While President and Congress were passing the time in mutual
obstruction, the public discontents were becoming hot and bitter to
a degree unknown before. A marked feature of the situation was the
disturbance of public convenience involving loss, trouble, and distress
which were vast in extent but not easily expressed in statistical form.
The first three months of 1886 saw an outbreak of labor troubles far
beyond any previous record in their variety and extent. In 1885, the
number of strikes reported was 645 affecting 2284 establishments, a
marked increase over preceding years. In 1886, the number of strikes
rose to 1411, affecting 9861 establishments and directly involving
499,489 persons. The most numerous strikes were in the building trades,
but there were severe struggles in many other industries. There was, for
example, an interruption of business on the New York elevated railway
and on the street railways of New York, Brooklyn, and other cities.
But the greatest public anxiety was caused by the behavior of the
Knights of Labor, an organization then growing so rapidly that it gave
promise of uniting under one control the active and energetic elements
of the working classes of the country. It started in a humble way, in
December, 1869, among certain garment cutters in Philadelphia, and for
some years spread slowly from that center. The organization remained
strictly secret until 1878, in which year it held a national convention
of its fifteen district assemblies at Reading, Pennsylvania. The object
and principles of the order were now made public and, thereafter, it
spread with startling rapidity, so that in 1886 it pitted its strength
against public authority with a membership estimated at from, 500,000
to 800,000. Had this body been an army obedient to its leaders, it
would have wielded great power; but it turned out to be only a mob. Its
members took part in demonstrations which were as much mutinies against
the authority of their own executive board as they were strikes against
their employers. The result of lack of organization soon began to be
evident. In March 1886, the receiver of the Texas Pacific Railroad
discharged an employee prominent in the Knights of Labor and thus
precipitated a strike which was promptly extended to the Missouri
Pacific. There were riots at various points in Missouri and Kansas, and
railroad traffic at St. Louis was completely suspended for some days,
but the strike was eventually broken. The Knights of Labor, however,
had received a blow from which it never recovered, and as a result its
membership declined. The order has since been almost wholly superseded
by the American Federation of Labor, established in 1886 through shrewd
management by an association of labor unions which had been maintained
since 1881. The Knights had been organized by localities with the aim of
merging all classes of working men into one body. The Federation, on
the other hand, is composed of trades unions retaining their autonomy--a
principle of organization which has proved to be more solid and durable.
To these signs of popular discontent the Government could not be blind.
A congressional committee investigated the railroad strikes, and both
parties in Congress busied themselves with labor legislation. But in
spite of this apparent willingness to cope with the situation, there now
followed another display of those cross purposes which occurred so often
during the Cleveland administration. The House had already passed a
bill providing means of submitting to arbitration controversies between
railroads engaged in interstate commerce and their employees. President
Cleveland now sent a special message recommending that "instead of
arbitrators chosen in the heat of conflicting claims and after each
dispute shall arise, there be created a Commission of Labor, consisting
of three members, who shall be regular officers of the government,
charged among other duties with the consideration and settlement when
possible, of all controversies between labor and capital." In spite of
the urgency of the situation, the Senate seized this occasion for a new
display of party tactics, and it allowed the bill already passed by the
House to lie without action while it proceeded to consider various labor
measures of its own. For example, by June 1, 1886, the Senate had
passed a bill providing that eight hours should be a day's work for
letter-carriers; soon afterwards, it passed a bill legalizing the
incorporation of national trades unions, to which the House promptly
assented without a division; and the House then continued its labor
record by passing on the 15th of July a bill against the importation of
contract labor. This last bill was not passed by the Senate until after
the fall elections. It was approved by the President on February 23,
1887.
The Senate also delayed action on the House bill, which proposed
arbitration in labor disputes, until the close of the session; and
then the President, in view of his disregarded suggestion, withheld
his assent. It was not until the following year that the legislation
recommended by the President was enacted. By the Act of June 13, 1888,
the Department of Labor was established, and by the Act of October
1, 1888, in addition to provision for voluntary arbitration between
railroad corporations and their employees, the President was authorized
to appoint a commission to investigate labor conflicts, with power to
act as a board of conciliation. During the ten years in which the act
remained on the statute books, it was actually put to use only in 1894,
when a commission was appointed to investigate the Pullman strike at
Chicago, but this body took no action towards settling the dispute.
