Chapter 23
Ulysses S. Grant
~Republican
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)
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Civil War general and eighteenth president of the United States.
Grant's postwar career was decidedly anticlimactic
he was elected as a Republican to two terms as president (18691877), but his administrations were marred by indecisive
leadership, an inconsistent policy on southern Reconstruction, and
massive corruption.
Coupled with a severe economic depression that began in 1873,
administration scandals cost Grant much of his popularity.
Nonetheless, his presidency did have some solid accomplishments:
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The Treaty of Washington in 1872 resolved a major dispute with Great
Britain over damages inflicted on American shipping by Confederate
raiders built in British shipyards during the Civil War.
The Enforcement Acts of 1870-1871 broke the power of the Ku Klux Klan in
the Reconstruction South
Civil Rights Act of 1875 marked an unprecedented attempt to extend
federal protection of black civil rights to areas of public accommodations.
Continued…
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After returning to the United States from a world
tour in the late 1870s, Grant went bankrupt as a
result of foolish investments in the fraudulent
banking firm of Grant & Ward.
Though once again a failure in civilian life, Grant
did much to redeem his place in history by writing
his Personal Memoirs. Finished just before his
death from throat cancer in 1885, his memoirs
stand as one of the clearest and most powerful
military narratives ever written.
Corruption
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“Jubilee” Jim Fisk and Jay Gould
The Tweed Ring
Credit Mobilier Scandal
Whiskey Ring
William Belknap
George Washington Plunkitt
The Tweed Ring
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In the late 1860s, Boss William Marcy Tweed created a network of
city officials, Democratic party workers, and contractors in New York
City, which his critics dubbed the Tweed Ring. The network was a
notorious instance of municipal corruption.
After terms in the 1850s as city alderman and congressman, Tweed
was appointed a supervisor of city elections. He gained popularity
by supporting labor unions and the Roman Catholic church.
Tweed's associates in the state legislature secured a new city
charter that gave New York control of its budget and police. He
himself pushed for the overhaul of the city's infrastructure, funded
mostly by municipal bonds.
The city soon accumulated large debts while Tweed was making
money on kickbacks from contractors.
For example, he formed a printing company and saw that it
received all city printing contracts. Railroads and other corporations
found it worthwhile to pay the non-lawyer Tweed's "firm"
extravagant "retainers."
William M. "Boss"
Tweed
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A Harpers Weekly cartoon
depicts Tweed as a police
officer saying to two boys,
"If all the people want is to
have somebody arrested,
I'll have you plunderers
convicted. You will be
allowed to escape, nobody
will be hurt, and then
Tilden will go to the White
House and I to Albany as
Governor."
Continued…
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Tweed's power declined dramatically once the city's financial peril
became apparent. Cartoonist Thomas Nast of Harper's Weekly
weakened Tweed's popularity through his caricatures of the
politician; one depicted a large thumb crushing Manhattan.
The costs of building a lavish courthouse, which became known as
the Tweed Courthouse, aroused particular suspicion.
In 1871 Tweed was arrested and prosecuted for failing to audit
contractors' bills to the city for this building; his associates were not
charged. He was convicted for the misdemeanor but never
prosecuted for related felony charges; his sentence was one year.
The state of New York sued him in the Supreme Court of New York
County for over $6 million.
Faced with exorbitant bail and rulings that prevented an effective
defense in the suit, Tweed escaped from jail in 1875.
The next year, however, he was identified in Spain and arrested.
Returned to New York's Ludlow Street jail, he died before the suit
was tried
Bimetallism
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In economic history, monetary system in which two commodities, usually gold and silver,
were used as a standard and coined without limit at a ratio fixed by legislation that also
designated both of them as legally acceptable for all payments.
The term was first used in 1869 by Enrico Cernuschi (1821-96), an Italian-French
economist and a vigorous advocate of the system.
In a bimetallic system, the ratio is expressed in terms of weight, e.g., 16 oz of silver equal
1 oz of gold, which is described as a ratio of 16 to 1. As the ratio is determined by law, it
has no relation to the commercial value of the metals, which fluctuates constantly.
Gresham's law, therefore, applies; i.e., the metal that is commercially valued at less than
its face value tends to be used as money, and the metal commercially valued at more than
its face value tends to be used as metal, valued by weight, and hence is withdrawn from
circulation as money.
