CHAPTER XXXIV. the administrations of hayes and of garfield and arthur, 1877 - 1885. INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS.

600. General Character of the Administration of Hayes.—The administration of Hayes was one of adjustment to new conditions rather than one of great political innovations. During the first half of his term, the Democrats had a majority in the House, the Republicans in the Senate; during the second half, the Democrats controlled both branches of Congress. By reason of these facts, and of the more or less general feeling that the President’s title to his position was not perfect, radical legislation was impossible, and industrial questions occupied in the main the attention of the country. Hayes himself, although much harassed by difficulties with Congress, wielded his power, especially that of the veto,^[276] in a most creditable manner, and surrounded himself with a Cabinet of good advisers.

601. Withdrawal of Troops from the South.—One of the first acts of President Hayes’s administration was to order the withdrawal of the United States troops from the South, where they had been stationed for the protection of the reconstructed governments. The way for this movement had been prepared during the last days of Grant’s administration; for it had come to be seen that good order could not be reËstablished by force. Democrats replaced Republicans in state offices, and everywhere the supremacy of the white people of the South was at once established. It was a practical confession that the methods of reconstruction adopted by Congress had not been successful. From this time forward the South was able to give attention to industrial recuperation.

602. Disorders and Riots.—During 1877, the first year of Hayes’s administration, railroad strikes were common. Freight charges were being reduced, and the roads, finding it impossible to maintain the old rate of wages, attempted to lower the price of labor. Thousands refused to work at the new rates, and some of the workmen would not allow trains to run. At Chicago, St. Louis, and Baltimore there were riots, in which several persons were killed; but the most serious outbreak occurred at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where nearly a hundred lives were lost and the destruction of property amounted to about three million dollars. Pennsylvania had several years before suffered from the outrages of a secret society of miners known as the “Molly McGuires,” which was not finally put down until 1875.

603. Chinese Immigration.—For the construction of the Pacific railroads, large numbers of Chinese laborers had been induced to come to the Pacific coast. These immigrants did not become citizens, and consequently did not vote. The fact that they could live more cheaply, and therefore work for less wages, than the white laborers, aroused great opposition to their presence, and riots became common. In response to this outcry, in 1880 a treaty was negotiated with China, by which it was agreed that Chinese immigration might be stopped by the United States government. This was followed, in 1882, by an Act of Congress forbidding such immigration for ten years. The law was imperfectly drawn, however, and its principal effect was to prevent the Chinese from coming in large masses. More stringent measures were enacted later (§ 624).

FINANCIAL PROBLEMS.

604. Relations of Gold and Silver.—Public opinion during Hayes’s term was seriously agitated in regard to the relations of silver and gold. In 1873, during Grant’s administration, a law had been passed, in consequence of a general advance in the price of silver, discontinuing the coinage of silver dollars, which had long been practically out of circulation. But by 1878 the price of the metal had fallen on account of the large output of the Western mines, and Congress decided to remonetize silver by providing that a certain amount should be purchased and coined each month. An act was passed, known as the “Bland-Allison Bill,” which provided for the purchase and coinage into dollars of not less than two million, nor more than four million, dollars’ worth of silver each month. The coining was to be at the rate of sixteen to one; that is to say, sixteen pounds of silver was to be coined into the same number of dollars as one pound of gold. As so much silver in circulation would prove inconvenient, Congress provided for depositing the silver thus coined in the Treasury and issuing silver certificates as currency in its place. This legislation, which was passed over the President’s veto and was regarded by economists as unsound, stimulated the production of silver and greatly encouraged the new mining industries in Colorado, Nevada, and the other states of the far West.

605. Resumption of Specie Payments.—Ever since the first year of the war, the paper money which has already been described (§ 596) had been the only currency in common use. Greenbacks and national bank notes had been made legal tender for most purposes; but the Supreme Court had at one time decided against, and at another time in favor of, the power of Congress to make a legal tender out of paper not redeemable in coin. In consequence there was a feeling of uncertainty with regard to the value of the currency in which business was transacted, and this was harmful to the commercial interests of the country. The paper had depreciated in value as compared with gold, and many people urged that the government should pay its debts in it. This hurt the national credit. Accordingly, in January, 1875, an act was passed providing for resumption of specie payments on the 1st of January, 1879. In other words, after the latter date, any person could get coin from the Treasury in exchange for the paper he offered. In the course of the four intervening years, the government accumulated a large amount of gold and silver in the Treasury and prepared itself to meet such demands as might be made. It happened, however, as it usually does under similar conditions with local banks, that so long as the people knew that the government was able and ready to pay, they had no desire for actual payment. They at once settled into the belief that paper was more convenient than coin. The chief credit for this financial legislation belongs to John Sherman, brother of the famous general, who long represented Ohio in the Senate, and at the time of resumption was Secretary of the Treasury.

