8: The Republican Opportunity
<< 7: The Public Discontents || 9: The Free Silver Revolt >>
The Republican party had the inestimable advantage in the year
1889 of being able to act. It controlled the Senate which had
become the seat of legislative authority; it controlled the
House; and it had placed its candidate in the presidential chair.
All branches of the Government were now in party accord. The
leaders in both Houses were able men, experienced in the
diplomacy which, far more than argument or conviction, produces
congressional action. Benjamin Harrison himself had been a member
of the ruling group of Senators, and as he was fully imbued with
their ideas as to the proper place of the President he was
careful to avoid interference with legislative procedure. Such
was the party harmony that an extensive program of legislation
was put through without serious difficulty, after obstruction had
been overcome in the House by an amendment of the rules.
In the House of Representatives, the quorum is a majority of the
whole membership. This rule enabled the minority to stop business
at any time when the majority party was not present in sufficient
strength to maintain the quorum by its own vote. On several
occasions, the Democrats left the House nominally without a
quorum
by the subterfuge of refusing to answer to their names on the
roll call. Speaker Reed determined to end this practice by
counting as present any members actually in the chamber. To the
wrath of the minority, he assumed this authority while a revision
of the rules was pending. The absurdity of the Democratic
position was naively exposed when a member arose with a law book
in his hand and said, "I deny your right, Mr. Speaker, to count
me as present, and I desire to read from the parliamentary law on
the subject." Speaker Reed, with the nasal drawl that was his
habit, replied, "The Chair is making a statement of fact that the
gentleman from Kentucky is present? Does he deny it?" The
rejoinder was so apposite that the House broke into a roar of
laughter, and the Speaker carried his point.
Undoubtedly, Speaker Reed was violating all precedents.
Facilities of obstruction had been cherished by both parties, and
nothing short of Reed's earnestness and determination could have
effected this salutary reform. The fact has since been disclosed
that he had made up his mind to resign the Speakership and retire
from public life had his party failed to support him. For three
days, the House was a bedlam, but the Speaker bore himself
throughout with unflinching courage and unruffled composure.
Eventually he had his way. New rules were adopted, and the power
to count a quorum was established.(1) When in later Congresses a
Democratic majority returned to the former practice, Reed gave
them such a dose of their own medicine that for weeks the House
was unable to keep a quorum. Finally, the House was forced to
return to the "Reed rules" which have since then been permanently
retained. As a result of congressional example, they have been
generally adopted by American legislative bodies, with a marked
improvement in their capacity to do business.
With the facilities of action which they now possessed, the
Republican leaders had no difficulty in getting rid of the
surplus in the Treasury. Indeed, in this particular they could
count on Democratic aid. The main conduit which they used was an
increase of pension expenditures. President Harrison encouraged a
spirit of broad liberality toward veterans of the Civil War.
During the campaign he said that it "was no time to be weighing
the claims of old soldiers with apothecary's scales," and he put
this principle of generous recognition into effect by appointing
as commissioner of pensions a robust partisan known as "Corporal"
Tanner. The report went abroad that on taking office he had
gleefully declared, "God help the surplus," and upon that maxim
he acted with unflinching vigor. It seemed, indeed, as if any
claim could count upon being allowed so long as it purported to
come from an old soldier. But Tanner's ambition was not satisfied
with an indulgent consideration of applications pending during
his time; he reopened old cases, rerated a large number of
pensioners, and increased the amount of their allowance. In some
cases, large sums were granted as arrears due on the basis of the
new rate. A number of officers of the pension bureau were thus
favored, for a man might receive a pension on the score of
disability though still able to hold office and draw its salary
and emoluments. For example, the sum of $4300 in arrears was
declared to be due to a member of the United States Senate,
Charles F. Manderson of Nebraska. Finally, "Corporal" Tanner's
extravagant management became so intolerable to the Secretary of
the Interior that he confronted President Harrison with the
choice of accepting his resignation or dismissing Tanner. Tanner
therefore had to go, and with him his system of reratings.
