 Chapter 18 of History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard, Part 6, National Growth and World Politics. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard, Part 6, National Growth and World Politics. Chapter 18 The Development of the Great West At the close of the Civil War, Kansas and Texas were sentinel states on the middle border. Beyond the Rockies, California, Oregon and Nevada stood guard, the last of them having been just admitted to furnish another vote for the 15th Amendment of allishing slavery. Between the near and far frontiers lay a vast reach of plain, desert, plateau and mountain, almost wholly undeveloped, a broad domain extending from Canada to Mexico and embracing the regions now included in Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, the Dakotas and Oklahoma had fewer than half a million inhabitants. It was laid out into territories each administered under a governor appointed by the President and Senate and, as soon as there was the requisite number of inhabitants, a legislature elected by the voters. No railway lines stretched across the desert. St. Joseph on the Missouri was the terminus of the eastern lines. It required 25 days for a passenger to make the overland journey into California by the stagecoach system, established in 1858 and more than 10 days for the Swift Pony Express organized in 1860 to carry a letter to San Francisco. Indians still roamed the plain and desert and more than one powerful tribe disputed the white man's title to the soil. The Railways as Trail Blazers Opening Railways to the Pacific A decade before the Civil War, the importance of rail connection between the east and the Pacific Coast had been recognized. Pressure had already been brought to bear on Congress to authorize the construction of a line and to grant land and money in its aid. Both the Democrats and Republicans approved the idea, but it was involved in the slavery controversy. Indeed, it was submerged in it. Southern statesmen wanted connections between the Gulf and the Pacific through Texas, while Northerners stood out for a central route. The North had its way during the war. Congress, by legislation initiated in 1862, provided for the immediate organization of companies to build a line from the Missouri River to California and made grants of land and loans of money to aid in the enterprise. The western end, the Central Pacific, was laid out under the supervision of Leland Stanford. It was heavily financed by the Mormons of Utah and also by the state government, the ranchmen, miners, and businessmen of California, and it was built principally by Chinese labor. The eastern end, the Union Pacific, starting at Omaha, was constructed mainly by veterans of the Civil War and immigrants from Ireland and Germany. In 1869, the two companies met near Ogden in Utah, and the driving of the last spike, uniting the Atlantic and the Pacific, was the occasion of a great demonstration. Other lines to the Pacific were projected at the same time, but the panic of 1873 checked railway enterprise for a while. With the revival of prosperity at the end of that decade, construction was renewed with vigor, and the year 1883 marked a series of railway triumphs. In February, trains were running from New Orleans through Houston, San Antonio, and Yuma to San Francisco as a result of a union of the Texas Pacific with the Southern Pacific and its subsidiary corporations. In September, the last spike was driven in the Northern Pacific at Helena, Montana. Lake Superior was connected with Puget Sound. The waters explored by Joliette and Marquette were joined to the waters plowed by Sir Francis Drake while he was searching for a route around the world. That same year also, a third line was opened to the Pacific by way of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, making connections through Albuquerque and needles with San Francisco. The fondest hopes of railway promoters seemed to be realized. Western Railways preceded settlement. In the Old World and on our Atlantic seaboard, railways followed population and markets. In the Far West, railways usually preceded the people. Railway builders planned cities on paper before they laid tracks connecting them. They sent missionaries to spread the gospel of Western opportunity to people in the Middle West, in the eastern cities, and in southern states. Then they carried their enthusiastic converts, bag and baggage in long trains to the distant Dakotas, and still farther afield. So the development of the Far West was not left to the tedious processes of time. It was pushed by men of imagination, adventurers who made a romance of money-making, and who had dreams of empire unequaled by many kings of the past. These empire builders bought railway lands in huge tracks. They got more from the government. They overcame every obstacle of canyon, mountain, and stream with the aid of science. They built cities according to the plans made by the engineers. Having the towns ready and railway and steamboat connections formed with the rest of the world, they carried out the people to use the railways, the steamships, the houses, and the land. It was in this way that, quote, the frontier speculator paved the way for the frontier agriculturalist who had to be near a market before he could farm, end quote. The spirit of this imaginative enterprise, which laid out railways and towns in advance of the people, is seen in an advertisement of that day, quote, This extension will run 42 miles from York, northeast through the island lake country, and will have five good North Dakota towns. The stations on the line will be well equipped with elevators and will be constructed and ready for operation at the commencement of the grain season. Perspective merchants have been active in securing desirable locations at the different towns on the line. There are still opportunities for hotels, general merchandise, hardware, furniture, and drug stores, etc., end quote. Among the railway promoters and builders in the West, James J. Hill of the Great Northern and Allied Lines was one of the most forceful figures. He knew that tracks and trains were useless without passengers and freight, without a population of farmers and town dwellers. He therefore organized publicity in the Virginias, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Nebraska especially. He sent out agents to tell the story of Western opportunity in this vein, quote, You see your children come out of school with no chance to get farms of their own because the cost of land in your older part of the country is so high that you can't afford to buy land to start your sons out in life around you. They have to go to the cities to make a living or become laborers in the mills or hire out as farm hands. There is no future for them there. If you are doing well where you are and can safeguard the future of your children and see them prosper around you, don't leave here. But if you want independence, if you are renting your land, if the money lender is carrying you along and you are running behind here after year, you can do no worse by moving. You farmers talk of free trade and protection and what this or that political party will do for you. Why don't you vote a homestead for yourself? That is the only thing Uncle Sam will ever give you. Jim Hill hasn't an acre of land to sell you. We are not in the real estate business. We don't want you to go out west and make a failure of it because the rates at which we haul you and your goods make the first transaction a loss. We must have landless men for a manless land." Unlike steamship companies stimulating immigration to get the fares, Hill was seeking permanent settlers who would produce, manufacture and use the railways as a means of exchange. Consequently he fixed low rates and let his passengers take a good deal of livestock and household furniture free. By doing this he made an appeal that was answered by eager families. In 1894 the vanguard of home seekers left Indiana in 14 passenger coaches filled with men, women and children and 48 freight cars carrying their household goods and livestock. In the ten years that followed 100,000 people from the middle west and the south responding to his call went to the western country where they brought 8 million acres of prairie land under cultivation. When Hill got his people on the land he took an interest in everything that increased the productivity of their labor. Was the output of food for his freight cars limited by bad drainage on the farms Hill then interested himself in practical ways of ditching and tiling. Were farmers hampered in hauling their goods to his trains by bad roads? In that case he urged upon the states the improvement of highways. Did the traffic slacken because the food shift was not of the best quality? Then livestock must be improved and scientific farming promoted. Did the farmers need credit? Banks must be established close at hand to advance it. In all conferences on scientific farm management, conservation of natural resources, banking and credit in relation to agriculture and industry, Hill was an active participant. His was the long vision seeing in conservation and permanent improvements the foundation of prosperity for the railways and the people. Indeed he neglected no opportunity to increase the traffic on the lines. He wanted no empty cars running in either direction and no wheat stored in warehouses for the lack of markets. So he looked to the Orient as well as to Europe as an outlet for the surplus of the farms. He sent agents to China and Japan to discover what American goods and produce those countries would consume and what manufacturers they had to offer to Americans in