POLITICAL AFFAIRS.

606. Causes of Dissatisfaction.—Though President Hayes’s administration was free from scandals and was one of uniform excellence, it presented very few characteristics that appealed to the enthusiastic admiration of the people. Nor was the President popular with the political managers, who thought that greater energy on his part would have secured such popular favor as to overcome the Democratic majority in Congress. As the time for the next Republican nomination drew near, it became evident, therefore, that Hayes, who did not seek a second term, would not be renominated.

607. Nomination and Election of Garfield and Arthur.—The Republican Convention, which met at Chicago in 1880, after a long struggle between the supporters of J. G. Blaine and of General Grant, nominated, as a compromise, James A. Garfield of Ohio for President, and Chester A. Arthur of New York for Vice President. Garfield, having distinguished himself in military service and in the House of Representatives, had recently been elected to the Senate. Arthur, without legislative experience, had been Collector of the Port of New York. The Democrats met at Cincinnati, and nominated General Winfield S. Hancock^[277] of Pennsylvania for President, and William H. English of Indiana for Vice President. There was no such heated contest for the nominations as there had been among the Republicans, for the general prosperity of the country indicated that the party in power would not be turned out. This forecast proved to be correct, for at the election Garfield and Arthur received two hundred and fourteen electoral votes, while Hancock and English received one hundred and fifty-five. The defeated candidates received their main vote from what began to be called “the Solid South,”—that is to say, not only the states that had seceded, but all those in which slavery had existed at the time of the war. Until the election of 1896, this solid mass of electoral votes went to Democratic candidates.

608. Factions in the Republican Party.—Even before the nomination of Garfield^[278] and Arthur, it was evident that the Republican party was inclined to divide into two factional sections. The questions at issue related partly to the method of appointing the minor government officers and partly to the attitude of the party toward the South. In general, those Republicans who were popularly known as “Stalwarts” advocated a more rigorous policy toward the South than Hayes had pursued; while the other division of the party, contemptuously called “Half-breeds” by their opponents, supported the administration of Hayes and approved of the withdrawal of troops. The “Half-breeds,” moreover, advocated a reform of the Civil Service, while the “Stalwarts” insisted that the offices should be given to those who had consistently supported the party. Garfield was supposed to represent the “Half-breeds,” while Arthur was nominated as a representative of the “Stalwarts.” The leader of the latter was Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, a brilliant orator, notorious for the violence of his partisanship. Conkling had been a stanch supporter of General Grant for the nomination in 1880; but, although he helped Garfield in the canvass preceding the latter’s election, he was soon at odds with the new administration on the question of appointments. He did not like the selection of Blaine for Secretary of State, and was aggrieved by other selections of Cabinet advisers made by the new President. Garfield was amply justified in resisting dictation from Conkling and other leaders with regard to appointments, for the platform on which he was nominated had called for a “thorough, radical, and complete reform of the Civil Service.” Moreover, he had been nominated without having been announced as a candidate in advance of the nomination, and had made few, if any, promises to bestow offices on special men.

609. Strife for Offices: Assassination of Garfield.—Soon after the election, the strife for offices became unusually intense. Many of the senators, acting in accordance with former custom, continued to insist upon practically dictating who should be appointed within their own states; but the President continued to resist them. When he refused to appoint as Collector of the Port of New York the candidate whom Senators Conkling and Platt had urged for the place, these “Stalwarts” were intensely indignant and resigned their seats in the Senate. The New York legislature expressed its disapproval of their course, by refusing to reËlect them.^[279] The result was not a little agitation and bitterness between the two factions, which perhaps was partly responsible for the assassination of the President by a fanatic named Charles J. Guiteau, to whom an office had been refused. Garfield was shot on the 2d of July, 1881, just as he was about to take a train at the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Washington. After lingering in great pain, but with heroic endurance, for nearly three months, he died, September 19, at Elberon, New Jersey. His death called forth sincere expressions of sympathy from all parts of the world. Arthur^[280] was at once sworn in as President. Guiteau, after a long trial, was adjudged not insane, but responsible for his act, and was hanged.