A pension bill for dependents, such as Cleveland had vetoed, now
went triumphantly through Congress.(2) It granted pensions of from
six to twelve dollars a month to all persons who had served for
ninety days in the Civil War and had thereby been incapacitated
for manual labor to such a degree as to be unable to support
themselves. Pensions were also granted to widows, minor children,
and dependent parents. This law brought in an enormous flood of
claims in passing, upon which it was the policy of the Pension
Bureau to practice great indulgence. In one instance, a pension
was granted to a claimant who had enlisted but never really
served in the army as he had deserted soon after entering the
camp. He thereupon had been sentenced to hard labor for one year
and made to forfeit all pay and allowances. After the war, he had
been convicted of horse stealing and sent to the state
penitentiary in Wisconsin. While serving his term, he presented a
pension claim supported by forged testimony to the effect that he
had been wounded in the battle of Franklin. The fraud was
discovered by a special examiner of the pension office, and the
claimant and some of his witnesses were tried for perjury,
convicted, and sent to the state penitentiary at Joliet,
Illinois. After serving his time there, he posed as a neglected
old soldier and succeeded in obtaining letters from sympathetic
Congressmen commending his case to the attention of the pension
office, but without avail until the Act of 1890 was passed. He
then put in a claim which was twice rejected by the pension
office examiners, but each time the decision was overruled, and
in the end he was put upon the pension roll. This case is only
one of many made possible by lax methods of investigating pension
claims. Senator Gallinger of New Hampshire eventually said of the
effect of pension policy, as shaped by his own party with his own
aid:
"If there was any soldier on the Union side during the Civil War
who was not a good soldier, who has not received a pension, I do
not know who he is. He can always find men of his own type,
equally poor soldiers who would swear that they knew he had been
in a hospital at a certain time, whether he was or not—the
records did not state it, but they knew it was so—and who would
also swear that they knew he had received a shock which affected
his hearing during a certain battle, or that something else had
happened to him; and so all those pension claims, many of which
are worthless, have been allowed by the Government, because they
were 'proved.'"
The increase in the expenditure for pensions, which rose from
$88,000,000 in 1889 to $159,000,000 in 1893, swept away much of
the surplus in the Treasury. Further inroads were made by the
enactment of the largest river and harbor appropriation bill in
the history of the country up to this time. Moreover, a new
tariff bill was contrived in such a way as to impose protective
duties without producing so much revenue that it would cause
popular complaint about unnecessary taxation. A large source of
revenue was cut off by abolishing the sugar duties and by
substituting a system of bounties to encourage home production.
Upon this bill as a whole, Senator Cullom remarks in his memoirs
that "it was a high protective tariff, dictated by the
manufacturers of the country" who have "insisted upon higher
duties than they really ought to have." The bill was, indeed,
made up wholly with the view of protecting American manufactures
from any foreign competition in the home market.
As passed by the House, not only did the bill ignore American
commerce with other countries but it left American consumers
exposed to the manipulation of prices on the part of other
countries. Practically all the products of tropical America,
except tobacco, had been placed upon the free list without any
precaution lest the revenue thus surrendered might not be
appropriated by other countries by means of export taxes. Blaine,
who was once more Secretary of State, began a vigorous agitation
in favor of adding reciprocity provisions to the bill. When the
Senate showed a disposition to resent his interference, Blaine
addressed to Senator Frye of Maine a letter which was in effect
an appeal to the people, and which greatly stirred the farmers by
its statement that "there is not a section or a line in the
entire bill that will open the market for another bushel of wheat
or another barrel of pork." The effect was so marked that the
Senate yielded, and the Tariff Bill, as finally enacted, gave the
President power to impose certain duties on sugar, molasses,
coffee, tea, and hides imported from any country imposing on
American goods duties, which, in the opinion of the President,
were "reciprocally unequal and unreasonable." This more equitable
result is to be ascribed wholly to Blaine's energetic and capable
leadership.
Pending the passage of the Tariff Bill, the Senate had been
wrestling with the trust problem which was making a mockery of a
favorite theory of the Republicans. They had held that tariff
protection benefited the consumer by the stimulus which it gave
to home production and by ensuring a supply of articles on as
cheap terms as American labor could afford. There were, however,
notorious facts showing that certain corporations had taken
advantage of the situation to impose high prices, especially upon
the American consumer. It was a campaign taunt that the tariff
held the people down while the trusts went through their pockets,
and to this charge the Republicans found it difficult to make a
satisfactory reply.
