POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
Powerful as economic forces were from 1865 to 1890, they did not alone
determine the direction of American progress during those years.
Different individuals and different sections of the country reacted
differently to the same economic facts; a formula that explained a
phenomenon satisfactorily to one group, carried no conviction to
another; political parties built up their platforms on economic
self-interest, and yet they sometimes had their ideals; theories that
seemed to explain economic development were found to be inadequate and
were replaced by others; and practices that had earlier been regarded
with indifference began to offend the public sense of good taste or
morals or justice, and gave way to more enlightened standards. Some
understanding is necessary, therefore, of the more common theories,
ideals, creeds and practices, because they supplemented the economic
foundations that underlay American progress for a quarter century after
the war.
Since the Republican party was almost continuously in power during this
period, its composition, spirit and ideals were fundamental in
political history. Throughout the North, and especially in the
Northeast, the intellectual and prosperous classes, the capitalists and
manufacturers, were more likely to be found in the Republican party
than among the Democrats. In fact such party leaders as Senator George
F. Hoar went so far as to assert that the organization comprised the
manufacturers and skilled laborers of the East, the soldiers, the
church members, the clergymen, the school-teachers, the reformers and
the men who were doing the great work of temperance, education and
philanthropy. The history of the party, also, was no small factor in
its successes. Many northerners had cast their first ballot in the
fifties, with all the zeal of crusaders; they looked back upon the
beginnings of Republicanism as they might have remembered the origin of
a sacred faith; they thought of their party as the body which had
abolished slavery and restored the Union; and they treasured the names
of its Lincoln, its Seward, its Sumner and Grant and Sherman. The
Republican party, wrote Edward MacPherson in 1888, in a history of the
organization, is
both in the purity of its doctrines, the beneficent sweep of its
measures, in its courage, its steadfastness, its fidelity, in its
achievements and in its example, the most resplendent political
organization the world has ever seen.
Senator Hoar declared that no party in history, not even that which
inaugurated the Constitution, had ever accomplished so much in so short
a time. It had been formed, he said, to prevent the extension of
slavery into the territories, but the "providence of God imposed upon
it far larger duties." The Republican party gave "honest, wise, safe,
liberal, progressive American counsel" and the Democrats "unwise,
unsafe, illiberal, obstructive, un-American counsel." He remembered the
Republican nominating convention of 1880 as a scene of "indescribable
sublimity," comparable in "grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty
torrent of Niagara."
During the generation after the war the recollection of the struggle
was fresh in men's minds and its influence was a force in party
councils. The Democrats were looked upon as having sympathized with the
"rebellion" and having been the party of disunion. In campaign after
campaign the people were warned not to admit to power the party which
had been "traitor" to the Union. Roscoe Conkling, the most influential
politician in New York, declared in 1877 that the Democrats wished to
regain power in order to use the funds in the United States Treasury to
repay Confederate war debts and to provide pensions for southern
soldiers. As late even as 1888 the nation was urged to recollect that
the Democratic party had been the "mainstay and support of the
Rebellion," while the Republicans were the "party that served the
Nation."
At a later time it was pointed out that the party had not been founded
solely on idealism; that the adherence of Pennsylvania to the party,
for example, was due at least in a measure to Republican advocacy of a
protective tariff; that Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton, two of
the leading members of Lincoln's cabinet had been Democrats; and that
Lincoln's second election and the successful outcome of the war had
been due partly to the support of his political opponents. As time went
on, also, some of the leaders of the Republican party declared that its
original ideals had become obscured in more practical considerations.
They felt that abuses had grown up which had been little noticed
because of the necessity of keeping in power that party which they
regarded as the only patriotic one. They asserted that many of the
managers had become arrogant and corrupt. All this helped to explain
the strength of such revolts as that of the Liberal Republican movement
of 1872. Nevertheless, during the greater part of the twenty-five years
after the war, hosts of Republicans cherished such a picture as that
drawn by Senator Hoar and Edward MacPherson, and it was that picture
which held them within the party and made patriotism and Republicanism
synonymous terms.
These Republicans, however, who took the more critical attitude toward
their party formed the core of the "Mugwump" or Independent movement.