Working against that is the fact that the debtor tends to pay in the commercially cheaper
metal, thus creating a market demand likely to bring its commercial value up to its face
value.
In practice, the instability predicted by Gresham's law overpowered the cushioning effect of
debtors' payments, thereby making bimetallism far too unstable a monetary system for
most modern nations.
Aside from England, which in acts of 1798 and 1816 made gold the standard currency, all
countries practiced bimetallism during the late 18th cent. and most of the 19th cent.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-bimetall.html
Economics
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http://www.micheloud.com/FXM/MH/Bimeta
lintro.htm
http://www.reelclassics.com/Musicals/Wizoz/wizoz-credits.htm
The Wizard of Oz
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Since the 1960s historians and economists have explored the
bimetallism in The Wizard of Oz.
The original 1900 book centers on a yellow brick road (gold), traversed
by magical silver slippers
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the 1939 movie changed them to ruby slippers
As Dorothy leads a political coalition of farmers (Scarecrow),
Workers (Tin Woodman)
Politicians (Cowardly Lion)
To petition the President (Wizard)
In the capital city of Oz (the abbreviation for ounce, a common unit of
measure for precious metal).
The real enemy of the little people (Munchkins) is the giant corporation
or Trust (Wicked Witch of the West), whom Dorothy dissolves, just as
the progressives of the era tried to dissolve the corporate trusts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimetallism
The Greenback Party
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A political party that emerged around 1874. The party took its
name from the paper money issued during the Civil War.
Formed to address the problems of farmers and debtor
groups, the party argued that increasing the number of
greenbacks in circulation would cause farm prices to rise,
thus giving farmers more money to pay off their debts.
Perceived as the "party of the poor," it also appealed to some
labor groups.
The party faded and most of its members joined the Populist
Party.
The Gilded Age
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The period between 1865 and 1900
During this time of great, showy displays of
wealth, large fortunes were made as a
result of industrial expansion.
The name, a derogatory one, was derived
from the title of a novel by Mark Twain and
Charles Dudley Warner in 1873.
Hayes-Tilden Standoff
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In 1876 the Republican party nominated Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio for president
and William A. Wheeler of New York for vice president. The Democratic candidates
were Samuel J. Tilden of New York for president and Thomas A. Hendricks of
Indiana for vice president.
The country was growing weary of Reconstruction policies, which kept federal troops
stationed in several southern states. Moreover, the Grant administration was tainted
by numerous scandals, which caused disaffection for the party among voters. In
1874 the House of Representatives had gone Democratic; political change was in
the air.
Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, receiving 4,284,020 votes to 4,036,572 for
Hayes.
In the electoral college Tilden was also ahead 184 to 165; both parties claimed the
remaining 20 votes.
The Democrats needed only 1 more vote to capture the presidency, but the
Republicans needed all 20 contested electoral votes. Nineteen of them came from
South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida—states that the Republicans still controlled.
Protesting Democratic treatment of black voters, Republicans insisted that Hayes
had carried those states but that Democratic electors had voted for Tilden.
Two sets of election returns existed—one from the Democrats, one from the
Republicans. Congress had to determine the authenticity of the disputed returns.
Continued…
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Unable to decide, legislators established a fifteen-member
commission composed of ten congressmen and five
Supreme Court justices.
The commission was supposed to be nonpartisan, but
ultimately it consisted of eight Republicans and seven
Democrats.
The final decision was to be rendered by the commission
unless both the Senate and the House rejected it.
The commission accepted the Republican vote in each state.
The House disagreed, but the Senate concurred, and Hayes
and Wheeler were declared president and vice president.
In the aftermath of the commission's decision, the federal
troops that remained in the South were withdrawn, and
southern leaders made vague promises regarding the rights
of the 4 million African-Americans living in the region.
Compromise of 1877
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In order to settle the contested 1876 election, a bargain was
struck that also ended Reconstruction.
The South would accept Hayes's election, back Republican
James A. Garfield for House Speaker, and protect black
rights; Republicans would provide federal aid for internal
improvements, patronage, and, especially, home rule.
But Garfield was defeated for Speaker, the government
failed to subsidize improvements, and Hayes dispensed
patronage and followed existing policy by removing federal
troops from the South.