The existence of such economic injustice was continually urged in
support of popular demands for the control of corporations by the
Government. Though the Republican leaders were much averse to
providing such control, they found inaction so dangerous that on
January 14, 1890, Senator John Sherman reported from the Finance
Committee a vague but peremptory statute to make trade
competition compulsory. This was the origin of the AntiTrust Law
which has since gone by his name, although the law actually
passed was framed by the Senate judiciary committee. The first
section declared that "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, is
hereby declared to be illegal." The law made no attempt to define
the offenses it penalized and created no machinery for enforcing
its provisions, but it gave jurisdiction over alleged violations
to the courts—a favorite congressional mode of getting rid of
troublesome responsibilities. As a result, the courts have been
struggling with the application of the law ever since, without
being able to develop a clear or consistent rule for
discriminating between legal and illegal combinations in trade
and commerce. Even upon the financial question, the Republicans
succeeded in maintaining party harmony, notwithstanding a sharp
conflict between factions. William Windom, the Secretary of the
Treasury, had prepared a bill of the type known as a "straddle."
It offered the advocates of free coinage the right to send to the
mint silver bullion in any quantity and to receive in return the
net market value of the bullion in treasury notes redeemable in
gold or silver coin at the option of the Government. The monthly
purchase of not less than $2,000,000 worth of bullion was,
however, no longer to be required by law. When the advocates of
silver insisted that the provision for bullion purchase was too
vague, a substitute was prepared which definitely required the
Secretary of the Treasury to purchase 4,500,000 ounces of silver
bullion in one month. The bill, as thus amended, was put through
the House under special rule by a strict party vote. But when
the bill reached the Senate, the former party agreement could no
longer be maintained, and the Republican leaders lost control of
the situation. The free silver Republicans combined with most of
the Democrats to substitute a free coinage bill, which passed the
Senate by forty-three yeas to twenty-four nays, all the negative
votes save three coming from the Republican side.
It took all the influence the party leaders could exert to
prevent a silver stampede in the House when the Senate substitute
bill was brought forward; but by dexterous management, a vote of
non-concurrence was passed and a committee of conference was
appointed. The Republican leaders now found themselves in a
situation in which presidential non-interference ceased to be
desirable, but president Harrison could not be stirred to action.
He would not even state his views. As Senator Sherman remarked in
his "Recollections," "The situation at that time was critical. A
large majority of the Senate favored free silver, and it was
feared that the small majority against it in the other House
might yield and agree to it. The silence of the President on the
matter gave rise to an apprehension that if a free coinage bill
should pass both Houses, he would not feel at liberty to veto
it."
In this emergency, the Republican leaders appealed to their free
silver party associates to be content with compelling the
Treasury to purchase 4,500,000 ounces of silver per month, which
it was wrongly calculated would cover the entire output of
American mines. The force of party discipline eventually
prevailed, and the Republican party got together on this
compromise. The bill was adopted in both Houses by a strict party
vote, with the Democrats solidly opposed, and was finally enacted
on July 14, 1890.
Thus by relying upon political tactics, the managers of the
Republican party were able to reconcile conflicting interests,
maintain party harmony, and present a record of achievement which
they hoped to make available in the fall elections. But while
they had placated the party factions, they had done nothing to
satisfy the people as a whole or to redress their grievances. The
slowness of congressional procedure in matters of legislative
reform allowed the amplest opportunity to unscrupulous business
men to engage, in the meantime, in profiteering at the public
expense. They were able to lay in stocks of goods at the old
rates so that an increase of customs rates, for example, became
an enormous tax upon consumers without a corresponding gain to
the Treasury; for the yield was largely intercepted on private
accounts by an advance in prices. The Tariff Bill, which William
McKinley reported on April 16, 1890, became law only on the 1st
of October, so there were over five months during which
profiteers could stock at old rates for sales at the new rates
and thus reap a rich harvest. The public, however, was
infuriated, and popular sentiment was so stirred by the methods
of retail trade that the politicians were both angered and
dismayed. Whenever purchasers complained of an increase of price,
they received the apparently plausible explanation, "Oh, the
McKinley Bill did it." To silence this popular discontent, the
customary arts and cajoleries of the politicians proved for once
quite ineffectual.
