend, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> + <li> Taft's appointments, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + </ul> +<br /> +</li> + + +<li> Taft, W. H., on recall of judges, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> in Philippines <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> + <li> nomination and election of, <a href="#Page_317">317</a> ff.;</li> + <li> administration of, <a href="#Page_322">322</a> ff.;</li> + <li> nomination of, in 1912, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</li> + <li> acceptance speech, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</li> + <li> Progressive criticism of, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Tariff, in Cleveland's first administration, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> Wilson bill, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li> + <li> party doctrines on, 1877-1896, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> ff.;</li> + <li> legislation, 1877-1896, <a href="#Page_124">124</a> ff.;</li> + <li> Republican platform of 1908 on, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>;</li> + <li> Payne-Aldrich act, <a href="#Page_323">323</a> ff.;</li> + <li> board, <a href="#Page_339">339</a> f.;</li> + <li> Democratic attacks on in 1911-1912, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Third term contest, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li> Tillman, on negro suffrage, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> attack on Cleveland in Democratic convention of 1896, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Trusts, origin of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> party platforms on, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</li> + <li> law against (1890), <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li> + <li> growth of, <a href="#Page_229">229</a> ff.;</li> + <li> views as to cause of, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> + <li> Roosevelt on, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> ff.;</li> + <li> Bryan on, in 1908, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</li> + <li> Republican platform of 1912, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</li> + <li> Progressive party's platform, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>;</li> + <li> Wilson's view of, <a href="#Page_375">375</a> ff.</li> + </ul> +<br /> +</li> + + +<li> Unemployment, in 1894, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li> Union Labor party, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + +<li> Union Pacific, scandal of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li> Unions, Trade, <a href="#Page_301">301</a> ff.</li> + +<li> United Labor Party, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + +<li> United States <i>v.</i> Cruikshank, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + +<li> United States <i>v.</i> Harris, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + +<li> United States <i>v.</i> Reese, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + +<li> Utah, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> initiative and referendum in, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + </ul> +<br /> +</li> + + +<li> Vanderbilt, Cornelius, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li> Venezuela affair, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li> Vetoes, by Cleveland, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> f.</li> + +<li> Vilas, Senator, in Democratic convention of 1896, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> + +<li> Virginia, disfranchisement of negroes in, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> <i>ex parte</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> + </ul> +<br /> +</li> + + +<li> Wage earners, number of, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li> Washington, state of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.</li> + +<li> West, development of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + +<li> Wilson, Wm., tariff bill, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li> Wilson, Woodrow, candidacy of, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> acceptance speech, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</li> + <li> policies of, <a href="#Page_373">373</a> ff.</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Women in industries, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li> Woman suffrage, growth of, <a href="#Page_294">294</a> ff.; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> endorsed by Progressives, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li> Wyoming, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> ff.<br /><br /></li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Transcriber's Note</p> +<br /> + +Typographical errors corrected in the text:<br /> +<br /> + +Page vii 383 changed to 385<br /> +Page vii 391 changed to 393<br /> +Page 38 financeering changed to financiering<br /> +Page 50 enterprizes changed to enterprises<br /> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY, 1877-1913***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 34253-h.txt or 34253-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/4/2/5/34253">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/5/34253</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Beard + + + +Release Date: November 8, 2010 [eBook #34253] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY, +1877-1913*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by +Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://www.archive.org/details/contamerihist00bearrich + + + + + +CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY + +1877-1913 + +by + +CHARLES A. BEARD + +Associate Professor Of Politics in Columbia University + + + + + + + +New York +The Macmillan Company +1914 +All rights reserved + +Copyright, 1914, +By The Macmillan Company. + +Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1914. + +Norwood Press +J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +PREFACE + + +In teaching American government and politics, I constantly meet large +numbers of students who have no knowledge of the most elementary facts +of American history since the Civil War. When they are taken to task for +their neglect, they reply that there is no textbook dealing with the +period, and that the smaller histories are sadly deficient in their +treatment of our age. + +It is to supply the student and general reader with a handy guide to +contemporary history that I have undertaken this volume. I have made no +attempt to present an "artistically balanced" account of the last +thirty-five years, but have sought rather to furnish a background for +the leading issues of current politics and to enlist the interest of the +student in the history of the most wonderful period in American +development. The book is necessarily somewhat "impressionistic" and in +part it is based upon materials which have not been adequately sifted +and evaluated. Nevertheless, I have endeavored to be accurate and fair, +and at the same time to invite on the part of the student some of that +free play of the mind which Matthew Arnold has shown to be so helpful in +literary criticism. + +Although the volume has been designed, in a way, as a textbook, I have +thrown aside the methods of the almanac and chronicle, and, at the risk +of displeasing the reader who expects a little about everything +(including the Sioux war and the San Francisco earthquake), I have +omitted with a light heart many of the staples of history in order to +treat more fully the matters which seem important from the modern point +of view. I have also refused to mar the pages with black type, paragraph +numbers, and other "apparatus" which tradition has prescribed for +"manuals." Detailed election statistics and the guide to additional +reading I have placed in an appendix. + +In the preparation of the book, I have made extensive use of the volumes +by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, and Latane, in the American Nation +Series, and I wish to acknowledge once for all my deep debt to them. My +colleague, Mr. B. B. Kendrick, read all of the proofs and saved me from +many an error. Professor R. L. Schuyler gave me the benefit of his +criticisms on part of the proof. To Dr. Louis A. Mayers, of the College +of the City of New York, I am under special obligations for valuable +suggestions as to arrangement and for drafting a large portion of +Chapter III. The shortcomings of the book fall to me, but I shall be +recompensed for my indiscretions, if this volume is speedily followed by +a number of texts, large and small, dealing with American history since +the Civil War. It is showing no disrespect to our ancestors to be as +much interested in our age as they were in theirs; and the doctrine that +we can know more about Andrew Jackson whom we have not seen than about +Theodore Roosevelt whom we have seen is a pernicious psychological +error. + + CHARLES A. BEARD. + + COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, + November, 1913. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE RESTORATION OF WHITE DOMINION IN THE SOUTH 1 + + II. THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION 27 + + III. THE REVOLUTION IN POLITICS AND LAW 50 + + IV. PARTIES AND PARTY ISSUES, 1877-1896 90 + + V. TWO DECADES OF FEDERAL LEGISLATION, 1877-1896 117 + + VI. THE GROWTH OF DISSENT 143 + + VII. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896 164 + + VIII. IMPERIALISM 199 + + IX. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM 229 + + X. THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 254 + + XI. THE REVIVAL OF DISSENT 283 + + XII. MR. TAFT AND REPUBLICAN DISINTEGRATION 317 + + XIII. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 344 + + APPENDIX 382 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 383 + + INDEX 391 + + + + +CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE RESTORATION OF WHITE DOMINION IN THE SOUTH + + +When President Hayes was inaugurated on March 4, 1877, the southern +whites had almost shaken off the Republican rule which had been set up +under the protection of Federal soldiers at the close of the Civil War. +In only two states, Louisiana and South Carolina, were Republican +governors nominally in power, and these last "rulers of conquered +provinces" had only a weak grip upon their offices, which they could not +have maintained for a moment without the aid of Union troops stationed +at their capitals. By secret societies, like the Ku Klux Klan, and by +open intimidation, the conservative whites had practically recovered +from the negroes, whom the Republicans had enfranchised, the political +power which had been wrested from the old ruling class at the close of +the War. In this nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal +Constitution and other measures designed to secure the suffrage for the +former bondmen, President Grant had acquiesced, and it was openly +rumored that Hayes would put an end to the military regime in Louisiana +and South Carolina, leaving the southern people to fight out their own +battles. + +Nevertheless, the Republicans in the North were apparently loath to +accept accomplished facts. In their platform of 1876, upon which Hayes +was elected, they recalled with pride their achievement in saving the +Union and purging the land of slavery; they pledged themselves to pacify +the South and protect the rights of all citizens there; they pronounced +it to be a solemn obligation upon the Federal government to enforce the +Civil War amendments and to secure "to every citizen complete liberty +and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public +rights." Moreover, they charged the Democratic party with being "the +same in character and spirit as when it sympathized with treason." + +But this vehement declaration was only the death cry of the gladiators +of the radical Republican school. Stevens and Sumner, who championed the +claims of the negroes to full civil and political rights, were gone; and +the new leaders, like Conkling and Blaine, although they still waxed +eloquent over the wrongs of the freedmen, were more concerned about the +forward swing of railway and capitalist enterprises in the North and +West than they were about maintaining in the South the rule of a handful +of white Republicans supported by negro voters. Only a few of the +old-school Republicans who firmly believed in the doctrine of the +"natural rights" of the negro, and the officeholders and speculators who +were anxious to exploit the South really in their hearts supported a +continuance of the military rule in "the conquered provinces." + +Moreover, there were special circumstances which made it improbable that +President Hayes would permit the further use of troops in Louisiana and +South Carolina. His election had been stoutly disputed and it was only a +stroke of good fortune that permitted his inauguration at all. It was +openly charged that his managers, during the contest over the results of +the election in 1876, had promised the abolition of the military regime +in the South in return for aid on the part of certain Democrats in +securing a settlement of the dispute in his favor. Hayes himself had, +however, maintained consistently that vague attitude so characteristic +of practical politicians. In his speech of acceptance, he promised to +help the southern states to obtain "the blessings of honest and capable +self-government." But he added also that the advancement of the +prosperity of those states could be made most effectually by "a hearty +and generous recognition of the rights of all by all." Moreover, he +approved a statement by one of his supporters to the effect that he +would restore all freemen to their rights as citizens and at the same +time obliterate sectional lines--a promise obviously impossible to +fulfill. + +Whether there was any real "bargain" between Hayes and the Democratic +managers matters little, for the policy which he adopted was inevitable, +sooner or later, because there was no active political support even in +the North for a contrary policy. A few weeks after his inauguration +Hayes sent a commission of eminent men to Louisiana to investigate the +claims of the rival governments there--for there were two legislatures +and two governors in that commonwealth contending for power. The +commission found that the Republican administration, headed by Governor +Packard, was little more than a sham, and advised President Hayes of +the fact. Thereupon the President, on April 9, 1877, ordered the +withdrawal of the Federal troops from the public buildings, and +Louisiana began the restoration of her shattered fortunes under the +conservative white leadership. A day later, the President also withdrew +the troops from the capitol at Columbia, South Carolina, and the +Democratic administration under Governor Wade Hampton, a former +Confederate veteran, was duly recognized. Henceforward, the freedmen of +the South were to depend upon the generosity of the whites and upon +their own collective efforts, aided by their sympathizers, for whatever +civil and political rights they were permitted to enjoy. + + +_The Disfranchisement of the Negro_ + +Having secured the abolition of direct Federal military interference +with state administrations in the South, the Democrats turned to the +abrogation of the Federal election laws that had been passed in +1870-1871, as a part of the regular reconstruction policy for protecting +the negroes in the exercise of the suffrage. These election laws +prescribed penalties for intimidation at the polls, provided for the +appointment, by Federal circuit courts, of supervisors charged with the +duty of scrutinizing the entire election process, and authorized the +employment of United States marshals, deputies, and soldiers to support +and protect the supervisors in the discharge of their duties and to keep +the peace at the polls. + +These laws, the Republican authors urged, were designed to safeguard +the purity of the ballot, not only in the South but also in the North, +and particularly in New York, where it was claimed that fraud was +regularly employed by the Democratic leaders. John Sherman declared that +the Democrats in Congress would be a "pitiful minority, if those elected +by fraud and bloodshed were debarred," adding that, "in the South one +million Republicans are disfranchised." Democrats, on the other hand, +replied that these laws were nothing more than a part of a gigantic +scheme originated by the Republicans to fasten their rule upon the +country forever by systematic interference with elections. Democratic +suspicions were strengthened by reports of many scandals--for instance, +that the supervisors in Louisiana under the Republican regime had +registered "eight thousand more colored voters than there were in the +state when the census was taken four years later." Undoubtedly, there +were plenty of frauds on both sides, and it is an open question whether +Federal interference reduced or increased the amount. + +At all events, the Democrats, finding themselves in a majority in the +House of Representatives in 1877, determined to secure the repeal of the +"force laws," and in their desperation they resorted to the practice of +attaching their repeal measures to appropriation bills in the hope of +compelling President Hayes to sign them or tying up the wheels of +government by a stoppage in finances. Hayes was equal to the occasion, +and by a vigorous use of the veto power he defeated the direct assaults +of the Democrats on the election laws. At length, however, in June, +1878, he was compelled to accept a "rider" in the form of a proviso to +the annual appropriation bill for the army making it impossible for +United States marshals to employ federal troops in the execution of the +election laws. While this did not satisfy the Democrats by any means, +because it still left Federal supervision under the marshals, their +deputies and the election supervisors, it took away the main prop of the +Republicans in the South--the use of troops at elections. + +The effect of this achievement on the part of the Democrats was apparent +in the succeeding congressional election, for they were able to carry +all of the southern districts except four. This cannot be attributed, +however, entirely to the suppression of the negro vote, for there was a +general landslide in 1878 which gave the Democrats a substantial +majority in both the House and the Senate. Inasmuch as a spirit of +toleration was growing up in Congress, the clause of the Fourteenth +Amendment excluding from Congress certain persons formerly connected +with the Confederacy, was not strictly enforced, and several of the most +prominent and active representatives of the old regime found their way +into both houses. Under their vigorous leadership a two years' political +war was waged between Congress and the President over the repeal of the +force bills, but Hayes won the day, because the Democrats could not +secure the requisite two-thirds vote to carry their measures against the +presidential veto. + +However, the Supreme Court had been undermining the "force laws" by +nullifying separate sections, although it upheld the general principle +of the election laws against a contention that elections were wholly +within the control of state authorities. In the case of United States +_v._ Reese, the Court, in 1875, declared void two sections of the law of +1870 "because they did not strictly limit Federal jurisdiction for +protection of the right to vote to cases where the right was denied _by +a state_," but extended it to denials by private parties. In the same +year in the case of United States _v._ Cruikshank the Court gave another +blow to Federal control, in the South. A number of private citizens in +Louisiana had waged war on the blacks at an election riot, and one of +them, Cruikshank, was charged with conspiracy to deprive negroes of +rights which they enjoyed under the protection of the United States. The +Supreme Court, however, held that the Federal government had no +authority to protect the citizens of a state _against one another_, but +that such protection was, as always, a duty of the state itself. Seven +years later the Supreme Court, in the case of United States _v._ Harris, +declared null that part of the enforcement laws which penalized +conspiracies of two or more citizens to deprive another of his rights, +on the same ground as advanced in the Louisiana case.[1] + +On the withdrawal of Federal troops and the open abandonment of the +policy of military coercion, the whites, seeing that the Federal courts +were not inclined to interfere, quickly completed the process of +obtaining control over the machinery of state government. That process +had been begun shortly after the War, taking the form of intimidation +at the polls. It was carried forward another step when the "carpet +baggers" and other politicians who had organized and used the negro vote +were deprived of Federal support and driven out. When this active +outside interference in southern politics was cut off, thousands of +negroes stayed away from the polls through sheer indifference, for their +interest in politics had been stimulated by artificial forces--bribery +and absurd promises. Intimidation and indifference worked a widespread +disfranchisement before the close of the seventies. + +These early stages in the process of disfranchisement were described by +Senator Tillman in his famous speech of February 26, 1900. "You stood up +there and insisted that we give these people a 'free vote and a fair +count.' They had it for eight years, as long as the bayonets stood +there.... We preferred to have a United States army officer rather than +a government of carpet baggers and thieves and scallywags and scoundrels +who had stolen everything in sight and mortgaged posterity; who had run +their felonious paws into the pockets of posterity by issuing bonds. +When that happened we took the government away. We stuffed the ballot +boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it. With that system--force, +tissue ballots, etc.--we got tired ourselves. So we had a constitutional +convention, and we eliminated, as I said, all of the colored people whom +we could under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments." The experience +of South Carolina was duplicated in Mississippi. "For a time," said the +Hon. Thomas Spight, of that state, in Congress, in 1904, "we were +compelled to employ methods that were extremely distasteful and very +demoralizing, but now we are accomplishing the same and even better +results by strictly constitutional and legal procedure." It should be +said, however, that in the states where the negro population was +relatively smaller, violence was not necessary to exclude the negroes +from the polls. + +A peaceful method of disfranchising negroes and poor whites was the +imposition of a poll tax on voters. Negroes seldom paid their taxes +until the fight over prohibition commenced in the eighties and nineties. +Then the liquor interests began to pay the negroes' poll taxes and by a +generous distribution of their commodities were able to carry the day at +the polls. Thereupon the prohibitionists determined to find some +effective constitutional means of excluding the negroes from voting. + +This last stage in the disfranchisement process--the disqualification of +negroes by ingenious constitutional and statutory provisions--was +hastened by the rise during the eighties and nineties of the radical or +Populist party in the South, which evenly balanced the Democratic party +in many places and threatened for a time to disintegrate the older +organization. In this contest between the white factions a small number +of active negroes secured an extraordinary influence in holding the +balance of power; and both white parties sought to secure predominance +by purchasing the venal negro vote which was as large as, or perhaps +larger than, the venal white vote in such northern states as +Connecticut, Rhode Island, or Indiana. The conservative wing of the +white population was happy to take advantage of the prevailing race +prejudice to secure the enactment of legislation disfranchising a +considerable number of the propertyless whites as well as the negroes; +and the radicals grew tired of buying negro voters. + +Out of this condition of affairs came a series of constitutional +conventions which devised all sorts of restrictions to exclude the +negroes and large numbers of the "lower classes" from voting altogether, +without directly violating the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal +Constitution providing against disfranchisement on account of race, +color, or previous condition of servitude. + +The series of conventions opened in Mississippi in 1890, where the +Populistic whites were perhaps numerically fewest. At that time +Mississippi was governed under the constitution of 1868, which provided +that no property or educational test should be required of voters, at +least not before 1885, and also stipulated that no amendment should be +made except by legislative proposal ratified by the voters. +Notwithstanding this provision, the legislature in February, 1890, +called a convention to amend the constitution "or enact a new +constitution." This convention proceeded to "ordain and establish" a new +frame of government, without referring it to the voters for +ratification; and the courts of the state set judicial sanction on the +procedure, saying that popular ratification was not necessary. This +constitution provides that every elector shall, in addition to +possessing other qualifications, "be able to read any section of the +constitution of this state; or he shall be able to understand the same +when read to him or to give a reasonable interpretation thereof." Under +such a general provision everything depends upon the attitude of the +election officials toward the applicants for registration, for it is +possible to disfranchise any person, no matter how well educated, by +requiring the "interpretation" of some obscure and technical legal +point. + +Five years later South Carolina followed the example of Mississippi, and +by means of a state convention enacted a new constitution disfranchising +negroes; and put it into force without submitting it to popular +ratification.[2] The next year (1896) the legislature of Louisiana +called a convention empowered to frame a new constitution and to put it +into effect without popular approval. This movement was opposed by the +Populists, one of whom declared in the legislature that it was "a step +in the direction of taking the government of this state out of the hands +of the masses and putting it in the hands of the classes." In spite of +the opposition, which was rather formidable, the convention was +assembled, and ordained a new frame of government (1898) disfranchising +negroes and many whites. The Hon. T. J. Symmes, addressing the +convention at the close, frankly stated that their purpose was to +establish the supremacy of the Democratic party as the white man's +party. + +Four principal devices are now employed in the several constitutional +provisions disfranchising negroes: (1) a small property qualification, +(2) a prerequisite that the voter must be able to read any section of +the state constitution or explain it, when read, to the satisfaction of +the registering officers, (3) the "grandfather clause," as in Louisiana +where any person, who voted on or before 1867 or the son or grandson of +such person, may vote, even if he does not possess the other +qualifications; and (4) the wide extension of disfranchisement for +crimes by including such offenses as obtaining money under false +pretenses, adultery, wife-beating, petit larceny, fraudulent breach of +trust, among those which work deprivation of the suffrage. + +The effect of these limitations on the colored vote has been to reduce +it seriously in the far South. If the negro has the amount of taxable +property required by the constitution, he is caught by the provision +which requires him to explain a section of the state constitution to the +satisfaction of the white registering officers. The meanest white, +however, can usually get through the net with the aid of his +grandfather, or by showing his expertness in constitutional law. Mr. J. +C. Rose has published the election statistics for South Carolina and +Mississippi;[3] it appears that in those states there were, in 1900, +about 350,796 adult male negroes and that the total Republican vote in +both commonwealths in the national election of that year was only 5443. +At a rough guess perhaps 2000 votes of this number were cast by white +men, and the conclusion must be that about ninety-nine out of every +hundred negroes failed to vote for President in those states. It is +fair to state, however, that indifference on the part of the negroes was +to some extent responsible for the small vote. + +The legal restrictions completed the work which had been begun by +intimidation. Under the new constitution of 1890 in Mississippi, only +8615 negroes out of 147,000 of a voting age were registered. In four +years, the number registered in Louisiana fell from 127,000 in 1896 to +5300 in 1900. This was the exact result which the advocates of white +supremacy desired to attain, and in this they were warmly supported by +eminent Democrats in the North. "The white man in the South," said Mr. +Bryan in a speech in New York, in 1908, "has disfranchised the negro in +self-protection; and there is not a Republican in the North who would +not have done the same thing under the same circumstances. The white men +of the South are determined that the negro will and shall be +disfranchised everywhere it is necessary to prevent the recurrence of +the horrors of carpet bag rule." + +Several attempts have been made to test the constitutionality of these +laws in the Supreme Court of the United States, but that tribunal has +been able to avoid coming to a direct decision on the merits of the +particular measures--and with a convincing display of legal reasoning. +The Constitution of the United States simply states that no citizen +shall be deprived of the right to vote on account of race, color, or +previous condition of servitude, and that the representation of any +state in Congress shall be reduced in the proportion to which it +deprives adult male citizens of the franchise. The ingenious provisions +of the southern constitutions do not deprive the negro of the right to +vote on account of his color, but on account of his grandfather, or his +inability to expound the constitution, or his poverty. In one of the +cases before the Supreme Court, the plaintiff alleged that the Alabama +constitution was in fact designed to deprive the negro of the vote, but +the Court answered that it could not afford the remedy, that it could +not operate the election machinery of the state, and that relief would +have to come from the state itself, or from the legislative and +political departments of the Federal government.[4] + + +_Social Discrimination against the Negro_ + +The whites in the South were even less willing to submit to anything +approaching social equality with the negro than they were to accept +political equality. Discriminations against the negro in schools, inns, +theaters, churches, and other public places had been common in the North +both before and after the Civil War, and had received judicial sanction; +and it may well be imagined that the southern masters were in no mood, +after the War, to be put on the same social plane as their former +slaves, and the poor whites were naturally proud of their only +possession--a white skin. Knowing full well that this temper prevailed +in the South the radical Republicans in Congress had pushed through on +March 1, 1875, a second Civil Rights Act designed to establish a certain +social equality, so far as that could be done by law. + +The spirit of this act was reflected in the preamble: "Whereas it is +essential to just government, we recognize the equality of all men +before the law, and hold that it is the duty of government in its +dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of +whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political; +and it being the appropriate object of legislation to enact great +fundamental principles into law." After this profession of faith, the +act proceeds to declare that all persons within the jurisdiction of the +United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the +accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public +conveyances on land or water, theaters and other places of amusement, +subject to limitations applied to all alike, regardless of race or +color. The act further provided that in the selection of jurors no +discrimination should be made on account of race, color, or previous +condition of servitude under a penalty of not more than $5,000. +Jurisdiction over offenses was conferred upon the district and circuit +courts of the United States, and heavy penalties were imposed upon those +who violated the law. This measure was, of course, hotly resisted, and, +in fact, nullified everywhere throughout the Union, north and +south--except in some of the simple rural regions. + +The validity of the act came before the Supreme Court for adjudication +in the celebrated Civil Rights Cases in 1883 and a part of the law was +declared unconstitutional in an opinion of the Court rendered by Mr. +Justice Bradley. According to his view, the Fourteenth Amendment did not +authorize Congress to legislate upon subjects which were in the domain +of state legislation--that is to create a code of municipal law for the +regulation of private rights; but it merely authorized Congress to +provide modes of relief against state legislation and the action of +state officers, executive or judicial, which were subversive of the +fundamental rights specified in the amendment. "Until some state law has +been passed," he said, "or some state action through its officers or +agents has been taken, adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be +protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, no legislation of the United +States under said Amendment, nor any proceeding under such legislation +can be called into activity: for the prohibitions of the Amendment are +against state laws and acts done under state authority." + +The question as to whether the equal enjoyment of the accommodations in +inns, conveyances, and places of amusement was an essential right of the +citizen which no state could abridge or interfere with, Justice Bradley +declined to examine on the ground that it was not necessary to the +decision of the case. He did, however, inquire into the proposition as +to whether Congress, in enforcing the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing +slavery and involuntary servitude, could secure the social equality +contemplated by the act, under the color of sweeping away all the badges +and incidents of slavery. And on this point he came to the conclusion +that mere discriminations on account of race or color could not be +regarded as badges of slavery. "There were," he added, "thousands of +free colored people in this country before the abolition of slavery, +enjoying all of the essential rights of life, liberty, and property the +same as white citizens; and yet no one at that time thought that it was +any invasion of his personal status as a freeman because he was not +admitted to all of the privileges enjoyed by white citizens, or because +he was subjected to discriminations in the enjoyment of accommodations +in inns, public conveyances, and places of amusement." + +Clearly, there was no authority in either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth +Amendment for the section of the Civil Rights Act relative to inns, +conveyances, and places of amusement, at least so far as its operation +in the several states was concerned. If, however, any state should see +fit to make or authorize unlawful discriminations amenable to the +prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress had the power to +afford a remedy or the courts in enforcing the Amendment could give +judicial relief. Thus, while the Justice did not definitely say that the +elements of social equality provided in the Civil Rights Act were not +guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, his line of reasoning and his +language left little doubt as to what was the view of the Court. + +Section four of the Civil Rights Act forbidding, under penalty, +discrimination against any person on account of race, color, or previous +condition of servitude in the selection of jurors had been passed upon +by the Supreme Court in the case of _Ex parte_ Virginia, decided in +1879, in which the section was held to be constitutional as providing +not a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights, but a +mode of redress against the operation of state laws. The ground of +distinction between the two cases is clear. A section forbidding +discrimination in inns and conveyances is in the nature of a code of +private law, but a section forbidding discrimination in the selection of +jurors under penalty simply provides a mode of redress against +violations of the Fourteenth Amendment by state authorities. + +Undoubtedly there is an admissible distinction between discrimination +against negroes in the selection of juries and the discrimination +against them in inns and public conveyances, for the former may have +definite connection with the security of those civil rights of person +and property--as distinct from social rights--which the Fourteenth +Amendment was clearly designed to enforce. This was the principle which +was brought out by the Court in the two decisions.[5] But if Justice +Bradley in the Civil Rights cases had frankly made the distinction +between _civil_ and _social_ rights, and declared the act +unconstitutional on the ground that it attempted to secure social rights +which the Fourteenth Amendment was not intended to establish, then the +decisions of the Court would have been far more definite in character. + +Even if the Supreme Court had not declared the social equality provision +of the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional, it is questionable whether any +real attempt would have been made to enforce it. As it turned out, the +Court gave judicial sanction to a view undoubtedly entertained by the +major portion of the whites everywhere, and it encouraged the South to +proceed with further discriminatory legislation separating the races in +all public and quasi-public places. Railroads and common carriers were +compelled to provide separate accommodations for whites and blacks, "Jim +Crow Cars," as they are called in popular parlance, and to furnish +special seats in street railway cars. These laws have also been upheld +by the courts; but not without a great strain on their logical +faculties. + +Undoubtedly there are mixed motives behind such legislation. It is in +some part a class feeling, for whites are allowed to take their colored +servants in the regular coaches and sleeping cars. Nevertheless, the +race feeling unquestionably predominates. As the author of the Louisiana +"Jim Crow Car" law put it: "It is not only the desire to separate the +whites and blacks on the railroads for the comfort it will provide, but +also for the moral effect. The separation of the races is one of the +benefits, but the demonstration of the superiority of the white man over +the negro is the greater thing. There is nothing that shows it more +conclusively than the compelling of negroes to ride in cars marked for +their especial use." + + +_The Attitude of the North_ + +Although all possibility of northern interference with the southern +states in the management of their domestic affairs seemed to have +disappeared by Cleveland's first administration, the negro question was +continuously agitated by Republican politicians, and at times with great +vigor. They were much distressed at losing their Federal patronage +after the election of Cleveland in 1884; and this first Democratic +presidential victory after the War led many of them to believe that they +could recover their lost ground only by securing to the negro the right +to vote. The Republicans were also deeply stirred by the +over-representation of the South in the House of Representatives under +the prevailing system of apportionment. They pointed out that the North +was, in this respect, at even a greater disadvantage than before the +Civil War and emancipation. + +Under the original Constitution of the United States, only three fifths +of the slaves were counted in apportioning representatives among the +states; under the Fourteenth Amendment all the negroes were counted, +thus enlarging the representation of the southern states. And yet the +negroes were for practical purposes as disfranchised as they were when +they were in servitude. It was pointed out that "in the election of 1888 +the average vote cast for a member of Congress in five southern states +was less than eight thousand; in five northern states, over thirty-six +thousand. Kansas, which cast three times the vote of South Carolina, had +only the same number of congressmen." The discrepancy tended to +increase, if anything. In 1906, a Mississippi district with a population +of 232,174 cast 1540 votes, while a New York district with 215,305 cast +29,119 votes. + +The Republicans have several times threatened to alter this anomalous +condition of affairs. In 1890, Mr. Lodge introduced in the House of +Representatives a bill providing for the appointment of federal election +commissioners, on petition of local voters, endowed with powers to +register and count all votes, even in the face of the opposition of +local officers. This measure, which passed the House, was at length +killed in the Senate. In their platform of 1904, the Republicans +declared in favor of restoring the negro to his rights under the +Constitution, and for political purposes the party in the House later +coupled a registration and election law with the measure providing for +publicity of campaign contributions. It was not acted upon in the +Senate. In 1908, the Republicans in their platform declared "once more +and without reservation, for the enforcement in letter and spirit of the +Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution +which were designed for the protection and advancement of the negro," +and condemned all devices designed to disfranchise him on grounds of +color alone. Although they have been in possession of all branches of +the Federal government several times, the Republicans have deemed it +inexpedient to carry out their campaign promises. + +With the decline in the influence of the Civil War veterans in politics, +the possibility of Federal interference has steadily decreased. The +North had never been abolitionist in temper or political belief, as the +vote of the Free Soil party demonstrates. The Republican party was a +homestead, railway, and protectionist party opposed to slavery in the +territories, and its great leader, Lincoln, had long been on record as +opposed to political and social equality for the negro. Emancipation had +come as a stroke of fortune--not because a majority of the people had +deliberately come to the conclusion that it was a measure of justice. As +in the French Revolution at its height, the extreme radicals forged to +the front for a time, so during the Civil War and its aftermath, +"radical" Republicans held the center of the stage and gave to politics +a flavor of talk about "human rights" which was foreign to practical +statesmen like Clay and Webster. In a little while, practical men came +to the helm once more, and they were primarily interested in economic +matters--railways, finance, tariff, corporations, natural resources, and +western development. The cash nexus with the South was formed once more, +and made far stronger and subtler than in olden days. Agitation of the +negro question became bad form in the North, except for quadrennial +political purposes. + + +_The Negro Problem_ + +Thus the negro, suddenly elevated to a great height politically, was +almost as suddenly dropped by his new friends and thrown largely upon +his own ingenuity and resources for further advance. His emancipation +and enfranchisement had come almost without effort on his own part, +without that development of economic interest and of class consciousness +that had marked the rise of other social strata to political power. It +was fortuitous and had no solid foundation. It became evident, +therefore, that any permanent advance of the race must be built on +substantial elements of power in the race itself. The whites might help +with education and industrial training, but the hope of the race lay in +the development of intellectual and economic power on its own account. + +In relative numerical strength the negro is not holding his own, because +of the large immigration from Europe. In 1790, the negro population +formed 19.3 per cent of the whole, and since that time it has almost +steadily declined, reaching at the last census 10.7 per cent of the +whole. Even in the southern states where the stream of foreign +immigration is the least, the negro population has fallen from 35.2 per +cent in 1790 to 29.8 per cent in 1910. In education, the negro has +undoubtedly made great progress since the War, but it must be remembered +that he was then at the bottom of the scale. The South, though poor as +compared with the North, has made large expenditures for negro +education, but it is authoritatively reported that "nearly half of the +negro children of school age in the South never get inside of the +schoolhouse."[6] The relative expenditures for the education of white +and colored children there are not ascertainable, but naturally the +balance is heavily in favor of the former. When we recall, however, the +total illiteracy of the race under slavery and then discover that in +1910 there was an average daily attendance of 1,105,629 colored children +in the southern schools, we cannot avoid the conclusion that decided +changes are destined to be made in the intellectual outlook of the race. + +Reports also show that negroes are accumulating considerable property +and are becoming in large numbers the holders of small farms. +Nevertheless a very careful scholar, Dr. Walter Willcox, believes that +the figures "seem to show that the negro race at the South, in its +competition with the whites, lost ground between 1890 and 1900 in the +majority of skilled occupations which can be distinguished by the aid of +the census figures." Taking the economic status of the race as a whole, +the same authority adds: "The conclusion to which I am brought is that +relatively to the whites in the South, if not absolutely as measured by +any conceivable standard, the negro as a race is losing ground, is being +confined more and more to the inferior and less remunerative +occupations, and is not sharing proportionately to his numbers in the +prosperity of the country as a whole or of the section in which he +mainly lives." + +The conclusions of the statistician are confirmed by the impressions of +such eminent champions of the negro as Dr. W. B. Dubois and Mr. Thomas +Fortune. The former declares that "in well-nigh the whole rural South +the black farmers are peons, bound by law and custom to an economic +slavery, from which the only escape is death or the penitentiary." The +latter holds that the negro has simply passed from chattel to industrial +slavery "with none of the legal and selfish restraints upon the employer +which surrounded and actuated the master." These writers attribute the +slow advance of the race to the bondage of law and prejudice to which it +is subjected in the South, and everywhere in the country, as a matter of +fact. Whatever the cause may be, there seems to be no doubt that the +colored race has not made that substantial economic advance and achieved +that standard of life which its friends hoped would follow from +emancipation. Those writers who emphasize heredity in social evolution +point to this as an evidence of the inherent disabilities of the race; +while those who emphasize environment point out the immense handicap +everywhere imposed on the race by law, custom, and prejudice. + +Whatever may be the real truth about the economic status of the race, +and after all it is the relative progress of the mass that determines +the future of the race, there can be no doubt that there is an +increasing "race consciousness" which will have to be reckoned with. The +more conservative school, led by Booker T. Washington, is working to +secure for the negro an industrial training that will give him some kind +of an economic standing in the community, and if this is achieved for +large numbers, a radical change in social and political outlook will +follow, unless all signs of history fail. On the other hand, there is +growing up a radical party, under the inspiration of Dr. W. B. Dubois, +which pleads for unconditional political and social equality as a +measure of immediate justice. Dr. Dubois demands "the raising of the +negro in America to full rights and citizenship. And I mean by this no +halfway measures; I mean full and fair equality. That is, a chance to +work regardless of color, to aspire to position and preferment on the +basis of desert alone, to have the right to use public conveniences, to +enter public places of amusement on the same terms as other people, and +to be received socially by such persons as might wish to receive them." + +With both of these influences at work and all the forces of modern life +playing upon the keener section of the colored population, nothing but +congenital disabilities can prevent a movement which ruling persons, +North and South, will have to take into account. How serious this +movement becomes depends, however, upon the innate capacity of colored +masses to throw off the shiftlessness and indifference to high standards +of life that, their best friends admit, stand in the way of their +gaining a substantial economic basis, without which any kind of a solid +political superstructure is impossible. The real negro question now is: +"Can the race demonstrate that capacity for sustained economic activity +and permanent organization which has lifted the white masses from +serfdom?" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] In 1894 the Democrats during Cleveland's administration completed +the demolition of the system by repealing the remaining provisions. + +[2] Disfranchising provisions were adopted in other southern states as +follows: North Carolina, in 1900; Alabama and Virginia, in 1901; +Georgia, in 1908. See Lobingier, _The People's Law_, pp. 301 ff.; W. F. +Dodd, _Revision and Amendment of State Constitutions_. + +[3] _The Political Science Review_, November, 1906, p. 20. + +[4] Giles _v._ Harris, 189 U. S., 474. + +[5] See a Massachusetts case decided before the Civil War upholding +similar discriminations against negroes. Thayer, _Cases on +Constitutional Law_, Vol. I, p. 576. + +[6] This is partly due to the absence of compulsory attendance laws. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION + + +Long before the Civil War, steam and machinery had begun to invade +American industries and statesmen of the new commercial and industrial +order had appeared in Washington. The census of 1860 reported nearly a +million and a half wage earners in the United States, and more than a +billion dollars invested in manufacturing. By that year over thirty +thousand miles of railway had been constructed, including such important +lines as the New York Central, the Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the +Pennsylvania. Politicians of the type of Stephen A. Douglas, who +discussed slavery in public and devoted their less obvious activities to +securing grants of public lands and mineral resources to railway and +manufacturing corporations, had begun to elbow the more cultivated and +respectable leaders like Calhoun, Webster, and Alexander Stephens, who +belonged to the old order. + +But the spectacular conflict over slavery prevented the political +results of the economic transformation from coming to the surface. Those +who had occasion to watch the proceedings of Congress during the two +decades just before the War discovered the manipulations of railway +corporations seeking land grants and privileges from the Federal +Government and the operations of the "protected" interests in behalf of +increased tariffs. Those were also harvest days for corporations and +companies in the state legislatures where special charters and +privileges were being bartered away by the wholesale. There was emerging +in a number of the larger industrial centers a small, though by no means +negligible, labor movement. But the slavery issue overshadowed +everything. The annexation of Texas, slavery in the territories, the +Compromise of 1850, the Nebraska bill, and Bleeding Kansas kept the mind +of the North from the consideration of the more fundamental economic +problems connected with the new order. The politicians, to be sure, did +not live by the slavery agitation alone, but it afforded the leading +topics for public discussion and prevented the critical from inquiring +too narrowly into the real staples of politics. + +The Civil War sharply shifted the old scenery of politics. It gave a +tremendous impetus to industry and railway construction. The tariff +measures during the War gave to manufacturers an unwonted protection +against foreign competition; the demand for war supplies, iron, and +steel, railway materials, textiles, and food supplies, quickened every +enterprise in the North; the great fortunes made out of speculations in +finances, contracts for government supplies, and land-grants placed an +enormous capital in private hands to carry forward business after the +War was over. + +Within little more than a quarter of a century the advance of industry +and commerce had made the United States of Lincoln's day seem small and +petty. The census of 1905 showed over twelve billion dollars invested in +factories and nearly five and one half million wage earners employed. In +that year, the total value of manufactured products was over fourteen +billion dollars--fifteen times the amount turned out in 1860. As late as +1882 the United States imported several hundred thousand tons of steel +rails annually, but within ten years the import had fallen to 134 tons +and no less than 15,000 tons were exported. At the close of the Civil +War about 3000 tons of Bessemer steel were produced annually, but within +twenty years over two million tons were put out every twelve months. + +The building of railways more than kept pace with the growth of the +population and the increase in manufacturing. There were 30,000 miles of +lines in 1860; 52,000 in 1870; 166,000 in 1890; and 242,000 in 1910. +Beginning at first with the construction of lines between strategic +centers like Boston and Albany, and Philadelphia and Reading, the +leaders in this new enterprise grew more bold. They pushed rapidly into +the West where there were no cities of magnitude and no prospect of +developing a profitable business within the immediate future. Capital +flowed into the railways like water; European investors caught the +fever; farmers and merchants along prospective lines bought stocks and +bonds, expecting to reap a harvest from increased land values and +business, only to find their paper valueless on account of preferred +claims for construction; and the whole West was aflame with dreams of a +new Eldorado to be created by transportation systems. + +The era of feverish construction was shortly followed by the combination +of lines and the formation of grand trunk railways and particular +"systems." In 1869, Cornelius Vanderbilt united the Hudson River and New +York Central lines, linking the metropolis and Buffalo, and four years +later he opened the way to Chicago by leasing the Lake Shore Michigan +and Southern. About the same time two other eastern companies, the +Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio secured western connections which +let them into Chicago. + +It must not be thought that this rapid railway expansion was due solely +to private enterprise, for, as has been the standing custom in American +politics, the cost of doubtful or profitless undertakings was thrown as +far as possible upon the public treasury. Up to 1872, the Federal +Government had granted in aid of railways 155,000,000 acres of land, an +area estimated as "almost equal to the New England states, New York, and +Pennsylvania combined; nineteen different states had voted sums +aggregating two hundred million dollars for the same purpose; and +municipalities and individuals had subscribed several hundred million +dollars to help railway construction." To the Union Pacific concern +alone the Federal Government had granted a free right of way through +public lands, twenty sections of land with each mile of railway, and a +loan up to fifty million dollars secured by a second mortgage on the +company's property. The Northern Pacific obtained lands which a railway +official estimated to be worth enough "to build the entire railroad to +Puget Sound, to fit out a fleet of sailing vessels and steamers for the +China and India trade and leave a surplus that would roll up into the +millions." Cities, townships, counties, and states voted bonds to help +build railways within their limits or granted rights of way and lands, +in addition, with a lavish hand. + +The chronicle of all the frauds connected with the manipulation of land +grants to railways and the shameless sale of legal privileges cannot be +written, because in most instances no tangible records have been left. +Perhaps the most notorious of all was the Credit Mobilier scandal +connected with the Union Pacific. The leading stockholders in that +company determined to secure for themselves a large portion of the +profits of construction, which were enormous on account of the prodigal +waste; and they organized a sham concern known as the Credit Mobilier in +which they had full control and to which the construction profits went. +Inasmuch as the Federal Government through its grants and loans was an +interested party that might interfere at any time, the concern, through +its agent in Congress, Oakes Ames, a representative from Massachusetts, +distributed generous blocks of stock to "approachable" Senators and +Representatives. News of the transaction leaked out, and a congressional +investigation in 1872 showed that a number of men of the highest +standing, including Mr. Colfax, the Vice President, were deeply +implicated. Nothing was done, however; the leading conspirator, Ames, +was merely censured by the House, and the booty, for the most part, +remained in the hands of those connected with the scandal. When the +road was complete, "it was saddled with interest payments on $27,000,000 +first mortgage bonds, $27,000,000 government bonds, $10,000,000 income +bonds, $10,000,000 land grant bonds, and if anything were left, dividend +payments on $36,000,000 of stock." + + * * * * * + +It would be easy to multiply figures showing astounding gains in +industry, business, foreign trade, and railways; or to multiply stories +of scandalous and unfair practices on the part of financiers, but we are +not primarily concerned here with the technique of inventions or the +history of promotion.[7] The student of social and political evolution +is concerned rather with the effect of such material changes upon the +structure of society, that is, with the rearrangements of classes and +the development of new groups of interests, which are brought about by +altered methods of gaining a livelihood and accumulating fortunes. It is +this social transformation that changes the relation of the individual +to the state and brings new forces to play in the struggle for political +power. The social transformation which followed the Civil War embraced +the following elements. + +In the first place, capital, as contrasted with agriculture, increased +enormously in amount and in political influence. Great pecuniary +accumulations were thenceforward made largely in business +enterprise--including the work of the entrepreneur, financier, +speculator, and manipulator under that general term. Inevitably, the +most energetic and the keenest minds were attracted by the dominant mode +of money-making. Agricultural regions were drained of large numbers of +strenuous and efficient men, who would otherwise have been their natural +leaders in politics. To these were added the energetic immigrants from +the Old World. That forceful, pushing, dominating section of society +historically known as the "natural aristocracy" became the agents of +capitalism. The scepter of power now passed definitively from the +masters of slaves to the masters of "free laborers." The literary and +professional dependents of the ruling groups naturally came to the +defense of the new order.[8] The old contest between agrarianism and +capitalism now took on a new vigor.[9] + +On the side of the masses involved in the transition this economic +revolution meant an increasing proportion of wage workers as contrasted +with agriculturalists, owning and operating their farms, and with +handicraftsmen. This increase is shown by the following table, giving +the number of wage earners in _manufacturing_ alone: + + POPULATION WAGE EARNERS + + 1850 23,191,876 957,059 + 1860 31,443,321 1,311,246 + 1870 38,558,371 2,053,996 + 1880 50,155,783 2,732,595 + 1890 62,947,714 4,251,535 + 1900 75,994,575 5,306,143 + 1910 91,972,266 6,615,046 + +In terms of social life, this increase in wage workers meant, in the +first place, a rapid growth of city populations. In 1860, the vast +majority of the people were agriculturists; in 1890, 36.1 per cent of +the population lived in towns of over 2500; in 1900, 40.5 per cent; in +1910, 46.3 per cent. In the forty years between the beginning of the +Civil War and the close of the century, Chicago had grown from 109,260 +to 1,698,575; Greater New York from 1,174,779 to 3,437,202; San +Francisco from 56,802 to 342,782. + +In the next place, the demand for labor stimulated immigration from +Europe. It is true there was a decline during the Civil War, and the +panic of 1873 checked the tide when it began to flow, but by 1880 it had +nearly touched the half-a-million mark, and by 1883 it reached the +astounding figure of 788,992. Almost all of this immigration was from +Germany, Ireland, Great Britain, and Scandinavian countries, less than +one in twenty of the total number coming from Austria-Hungary, Italy, +and Poland in 1880. On the Pacific coast, railway building and +industrial enterprise, in the great dearth of labor, resorted to the +Orient for large supplies of Chinese coolies. + +This industrial development meant the transformation of vast masses of +the people into a proletariat, with all the term implies: an immense +population housed in tenements and rented dwellings, the organization of +the class into trades-unions, labor parties, and other groups; poverty +and degradation on a large scale; strikes, lockouts, and social warfare; +the employment of large numbers of women and children in factories; the +demand for all kinds of legislation mitigating the evils of the +capitalist process; and finally attacks upon the very basis of the +industrial system itself. + +This inevitable concomitant of the mechanical revolution, the industrial +proletariat, began to make itself felt as a decided political and +economic factor in the decade that followed the War. Between 1860 and +1870, the railway engineers, firemen, conductors, bricklayers, and cigar +makers had formed unions. In the campaign of 1872 a party of Labor +Reformers appeared; and a few years later the Knights of Labor, a grand +consolidated union of all trades and grades of workers, came into +existence as an active force, conducting an agitation for labor bureaus, +an eight hour day, abolition of contract labor systems, and other +reforms, and at the same time engineering strikes. + +In 1877 occurred the first of the great labor struggles in that long +series of campaigns which have marked the relations of capitalists and +workingmen during the past four decades. In that year, trouble began +between the management of the Baltimore and Ohio railway and its +employees over a threatened reduction in wages--the fourth within a +period of seven years. From this starting point the contest spread +throughout the East and Middle West, reaching as far as Texas. Inasmuch +as there was already considerable unemployment, the strikers saw that +only by violence and intimidation could they hope to prevent the +companies from moving their trains. Troops were called out by the +governors of several states and Federal assistance was invoked. +Pittsburgh fell almost completely into the hands of the strikers; +railway buildings were burned and property to the value of more than ten +million dollars destroyed. Everywhere the raw militia of the states was +found to be inefficient for such a serious purpose, and the superior +power of the Federal Government's regular troops was demonstrated. Where +railways were in the hands of receivers, Federal courts intervened by +the use of injunctions and the first blood in the contest between the +judiciary and labor was drawn. + +The last, but perhaps most significant, result of the industrial +revolution above described has been the rise of enormous combinations +and corporations in industry as well as in transportation. An increasing +proportion of the business of the country has passed steadily into +corporate, as contrasted with individual, ownership;[10] and this +implies a momentous change in the rights, responsibilities, and economic +theories of the owners of capital. Moreover, it involves the creation of +a new class of men, not entrepreneurs in the old sense, but organizers +of already established concerns into larger units. + +The industrial revolution had not advanced very far before an intense +competition began to force business men to combine to protect themselves +against their own weapons. As early as 1879 certain oil interests of +Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other centers had begun to +control competition by making agreements through their officers. Three +years later, they devised an excellent scheme for a closer organization +in the formation of a "trust." They placed all their stocks in the hands +of nine trustees, including John D. Rockefeller, who issued in return +certificates representing the proportionate share of each holder in the +concern, and managed the entire business in the interests of the +holders. + +The trust proved to be an attractive proposition to large business +concerns. Within five years combinations had been formed in cotton oil, +linseed oil, lead, sugar, whisky, and cordage, and it was not long +before a system of interlocking interests began to consolidate the +control of all staple manufactures in the hands of a few financiers. Six +years after its formation the Standard Oil Company was paying to a small +group of holders about $20,000,000 annually in dividends on a capital of +$90,000,000, and the recipients of these large dividends began to invest +in other concerns. In 1879, one of them, H. M. Flagler, became a +director of the Valley Railroad; in 1882, William Rockefeller appeared +as one of the directors of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul; in +1887, John D. Rockefeller was connected with a syndicate which absorbed +the Minnesota Iron Company, and about the same time representatives of +the Oil Trust began to figure in the Northern Pacific, the Missouri, +Kansas, and Texas, and the Ohio River railways. Thus a perfect network +of financial connections throughout the country was built up. + +But on the whole the decades following the Civil War were characterized +by economic anarchy, _laissez faire_ with a vengeance. There were +prolonged industrial crises accompanied by widespread unemployment and +misery among the working classes. In the matter of railway management +the chaos was unparalleled. + +Shortly after 1870 a period of ruinous competition set in and was +followed by severe financial crises among the railways. Passenger and +freight rate "wars" for the "through" traffic brought many roads to the +verge of bankruptcy, in spite of their valiant efforts to save +themselves by exorbitant charges on subsidiary branches where they had +no competition. Crooked financiering, such as the watering of stocks, +misappropriation of construction funds by directors, and the purchase of +bankrupt lines by directors of larger companies and their resale at +great advances, placed a staggering burden of interest charges against +practically all of the lines. In 1873 nearly half of the mileage in the +country was in the hands of court receivers, and between 1876 and 1879 +an average of more than one hundred roads a year were sold under the +foreclosure of mortgages. In all this distress the investors at large +were the losers while the "inside" operators such as Jay Gould, +Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Russell Sage doubled their already +over-topping fortunes. + +A very good example of this "new finance" is afforded by the history of +the Erie Railway. In 1868, Vanderbilt determined to secure possession of +this line which ran across New York State in competition with the New +York Central and Hudson River lines. Jay Gould and a group of operators, +who had control of the Erie, proceeded to water the stock and "unload" +upon Vanderbilt, whose agents bought it in the hope of obtaining the +coveted control. After a steeple chase for a while the two promoters +came to terms at the expense of the stockholders and the public. Between +July 1 and October 24, 1868, the stock of the Erie was increased from +$34,000,000 to $57,000,000, and the price went downward like a burnt +rocket. During the short period of Gould's administration of the Erie +"the capital stock of the road had been increased $61,425,700 and the +construction account had risen from $49,247,700 in 1867 to $108,807,687 +in 1872. Stock to the amount of $40,700,000 had been marketed by the +firm of Smith, Gould, and Martin, and, incredible as it may seem, its +sale had netted the company only $12,803,059."[11] + +The anarchy in railway financing, which characterized the two decades +after the War, was also accompanied by anarchy in management. A Senate +investigating committee in 1885 enumerated the following charges against +the railroads: that local rates were unreasonably high as compared with +through rates; that all rates were based apparently not on cost of +service but "what the traffic would bear"; that discriminations between +individuals for the same services were constant; that "the effect of the +prevailing policy of railroad management is, by an elaborate system of +secret special rates, rebates, drawbacks, and concessions, to foster +monopoly, to enrich favorite shippers, to prevent free competition in +many lines of trade in which the item of transportation is an important +factor;" that secret rate cutting was constantly demoralizing business; +that free passes were so extensively issued as to create a privileged +class, thus increasing the cost to the passenger who paid; that the +capitalization and bonded indebtedness of companies largely exceeded the +actual cost of construction; and that railway corporations were engaged +in other lines of business and discriminating against competitors by +unfair rate manipulations. In a word, the theories about competition +written down in the books on political economy were hopelessly at +variance with the facts of business management; the country was at the +mercy of the sharp practices of transportation promoters. + + * * * * * + +However, emphasis upon this great industrial revolution should not be +allowed to obscure the no less remarkable development in agriculture. +The acreage in improved farm lands rose from 113,032,614 in 1850 to +478,451,750 in 1910. In the same period the number of farms increased +from 1,449,073 to 6,361,502. Notwithstanding the significant fact that +"whereas the total population increased 21 per cent between 1900 and +1910, the urban population increased 34.8 per cent and the rural +population 11.2 per cent," the broad basis of the population during the +half a century here under consideration has remained agricultural, and +in 1913 it was estimated that at the present rate of transformation "it +will take a generation before the relative number of industrial wage +workers will have reached half of all bread winners." + + +_The Development of the West_ + +When Hayes was inaugurated, a broad wedge of territory separated the +organized states of the East from their sister commonwealths in the far +West--Oregon, California, and Nevada. Washington, Idaho, Montana, +Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Dakota, and Indian Territory still +remained territories. Their combined population in 1870 was under half a +million, less than that of the little state of Connecticut. New Mexico +with 91,000 and Utah with 86,000 might, with some show of justification, +have claimed a place among the states because Oregon was inhabited by +only 90,000 people. The commonwealth of Nevada, with 42,000, was an +anomaly; it had been admitted to the Union in 1864 to secure the +ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. + +This vast and sparsely settled region was then in the second stage of +its economic evolution. The trapper, hunter, and explorer had gathered +most of their harvest, and the ranchmen and cowboys with their herds of +cattle were roaming the great grazing areas, waging war on thieves, land +syndicates, and finally going down to defeat in the contest with the +small farmer who fenced off the fertile fields and planted his homestead +there. So bitter were the contests among the cattle kings, and so +extensive was the lawlessness in these regions during the seventies and +early eighties that Presidents were more than once compelled to warn the +warlike parties and threaten them with the Federal troops. + +Of course, the opening of the railways made possible a rapidity in the +settlement of the remaining territories which outrivaled that of the +older regions. The first Pacific railroad had been completed in 1869; +the Southern Pacific connecting New Orleans with the coast was opened in +1881; and two years later the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe was +finished, and the last stroke was put on the Northern Pacific, +connecting Chicago and Portland, Oregon. Thus four lines of +communication were established with the coast, traversing the best +agricultural regions of the territories and opening up the +mineral-bearing regions of the mountains as well. Lawless promoters fell +upon the land and mineral resources with that rapacity which Burke +attributed to Hastings. + + * * * * * + +Utah presented, in the eighties, the elements of an ordered and +well-advanced civilization and could with some show of reason ask for +admission as a state. The territory had been developed by the Mormons +who settled there, after suffering "persecution" for their religious +opinions and their plural marriages, in Illinois and Missouri. +Notwithstanding an act of Congress passed in 1862 prohibiting polygamy, +it continued to flourish. The territorial officers were nearly all +Mormons and the remoteness of the Federal authority prevented an +enforcement of the law. Consequently, it remained a dead letter until +1882, when Congress enacted the Edmunds law prescribing heavy penalties, +including the loss of citizenship, for polygamous practices. Hundreds of +prosecutions and convictions followed, but plural marriages were openly +celebrated in defiance of the law. At length, in 1887, Congress passed +the Edmunds-Tucker act authorizing the Federal Government to seize the +property of the Mormon church. + +Meanwhile the gentile population increased in the territory; and at +length the Mormons, seeing that the country was determined to suppress +polygamy and that, while the institution was maintained, statehood could +not be secured, decided upon at least an outward acquiescence in the +law. After much discussion in Congress, and notwithstanding the repeated +contention that the Mormons were not sincere in their promises, Utah was +admitted as a state in 1895 under a constitution which, in accordance +with the provisions of the enabling act of Congress, forbade polygamous +and plural marriages forever. Thus the inhabitants of the new state were +bound by a solemn contract with the Union never to restore the marriage +practices which had caused them so much trouble and "persecution," as +they called it. + + * * * * * + +Although the Mormons were the original pioneers and homestead makers in +that great region, theirs was in fact the last of the middle tier of +territories to receive statehood. They had left the advancing frontier +line far behind. To the northward that advance was checked by the +enormous Sioux reservation in Dakota, but the discovery of gold in the +Black Hills marked the doom of the Indian rights. Miners and +capitalists demanded that the way should be made clear for their +enterprise and the land hungry were clamoring for more farms. Indeed, +before Congress could act, pioneers were swarming over the regions +around the Indian lands. Farmers from the other northern states, +Norwegians, Germans, and Canadians were planting their homesteads amid +the fertile Dakota fields; the population of the territory jumped from +14,181 in 1870 to 135,177 in 1880, and before the close of the next +decade numbered more than half a million. It was evident that the region +was destined to be principally agricultural in character, inhabited by +thrifty farmers like those of Iowa and Nebraska. Pretensions to +statehood therefore rose with the rising tide of population. + +Far over on the western coast, the claims of Washington to statehood +were being urged. The population there had increased until it rivaled +Oregon and passed the neighboring commonwealth in 1890. In addition to +rich agricultural areas, it possessed enormous timber resources which +were to afford the chief industry for a long time; and keen-sighted men +foresaw a swift development of seaward trade. Between the Dakotas and +Washington lay the narrow point of Idaho and the mountainous regions of +Montana, now rapidly filling up with miners and capitalists exploiting +the gold, silver, coal, copper, and other mineral resources, and +rivaling the sheep and cattle kings in their contest for economic +supremacy. + +After the fashion of enterprising westerners, the citizens of these +territories began to boast early of their "enormous" populations and +their "abounding" wealth, and to clamor for admission as states. Finding +their pleas falling upon unheeding ears, the people of the southern +Dakota took matters into their own hands in 1885, called a convention, +framed a constitution, and failing to secure the quick and favorable +action of Congress threatened to come into the Union unasked. Sober +counsels prevailed, however, and the impatient Dakotans were induced to +wait awhile. Meantime the territory was divided into two parts in 1887, +after a popular vote had been taken on the matter. + +As had been the case almost from the beginning of the Republic, the +admission of these new states was a subject of political controversy and +intrigue at the national capital. During Cleveland's first +administration the House was Democratic and the Senate Republican. +Believing that Dakota was firmly Republican, the Senate passed the +measure admitting the southern region in 1886, but the Democratic House +was unable to see eye to eye with the Senate on this matter. In the +elections of 1888, the Republicans carried the House, and it was evident +that the new Congress would take some action with regard to the +clamoring territories. Montana was probably Democratic, and Washington +was uncertain. At all events the Democrats thought it wise to come to +terms, and accordingly on February 22, 1889, the two Dakotas, +Washington, and Montana were admitted simultaneously. + +With less claim to statehood than any commonwealths admitted up to that +time, except Nevada, the two territories of Idaho and Wyoming were soon +enabled, by the assistance of the politicians, to secure admission to +the Union. Republican politics and the "silver interests" were +responsible for this step. Although neither territory had over 40,000 +inhabitants in 1880, extravagant claims were made by the advocates of +admission--claims speedily belied by the census of 1890, which gave +Idaho 88,000 and Wyoming 62,000. At last in July, 1890, they were +admitted to the Union, and the territorial question was settled for a +time, although Arizona and New Mexico felt that their claims were +unjustly treated. It was not until seventeen years later that another +new state, Oklahoma, modeled out of the old Indian Territory, was added +to the Union. Finally, in 1912, the last of the continental territories, +Arizona and New Mexico, were endowed with statehood.