The final southern Republican governments, all in the
disputed states, collapsed, leading to the Democratic Solid
South and violence and discrimination toward blacks.
Rutherford B. Hayes
~Republican
Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893)
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Nineteenth president of the United States. Born in Ohio, Hayes graduated from
Kenyon College at the top of his class in 1842 and three years later from Harvard
Law School.
Beginning in 1853 he defended captured runaway slaves. Later he joined the
Republican party, entered politics, and from 1858 to 1861 was Cincinnati's city
solicitor.
Outraged by the South's attack on Fort Sumter, Hayes volunteered for the Union
army in 1861, served with conspicuous gallantry throughout the war, and
emerged a major general and member-elect of Congress.
In Congress from 1865 to 1867, he supported Radical Republican Reconstruction
measures before resigning to run successfully for governor of Ohio. Reelected in
1869, Hayes counted as his greatest achievements Ohio's ratification of the
Fifteenth Amendment and the establishment of Ohio State University. After
retiring briefly, Hayes ran successfully for a third term as governor in 1875 and
became Ohio's favorite-son candidate for the presidential nomination in 1876.
Hayes won the Republican nomination over his more prominent rivals because
his record as a war hero, a Radical Republican congressman, and a reform
governor would help him carry his crucial state.
Hayes Continued…
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With northern public opinion no longer supporting Radical Reconstruction, he
ordered federal troops to cease protecting the last two Republican governors
in the South but only after he extracted promises (which proved empty) from
incoming Democrats to protect the civil rights of blacks.
Hayes courageously vetoed popular legislation to prevent Chinese laborers
from migrating to the United States and to expand the currency (although
Congress passed the Bland-Allison Silver Act over his objections).
He enhanced the power and prestige of the presidency by defeating
congressional attempts to dictate his appointees and to force him to accept
obnoxious legislation (designed to destroy the voting rights of blacks) added
as riders to appropriation bills.
During the great railroad strike of 1877, he resisted pressure to operate the
railroads and avoided a confrontation between strikers and federal forces,
thereby saving lives and property.
In retirement he worked to improve the quality of education for poor black and white
children and, in keeping with his liberal use of the pardoning power, served as
president of the National Prison Reform Association.
Hayes as a Benevolent Farmer, May 12, 1880
This cartoon by J. A. Wales Puck reveals the North's readiness to give up on a strong
Reconstruction policy. According to the image, only federal bayonets could support
the "rule or ruin" carpetbag regimes that oppressed the south. What do the
background and foreground of the cartoon suggest will be the results of President
Hayes's "Let ‘Em Alone Policy"? (Library of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Jim Crow Laws
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Laws that segregated races in the South beginning in the
1880s following Reconstruction.
Jim Crow laws discriminated against blacks in public schools,
railroads, buses, restaurants, theaters, hotels, and other
public facilities.
The Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Fergusson (1896)
declared segregation constitutional. (Separate but Equal)
But decisions in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Brown v. the
Board of Education of Topeka and the civil rights
movement of the same period overturned these laws.
"Jim Crow" was a character in a popular song of the 1830s,
and the name was commonly used to refer to blacks.
Plessy v. Ferguson
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In this landmark decided on May 18, 1896, the Court ruled that the
Reconstruction-era amendments protected the political equality of
blacks but not their social equality.
Homer Plessy, a light-skinned, resident of New Orleans with African
ancestry (an "octoroon"--a term used at the time to describe
someone with seven white great-grandparents and one black
grandparent) challenged the state law segregating blacks and
"people of color" from sitting with white passengers on municipal
trains.
Plessy was arrested because he refused to sit in the "colored only"
section of the train, It was the most notorious legal challenge to the
wave of Jim Crow laws that swept over the nation in the 1890s,
beginning with those in Mississippi aimed at segregating blacks in
public facilities that were theoretically "separate-but-equal" to
those afforded whites.
The Verdict…
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The Court ruled against Plessy 7 to 1, contending that the segregation laws
in question did not discriminate on racial grounds but merely recognized a
distinction between the races.
It agreed that state laws could not deprive blacks of political rights, but it
held that social rights were not considered fundamental in the same sense
as political rights.
Moreover, according to the Court, states are constitutionally empowered to
protect the public's health, welfare, and morals by passing reasonable
laws; segregation laws met this test as a reasonable exercise of the state's
police powers.