Thus far, then, the efforts of the Government to deal with the labor
problem had not been entirely successful. It is true that the labor
conflicts arose over differences which only indirectly involved
constitutional questions. The aims of both the Knights of Labor and of
the American Federation were primarily economic and both organizations
were opposed to agitation of a distinctively political character. But
parallel with the labor agitation, and in communication with it, there
were radical reform movements of a type unknown before. There was now to
arise a socialistic movement opposed to traditional constitutionalism,
and therefore viewed with alarm in many parts of the country. Veneration
of the Constitution of 1787 was practically a national sentiment which
had lasted from the time the Union was successfully established until
the Cleveland era. However violent political differences in regard to
public policy might be, it was the invariable rule that proposals must
claim a constitutional sanction. In the Civil War, both sides felt
themselves to be fighting in defense of the traditional Constitution.
The appeal to antiquity--even such a moderate degree of antiquity as
may be claimed for American institutions--has always been the staple
argument in American political controversy. The views and intentions
of the Fathers of the Constitution are exhibited not so much
for instruction as for imitation, and by means of glosses and
interpretations conclusions may be reached which would have surprised
the Fathers to whom they are imputed. Those who examine the records of
the formative period of American institutions, not to obtain material
for a case but simply to ascertain the facts, will readily observe that
what is known as the principle of strict construction dates only from
the organization of national parties under the Constitution. It was an
invention of the opposition to Federalist rule and was not held by the
makers of the Constitution themselves. The main concern of the framers
was to get power for the National Government, and they went as far as
they could with such success that striking instances may be culled from
the writings of the Fathers showing that the scope they contemplated has
yet to be attained. Strict construction affords a short and easy way
of avoiding troublesome issues--always involved in unforeseen national
developments--by substituting the question of constitutional power for a
question of public propriety. But this method has the disadvantage,
that it belittles the Constitution by making it an obstacle to progress.
Running through much political controversy in the United States is the
argument that, even granting that a proposal has all the merit claimed
for it, nevertheless it cannot be adopted because the Constitution is
against it. By strict logical inference the rejoinder then comes
that, if so, the Constitution is no longer an instrument of national
advantage. The traditional attachment of the American people to the
Constitution has indeed been so strong that they have been loath to
accept the inference that the Constitution is out of date, although the
quality of legislation at Washington kept persistently suggesting that
view of the case.
The failures and disappointments resulting from the series of national
elections from 1874 to 1884, at last, made an opening for party
movements voicing the popular discontent and openly antagonistic to
the traditional Constitution. The Socialist Labor party held its first
national convention in 1877. Its membership was mostly foreign; of
twenty-four periodical publications then carried on in the party
interest, only eight were in the English language; and this polyglot
press gave justification to the remark that the movement was in the
hands of people who proposed to remodel the institutions of the country
before they had acquired its language. The alien origin of the movement
was emphasized by the appearance of two Socialist members of the German
Reichstag, who made a tour of this country in 1881 to stir up interest
in the cause. It was soon apparent that the growth of the Socialist
party organization was hindered by the fact that its methods were too
studious and its discussions too abstract to suit the energetic temper
of the times. Many Socialists broke away to join revolutionary clubs
which were now organized in a number of cities without any clearly
defined principle save to fight the existing system of government.
At this critical moment in the process of social disorganization, the
influence of foreign destructive thought made itself felt. The
arrival of Johann Most from Europe, in the fall of 1882, supplied this
revolutionary movement with a leader who made anarchy its principle.
Originally a German Socialist aiming to make the State the sole landlord
and capitalist, he had gone over to anarchism and proposed to dissolve
the State altogether, trusting to voluntary association to supply
all genuine social needs. Driven from Germany, he had taken refuge in
England, but even the habitual British tolerance had given way under
his praise of the assassination of the Czar Alexander in 1881 and his
proposal to treat other rulers in the same way. He had just completed
a term of imprisonment before coming to the United States. Here, he was
received as a hero; a great mass meeting in his honor was held in Cooper
Union, New York, in December, 1882; and when he toured the country he
everywhere addressed large meetings.