[12] + + +_The Economic Advance of the South_ + +Notwithstanding the prominence given to the negro question during and +after Reconstruction, the South had other problems no less grave in +character to meet. Industry and agriculture were paralyzed by the +devastations of the War. A vast amount of material capital--railways, +wharves, bridges, and factories--had been destroyed during the conflict; +and fluid capital seeking investment had been almost destroyed as well. +The rich with ready money at their command had risked nearly all their +store in confederate securities or had lost their money loaned in other +ways through the wreck of the currency. Plantations had depreciated in +value, partly because of the destruction of equipment, but especially on +account of the difficulties of working the system without slave labor. +The South had, therefore, to rehabilitate the material equipment of +industry and transportation and to put agriculture on another basis than +that of slave labor. Surely this was a gigantic task. + +The difficulties of carrying forward the plantation system with free +negro labor compelled the holders of large estates (many of which were +heavily mortgaged) to adopt one of two systems: the leasing or renting +of small plots to negroes or poor whites, or the outright sale in small +quantities which could be worked by one or two hands. This +disintegration of estates went forward with great rapidity. In 1860 the +average holding of land in the southern states was 335.4 acres; in 1880 +it had fallen to 153.4; and in 1900 it had reached 138.2. The great +handicap was the difficulty of securing the capital to develop the small +farm, and no satisfactory system for dealing with this problem has yet +been adopted. + +The very necessities of the South served to bind that section to the +North in a new fashion. Fluid capital had to be secured, in part at +least, from the North, and northern enterprise found a new outlet in the +reconstruction of the old, and the development of the new, industries in +the region of the former confederacy. The number of cotton spindles in +the South increased from about 300,000 in 1860 to more than 4,000,000 at +the close of the century; the number of employees rose from 10,000 to +nearly 100,000; and the value of the output leaped from $8,460,337 +annually to $95,002,059. This rapid growth was, in part, due to the +abundance of water power in the hill regions, the cheap labor of women +and children, the low cost of living, and the absence of labor laws +interfering with the hours and conditions of work in the factories. + +Even in the iron and steel industry, West Virginia and Alabama began to +press upon the markets of the North within less than twenty years after +the close of the War. In 1880, the latter state stood tenth among the +pig-iron producing states; in 1890 it stood third. The southern states +alone now produce more coal, iron ore, and pig iron than all of the +states combined did in 1870. The census of 1909 reports 5685 +manufacturing establishments in Virginia, 4931 in North Carolina, 4792 +in Georgia, and 3398 in Alabama. + +The social effects which accompany capitalist development inevitably +began to appear in the South. The industrial magnate began to contest +with the old aristocracy of the soil for supremacy; many former slave +owners and their descendants drifted into manufacturing and many poor +whites made their way upward into wealth and influence. The census of +1909 reports more than thirty thousand proprietors and firm members in +the South Atlantic states, an increase over the preceding report almost +equal to that in the New England states. The same census reports in the +southern states more than a million wage earners--equal to almost two +thirds the entire number in the whole country at the opening of the +Civil War. The percentage of increase in the wage earners of the South +Atlantic states between 1904 and 1909 was greater than in New England or +the Middle Atlantic states. + +With this swift economic development, northern capital streamed into the +South; northern money was invested in southern public and industrial +securities in enormous amounts; and energetic northern business men were +to be found in southern market places vying with their no less +enterprising southern brethren. The men concerned in creating this new +nexus of interest between the two regions naturally deprecated the +perpetual agitation of sectional issues by the politicians, and +particularly northern interference in the negro question. Business +interest began to pour cold water on the hottest embers which the Civil +War had left behind. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] The following brief chronology of inventions illustrates the +rapidity in the technical changes in the new industrial development: + + 1875--Bell's telephone in operation between Boston and + Salem. + + 1879--Brush arc street lighting system installed in San + Francisco. + + 1882--Edison's plant for incandescent lighting opened in New + York City. + + 1882--Edison's electric street car operated at Menlo Park, + New Jersey. + + 1885--Electric street railways in operation at Richmond, + Virginia, and Baltimore. + + [8] For the keenest analysis of this social transformation, + see Veblen, _Theory of the Leisure Class_ and _Theory of + Business Enterprise_. + + [9] See below, Chaps. VI and VII. + + [10] See below, p. 234. + + [11] Youngman, _The Economic Causes of Great Fortunes_, p. + 75. + + [12] By an act passed in August, 1912, Congress provided a + territorial legislature for Alaska, which had been governed + up to that time by a governor appointed by the President and + Senate, under acts of Congress. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE REVOLUTION IN POLITICS AND LAW + + +The economic revolution that followed the War, the swift and potent +upswing of capitalism, and the shifting of political power from the +South to the North made their impress upon every branch of the Federal +Government. Senators of the old school, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Roger +Baldwin, John P. Hale, James Mason, and Jefferson Davis were succeeded +by the apostles of the new order: Roscoe Conkling and Thomas Platt, +James Donald Cameron, Leland Stanford, George Hearst, Arthur P. Gorman, +William D. Washburn, John R. McPherson, Henry B. Payne, Matthew S. Quay, +Philetus Sawyer, John H. Mitchell, and James G. Blaine. The new Senate +was composed of men of affairs--practical men, who organized gigantic +enterprises, secured possession of natural resources and franchises, +collected and applied capital on a large scale to new business +undertakings, built railways, established cities with the advancing line +of the western frontier--or represented such men as counsel in the +courts of law. + +Not many of them were great orators or widely known as profound students +of politics in its historical and comparative aspects. A few, like +Blaine, Hoar, and Conkling, studied the classic oratory of the older +generation and sought to apply to the controverted issues of the hour +that studious, orderly, and sustained eloquence which had adorned the +debates of earlier years; but the major portion cultivated only the arts +of management and negotiation. Few of them seem to have given any +thought to the lessons to be learned from European politics. On the +contrary, they apparently joined with the multitude in the assumption +that we had everything to teach Europe and nothing to learn. Bismarck +was to them, if we may judge from their spoken words, simply a great +politician and the hero of a war; the writings of German economists, +Wagner and Schmoller, appear never to have penetrated their studies. +That they foresaw in the seventies and eighties the turn that politics +was destined to take is nowhere evident. They commanded respect and +admiration for their practical achievements; but it is questionable +whether the names of more than two or three will be known a century +hence, save to the antiquarian. + +Of this group, Roscoe Conkling was undoubtedly typical, just as Marcus +A. Hanna represented the dominant politicians of a later time. He was an +able lawyer and an orator of some quality, but of no permanent fame. He +took his seat in the Senate in 1867 and according to his biographer +"during the remainder of his life his legal practice was chiefly +connected with corporations that were litigants in the district and +circuit courts of the United States,"[13]--the judges of which courts he +was, as Senator, instrumental in appointing. His practice was lucrative +for his day, amounting to some $50,000 a year.[14] He counted among his +clients the first great capitalists of the country. When he was forced +to retire from New York politics, "the first person who came to see him +on business was Mr. Jay Gould, who waited upon him early one morning at +his hotel."[15] He was counsel for Mr. Collis P. Huntington in his +contest against the state legislation which railway interests deemed +unjust and unconstitutional.[16] He was among the keen group of legal +thinkers who invoked and extended the principle of the Fourteenth +Amendment to cover all the varieties of legislation affecting corporate +interests adversely.[17] + +Criticism of the Republican party, and particularly of the policies for +which he stood, Mr. Conkling regarded as little short of treason. For +example, when Mr. George William Curtis, in the New York state +convention of 1877, sought to endorse the administration of President +Hayes, whose independence in office had been troublesome to Mr. +Conkling, the latter returned in a passionate attack on the whole party +of opposition: "Who are these men who in newspapers and elsewhere are +'cracking their whips' over Republicans and playing schoolmaster to the +Republican party and its conscience and convictions. They are of various +sorts and conditions. Some of them are the man-milliners, the dilettanti +and carpet knights of politics, men whose efforts have been expended in +denouncing and ridiculing and accusing honest men.... Some of these +worthies masquerade as reformers and their vocation and ministry is to +lament the sins of other people. Their stock in trade is rancid, canting +self-righteousness. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. Their real +object is office and plunder. When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the +last refuge of a scoundrel, he was then unconscious of the then +undeveloped capabilities of the word 'reform.'"[18] + +The political philosophy of this notable group of political leaders was +that of their contemporaries in England, the Cobden-Bright school. They +believed in the widest possible extension of the principle of private +property, and the narrowest possible restriction of state interference, +except to aid private property to increase its gains. They held that all +of the natural resources of the country should be transferred to private +hands as speedily as possible, at a nominal charge, or no charge at all, +and developed with dashing rapidity. They also believed that the great +intangible social property created by community life, such as franchises +for street railways, gas, and electricity, should be transformed into +private property. They supplemented their philosophy of property by a +philosophy of law and politics, which looked upon state interference, +except to preserve order, and aid railways and manufacturers in their +enterprises, as an intrinsic evil to be resisted at every point, and +they developed a system of jurisprudence which, as Senators having the +confirming power in appointments and as counsel for corporations before +the courts of the United States, they succeeded in transforming into +judicial decisions. Some of them were doubtless corrupt, as was +constantly charged, but the real explanation of their resistance to +government intervention is to be found in their philosophy, which, +although consonant with their private interests, they identified with +public good. + + +_Writing Laissez Faire into the Constitution_ + +Inasmuch as the attacks on private rights in property, franchises, and +corporate privileges came principally from the state legislatures, it +was necessary to find some way to subject them to legal control--some +juristic process for translating _laissez faire_ into a real restraining +force. These leading statesmen and lawyers were not long in finding the +way. The Federal courts were obviously the proper instrumentalities, and +the broad restrictions laid upon the states by the Fourteenth Amendment +no less obviously afforded the constitutional foundation for the science +of legislative nihilism. "No state," ran the significant words of that +Amendment, "shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the +privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any +state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due +process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal +protection of the laws." + +What unseen implications lay within these phrases the most penetrating +thinkers divined at once. Protest was made by the New Jersey legislature +against the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866 on the ground that it would +destroy all the essential rights of a state to control its internal +affairs; and such opinion was widespread. But the most common view was +to the effect that the Amendment would be used principally to surround +the newly emancipated slaves with safeguards against their former +masters who might be tempted to restore serfdom under apprentice and +penal laws and other legal guises. Still there is plenty of evidence to +show that those who framed the Fourteenth Amendment and pushed it +through Congress had in mind a far wider purpose--that of providing a +general restraining clause for state legislatures. + +The problem of how best to check the assaults of state legislatures on +vested rights was not new when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. On +the contrary, it was one of the first concerns of the Convention of 1787 +which drafted the original Constitution of the United States, and it was +thought by the framers that security had been attained by forbidding +states to emit bills of credit and make laws impairing the obligation of +contract. Under Chief Justice Marshall, these clauses were so generously +interpreted as to repel almost any attack which a state legislature +might make on acquired rights. However, in the closing years of +Marshall's service, the Supreme Court, then passing into the hands of +states' rights justices, rendered an opinion in the case of Ogden _v._ +Saunders, which clearly held that the contract clause did not prevent +the legislature from stipulating that _future_ contracts might be +practically at its mercy. When a legislature provides by general law +that all charters of corporations are subject to repeal and alteration, +such provision becomes a part of all new contracts. Marshall delivered +in this case a vigorous and cogent dissenting opinion in which he +pointed out that the decision had in effect destroyed the virtue of the +obligation of contract clause. + +The case of Ogden _v._ Saunders was decided in 1827. Between that year +and the Civil War the beginnings of corporate enterprise were securely +laid in the United States; and the legislatures of the several states +began the regulation of corporations from one motive or another, +sometimes for the purpose of blackmailing them and sometimes for the +laudable purpose of protecting public interests. At all events, large +propertied concerns began to feel that they could not have a free hand +in developing their enterprises or enjoy any genuine security unless the +legislatures of the states were, by some constitutional provision, +brought again under strict Federal judicial control. + +The opportunity to secure this judicial control was afforded during the +Civil War when the radical Republicans were demanding Federal protection +for the newly emancipated slaves of the South. The drastic legislation +relative to negroes adopted by the southern states at the close of the +War showed that even in spite of the Thirteenth Amendment a substantial +bondage could be reestablished under the color of criminal, apprentice, +and vagrant legislation. The friends of the negroes, therefore, +determined to put the substantial rights of life, liberty, and property +beyond the interference of state legislatures forever, and secure to all +persons the equal protection of the law. + +Accordingly, the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, enunciating the +broad legal and political doctrine that no state "shall abridge the +privileges or immunity of citizens of the United States; nor shall any +state deprive any _person_ of life, liberty, or property without due +process of law; nor deny to any _person_ within its jurisdiction the +equal protection of the law." + +Here was a restriction laid upon state legislatures which might be +substantially limitless in its application, in the hands of a judiciary +wishing to place the broadest possible interpretation upon it. What are +privileges and immunities? What are life, liberty, and property? What is +due process of law? What is the equal protection of the law? Does the +term "person" include not only natural persons but also artificial +persons, namely, corporations? That the reconstruction committee of +Congress which framed the instrument intended to include within the +scope of this generous provision not only the negro struggling upward +from bondage, but also corporations and business interests struggling +for emancipation from legislative interference, has been often asserted. +In arguing before the Supreme Court in the San Matteo County case, on +December 19, 1882, Mr. Roscoe Conkling, who had been a member of the +committee which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment, unfolded for the first +time the deep purpose of the committee, and showed from the journal of +that committee that it was not their intention to confine the amendment +merely to the protection of the colored race. In the course of his +argument, Mr. Conkling remarked, "At the time the Fourteenth Amendment +was ratified, as the records of the two Houses will show, individuals +and joint-stock companies were appealing for congressional and +administrative protection against invidious and discriminating state and +local taxes. One instance was that of an express company, whose stock +was owned largely by citizens of the State of New York, who came with +petitions and bills seeking Acts of Congress to aid them in resisting +what they deemed oppressive taxation in two states, and oppressive and +ruinous rules of damages applied under state laws. That complaints of +oppression in respect of property and other rights, made by citizens of +Northern States who took up residence in the South, were rife, in and +out of Congress, none of us can forget; that complaints of oppression in +various forms, of white men in the South,--of 'Union men,'--were heard +on every side, I need not remind the Court. The war and its results, the +condition of the freedmen, and the manifest duty owed to them, no doubt +brought on the occasion for constitutional amendment; but when the +occasion came and men set themselves to the task, the accumulated evils +falling within the purview of the work were the surrounding +circumstances, in the light of which they strove to increase and +strengthen the safeguards of the Constitution and laws."[19] + +In spite of important testimony to the effect that those who drafted the +Fourteenth Amendment really intended "to nationalize liberty," that is +_laissez faire_, against state legislatures, the Supreme Court at first +refused to accept this broad interpretation, and it was not until after +several of the judges of the old states' rights school had been replaced +by judges of the new school that the claims of Mr. Conkling's group as +to the Fourteenth Amendment were embodied in copious judicial decisions. + + +_The Slaughter-House Cases_ + +The first judicial interpretation of the significant phrases of the +Fourteenth Amendment which were afterward to be the basis of judicial +control over state economic legislation of every kind was made by the +Supreme Court in the Slaughter-House cases in 1873--five years after +that Amendment had been formally ratified. These particular cases, it is +interesting to note, like practically all other important cases arising +under the Fourteenth Amendment, had no relation whatever to the newly +emancipated slaves; but, on the contrary, dealt with the regulation of +business enterprises. + +In 1869, the legislature of Louisiana passed an act designed to protect +the health of the people of New Orleans and certain other parishes. This +act created a corporation for the purpose of slaughtering animals within +that city, forbade the establishment of any other slaughterhouses or +abattoirs within the municipality, and conferred the sole and exclusive +privilege of conducting the live-stock landing and slaughterhouse +business, under the limitations of the act, upon the company thus +created. The company, however, was required by the law to permit any +persons who wished to do so to slaughter in its houses and to make full +provision for all such slaughtering at a reasonable compensation. This +drastic measure, the report of the case states, was denounced "not only +as creating a monopoly and conferring odious and exclusive privileges +upon a small number of persons at the expense of the great body of the +community of New Orleans, but ... it deprives a large and meritorious +class of citizens--the whole of the butchers of the city--of the right +to exercise their trade, the business to which they have been trained +and on which they depend for the support of themselves and their +families." + +The opinion of the court was rendered by Mr. Justice Miller. The Justice +opened by making a few remarks upon the "police power," in the course of +which he said that the regulation of slaughtering fell within the +borders of that mysterious domain and without doubt constituted one of +the powers enjoyed by all states previous to the adoption of the Civil +War amendments. After commenting upon the great responsibility devolved +upon the Court in construing the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments +and remarking on the careful deliberation with which the judges had +arrived at their conclusions, Justice Miller then turned to an +examination of the historical purpose which underlay the adoption of the +amendments in question. After his recapitulation of recent events, he +concluded: "On the most casual examination of the language of these +amendments, no one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading +purpose found in them all, lying at the foundation of each, and without +which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom +of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, +and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the +oppression of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over +him. It is true that only the Fifteenth Amendment, in terms, mentions +the negro by speaking of his color and his slavery. But it is just as +true that each of the other articles was addressed to the grievances of +that race and designed to remedy them as the Fifteenth. We do not say +that no one else but the negro can share in this protection. Both the +language and spirit of these articles are to have their fair and just +weight in any question of construction.... What we do wish to say and +what we wish to be understood as saying is, that in any fair and just +construction of any section or phrase of these amendments, it is +necessary to look to the purpose, which as we have said was the +pervading spirit of them all, the evil which they were designed to +remedy, and the process of continued addition to the Constitution until +that purpose was supposed to be accomplished as far as constitutional +law can accomplish it." + +Justice Miller dismissed with a tone of impatience the idea of the +counsel for the plaintiffs in error that the Louisiana statute in +question imposed an "involuntary servitude" forbidden by the Thirteenth +Amendment. "To withdraw the mind," he said, "from the contemplation of +this grand yet simple declaration of the personal freedom of all the +human race within the jurisdiction of this government--a declaration +designed to establish the freedom of four million slaves--and with a +microscopic search endeavor to find it in reference to servitudes which +may have been attached to property in certain localities, requires an +effort, to say the least of it." + +In Justice Miller's long opinion there is no hint of that larger and +more comprehensive purpose entertained by the framers of the Fourteenth +Amendment which was asserted by Mr. Conkling a few years later in his +argument before the Supreme Court. If he was aware that the framers had +in mind not only the protection of the freedmen in their newly won +rights, but also the defense of corporations and business enterprises +generally against state legislation, he gave no indication of the fact. +There is nowhere in his opinion any sign that he saw the broad economic +implications of the Amendment which he was expounding for the first time +in the name of the Court. On the contrary, his language and the opinion +reached in the case show that the judges were either not cognizant of +the new economic and political duty placed upon them, or, in memory of +the states' rights traditions which they had entertained, were unwilling +to apply the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments in such a manner as +narrowly to restrict the legislative power of a commonwealth. + +In taking up that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides that +no state shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or +immunities of citizens of the United States, Justice Miller declared +that it was not the purpose of that provision to transfer the security +and protection of all fundamental civil rights from the state +government to the Federal Government. A citizen of the United States as +such, he said, has certain privileges and immunities, and _it was these +and these only_ which the Fourteenth Amendment contemplated. He +enumerated some of them: the right of the citizen to come to the seat of +government, to assert any claim he may have upon that government, to +transact any business he may have with it, to seek its protection, share +its offices, engage in administering its functions, to have free access +to its seaports, subtreasuries, land offices, and courts of justice, to +use the navigable waters of the United States, to assemble peaceably +with his fellow citizens and petition for redress of grievances, and to +enjoy the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus. It was rights of this +character, the learned justice argued, and not all the fundamental +rights of person and property which had been acquired in the evolution +of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, that were placed by the Fourteenth +Amendment under the protection of the Federal Government. + +Within this view, all the ordinary civil rights enjoyed by citizens were +still within the control of the organs of the state government and not +within Federal protection at all. If the privileges and immunities, +brought within the protection of the Federal Government by the +Fourteenth Amendment, were intended to embrace the whole domain of +personal and property rights, then, contended the justice, the Supreme +Court would be constituted "a perpetual censor upon all legislation of +the states, on the civil rights of their own citizens, with authority to +nullify such as it did not approve as consistent with those rights as +they existed at the time of the adoption of this Amendment.... We are +convinced that no such results were intended by the Congress which +proposed these amendments nor by the legislatures which ratified them." + +In two short paragraphs, Justice Miller disposed of the contention of +the plaintiffs in error to the effect that the Louisiana statute +deprived the plaintiffs of their property without due process of law. He +remarked that inasmuch as the phraseology of this clause was also to be +found in the Fifth Amendment and in some form in the constitutions of +nearly all of the states, it had received satisfactory judicial +interpretation; "and it is sufficient to say," he concluded on this +point, "that under no construction of that provision that we have ever +seen or any that we deem admissible, can the restraint imposed by the +state of Louisiana upon the exercise of their trade by the butchers of +New Orleans be held to be a deprivation of private property within the +meaning of that provision." + +Coming now to that clause requiring every state to give all persons +within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws, Justice Miller +indulged in the false prophecy: "We doubt very much whether any action +of a state not directed by way of discrimination against the negroes as +a class or on account of their race will ever be held to come within the +purview of this provision." An emergency might arise, he admitted, but +he found no such a one in the case before him. + +Concluding his opinion, he expressed the view that the American Federal +system had come out of the Civil War with its main features unchanged, +and that it was the duty of the Supreme Court then as always to hold +with a steady and an even hand the balance between state and Federal +power. "Under the pressure of all the excited feeling growing out of the +War," he remarked, "our statesmen have still believed that the existence +of the states with powers for domestic and local government, including +the regulation of civil rights--the rights of person and property--was +essential to the perfect working of our complex form of government, +though they have thought proper to impose additional limitations upon +the states and to confer additional power on that of the nation." + +Under this strict interpretation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth +amendments, all the fundamental rights of persons and property remained +subject to the state governments substantially in the same way as before +the Civil War. The Supreme Court thus could not become the final arbiter +and control the social and economic legislation of states at every +point. Those champions of the amendments who looked to them to establish +Federal judicial supremacy for the defense of corporations and business +enterprises everywhere throughout the American empire were sadly +disappointed. + +Nowhere was that disappointment more effectively and more cogently +stated than in the opinions of the judges who dissented from the +doctrines announced by the majority of the court. Chief Justice Chase +and Justices Field, Bradley, and Swayne refused to accept the +interpretation and the conclusions reached by the majority, and the last +three judges wrote separate opinions of their own expressing their +grounds for dissenting. The first of these, Justice Field, contended +that the Louisiana statute in question could not legitimately come under +the police power and was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, +inasmuch as it denied to citizens of the United States the fundamental +rights which belonged to citizens of all free governments--protection +against monopolies and equality of rights in the pursuit of the ordinary +avocations of life. In his opinion, the privileges and immunities put +under the supervision of the Federal Government by the Fourteenth +Amendment comprised generally "protection by the government, the +enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess +property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety, +subject, nevertheless, to such restraint as the government may justly +prescribe for the general good of the whole." In other words, Justice +Field would have carried the Amendment beyond the specific enumeration +of any definitely ascertained legal rights into the field of moral law, +which, in final analysis, would have meant the subjection of the state +legislation solely to the discretion of the judicial conscience. The +future, as we shall see, was with Justice Field. + +In the opinion of Justice Bradley, the Louisiana statute not only +deprived persons of the equal protection of the laws, but also of +liberty and property--the right of choosing, in the adoption of lawful +employments, being a portion of their liberty, and their occupation +being their property. In the opinion of Mr. Justice Swayne, who +dissented also, the word liberty as used in the Fourteenth Amendment +embodied freedom from all restraints except such as were "justly" +imposed by law. In his view, property included everything that had an +exchange value, including labor, and the right to make property +available was next in importance to the rights of life and liberty. + + +_The Granger Cases_ + +Three years after the decision in the Slaughter-House cases, the Supreme +Court again refused to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment so broadly as +to hold unconstitutional a state statute regulating business +undertakings. This case, Munn _v._ Illinois, decided in 1876, involved +the validity of a statute passed under the constitution of that state, +which declared all elevators where grain was stored to be public +warehouses and subjected them to strict regulation, including the +establishment of fixed maximum charges. It was contended by the +plaintiffs in error, Munn and Scott, that the statute violated the +Fourteenth Amendment in two respects: (1) that the business attempted to +be regulated was not a public calling and was, therefore, totally +outside of the regulatory or police power of the state; and (2) that +even if the business was conceded to be public in character, and +therefore by the rule of the common law was permitted to exact only +"reasonable" charges for its services, nevertheless the determination of +what was reasonable belonged to the judicial branch of the government +and could not be made by the legislature without violating the principle +of "due process." + +Both of these contentions were rejected by the Court, and the +constitutionality of the Illinois statute was upheld. The opinion of the +Court was written by Chief Justice Waite, who undertook an elaborate +examination of the "due process" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The +principle of this Amendment, he said, though new in the Constitution of +the United States, is as old as civilized government itself; it is found +in Magna Carta in substance if not in form, in nearly all of the state +constitutions, and in the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. +In order to ascertain, therefore, what power legislatures enjoyed under +the new amendment, it was only necessary to inquire into the limitations +which had been historically imposed under the due process clause in +England and the United States; and after an examination of some cases in +point the Chief Justice came to the conclusion that "down to the time of +the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment it was not supposed that +statutes regulating the use or even the price of the use of private +property necessarily deprived an owner of his property without due +process of law." When private property "is affected with public +interest" and is used in a manner to make it of public consequence, the +public is in fact granted an interest in that use, and the owner of the +property in question "must submit to be controlled by the public for the +common good, to the extent of the interest he has thus created." + +But it was insisted on behalf of the plaintiffs that the owner of +property is entitled to a reasonable compensation for its use even when +it is clothed with the public interest, and that the determination of +what is reasonable is a _judicial, not a legislative_, matter. To this +Chief Justice Waite replied that the usual practice had been otherwise. +"In countries where the common law prevails," he said, "it has been +customary from time immemorial for the legislature to declare what shall +be a reasonable compensation under such circumstances, or perhaps more +properly speaking to fix a maximum beyond which any charge made would be +unreasonable.... The controlling fact is the power to regulate at all. +If that exists, the right to establish the maximum of charge as one of +the means of regulation is implied. In fact, the common law rule which +requires the charge to be reasonable is itself a regulation as to +price.... To limit the rate of charge for services rendered in a public +employment, or for the use of property in which the public has an +interest, is only changing a regulation which existed before. It +establishes no new principle in the law, but only gives a new effect to +an old one. We know that this is a power which may be abused; but that +is no argument against its existence. _For protection against abuses by +legislatures the people must resort to the polls, not to the +courts._"[20] + +The principle involved in the Munn case also came up in the same year +(1876) in Peik _v._ Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company, in which +Chief Justice Waite, speaking of an act of Wisconsin limiting passenger +and freight charges on railroads in the state, said: "As to the claim +that the courts must decide what is reasonable and not the legislature, +this is not new to this case. It has been fully considered in Munn _v._ +Illinois. Where property has been clothed with a public interest, the +legislature may fix a limit to that which shall be in law reasonable for +its use. This limit binds the courts as well as the people. If it has +been improperly fixed, the legislature, not the courts, must be appealed +to for the change." + +The total results of the several Granger cases, decided in 1876, may be +summed up as follows: + +(1) That the regulatory power of the state over "public callings" is not +limited to those businesses over which it was exercised at common law, +but extends to any business in which, because of its necessary character +and the possibilities for extortion afforded by monopolistic control, +the public has an interest. + +(2) That such regulatory power will not be presumed to have been +contracted away by any legislature, unless such intention is +unequivocally expressed. + +(3) That the exercise of such regulatory power belongs to the +legislature, and not to the judiciary. + +(4) And the _dictum_ that the judiciary can grant no relief from an +unjust exercise of this regulatory power by the legislature. + +Although the denial of the right of the judiciary to review the +"reasonableness" of a rate fixed by the legislature in the Granger cases +had been _dictum_, a case was not long arising in which the issue was +squarely raised. Had this case gone to the Supreme Court, the question +of judicial review would have been decided a full decade or more before +it really was. In this case, the Tilley case, a bondholder of a railroad +operating in Georgia sought to restrain the railroad from putting into +force a tariff fixed by the state railroad commission, on the ground +that it was so unreasonably low as to be confiscatory. Judge Woods, of +the Federal circuit court, refused to grant the injunction, basing his +decision squarely upon the dictum in Munn _v._ Illinois, and declaring +that the railroad must seek relief from unjust action on the part of the +commission at the hands of the legislature or of the people. + +It was not till seven years after the Granger cases that another case +involving rate regulation was presented to the Federal courts.[21] The +Ruggles case, brought to the Supreme Court by writ of error to the +supreme court of Illinois, in 1883, involved a conviction of one of the +agents of the Illinois Central Railway for violating a maximum passenger +fare statute of that state, and raised substantially the same question +as all of the Granger cases except the Munn case--the right of the +legislature to regulate the rates of a railroad which was itself +empowered by its charter to fix its own rates. The Court affirmed the +doctrine of the Granger cases, Chief Justice Waite again writing the +opinion. The case is noteworthy only for the opinion of Justice Harlan, +concurring in the judgment, but dissenting from the opinion, of the +Court, in so far as that opinion expressed, as he declared, the doctrine +that the legislature of Illinois could regulate the rates of the railway +concerned, in any manner it saw fit. Justice Harlan argued that inasmuch +as the charter of the railroad had conferred upon it the right to demand +"reasonable" charges, the legislature, when it resumed the power of +fixing charges, was estopped from fixing less than "reasonable" charges; +and should charges lower than "reasonable" be fixed, it would be within +the province of the judicial branch to give relief against such an +impairment of the obligation of contract. + +Justice Harlan's opinion is interesting not only because it touches upon +the possibility of a _judicial_ review of the rate fixed by the +legislature; but because the learned Justice bases his contention on the +_contract_ between the railroad and the state to the effect that rates +should be "reasonable." This indicates plainly that not even in the mind +of Justice Harlan, who later became the firm exponent of the power of +judicial review, was there any clear belief that the Fourteenth +Amendment as such gave the Court any power to review the +"reasonableness" of a rate fixed by the legislature. In other words, he +derived his doctrine of judicial review from the power of the Federal +judiciary to enforce the obligation of contracts, and not from its power +to compel "due process of law." + +It is impossible to trace here the numerous decisions following the +Ruggles case in which the Supreme Court was called upon to consider the +power of state legislatures to control and regulate corporations, +particularly railways. It is impossible also to follow out all of the +fine and subtle distinctions by which the _dictum_ of Chief Justice +Waite, in the Munn case, to the effect that private parties must appeal +to the people, and not to the courts, for protection against state +legislatures, was supplanted by the firm interpretation of the +Fourteenth Amendment in such a manner as to confer upon the courts the +final power to review all state legislation regulating the use of +property and labor. Of course we do not have, in fact, this clear-cut +reversal of opinion by the Court, but rather a slow working out of the +doctrine of judicial review as opposed to an implication that the Court +could not grant to corporations the relief from legislative interference +which they sought. There are but few clear-cut reversals in law; but the +political effect of the Court's decisions has been none the less clear +and positive. + + +_The Minnesota Rate Case_ + +It seems desirable, however, to indicate some of the leading steps by +which the Court moved from the doctrine of non-interference with state +legislatures to the doctrine that it is charged with the high duty of +reviewing all and every kind of economic legislation by the states. One +of the leading cases in this momentous transition is that of the +Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway Company _v._ Minnesota, decided +in 1889, which made a heavy contribution to the doctrine of judicial +review of questions of political economy as well as law. This case +involved the validity of a Minnesota law which conferred upon a state +railway commission the power to fix "reasonable" rates. The commission, +acting under this authority, had fixed a rate on the transportation of +milk between two points. + +The railroad having refused to put the rate into effect, the commission +applied to the supreme court of the state for a writ of mandamus. In its +answer the railroad claimed, among other contentions, that the rate +fixed was unreasonably low. The supreme court of the state refused to +listen to this contention, saying that the statute by its terms made the +order of the commission conclusively reasonable; accordingly it issued +the mandamus. By writ of error, the case was brought to the Supreme +Court of the United States, which, by a vote of six to three, ordered +the decree of the state court vacated, on the ground that the statute as +construed by the supreme court of the state was unconstitutional, as a +deprivation of property without due process of law. + +The opinion of the Court, written by Justice Blatchford, has frequently +been interpreted to hold, and was indeed interpreted by the dissenting +minority to hold, that the judiciary must, to satisfy the requirements +of "due process," have the power of final review over the reasonableness +of all rates, however fixed. It is doubtful whether the language of the +opinion sustains this reading; but the strong emphasis on the place of +the judiciary in determining the reasonableness of rates lent color to +the contention that Mr. Justice Blatchford was setting up "judicial +supremacy." In the course of his opinion, he said: "The question of the +reasonableness of a rate of charge for transportation by a railroad +company, involving as it does the element of reasonableness both as +regards the company and as regards the public, is eminently a question +for judicial investigation requiring due process of law for its +determination. If the company is deprived of the power of charging +reasonable rates for the use of its property, and such deprivation takes +place in the absence of an investigation by judicial machinery, it is +deprived of the lawful use of its property, and thus in substance and +effect, of the property itself without due process of law and in +violation of the Constitution of the United States." + +The dissenting members of the Court in this case certainly saw in +Justice Blatchford's opinion an assertion of the doctrine that whatever +the nature of the commission established by law or the form of procedure +adopted, the determination of rates was subject to review by a strictly +judicial tribunal. In his dissent, Mr. Justice Bradley declared that the +decision had practically overruled Munn _v._ Illinois and the other +Granger cases. "The governing principle of those cases," he said, "was +that the regulation and settlement of the affairs of railways and other +public accommodations is a legislative prerogative and not a judicial +one.... The legislature has the right, and it is its prerogative, if it +chooses to exercise it, to declare what is reasonable. This is just +where I differ from the majority of the Court. They say in effect, if +not in terms, that the final tribunal of arbitrament is the judiciary; I +say it is the legislature. I hold that it is a legislative question, not +a judicial one, unless the legislature or the law (which is the same +thing) has made it judicial by prescribing the rule that the charges +shall be reasonable and leaving it there. It is always a delicate thing +for the courts to make an issue with the legislative department of the +government, and they should never do it, if it is possible to avoid it. +By the decision now made we declare, in effect, that the judiciary, and +not the legislature, is the final arbiter in the regulation of fares and +freights of railroads and the charges of other public accommodations. It +is an assumption of authority on the part of the judiciary which, it +seems to me, with a due reverence to the judgment of my brethren, it has +no right to make.... Deprivation of property by mere arbitrary power on +the part of the legislature or fraud on the part of the commission are +the only grounds on which judicial relief may be sought against their +action. There was in truth no deprivation of property in these cases at +all.... It may be that our legislatures are invested with too much +power, open as they are to influences so dangerous to the interests of +individuals, corporations, and societies. But such is the Constitution +of our republican form of government, and we are bound to abide by it +until it can be corrected in a legitimate way." + + +_The Development of Judicial Review_ + +A further step toward judicial review even still more significant was +taken, in the case of Reagan _v._ Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, +decided by the Supreme Court in 1894. This case came up from the Federal +circuit court of Texas which had enjoined the state railway +commissioners from fixing and putting into effect railway rates which +the Trust Company, as a bondholder and interested party, contended were +too low, although not confiscatory. + +The opinion of the Court, written by Justice Brewer, who, as Federal +circuit judge, had already taken advanced ground in favor of judicial +review, went the whole length in upholding the right of the judiciary to +review the reasonableness, not only of a rate fixed by a commission, as +in the case in hand, but even of one fixed by the legislature. The case +differed in no essential way, declared the justice, from those cases in +which it had been the age-long practice of the judiciary to act as final +arbiters of reasonableness--cases in which a charge exacted by a common +carrier was attacked by a shipper or passenger as unreasonable. The +difference between the two cases was merely that in the one the rate +alleged to be unreasonable was fixed by the carrier; in the other it was +fixed by the commission or by the legislature. In support of this +remarkable bit of legal reasoning, the opinion adduced as precedents +merely a few brief excerpts, from previous decisions of the Court, +nearly all of which were pure _dicta_. + +The absence of any dissent from this opinion, in spite of the fact that +Judge Gray, who had concurred in Justice Bradley's vigorous dissenting +opinion in the Chicago-Minnesota case four years before, was still on +the bench, indicates that the last lingering opposition to the doctrine +of judicial review in the minds of any of the Court had been dissolved. +Henceforth it was but the emphatic affirmation and consistent +development of that doctrine that was to be expected. + +If we leave out of account Mr. Justice Brewer's _dicta_ and consider the +Court to have decided merely the issues squarely presented, the Reagan +case left much to be done before the doctrine of judicial review could +be regarded as established beyond all possibility of limitation and +serious qualification. Other cases on the point followed quickly, but it +was not until the celebrated case of Smyth _v._ Ames, decided in 1898, +that the two leading issues were fairly presented and settled. In this +case the rate attacked was not fixed by a commission, but by a state +legislature itself; and the rate was not admitted by the counsel for the +state to be unreasonable, but was strongly defended as wholly reasonable +and just. The Court had to meet the issues. + +The original action in the case of Smyth _v._ Ames was a bill in equity +brought against the attorney-general and the Nebraska state board of +transportation, in the Federal circuit court, by certain bondholders of +the railroads affected, to restrain the enforcement of the statute of +that state providing a comprehensive schedule of freight rates. The +bills alleged, and attempted to demonstrate by elaborate calculations, +that the rates fixed were _confiscatory_, inasmuch as a proportionate +reduction on all the rates of the railroads affected by them would so +reduce the income of the companies as to make it impossible for them to +pay any dividends; and in the case of some of them, even to meet all +their bonded obligations. On behalf of the state, it was urged that the +reduction in rates would increase business, and, therefore, increase +net earnings, and that some at least of the companies were bonded far +in excess of their actual value. Supreme Court Justice Brewer, sitting +in circuit, on the basis of the evidence submitted to him, consisting +mainly of statements of operating expenses, gross receipts, and inter- +and intra-state tonnage, found the contention of the railroads well +taken, and issued the injunctions applied for. + +The opinion of the Supreme Court, affirming the decree of Judge Brewer, +was, in the essential part of it--that asserting the principle of +judicial review in its broadest terms--singularly brief. Contenting +himself with citing a few short _dicta_ from previous decisions, Justice +Harlan, speaking for the Court, declared that the principle "must be +regarded as settled" that the reasonableness of a rate could not be so +conclusively determined by a legislature as to escape review by the +judiciary. Equally well settled, it was declared, was the principle that +property affected with a public interest was entitled to a "fair return" +on its "fair" valuation. These principles regarded as established, the +Court proceeded to examine the evidence, although it admitted that it +lacked the technical knowledge necessary to a completely equitable +decision; and sustained the finding of the lower court in favor of the +railroads. There was no dissent. + +With Smyth _v._ Ames the doctrine of judicial review may be regarded as +fully established. No portion of the judicial prerogative could now be +surrendered without not merely "distinguishing" but flatly overruling a +unanimous decision of the Court. + +The significance of Smyth _v._ Ames was soon observable in the +activities of the lower Federal courts. Within the nine months of 1898 +that followed that decision, there were at least four applications for +injunctions against alleged unreasonable rates, and in three of these +cases the applications were granted. During the years that followed +Smyth _v._ Ames, Federal courts all over the country were tying the +hands of state officers who attempted to put into effect legislative +measures regulating railway concerns. In Arkansas, Florida, Alabama, +Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Oregon, +rates fixed by statute, commission, or ordinance were attacked by the +railways in the Federal courts and their enforcement blocked. In several +instances the injunctions of the lower courts were made permanent, and +no appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States. With +Smyth _v._ Ames staring them in the face, state attorneys accepted the +inevitable. + +The decision in Smyth _v._ Ames left still one matter in doubt. The +allegation of the railroads in that case had been that the rates fixed +were actually confiscatory--that is, so low as to make dividends +impossible. In the course of his opinion, Justice Harlan had stated, +however, that the railroads were entitled to a "fair return," an opinion +that had been expressed also in the Reagan case, where indeed it had +been necessary to the decision, and still earlier, but with little +relevancy, in the Chicago-Minnesota case. In none of these cases, +however, had any precise definition of the terms "reasonable" or "fair" +return been necessary, and none had been made. + +The first direct suggestion of the development of the judicial +reasoning on this point that was to take place is found in the Milwaukee +Electric Railway case, also decided in 1898. In that case Judge Seaman, +of the Federal circuit court, found from the evidence that the dividends +of the street railway company for several years past had been from 3.3 +to 4.5 per cent, while its bonds bore interest at 5 per cent. Anything +less than these returns, the judge declared, would be unreasonable, +inasmuch as money loaned on real estate, secured by a first mortgage, +was at that time commanding 6 per cent in Milwaukee. + +Eleven years later, in 1909, the Supreme Court sustained virtually the +same rule in the New York Consolidated Gas case, holding, with the lower +court, that the company was entitled to _six_ per cent return on a fair +value of its property (including franchises and the high values of the +real estate used by it in the business), because six per cent was the +"customary" rate of interest at that time in New York City. On the same +day the court decided that a return of six per cent on waterworks +property in Knoxville, Tennessee, was also not unreasonable. In neither +of these cases, however, did the Court attempt any examination or +explanation of the evidence on which it rested its determination that +six per cent was the "customary" rate in the places named; nor did it +attempt to explain the principle on which such "customary" rate could be +determined for other times and places. Plainly there is still room for a +great deal of "distinguishing" on this point. The extreme vagueness of +the rule was exemplified by the decision of Federal circuit Judge +Sanborn in the Shephard case (1912), in which he decided that, for a +railroad running through Minnesota, _seven_ per cent was no more than a +"fair" return, and that any reduction in rates which would diminish the +profits of the road below that figure was unreasonable. + +Equally important and of as great difficulty are the questions entering +into the determination of a "fair" valuation. This point is both too +unsettled and too technical to render any discussion of it profitable +here. Attention may, however, be called to two of the holdings in the +Consolidated Gas case. In arriving at a "fair" valuation of the gas +company's property, the Court allowed a large valuation to be placed +upon the franchises of the company--none of which had been paid for by +the companies to which they had originally been issued, and which had +not been paid for by the Consolidated Company when it took them over, +except in the sense that a large amount of stock, more than one sixth of +the total stock issued by the company, had been issued against them, +when the consolidation was formed. The particular facts surrounding this +case are such as to make it very easy for the Court to "distinguish" +this case from the usual one, for the consolidation was formed, and its +stock issued, under a statute that authorized the formation of +consolidations, and forbade such consolidations to issue stock in excess +of the fair value of the "property, franchises, and rights" of the +constituent companies. This last prohibition the Court construed as +indicative of the legislative intention that the franchises should be +capitalized. Equally plain is it, however, that this particular +circumstance of the Consolidated Gas case is so irrelevant that it will +offer no obstacle whatever to the Court's quoting that case as a +precedent for the valuation of franchises obtained _gratis_, should it +so desire. + +Another holding of great importance in the Gas case was that the company +was entitled to a fair return on the value of real estate used in the +business, that value having appreciated very greatly since the original +purchase of the real estate, and there being no evidence to show that +real estate of so great value was essential to the conduct of the +business. + +The importance of these two holdings is exemplified by the fact that in +this particular case the combined value attributed to the franchises and +the appreciation of real estate was over $15,000,000--more than one +fourth of the total valuation arrived at by the Supreme Court. It will +readily be seen that if these two items had been struck from the +valuation by the Court, it would be possible for the state to make a +still further substantial reduction in the rate charged for gas in New +York City without violating the Court's own canon of reasonableness--a +six per cent return. + +The steps in the evolution of the doctrine of judicial review may be +summarized in the following manner: + +The Supreme Court first declared that the legislative determination of +what was a "reasonable" rate was not subject to review by the courts. + +The first departure from this view was an intimation, confirmed with +increasing emphasis in several cases, that a rate so low as to make any +return whatever impossible was confiscatory and would be set aside by +the Court as violating the Fourteenth Amendment. For a time, however, +the Court took the position (steadily undermined in subsequent +decisions) that a rate which allowed some, even though an "unreasonably +low" return, was not prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment and could +not be set aside by the Court. + +Next in order came the holding that the determination of a commission as +to what was reasonable could not be made conclusive upon the courts, at +least when the commission had acted without the forms and safeguards of +judicial procedure, and, probably, even when it had acted with them. + +In the same decision appeared an intimation, which in subsequent +decisions became crystallized into "settled law," that not only were +totally confiscatory rates prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment, but +also any rates which deprived the owners of the property regulated of a +return equal to what was "customary" in private enterprises. + +This rule was applied by the Court for the first time against a rate +fixed by a commission, and where the rate was admitted by the pleadings +to be confiscatory. But it was shortly thereafter applied to a rate +fixed by a legislature, and where the "reasonableness" (not the +confiscatory character) of the rate was a direct issue on the facts and +evidence. + +Finally, the principle that what is a "fair" or "reasonable" rate is to +be measured by the customary return in private enterprises under similar +conditions, has been applied in several cases to warrant the requirement +of a definite rate of interest; but no precise rules have been laid down +for the determination of such rate in all cases. + +The most striking feature, perhaps, of the development of the doctrine +of judicial review here traced, as seen in the opinions of the Supreme +Court, is the brevity and almost fortuitous character of the reasoning +given in support of the most important and novel holdings. A comparison +of the reasoning in Smyth _v._ Ames, for example, with that in Marbury +_v._ Madison, in which Chief Justice Marshall first held a law of +Congress unconstitutional, will forcibly exemplify this. The explanation +is to be found largely in the fact that each step in advance in the +building up of the doctrine had been foreshadowed in _dictum_ before it +was established as decision. It was thus possible for the judge writing +the opinion in a case when a new rule was actually established, to +quote, as "settled law," a mere _dictum_ from a previous opinion. +Justice Gray's citation, in this fashion, in the Dow case, of Chief +Justice Waite's _dictum_ in the Ruggles case (although he might, with +equal cogency, have cited the Chief Justice's contrary _dictum_ in the +Munn or Peik cases), is a good instance of this curious use of +"precedent"; and parallel instances could be adduced from virtually +every one of the important subsequent cases on this subject.[22] + +It is apparent from this all too brief and incomplete account of the +establishment of judicial review over every kind and class of state +legislation affecting private property rights that no layman can easily +unravel the mysterious refinements, distinctions, and logical subtleties +by which the fact was finally established that property was to be free +from all interference except such as might be allowed by the Supreme +Court (or rather five judges of that Court) appointed by the President +and Senate, thus removed as far as possible from the pressure of public +sentiment. Had a bald veto power of this character been suddenly vested +in any small group of persons, there can be no doubt that a political +revolt would have speedily followed. But the power was built up by +gradual accretions made by the Court under the stimulus of skilful +counsel for private parties, and finally clothed in the majesty of +settled law. It was a long time before the advocates of leveling +democracy, leading an attack on corporate rights and privileges, +discovered that the courts were the bulwarks of _laissez faire_ and +directed their popular battalions in that direction. + +Those who undertake to criticize the Supreme Court for this assumption +of power do not always distinguish between the power itself and the +manner of its exercise. What would have happened if the state +legislatures had been given a free hand to regulate, penalize, and +blackmail corporations at will during the evolution of our national +economic system may be left to the imagination of those who recall from +their history the breezy days of "wild-cat" currency, repudiation, and +broken faith which characterized the thirty years preceding the Civil +War when the Federal judiciary was under the dominance of the states' +rights school. The regulation of a national economic system by forty or +more local legislatures would be nothing short of an attempt to combine +economic unity with local anarchy. It is possible to hold that the Court +has been too tender of corporate rights in assuming the power of +judicial review, and at the same time recognize the fact that such a +power, vested somewhere in the national government, is essential to the +continuance of industries and commerce on a national scale. + + * * * * * + +Thus far attention has been directed to the activities of the Federal +Supreme Court in establishing the principle of judicial review +particularly in connection with legislation relative to railway +corporations, but it should be noted that judicial review covers all +kinds of social legislation relative to hours and conditions of labor as +well as the charges of common carriers. In 1905, for example, the +Supreme Court in the celebrated case of Lochner _v._ New York declared +null and void a New York law fixing the hours of work in bakeshops at +ten per day, basing its action on the principle that the right to +contract in relation to the hours of labor was a part of the liberty +which the individual enjoyed under the Fourteenth Amendment. Mr. Justice +Holmes, who dissented in the case, declared that it was decided on an +economic theory which a large part of the country did not entertain, and +protested that the Fourteenth Amendment did not "enact Mr. Herbert +Spencer's _Social Statics_." + +As a matter of fact, however, the Supreme Court of the United States has +declared very little social legislation invalid, and has been inclined +to take a more liberal view of such matters than the supreme courts of +the states. The latter also have authority to declare state laws void as +violating the Federal Constitution, and when a state court of proper +jurisdiction invalidates a state law, there is, under the Federal +judiciary act, no appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. +Consequently, the Fourteenth Amendment means in each state what the +highest court holds it to mean, and since the adoption of that Amendment +at least one thousand state laws have been nullified by the action of +state courts, under the color of that Amendment or their respective +state constitutions. + +As examples, in New York a law prohibiting the manufacture of cigars in +tenement houses, in Pennsylvania a law prohibiting the payment of wages +in "scrip" or store orders, and in Illinois a statute forbidding mining +and manufacturing corporations to hold back the wages of their employees +for more than a week were declared null and void. Such laws were +nullified not only on the ground that they deprived the employer of +property without due process, but also on the theory that they deprived +workingmen of the "liberty" guaranteed to them to work under any +conditions they chose. In one of these cases, a Pennsylvania court +declared the labor law in question to be "an insulting attempt to put +the laborer under a legislative tutelage which is not only degrading to +his manhood but subversive of his rights as a citizen of the United +States." + +Where the state court nullified under the state constitution, it was of +course relatively easy to set aside the doctrines of the court by +amending the constitution, but where the state court nullified on the +ground of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, there +was no relief for the state and even no appeal for a review of the case +to discover whether the Supreme Court of the United States would uphold +the state tribunal in its view of the national law. Under such +circumstances, the highest state court became the supreme power in the +state, for its decrees based on the Federal Constitution were final. It +was the freedom, one may say, recklessness, with which the courts +nullified state laws that was largely responsible for the growth of the +popular feeling against the judiciary, and led to the demand for the +recall of judges.[23] + +FOOTNOTES: + + [13] A. R. Conkling, _Life of Roscoe Conkling_, p. 297. + + [14] A. R. Conkling, _Life of Roscoe Conkling_, p. 699. + + [15] _Ibid._, p. 671. + + [16] _Ibid._, pp. 679 ff. + + [17] See below, p. 57. + + [18] _Ibid._, p. 540. + + [19] Taylor, _Origin and Growth of the American + Constitution_, p. 355. As a matter of fact, Conkling, who was + a member of the committee that drafted the Fourteenth + Amendment, voted against these provisions in Committee. + + [20] It is to be noted that the demand of the warehousemen on + the second point was not for a judicial _review_ of the + reasonableness of a rate fixed by the legislature, but a + total _denial_ of the _power_ of a _legislature_ to act in + the matter. The question of the propriety of a judicial + review of the reasonableness of the rates in question was not + raised in the pleadings. It was not difficult, therefore, for + judges in subsequent cases in which the question of judicial + review was squarely raised to explain away as mere _dictum_ + this solemn statement by Chief Justice Waite to the effect + that the power of the legislature to regulate being conceded, + the determination of the legislature was binding on the + courts and not subject to review. + + [21] Except for two unimportant cases decided in the lower + courts. + + [22] It should be noted that the Supreme Court not only + undertook to pass upon the reasonableness of such rates as + the states were permitted to make, but also added in 1886 + that no state could regulate the rates on goods transported + within its borders, when such goods were in transit to or + from a point in another state. Such regulation was held in + the Wabash, etc., Railway Company _v._ Illinois (118 U. S. + 557) to be an interference with interstate commerce which was + subject to control by Congress only. + + [23] Below, p. 287. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PARTIES AND PARTY ISSUES, 1877-1896 + + +It was a long time before the conditions created by the great economic +revolution were squarely reflected in political literature and party +programs. Indeed, they were but vaguely comprehended by the generation +of statesmen who had been brought up in the days of the stagecoach and +the water mill. It is true that the inevitable drift of capitalism in +the United States might have been foreseen by turning to Europe, +particularly to England, where a similar economic revolution had +produced clearly ascertainable results; but American politicians +believed, or at least contended, that the United States lived under a +special economic dispensation and that the grave social problems which +had menaced Europe for more than a generation when the Civil War broke +out could never arise on American soil. + +From 1861 to 1913, the Republican party held the presidential office, +except for eight years. That party had emerged from the Civil War +fortified by an intense patriotism and by the support of the +manufacturing interests which had flourished under the high tariffs and +of capitalists anxious to swing forward with the development of railways +and new enterprises. Its origin had been marked by a wave of moral +enthusiasm such as has seldom appeared in the history of politics. It +came to the presidency as a minority party, but by the fortunes of war +it became possessed of instruments of power beyond all calculation. Its +leading opponents from the South deserted in a mass giving it in a short +time possession of the field--all the Federal branches of government. It +had the management of the gigantic war finances, through which it +attached to itself the interests and fortunes of the great capitalists +and bankers throughout the North. It raised revenues by a high tariff +which placed thousands of manufacturers under debt to it and linked +their fortunes also with its fate. It possessed the Federal offices, +and, therefore, railway financiers and promoters of all kinds had to +turn to it for privileges and protection. Finally, millions of farmers +of the West owed their homes to its generous policy of giving away +public lands. Never had a party had its foundations on interests +ramifying throughout such a large portion of society. + +And over all it spread the mantle of patriotism. It had saved the Union, +and it had struck the shackles from four million bondmen. In a baptism +of fire it had redeemed a nation. Europe's finger of scorn could no +longer be pointed to the "slave republic paying its devotions to liberty +and equality within the sound of the bondman's wail." The promises of +the Declaration of Independence had been fulfilled and the heroic deeds +of the Revolution rivaled by Republican leaders. As it declared in its +platform of 1876, the Republican party had come into power "when in the +economy of Providence this land was to be purged of human slavery and +when the strength of the government of the people, by the people, and +for the people was to be demonstrated." Incited by the memories of its +glorious deeds "to high aims for the good of our country and mankind," +it looked forward "with unfaltering courage, hope, and purpose." + +Against such a combination of patriotism and economic interest, the +Democratic party had difficulty in making headway, for its former +economic mainstay, the slave power, was broken and gone; it was charged +with treason, and it enjoyed none of the spoils of national office. But +in spite of all obstacles it showed remarkable vitality. Though divided +on the slave question in 1860, those who boasted the name of "Democrat" +were in an overwhelming majority, and even during the Civil War, with +the southern wing cut off completely, the party was able to make a +respectable showing in the campaign which resulted in Lincoln's second +election. When the South returned to the fold, and white dominion drove +the negro from the polls, the Democratic party began to renew its youth. +In the elections of 1874, it captured the House of Representatives; it +narrowly missed the presidency in 1876; and it retained its control of +the lower house of Congress in the elections of 1876 and 1878. + + * * * * * + +The administration of President Hayes did little to strengthen the +position of the Republicans. His policy of pacification in the South +alienated many partisans who believed that those who had saved the Union +should continue to rule it; but it is difficult to say how much +disaffection should be attributed to this cause. It seems to have been +quietly understood within official circles that support would be +withdrawn from the Republican administrations in Louisiana and South +Carolina. Senator Hoar is authority for the statement "that General +Grant, before he left office, had determined to do in regard to these +state governments exactly what Hayes afterward did, and that Hayes acted +with his full approval. Second, I have the authority of President +Garfield for saying that Mr. Blaine had come to the same conclusion." + +Charges based on sectional feeling were also brought forward in +criticism of some of Hayes' cabinet appointments. He terrified the +advocates of "no concession to rebels" by appointing David M. Key, an +ex-Confederate soldier of Tennessee, to the office of Postmaster-General; +and his selection of Carl Schurz, a leader of the Liberal Republican +Movement of 1872 and an uncertain quantity in politics, as Secretary of +the Interior, was scarcely more palatable in some quarters. He created +further trouble in Republican ranks by his refusal to accede to the +demands of powerful Senators, like Cameron of Pennsylvania and Conkling +of New York, for control over patronage in their respective states. No +other President for more than a generation had so many nominations +rejected by the Senate. + +On the side of legislation, Hayes' administration was nearly barren. +During his entire term the House of Representatives was Democratic, and +during the last two years the Senate was Democratic also by a good +margin. Had he desired to carry out a large legislative policy, he could +not have done so; but he was not a man of great capacity as an initiator +of public policies. He maintained his dignity and self-possession in +the midst of the most trying party squabbles; but in a democracy other +qualities than these are necessary for effective leadership. + + * * * * * + +In their desperation, the conservative leaders of the Republican party +resolved to have no more "weak and goody-goody" Presidents, incapable of +fascinating the populace and keeping it in good humor, and they made a +determined effort to secure the renomination of Grant for a third term, +in spite of the tradition against it. Conkling captured the New York +delegation to the national convention in 1880 for Grant; Cameron swung +Pennsylvania into line; and Logan carried off Illinois. Grant's consent +to be a candidate was obtained, and Conkling placed his name in +nomination in a speech which Senator Hoar describes as one of "very +great power." + +Strong opposition to Grant developed, however, partly on account of the +feeling against the third term, and particularly on account of the +antagonism to the Conkling faction which was backing him. Friends of +Blaine, then Senator from Maine, and supporters of John Sherman of Ohio, +thought that Grant had had enough honors at the hands of the party, and +that their turn had come. As a result of a combination of circumstances, +Grant never received more than 313 of the 378 votes necessary to +nomination at the Republican convention. After prolonged balloting, the +deadlock was broken by the nomination of James A. Garfield, of Ohio, as +a "dark horse." The Grant contingent from New York received a sop in +the shape of the nomination of Chester A. Arthur, a politician of the +Conkling school, to the office of Vice President. + +In spite of the promising signs, the Democrats were unable to defeat the +Republicans in 1880. The latter found it possible to heal, at least for +campaign purposes, the breaches created by Hayes' administration. It is +true that Senator Conkling and the "Stalwart" faction identified with +corporation interests were sorely disappointed in their failure to +secure the nomination of Grant for a third term, and that Garfield as a +"dark horse" did not have a personal following like that of his chief +opponents, the Hero of Appomattox, Blaine of Maine, and Sherman of Ohio. +But he had the advantage of escaping the bitter factional feeling within +the party against each of these leaders. He had risen from humble +circumstances, and his managers were able to make great capital out of +his youthful labors as a "canal-boat boy." He had served several terms +in Congress acceptably; he had been intrusted with a delicate place as a +member of the electoral commission that had settled the Hayes-Tilden +dispute; and he was at the time of his nomination Senator-elect from +Ohio. Though without the high qualities of leadership that distinguished +Blaine, Garfield was a decidedly "available" candidate and his +candidature was strengthened by the nomination of Arthur, who was +acceptable to the Conkling group and the spoilsmen generally. + +The Republican fortunes in 1880 were further enhanced by the divisions +among the Democrats and their inability to play the game of practical +politics. Two sets of delegates appeared at the convention from New +York, and the Tammany group headed by "Boss" Kelly was excluded, thus +offending a powerful section of the party in that pivotal state. The +candidate nominated, General Hancock, was by no means a skilful leader. +In fact, he had had no public experience outside of the Army, where he +had made a brilliant record, and he showed no ability at all as a +campaigner. Finally, the party made its fight principally on the "great +fraud of 1876," asking vindication at the hands of the people on the +futile theory that the voters would take an interest in punishing a +four-year-old crime. In its platform, reported by Mr. Watterson, of +Kentucky, it declared that the Democrats had submitted to that outrage +because they were convinced that the people would punish the crime in +1880. "This issue precedes and dwarfs every other; it imposes a more +sacred duty upon the people of the Union than ever addressed to the +conscience of a nation of freemen." Notwithstanding this narrow issue, +Hancock fell behind Garfield only about ten thousand votes, although his +electoral vote was only 155 to 214 for his opponent. + +Whether Garfield would have been able to consolidate his somewhat +shattered party by effective leadership is a matter of speculation, for, +on July 2, 1881, about four months after his inauguration, he was shot +by Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed and half-crazed office seeker, and +he died on September 19. His successor, Vice President Arthur, though a +man of considerable ability, who managed his office with more acumen and +common honesty than his opponents attributed to him, was unable to clear +away the accumulating dissatisfaction within his party or convince the +country that the party would do its own reforming. + +In fact, Arthur, notwithstanding the taint of "spoils" associated with +his career, proved to be by no means the easy-going politician that had +been expected. He took a firm stand against extravagant appropriations +as a means of getting rid of the Treasury surplus, and in 1882 he vetoed +a river and harbor appropriation bill which was specially designed to +distribute funds among localities on the basis of favoritism. In the +same year, he vetoed a Chinese exclusion act as violating the treaty +with China, and made recommendations as to changes which were accepted +by Congress. Arthur also advocated legislation against the spoils +system, and on January 16, 1883, signed the Civil Service law.