Chapter 26
The Great West and
Agricultural Revolution
The Clash of Cultures on the
Plains
In 1860 Native Americans numbered about 360,000 living
throughout the trans-Mississippi West.
But with migration of more settlers coming into this area,
there also came conflict.
White soldiers and settlers from before the Civil War had
already spread disease killing many.
Hunting bison, the main food source for many tribes, also led
to fighting between tribes for the dwindling resource.
The Fights
V
S
Comanche
Apache
V
S
Chippewa
V
S
Kiowa
Pawnee
Cheyenne
The Clash of Cultures on the
Plains
The federal government hoped to quite the problems between the
tribes with various treaties. Treaties were signed at Fort Laramie in
1851 and at Fort Atkinson in 1853.
These treaties established boundaries on territory for the tribes,
this in turn was the beginning of the reservation system.
There was to be two Indian “colonies” to the north, and another
to the south left open for white settlers.
The problems with the treaties though, was that it greatly
conflicted with the lifestyle of the Plain Indians, who were not
used to much authority outside of the family, and were not
accustomed to living within a defined area.
The Clash of Cultures on the
Plains
In the 1860sthe federal government herded the Indians
into still smaller confines, mainly the “Great Sioux
Reservation”
The Indians ultimately agreed to this on terms that
they would be left alone and provided with food and
other supplies, but due to corruption, many of these
supplies were either of very poor quality or never
arrived.
Indian Wars
(1864-1890)
The end of the Civil War meant more expansion for the whites.
They wanted to move further westward, but there were still Indians
blocking the way.
The US then decided to send the army to the native fronts in order
to ward off the Indians.
Mainly was a bunch of skirmishes from Sand Creek Massacre to the
Battle of Wounded knee.
The Indians were putting up a fight, as their arrows were fast than
the US rifles.
This changed with the birth of the .45 colt revolver (invented by
Samuel Colt) and the Winchester repeating rifle.
The Blacks also had part of the U.S. army. 1/5 of them occupied it
and they were known as “Buffalo Soldiers” by the Indians.
Receding Native Population
On November 29, 1864, volunteers from Colorado attacked the
Cheyenne Indians on Sand Creek Leaded by Colonel J.M.
Chivington.
This outcome “surprised” the government and they actually offered
the Indians a safe place on their own reservation as pardon for the
incident.
Trying to stop the building of Bozeman Trail to the Montana
goldfields in 1866 a Sioux war party slaughtered all of Captain
William J. Fetterman’s 81 men, leaving not one survivor.
Bitter feeling from these attacks led to a cycle of continuing warfare.
After the Fetterman massacre the Treaty of Laramie was signed in
1868, ending further construction on the Bozeman Trail
Receding Native Population
But conflict arose in 1867 when Custer led a “scientific” expedition into the
Black Hills of South Dakota, part of the “Great Sioux reservation”.
They announced discovery of gold and many in search of gold came rushing
into the Black Hills.
In 1876 Custer and his 264 men attempted to suppress angered Sioux Indians
and return them to the reservation, but they turned out to be well-armed and
about 2,500 in number. This became known as the Battle of Little BigHorn.
With the reservation being led by Crazy Horse and sitting Bull, the Sioux won
pretty easily
In 1877 when the U.S. authorities tried to move a group of Oregon Indians
(Nez Perce) onto a reservation, the Indian Chief Joseph and a group of some
700 Indians ran for Canada on a 1700 mile, 3 month trek only to surrender.
Only 40 miles away from the Canadian border, freedom, the U.S. caught up to
them and defeated them at The Battle of Bear Paw.
Receding Native Population
While they were promised return to their ancestral lands in Idaho,
they were instead sent to a reservation in Kansas, where about 40%
died of disease.
Even more challenging to subdue were the Apache Indians in New
Mexico and Arizona, led by Geronimo. They were pursued into
Mexico by the federal government, and they were eventually
surrendered after the women were exiled to Florida.
The relentless fighting eventually shattered the spirit of the Native
Americans, and they continued to be pushed onto reservations.