Their philosophy was simple. They believed that there ought to be a
political element which was not rigidly controlled by the discipline of
party organization, which would act upon its own judgment for the
public interest, and which should be a reminder to both parties that
neither could venture upon mischievous policies without endangering its
control over the machinery of government. Theoretically, at least, the
Independent believed that it was more important that government be well
administered than that it be administered by one set of men or another.
The weakness of this group, aside from its small size, was its
impatience and impracticability. By nature the Independent was an
individualist, forming his own opinion and holding it with tenacity. In
such a body there could not be long-continued cooperation or singleness
of purpose; each new problem caused new decisions resulting in the
break-up of the group and the formation of new alignments. The
Independent group, therefore, varied in strength from campaign to
campaign. To the typical party worker, who looked upon politics as a
warfare for the spoils of office, the Independent was variously
denounced as a deserter, a traitor, an apostate and a guerilla
deploying between the lines and foraging now on one side and now on the
other. To the party wheel-horse, independent voting seemed
impracticable, and the atmosphere of reform too "highly scented."
The Democrats, laboring under the disadvantage of a reputation for
disloyalty during the war, and kept out of power for most of the time
during the period, were forced into a defensive position where they
could complain or criticize, but not present a program of constructive
achievement. They denounced the election of 1876 as a great "fraud";
they looked upon the Republicans as the organ of those who demanded
class advantages; they condemned the party as wasteful, corrupt and
extravagant in administration, careless of the distress of the masses,
and desirous of increasing the authority of the federal government at
the expense of the powers of the states. Their own mission they felt to
be the constant assertion of the opposite principles of government and
administration. They felt that they in particular represented
government by the people for the equal good of all classes. In
conformity to what they believed to be the principles of Jefferson and
Jackson they professed faith in the capacity of the plain people. They
advocated frugality and economy in government expenditure and looked
with alarm on any extension of federal power that invaded the
traditional domain of local activity.
The intensification of party spirit and party loyalty, which was so
typical of the times, "delivered the citizen more effectually, bound
hand and foot, into the power of the party embodied in its
Organization." The organization, meanwhile, was being improved and
strengthened. Its permanent National Committee which had existed from
_ante-bellum_ days, was supplemented in both parties immediately after
the war by the congressional committee, whose mission it was to carry
the elections for the House of Representatives. Increased attention was
paid to state and local organizations. Party conventions in states and
counties chose delegates to national conventions and nominated
candidates for office. State, county and town committees raised money,
employed speakers, distributed literature, formed torch-light companies
to march in party processions and, most important of all, got out the
voters on election day. By such means the National Committee was
enabled to keep in close touch with the rank and file of the party, and
so complete did the organization become that it deserved and won the
name, "the machine."
The master-spirit of the machine was usually the "Boss," a professional
politician who generally did not himself hold elective office or show
concern in constructive programs of legislation or in the public
welfare. Instead, his interests lay in winning elections; dividing the
offices among the party workers; distributing profitable contracts for
public work; procuring the passage of legislation desired by industrial
or railroad companies, or blocking measures objected to by them. A
vivid picture of the activities of the boss in New York, drawn by Elihu
Root, will serve to portray conditions in many states and cities from
1865 to 1890:
From the days of Fenton, and Conkling, and Arthur, and Cornell,
and Platt, from the days of David B. Hill, down to the present
time, the government of the state has presented two different lines
of activity, one of the constitutional and statutory officers of
the state, and the other of the party leaders,--they call them
party bosses. They call the system--I do not coin the phrase, I
adopt it because it carries its own meaning--the system they call
"invisible government." For I do not remember how many years, Mr.
Conkling was the supreme ruler in this state; the governor did not
count, the legislatures did not count; comptrollers and secretaries
of state and what not, did not count. It was what Mr. Conkling
said; and in a great outburst of public rage he was pulled down.
