Local and national political corruption in the 19 th century led to calls for reform, as economic depression, racial strife, and labor conflicts ravage.

Local and national political corruption in the 19th century led to calls for reform, as

economic depression, racial strife, and labor conflicts ravage the nation.

Chapter 23 –Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age

(1869-1896)

The Blood Shirt Elects Grant

The Republicans nominated Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant, a great soldier but an inept politician.

The Republicans got Grant elected (barely) by “waving the bloody shirt,” or reliving his war victories

The Era of Good Stealings

Politics became corrupt during this time Railroad promoters, stock market investors, corrupt politicians and

judges plague the nationThe infamous Tweed Ring (AKA, “Tammany Hall") of NYC,

headed by “Boss” Tweed, employed bribery, graft, and fake elections to cheat the city of as much as $200 million. Political machine: a party organization, headed by a single boss or

small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state.

Samuel J. Tilden gained fame by leading the prosecution of Tweed, and he would later use this fame to become the Democratic nominee in the presidential election of 1876

Thomas Nast, political cartoonist, constantly drew against Tammany’s corruption.

Thomas Nast at his Desk (1880)

While modern readers intrinsically link newspapers and political cartoons, the use of cartoons in the American media was minimal until Thomas Nast popularized them in the 1860s and 1870s. Known today as the father of American political cartoons, Nast gained fame as a cartoonist for Harper’s Magazine. Today he is best remembered for his cartoons about Boss Tweed and the Tammany Ring.

William “Boss” Tweed (1869)

Tammany Hall was a New York City political organization that originated in the late 18th century. It became the Democratic Party’s political “machine” and thus controlled the party’s nominations. William M. Tweed, more commonly known as Boss Tweed, was a New York politician who became Tammany’s leader in the late 1860’s. As the party’s boss, he was able to appoint several city officials and essentially controlled the city government. As a result, he had access to an enormous amount of public money, which he used to enrich himself and his closest friends and allies through a variety of money laundering and profit sharing operations. It is estimated that he defrauded the city out of anywhere from $30 million to $200 million dollars (equivalent to $365 million to $2.4 billion today). Tweed was finally caught when The New York Times secured evidence of his misdeeds, and later died in jail.

A Carnival of Corruption

Grant naively failed to see the corruption going on, even though many of his friends wanted offices and his cabinet was totally corrupt

The Credit Mobilier scandal tarred Grant a railroad construction company that paid itself huge

sums of money for small railroad construction A New York newspaper finally busted it, and two

members of Congress were formally censured and the Vice President himself was shown to have accepted 20 shares of stock

Depression, Deflation, and Inflation

In 1873, a paralyzing panic broke out, the Panic of 1873, caused by too many railroads and factories being formed than existing markets could bear and the over-loaning by banks to those projects

Causes of the panic (same that caused recessions every 20 years that century): (1) over-speculation and (2) too-easy credit

It first started with the failure of the New York banking firm Jay Cooke & Company, which was headed by the rich Jay Cooke, a financier of the Civil War.

Pallid Politics in the Gilded Age

“The Gilded Age”: a sarcastic term for the 30 yrs. following the Civil War coined by Mark Twain hinting that times looked good, yet if

one scratched a bit below the surface, there were problems Corruption, close presidential elections,

Lifeblood of both parties was patronage: handing out jobs in return for votes and money

Republicans divided into two camps Stalwarts: those who were stalwarts (in favor of keeping) for

patronage Half-Breeds: Stalwarts called them this implying they were

half Democratic

The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction

Republican unknown Rutherford B. Hayes faced off against Democrat Samuel Tilden in a disputed election

Hayes becomes the 19th President due to the Compromise of 1877 Hayes would become president if he agreed to remove troops

from the remaining two Southern states where Union troops remained (Louisiana and South Carolina)

For the South—military rule and Reconstruction ended when the military pulled out of the South

The compromise abandoned the Blacks in the South by withdrawing troops

A last ditch Civil Rights Act of 1875 (guaranteeing equal accommodations in public places and prohibiting racial discrimination on juries) had no effect on the South.

The Birth of Jim Crow

As Reconstruction ended, whites re-asserted their power Blacks forced into sharecropping system: blacks rented land from a

plantation owner in exchange for a share of each year’s crop Landowners manipulated this system to keep tenants in debt and unable to leave

Legal codes of segregation enacted in the South known as Jim Crow laws Voting discrimination laws enacted

Literacy tests for voting Voter registration laws Poll taxes Violent intimidation of black voters tolerated

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional But in reality, African American life was entirely unequal (inferior schools, theaters, restrooms)

Southern whites dealt harshly with any black who dare to violate Jim Crow laws

Generally, this system of economic and political structure of the post-Reconstruction South became known as the New South

Origin of “Jim Crow” term

The term Jim Crow is believed to have originated around 1830 when a white, minstrel show performer, Thomas "Daddy" Rice, blackened his face with charcoal paste or burnt cork and danced a ridiculous jig while singing the lyrics to the song, "Jump Jim Crow." Rice created this character after seeing (while traveling in the South) a crippled, elderly black man (or some say a young black boy) dancing and singing a song ending with these chorus words:

"Weel about and turn about and do jis so,

Eb'ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow."