exchange. To open the Pacific trade he bought two ocean monsters, the Minnesota and the Dakota, thus preparing for emergencies west as well as east. When some Japanese came to the United States on their way to Europe to buy steel rails, Hill showed them how easy it was for them to make their purchase in this country and ship by way of American railways and American vessels. So the railway builder and promoter, who helped to break the virgin soil of the prairies, lived through the pioneer epoch and into the age of great finance. Before he died he saw the wheat fields of North Dakota linked with the spinning gennies of Manchester and the docks of Yokohama. The evolution of grazing and agriculture. The removal of the Indians. Unlike the frontier of New England in colonial days or of Kentucky later, the advancing lines of home builders in the far west had little difficulty with war-like natives. Indian attacks were made on the railway construction gains. General Custer had his fatal battle with the Sioux in 1876 and there were minor brushes, but they were all a relatively slight consequence. The former practice of treating with the Indians as independent nations was abandoned in 1871 and most of them were concentrated in reservations where they were mainly supported by the government. The supervision of their affairs was vested in a board of commissioners created in 1869 and instructed to treat them as wards of the nation, a trust which unfortunately was often betrayed. A further step in Indian policy was taken in 1887 when provision was made for issuing lands to individual Indians, thus permitting them to become citizens and settle down among their white neighbors as farmers or cattle raisers. The disappearance of the buffalo, the main food supply of the wild Indians, had made them more tractable and more willing to surrender the freedom of the hunter for the routine of the reservation, ranch or wheat field. The Cowboy and Cattle Ranger. Between the frontier of farms and the mountains were plains and semi-arid regions in vast reaches suitable for grazing. As soon as the railways were opened into the Missouri Valley, affording an outlet for stock, they're spraying up to the westward cattle and sheep raising on an immense scale. The far-famed American cowboy was the hero in this scene. Great herds of cattle were bred in Texas. With the advancing spring and summer seasons, they were driven northward across the plains and over the buffalo trails. In a single year, 1884, it is estimated that nearly one million head of cattle were moved out of Texas to the north by 4,000 cowboys supplied with 30,000 horses and ponies. During the two decades from 1870 to 1890, both the cattlemen and the sheep raisers had an almost free run of the plains, using public lands without paying for the privilege and waging war on one another over the possession of ranges. At length, however, both had to go, as the homesteaders and land companies came and fenced in the plain and desert with endless lines of barbed wire. Already in 1893, a writer familiar with the frontier lamented the passing of the picturesque days. The unique position of the cowboys among the Americans is jeopardized in a thousand ways. Towns are growing up on their pasture lands. Irrigation schemes of a dozen sorts threaten to turn bunch-grass scenery into farmland views. Farmers are pre-empting valleys and the sides of waterways. And the day is not far distant when stock-raising must be done mainly in small herds with winter corrals, and then the cowboys' days will end. Even now his condition disappoints those who knew him only half a dozen years ago. His breed seems to have deteriorated and his ranks are filling with men who work for wages rather than for the love of the free life and bold companionship that once tempted men into that calling. Splendid Cheyenne saddles are less and less numerous than the outfits. The distinctive hat that made its way up from Mexico may or may not be worn. All the civil authorities in nearly all towns in the grazing country forbid the wearing of sidearms. Nobody shoots up these towns any more. The fact is the old Simon pure cowboy days are gone already." Settlement under the Homestead Act of 1862. Two factors gave a special stimulus to the rapid settlement of the western lands which swept away the Indians and the cattle rangers. The first was the policy of the railway companies in selling large blocks of land received from the government at low prices to induce immigration. The second was the operation of the Homestead Law passed in 1862. This measure practically closed the long controversy over the disposition of the public domain that was suitable for agriculture. It provided for granting, without any cost save a small registration fee, public lands in lots of 160 acres each to citizens and aliens who declared their intention of becoming citizens. The one important condition attached was that the settler should occupy the farm for five years before his title was finally confirmed. Even this stipulation was waived in the case of the Civil War veterans who were allowed to count their term of military service as a part of the five years occupancy required. As the soldiers of the Revolutionary and Mexican Wars had advanced in great numbers to the frontier in earlier days, so now veterans fled in the settlement of the middle border. Along with them went thousands of German, Irish and Scandinavian immigrants fresh from the old world. Between 1867 and 1874, 27 million acres were staked out in quarter section farms. In 20 years, 1860 to 1880, the population of Nebraska leaped from 28,000 to almost half a million. Kansas from 100,000 to a million. Iowa from 600,000 to 1,600,000. And the Dakotas from 5,000 to 140,000. The diversity of Western agriculture. In soil, produce and management, Western agriculture presented many contrasts to that of the East and South. In the region of arable and watered lands, the typical American unit, the small farm tilled by the owner, appeared as usual. But by the side of it, many a huge domain owned by foreign or eastern companies and tilled by hired labor. Sometimes the great estate took the shape of the Bonanza farm devoted mainly to wheat and corn and cultivated on a large scale by machinery. Again it assumed the form of the cattle ranch embracing tens of thousands of acres. Again it was a vast holding of diversified interest, such as the Santa Anita Ranch near Los Angeles. A domain of 60,000 acres, quote, cultivated in a glorious sweep of vineyards and orange and olive orchards. Rich sheep and cattle pastures and horse ranches, their life and customs handed down from the Spanish owners of the various ranches which were swept into one estate. End quote. Irrigation. In one respect agriculture in the far west was unique. In a large area spreading through eight states, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of adjoining states, the rainfall was so slight that the ordinary crops to which the American farmer was accustomed could not be grown at all. The Mormons were the first Anglo-Saxons to encounter aridity and they were baffled at first. But they studied it and mastered it by magnificent irrigation systems. As other settlers poured into the west, the problem of the desert was attacked with a will, some of them replying to the commissuration of eastern farmers by saying that it was easier to scoop out an irrigation ditch than to cut forests and wrestle with stumps and stones. Private companies bought immense areas at low prices, built irrigation works, and disposed of their lands in small pots. Some ranchers with an instinct for water, like that of the miner for metal, sank wells into the dry sand and were rewarded with gushers that, quote, soused the thirsty desert and turned its good for nothing sand into good for anything loam, end quote. The federal government came to the aid of the arid regions in 1894 by granting lands to the states to be used for irrigation purposes. In this work, Wyoming took the lead with a law which induced capitalists to invest in irrigation and at the same time provided for the sale of the redeemed lands to actual settlers. Finally in 1902, the federal government by its Liberal Reclamation Act added its strength to that of individuals, companies, and states in conquering arid America. Nowhere, writes Powell, a historian of the West in his picturesque end of the trail, quote, as the white man fought a more courageous fight or one a more brilliant victory than in Arizona. His weapons have been the transit and the level, the drill and the dredge, the pick and the spade, and the enemy which he has conquered has been the most stubborn of all foes, the hostile horses of nature. The story of how the white man within the space of less than 30 years penetrated, explored, and mapped this almost unknown region of how he carried law, order, and justice into a section which had never had so much as a speaking acquaintance with any one of the three before. Of how, realizing the necessity for means of communication, he built highways of steel across this territory from east to west and from north to south. Of how, undismayed by the savageness of the countenance which the desert turned upon him, he laughed and rolled up his sleeves and spat upon his hands and slashed the face of the desert with canals and irrigating ditches and filled those ditches with water brought from deep in the earth or high in the mountains. And of how, in the conquered and submissive soil, he replaced the aloe with alfalfa, the mesquite with maize, the cactus with cotton, forms one of the most inspiring chapters in our history. It is one of the epics of civilization, this reclamation of the southwest, and its