[24] He +recommended a revision of the tariff, including some striking reductions +in schedules, but the tariff act of 1883 was even less satisfactory to +the public than such measures usually are. Judging by past standards, +however, Arthur had a claim upon his party for the nomination in 1884. + + * * * * * + +But Arthur was not a magnetic leader, and the election of Grover +Cleveland as governor of New York in 1882 and Democratic victories +elsewhere warned the Republicans that their tenure of power was not +indefinite. Circumspection, however, was difficult. A "reform" faction +had grown up within the party, protesting against the gross practices of +old leaders like Conkling and urging at least more outward signs of +propriety. In this faction were Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, George +William Curtis, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt--the last of +whom had just begun his political career with his election to the New +York legislature in 1881. Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, was the leader of +this group, and his nomination was warmly urged in the Republican +convention at Chicago in 1884. + +The hopes of the Republican reformers were completely dashed, however, +by the nomination of Blaine. This "gentleman from Maine" was a man of +brilliant parts and the idol of large sections of the country, +particularly the Middle West; but some suspicions concerning his +personal integrity were widely entertained, and not without reason, by a +group of influential leaders in his party. In 1876, he was charged with +having shared in the corruption funds of the Union Pacific Railroad +Company, and as Professor Dunning cautiously puts it, "the facts +developed put Mr. Blaine under grave suspicion of just that sort of +wealth-getting, if nothing worse, which had ruined his colleagues in the +Credit Mobilier." Moreover, Mr. Blaine's associations had been with that +wing of his party which had been involved or implicated in one scandal +after another. Partly on this account, he had been defeated for +nomination in 1876, when he was decidedly the leading aspirant and again +in 1880 when he received 285 votes in the convention. But in 1884, +leaders like Senator Platt, of New York, declared "it is now Blaine's +turn," and he was nominated in spite of a threatened bolt. + +The Democrats were fortunate in their selection of Grover Cleveland as +their standard bearer. He had been mayor of Buffalo and governor of New +York, but he had taken no part in national politics and had the virtue +of having few enemies in that field. He was not a man of any large +comprehension of the economic problems of his age, but he was in every +way acceptable to financiers in New York, for he had showed his +indifference to popular demands by vetoing a five-cent fare bill for the +New York City elevated roads which were then being watered and +manipulated by astute speculators, like Jay Gould. Moreover, Mr. +Cleveland possessed certain qualities of straightforwardness and homely +honesty which commended him to a nation wearied of scandalous +revelations and the malodorous spoils system. + +These qualities drew to Cleveland the support of a group of eminent +Republicans, like Carl Schurz who had been Secretary of the Interior +under Hayes, George William Curtis, the civil service reformer, Henry +Ward Beecher, and William Everett, who were nicknamed "Mugwumps" from an +Indian word meaning "chief." Although the "reformers" talked a great +deal about "purity" in politics, the campaign of 1884 was principally +over personalities; and, as a contemporary newspaper put it, it took on +the tone of "a pothouse quarrel." There was no real division over +issues, as will be seen by a comparison of platforms, and scandalous +rumors respecting the morals of the two candidates were freely employed +as campaign arguments. Indeed, the spirit of the fray is reflected in +the words of the Democratic platform: "The Republican party, so far as +principle is concerned, is a reminiscence. In practice, it is an +organization for enriching those who control its machinery. The frauds +and jobbery which have been brought to light in every department of the +government are sufficient to have called for reform within the +Republican party; yet those in authority, made reckless by the long +possession of power, have succumbed to its corrupting influence and have +placed in nomination a ticket against which the independent portion of +the party are in open revolt. Therefore a change is demanded." Having +enjoyed no opportunities for corruption worthy of mention, except in New +York City where they had reaped a good harvest during the sunshine, the +Democrats could honestly pose as the party of "purity in politics." + +Their demand for a change was approved by the voters, for Cleveland +received 219 electoral votes as against 182 cast for Blaine. A closer +analysis of the vote, however, shows no landslide to the Democrats, for +had New York been shifted to the Republican column, the result would +have been 218 for Blaine and 183 for Cleveland. And the Democratic +victory in New York was so close that a second count was necessary, upon +which it was discovered that the successful candidate had only about +eleven hundred votes more than the vanquished Blaine. Taking the country +as a whole, the Democrats had a plurality of a little more than twenty +thousand votes. + +Cleveland's administration was beset by troubles from the beginning. The +civil service reformers were early disappointed with his performances, +as they might have expected. It is true that the Democratic party had +posed in general as the party of "reform," because forsooth having no +patronage to dispense nor favors to grant it could readily make a +virtue of necessity; but it is fair to say that the party had in fact +been somewhat noncommittal on civil service reform, and Cleveland, +though friendly, was hardly to be classed as ardent. The test came soon +after his inauguration. More than one hundred thousand Federal offices +were in the hands of Republicans; the Senate which had to pass upon the +President's chief nominations was Republican and the clash between the +two authorities was spectacular. The pressure of Democrats for office +was naturally strong, and although the civil service reformers got a few +crumbs of comfort, the bald fact stood forth that within two years only +about one third of the former officeholders remained. "Of the chief +officers," says Professor Dewey, "including the fourth class +post-masters, collectors, land officers, numbering about 58,000, over +45,000 were changed. All of the 85 internal revenue collectors were +displaced; and of the 111 collectors of customs, 100 were removed or not +reappointed." + +Cleveland's executive policy was negative rather than positive. He +vigorously applied the veto to private pension bills. From the +foundation of the government until 1897, it appears that 265 such bills +were denied executive approval; and of these five were vetoed by Grant +and 260 by Cleveland--nearly all of the latter's negatives being in his +first administration. Cleveland also vetoed a general dependent pension +bill in 1887 on the ground that it was badly drawn and ill considered. +Although his enemies attempted to show that he was hostile to the old +soldiers, his vetoes were in fact based rather upon a careful +examination of the merits of the several acts which showed extraordinary +carelessness, collusion, and fraud. At all events, the Grand Army +Encampment in 1887 refused to pass a resolution of censure. Cleveland +also killed the river and harbor bill of 1887 by a pocket veto, and he +put his negative on a measure, passed the following year, returning to +the treasuries of the northern states nearly all of the direct taxes +which they had paid during the Civil War in support of the Federal +government. + +On the constructive side, Cleveland's first administration was marked by +a vigorous land policy under which upwards of 80,000,000 acres of land +were recovered from private corporations and persons who had secured +their holdings illegally. He was also the first President to treat the +labor problem in a special message (1886); and he thus gave official +recognition to a new force in politics, although the sole outcome of his +recommendations was the futile law of 1888 providing for the voluntary +arbitration of disputes between railways and their employees. The really +noteworthy measure of his first administration was the interstate +commerce law of 1887, but that could hardly be called a partisan +achievement.[25] + + * * * * * + +Holding his place by no overwhelming mandate and having none of those +qualities of brilliant leadership which arouse the multitude, Cleveland +was unable to intrench his party, and he was forced to surrender his +office at the end of four years' tenure, although his party showed its +confidence by renominating him in 1888. He had a Democratic House during +his administration, but he was embarrassed by party divisions there and +by a Republican Senate. Under such circumstances, he was able to do +little that was striking, and in his message of December, 1887, he +determined to set an issue by a vigorous attack on the tariff--a subject +which had been treated in a gingerly fashion by both parties since the +War. While he disclaimed adherence to the academic theory of free trade +as a principle, his language was readily turned by his enemies into an +attack on the principle of the protective tariff. Although the +performance of the Democrats in the passage of the Mills tariff bill by +the House in 1888 showed in fact no strong leanings toward free trade, +the Republicans were able to force a campaign on the "American doctrine +of protection for labor against the pauper millions of Europe." + +On this issue they carried the election of 1888. Passing by Blaine once +more, the Republicans selected Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, a United +States Senator, a shrewd lawyer, and a reticent politician. Mr. +Wanamaker, a rich Philadelphia merchant, was chosen to raise campaign +funds, and he successfully discharged the functions of his office. As he +said himself, he addressed the business men of the country in the +following language: "How much would you pay for insurance upon your +business? If you were confronted by from one to three years of general +depression by a change in our revenue and protective measures affecting +our manufactures, wages, and good times, what would you pay to be +insured for a better year?" The appeal was effective and with a full +campaign chest and the astute Matthew S. Quay as director of the +national committee, the Republicans outwitted the Democrats, winning 233 +electors' votes against 168 for Cleveland, although the popular vote for +Harrison was slightly under that for his opponent. + +Harrison's administration opened auspiciously in many ways. The +appointment of Blaine as Secretary of State was a diplomatic move, for +undoubtedly Blaine was far more popular with the rank and file of his +party than was Harrison. The civil service reformers were placated by +the appointment of Theodore Roosevelt as president of the Civil Service +Commission, for he was a vigorous champion of reform, who brought the +whole question forcibly before the country by his speeches and articles, +although it must be said that no very startling gains were made against +the spoils system under his administration of the civil service law. It +required time to educate the country to the point of supporting the +administrative heads in resisting the clamor of the politicians for +office. + +Harrison's leadership in legislation was not noteworthy. The Republicans +were in power in the lower house in 1889 for the first time since 1881, +but their majority was so small that it required all of the +parliamentary ingenuity which Speaker Reed could command to keep the +legislative machine in operation. Nevertheless, several important +measures were enacted into law. The McKinley tariff act based upon the +doctrine of high protection was passed in 1890. In response to the +popular outcry against the trusts, the Sherman anti-trust law was +enacted the same year; and the silver party was thrown a sop in the form +of the Sherman silver purchase act. The veterans of the Civil War +received new recognition in the law of 1890 granting pensions for all +disabled soldiers whether their disabilities were incurred in service or +not. Negro voters were taken into account by an attempt to get a new +"force bill" through Congress, which would insure a "free ballot and a +fair count everywhere." + + * * * * * + +There had been nothing decisive, however, about the Republican victory +in 1888, for a few thousand votes in New York changed the day as four +years before. Harrison had not proved to be a very popular candidate, +and there was nothing particularly brilliant or striking about his +administration to enhance his reputation. He was able to secure a +renomination in 1892, largely because he controlled so many +officeholding delegates to the Republican convention, and there was no +other weighty candidate in the field, Blaine being unwilling to make an +open fight at the primaries. + +In the second contest with Cleveland, Harrison was badly worsted, +receiving only 145 electoral votes against 277 cast for the Democratic +candidate and 22 for the Populist, Weaver. The campaign was marked by no +special incidents, for both Cleveland and Harrison had been found safe +and conservative and there was no very sharp division over issues. The +tariff, it is true, was vigorously discussed, but Cleveland made it +clear that no general assault would be made on any protected interests. +The million votes cast for the Populist candidate, however, was a solemn +warning that the old game of party see-saw over personalities could not +go on indefinitely. The issues springing from the great economic +revolution were emerging, not clearly and sharply, but rather in a vague +unrest and discontent with the old parties and their methods. + +President Cleveland went into power for the second time on what appeared +to be a wave of business prosperity, but those who looked beneath the +surface knew that serious financial and industrial difficulties were +pending. Federal revenues were declining and a deficit was staring the +government in the face at a time when there was, for several reasons, a +stringency in the gold market. The Treasury gold reserve was already +rapidly diminishing, and Harrison was on the point of selling bonds when +the inauguration of Cleveland saved the day for him. Congress was +deadlocked on the money question, though called in a special session to +grant relief; and Cleveland at length resorted to the sale of bonds +under an act of 1875 to procure gold for the Treasury. The first sale +was made in January, 1894, and the financiers, to pay for the bonds, +drew nearly half of the amount of gold out of the Treasury itself. + +The "endless chain" system of selling bonds to get gold for the +Treasury, only to have it drawn out immediately, aroused a great hue and +cry against the financial interests. In November, 1894, a second sale +was made with similar results, and in February, 1895, Cleveland in sheer +desperation called in Mr. J. P. Morgan and arranged for the purchase of +gold at a fixed price by the issue of bonds, with an understanding that +the bankers would do their best to protect the Treasury. To the silver +advocates and the Populists this was the climax of "Cleveland's +iniquitous career of subserviency to Wall Street," for it seemed to show +that the government was powerless before the demands of the financiers. +This criticism forced the administration to throw open the issue of +January 6, 1896, to the public, and the result was decidedly +advantageous to the government--apparently an indictment of Cleveland's +policy. Congress in the meantime did nothing to relieve the +administration. + +While the government was wrestling with the financial problem, the +country was in the midst of an industrial crisis. The number of +bankruptcies rose with startling rapidity, hundreds of factories were +closed, and idle men thronged the streets hunting for work. According to +a high authority, Professor D. R. Dewey, "never before had the evil of +unemployment been so widespread in the United States." It was so +pressing that Jacob Coxey, a business man from Ohio, planned a march of +idle men on Washington in 1894 to demand relief at the hands of the +government. His "army," as it was called, ended in a fiasco, but it +directed the attention of the country to a grave condition of affairs. + +Reductions in wages produced severe strikes, one of which--the Pullman +strike of Chicago--led to the paralysis of the railways entering +Chicago, because the Pullman employees were supported by the American +Railway Union. The disorders connected with the strike--which are now +known to have been partially fomented by the companies themselves for +the purpose of inducing Federal interference--led President Cleveland to +dispatch troops to Chicago, against the ardent protest of Governor +Altgeld, who declared that the state of Illinois was able to manage her +own affairs without intermeddling from Washington. The president of the +union, Mr. E. V. Debs, was thrown into prison for violating a "blanket +injunction"[26] issued by the local Federal court, and thus the strike +was broken, leaving behind it a legacy of bitterness which has not yet +disappeared. + +The most important piece of legislation during Cleveland's second +administration was the Wilson tariff bill--a measure which was so +objectionable to the President that he could not sign it, and it +therefore became law without his approval. The only popular feature in +it was the income tax provision, which was annulled the following year +by the Supreme Court. Having broken with his party on the money +question, and having failed to secure a revision of the tariff to suit +his ideas, Cleveland retired in 1897, and one of his party members +declared that he was "the most cordially hated Democrat in the country." + + +_Party Issues_ + +The tariff was one of the issues bequeathed to the parties from +ante-bellum days, but there was no very sharply defined battle over it +until the campaign of 1888. The Republicans, in their platform of 1860, +had declared that "sound policy requires such an adjustment of these +imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of +the whole country"; and although from time to time they advocated tariff +reductions, they remained consistently a protectionist party. The high +war-tariffs, however, were revenue measures, although the protection +feature was by no means lost sight of. In the campaign of 1864, both +parties were silent on the question; four years later it again emerged +in the Democratic platform, but it was not hotly debated in the ensuing +contest. The Democrats demanded "a tariff for revenue upon foreign +imports and such equal taxation under the internal revenue laws as will +afford incidental protection to domestic manufactures." + +From that campaign forward the Democrats appeared to favor a "revenue +tariff" in their platforms. It is true they accepted the Liberal +Republican platform in 1872, which frankly begged the question by +acknowledging the wide differences of opinion on the subject and +remitted the discussion of the matter "to the people in their +congressional districts and the decision of Congress thereon." But in +1876, the Democrats came back to the old doctrine and demanded "that all +custom-house taxation shall be only for revenue." In their victorious +campaign of 1884, however, they were vague. They pledged themselves "to +revise the tariff in a spirit of fairness to all interests"; but they +promised, in making reductions, not "to injure any domestic industries, +but rather to promote their healthy growth," and to be mindful of +capital and labor at every step. Subject to these "limitations" they +favored confining taxation to public purposes only. It was small wonder +that Democratic orators during the campaign could promise "no +disturbance of business in case of victory." + +Cleveland, in the beginning of his administration, faithfully followed +his platform, for in his first message he "placed the need of tax +reduction solely on the ground of excess revenue and declared that there +was no occasion for a discussion of the wisdom or expediency of the +protective system." But within two years he had seen a new light, and he +devoted his message of December, 1887, exclusively to a discussion of +the tariff issue, in vague and uncertain language it is true, but still +characterized by such a ringing denunciation of the "vicious, illegal, +and inequitable" system of taxation then in vogue, that the Republicans +were able to call it, with some show of justification, a "free trade +document." The New York _Tribune_ announced with evident glee that +Cleveland had made "the issue boldly and distinctly and that the +theories and aims of the ultra-opponents of protection have a new and +zealous advocate." Of course, Cleveland hotly denied that he was trying +to commit his party to a simple doctrine of free trade or even the old +principle of the platform, "tariff for revenue only." Moreover, the +Democrats, in their platform of the following year, while indorsing +Cleveland's messages, renewed the tariff pledges of their last platform +and promised to take "labor" into a careful consideration in any +revision. + +In spite of the equivocal position taken by the Democrats, the +Republicans made great political capital out of the affair, apparently +on the warranted assumption that the voters would not read Cleveland's +message or the platform of his party. In their declaration of principles +in 1888, the Republicans made the tariff the leading issue: "We are +uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection. We +protest against its destruction, as proposed by the President and his +party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interest +of America. We accept the issue and confidently appeal to the people for +their judgment. The protective system must be maintained.... We favor +the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any +part of our protective system, at the joint behest of the whisky trusts +and the agents of foreign manufacturers." Again, in 1892, the +Republicans attempted to make the tariff the issue: "We reaffirm the +American doctrine of protection. We call attention to its growth abroad. +We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due +to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican Congress," _i.e._ the +McKinley bill. + +The effect of this Republican hammering on the subject was to bring out +a solemn declaration on the part of the Democrats. "We denounce," they +say in 1892, "the Republican protection as a fraud, a robbery of the +great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few. We +declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that +the Federal government has no constitutional power to impose and collect +tariff duties, except for the purposes of revenue only, and we demand +that the collection of such taxes shall be limited to the necessities of +the government when honestly and economically administered." Although +elected on this platform, the Democrats did not regard their mandate as +warranting a serious attack on the protective system, for the Wilson +tariff act of 1894 was so disappointing to moderate tariff reformers +that Cleveland refused to sign it. + +A close analysis of the platforms and performances of the parties from +1876 to 1896 shows no clear alignment at all on the tariff. Both parties +promise reductions, but neither is specific as to details. The +Republicans, while making much of the protective system, could not +ignore the demand for tariff reform; and the Democrats, while repeating +the well-worn phrases about tariff for revenue, were unable to overlook +the fact that a drastic assault upon the protective interests would mean +their undoing. In Congress, the Republicans made no serious efforts to +lower the duties, and the attempts of the Democrats produced meager +results. + + * * * * * + +Among the new issues raised by the economic revolution was the control +of giant combinations of capital. Although some of the minor parties had +declaimed against trusts as early as 1876, and the Democratic party, in +1884, had denounced "land monopolies," industrial combinations did not +figure as distinct issues in the platforms of the old parties until +1888. In that year, the Democrats vaguely referred to unnecessary +taxation as a source of trusts and combinations, which, "while unduly +enriching the few that combine, rob the body of our citizens by +depriving them of the benefits of natural competition." Here appears the +favorite party slogan that "the tariff is the mother of the trusts," and +the intimation that the remedy is the restoration of "natural +competition" by a reduction of the tariff. The Republicans in 1888 also +recognized the existence of the trust problem by declaring against all +combinations designed to control trade arbitrarily, and recommended to +Congress and the states legislation within their jurisdictions to +"prevent the execution of all schemes to oppress the people by undue +charges on their supplies or by unjust rates for the transportation of +their products to market." + +Both old parties returned to the trust question again in 1892. The +Democrats recognized "in the trusts and combinations which are designed +to enable capital to secure more than its just share of the joint +product of capital and labor, a natural consequence of the prohibitive +taxes which prevent the free competition which is the life of honest +trade, but we believe the worst evils can be abated by law." Thereupon +follows a demand for additional legislation restraining and controlling +trusts. The Republicans simply reaffirmed their declaration of 1888, +indorsed the Sherman anti-trust law already enacted by Congress in 1890, +and favored new legislation remedying defects and rendering the +enforcement of the law more complete. + +The railway issue emerged in 1880 when the Republicans, boasting that +under their administration railways had increased "from thirty-two +thousand miles in 1860 to eighty-two thousand miles in 1879," pronounced +against any further grants of public domain to railway corporations. The +Democrats went on record against discriminations in favor of +transportation lines, but left the subject with that pronouncement. Four +years later the subject had taken on more precision. The Republicans +favored the public regulation of railway corporations and indorsed +legislation preventing unjust discriminations and excessive charges for +transportation, but in the campaign of 1888 the overshadowing tariff +issue enabled them to omit references to railway regulation. The +Democrats likewise ignored the subject in 1884 and 1888. In 1892 the +question was overlooked by the platforms of both parties, although the +minor parties were loudly demanding action on the part of the Federal +Government. The old parties agreed, however, on the necessity of +legislation protecting the life and limb of employees engaged in +interstate transportation. + + * * * * * + +Even before the Civil War, the labor vote had become a factor that could +not be ignored, and both old parties consistently conciliated it by many +references. The Republicans in 1860 commended that "policy of national +exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages." The defense of +the protective system was gradually shifted by the Republicans, until, +judging from the platforms, its continuation was justifiable principally +on account of their anxiety to safeguard the American workingman against +"the pauper labor of Europe." The Democrats could not overlook the +force of this appeal, and in their repeated demands for the reduction of +the tariff they announced that no devotion to free trade principles +would allow them to pass legislation which might put American labor "in +competition with the underpaid millions of the Old World." In 1880, the +Democratic party openly professed itself the friend of labor and the +laboring man and pledged itself to "protect him against the cormorant +and the commune." In their platform of 1888, the Democrats promised to +make "due allowance for the difference between the wages of American and +foreign labor" in their tariff revisions; and in 1892 they deplored the +fact that under the McKinley tariff there had been ten reductions in the +wages of the workingmen to one increase. In the latter year, the +Republicans urged that on articles competing with American products the +duties should "equal the difference between wages abroad and at home." + +Among the more concrete offerings to labor were the promises of +homesteads in the West by the Republicans--promises which the Democrats +reiterated; protection against Chinese and coolie labor, particularly in +the West, safety-appliance laws applicable to interstate carriers, the +establishment of a labor bureau at Washington, the prohibition of the +importation of alien laborers under contract, and the abolition of +prison contract labor. On these matters there was no marked division +between the two old parties; each advocated measures of its own in +general terms and denounced the propositions of the other in equally +general terms. + +The money question bulked large in the platforms, but until 1896 there +was nothing like a clean-cut division.[27] Both parties hedged and +remained consistently vague. The Republicans in 1888 declared in favor +of "the use of both gold and silver as money," and condemned "the policy +of the Democratic administration in its efforts to demonetize silver." +Again, in 1892, the Republicans declared: "The American people, from +tradition and interest, favor bimetallism, and the Republican party +demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with such +restriction and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, +as will secure the maintenance of the parity of values of the two +metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar, +whether of silver, gold, or paper, shall be at all times equal." The +Democrats likewise hedged their profession of faith about with +limitations and provisions. They declared in favor of both metals and no +discrimination for mintage; but the unit of coinage of both metals "must +be of equal intrinsic or exchangeable value, or be adjusted through +international agreement or by such safeguards of legislation as shall +insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals." Thus both of +the platforms of 1892 are paragons of ambiguity. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [24] See below, p. 130. + + [25] Below, p. 133. The tenure of office law was repealed in + 1887. The presidential succession act was passed in 1886. + + [26] A judicial order to all and sundry forbidding them to + interfere with the movement of the trains. + + [27] See below, p. 119. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +TWO DECADES OF FEDERAL LEGISLATION, 1877-1896 + + +_Financial Questions_ + +It was inevitable that financial measures should occupy the first place +in the legislative labors of Congress for a long time after the War. +That conflict had left an enormous debt of more than two billion eight +hundred million dollars, and the taxes were not only high, but they +reached nearly every source which was open to the Federal government. +There were outstanding more than four hundred millions of legal tender +treasury notes, "greenbacks," which had seriously depreciated and, on +account of their variability as compared with gold, offered unlimited +opportunities for speculation and jugglery in Wall Street--of which Jay +Gould's attempt to corner the gold market and the precipitation of the +disaster of Black Friday in 1869 were only spectacular incidents. + +Three distinct problems confronted the national administration: the +refunding of the national debt at lower rates of interest, the final +determination of the place and basis of the paper money in the currency +system, and the comparative treatment of gold and silver coinage. The +first of these tasks was undertaken by Congress during Grant's +administration, when, by the refunding acts of 1870 and 1871, the +Treasury was empowered to substitute four, four and one-half, and five +per cent bonds for the war issues at the high rates of five, six, and +even seven per cent. + +The two remaining problems were by no means so easy of solution, because +they went to the root of the financial system of the country. Most of +the financial interests of the East were anxious to return to a specie +basis for the currency by retiring the legal tender notes or by placing +them on a metallic foundation. The Treasury under President Johnson +began to withdraw the greenbacks from circulation under authority of an +act of Congress passed in 1866; but it soon met the determined +resistance of the paper money party, which looked upon contraction as a +banker's device to appreciate the value of gold and reduce the amount of +money in circulation, thus bringing low prices for labor and +commodities. Within two years Congress peremptorily stopped the +withdrawal of additional Treasury notes.[28] + +Shortly after forbidding the further retirement of legal tender notes, +Congress reassured the hard money party by passing, on March 18, 1869, +an act promising, on the faith of the United States, to pay in coin "all +obligations not otherwise redeemable," and to redeem the legal tender +notes in specie "as soon as practicable." A further gain for hard money +was made in 1875 by the passage of the Resumption Act, providing that on +and after January 1, 1879, "the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem +in coin the United States legal tender notes then outstanding, on their +presentation for redemption at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of +the United States in the City of New York, in sums of not less than +fifty dollars." When the day set for redemption arrived, the Secretary +of the Treasury was prepared with a large hoard of gold, and public +confidence in the government was so high that comparatively little paper +was presented in exchange for specie. + +Out of the conflict over the inflation and contraction of the currency +grew the struggle over "free silver" which was not ended until the +campaign of 1900. To understand this controversy we must go back beyond +the Civil War. The Constitution, as drafted in 1787, gives Congress the +power to coin money and regulate the value thereof and forbids the +states to issue bills of credit or make anything but the gold and silver +coin of the United States legal tender in the payment of debts. Nothing +is said in that instrument about the power of Congress to issue paper +money, and it is questionable whether the framers intended to leave the +door open for legal tenders or notes of any kind. + +In 1792, the new Federal government began to coin gold and silver at the +ratio of 1 to 15, but it was soon found that at this ratio gold was +undervalued, and consequently little or no gold was brought to the +Treasury to be coined. At length, in 1834, Congress, by law, fixed the +ratio between the two metals approximately at 16 to 1; but this was +found to be an overvaluation of gold or an undervaluation of silver, as +some said, and as a result silver was not brought to the Treasury for +coinage and almost dropped out of the monetary system. Finally, in 1873, +when the silver dollar was already practically out of circulation, +Congress discontinued the coinage of the standard silver dollar +altogether--"demonetized" it--and left gold as the basis of the monetary +system.[29] + +It happened about this time that the price of silver began to decline +steadily, until within twenty years it was about half the price it was +in 1870. Some men attributed this fall in the price of silver to the +fact that Germany had demonetized it in 1871, and that about the same +time rich deposits of silver were discovered in the United States. +Others declared that silver had not fallen so much in price, but that +gold, in which it was measured, had risen on account of the fact that +silver had been demonetized and gold given a monopoly of the coinage +market. On this matter Republicans and Democrats were both divided, for +it brought a new set of economic antagonisms into play--the debtor and +the creditor--as opposed to the antagonisms growing out of slavery and +reconstruction. + +Some Republicans, like Senator Morrill, of Vermont, firmly believed that +no approach could be made to a genuine bimetallic currency, both metals +freely and equally circulating, without the cooperation of the leading +commercial nations of the world; and they also went so far as to doubt +whether it would be possible even then to adjust the "fickle ratio" +finely enough to prevent supply and demand from driving one or the other +metal out of circulation. Other Republicans, like Blaine, declared that +the Constitution required Congress to make both gold and silver coin the +money of the land, and that the only question was how best to adjust the +ratio. In a speech in the Senate on February 7, 1878, Blaine said: "I +believe then if Germany were to remonetize silver and the kingdoms and +states of the Latin Union were to reopen their mints, silver would at +once resume its former relation with gold.... I believe the struggle now +going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold +standard would, if successful, produce widespread disaster throughout +the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money and +establishment of gold as the sole unit of value must have a ruinous +effect on all forms of property, _except those investments which yield a +fixed return in money_." + +It was this exception made by Blaine that formed the crux of the whole +issue. The contest was largely between creditors and debtors. Indeed, it +is thus frankly stated by Senator Jones of Nevada in a speech in the +Senate on May 12, 1890: "Three fourths of the business enterprises of +this country are conducted on borrowed capital. Three fourths of the +homes and farms that stand in the name of the actual occupants have been +bought on time, and a very large proportion of them are mortgaged for +the payment of some part of the purchase money. Under the operation of a +shrinkage in the volume of money, this enormous mass of borrowers, at +the maturity of their respective debts, though nominally paying no more +than the amount borrowed, with interest, are, in reality, in the amount +of the principal alone, returning a percentage of value greater than +they received--more in equity than they contracted to pay, and +oftentimes more in substance than they profited by the loan.... It is a +remarkable circumstance that throughout the entire range of economic +discussion in gold-standard circles, it seems to be taken for granted +that a change in the value of the money unit is a matter of no +significance, and imports no mischief to society, _so long as the change +is in one direction_. Who ever heard from an Eastern journal any +complaint against a contraction of our money volume, any admonition that +in a shrinking volume of money lurk evils of the utmost magnitude?... In +all discussions of the subject the creditors attempt to brush aside the +equities involved by sneering at the debtors." Both parties to the +conflict assumed a monopoly of virtue and economic wisdom, and the +controversy proceeded on that plane, with no concessions except where +necessary to secure some practical gain. + +By 1877, silver had fallen to the ratio of seventeen to one as compared +with gold, and silver mine owners were anxious to have the government +buy their bullion at the old rate existing before the "demonetization" +of 1873. In this they were supported by the farmers and the debtor +classes generally, who thought that the gold market was substantially +controlled by a relatively few financiers and that the appreciation of +the yellow metal meant lower prices for their commodities and the +maintenance of high interest rates. Criticism was leveled particularly +against the bondholders, who demanded the payment of interest and +principal in gold, in spite of the fact that, at the time the bonds were +issued, the government had not demonetized silver and could have paid +in silver dollars containing 412-1/2 grains each. In addition to the +holders of the national debt, there were the owners of industrial, +state, and municipal bonds and railway and other securities who likewise +sought payment in a metal that was appreciating in value. + +In the Forty-fourth Congress, the silver party, led by Bland, of +Missouri, attempted to force the passage of a law providing for the free +and unlimited coinage of silver approximately at the ratio of sixteen to +one, but their measure was amended on the motion of Allison, of Iowa, in +the Senate, in such a manner as simply to authorize the Secretary of the +Treasury to purchase not less than two million nor more than four +million dollars' worth of silver each month to be coined into silver +dollars. The measure thus amended was vetoed by Hayes, but was repassed +over his protest and became a law in 1878, popularly known as the +Bland-Allison Act. The opponents of contraction were able to secure the +passage of another act in the same year forbidding the further +retirement of legal tender notes and providing that the Treasury, +instead of canceling such notes on receiving them, should reissue them +and keep them in circulation. + +None of the disasters prophesied by the gold advocates followed the +enactment of the Bland-Allison bill, but no one was satisfied with it. +The value of silver as compared with gold steadily declined, until the +ratio was twenty-two to one in 1887. The silver party claimed that the +trouble was not with silver, but that the appreciation of gold had been +largely induced by the government's discriminating policy. The gold +party pointed to the millions of silver dollars coined and unissued +filling the mints and storage vaults to bursting, all for the benefit of +the silver mine owners. The retort of the silver party was a law issuing +silver certificates in denominations of one, two, and five dollars, in +1886. This was supplemented four years later by the Sherman silver +purchase act of 1890 (repealed in 1893), which provided for the purchase +of 4,500,000 ounces of silver monthly and the issue of notes on that +basis redeemable in gold or silver at the discretion of the Treasury. +Congress took occasion to declare also that it was the intention of the +United States to maintain the two metals on a parity--a vague phrase +which was widely used by both parties to conciliate all factions. +Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were as yet ready for a +straight party fight on the silver issue. + + +_Tariff Legislation_ + +At the opening of Hayes' administration the Civil War tariff was still +in force. It is true, there had been some slight reduction in 1872, but +this was offset by increases three years later. During the two decades +following, there was much political controversy over protection, as we +have seen, and there were three important revisions of the protective +system: in 1883 on the initiation of the Senate, in 1890 when the +McKinley bill was passed, and in 1894 when the Wilson bill was enacted +under Democratic auspices. + +The first of these revisions was induced largely by the growing surplus +in the Federal Treasury and the inability of Congress to dispose of it, +even by the most extravagant appropriations. In 1882, the surplus rose +to the startling figure of $145,000,000, and a tariff commission was +appointed to consider, among other things, some method of cutting down +the revenues by a revision of duties. This commission reported a revised +schedule of rates providing for considerable reductions, but still on a +highly protective basis. The House at that time was Republican, and the +Senate was equally divided, with two independents holding the balance of +power. The upper house took the lead in the revision and escaped the +constitutional provision requiring the initiation of revenue bills in +the lower house by tacking their measure to a bill which the House had +passed at the preceding session. + +Under the circumstances neither party was responsible for the measure, +and it is small wonder that it pleased no one, after the fashion of +tariff bills. There was a slight reduction on coarse woolens, cottons, +iron, steel, and several other staple commodities, but not enough to +place the industries concerned on a basis of competition with European +manufactures. New England agricultural products were carefully +protected, but the wool growers of Ohio and other middle western states +lost the ad valorem duties on wool. The Democrats in the House denounced +the measure, and most of them voted against it because, they alleged, it +did not go far enough. William McKinley, of Ohio, then beginning his +career, opposed it on other grounds; and Senator Sherman from the same +state afterward regretted that he had not defeated the bill altogether. +The tariff was "revised but not changed," as a wag put it, and no one +was enthusiastic about the measure. + +Almost immediately attempts were made to amend the law of 1883. For two +years the Democrats, under the leadership of W. R. Morrison, chairman of +the Ways and Means Committee, pottered about with the tariff, but +accomplished nothing, partially on account of the opposition of +protectionist Democrats, like Randall, of Pennsylvania. In 1886, +President Cleveland, in his second message, took up the tariff +seriously; and under the leadership of Roger Q. Mills, of Texas, the +Democratic House, two years later, passed the "Mills bill" only to see +it die in the Senate. The Republican victory of 1888, though narrow, was +a warning that no compromise would be made with those who struck a blow +at protection. + +The Republican House set to work upon a revision of the tariff with a +view to establishing high protection, and in May, 1890, Mr. McKinley, +chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, introduced his bill increasing +the duties generally. In the preparation of this measure, the great +manufacturing interests had been freely consulted, and their requests +for rates were frequently accepted without change, or made the basis for +negotiations with opposing forces, as in the case, for example, of the +binding twine trust and the objecting farmers. On the insistence of Mr. +Blaine, then Secretary of State, a "reciprocity" clause was introduced +into the bill, authorizing the President to place higher duties on +certain commodities coming from other countries, in case he deemed their +retaliatory tariffs "unreasonable or unjust." + +The opposition to the McKinley bill was unusually violent, and no +opportunity was given to test its working before the country swung again +to the Democrats in the autumn of 1890; but the Republican majority in +the Senate prevented the House from carrying through any of its attacks +on the system. The election of Cleveland two years later and the capture +of the Senate as well by the Democrats seemed to promise that the +long-standing threat of a general downward revision would be carried +out. William Wilson, of West Virginia, reported the new bill from the +Ways and Means Committee in December, 1893. Although it made numerous +definite reductions in duties, it was by no means a drastic "free trade" +measure, such as the Republicans had prophesied in their campaign +speeches. The bill passed the House by a large majority, with only a few +Democrats voting against it. Even radical Democrats from the West, who +would have otherwise demanded further reductions, were conciliated by +the provision for a tax on all incomes over $4000. + +When the Wilson bill left the House of Representatives, it had some of +the appearances at least of a "tariff-for-revenue" measure. Reductions +had been made all along the line, not without regard, of course, for +sectional interests, in memory of the principle that the "tariff is a +local issue." But the Senate made short work of it. There the individual +member counted for more. He had the right to talk as long as he pleased, +and he could trade his vote on schedules in which he was not personally +interested for votes on his own schedules. Thus by forceful and +ingenious manipulation, the Wilson bill was shorn of its most drastic +features (not without some rejoicing in the House as well as in the +Senate), and it went to President Cleveland in such a form that he +refused to accept it as a tariff reform measure and simply allowed it to +become a law without his signature. + +The action of the Democratic Senate is easily accounted for. Hill, of +New York, was almost rabid in his opposition to the income tax +provision. Louisiana was a great sugar-growing state, and her Senators +had their own notion as to what were the proper duties on sugar. Alabama +had rising iron industries, and her Senators shared the emotions of the +representatives from Pennsylvania as the proposed reductions on iron +products were contemplated. Senator Gorman, of Maryland, had no more +heart in "attacking the interests" than did Senator Quay, of +Pennsylvania, who, by the way, used his "inside information" during the +passage of the bill to make money by speculating in sugar stocks. + +With glee the Republicans taunted the Democrats that their professions +were one thing and their performances another. "This is not a protective +bill," said Senator O. H. Platt, of Connecticut. "It is not in any sense +a recognition of the doctrine of protection high or low. It is not a +bill for revenue with incidental protection. It is a bill (and the truth +may as well be told in the Senate of the United States) which proceeds +upon free trade principles, except as to such articles as it has been +necessary to levy protective duties upon to get the votes of the +Democratic Senators to pass the bill.... No such marvel has ever been +seen under the sun as all the Democratic Senators, with the possible +exception of the Senator from Texas (Mr. Mills), giving way to this +demand of the sugar trust. How this chamber has rung with the +denunciations of the sugar trust! How the ears of waiting and listening +multitudes in Democratic political meetings have been vexed with +reiterated denunciations of this sugar trust! And here every Democratic +Senator, with one exception, is ready to vote for a prohibitive duty +upon refined sugar." + +Twenty years of tariff agitation and tinkering had thus ended in general +dissatisfaction with the promises and performances of both parties. The +Republicans had advanced to a position of high protection based +principally upon the demands of manufacturing interests themselves, +modified by such protests on the part of consumers as became vocal and +effective in politics. The Democrats had been driven, under Mr. +Cleveland's leadership, to what seemed to be a disposition to reduce the +tariff to something approaching a revenue basis, but when it came to an +actual performance, their practical views, as manifested in the +Wilson-Gorman act, were not far behind those of the opposing party. +Representatives of both parties talked as if the issue was a contest +between tariff-for-revenue and protection, but in fact it was not. The +question was really, "which of the several regions shall receive the +most protection?" Of attempts to get the tariff upon a "scientific +basis," striking a balance among all the interests of the country, +there was none. Ten years of political warfare over free silver and +imperialism were to elapse before there could be a renewed examination +of protection as a system. + + +_The Civil Service Law of 1883_ + +The "spoils system" of making Federal offices the reward for partisan +services began to draw a strong fire of criticism in Grant's first +administration. It was natural that the Democrats should view with +disfavor a practice which excluded them entirely from serving their +country in an official capacity, and the reformers regarded it as a +menace to American institutions because it was the basis of a "political +machine" which controlled primaries and elections and shut out the +discussion of real issues. In response to this combined attack, Congress +passed in 1871 a law authorizing the President to prescribe regulations +for admission to the civil service and provide methods for ascertaining +the fitness of candidates--a law which promised well while the +distinguished champion of reform, George William Curtis, was head of the +board in charge of its administration. Congress, however, had accepted +the reform reluctantly and refused to give it adequate financial +support. After two years' experience with the law, Curtis resigned, and +within a short time the whole scheme fell to the ground. + +The reformers, however, did not give up hope, for they were sufficiently +strong to compel the respect of the Democrats, and the latter, by their +insistence on a reform that cost them nothing, forced the Republicans +to give the merit system some prominence in their campaign promises. +But practical politicians in both parties had small esteem for a plan +that would take away the incentive to work for victory on the part of +their followers. It was scornfully called "snivel service" and +"goody-goody reform"; and the old practices of distributing offices to +henchmen and raising campaign funds by heavy assessments on +officeholders were continued. + +Never was the spoils system more odious than when the assassination of +Garfield by a disappointed office hunter startled the country from its +apathy. Within a year, a Senate committee had reported favorably on a +civil service reform bill. It declared that the President had to wear +his life out giving audiences to throngs of beggars who besieged the +executive mansion, and that the spectacle of the chief magistrate of the +nation dispensing patronage to "a hungry, clamorous, crowding, and +jostling multitude" was humiliating to the patriotic citizen. And with +the Congressman the system "is ever present. When he awakes in the +morning it is at his door, and when he retires at night it haunts his +chamber. It goes before him, it follows after him, and it meets him on +the way." The only relief, concluded the report, was to be found in a +thoroughgoing merit system of appointing civil servants. + +At length in 1883 Congress passed the civil service act authorizing, but +not commanding, the President to appoint a commission and extend the +merit system to certain Federal offices. The commission was to be +composed of three members, not more than two of the same party, +appointed by the President and Senate, and was charged with the duty of +aiding the President, at his request, in preparing suitable rules for +competitive examinations designed to test the fitness of applicants for +offices in the public service, already classified or to be classified by +executive order or by further legislation. The act itself brought a few +offices under the merit system, but it left the extension of the +principle largely to the discretion of the President. When the law went +into force, it applied only to about 14,000 positions, but it was +steadily extended, particularly by retiring Presidents anxious to secure +the jobs already held by their partisans or to improve the efficiency of +the service. Neither Cleveland nor Harrison enforced the law to the +satisfaction of the reformers, for the pressure of the office seekers, +particularly under Cleveland's first administration, was almost +irresistible. + + +_Railway and Trust Regulation_ + +In the beginning of the railway era in the United States, Congress made +no attempt to devise a far-sighted plan of public control, but +negligently devoted its attention to granting generous favors to +railways. It was not until the stock-watering, high-financing, +discriminations and rebates had disgraced the country that Congress was +moved to act. It is true that President Grant in his message of 1872 +recommended, and a Senate committee approved, a comprehensive plan for +regulating railways, but there was no practical outcome. The railway +interests were too strong in Congress to permit the enactment of any +drastic regulatory laws. But at length the Granger movement, which had +produced during the seventies so much railway regulation in the +States,[30] appeared in Congress, and stirred by a long report by a +Senate committee enumerating a terrifying list of abuses against +shippers particularly, Congress passed, in 1887, the first important +interstate commerce law. + +This act was a timid, halting measure, and the Supreme Court almost +immediately sheared away its effectiveness by decisions in favor of the +railway companies. The law created a commission of five members +empowered to investigate the operations of common carriers and order +those who violated the law to desist. The act itself forbade +discriminations in rates, pooling traffic, and the charging of more for +"short" than "long hauls" over the same line, except under special +circumstances. In spite of the good intentions of the commission, the +law was practically a dead letter. According to a careful scholar, +Professor Davis R. Dewey, "By 1890 the practice of cut rates to favored +shippers and cities was all but universal at the West; passes were +generally issued; rebates were charged up to maintenance of way account; +special privileges of yardage, loading, and cartage were granted; +freight was underbilled or carried under a wrong classification and +secret notification of intended reduction of rates was made to favored +shippers.... The ingenuity of officials in breaking the spirit of the +law knew no limit, and is a discouraging commentary on the dishonesty +which had penetrated into the heart of business enterprise."[31] + +The critics of railway policy who were able to force the passage of the +interstate commerce act usually coupled the denunciation of the +industrial monopolies with their attacks on common carriers; and, three +years after the establishment of the interstate commerce commission, +Congress, feeling that some kind of action was demanded by the political +situation, passed the Sherman anti-trust law of 1890. There was no +consensus of opinion among the political leaders as to the significance +of the trust. Blaine declared that "trusts were largely a private affair +with which neither the President nor any private citizen had any +particular right to interfere." Speaker Reed dismissed the subject by +announcing that he had heard "more idiotic raving, more pestiferous +rant, on that subject than on all others put together." Judge Cooley, on +seeing "the utterly heartless manner in which the trusts sometimes have +closed many factories and turned men willing to be industrious into the +streets in order that they may increase profits already reasonably +large," asked whether the trust "as we see it is not a public enemy; +whether it is not teaching the laborer dangerous lessons; whether it is +not helping to breed anarchy." + +In the midst of this general confusion of opinion on the trust, it is +not surprising that Congress in the Sherman law of 1890 enunciated no +clear principles. Apparently it intended to restore competition by +declaring illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or +otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the +several states or with foreign nations." But a study of the debates over +the law fails to show any consistent opinion as to what combinations +were included within the prohibition or as to the exact meaning of +"restraint of trade." Of course, the lawyers pointed at once to the +simplicity of the old common law doctrine that conspiracies in restraint +of trade are illegal, but this was an answer in verbiage which gave no +real clew to concrete forms of restraint under the complex conditions of +modern life. + +The vagueness of the Sherman anti-trust law was a subject of remark +during its passage through Congress. O. H. Platt, in the Senate, +criticized the bill as attacking all combinations, no matter what their +practices or forms. "I believe," he said, "that every man in business--I +do not care whether he is a farmer, a laborer, a miner, a sailor, +manufacturer, a merchant--has a right, a legal and a moral right, to +obtain a fair profit upon his business and his work; and if he is driven +by fierce competition to a spot where his business is unremunerative, I +believe it is his right to combine for the purpose of raising prices +until they shall be fair and remunerative. This bill makes no +distinction. It says that every combination which has the effect in any +way to advance prices is illegal and void.... The theory of this bill is +that prices must never be advanced by two or more persons, no matter how +ruinously low they may be. That theory I denounce as utterly untenable, +as immoral." + +Senator Platt then went on to say that the whole subject had not been +adequately considered and that the bill was a piece of politics, not of +statesmanship. "I am sorry, Mr. President," he continued, "that we have +not had a bill which had been carefully prepared, which had been +thoughtfully prepared, which had been honestly prepared, to meet the +object which we all desire to meet. The conduct of the Senate for the +past three days--and I make no personal allusions--has not been in the +line of the honest preparation of a bill to prohibit and punish trusts. +It has been in the line of getting some bill with that title that we +might go to the country with. The questions of whether the bill would be +operative, of how it would operate, or whether it was within the power +of Congress to enact it, have been whistled down the wind in this Senate +as idle talk, and the whole effort has been to get some bill headed: 'A +Bill to Punish Trusts,' with which to go to the country." + +Senator Hoar, who claimed that he was the author of the Sherman +anti-trust law, says, however, that the act was not directed against +_all_ combinations in business. "It was expected," he says, "that the +court in administering that law would confine its operations to cases +which are contrary to the policy of the law, treating the words +'agreements in restraint of trade' as having a technical meaning, such +as they are supposed to have in England. The Supreme Court of the United +States went in this particular farther than was expected.[32] ... It has +not been carried to its full extent since, and I think will never be +held to prohibit those lawful and harmless combinations which have been +permitted in this country and in England without complaint, like +contracts of partnership, which are usually considered harmless." + +The immediate effects of the Sherman anti-trust law were wholly +negligible. Seven of the eight judicial decisions under the law during +Harrison's administration were against the government, and no indictment +of offenders against the law went so far as a trial. During Cleveland's +second term the law was a dead letter. Meanwhile trusts and combinations +continued to multiply. + + +_The Income Tax Law of 1894_ + +In the debates over tariff reduction, silver, and paper money, evidences +of group and class conflicts were almost constantly apparent, but it was +not until the enactment of the income tax provision of 1894 that +political leaders of national standing frankly avowed a class +purpose--the shifting of a portion of the burden of national taxes from +the commodities consumed by the poor to the incomes of the rich. + +The movement for an income tax found its support especially among the +farmers of the West and South and the working classes of the great +cities. The demand for it had been appearing for some time in the +platforms of the agrarian and labor parties. The National or Greenback +party, in its platform of 1884, demanded "a graduated income tax" and "a +wise revision of the tariff laws with a view to raising revenues from +luxury rather than necessity." The Anti-monopoly party, in the same +year, demanded, "a graduated income tax and a tariff, which is a tax +upon the people, that shall be so levied as to bear as lightly as +possible upon necessaries. We denounce the present tariff as being +largely in the interest of monopolies and demand that it be speedily and +radically reformed in the interest of labor instead of capital." The +Union Labor convention at Cincinnati in 1888 declared in its platform: +"A graduated income tax is the most equitable system of taxation, +placing the burden of government upon those who can best afford to pay, +instead of laying it upon the farmers and producers and exempting +millionaire bondholders and corporations." + +In the campaign of 1892, the demand for an income tax was made by the +Populist party and by the Socialist Labor party. The former frankly +declared war on the rich, proclaiming in its platform that, "The fruits +of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes +for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors +of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty." Among the +remedies for this dire condition of things the Populists demanded "a +graduated income tax." The Democrats, at their convention of that year, +denounced the McKinley tariff law "as the culminating atrocity of class +legislation," and declared that "The Federal government has no +constitutional power to impose and collect tariff duties except for the +purpose of revenue only." + +When it was discovered in the ensuing election that the Democratic +party, with its low tariff pronunciamento was victorious, and that the +Populists with their radical platform had carried four western states +and polled more than a million votes, shrewd political observers saw +that some revision in the revenue system of the Federal government was +imperative. President Cleveland, in his message of December, 1893, in +connection with the recommendation for a revision of the tariff, stated +that, "the committee ... have wisely embraced in their plans a few +additional revenue taxes, including a small tax upon incomes derived +from certain corporate investments." It is not clear what committee the +President had in mind, and Senator Hill declared that the Ways and Means +Committee had not agreed "upon any income tax or other internal +taxation"; although it had undoubtedly been considering the subject in +connection with the revision of the tariff. + +When the tariff bill was introduced in Congress, on December 19, 1893, +it contained no provision for an income tax, and it was not until +January 29 that an income tax amendment to the Wilson bill was +introduced in behalf of the Committee. In defending his amendment, the +mover, Mr. McMillin, declared that the purpose of the tax was to place a +small per cent of the enormous Federal burden "upon the accumulated +wealth of the country instead of placing all upon the consumption of the +people." He announced that they did not come there in any spirit of +antagonism to wealth, that they did not intend to put an undue embargo +upon wealth, but that they did intend to make accumulated wealth pay +some share of the expenses of the government. The tariff, in his +opinion, taxed want, not wealth. He was impatient with the hue and cry +that was raised, "when it is proposed to shift this burden from those +who cannot bear it to those who can; to divide it between consumption +and wealth; to shift it from the laborer who has nothing but his power +to toil and sweat to the man who has a fortune made or inherited." The +protective tariff, he added, had made colossal fortunes by levying +tribute upon the many for the enrichment of the few; and yet the +advocates of an income tax were told that this accumulated wealth was a +sacred thing which should go untaxed forever. In announcing this +determination to tax the rich, Mr. McMillin disclaimed any intention of +waging a class war, by declaring that the income tax, in his opinion, +would "diminish the antipathy that now exists between the classes," and +sweep away the ground for that "iconoclastic complaint which finds +expression in violence and threatens the very foundations upon which our +whole institution rests." + +The champions of property against this proposal to tax incomes in order +to relieve the burden upon consumption summoned every device of oratory +and argument to their aid. They ridiculed and denounced, and endeavored +to conjure up before Congress horrible visions of want, anarchy, +socialism, ruin, and destruction. J. H. Walker, of Massachusetts, +declared that, "The income tax takes from the wealth of the thrifty and +the enterprising and gives to the shifty and the sluggard." Adams, of +Pennsylvania, found the income tax "utterly distasteful in its moral and +political aspects, a piece of class legislation, a tax upon the thrifty, +and a reward to dishonesty." In the Senate, where there is supposed to +be more sobriety, the execrations heaped upon the income tax proposal +were marked by even more virulence. Senator Hill declared that, "The +professors with their books, the socialists with their schemes, the +anarchists with their bombs, are instructing the people of the United +States in the organization of society, the doctrines of democracy, and +the principles of taxation. No wonder if their preaching can find ears +in the White House." In his opinion, also, the income tax was an +"insidious and deadly assault upon state rights, state powers, and state +independence." Senator Sherman particularly objected to the high +exemption, declaring, "In a republic like ours, where all men are equal, +this attempt to array the rich against the poor, or the poor against the +rich, is socialism, communism, devilism." + +In spite of this vigorous opposition, the House passed the provision by +a vote of 204 to 140 and the Senate by a vote of 39 to 34. In its final +form the law imposed a tax of two per cent on all incomes above +$4000--an exemption under which the farmer and the lower middle class +escaped almost entirely. Cleveland did not like a general income tax, +and he was dissatisfied with the Wilson tariff bill to which the tax +measure was attached. He, therefore, allowed it to go into effect +without his signature. + + +_Labor Legislation_ + +The only measures directly in the interests of labor generally passed +during this period were the Chinese exclusion act, the law creating a +labor bureau at Washington, and the prohibition of the importation of +alien workingmen under contract. Shortly after the Civil War, protests +were heard against cheap Chinese labor, not only in the western states, +but also in the East, where manufacturers were beginning to employ +coolies to break strikes and crush unions. At length, early in 1882, +Congress passed a measure excluding Chinese laborers for a period of +twenty years, the Republicans from the eastern districts voting +generally against it. President Arthur vetoed the bill, holding in +particular that it was a violation of treaty provisions with China, and +suggested a limitation of the application of the principle to ten years. +This was accepted by Congress, and the law went into force in August of +that year. More stringent identification methods were later applied to +returning Chinese, and in 1892, the application of the principle of +exclusion was further extended for a term of ten years. In 1884, a +Federal bureau of labor statistics was created to collect information +upon problems of labor and capital. In 1885, Congress passed a law +prohibiting the importation of laborers under contract, which was +supplemented by later legislation.[33] + +FOOTNOTES: + + [28] See below, p. 123. + + [29] The Silver Democrats declared that this demonetization + was secretly brought about by a "conspiracy" on the part of + gold advocates, and named the act in question "the crime of + '73." + + [30] See above, p. 167. + + [31] _National Problems_, p. 103. + + [32] See below, p. 332. + + [33] In 1887, Congress enacted a law providing for counting + the electoral vote in presidential elections. This measure + grew out of the disputed election of 1876. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE GROWTH OF DISSENT + + +Important as was the legislation described in the preceding chapter, +there were sources of discontent which it could not, in the nature of +things, dry up. With the exception of the income tax, there had been no +decisive effort to placate the poorer sections of the population by +distinct class legislation. It is true, the alien contract labor law and +the Chinese exclusion act were directed particularly to the working +class, but their effects were not widely felt. + +The accumulation of vast fortunes, many of which were gained either by +fraudulent manipulations, or shady transactions within the limits of the +law but condemned by elementary morals, and the massing of millions of +the proletariat in the great industrial cities were bound in the long +run to bring forth political cleavages as deep as the corresponding +social cleavage. The domination of the Federal government by the +captains of machinery and capital was destined to draw out a counter +movement on the part of the small farmers, the middle class, and the +laborers. Mutterings of this protest were heard in the seventies; it +broke forth in the Populist and Socialist movement in the nineties; it +was voiced in the Democratic campaign of 1896; silenced awhile by a +wave of imperialism, it began to work a transformation in all parties at +the opening of the new century. + + * * * * * + +This protest found its political expression in the organization of +"third" or minor parties. The oldest and most persistent of all these +groups is the Prohibitionist party, which held its first national +convention at Columbus, Ohio, in 1872, and nominated Mr. Black, of +Pennsylvania, as its candidate. In its platform, it declared the +suppression of the liquor traffic to be the leading issue, but it also +proposed certain currency reforms and the regulation of transportation +companies and monopolies. + +Although their popular vote in 1872 was less than six thousand, the +Prohibitionists returned to their issue at each succeeding campaign with +Spartan firmness, but their gains were painfully slow. They reached 9522 +in 1876, and 10,305 in 1880. In the campaign of 1884, when many +Republicans were dissatisfied with the nomination of Blaine, and +unwilling to follow Curtis and Schurz into the Democratic camp, the +Prohibition vote rose to 150,369. A further gain of nearly one hundred +thousand votes in the next election, to which a slight addition was made +in 1892, encouraged the Prohibitionists to hope that the longed-for +"split" had come, and they frightened the Republican politicians into +considering concessions, especially in the states where the temperance +party held the balance of power. In fact, in their platform of 1892 the +Republicans announced in a noncommittal fashion that they sympathized +with "all wise and legitimate efforts to lessen and prevent the evils of +intemperance and promote morality." The scare was unwarranted, however, +for the Prohibition party had about reached its high-water mark. Being +founded principally on one moral issue and making no appeal to any +fundamental economic divisions, it could not make headway against the +more significant social issues, and its strength was further reduced by +the growth of state and local prohibition. + + * * * * * + +Almost immediately after the Civil War, labor entered politics in a +small way on its own account. In 1872, a party known as the "Labor +Reformers" held a national convention at Columbus which was attended by +delegates from seventeen states. It declared in favor of restricting the +sale of public lands to homesteaders, Chinese exclusion, an eight-hour +day in government employments, civil service reform, one term for each +President, regulation of railway and telegraph rates, and the subjection +of the military to the civil authorities. The party nominated Justice +Davis, who had been appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States +by Lincoln and had shown Populist leanings immediately after the War; +but Mr. Davis declined to serve, and O'Connor of New York, to whom the +place was then tendered, only polled about 29,000 votes. + +This early labor party was simply a party of mild protest. It originated +in Massachusetts, where there had been a number of serious labor +disputes and a certain shoe manufacturer had imported a carload of +Chinese to operate his machinery. Although Wendell Phillips, who had +declared the emancipation of labor to be the next great issue after the +emancipation of slaves, was prominently identified with it and stood +next to Justice Davis on the first poll in the convention, the party as +a whole manifested no tendency to open a distinct class struggle, and +the leading planks of its program were shortly accepted by both of the +old parties. + +Standing upon such a temporary platform, and unsupported by any general +philosophy of politics, the labor reform party inevitably went to +pieces. Its dissolution was facilitated by the rise of an agrarian +party, the Greenbackers, who, in their platform of 1880, were more +specific and even more extensive in their declaration of labor's rights +than the "Reformers" themselves had been. It was not until 1888 that +another "labor" group appeared, but since that date there has been one +or more parties making a distinct appeal to the working class. In that +year, there were two "labor" factions, the Union Labor party and the +United Labor party. Both groups came out for the public ownership of the +means of transportation and communication and a code of enlightened +labor legislation. The former advocated the limitation of land ownership +and the latter the application of the single tax. Both agreed in +denouncing the "Democratic and Republican parties as hopelessly and +shamelessly corrupt, and, by reason of their affiliation with +monopolies, equally unworthy of the suffrages of those who do not live +upon public plunder." The vote of both groups in the ensuing election +was slightly over 150,000. + +The labor groups which had broken with the old parties took a more +definite step toward socialism in 1892, when they frankly assumed the +name of the Socialist Labor party[34] and put forward a declaration in +favor of the public ownership of utilities and a general system of +protective labor legislation. Although the socialism of Karl Marx had by +this time won a wide influence among the working classes of Europe, +there are few if any traces of it in the Socialist Labor platform of +1892. That platform says nothing about the inevitable contest between +labor and capitalism, or about the complete public ownership of all the +means of transportation and production. On the contrary, it confines its +statements to concrete propositions, including the political reforms of +the initiative, referendum, and recall, all of which have since been +advocated by leaders in the old parties. The small vote received in 1892 +by the socialistic candidate, 21,532, is no evidence of the strength of +the labor protest, for the Populist party in that year included in its +program substantially the same principles and made a distinct appeal to +the working class, as well as to the farmers. + + * * * * * + +Indeed, the discontent of the two decades from 1876 to 1896 was confined +principally to the small farmers, who waged, in fact, a class war upon +capitalists and financiers, although they nowhere formulated it into a +philosophy. They chose to rely upon the inflation of the currency as +their chief weapon of offense. A precursor to the agrarian movement in +politics is to be found in the "Granger Movement," which began with the +formation of an association known as the "Patrons of Husbandry" in +1867. This society, which organized local lodges on a secret basis and +admitted both men and women, was originally designed to promote +agricultural interests in a general and social way, and its political +implications were not at first apparent. It naturally appealed, however, +to the most active and socially minded farmers, and its leaders soon +became involved in politics. + +The sources of agrarian discontent were obvious. During the War, prices +had been high and thousands of farm "hands" and mechanics had become +land owners, thanks to the homestead laws enacted by the Republican +party; but they had little capital to start with, and their property was +heavily mortgaged. When the inflated War prices collapsed, they found +themselves compelled to pay interest at the old rate, and they figured +it out that capitalists and bondholders were the chief beneficiaries of +the Federal financial legislation. In spite of all that had been paid on +the national and private debts, the amount still due, they reckoned, +measured in the products of toil, wheat and corn, was greater than ever. +They, therefore, hit on the conclusion that the chief source of trouble +was in the contraction of the currency which reduced the money value of +their products. The remedy obviously was inflation in some form.