The main factors that lead to the “taming” of the Indians included
the railroad tracks, that now ran through the heart of the west and
could easily bring troops, farmers, and other settlers. Diseases that
they showed no resistance to, and the virtual extermination of the
buffalo, doomed their nomadic way of life.
Bellowing Herds of Bison
When white Americans first arrived tens of millions
of buffalo blackened the western prairies. They were
the staff of life for the Native Americans.
When the Civil War ended some 25 million still
roamed on the western plains.
In 1868 a Kansas Pacific Locomotive had to wait 8
hours for a herd of buffalo to cross the tracks
Many railroad construction workers had buffalo as a
large part of their food supply. William Cody, or
“Buffalo Bill” killed over 4,000 animals while
employed for the Kansas Pacific.
With the building of railroads came the slaughter of
many buffalo, now they were more commonly being
killed for individual parts, or even for enjoyment.
By 1885 there were fewer than 1,000 buffalo left.
The Plains Indians
The Plains Indians were the last of the Native Americans to
give in to the military power of the whites. They long
defended their land but after the Indian wars the various
tribes struggled on jealousy and guarding their way of life.
Even though packed onto reservations, and subject to
changing Federal Indian policies, the Plains Indians here
managed to much of their ancestral culture.
Before Europeans arrived the Plains were made up of some
30 different tribes; each that spoke their own language,
protected their own religion, and formed their own
government.
The Plains Indians
When different tribe members met, communication depended on
a sign language.
While the Indians were not only hunters, a large portion of their
resources came from buffalo. Women often were expert farmers
raising pumpkins, squash, corn, and beans. The hunted bison was
also butchered by women.
They made spoons from hooves and containers from intestines.
Sinews were stretched into bow strings and buffalo hair into rope.
Meat not immediately eaten was dried and preserved.
Moving at first was very challenging for the Plain Indians, they
packed all their belongings onto wheeless carts called travois,
which were then dragged by dogs.
The Plains Indian
But when the Spanish conquistadors came, the horses that
got lose were acquired by Indians and quickly spread
throughout the plains.
The horse revolutionized Indian societies, making more
efficient hunters that promised to banish hunger, but this
also ignited more fierce competition, and wars of aggression
and revenge became increasingly bitter and frequent.
But after many battles the Plain Indians found themselves
crammed into tiny reservations, clinging to their traditions.
While much of their culture still persists today, the freeranging way of life is long way.
The End of the Trail
By the 1880s the national conscience began to stir.
Helen Hunt Jackson influenced many with her books A Century of
Dishonor and Ramona which both helped to inspire sympathy for
the Indians.
With humanities wanting to treat the Indians nicely, and hardliners supporting the current policy of forced contained and brutal
punishment, neither had much respect for the culture.
Christian reformers, who often administered education on the
reservations, would sometimes withhold food to force Indians to
give up their tribal religious, and assimilate to white society.
The End of the Trail
In 1884 they persuaded the federal government to outlaw
the sacred sun dance.
In 1890 at the Battle of the Wounded Knee the army fought
a Dakota Sioux that the sun dance had spread to. An
estimated 200 Indian men, women, and children were killed
to 29 invading solider deaths.
In 1887 the Dawes Severalty Act dissolved many tribes as
legal entities, wiped out tribal ownership of land, and set up
individual Indian family heads with 160 free acres. And if
they behaved like “good white settlers” then they could get
title to their land and citizenship in 25 years.
Carlisle Indian School
Founded in 1879 at Carlisle, PA by Captain
Richard Henry Pratt.
He was a Civil War and Indian War veteran
that believed that the Indians should adapt to
white standards.
This Indian Boarding school best exemplifies
the desires of the Dawes Act.
The School’s main goal was to train Indians
to be “white” in every way but color.
Most noted graduate was Jim Thorpe, one of
the best athletes in American History.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/native-americancomic-billy-smith/1184669
The End of the Trial
Only in 1934 with the Indian Reorganization Act did
they try to restore the tribal basis of Indian life.
With this the Indian population slowly mounted in
1887 there were about 243, 000 total but a census in
2000 counted more than 1.5 million Native
Americans, urban and rural.
Only in 1934 with the Indian Reorganization Act did
they try to restore the tribal basis of Indian life.