Some historians believe that a Mr. Crow owned the slave who inspired Rice's act--thus the reason for the Jim Crow term in the lyrics. In any case, Rice incorporated the skit into his minstrel act, and by the 1850s the "Jim Crow" character had become a standard part of the minstrel show scene in America.

GAYS: HTTP: / /WWW.THEDAILYBEAST.COM/ARTICLES/2014/02 /13 /ANTI-GAY-J IM-CROW-COMES-TO -KANSAS.HTML

BLACKS AND PRISONSHTTP: / /THECOLBERTREPORT.CC.COM/VIDEOS/AD10BN/MICHELLE-ALEXANDER

Modern Jim Crow?

Class Conflict and Ethnic Clashes

1877 Great Railroad Strike After railroads decide to cut wages, workers across the country

organized massive strikes Courts, armed forces, police all side with Big Biz over labor Hayes called in federal troops, leading to over 100 dead

The failure of the railroad strike exposed the weakness of the labor movement

Racial divisions among workers (mostly between Irish and Chinese) derailed labor movement In San Francisco, Irish-born Denis Kearney incited his followers to

terrorize the ChineseChinese Exclusion Act (1882): barred any Chinese from

entering the United States

Anti-Chinese discrimination

Dennis Kearney attacks the Chinese (1878):

To add to our misery and despair, a bloated aristocracy has sent to China—the greatest and oldest despotism in the world—for a cheap working slave. It rakes the slums of Asia to find the meanest slave on earth—the Chinese coolie—and imports him here to meet the free American in the Labor market, and still further widen the breach between the rich and the poor, still further to degrade white Labor.

. These cheap slaves fill every place. Their dress is scant and cheap. Their food is rice from China. They hedge twenty in a room, ten by ten. They are wipped curs, abject in docility, mean, contemptible and obedient in all things. They have no wives, children or dependents.

We shall meet fraud and falsehood with defiance, and force with force, if need be. And we have resolved that they shall not defeat us. We shall arm California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so.

Garfield, Arthur, and Cleveland

1880, Repubs nominated James A. Garfield for Prez and stalwart Chester A. Arthur for VP

Garfield assassinated Prez Arthur and Repubs surprisingly begin to call for

reformPendleton Act (1883): civil service reform to make gov’t

jobs based on merit The patronage era was over However, politicians had to look elsewhere for $: Big Biz

Democrat Grover Cleveland wins 1884 prez electionCleveland was a fan of Big Biz due to his preference for

laissez-faire: a policy of government “hands off” the economy

President Garfield assassinated

Among the followers of the Stalwarts was Charles Julius Guiteau, born about 1840. He blamed his failure to get a government post of Garfield.

On July 2, 1881, he lay in wait for Garfield at a railroad station in Washington and shot him, screaming, “I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts, and now Chet Arthur is president”!

Garfield was not killed outright, but lingered on in pain. Bell, the inventor of the telephone, devised a metal-locating instrument to find the bullet in the president’s body. The device was a workable one but was frustrated on this occasion because no one thought of removing the steel-springed mattress, the metal of which interfered with the search.

On September 19, Garfield died, having been president for six and a half months. Only William Henry Harrison, forty years earlier, had held the post more briefly.

The assassination of Garfield ruined the respectability of the patronage system forever.

President Grover Cleveland

Between good food and good beer, Cleveland had grown to 260 pounds and, although a bachelor, he indulged in female company. It turned out that one such indulgence had resulted in an illegitimate child whom he was supporting. When the story broke during the campaign, his followers asked him what to do. “Tell the truth” he said, and there was no attempt at a denial.

The result was the derisive Republican chant:

Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?

Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!

The Drumbeat of Discontent

The Populist Party emerged in 1892 from disgruntled farmers Denounce government injustice Graduated income tax Government regulation of railroads and telegraphs/telephones Direct elections of U.S. senators Shorter workdays Immigration restrictions

Homestead Strike (1892) A string of nation-wide strikes culminate at Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead

Steal plant near Pittsburgh. Carnegie calls in Pinkerton detectives to break the strike protesting wage cuts. 10 dead, 60 wounded Federal troops called, the strike AND the union broken…WHO does the

government back during the Gilded Age?: Labor or Biz? Why? Trend? Labor movement hampered by racial divisions

Prez Cleveland and Depression

Cleveland = the only Prez ever reelected after defeatDepression of 1893 hits (worst of 20th cent.); trend of 20

year panics continue Causes: overbuilding, speculation, labor disputes, credit panic

Bankers (headed by J.P. Morgan) agree to lend the government $65 million in gold

Populists decried this close relationship of Wall Street with the government

Federal income tax struck down by the Supreme CourtGrant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison, and Cleveland often

referred to as the “forgettable presidents”. This era can be seen as a division between anti-Biz,

pro-labor/farmer populists AND the Big Biz politics of the Gilded Age