CHIEF FEATURES OF ARTHUR’S ADMINISTRATION.

610. Success of Arthur.—The effect of the assassination was everywhere deeply felt throughout the country, and the impression was almost universal that in the death of Garfield the nation had suffered an irreparable loss. President Arthur, however, at once showed that he was a man of firmness, intelligence, and good judgment, fully capable of filling satisfactorily his great office. He chose a good Cabinet, his Secretary of the Navy, William E. Chandler, being especially energetic in increasing the efficiency of that branch of the service. Arthur’s recommendations to Congress were judicious, and in the case of Civil Service legislation, the need for which had been emphasized by President Garfield’s assassination, particularly important (§ 616).

611. Feats of Engineering.—Arthur’s administration was marked by several great triumphs of engineering. In 1881 the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge was celebrated. This structure, the main avenue of traffic between New York and Brooklyn, and the longest and boldest suspension bridge in the world, was designed in 1869 by John A. Roebling, an engineer who had designed and constructed the first suspension bridge across Niagara River below the Falls. The Washington monument (dedicated in 1885), the highest stone structure in the world, was also completed during Arthur’s administration, after great delay and certain difficulties of construction which were finally obviated by engineering skill. The monument is an obelisk of white marble, five hundred and fifty-five feet high, and is impressive in its simple grandeur.^[281]

612. Condition of the Lower Mississippi.—About this time the attention of the country was called to the difficulty of protecting the inhabitants of the lower Mississippi Valley against the dangers of inundation. The waters of the Mississippi and of the Missouri bring down enormous amounts of earth, which are deposited, partly in the bottom of the former river and partly in the Gulf of Mexico. This continuous deposit gradually raises the channel, so that, in places, the bed of the river is higher than the surrounding country. It also fills up the mouth of the stream and obstructs navigation. During the administration of Hayes a system of jetties, consisting of thousands of bundles of fagots, was devised for the purpose of narrowing the channel, and by so doing, increasing the current so that the silt or mud might be carried far out into the Gulf. This plan was due to Engineer James B. Eads, who had distinguished himself by the construction of ironclads during the war and of the great steel arch bridge across the river at St. Louis. The jetty system was temporarily successful, but it did not prevent the gradual rising of the river bed and consequent inundations. In the first year of Arthur’s administration, as many as a hundred thousand people were driven from their homes and vast amounts of property were destroyed.

613. Notable Events.—In 1881 the nation celebrated with a great naval display the one hundredth anniversary of the surrender of the British at Yorktown. In recognition of the country’s friendship for Great Britain, President Arthur, with characteristic tact, ordered at the end of the ceremonies a national salute to the British flag. In 1884 a World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition was held at New Orleans, which revealed the increasing prosperity of the country at large and of the South in particular. The years 1881–1884 were also notable for brave Arctic explorations conducted by Lieutenant A. W. Greely.

POLITICAL EVENTS.

614. Anti-Polygamy Law.—For many years polygamy among the Mormons had given offense to a vast majority of the people of the country. The practice had been supposed to be so essentially a part of the Mormon religious system that Congress had hesitated to interfere with it. In 1882, however, Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont succeeded in carrying through Congress a law which repealed the charter of the Mormon church, made polygamy criminal in any territory of the United States, and deprived of the elective franchise any persons who should refuse to take the oath to obey the stringent provisions of the act.

615. Tariff Commission.—The tariff and internal revenue laws, enacted in 1862, for the purpose of raising a war income (§§ 456, 457), produced so large an income that the national debt was greatly reduced and a large surplus accumulated in the Treasury. This surplus could not be used to pay the debt, because the latter had been refunded,—that is, loosely speaking, readjusted on subsequent borrowing at a lower rate of interest than was paid when the debt was first incurred,—and the new obligations had not yet fallen due. It was therefore deemed desirable to reduce the income by a modification of the tariff. As questions of protection and free trade were not the chief motives of the change, it was decided to appoint a Tariff commission of business men to study the matter and report a suitable bill to Congress. On the basis of the recommendations of the Commission, a law was framed and passed in 1883; but it failed to diminish the income, and the accumulations in the Treasury went on as rapidly as before. It was thought, however, that the Commission had been influenced too much by the urgent recommendations of the protectionists. The final action was regarded by Democrats and by advocates of free trade as amounting to excessive taxation, and so an active agitation was begun in favor of a more liberal tariff law (§ 627).