heroes, thank God, are Americans. Other desert regions have been redeemed by irrigation, Egypt, for example, and Mesopotamia in parts of the Sudan. But the people of all these regions lay stretched out in the shade of a convenient calm, metaphorically speaking, and waited for someone with more energy than themselves to come along and do the work. The Arizonians, mindful of the fact that God, the government, and Carnegie helped those who helped themselves, spent their days wielding the pick and shovel and their evenings in writing letters to Washington with toil-hardened hands. After a time the government was prodded into action, and the great dams at Laguna and Roosevelt are the result. Even the people organizing themselves into cooperative leagues and water-users associations took up the work of reclamation where the government left off. It is to these energetic, persevering men who have drilled wells, plowed fields, and dug ditches through the length and breadth of that great region which stretches from Yuma to Tucson that the metamorphosis of Arizona is due." The effect of irrigation wherever introduced was amazing. Stretches of sand and sagebrush gave way to fertile fields bearing crops of wheat, corn, fruits, vegetables, and grass. Huge ranches grazed by browsing sheep were broken up into small plots. The cowboy and ranch men vanished. In their place rose the prosperous community, a community unlike the township of Iowa or the industrial center of the east. Its intensive tillage left little room for hired labor. Its small holdings drew families together in village life rather than dispersing them on the lonely plain. Often the development of water power in connection with irrigation afforded electricity for labor-saving devices and lifted many a burden that in other ways fell heavily upon the shoulders of the farmer and his family. Mining and Manufacturing in the West Mineral Resources In another important particular, the Far West differed from the Mississippi Valley states. That was in the predominance of mining over agriculture throughout a vast section. Indeed it was the minerals rather than the land that attracted the pioneers who first opened the country. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 was the signal for the great rush of prospectors, miners, and promoters who explored the valleys, climbed the hills, washed the sands, and dug up the soil in their feverish search for gold, silver, copper, coal, and other minerals. In Nevada and Montana the development of mineral resources went on all during the Civil War. The older Gulch became Virginia City in 1863. Last Chance Gulch was named Helena in 1864. The Confederate Gulch was christened Diamond City in 1865. At Butte the miners began operations in 1864, and within five years had washed out eight million dollars worth of gold. Under the gold they found silver, under the silver they found copper. Even at the end of the 19th century after agriculture was well advanced and stock in sheep raising introduced on a large scale, minerals continued to be the chief source of wealth in a number of states. This was revealed by the figures for 1910. The gold, silver, iron, and copper of Colorado were worth more than the wheat, corn, and oats combined. The copper of Montana sold for more than all the cereals and four times the price of the wheat. The interest of Nevada was also mainly mining, the receipts from the mineral output being $43 million or more than one half the national debt of Hamilton's Day. The yield of the mines of Utah was worth four or five times the wheat crop. The coal of Wyoming brought twice as much as the Great Wolf Clip. The minerals of Arizona were totaled at $43 million as against a wolf clip reckoned at $1,200,000. While in Idaho alone of this group of states did the wheat crop exceed in value the output of the mines. Timber Resources The forests of the Great West, unlike those of the Ohio Valley, proved a boon to the pioneers rather than a foe to be attacked. In Ohio and Indiana, for example, the frontier line of homemakers had to cut, roll, and burn thousands of trees before they could put out a crop of any size. Beyond the Mississippi, however, there were already for the breaking plow great reaches of almost treeless prairie where every stick of timber was precious. In the other parts, often rough and mountainous, where stood primeval forests of the finest woods, the railroads made good use of the timber. They consumed acres of forests themselves in making ties, bridge timbers, and telegraph poles, and they laid a heavy tribute upon the forests for their annual upkeep. The surplus trees, such as had burdened the pioneers of the Northwest Territory a hundred years before, they carried off to markets on the east and west coasts. Western Industries The peculiar conditions of the Far West stimulated a rise of industries more rapid than is usual in new country. The mining activities, which in many sections preceded agriculture, called for sawmills to furnish timber for the mines and smelters to reduce and refine ores. The ranches supplied sheath and cattle for the packing houses of Kansas City as well as Chicago. The waters of the Northwest afforded salmon for 4,000 cases in 1866 and for 1,400,000 cases in 1916. The fruits and vegetables of California brought into existence innumerable canneries. The lumber industry, starting with crude sawmills to furnish rough timbers for railways and mines, ended in specialized factories for paper, boxes, and furniture. As the railways proceeded settlement and furnished a ready outlet for local manufacturers, so they encouraged the early establishment of varied industries, thus creating a state of affairs quite unlike that which obtained in the Ohio Valley in the early days before the opening of the Erie Canal. Social Effects of Economic Activities In many respects the social life of the far west also differed from that of the Ohio Valley. The treeless prairies, though open to homesteads, favored the great estate tilled in part by tenant labor and in part by migratory seasonal labor, summoned from all sections of the country for the harvests. The mineral resources created hundreds of huge fortunes which made the accumulations of eastern mercantile families look trivial by comparison. Other millionaires won their fortunes in the railway business and still more from the cattle and sheep ranges. In many sections the cattle king, as he was called, was as dominant as the planter had been in the old south. Everywhere in the grazing country he was a conspicuous and important person. He, quote, sometimes invested money in banks, in railroad stocks, or in city property. He had his rating in the commercial reviews and could hobnob with bankers, railroad presidents, and metropolitan merchants. He attended party caucuses and conventions, ran for the state legislature, and sometimes defeated a lawyer or metropolitan businessman in the race for a seat in Congress. In proportion to their numbers the ranchers have constituted a highly impressive class, end quote. Although many of the early capitalists of the Great West, especially from Nevada, spent their money principally in the east, others took leadership in promoting the sections in which they had made their fortunes. A railroad pioneer, General Palmer, built his home at Colorado Springs, founded the town, and encouraged local improvements. Denver owed its first impressive buildings to the civic patriotism of Forest Tabor, a wealthy mine owner. Leland Stanford paid his tribute to California in the endowment of a large university. Colonel W. F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, started his career by building a boom town which collapsed and made a large sum of money supplying buffalo meat to construction hands, hence his popular name. By his famous Wild West show, he increased it to a fortune which he devoted mainly to the promotion of a Western Reclamation Scheme. While the Far West was developing this vigorous, aggressive leadership in business, a considerable industrial population was springing up. Even the cattle ranges and hundreds of farms were conducted like factories in that they were managed through overseers who hired plowmen, harvesters, and cattlemen at regular wages. At the same time there appeared other peculiar features which made a lasting impression on Western economic life. Mining, lumbering, and fruit growing, for instance, employed thousands of workers during the rush months and turned them out at other times. The inevitable result was an army of migratory laborers wandering from camp to camp, from town to town, and from ranch to ranch, without fixed homes or established habits of life. In this extraordinary condition there issued many along-and-lawless conflict between capital and labor, giving a distinct color to the labor movement in whole sections of the mountain and coast states. The Admission of New States The Spirit of Self-Government The instinct of self-government was strong in the Western communities. In the very beginning it led to the organization of volunteer committees, known as vigilantes, to suppress crime and punish criminals. As soon as enough people were settled permanently in a region, they took care to form a more stable kind of government. An illustration of this process is found in the Oregon Compact made by the pioneers in 1843, the spirit of which is reflected in an editorial in an old copy of the Rocky Mountain News. We claim that anybody or community of American citizens, which from any cause or under any circumstances is cut off from or from isolation is so situated as not to be under any active and protecting branch of the central government, have a right, if on American