At the next election, the Republicans carried only eighty-eight
seats in the House out of 332—the most crushing defeat they had
yet sustained. By their new lease of power in the House, however,
the Democratic party could not accomplish any legislation, as the
Republicans still controlled the Senate. The Democratic leaders,
therefore, adopted the policy of passing a series of bills
attacking the tariff at what were supposed to be particularly
vulnerable points. These measures, the Republicans derided as
"pop-gun bills," and in the Senate they turned them over to the
committee on finance for burial. Both parties were rent by the
silver issue, but it was noticeable that in the House which was
closest to the people the opposition to the silver movement was
stronger and more effective than in the Senate.
Notwithstanding the popular revolt against the Republican policy
which was disclosed by the fall elections of 1890, President
Harrison's annual message of December 9, 1891, was marked by
extreme complacency. Great things, he assured the people, were
being accomplished under his administration. The results of the
McKinley Bill "have disappointed the evil prophecies of its
opponents and in large measure realized the hopeful predictions
of its friends." Rarely had the country been so prosperous. The
foreign commerce of the United States had reached the largest
total in the history of the country. The prophecies made by the
antisilver men regarding disasters to result from the Silver
Bullion Purchase Act, had not been realized. The President
remarked "that the increased volume of currency thus supplied for
the use of the people was needed and that beneficial results upon
trade and prices have followed this legislation I think must be
clear to every one." He held that the free coinage of silver
would be disastrous, as it would contract the currency by the
withdrawal of gold, whereas "the business of the world requires
the use of both metals." While "the producers of silver are
entitled to just consideration," it should be remembered that
"bimetallism is the desired end, and the true friends of silver
will be careful not to overrun the goal." In conclusion, the
President expressed his great joy over "many evidences of the
increased unification of the people and of the revived national
spirit. The vista that now opens to us is wider and more glorious
than before. Gratification and amazement struggle for supremacy
as we contemplate the population, wealth, and moral strength of
our country."
Though the course of events has yet to be fully explained,
President Harrison's dull pomposity may have been the underlying
reason of the aversion which Blaine now began to manifest.
Although on Harrison's side and against Blaine, Senator Cullom
remarks in his memoirs that Harrison had "a very cold, distant
temperament," and that "he was probably the most unsatisfactory
President we ever had in the White House to those who must
necessarily come into personal contact with him." Cullom is of
the opinion that "jealousy was probably at the bottom of their
disaffection," but it appears to be certain that at this time
Blaine had renounced all ambition to be President and
energetically discouraged any movement in favor of his candidacy.
On February 6, 1892, he wrote to the chairman of the Republican
National Committee that he was not a candidate and that his name
would not go before the convention. President Harrison went ahead
with his arrangements for renomination, with no sign of
opposition from Blaine. Then suddenly, on the eve of the
convention, something happened—exactly what has yet to be
discovered—which caused Blaine to resign the office of Secretary
of State. It soon became known that Blaine's name would be
presented, although he had not announced himself as a candidate.
Blaine's health was then broken, and it was impossible that he
could have imagined that his action would defeat Harrison. It
could not have been meant for more than a protest. Harrison was
renominated on the first ballot with Blaine a poor second in the
poll.
In the Democratic convention, Cleveland, too, was renominated on
the first ballot, in the face of a bitter and outspoken
opposition. The solid vote of his own State, New York, was polled
against him under the unit rule, and went in favor of David B.