Mining: From Dishpan to Ore
Breaker
Indian conquest and the railroad gave life to the mining frontier.
The discovery of gold in Colorado in 1858 led to avid “59ers” that
rushed to rip at the Rockies. Even though there were more miners
then minerals, many stayed and found silver deposits and golden
grain.
“59ers” also flooded into Nevada after the Comstock Lode had been
uncovered, amounting to over $340 million in gold and silver.
Nevada had been railroaded in 1864 prematurely to provide 3
electoral votes for Lincoln.
Smaller “lucky strikes” drew miners to Montana, Idaho, and other
western states.
Boomtown aka “Hellorados” sprouted like magic and when the
excitement was over left ghost towns.
Mining: From Dishpan to Ore
Breaker
Once the loose surface gold was gobbled up machinery was
imported to smash gold-bearing quartz. But this was costly
so usually only corporations could fund such expenditures.
Machines and corporations took of equality earning the
right to vote in Wyoming (1889), Utah (1870), Colorado
(1896), and Idaho (1896).
Mining contributed to finance the civil war, build the
railroads, intensified the conflict of whites and Indians,
“Silver Senators” who promoted the mining of silver.
American folklore and literature can be seen through Bret
Harte and Mark Twain.
Ex: The Society upon the Stanislaus (Harte) & Miners (Twain).
Beef Bonanzas and the Long
Drive
After the civil war ended the several million cattle in Texas were
mainly killed for their hides, as there was no way of getting the meat
profitably to the market.
But when railroads reached to the west, cattle could now be shipped
bodily, and the meat packing industry emerged as a new main pillar
of the economy.
With newly refrigerated railroad cars, the meat could be sent fresh to
the east coast.
The “Long Drive” feed the slaughter houses. Texas cowboys (white,
black, and Mexican) drove herds over the plains until they reached a
railway terminal.
These herds numbered anywhere from 1,000-10,000.
For those who did not encounter Indians, stampedes, cattle fever, or
other hazards the Long Drive provided profitable.
Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive
From 1866 to 1888 over 4 million cattle made their way from the Texas cattle bowl
to the east coast.
But just like the railroad made the Long Drive, it also unmade the Long Drive, it
brought out the homesteader and the sheepherder, who built too many fences to be
cut down by the cowboys.
A harsh winter in 1886-87 with blizzards and temperatures reaching 68 degrees
below 0 left many cattle starving and freezing.
These factors combined with overgrazing and overexpansion took their toll, and the
cowboys slowly gave way to the plowboys.
The only way to keep the beef industry going proved to be avoiding overproduction
by fencing their ranches, laying winter feed, and breeding fewer but meatier cattle.
They also learned to organize, and in the 1880s the Wyoming stock-growers virtually
controlled the state.
These bowlegged Knights of the saddle became part of American folklore. And the
perhaps five thousand black herders especially enjoyed the newfound freedom.
The Farmers’ Frontier
•
Western farmers were ecstatic with new Homestead Act
of 1862. The law allowed a settler to acquire as much
as 160 acres of land by living on it for five years and
paying a nominal fee of about $30 while improving it.
•
Land had previously been sold primarily for revenue,
but after the act, about half a million families took
advantage of it who couldn’t afford the large
landholdings.
•
At the same time, five times as many families
purchased their land from railroads, land companies,
or states.
The Farmers’ Frontier
•
Not all free land from the government was as well watered as the
Mississippi basin, 2/3 of settlers’ land was mainly in the Great
Plains, and suffered droughts
•
Fraud was a major part of the “Homesteaders” who were hired by
corporations to grab up useable land from real farmers and claim
to build a “ 12-by-14” dwelling which turned out to be measured in
inches
•
The railroads also sold land to Americans and European
immigrants.
•
The soil of the wild west was thought to be sterile because of the
lack of forest, but once it had been broken by the “Sodbusters”
and oxen, it was astonishingly fruitful.