Then Mr. Platt ruled the state; for nigh upon twenty years he ruled
it. It was not the governor; it was not the legislature; it was not
any elected officers; it was Mr. Platt. And the capitol was not
here (in Albany); it was at 49 Broadway; with Mr. Platt and his
lieutenants. It makes no difference what name you give, whether you
call it Fenton or Conkling or Cornell or Arthur or Platt, or by the
names of men now living. The ruler of the state during the greater
part of the forty years of my acquaintance with the state
government has not been any man authorized by the constitution or
by the law.[1]
Under such conditions, corruption was naturally a commonplace in
politics. In the campaigns, the party managers were too often men to
whom "nothing was dreadful but defeat." At every Presidential election,
immense sums of money were poured into the most important doubtful
states--Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. Twenty to
seventy-five dollars was said to have been the price of a vote in
Indiana in 1880; and ten to fifteen per cent. of the vote in
Connecticut was thought to be purchasable. In New York ballot-box
stuffing and repeating were the rule in sections of the city. Employers
exerted a less crude but equally efficacious pressure upon their
employees to vote "right." Municipal government also was often
characterized by that extreme of corruption which called out the scorn
of writers on public affairs. The New York _Times_ complained in 1877
that the government of the city was no more a popular government than
Turkish rule in Bulgaria, and that if the Tammany leaders did not
collect revenue with the horse-whip and sabre, it was because the forms
of law afforded a means that was pleasanter, easier and quite as
effective.
Federal officials, it must be admitted, did not set a high standard for
local officers to follow. During Grant's administration five judges of
a United States Court were driven from office by threats of
impeachment; members of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House
of Representatives sold their privilege of selecting young men to be
educated at West Point; and candidates for even the highest offices in
the gift of the nation were sometimes men whose political past would
not bear the light of day. More difficult to overcome was the lack of a
decent sense of propriety among many public officers. Members of the
Senate practiced before the Supreme Court, the justices of which they
had an important share in appointing; senators and representatives
traded in the securities of railroads which were seeking favors at the
hands of Congress; and even in the most critical circles, corrupt
practices were condoned on the ground that all the most reputable
people were more or less engaged in similar activities. Most difficult
of all to understand was the unfaltering support accorded by men of the
utmost integrity to party leaders whose evil character was known on all
sides. Men who would not themselves be guilty of dishonest acts and who
vehemently condemned such deeds among their political opponents, failed
to make any energetic protest within their own ranks for fear that they
might bring about a party split and thus give the "enemy" a victory.
The political practices which prevailed after 1865 for at least a
quarter of a century were notoriously bad. Yet the student of the
period must be sensitive to higher aspirations and better practices
among many of the politicians, and among the rank and file of the
people. George F. Hoar, John Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover
Cleveland and many others were incorruptible. The exposure of
scandalous actions on the part of certain high officials blasted their
careers, indicating that the body of the people would not condone
dishonesty, and the parties found it advisable to accept the
resignations of some of their more notorious campaign managers.
Moreover, the American people of all classes were a political people,
with a capacity for political organization and activity, and with a
passion for change. The cruder forms of corruption were successfully
combated, and the popular, as well as the official sense of good taste
and propriety gradually reached higher levels.
Another fundamental political consideration after the Civil War was the
gradual reduction of the power of the executive department. During the
war the authority exercised by President Lincoln had risen to great
heights, partly because of his personal characteristics and partly
because the exigencies of the times demanded quick executive action.
After the conflict was past, however, the legislative body naturally
reasserted itself. Moreover, the quarrel between President Johnson and
Congress, as has been shown, took the form of a contest for control
over appointments to office and especially over appointments to the
cabinet. The resulting impeachment, although it did not result in
conviction, brought about a distinct shrinkage in executive prestige.
Grant was so inexperienced in politics and so naive in his judgments of
his associates that he fell completely into the power of the machine
and failed to revive the former importance and independence of his
office.
The ascendancy which thus slipped out of the hands of the executive was
seized by the Senate, where it remained for a long period, despite
efforts on the part of the president and the House of Representatives
to prevent it. So remarkable and continuous a domination is not to be
explained by a single formula. The long term of the members of the
Senate, the traditional high reputation of the body and the undoubted
ability of many of its members assisted in upholding its prestige. Its
small size as compared with the House of Representatives gave it
greater flexibility. Furthermore, certain Senate practices were
instrumental in giving that body its primacy. Under the provisions of
the Constitution the Senate has power to ratify or reject the
nominations of the executive to many important positions within his
gift, and by the close of reconstruction it had acquired a firm control
over such appointments. "Senatorial courtesy" bade every member,
regardless of party, to concur with the decision of the senators from
any state with regard to the appointments in which they were
interested. When, therefore, the executive wished to change conditions
in a given office he must have the acquiescence of the senators from
the state in which the change was to occur. If he did not, the entire
body would rally to the support of their colleagues and refuse to
confirm the objectionable nominations. With such a weapon the Senate
was usually able to force the executive into submission, or at least to
make reforms extremely difficult. In Senator Hoar's suggestive words,
senators went to the White House to give advice, not to receive it.