[35] + +While the currency thus became the chief agrarian issue, the farmers +attributed a part of their troubles to the railway companies whose +heavily "watered" capital made high freight rates necessary, and whose +discriminations in charges fell as heavy burdens on shippers outside of +the zones of competition. The agrarians, therefore, resorted to railway +legislation in their respective states--the regulation of rates and +charges for transportation and the conditions under which grain should +be warehoused and handled. In Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and other +states, the law makers yielded to the pressure of the farmers for this +kind of legislative relief, and based their legal contentions on the +ground that the railways "partook of the nature of public highways." The +Grangers were strengthened in their convictions by the violence of the +opposition offered on the part of the railways to the establishment of +rates and charges by public authority, and by their constant appeals to +the courts for relief.[36] + +Of course, the fixing of flat rates without any inquiry into the cost of +specific services was open to grave objections; but the opposition of +the companies was generally based on the contention that they had a +right to run their business in their own way. The spirit of this +opposition is reflected in an editorial published in the _Nation_, of +New York, in January, 1875: "We maintain that the principle of such +legislation is either confiscation, or, if another phrase be more +agreeable, the change of railroads from pieces of private property, +owned and managed for the benefit of those who have invested their money +in them, into eleemosynary or charitable corporations, managed for the +benefit of a particular class of applicants for outdoor relief--the +farmers. If, in the era of progress to which the farmers' movement +proposes to introduce us, we are going back to a condition of society in +which the only sort of property which we can call our own is that which +we can make our own by physical possession, it is certainly important to +every one to know it, and the only body which can really tell us is the +Supreme Court at Washington." + +Not content with their achievements in the state legislatures, the +agrarians entered national politics in 1876 in the form of the +Independent National or Greenback party, designed to "stop the present +suicidal and destructive policy of contraction." They declared their +belief that "a United States note, issued directly by the government and +convertible on demand into United States obligations, bearing a rate of +interest not exceeding one cent a day on each one hundred dollars and +exchangeable for United States notes at par, will afford the best +circulating medium ever devised." In spite of the small vote polled by +their standard bearer, Peter Cooper, of New York, they put forward a +candidate in the next campaign[37] and made a third attempt in 1884, +growing more and more radical in tone. In their last year, they +declared: "Never in our history have the banks, the land-grant +railroads, and other monopolies been more insolent in their demands for +further privileges--still more class legislation. In this emergency the +dominant parties are arrayed against the people and are the abject tools +of the corporate monopolies." The Greenbackers demanded, in addition to +currency reform, the regulation of interstate commerce, a graduated +income tax, labor legislation, prohibition of importation of contract +laborers, and the reduction of the terms of United States Senators. +Although their candidate, B. F. Butler, polled 175,000 votes in 1884, +the Greenbackers gave up the contest, and in 1888 yielded their place to +the Union Labor party. + +The agrarian interest was, however, still the chief source of conscious +discontent, and the disappearance of the Greenbackers was shortly +followed by the establishment of two societies, the National Farmers' +Alliance and Industrial Union and the National Farmers' Alliance, the +former strong in the South and West, and the latter in the North. In +1890, these orders claimed over three million members, and in several of +the southern states they had dominated or split the Democratic party. +The Northern Alliance was likewise busy with politics, and in Kansas and +Nebraska, by independence or fusion, carried a large number of +legislative districts. + +Although professing to be non-political in the beginning, the leaders of +these alliances called a national convention at Omaha in 1892 and put +forth the most radical platform that had yet appeared in American +politics. It declared that the newspapers were subsidized, corruption +dominated the ballot box, homes were covered with mortgages, labor was +impoverished and tyrannized over by a hireling standing army, and the +nation stood on the verge of ruin. "The fruits of the toils of +millions," runs the platform, "are boldly stolen to build up colossal +fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the +possessors of these in turn despise the republic and endanger liberty. +From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed two +classes of tramps and millionaires." Their demands included the free +coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, postal-savings banks, +government ownership of railways, telegraph and telephones; they +declared their sympathy with organized labor in its warfare for better +conditions and its struggle against "Pinkerton hirelings"; and they +commended the initiative, referendum, and popular election of United +States Senators. On this program, the Populists polled over a million +votes and captured twenty-two presidential electors. Evidently the +indifference of the old parties to such issues could not remain +undisturbed much longer. + + * * * * * + +Fuel was added to the discontent in the spring of 1895, when the Supreme +Court declared null and void the income tax law of the previous +year.[38] The opponents of the tax, having lost in the Congress, made +their last stand in the highest Federal tribunal, and marshaled on their +side an array of legal talent seldom seen in an action at law, including +Senator Edmunds, Mr. Joseph H. Choate, and other attorneys prominently +identified with railway and corporation litigation. No effort was spared +in bringing pressure to bear on the Court, and no arguments, legal, +political, and social, were neglected in the attempt to impress upon the +Court the importance of stopping Populism by a judicial pronunciamento. +Conservative New York papers, like the _Herald_, boldly prophesied in +the summer of 1894 that "the income tax will be blotted from the statute +books before the people are cursed with its inquisitorial enforcement." + +No easy victory lay before the opponents of the income tax, for the law +seemed to be against them. In 1870, the Supreme Court had upheld the +Civil War income tax without a dissenting voice, and had distinctly +said: "Our conclusions are that direct taxes, within the meaning of the +Constitution, are only capitation taxes as expressed in that instrument +and taxes on real estate, and that the tax of which the plaintiff in +error complains [the income tax] is within the category of an excise or +duty." Of course, the terms of the new law were not identical with those +of the Civil War measure, and the Supreme Court had been known to +reverse itself. + +The attorneys against the tax left no stone unturned. As Professor +Seligman remarks, "Some of the important financial interests now engaged +a notable array of eminent counsel to essay the arduous task of +persuading the Supreme Court that it might declare the income tax a +direct tax without reversing its previous decisions. The effort was made +with the most astonishing degree of ability and ingenuity, and the +briefs and arguments of the opposing counsel fill several large +volumes.... The counsel's arguments abound in historical errors and +economic inaccuracies.... Errors and misstatements which might be +multiplied pale into insignificance compared with the misinterpretation +put upon the origin and purpose of the direct-tax clause--a +misinterpretation which like most of the preceding mistakes was bodily +adopted by the majority of the Court, who evidently found no time for an +independent investigation of the subject." Having exhausted their +ingenuity in the matter of technicalities and imposing historical and +economic and legal arguments, the counsel appealed to every class fear +and prejudice that might be entertained by the Court. + +The introduction of the passions of a social conflict into what +purported to be a legal contest was intrusted to Mr. Choate. He +threatened the Court with the declaration that if it approved the law, +and "the communistic march" went on, a still higher exemption of $20,000 +might be made and a rate of 20 per cent imposed--a highly important +statement, but one that had no connection with the question whether an +income tax was a direct tax. "There is protection now or never," he +exclaimed. The very keystone of civilization, he continued, was the +preservation of the rights of private property, and this fundamental +principle was scattered to the winds by the champions of the tax. Mr. +Choate concluded by warning the Court not to pay any attention to the +popular passions enlisted on the side of the law, and urged it not to +hesitate in declaring the law unconstitutional, "no matter what the +threatened consequences of popular or populistic wrath may be." + +The Court was evidently moved by the declamation of Mr. Choate, for +Justice Field, in his opinion, replied in kind. "The present assault +upon capital," he said, "is but the beginning. It will be but the +stepping stone to others larger and more sweeping till our political +conditions will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war +growing in intensity and bitterness." If such a law were upheld, he +gravely announced, boards of walking delegates would be fixing tax rates +in the near future. Mr. Justice Harlan, in his dissenting opinion, +however, replied in behalf of the populace by saying: "The practical +effect of the decision to-day is to give certain kinds of property a +position of favoritism and advantage inconsistent with the fundamental +principles of our social organization, and to invest them with power and +influence that may be perilous to that portion of the American people +upon whom rests the larger part of the burdens of government and who +ought not to be subjected to the dominion of aggregated wealth any more +than the property of the country should be at the mercy of the lawless." + +At the best, the nullification of the income tax law was not an easy +task. There were eight justices on the bench when the decision of the +Court was handed down on April 8, 1895. All of them agreed that the law +was unconstitutional in so far as it laid a tax on revenues derived from +state and municipal bonds; five of them agreed that a tax on rent or +income from land was a direct tax and hence unconstitutional unless +apportioned among the states on the basis of population--which was +obviously impolitic; and the Court stood four to four on the important +point as to the constitutionality of taxes on incomes derived from +mortgages, interest, and personal property generally. The decision of +the Court was thus inconclusive on the only point that interested +capitalists particularly, and it was so regarded by the Eastern press. + +On April 9, the day following the decision of the Court, the New York +_Sun_ declared: "Twice in great national crises the Supreme Court of the +United States has failed to meet the expectations of the people or to +justify its existence as the ultimate tribunal of right and law. In both +instances the potent consideration has been neither right nor law, but +the supposed demands of political expediency.... Yesterday the failure +of the Supreme Court to decide the main question of constitutionality +submitted to it was brought about by political considerations. It was +not Democracy against Republicanism as before, but Populism and +Clevelandism against Democracy, and the vote was four to four." The +_Tribune_, on April 10, declared that "the Court reached a finding which +is as near an abdication of its power to interpret the Constitution and +a confession of its unfitness for that duty as anything well can be." + +In view of the unsatisfactory condition created by its decision, the +Court consented to a rehearing, and, on May 20, 1895, added its opinion +that the tax on incomes from personal property was also a direct tax, +thus bringing the whole law to the ground by a vote of five to four. +Justice Jackson, who was ill when the first decision was made, had in +the meantime returned to the bench, and he was strongly in favor of +declaring the law constitutional. Had the Court stood as before, the +personal property income tax would have been upheld, but one Justice, +who had sustained this particular provision in the first case, was +induced to change his views and vote against it on the final count. Thus +by a narrow vote of five to four, brought about by a Justice who +changed his mind within the period of a few days, all of the essential +parts of the income tax law were declared null and void. + +The temper of the country over the affair was well manifested in the +press comments on the last decision. The New York _Sun_, which had +roundly denounced the Court in the first instance, now joined in a +chorus of praise: "In a hundred years the Supreme Court of the United +States has not rendered a decision more important in its immediate +effect or reaching further in its consequences than that which the _Sun_ +records this morning. There is life left in the institutions which the +founders of this republic devised and constructed. There is a safe +future for the national system under which we were all born and have +lived and prospered according to individual capacity. The wave of +socialistic revolution has gone far, but it breaks at the foot of the +ultimate bulwark set up for protection of our liberties. Five to four, +the court stands like a rock." + +The _Tribune_, on May 24, added: "The more the people study the +influences behind this attempt to bring about a communistic revolution +in modes of taxation, the more clearly they will realize that it was an +essential part of the distinctly un-American and unpatriotic attempt to +destroy the American policy of defense for home industries, in the +interest of foreigners.... Thanks to the Court, our government is not to +be dragged into communistic warfare against rights of property and the +rewards of industry while the Constitution of its founders remains a +bulwark of the rights of states and of individual citizens." + +The New York _World_, on the other hand, which had so stoutly championed +the tax in behalf of "the masses," represented the decision of the Court +as "the triumph of selfishness over patriotism. It is another victory of +greed over need. Great and rich corporations, by hiring the ablest +lawyers in the land and fighting against a petty tax upon superfluity as +other men have fought for their liberties and their lives, have secured +the exemption of wealth from paying its just share towards the support +of the government that protects it.... The people at large will bow to +this decision as they habitually do to all the decrees of their highest +courts. But they will not accept law as justice. No dictum or decision +of any wrong can make wrong right, and it is not right that the entire +cost of the Federal government shall rest upon consumption.... Equity +demands that citizens shall contribute to the support of the government +with some regard to benefits received and ability to pay." + + * * * * * + +Although the conservative elements saw in the annulment of the income +tax nothing but a wise and timely exercise of judicial authority in +defense of the Constitution and sound policy, the radical elements +regarded it as an evidence "that the judicial branch of the government +was under the control of the same interests that had mutilated the +Wilson tariff bill in the Senate." The local Federal courts augmented +this popular feeling by frequently issuing injunctions ordering +workingmen in time of strikes not to interfere with their employers' +business, thus crippling them in the coercion of employers, by +imprisoning without jury trial those who disobeyed judicial orders. + +Although the injunction was an ancient legal device, it was not until +after the Civil War that it was developed into a powerful instrument in +industrial disputes; and it became particularly effective in the hands +of Federal judges. They were not popularly elected, but were appointed +by the President and the Senate (where corporate influences were ably +represented). Under the provisions of the law giving Federal courts +jurisdiction in cases involving citizens of different states, they were +called upon to intervene with increasing frequency in industrial +disputes, for railway and other corporations usually did business in +several states, and they could generally invoke Federal protection by +showing that they were "non-residents" of the particular states in which +strikes were being waged. Moreover, strikers who interfered with +interstate commerce were likely to collide with Federal authorities +whose aid was invited by the employers affected. Whenever a corporation +was in bankruptcy, control over its business fell into the hands of the +Federal courts. + +The effectiveness of Federal judicial intervention in labor troubles +became apparent in the first great strikes of the seventies, when the +state authorities proved unable to restrain rioting and disorder by the +use of the local militia. During the railway war of 1877 a Federal judge +in southern Illinois ordered the workingmen not to interfere with a +railway for which he had appointed a receiver, and he then employed +Federal troops under the United States marshal to execute his mandate. +About the same time other Federal judges intervened effectively in +industrial disputes by the liberal use of the injunction, and the +president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company pointed out in an article +published in the _North American Review_ for September, 1877, how much +more potent Federal authority was in such trying crises to give railway +corporations efficient protection. + +From that time forward the injunction was steadily employed by Federal +and state courts, but it was not until the great railway strike of 1894 +in Chicago that it was brought prominently before the country as a +distinct political issue. In that strike, the Democratic governor, Mr. +Altgeld, believing that the employers had fomented disorder for the +purpose of invoking Federal intervention (as was afterward pretty +conclusively shown), refused to employ the state militia speedily and +effectively, contending that the presence of troops would only make +matters worse. The postal authorities, influenced by a variety of +motives, of which, it was alleged, a desire to break the strike was one, +secured prompt Federal intervention on the part of President Cleveland +and the use of Federal troops. Thus the labor unions were quickly +checkmated. + +This action on the part of President Cleveland was supplemented in July, +1894, by a general blanket injunction issued from the Federal district +court in Chicago to all persons concerned, ordering them not to +interfere with the transmission of the mails or with interstate commerce +in any form. Mr. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, who was +directing the strike which was tying up interstate commerce, was +arrested, fined, and imprisoned for refusing to obey this injunction. +Mr. Debs, thereupon, through his counsel, claimed the right to jury +trial, asserting that the court could not impose a penalty which was not +provided by statute, but which depended solely upon the will of the +judge. On appeal, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the +lower court and declared that imprisonment for contempt of court did not +violate the principle of jury trial. + +It was not merely labor leaders who were stirred to wrath by this +development in judicial authority. Many eminent lawyers saw in it an +attack upon the ancient safeguards of the law which provided for regular +proceedings, indictment, the hearing of witnesses, jury trial, and the +imposition of only such punishments as could be clearly ascertained in +advance. On the other hand others held it to be nothing new at all, but +simply the application of the old principle that injunctions could issue +in cases where irreparable injury might otherwise ensue. They pointed +out that its effectiveness depended upon speedy application, and that +the delays usually incident to regular judicial procedure would destroy +its usefulness altogether. To workingmen it appeared to be chiefly an +instrument for imprisoning their leaders and breaking strikes by the +prevention of coercion, peaceful or otherwise. At all events, the +decision of the Supreme Court upholding the practice and its doctrines +added to the bitterness engendered by the income tax decision--a +bitterness manifested at the Democratic convention at Chicago the +following year. + +The crowning cause of immediate discontent was the financial policy +pursued by President Cleveland,[39] which stirred the wrath of the +agrarians already agitated over inflation, and gave definiteness to an +issue on which both parties had been judiciously ambiguous in their +platforms in 1892. The farmers pointed out that, notwithstanding the +increased output of corn, the total amount of money received in return +was millions less than it had been in the early eighties. They +emphasized the fact that more than half of the taxable acreage of Kansas +and Nebraska was mortgaged, and that many other western states were +nearly as badly off. The falling prices and their inability to meet +their indebtedness they attributed to the demonetization of silver and +the steady enhancement of gold. + +For the disease, as they diagnosed it, they had a remedy. The +government, they said, had been generous to Wall Street and financial +interests at large by selling bonds at rates which made great fortunes +for the narrow group of purchasers, and by distributing its deposits +among the banks in need of assistance. The power of the government could +also be used for the benefit of another class--namely, themselves. Gold +should be brought down and the currency extended by the free coinage of +silver on a basis of sixteen to one. The value of crops, when measured +in money, would thus mount upwards, and it would be easier to pay the +interest on mortgages and discharge their indebtedness. Furthermore, +while the government was in the business of accommodating the public it +might loan money to the farmers at a low rate of interest.[40] But the +inflation of the currency and the increase of prices of farm products by +the free coinage of silver were the leading demands of the discontented +agrarians--an old remedy for an old disease. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [34] See below, p. 296. + + [35] See above, p. 121. + + [36] See above, pp. 67 ff. + + [37] They polled about a million votes in the congressional + elections of 1878. + + [38] See above, p. 137. + + [39] See above, p. 106. + + [40] It is interesting to note that agricultural credit--a + subject in which European countries are far advanced--is just + now beginning to receive some attention in quarters where the + demands of the farmers for better terms on borrowed money + were once denounced as mere vagaries. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896 + + +It does not require that distant historical perspective, which is +supposed to be necessary for final judgments, to warrant the assertion +that the campaign of 1896 marks a turning point in the course of +American politics. The monetary issue, on which events ostensibly +revolved, was, it is true, an ancient one, but the real conflict was not +over the remonetization of silver or the gold standard. Deep, underlying +class feeling found its expression in the conventions of both parties, +and particularly that of the Democrats, and forced upon the attention of +the country, in a dramatic manner, a conflict between great wealth and +the lower middle and working classes, which had hitherto been recognized +only in obscure circles. The sectional or vertical cleavage of American +politics was definitely cut by new lines running horizontally through +society, and was also crossed at right angles by another line running +north and south, representing the western protest against eastern +creditors and the objectionable methods of great corporations which had +been rapidly unfolded to public view by merciless criticism and many +legislative investigations. + +Even the Republican party, whose convention had been largely prepared in +advance by the vigorous labors of Mr. Marcus A. Hanna,[41] was not +untouched by the divisions which later rent the Democratic party in +twain. When the platform was reported to the duly assembled Republican +delegates by Mr. Foraker, of Ohio, its firm declaration of opposition to +free silver, except by international agreement, was greeted by a divided +house, although, as the record runs, there was a "demonstration of +approval on the part of a large majority of the delegates which lasted +several minutes." When a vote was taken on the financial plank, it was +discovered that 110 delegates favored silver as against 812 in support +of the proposition submitted by the platform committee. The defeated +contingent then withdrew from the convention after having presented a +statement in which they declared that "the people cry aloud for relief; +they are bending under a burden growing heavier with the passing hours; +endeavour no longer brings its just reward ... and unless the laws of +the country and the policies of political parties shall be converted +into mediums of redress, the effect of human desperation may sometime be +witnessed here as in other lands and in other ages." + +This threat was firmly met by the body of the convention which remained. +In nominating Mr. Thomas B. Reed, Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts, declared: +"Against the Republican party are arrayed not only that organized +failure, the Democratic party, but all the wandering forces of political +chaos and social disorder.... Such a man we want for our great office in +these bitter times when the forces of disorder are loose and the +wreckers with their false lights gather at the shore to lure the ship +of state upon the rocks." Mr. Depew, in nominating Mr. Levi P. Morton, +decried all of the current criticism of capital. Mr. Foraker, in +presenting the name of Mr. McKinley, was more conciliatory: distress and +misery were abroad in the land and bond issues and bond syndicates had +discredited and scandalized the country; but McKinley was the man to +redeem the nation. + +This conciliatory attitude was hardly necessary, for there were no +radical elements in the Republican assembly after the withdrawal of the +silver faction. The proceedings of the convention were in fact then +extraordinarily harmonious, brief, and colorless. The platform, apart +from the sound money plank, contained no sign of the social conflict +which was being waged in the world outside. Tariff, pensions, civil +service, temperance, and the usual formalities of party programs were +treated after the fashion consecrated by time. Railway and trust +problems were overlooked entirely. Even the money plank was not put +first, and it was not so phrased as to constitute the significant +challenge which it became in the campaign. "The Republican party," it +ran, "is unreservedly for sound money. It caused the enactment of the +law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then +every dollar has been good as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every +measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our +country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver except +by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the +world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such an agreement +can be obtained the existing gold standard must be maintained." + +This clear declaration on the financial issue was apparently not a part +of the drama as Mr. Hanna and Mr. McKinley had staged it. The former was +in favor of the gold standard so far as he understood it, but he was not +a student of finance, and he was more interested "in getting what we +got," to use his phrase, than in any very fine distinctions in the gold +plank. Mr. McKinley, on the other hand, was widely known as a +bimetallist; but his reputation throughout the country rested +principally upon his high protective doctrines. He, therefore, wished to +avoid the monetary issue by straddling it in such a way as not to +alienate the large silver faction in the West. Mr. Hanna's biographer +tells us that Mr. Kohlsaat claims to have spent hours on Sunday, June 7, +"trying to convince Mr. McKinley of the necessity of inserting the word +'gold' in the platform. The latter argued in opposition that 90 per cent +of his mail and his callers were against such decisive action, and he +asserted emphatically that thirty days after the convention was over the +currency question would drop out of sight and the tariff would become +the sole issue. The currency plank, tentatively drawn by Mr. McKinley +and his immediate advisers, embodied his resolution to keep the currency +issue subordinate and vague."[42] The leaders in the convention, +however, refused to accept Mr. McKinley's view and forced him to take +the step which he had hoped to avoid. + +In his speech of acceptance, McKinley deprecated and sought to smooth +over the class lines which had been drawn. "It is a cause for painful +regret and solicitude," he said, "that an effort is being made by those +high in the counsels of the allied parties to divide the people of this +country into classes and create distinctions among us which in fact do +not exist and are repugnant to our form of government.... Every attempt +made to array class against class, 'the classes against the masses,' +section against section, labor against capital, 'the poor against the +rich,' or interest against interest in the United States is in the +highest degree reprehensible." In the Populist features of the +Democratic platform he saw a grave menace to our institutions, but he +accepted the challenge. "We avoid no issues. We meet the sudden, +dangerous, and revolutionary assault upon law and order and upon those +to whom is confided by the Constitution and laws the authority to uphold +and maintain them, which our opponents have made, with the same courage +that we have faced every emergency since our organization as a party +more than forty years ago." + + +_The Democratic Convention_ + +No doubt the decisive action of the Republican convention helped to +consolidate the silver forces in the Democratic party; but even if the +Republicans had obscured the silver question by a vague declaration, +their opponents would have come out definitely against the gold +standard. This was so apparent weeks before the Democratic national +assembly met, that conservatives in the party talked of refusing to +participate in the party councils, called at Chicago on July 7. They +were aware also that other and deeper sources of discontent were bound +to manifest themselves when the proceedings got under way. + +The storm which broke over the party had long been gathering. The Grange +and Greenback movements did not disappear with the disappearance of the +outward signs of organization; they only merged into the Populist +movement with cumulative effect. The election of 1892 was ominous, for +the agrarian party had polled a million votes. It had elected members of +Congress and presidential electors; it was organized and determined. It +arose from a mass of discontent which was justified, if misdirected. It +was no temporary wave, as superficial observers have imagined. It had +elements of solidity which neither of the old parties could ignore or +cover up. No one was more conscious of this than the western and +southern leaders in the Democratic party. They had been near the base of +action, and they thought that what the eastern leaders called a riot was +in fact the beginning of a revolution. Unwilling to desert their +traditional party, they decided to make the party desert its traditions, +and they came to the Democratic convention in Chicago prepared for war +to the hilt. + +From the opening to the close, the Democratic convention in Chicago in +1896 was vibrant with class feeling. Even in the prayer with which the +proceedings began, the clergyman pleaded: "May the hearts of all be +filled with profound respect and sympathy for our toiling multitudes, +oppressed with burdens too heavy for them to bear--heavier than we +should allow them to bear,"--a prayer that might have been an echo of +some of the speeches made in behalf of the income tax in Congress. + +The struggle began immediately after the prayer, when the presiding +officer, on behalf of the retiring national committee, reported as +temporary chairman of the convention, David B. Hill, of New York, the +unrelenting opponent of the income tax and everything that savored of +it. Immediately afterward, Mr. Clayton, speaking in behalf of +twenty-three members of the national committee as opposed to +twenty-seven, presented a minority report which proposed the Honorable +John W. Daniel, of Virginia, as chairman. Pleas were made that the +traditions of the party ought not to be violated by a refusal to accept +the recommendations of the national committee. + +After a stormy debate, the minority report of the national committee, +proposing Mr. Daniel for chairman, was carried by a vote of 556 to 349. +The states which voted solidly or principally for Mr. Hill were +Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, +New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, +Wisconsin, and Alaska--all of the New England and Central seaboard +states, which represented the accumulated wealth of the country. The +official proceedings of the convention state, "When the result of this +vote was announced, there was a period of nearly twenty minutes during +which no business could be transacted, on account of the applause, +cheers, noise and confusion." + +In his opening speech as chairman, Mr. Daniel declared that they were +witnessing "an uprising of the people for American emancipation from the +conspiracies of European kings led by Great Britain, which seek to +destroy one half of the money of the world." He declared in favor of +bimetallism and devoted most of his speech to the monetary question and +to repeated declarations of financial independence in behalf of the +United States. He also attacked, however, the tax system which the +Democrats inherited from the Republicans in 1893, and in speaking of the +deficit which was incurred under the Democratic tariff act he declared +that it would have been met by the income tax incorporated in the tariff +bill "had not the Supreme Court of the United States reversed its +settled doctrines of a hundred years." On the second day of the +convention, while the committees were preparing their reports, Governor +Hogg, of Texas, Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, Governor Altgeld, of +Illinois, and other gentlemen were invited to address the convention. + +The first of these speakers denounced the Republican party as a "great +class maker and mass smasher"; he scorned that "farcical practice" which +had given governmental protection to the wealthy and left the laborer to +protect himself. "This protected class of Republicans," he exclaimed, +"proposes now to destroy labor organizations. To that end it has +organized syndicates, pools, and trusts, and proposes through the +Federal courts, in the exercise of their unconstitutional powers by the +issuance of extraordinary unconstitutional writs, to strike down, to +suppress, and to overawe those organizations, backed by the Federal +bayonet.... Men who lived there in their mansions and rolled in luxuries +were the only ones to get the benefit of this Republican [sugar] bounty +called protection." Senator Blackburn, of Kentucky, exclaimed that +"Christ with a lash drove from the temple a better set of men than those +who for twenty years have shaped the financial policy of this country." +Governor Altgeld declared: "We have seen the streets of our cities +filled with idle men, with hungry women, and with ragged children. The +country to-day looks to the deliberations of this convention to promise +some form of relief." This relief was to be secured by the +remonetization of silver and the emancipation of the country from +English capitalists and eastern financiers. + + * * * * * + +On the third day of the convention, Senator Jones, of Arkansas, chairman +of the committee on platform, reported the conclusions of the majority +of his committee. In the platform, as reported, there were many +expressions of class feeling. It declared that the act of 1873 +demonetizing silver caused a fall in the price of commodities produced +by the people, a heavy increase in the public taxation and in all debts, +public and private, the enrichment of the money-lending class at home +and abroad, the prostration of industry, and the impoverishment of the +people. The McKinley tariff was denounced as "a prolific breeder of +trusts and monopolies" which had "enriched the few at the expense of +the many." + +The platform made the money question, however, the paramount issue, and +declared for "the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at +the present legal ratio of sixteen to one without waiting for the aid or +consent of any other nation." It stated that, until the monetary +question was settled, no changes should be made in the tariff laws +except for the purpose of meeting the deficit caused by the adverse +decision of the Supreme Court in the income tax cases. The platform at +this point turned upon the Court and asserted that the income tax law +had been passed "by a Democratic Congress in strict pursuance of the +uniform decisions of that Court for nearly a hundred years." It then +hinted at a reconstruction of the Court, declaring that, "it is the duty +of Congress to use all the constitutional power which remains after that +decision or which may come from its reversal by the Court, as it may +hereafter be constituted, so that the burden of taxation may be equally +and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may bear its due proportion +of the expense of the government." + +The platform contained many expressions of sympathy with labor. "As +labor creates the wealth of the country," ran one plank, "we demand the +passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect it in all its +rights." It favored arbitration for labor conflicts in interstate +commerce. Referring to the recent Pullman strike and the labor war in +Chicago, it denounced "arbitrary interference by Federal authorities in +local affairs as a violation of the Constitution of the United States +and a crime against free institutions, and we specially object to +government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of +oppression by which Federal judges, in contempt of the laws of the +states and rights of citizens, become at once legislators, judges, and +executioners; and we approve the bill passed by the last session of the +United States Senate, and now pending in the House of Representatives, +relative to contempt in Federal courts and providing for trials by jury +in certain cases of contempt." + +The platform did not expressly attack the administration of President +Cleveland, but the criticism of the intervention by Federal authorities +in local affairs was directed particularly to his interference in the +Chicago strike. The departure from the ordinary practice of praising the +administration of the party's former leader itself revealed the feeling +of the majority of the convention. + +A minority of the platform committee composed of sixteen delegates +presented objections to the platform as reported by Senator Jones and +offered amendments. In their report the minority asserted that many +declarations in the majority report were "ill-considered and ambiguously +phrased, while others are extreme and revolutionary of the +well-recognized principles of the party." The free coinage of silver +independently of other nations, the minority claimed, would place the +United States at once "upon a silver basis, impair contracts, disturb +business, diminish the purchasing powers of the wages of labor, and +inflict irreparable evils upon our nation's commerce and industry." The +minority, therefore, proposed the maintenance of the existing gold +standard; and concluded by criticizing the report of the majority as +"defective in failing to make any recognition of the honesty, economy, +courage, and fidelity of the present Democratic administration." This +minority report was supplemented by two amendments proposed by Senator +Hill, one to the effect that any change in the monetary standard should +not apply to existing contracts and the other pledging the party to +suspend, within one year from its enactment, the law providing for the +independent free coinage of silver, in case that coinage did not realize +the expectation of the party to secure a parity between gold and silver +at the ratio of sixteen to one. + +After the presentation of the platform and the proposed changes, an +exciting and disorderly debate followed. The discussion was opened by +Mr. Tillman, who exclaimed that the Civil War had emancipated the black +slaves and that they were now in convention to head a fight for the +emancipation of the white slaves, even if it disrupted the Democratic +party as the Civil War had disrupted it. Without any equivocation and +amid loud and prolonged hissing, he declared that the new issue like the +old one was sectional--a declaration of political war on the part of the +hewers of wood and the drawers of water in the southern and western +states against the East. He compared the growth of fifteen southern +states in wealth and population with the growth of Pennsylvania; he +compared Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri with Massachusetts; +to these five western states he added Kentucky, Tennessee, Kansas, and +Nebraska, and compared them all with the state of New York. The upshot +of his comparison was that the twenty-five southern and western states +were in economic bondage to the East and that we now had a money +oligarchy more insolent than the slave oligarchy which the Civil War had +overthrown. + +Mr. Tillman could scarcely contain his wrath when he came to a +consideration of the proposal to indorse Cleveland's administration. He +denounced the Democratic President as "a tool of Wall Street"; and +declared that they could not indorse him without writing themselves down +as "asses and liars." "They ask us to indorse his courage," exclaimed +Mr. Tillman. "Well, now, no one disputes the man's boldness and +obstinacy, because he had the courage to ignore his oath of office, and +redeem, in gold, paper obligations of the government, which were payable +in coin--both gold and silver, and, furthermore, he had the courage to +override the Constitution of the United States and invaded the state of +Illinois with the United States army and undertook to override the +rights and liberties of his fellow citizens. They ask us to indorse his +fidelity. He has been faithful unto death, or rather unto the death of +the Democratic party, so far as he represents it, through the policy of +the friends that he had in New York and ignored the entire balance of +the Union." Mr. Tillman was dissatisfied with the platform because it +did not attack Mr. Cleveland's policies, and, amid great confusion +throughout the hall, he proposed that the platform should "denounce the +administration of President Cleveland as undemocratic and tyrannical." +He warned the convention that, "If this Democratic ship goes to sea on +storm-tossed waves without fumigating itself, without express +repudiation of this man who has sought to destroy his party, then the +Republican ship goes into port and you go down in disgrace, defeated in +November." In his proposed amendment to the platform, he asserted that +Cleveland had used the veto power to thwart the will of the people, and +the appointive power to subsidize the press and debauch Congress. The +issue of bonds to purchase gold, to discharge obligations payable in +coin at the option of the government, and the use of the proceeds for +ordinary expenses, he denounced as "unlawful and usurpations of +authority deserving of impeachment." + +After Senator Jones was given the floor for a few moments to repudiate +the charge brought by Mr. Tillman that the fight was sectional in +character, Senator Hill, of New York, began the real attack upon the +platform proposed by the majority. The Senator opened by saying that he +was a Democrat, but not a revolutionist, that the question before them +was one of business and finance, not of bravery and loyalty, and that +the first step toward monetary reform should be a statement in favor of +international bimetallism. He followed this by a special criticism of +the declaration in favor of the ratio of sixteen to one which was, in +his opinion, not only an unwise and unnecessary thing, but destined to +return to plague them in the future. + +Senator Hill then turned to the income tax which he had so vigorously +denounced on the floor of the Senate two years before. "What was the +necessity," he asked, "for putting into the platform other questions +which have never been made the tests of Democratic loyalty before? Why +revive the disputed question of the policy and constitutionality of an +income tax?... Why, I say, should it be left to this convention to make +as a tenet of Democratic faith belief in the propriety and +constitutionality of an income tax law? + +"Why was it wise to assail the Supreme Court of your country? Will some +one tell what that clause means in this platform? 'If you meant what you +said and said what you meant,' will some one explain that provision? +That provision, if it means anything, means that it is the duty of +Congress to reconstruct the Supreme Court of the country. It means, and +such purpose was openly avowed, it means the adding of additional +members to the Court or the turning out of office and reconstructing the +whole Court. I said I will not follow any such revolutionary step as +that. Whenever before in the history of this country has devotion to an +income tax been made the test of Democratic loyalty? Never! Have you not +undertaken enough, my good friends, now without seeking to put in this +platform these unnecessary, foolish, and ridiculous things?" + +"What further have you done?" continued the Senator. "In this platform +you have declared, for the first time in the history of this country, +that you are opposed to any life tenure whatever for office. Our fathers +before us, our Democratic fathers, whom we revere, in the establishment +of this government, gave our Federal judges a life tenure of office. +What necessity was there for reviving this question? How foolish and how +unnecessary, in my opinion. Democrats, whose whole lives have been +devoted to the service of the party, men whose hopes, whose ambitions, +whose aspirations, all lie within party lines, are to be driven out of +the party upon this new question of life tenure for the great judges of +our Federal courts. No, no; this is a revolutionary step, this is an +unwise step, this is an unprecedented step in our party history." + +Senator Hill then turned to a defense of President Cleveland's policy, +denouncing the attempt to bring in the bond issue as foolish and +calculated to put them on the defensive in every school district in the +country. He closed by begging the convention not "to drive old Democrats +out of the party who have grown gray in the service, to make room for a +lot of Republicans and Populists, and political nondescripts." + +Senator Hill's protest was supported by Senator Vilas from Wisconsin, +who saw in the proposed free coinage of silver no difference, except in +degree, between "the confiscation of one half of the credits of the +nation for the benefit of debtors," and "a universal distribution of +property." In this radical scheme there was nothing short of "the +beginning of the overthrow of all law, of all justice, of all security +and repose in the social order." He warned the convention that the +American people would not tolerate the first steps toward the atrocities +of the French Revolution, although "in the vastness of this country +there may be some Marat unknown, some Danton or Robespierre." He asked +the members of the convention when and where robbery by law had come to +be a Democratic doctrine, and with solemn earnestness he pleaded with +them not to launch the old party out on a wild career or to "pull down +the pillars of the temple and crush us all beneath the ruins." He +declared that the gold standard was not responsible for falling prices; +that any stable standard had "no more to do with prices than a yard +stick or a pair of scales." He begged them to adopt the proposed +amendment which would limit the effect of the change of standards to +future contracts and thus deliver the platform from an imputation of a +purpose to plunder. + +The closing speech for the platform was then made by Mr. William +Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska, who clothed his plea in the armor of +righteousness, announcing that he had come to speak "in defense of a +cause as holy as the cause of liberty--the cause of humanity." The +spirit and zeal of a crusader ran through his speech. Indeed, when +speaking of the campaign which the Silver Democrats had made to capture +the party, he referred to that frenzy which inspired the crusaders under +the leadership of Peter the Hermit. He spoke in defense of the wage +earner, the lawyer in the country town, the merchant at the crossroads +store, the farmer and the miner,--naming them one after the other and +ranging himself on their side. "We stand here," he said, "representing +people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the +state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we +shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed +our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made +too limited in its application the definition of a business man. The man +who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer. The +attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation +counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is +as much a business man as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes +forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils +all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural +resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a business man as +the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of +grain. The miners who go a thousand feet into the earth or climb two +thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places +the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade, are as much +business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner +the money of the world. + +"We come to speak for this broader class of business men. Ah, my +friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic +coast; but those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the +wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose--those +pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature's heart, +where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds--out +there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their +children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the +cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead--are as deserving of the +consideration of this party as any people in this country. + +"It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is +not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our +families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have +been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been +disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity +came. + +"We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy +them!" + +Mr. Bryan then took up the income tax. He repudiated the idea that the +proposed platform contained a criticism of the Supreme Court. He said, +"We have simply called attention to what you know. If you want +criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the court." He denied that +the income tax law was unconstitutional when it was passed, or even when +it went before the Supreme Court for the first time. "It did not become +unconstitutional," he exclaimed, "until one judge changed his mind; and +we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind." + +The monetary question was the great paramount issue. But Mr. Bryan did +not stop to discuss any of the technical points involved in it. +Protection had slain its thousands, and the gold standard had slain its +tens of thousands; the people of the United States did not surrender +their rights of self-government to foreign potentates and powers. The +common people of no land had ever declared in favor of the gold +standard, but bondholders had. If the gold standard was a good thing, +international bimetallism was wrong; if the gold standard was a bad +thing, the United States ought not to wait for the help of other nations +in righting a wrong--this was the line of Mr. Bryan's attack. And he +concluded by saying: "Mr. Carlisle said, in 1878, that this was a +struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling +masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and, my +friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side +shall the Democratic party fight? Upon the side of the idle holders of +idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? That is the +question that the party must answer first; and then it must be answered +by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as +described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who +have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party. + +"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if +you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity +will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if +you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find +its way up and through every class that rests upon it. + +"You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the +gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad +and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and +your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms, +and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in this country. + +"My friends, we shall declare that this nation is able to legislate for +its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent +of any other nation on earth, and upon that issue we expect to carry +every single State in this Union. + +"I shall not slander the fair State of Massachusetts, nor the State of +New York, by saying that when its citizens are confronted with the +proposition, 'Is this nation able to attend to its own business?'--I +will not slander either one by saying that the people of those States +will declare our helpless impotency as a nation to attend to our own +business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but +3,000,000, had the courage to declare their political independence of +every other nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants, when we have +grown to 70,000,000, declare that we are less independent than our +forefathers? No, my friends, it will never be the judgment of this +people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If +they say bimetallism is good, but we cannot have it till some nation +helps us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because +England has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then let England have +bimetallism because the United States have. + +"If they dare to come out and in the open defend the gold standard as a +good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the +producing masses of the Nation and the world. Having behind us the +commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling +masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to +them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of +thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." + +The record of the convention states that "the conclusion of Mr. Bryan's +speech was the signal for a tremendous outburst of noise, cheers, etc. +The standards of many states were carried from their places and +gathered about the Nebraska delegation." Never in the history of +convention oratory had a speaker so swayed the passions of his auditors +and so quickly made himself unquestionably "the man of the hour." + +After some parliamentary skirmishing, Mr. Hill succeeded in securing +from the convention a vote on the proposition of the minority in favor +of the maintenance of the gold standard, "until international +cooperation among the leading nations in the coinage of silver can be +secured." For this proposition the eastern states voted almost solidly, +with some help from the western states. Connecticut gave her twelve +votes for the substitute amendment; Delaware, five of her six votes; +Maine, ten out of twelve; Maryland, twelve out of sixteen; +Massachusetts, twenty-seven out of thirty; New Hampshire, New Jersey, +New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont gave their entire vote +for the gold standard. The eastern states secured a little support in +the West and South. Minnesota gave eleven out of seventeen votes for the +amendment; Wisconsin voted solidly for it; Florida gave three out of +eight votes; Washington gave three out of eight; Alaska voted solidly +for it; the District of Columbia and New Mexico each cast two out of the +six votes allotted to them in the convention. Out of a total of 929 +votes cast, 303 were for the minority amendment and 626 against it. + +The minority proposition to commend "the honesty, economy, courage, and +fidelity of the present Democratic administration" was then put to the +convention and received a vote of 357 to 564--nine not voting. The +additional support to the eastern states came this time principally from +California, Michigan, and Minnesota; but the division between the +Northeast and the West and South was sharply maintained. The adoption of +the platform as reported by the majority of the committee was then +effected by a vote of 628 to 301. + + * * * * * + +In the evening the convention turned to the selection of candidates. In +the nominating speeches, the character of the revolution in American +politics came out even more clearly than in the debates on the platform. +The enemy had been routed, and the convention was in the hands of the +radicals, and they did not have to compromise and pick phrases in the +hope of harmony. + +Richard Bland, of Missouri, was the first man put before the convention, +and he was represented as "the living, breathing embodiment of the +silver cause"--a candidate chosen "not from the usurer's den, nor temple +of Mammon where the clink of gold drowns the voice of patriotism; but +from the farm, the workshop, the mine--from the hearts and homes of the +people." Mr. Overmeyer, of Kansas, seconded the nomination of Mr. +Bland--"that Tiberius Gracchus"--"in the name of the farmers of the +United States; in the name of the homeless wanderers who throng your +streets in quest of bread; in the name of that mighty army of the +unemployed; in the name of that mightier army which has risen in +insurrection against every form of despotism." + +Mr. Bryan was presented as that young giant of the West, that friend of +the people, that champion of the lowly, that apostle and prophet of +this great crusade for financial reform--a new Cicero to meet the new +Catilines of to-day--to lead the Democratic party, the defender of the +poor, and the protector of the oppressed, which this day sent forth +"tidings of great joy to all the toiling millions of this overburdened +land." + +On the first ballot, fourteen candidates were voted for, but Mr. Bland +and Mr. Bryan were clearly in the lead. On the fifth ballot, Mr. Bryan +was declared nominated by a vote of 652 out of 930. Throughout the +balloting, most of the eastern states abstained from voting. Ten +delegates from Connecticut, seventeen or eighteen from Massachusetts, a +majority from New Jersey, all of the delegates from New York, and a +majority of the delegates from Wisconsin refused to take any part at +all. Pennsylvania remained loyal throughout to the nominee from that +state, Pattison, although it was a forlorn hope. Thus in the balloting +for candidates, we discover the same alignment of the East against the +West and South which was evident in the vote on the platform. In the +vote on the Vice President which followed, the eastern states refused to +participate--from 250 to 260 delegates abstaining during the five +ballots which resulted in the nomination of Sewall. New York +consistently abstained; so did New Jersey; while a majority of the +delegates from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts refused to take part. + +In the notification speech delivered by Mr. Stone at Madison Square +Garden in New York on August 12, the Democratic party was represented as +the champion of the masses and their leader as "a plain man of the +people." He defended the men of the Chicago convention against the +charge of being cranks, anarchists, and socialists, declaring them to be +the representatives of the industrial and producing classes who +constituted "the solid strength and safety of the state" against the +combined aggressions of foreign money changers and Anglicized American +millionaires--"English toadies and the pampered minions of corporate +rapacity." Against the selfish control of the privileged classes, he +placed the sovereignty of the people, declaring that within both of the +old parties there was a mighty struggle for supremacy between those who +stood for the sovereignty of the people and those who believed in "the +divinity of pelf." He took pride in the fact that the convention +represented "the masses of the people, the great industrial and +producing masses of the people. It represented the men who plow and +plant, who fatten herds, who toil in shops, who fell forests, and delve +in mines. But are these to be regarded with contumely and addressed in +terms of contempt? Why, sir, these are the men who feed and clothe the +nation; whose products make up the sum of our exports; who produce the +wealth of the republic; who bear the heaviest burdens in times of peace; +who are ready always to give their lifeblood for their country's +flag--in short, these are the men whose sturdy arms and faithful hands +uphold the stupendous fabric of our civilization." + +Mr. Bryan's speech of acceptance was almost entirely devoted to a +discussion of the silver question. But he could not ignore the charge, +which had then become widespread throughout the country, that his party +meditated an attack upon the rights of property and was the foe of +social order and national honor. He repudiated the idea that his party +believed that equality of talents and wealth could be produced by human +institutions; he declared his belief in private property as the stimulus +to endeavor and compensation for toil; but he took his stand upon the +principle that all should be equal before the law. Among his foes he +discovered "those who find a pecuniary advantage in advocating the +doctrines of non-interference when great aggregations of wealth are +trespassing upon the rights of individuals." The government should +enforce the laws against all enemies of the public weal, not only the +highwayman who robs the unsuspecting traveler, but also the +transgressors who "through the more polite and less hazardous means of +legislation appropriate to their own use the proceeds of the toil of +others." + +In his opinion, the Democratic income tax was not based upon hostility +to the rich, but was simply designed to apportion the burdens of +government more equitably among those who enjoyed its protection. As to +the matter of the Supreme Court, there was no suggestion in the platform +of a dispute with that tribunal. For a hundred years the Court had +upheld the underlying principle of the income tax, and twenty years +before "this same Court sustained without a dissenting voice an income +tax law almost identical with the one recently overthrown." The platform +did not propose an attack on the Supreme Court; some future Court had as +much right "to return to the judicial precedents of a century as the +present Court had to depart from them. When Courts allow rehearings +they admit that error is possible; the late decision against the income +tax was rendered by a majority of one after a rehearing." + +Discussing the monetary question, Mr. Bryan confined his argument to a +few principles which he deemed fundamental. He disposed of international +bimetallism by questioning the good faith of those who advocated it and +declaring that there was an impassable gulf between a universal gold +standard and bimetallism, whether independent or international. He +rejected the proposition that any metal represented an absolutely just +standard of value, but he argued that bimetallism was better than +monometallism because it made a nearer approach to stability, honesty, +and justice than a gold standard possibly could. Any legislation +lessening the stock of standard money increased the purchasing power of +money and lowered the monetary value of all other forms of property. He +endeavored to show the advantages to be derived from bimetallism by +farmers, wage earners, and the professional classes, and asked whether +the mass of the people did not have the right to use the ballot to +protect themselves from the disastrous consequences of a rising +standard, particularly in view of the fact that the relatively few whose +wealth consisted largely in fixed investments had not hesitated to use +the ballot to enhance the value of their investments. + +On the question of the ratio, sixteen to one, Mr. Bryan declared that, +because gold and silver were limited in the quantities then in hand and +in annual production, legislation could fix the ratio between them, +simply following the law of supply and demand. The charge of +repudiation he met with an argument in kind, declaring it to come "with +poor grace from those who are seeking to add to the weight of existing +debts by legislation which makes money dearer, and who conceal their +designs against the general welfare under the euphonious pretense that +they are upholding public credit and national honor." He concluded with +a warning to his hearers that they could not afford to join the money +changers in supporting a financial policy which destroyed the purchasing +power of the product of toil and ended with discouraging the creation of +wealth. + +In a letter of acceptance of September 9, 1896, Mr. Bryan added little +to the speeches he had made in the convention and in accepting the +nomination. He attacked the bond policy of President Cleveland and +declared that to assert that "the government is dependent upon the good +will or assistance of any portion of the people other than a +constitutional majority is to assert that we have a government in form +but without vital force." Capital, he urged, was created by labor, and +"since the producers of wealth create the nation's prosperity in time of +peace and defend the nation's flag in time of peril, their interests +ought at all times to be considered by those who stand in official +positions." He criticized the abuses in injunction proceedings and +favored the principle of trial by jury in such cases. He declared that +it was not necessary to discuss the tariff at that time because the +money question was the overshadowing issue, and all minor matters must +be laid aside in favor of united action on that moot point. + +A few of the advocates of the gold standard in the Democratic party, who +could not accept the Chicago platform and were yet unwilling to go over +to the Republicans, held a convention at Indianapolis in September, and +nominated a ticket, headed by John M. Palmer for President, and Simon +Buckner for Vice President. This party, through the address of its +executive committee calling the convention, declared that Democrats were +absolved from all obligations to support the Chicago platform because +the convention had departed from the recognized Democratic faith and had +announced doctrines which were "destructive of national honor and +private obligation and tend to create sectional and class distinctions +and engender discord and strife among the people." The address +repudiated the doctrine of majority rule in the party, declaring that +when a Democratic convention departed from the principles of the party, +no Democrat was under any moral obligation to support its action. + +The principles of the party which, the address declared, had been +adhered to from Jefferson to Cleveland "without variableness or a shadow +of turning" were summed up in a policy of _laissez faire_. A true +Democrat, ran the address, "believes, and this is the cardinal doctrine +of his political faith, in the ability of every individual unassisted, +if unfettered by law, to achieve his own happiness, and therefore that +to every citizen there should be secured the right and opportunity +peaceably to pursue whatever course of conduct he would, provided such +conduct deprived no other individual of the equal enjoyment of the same +right and opportunity. He stood for freedom of speech, freedom of +conscience, freedom of trade, and freedom of contract, all of which are +implied by the century-old battle cry of the Democratic party +'Individual Liberty!' ... Every true Democrat ... profoundly disbelieves +in the ability of the government, through paternal legislation, or +supervision, to increase the happiness of the nation." + +In the platform adopted at the convention, the "National Democratic +party" was pledged to the general principles enunciated in the address +and went on record as "opposed to all paternalism and all class +legislation." It declared that the Chicago convention had attacked +"individual freedom, the right of private contract, the independence of +the judiciary, and the authority of the President to enforce Federal +laws." It denounced protection and the free coinage of silver as two +schemes designed for the personal profit of the few at the expense of +the masses; it declared in favor of the gold standard, indorsed +President Cleveland's administration, and went to the support of the +Supreme Court by condemning "all efforts to degrade that tribunal or to +impair the confidence and respect which it has deservedly held." + +This platform received the support of President Cleveland, who, in +response to an invitation to attend the meeting at which the candidates +were to be notified, said: "As a Democrat, devoted to the principles and +integrity of my party, I should be delighted to be present on an +occasion so significant and to mingle with those who are determined that +the voice of true Democracy shall not be smothered and who insist that +the glorious standard shall be borne aloft as of old in faithful +hands." + +In their acceptance speeches, Palmer and Buckner devoted more attention +to condemning the Chicago platform than to explaining the principles for +which they stood. General Buckner said: "The Chicago Convention would +wipe virtually out of existence the Supreme Court which interprets the +law, forgetting that our ancestors in England fought for hundreds of +years to obtain a tribunal of justice which was free from executive +control. They would wipe that out of existence and subject it to the +control of party leaders to carry out the dictates of the party--they +would paralyze the arm of the general government and forbid the powers +to protect the lives and property of its citizens. That convention in +terms almost placed a lighted torch in the hands of the incendiary and +urged the mob to proceed without restraint to pillage and murder at +their discretion." + + +_The Campaign_ + +The campaign which followed the conventions was the most remarkable in +the long history of our quadrennial spectacles. Terror is always a +powerful instrument in politics, and it was never used with greater +effect than in the summer and autumn of 1896. Some of Mr. Bryan's +utterances, particularly on the income tax, frightened the rich into +believing, or pretending to believe, that his election would be the +beginning of a wholesale confiscation. The Republicans replied to Mr. +Bryan's threats by using the greatest of all terrors, the terror of +unemployment, with tremendous effect. Everywhere they let the country +understand that the defeat of Mr. McKinley would close factories and +throw thousands of workingmen out of employment, and manufacturers and +railways were accused by Mr. Bryan of exercising coercion on a large +scale. + +To this terror from above, the Democrats responded by creating terror +below, by stirring deep-seated class feeling against the Republican +candidate and his managers. In a letter given out from the Democratic +headquarters in Chicago, on September 12, 1896, Mr. Jones, chairman of +the Democratic national committee, said: "Against the people in this +campaign are arrayed the consolidated forces of wealth and corporate +power. The classes which have grown fat by reason of Federal legislation +and the single gold standard have combined to fasten their fetters still +more firmly upon the people and are organizing every precinct of every +county of every state in the Union with this purpose in view. To meet +and defeat this corrupt and unholy alliance the people themselves must +organize and be organized.... It will minimize the effect of the +millions of dollars that are being used against us, and defeat those +influences which wealth and corporate power are endeavoring to use to +override the will of the people and corrupt the integrity of free +institutions." + +Owing to the nature of the conflict enormous campaign funds were +secured. The silver miners helped to finance Mr. Bryan, but their +contributions were trivial compared with the immense sums raised by Mr. +Hanna from protected interests, bankers, and financiers. With this great +fund, speakers were employed by the thousands, newspapers were +subsidized, party literature circulated by the ton, whole states polled +in advance, and workers employed to carry the Republican fight into +every important precinct in the country. The God of battles was on the +side of the heaviest battalions. With all the most powerful engines for +creating public sentiment against him, Mr. Bryan, in spite of his +tremendous popular appeal, was doomed to defeat. + +Undoubtedly, as was said at the time, most of the leading thinkers in +finance and politics were against Mr. Bryan, and if there is anything in +the verdict of history, the silver issue could not stand the test of +logic and understanding. But it must not be presumed that it was merely +a battle of wits, and that demagogic appeals to passions which were +supposed to be associated with Mr. Bryan's campaign were confined to his +partisans. On the contrary, the Republicans employed all of the forms of +personal vituperation. For example, that staid journal of Republicanism, +the _New York Tribune_, attributed the growth of Bryanism to the +"assiduous culture of the basest passions of the least worthy member of +the community.... Its nominal head was worthy of the cause. Nominal +because the wretched, rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid vanity and +mouthing resounding rottenness, was not the real leader of that league +of hell. He was only a puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld, the +anarchist, and Debs, the revolutionist, and other desperadoes of that +stripe. But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was,--willing and eager. None +of his masters was more apt than he at lies and forgeries and +blasphemies and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign against +the Ten Commandments." That such high talk by those who constituted +themselves the guardians of public credit, patriotism, and the Ten +Commandments was not calculated to sooth the angry passions of their +opponents needs no demonstration here. + + * * * * * + +Argument, party organization and machinery, the lavish use of money, and +terror won the day for the Republicans. The solid East and Middle West +overwhelmed Mr. Bryan, giving Mr. McKinley 271 electoral votes and +7,111,607 popular votes, as against 176 electoral and 6,509,052 popular +votes cast for the Democratic candidate. + +The decisive defeat of Mr. Bryan put an end to the silver issue for +practical purposes, although, as we shall see, it was again raised in +1900. The Republicans, however, delayed action for political reasons, +and it was not until almost four years had elapsed that they made the +gold dollar the standard by an act of Congress approved on March 4, +1900. Thus the war of the standards was closed, but the question of the +currency was not settled, and the old issue of inflation and contraction +continued to haunt the paths of the politicians. From time to time, the +prerogatives of the national banks, organized under the law of 1863 +(modified in 1901), were questioned in political circles, and in 1908 an +attempt was made by act of Congress to give the currency more elasticity +by authorizing the banks to form associations and issue notes on the +basis of certain securities. Nevertheless, no serious changes were made +in the financial or banking systems before the close of the year 1912. +The attention of the country, shortly after the campaign of 1896, was +diverted to the spectacular events of the Spanish War, and for a time +appeals to patriotism subdued the passions of the radicals. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [41] See below, p. 239. + + [42] H. Croly, _M. A. Hanna_, p. 195. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IMPERIALISM + + +The Republicans triumphed in 1896, but the large vote for Mr. Bryan and +his platform and the passions aroused by the campaign made it clear to +the far-sighted that, whatever might be the fate of free silver, new +social elements had entered American politics. It was fortunate for the +conservative interests that the quarrel with Spain came shortly after +Mr. McKinley's election, and they were able to employ that ancient +political device, "a vigorous foreign policy," to divert the public mind +from domestic difficulties. This was particularly acceptable to the +populace at the time, for there had been no war for more than thirty +years, and, contrary to their assertions on formal occasions, the +American people enjoy wars beyond measure, if the plain facts of history +are allowed to speak.