•
Since there were no trees, they built houses out of sod they dug
from the ground and resorted to burning corncobs for warmth
•
But the perfect soil doesn’t last for long
The Farmers’ Frontier
•
Higher wheat prices drew people to the west, past the 100 meridian line,
which had already been discussed as the line where irrigation had to start
for plants to grow, but headstrong farmers ignored geologist John Wesley
Powell’s warnings and suffered severe droughts and greatly effected
population.
•
“There is no God west of Salina” –Hapless homesteader
•
“Dry Farming” led to the “Dust Bowl” several decades later
•
Eventually a strain of tough wheat was imported from Russia and
blossomed into billowing yellow fields. Corn was replaced with droughtresistant grains like sorghum. Joseph F. Glidden perfected barbed wire
solved the problem for making fences without trees
•
It took over a century after Powell’s warnings for a national irrigation
system to be installed and hydraulic engineers did more for the west than
all the cowboys ever did.
•
“We enjoy pushing rivers around.”
The Far West Comes of Age
•
7 more states were added to the Union between 1870s1890s: Colorado, North and South Dakota, Montana,
Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming. 1896 welcomed Utah in
after the Mormons banned polygamy in 1890. Three more
states were left to finish the puzzle of the contagious United
States.
•
Although the federal government didn’t make Oklahoma
open to settlers until April 22, 1889, many jumped the gun
and arrived earlier, illegally, and who’s horses had to face
the shots of federal troops. Once settling on taken Indian
land was legal, 50,000 “boomers” were waiting at the lines
and exploded into the territory. By the end of the year,
Oklahoma boasted a 60,000 persons population. Less than
two decades later, they became the “Sooner State” in 1907
The Fading Frontier
Yellowstone park was obtained in 1872, and was followed by Yosemite
and Sequoia parks in 1890. But the soil in the West was yet to be
exhausted.
In 1890, all frontier lines were broken, inspiring Frederick Jackson
Turner’s 1893 “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”.
As the nineteenth century came to a close, the eager American citizens
were horror struck to discover that their once vast country was not so
vast anymore. The land that was suppose to take 500 years to settle was
going or had gone.
Though Americans were more mobile than their European
counterparts, it was hard for the unemployed to leave the city sidewalks
for farming land.
Most city dwellers didn’t have any idea about how to farm, but the
possibility that their potential employees could leave drove wages in cities
higher. Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco were full of failed farmers
who found their fortunes.
After 1880, the area between the Pacific coast and the Rocky Mountains
was the most urbanized region measured by the percentage of people
living in cities.
The Turner Thesis
Pretty much describes the changing
life of the American man on the
Frontier.
He stressed the process and impact
it had on pioneers going through
the process. Frontier-ception???
Thesis mainly captures Americans
escaping the European way of life
during the 19th Century.
The Fading Frontier
American history is only completely understandable if the
westward moving experience is taken into account. The
book of American colonization started with Columbus and
ends with the taming and settling of the trans-Mississippi
West. Americans had gone from the West Indies to the
Chesapeake shore, from the valleys of the Hudson and
Connecticut Rivers to the valleys of the Tennessee and Ohio
Rivers.
The West still has a very distinct culture that was created
when many peoples mixed. Native American, Hispanic, and
Asian cultures mixed with Americans and played a massive
role in social and economic development.
The country and experiences pioneers faced have been
immortalized by writers and painters to mythic proportions.
Those farmers started the buds that Western civilization
bloomed from. The life we live, they dreamed of; the life
they lived, we can only dream.
The Farm Becomes a Factory
Farms began to turn from self-sufficient places to corporation-owned, machine-run,
dependent settlement.
The first catalogue was sent out in 1872 from the Chicago firm of Aaron Montgomery
Ward; it was a single sheet.
As industry was growing, farms became more tied to banking, railroading, and
manufacturing. New steam engines could do three jobs at one time. Plowing, seeding, and
harrowing could happen simultaneously. Harvest speed increased in the 1870s with the
invention of the twine binders and in the 1880s, with the “combine” which reaped and
bagged grain while being drawn by twenty to forty horses. Invention increases meant price
increases and farmers weren’t first class businessmen so were inclined to blame higher up
people for their shortcomings
Agricultural modernization drove many marginal farmers off the land, thus swelling the
ranks of the new industrial work force. Few farmers remanded, but those who did built
America’s bread basket. Bonanza wheat farms, some larger than 15 thousand acres existed
in Minnesota and North Dakota and foreshadowed the gigantic agribusiness of the twentieth
century.