In October 1883, a convention of social revolutionists and anarchists
was held in Chicago, at which a national organization was formed called
the International Working People's Association. The new organization
grew much faster than the Socialist party itself, which now almost
disappeared. Two years later, the International had a party press
consisting of seven German, two Bohemian, and only two English papers.
Like the Socialist party, it was, therefore, mainly foreign in its
membership. It was strongest in and about Chicago, where it included
twenty groups with three thousand enrolled members. The anarchist
papers exhorted their adherents to provide themselves with arms and even
published instructions for the use of dynamite.
Political and industrial conditions thus supplied material for an
explosion which came with shocking violence. On May 4, 1885, towards the
close of an anarchist meeting held in Chicago, a dynamite bomb thrown
among a force of policemen killed one and wounded many. Fire was at
once opened on both sides, and, although the battle lasted only a few
minutes, seven policemen were killed and about sixty wounded; while
on the side of the anarchists, four were killed and about fifty were
wounded. Ten of the anarchist leaders were promptly indicted, of whom
one made his escape and another turned State's evidence. The trial of
the remaining eight began on June 21, 1886, and two months later the
death sentence was imposed upon seven and a penitentiary term of fifteen
years upon one. The sentences of two of the seven were commuted to life
imprisonment; one committed suicide in his cell by exploding a cartridge
in his mouth; and four met death on the scaffold. While awaiting
their fate they were to a startling extent regarded as heroes and
bore themselves as martyrs to a noble cause. Six years later, Illinois
elected as governor John P. Altgeld, one of whose first steps was to
issue a pardon to the three who were serving terms of imprisonment and
to criticize sharply the conduct of the trial which had resulted in the
conviction of the anarchists.
The Chicago outbreak and its result stopped the open spread of
anarchism. Organized labor now withdrew from any sort of association
with it. This cleared the field for a revival of the Socialist movement
as the agency of social and political reconstruction. So rapidly did
it gain in membership and influence that by 1892 it was able to present
itself as an organized national party appealing to public opinion for
confidence and support, submitting its claims to public discussion, and
stating its case upon reasonable grounds. Although its membership was
small in comparison with that of the old parties, the disparity was
not so great as it seemed, since the Socialists represented active
intelligence while the other parties represented political inertia. From
this time on, Socialist views spread among college students, artists,
and men of letters, and the academic Socialist became a familiar figure
in American society.
Probably more significant than the Socialist movement, as an indication
of the popular demand for radical reform in the government of the
country, was the New York campaign of Henry George in 1886. He was a San
Francisco printer and journalist when he published the work on "Progress
and Poverty" which made him famous. Upon the petition of over thirty
thousand citizens, he became the Labor candidate for mayor of New York
City. The movement in support of George developed so much strength that
the regular parties felt compelled to put forward exceptionally strong
candidates. The Democrats nominated Abram S. Hewitt, a man of the
highest type of character, a fact which was not perhaps so influential
in getting him the nomination as that he was the son-in-law of Peter
Cooper, a philanthropist justly beloved by the working classes. The
Republicans nominated Theodore Roosevelt, who had already distinguished
himself by his energy of character and zeal for reform. Hewitt was
elected, but George received 68,110 votes out of a total of 219,679, and
stood second in the poll. His supporters contended that he had really
been elected but had been counted out, and this belief turned their
attention to the subject of ballot reform. To the agitation which
Henry George began, may be fairly ascribed the general adoption of the
Australian ballot in the United States.
The Socialist propaganda carried on in large cities and in factory towns
hardly touched the great mass of the people of the United States, who
belonged to the farm rather than to the workshop. The great agricultural
class, which had more weight at the polls than any other class of
citizens, was much interested in the redress of particular grievances
and very little in any general reform of the governmental system. It
is a class that is conservative in disposition but distrustful of
authority, impatient of what is theoretical and abstract, and bent upon
the quick practical solution of problems by the nearest and simplest
means. While the Socialists in the towns were interested in labor
questions, the farmers more than any other class were affected by the
defective system of currency supply. The national banking system had not
been devised to meet industrial needs but as a war measure to provide
a market for government bonds, deposits of which had to be made as the
basis of note issues. As holdings of government bonds were amassed in
the East, financial operations tended to confine themselves to that
part of the country, and banking facilities seemed to be in danger
of becoming a sectional monopoly, and such, indeed, was the case to a
marked extent. This situation inspired among the farmers, especially
in the agricultural West, a hatred of Wall Street and a belief in the
existence of a malign money power which provided an inexhaustible fund
of sectional feeling for demagogic exploitation.