soil, to frame a government and enact such laws and regulations as may be necessary for their own safety, protection and happiness, always with the condition preceded that they shall, at the earliest moment when the central government shall extend an effective organization and laws over them, give it their unqualified support and obedience." People who turned so naturally to the organization of local administration were equally eager for admission to the Union as soon as any shadow of a claim to statehood could be advanced. As long as a region was merely one of the territories of the United States, the appointment of the governor and other officers was controlled by politics at Washington. Moreover, the disposition of land, mineral rights, forests and water power was also in the hands of national leaders. Thus practical considerations were united with the spirit of independence in the quest for local autonomy. Nebraska and Colorado Two states, Nebraska and Colorado, had little difficulty in securing admission to the Union. The first, Nebraska, had been organized as a territory by the famous Kansas-Nebraska bill, which did so much to precipitate the Civil War. Lying to the north of Kansas, which had been admitted in 1861, it escaped the invasion of slave owners from Missouri and was settled mainly by farmers from the north. Though it claimed a population of only 67,000, it was regarded with kindly interest by the Republican Congress at Washington and, reduced to its present boundaries, it received the coveted statehood in 1867. This was hardly accomplished before the people of Colorado to the southwest began to make known their demands. They had been organized under territorial government in 1861 when they numbered only a handful, but within ten years the aspect of their affairs had completely changed. The silver and gold deposits of the Leadville and Cripple Creek regions had attracted an army of miners and prospectors. The city of Denver, founded in 1858 and named after the governor of Kansas, whence came many of the early settlers, had grown from a straggling camp of log huts into a prosperous center of trade. By 1875 it was reckoned that the population of the territory was not less than 100,000. The following year Congress, yielding to the popular appeal, made Colorado a member of the American Union. Six new states, 1889 to 1890. For many years there was a deadlock in Congress over the admission of new states. The spell was broken in 1889 under the leadership of the Dakotas. For a long time the Dakota Territory, organized in 1861, had been looked upon as the home of the powerful Sioux Indians, whose enormous reservation blocked the advance of the frontier. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills, however, marked their doom. Even before Congress could open their lands to prospectors, pioneers were swarming over the country. Farmers from the adjoining Minnesota and the eastern states, Scandinavians, Germans and Canadians, came in swelling waves to occupy the fertile Dakota lands, now famous even as far away as the fjords of Norway. Seldom had the plow of man cut through richer soil than was found in the bottoms of the Red River Valley, and it became all the more precious when the opening of the Northern Pacific in 1883 afforded a means of transportation east and west. The population, which had numbered 135,000 in 1880, passed the half-million mark before ten years had elapsed. Remembering that Nebraska had been admitted with only 67,000 inhabitants, the Dakotans could not see why they should be kept under federal tutelage. At the same time Washington, far away on the Pacific coast, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, boasting of their populations and their riches, put in their own eloquent pleas. But the members of Congress were busy with politics. The Democrats saw no good reason for admitting new Republican states until after their defeat in 1888. Near the end of their term the next year, they opened the door for North and South Dakota, Washington and Montana. In 1890, a Republican Congress brought Idaho and Wyoming into the Union, the latter with women's suffrage, which had been granted 21 years before. Utah. Although Utah had long presented all the elements of a well-settled and industrious community, its admission to the Union was delayed on account of popular hostility to the practice of polygamy. The custom, it is true, had been prohibited by an act of Congress in 1862, but the law had been systematically evaded. In 1882 Congress made another and more effective effort to stamp out polygamy. Five years later it even went so far as to authorize the confiscation of the property of the Mormon Church in case the practice of plural marriages was not stopped. Meanwhile the Gentile or non-Mormon population was steadily increasing and the leaders in the church became convinced that the battle against the sentiment of the country was futile. At last in 1896 Utah was admitted as a state under a constitution which forbade plural marriages absolutely and forever. Horace Greeley, who visited Utah in 1859, had prophesied that the Pacific Railroad would work a revolution in the land of Brigham Young. His prophecy had come true. Rounding out the Continent. Three more territories now remained out of the Union. Oklahoma, long in Indian reservation, had been opened for settlement to white men in 1889. The rush upon the fertile lands of this region, the last in the history of America, was marked by all the frenzy of the final desperate chance. At a signal from a bugle an army of men with families in wagons, men and women on horseback and on foot, burst into the territory. During the first night a city of tents was raised at Guthrie and Oklahoma City. In ten days wooden houses rose on the plains. In a single year there were schools, churches, business blocks and newspapers. Within fifteen years there was a population of more than half a million. To the west, Arizona, with a population of about 125,000 and New Mexico with 200,000 inhabitants, joined Oklahoma in asking for statehood. Congress, then Republican, looked with reluctance upon the addition of more democratic states. But in 1907 it was literally compelled by public sentiment and a sense of justice to admit Oklahoma. In 1910 the House of Representatives went to the Democrats and within two years Arizona and New Mexico were under the roof. So the Continental Domain was rounded out. The Influence of the Far West on National Life The Last of the Frontier When Horace Greeley made his trip west in 1859, he thus recorded the progress of civilization in his journal. May 12, Chicago. Chocolate and morning journals last seen on the hotel breakfast table. 23rd, Leavenworth, Kansas. Roombells and bathtubs make their final appearance. 26th, Manhattan. Potatoes and eggs last recognized among the blessings that brighten the day as they take their flight. 27th, Junction City. Last visitation of a boot-black with dissolving views of a bored bedroom. Beds bid us goodbye. Within 30 years travelers were riding across that country in Pullman cars and enjoying at the hotels all the comforts of a standardized civilization. The Wild West was gone and with it that frontier of pioneers and settlers who had long given such a bent and tone to American life and had, quote, poured in upon the floor of Congress, end quote, such a long line of backwoods politicians as they were scornfully styled. Freeland and Eastern labor. It was not only the picturesque features of the frontier that were gone. Of far more consequence was the disappearance of free lands with all that meant for American labor. For more than a hundred years any man of even moderate means had been able to secure a homestead of his own and an independent livelihood. For a hundred years America had been able to supply farms to as many immigrants as cared to till the soil. Every new pair of strong arms meant more farms and more wealth. Workmen in Eastern factories, mines or mills who did not like their hours, wages or conditions of labor could readily find an outlet to the land. Now all that was over. By about 1890 most of the desirable land available under the Homestead Act had disappeared. American industrial workers confronted a new situation. Grain supplants King Cotton. In the meantime a revolution was taking place in agriculture. Until 1860 the chief staples sold by America were cotton and tobacco. With the advance of the frontier corn and wheat supplanted them both in agrarian economy. The West became the grainery of the East and of Western Europe. The scoop shovel once used to handle grain was superseded by the towering elevator loading and unloading thousands of bushels every hour. The refrigerator car and ship made the packing industry as stable as the production of cotton or corn and gave an immense impetus to cattle raising and sheep farming. So the meat of the West took its place on the English dinner table by the side of bread baked from decotin wheat. Aid in American economic independence. The effects of this economic movement were manifold and striking. Billions of dollars worth of American grain, dairy, produce and meat were poured into European markets where they paid off debts due money lenders and acquired capital to develop American resources. Thus they accelerated the progress of American financiers toward national independence. The country which had timidly turned to the old world for capital in Hamilton's day and had borrowed at high rates of interest in London in Lincoln's day, moved swiftly toward the time when it would be among the world's first bankers and money lenders itself. Every grain of wheat and corn pulled the balance down on the American side of the