In the opinion of Plessy's lawyer, Albion Tourgee, the decision destroyed for
all practical purposes the Fourteenth Amendment and "emasculated the
Thirteenth."
Plessy put the Supreme Court on the side of segregation and
disfranchisement, giving credibility to a flood of Jim Crow laws that
engulfed the southern states and many parts of the rest of the nation.
Black sharecropping family in front of their cabin
Sharecropping gave African Americans more control over their labor than did labor
contracts. But sharecropping also contributed to the south's dependence on one-crop
agriculture and helped to perpetuate widespread rural poverty. Notice that the child
standing on the right is holding her kitten, probably to be certain it is included in this
family photograph. (Library of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Store owner's record book of debts of sharecroppers
Sharecropping became an oppressive system in the postwar south. At plantation
stores like this one, photographed in Mississippi in 1868, merchants recorded in their
ledger books debts that few sharecroppers were able to repay. (Smithsonian
Institution, Division of Community Life)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Transcontinental Railroad - 1869
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Railway lines connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The Pacific Railway Act (1862) authorized the Union Pacific Railroad
Company to build a line westward from Omaha, Nebraska, and the
Central Pacific Railway of California to build a connecting line eastward
from Sacramento.
The companies recruited armies of workers in what became a
competition to put down the most track.
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The Central Pacific hired seven thousand Chinese immigrants at one dollar a day
The Union Pacific hired Irish immigrants
Construction began in 1865, and after years of grueling labor and
hardship, the two lines met on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point,
Utah.
The Central Pacific had built 689 miles of track, much of it through the
Sierra Nevadas, and the Union Pacific 1,086 miles.
California governor Leland Stanford, who was also president of the
Central Pacific, drove in the final "golden spike" connecting the two
lines.
James A. Garfield
~Republican
James A. Garfield 1831-1881
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Twentieth president of the United States.
This obscurity is compounded by the brevity of his administration—only
two hundred days from his inauguration to his death at the hands of
Charles J. Guiteau, an unhinged religious fanatic (not the "disappointed
office seeker" of the familiar catchphrase).
Born in a log cabin on the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio, he was the last
president to be blessed with that politically potent symbol of humble
origins. Reared in rural poverty, he escaped by means of religion and
education, becoming a minister in the Disciples of Christ church, the
president of what would become Hiram College, and then a lawyer.
When the Civil War broke out, he became the youngest major general
in the Union army and then resigned his commission in midwar for a
seat in the U.S. Congress.
Garfield Continued…
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Despite being touched by the Crédit Mobilier and other scandals, he had
become, by 1880, his party's leader in the House of Representatives and
was ready to move on to the U.S. Senate to which he had just been
elected, when his career took an unexpected turn.
When the Republican National Convention deadlocked between the
Stalwart supporters of Ulysses S. Grant and his rivals, the delegates turned
to Garfield, nominating him on the thirty-sixth ballot. In November he
defeated the Democratic candidate, Winfield Scott Hancock, by less than
ten thousand popular votes.
Garfield's brief presidency was marred by a patronage struggle with
Senator Roscoe Conkling, the embittered leader of the Stalwart faction. But
victory in that struggle gave prestige not only to Garfield but to the
institution of the presidency itself.
There are indications that Garfield was planning to use that prestige to
reorient the Republican party away from its preoccupation with the issues
of Civil War and Reconstruction to a fresh emphasis on the new problems
of an industrialized America when death intervened.
Chester A. Arthur
~Republican
Chester A. Arthur – 1829-1886
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Twenty-first president of the United States. Born in
Vermont, Arthur graduated from Union College in
Schenectady, New York, and taught school before
moving to New York City, where he was admitted
to the bar in 1854.
An antislavery Whig, Arthur joined the Republican
party at its birth.
The Republicans won the election, but after
Garfield was assassinated, Arthur became
president in September 1881.
Arthur Continued…
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To the surprise of his many detractors, Arthur was an able chief executive. In
damning him as a mere machine politician, his critics ignored the fact that he
was an intelligent man who had run the largest federal office in the country.