California, from the beginning, was a big agricultural business. Spanish Mexican land grants
were formed into huge estates and plantations. Once rails supported refrigerated cars,
California fruit and vegetable crops picked by underpaid Mexican and Chinese migrants
were bought for an inflated price in the urban markets of the East.
Deflation Dooms the Debtor
The market of the cotton crop economy repeated itself with wheat
and corn farmers; prices flat lined and bankruptcy flooded the
farm belts in the 1880s.
Foreign markets were now more predominate competitors.
There simply wasn’t enough money to go around. In 1870 the
currency in circulation for each person was $19.42 and in twenty
years only increased to $22.67.
Farmers were caught in an ugly circle of debt of highly priced
machinery and transportation for their decreasing crops and
mortgages ate up the little money deprived farmers had left with
interest rates going from 8 to 40 percent.
The workers of the field yelled to the Wall street sharks that they
had developed the land they charged them for.
By 1880, ¼ of all American farms were operate by tenants and
sharecropping marked the South.
The new industrial feudalism fed the world, and the farmers were
sinking to Old World serf status.
Unhappy Farmers
Grasshoppers came in rain clouds over the already mortgaged farmer and
the cotton-boll weevil wreaked havoc in the South in the 1890s.
Soil was dying because of erosion of the fertile topsoil and droughts in the
trans-Mississippi West. Many farmers had to pack up their homestead
and go “home to the wife’s folks” .
The government wasn’t helping at any level. Land assessing, taxes and
protective tariffs were high. Luckless farmers had no other choice but to
sell their products at low, unprotected market prices in exchange for
expensive manufactured items.
They were also at the mercy of the harvester trust, the barbed-wire trust,
and the fertilizer trust all which controlled output. Middlemen were also
a profit decreaser for farmers.
Railroads charged rates so high that farmers who burned their corn for
heat would loose less than by shipping it. Also, if they complained about
the prices, their shipments might arrive spoiled or not even have a place
on the cars to go to market.
By 1890, ½ of the population was still farmers, but they were unorganized
and individualistic and independent natured, so they weren’t able to rise
against the well-oiled machine of manufacturers and railroad barons. It
took them almost half a century to organize in Roosevelt’s New Deal days,
and only then by the federal government.
The Farmers Take Their Stand
In Post-Civil War days, indebted famers called for more
paper money. Impoverished, some one stepped
forward to save them all.
In 1867, The National Grange of the Patrons of
Husbandry was organized and headed by Oliver H.
Kelley, a Mason. Firstly, he wanted to enhance the
lives of farm men and women cursed with loneliness
through social, educational, and fraternal activities.
The Grange hosted picnics, concerts, and lectures, a
godsend for them. His four-ply hierarchy was also
hailed; Laborer to Husbandman for men and Maid to
matron for women. By 1875, they boosted 800,000
members, mostly in the Midwest and South.
The Farmers Take Their Stand
The Grangers gradually raised their goals from individual selfimprovement to all farmers’ collective plight. To get out of the
clutched of trusts, they established their own stores, cooperatively
owned grain elevators, and warehouses. One financial disaster
resulted from mismanagement of an attempt to manufacture their
town harvesting machinery.
Grangers made their way to the capitals of Illinois, Wisconsin,
Iowa, Minnesota, and other grain-growing regions. Once in office,
they helped their fellow farmer, passing laws on everything from
railroad fees to public control of private business for the general
welfare. But, not all of their laws were drawn up smartly, and their
influence fades after the Supreme Court’s Wabash decision.
The Greenback Labor party also took in many venting farmers
with a program for improving the lot of labor. The many
substantial influences in the elections of the late 1870s and early
1880s with 14 members of Congress, and a presidential candidate,
General James B. Weaver, who polled only 3% of the popular vote
after speaking to over half a million people.
Oliver H. Kelley
Born in Boston, 1826
Moved to Minnesota, 1849, became a farmer
Joined U.S Bureau of Agriculture, traveled the nation during the
War
Felt that he had to gather the farmers of America to rebuild the
country.