In connection with revenue legislation the Senate seized the leadership
by means of an evasion of the Constitution. According to the terms of
that document, all bills for raising revenue must originate in the
House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose amendments.
Relying upon this power the Senate constantly revised measures to the
extent of changing their character completely and even of grafting part
or all of one proposal upon the title of another. In one case, early in
the period, the Senate "amended" a House bill of four lines which
repealed the tariff on tea and coffee; the "amendment" consisted of
twenty pages, containing a general revision of customs duties and
internal revenue taxes. At a later time the Senate Finance Committee
drew up a tariff bill even before Congress had assembled.
The primacy of the Senate quickly led to recognition of the value of
seats in it. Influential state politicians sought election in order to
control the patronage. Competent judges in the early nineties declared,
for example, that the senators from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland
were all of this type. Another considerable fraction was composed of
powerful business men, directors in large corporations, who found it to
their advantage to be in this most influential law-making body and who
were known as oil or silver or lumber senators. So was laid the
foundation of the complaint that the Senate was a millionaires' club.
And so, too, it came about that much of state politics revolved about
the choice of members for the upper house, for senators were elected by
the state legislatures until long after 1890. The power of the House of
Representatives, in contrast with the Senate, was relatively small
except during the single session 1889-1891, when Thomas B. Reed was in
control, although individual members sometimes wielded considerable
influence.
Somewhat comparable to the shift in the center of power from one
federal authority to another, was the change which took place in the
relative strength of the state and national governments. This transfer
was most clearly seen in the decisions of the Supreme Court in cases
involving the Fourteenth Amendment.
Previous to 1868, when the Amendment became part of the Constitution,
comparatively little state legislation relating to private property had
been reviewed by the Court. Ever since the establishment of the federal
government, cases involving the constitutionality of state legislation
had been appealed to United States Courts when they had been objected
to as running counter to the clauses of the Constitution forbidding
states to enact bills of attainder, _ex post facto_ laws, or laws
impairing the obligation of contracts. Their number, however, had been
relatively small, and normally the acts of state legislatures had not
been reviewed by federal courts; or in other words the tendency had
been to preserve the individuality and strength of the several states.
After the war, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments placed
additional prohibitions on the states, and the decisions of the Supreme
Court determined the meaning and extent of the added provisions. The
interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was especially important.
Most significant was the interpretation of Section 1, which reads as
follows:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and 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.
So vague and inclusive were these phrases that many important questions
immediately sprang from them. What were the privileges and immunities
of the citizen? Did those of the citizen of the United States differ
from those of the citizen of a state? Was a corporation a person? What
was liberty? What was due process of law? Hitherto the protection of
life, liberty and property had rested, in the main, upon the individual
states, and cases involving these subjects had been decided by state
courts. Were the state courts to be superseded, in relation to these
vital subjects, by the United States Supreme Court?
It has already been shown that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment
was the protection of the recently freed negro. The Thirteenth
Amendment had forbidden slavery, but the southern states had passed
apprentice and vagrancy laws which reduced the negro to a condition
closely resembling slavery in certain of its aspects. The Fourteenth
Amendment was designed to remedy such a condition by forbidding the
states to abridge the privileges of citizens, or to deprive persons of
life, liberty or property. Were the very vague phrases of the Amendment
merely in keeping with the vagueness of many of the other grants of
power in the Constitution, or were they designedly expressed in such a
way as to accomplish something more than the protection of the
freedman?