Despite a tendency to procrastinate, Arthur grew in the presidency and was
able to meet its demands. Drawing on his expertise, Arthur condemned the
existing tariff. But when he failed to convince Congress to make the 20 to 25
percent reduction his tariff commission advocated, he signed the aptly named
"Mongrel" Tariff into law (1883). Arthur vetoed the outrageous pork-barrel rivers
and harbors bill of 1882 (a thinly disguised raid on the Treasury), only to see
Congress pass it over his veto. He signed legislation excluding Chinese
laborers from the United States, supported appropriations to modernize the
navy, and personally supervised a sumptuous refurbishing of the White House.
He was neither happy nor healthy when president. He grieved over the death in
1880 of his wife and suffered the debilitating effects of Bright's disease,
particularly after 1882.
As part of his effort to hide his condition from the public, he did nothing to stop
those striving to nominate him in 1884. Their efforts failed, however, partly
because he lacked charisma and partly because he was too much of a spoils
politician to win reform support, yet too sound an administrator to suit party
regulars.
The Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
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The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law restricting
immigration into the United States. Those on the West Coast were especially prone
to attribute declining wages and economic ills on the despised Chinese workers.
Although the Chinese composed only .002 percent of the nation's population,
Congress passed the exclusion act to placate worker demands and assuage
prevalent concerns about maintaining white "racial purity."
The statute of 1882 suspended Chinese immigration for ten years and declared the
Chinese as ineligible for naturalization. Chinese workers already in the country
challenged the constitutionality of the discriminatory acts, but their efforts failed.
The act was renewed in 1892 for another ten years, and in 1902 Chinese
immigration was made permanently illegal.
The legislation proved very effective, and the Chinese population in the United
States sharply declined.
American experience with Chinese exclusion spurred later movements for
immigration restriction against other "undesirable" groups such as Middle
Easterners, Hindu and East Indians, and the Japanese. The Chinese themselves
remained ineligible for citizenship until 1943.
Spoils System
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A policy of giving government jobs to political party workers who have
supported a particular victorious candidate.
The practice began during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson when he, a
Democratic-Republican, followed a policy of not selecting Federalists for
appointments.
During the administration of President Andrew Jackson, government
employees of the rival party were dismissed from their positions and
replaced by members of the Democratic party.
The term spoils system was used as early as 1812, but came into general
use when Jackson's friend Senator William Marcy declared in 1832, "To the
victor belong the spoils of the enemy."
The system gradually became associated with corruption, and it was
modified when Congress passed the Pendleton Act in 1883 establishing
the Civil Service Commission. Although education, experience, and
examinations have become important as a basis for appointment to public
office, the practice of patronage continues.
Railroad Strike of 1877
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What came to be called the great railroad strike of 1877 began on July
17 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, after the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
had cut wages for the second time in a year.
Protesting workers refused to let any trains move until the pay cut was
restored.
Militia units were sent in by the governor to restore train service, but
when the soldiers refused to use force against the strikers, the governor
called for federal troops, the first time such troops had been used for
strikebreaking since the 1830s.
In the meantime, the strike had spread to Baltimore, triggering bloody
street battles between workers and the Maryland militia; when the
outmanned soldiers fired into an attacking crowd, ten people were
killed.
In Pittsburgh, as in Martinsburg, local law enforcers refused to fire on
the strikers, and soldiers brought in from outside were routed by a
ferocious crowd, which took control of the city until federal troops
imposed order.
R.R. continued…
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By then, sympathy strikes had spread out along the railroads in every
direction, from line to line, from city to city, from railroad workers to other
industries.
In Chicago, demonstrations organized by the Workingmen's party drew
crowds of twenty thousand; in St. Louis, a general strike put the city in
the workers' hands for nearly a week.
In towns throughout the country, streets were thronged with strikers and
their supporters; there were battles and arrests, injuries and deaths.
The struggle seemed to align all workers against all employers. To
some, this was a hopeful sign, bearing the promise of future labor
victories, but others saw it as a threat to the very foundation of American
society.
Federal troops were rushed from city to city, putting down strike after
strike, until finally, a few weeks after it had begun, the great railroad
strike of 1877 was over.
R.R Continued…
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In the aftermath, union organizers planned future
campaigns, and politicians and business leaders
took steps to ensure that such chaos could not
recur.
Many states enacted conspiracy statutes. New
militia units were formed, and National Guard
armories were constructed in many cities.
For workers and employers alike, the strikes had
dramatized the power of workers in combination
to challenge the most established structures of
American life.