scale. Eastern agriculture affected. In the East as well as abroad the opening of the Western grainery produced momentous results. The agricultural economy of that part of the country was changed in many respects. Whole sections of the poorest land went almost out of cultivation. The abandoned farms of the New England Hills bearing solemn witness to the competing power of Western wheat fields. Sheep and cattle raising as well as wheat and corn production suffered at least a relative decline. Thousands of farmers cultivating land of the lower grade were forced to go west or were driven to the margin of subsistence. Even the herds that supplied Eastern cities with milk were fed upon grain brought halfway across the continent. The expansion of the American market. Upon industry as well as agriculture the opening of vast food producing regions told in a thousand ways. The demand for farm machinery, clothing, boots, shoes and other manufacturers gave to American industries such a market as even Hamilton had never foreseen. Moreover it helped to expand far into the Mississippi Valley the industrial area once confined to the northern seaboard states and to transform the region of the Great Lakes into an industrial empire. Herein lies the explanation of the growth of Midwestern cities after 1865. Chicago with its 35 railways tapped every locality of the west and south. To the railways were added the water routes of the lakes thus creating a strategic center for industries. Long foresight carried the McCormick Reaper works to Chicago before 1860. From Troy, New York went a large stove plant that was followed by a shoe factory from Massachusetts. The packing industry rose as a matter of course at a point so advantageous for cattle raisers and shippers and so well connected with eastern markets. To the opening of the far west also the lake region was indebted for a large part of that water borne traffic which made it the Mediterranean basin of North America. The produce of the west and the manufactures of the east poured through it in an endless stream. The swift growth of shipbuilding on the Great Lakes helped to compensate for the decline of the American marine on the high seas. In response to this stimulus Detroit could boast that her shipwrights were able to turn out a 10,000 ton Leviathan for ore or grain about quote as quickly as carpenters could put up an eight room house end quote. Thus in relation to the far west the old northwest territory the wilderness of Jefferson's time had taken the position formerly occupied by New England alone. It was supplying capital and manufactures for a vast agricultural empire west and south. America on the Pacific. It had been said that the Mediterranean Sea was the center of ancient civilization that modern civilization has developed on the shores of the Atlantic. And that the future belongs to the Pacific. At any rate the sweep of the United States to the shores of the Pacific quickly exercised a powerful influence on world affairs. And it undoubtedly has a still greater significance for the future. Very early regular traffic sprang up between the Pacific ports and the Hawaiian islands China and Japan. Two years before the adjustment of the Oregon controversy with England namely in 1844 the United States had established official and trading relations with China. Ten years later four years after the admission of California to the Union the barred door of Japan was forced open by Commodore Perry. The commerce which had long before developed between the Pacific ports and Hawaii China and Japan now flourished under official care. In 1865 a ship from Honolulu carried sugar, molasses and fruits from Hawaii to the Oregon port of Astoria. The next year a vessel from Hong Kong brought rice, mats and tea from China. An era of lucrative trade was opened. The annexation of Hawaii in 1898 the addition of the Philippines at the same time and the participation of American troops in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in Peking in 1900 were but signs and symbols of American power on the Pacific. Conservation and the land problem. The disappearance of the frontier also brought new and serious problems to the governments of the states and the nation. The people of the whole United States suddenly were forced to realize that there was a limit to the rich new land to exploit and to the forests and minerals awaiting the ax in the pick. Then arose in America the questions which had long perplexed the countries of the old world, the scientific use of the soils and conservation of natural resources. Hitherto the government had followed the easy path of giving away arable land and selling forest and mineral lands at low prices. Now it had to face far more difficult and complex problems. It also had to consider questions of land tenure again, especially if the ideal of a nation of home owning farmers was to be maintained. While there was plenty of land for every man or woman who wanted a home on the soil, it made little difference if single landlords or companies got possession of millions of acres if a hundred men in one western river valley owned 17 million acres. But when the good land for small homesteads was all gone, then was raised the real issue. At the opening of the twentieth century, the nation which a hundred years before had land and natural resources apparently without limit was compelled to enact law after law conserving its forests and minerals. Then it was that the great state of California, on the very border of the continent, felt constrained to enact a land settlement measure providing government assistance in an effort to break up large holdings into small lots and to make it easy for actual settlers to acquire small farms. America was passing into a new epoch. References Henry Inman, the old Santa Fe Trail R. I. Dodge, the Plains of the Great West, 1877 C. H. Shin, the Story of the Mine Sy Warman, the Story of the Railroad Emerson Howe, the Story of the Cowboy H. H. Bancroft is the author of many works on the West, but his writings will be found only in the larger libraries. Joseph Schaefer, History of the Pacific Northwest, Edition 1918 T. H. Hiddle, History of California, Four Volumes W. H. Olin, American Irrigation Farming W. E. Smythe, The Conquest of Erid America H. A. Millis, The American-Japanese Problem E. S. Meany, History of the State of Washington H. K. Norton, The History of California Questions 1. Name the state's west of the Mississippi in 1865 2. In what manner was the rest of the western region governed? 3. How far had settlement been carried? 4. What were the striking physical features of the west? 5. How was settlement promoted after 1865? 6. Why was admission to the union so eagerly sought? 7. Explain how politics became involved in the creation of new states. 8. Did the west rapidly become like the older sections of the country? 9. What economic peculiarities did it retain or develop? 10. How did the federal government aid in western agriculture? 11. How did the development of the west affect the east, the south? 12. What relation did the opening of the great grain areas of the west bear to the growth of America's commercial and financial power? 13. State some of the new problems of the west. 14. Discuss the significance of American expansion to the Pacific Ocean. 15. Research topics. 16. The passing of the wild west, Hayworth, the United States in our own times pages 100 to 124. 17. The Indian question, Sparks National Development, American nation series, pages 265 to 281. 18. The Chinese question, Sparks National Development, pages 229 to 250. 19. Rhodes, history of the United States, volume 8, pages 180 to 196. 20. The railway age, Schaefer, history of the Pacific Northwest, pages 230 to 245. 20. The Northern Pacific Railroad, Paxson, the new nation riverside series, pages 20 to 26, especially the map on page 23 and pages 142 to 148. 20. Agriculture and business, Schaefer, Pacific Northwest, pages 246 to 289. 21. Ranching in the Northwest, Theodore Roosevelt, Ranch Life, and Autobiography, pages 103 to 143. 22. The conquest of the desert, W. E. Smythe, the conquest of arid America. 23. Studies of individual western states consult any good encyclopedia. Chapter 19 of History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard. Part 6. National Growth and World's Politics. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anthony Wilson. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard. Part 6. National Growth and World's Politics. Chapter 19. Domestic issues before the country, 1865 through 1897. For 30 years after the Civil War, the leading political parties, although they engaged in heated presidential campaigns, were not sharply and clearly opposed on many matters of vital significance. During none of that time was there a clash of opinion over specific issues such as rent the country in 1800, when Jefferson wrote a popular wave to victory, or again in 1828 when Jackson's western hordes came sweeping into power. The Democrats, who before 1860 definitely opposed protective tariffs, federal banking, internal improvements and heavy taxes, now spoke cautiously on all these points. The Republicans, conscious of the fact that they had been a minority of the voters in 1860 and warned by the early loss of the House of Representatives in 1874, also moved with considerable prudence among the perplexing problems of the day. Again and again, the votes in Congress showed that no clear line separated all the Democrats from all the Republicans. There were Republicans who favored tariff reductions and cheap money. There were Democrats who looked with partiality upon high protection or with indulgence upon the contraction of the currency. Only on matters relating to the coercion of the South was the division between the parties fairly definite. This could be readily accounted for on practical as well as sentimental grounds. After all, the vague criticisms and proposals that found their way into the political platforms did but reflect the confusion of mind prevailing in the country. The fact that out of the 18 years between 1875 and 1893, the Democrats held the House of Representatives for 14 years while the Republicans had every president but one, showed that the voters, like the politicians, were in a state of indecision. Hayes had a Democratic House during his entire term and a Democratic Senate for two years of the four. Cleveland was confronted by a belligerent Republican majority in the Senate during his first administration and at the same time was supported by a Democratic majority in the House. Harrison was sustained by continuous Republican successes in senatorial elections. But in the House he had the barest majority from 1889 to 1891 and lost that altogether at the election held in the middle of his term. The opinion of the country was evidently unsettled and fluctuating. It was still distracted by memories of the dead past and uncertain as to the trend of the future. The currency question. Nevertheless these years of muddled politics and nebulous issues proved to be a period in which social forces were gathering for the great campaign of 1896. Except for the three new features, the railways, the trusts and the trade unions, the subjects of debate among the people were the same as those that had engaged their attention since the foundation of the Republic, the currency, the national debt, banking, the tariff and taxation. Debtors and the Fallen Prices For many reasons the currency question occupied the center of interest. As of old, the farmers and planters of the West and South were heavily in debt to the East for borrowed money secured by farm mortgages and they counted upon the sale of cotton, corn, wheat and hogs to meet interest and principal when due. During the war the Western farmers had been able to dispose of their produce at high prices and thus discharge their debts with comparative ease. But after the war prices declined. Wheat that sold at $2 a bushel in 1865 brought 64 cents 20 years later. The meaning of this for the farmers in debt and nearly three fourths of them were in that class can be shown by a single illustration. A thousand dollar mortgage on a Western farm could be paid off by 500 bushels of wheat when prices were high, whereas it took about 1500 bushels to pay the same debt when wheat was at the bottom of the scale. For the farmer it must be remembered wheat was the measure of his labor, the product of his toil under the summer sun and in its price he found the test of his prosperity. Creditors and Fallen Prices To the bond holders or creditors, on the other hand Fallen Prices were clear gain. If a $50 coupon on a bond bought 70 or 80 bushels of wheat instead of 20 or 30, the advantage to the owner of the coupon was obvious. Moreover the advantage seemed to him entirely just. Creditors had suffered heavy losses when the Civil War carried prices skyward while the interest rates on their old bonds remained stationary. For example if a man had a $1,000 bond issued before 1860 and paying interest at 5%, he received $50 a year from it. Before the war each dollar would buy a bushel of wheat, in 1865 it would only buy half a bushel. When prices, that is the cost of living, began to go down, creditors therefore generally regarded the change with satisfaction as a return to normal conditions. The Cause of Fallen Prices The Fallen Prices was due no doubt to many factors. Among them must be reckoned the discontinuance of government buying for war purposes, labor saving farm machinery, immigration, and the opening of new wheat growing regions. The currency too was an element in the situation. Whatever the cause, the discontented farmers believed that the way to raise prices was to issue more money. They viewed it as a case of supply and demand. If there was a small volume of currency in circulation, prices would be low. If there was a large volume, prices would be high. Hence they looked with favor upon all plans to increase the amount of money in circulation. First they advocated more paper notes, greenbacks, and then they turned to silver as the remedy. The creditors on the other hand naturally approved the reduction of the volume of currency. They wished to see the greenbacks withdrawn from circulation and gold, a metal more limited in volume than silver, made the sole basis of the national monetary system. The Battle over the Greenbacks The contest between the factions began as early as 1866. In that year Congress enacted a law authorizing the Treasury to withdraw the greenbacks from circulation. The paper money parties set up a shrill cry of protest and kept up the fight until, in 1878, it forced Congress to provide for the continuous reissue of the legal tender notes as they came into the Treasury in payment of taxes and other dues. Then could the Friends of Easy Money rejoice? Thou greenback tis of thee fair money of the free of thee we sing. Resumption of Species Payment There was, however, another side to this victory. The opponents of the greenbacks, unable to stop the circulation of paper, induced Congress to pass a law in 1875, providing that on and after January 1st, 1879, the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem in coin the United States legal tender notes then outstanding on their presentation at the Office of the Assistant Treasurer of the United States in the City of New York in sums of not less than $50. The way to resume, John Sherman had said, is to resume. When the hour for redemption arrived, the Treasury was prepared with a large hoard of gold. On the appointed day, wrote the Assistant Secretary, anxiety reigned in the Office of the Treasury. Hour after hour passed, no news from New York, inquiry by wire showed that all was quiet. At the close of the day this message came, $135,000 of notes presented for coin, $400,000 of gold for notes. That was all. Resumption was accomplished with no disturbance. By five o'clock the news was all over the land and the New York bankers were sipping their tea in absolute safety. The Specy Problem, the parody of gold and silver. Defeated in their efforts to stop the present suicidal and destructive policy of contraction, the advocates of an abundant currency demanded an increase in the volume of silver in circulation. This precipitated one of the sharpest political battles in American history. The issue turned on legal as well as economic points. The Constitution gave Congress the power to coin money and it forbade the states to make anything but gold and silver legal tender in the payment of debts. It evidently contemplated the use of both metals in the currency system. Such, at least, was the view of many eminent statesmen, including no less a personage than James G. Blaine. The difficulty, however, lay in maintaining gold and silver coins on a level which would permit them to circulate with equal facility. Obviously, if the gold and a gold dollar exceeds the value of the silver and a silver dollar on the open market, men will hoard gold money and leave silver money in circulation. When, for example, Congress in 1792 fixed the ratio of the two metals at one to fifteen, one ounce of gold declared worth fifteen of silver, it was soon found that gold had been undervalued. When again in 1834 the ratio was put at one to sixteen, it was found that silver was undervalued. Consequently, the latter metal was not brought in for coinage and silver almost dropped out of circulation. Many a silver dollar was melted down by silverware factories. Silver demonetized in 1873. So things stood in 1873. At that time, Congress, in enacting a mintage law, discontinued the coinage of the standard silver dollar, then practically out of circulation. This act was denounced later by the Friends of Silver as The Crime of 73, a conspiracy devised by the money power and secretly carried out. This contention, the debates in Congress do not seem to sustain. In the course of the argument on the mint law, it was distinctly said by one speaker at least, this bill provides for the making of changes in the legal tender coin of the country and for substituting as legal tender coin of only one metal instead of two as here to four. The Decline in the Value of Silver Absorbed in the greenback controversy, the people apparently did not appreciate at the time the significance of the demonetization of silver. But within a few years several events united in making it the center of a political storm. Germany, having abandoned silver in 1871, steadily increased her demand for gold. Three years later the countries of the Latin Union followed this example, thus helping to enhance the price of the yellow metal. All the while new silver loads discovered in the far west were pouring into the market great streams of the white metal bearing down the price. Then came the resumption of species payment, which in effect placed the paper money on a gold basis. Within twenty years silver was worth in gold only about half the price of 1870. That there had been a real decline in silver was denied by the friends of that metal. They alleged that gold had gone up because it had been given a monopoly in the coinage markets of civilized governments. This monopoly they continued, was the fruit of a conspiracy against the people conceived by the bankers of the world. Moreover they went on, the placing of the greenbacks on a gold basis had itself worked a contraction of the currency. It lowered the