For lack of proper machinery of credit for carrying on the process of
exchange, there seemed to be an absolute shortage in the amount of money
in circulation, and it was this circumstance that had given such force
to the Greenback Movement. Although that movement was defeated, its
supporters urged that, if the Government could not supply additional
note issues, it should at least permit an increase in the stock of
coined money. This feeling was so strong that as early as 1877 the House
had passed a bill for the free coinage of silver. For this, the
Senate substituted a measure requiring the purchase and coinage by the
Government of from two to four million dollars' worth of silver monthly,
and this compromise was accepted by the House. As a result, in February,
1878, it was passed over President Hayes's veto.
The operation of this act naturally tended to cause the hoarding of
gold as the cheaper silver was equally a legal tender, and meanwhile the
silver dollars did not tend to pass into circulation. In 1885, in his
first annual message to Congress, President Cleveland mentioned the fact
that, although 215,759,431 silver dollars had been coined, only about
fifty million had found their way into circulation, and that "every
month two millions of gold in the public Treasury are paid out for two
millions or more of silver dollars to be added to the idle mass already
accumulated." The process was draining the stock of gold in the Treasury
and forcing the country to a silver basis without really increasing
the amount of money in actual circulation or removing any of the
difficulties in the way of obtaining supplies of currency for business
transactions. President Cleveland recommended the repeal of the Silver
Coinage Act, but he had no plan to offer by which the genuine complaints
of the people against the existing monetary system could be removed.
Free silver thus was allowed to stand before the people as the only
practical proposal for their relief, and upon this issue a conflict soon
began between Congress and the Administration.
At a convention of the American Bankers' Association in September, 1885,
a New York bank president described the methods by which the Treasury
Department was restricting the operation of the Silver Coinage Act so
as to avoid a displacement of the gold standard. On February 3, 1886,
Chairman Bland of the House committee on coinage reported a resolution
reciting statements made in that address, and calling upon the Secretary
of the Treasury for a detailed account of his administration of the
Silver Coinage Act. Secretary Manning's reply was a long and weighty
argument against continuing the coinage of silver. He contended that
there was no hope of maintaining a fixed ratio between gold and silver
except by international concert of action, but "the step is one which
no European nation... will consent to take while the direct or
indirect substitution of European silver for United States gold seems a
possibility." While strong as to what not to do, his reply, like most of
the state papers of this period, was weak as to what to do and how to do
it. The outlook of the Secretary of the Treasury was so narrow that he
was led to remark that "a delusion has spread that the Government has
authority to fix the amount of the people's currency, and the power,
and the duty." The Government certainly has the power and the duty of
providing adequate currency supply through a sound banking system. The
instinct of the people on that point was sounder than the view of their
rulers.
Secretary Manning's plea had so little effect that the House promptly
voted to suspend the rules in order to make a free coinage bill the
special order of business until it was disposed of. But the influence of
the Administration was strong enough to defeat the bill when it came
to a vote. Though for a time, the legislative advance of the silver
movement was successfully resisted, the Treasury Department was left in
a difficult situation, and the expedients to which it resorted to guard
the gold supply added to the troubles of the people in the matter of
obtaining currency. The quick way of getting gold from the Treasury was
to present legal tender notes for redemption. To keep this process in
check, legal tender notes were impounded as they came in, and silver
certificates were substituted in disbursements. But under the law of
1878, silver certificates could not be issued in denominations of less
than ten dollars. A scarcity of small notes resulted, which oppressed
retail trade until, in August, 1886, Congress authorized the issue of
silver certificates in one and two and five dollar bills.