Railroad strike of 1877
This engraving depicts striking railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, as they stop a freight train on
July 17, 1877, in the opening days of the great railway strike of that year. Engravings such as this, which
show the strikers to be heavily armed, may or may not have been accurate depictions of events. But the
photography of that day could rarely capture live action, and the technology of the day could not reproduce
photographs in newspapers, so the public's understanding of events such as the 1877 strike was formed
through artists' depictions. (Library of Congress)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
McKinley Tariff Act - 1890
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Law establishing record-high tariffs on many
imported items.
Sponsored by Representative William McKinley,
chair of the House Ways and Means Committee
The act was designed to protect American
industries from foreign competition.
Its unpopularity led to its replacement by the
Wilson Act in 1894.
McKinley Tariff 1890
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Raised rates to the highest peacetime level
ever.
This hurt farmers
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Forced to buy from high priced American
Industrialists
Had to sell own products to unprotected world
markets
Republicans would lose their majority
Grover Cleveland
~Democrat
Grover Cleveland 1837-1908
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Twenty-second and twenty-fourth president of the
United States. Cleveland studied law in Buffalo,
New York, and became a leading lawyer there, but
for over twenty years he was unknown outside that
city.
His rise to the presidency was phenomenal
because of its rapidity and because he was so
lacking in qualities deemed essential for Gilded Age
politicians. Brutally honest, frugal with public
money, ungracious, and obstinate, Cleveland was
admired for his enemies rather than his friends.
Causes of the Depression of 1893
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Splurge of overbuilding and speculation
Labor disorders
Agricultural depression
Free-silver agitation damaged American credit
abroad
European began calling in the loans from U.S.
Effects of the Depression 1893
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8,000 businesses collapsed in six months
Dozens of R.R. lines went into the hands of
receivers
Hobos wandered the country
Government did nothing
Cleveland burdened with a growing deficit
Effects of Depression…
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Treasury required to issue legal tender
notes for the silver that it bought
Owners of the paper currency would then
present it for gold
By law the notes had to be reissued
New holders would repeat the process
Draining away precious gold in an “endless
chain” operation.
How they fixed it…
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Borrowed money from J.P. Morgan
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Total of $65 million in gold
Charged a commission of $7 million
Agreed to get ½ the gold abroad
Interstate Commerce Act - 1887
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Law passed by Congress stating that all
railroad charges should be fair and
reasonable, and that forbade interstate
railroad abuses.
It established a five-member Interstate
Commerce Commission to administer the
provisions of the law.
Benjamin Harrison
~Republican
Benjamin Harrison 1833-1901
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Twenty-third president of the United States.
After graduating from Miami University in Ohio,
his birthplace, this grandson of President
William Henry Harrison became a lawyer in
Indianapolis.
A staunch Republican, he fought for the Union
and emerged from the Civil War a brigadier
general. Despite an iceberg like personality and
the loss of the gubernatorial campaign of 1876,
he became Indiana's leading Republican.
Harrison Continued…
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In conjunction with the Republican-controlled "Billion Dollar
Congress" of 1890, his administration was remarkably productive.
To wipe out the $100 million surplus of revenues over expenditures,
Congress passed a generous Dependent and Disability Pension Act
and the protectionist McKinley Tariff, which raised rates higher than
ever before.
Responding to pressure from the West, Congress approved the
Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required that the government
buy 4.5 million ounces of silver each month and pay for it with
Treasury certificates.
Congress also passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which was by
far the most influential law passed during his administration.
In retirement, Harrison lectured and served as chief counsel for
Venezuela in its boundary dispute with Great Britain.
Homestead Strike 1892
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Labor dispute between steel workers and the Carnegie Steel Company in
Homestead, Pennsylvania, one of the most bitter strikes in American
history.
The striking trade union, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel
Workers, refused to accept a decrease in wages and stepped-up
production demands by plant manager Henry Clay Frick, who was
determined to break the union.
When he brought in three hundred Pinkerton guards to break the strike,
they were met by ten thousand workers and violence erupted.
Sixteen men were killed and many more injured. The governor then sent in
eight thousand state militia who guarded non-union strike breakers running
the plant.
The strike ended after five months. The first major struggle between
organized labor and big business resulted in failure for the most important
craft union of the age and exhibited the power of American big business.