The first decision of the Supreme Court involving the Amendment was
that given in the Slaughter House Cases in 1873, which did not concern
the negro in any way. In 1869 the legislature of Louisiana had given a
corporation in that state the exclusive right to slaughter cattle
within a large area, and had forbidden other persons to construct
slaughter-houses within the limits of this region, but the corporation
was to allow any other persons to use its buildings and equipment,
charging fixed fees for the privilege. Cases were brought before the
courts to determine whether the law violated that part of the
Fourteenth Amendment which forbids a state to pass laws abridging the
privileges of citizens and taking away their property without due
process of law. By a vote of five to four the Court upheld the
constitutionality of the statute.
The majority held that the purpose of the Amendment was primarily the
protection of the negro. This purpose, the Court thought, lay at the
foundation of all three of the war amendments and without it no one of
them would ever have been suggested. The majority did not believe that
the Congress which passed the amendments or the state legislatures
which ratified them intended to transfer the protection of the great
body of civil rights from the states to the federal government. Neither
did they think that due process of law had been interfered with by the
Louisiana legislation. In reply to the objection that the
slaughter-house law violated the clause, "nor shall any State deny to
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,"
the majority declared:
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.
In brief, then, the majority was inclined to preserve the balance
between the states and the national government very much as it had
been. It believed that the amendments should be applied mainly if not
wholly to the fortunes of the freedman and that judicial review of such
legislation as that in Louisiana concerning the slaughter of cattle
should end in the state courts.
For a time the interpretation of the Court remained that given by the
majority in this decision. When western state legislatures passed laws
regulating the rates which railroads and certain other corporations
might legally charge for their services, the Court at first showed an
inclination to allow the states a free hand. Regulation of this sort,
it was held, did not deprive the citizen or the corporation of property
without due process of law.
There were indications, nevertheless, that the opinion of the Court was
undergoing a change as time elapsed. An interesting prelude to the
change was an argument by Roscoe Conkling in San Mateo County _v._
Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1882. Conkling was acting as
attorney for the railroad and was attempting to show that the roads
were protected, by the Fourteenth Amendment, from state laws which
taxed their property unduly. Conkling argued that the Amendment had not
been designed merely for the protection of the freedman, and in order
to substantiate his contention, he produced a manuscript copy of the
journal of the Congressional committee that had drawn up the proposals
which later became the Fourteenth Amendment. He had himself been a
member of the committee. The journal, it should be noticed, had never
hitherto been utilized in public.
Conkling stated that at the time when the Amendment was being drafted,
individuals and companies were appealing for congressional protection
against state taxation laws, and that it had been the purpose of the
committee to frame an amendment which should protect whites as well as
blacks and operate in behalf of corporations as well as individuals. In
other words, Conkling was making the interesting contention that his
committee had had a far wider and deeper purpose in mind in phrasing
the Amendment than had been commonly understood and that the demand for
the protection of the negro from harsh southern legislation had been
utilized to answer the request of business for federal assistance. The
safety of the negro was put to the fore; the purpose of the committee
to strengthen the legal position of the corporations was kept behind
the doors of the committee-room; and the phrases of the Amendment had
been designedly made general in order to accomplish both purposes. The
sequel appeared four years later, in 1886, when the case Santa Clara
County _v._ Southern Pacific Railroad brought the question before the
Court. At this time Mr. Chief Justice Waite announced the opinion of
himself and his colleagues that a corporation was a "person" within the
meaning of the Amendment and thus entitled to its protection.
Later decisions, such as that of 1889 in Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
Paul Railway Company _v._ Minnesota, left no doubt of the fact that the
Court had come to look upon the Fourteenth Amendment as much more than
a protective device for the negro. The full meaning of the change,
however, did not appear until after 1890, and is a matter for later
consideration. In brief, then, before 1890, the Supreme Court was
content in the main to avoid the review of state legislation concerning
the ownership and control of private property, a practice which lodged
great powers in the state courts and legislatures. By that year,
however, it was manifest that the Court had undergone a complete change
and that it had adopted a theory which would greatly enlarge the
functions of the federal courts, at the expense of the states. The
medium through which the change came was the Fourteenth Amendment.
The demand on the part of business men for protection from state
legislation, which Roscoe Conkling described in the San Mateo case,
arose from their belief in the economic doctrine of _laissez faire_.