616. Condition of the Civil Service.—The murder of Garfield called attention anew to the bad condition of the Civil Service. It was evident that the number of appointments to be made had become so great that the President was obliged to give too much of his time to the subject, and even then thousands of offices had to be bestowed on the demand of politicians who showed little sense of responsibility in making their recommendations. Congress, therefore, in 1883, revived the Civil Service question that had been dropped in the time of President Grant, and the so-called “Pendleton Bill,” supported by Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohio, was enacted. According to this law, a large number of subordinate appointments were to be made by the President from those candidates who had been most successful in competitive examinations. These examinations were to be held by a Board of Commissioners, duly provided by Congress for the purpose. This method had been very successful in other countries and had been approved and encouraged by Grant, Hayes, and Garfield. Under the act a Commission was appointed, which has been continued and has rendered great service to the country.

617. Prosperity during Arthur’s Administration.^[282]—The country during Arthur’s administration passed through a period of prosperity, which, up to that time, was unexampled. Agriculture, trade, and manufactures everywhere flourished. Laborers found abundant employment. The South had, for the first time since the war, become somewhat prosperous. Free labor was proving more profitable than slave labor, and new industries of various kinds began to spring up in all parts of the Southern states. Manufactories of cotton goods, which, up to the time of the war, had flourished only in the North, now made a beginning in the South. Industrial expositions showed that a New South had come into existence. But in some Southern states, notably Virginia, where there was great agitation for the adjustment of the state debt, politics were still in a bad condition. On the Pacific coast, agitation on the part of more or less shiftless citizens, not only against Chinese immigration but also against the moneyed classes,—known from its leader, Dennis Kearney, as Kearneyism,—was quieting down, and the lawlessness of the Middle West, represented by the crimes of Jesse James and his fellow train robbers, was finally suppressed. Toward the end of Arthur’s administration much attention was called to the growth of corporations. In 1884 an “Anti-Monopoly” party was organized, and General Benjamin F. Butler was nominated for President.

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1884.

618. Demands for Reform.—As the time for the election of 1884 approached, it was evident that demands for further Civil Service improvement and for tariff reform were to play a very prominent part in the campaign. Many Republicans insisted upon the selection of candidates who would support measures of reform, and threatened, in case such nominations should not be made, to vote for the Democratic candidates. Such advocates of reform called themselves “Independents”; but they were stigmatized by their enemies as “Mugwumps.”^[283] These Independent voters proved to be sufficiently numerous to decide the coming election.

619. Election of Cleveland.—The Republican Convention met at Chicago and nominated James Gillespie Blaine^[284] of Maine for President, and General John A. Logan of Illinois for Vice President. Blaine had long been one of the most prominent men in the Republican party. Possessed of much personal charm, he enjoyed great popularity with those with whom he came into personal contact. For six years he was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and when the Democrats secured a majority in the House, he became the brilliant leader of the Republicans on the floor. While he occupied this position, however, it began to be whispered that his career was not free from acts involving corrupt motives. An investigation followed in regard to his connection with the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad Company. The evidence had a serious effect upon his political prospects. Many Republicans, believing him not free from the taint of corruption, were ready from the time of his nomination to vote against him. The Democrats, who also convened at Chicago, nominated, for President, Grover Cleveland,^[285] who had recently shown great strength as governor of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana for Vice President. The campaign was an unusually spirited one, full of unseemly personalities. Some of the Reform Republicans finally made up their minds to support Blaine; but others, like George William Curtis, advocated Cleveland’s election. Blaine’s cause was greatly injured by the extravagant attacks made upon the Democrats by some of his supporters. Cleveland and Hendricks were finally elected by an electoral vote of two hundred and nineteen against one hundred and eighty-two. The election was decided by the thirty-five electoral votes of New York, secured by a majority of less than twelve hundred. The vote showed that Blaine was defeated by those Independent Republicans who distrusted his political integrity.

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