[43] + +Since 1876 there had been no very spectacular foreign affair to fix the +attention of the public mind, except the furor worked up over the +application of the Monroe Doctrine to Venezuela during President +Cleveland's second administration. For a long time that country and +Great Britain had been waging a contest over the western boundary of +British Guiana; and the United States, on the appeal of Venezuela, had +taken a slight interest in the dispute, generally assuming that the +merits of the case were on the side of the South American republic. In +1895, it became apparent that Great Britain did not intend to yield any +points in the case, and Venezuela began to clamor again for protection, +this time with effect. In July of that year, the Secretary of State, +Richard Olney, demanded that Great Britain answer whether she was +willing to arbitrate the question, and announced that the United States +was master in this hemisphere by saying: "The United States is +practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the +subjects to which it confines its interposition. Why? It is not because +of the pure friendship or good will felt for it. It is not simply by +reason of its high character as a civilized state, nor because wisdom +and equity are the invariable characteristics of the dealings of the +United States. It is because in addition to all other grounds, its +infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master +of the situation and practically invulnerable against any or all other +powers." + +This extraordinary document, to put it mildly, failed to arouse the +warlike sentiment in England which its language invited, and Lord +Salisbury replied for the British government that this startling +extension of the Monroe Doctrine was not acceptable in the present +controversy and that the arbitration of the question could not be +admitted by his country. This moderate reply brought from President +Cleveland a message to Congress on December 17, 1895, which created in +the United States at least all the outward and visible signs of the +preliminaries to a war over the matter. He asked Congress to create a +commission to ascertain the true boundary between Venezuela and British +Guiana, and then added that it would be the duty of the United States +"to resist by every means in its power, as a wilful aggression upon its +rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or +the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which, +after investigation, we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela." +He declared that he was conscious of the responsibilities which he thus +incurred, but intimated that war between Great Britain and the United +States, much as it was to be deplored, was not comparable to "a supine +submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national +self-respect and honor." In other words, we were to decide the dispute +ourselves and go to war on Great Britain if we found her in possession +of lands which in our opinion did not belong to her. + +This defiant attitude on the part of President Cleveland, while it +aroused a wave of enthusiasm among those sections of the population +moved by bold talk about the unimpeachable integrity of the United +States and its daring defense of right everywhere, called forth no +little criticism in high places. Contrary to expectation, it was not met +by bluster on the part of Great Britain, but it was rather deplored +there as threatening a breach between the two countries over an +insignificant matter. Moreover, when the commission created by Congress +set to work on the boundary dispute, the British government courteously +replied favorably to a request for assistance in the search for +evidence. Finally, Great Britain yielded and agreed to the earlier +proposition on the part of the United States that the issue be +submitted to arbitration; and this happy outcome of the matter +contributed not a little to Mr. Cleveland's reputation as "a sterling +representative of the true American spirit." This was not diminished by +the later discovery that Great Britain was wholly right in her claims in +South America. + + * * * * * + +The Venezuelan controversy was an echo of the time-honored Monroe +Doctrine and was without any deeper economic significance. There were +not wanting, however, signs that the United States was prepared +economically to accept that type of imperialism that had long been +dominant in British politics and had sprung into prominence in Germany, +France, and Italy during the generation following the Franco-Prussian +War. This newer imperialism does not rest primarily upon a desire for +more territory, but rather upon the necessity for markets in which to +sell manufactured goods and for opportunities to invest surplus +accumulations of capital. It begins in a search for trade, advances to +intervention on behalf of the interests involved, thence to +protectorates, and finally to annexation. By the inexorable necessity of +the present economic system, markets and safe investment opportunities +must be found for surplus products and accumulated capital. All the +older countries being overstocked and also forced into this new form of +international rivalry, the drift is inevitably in the direction of the +economically backward countries: Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South +America. Economic necessity thus overrides American isolation and +drives the United States into world politics. + +Although the United States had not neglected the protection of its +interests from the days when it thrashed the Barbary pirates, sent Caleb +Cushing to demand an open door in China, and dispatched Commodore Perry +to batter down Japanese exclusiveness, the relative importance of its +world operations was slight until manufacturing and commerce gained +their ascendancy over agriculture. + +The pressure of the newer interests on American foreign policy had +already been felt when the demand for the war with Spain came. In 1889, +the United States joined with Great Britain and Germany in a +protectorate over the Samoan Islands, thus departing, according to +Secretary Gresham, from our "traditional and well-established policy of +avoiding entangling alliances with foreign powers in relation to objects +remote from this hemisphere."[44] Preparations had been made under +Harrison's administration for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, +after a revolution, largely fomented by American interests there, had +overthrown the established government; but this movement was blocked for +the time being by President Cleveland, who learned through a special +commissioner, sent to investigate the affair, that the upheaval had been +due principally to American disgust for the weak and vacillating +government of the Queen. It was not until the middle of the Spanish War +that Congress, recognizing the importance of the Hawaiian Islands in +view of the probable developments resulting from Admiral Dewey's victory +in the Philippines, annexed them to the United States by joint +resolution on July 6, 1898.[45] + + +_The Spanish War_ + +It required, however, the Spanish War and the acquisition of the insular +dependencies to bring imperialism directly into politics as an +overshadowing issue and to secure the frank acknowledgment of the new +emphasis on world policy which economic interests demanded. It is true +that Cuba had long been an object of solicitude on the part of the +United States. Before the Civil War, the slave power was anxious to +secure its annexation as a state to help offset the growing predominance +of the North; and during the ten years' insurrection from 1868 to 1878, +when a cruel guerilla warfare made all life and property in Cuba unsafe, +intervention was again suggested. But it was not until the renewal of +the insurrection in 1895 that American economic interests in Cuba were +strong enough to induce interference. Slavery was gone, but capital, +still more dominant, had taken its place. + +In 1895, Americans had more than fifty million dollars invested in Cuban +business, and our commerce with the Island had risen to one hundred +millions annually. The effect of the Cuban revolt against Spain was not +only to diminish trade, but also to destroy American property. The +contest between the rebels and Spanish troops was characterized by +extreme cruelty and a total disregard for life and property. Gomez, the +leader of the revolt, resorted to the policy made famous by Sherman on +his march to the sea. He laid waste the land to starve the Spaniards and +compel American interference if possible. By a proclamation of November +6, 1895, he ordered that plantation buildings and railway connections +should be destroyed and sugar factories closed everywhere; what he left +undone was finished by the Spanish general, Weyler, who concentrated the +inhabitants of the rural districts in the centers occupied by the +troops. Under such a policy, business was simply paralyzed; and within +less than two years Americans had filed against Spain claims amounting +to sixteen million dollars for property destroyed in the revolution. + +The atrocities connected with the insurrection attracted the sympathy of +the American people at once. Sermons were preached against Spanish +barbarism; orators demanded that the Cuban people be "succored in their +heroic struggle for the rights of men and of citizens"; Mr. Hearst's +newspapers appealed daily to the people to compel governmental action at +once, and denounced the tedious methods of negotiation, in view of an +inevitable war. Cuban juntas formed in American cities raised money and +supplied arms for the insurrectionists. All the enormous American +property interests at stake in the Island, with their widespread and +influential ramifications in the United States, demanded action. The +war fever, always quick to be kindled, rose all over the country. + +Even amid the exciting campaign of 1896, the Democrats found time to +express sympathy with the Cubans, and the Republicans significantly +remarked that inasmuch as Spain was "unable to protect the property or +lives of resident American citizens," the good offices of the United +States should be tendered with a view to pacification and independence. +Perhaps, not unaware of the impending crisis, the Republicans also +favored a continued enlargement of the navy to help maintain the +"rightful influence" of the United States among the nations of the +earth. + +President Cleveland, repudiated by his own party and having no desire to +"play the game of politics," assumed an attitude of neutrality in the +conflict and denied to the Cubans the rights of belligerents. He offered +to Spain the good offices of the United States in mediation with the +insurgents--a tender which was rejected by Spain with the suggestion +that the United States might more vigorously suppress the unlawful +assistance which some of its citizens were lending to the +revolutionists. Mr. Cleveland's second administration closed without any +positive action on the Cuban question. + +Within four months after his inauguration, President McKinley protested +strongly to Spain against her policy in Cuba, and during the summer and +autumn and winter he conducted a running fire of negotiations with +Spain. Congress was impatient for armed intervention and fretted at the +tedious methods of diplomacy. Spain shrewdly made counter thrusts to +every demand advanced by the United States, but made no outward sign of +improvement in the affairs of Cuba, even after the recall of General +Weyler. In February, 1898, a private letter, written by De Lome, the +Spanish minister at Washington, showing contempt for Mr. McKinley and +some shifty ideas of diplomacy, was acquired by the _New York Journal_ +and published. This stirred the country and led to the recall of the +minister by his home government. Meanwhile the battleship _Maine_ was +sent to Havana, officially to resume friendly relations at Cuban ports, +but not without an ulterior regard for the necessity of protecting the +lives and property of Americans in jeopardy. The incident of the Spanish +minister's letter had hardly been closed before the _Maine_ was blown up +and sunk on the evening of February 15, 1898. The death of two officers +and two hundred and fifty-eight of the crew was a tragedy which moved +the nation beyond measure, and with the cry "Remember the _Maine_" +public opinion was worked up to a point of frenzy. + +A commission was appointed at once to inquire into the cause of the +disaster, and on March 21 it reported that the _Maine_ had been +destroyed by an explosion of a submarine mine which set off some of the +ship's magazines. Within a week, negotiations with Spain were resumed, +and that country made generous promises to restore peace in the Island +and permit a Cuban parliament to be established in the interests of +local autonomy. None of Spain's promises were regarded as satisfactory +by the administration, and on April 4, General Woodford, the American +representative in that country, was instructed to warn the ministry that +no effective armistice had been offered the Cubans and that President +McKinley would shortly lay the matter before Congress--which meant war. +After some delay, during which representatives of the European powers +and the Pope were at work in the interests of peace, Spain promised to +suspend hostilities, call a Cuban parliament, and restore a reasonable +autonomy. + +On the day after the receipt of this promise, President McKinley sent +his war message to Congress without explaining fully the latest +concessions made by Spain. It was claimed by the Spanish government that +it had yielded absolutely everything short of independence and that all +of the demands of the United States had been met. Some eminent editors +and publicists in the United States have since accepted this view of the +affair and sharply criticized the President for not making public the +full text of Spain's last concession on the day that he sent his war +message to Congress. Those who take this view hold that President +McKinley believed war to be inevitable and desirable all along, but +merely wished to bring public opinion to the breaking point before +shifting the responsibility to Congress. The President's defenders, +however, claim that no credence could be placed in the good faith of +Spain and that the intolerable conditions in Cuba would never have been +removed under Spanish administration, no matter what promises might have +been made. + +In his war message of April 11, 1898, Mr. McKinley brought under review +the conditions in Cuba and the history of the controversy, coming to +the conclusion that the dictates of humanity, the necessity of +protecting American lives and property in Cuba, and the chronic +disorders in the Island warranted armed intervention. Congress responded +by an overwhelming vote on April 19, in favor of a resolution declaring +that Cuba should be free, that Spain's withdrawal should be demanded, +and the President be authorized to use the military and naval forces of +the country to carry the decree into effect. In the enthusiasm of the +hour, Congress also specifically disclaimed any intention of exercising +"sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the +pacification thereof." Thus war was declared on the anniversary of the +battle of Lexington. + +In the armed conflict which followed, the most striking and effective +operations were on the sea. In anticipation of the war, Commodore Dewey, +in command of the Asiatic station, had been instructed as early as +February to keep his squadron at Hongkong, coaled, and ready, in event +of a declaration of hostilities, to begin offensive operations in the +Philippine Islands. The battleship _Oregon_, then off the coast of +Washington, was ordered to make the long voyage around the Horn, which +has now become famous in the annals of the sea. At the outbreak of the +war, Rear Admiral Sampson, in charge of the main squadron at Key West, +was instructed to blockade important stretches of the coast of Cuba and +to keep watch for the arrival of the Spanish fleet, under Admiral +Cervera, which was then on the high seas, presumably bound for Cuba. + +The first naval blow was struck by Admiral Dewey, who had left Chinese +waters on receiving news of the declaration of war and had reached +Manila Bay on the evening of April 30. Early the following morning he +opened fire on the inferior Spanish fleet under the guns of Cavite and +Manila, and within a few hours he had destroyed the enemy's ships, +killed nearly four hundred men, and silenced the shore batteries without +sustaining the loss of a single man or suffering any injuries to his own +ships worthy of mention. News of this extraordinary exploit reached the +United States by way of Hongkong on May 6, and the hero of the day was, +by popular acclaim, placed among the immortals of our naval history. + +While celebrating the victory off Manila, the government was anxiously +awaiting the arrival of the Spanish fleet in American waters which were +being carefully patrolled. In spite of the precautions of Admiral +Sampson, Cervera was able to slip into the harbor of Santiago on May 19, +where he was immediately blockaded by the American naval forces. An +attempt was made to stop up the mouth of the harbor by sending +Lieutenant Richmond P. Hobson to sink a collier at the narrow entrance, +but this spectacular move, carried out under a galling fire, failed to +accomplish the purpose of the projectors, and Hobson and his men fell +into the hands of the Spaniards. + +The time had now come for bringing the land forces into cooperation with +the navy for a combined attack on Santiago, and on June 14 a large body +of troops, principally regulars, embarked from Tampa, where men and +supplies had been concentrating for weeks. The management of the army +was in every respect inferior to the administration of the navy. +Secretary Alger, of the War Department, was a politician of the old +school, who could not allow efficiency to interfere with the "proper" +distribution of patronage; and as a result of his dilatory methods (to +put it mildly) and the general unpreparedness of the army, the camp at +Tampa was grossly mismanaged. Sanitary conveniences were indescribably +bad, supply contractors sold decayed meat and wretched food to the +government, heavy winter clothing was furnished to men about to fight in +the summer time in a tropical climate, and, to cap the climax of +blundering, inadequate provisions were made for landing the troops when +they reached Cuba on June 22. + +The forces dispatched to Cuba were placed under the command of General +Shafter, but owing to his illness the fighting was principally carried +on under Generals Lawton and Wheeler. The most serious conflicts in the +land campaign occurred at El Caney and San Juan Hill, both strategic +points near Santiago. At the second of these places the famous "Rough +Riders" under Colonel Roosevelt distinguished themselves by a charge up +the hill under heavy fire and by being the first to reach the enemy's +intrenchments. In spite of several engagements, in which the fortunes of +the day were generally on the side of the Americans, sickness among the +soldiers and lack of supplies caused General Shafter to cable, on July +3, that without additional support he could not undertake a successful +storming of Santiago. + +At this critical juncture, the naval forces once more distinguished +themselves, and made further bloody fighting on land unnecessary, by +destroying Cervera's fleet which attempted to make its escape from the +Santiago harbor on the morning of July 3. The American ships were then +in charge of Commodore Schley, for Admiral Sampson had left watch early +that morning for a conference with General Shafter; and the sailors +acquitted themselves with the same skill that marked Dewey's victory at +Manila. Within less than four hours' fighting all the Spanish ships were +destroyed or captured with a loss of about six hundred killed and +wounded, while the Americans sustained a loss of only one man killed and +one wounded. This victory, of course, marked the doom of Santiago, +although it did not surrender formally until July 17, after two days' +bombardment by the American ships. + +The fall of Santiago ended military operations in Cuba, and General +Miles, who had come to the front in time to assist General Shafter in +arranging the terms of the surrender of Santiago, proceeded at once to +Porto Rico. He was rapidly gaining possession of that Island in an +almost bloodless campaign when news came of the signing of the peace +protocol on August 12. Unfortunately it required longer to convey the +information to the Philippines that the war was at an end, and on the +day after the signature of the protocol, that is, August 13, General +Merritt and Admiral Dewey carried Manila by storm. + +As early as July 26, 1898, the Spanish government approached President +McKinley through M. Cambon, the French ambassador at Washington, and +asked for a preliminary statement of the terms on which the war could +be brought to a close. After some skirmishing, in which Spain +reluctantly yielded to the American ultimatum, a peace protocol was +signed on August 12, to the effect that Cuba should be independent, +Porto Rico ceded to the United States, and Manila occupied pending the +final negotiations, which were opened at Paris by special commissioners +on October 1. + +When the commissioners met according to arrangements, the government of +the United States apparently had not come to a conclusion as to the +final disposition of the Philippines. The administration was anxious not +to go too far in advance of public opinion, at least so far as official +pronunciamento was concerned, although powerful commercial interests +were busy impressing the public mind with the advantages to be derived +from the retention of the distant Pacific Islands. In his instructions +to the peace commissioners, on the eve of their departure, Mr. McKinley, +while denying that there had originally been any intention of conquest +in the Pacific, declared that the march of events had imposed new duties +upon us, and added: "Incidental to our tenure in the Philippines is the +commercial opportunity to which American statesmanship cannot be +indifferent. It is just to use every legitimate means for the +enlargement of American trade." While stating that the possession of +territory was less important than an "open door" for trade purposes, he +concluded by instructing the commissioners that the United States could +not "accept less than the cession in full right and sovereignty of the +Island of Luzon." + +The peace commissioners were divided among themselves as to the policy +to be pursued with regard to the Philippines; but in the latter part of +October they received definite instructions from the Secretary of State, +Mr. John Hay, that the cession of Luzon alone could not be justified "on +political, commercial, or humanitarian grounds," and that the entire +archipelago must be surrendered by Spain. The Spanish commissioners +protested vigorously against this demand, on the theory that it was +outside of the terms of the peace protocol, but they were forced to +yield, receiving as a sort of consolation prize the payment of twenty +million dollars in compensation for the loss. + +The final treaty, as signed on December 10, 1898, embodied the following +terms: the independence of Cuba, the cession of Porto Rico, Guam, and +the Philippines to the United States, the cancellation of the claims of +the citizens of the two countries against each other, the United States +undertaking to settle the claims of its citizens against Spain, the +payment of twenty million dollars for the Philippines by the United +States, and the determination of the civil and political status of the +inhabitants of the ceded territories by Congress. + +When the treaty of peace was published, the contest over the retention +of the Philippines took on new bitterness--at least in public speeches +and editorials. The contentions on both sides were so vehement that it +was almost impossible to secure any frank discussion of the main issue: +"Does the United States want a foothold in the Pacific in order to +secure the trade of the Philippines and afford American capital an +opportunity to develop the dormant natural resources, and in order also +to have a station from which to give American trade and capital a better +chance in the awakening Orient?" Democrats demanded self-government for +the Philippines, "in recognition of the principles of the immortal +Declaration of Independence." Republicans talked in lofty strains about +"the mysterious hand of Providence which laid this burden upon the +Anglo-Saxon race." + +The proposal to retain the Philippines, in fact, gave the southern +statesmen just the opportunity they had long wanted to taunt the +Republicans with insincerity on the race question. "Republican leaders," +said Senator Tillman, "do not longer dare to call into question the +justice or necessity of limiting negro suffrage in the South." And on +another occasion he exclaimed in querulous accents: "I want to call your +attention to the remarkable change that has come over the spirit of the +dream of the Republicans. Your slogans of the past--brotherhood of man +and fatherhood of God--have gone glimmering down through the ages. The +brotherhood of man exists no longer." To such assertions, Republicans of +the old school, like Senator Hoar, opposed to imperialism, replied +sadly, "The statements of Mr. Tillman have never been challenged and +never can be." But Republicans of the new school, unvexed by charges of +inconsistency, replied that high talk about the rights of man and of +self-government came with poor grace from southern Democrats who had +disfranchised millions of negroes that were just as capable of +self-government as the bulk of the natives in the Philippines. + +Senator Vest, on December 6, introduced in the Senate a resolution to +the effect "that under the Constitution of the United States, no power +is given to the Federal Government to acquire territory to be held and +governed permanently as colonies." He was ably supported by Senator +Hoar, from Massachusetts, who took his stand upon the proposition that +"governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." +On the other side, Senator O. H. Platt, of Connecticut, expounded the +gospel of manifest destiny: "Every expansion of our territory has been +in accordance with the irresistible law of growth. We could no more +resist the successive expansions by which we have grown to be the +strongest nation on earth than a tree can resist its growth. The history +of territorial expansion is the history of our nation's progress and +glory. It is a matter to be proud of, not to lament. We should rejoice +that Providence has given us the opportunity to extend our influence, +our institutions, and our civilization into regions hitherto closed to +us, rather than contrive how we can thwart its designs." + +At length on February 6, 1899, the treaty was ratified by the Senate, +but it must not be assumed that all of the Senators who voted for the +ratification of the treaty favored embarking upon a policy of +"imperialism." Indeed, at the time of the approval of the treaty, a +resolution was passed by the Senate to the effect that the policy to be +adopted in the Philippines was still an open question; but the outbreak +of an insurrection there led to an immediate employment of military rule +in the Islands and criticism was silenced by the cry that our national +honor was at stake. + +The revolt against American dominion might have been foreseen, for the +conduct of Generals Anderson and Merritt at Manila had invited trouble. +For a long time before the War, native Filipinos had openly resisted +Spanish rule, and particularly the dominance of the monks and priests, +who held an enormous amount of land and managed civil as well as +ecclesiastical affairs. Just before the outbreak of the Spanish War, +there had been a revolt under the leadership of Aguinaldo which had been +brought to an end by the promise to pay a large sum to the revolutionary +leaders and to introduce extensive administrative reforms. The promises, +however, had not been carried out, and Admiral Dewey had invited the +cooperation of Aguinaldo and his insurgents in the attack on Manila. +When the land assault was made on the city, in August, Aguinaldo joined +with a large insurgent army under the banner of the Filipino republic +which had been proclaimed in July, but he was compelled to take a +subordinate position, and received scant respect from the American +commanders, who gave him to understand that he had no status in the war +or the settlement of the terms of capitulation. + +As may be imagined, Aguinaldo was in no happy frame of mind when the +news came in January, 1899, that the United States had assumed +sovereignty over the islands; but it is not clear that some satisfactory +adjustment might not have been made then, if the United States had been +willing to accept a sort of protectorate and allow the revolutionaries +to establish a local government of their own. However, little or nothing +was done to reach a peaceful adjustment, and on February 4, some +Filipino soldiers were shot by American troops for refusing to obey an +order to halt, on approaching the American lines. This untoward incident +precipitated the conflict which began with some serious regular fighting +and dwindled into a vexatious guerilla warfare, lasting three years and +costing the United States heavily in men and money. Inhuman atrocities +were committed on both sides, resembling in brutality the cruel deeds +which had marked frontier warfare with the Indians. Reports of these +gruesome barbarities reached the United States and aroused the most +severe criticism of the administration, not only from the opponents of +imperialism, but also from those supporters of the policy, who imagined +that it could be carried out with rose water. + + * * * * * + +The acquisition of the insular dependencies raised again the old problem +as to the power of Congress over territories, which had been so +extensively debated during the slavery conflict. The question now took +the form: "Does the Constitution restrict Congress in the government of +the Islands as if they were physically and politically a part of the +United States, and particularly, do the limitations in behalf of private +rights, freedom of press, trial by jury, and the like, embodied in the +first ten Amendments, control the power of Congress?" Strict +constitutionalists answered this question in the affirmative without +hesitation, citing the long line of constitutional decisions which had +repeatedly affirmed the doctrine that Congress is limited everywhere, +even in the territories by the Amendments providing for the protection +of personal and property rights; but practical politicians, supporting +the McKinley administration, frankly asserted that the Constitution and +laws of the United States did not of their own force apply in the +territories and could not apply until Congress had expressly extended +them to the insular possessions. + +The abstract question was given concrete form in several decisions by +the Supreme Court, known as "the Insular Cases." The question was +speedily raised whether importers of commodities from Porto Rico should +be compelled to pay the duties prescribed by the Dingley act, and the +Court answered in the case of De Lima _v._ Bidwell in 1901 that the +Island was "domestic" within the meaning of the tariff act and that the +duties could not be collected. In the course of his remarks, the +Justice, who wrote the opinion, said that territory was either domestic +or foreign, and that the Constitution did not recognize any halfway +position. Four Justices dissented, however; and American interests, +fearing this new competition, had dissented in advance,--so vigorously, +in fact, that Congress during the previous year had passed the Foraker +act imposing a tariff on goods coming into the United States from Porto +Rico and _vice versa_. + +This concession to the protected interests placed the Supreme Court in a +dilemma. If Porto Rico was domestic territory,--a part of the United +States,--was not the Foraker act a violation of the constitutional +provision that duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout +the United States? This question was judicially answered by the Court +in the case of Downes _v._ Bidwell, decided on May 27, 1901, which +upheld the Foraker act on grounds so various that the only real point +made by the Court was that the law was constitutional. None of the four +justices who concurred with Justice Brown in the opinion agreed with his +reasoning, and the four judges, who dissented entirely from the decision +and the opinion, vigorously denied that there could be any territory +under the flag of the United States which was not subject to the +limitations of the Constitution. + +In other cases involving freedom of the press in the Philippines and +trial by jury in the Hawaiian Islands, the Supreme Court upheld the +doctrine that Congress, in legislating for the new dependencies, was not +bound by all those constitutional limitations which had been hitherto +applied in the continental territories of the United States. The upshot +of all these insular decisions is that the Constitution may be divided +into two parts, "fundamental" and "formal"; that only the fundamental +parts control the Federal authorities in the government of the +dependencies; and that the Supreme Court will decide, from time to time +as specific cases arise, what parts of the Federal Constitution are +"fundamental" and what parts are merely "formal." In two cases, the +Court has gone so far as to hold that indictment by grand jury and trial +by petit jury with unanimous verdict are not "fundamental" parts of the +Constitution, "but merely concern a method of procedure." In other +words, the practical necessities of governing subject races of different +origins and legal traditions forced that eminent tribunal to resort to +painful reasoning in an effort not to hamper unduly the power of +Congress by constitutional limitations. + + * * * * * + +In the settlement which followed the Spanish War, three general problems +were presented. In the first place, our relations to Cuba required +definition. It is true that in the declaration of war on Spain Congress +had disclaimed "any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, +jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the pacification +thereof, and asserts its determination when that is accomplished to +leave the government and control of the Island to its people"; but +American economic interests in the Island were too great to admit of the +actual fulfillment of this promise. Consequently, Cuba was forced to +accept, as a part of her constitution, several provisions, known as the +Platt amendment, adopted by the Congress of the United States on March +2, 1901, restricting her relations with foreign countries, limiting her +debt-creating power, securing the right of the United States to +intervene whenever necessary to protect life and property, and reserving +to the United States the right to acquire coaling stations at certain +points on the Island to be agreed upon. + +Under the constitution, to which the Platt reservations on behalf of the +United States were attached, the Cubans held a general election in +December, 1901, choosing a president and legislature; and in the spring +of the following year American troops were withdrawn, leaving the +administration in the hands of the natives. It was not long, however, +before domestic difficulties began to disturb the peace of the Island, +and in the summer of 1906 it was reported that the government of +President Palma was about to be overthrown by an insurrection. Under the +circumstances, Palma resigned, and the Cuban congress was unable to +secure a quorum for the transaction of business. After due warning, +President Roosevelt intervened, under the provisions of the Platt +amendment, and instituted a temporary government supported by American +troops. American occupation of the Island continued for a few months, +but finally the soldiers were withdrawn and native government was once +more put on trial. + +The second problem was presented by Porto Rico, where military rule was +put into force after the occupation in 1898. At length, on May 1, 1900, +an "organic act," instituting civil government in that Island, was +approved by the President. This law did not confer citizenship on the +Porto Ricans, but assured them of the protection of the United States. +It set up a government embracing a governor, appointed by the President +and Senate of the United States, six executive secretaries appointed in +the same manner as the governor, and a legislature of two houses--one +composed of the six secretaries and five other persons selected by the +President and Senate, acting as the upper house, and a lower house +elected by popular vote. Under this act, the practice of appointing +Americans to the chief executive offices took the final control of +legislative matters out of the hands of the natives, leaving them only +an initiatory power. This produced a friction between the appointive +and elective branches of the government, which became so troublesome +that the dispute had to be carried to Washington in 1909, and Congress +enacted a measure providing that, in case the lower house of the Porto +Rican legislature refused to pass the budget, the financial arrangements +of the previous year should continue. + +The problem of governing the Philippines was infinitely more complicated +than that of governing Porto Rico, because the archipelago embraced more +than three thousand islands and about thirty different tribes and +dialects. The evolution of American control there falls into three +stages. At first, they were governed by the President of the United +States under his military authority. In 1901, a civil commission, with +Mr. W. H. Taft at the head, took over the civil administration of all +the pacified provinces. In 1902, Congress passed an "organic act" for +the Islands, providing that, after their pacification, a legislative +assembly should be erected. At length, in 1907, this assembly was duly +instituted, and the government now consists of the governor, a +commission appointed by the President and Senate, and a legislature +composed of the commission and a lower house of representatives elected +by popular vote. + + * * * * * + +Important as are the problems of governing dependencies, they are not +the sole or even the most significant aspects of imperialism. The +possession of territories gives a larger control over the development of +their trade and resources; but capital and enterprise seeking an outlet +flow to those countries where the advantages offered are the greatest, +no matter whoever may exercise political dominion there. The acquisition +of the Philippines was simply an episode in the development of American +commercial interests in the Orient. + +It was those interests which led the United States to send Caleb Cushing +to China in 1844 to negotiate a treaty with that country securing for +Americans rights of trade in the ports which had recently been blown +open by British guns in the famous "Opium War." It was those interests +which induced the United States government to send Commodore Perry to +Japan in 1853 and led to the opening of that nation--long closed to the +outside world--to American trade and enterprise. After 1844 in China, +and 1854 in Japan, American trade steadily increased, and American +capital seeking investments soon began to flow into Chinese business and +railway undertakings. Although the United States did not attempt to +follow the example of Great Britain, Russia, France, and Germany in +seizing Chinese territory, it did obtain a sufficient economic interest +in that Empire to warrant the employment of American soldiers in +cooperation with Russian, English, French, Japanese, and other +contingents at the time of the Boxer insurrection at Peking in the +summer of 1900. + +The policy of the United States at the time won no little praise from +the Chinese government. Having no territorial ambitions in the Empire, +the administration at Washington, through Mr. John Hay, Secretary of +State, was able to announce that the United States favored an "open +door" for trade and the maintenance of the territorial integrity of +China. "The policy of the Government of the United States," said Mr. Hay +to the Powers, in the summer of 1900, "is to seek a solution which may +bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese +territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to +friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the +world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the +Chinese empire." This friendly word, which was much appreciated by +China, was later supplemented by the generous action of the United +States government in returning to that country a large sum of money +which had been collected as an indemnity for the injury to American +rights in the Boxer uprising, and was discovered to be an overcharge due +to excessive American claims. + +While thus developing American interests in the Orient, the United +States government was much embarrassed by the legislation of some of the +western states against Orientals. Chinese and Japanese laborers were +excluded from the country by law or agreements, but in spite of this +fact there were large numbers of Orientals on the coast. This was +resented by many whites, particularly trade unionists with whom the +cheap labor came into competition, and from time to time laws were +enacted by state legislatures that were alleged to violate the rights +which the United States had guaranteed to the Chinese or Japanese by +treaties with their respective countries. + +Such a dispute occurred a few years ago over an attempt to exclude +Japanese children from the regular public schools in San Francisco, and +again in 1912 in connection with a law of California relative to the +acquisition of lands by aliens--the naturalization of Orientals being +forbidden by Federal law. These legal disputes arose from the fact that +the Federal government has the power to make treaties with foreign +countries relative to matters which are entirely within the control of +state legislatures. The discriminations against the Orientals, coupled +with the pressure of American interests in the Far East and the presence +of American dominion in the Philippines, caused no little friction +between certain sections of the United States and of Japan; and there +were some who began, shortly after the Spanish War, to speak of the +"impending conflict" in the Orient. + + +_The Campaign of 1900_ + +It was inevitable that the new issues, raised by the Spanish War, the +acquisition of the insular possessions, and the insurrection against +American rule in the Philippines, should find their way almost +immediately into national politics. By the logic of their situation, the +Republicans were compelled to defend their imperialist policy, although +it was distasteful to many of the old leaders; and at their national +convention, at Philadelphia in June, 1900, they renominated President +McKinley by acclamation, justified their methods in the dependencies, +approved the new commercial advances in the Orient, advocated government +aid to the merchant marine, and commended the acquisition of the +Hawaiian Islands. The trust plank, couched in vague and uncertain terms, +was, interestingly enough, drafted by Mr. Hanna, who appropriately +levied the campaign collections for his party in Wall Street.[46] Mr. +Roosevelt, then governor of New York, was nominated for Vice President, +although he had refused to agree to accept the office. The desire of +Senator Platt, the Republican "boss" in New York, to put him out of the +state threw the "machine" in his favor, and this, combined with +enthusiasm for him in the West, gave him every vote in the convention +save his own. Under the circumstances he was forced to accept the +nomination. + +The Democrats took up the challenge on "imperialism"; but Mr. Bryan was +determined not to allow the silver question to sink into an early grave, +and he accordingly forced the adoption of a free silver plank, as the +price of his accepting the nomination. The platform was strong in its +denunciation of Republican "imperialist" policy, in general and in +detail. It favored promising the Filipinos stable government, +independence, and, finally, protection from outside interference. It was +also more positive on the trust question, and it advocated an increase +in the powers of the interstate commerce commission, enabling it "to +protect individuals and communities from discriminations and the people +from unjust and unfair transportation rates." An effort was made to +placate the conservative section of the party by offering the nomination +to the Vice Presidency to David B. Hill, of New York, and on his +refusal of the honor it was given to Adlai Stevenson, who had held that +office during Cleveland's second administration. + +Although many Republicans supported Mr. Bryan on account of their +dislike of imperialism and its works, the result of the campaign was a +second victory for Mr. McKinley, even greater than that of 1896. He +received a larger popular vote and Mr. Bryan a smaller vote than in that +year. Of the 447 electors, Mr. McKinley received 292. This happy outcome +he naturally regarded as a vindication of his policies, and he was +evidently turning toward the future with renewed confidence (as his +Buffalo speech on reciprocity indicated) when on September 6, 1901, he +was shot by an anarchist at the Buffalo exposition and died eight days +later. + +Mr. Roosevelt immediately took the oath of office, and promised to +continue "absolutely unbroken" the policy of his predecessor. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [43] J. B. Moore, _Four Phases of American Development_, p. + 195. + + [44] In 1899, the tripartite arrangement was dissolved and + the United States obtained outright possession of Tutuila. + + [45] The Hawaiian Islands are ruled by a governor appointed + by the President and Senate and by a legislature of two + houses elected by popular vote. + + [46] Croly, _Life of Marcus Hanna_, p. 307. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM + + +The years immediately following the War with Spain were marked by +extraordinary prosperity in business. The country recovered from the +collapse of the nineties and entered with full swing into another era of +inflation and promotion. The Dingley tariff law, enacted July 24, 1897, +had incidentally aided in the process by raising the protection +principle to its highest point since the Civil War, but the causes of +the upward movement lay deeper. The Spanish War, of course, stimulated +trade, for destruction on such a large scale always creates a heavy +demand for commodities and capital--a demand which was partially met, as +usual, by huge drafts on the future in the form of an increased national +debt. But the real cause lay in the nature of the economic processes +which had produced the periodical cycles of inflation and collapse +during the nineteenth century. Having recovered from a collapse previous +to the War, inflation and capitalization on a gigantic scale set in and +did not run their course until a debacle in 1907. + +The formation of trusts and the consolidation of older combinations in +this period were commensurate in scale with the gigantic financial power +created by capitalist accumulations. The period of the later seventies +and eighties, as has been shown, was a period of hot competition +followed by pools, combinations, and trusts. The era which followed the +Spanish War differed in degree rather than in kind, but it was marked by +financial operations on a scale which would have staggered earlier +promoters. Perhaps it would be best to say that the older school merely +found its real strength at the close of the century, for the new +financing was done by the Vanderbilt, Astor, Gould, Morgan, and +Rockefeller interests, the basis of which had been laid earlier. There +was, in fact, no break in the process, save that which was made by the +contraction of the early nineties. But the operations of the new era +were truly grand in their conception and execution. + +A few examples will serve to illustrate the process. In 1900, the +National Sugar Refining Company of New Jersey was formed with a capital +of $90,000,000, and "from its inception it adopted the policy of issuing +no public statements to its stockholders regarding earnings or financial +conditions. The only statement ... is simply an annual balance sheet, +showing the assets and liabilities of the corporation in a greatly +condensed form." In 1904, the total capital of parent and affiliated +concerns was approximately $145,000,000. The Copper Trust was +incorporated under New Jersey laws in 1899, and in 1904 its par value +capital was $175,000,000. In 1899, the Smelters' Trust with an +authorized capital of about $65,000,000 was formed. In the same year the +Standard Oil Company, as the successor to the Trust, was organized with +$102,233,700 capital. + +The process of consolidation may best be shown by turning from +generalities to a brief study of the United States Steel Corporation, a +great portion of whose business was laid bare in 1911-12 by a Federal +investigation. It appears that until about 1898 there was a large number +of steel concerns actively engaged in a competition which was modified +at times by pools and price agreements; and that each of them was +vigorously reaching out, not only for more trade, but for control over +the chief source of strength--supply of ore. Finally, in the closing +days of the nineties, this competition and stress for control became so +great that the steel men and the associated financial interests began to +fear that the increased facilities for production would result in +flooding the market and in ruining a number of concerns. The rough steel +manufacturers began to push into the field of finished products, and the +wire, nail, plate, and tube concerns were crowding into the rough steel +manufacturing. All were scrambling for ore beds. In this "struggle of +the giants" the leading steel makers saw nothing but disaster, and they +set to work to consolidate a dozen or more companies. Their labors were +crowned with success on April 1, 1901, when the new corporation with a +capital of a little more than $1,400,000,000 began business. + +In the consolidation of the several concerns an increase of more than +$400,000,000 was made in the total capital; and a stock commission of +the cash value of $62,500,000 was given to the Morgan underwriting +syndicate for financing the enterprise. It is, of course, impossible to +discover now the physical value of the properties consolidated, many of +which were already heavily "watered." Of the Carnegie concern, a Federal +report says, "The evidence on the whole tends to show that bonds were +issued substantially up to the full amount of the physical assets +acquired and that the stock was issued merely against good will and +other intangible considerations." How much of the total capital was +"water" is impossible to determine, but the Bureau of Corporations +estimates "that more than $150,000,000 of the stock of the Steel +Corporation (this including more than $41,000,000 of preferred stock and +$109,000,000 of common stock) was issued, either directly or indirectly +(through exchange) for mere promotion or underwriting services. This +total, moreover, as noted does not include anything for the American +Sheet Steel Company ... nor is anything added in the case of the Shelby +Steel Tube Company. It should be repeated that this enormous total of +over $150,000,000 does not include common stock issued as bonus with +preferred for property or for cash, but simply what may be termed the +promotion and organization commissions in the strict sense. In other +words, nearly one seventh of the total capital stock of the Steel +Corporation appears to have been issued, either directly or indirectly, +to promoters for their services." How much more of the $440,000,000 +additional capital represented something other than physical values is +partially a matter of guesswork. The Bureau of Corporations valued the +tangible property of the corporation at $682,000,000 in 1901, as against +$1,400,000,000 issued securities; and computed the rate of profit from +1901 to 1910 on the actual investment at 12 per cent. It should be +noted, also, that shortly after the formation of the concern the common +stock which had been issued fell with a crash, and the outsiders who +risked their fortunes in the concern were ruined.[47] + +All of the leading trusts and railways were, even at their inception, +intimately connected through cross investments and interlocking +directorates. Writing in 1904, Mr. Moody, an eminent financial +authority, said: "Around these two groups [the Morgan-Rockefeller +interests], or what must ultimately become one greater group, all other +smaller groups of capitalists congregate. They are all allied and +intertwined by their various mutual interests. For instance, the +Pennsylvania Railroad interests are on the one hand allied with the +Vanderbilts and on the other with the Rockefellers. The Vanderbilts are +closely allied with the Morgan group, and both the Pennsylvania and +Vanderbilt interests have recently become the dominating factors in the +Reading system, a former Morgan road and the most important part of the +anthracite coal combine which has always been dominated by the Morgan +people.... Viewed as a whole, we find the dominating influences in the +trusts to be made up of an intricate network of large and small +capitalists, many allied to another by ties of more or less importance, +but all being appendages to or parts of the greater groups which are +themselves dependent on and allied with the two mammoth, or Rockefeller +and Morgan, groups. These two mammoth groups jointly ... constitute the +heart of the business and commercial life of the nation."[48] + +How tremendous is this corporate control over business, output, and wage +earners is indicated by the census of 1909. Of the total number of +establishments reported as engaged in manufacturing in 1904, 23.6 per +cent were under corporate ownership, while in 1909 the percentage had +increased to 25.9. Although they controlled only about one fourth of the +total number of establishments, corporations employed 70.6 per cent of +all the wage earners reported in 1904 and 75.6 per cent in 1909. Still +more significant are the figures relative to the output of corporations. +Of the total value of the product of all establishments, 73.7 per cent +was turned out by corporations in 1904 and 79 per cent in 1909. "In most +of the states," runs the Census Report, "between three fifths and nine +tenths of the total value of manufactured products in 1909 was reported +by establishments under corporate ownership." Of the 268,491 +establishments reported in 1909, there were 3061 which produced 43.8 per +cent of the total value of all products and employed 30.5 per cent of +the wage earners. It is, in fact, this absorption of business by a small +number of concerns which marks the great concentration of modern +industry. The mere number of corporations is not of much significance, +for most of them are petty. + +In addition to gaining control of the leading manufacturing concerns and +the chief natural resources of the country, the great capitalist +interests seized upon social values to the amount of billions of dollars +through stock watering and manipulations of one kind or another. +"Between 1868 and 1872, for example, the share capital of the Erie was +increased from $17,000,000 to $78,000,000, largely for the purpose of +stock-market manipulation.... The original Central Pacific Railroad, for +instance, actually cost only $58,000,000; it is a matter of record that +$120,000,000 was paid a construction company for the work. The syndicate +which financed the road received $62,500,000 par value in securities as +profits, a sum greater than it actually cost to build the property. The +80 per cent stock dividend of the New York Central in 1868; scrip +dividends on the Reading in the seventies; the 50 per cent dividend of +the Atchison in 1881; the 100 per cent stock dividends of the Louisville +and Nashville in 1880, by a pen stroke adding $20,000,000 to 'cost of +road' upon the balance sheet; the notorious 100 per cent dividend of the +Boston and Albany in 1882 [are further examples].... Recent inflations +of capitalization in connection with railroad consolidation are headed +by the case of the Rock Island Company. In 1902 this purely financial +corporation bought up the old Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railway, +capitalized at $75,000,000 and substituted therefor its own stock to the +amount of $117,000,000, together with $75,000,000 of collateral trust +bonds, secured by the stock of the property acquired. The entire history +of the New York traction companies is studded with similar occurrences. +One instance may suffice. In 1906 the Interborough-Metropolitan Company +purchased $105,540,000 in securities of the merged lines, and issued in +place thereof $138,309,000 of its own stock and $70,000,000 in bonds.... +E. H. Harriman and three associates ... expanded the total +capitalization of the [Alton] road from $33,950,000 to $114,600,000, an +increase of over $80,000,000. In improvements and additions to the +property out of this augmented capitalization, their own accounts showed +only about $18,000,000 expended. It thus appears that securities +aggregating $62,600,000 were put forth during this time [seven years, +beginning in 1898], without one dollar of consideration. This sum is +equal to about $66,000 per mile of line owned--a figure considerably in +excess of the average net capitalization of the railroads of the +country."[49] + +It is not necessary to cite further evidence to show that billions of +dollars of fictitious values were saddled upon the country between the +end of the Civil War and the close of the century. A considerable +portion of the amount of stocks and bonds issued was doubtless based on +the dividend-paying power of the concerns in question. In many instances +the stock was not purchased in large quantities by the investing public, +but was simply issued to promoters, and when values collapsed they only +lost so much worthless paper. It is apparent, therefore, that all the +stock watering is not of the same character or effect; but nevertheless +it remains a fact that the buying public and the working class are +paying millions in annual tribute to the holders of paper which +represents no economic service whatever. If the water were all squeezed +out of railway, franchise, and industrial stocks and bonds and the +mineral and other resources which have been actually secured at a +nominal value, or fraudulently were returned to the government, there +would be a shrinkage in the necessary dividends paid out that would +startle the world. + + * * * * * + +Those who followed the literature of political economy during this +period of gigantic consolidation and high finance could not help +discovering a decided change in the views of leading men about the +nature of industrial evolution. The old practice of indiscriminate abuse +of all trusts began to undergo a decided modification; only persons from +the backward industrial regions of the West and South continued the +inordinate clamor for the immediate and unconditional dissolution of all +of them, on the theory that they were "artificial" products, brought +forth and nourished by malicious men bent solely upon enhancing their +personal fortunes. The socialist contention (set forth by Marx and +Engels in 1848) that competition destroyed itself, and that the whole +movement of industry was inevitably toward consolidation, began to +receive attention, although the socialist solution of the problem was +not accepted. + +This change in attitude was the result partly of the testimony of +practical business men before the Industrial Commission in 1900, which +was summarized in the following manner by the Commission: "Among the +causes which have led to the formation of industrial combinations, most +of the witnesses were of the opinion that competition, so vigorous that +profits of nearly all competing establishments were destroyed, is to be +given the first place. Even Mr. Havemeyer said this, though, as he +believed that in many cases competition was brought about by the fact +that the too high protective tariff had tempted too many rivals into +the field, he named the customs tariff law as the primal cause. Many of +the witnesses say that their organization was formed to make economies, +to lessen competition, and to get higher profits--another way of saying +that competition is the cause without conceding that the separate plants +were forced to combine." + +In a careful and thoughtful analysis of the problem, published in 1900 +by Professor J. W. Jenks, then of Cornell University, the wastes of +competition and the economies of combination (within limits) were +pointed out with clarity and precision. The Industrial Commission had +reported that rebates and discriminations by railways had been declared +to be a leading cause of combination by several witnesses appearing +before it; but Professor Jenks at the close of his survey came to the +positive conclusion "that, whenever the nature of the industry is one +which is peculiarly adapted for organization on a large scale, these +peculiarities will so strengthen the tendency toward a virtual monopoly +that, without legal aid and special discriminations or advantages being +granted by either the State or any other influence, a combination will +be made, and if shrewdly managed can and, after more experience in this +line has been gained, probably will practically control permanently the +market, unless special legal efforts better directed than any so far +attempted shall prevent."[50] The logical result of this conclusion is +at least government supervision, and this Mr. Jenks advocated. + +Whether some special privileges beyond the ownership of basic natural +resources was necessary to bring about combinations on a large scale, +the leaders in such combinations seem to have engaged extensively in +politics, contributing to the campaign funds of both parties, helping to +select their candidates, and maintaining expensive lobbies at Washington +and at the capitals of the several states. Mr. Havemeyer admitted before +a Senate committee in 1893 that the Sugar Trust was "a Democrat in a +Democratic state and a Republican in a Republican state"; and added that +in his opinion all other large corporations made contributions to the +two leading parties as a matter of course, for "protection." The +testimony taken by the New York insurance investigating committee in +1905 and by the Clapp committee of the United States Senate in 1912 +revealed the fact that during the period between 1896 and 1912 millions +of dollars had been contributed to the Republican party by the men who +had been most active in organizing the great industrial combinations, +and that representatives of the same group had also given aid and +comfort to the Democratic party,[51] although the latter, being out of +power at Washington, could not levy tribute with the same effectiveness. + +The statesman of the new capitalism was Mr. Marcus A. Hanna. Mr. Hanna +was born in 1837 of pioneer stock of the second or third generation, +after the roughness of the earlier days was somewhat smoothed away +without injury to the virility of the fiber. He entered business in +Cleveland in 1858 at a time when a remarkable group of business men, +including Mr. John D. Rockefeller, were laying the foundation of their +fortunes. Endowed with hard, practical, economic sense, he refused to be +carried away by the enthusiasm that was sweeping thousands of young men +of his age into the Union army, and he accordingly remained at his post +of business.[52] It was fortunate for his career that he did not lose +those four years, for it was then that he made the beginnings of his +great estate in coal, iron, oil, and merchandising. + +Mr. Hanna, like most of the new generation of northern business men, was +an ardent Republican. "He went into politics as a citizen," remarks his +biographer. "The motive, in so far as it was conscious, was undoubtedly +patriotic. That he should wish to serve his country as well as himself +and his family was rooted in his make-up. If he proposed to serve his +country, a man of his disposition and training could only do so by +active work in party politics. Patriotism meant to him Republicanism. +Good government meant chiefly Republican government. Hence the extreme +necessity of getting good Republicans elected and the absolute identity +in his mind and in the minds of most of his generation between public +and party service."[53] In his early days, therefore, he participated in +politics in a small way, but it was not until 1891, during the candidacy +of Mr. McKinley for governor of Ohio and Mr. Sherman for the Senate, +that he began to serve his party in a large way by raising campaign +funds.[54] + +In 1895 Mr. Hanna retired from active business and set about the task +of elevating Mr. McKinley to the Presidency. He spent a great deal of +time at first in the South securing Republican delegates from the states +where the Republican party was a shadow, and other than party +considerations entered largely into selection of delegates to the +Republican convention. While laying a solid foundation in the South, Mr. +Hanna bent every effort in capturing the delegates in northern states. +According to Mr. Croly, "Almost the whole cost of the campaign for Mr. +McKinley's nomination was paid by Mr. Hanna.... He did receive some help +from Mr. McKinley's personal friends in Ohio and elsewhere, but its +amount was small compared to the total expenses. First and last Mr. +Hanna contributed something over $100,000 toward the expense of the +canvass."[55] + +Mr. Hanna firmly believed, and quite naturally too, that the large +business concerns which had prospered under the policies of the +Republican party should contribute generously to its support. As early +as 1888, when the tariff scare seized certain sections of the country, +he was selected as financial auxiliary to the Republican national +committee, and raised about $100,000 in Cleveland, Toledo, Mahoning +Valley, and adjacent territory.[56] + +But Mr. Hanna's greatest exploits in financing politics were in +connection with Mr. McKinley's campaigns. In 1896 he at first +encountered some difficulties because of his middle western connections +and the predilection of Wall Street for Mr. Levi P. Morton in preference +to Mr. McKinley. "Mr. James J. Hill states that on August 15, just when +the strenuous work of the campaign was beginning, he met Mr. Hanna by +accident in New York and found the chairman very much discouraged. Mr. +Hanna described the kind of work which was planned by the Committee and +its necessarily heavy expense. He had been trying to raise the needed +money, but with only small success. The financiers of New York would not +contribute. It looked as if he might have to curtail his plan of +campaign, and he was so disheartened that he talked about quitting. Mr. +Hill immediately offered to accompany Mr. Hanna on a tour through the +high places of Wall Street, and during the next five days they succeeded +in collecting as much money as was immediately necessary. Thereafter Mr. +Hanna did not need any further personal introduction to the leading +American financiers."[57] + +Many grave charges were brought against Mr. Hanna to the effect that he +had no scruples in the use of money for corrupt purposes, but such +charges have never been substantiated to the satisfaction of his +friends. That in earlier days he employed the methods which were common +among public service corporations, is admitted by his biographer, but +condoned on the ground that practically every other street railway +company in the country was confronted with the alternative of buying +votes or influence. Mr. Hanna's Cleveland company "the West Side Street +Railway Company and its successors were no exception to this rule. It +was confronted by its competitors, who had no scruples about employing +customary methods, and if it had been more scrupulous than they, its +competitors would have carried off all the prizes. Mr. Hanna had, as I +have said, a way of making straight for his goal.... He and his company +did what was necessary to obtain the additional franchises needed for +the development of the system. The railroad contributed to local +campaign committees and the election expenses of particular councilmen; +and it did so for the purpose of exercising an effective influence over +the action of the council in street railway matters."[58] + +Grave charges were also made at the time of Mr. Hanna's candidacy for +the United States Senate that he employed the methods which he had found +so advantageous in public-service-corporation politics, but his +biographer, Mr. Croly, indignantly denies the allegation, showing very +conclusively that Mr. Hanna won his nomination squarely on the issue put +before the Republican voters and was under the rules of politics +entitled to the election by the legislature. Mr. Hanna's career, says +Mr. Croly, "demanded an honorable victory. Like every honest man he had +conscientious scruples about buying votes for his own political benefit, +and his conscience when aroused was dictatorial.... It does not follow +that no money was corruptly used for Mr. Hanna's benefit. Columbus +[Ohio] was full of rich friends less scrupulous than he.... They may +have been willing to spend money in Mr. Hanna's interest and without his +knowledge. Whether as a matter of fact any such money was spent I do not +know, but under the circumstances the possibility thereof should be +frankly admitted."[59] + +In his political science as well as his business of politics, Mr. Hanna +looked to the instant need of things. He does not seem to have been a +student of history or of the experience of his own or other countries in +the field of social legislation. As United States Senator he made +practically no speeches, if we except his remarks in favor of ship +subsidies and liberal treatment of armor plate manufacturers. On the +stump, for in later years he developed some facility in popular +addresses, he confined his reflections to the customary generalizations +about prosperity and his chief contribution to political phraseology was +the slogan, "Stand pat."[60] When not engaged in actual labor of +partisan contests, Mr. Hanna seems to have enjoyed the pleasure of the +table and good company rather than the arduous researches of the student +of politics. He had an immense amount of shrewd practical sense, and he +divined a good deal more by his native powers of quick perception than +many a statesman of the old school, celebrated for his profundity as a +"constitutional lawyer and jurist." + +The complete clew to Mr. Hanna's philosophy of politics is thus summed +up by his penetrating and sympathetic biographer, Mr. Croly: "We must +bear in mind that (1) he was an industrial pioneer and instinctively +took to politics as well as to business; (2) that in politics as in +business he wanted to accomplish results; (3) that politics meant to him +active party service; (4) that successful party service meant to him the +acceptance of prevailing political methods and abuses; and (5) finally +that he was bound by the instinctive consistency of his nature to +represent in politics, not merely his other dominant interest, but the +essential harmony between the interests of business and that of the +whole community." In other words, Mr. Hanna believed consistently and +honestly in the superior fitness of business men to conduct the politics +of a country which was predominantly commercial in character. He was not +unaware of the existence of a working class; in fact he was said to be a +generous and sympathetic employer of labor; but he could not conceive +the use of government instrumentalities frankly in behalf of that class. +Indeed, he thought that the chief function of the government was to help +business and not to inquire into its methods or interfere with its +processes. + +An illustration of Mr. Hanna's theory of governmental impotence in the +presence of the dominant private interests was afforded in the debate in +the Senate over the price to be paid for armor plate, in the summer of +1900. The Senate proposed that not more than a stipulated price should +be paid to the two steel companies, Carnegie and Bethlehem, which were +not competing with each other; and that, in case they failed to accept, +a government manufacturing plant should be erected. Mr. Hanna's +proposition was that the price of steel should be left, as the House had +proposed, with the Secretary of the Navy, and he warmly resisted all +government interference. When it was brought out in debate that the +steel companies had refused the government officers the data upon which +to determine whether the price charged was too high, Mr. Hanna +declared: "They did perfectly right in not disclosing those facts. That +is their business; and if they chose not to give the information to the +public, that was their business also." In short, he took the position +that the government should provide ample protection to the steel +interests against foreign competition, and pay substantially whatever +the steel companies might charge for armor plate (for without proper +data the Secretary of the Navy could not know when prices were +reasonable), and then ask them no questions whatever. Here we have both +_laissez faire_ and capitalism in their simplest form. + +Mr. Hanna, however, had none of the arts of the demagogue, not even the +minor and least objectional arts. His bluntness and directness in labor +conflicts won for him the respect of large numbers of his employees. His +frank and open advocacy of ship subsidies and similar devices commanded +the regard, if not the esteem, of his political enemies. His chief +faults, as viewed by his colleagues as well as his enemies, were in many +instances his leading virtues. If some of the policies and tactics which +he resorted to are now discredited in politics, it must be admitted that +he did not invent them, and that it was his open and clean-cut advocacy +of them that first made them clearly intelligible to the public. When +all the minor and incidental details and personalities of the conflicts +in which he was engaged are forgotten, Mr. Hanna will stand out in +history as the most resourceful and typical representative of the new +capitalism which closed the nineteenth century and opened the new. + + +_The Development of the Urban Population_ + +The rapid advance of business enterprise which followed the Spanish War +made more striking than ever the social results of the industrial +revolution.[61] In the first place, there was a notable growth in the +urban as contrasted with the rural population. At the close of the +century more than one third of the population had become city dwellers. +The census of 1910 classified as urban all thickly populated areas of +more than 2500 inhabitants, including New England towns which are in +part rural in character, and on this basis reported 46.3 per cent of the +population of the United States as urban and 53.7 rural. On this basis, +92.8 per cent of the population of Massachusetts was reported as urban, +78.8 per cent in New York, and 60.4 per cent in Pennsylvania. That +census also reported that "the rate of increase for the population of +urban areas was over three times that for the population living in rural +territory." + +The industrial section of this urban population was largely composed of +non-home owners. The census of 1900 reported "that the largest +proportion of hired homes, 87.9 per cent, is found in New York City. In +Manhattan and Bronx boroughs the proportion is even higher, 94.1 per +cent, as compared with 82 per cent for Brooklyn.... There is also a very +large proportion of hired homes in Boston, Fall River, Jersey City, and +Memphis, constituting in each of them four fifths of all the homes in +1900." Of the great cities having a large proportion of home owners, +Detroit stood at the head, with 22.5 per cent of the population owning +homes free of mortgage. + +Another feature of the evolution of the working class was the influx of +foreign labor, and the change in its racial character. The total alien +immigration between 1880 and 1900 amounted to about 9,000,000; and in +1905 the immigration for the fiscal year reached 1,026,449. For the +fiscal year 1910 it reached 1,198,037. During this period the racial +composition of the immigration changed decidedly. Before 1880 Celtic and +Teutonic nations furnished three fourths of the immigrants; but in 1905 +the proportions were reversed and Slavic and Iberian nations, Italy +leading, sent three fourths of the immigrants. + +This alien population drifted naturally to the industrial cities, and +the census of 1910 reported that of the 229 cities having 25,000 +inhabitants and more, the native whites of native parentage furnished +only 35.6 per cent, and that the foreign-born whites constituted 44.5 +per cent in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 40.4 per cent in New York City, and +35.7 per cent in Chicago. From the standpoint of politics, a significant +feature of this development is the manning of American industries +largely by foreign laborers who as aliens possess no share in the +government. + +A third important aspect of this transformation in the mass of the +population is the extensive employment of women in industries. The +census of 1910 reported that 19.5 per cent of the industrial wage +earners were women, and that the proportion of women breadwinners was +steadily increasing. The proportion of females who were engaged in +gainful pursuits was 14.7 per cent in 1870, 16 per cent in 1880, 19 per +cent in 1890, and 20.6 per cent in 1900. At the last date, about one +third of the females over ten years of age in Philadelphia were engaged +in gainful pursuits, and one eighth were employed in industries. At the +same time about 15,000 out of 42,000 women at Fall River, Massachusetts, +were in industries. + + +_The Labor Movement_ + +The centralization of capital and the development of the new statesmen +of Mr. Hanna's school were accompanied by a consolidation of the +laboring classes and the evolution of a more definite political program +for labor. As has been pointed out above, the economic revolution which +followed the Civil War was attended by the formation of unions in +certain trades and by the establishment of the Knights of Labor. This +national organization was based on the principle that all of the working +class could be brought together in a great society, equipped for waging +strikes in the field of industry and advancing a program of labor +legislation at the same time. This society, like a similar one promoted +by Robert Owen in England half a century before, fell to pieces on +account of its inherent weaknesses, particularly the inability of the +leaders to overcome the indifference of the workingmen in prosperous +trades to the struggles of their less fortunate brethren. + +Following the experience of England also, the labor leaders began to +build on a more secure foundation; namely, the organization of the +members of specific trades into local unions followed by their +amalgamation into larger societies. Having failed to stir a class +consciousness, they fell back upon the trade or group consciousness of +identical interests. In 1881, ninety-five trade-unions were federated on +a national scale, and in 1886 this society was reorganized as the +American Federation of Labor. The more radical labor men went on with +the Knights, but the foundations of that society were sapped by the more +solidly organized rival, which, in spite of many defeats and reverses, +steadily increased in its membership and strength. In 1910 the +Federation reported that its affiliations included 120 international +unions, 39 state federations, 632 city central bodies, 431 local +trade-unions, and 216 Federal labor unions, with a membership totaling +1,744,444 persons. + +Unlike German and English trade-unionists, the American Federation of +Labor steadily refused to go into politics as a separate party +contesting at the polls for the election of "labor" representatives. +This abstention from direct political action was a matter of expediency, +it seems, rather than of set principle. Mr. John Mitchell, the eminent +former leader of the miners, declared that "wage earners should in +proportion to their strength secure the nomination and election of a +number of representatives to the governing bodies of city, state, and +nation"; but he added that "a third Labor Party is not for the present +desirable, because it could not obtain a majority and could not +therefore force its will upon the community at large." This view, Mr. +Mitchell admitted, was merely temporary and due to circumstances, for +he frankly said: "Should it come to pass that the two great American +political parties oppose labor legislation as they now favor it, it +would be the imperative duty of unionists to form a third party to +secure some measure of reform." This was also substantially the position +taken by the President of the American Federation, Mr. Gompers. + +But it is not to be supposed that the American Federation of Labor +refused to consider the question of labor in politics. Its prominent +leaders were affiliated with the American Civic Federation, composed +largely of employers of labor, professional men, and philanthropists, +and known as one of the most powerful anti-socialist organizations in +the United States. Not only were Mr. Gompers and other labor leaders +associated with this society which strongly opposed the formation of a +class party in the United States, but they steadily waged war on the +socialists who were attempting to organize the working class +politically. The leaders in the American Federation, with a few +exceptions, were thus definitely anti-socialist and were on record on +this political issue. Moreover, while warning workingmen against +political action, Mr. Gompers and Mr. Mitchell openly identified +themselves with the Democratic party and endeavored to swing the working +class vote to that party. Mr. Gompers was especially active in the +support of Mr. Bryan in 1908, and boasted that 80 per cent of the voting +members of the Federation cast their ballots for the Democratic +candidate. + +In fact, a study of the writings and speeches of the leaders in the +American Federation of Labor shows that they had a fairly definite +politico-economic program, although they did not admit it. They favored +in general municipal and government ownership of what are called +"natural" monopolies, and they sympathized with the smaller business men +in their attempt to break up the great industrial corporations against +which organized labor had been able to make little headway. They +supported all kinds of labor legislation, such as a minimum wage, +workmen's compensation, sanitary laws for factories, the shortening of +hours, prohibition of child labor, insurance against accidents, sickness +and old age pensions, and industrial education. They were also on record +in favor of such political reforms as the initiative, referendum, and +recall, and they were especially vigorous in their efforts to curtail +the power of the courts to issue injunctions against strikers. In other +words, they leaned decidedly toward "state socialism" and expected to +secure their ends by supporting the Democratic party, historically the +party of individualism, and _laissez faire_. This apparent anomaly is +explained by the fact that state socialism does not imply the political +triumph of the working class, but rather the strengthening of the petty +bourgeoisie against great capitalists. + +It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the American Federation +of Labor was solidly in support of Mr. Gompers' program. On the +contrary, at each national convention of the Federation the socialist +members attempted to carry the organization over into direct political +action. These attempts were defeated each year, but close observers of +the labor movement discovered that the socialists were electing a large +number of local and state trade-union officials, and those who hope to +keep the organization in the old paths are anxious about the outcome at +the end of Mr. Gompers' long service. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [47] _Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Steel + Industry_, July 1, 1911. + + [48] Moody, _The Truth about the Trusts_, p. 493. + + [49] Professor W. Z. Ripley, _Political Science Quarterly_, + March, 1911. + + [50] _The Trust Problem_ (1900 ed.), p. 210. + + [51] See the Parker episode, below, p. 268. + + [52] Mr. Hanna was drafted in 1864, but saw no actual + service. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_, p. 44. + + [53] Croly, p. 113. + + [54] _Ibid._, p. 160. + + [55] Croly, p. 183. + + [56] _Ibid._, p. 149. + + [57] Croly, p. 219. + + [58] Croly, p. 81. + + [59] _Ibid._, p. 264. + + [60] Croly, p. 417. + + [61] See above, Chap. II. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT + + +The administrations of Mr. Roosevelt cannot be characterized by a +general phrase, although they will doubtless be regarded by historians +as marking an epoch in the political history of the United States. If we +search for great and significant social and economic legislation during +that period, we shall hardly find it, nor can we discover in his +numerous and voluminous messages much that is concrete in spite of their +immense suggestiveness. The adoption of the income tax amendment, the +passage of the amendment for popular election of Senators, the +establishment of parcel post and postal savings banks, and the +successful prosecution of trusts and combinations,--all these +achievements belong in time to the administration of Mr. Taft, although +it will be claimed by some that they were but a fruition of plans laid +or policies advocated by Mr. Roosevelt. + +One who attempts to estimate and evaluate those eight years of +multifarious activity will find it difficult to separate the transient +and spectacular from the permanent and fundamental. In the foreground +stand the interference in the coal strike, the acquisition of the Panama +Canal strip, voluminous messages discussing every aspect of our complex +social and political life, vigorous and spirited interference with state +elections, as in the case of Mr. Hearst's campaign in New York, and in +city politics, as in the case of Mr. Burton's contest in Cleveland, +Ohio, the pressing of the idea of conserving natural resources upon the +public mind, acrimonious disputes with private citizens like Mr. +Harriman, and, finally, the closing days of bitter hostilities with +Congress over the Tennessee Coal and Iron affair and appropriations for +special detectives to be at executive disposal. + + +_Mr. Roosevelt's Doctrines_ + +During those years the country was much torn with the scandals arising +from investigations, such as the life insurance inquest in New York, +which revealed grave lapses from the paths of rectitude on the part of +men high in public esteem, and gross and vulgar use of money in +campaigns. No little of the discredit connected with these affairs fell +upon the Republican party, not because its methods were shown to be +worse in general than those of the Democrats, but because it happened to +be in power. The great task of counteracting this discontent fell upon +Mr. Roosevelt, who smote with many a message the money changers in the +temple of his own party, and convinced a large portion of the country +that he had not only driven them out but had refused all association +with them. + +Mr. Roosevelt was thus quick to catch the prevailing public temper. "It +makes not a particle of difference," he said in 1907, "whether these +crimes are committed by a capitalist or by a laborer, by a leading +banker or manufacturer or railroad man, or by a leading representative +of a labor union. Swindling in stocks, corrupting legislatures, making +fortunes by the inflation of securities, by wrecking railroads, by +destroying competitors through rebates,--these forms of wrongdoing in +the capitalist are far more infamous than any ordinary form of +embezzlement or forgery.... The business man who condones such conduct +stands on a level with the labor man who deliberately supports a corrupt +demagogue and agitator." + + * * * * * + +Any one who takes the trouble to examine with care Mr. Roosevelt's +messages and other public utterances during the period of his +administration will discover the elements of many of his policies which +later took more precise form. + +In his first message to Congress, on December 3, 1901, Mr. Roosevelt +gave considerable attention to trusts and collateral economic problems. +He refused to concede the oft-repeated claim that great fortunes were +the product of special legal privileges. "The creation of these great +corporate fortunes," he said, "has not been due to the tariff nor to any +other governmental action, but to natural causes in the business world, +operating in other countries as they operate in our own. The process has +aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without +warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer, the poor +have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, +the wage worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in +this country at the present time. There have been abuses connected with +the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune +accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person +specially benefitted only on condition of conferring immense incidental +benefits upon others." + +While thus contending that large fortunes in the main were the product +of "natural economic forces," Mr. Roosevelt admitted that some grave +evils had arisen in connection with combinations and trusts, and +foreshadowed in his proposed remedial legislation the policy of +regulation and new nationalism. "When the Constitution was adopted, at +the end of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom could foretell the +sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions, which +were to take place by the beginning of the twentieth century. At that +time it was accepted as a matter of course that the several states were +the proper authorities to regulate ... the comparatively insignificant +and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are +now wholly different, and a wholly different action is called for." The +remedy he proposed was publicity for corporate affairs, the regulation, +not the prohibition, of great combinations, the elimination of specific +abuses such as overcapitalization, and government supervision. If the +powers of Congress, under the Constitution, were inadequate, then a +constitutional amendment should be submitted conferring the proper +power. The Interstate Commerce Act should likewise be amended. "The +railway is a public servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all +shippers alike. The Government should see to it that within its +jurisdiction this is so." Conservation of natural resources, irrigation +plans, the creation of a department of Commerce and Labor, army and navy +reform, and the construction of the Panama Canal were also recommended +at the same time (1901). + +In this message, nearly all of Mr. Roosevelt's later policies as +President are presaged, and in it also are marked the spirit and +phraseology which have done so much to make him the idol of the American +middle class, and particularly of the social reformer. There are, for +instance, many little aphorisms which appeal to the moral sentiments. +"When all is said and done," he says, "the rule of brotherhood remains +as the indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national +life for which we are to strive. Each man must work for himself, and +unless he so works no outside help can avail him; but each man must +remember also that he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that, while no +man who refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to himself or any +one else, yet each at times stumbles or halts, each at times needs to +have the helping hand outstretched to him." The "reckless agitator" and +anarchist are dealt with in a summary fashion, and emphasis is laid on +the primitive virtues of honesty, sobriety, industry, and +self-restraint. The new phrases of the social reformer also appear side +by side with the exclamations of virtuous indignation: "social +betterment," "sociological law," "rule of brotherhood," "high aims," +"foolish visionary," "equity between man and man"--in fact the whole +range of the terminology of social "uplift." + +None of Mr. Roosevelt's later messages added anything new by way of +economic doctrine or moral principle. The same notions recurred again +and again, often in almost identical language and frequently in the form +of long quotations from previous messages. But there appeared from time +to time different concrete proposals, elaborating those already +suggested to Congress. The tariff he occasionally touched upon, but +never at great length or with much emphasis. He frequently reiterated +the doctrine that the country was committed to protection, that the +tariff was not responsible for the growth of combinations and trusts, +and that no economic question of moment could be solved by its revision +or abandonment. + +As to the trusts, Mr. Roosevelt consistently maintained the position +which he had taken as governor of New York and had stated in his first +message; namely, that most of the legislation against trusts was futile +and that publicity and governmental supervision were the only methods of +approaching the question which the logic of events admitted. In his +message of December, 1907, he said: "The anti-trust law should not be +repealed; but it should be made more efficient and more in harmony with +actual conditions. It should be so amended as to forbid only the kind of +combination which does harm to the general public, such amendment to be +accompanied by, or to be an incident of, a grant of supervisory power to +the Government over these big concerns engaged in interstate business. +This should be accompanied by provision for the compulsory publication +of accounts and the subjection of books and papers to the inspection of +the Government officials.... The Congress has the power to charter +corporations to engage in interstate and foreign commerce, and a general +law can be enacted under the provisions of which existing corporations +could take out federal charters and new federal corporations could be +created. An essential provision of such a law should be a method of +predetermining by some federal board or commission whether the applicant +for a federal charter was an association or combination within the +restrictions of the federal law. Provision should also be made for +complete publicity in all matters affecting the public, and complete +protection to the investing public and the shareholders in the matter of +issuing corporate securities. If an incorporation law is not deemed +advisable, a license act for big interstate corporations might be +enacted; or a combination of the two might be tried. The supervision +established might be analogous to that now exercised over national +banks. At least, the anti-trust act should be supplemented by specific +prohibitions of the methods which experience has shown have been of most +service in enabling monopolistic combinations to crush out competition. +The real owners of a corporation should be compelled to do business in +their own name. The right to hold stock in other corporations should be +denied to interstate corporations, unless on approval by the proper +Government officials, and a prerequisite to such approval should be the +listing with the Government of all owners and stockholders, both by the +corporation owning such stock and by the corporation in which such stock +is owned." + +With that prescience which characterized his political career from his +entrance into politics, Mr. Roosevelt foresaw that it was impossible +for capitalists in the United States to postpone those milder reforms, +such as employers' liability, which had been accepted in the enlightened +countries of Europe long before the close of the nineteenth century. In +his message of December 3, 1907, he pointed out that "the number of +accidents to wage-workers, including those that are preventable and +those that are not, has become appalling in the mechanical, +manufacturing and transportation operations of the day. It works grim +hardship to the ordinary wage-worker and his family to have the effect +of such an accident fall solely upon him." Mr. Roosevelt thereupon +recommended the strengthening of the employers' liability law which had +been recently passed by Congress, and urged upon that body "the +enactment of a law which will ... bring federal legislation up to the +standard already established by all European countries, and which will +serve as a stimulus to the various states to perfect their legislation +in this regard." + +As has been pointed out above, Mr. Roosevelt, in all of his +recommendations, took the ground that the prevailing system of +production and distribution of wealth was essentially sound, that +substantial justice was now being worked out between man and man, and +that only a few painful excrescences needed to be lopped off. Only on +one occasion, it seems, did he advise the adoption of any measures +affecting directly the distribution of acquired wealth. In his message +of December 3, 1907, he declared that when our tax laws were revised, +the question of inheritance and income taxes should be carefully +considered. He spoke with diffidence of the latter because of the +difficulties of evasion involved, and the decision of the Supreme Court +in 1895. "Nevertheless," he said, "a graduated income tax of the proper +type would be a desirable feature of federal taxation, and it is to be +hoped that one may be devised which the Supreme Court will declare +constitutional." The inheritance tax was, in his opinion, however, +preferable; such a tax had been upheld by the Court and was "far more +important for the purpose of having the fortunes of the country bear in +proportion to their increase in size a corresponding increase and burden +of taxation." He accordingly approved the principle of a progressive +inheritance tax, increasing to perhaps 25 per cent in the case of +distant relatives. + +While advocating social reforms and castigating wrong-doers at home, Mr. +Roosevelt was equally severe in dealing with Latin-American states which +failed to discharge their obligations to other countries faithfully. In +his message of December, 1905, he said: "We must make it evident that we +do not intend to permit the Monroe doctrine to be used by any nation on +this continent as a shield to protect it from the consequences of its +own misdeeds against foreign nations. If a republic to the south of us +commits a tort against a foreign nation, such as an outrage against a +citizen of that nation, then the Monroe doctrine does not force us to +interfere to prevent the punishment of the tort, save to see that the +punishment does not assume the form of territorial occupation in any +shape. The case is more difficult when it refers to a contractual +obligation.... The country would certainly decline to go to war to +prevent a foreign government from collecting a just debt; on the other +hand it is very inadvisable to permit any foreign power to take +possession, even temporarily, of the custom houses of an American +republic in order to enforce the payment of its obligations; for such a +temporary occupation might turn into a permanent occupation. The only +escape from these alternatives may at any time be that we must ourselves +undertake to bring about some arrangement by which so much as possible +of a just obligation shall be paid." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Roosevelt's messages and various activities while he was serving the +unexpired term of President McKinley upset all of the conservative +traditions of the executive office. He intervened, without power, in the +anthracite coal strike of 1902, and had the satisfaction of seeing the +miners make substantial gains at the hands of a commission appointed by +himself, to which the contestants had agreed to submit the issues. He +began a prosecution of the Northern Securities Company at a time when +such actions against great combinations of capital were unfashionable. +He forced an investigation of the post-office administration in 1903, +which revealed frauds of huge dimensions; and he gave the administration +of public lands a turning over which led to the successful criminal +prosecution of two United States Senators. Citizens acquired the habit +of looking to the headlines of the morning paper for some new and +startling activity on the part of the President. Politicians of the old +school in both parties, who had been used to settling difficulties by +quiet conferences within the "organization," stood aghast. They did not +like Mr. Roosevelt's methods which they characterized as "erratic"; but +the death of Mr. Hanna in February, 1904, took away the only forceful +leader who might have consolidated the opposition within Republican +ranks. + + +_The Campaign of 1904_ + +Nevertheless the rumor was vigorously circulated that Mr. Roosevelt was +violently opposed by "Wall Street and the Trusts." Whatever may have +been the source of this rumor it only enhanced the President's +popularity. In December, 1903, Senator O. H. Platt wrote: "I do not know +how much importance to attach to the current opposition to Roosevelt by +what are called the 'corporate and money influences' in New York.... +There is a great deal said about it, as if it were widespread and +violent. I know that it does not include the whole of that class of +people, because I know many bankers and capitalists, railroad and +business men who are his strong, good friends, and they are not among +the smaller and weaker parties, either.... Now it is a great mistake for +capitalistic interests to oppose Roosevelt.... I think he will be +nominated by acclamation, so what is to be gained by the Wall Street +contingent and the railroad interests in this seeming opposition to +him?... There is no Republican in the United States who can be elected +except Roosevelt.... He is going to be the people's candidate, not the +candidate of the trusts or of the hoodlums, but of the conservative +elements." + +The Republican convention in 1904 was uneventful beyond measure. Though +Mr. Roosevelt was disliked by many members of his party, his nomination +was unavoidable, and even his opponents abstained from any word or deed +that might have disturbed the concord of the occasion. The management of +the convention was principally in the hands of the men from whom Mr. +Roosevelt afterward broke and stigmatized as "reactionary." Mr. Elihu +Root was temporary chairman, Mr. Joseph G. Cannon was permanent +chairman, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge was chairman of the committee on +resolutions which reported the platform, Mr. W. M. Crane and Mr. Boies +Penrose were selected as members of the national committee from their +respective states, and Mr. Frank S. Black, of New York, made the speech +nominating Mr. Roosevelt. Throughout, the proceedings were harmonious; +the platform and the nomination were accepted vociferously without a +dissenting vote. + +The Republican platform of 1904 gave no recognition of any of the newer +social and economic problems which were soon to rend that party in +twain. After the fashion of announcements made by parties already in +power, it laid great emphasis upon Republican achievements since the +great victory of 1896. A protective tariff under which all industries +had revived and prospered had been enacted; public credit was now +restored, Cuban independence established, peace, freedom, order, and +prosperity given to Porto Rico, the Philippine Islands endowed with the +largest civil liberty ever enjoyed there, the laws against unjust +discriminations by vast aggregations of capital fearlessly enforced, +and the gold standard upheld. The program of positive action included +nothing new: extension of foreign markets, encouragement of American +shipping, enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment wherever the suffrage +had been curtailed, and indorsement of civil service, international +arbitration, and liberal pensions. The trust plank was noncommittal as +to concrete policy: "Combinations of capital and of labor are the +results of the economic movement of the age, but neither must be +permitted to infringe the rights and interests of the people. Such +combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are alike +entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are subject to the laws +and neither can be permitted to break them." + +In their campaign book for 1904, the Republican leaders exhibited Mr. +Roosevelt as the ideal American in a superlative degree. "Theodore +Roosevelt's character," runs the eulogy, "is no topic for difference +of opinion or for party controversy. It is without mystery or +concealment. It has the primary qualities that in all ages have been +admired and respected: physical prowess, great energy and vitality, +straightforwardness and moral courage, promptness in action, talent for +leadership.... Theodore Roosevelt, as a typical personality, has won the +hearty confidence of the American people; and he has not shrunk from +recognizing and using his influence as an advocate of the best standards +of personal, domestic, and civic life in the country. He has made these +things relating to life and conduct a favorite theme in speech and essay +and he has diligently practiced what he preached. Thus he has become a +power for wholesomeness in every department of our life as a people." + + * * * * * + +The Democratic nominee, Mr. Alton B. Parker, failed to elicit any +enthusiasm in the rank and file of the party. He had supported the +Democratic candidate at a time when many of his conservative friends had +repudiated Mr. Bryan altogether, and thus he could not be branded as a +"bolter." But Mr. Parker's long term of service as judge of the highest +court of New York, his remoteness from actual partisan controversies, +his refusal to plunge into a whirlwind stumping campaign, and his +dignified reserve, all combined to prevent his getting a grip upon the +popular imagination. His weakness was further increased by the +half-hearted support given by Mr. Bryan who openly declared the party to +be under the control of the "Wall Street element," but confessed that he +intended to give his vote to Mr. Parker, although the latter, in a +telegram to the nominating convention at St. Louis, had announced his +unflinching adherence to the gold standard. + +The Democratic platform, except in its denunciation of the Republican +administration, was as indefinite as the occasion demanded. Independence +should be promised to the Filipinos at the proper time and under proper +circumstances; there should be a revision and gradual reduction of the +tariff by "the friends of the masses"; United States Senators should be +elected by popular vote; combinations and trusts which restrict +competition, control production, or fix prices and wages should be +forbidden and punished by law. The administration of Mr. Roosevelt was +denounced as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and +arbitrary," and the proposal of the Republican platform to enforce the +Fourteenth Amendment was condemned as "Bourbon-like, selfish, and +narrow," and designed to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional +strife. Constitutional, simple, and orderly government was promised, +affording no sensations, offering no organic changes in the political or +economic structure, and making no departures from the government "as +framed and established by the fathers of the Republic." + + * * * * * + +The only extraordinary incident in the campaign of 1904 occurred toward +the closing days, when Mr. Parker repeatedly charged that the Republican +party was being financed by contributions from corporations and trust +magnates. The Democratic candidate also declared that Mr. Cortelyou, as +Secretary of Commerce and Labor, had acquired through the use of +official inquisitorial powers inside information as to the practices of +trusts, and that as chairman of the Republican national committee, he +had used his special knowledge to extort contributions from +corporations. These corrupt and debasing methods had, in the opinion of +Mr. Parker, threatened the integrity of the republic and transformed the +government of the people into "a government whose officers are +practically chosen by a handful of corporate managers, who levy upon the +assets of the stockholders whom they represent such sums of money as +they deem requisite to place the conduct of the Government in such +hands as they consider best for their private interests." + +These grave charges were made as early as October 24, and it was +expected that Mr. Cortelyou would reply immediately, particularly as Mr. +Parker was repeating and amplifying them. However, no formal answer came +until November 5, three days before the election, when a countercharge +was impossible. On that date Mr. Roosevelt issued a signed statement, +analyzing the charges of his opponent, and closing with the positive +declaration that "the statements made by Mr. Parker are unqualifiedly +and atrociously false." + +No doubt it would have been difficult for Mr. Parker to have +substantiated many of the details in his charges, but the general truth +of his contention that the Republican campaign was financed by railway +and trust magnates was later established by the life insurance +investigation in New York in 1905, by the exposures of trust methods by +Mr. Hearst in the publication of Standard Oil Letters, and by the +revelations made before the Clapp committee of the Senate in 1912. It is +true, Mr. Roosevelt asserted that he knew nothing personally about the +corporation contributions, particularly the Standard Oil gifts, and +although he convinced his friends of his entire innocence in the matter, +seasoned politicians could hardly understand a naivete so far outside +the range of their experience. + +The Democratic candidate and his friends took open pleasure in the +discomfiture produced in Republican ranks by these unpleasant +revelations, but no little bitterness was added to their cup of joy by +the other side of the story. During the life insurance investigation +one of the life insurance officers declared: "My life was made weary by +the Democratic candidates chasing for money in that campaign. Some of +the very men who to-day are being interviewed in the papers as +denouncing the men who contribute to campaigns,--their shadows were +crossing my path every step I took." Later, before the Clapp committee +in 1912, Mr. August Belmont and Mr. T. F. Ryan, corporation magnates +with wide-reaching financial interests,--the latter particularly famous +for his Tobacco Trust affiliations,--testified that they had +underwritten Mr. Parker's campaign to the amount of several hundred +thousand dollars. Independent newspapers remarked that it seemed to be +another case of the kettle and the pot. + +That the conservative interests looked to the Republican party, if not +to Mr. Roosevelt, for the preservation of good order in politics and the +prevention of radical legislation, is shown by the campaign +contributions on the part of those who had earlier financed Mr. Hanna. +In 1907 a letter from the railroad magnate, Mr. E. H. Harriman, was made +public, in which the writer declared that Mr. Roosevelt had invited him +to Washington in the autumn of 1904, just before the election, that at +the President's request he had raised $250,000 to help carry New York +state, and that he had paid the money over to the Republican treasurer, +Mr. Bliss. Mr. Roosevelt indignantly denied that he had requested Mr. +Harriman to raise a dollar for "the Presidential campaign of 1904." It +will be noted that Mr. Roosevelt here made a distinction between the +state and national campaign. This distinction he again drew during the +United States Senate investigation in 1912, when it became apparent that +the Standard Oil Trust had made a large contribution to the Republican +politicians in 1904. From his testimony, it would appear that Mr. +Roosevelt was unaware of the economic forces which carried him to +victory in 1904. Indeed, from the election returns, he was justified in +regarding his victory as a foregone conclusion, even if the financiers +of the party had not taken such extensive precautions. + +The election returns in 1904 showed that the Democratic candidate had +failed to engage the enthusiasm of his party, for the vote cast for him +was more than a million and a quarter short of that cast for Mr. Bryan +in 1900. The personal popularity of Mr. Roosevelt was fully evidenced in +the electoral and popular votes. Of the former he secured 336 against +140 cast for his opponent, and of the latter he polled nearly 400,000 +more than Mr. McKinley. Nevertheless the total vote throughout the +country was nearly half a million under that of 1900, showing an +undoubted apathy or a dissatisfaction with the two old parties. This +dissatisfaction was further demonstrated in a startling way by the heavy +increase in the socialist ranks, a jump from about 95,000 in 1900 to +more than 400,000. + + +_The Achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's Administrations_ + +Doubtless the most significant of all the laws enacted during Mr. +Roosevelt's administrations was the Hepburn Act passed in 1906. This law +increased the number of the Interstate Commerce Commission[62] to +seven, extended the law to cover pipe lines, express companies, and +sleeping car companies, and bridges, ferries, and railway terminals. It +gave the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to reduce a rate found +to be unreasonable or discriminatory in cases in which complaints were +filed by shippers adversely affected; it abolished "midnight tariffs" +under which favored shippers had been given special rates, by requiring +proper notice of all changes in schedules; and it forbade common +carriers to engage in the transportation of commodities owned by +themselves, except for their own proper uses. + +The Hepburn bill, however, did not confer upon the Interstate Commerce +Commission that power over rates which the Commission had long been +urging as necessary to give shippers the relief they expected. Senator +La Follette, fresh from a fight with the railways in Wisconsin, proposed +several radical amendments in the Senate, and endeavored without avail +to secure the open support of President Roosevelt.[63] The Senator +insisted that it would be possible under the Hepburn bill "for the +commission to determine whether rates were _relatively reasonable_, but +not that they were _reasonable per se_; that one rate could be compared +with another, but that the Commission had no means of determining +whether either rate so compared was itself a reasonable rate." No one +can tell, urged the Senator, whether a rate is reasonable until the +railway in question has been evaluated. This point he pressed with great +insistence, and though defeated at the time, he had the consolation of +having the principle of physical valuation enacted into law in +1913.[64] At all events, the railways found little or no fault with the +Hepburn law, and shortly afterward began to raise their rates in the +face of strong opposition from shippers. + +Two laws relative to foodstuffs, the meat inspection act and the pure +food act, were passed in 1906 in response to the popular demand for +protection against diseased meats and deleterious foods and drugs--a +demand created largely by the revelation of shocking conditions in the +Chicago stockyards and of nefarious practices on the part of a large +number of manufacturers. The first of the measures was intended to +guarantee that the meat shipped in interstate commerce should be derived +from animals which were sound at the time of slaughter, prepared under +sanitary conditions in the packing houses, and adequately inspected by +Federal employees. The second measure covered foods and drugs, and +provided that such articles "must not contain any injurious or +deleterious drug, chemical or preservative, and that the label on each +package must state the exact facts and not be misleading or false in any +particular." The effect of the last of these measures was felt in the +extinction of a large number of patent medicine and other +quasi-fraudulent concerns engaged in interstate trade. + +The social legislation enacted during Mr. Roosevelt's administrations is +not very extensive, although it was accompanied by much discussion at +the time. The most significant piece of labor legislation was the +employers' liability law enacted in 1906, which imposed a liability upon +common carriers engaged in interstate commerce for injuries sustained by +employees in their service. On January 6, 1908, the Supreme Court +declared the act unconstitutional on the ground that it interblended the +exercise of legitimate powers over interstate commerce and interference +with matters outside the scope of such commerce. The act was again taken +up in Congress, and in April of that year a second law, omitting the +objectionable features pointed out by the Court, was enacted. + +A second piece of Federal legislation which is commonly called a labor +measure was the law which went into effect on March 4, 1908, limiting +the hours of railway employees engaged as trainmen or telegraph +operators. As a matter of fact, however, it was not so much the long +hours of trainmen which disturbed Congress as the appalling number of +railway disasters from which the traveling public suffered. At least it +was so stated by the Republican leaders in their campaign of 1908, for +they then declared that "although the great object of the Act is to +promote the safety of travellers upon railroads, by limiting the hours +of service of employees within reasonable bounds, it is none the less +true that in actual operation it enforces humane and considerate +treatment to employees as well as greater safety to the public."[65] + +That public policy with which Mr. Roosevelt's administrations will be +most closely associated is unquestionably the conservation of natural +resources. It is true that he did not originate it or secure the +enactment of any significant legislation on the subject. The matter had +been taken up in Congress and out as early as Mr. Cleveland's first +administration, and the first important law on conservation was the act +of March 3, 1891, which authorized the President to reserve permanently +as forest lands such areas as he deemed expedient. Under this law +successive Presidents withdrew from entry enormous areas of forest +lands. This beginning Mr. Roosevelt enlarged, and by his messages and +speeches, he brought before the country in an impressive and enduring +manner the urgent necessity of abandoning the old policy of drift and of +withholding from the clutches of grasping corporations the meager domain +still left to the people. Without inquiring into what may be the wisest +final policy in the matter of our natural resources, all citizens will +doubtless agree that Mr. Roosevelt's service in this cause was valuable +beyond calculation. + +Among the proudest achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's administration was +the beginning of the actual construction of the Panama Canal. A short +route between the two oceans had long been considered by the leading +commercial nations of the world. In 1850, by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, +the United States and Great Britain had agreed upon the construction of +a canal by a private corporation, under the supervision of the two +countries and other states, which might join the combination, on a basis +of neutralization. The complete failure of the French company organized +by De Lesseps, the hero of the Suez Canal, discouraged all practical +attempts for a time, but the naval advantages of such a waterway was +forced upon public attention in a dramatic manner during the Spanish War +when the battleship _Oregon_ made her historical voyage around the +Horn.[66] + +After the Spanish War was over, Mr. John Hay, Secretary of State, began +the negotiation of a new treaty with Great Britain, which, after many +hitches in the process of coming to terms, was finally ratified by the +Senate in December, 1901. This agreement, known as the Hay-Pauncefote +treaty, set aside the old Clayton-Bulwer convention, and provided that a +canal might be constructed under the supervision of the United States, +either at its own cost or by private enterprise subject to the +stipulated provisions. The United States agreed to adopt certain rules +as the basis of the neutralization of the canal, and expressly declared +that "the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of +war of all nations, observing these Rules, on terms of entire equality, +so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its +citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic +or otherwise."[67] A proposal to forbid the fortification of the canal +was omitted from the final draft, and provision was made for "policing" +the district by the United States. The canal was thus neutralized under +a guarantee of the United States, and certain promises were made in +behalf of that country. + +The exact effect of this treaty was a subject of dispute from the +outset. On the one side, it was said by Mr. Latane that "a unilateral +guarantee amounts to nothing; the effect of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, +therefore, is to place the canal politically as well as commercially +under the absolute control of the United States."[68] On the other hand, +it was contended that this treaty superseded a mutually binding +convention, and that, although it was unilateral in character, the rules +provided in it were solemn obligations binding upon the conscience of +the American nation. Whatever may be the merits of this controversy, it +is certain that the Hay-Pauncefote agreement cleared the way for speedy +and positive action on the part of the United States with regard to the +canal. + +The great question then confronting the country was where and how should +the canal be built. One party favored cutting the channel through +Nicaragua, and in fact two national commissions had reported in favor of +this route. Another party advocated taking over the old French concern +and the construction of the waterway through Panama, a district then +forming a part of Colombia. As many influential Americans had become +interested in the rights of the French company, they began a campaign in +the lobbies of Congress to secure the adoption of that route. At length +in June, 1902, the merits of the Panama case or the persistency of the +lobby, or both, carried through a law providing for the purchase of the +French company's claims at a cost of not more than $40,000,000 and the +acquisition of a canal strip from the republic of Colombia--and failing +this arrangement, the selection of the Nicaragua route. + +On the basis of this law, which was signed June 28, 1902, negotiations +were begun with Colombia, but they ended in failure because that country +expected to secure better terms than those offered by the United States. +The Americans who were interested in the French concern and expected to +make millions out of the purchase of property that was substantially +worthless, were greatly distressed by the refusal of Colombia to ratify +the treaty which had been negotiated. Residents of Panama were likewise +disturbed at this delay in an enterprise which meant great prosperity +for them, and with the sympathy if not the support of the American +administration, a revolt was instigated at the Isthmus and carried out +under the protection of American arms on November 3, 1903. Three days +later, President Roosevelt recognized the independence of the new +revolutionary government. In his message in December, Mr. Roosevelt +explained the great necessity under which he labored, and convinced his +friends of the wisdom and justice of his course. + +By a treaty proclaimed on February 26, 1904, between Panama and the +United States, provision was made for the construction of the canal. The +independence of the former country was guaranteed, and the latter +obtained "in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control" of a canal +zone, and the right to construct, maintain, and operate the canal and +other means of transportation through the strip. Panama was paid +$10,000,000 for her concession and promised $250,000 a year after the +lapse of nine years. The full $40,000,000 was paid over to the French +concern and its American underwriters; the lock type instead of the +sea-level canal was agreed upon in 1906; construction by private +contractors was rejected in favor of public direct employment under +official engineers; and the work was pushed forward with great rapidity +in the hope that it might be completed before 1915. + + * * * * * + +The country had not settled down after the Panama affair before popular +interest was again engaged in a diplomatic tangle with Santo Domingo. +That petty republic, on account of its many revolutions, had become +deeply involved in debt, and European creditors, through their +diplomatic agents, had practically threatened the use of armed force in +collecting arrears, unless the United States would undertake the +supervision of the Dominican customs and divide the revenues in a +suitable manner. In an agreement signed in February, 1905, between the +United States and Santo Domingo, provisions were made for carrying such +an arrangement into effect. The Senate, having failed to sanction the +treaty, Mr. Roosevelt practically carried out the program unofficially +and gave it substantial support in the form of American battleships. + +Against this independent executive action there was a strong protest in +the Senate. The spirit of this opposition was fully expressed by Mr. +Rayner in a speech in that chamber, in which he said: "This policy may +be all right--perhaps the American people are in favor of this new +doctrine; it may be a wonderful accomplishment--Central America may +profit by it; it may be a great benefit to us commercially and it may be +in the interest of civilization, but as a student and follower of the +Constitution, I deprecate the methods that have been adopted, and I +appeal to you to know whether we propose to sit silently by, and by our +indifference or tacit acquiescence submit to a scheme that ignores the +privileges of this body; that is not authorized by statute; that does +not array itself within any of the functions of the Executive; that +vests the treaty-making power exclusively in the President, to whom it +does not belong; that overrides the organic law of the land, and that +virtually proclaims to the country that, while the other branches of the +Government are controlled by the Constitution, the Executive is above +and beyond it, and whenever his own views or policies conflict with it, +he will find some way to effectuate his purposes uncontrolled by its +limitations." + +Notwithstanding such attacks on his authority, the President had not in +fact exceeded his constitutional rights, and the boldness and directness +of his policy found plenty of popular support. The Senate was forced to +accept the situation with as good grace as possible, and a compromise +was arranged in a revised treaty in February, 1907, in which Mr. +Roosevelt's action on material points received official sanction from +that authority. The wisdom of the policy of using the American navy to +assist European and other creditors in collecting their debts in +Latin-American countries was thoroughly thrashed out, as well as the +constitutional points; and a new stage in the development of the Monroe +Doctrine was thus reached. Those who opposed the policy pointed to +another solution of the perennial difficulties arising in the countries +to the southward; that is, the submission of pecuniary claims to the +Hague Court or special tribunals for arbitration.[69] + +Another very dramatic feature of Mr. Roosevelt's administration was his +action in bringing Russia and Japan together in 1905 and thus helping to +terminate the terrible war between these two powers. Among the +achievements of the Hague conference, called by the Tsar in 1899, was +the adoption of "A Convention for the Peaceful Adjustment of +International Differences" which provided for a permanent Court of +Arbitration, for international commissions of inquiry in disputes +arising from differences of opinion on facts, and for the tendering of +good offices and mediation. "The right to offer good offices or +mediation," runs the convention, "belongs to Powers who are strangers to +the dispute, even during the course of hostilities. The exercise of this +right shall never be considered by one or the other parties to the +contest as an unfriendly act." + +It was under this last provision that President Roosevelt dispatched on +June 8, 1905, after making proper inquiries, identical notes to Russia +and Japan, urging them to open direct negotiations for peace with each +other. The fact that the great European financiers had already +substantially agreed that the war must end and that both combatants were +in sore straits for money, clearly facilitated the rapidity with which +the President's invitation was accepted. In his identical note, Mr. +Roosevelt tendered his services "in arranging the preliminaries as to +the time and place of meeting," and after some delay Portsmouth, New +Hampshire, was determined upon. The President's part in the opening +civilities of the conference between the representatives of the two +powers, and the successful outcome of the negotiations, combined to make +the affair, in the popular mind, one of the most brilliant achievements +of his administration. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [62] See above, p. 133. + + [63] La Follette, _Autobiography_, 399 ff. + + [64] The law ordered the Interstate Commerce Commission to + ascertain the cost of the construction of all interstate + railways, the cost of their reconstruction at the present + time, and also the amount of land and money contributed to + railways by national, state, and local governments. + + [65] _Campaign Textbook, 1908_, p. 45. + + [66] See above, p. 209. + + [67] Notwithstanding this arrangement, Congress in 1912 + enacted a law exempting American coastwise vessels from canal + tolls. + + [68] _America as a World Power_, p. 207. + + [69] Latane, _America as a World Power_, pp. 282 ff. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE REVIVAL OF DISSENT + + +On the morning of March 4, 1901, when Mr. McKinley took the oath of +office to succeed himself as President, it appeared to the superficial +observer that the Populist movement had spent its strength and +disappeared. Such was the common remark of the time. To discredit a new +proposition it was only necessary to observe that it was as dead as +Populism. Twice had the country repudiated Mr. Bryan and his works, the +second time even more emphatically than the first; and the radical ideas +which had been associated with his name, often quite erroneously, seemed +to be permanently laid to rest. The country was prosperous; it +congratulated itself on the successful outcome of the war with Spain and +accepted the imperialist policies which followed with evident +satisfaction. Industries under the protection of the Dingley Act and +undisturbed by threats of legislative interference went forward with +renewed vigor. Capital began to reach out for foreign markets and +investments as never before. Statesmen of Mr. Hanna's school looked upon +their work and pronounced it good. + +But Populism was not dead. Defeated in the field of national politics, +it began to work from the ground upward, attacking one piece of +political machinery after another and pressing upon unwilling state +legislatures new forms of agrarian legislation. The People's party, at +its convention in 1896, had declared in favor of "a system of direct +legislation through the initiative and referendum, under proper +constitutional safeguards"; and Mr. Bryan two years later announced his +belief in the system, saying: "The principle of the initiative and +referendum is democratic. It will not be opposed by any Democrat who +indorses the declaration of Jefferson that the people are capable of +self-government; nor will it be opposed by any Republican who holds to +Lincoln's idea that this should be a government of the people, by the +people, and for the people."[70] + +The first victory of "direct democracy" came in the very year of Mr. +Bryan's memorable defeat. In 1896, the legislature of South Dakota was +captured by a Democratic-Populist majority, and at the session beginning +in the following January, it passed an amendment to the state +constitution, establishing a system of initiative and referendum. Some +leaders of the old Knights of Labor and the president of the Farmers' +Alliance were prominently identified with the campaign for this +innovation. The resolution was "passed by a strict party vote, and to +the Populists is due the credit of passing it," reported "The Direct +Legislation Record" in June, 1897. In the contest over ratification at +the polls a party division ensued. The Democratic state convention in +1898 adopted a plank favoring direct legislation, on "the principle that +the people should rule"; and the Republicans contented themselves with +urging party members "to study the legislative initiative and +referendum." At the ensuing election the amendment was carried by a vote +of 23,876 to 16,483; but ten years elapsed before any use was made of +the new device.[71] + +A cloud no bigger than a man's hand had appeared on the horizon of +representative government. East, West, North, and South, advocates of +direct government were busy with their propaganda, Populists and +Democrats taking the lead, with Republican politicians not far in the +rear. The year following the adoption of the South Dakota amendment a +combination of Democrats and Populists carried a similar provision +through the state legislature of Utah and obtained its ratification in +1900. This victory was a short-lived triumph, for the Republicans soon +regained their ascendancy and stopped the progress of direct legislation +by refusing to enact the enabling law putting the amendment into force. +But this check in Utah did not dampen the ardor of reformers in other +commonwealths. In 1902, Oregon adopted the new system; four years later +Montana followed; in 1907, Oklahoma came into the Union with the device +embodied in the Constitution; and then the progress of the movement +became remarkably rapid. It was adopted by Missouri and Maine in 1908, +Arkansas and Colorado in 1910, Arizona and California in 1911, +Washington, Nebraska, Idaho, and Ohio in 1912. By this time Populists +and Democrats had ceased to monopolize the agitation for direct +government; it had become respectable, even in somewhat conservative +Republican circles. + +It should be pointed out, however, that there is a conservative and a +radical system of initiative and referendum: one which fixes the +percentage necessary to initiate and adopt a measure at a point so high +as to prevent its actual operation, and another which places it so low +as to make its frequent use feasible. The older and more radical group +of propagandists, finding their general scheme so widely taken up in +practical politics, soon began to devote their attention rather to +attacking the stricter safeguards thrown up by those who gave their +support to direct government in theory only. + +In its simple form of initiation by five per cent of the voters and +adoption by a majority of those voting on the measure submitted, this +new device was undoubtedly a revolutionary change from the American +system of government as conceived by the framers of the Constitution of +the United States--with its checks and balances, indirect elections, and +judicial control over legislation. The more radical of the advocates of +direct government frankly admitted that this was true, and they sought +to strengthen this very feature of their system by the addition of +another device, known as the recall, which, when applied to judges as +well as other elective officers, reduced judicial control over +legislation to a practical nullity. Where judges are elected for short +terms by popular vote and made subject to the recall, and where laws +are made by popular vote of the same electors who choose the judges, it +is obvious that the very foundations of judicial supremacy are +undermined. + +The recall, like direct democracy, was not new to American politics. +Both were understood, at least in principle, by the framers of the +Federal Constitution and rejected decisively. The recall seems to have +made its appearance first in local form,--in the charter of Los Angeles, +adopted in 1903. From there it went to the Seattle charter of 1906, and +two years later it was adopted as a state-wide system applicable to all +elective officers by Oregon. Its progress was swiftest in municipal +affairs, for it quite generally accompanied "the commission form" of +city government as a check on the commissioners in their exercise of +enlarged powers. + +The state-wide recall, however, received a remarkable impetus in 1911 +from the controversy over the admission of Arizona, which attracted the +attention of the nation. That territory had framed a constitution +containing a radical form of the recall based on the Oregon plan, and in +August, 1911, Congress passed a resolution admitting the applicant, on +condition that the provision relating to the recall should be +specifically submitted to the voters for their approval or rejection. +President Taft was at once stirred to action, and on August 15 he sent +Congress a ringing message, displaying unwonted vigor and determination, +vetoing the resolution and denouncing the recall of judges in unmeasured +terms. "Constitutions," he said, "are checks upon the hasty action of +the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people +upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the +rights of the minority.... In order to maintain the rights of the +minority and the individual and to preserve our constitutional balance +we must have judges with courage to decide against the majority when +justice and law require.... As the possibilities of such a system [as +the recall] pass in review, is it too much to characterize it as one +which will destroy the judiciary, its standing, and its usefulness?" + +Acting upon the recommendation of President Taft, Congress passed a +substitute resolution for admitting Arizona only on condition that the +obnoxious recall of judges be stricken from the constitution of the +state.[72] The debates in Congress over the admission of Arizona covered +the whole subject of direct government in all its aspects, and these, +coupled with the President's veto message, brought the issue prominently +to the front throughout the country. Voters to whom it had previously +been an obscure western device now began to take a deep interest in it; +the press took it up; and one more test for "progressive" and +"reactionary" was put in the popular program. + + * * * * * + +The movement for direct popular participation in state and local +government was inevitably accompanied by a demand for more direct +government within the political party; in other words, by a demand for +the abandonment of the representative convention in favor of the +selection of candidates by direct primary. During the decade of the +great Populist upheaval, legislation relative to political parties was +largely confined to the introduction of the Australian ballot and the +establishment of safeguards around the primaries at which delegates to +party conventions were chosen. The direct primary, like the initiative +and referendum, grew out of a discontent with social and economic +conditions, which led to an attack on the political machinery that was +alleged to be responsible for them. Like the initiative and referendum, +also, it was not an altogether new device, for it had been used for a +long time in some of the states as a local institution established by +party custom; but when it was taken up by the state legislatures, it +made a far more rapid advance. + +It was not, however, until the opening of the new century that primary +legislation began to engross a large share of legislative activities. In +1903, "the first state-wide primary law with fairly complete provisions +for legal supervision was enacted by the state of Wisconsin"; Oregon, +making use of the new initiative system, enacted a thoroughgoing primary +law in 1904; and the following year Illinois adopted a state-wide +measure. Other states, hesitating at such an extensive application of +the principle, contented themselves at first with laws instituting local +primaries, such, for example, as the Nebraska law of 1905 covering +cities of over 125,000, or the earlier law of Minnesota covering only +Hennepin county. "So rapid was the progress of public opinion and +legislation," says Mr. Merriam, "that in many instances a compromise law +of one session of the legislature was followed by a thoroughgoing law +in the next. For example, the North Dakota law of 1905 authorized direct +primaries for all district nominations, but did not include state +offices; but in 1907, a sweeping act was passed covering practically all +offices." + +The vogue of the direct primary was confined largely to the West at +first, but it steadily gained in favor in the East. Governor Hughes, of +New York, in his contest with the old organization of the Republican +party, became a stanch advocate of the system, recommended it to the +legislature in his messages, campaigned through the state to create +public sentiment in favor of the reform, and labored unsuccessfully to +secure the passage of a primary law, until he closed his term to accept +an appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1911, the +Democratic party, which had carried New York state at the preceding +election, enacted a primary law applicable to local, but not to state, +offices. About the same time Massachusetts, Maine, and New Jersey joined +the long list of direct primary states. Within almost ten years the +principle in its state-wide form had been accepted in two thirds of the +states, and in some local form in nearly all of the other commonwealths. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, the theory and practice of direct government made their way +upward into the Federal government. As early as 1826, Mr. Storrs, a +representative from New York, introduced in the House a constitutional +amendment providing for the popular election of United States Senators, +and from time to time thereafter the proposal was urged upon Congress. +President Johnson, who had long been an advocate of this change in the +Federal government, made it the subject of a special message to Congress +in 1868; but in his contest with that body the proposed measure was lost +to sight. Not long afterward it appeared again in the House and the +Senate, and at length the lower house in 1893 passed an amendment +providing for popular election by the requisite two-thirds vote, but the +Senate refused to act. Again in 1894, in 1898 (by a vote of 185 to 11), +in 1900 (240 to 15), and in 1902 by practically a unanimous vote, there +being no division, the House passed the amendment; still the Senate +resisted the change. + +In the Senate itself were found occasional champions of popular +election, principally from the West and South. Mitchell, of Oregon, +Turpie, of Indiana, Perkins, of California, Berry, of Arkansas, and +Bailey, of Texas, took the leadership in this contest for reform. +Chandler, of New Hampshire, Depew, of New York, Penrose, of +Pennsylvania, Hoar, of Massachusetts, Foraker, of Ohio, and Spooner, of +Wisconsin, leveled their batteries against it. State after state +legislature passed resolutions demanding the change, until at length +three fourths had signified their demand for popular election. + +The Senate as a whole remained obdurate. When in the Fifty-third +Congress the resolution of the House came before that body, Mr. Hoar, of +Massachusetts, made, on April 6 and 7, 1893, one of his most eloquent +and impassioned pleas for resisting this new proposal to the uttermost. +He declared that it would transfer the seat of power to the "great +cities and masses of population," that it would create new temptations +to fraud and corrupt practices, that it implied that the Senate had been +untrue to its trust, that it would lead to the election of the President +and the judiciary by popular majorities, and that it would "result in +the overthrow of the whole scheme of the Senate and in the end of the +whole scheme of the national Constitution as designed and established by +the framers of the Constitution and the people who adopted it." With +impatience, he refused to listen to the general indictment which had +been brought against the Senate as then constituted. "The greatest +victories of constitutional liberty since the world began," he +concluded, "are those whose battle ground has been the American Senate, +and whose champions have been the Senators who for a hundred years, +while they have resisted the popular passions of the House, have led, +represented, guided, obeyed, and made effective the deliberate will of a +free people." + +Having failed to make an impression on the Senate by a frontal attack, +the advocates of popular election set to work to capture that citadel by +a rear assault. They began to apply the principle of the direct primary +in the nomination of candidates for the Senate, and this development at +length culminated in the Oregon scheme for binding the legislature to +accept the "people's choice." This movement gained rapid headway in the +South, where the real contest was over nomination, not election, on +account of the absence of party divisions. As early as 1875, the +Nebraska constitution had provided for taking a popular preferential +vote on candidates for the Senate; but no considerable interest seems +to have been taken in it at the time. In 1899, Nevada passed a law +entitled "an act to secure the election of United States Senators in +accordance with the will of the people and the choice of the electors of +the state." Shortly afterward, Oregon enacted her famous statute which +attempted to compel the legislature to accept the popular nominee; and +from that time forward the new system spread rapidly. By 1910, at least +three fourths of the states nominated candidates for the Senate by some +kind of a popular primary. + +It was not until 1911 that the Senate yielded to the overwhelming +popular demand for a change in the methods of election provided in the +Constitution. In December, 1909, Senator Bristow, of Kansas, introduced +a resolution designed to effect this reform, and after a hot debate it +was defeated on February 28, 1911, by a vote of 54 to 33, four short of +the requisite two thirds. In the next Congress, which convened on April +4, ten Senators who had voted against the amendment had been retired, +and the champions of the measure, taking it up again with renewed +energy, were able to force it through the upper house on June 12, 1911, +by a margin of five more than the two thirds. The resolution went to the +House and a deadlock arose between the two chambers for a time over +Federal control of elections, provided in the Senate resolution, which +was obnoxious to many southern representatives. At length, however, on +May 13, 1912, the opponents in the House gave way, and the resolution +passed by an overwhelming vote. Within a year, the resolution was +ratified by the requisite three fourths of the state legislatures, and +it was proclaimed on May 31, 1913. + + * * * * * + +The advance of direct democracy in the West was accompanied by a revival +of the question of woman suffrage. That subject had been earnestly +agitated about the time of the Civil War; and under the leadership of +Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and others it made +considerable headway among those sections of the population which had +favored the emancipation of the slaves. Indeed, it was inevitably linked +with the discussion of "natural rights," extensively carried on during +the days when attempts were being made to give political rights to the +newly emancipated bondmen. Woman suffrage was warmly urged before the +New York state constitutional convention in 1867 by Mr. George William +Curtis, in a speech which has become a classic among the arguments for +that cause. During the seventies suffrage petitions bearing the +signatures of thousands of men and women were laid before Congress, and +an attempt was made to secure from the Supreme Court an interpretation +of the Fourteenth Amendment which would force the states to grant the +ballot to women. + +At length the movement began to subside, and writers who passed for keen +observers declared it to be at an end. The nineteenth century closed +with victories for the women in only four states, Wyoming, Colorado, +Utah, and Idaho. The first of these states had granted the vote to women +while yet a territory, and on its admission to the Union in 1890, it +became the first state with full political equality. Three years later, +Colorado enfranchised women, and in 1896 Utah and Idaho joined the equal +suffrage commonwealths. Meanwhile, a very large number of northern and +eastern states had given women the right to vote in local or school +elections, Minnesota and Michigan in 1875 and other states in quick +succession. Nevertheless, these gains were, relatively speaking, small, +and there seemed to be little widespread enthusiasm about the further +extension of the right. + +Of course, the agitation continued, but in somewhat obscure circles, +under a running fire of ridicule whenever it appeared in public. At +length it broke out with unprecedented vigor, shortly after the tactics +adopted by militant English women startled the world. Within a short +time new and substantial victories gave the movement a standing which +could not be ignored either by its positive opponents or the indifferent +politicians. In 1910, the suffragists carried the state of Washington; +in 1911, they carried California; in 1912, they won in Arizona, Kansas, +and Oregon; but lost Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. These victories gave +them nine states and of course a considerable influence in the House of +Representatives and the right to participate in the election of eighteen +out of ninety-six Senators. But the defeat in the three middle states +led the opponents of woman suffrage to believe that the movement could +be confined to the far West. This hope was, however, dashed in 1913 when +the legislature of Illinois gave women the right to vote for all +statutory officers, including electors for President of the United +States. Determined to make use of the political power thus obtained, +the suffragists, under the leadership of Alice Paul, renewed with great +vigor the agitation at Washington for a national amendment forbidding +states to disqualify women from voting merely on account of sex. + + +_The Rise and Growth of Socialism_ + +With the spread of direct elections and the initiative and referendum, +and the adoption of the two amendments to the Federal Constitution +authorizing an income tax[73] and the popular election of Senators, the +milder demands of Populism were secured. At the same time, the +prosperity of the farmers and the enormous rise in ground values which +accompanied the economic advance of the country removed some of the most +potent causes of the discontent on which Populism thrived. Organized +Populism died a natural death. Those Populists who advocated only +political reforms went over to the Republican and Democratic parties; +the advocates of radical economic changes, on the other hand, entered +the Socialist ranks. + +Socialism, as an organized movement in the United States, runs back to +the foundation of the Social-Democratic Workingmen's party in New York +City, in 1874, which was changed into the Socialist Labor party three +years later,--a party that still survives. This group did not enter into +national politics until 1892, although its branches occasionally made +nominations for local offices or fused with other labor groups, as in +the New York mayoralty campaign of 1886. In its vigorous propaganda +against capitalism, this party soon came into collision with the +American Federation of Labor, established in 1886, and definitely broke +with it four years later when the latter withheld a charter from the New +York Central Federation for the alleged reason that the Socialist Labor +party of that city was an affiliated organization. After the break with +the American Federation, this Socialist group turned for a time to the +more radical Knights of Labor, but this new flirtation with labor was no +more successful than the first, and in time the Socialist Labor party +declared war on all the methods of American trades-unionism. Its gains +numerically were not very significant; it polled something over twenty +thousand votes in 1892 and over eighty thousand in 1896--the high-water +mark in its political career. Its history has been a stormy one, marked +by dissensions, personal controversies, and splits, but the party is +still maintained by a decreasing band of loyal adherents. + +The growth of interest in socialism, however, was by no means confined +to the membership of the Socialist Labor party. External events were +stirring a consciousness that grave labor problems had arisen within the +American Commonwealth. The bloody strikes at Homestead, Coeur d'Alene, +Buffalo, and Pullman in the eighties and early nineties moved the +country as no preachments of abstract socialist philosophy could ever +have done. That such social conflicts were full of serious portent was +recognized even by such a remote and conservative thinker as President +Cleveland in his message of 1886 to Congress. In that very year, the +Society of Christian Socialists was formed, with Professor R. T. Ely and +Professor G. D. Herron among its members, and about the same time +"Nationalist" clubs were springing up all over the country as a result +of the propaganda created by Bellamy's _Looking Backward_, published in +1887. The decline of the Populist party, which had indorsed most of the +socialistic proposals that appealed to Americans tinged with radicalism, +the formation of local labor and socialist societies of one kind or +another, and the creation of dissatisfaction with the methods and +program of the Socialist Labor party finally led to the establishment of +a new national political organization. + +This was effected in 1900 when a general fusion was attempted under the +name of the Social Democratic party, which nominated Mr. Eugene V. Debs +for President at a convention held in Indianapolis. The Socialist Labor +party, however, declined to join the organization and went on its own +way. The vote of the new party, ninety-six thousand, induced the leaders +in the movement to believe that they were on the right track, for this +was considerably larger than the rival group had ever secured. Steps +were immediately taken to put the party on a permanent basis; the name +Socialist party was assumed in 1901; local branches were established in +all sections of the country with astonishing rapidity; and a vigorous +propaganda was undertaken. In the national election of 1904 over four +hundred thousand votes were polled; in 1908, when Mr. Bryan and Mr. +Roosevelt gave a radical tinge to the older parties, a gain of only +about twenty-five thousand was made; but in 1912, despite Mr. Wilson's +flirtation with western democracy and the candidacy of Mr. Roosevelt on +a socialistic platform, the Socialist party more than doubled its vote. + +During these years of growth the party began to pass from the stage of +propaganda to that of action. In 1910, the Socialists of Milwaukee +carried the city, secured twelve members of the lower house of the state +legislature, elected two state Senators, and returned Mr. Victor Berger +to Congress. This victory, which was hailed as a turning point in the +march of socialism, was largely due, however, to the divided condition +of the opposition, and thus the Socialists really went in as a +plurality, not a majority party. The closing of the Republican and +Democratic ranks in 1912 resulted in the ousting of the Socialist city +administration, although the party polled a vote considerably larger +than that cast two years previously. In other parts of the country +numerous municipal and local officers were elected by the Socialists, +and in 1912 they could boast of several hundred public offices.[74] + +While there was no little difference of opinion among the Socialists as +to the precise character of their principles and tactics,--a condition +not peculiar to that party,--there were certain general ideas running +through their propaganda and platforms. Modern industry, they all held, +creates necessarily a division of society into a relatively few +capitalists, on the one hand, who own, control, and manipulate the +machinery of production and the natural resources of the country, and +on the other hand, a great mass of landless, toolless, and homeless +working people dependent upon the sale of their labor for a livelihood. +There is an inherent antagonism between these two classes, for each +seeks to secure all that it can from the annual output of wealth; this +antagonism is manifest in labor organizations, strikes, and industrial +disputes of every kind. Out of this contest, the former class gains +wealth, luxury, safety, and the latter, poverty, slums, and misery. +Finally, if the annual toll levied upon industry by the exploiters and +the frightful wastes due to competition and maladjustment were +eliminated, all who labor with hand or brain could enjoy reasonable +comfort and security, and also leisure for the cultivation of the nobler +arts of civilization. + +At the present time, runs the Socialist platform of 1912, "the +capitalist class, though few in numbers, absolutely controls the +government--legislative, executive, and judicial. This class owns the +machinery of gathering and disseminating news through its organized +press. It subsidizes seats of learning,--the colleges and the +schools,--even religious and moral agencies. It has also the added +prestige which established customs give to any order of society, right +or wrong." But the working class is becoming more and more discontented +with its lot; it is becoming consolidated by cooperation, political and +economic, and in the future it will become the ruling class of the +country, taking possession, through the machinery of the government, of +the great instrumentalities of production and distribution. This final +achievement of socialism is being prepared by the swift and inevitable +consolidation of the great industries into corporations, managed by paid +agents for the owners of the stocks and bonds. The transition from the +present order will take the form of municipal, state, and national +assumption of the various instrumentalities of production and +distribution--with or without compensation to the present owners, as +circumstances may dictate.