Believers in this theory looked upon legislation which regulated
business as a species of meddling or interference. The individual, they
thought, should be allowed to do very much as he pleased, entering into
whatever business he wished, and buying and selling where and how and
at what prices suited his interests, stimulated and controlled by
competition, but without direction or restriction by the government. It
was believed that the amazing success of the American business pioneer
was proof of the wisdom of the _laissez faire_ philosophy. The economic
giant and hero was the self-made man.
Economic abuses, according to the _laissez faire_ philosophy, would
normally be corrected by economic law, chiefly through competition. If,
for illustration, any industry demanded greater returns for its
products than proved to be just in the long run, unattached capital
would be attracted into that line of production, competition would
ensue, prices would be again lowered and justice would result. Every
business man would exert himself to discover that employment which
would bring greatest return for the capital which he had at his
command. He would therefore choose such an industry and so direct it as
to make his product of the greatest value possible. Hence although he
sought his own interests, he would in fact promote the interest of the
public.
Indeed the philosopher of _laissez faire_ was sincerely convinced that
his system ultimately benefited society as a whole. Andrew Carnegie, an
iron and steel manufacturer, presented this thesis in an article in the
_North American Review_ in 1889. The reign of individualism, he held,
was the order of the day, was inevitable and desirable. Under it the
poorer classes were better off than they had ever been in the world's
history. "We start then," he said, "with a condition of affairs under
which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably
gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist,
the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good." Let the man of
ability, he advised, accumulate a large fortune and then discharge his
duty to the public through philanthropic enterprises, such as the
foundation of libraries. Society would be more highly benefited in this
way than by allowing the millions to circulate in small sums through
the hands of the masses. Statistical studies of the distribution of
wealth seemed to justify Carnegie's judgment that the existing tendency
was for wealth to settle into the hands of the few. In 1893 it was
estimated that three one-hundredths of one per cent. of the people
owned twenty per cent. of the nation's wealth.
Although the _laissez faire_ theory was dominant later even than 1890,
it was apparent before that time that its sway was being challenged.
The adherents of _laissez faire_ themselves did not desire to have the
doctrine applied fully and evenly. They demanded government protection
for their enterprises through the medium of high protective import
tariffs, and they sought subsidies and grants of public land for the
railroads. Naturally it was not long before the classes whose desires
conflicted with the manufacturing and railroad interests began in their
turn to seek aid from the government. The people of the Middle West,
for example, were not content to allow the railroad companies to
control their affairs and establish their rates without let or
hindrance from the state legislatures. The factory system in the
Northeast, likewise, raised questions which were directed toward the
foundations of _laissez faire_. Under the factory regime employers
found it advantageous to open their doors to women and children and to
keep them at machines for long, hard days which unfitted the women for
domestic duties and for raising families, and which stunted the
children in body and mind. Out of these circumstances arose a demand
for restrictions on the freedom of employers to fix the conditions
under which their employees worked.
Opposition to an industrial system based upon _laissez faire_ would
have been even greater during the seventies and eighties if it had not
been for two sources of national wealth--the public lands and the
supplies of lumber, ore, coal and similar gifts of nature. When the
supply of land in the West was substantially unlimited, a sufficient
part of the population could relieve its economic distresses by
migrating, as multitudes did. Such huge stores of natural wealth were
being discovered that there seemed to be no end to them. But in the
late eighties when the best public lands were nearly exhausted and the
need of more careful husbanding of the national resources became
apparent to far-sighted men, advanced thinkers began to question the
validity of an economic theory which allowed quite so much freedom to
individuals. For the time, however, such questions did not arise in the
minds of the masses.
As the _laissez faire_ doctrine underlay the problem of the relation
between government and industry, so the quantity theory of money was
fundamental in the monetary question. According to the quantity theory,
money is like any other commodity in that its value rises and falls
with variations in the supply and demand for it. Suppose, for example,
that a given community is entirely isolated from the rest of the world.
It possesses precisely enough pieces of money to satisfy the needs of
its people. Suddenly the number of pieces is doubled. The supply is
twice as great as business requires. If no new elements enter into the
situation, the value of each piece becomes half as great as before, its
purchasing power is cut in two and prices double.[2]
A bushel of potatoes that formerly sold for a dollar now sells at two
dollars. A farmer who has mortgaged his farm for $1,000 and who relies
upon his sales of potatoes to pay off his debt is highly benefited by
the change, while the creditor is correspondingly harmed. The debtor is
obliged to raise only half as many potatoes; the creditor receives
money that buys half the commodities that could have been purchased
with his money at the time of the loan.