Founded the Grange with William Saunders, Francis McDowell,
John Trimble, Aaron Grosh, John Thompson, William Ireland, and
Caroline Hall
Died In 1913.
Prelude to Populism
The Farmers’ Alliance, founded in Lampasas, Texas
in the late 1876, and by 1890 there was more than a
million members.
The alliance weakened itself by:
Ignoring:
Tenant farmers
Sharecroppers
Farm workers
An exclusion of blacks into the alliance
And in the 1880’s a separate Colored Farmers’
National Alliance was formed, and by 1890, it had
received over a quarter million members
Prelude to Populism
From the Farmers’ Alliances, a the People’s party
(populists) emerged in the early 1890’s
They attacked Wall Street, and the “money trust”.
They called for nationalized railroads, telephone, and
telegraph; and for a graduated income tax as well as a
“sub-treasury” which would provide farmers with
loans for crops stored in government owned
warehouses
Also what played a role was the free coinage of silver;
and a pamphlet titled “coin’s financial school”
was circulated (written by William Hope Harvey). In
this gold was an ogre who beheaded silver, a maiden
Prelude to Populism
A Populist“calamity howler” was Mary Elizabeth (AKA Mary
Yellin’) who was nicknamed the“Kansas Pythoness” she also
had demanded that Kansas raise“less corn and more Hell”
In 1892 Populists shocked the traditional parties, when they
won several congressional seats, and received more than a
million votes for their presidential candidate, James B. Weaver
Coxey’s Army
After the panic of 1893 and the depression that
followed, large groups of unemployed began marching
to protest their desperate state
The populists saw this as an opportunity for political
allies
“General” Jacob S. Coxey, a quarry owner, set out
for Washington in 1894; on a platform, that we
relieve unemployment by some $500 million in legal
tender notes, issued by the treasury
Coxey’s son was named Legal Tender Coxey after his
cause
The march failed when Coxey and his followers were
arrested for walking on the grass at the nation’s
capital
Le Armeé de Coxey
The official name was “Army of the Commonweal in
Christ”
Wanted the government to institute a publics work
program to get people back to work, a la New Deal.
Started with 100 men in Massillon , Ohio. Went east
from their, through Penn.
Western half of the movement was led by “Generale”
Charles T. Kelly. Never made it past the Ohio
Actual armées formed in the Northwest. One group,
led by William Hogan, stole a train and fought off U.S
Marshals until Montana. Then they got arrested
The Pullman Strike
Eugene Debs helped organize the American Railway
Union, which held about 150, 000 members
The Pullman Palace Car Company, had a town for its
employees near Chicago, and was hit hard by the
depression and cut wages one third while still keeping the
rent on the company houses
This caused the workers to strike, lashing out and even in
some cases overturning cars; striking from Chicago to the
Pacific coast. Shut down all traffic west of Chicago.
The American Federation of Labor declined to support
the strikers giving it “respectability”
Strike involved 250,000 workers across 27 states at its
peak.
The Pullman Strike
Members of the Union refused to couple Pullman and
Wagner cars, and effectively shut both companies down.
ARU said if one switchman was fired, whole union would
strike.
Many blacks crossed picket lines because they were fearful
the racist ARU would lock them out of another market
Fueled the fire, both labor and racial
June 29, 1894-Debs organizes peaceful protest. Couple
buildings burned downed, locomotive derailed
The Pullman Strike
Attorney general Richard Olney, urged a dispatch of
federal troops, on the grounds that the strikers were
interfering with the transit of U.S. mail
President Cleveland supported Olney and declared: “if it
takes the entire army and navy to deliver a single postal
card in Chicago, that card will be delivered”
Cleveland said strike was against the Sherman Anti-Trust
Act
Miles sent with federal troops and 12,000 US Marshals to
break strike.
Then the shooting started
Strikers, More Striking
The shooting led to more violence.
Over the course of the strike, 13 workers were killed
and 57 were wounded
6,000 workers did roughly $340,000 in property
damage
Roughly $818,000,000 in today’s dollars.