[75] Such are the general presuppositions of +socialism. + +The Socialist party had scarcely got under way before it was attacked +from an unexpected quarter by revolutionary trade-unionists, known as +the Industrial Workers of the World, who revived in part the old +principle of class solidarity (as opposed to trade solidarity) which lay +at the basis of the Knights of Labor. The leaders of this new unionism, +among whom Mr. W. D. Haywood was prominent, did not repudiate altogether +the Socialist labors to secure control of the organs of government by +the ballot, but they minimized their importance and pressed to the front +the doctrine that by vigorous and uncompromising mass strikes a +revolutionary spirit might be roused in the working class and the actual +control of business wrested from the capitalists, perhaps without the +intervention of the government at all. + +This new unionism was launched at a conference of radical labor leaders +in 1904, at which the following program was adopted: "The working class +and the employing class have nothing in common. Between these two +classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as +a class, take possession of the earth and machinery of production and +abolish the wage system. We find that the centering of the management of +industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to +cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade +unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be +pitted against another set of workers in the same industry.... Moreover +the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the +belief that the working class have interests in common with their +employers. These conditions can be changed and the interest of the +working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that +all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, +cease work whenever a strike or a lockout is on in any department +thereof.... We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, +'Abolish the wage system.'" + +This new society made a disturbance in labor circles entirely out of +proportion to its numerical strength. Its leaders managed strikes at +McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, at Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912, and at +other points, laying emphasis on the united action of all the working +people of all the trades involved in the particular industry. The "new +unionism" appealed particularly to the great mass of foreign laborers +who had no vote and therefore perhaps turned with more zeal to "direct" +action. It appeared, however, that the membership of the Industrial +Workers was not over 70,000 in 1912, and that it had little of the +stability of the membership of the old unions. + +What the effect of this new unionism will be on the Socialist party +remains to be seen. That party at its convention in 1912 went on record +against the violent tactics of revolutionary unionism, and by a party +vote "recalled" Mr. Haywood from his membership on the executive +committee. The appearance of this more menacing type of working-class +action and the refusal of the Socialist party to accept it with open +arms gave a new turn to the attitude of the conservative press toward +regular political socialism of the strict Marxian school. + + +_The Counter-Reformation_ + +Just as the Protestant Revolt during the sixteenth century was followed +by a counter-reformation in the Catholic Church which swept away many +abuses, while retaining and fortifying the essential principles of the +faith, so the widespread and radical discontent of the working classes +with the capitalist system hitherto obtaining produced a +counter-reformation on the part of those who wish to preserve its +essentials while curtailing some of its excesses. This counter-reformation +impress upon American political thinking and made a deep legislation at +the turning of the new century. More than once during his presidency Mr. +Roosevelt warned the capitalists that a reform of abuses was the price +which they would have to pay in order to save themselves from a socialist +revolution. Eminent economists turned aside from free trade and _laissez +faire_ to consider some of the grievances of the working class, and many +abandoned the time-honored discussions of "economic theories," in favor +of legislative programs embracing the principles of state socialism, to +which countries like Germany and Great Britain were already committed. + +Charity workers whose function had been hitherto to gather up the wrecks +of civilization and smooth their dying days began to talk of "a war for +the prevention of poverty," and an examination of their concrete +legislation proposals revealed the acceptance of some of the principles +of state socialism. Unrestricted competition and private property had +produced a mass of poverty and wretchedness in the great cities which +constituted a growing menace to society, and furnished themes for +socialist orators. Social workers of every kind began the detailed +analysis of the causes of specific cases of poverty and arrived at the +conclusion that elaborate programs of "social legislation" were +necessary to the elimination of a vast mass of undeserved poverty. + +Under the stimulus of these and other forces, state legislatures in the +more industrially advanced commonwealths began to pour out a stream of +laws dealing with social problems. These measures included employers' +liability and workmen's compensation laws, the prohibition of child +labor, minimum hours for dangerous trades like mining and railroading, +minimum wages for women and girls, employment bureaus, and pensions for +widows with children to support. While none of the states went so far +as to establish old-age pensions and general sickness and accident +insurance, it was apparent from an examination of the legislation of the +first decade of the twentieth century that they were well in the paths +of nations like Germany, England, and Australia. + + +_Criticism of the Federal System_ + +All this unsettlement in economics and politics could not fail to bring +about a reconsideration of the fundamentals in the American +constitutional system--particularly the distribution of powers between +the Federal and state governments, which is made by a constitution +drafted when economic conditions were totally different from what they +are to-day. In fact, during the closing years of the nineteenth century +there appeared, here and there in American political literature, +evidence of a discontent with the Federal system scarcely less keen and +critical than that which was manifested with the Articles of +Confederation during those years of our history which John Fiske has +denominated "The Critical Period." + +Manufacturing interests which, at the time the Federal Constitution was +framed, were so local in character as to be excluded entirely from the +control of the Federal government had now become national or at all +events sectional, having absolutely no relation to state lines. As +Professor Leacock remarks, "The central fact of the situation is that +economically and industrially the United States is one country or at +best one country with four or five great subdivisions, while politically +it is broken into a division of jurisdictions holding sway to a great +extent over its economic life, but corresponding to no real division +either of race, of history, of unity, of settlement, or of commercial +interest."[76] For example, in 1900 the boot and shoe industry, instead +of being liberally distributed among the several states, was so +concentrated, that out of the total product 44.9 per cent was produced +by Massachusetts; nearly one half of the agricultural implements for +that year were made in Illinois; two thirds of the glass of the whole +country was made in Pennsylvania and Indiana; while Pennsylvania alone +produced 54 per cent of the iron and steel manufactured. The political +significance of this situation was simply this: the nation on which each +of these specialized industries depended for its existence had +practically no power through the national government to legislate +relative to them; but in each case a single legislature representing a +small fraction of the people connected with the industry in question +possesses the power of control. + +The tendency of manufacturers to centralize was accompanied, as has been +pointed out above, by a similar centralization in railways. At the close +of the nineteenth century, the Vanderbilt system operated "some 20,000 +miles reaching from New York City to Casper, Wyoming, and covering the +lake states and the area of the upper Mississippi; the Pennsylvania +system with 14,000 miles covers a portion of the same territory, +centering particularly in Ohio and Indiana; the Morgan system, +operating 12,000 miles, covers the Atlantic seaboard and the interior of +the Southern States from New York to New Orleans; the Morgan-Hill system +operates 20,000 miles from Chicago and St. Louis to the state of +Washington; the Harriman system with 19,000 miles runs from Chicago +southward to the Gulf and westward to San Francisco, including a +Southern route from New Orleans to Los Angeles; the Gould system with +14,000 miles operates chiefly in the center of the middle west extending +southward to the Gulf; in addition to these great systems are a group of +minor combinations such as the Atchinson with 7,500 or the Boston and +Maine with 3,300 miles of road." + +Corresponding to this centralization in industries and railways there +was, as we have pointed out, a centralization in the control of capital, +particularly in two large groups, the Standard Oil and the Morgan +interests. As an expert financier, Mr. Moody wrote in 1904: "Viewed as a +whole, we find the dominating influences in the trusts to be made up of +an intricate network of large and small groups of capitalists, many +allied to one another by ties of more or less importance, but all being +appendages to, or parties of the greater groups which are themselves +dependent on and allied with the two mammoth or Rockefeller and Morgan +groups." + + * * * * * + +Facing this centralized national economy was a Federal system made for +wholly different conditions--a national system of manufacturing, +transportation, capital, and organized labor, with a national government +empowered, expressly, at least, to regulate only one of those +interests, transportation--the other fundamental national interests +being referred to the mercy of forty-six separate and independent state +legislatures. But it is to be noted, these several legislatures were by +no means free to work out their own program of legislation; all of them +were, at every point, subjected to Federal judicial control under the +general phrases of the Fourteenth Amendment relative to due process of +law and the equal protection of the laws.[77] To state it in another +way, the national government was powerless to act freely with regard to +nearly all of the great national interests, but it was all powerful +through its judiciary in striking down state legislation. + +A few concrete illustrations[78] will show the lack of correspondence +between the political system and the economic system. Each state bids +against the others to increase the number of factories which adds to its +wealth and increases the value of property within its borders, although +it makes no difference to the total wealth of the nation and the +happiness of the whole people whether a particular concern is located in +New Jersey or in Pennsylvania. As the national government enjoys no +power to regulate industries--even those which are national in +character--the states use their respective powers under the pressure +which comes from those who are interested in increasing the industry of +the commonwealth. For example, it is stated "the glass workers of New +Jersey oppose any attempt to prohibit night work for boys under sixteen +years of age on the ground that such work is permitted in the +neighboring state of Pennsylvania." In 1907, in South Carolina, Georgia, +and Alabama, a ten year old child could, under the law, work for twelve +hours a day; North Carolina had sixty-six mills where twelve year old +children could do twelve hours' night work under the law. Although this +situation was somewhat remedied later, the advocates of reform were +resisted at every point by the interested parties who contended that in +competing with New England, the southern states had to take advantage of +every opportunity, even at the expense of the children. + +The situation may be described in the language of the chief factory +inspector of Ohio: "Industrially as well as geographically we of the +Ohio Valley are one people and our laws should be uniform, not only that +they may be the easier enforced, but in justice to the manufacturers who +pursue the same industry in the several states and therefore come into +close competition with one another." Moreover, if a state enacts an +important industrial law, it may find its work in vain as the result of +a decision of the national Supreme Court, or of the state courts, +interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment. + +Another example of a national interest which is wholly beyond the reach +of the Federal government, under a judicial decision reached in the case +of Paul _v._ Virginia in 1868, is that of insurance. Although Hamilton +and earlier writers on the Constitution believed that the insurance +business was a branch of interstate commerce whose regulation was vested +in Congress, the Supreme Court in this case dealing with fire insurance +declared that the act of issuing a policy of insurance was not a +transaction of commerce. "The policies," said the Court, "are simple +contracts of indemnity against loss by fire, entered into between the +corporations and the assured for a consideration paid by the latter. +These contracts are not articles of commerce in any proper meaning of +the word; they are not subjects of trade and barter offered in the +market as something having an existence and value independent of the +parties to them.... Such contracts are not interstate transactions, +though the parties may be domiciled in different states.... They are +then local transactions and are governed by the local laws. They do not +constitute a part of the commerce between the states any more than a +contract for the purchase and sale of goods in Virginia by a citizen of +New York whilst in Virginia would constitute a portion of such +commerce." + +As a result of this narrow interpretation of the commerce clause, the +vast insurance business of the country, national in character, was put +beyond the reach of Congress, and at the mercy of the legislatures of +the several commonwealths. Under these circumstances, the insurance laws +of the United States were in splendid chaos. "If a compilation of these +laws were attempted," says Mr. Huebner, "a most curious spectacle would +result. It would be found that fifty-two states and territories are all +acting along independent lines and that each, as has been correctly +said, possessed its own schedule of taxations, fees, fines, penalties, +obligations and prohibitions, and a retaliatory or reciprocal provision +enabled it to meet the highest charges any other state may require of +the companies of any other states." + +A still better example of confusion in our system is offered by the +corporation laws of the several states. Great industrial corporations +are formed under state laws. While many contend that Congress has the +power to compel the Federal incorporation of all concerns doing an +interstate business and thus to occupy the whole domain of corporation +law involving interstate commerce, this radical step has not yet been +taken. Congress has confined itself to the more or less fruitless task +of forbidding combinations in restraint of interstate trade. + +Under these circumstances, there appeared the anomalous condition of +states actually advertising in the newspapers and bidding against each +other in offering the corporations special opportunities and low fees +for the privilege of incorporating. If the conscience of one state +became enlightened and a strict corporation law was enacted, the result +was simply to drive the irregular concerns into some other state which +was willing to sell its privileges for the small fee of incorporation, +and ask no questions. As might have been expected, every variety of +practice existed in the forty-eight jurisdictions in which corporations +might be located. + +Not only was there the greatest diversity in these practices, but +special discriminations were often made in particular states against +concerns incorporated in other states; and on top of all this there was +a vast mass of anti-trust legislation, frequently drastic in character +or loose and futile. Often it was the product of a popular clamor +against large business undertakings, and often it was the result of the +effort of legislators to "strike" at corporations. Whatever the +underlying motive, it was generally characterized at the outset by lack +of uniformity and absence of any large view of public policy, and then +it was glossed over by judicial decisions, state and Federal, until it +was a fortunate corporation official, indeed, who knew either his rights +or his duties under the law. Moreover, it was a particularly obtuse +attorney who could not lead his client unscathed through this wonderland +of legal confusion. + +The position of railway corporations, if possible, was more anomalous +still. Their interstate business was subject to the regulations of +Congress and their intra-state business to the control of the state +legislatures. Although there existed, in theory, a dividing line between +these two classes of business, there were always arising concrete cases +where it was difficult to say on which side of the line they would fall +in the opinion of the Supreme Court. States were constantly being +enjoined on the application of the railways for their "interference with +interstate commerce"; and when far-reaching legislation was proposed in +Congress, the cry went up that the rights of states were being trampled +upon. If X shipped a carload of goods to Y within the borders of his +state, he paid one rate; if he shipped it to Z, two miles farther on in +another state, he paid a different rate, perhaps less than in the first +instance. In a number of states companies owning parallel lines might +consolidate; in others, consolidation was forbidden. According to a +report of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1902, the states were +equally divided on this proposition as to the consolidation of +competing lines. According to the same report, if a railway company was +guilty of unjust discrimination in one state, it paid a fine of $50, and +in other states it was mulcted to the tune of $25,000. At the same time, +whoever obstructed a railway track in Mississippi was liable to three +months in jail; for the same offense in New York he might get three +years; if, perchance, after serving three years and three months in +these two commonwealths, he tried the experiment again in Wyoming, he +might in the mercy of the court be sentenced to death. + +A further element of confusion was added by the intervention of the +Federal judiciary in declaring state laws invalid, not merely when they +conflicted clearly with the execution of Federal law, but on +constitutional grounds which meant, for practical purposes, whenever the +said laws were not in harmony with the ideas of public policy +entertained by the courts at the time. The Federal judiciary in regard +to state legislation relative to corporations was, therefore, a +destructive, not a constructive, body. To use the language of the +street, state legislation was simply "shot to pieces" by judicial +decisions. That which was chaotic, disjointed, and founded upon no +uniformity of purpose or policy to begin with was riddled and torn by a +body which had no power for positive action. + +As the Interstate Commerce Commission declared in 1903, "One of the +chief embarrassments in the exercise of adequate government control over +the organization, the construction, and the administration of railways +in the United States is found in the many sources of statutory +authority recognized by our form of government. The Federal Constitution +provides for uniformity in statutory control, so far as interstate +commerce is concerned, but it does not touch commerce within the states, +nor, as at present interpreted, does it cover the organization of +railroad corporations or the construction of railroad properties. These +matters, as well as the larger part of that class of activities included +under the police jurisdiction, are left to the states. Such being the +case, the development of an harmonious and uniform railroad system must +be attained, if at all, by one of two methods. The states must +relinquish to the Federal government their reserved rights over internal +commerce, or having first agreed upon fundamental principles, they must, +through comity and convention, work out an harmonious system of +statutory regulation." + + * * * * * + +This was the situation that called forth the demand for the national +regulation of large corporate enterprises, and brought about the demand +for a strengthening of the Federal government, either by a +constitutional amendment or judicial interpretation, which received the +name of "New Nationalism." Wide currency was given to this term by Mr. +Roosevelt, in his speech delivered at Ossawatomie on August 31, 1910. +After outlining a legislative policy which he deemed to be demanded by +the changed economic conditions of our time, Mr. Roosevelt attacked the +idea of "a neutral zone between the national and state legislatures," +guarded only by the Federal judiciary; and pleaded for the +strengthening of the Federal government so as to make it competent for +every national purpose. + +"There must remain no neutral ground," he said, "to serve as a refuge +for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can +hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both +jurisdictions. It is a misfortune when the national legislature fails to +do its duty in providing a national remedy so that the only national +activity is the purely negative activity of the judiciary in forbidding +the state to exercise the power in the premises. + +"I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that we work in a +spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what +concerns our people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common +interests are as broad as the continent. I speak to you here exactly as +I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital problems are +those which affect us all alike. The national government belongs to the +whole American people, and where the whole American people are +interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the +national government. The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, +I believe, mainly through the national government. + +"The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism without +which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts +the national need before sectional or personal advantages. It is +impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures +attempting to treat national issues as local issues. It is still more +impatient of the impotence which springs from overdivision of +government powers, the impotence which makes it impossible for local +selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to +bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards +the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of +the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare +rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body +shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of +the people." + +FOOTNOTES: + + [70] The political history of the initiative and referendum + has never been written. Some valuable materials are to be + found in _Direct Legislation_, Senate Document No. 340, 55th + Cong., 2d Sess. (1898); and in "The Direct Legislation + Record," founded in May, 1894; and in the "Equity Series," + now published at Philadelphia. See also Oberholtzer, _The + Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in America_, ed. 1911. + + [71] _The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall_, Annals of the + American Academy of Political and Social Science, September, + 1912, pp. 84 ff. + + [72] Arizona was admitted without the judicial recall + provision, but immediately set to work and reinserted it in + the constitution, and devised a plan for the recall of + Federal district judges as well. + + [73] See below, p. 325. + + [74] See list in the _National Municipal Review_ for July, + 1912. + + [75] The Socialist party does not at present contemplate + public ownership of petty properties or of farm lands tilled + by their possessors. This is one part of its program not yet + definitely worked out. + + [76] _Proceedings of the American Political Science + Association_, 1908, Vol. V, p. 42. + + [77] See above, p. 54. + + [78] Taken from Professor Leacock's paper in the _Proceedings + of the American Political Science Association_, 1908, pp. 37 + ff. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MR. TAFT AND REPUBLICAN DISINTEGRATION + + +In spite of the stirring of new economic and political forces which +marked Mr. Roosevelt's administration and his somewhat radical +utterances upon occasion, there was no prominent leader in the +Republican party in 1908, except Mr. La Follette of Wisconsin, who was +identified with policies which later came to be known as "progressive." +Although Mr. Hughes, as governor of New York, had enlisted national +interest in his "fight with the bosses," he was, by temperament, +conservative rather than radical, and his doctrines were not primarily +economic in character. Other Republican aspirants were also of a +conservative cast of mind, Mr. Fairbanks, of Indiana, Mr. Knox, of +Pennsylvania, Mr. Cannon, of Illinois, all of whom were indorsed for the +presidency by their respective states. The radical element among the +Republicans hoped that Mr. Roosevelt would consent to accept a "second +elective term"; but his flat refusal put an end to their plans for +renomination. + +Very early in his second administration, Mr. Roosevelt made it clear +that he wanted to see Mr. W. H. Taft, then Secretary of War, designated +as his successor; and by the judicious employment of publicity and the +proper management of the Federal patronage and the southern Republican +delegates, he materially aided in the nomination of Mr. Taft at Chicago, +in June, 1908. The Republican platform of that year advocated a revision +of the tariff, not necessarily downward, but with a due regard to +difference between the cost of production at home and abroad; it favored +an amendment of the Sherman anti-trust law in such a manner as to give +more publicity and the Federal government more supervision and control; +it advocated the regulation of the issuance of injunctions by the +Federal courts; it indorsed conservation and pledged the party to +"unfailing adherence" to Mr. Roosevelt's policies. This somewhat +noncommittal platform was elaborated by Mr. Taft in his speech, after a +conference with Mr. Roosevelt; the popular election of Senators was +favored, an income tax of some kind indorsed, and a faintly radical +tinge given to the party document. + +The nomination of Mr. Bryan by the Democrats was a foregone conclusion. +The debacle of 1904 had demonstrated that the breach of 1896 could not +be healed by what the western contingent called "the Wall Street crowd"; +and Mr. Bryan had secured complete control of the party organization. +The convention at Denver was a personal triumph from beginning to end. +Mr. Bryan mastered the proceedings and wrote the platform, and received +the most telling ovation ever given to a party leader by a national +convention. + +Having complete control, Mr. Bryan attempted what the politicians who +talked most aggressively about the trusts had consistently refused to +do--he attempted to define and precisely state the remedies for +objectionable combinations. Other leaders had discussed "good" and +"bad" trusts, but they had not attempted the mathematics of the problem. +In the platform of his party, Mr. Bryan wrote: "A private monopoly is +indefensible and intolerable. We therefore favor the vigorous +enforcement of the criminal law against guilty trust magnates and +officials and demand the enactment of such additional legislation as may +be necessary to make it impossible for private monopoly to exist in the +United States." In this paragraph, there is of course nothing new; but +it continues: "Among the additional remedies we specify three: first, a +law preventing the duplication of directors among competing +corporations; second, a license system which will, without abridging the +rights of each state to create corporations or its right to regulate as +it will foreign corporations doing business within its limits, make it +necessary for a manufacturing or trading corporation engaged in +interstate commerce to take out a federal license before it shall be +permitted to control as much as 25 per cent of the product in which it +deals, a license to protect the public from watered stock and to +prohibit the control by such corporation of more than 50 per cent of the +total amount of any product consumed in the United States; and third, a +law compelling such licensed corporations to sell to all purchasers in +all parts of the country on the same terms after making due allowance +for cost of transportation." + +In dealing with railway corporations, the Democratic platform proposed +concretely the valuation of railways, taking into consideration the +physical as well as other elements; an increase in the power of the +Interstate Commerce Commission, giving it the initiative with reference +to rates and transportation charges and the power to declare any rate +illegal on its own motion, and to inspect railway tariffs before +permitting them to go into effect; and finally an efficient supervision +and regulation of railroads engaged in interstate commerce. + +Mr. Bryan's proposals, particularly with regard to trusts, were greeted +with no little derision on the part of many practical men of affairs, +but they had, at least, the merit of being more definite in character +than any statement of anti-trust policy which had been made hitherto, +except by the Socialists in advocating public ownership. The +Republicans, for example, contented themselves with simply proposing the +amendment of the Sherman law in such a manner as to "give to the federal +government greater supervision and control over and secure greater +publicity in the management of that class of corporations engaged in +interstate commerce having power and opportunity to effect monopolies." + +The campaign of 1908 was without any specially dramatic incidents. The +long stumping tours by all candidates did not seem to elicit the +old-time enthusiasm. The corporation interests that had long financed +the Republican party once more poured out treasure like water (as the +Clapp investigation afterward revealed in 1912); and Mr. Bryan attempted +a counter-movement by asking for small contributions from each member of +his party, but he was sadly disappointed by the results. The Democratic +national committee announced that it would receive no contributions from +corporations, that it would accept no more than $10,000 from any +individual, and that it would make public, before the election, all +contributions above $100. Mr. Bryan also challenged Mr. Taft to make +public the names of the contributors to his fund and the amount received +from each. The Republican managers replied that they would make known +their contributors in due time as required by the law of the state of +New York where the headquarters were located, and Mr. Taft added that he +would urge upon Congress the enactment of a law compelling full +publicity of campaign contributions.[79] + +In the election which followed, Mr. Bryan was defeated for the third +time. His vote was somewhat larger than it was in 1900, and nearly a +million and a half above that cast for Mr. Parker in 1904. But Mr. Taft +more than held the strength of his predecessor as measured by the +popular vote, and he received 321 electoral votes against 162 cast for +his opponent. Once more, the conservative press announced, the country +had repudiated Populism and demonstrated its sound, conservative +instincts. + +When Mr. Taft took the oath of office on March 4, 1909, he fell heir, on +his own admission, to more troublesome problems than had been the lot of +any President since Lincoln's day. His predecessor had kept the country +interested and entertained by the variety of his speeches and +recommendations and by his versatility in dealing with all the social +questions which were pressing to the front during his administration. +Mr. Roosevelt was brilliant in his political operations, although he had +been careful about attempting to bring too many things to concrete +issue. Mr. Taft was matter-of-fact in his outlook and his expectations. +The country had been undergoing a process of education, as he put it, +and now the time had come for taking stock. The time had come for +putting the house in order and settling down to a period of rest. If +there were signs on the horizon which warned Mr. Taft against this +comfortable view, his spoken utterances gave no sign of recognition. + + +_Legislative Measures_ + +The first task which confronted him was the thorny problem of the +tariff. His predecessor had given the matter little attention during his +administration, apparently for the reason that it was, in his opinion, +of little consequence as compared with the questions of railways, +trusts, great riches, and labor. But action could not be indefinitely +postponed. Undoubtedly there was a demand in many parts of the country +for a tariff revision. How widespread it was, how much it was the +creation of the politicians, how intelligent and deep-seated it was, no +one could tell. Nevertheless, more than ten years had elapsed since the +enactment of the Dingley law of 1897, and many who did not entertain +radical views on the subject at all joined in demanding a revision on +the ground that conditions had materially changed. The Republican +platform had promised revision on the basis that the true principle of +protection was best maintained by the imposition of such duties "as +will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and +abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries." Mr. +Taft in his speech of acceptance had promised revision, on the theory +that some schedules were too high and others too low; and his language +during the campaign had been interpreted to mean a more severe downward +revision than he had doubtless contemplated. + +In accordance with party pledges Mr. Taft called Congress in a special +session on March 11, 1909, and after a hotly contested battle the +Payne-Aldrich tariff act was passed. The President made no considerable +effort to force the hand of Congress one way or the other, and he +accepted the measure on the theory that it was the best tariff law that +could be got at the time. Indeed, it was pointed out by members of his +party that the bill contained "654 decreases in duty, 220 increases, and +1150 items of the dutiable list in which the rates were unchanged." It +was also stated that the bill was framed in accordance with the spirit +of the party platform which had made no promise of a general sweeping +reduction. It was admitted, however, that precise information upon the +difference between the cost of production at home and abroad could not +have been obtained in time for this revision, but a tariff board was +created by law for the purpose of obtaining the desired information, on +the basis of which readjustments in schedules could be made from time to +time. + +On April 9, 1909, the Payne tariff act passed the House, one Republican +voting against it and four Democrats from Louisiana voting in favor of +it. This vote, however, was of no significance; the real test was the +vote on the several amendments proposed from time to time to the +original bill, and on these occasions the Democratic lines were badly +broken. On April 12, Mr. Aldrich introduced in the Senate a tariff bill +which had been carefully prepared by the finance committee of which he +was chairman. This measure followed more closely the Dingley law, making +no recommendations concerning some of the commodities which the House +had placed on the free list, and passing over the subject of income and +inheritance taxes without remark. The Aldrich measure was bitterly +attacked by insurgent Republicans from the West,--Senators Dolliver and +Cummins, of Iowa, La Follette, of Wisconsin, Beveridge, of Indiana, and +Bristow, of Kansas,--who held out to the last and voted against the +bill, even as amended, on its final passage, July 8. The conference +committee of the two Houses settled their differences by July 30, and on +August 5 the tariff bill became a law. + +There were several features of the transaction which deserve special +notice. Very early in the Senate proceedings on the bill, an income tax +provision was introduced by Senators Cummins and Bailey, and it looked +as if enough support could be secured from the two parties to enact it +into law. Although President Taft, in his acceptance speech, had +expressed an opinion to the effect that an income tax could be +constitutionally enacted notwithstanding the decision of the Supreme +Court in the Income Tax cases, he blocked the proposal to couple an +income tax measure with the tariff bill, by sending a special message +on June 16, recommending the passage of a constitutional amendment +empowering Congress to levy a general income tax, and advising a tax on +the earnings of corporations. His suggestions were accepted by Congress. +The proposed amendment to the Constitution was passed unanimously by the +Senate, and by an overwhelming majority in the House,[80] and a tax on +the net incomes of corporations was also adopted. A customs court to be +composed of five judges to hear appeals in customs cases was set up, and +a tariff commission to study all aspects of the question, particularly +the differences between cost of production in the United States and +abroad, was created. + +Revision of the tariff had always been a thankless task for any party. +The Democrats had found it such in 1894 when their bill had failed to +please any one, including President Cleveland, and when for collateral +or independent reasons a period of industrial depression had set in. The +McKinley bill of 1890 had aroused a storm of protest which had swept the +Republicans out of power, and it is probable that the Dingley tariff of +1897 would have created similar opposition if it could have been +disentangled from the other overshadowing issues growing out of the +Spanish War. The Payne-Aldrich tariff likewise failed to please; but its +failure was all the more significant because its passage was opposed by +such a large number of prominent party members. The Democrats, as was +naturally to be expected, made all they could out of the situation, and +cried "Treason." Even what appeared to be a concession to the radicals, +the adoption of a resolution providing for an amendment to the +Constitution authorizing the imposition of an income tax, was not +accepted as a consolation, but was looked upon as a subterfuge to escape +the probable dilemma of having an income tax law passed immediately and +submitted to the Supreme Court again. + +Notwithstanding the dissensions within his party, Mr. Taft continued +steadily to press a legislative policy which he had marked out. In a +special message on January 7, 1910, he recommended the creation of a +court of commerce to have jurisdiction, among other things, over appeals +from the Interstate Commerce Commission. This proposal was enacted into +law on June 18, 1910; and the appointments were duly made by the +President. The career of the tribunal was not, however, particularly +happy. Some of its decisions against the rulings of the Commission were +popularly regarded as too favorable to railway interests; one of the +judges, Mr. Archbald, of Pennsylvania, was impeached and removed on the +ground that his private relations with certain railway corporations were +highly questionable; and at length Congress in 1913 terminated its short +life. + +Acting upon a recommendation of the President, Congress, in June, 1910, +passed a law providing for the establishment of a postal savings system, +in connection with the post offices. The law authorized the payment of +two per cent interest on money deposited at the designated post offices +and the distribution of all such deposits among state and national +banks under the protection of bonds placed with the Treasurer of the +United States. The scheme was applied experimentally at a few offices +and then rapidly extended, until within two years it was in operation at +more than 12,000 offices and over $20,000,000 was on deposit. The plan +which had been branded as "socialistic" a few years before when +advocated by the Populists was now hailed as an enlightened reform, even +by the banks as well as business men, for they discovered that it +brought out secret hoardings and gave the banks the benefit at a low +rate of interest--lower than that paid by ordinary savings concerns. + +The postal savings system was shortly supplemented by a system of +parcels post. Mr. Taft strongly advocated the establishment of such a +system, and it had been urged in Congress for many years, but had been +blocked by the opposition of the express companies, for obvious reasons, +and by country merchants who feared that they would be injured by the +increased competition of the mail order departments of city stores. +Finally, by a law approved on August 24, 1912, Congress made provision +for the establishment of this long-delayed service, and it was put into +effect on January 1, 1913, thus enabling the United States to catch up +with the postal systems of other enlightened nations. Although the +measure was sharply criticized for its rates and classifications, it was +generally approved and regarded as the promising beginning of an +institution long desired. + +While helping to add these new burdens to the post-office +administration, Mr. Taft directed his attention to the urgent necessity +for more businesslike methods on the part of the national administration +in general, and, on his recommendation, Congress appropriated in 1910 +$100,000 "to enable the President to inquire into the methods of +transacting the public business of the Executive Department and other +government establishments, and to recommend to Congress such legislation +as may be necessary." A board of experts, known as the Economy and +Efficiency Commission, was thereupon appointed, and it set to work +examining the several branches of administration with a view to +discovering wasteful and obsolete methods in use and recommending +changes and practices which would result in saving money and producing +better results. Among other things, the Commission undertook an +examination of the problem of a national budget along lines followed by +the best European governments, and it suggested the abandonment of the +time-honored "log-rolling" process of making appropriations, in favor of +a consistent, consolidated, and businesslike budget based upon national +needs and not the demands of localities for Federal "improvements," +regardless of their utility. + +Although he was sharply attacked by the advocates of conservation for +appointing and supporting as Secretary of the Interior, Mr. R. A. +Ballinger, who was charged with favoring certain large corporations +seeking public land grants, Mr. Taft devoted no little attention to the +problem of conserving the natural resources. In 1910, Congress enacted +two important laws bearing on the subject. By a measure approved June +22, it provided for agricultural entries on coal lands and the +separation of the surface from the mineral rights in such lands. By +another law, approved three days later, Congress made provision for the +withdrawal of certain lands for water-power sites, irrigation, +classification of lands, and other public purposes. These laws settled +some questions of legality which had been raised with reference to +earlier executive action in withdrawing lands from entry and gave the +President definite authority to control important aspects of +conservation. + +From the opening of his administration Mr. Taft used his influence in +every legitimate way to assist in the development of the movement for +international peace. In his acceptance speech, at the opening of his +campaign for election, he had remarked upon the significance and +importance of the arbitration treaties which had been signed between +nations and upon the contribution of Mr. Roosevelt's administration to +the cause of world peace. Following out his principles, Mr. Taft signed +with France and England in August, 1911, general arbitration treaties +expanding the range of the older agreements so as to include all +controversies which were "justiciable" in character, even though they +might involve questions of "vital interest and national honor." The +treaties, which were hailed by the peace advocates with great acclaim, +met a cold reception in the Senate which ratified them on March 7, 1912, +only after making important amendments that led to their abandonment. + + * * * * * + +Among the most significant of Mr. Taft's acts were his appointments of +the Supreme Court judges. On the death of Chief Justice Fuller, in 1910, +he selected for that high post Associate Justice White. In the course +of his administration, Mr. Taft also had occasion to select five +associate justices, and he appointed Mr. Horace H. Lurton, of Tennessee, +Charles E. Hughes, governor of New York, Mr. Willis Van Devanter, of +Wyoming, Mr. Joseph R. Lamar, of Georgia, and Mr. Mahlon Pitney, of New +Jersey. Thus within four years the President was able to designate a +majority of the judges of the most powerful court in the world, and to +select the Chief Justice who presided over it. + +It was hardly to be expected that the exercise of such a significant +power would escape criticism, particularly in view of the nature of the +cases which are passed upon by that Court. Mr. Bryan was particularly +severe in his attacks, charging the President with deliberately packing +the Court. "You appointed to the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme +Court," he said, "Justice White who thirteen years ago took the trusts' +side of the trust question.[81] ... You appointed Governor Hughes to the +Supreme Court bench after he had interpreted your platform to suit the +trusts." Mr. Bryan also demanded that Mr. Taft let the people know "the +influences" that dictated his appointments. Mr. Bryan attacked +particularly the selection of Mr. Van Devanter, declaring that the +latter, by his decisions in the lower court, was a notorious favorite of +corporation interests. Mr. Taft looked upon these attacks as insults to +himself and the judges, and treated them with the scant courtesy which, +in his opinion, they deserved. The episode, however, was of no little +significance in stirring up public interest in the constitution of a +tribunal that was traditionally supposed to be "non-political" in its +character. + + +_The Anti-Trust Cases_ + +Mr. Taft approached the trust problem with the pre-conceptions of the +lawyer who believes that the indefinite dissolution of combinations is +possible under the law. His predecessor had, it is true, instituted many +proceedings against trusts, but there was a certain lack of sharpness in +his tone, which was doubtless due to the fact that he believed and +openly declared that indiscriminate prosecutions under the Sherman law +(which was, in his opinion, unsound in many features) were highly +undesirable. Mr. Taft, on the other hand, apparently looked at the law +and not the economics of the problem. During Harrison's administration +there had been four bills in equity and three indictments under the +Sherman law; during Cleveland's administration, four bills in equity, +two indictments, two informations for contempt; during McKinley's +administration, three bills in equity. Mr. Roosevelt had to his record, +eighteen bills in equity, twenty-five indictments, and one forfeiture +proceeding. Within three years, Mr. Taft had twenty-two bills in equity +and forty-five indictments to his credit. + +The very vigor with which Mr. Taft pressed the cases against the trusts +did more, perhaps, to force a consideration of the whole question by the +public than did Mr. Roosevelt's extended messages. As has been pointed +out, the members of Congress who enacted the Sherman law were very much +confused in their notions as to what trusts really were and what +combinations and practices were in fact to be considered in restraint of +trade.[82] And it must be confessed that the decisions and opinions of +the courts, up to the beginning of Mr. Taft's administration, had not +done much to clarify the law. In the Trans-Missouri case, decided in +1897, the Supreme Court had declared in effect that all combinations in +restraint of trade, whether reasonable or unreasonable, were in fact +forbidden by the law, Justice White dissenting.[83] + +This was not done by the Court inadvertently. Mr. Justice Peckham, +speaking for the majority of the Court, distinctly marked the fact that +arguments had been directed to that tribunal, "against the inclusion of +all contracts in restraint of trade, as provided for by the language of +the act ... upon the alleged presumption that Congress, notwithstanding +the language of the act, could not have intended to embrace all +contracts, but only such as were in unreasonable restraint of trade. +Under these circumstances we are, therefore, asked to hold that the act +of Congress excepts contracts which are not in unreasonable restraint of +trade, and which only keep rates up to a reasonable price, +notwithstanding the language of the act makes no such exception. In +other words, we are asked to read into the act by way of judicial +legislation an exception that is not placed there by the lawmaking +branch of the government.... It may be that the policy evidenced by the +passage of the act itself will, if carried out, result in disaster to +the roads.... Whether that will be the result or not we do not know and +cannot predict. These considerations are, however, not for us. If the +act ought to read as contended for by the defendants, Congress is the +body to amend it, and not this Court by a process of judicial +legislation wholly unjustifiable." + +It was no doubt fortunate for the business interests of the country that +no earlier administration undertook a searching and drastic prosecution +of combinations under the Sherman law; for in the view of the language +of the Court it is difficult to imagine any kind of important +interconcern agreement which would not be illegal. This very delay in +the vigorous enforcement of the law enabled the country at large to take +a new view of the trusts and to throw aside much of the prejudice which +had characterized politics in the eighties and early nineties. The +lawless practices of the great combinations and their corrupting +influence were extensively discovered and understood; but it became +increasingly difficult for demagogues to convince the public that any +good could accrue to anybody from the ruthless attempts to disintegrate +all large combinations in business. The more radical sections, which had +formerly applauded the platform orator in his tirades against trusts, +were turning away from indiscriminate abuse and listening more +attentively than ever to the Socialists who held, and had held for half +a century, to the doctrine that the trusts were a natural product of +economic evolution and were merely paving the way to national ownership +on a large scale. + +Consequently, between the two forces, the representatives of corporate +interests on the one hand and the spokesmen for socialistic doctrines on +the other, the old demand for the immediate and unconditional +destruction of the trusts was sharply modified. Corporations came to see +that undesirable as "government regulation" might be, it was still more +desirable than destruction. They, therefore, drew to themselves a large +support from sections of the population which did not share socialistic +ideas, and still could see nothing but folly in attempting to resist +what seemed to have the force of nature. Many working-class +representatives ceased to wage war on the trusts as such, for they did +not expect to get into the oil, copper, or steel business for +themselves; and the farmers, on account of rising prices and a large +appreciation in land values, listened with less gladness to the +"war-to-the-hilt" orator. Nevertheless, a large section of the +population, composed particularly of business men and manufacturers of +the lesser industries, hoped to "reestablish" what they called "fair +conditions of competition" by dissolving into smaller units the huge +corporations that dominated industry. + +In response to this demand, Mr. Taft pushed through the cases against +the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company; and in May, +1911, the Supreme Court handed down decisions dissolving these +combinations. In the course of his opinions, Chief Justice White, who +had dissented in the Trans-Missouri case mentioned above, gave an +interpretation of the Sherman Act which was regarded quite generally as +an abandonment of the principles enunciated by the Court in that case. +He said: "The statute, under this view, evidenced the intent not to +restrain the right to make and enforce contracts, whether resulting from +combinations or otherwise, which did not _unduly restrain_ interstate +and foreign commerce, but to protect the commerce from being restrained +by methods, whether new or old, which would constitute an interference +that is an _undue_ restraint." Thus the Chief Justice restated the +doctrine of "reasonableness" which he had formulated in his dissenting +opinion in the earlier case, but this time as the spokesman of the +Court. It is true, he attempted with great dialectic skill to reconcile +the old and the new opinions, and make it appear that there had been no +change in the theories of the Court; but his attempt was not convincing +to every one, for many shared the view expressed by Justice Harlan, to +the effect that the attempt at reconciliation partook of the nature of a +statement that black is white and white is black. + +The effect of these decisions was the dissolution of the two concerns +into certain constituent parts which were supposed to reestablish +competition; but no marvelously beneficial economic results seem to have +accrued. The inner circles of the two combinations made huge sums from +the appreciation of stocks; the prices of gasoline and some other oil +products mounted with astonishing speed to a higher rate than ever +before; and smaller would-be competitors declared that the constituent +companies were so large that competition with them was next to +impossible. No one showed any great enthusiasm about the results of the +prosecution and decisions, except perhaps some eminent leaders in the +business world, who shared the opinion of Mr. J. P. Morgan that the +doctrines of the Court were "entirely satisfactory," and to be taken as +meaning that indiscriminate assaults on large concerns, merely because +of their size, would not be tolerated by the Court. Radical +"trust-breakers" cried aloud that they had been betrayed by the eminent +tribunal, and a very large section of the population which had come to +regard trusts as a "natural evolution" looked upon the whole affair as +an anticlimax. Mr. Taft, in a speech shortly after the decisions of the +Court, expressed his pleasure at the outcome of the action and invited +the confidence of the country in the policy announced. He had carried a +great legal battle to its conclusion, only to find those who cheered the +loudest in the beginning, indifferent at the finish. + + +_The Overthrow of Speaker Cannon_ + +From the beginning of his administration, it was apparent that Mr. +Taft's party in Congress was not in that state of harmony which presaged +an uneventful legislative career. The vote on the tariff bill, both in +the Senate and the House, showed no little dissatisfaction with the way +in which the affairs of the party were being managed. The acrimony in +the tariff debate had been disturbing, and the attacks on Speaker Cannon +from his own party colleagues increased in frequency and virulence +inside and outside of Congress. + +Under this astute politician and keen parliamentary manager, a system of +legislative procedure had grown up in the House, which concentrated the +management of business in the hands of a few members, while preserving +the outward signs of democracy within the party. The Speaker enjoyed the +power of appointing all of the committees of the House and of +designating the chairmen thereof. Under his power to object to a request +for "unanimous consent," he could refuse to recognize members asking for +the ear of the chamber under that privilege. He, furthermore, exercised +his general right of recognition in such a manner as to favor those +members who were in the good graces of the inner circle, which had +naturally risen to power through long service. + +In addition, there had been created a powerful engine, known as the +"rules committee" which could, substantially at any time, set aside the +regular operations of the House, fix the limits of debate, and force the +consideration of any particular bill. This committee was composed of the +Speaker and two colleagues selected by himself, for, although there were +two Democratic representatives on the committee, they did not enjoy any +influence in its deliberations. The outward signs of propriety were +given to this enginery by the election of the Speaker by the party +caucus, but the older members and shrewd managers had turned the caucus +into a mere ratifying machine. + +Under this system, which was perfected through the long tenure of power +enjoyed by the Republicans, a small group of managers, including Mr. +Cannon, came to a substantial control over all the business of the +House. A member could not secure recognition for a measure without +"seeing" the Speaker in advance; the older members monopolized the +important committees; and a measure introduced by a private member had +no chance for consideration, to say nothing of passage, unless its +sponsor made his peace with the party managers. This system was by no +means without its advantages. It concentrated authority in a few eminent +party spokesmen and the country came to understand that some one was at +last responsible for what happened in the House. The obvious +disadvantage was the use of power to perpetuate a machine and policies +which did not in fact represent the country or the party. Furthermore, +the new and younger members could not expect to achieve anything until +they had submitted to the proper "party discipline." + +If anything went wrong, it soon became popular to attribute the evil to +"Cannon and his system." Attacks upon them became especially bitter in +the campaign of 1908 and particularly venomous after the passage of the +Aldrich-Payne tariff act. At length, in March, 1910, by a clever piece +of parliamentary manipulation, some "insurgent" Republicans were able to +present an amendment to the rules ousting the Speaker from membership in +the rules committee, increasing the number, and providing for election +by the House. Mr. Cannon was forced to rule on the regularity of this +amendment, and he decided against it. On appeal from the decision of the +chair, the Speaker was defeated by a combination of Democrats and +insurgent Republicans, and the committee on rules was reconstructed. A +motion to declare the Speakership vacant was defeated, however, because +only eight insurgents supported it, and accordingly Mr. Cannon was +permitted to serve out his term. Although this was heralded as "a great +victory," it was of no consequence in altering the management of +business in that session; but it was a solemn portent of the defeat for +the Republican party which lay ahead in the autumn. + + +_Dissensions_ + +The second half of Mr. Taft's administration was marked by the failure +to accomplish many results on which he had set his mind. The election of +1910 showed that the country was swinging back to the Democratic party +once more. In that year, the Democrats elected governors in +Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and some +other states which had long been regarded as Republican. The Democrats +also carried the House of Representatives, securing 227 members to 163 +Republicans and 1 Socialist, Mr. Berger, of Wisconsin. Although many +conservative Republican leaders, like Mr. Cannon, Mr. Payne, and Mr. +Dalzell, were returned, their position in the minority was seriously +impaired by the election of many "insurgent" Republicans from the West, +who were out of harmony with the old methods of the party. + +In view of this Democratic victory, it was inevitable that Mr. Taft +should have trouble over the tariff. In accordance with the declarations +of the Republican platform, he had recommended and secured the creation, +in 1909, of a tariff board designed to obtain precise information on the +relation of the tariff to production and labor at home and abroad. The +work of this board fell into three main divisions. It was, in the first +place, instructed to take each article in the tariff schedule and +"secure concise information regarding the nature of the article, the +chief sources of supply at home and abroad, the methods of its +production, its chief uses, statistics of production, imports and +exports, with an estimate of the ad valorem equivalent for all specific +duties." In the second place, it was ordered to compile statistics on +the cost of production at home and abroad so that some real information +might be available as to the difference, with a view to discovering the +amount of protection necessary to accomplish the real purposes of a +"scientific" tariff. Finally, the board was instructed to secure +accurate information as to prices at home and abroad and as to the +general conditions of competition in the several industries affected by +the tariff. + +If there was to be any protection at all, it was obvious that an immense +amount of precise information was necessary to the adjustment of +schedules in such a manner as not to give undue advantages to American +manufacturers and thus encourage sloth and obsolete methods on their +part. Such was the view taken by Mr. Taft and the friends of the tariff +board; but the Democratic Congress elected in 1910 gave the outward +signs of a determination to undertake a speedy and considerable +"downward revision," regardless of any "scientific" information that +might be collected by the administration. There was doubtless some +demand in the country for such a revision, and furthermore it was "good +politics" for the leaders of the new House to embarrass the Republican +President as much as possible. The opportunity was too inviting to be +disregarded, particularly with a presidential election approaching. + +Consequently, the House, in 1911, passed three important tariff +measures: a farmers' free list bill placing agricultural implements, +boots and shoes, wire fence, meat, flour, lumber, and other commodities +on the free list; a measure revising the famous "Schedule K," embracing +wool and woolen manufactures; and a law reducing the duties on cotton +manufactures, chemicals, paints, metals, and other commodities. With the +support of the "insurgent" Republicans in the Senate these measures were +passed with more speed than was expected by their sponsors, and Mr. Taft +promptly vetoed them on the ground that some of them were loosely drawn +and all of them were based upon inadequate information. The following +year, an iron and steel measure and a woolens bill were again presented +to the President and as decisively vetoed. In his veto messages, Mr. +Taft pointed out that the concise information collected by the tariff +board was now at the disposal of Congress and that it was possible to +undertake a revision of many schedules which would allow a considerable +reduction without "destroying any established industry or throwing any +wage earners out of employment." These last veto messages, sent in +August, 1912, received scant consideration from members of Congress +already engaged in a hot political campaign. + +Mr. Taft was equally unfortunate in his attempt to secure reciprocity +with Canada. In January, 1911, through the Secretary of State, he +concluded a reciprocity agreement with that country by the exchange of +notes, providing for a free list of more than one hundred articles and a +reduction of the tariff on more than four hundred articles. The +agreement was submitted to the legislatures of the two countries. A bill +embodying it passed the House, in February, by a Democratic vote, the +insurgent Republicans standing almost solidly against it, on the ground +that it discriminated against the farmers by introducing Canadian +competition, while benefiting the manufacturers who had no considerable +competition from that source. The Senate failed to act on the bill until +the next session of the new Congress when it was passed in July with +twelve insurgent and twelve regular Republicans against it. After having +wrought this serious breach in his own party in Congress, Mr. Taft was +sorely disappointed by seeing the whole matter fall to the ground +through the overthrow of the Liberals in Canada at the election in +September, 1911, and the rejection by that country of the measure for +which he had so laboriously contended. + +During the closing days of his administration, Mr. Taft was seriously +beset by troubles with Mexico. Under the long and severe rule of General +Porfirio Diaz in that country, order had been set up there (at whatever +cost to humanity) and American capital had streamed into Mexican mines, +railways, plantations, and other enterprises. In 1911, Diaz was +overthrown by Francisco Madero and the latter was hardly installed in +power before he was assassinated and a dictatorship set up under General +Huerta, in February, 1913. After the overthrow of Diaz in 1911, Mexico +was filled with revolutionary turmoil, and American lives and property +were gravely menaced. In April, 1912, Mr. Taft solemnly warned the +Mexican government that the United States would hold it responsible for +the destruction of American property and the taking of American life, +but this warning was treated with scant courtesy by President Madero. +The disorders continued to increase, and demands for intervention on the +part of the United States were heard from innumerable interested +quarters, but Mr. Taft refused to be drawn into an armed conflict. The +Mexican trouble he bequeathed to his successor. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [79] Congress by an act of 1907 forbade campaign + contributions by corporations, in connection with Federal + elections, and in 1910 and 1911 enacted laws providing for + the publicity of expenses in connection with elections to + Congress. + + [80] The Sixteenth Amendment was proclaimed in force on + February 25, 1913. + + [81] See below, p. 332. + + [82] See above, p. 135. + + [83] United States _v._ Trans-Missouri Freight Assn., 166 U. + S. 290. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 + + +Long before the opening of the campaign of 1912, the dissenters in the +Republican party who had added the prefix of "Progressive" to the old +title, began to draw together for the purpose of resisting the +renomination of Mr. Taft and putting forward a candidate more nearly in +accord with their principles. As early as January 21, 1911, a National +Progressive Republican League was formed at the residence of Senator La +Follette in Washington and a program set forth embracing the indorsement +of direct primaries, direct elections, and direct government generally +and a criticism of the recent failures to secure satisfactory +legislation on the tariff, trusts, banking, and conservation. Only on +the changes in our machinery of government did the League take a +definite stand; on the deeper issues of political economy it was silent, +at least as to positive proposals. Mr. Roosevelt was invited to join the +new organization, but he declined to identify himself with it. + +For a time the Progressives centered their attacks upon Mr. Taft's +administration. Their bill of indictment may be best stated in the +language of Senator La Follette: "In his campaign for election, he [Mr. +Taft] had interpreted the platform as a pledge for tariff revision +downward. Five months after he was inaugurated he signed a bill that +revised the tariff upward.... The President started on a tour across the +country in September, 1909. At the outset in an address at Boston he +lauded Aldrich as the greatest statesman of his time. Then followed his +Winona speech, in which he declared the Payne-Aldrich bill to be the +best tariff ever enacted, and in effect challenged the Progressives in +Congress who had voted against the measure.... During the succeeding +sessions of Congress, President Taft's sponsorship for the +administration railroad bill, with its commerce court, its repeal of the +anti-trust act in its application to railroads, its legalizing of all +watered railroad capitalization; his course regarding the Ballinger and +Cunningham claims, and the subterfuges resorted to by his administration +in defense of Ballinger; his attempt to foist upon the country a sham +reciprocity measure; his complete surrender to the legislative +reactionary program of Aldrich and Cannon and the discredited +representatives of special interests who had so long managed +congressional legislation, rendered it utterly impossible for the +Progressive Republicans of the country to support him for +reelection."[84] + +A second positive step in the organization of the Progressive +Republicans was taken in April, 1911, at a conference held in the +committee room of Senator Bourne, of Oregon, at the Capitol. At this +meeting a number of Republican Senators, Representatives, newspaper men, +and private citizens were present, and it was there agreed that the +Progressives must unite upon some candidate in opposition to Mr. Taft. +The most available man at the time was Senator La Follette, who had been +an uncompromising and vigorous exponent of progressive doctrines since +his entrance to the Senate in 1906; and the members of this conference, +or at least most of them, assured him of their support in case he would +consent to become a candidate for nomination. The Senator was informed +by men very close to Mr. Roosevelt that the latter would, under no +circumstances, enter the field; and he was afforded the financial +assistance necessary to open headquarters for the purpose of advancing +his candidacy. No formal announcement of the adherence of the group to +Mr. La Follette was then made, for the reason that Senator Cummins, of +Iowa, and some other prominent Republicans declined to sign the call to +arms.[85] + +In July, 1911, Senator La Follette began his active campaign for +nomination as an avowed Progressive Republican, and within a few months +he had developed an unexpected strength, particularly in the Middle +West, which indicated the depth of the popular dissatisfaction with Mr. +Taft's administration. In October of that year a national conference of +Progressive Republicans assembled at Chicago, on the call of Mr. La +Follette's campaign manager, and indorsed the Senator in unmistakable +language, declaring him to be "the logical Republican candidate for +President of the United States," and urging the formation of +organizations in all states to promote his nomination. In spite of these +outward signs of prosperity, however, Mr. La Follette was by no means +sure of his supporters, for several of the most prominent, including Mr. +Gifford Pinchot and Mr. James R. Garfield, were not whole-hearted in +their advocacy of his cause and were evidently unwilling to relinquish +the hope that Mr. Roosevelt might become their leader after all. + +Indeed, Senator La Follette came to believe that many of his supporters, +who afterward went over to Mr. Roosevelt, never intended to push his own +candidacy to the end, but employed him as a sort of "stalking horse" to +interest and measure progressive sentiment for the purpose of putting +the ex-President into the field at the opportune moment, if the signs +proved auspicious. This was regarded by Mr. La Follette not merely as +treachery to himself, but also as treason to genuine progressive +principles. In his opinion, Mr. Roosevelt's long administration of seven +years had failed to produce many material results. He admitted that the +ex-President had done something to promote conservation of natural +resources, but called attention to the fact that the movement for +conservation had been begun even as early as Harrison's +administration.[86] He pointed out that Mr. Roosevelt had vigorously +indorsed the Payne-Aldrich tariff in the New York state campaign of +1910; and that during his administration the formation and +overcapitalization of gigantic combinations had gone forward with +unprecedented speed, in spite of the denunciation of "bad trusts" in +executive messages. Furthermore, the Senator directly charged Mr. +Roosevelt with having used the power of the Federal patronage against +him in his fight for progressive reforms in Wisconsin. + +So decided was Senator La Follette's distrust of Mr. Roosevelt's new +"progressivism," that nothing short of a lengthy quotation can convey +the spirit of it. "While Mr. Roosevelt was President," says the Senator, +"his public utterances through state papers, addresses, and the press +were highly colored with rhetorical radicalism. His administrative +policies as set forth in his recommendations to Congress were vigorously +and picturesquely presented, but characterized by an absence of definite +economic conception. One trait was always pronounced. His most savage +assault upon special interests was invariably offset with an equally +drastic attack upon those who were seeking to reform abuses. These were +indiscriminately classed as demagogues and dangerous persons. In this +way he sought to win approval, both from the radicals and the +conservatives. This cannonading, first in one direction and then in +another, filled the air with noise and smoke, which confused and +obscured the line of action, but when the battle cloud drifted by and +quiet was restored, it was always a matter of surprise that so little +had really been accomplished.... He smeared the issue, but caught the +imagination of the younger men of the country by his dash and mock +heroics. Taft cooperated with Cannon and Aldrich on legislation. +Roosevelt cooperated with Aldrich and Cannon on legislation. Neither +President took issue with the reactionary bosses of the Senate upon any +legislation of national importance. Taft's talk was generally in line +with his legislative policy. Roosevelt's talk was generally at right +angles to his legislative policy. Taft's messages were the more directly +reactionary; Roosevelt's the more 'progressive.' But adhering to his +conception of a 'square deal,' his strongest declarations in the public +interest were invariably offset with something comforting for Privilege; +every phrase denouncing 'bad' trusts was deftly balanced with praise for +'good' trusts." It is obvious that a man so deeply convinced of Mr. +Roosevelt's insincerity of purposes and instability of conviction could +not think of withdrawing in his favor or of lending any countenance to +his candidacy for nomination. To Senator La Follette the "directly +reactionary" policy of Mr. Taft was far preferable to the "mock heroics" +of Mr. Roosevelt. + +Nevertheless, at the opening of the presidential year, 1912, all +speculations turned upon the movements of Mr. Roosevelt. His long trip +to Africa and Europe and his brief abstention from politics on his +return in June, 1910, led many, who did not know him, to suppose that he +might emulate the example set by Mr. Cleveland in retiring from active +affairs. If he entertained any such notions, it was obvious that the +exigencies of affairs in his party were different from those in the +Democratic party after 1897. Indeed, during the very summer after his +return, the cleavage between the reformist Hughes wing of the +Republicans in New York and the "regular" group headed by Mr. William +Barnes had developed into an open breach; and at the earnest entreaty of +the representatives of the former faction, Mr. Roosevelt plunged into +the state contest, defeated Vice President Sherman in a hot fight for +chairmanship of the state convention, and secured the nomination of Mr. +H. A. Stimson as the Republican candidate for governor. The platform +which was adopted by the convention was colorless enough for the most +conservative party member and gave no indication of the radical drift +manifested two years later at Chicago. The defeat of Mr. Stimson gave no +little satisfaction to the ex-President's opponents, particularly to +those who hoped that he had at last been "eliminated." + +They had not, however, counted on their man. During the New York +gubernatorial campaign, he made a tour of the West, and in a series of +remarkable speeches, he stirred that region by the enunciation of +radical doctrines which were listened to gladly by the multitude. In an +address at Ossawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910, he expounded his +principles under the title of "the New Nationalism." He there advocated +Federal regulation of trusts, a graduated income tax, tariff revision +schedule by schedule, conservation, labor legislation, the direct +primary, recall of elective officers, and the adjustment of state and +Federal relations in such a form that there might be no neutral ground +to serve as the refuge for lawbreakers.[87] In editorials in the +_Outlook_, of which he was the contributing editor, and in his speeches, +Mr. Roosevelt continued to discuss Mr. Taft's policies and the current +issues of popular government. At length, in February, 1912, in an +address before the constitutional convention of Ohio, he came out for a +complete program of "direct" government, the initiative, referendum, +and recall; but with such careful qualifications that the more radical +progressives were still unconvinced.