Hill. But even with this large block of votes to stand upon, Hill
was able to get only 113 votes in all, while Cleveland received
616. Genuine acceptance of his leadership, however, did not at
all correspond with this vote. Cleveland had come out squarely
against free silver, and at least eight of the Democratic state
conventions—in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas,
Nevada, South Carolina, and Texas—came out just as definitely in
favor of free silver. But even delegates who were opposed to
Cleveland, and who listened with glee to excoriating speeches
against him forthwith, voted for him as the candidate of greatest
popular strength. They then solaced their feelings by nominating
a free silver man for Vice-President, who was made the more
acceptable by his opposition to civil service reform. The ticket
thus straddled the main issue; and the platform was similarly
ambiguous. It denounced the Silver Purchase Act as "a cowardly
makeshift" which should be repealed, and it declared in favor of
"the coinage of both gold and silver without discrimination,"
with the provision that "the dollar unit of coinage of both
metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value." The
Prohibition party in that year came out for the "free and
unlimited coinage of silver and gold." A more significant sign of
the times was the organization of the "People's party," which
held its first convention and nominated the old Greenback leader,
James B. Weaver of Iowa, on a free silver platform.
The campaign was accompanied by labor disturbances of unusual
extent and violence. Shortly after the meeting of the national
conventions, a contest began between the powerful Amalgamated
Association of Steel and Iron Workers, the strongest of the
trade-unions, and the Carnegie Company over a new wage scale
introduced in the Homestead mills. The strike began on June 29,
1892, and local authority at once succumbed to the strikers. In
anticipation of this eventuality, the company had arranged to
have three hundred Pinkerton men act as guards. They arrived in
Pittsburgh during the night of the 5th of July and embarked on
barges which were towed up the river to Homestead. As they
approached, the strikers turned out to meet them, and an
engagement ensued in which men were killed or wounded on both
sides and the Pinkerton men were defeated and driven away. For a
short time, the strikers were in complete possession of the town
and of the company's property. They preserved order fairly well
but kept a strict watch that no strike breakers should approach
or attempt to resume work. The government of Pennsylvania was,
for a time, completely superseded in that region by the power of
the Amalgamated Association, until a large force of troops
entered Homestead on the 12th of July and remained in possession
of the place for several months. The contest between the strikers
and the company caused great excitement throughout the country,
and a foreign anarchist from New York attempted to assassinate
Mr. Frick, the managing director of the company. Though this
strike was caused by narrow differences concerning only the most
highly paid classes of workers, it continued for some months and
then ended in the complete defeat of the union.
On the same day that the militia arrived at Homestead, a more
bloody and destructive conflict occurred in the Coeur d'Alene
district of Idaho, where the workers in the silver mines were on
strike. Nonunion men were imported and put into some of the
mines. The strikers, armed with rifles and dynamite, thereupon
attacked the nonunion men and drove them off, but many lives were
lost in the struggle and much property was destroyed. The
strikers proved too strong for any force which state authority
could muster, but upon the call of the Governor, President
Harrison ordered federal troops to the scene and under martial
law order was soon restored.
Further evidence of popular unrest was given in August by a
strike of the switchmen in the Buffalo railway yards, which
paralyzed traffic until several thousand state troops were put on
guard. About the same time, there were outbreaks in the Tennessee
coal districts in protest against the employment of convict labor
in the mines. Bands of strikers seized the mines, and in some
places turned loose the convicts and in other places escorted
them back to prison. As a result of this disturbance, during 1892
state troops were permanently stationed in the mining districts,
and eventually the convicts were put back at labor in the mines.
Such occurrences infused bitterness into the campaign of 1892 and
strongly affected the election returns. Weaver carried Colorado,
Idaho, Kansas, and Nevada, and he got one electoral vote in
Oregon and in North Dakota; but even if these twenty-two
electoral votes had gone to Harrison, he would still have been
far behind Cleveland, who received 277 electoral votes out of a
total of 444. Harrison ran only about 381,000 behind Cleveland in
the popular vote, but in four States, the Democrats had nominated
no electors and their votes had contributed to the poll of over a
million for Weaver. The Democratic victory was so sweeping that
it gained the Senate as well as the House, and now for the first
time a Democratic President was in accord with both branches of
Congress. It was soon to appear, however, that this party accord
was merely nominal.
__________
(1) The rule that "no dilatory motion shall be entertained by the
Speaker" was also adopted at this time.
(2) June 27, 1890.
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