On the other hand, suppose the number of pieces of money is instantly
halved and all other factors continue unchanged. There is now twice as
great a demand for each piece, it becomes more desirable and will
purchase more goods. Prices, that is to say, go down. Dollar potatoes
now sell for fifty cents. The debtor farmer must grow twice as many
potatoes as he had contemplated; the creditor finds that he receives
money that has doubled in purchasing power.
It has already been said that the quarter century after the war was, in
the main, a period of falling prices. The farmer found the size of his
mortgage, as measured in bushels of wheat and potatoes, growing
steadily and relentlessly greater. The creditor received a return which
purchased larger and larger quantities of commodities. The debtor class
was mainly in the West; the creditors, mainly in the East. The
westerners desired a larger quantity of money which would, as they
believed, send prices upward; the East, depending upon similar
reasoning, desired a contraction in supply. The former were called
inflationists; the latter, contractionists. Much of the monetary
history of the country after the Civil War was concerned with the
attempt of the inflationists to expand the supply of currency, and the
contractionists to prevent inflation.
The intellectual background of the twenty-five years after the war, so
far as it can be considered at this point, was to be found mainly in
the development of education and the growth of the newspaper and
periodical. Before the Civil War, except in the South, the old-time
district school had given way, in most states, to graded elementary
schools, supported by taxation. After the war the southern states made
heroic efforts to revive education, in which they were aided by such
northern benefactions as the Peabody Educational Fund of $2,000,000
established in 1867. In the northern states the schools were greatly
improved, free text-books became the rule, the free public high-schools
replaced the former private academies, and normal schools for the
training of teachers were established. The period was also marked by
the foundation of scores of colleges and especially of the great state
universities. The Morrill Act of July 2, 1862, had provided for a grant
to each state of 30,000 acres of public land for every senator and
representative in Congress to which the state was entitled. The land
was to be used to promote education in the agricultural and mechanic
arts, and in the natural sciences. The advantages of the law were
quickly seen, and between 1865 and 1890 seventeen state universities
were started, most of them in the Middle and Far West. Many of these
underwent a phenomenal growth and had a great influence on the states
in which they were established.
The newspaper press was also undergoing a transformation in the quarter
century after the war. The great expansion of the numbers and influence
of American newspapers before and during that struggle had been due to
the ability of individuals. James Gordon Bennett had founded the New
York _Herald_, for example, in 1835, and from then on the _Herald_ had
been "Bennett's paper." Similarly the _Tribune_ had represented Horace
Greeley and the _Times_, Henry J. Raymond. The effect of the war was to
develop technical resources in gathering news, to necessitate a larger
scale of expenditure and a wider range of information, and to make a
given issue the work of many men instead of one. Raymond died in 1869,
Greeley and Bennett in 1872; and although the _Sun_ was the embodiment
of Charles A. Dana until his death in 1897, the _Nation_ and the
_Evening Post_ of Edwin L. Godkin until 1899, nevertheless the tendency
was away from the newspaper which reflected an individual and toward
that which represented a group; away from the editorial which expressed
the views of a well-known writer, to the editorial page which combined
the labors of many anonymous contributors. The financial basis of the
newspaper also underwent a transition. As advertising became more and
more general, the revenues of newspapers tended to depend more on the
favor of the advertiser than upon the subscriber, giving the former a
powerful although indirect influence on editorial policies.
The influence of the press in politics was rapidly growing. A larger
number of newspapers became sufficiently independent to attack abuses
in both parties. The New York _Times_ and Thomas Nast's cartoons in
_Harper's Weekly_ were most important factors in the overthrow of the
Tweed Ring in New York City, and in the elections of 1884 and later,
newspapers exerted an unusual power. Press associations in New York and
the West led the way to the Associated Press, with its wide-spread
cooperative resources for gathering news.