[88] + +Notwithstanding his extensive discussion of current issues and his great +popularity with a large section of the Progressive group, Mr. Roosevelt +steadily put away all suggestions that he should become a candidate in +1912. In a letter to the Pittsburgh _Leader_, of August 22, 1911, he +said: "I must ask not only you, but every friend I have, to see to it +that no movement whatever is made to bring me forward for nomination in +1912.... I should esteem it a genuine calamity if such a movement were +undertaken." Nevertheless, all along, men who were very close to him +believed that he would not refuse the nomination if it were offered to +him under proper circumstances. As time went on his utterances became +more pronounced, particularly in his western speeches, and friendly as +well as unfriendly newspapers insisted on viewing his conduct as a +distinct appeal for popular support for the Republican nomination. + +The climax came in February, 1912, when seven Republican Governors, +Glasscock, of West Virginia, Aldrich, of Nebraska, Bass, of New +Hampshire, Carey, of Wyoming, Stubbs, of Kansas, Osborn, of Michigan, +and Hadley, of Missouri, issued a statement that the requirements of +good government demanded his candidature, that the great majority of +Republican voters desired it, that he stood for the principles and +policies most conducive to public happiness and prosperity, and finally +that it was his plain duty to accept regardless of his personal +interests or preferences. To this open challenge, he replied on February +24 by saying that he would accept the nomination if tendered and abide +by this decision until the convention had expressed its preference. The +only political doctrine which he enunciated was belief "in the rule of +the people," and on this principle he expressed a desire for direct +primaries to ascertain the will of the party members. + + +_The Nomination of Candidates in 1912_ + +A new and unexpected turn was given to the campaign for nomination by +the adoption of the preferential primary in a number of states, East as +well as West. As we have seen, the direct primary[89] was brought into +action by men who found themselves outside of the old party +intrenchments. La Follette, in Wisconsin, Stubbs, in Kansas, Hughes, in +New York, and the other advocates of the system, having failed to +capture the old strongholds, determined to blow them up; the time had +now come for an attack on the national convention. President Taft and +the regular Republican organization were in possession of the enormous +Federal patronage, and they knew how to use it just as well as had Mr. +Roosevelt in 1908 when he forced the nomination of Mr. Taft. True to +their ancient traditions, the Republican provinces in the South began, +early in 1912, to return "representatives" instructed to vote for a +second term for President Taft. But the Progressives were forearmed as +well as forewarned. + +As early as February 27, 1912, Senator Bourne had warned the country +that the overthrow of "the good old ways" of nominating presidential +candidates was at hand. In a speech on that date, he roundly denounced +the convention and described the new Oregon system. He declared that +nominations in national conventions were made by the politicians, and +that the "electorate of the whole United States is permitted only to +witness in gaping expectancy, and to ratify at the polls in the +succeeding November." The flagrancy of this abuse, however, paled into +insignificance, added Mr. Bourne, "in the presence of that other abuse +against partisan conscience and outrage upon the representative system +which is wrought by the Republican politician in hopelessly Democratic +states and by the Democratic politician in hopelessly Republican states +in dominating the national conventions with the presence of these +unrepresentative delegations that represent neither party, people, nor +principle." + +The speaker then elaborated these generalities by reference to details. +He pointed out that the southern states and territories which (except +Maryland) gave no electoral votes to Mr. Taft had 338 delegates in the +convention, only 153 less than a majority of the entire party assembly, +four more than the combined votes of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, +Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Iowa with 334 delegates. Moreover, +equal representation of states and territories on the national committee +and on the committee on credentials--the two bodies which, in the first +instance, pass upon the rights of delegates to their seats--gave undue +weight to the very states where wrongs were most likely to be +committed. As to the power of the Republican President of the United +States to control these delegates from the South, the Senator was in no +doubt. + +To the anomalous southern delegates were added the delegates selected in +northern states by the power of patronage. Mr. Bourne was specific: +"Three years ago," he said, "we had a convincing exhibition of the power +of a President to dictate the selection of his successor. At that time, +three fourths of the Republican voters of my state were in favor of the +renomination of Mr. Roosevelt, and believing that their wishes should be +observed, I endeavored to secure a delegation from that state favorable +to his nomination for a second elective term. But through the tremendous +power of the Chief Executive and of the Federal machine the delegates +selected by our state convention were instructed for Mr. Taft. After all +the delegates were elected and instructed, a poll was taken by one of +the leading newspapers in Portland, which city contains nearly one third +of the entire population of the state. The result indicated that the +preference of the people of the state was 11 to 1 in favor of Mr. +Roosevelt as against Mr. Taft." It was this personal experience with the +power of Federal patronage that induced Mr. Bourne to draft the Oregon +presidential primary law which was enacted by the use of the initiative +and referendum in 1910. + +The provisions of the Oregon law follow: + +(1) At the regular primary held on the forty-fifth day before the first +Monday in June of the presidential year, each voter is given an +opportunity to express his preference for one candidate for the office +of President and one for that of Vice President, either by writing the +names or by making crosses before the printed names on the ballot. + +(2) The names of candidates for the two offices are placed on the ballot +without their consent, if necessary, by petitions filed by their +supporters, just as in the case of candidates for governor and United +States Senator. + +(3) The committee or organization which places a presidential aspirant +on the primary ballot is provided, on payment therefor, four pages in +the campaign book issued by the state, and electors who oppose or +approve of any such aspirant for nomination are likewise given space in +the campaign book. + +(4) Delegates to national conventions and presidential electors must be +nominated at large at the primary. + +(5) Every delegate is paid his expenses to the national convention; in +no case, however, more than $200. + +(6) Every delegate must take an oath to the effect that he will "to the +best of his judgment and ability faithfully carry out the wishes of his +political party as expressed by its voters at the time of his election." + +The initial move of Oregon to secure a preferential vote on candidates +and the instruction of delegates was followed in 1911 by New Jersey, +Nebraska, California, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, and in 1912 by +Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland. + +The other presidential primary laws show some variations on the Oregon +plan although they agree in affording the voter an opportunity to +express his preference. Nebraska, for example, refused to disregard the +Republican system of district representation, and provided that "four +delegates shall be elected by the voters of the state at large; the +remainder of the delegates shall be equally divided between the various +congressional districts in the state and district delegates shall be +elected by the voters of the various congressional districts in the +state." Massachusetts follows Nebraska in this rule, but California +prefers the Oregon plan of election at large. It was this provision in +the law of California that caused the controversy over the seating of +two district delegates at Chicago in June, 1912. Although Mr. Roosevelt +carried the state, one of the districts went for Mr. Taft, and the +convention seated the delegates from this district, on the ground that +the rules of the party override a state statute. + +The Illinois law does not attempt to bind the delegates to a strict +observance of the results of the primary. On the contrary it expressly +states "that the vote for President of the United States as herein +provided for shall be for the sole purpose of securing an expression of +the sentiment and will of the party voters with respect to the candidate +for nomination for said office, and the vote of the state at large shall +be taken and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates at +large to the national conventions of the respective political parties; +and the vote of the respective congressional districts shall be taken +and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates of the said +congressional districts to the national convention of the respective +political parties." + + * * * * * + +The existence of these laws in several strategic states made it +necessary for the Republican and Democratic candidates to go directly +before the voters to discuss party issues. The country witnessed the +unhappy spectacle of two former friends, Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt, +waging bitter war upon each other on the hustings. The former denounced +the Progressives as "political emotionalists or neurotics." The latter +referred to his candidacy in the words, "My hat is in the ring"; and +during his campaign fiercely turned upon Mr. Taft. He gave to the public +a private letter in which Mr. Taft acknowledged that Mr. Roosevelt had +voluntarily transferred to him the presidential office, and added the +comment, "It is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you." + +Mr. Roosevelt's candidature was lavishly supported by Mr. G. W. Perkins, +of the Steel and Harvester Trusts, and by other gentlemen of great +wealth who had formerly indorsed Mr. Hanna's methods; and all of the old +engines of politics were brought into play. While making the popular +appeal in the North, Mr. Roosevelt's managers succeeded in securing a +large quota of "representatives" from the southern Republican provinces +to contest those already secured by Mr. Taft. As the matter was put by +the Washington _Times_, a paper owned by Mr. Munsey, one of Mr. +Roosevelt's ardent supporters: "For psychological effect, as a move in +practical politics, it was necessary for the Roosevelt people to start +contests on these early Taft selections, in order that a tabulation of +strength could be put out that would show Roosevelt holding a good hand +in the game. A table showing 'Taft, 150, Roosevelt, 19; contested none,' +would not be likely to inspire confidence. Whereas one showing 'Taft, +23, Roosevelt, 19; contested, 127,' looked very different." + +The results of the Republican presidential primaries were astounding. +Mr. Roosevelt carried Illinois by a majority of 100,000; he obtained 67 +of the 76 delegates from Pennsylvania; the state convention in Michigan +broke up in a riot; he carried California by a vote of two to one as +against Mr. Taft; he swept New Jersey and South Dakota; and he secured +the eight delegates at large in Massachusetts, although Mr. Taft carried +the preferential vote by a small majority. Connecticut and New York were +strongly for Mr. Taft, and Mr. La Follette carried Wisconsin and North +Dakota. Mr. Taft's supporters called attention to the fact that a very +large number of Republicans had failed to vote at all in the +preferential primaries, but they were speedily informed by the +opposition that they would see the shallowness of this contention if +they inquired into the number who voted for delegates to the conventions +which indorsed Mr. Taft. + +When the Republican convention assembled in Chicago, 252 of the 1078 +seats were contested; 238 of these were held by Mr. Taft's delegates and +14 by Mr. Roosevelt's supporters. The national committee, after the +usual hearings, decided the contests in such a manner as to give Mr. +Taft a safe majority. No little ingenuity was expended on both sides to +show the legality or the illegality of the several decisions. Mr. +Taft's friends pointed out that they had been made in a constitutional +manner by the proper authority, the national committee "chosen in 1908 +when Roosevelt was the leader of the party, at a time when his influence +dominated the convention." Mr. Roosevelt's champions replied by cries of +"fraud." Independent newspapers remarked that there was no more +"regularity" about one set of southern delegates than another; that the +national committee had followed the example set by Mr. Roosevelt when he +forced Mr. Taft's nomination in 1908 by using southern delegations +against the real Republican states which had instructed for other +candidates; and that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the +gander. Whatever may be the merits of the technical claims made on both +sides, it seems fair to say that Mr. Roosevelt, according to all +available signs, particularly the vote in the primaries in the strategic +states, was the real choice of the Republican party. + +The struggle over the contested seats was carried into the convention, +and after a hot fight, Mr. Taft's forces were victorious. When at +length, as Mr. Bryan put it, "the credentials committee made its last +report and the committee-made majority had voted itself the convention," +Mr. Roosevelt's supporters on Saturday, June 22, after a week's +desperate maneuvering, broke with the Republican assembly. A statement +prepared by Mr. Roosevelt was read as a parting shot. "The convention," +he said, "has now declined to purge the roll of the fraudulent delegates +placed thereon by the defunct national committee, and the majority which +has thus indorsed the fraud was made a majority only because it +included the fraudulent delegates themselves who all sat as judges on +one another's cases.... The convention as now composed has no claim to +represent the voters of the Republican party.... Any man nominated by +the convention as now constituted would merely be the beneficiary of +this successful fraud; it would be deeply discreditable to any man to +accept the convention's nomination under these circumstances; and any +man thus accepting it would have no claim to the support of any +Republican on party grounds and would have forfeited the right to ask +the support of any honest man of any party on moral grounds." + +Mr. Roosevelt's severe arraignment of men who had been his bosom friends +and chief political advisers and supporters filled with astonishment +many thoughtful observers in all parties who found it difficult to +account for his conduct. In Mr. Roosevelt's bitter speech at the +Auditorium mass meeting on the evening of June 17, 1912, a sharp line +was drawn between the "treason" of the Republican "Old Guard" and the +"purity" of his supporters. Of this, Mr. Bryan said, with much irony: +"He carried me back to the day when I first learned of this world-wide, +never-ending contest between the beneficiaries of privilege and the +unorganized masses; and I can appreciate the amazement which he must +feel that so many honest and well-meaning people seem blind or +indifferent to what is going on. I passed through the same period of +amazement when I first began to run for President. My only regret is +that we have not had the benefit of his powerful assistance during the +campaigns in which we have protested against the domination of politics +by predatory corporations. He probably feels more strongly stirred to +action to-day because he was so long unconscious of the forces at work +thwarting the popular will. The fact, too, that he has won prestige and +position for himself and friends through the support of the very +influences which he now so righteously denounces must still further +increase the sense of responsibility which he feels at this time.... He +ought to find encouragement in my experience. I have seen several +campaigns end in a most provoking way, and yet I have lived to see a +Republican ex-President cheered by a Republican audience for denouncing +men who, only a few years ago, were thought to be the custodians of the +nation's honor."[90] + +When Mr. Roosevelt definitely broke with the Republican convention, most +of his followers left that assembly, and the few that stayed behind +there refused to vote on roll call. The substantial "rump" which +remained proceeded with the business as if nothing had happened, and +renominated Mr. Taft and Mr. Sherman as the candidates of the Republican +party. The regulars retained the battle field, but they could not fail +to recognize how forlorn was the hope that led them on. + +On examining the vote on Mr. Root and Mr. McGovern, as candidates for +temporary chairman, it becomes apparent that the real strength of the +party was with Mr. Roosevelt. The former candidate, representing the +conservative wing, received the overwhelming majority of the votes of +the southern states, like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and +Virginia, where the Republican organization was a political sham; he did +not carry the majority of the delegates of a single one of the strategic +Republican states of the North except Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and New +York. Massachusetts and Wisconsin were evenly divided; but the other +great Republican states were against him. Minnesota, Nebraska, New +Jersey, North and South Dakota were solid for McGovern. Ohio gave +thirty-four of her thirty-eight votes for him; Illinois, forty-nine out +of fifty-eight; California, twenty-four out of twenty-six; Kansas, +eighteen out of twenty; Oregon, six out of nine; Pennsylvania, +sixty-four out of seventy-six. In nearly every state where there had +been a preferential primary Mr. Roosevelt had carried the day. Mr. Root +won by a vote of 558 to 501 for Mr. McGovern. It was a victory, but it +bore the sting of death. When he stepped forward to deliver his address, +the applause that greeted him was broken by cries of "Receiver of stolen +goods." + +If the supporters of Mr. Taft in the convention had any doubts as to the +character of the methods employed to secure his nomination or the +conduct of the convention itself, they were more than repaid for their +labors by what they believed to be the salvation of the party in the +hour of a great crisis. To them, the attacks on the judiciary, +representative institutions, and the established order generally were so +serious and so menacing that if high-handed measures were ever justified +they were on that occasion. The instruments which they employed were +precisely those which had been developed in party usage and had been +wielded with kindred results in 1908 by the eminent gentleman who +created so much disturbance when he fell a victim to them. Mr. Taft's +supporters must have foreseen defeat from the hour when the break came, +but they preferred defeat in November to the surrender of all that the +party had stood for since the Civil War. + +The Republican platform was not prolix or very specific, but on general +principles it took a positive stand. It adhered to the traditional +American doctrine of individual liberty, protected by constitutional +safeguards and enforced by the courts; and it declared the recall of +judges to be "unnecessary and unwise." It announced the purpose of the +party to go forward with a program of social legislation, but it did not +go into great detail on this point. President Taft's policy of +submitting justiciable controversies between nations to arbitration was +indorsed. The amendment of the Sherman law in such a manner as to make +the illegal practices of trusts and corporations more specific was +favored, and the creation of a Federal trade commission to deal with +interstate business affected with public use was recommended. The +historic views of the party on the tariff were restated and sound +currency and banking legislation promised. The insinuation that the +party was reactionary was repudiated by a declaration that it had always +been a genuinely progressive party, never stationary or reactionary, but +always going from the fulfillment of one pledge to another in response +to public need and popular will. + +In his acceptance speech, Mr. Taft took issue with all the radical +tendencies of the time and expressed his profound gratitude for the +righteous victory at Chicago, where they had been saved from the man +"whose recently avowed political views would have committed the party to +radical proposals involving dangerous changes in our present +constitutional form of representative government and our independent +judiciary." The widespread popular unrest which forced itself upon the +attention of even the most indifferent spectators, Mr. Taft attributed +to the sensational journals, muckraking, and demagogues, and he declared +that the equality of opportunity preached by the apostles of social +justice "involves a forced division of property and that means +socialism." In fact, in his opinion, the real contest was at bottom one +over private property, and the Democratic and Progressive parties were +merely aiding the Socialists in their attack upon this institution. He +challenged his opponents to show how the initiative, referendum, and +recall would effect significant economic changes: "Votes are not bread, +constitutional amendments are not work, referendums do not pay rent or +furnish houses, recalls do not furnish clothes, initiatives do not +supply employment, or relieve inequalities of condition or of +opportunity." In other words he took a firm stand against the whole +range of "radical propositions" advanced by "demagogues" to "satisfy +what is supposed to be popular clamor." + + * * * * * + +The Democrats looked upon the Republican dissensions with evident +satisfaction. When the time for sifting candidates for 1912 arrived, +there was unwonted bustle in their ranks, for they now saw a greater +probability of victory than at any time in the preceding sixteen years. +The congressional elections of 1910, the division in the Republican +party, and discontent with the prevailing order of things manifest +throughout the country, all pointed to a possibility of a chance to +return to the promised land from which they had been driven in 1897. And +there was no lack of strong presidential "timber." Two of the recently +elected Democratic governors, Harmon, of Ohio, and Wilson, of New +Jersey, were assiduously "boomed" by their respective contingents of +supporters. Mr. Bryan, though not an avowed candidate, was still +available and strong in his western battalions. Mr. Champ Clark, Speaker +of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Oscar Underwood, chairman of +the ways and means committee, likewise loomed large on the horizon as +possibilities. + +In the primaries at which delegates to the convention were chosen a +great division of opinion was manifested, although there was a +considerable drift toward Mr. Clark. No one had anything like a majority +of the delegates, but the Speaker's popular vote in such significant +states as Illinois showed him to be a formidable contestant. But Mr. +Clark soon alienated Mr. Bryan by refusing to join him in a movement to +prevent the nomination of a conservative Democrat, Mr. Alton B. Parker, +as temporary chairman of the convention which met at Baltimore on June +25. Although at one time Mr. Clark received more than one half of the +votes (two thirds being necessary to nominate) his doom was sealed by +Mr. Bryan's potent opposition. + +Mr. Wilson, on the other hand, gained immensely by this predicament in +which the Speaker found himself. He was easily the second candidate in +the race, as the balloting showed, and his availability was in many +respects superb. He was new to politics, and thus had few enemies. He +had long been known as a stanch conservative of the old school; and +although he apparently had not broken with his party in the stormy days +of 1896, it was publicly known that he had wished Mr. Bryan to be +"knocked into a cocked hat." In his printed utterances he was on record +against the newer devices, such as the initiative and referendum, and he +therefore commanded the respect and confidence of eastern Democrats. As +governor of New Jersey, however, his policies had appealed to the +progressive sections of his party, without seriously alienating the +other wing. He had pushed through an elaborate system of direct primary +legislation, a public utilities bill after the fashion of the Wisconsin +system, and a workmen's compensation law. On a western tour he met Mr. +Bryan on such happy terms that their cordiality seemed to be more than +ostensible, and at about the same time he declared himself in favor of +the initiative and referendum. His friends held that the conservative +scholar had been made "progressive" by practical experience; his enemies +contended that he was playing the political game; and his managers were +able to make use of one record effectively in the West and another +effectively in the East. Having the confidence, if not the cordial +support, of the conservatives and the great weight of Mr. Bryan's +influence on his side, he was able to win the nomination on the +forty-sixth ballot taken on the seventh day of the convention. + +The Democratic platform adopted at Baltimore naturally opened with a +consideration of the tariff question, reiterating the ancient principle +that the government "under the Constitution has no right or power to +impose or collect tariff duties except for the purpose of revenue." +President Taft's action in vetoing the tariff bills was denounced, and +an immediate, downward revision was demanded. Recognizing the intimate +connection between the tariff and business, the Democrats proposed to +reach their ultimate ideal by "legislation that will not injure or +destroy legitimate industry." On the trust question, the platform took a +positive stand, demanding the enforcement of the criminal provisions of +the law against trust officials and the enactment of additional +legislation to make it "impossible for a private monopoly to exist in +the United States." The action of the Republican administration in +"compromising with the Standard Oil Company and the Tobacco Trust" was +condemned, and the judicial construction of the Sherman law criticized. +The valuation of railways was favored; likewise a single term for the +President of the United States, anti-injunction laws, currency +legislation, presidential primaries, and the declaration of the nation's +purpose to establish Philippine independence at the earliest practicable +moment. + +Mr. Wilson's speech of acceptance partook of the character of an essay +in political science rather than of a precise definition of party +policies. He spoke of an awakened nation, impatient of partisan +make-believe, hindered in its development by circumstances of privilege +and private advantage, and determined to undertake great things in the +name of right and justice. Departing from traditions, he refused to +discuss the terms of the Baltimore platform, which he dismissed with the +short notice that "the platform is not a program." He devoted no little +attention to the spirit of "the rule of the people" as opposed to the +rule by an inner coterie of the privileged, but he abstained from +discussing directly such matters as the initiative, referendum, and +recall. He announced his clear conviction that the only safe and +legitimate object of a tariff was to raise duties, but he cautioned his +party against radical and sudden legislation. He promised to support +legislation against the unfair practices of corporations in destroying +competition; but he gave no solace to those who expected a vigorous +assault on trusts as such. + +Indeed, Mr. Wilson refused to commit himself to the old concept of +unrestricted competition and petty business. "I am not," he said, "one +of those who think that competition can be established by law against +the drift of a world-wide economic tendency.... I am not afraid of +anything that is normal. I dare say we shall never return to the old +order of individual competition and that the organization of business +upon a great scale of cooperation is, up to a certain point, itself +normal and inevitable." Nevertheless, he hoped to see "our old free, +cooperative life restored," and individual opportunity widened. To the +working class he addressed a word of assurance and confidence: "The +working people of America ... are of course the backbone of the Nation. +No law that safeguards their lives, that improves the physical and moral +conditions under which they live, that makes their hours of labor +rational and tolerable, that gives them freedom to act in their own +interest, and that protects them where they cannot protect themselves, +can properly be regarded as class legislation." As to the Philippines, +he simply said that we were under obligations to make any arrangement +that would be serviceable to their freedom and development. The whole +address was characterized by a note of sympathy and interest in the +common lot of the common people, and by an absence of any concrete +proposals that might discourage or alarm the business interests of the +country. It was a call to arms, but it did not indicate the weapons. + +Mr. Wilson's speech had that delightful quality of pleasing all sections +of his party. The _New York Times_ saw in it a remarkable address, in +spite of what seemed to be a certain remoteness from concrete issues, +and congratulated the country that its tone and argument indicated a +determination on the part of the candidate to ignore the Baltimore +platform. Mr. Bryan, on the other hand, appeared to be immensely pleased +with it. "Governor Wilson's speech accepting the Democratic nomination," +he said, "is original in its method of dealing with the issues of the +campaign. Instead of taking up the platform plank by plank, he takes the +central idea of the Denver platform [of 1908, Mr. Bryan's own, more +radical still]--an idea repeated and emphasized in the Baltimore +platform--and elaborates it, using the various questions under +consideration to illustrate the application of the principle.... Without +assuming to formulate a detailed plan for dealing with every condition +which may arise, he lifts into a position of extreme importance the +dominating thought of the Baltimore platform and appeals to the country +for its cooperation in making popular government a reality throughout +the land."[91] + + * * * * * + +While the Republicans and Democrats were bringing their machinery into +action, the supporters of Mr. Roosevelt were busy forming the +organization of a new party. At a conference held shortly after the +break with the Republican convention, a provisional committee had been +appointed, and on July 8, a call was issued for the "Progressive" +convention, which duly assembled on August 5 at Chicago. This party +assembly was sharply marked by the prominence assigned to women for the +first time in a political convention. Eighteen of the delegates were +women, and Miss Jane Addams, of the Hull House, made one of the +"keynote" speeches of the occasion. Even hostile newspapers were forced +to admit that no other convention in our history, except possibly the +first Republican convention of 1856, rivaled it in the enthusiasm and +devotion of the delegates. The typical politician was conspicuous by his +absence, and a spirit of religious fervor rather than of manipulation +characterized the proceedings. Mr. Roosevelt made a long address, his +"Confession of Faith," in which he took a positive stand on many +questions which he had hitherto met in evasive language, and a platform +was adopted which marked a departure from the old party pronouncements, +in that it stated the principles with clarity and in great detail. + +The Progressive platform fell into three parts: political reforms, labor +and social measures, and control of trusts and combinations. The first +embraced declarations in favor of direct primaries, including +preferential presidential primaries, popular election of United States +Senators, the short ballot, the initiative, referendum, and recall, an +easier method of amending the Federal Constitution, woman suffrage, +limitation and publicity of campaign expenditures, and the recall of +judicial decisions in the form of a popular review of any decision +annulling a law passed under the police power of the state. The program +of labor and social legislation included the limitation of the use of +the injunction in labor disputes, prohibition of child labor, minimum +wage standards for women, the establishment of minimum standards as to +health and safety of employees and conditions of labor generally, the +creation of a labor department at Washington, and the improvement of +country life. + +The Progressives took a decided stand against indiscriminate trust +dissolutions, declaring that great combinations were in some degree +inevitable and necessary for national and international efficiency. The +evils of stock watering and unfair competitive methods should be +eliminated and the advantages and economies of concentration conserved. +To this end, they urged the establishment of a Federal commission to +maintain a supervision over corporations engaged in interstate commerce, +analogous to that exercised by the Interstate Commerce Commission. As to +railway corporations, they favored physical valuation. They demanded the +retention of the natural resources, except agricultural lands, by the +governments, state and national, and their utilization for public +benefit. They favored a downward revision of the tariff on a protective +basis, income and inheritance taxes, the protection of the public +against stock gamblers and promoters and public ownership of railways in +Alaska. + + * * * * * + +In spite of the exciting contests over nomination in both of the old +parties, the campaign which followed was extraordinarily quiet.[92] The +popular vote shows that the issues failed to enlist confidence or +enthusiasm. Mr. Roosevelt polled about 700,000 more votes than Mr. Taft, +but their combined vote was less than that polled by the latter in 1908, +and slightly less than that received by the former in 1904. Mr. Wilson's +vote was more than 100,000 less than that received by Mr. Bryan in 1896 +or 1908. The combined Progressive and Republican vote was 1,300,000 +greater than the Democratic vote. If we add the votes cast for Mr. Debs, +the Socialist candidate, and the vote received by the other minor +candidates to the Progressive and Republican vote we have a majority of +nearly two and one half millions against Mr. Wilson. Yet Mr. Wilson, +owing to the division of the opposition, secured 435 of the 531 +electoral votes. The Democrats retained possession of the House of +Representatives and secured control of the Senate. The surprise of the +election was the large increase in the Socialist vote, from 420,000 in +1908 to 898,000, and this in spite of the socialistic planks in the +Progressive platform which were expected to capture a large share of the +voters who had formerly gone with the Socialists by way of protest +against the existing parties. + +These figures should not be taken to imply that had either Mr. Taft or +Mr. Roosevelt been eliminated the Democrats would have been defeated. On +the contrary, Mr. Wilson would have doubtless been elected if the +Republicans had nominated Mr. Roosevelt or if the Progressives had +remained out of the field. Nevertheless, the vote would seem to indicate +that the Democratic party had no very clear and positive majority +mandate on any great issue. However that may be, the policy of the party +as outlined by its leader and victorious candidate deserves the most +careful analysis. + + * * * * * + +In the course of the campaign, Mr. Wilson discussed in general terms all +of the larger issues of the hour, emphasizing particularly the fact that +an economic revolution had changed the questions of earlier years, but +always speaking of "restoration" and a "recurrence" to older +liberties.[93] "Our life has broken away from the past. The life of +America is not the life that it was twenty years ago; it is not the life +that it was ten years ago. We have changed our economic conditions, +absolutely, from top to bottom; and with our economic society, the +organization of our life. The old political formulas do not fit present +problems; they read like documents taken out of a forgotten age. The +older cries sound as if they belonged to a past which men have almost +forgotten.... Society is looking itself over, in our day, from top to +bottom; is making fresh and critical analysis of its very elements; is +questioning its oldest practices as freely as its newest, scrutinizing +every arrangement and motive of its life; and it stands ready to attempt +nothing less than a radical reconstruction which only frank and honest +counsels and the forces of generous cooperation can hold back from +becoming a revolution." + +One of the most significant of the many changes which constituted this +new order was, in Mr. Wilson's opinion, the mastery of the government by +the great business interests. "Suppose you go to Washington and try to +get at your government. You will always find that while you are politely +listened to, the men really consulted are the men who have the biggest +stake--the big bankers, the big manufacturers, the big masters of +commerce, the heads of railroad corporations and of steamship +corporations.... The government of the United States at present is a +foster-child of the special interests. It is not allowed to have a will +of its own.... The government of the United States in recent years has +not been administered by the common people of the United States." + +Nevertheless, while deploring the control of the government by "big +business," Mr. Wilson made no assault on that type of economic +enterprise as such. On the contrary, he differentiated between big +business and the trust very sharply in general terms. "A trust is an +arrangement to get rid of competition, and a big business is a business +that has survived competition by conquering in the field of +intelligence and economy. A trust does not bring efficiency to the aid +of business; it buys efficiency out of business. I am for big business +and I am against the trusts. Any man who can survive by his brains, any +man who can put the others out of the business by making the thing +cheaper to the consumer at the same time that he is increasing its +intrinsic value and quality, I take off my hat to, and I say: 'You are +the man who can build up the United States, and I wish there were more +of you.'" Whether any big business in the staple industries had been +built up by this process, he did not indicate; neither did he discuss +the question as to whether monopoly might not result from the +destruction of competitors as well as from the fusion of competitors +into a trust. + +On this distinction between big business and trusts Mr. Wilson built up +his theory of governmental policy. The trust, he said, was not a product +of competition at all, but of the unwillingness of business men to meet +it--a distinction which some were inclined to regard as academic. +Because the formation of no great trusts had been unaccompanied by +unfair practices, Mr. Wilson seemed to hold that no such concern would +have been built up had unfair practices been prohibited. Obviously, +therefore, the problem is a simple one--dissolve the trusts and prevent +their being reestablished by prohibiting unfair practices and the arts +of high finance. + +Indeed, such was Mr. Wilson's program. "Our purpose," he says, "is the +restoration of freedom. We purpose to prevent private monopoly by law, +to see to it that the methods by which monopolies have been built up +are made impossible." Mr. Wilson's central idea was to clear the field +for the restoration of competition as it existed in the early days of +mechanical industry. "American industry is not free, as it once was +free; American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little +capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more +impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this +country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak." + +"Absolutely free enterprise" was Mr. Wilson's leading phrase. "We design +that the limitations on private enterprise shall be removed, so that the +next generation of youngsters, as they come along, will not have to +become proteges of benevolent trusts, but will be free to go about +making their own lives what they will; so that we shall taste again the +full cup, not of charity, but of liberty." The restoration of freedom +for every person to go into business for himself was the burden of his +appeal: "Are you not eager for the time when the genius and initiative +of all the people shall be called into the service of business?... when +your sons shall be able to look forward to becoming not employees, but +heads of some small, it may be, but hopeful business, where their best +energies shall be inspired by the knowledge that they are their own +masters with the paths of the world before them ... and every avenue of +commercial and industrial activity leveled for the feet of all who would +tread it?" + +Mr. Wilson's economic system seems to be susceptible of the following +summary. The great trusts are "unnatural products," not of competition, +but of the unwillingness of men to face competition and of unfair +practices. Big business is the product of genuine services to the +community, and it should be allowed to destroy whom it can by fairly +underselling honest goods. The enemy is, therefore, the trust; it is the +trust which prevents everybody who would from becoming his own master in +some small business; it is the trust that has taken away the "freedom" +which we once had in the United States. The remedy is inevitably the +dissolution of the trusts, the prohibition of unfair practices in +competition--then will follow as night the day that perfect freedom +which is as new wine to a sick nation. With competition "restored" and +maintained by government prosecution of offenders, no one need have a +master unless he chooses. + +Mr. Wilson's opponents saw in this simple industrial program nothing +more than the old gospel of Adam Smith and Ricardo--the gospel of +_laissez faire_ and individualism. They asked him to specify, for +example, into how many concerns the Steel Trust should be dissolved in +order to permit the man with brains and a few thousand dollars capital +to get into the steel business. They asked him to name a catalogue of +"unfair practices" which were to be prohibited in order to put +competition on a "free and natural" basis. They asked him to state just +how, with the present accumulation of great capitals in the hands of a +relatively few, the poor but industrious person with small capital could +meet the advantages afforded by large capitals. They inquired whether +England in the middle of the nineteenth century, with this perfect +industrial ideal and free trade besides, presented the picture of +utopian liberty which the new freedom promised. + +To this demand for more particulars, Mr. Wilson replied that he was not +discussing "measures or programs," but was merely attempting "to express +the new spirit of our politics and to set forth, in large terms, which +may stick in the imagination, what it is that must be done if we are to +restore our politics to their full spiritual vigor again, and our +national life whether in trade, in industry, or in what concerns us only +as families and individuals, to its purity, its self-respect, and its +pristine strength and freedom." + +For the concrete manifestation of his general principles Mr. Wilson +referred to his practical achievements in New Jersey, although at the +time of the campaign he had not yet put through his program of trust +legislation--a fact which was not overlooked by his opponents. He +referred to his public service commission law, modeled on that which had +been in effect for some time in Wisconsin. "A year or two ago we got our +ideas on the subject enacted into legislation. The corporations involved +opposed the legislation with all their might. They talked about +ruin,--and I really believe they did think they would be somewhat +injured. But they have not been. And I hear I cannot tell you how many +men in New Jersey say: 'Governor, we were opposed to you; we did not +believe in the things you wanted to do, but now that you have done them, +we take off our hats. That was the thing to do, it did not hurt us a +bit; it just put us on a normal footing; it took away suspicion from +our business.' New Jersey, having taken the cold plunge, cries out to +the rest of the states, 'Come on in! The water's fine.'" + +In another place, Mr. Wilson summed up his program of redemption in New +Jersey: a workman's compensation act, a public service corporations law, +and a corrupt practices act. This program of legislation was viewed by +Mr. Wilson as an extraordinary achievement. "What was accomplished?" he +asked. "Mere justice to classes that had not been treated justly +before.... When the people had taken over the control of the government, +a curious change was wrought in the souls of a great many men; a sudden +moral awakening took place, and we simply could not find culprits +against whom to bring indictments; it was like a Sunday School, the way +they obeyed the laws." + +It was on his theory of the trusts that Mr. Wilson based his opposition +to all attempts at government regulation. Under the plan of regulation, +put forward by the Progressives, said Mr. Wilson, "there will be an +avowed partnership between the government and the trusts. I take it the +firm will be ostensibly controlled by the senior member. For I take it +that the government of the United States is at least the senior member, +though the younger member has all along been running the business.... +There is no hope to be seen for the people of the United States until +the partnership is dissolved. And the business of the party now +intrusted with power is to dissolve it." In other words, the government +was, in his opinion, too weak to force the trusts to obey certain rules +and regulations, but it was strong enough to take their business away +from them and prevent their ever getting together again. Apparently, Mr. +Wilson did not expect to find that cordial cooperation from the national +trust magnates which he found on the part of New Jersey public service +corporations when he undertook to regulate them. + +Mr. Wilson's political program was more definite. His short experience +in New Jersey politics had evidently wrought great changes in his +earlier academic views. In 1907, he thought that the United States +Senate, "represents the country as distinct from the accumulated +populations of the country, much more fully and much more truly than the +House of Representatives does." In the presidential campaign, he +advocated popular election of United States Senators, principally on the +ground "that a little group of Senators holding the balance of power has +again and again been able to defeat programs of reform upon which the +whole country has set its heart." He did not attack the Senate as a +body, but he thought sinister influences had often been at work there. +However, Mr. Wilson declared that the popular election of Senators was +not inconsistent with "either the spirit or the essential form of the +American government." + +As to those other devices of direct democracy, the initiative, +referendum, and recall, Mr. Wilson admitted that there were some states +where it was premature to discuss them, and added that in some states it +might never be necessary to discuss them. The initiative and referendum, +he approved as a sort of "gun behind the door," to be used rarely when +representative institutions failed; and as to the recall he remarked, +"I don't see how any man grounded in the traditions of American affairs +can find any valid objection to the recall of administrative officers." +The recall of judges, however, he opposed positively and without +qualification, pointing out that the remedy for evils in the judicial +system lay in methods of nomination and election. + +Such was the economic and political philosophy of the new Democratic +President inaugurated on March 4, 1913. + +FOOTNOTES: + + [84] _Autobiography_, p. 476. + + [85] La Follette, _Autobiography_, pp. 516 ff. + + [86] _Autobiography_, pp. 480 ff., 543 f., 551, 700, 740. + + [87] See above, p. 314. + + [88] La Follette, _Autobiography_, p. 616. + + [89] Above, p. 288. + + [90] _A Tale of Two Conventions_, p. 27. + + [91] W. J. Bryan, _A Tale of Two Conventions_, p. 228. + + [92] The most startling incident was the attempt of a maniac + at Milwaukee to assassinate Mr. Roosevelt. + + [93] These speeches were reprinted in _The New Freedom_ after + the election. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 1876-1912 + + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + YEAR | | | | | | | + OF | CANDIDATES | |POLIT-| | |ELEC-| + ELEC-| FOR | | ICAL | POPULAR | |TORAL| + TION | PRESIDENT |STATES|PARTY | VOTE |PLURALITY|VOTE | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1876 |Samuel J. Tilden |N. Y. |Dem. |4,284,885| 250,935| 184 | + |Rutherford B. Hayes*|O. |Rep. |4,033,950| | 185 | + |Peter Cooper |N. Y. |Gre'nb| 81,740| | | + |Green Clay Smith |Ky. |Pro. | 9,522| | | + |James B. Walker |Ill. |Amer. | 2,636| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1880 |James A. Garfield* |O. |Rep. |4,449,053| 7,018| 214 | + |W. S. Hancock |Pa. |Dem. |4,442,035| | 155 | + |James B. Weaver |Iowa |Gre'nb| 307,306| | | + |Neal Dow |Me. |Pro. | 10,305| | | + |John W. Phelps |Vt. |Amer. | 707| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1884 |Grover Cleveland* |N. Y. |Dem. |4,911,017| 62,683| 219 | + |James G. Blaine |Me. |Rep. |4,848,334| | 182 | + |John P. St. John |Kan. |Pro. | 151,809| | | + |Benjamin F. Butler |Mass. |Gre'nb| 133,825| | | + |P. D. Wigginton |Cal. |Amer. | | | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1888 |Grover Cleveland |N. Y. |Dem. |5,440,216| | 168 | + |Benjamin Harrison* |Ind. |Rep. |5,538,233| 98,017| 233 | + |Clinton B. Fisk |N. J. |Pro. | 249,907| | | + |Alson J. Streeter |Ill. |U. L. | 148,105| | | + |R. H. Cowdry |Ill. |U'd L.| 2,808| | | + |James L. Curtis |N. Y. |Amer. | 1,591| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1892 |Grover Cleveland* |N. Y. |Dem. |5,556,918| 380,810| 277 | + |Benjamin Harrison |Ind. |Rep. |5,176,108| | 145 | + |James B. Weaver |Iowa |Peop. |1,041,028| | 22 | + |John Bidwell |Cal. |Pro. | 264,133| | | + |Simon Wing |Mass. |Soc L.| 21,164| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1896 |William McKinley* |O. |Rep. |7,104,779| 601,854| 271 | + |William J. Bryan |Neb. |Dem. }|6,502,925| | 170 | + |William J. Bryan |Neb. |Peop.}| | | | + |Joshua Levering |Md. |Pro. | 132,007| | | + |John M. Palmer |Ill. |N Dem.| 133,148| | | + |Charles H. Matchett |N. Y. |Soc L.| 30,274| | | + |Charles E. Bentley |Neb. |Nat. | 13,969| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1900 |William McKinley* |O. |Rep. |7,207,923| 849,790| 292 | + |William J. Bryan |Neb. |Dem P.|6,358,133| | 155 | + |John G. Woolley |Ill. |Pro. | 208,914| | | + |Wharton Barker |Pa. |MP. | 50,373| | | + |Eugene V. Debs |Ind. |Soc D.| 87,815| | | + |Jos. F. Malloney |Mass. |Soc L.| 39,739| | | + |J. F. R. Leonard |Ia. |UC. | 1,059| | | + |Seth H. Ellis |O. |UR. | 5,698| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1904 |Theodore Roosevelt* |N. Y. |Rep. |7,623,486|2,545,515| 336 | + |Alton B. Parker |N. Y. |Dem. |5,077,911| | 140 | + |Eugene V. Debs |Ind. |Soc. | 402,283| | | + |Silas C. Swallow |Pa. |Pro. | 258,536| | | + |Thomas E. Watson |Ga. |Peop. | 117,183| | | + |Charles H. Corrigan |N. Y. |Soc L.| 31,249| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1908 |William H. Taft* |O. |Rep. |7,678,908|1,269,804| 321 | + |William J. Bryan |Neb. |Dem. |6,409,104| | 162 | + |Eugene V. Debs |Ind. |Soc. | 420,793| | | + |Eugene W. Chafin |Ariz. |Pro. | 253,840| | | + |Thomas E. Watson |Ga. |Peo. | 29,100| | | + |August Gillhaus |N. Y. |Soc L.| 13,825| | | + |Thos. L. Hisgen |Mass. |Ind. | 82,872| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + 1912 |Woodrow Wilson* |N. J. |Dem. |6,292,718|2,235,289| 435 | + |William H. Taft |O. |Rep. |3,369,221| | 15 | + |Theodore Roosevelt |N. Y. |Prog. |4,057,429| | 81 | + |Eugene V. Debs |Ind. |Soc. | 812,731| | | + |Eugene W. Chafin |Ariz. |Pro. | 170,626| | | + |Arthur E. Reimer |Mass. |Soc L.| 17,312| | | + -----+--------------------+------+------+---------+---------+-----+ + + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + YEAR | | | | + OF | CANDIDATES | |POLIT-|ELEC- + ELEC-| FOR | | ICAL |TORAL + TION | VICE PRESIDENT |STATES|PARTY |VOTE + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1876 |T. A. Hendricks |Ind. |Dem. | 184 + |William A. Wheeler* |N. Y. |Rep. | 185 + |Samuel F. Cary |O. |Gre'nb| + |Gideon T. Stewart |O. |Pro. | + |D. Kirkpatrick |N. Y. |Amer. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1880 |Chester A. Arthur* |N. Y. |Rep. | 214 + |William H. English |Ind. |Dem. | 155 + |B. J. Chambers |Tex. |Gre'nb| + |H. A. Thompson |O. |Pro. | + |S. C. Pomeroy |Kan. |Amer. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1884 |T. A. Hendricks* |Ind. |Dem. | 219 + |John A. Logan |Ill. |Rep. | 182 + |William Daniel |Md. |Pro. | + |A. M. West |Miss. |Gre'nb| + | | | | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1888 |Allen G. Thurman |O. |Dem. | 168 + |Levi P. Morton* |N. Y. |Rep. | 233 + |John A. Brooks |Mo. |Pro. | + |C. E. Cunningham |Ark. |U. L. | + |W. H. T. Wakefield |Kan. |U'd L.| + |James B. Greer |Tenn. |Amer. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1892 |Adlai E. Stevenson* |Ill. |Dem. | 277 + |Whitelaw Reid |N. Y. |Rep. | 145 + |James G. Field |Va. |Peop. | 22 + |James B. Cranfill |Tex. |Pro. | + |Charles H. Matchett |N. Y. |Soc L.| + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1896 |Garret A. Hobart* |N. J. |Rep. | 271 + |Arthur Sewall |Me. |Dem. | 149 + |Thomas E. Watson |Ga. |Peop. | 27 + |Hale Johnson |Ill. |Pro. | + |Simon B. Buckner |Ky. |N Dem.| + |Matthew Maguire |N. J. |Soc L.| + |James H. Southgate |N. C. |Nat. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1900 |Theodore Roosevelt* |N. Y. |Rep. | 292 + |Adlai E. Stevenson |Ill. |Dem P.| 155 + |Henry B. Metcalf |O. |Pro. | + |Ignatius Donnelly |Minn. |MP. | + |Job Harriman |Cal. |Soc D.| + |Valentine Rommel |Pa. |Soc L.| + |John G. Woolley |Ill. |UC. | + |Samuel T. Nicholson |Pa. |UR. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1904 |Charles W. Fairbanks*|Ind. |Rep. | 336 + |Henry G. Davis |W. Va.|Dem. | 140 + |Benjamin Hanford |N. Y. |Soc. | + |George W. Carroll |Tex. |Pro. | + |Thomas H. Tibbles |Neb. |Peop. | + |William W. Cox |Ill. |Soc L.| + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1908 |James S. Sherman* |N. Y. |Rep. | 321 + |John W. Kern |Ind. |Dem. | 162 + |Benjamin Hanford |N. Y. |Soc. | + |Aaron S. Watkins |O. |Pro. | + |Samuel Williams |Ind. |Peo. | + |Donald L. Munro |Va. |Soc L.| + |John Temple Graves |Ga. |Ind. | + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + 1912 |Thomas R. Marshall* |Ind. |Dem. | 435 + |Herbert S. Hadley |Mo. |Rep. | 15 + |Hiram W. Johnson |Cal. |Prog. | 81 + |Emil Seidel |Wis. |Soc. | + |Aaron S. Watkins |O. |Pro. | + |August Gillhaus |N. Y. |Soc L.| + -----+---------------------+------+------+----- + * The candidates starred were elected. This table is from the + _World Almanac_. The figures are in some cases slightly different + from those used in the text, which are taken from Stanwood, _History + of the Presidency_. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +_Guide to Literature of Current History_ + +The best general bibliography for handy use is Channing, Hart, and +Turner, _Guide to the Study and Reading of American History_ (new ed. +1912). + +G. E. Howard, _Present Political Questions_ (1913)--a valuable syllabus +of current questions with discriminating and full bibliographies +(published by the University of Nebraska). + +The Library of Congress publishes useful bibliographies on special +topics of current political and historical interest. A list may be +obtained by addressing the Librarian, Washington, D.C. + +An important annual review of the current literature of American history +is to be found in _Writings on American History_; published by +Macmillan, 1906-1908; by the American Historical Association, 1909-1911; +and now by the Yale University Press. + +Excellent topical bibliographies are to be found in each of the volumes +in Hart, American Nation Series. The four volumes by Dunning, Sparks, +Dewey, and Latane should be consulted for the period here covered. + + +_General Works_ + +The best general treatment of the period from 1877 to 1907 is to be +found in the four volumes of the American Nation Series edited by A. B. +Hart: W. A. Dunning, _Reconstruction: Political and Economic_; E. E. +Sparks, _National Development, 1877-1885_; D. R. Dewey, _National +Problems; 1885-1897_; J. H. Latane, _America as a World Power, +1897-1907_. Each of these volumes contains an excellent bibliography of +political and economic materials. + +H. T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the Republic_ (1906)--readable work +covering the period from Cleveland's first administration to 1905. + +Edward Stanwood, _History of the Presidency_ (1896 ed.). A second volume +(1912) brings the work down to 1909 and contains the platforms of +1912--useful for political sketches and the platforms and election +statistics. + +_The American Year Book_, published since 1910, contains an annual +survey of American political history and constitutional and social +development. + +For political and economic matters see the current publications and +proceedings of the American Political Science Association, the American +Economic Association, and the American Sociological Society. + + +_Personal and Biographical Works_ + +J. P. Altgeld, _Live Questions_ (1890)--valuable for the radical +movement within the Democratic party. + +F. Bancroft, _Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl +Schurz_ (1913), 6 vols. + +John Bigelow, _Life of Samuel J. Tilden_ (1896). + +G. S. Boutwell, _Reminiscences of Sixty Years_ (1902). + +Grover Cleveland, _The Independence of the Executive_ (1900); +_Presidential Problems_ (1904)--particularly valuable for the Chicago +strike and the bond issues; G. F. Parker, _Writings and Speeches of +Grover Cleveland_ (1892); A. E. Bergh, _Addresses, State Papers, and +Letters of Grover Cleveland_ (1909). + +J. A. Garfield, _Currency Speeches in the House, 1868-1870_; B. A. +Hinsdale, _Works of J. A. Garfield_ (1882-1883) 2 vols.; _Great Speeches +of J. A. Garfield_ (1881). + +Benjamin Harrison, _Public Papers and Addresses_ (Govt. Printing Office, +1893); _This Country of Ours_ (1897)--a popular view of the national +government; J. S. Shriver, _Speeches of Benjamin Harrison_ (1891); M. L. +Harrison, _Views of an Ex-President_ [Harrison] (1901). + +G. F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_ (1903). + +R. M. La Follette, _Autobiography_ (1913)--particularly valuable for the +history of the radical movement within the Republican party and the +origin of the Progressive party. + +Wm. McKinley, _Speeches and Addresses from Election to Congress to the +Present Time_ (1893); _Speeches and Addresses, 1897-1900_ (1900); _The +Tariff--a Review of Its Legislation from 1812 to 1896_ (1904); J. S. +Ogilvie, _Life and Speeches of McKinley_ (1896). + +L. A. Coolidge, _An Old-Fashioned Senator_ [O. H. Platt] (1910). + +Thomas C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910). + +Theodore Roosevelt, _The New Nationalism_ (1910) contains the famous +speech on that subject and other essays; _An Autobiography_ (1913)--an +intimate view of his political career. + +John Sherman, _Recollections of Forty Years_ (1897). + +Edward Stanwood, _James G. Blaine_ (1905). + +W. H. Taft, _Political Issues and Outlooks_ (1909); _Presidential +Addresses and State Papers_ (1910). + +Woodrow Wilson, _The New Freedom_ (1913). An edited collection of +President Wilson's campaign speeches arranged to exhibit in systematic +form his political and economic doctrines. + + +_Topical Bibliography_ + +THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION: Coman, _Economic History of the United +States_ (1911 ed.)--several useful chapters on the period since the +Civil War; R. T. Ely, _Evolution of Industrial Society_ (1906). + +TARIFF: Edward Stanwood, _American Tariff Controversies in the +Nineteenth Century_ (1903); F. W. Taussig, _Tariff History of the United +States_ (1910 ed.). + +FINANCE: See the annual review in the _American Year Book_; D. +R. Dewey, _Financial History of the United States_ (1903); A. B. +Hepburn, _History of Coinage and Currency in the United States_ (1903); +J. L. Laughlin, _History of Bimetallism in the United States_ (1897); W. +H. Harvey, _Coin's Financial School_ (1894)--the famous work which did +so much to stir up popular sentiment in favor of free silver; W. J. +Bryan, _The First Battle_ (1897)--invaluable for the political aspects +of the question. + +TRUSTS: I. M. Tarbell, _The History of the Standard Oil +Company_ (1904); G. H. Montague, _The Rise and Progress of the Standard +Oil Company_ (1903)--more favorable to trusts than the preceding work; +H. D. Lloyd, _Wealth against Commonwealth_ (1894)--a critical attack on +the evil practices of trusts; J. W. Jenks, _The Trust Problem_ (1905 +ed.)--study of the methods and causes of trusts; John Moody, _The Truth +about the Trusts_ (1904)--full of valuable historical and statistical +data; W. Z. Ripley, _Trusts, Pools, and Corporations_ (1905)--a useful +collection of historical and descriptive materials. + +RAILWAYS: W. Z. Ripley, _Railroads: Rates and Regulation_ +(1913)--a monumental and scholarly treatise; E. R. Johnson, _American +Railway Transportation_ (1903); H. S. Haines, _Restrictive Railway +Legislation in the United States_ (1905); B. H. Meyer, _Railway +Legislation in the United States_ (1903). + +CIVIL SERVICE: C. R. Fish, _Civil Service and the Patronage_ +(1905, Harvard Studies); L. G. Tyler, _Parties and Patronage_ (1888). + +POPULISM: S. J. Buck, _The Granger Movement ... 1870-1880_ +(1913, Harvard Studies)--important for all aspects of agrarianism for +the period; F. L. McVey, _The Populist Movement_ (1896). + +LABOR: R. T. Ely, _The Labor Movement in America_ (1902); T. V. +Powderly, _Thirty Years of Labor_ (1889); John Mitchell, _Organized +Labor_ (1903); T. S. Adams and H. Sumner, _Labor Problems_ (1906). + +IMMIGRATION: Frank Warne, _The Immigrant Invasion_ (1913); +Peter Roberts, _The New Immigration_ (1912)--a study of the social and +industrial life of Southeastern Europeans in America; H. P. Fairchild, +_Greek Immigration_ (1911), and _Immigration: a World Movement and its +American Significance_ (1913); P. F. Hall, _Immigration and Its Effects +on the United States_ (1908); I. A. Hourwich, _Immigration and Labor_ +(1912)--a study of the economic aspects of immigration and favorable to +a liberal immigration policy; J. W. Jenks and W. J. Lauck, _The +Immigration Problem_ (1912)--particularly valuable for the data +presented. + +SOCIALISM: Morris Hillquit, _History of Socialism in the United +States_ (1910); W. J. Ghent, _Mass and Class_ (1904); J. W. Hughan, +_American Socialism of To-day_ (1912); W. E. Walling, _Socialism as It +Is_ (1912). On the newer aspects of socialism and trades-unionism: John +Spargo, _Syndicalism, Industrial Unionism, and Socialism_ (1913); A. +Tridon, _The New Unionism_ (1913); J. G. Brooks, _American Syndicalism_ +(1913); W. H. Haywood and F. Bohn, _Industrial Socialism_ (1911); James +O'Neal, _Militant Socialism_ (1912). + +WOMEN: Edith Abbott, _Women in Industry_ (1909); E. D. Bullock, +_Selected Articles on the Employment of Women_ (1911); E. B. Butler, +_Women in the Trades_ (1909); R. C. Dorr, _What Eight Million Women +Want_ (1910); I. H. Harper, _Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony_ +(1899-1908), _History of the Movement for Woman Suffrage in the United +States_ (1907); E. R. Hecker, _Short History of Woman's Rights_ (1910); +G. E. Howard, _A History of Matrimonial Institutions_ (1904); Helen +Sumner, _Equal Suffrage_ (1909)--a study of woman suffrage in Colorado; +C. P. Gilman, _Woman and Economics_ (1900). + +CONTROVERSY OVER THE JUDICIARY: Gilbert Roe, _Our Judicial +Oligarchy_ (1912)--a criticism of recent tendencies in the American +judicial system; B. F. Moore, _The Supreme Court and Unconstitutional +Legislation_ (1913)--a historical survey; W. L. Ransom _Majority Rule +and the Judiciary_ (1912); F. R. Coudert, _Certainty and Justice_ +(1913); G. G. Groat, _Attitude of American Courts in Labor Cases_ +(1911); C. G. Haines, _The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy_ +(1914). + +POPULAR GOVERNMENT: G. H. Haynes, _The Election of Senators_ +(1906)--valuable for the question of popular election; C. A. Beard and +Birl Shultz, _Documents on the Initiative, Referendum and Recall_ +(1912); E. P. Oberholtzer, _Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in +America_ (1911); Walter Weyl, _The New Democracy_ (1912); H. Croly, _The +Promise of American Life_ (1909). + +THE SOUTH: A. B. Hart, _The Southern South_ (1910); E. G. +Murphy, _Problems of the Present South_ (1904); H. W. Grady, _The New +South_ (1890); W. G. Brown, _The Lower South_ (1902). + +THE NEGRO PROBLEM: The Annals of the American Academy of +Political and Social Science for September, 1913, is devoted to articles +on the progress of the negro race during the last fifty years. A. P. C. +Griffin, _Select List of References on the Negro Question_ (1906, +Library of Congress); R. S. Baker, _Following the Color Line_ +(1908)--valuable for the handicaps imposed on the negro in the South; J. +M. Mathews, _Legislative and Judicial History of the Fifteenth +Amendment_ (1909); M. W. Ovington, _Half a Man_ (1911)--status of the +negro in New York; T. N. Page, _The Negro_ (1904)--viewed as a Southern +problem; A. H. Stone, _Studies in the American Race Problem_ +(1908)--discouraging view of the economic capacities of the negro; B. T. +Washington, _The Negro in the South_ (1907)--useful for economic +matters; and _The Future of the Negro_ (1900); A. B. Hart, _Realities of +Negro Suffrage_ (1905); G. T. Stephenson, _Race Distinctions in American +Law_ (1910). + +THE GROWTH OF THE WEST: H. H. Bancroft, _Chronicles of the +Builders of the Commonwealth_ (1891-1892), 7 vols.; J. C. Birge, _The +Awakening of the Desert_ (1912); C. C. Coffin, _The Seat of Empire_ +(1871); Katharine Coman, _Economic Beginnings of the Far West_ (1912), 2 +vols.--exploration and settlement; J. H. Eckels, _The Financial Power of +the New West_ (1905); F. V. Hayden, _The Great West_ (1880)--resources, +climate, Mormons, and Indians; J. S. Hittell, _The Commerce and +Industries of the Pacific Coast_ (1882); R. P. Porter and others, _The +West_ (1882)--review of social and economic development from the census +of 1880; L. E. Quigg, _New Empires in the Northwest_ (1889)--Dakotas, +Montana, and Washington; Julian Ralph, _Our Great West_ (1893)--survey +of conditions; Joseph Schafer, _A History of the Pacific Northwest_ +(1905); W. E. Smyth, _The Conquest of Arid Arizona_ (1900). + +MONROE DOCTRINE: J. B. Moore, _History of American Diplomacy_ +(1905); J. W. Foster, _A Century of American Diplomacy_ (1901); J. H. +Latane, _Diplomatic Relations of the United States and Spanish America_ +(1900); A. B. Hart, _Foundations of American_ _Diplomacy_ (1901); Hiram +Bingham, _The Monroe Doctrine_ (1913)--a severe criticism of the +Doctrine. + +THE SPANISH WAR: F. E. Chadwick, _Relations of the United +States and Spain_--excellent for diplomatic affairs; H. C. Lodge, _The +War with Spain_ (1899)--an interesting popular account; H. D. Flack, +_Spanish-American Diplomatic Relations Preceding the War of 1898_ +(1906)--a careful analysis of the causes of intervention; George Dewey, +_Autobiography_ (1913). + +IMPERIALISM: D. C. Worcester, _The Philippines: Past and +Present_ (1914), 2 vols.--a great and authoritative work by the former +Secretary of the Interior in the Philippines; H. P. Willis, _Our +Philippine Problem_ (1905)--a study of American Colonial policy; J. A. +Leroy, _The Americans in the Philippines_ (1914)--a large and +authoritative work on the early stages of American occupation; F. C. +Chamberlin, _The Philippine Problem_ (1913); J. G. Schurman, _Philippine +Fundamentals_ (1901); Elihu Root, _Collection of Documents Relating to +the United States and Porto Rico_ (1898-1905, Washington); L. S. Rowe, +_The United States and Porto Rico_ (1904); E. S. Wilson, _Political +Development of Porto Rico_ (1906); W. F. Willoughby, _Territories and +Dependencies of the United States_ (1905)--a general work on the +government of the territories. + +THE PANAMA CANAL: J. B. Bishop, _The Panama Gateway_ (1913)--an +authoritative general account; W. F. Johnson, _Four Centuries of the +Panama Canal_ (1906). + +THE PEACE CONFERENCES: Joseph Choate, _The Two Hague +Conferences_ (1913); J. B. Scott, _The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 +and 1907_ (1909). + +AMERICAN INTERESTS IN THE ORIENT: F. F. Millard, _The New Far +East_ (1906)--special reference to American interests in China; P. S. +Reinsch, _World Politics_ (1900). + + + + +INDEX + + + Aguinaldo, 217 + + Alabama, disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + Aliens, proportion of, 248 + + Altgeld, Governor, 108, 160 + + American Civic Federation, 251 + + American Federation of Labor, 250 + + Anti-monopoly party, 138 + + Anti-trust cases, 331 ff. + + Anti-trust law (1890), 134 + + Arbitration in labor disputes, federal law, 102 + + Arbitration, treaties, 1911, 329 + + Archbald, Judge, impeachment of, 326 + + Arizona, 41 ff.; + contest over recall of judges, 287 + + Army. _See_ Spanish War + + Arthur, Chester A., nomination, 95; + administration, 97 + + + Ballinger, R. A., 328 + + Blaine, James G., 95; + candidacy in 1884, 98; + on silver question, 121 + + Bland-Allison bill, 123 + + Bonds, sales under Cleveland, 106 + + Bourne, Senator, attacks on convention system, 353 ff. + + Bryan, W. J., speech in Democratic convention of 1896, 180; + nomination of, 187; + acceptance speech in 1896, 188; + favors initiative and referendum, 284; + candidacy in 1900, 227; + candidacy in 1908, 318 ff.; + program in 1908, 318; + attacks Taft's judicial appointments, 330 + + + Campaign funds, 239, 240 ff.; + controversy over, in 1904, 268; + in 1908, 320; + in 1912, 357 + + Campaign, 1896, 195 + + Canada, reciprocity with, 342 + + Cannon, Speaker, overthrow of, 336 ff. + + Capital, influence of, in politics, 33 + + Capitalism, in South, 48; evolution of, 229 ff. + _See_ Industry _and_ Labor. + + Cervera, Admiral, 210 ff. + + China, opening of, 203; + American interests in, 224 + + Chinese coolies, 35 + + Cities, growth of population, 34, 247 + + Civil rights act, 14 ff. + + Civil rights cases, 15 + + Civil service, and Theodore Roosevelt, 104; + law of 1883, 130 + + Clark, Champ, candidacy of, 365 + + Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 276 + + Cleveland, Grover, career of, 97; + nomination and first administration, 98 ff.; + second administration, 105 ff.; + tariff message of 1887, 110; + and income tax, 139; + bond issues, 162; + supports Gold Democrats, 193; + and Venezuela affair, 199; + and negotiations with Spain, 206 + + Coastwise vessels, exemption of, 276 + + Colombia, failure of negotiations with, 278 + + Combinations, in business, origin of, 36 + + Commerce, growth of, 202; + interstate, 312 + + Conkling, Roscoe, sketch of, 51 ff.; + and Grant's candidacy, 95 + + Conservation, Roosevelt's policy, 275 + + Consolidated Gas case, 81 + + Constitution, provisions relative to money, 119; + criticism of, 305 ff. + + Convention, presidential, attacks on, 353 ff. + + Corporations, growth of, 235; + regulation of, 310. + _See_ Trusts. + + Court, commerce, 326 + + Courts, criticism of, 89 + + Coxey's army, 107 + + Credit Mobilier affair, 31 + + Cuba, conditions in, 204; + war over, 209 ff.; + settlement of, after the war, 221; + interference in (1906), 222 + + Currency, law of 1908, 197 + + + Dakota, 41 ff. + + Daniel, J. W., temporary chairman of Democratic convention, 171 + + Debs, E. V., imprisonment of, 108; + and injunctions, 160; + candidate for President, 298 + + Debt, national, refunding of, 117 + + De Lome incident, 207 + + Democrats, contest against election laws, 4 ff.; + party platforms, 108 ff.; + convention of 1896, 168 ff.; + platform of 1896, 172; + Gold, convention of 1896, 192 ff.; + convention and platform of 1904, 267; + victory in 1910, 339; + in 1912, 372 + + Dewey, victory at Manila, 209 + + Dingley tariff, 229 + + Direct primary, 289 + + Due process. _See_ Fourteenth amendment. + + + Economy and efficiency commission, 328 + + El Caney, 211 + + Election laws, federal, contest over repeal of, 4 ff. + + Employers' liability, federal, 274 + + Erie Railway, capitalization of, 39 + + + Farmers, discontent of, 162 + + Farmers' Alliance, 151 + + Farm population, 40 + + Farms, increase in number, 40; + size of, in South, 47 + + Fifteenth amendment, nullification of, in the South, 1; + schemes to avoid, 9 ff. + + Finance, high, early experiments in, 39 + + Fourteenth Amendment, interpretation of, 54 ff. + + Free silver, discussion by W. J. Bryan, 180 ff. + + Free silver. _See_ Bryan, W. J. + + + Garfield, nomination and administration of, 94 ff.; + assassination, 96 + + Georgia, disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + Gold Democrats, 192 ff. + + Gold standard, Republicans favor in 1896, 166; + established by law (1900), 197; + Parker telegram on, 267 + + Gompers, Samuel, 251 + + Gould, Jay, 38 + + Granger cases, 67 ff. + + Granger movement, 147 + + Grant, third term contest, 94 + + Great Britain, and Venezuela affair, 199 + + Greenback party, on income tax, 137; + doctrines of, 150 + + Greenbacks, amount of, 117; + reissue of, 123 + + Guiteau, assassinates Garfield, 96 + + + Hague conference, 281 + + Hancock, General, candidate for the Presidency, 96 + + Hanna, M. A., convention of 1895, 165; + and campaign of 1900, 227; + career and policies of, 239 ff. + + Harriman, E. H., and controversy with Roosevelt, 270 + + Harrison, Benjamin, candidacy and administration, 103 ff. + + Hawaiian Islands, 203 + + Hayes, and the South, 1 ff.; + vetoes repeal of election laws, 5; + administration of, 92 ff. + + Hay-Pauncefote treaty, 276 + + Haywood, W. D., 301 + + Hepburn act, 271 + + Hill, D. B., in Democratic convention of 1896, 170 ff. + + Hobson, R. P., 210 + + + Idaho, 41 ff. + + Immigration, 34, 248 + + Imperialism, 199 ff.; + in American politics, 227 + + Income tax, law of 1894, 127; 137 ff.; + annulled by Supreme Court, 152 ff.; + W. J. Bryan on, 189; + advocated by Roosevelt, 262; + amendment to federal constitution, 325 + + Industry, in 1860, 29; + in South, 48. _See_ Labor. + + Industrial Workers of the World, 301 + + Initiative and referendum, origin and growth of, 284 ff.; + in Progressive platform, 371; + favored by Wilson, 380 + + Injunctions, use of, in labor disputes, 36; + an issue in politics, 158 ff. + + Insular cases, 218 ff. + + Insurance, regulation of, 310 + + + Japan, opening of, 203; + American interests in, 224 + + Jenks, J. W., on trusts, 238 + + Jim Crow cars, 19 + + Judicial review, growth of doctrine of, 67 ff. + + Judiciary. _See_ Supreme Court and Recall. + + + Knights of Labor, 35, 249 + + Ku Klux Klan, 1 + + + Labor, number of wage earners, 34; + in South, 48; + in party platforms, 114; + and tariff, 115; + regulation of, 249 ff., 304, 308 + + Labor legislation and the courts, 87 ff.; + Federal, 141 + + Labor movement, 249 + + Labor problem, rise of, 35 + + Labor, Knights of, 35, 249 + + Labor Reformers, 35, 145 ff. + + La Follette, R. M., candidacy of, 344 ff. + + _Laissez faire_, and the Constitution, 54 ff.; + Gold Democrats defend, 192; + decline of, 304; + Wilson's view of, 377 + + Liberal Republicans, 109 + + Lincoln, on social equality for the negro, 21 + + Lochner v. New York, 87 + + Louisiana, Republican rule in, overthrown, 1 ff.; + disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + + _Maine_, the battleship, 207 + + Manila, naval battle of, 209 + + Massachusetts, primary law in, 356 + + McKinley, Wm., tariff bill, 126; + and the gold standard, 167; + election of, 197; + administration of, 199 ff.; + and Spanish war, 206 ff.; + renomination in 1900, 227; + election, 228; + campaign funds of, 241 + + Merritt, General, 212 + + Mexico, relations with, 342 + + Miles, General, 212 + + Mills, tariff bill, 126 + + Minnesota rate case, 73 ff. + + Mississippi, disfranchisement of negroes in, 10 + + Mitchell, John, 250 + + Money question. _See_ Silver question. + + Monroe Doctrine, 199 ff.; + Roosevelt on, 262; 280 + + Montana, 41 ff. + + Morgan, J. P., 231 + + Mormons, 42 ff. + + Morrison, W. R., and tariff, 126 + + Mugwumps, 99 + + Munn v. Illinois, 67 ff. + + + Nebraska, primary law in, 356 + + Negro, disfranchisement of, 1 ff., 7 ff.; + social discriminations against, 14 ff.; + attitude of the North toward, 19 ff.; + problem, 22 ff.; education of, 23; + in industries, 24; + movement, 25 + + New Mexico, 41 ff. + + New nationalism, 314 ff. + + North Carolina, disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + North Dakota, 41 ff. + + Northern Pacific, 42 + + + Oregon, primary law in, 354 + + + Palmer, J. M., candidate for President, 192 + + Panama, canal, sketch of, 275 ff.; + revolution in, 278 + + Paper money. _See_ Greenbacks. + + Parcels post, 327 + + Parker, Alton B., nomination and candidacy of, 267 ff. + + Payne-Aldrich tariff, 323 ff. + + Pensions, vetoes by Cleveland, 101; + law of 1890, 105 + + Philippines, military operations in, 209 ff.; + revolt against the United States, 217; + government of, 223; + in American politics, 227; + Republican platform of 1904 on, 265; + Democratic platform of 1904 on, 267 + + Platt amendment, 221 + + Poll tax, to disfranchise negroes, 9 + + Populist party, origin of, 149 ff. + + Populists, and disfranchisement of negroes, 9; + on income tax, 138 + + Porto Rico, conquest of, 212; + government of, 222 + + Postal savings banks, 326 + + Primary, direct, origin and growth of, 288; + presidential, 352 ff.; + presidential, in 1912, 358 + + Progressive party, origin of, 357 ff.; 370 ff. + + Progressive Republican League, 344 + + Prohibition party, 144 ff. + + Pullman strike, 107 + + Pure food law, 273 + + + Railways, construction of, 29 ff.; + land grants to, 30; + frauds connected with, 31; + anarchy among, 39; + state regulation of, 67 ff.; + party platforms on, 113 ff.; + regulation, federal, 133; + state regulation of, 149; + and stock watering, 234; + regulation of, 272; + physical valuation of, 273; + consolidation of, 306 + + Reagan _v._ Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 76 ff. + + Recall, of judges, origin of, 89; + origin and growth of, 287; + Wilson on, 380 + + Reciprocity with Canada, 341 + + Reed, T. B., speakership, 104; + candidate for President, 165 + + Republicans, platform of 1876, 2; + radical school, 2; + favor new "force" bill, 20; + favor enforcing the Civil War amendments, 21; + doctrines of, 1880-1896, 90 ff.; + party platforms, 108 ff.; + convention of 1896, 164 ff.; + convention of 1900, 226; + convention of 1904, 265; + convention of 1912, 357 ff. + + Resumption act, 118 + + Rockefeller, J. D., 37 + + Roosevelt, at San Juan Hill, 211; + nominated for Vice President, 227; + succeeds to the Presidency, 228; + administrations of, 254 ff.; + doctrines of, 255 ff.; + characterization of, by Republicans in 1904, 266; + Democratic criticism of, in 1904, 268; + Parker charges as to campaign funds of, 269; + La Follette's criticism of, 347; + candidacy of, in 1912, 349 ff.; + new nationalism, 350; + breaks with Republicans, 360 + + Rough Riders, 211 + + Rules committee, powers of, 337 + + Russo-Japanese war, Roosevelt's part in ending, 281 + + + Samoan Islands, 203 + + San Juan Hill, 211 + + Santiago, military and naval operations near, 210 ff. + + Santo Domingo, affair of, 279 + + Senators, U. S., direct election of, 290 ff.; + popular election favored by Wilson, 380 + + Shafter, General, 211 f. + + Sherman, silver purchase act, 124; + anti-trust law, 134 + + Silver question, party platforms on, 116, 162; + origin and development of, 119 ff.; + in campaign of 1896, 165 ff. + + Sixteen to one. _See_ Silver question. + + Slaughter-House cases, 59 ff. + + Smyth _v._ Ames, 78 + + Socialism, opposition to, 251; + rise and growth of, 296 f. + + Socialist Labor party, 147, 297 + + Socialist party, rise of, 298; + vote in 1912, 372 + + Socialists, vote of, increase in 1904, 271 + + South, Republican rule in, 1 ff.; + new constitutions providing for disfranchisement of negroes, 10 ff.; + over-representation of, in Congress, 20; + economic advance of, 46 ff.; + Republican delegates from, 354 + + South Carolina, Republican rule in, overthrown, 1 ff.; + disfranchisement of negroes in, 11 + + South Dakota, 41 ff.; + initiative and referendum in, 284 + + Southern Pacific, 42 + + Spain, war with, 204 ff. + + Spanish War, close of, 212 ff. + + Speakership. _See_ Reed _and_ Cannon. + + Standard Oil Company, 37 + + State socialism, 252 + + Steel trust, 230 + + Stock watering, 234 + + Strikes, of 1877, 35; + Pullman, 107 + + Suffrage, woman, growth of, 294 + + Sugar trust, 239 + + Supreme Court, declares parts of election laws invalid, 6 f.; + and disfranchisement of negroes, 13; + civil rights cases, 15; + and Fourteenth Amendment, 54 ff.; + criticism of, 86; + and income tax, 152; + Democratic attack on, in 1806, 173 ff.; + defense of, 178; + W. J. Bryan on, 189; + Gold Democrats defend, 193; + Taft's appointments, 329 + + + Taft, W. H., on recall of judges, 287; + in Philippines 223; + nomination and election of, 317 ff.; + administration of, 322 ff.; + nomination of, in 1912, 362; + acceptance speech, 364; + Progressive criticism of, 345 + + Tariff, in Cleveland's first administration, 103; + Wilson bill, 108; + party doctrines on, 1877-1896, 108 ff.; + legislation, 1877-1896, 124 ff.; + Republican platform of 1908 on, 318; + Payne-Aldrich act, 323 ff.; + board, 339 f.; + Democratic attacks on in 1911-1912, 341 + + Third term contest, 94 + + Tillman, on negro suffrage, 8; + attack on Cleveland in Democratic convention of 1896, 175 + + Trusts, origin of, 37; + party platforms on, 112; + law against (1890), 134; + growth of, 229 ff.; + views as to cause of, 237; + Roosevelt on, 257 ff.; + Bryan on, in 1908, 319; + Republican platform of 1912, 363; + Progressive party's platform, 371; + Wilson's view of, 375 ff. + + + Unemployment, in 1894, 107 + + Union Labor party, 138, 146 + + Union Pacific, scandal of, 31 + + Unions, Trade, 301 ff. + + United Labor Party, 146 + + United States _v._ Cruikshank, 7 + + United States _v._ Harris, 7 + + United States _v._ Reese, 7 + + Utah, 41 ff.; + initiative and referendum in, 285 + + + Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 38 + + Venezuela affair, 199 + + Vetoes, by Cleveland, 101 f. + + Vilas, Senator, in Democratic convention of 1896, 179 + + Virginia, disfranchisement of negroes in, 11; + _ex parte_, 17 + + + Wage earners, number of, 34 + + Washington, state of, 41 ff. + + West, development of, 41 + + Wilson, Wm., tariff bill, 127 + + Wilson, Woodrow, candidacy of, 365; + acceptance speech, 367; + policies of, 373 ff. + + Women in industries, 248 + + Woman suffrage, growth of, 294 ff.; + endorsed by Progressives, 371 + + Wyoming, 41 ff. + + + + + +------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | + | original document have been preserved. | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | + | | + | Page 38 financeering changed to financiering | + | Page 50 enterprizes changed to enterprises | + +------------------------------------------------+ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY, +1877-1913*** + + +******* This file should be named 34253.txt or 34253.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/4/2/5/34253 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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