A more difficult problem was presented by the Treasury surplus which, by
old regulations savoring more of barbarism than of civilized polity, had
to be kept idle in the Treasury vaults. The only apparent means by which
the Secretary of the Treasury could return his surplus funds to the
channels of trade was by redeeming government bonds; but as these were
the basis of bank note issues, the effect of any such action was to
produce a sharp contraction in this class of currency. Between 1882
and 1889, national bank notes declined in amount from $356,060,348
to $199,779,011. In the same period, the issue of silver certificates
increased from $63,204,780 to $276,619,715, and the total amount
of currency of all sorts nominally increased from $1,188,752,363 to
$1,405,018,000; but of this, $375,947,715 was in gold coin which was
being hoarded, and national bank notes were almost equally scarce since
they were virtually government bonds in a liquid form.
As the inefficiency of the monetary system came home to the people
in practical experience, it seemed as if they were being plagued and
inconvenienced in every possible way. The conditions were just such as
would spread disaffection among the farmers, and their discontent sought
an outlet. The growth of political agitation in the agricultural
class, accompanied by a thorough-going disapproval of existing party
leadership, gave rise to numerous new party movements. Delegates
from the Agricultural Wheel, the Corn-Planters, the Anti-Monopolists,
Farmers' Alliance, and Grangers, attended a convention in February,
1887, and joined the Knights of Labor and the Greenbackers to form the
United Labor party. In the country, at this time, there were numerous
other labor parties of local origin and composition, with trade
unionists predominating in some places and Socialists in others.
Very early, however, these parties showed a tendency to division that
indicated a clash of incompatible elements. Single taxers, greenbackers,
labor leaders, grangers, and socialists were agreed only in condemning
existing public policy. When they came to consider the question of what
new policy should be adopted, they immediately manifested irreconcilable
differences. In 1888, rival national conventions were held in
Cincinnati, one designating itself as the Union Labor party, the other
as the United Labor party. One made a schedule of particular demands;
the other insisted on the single tax as the consummation of their
purpose in seeking reform. Both put presidential tickets in the field,
but of the two, the Union Labor party made by far the better showing at
the polls though, even so, it polled fewer votes than did the National
Prohibition party. Although making no very considerable showing at the
polls, these new movements were very significant as evidences of popular
unrest. The fact that the heaviest vote of the Union Labor party was
polled in the agricultural States of Kansas, Missouri, and Texas, was a
portent of the sweep of the populist movement which virtually captured
the Democratic party organization during President Cleveland's second
term.
The withdrawal of Blaine from the list of presidential candidates in
1888 left the Republican Convention at Chicago to choose from a score
of "favorite sons." Even his repeated statement that he would not accept
the nomination did not prevent his enthusiastic followers from hoping
that the convention might be "stampeded." But on the first ballot,
Blaine received only thirty-five votes while John Sherman led with 229.
It was anybody's race until the eighth ballot, when General Benjamin
Harrison, grandson of "Tippecanoe," suddenly forged ahead and received
the nomination.
The defeat of the Democratic party at the polls in the presidential
election of 1888 was less emphatic than might have been expected from
its sorry record. Indeed, it is quite possible that an indiscretion in
which Lord Sackville-West, the British Ambassador, was caught may have
turned the scale. An adroitly worded letter was sent to him, purporting
to come from Charles Murchison, a California voter of English birth,
asking confidential advice which might enable the writer "to assure many
of our countrymen that they would do England a service by voting
for Cleveland and against the Republican system of tariff." With an
astonishing lack of astuteness, the British minister fell into the trap
and sent a reply which, while noncommittal on particulars, exhibited
friendly interest in the reelection of President Cleveland. This
correspondence, when published late in the campaign, caused the
Administration to demand his recall. A spirited statement of the case
was laid before the public by Thomas Francis Bayard, Secretary of State,
a few days before the election, but this was not enough to undo the harm
that had been done, and the Murchison letter takes rank with the Morey
letter attributed to General Garfield as specimens of the value of the
campaign lie as a weapon in American party politics.
President Cleveland received a slight plurality in the total popular
vote; but by small pluralities Harrison carried the big States, thus
obtaining a heavy majority in the electoral vote. At the same time,
the Republicans obtained nearly as large a majority in the House as the
Democrats had had before.