As important as the character of the press, was the amount and
distribution of its circulation. Between 1870 and 1890 the number of
newspapers published and the aggregate circulation increased almost
exactly threefold--about five times as fast as the population was
growing. In the latter year the entire circulation for the country was
over four and a half billion copies, of which about sixty per cent.
were dailies. So great had been the growth of the press during the
seventies that the census authorities in 1880 made a careful study of
the statistical aspects of the subject. It appeared from this search
that newspapers were published in 2,073 of the 2,605 counties in the
Union. Without some such means of spreading information, it would have
been impossible to conduct the great presidential campaigns, in which
the entire country was educated in the tariff and other important
issues.
The expansion of the press is well exemplified by the use of the
telegraph in the spread of information. When Lincoln was nominated for
the presidency in 1860, a single telegraph operator was able to send
out all the press matter supplied to him. In 1892 at the Democratic
convention, the Western Union Telegraph Company had one hundred
operators in the hall. Mechanical invention, meanwhile, was able to
keep pace with the demand for news. The first Hoe press of 1847 had
been so improved by 1871 that it printed ten to twelve thousand
eight-page papers in an hour, and twenty-five years later the capacity
had been increased between six and sevenfold.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Nearly all material on party history is so partisan that it should be
read with critical scepticism: Francis Curtis, _The Republican Party,
1854-1904_ (2 vols., 1904); J.D. Long, _Republican Party_ (1888); for
the Independent attitude, consult _Harper's Weekly_ during the campaign
of 1884. As the Republicans were in power most of the time from
1865-1913, there is more biographical and autobiographical material
about Republicans than about Democratic leaders. Local studies of
political conditions and the social structure of the parties are almost
entirely lacking. On the personal side, the following are essential:
G.F. Parker, _Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland_ (1892); T.E.
Burton, _John Sherman_ (1906); J.B. Foraker, _Notes of a Busy Life_ (2
vols., 1916), throws light on the ideals and practices of a politician;
G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_ (2 vols., 1903), gives the
New England Republican point of view; Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of
E.L. Godkin_ (2 vols., 1907); G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover
Cleveland_ (1909), is useful, but sketchy, there being as yet no
thorough biography of Cleveland; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910),
interestingly portrays the philosophy of a machine politician, but
should be read with care; John Sherman, _Recollections of Forty Years
in House, Senate and Cabinet_ (2 vols., 1895); Edward Stanwood, _James
G. Blaine_ (1905), is highly favorable to Blaine; W.M. Stewart,
_Reminiscences_ (1908), is interesting, partisan and unreliable. For a
general estimate of the autobiographical material of the period,
consult _History Teachers' Magazine_ (later the _Historical Outlook_),
"Recent American History Through the Actors' Eyes," March, 1916.
Jesse Macy, _Party Organisation and Machinery_ (1904); M.G.
Ostrogorski, _Democracy and Political Parties_ (2 vols., 1902), gives a
keen and pessimistic account of American political practices in vol.
II; J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems in the United
States_ (1903, and later editions) gives a succinct account in good
temper.
For the Fourteenth Amendment: C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of
Judicial Supremacy_ (1914); C.W. Collins, _The Fourteenth Amendment and
the States_ (1912), is a careful study, which is critical of the
prevailing later interpretation of the Amendment. The Slaughter House
case, giving the earlier interpretation is in J.W. Wallace, _Cases
argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_ (Supreme Court Reports), XVI,
36.
L.H. Haney, _History of Economic Thought_ (1911), on _laissez faire_;
J.L. Laughlin, _Principles of Money_ (1903); and Irving Fisher, _Why is
the Dollar Shrinking_ (1914), present two sides of the quantity theory
of money.
Most useful on the development of education are F.P. Graves, _A History
of Education in Modern Times_ (1913); and E.G. Dexter, _History of
Education in the United States_ (1904).
The growth of newspapers is described in _The Bookman_, XIV, 567-584,
XV, 26-44; see also Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of Godkin_, already
mentioned; G.H. Payne, _History of Journalism in the United States_
(1920); J.M. Lee, _History of American Journalism_ (1917). The effects
of education and the press on American social, economic and political
life have not been subjected to thorough study.
* * * * *
[1] _Addresses on Government and Citizenship_, 202.
[2] In practice, new elements do enter into the situation so that the
theory requires much qualification. Cf. Taussig, _Principles of
Economics_ (1915), I, ch. 18.