Strike crushed. Debs sentenced to 6 months for
organizing the strike.
Eugene V. Debs
November 1855-October 1926
Born in Terra Haute, Hoosierland, or Indiana.
Elected to Indiana house in 1884 as a democrat
While in Jail, taught himself socialism. (Socialism=“nice”
communism)
Dropped out of high school at 14.
Ran for president four times, and once from prison(1920).
Never received an electoral vote
Founded the Industrial Workers of the World
Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan
For the election of 1896, it seemed that even with the
depression and jobless, that monetary policy would be
the issue to turn the election
This was whether to maintain the gold standard, or to
inflate the currency by monetizing silver
The leading candidate for the republican’s was
William McKinley a former congressman from Ohio,
he had risen to the rank of major in the military
Marcus Alonzo Hanna was a strong supporter of
McKinley and even said “I love McKinley” Hanna
made his fortune in iron, and wanted to make
McKinley president, he believed that a prime function
of the government was to aid business
Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan
The republican platform declared for the gold
standard, and praised the protective tariff
Cleveland no longer led the democrats, who met in
Chicago in July 1896 to choose a new candidate
The candidate was William Jennings Bryan from
Nebraska when he stepped onto the platform in front
of fifteen thousand people and said: “we will answer
the demands for a gold standard by saying to them:
‘you shall not press down upon the brow of labor
this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind
upon a cross of gold’”
The next day Bryan was nominated
Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan
The platform of Bryan demanded inflation
through the unlimited coinage of silver at the
ratio of 16 ounces of silver to 1 of gold,
although the market ratio was 32 to 1
There were democratic “gold bugs” who
disagreed with the party over the silver issue
and led to many of them including Cleveland
hoping that McKinley would win
Thus, the democrats having the main plank of
the populist party (the 16 to 1) ratio many
populists supported the party and so there was
the“Demo-Pop” party
Class Conflict: Plow holders Versus
Bondholders
Hanna assumed that he could make the main issue of
the election the tariff, but Bryan took full force with
the silver issue, sweeping through 27 states, 18,000
miles; and made nearly 600 speeches; and 36 in one
day
Republicans sneered “in God we trust, with Bryan we
bust”
Hanna was now chairman of the republican national
committee, and shined as a money raiser; as he piled
up an enormous slush fund, from the trusts and
plutocrats; this was used for mainly propaganda
Class Conflict: Plow holders Versus
Bondholders
The McKinleyites had the largest campaign chest so
far in American history at all levels, it was about $16
million to the democrats $1 million (which is ironic
because its 16 to 1…the silver ratio…)
There were however “dirty tricks employed to help
McKinley win, like employers providing incentives for
a vote for McKinley to its employees
And so the methods of Hanna worked, and on
election day McKinley won with 271 to 176 votes from
the electoral college, and 7,102,246 to 6,492,559
popular votes
Class Conflict: Plow holders Versus
Bondholders
*Quote on pg.622
Many of the votes came from fixed wage earners, like
factory workers, who had no need for inflation the
main point of Bryan’s campaign
Bryan’s defeat marked the last serious effort to win
the white house with mostly agrarian votes, laying the
future of presidential politics to the cities, with there
growing amounts of immigrants
This election also marked the republican hold on the
white house for the next sixteen years, and all but
eight of the next thirty-six
Republican Stand-pattism
Enthroned
McKinley took the inaugural oath in 1897 and
was noted because he did not ever seem to
perspire on the extremely muggy day
He was an “ear-to-the-ground” politician who
never was out from the majority opinion; and
his cautious nature caused him to shy away
from reform
Business was given pretty much free reign and
were able to develop without any serious
restraints
Republican Stand-pattism
Enthroned
The Wilson-Gorman law was not raising enough
money, and the republicans thought they had
purchased the right to additional tariff protections by
their large contributions to Hanna’s chest
So following it, the Dingley tariff bill was jammed
through the house in 1897 from the work of Reed,
and received over 850 amendments onto it
As prosperity returned, the money issue that
overshadowed politics since the Civil War faded away
The Gold Standard Act of 1900 passed, and quit any
final silver opposition, and provided that paper
currency be redeemed freely in gold