prices of labor and produce to the advantage of the holders of long-term investments bearing a fixed rate of interest. When wheat sold at sixty-four cents a bushel, their search for relief became desperate and they at last concentrated their efforts on opening the mince of the government for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. Republicans and Democrats divided. On this question both Republicans and Democrats were divided, the line being drawn between the east on the one hand and the south and west on the other, rather than between the two leading parties. So trusted a leader as James G. Blaine avowed in a speech delivered in the senate in 1878 that as the constitution required Congress to make both gold and silver the money of the land, the only question left was that of fixing the ratio between them. He affirmed, moreover, the main contention of the silver faction that a reopening of the government mince of the world to silver would bring it up to its old relation with gold. He admitted also that their most ominous warnings were well-founded saying, I believe the struggle now going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold standard would, if successful, produce widespread disaster throughout the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money and the establishment of gold as the sole unit of value must have a ruinous effect on all forms of property, except those investments which yield a fixed return. This was exactly the concession that the silver party wanted. Three-fourths of the business enterprises of this country are conducted on borrowed capital, said Senator Jones of Nevada. Three-fourths of the homes and farms that stand in the names of the actual occupants have been bought on time, and a very large proportion of them are mortgaged for the payment of some part of the purchased money. Under the operation of a shrinkage in the volume of money, this enormous mass of borrowers, at the maturity of their respective debts, though nominally paying no more than the amount borrowed with interest, are, in reality, in the amount of the principal alone, returning a percentage of value greater than they received, more in equity than they contracted to pay. In all discussions of the subject, the creditors attempt to brush aside the equities involved by sneering at the debtors. The Silver Purchase Act, 1878. Even before the actual resumption of a specie payment, the advocates of free silver were of power to be reckoned with, particularly in the Democratic Party. They had a majority in the House of Representatives in 1878, and they carried a silver bill through that chamber. Blocked by the Republican Senate, they accepted a compromise in the Bland-Allison bill, which provided for huge monthly purchases of silver by the government for coinage into dollars. So strong was the sentiment that a two-thirds majority mustered after President Hayes vetoed the measure. The effect of this act, as some had anticipated, was disappointing. It did not stay silver on its downward course. Thereupon, the silver faction pressed through Congress in 1886, a bill providing for the issue of paper certificates based on the silver accumulated in the Treasury. Still, silver continued to fall. Then, the advocates of inflation declared that they wouldn't be content with nothing short of free coinage at the ratio of 16 to 1. If the issue had been squarely presented in 1890, there is good reason for believing that free silver would have received the majority in both Houses of Congress, but it was not presented. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the Bond Sales. Republican leaders, particularly from the East, stemmed the silver tied by a diversion of forces. They passed the Sherman Act of 1890, providing for large monthly purchases of silver and for the issue of notes redeemable in gold or silver at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury. In a clause of superb ambiguity, they announced that it was the established policy of the United States to maintain the two medals on a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio or such other ratio as may be provided by law. For a while, silver was buoyed up. Then, it turned once more on its downward course. In the meantime, the Treasury was in a sad plight. To maintain the gold reserve, President Cleveland felt compelled to sell government bonds. And to his dismay, he found that as soon as the gold was brought in at the front door of the Treasury, notes were presented for redemption and the gold was quickly carried out at the back door. Alarmed at the vicious circle thus created, he urged upon Congress the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. For this, he was roundly condemned by many of his own followers who branded his conduct as treason to the party. But the Republicans, especially from the east, came to his rescue and in 1893, swept the troublesome sections of the law from the statute book. The anger of the silver faction knew no bounds and the leaders made ready for the approaching presidential campaign. The Protective Tariff and Taxation Fluctuation in Tariff Policy As each of the old parties was divided on the currency question, it is not surprising that there was some confusion in their ranks over the tariff. Like the silver issue, the tariff tended to align the manufacturing east against the agricultural west and south rather than to cut directly between the two parties. Still, the Republicans on the whole stood firmly by the rates imposed during the Civil War. If we accept the reductions of 1872, which were soon offset by increases, we may say that those rates were substantially unchanged for nearly 20 years. When a revision was brought about, however, it was initiated by Republican leaders. Seeing a huge surplus of revenue in the Treasury in 1883, they anticipated popular clamour by revising the tariff on the theory that it ought to be reformed by its friends rather than by its enemies. On the other hand, it was the Republicans also who enacted the McKinley Tariff Bill of 1890, which carried protection to its highest point up to that time. The Democrats on their part were not all confirmed free traders or even advocates of tariff for revenue only. In Cleveland's first administration, they did attack the protective system in the House where they had a majority and in this they were vigorously supported by the President. The assault, however, proved to be a futile gesture for it was blocked by the Republicans in the Senate. When after the sweeping victory of 1892, the Democrats in the House again attempted to bring down the tariff by the Wilson Bill of 1894. They were checkmated by their own party colleagues in the upper chamber. In the end, they were driven into a compromise that looked more like a McKinley than a Calhoun Tariff. The Republicans taunted them with being babes in the woods. President Cleveland was so dissatisfied with the bill that he refused to sign it, allowing it to become law on the lapse of 10 days without his approval. The Income Tax of 1894 The advocates of tariff reduction usually associated with their proposal a tax on incomes. The argument which they advanced in support of their program was simple. Most of the industries, they said, are in the East and the protective tariff which taxes consumers for the benefits of manufacturers is, in effect, a tribute laid upon the rest of the country. As an offset, they offered a tax on large incomes, this owing to the heavy concentration of rich people in the East would fall mainly upon the beneficiaries of protection. We proposed, said one of them, to place a part of the burden upon the accumulated wealth of the country, instead of placing it all upon the consumption of the people. In this spirit, the sponsors of the Wilson Tariff Bill laid a tax upon all incomes of $4,000 a year or more. In taking this step, the Democrats encountered opposition in their own party. Senator Hill of New York turned fiercely upon them, exclaiming, the professors with their books, the socialists with their schemes, the anarchists with their bombs are all instructing the people in the principles of taxation. Even the Eastern Republicans were hardly a savage in their denunciation of the tax. But all this labor was wasted. The next year, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the income tax to be a direct tax, and therefore null and void, because it was laid on incomes wherever found and not apportioned among the states, according to population. The fact that four of the nine judges dissented from this decision was also an index to the diversity of opinion that divided both parties. The Railways and Trusts The Grangers and State Regulation The same uncertainty about the Railways and Trusts pervaded the ranks of the Republicans and Democrats. As to the Railways, the first firm and consistent demand for their regulation came from the West. There, the farmers, in the early 70s, having got control in state legislatures, particularly in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois, enacted drastic laws prescribing the maximum charges which companies could make for carrying freight and passengers. The application of these measures, however, was limited because the state could not fix the rates for transporting goods and passengers beyond its own borders. The power of regulating interstate commerce, under the Constitution, belonged to Congress. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 Within a few years, the movement which had been so effective in Western legislatures appeared at Washington in the form of demands for the federal regulation of interstate rates. In 1887, the pressure became so strong that Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission and forbade many abuses on the part of Railways, such as discriminating in charges between one shipper and another, and granting secret rebates to favored persons. This law was a significant beginning, but it left the main question of rate fixing untouched, much to the discontent of farmers and shippers. The Sherman Antitrust Law of 1890 As in the case of the Railways, attacks upon the trusts were first made in state legislatures, where it became the fashion to provide severe penalties for those who formed the monopolies and conspired to enhance prices. Republicans and Democrats united in the promotion of measures of this kind, as in the case of the Railways also, the movement to curb the trusts soon had spokesmen at Washington. Though Blaine had declared that trusts were largely a private affair with which neither the president nor any private citizen had any particular right to interfere, it was a Republican Congress that enacted in 1890 the first measure, the Sherman Antitrust Law, which was directed against great combinations in the business. This act declared illegal every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade and commerce among the several states or with foreign nations. The Futility of the Antitrust Law Whether the Sherman Law was directed against all combinations or merely those which placed an unreasonable restraint in trade and competition was not apparent. Senator Platt of Connecticut, a careful statesman of the old school, averred the questions of whether the bill would be operative of how it would operate or whether it was within the power of Congress to enact it, have been whistled down the wind in the Senate as idle talk and the whole effort has been to get some bill headed, a bill to punish trusts Whatever its purpose, its effect upon existing trusts and upon the formation of new combinations was negligible. It was practically unenforced by President Harrison and President Cleveland in spite of the constant demand for harsh action against monopolies. It was patent that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were prepared for a war on the trusts to the bitter end. The Minor Parties and Unrest of Descenting Parties From the election of 1872, when Horace Greeley made his ill-fated excursion into politics onward, there appeared in each presidential campaign one and sometimes two or more parties stressing issues that appealed mainly to wage earners and farmers. Whether they chose to call themselves labor reformers, greenbackers or anti-monopolists, their slogans and their platforms all pointed in one direction. Even the prohibitionists who in 1872 started on their career with a single issue, the abolition of the liquor traffic, found themselves making declarations of faith on other matters and hopelessly split over the money question in 1896. A composite view of the platforms put forth by the Descenting Parties from the Administration of Grant to the close of Cleveland's second term reveals certain notions common to them all. These included, among many others, the earliest possible payment of the national debt, regulation of the rates of railways and telegraph companies, repeal of the Species Resumption Act of 1875, the issue of legal tender notes by the government convertible into interest bearing obligations on demand, unlimited coinage of silver as well as gold, a graduated inheritance tax, legislation to take from land, railroad, money and other gigantic corporate monopolies, the powers they have so corruptly and unjustly usurped, popular or direct election of United States Senators, woman's suffrage, and a graduated income tax placing the burden of government on those who can best afford to pay instead of laying it on the farmers and producers. Criticism of the Old Parties This long program of measures, the Reformers added harsh and accurate criticism of the Old Parties and sometimes it must be said of established institutions of government. We denounce exclaimed the Labor Party in 1888, the Democratic and Republican Parties as hopelessly and shamelessly corrupt and by reason of their affiliation with the monopolies, equally unworthy of the suffragists of those who did not live upon the public plunder. The United States Senate insisted the Greenbackers as a body composed largely of aristocratic millionaires who according to their own party papers generally purchased their elections in order to protect the great monopolies which they represent. Indeed, if their platforms are to be accepted at face value, the Greenbackers believed that the entire government had passed out of the hands of the people, the Grangers. This unsparing, not to say revolutionary, criticism of American political life appealed, it seems, mainly to farmers in the Middle West. Always active in politics they had before the Civil War cast their lot as a rule with one or the other of the leading parties. In 1867, however, there grew up among them an association known as the Patrons of Husbandry which was destined to play a large role in the partisan process of the succeeding decades. This society which organized local lodges or granges on principles of secrecy and fraternity was originally designed to promote in a general way the interests of the farmers. Its political bearings were apparently not grasped at first by its promoters. Yet, appealing as it did to the most active and independent spirits among the farmers and gathering to itself, the strength organization, it soon found itself in the hands of leaders more or less involved in politics. Where a few votes are marshaled together in a democracy there is power. The Greenback Party The first extensive activity of the Grangers was connected with the attack on the railways in the Middle West which forced several state legislatures to reduce freight and passenger rates by law. At the same time some leaders in the movement no doubt emboldened by this success launched in 1876 a new political party popularly known as the Greenbackers favoring a continued reissue of the legal tenders. The beginnings were disappointing but two years later in the congressional elections the Greenbackers swept whole sections of the country. Their candidates polled more than a million votes and 14 of them were returned to the House of Representatives to all outward signs a new and formidable party had entered the lists. The sanguine hopes of the leaders proved to be illusory. The quiet operations of the Resumption Act the following year a revival of industry from a severe panic which had set in during 1873 the Silver Purchase Act and the reissue of Greenbacks cut away some of the grounds of agitation. There was also a diversion to the Silver Faction which had a substantial support in the Silver Mine owners of the West. At all events the Greenback vote fell to about 300,000 in the election of 1880. A still greater drop came four years later and the party gave up the ghost its sponsors returning to their former allegiance or sulking in their tents. The Rise of the Populist Party Those leaders of the old parties who now looked for a happy future unvexed by new factions were doomed to disappointment. The funeral of the Greenback party was hardly over before there arose two other political specters in the agrarian sections the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union particularly strong in the south and west and the Farmers' Alliance operating in the north. By 1890 the two orders claimed over 3 million members. For the Grangers many years before the leaders among them found an easy way into politics. In 1892 they held a convention nominated a candidate for president and adopted the name of People's Party from which they were known as populists. Their platform in every line breathed a spirit of radicalism. They declared that the newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled. Public opinion silenced business prostrate our homes covered with mortgages and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few. Having delivered this sweeping indictment the populists put forward their remedies. The free coinage of silver a graduated income tax postal savings banks and government ownership of railways and telegraphs. At the same time they approved the initiative, referendum and popular election of senators and condemned the use of federal troops in labor disputes. On this platform the populists polled over a million votes captured 22 presidential electors and sent a powerful delegation to congress. Industrial distress augments unrest. The four years intervening between the campaign of 1892 and the next presidential election brought forth many events which aggravated the ill feeling expressed in the potentious platform of populism. Cleveland, a consistent enemy of free silver gave his powerful support to the gold standard and insisted on the repeal of the silver purchase act thus alienating an increasing number of his own party. In 1893 a grave industrial crisis fell upon the land. Banks and business houses went into bankruptcy with startling rapidity. Factories were closed idle men thronged the streets hunting for work and the prices of wheat and corn dropped to a ruinous level. Labor disputes also filled the crowded record. A strike at the Pullman car works in Chicago spread to the railways. Disorders ensued President Cleveland, against the protests of the governor of Illinois John P. Altguild dispatched troops to the scene of action. The United States District Court at Chicago issued an injunction forbidding the president of the railway union Eugene V. Debs or his assistance to interfere with the transmission of the males or interstate commerce in any form for refusing to obey the order Debs was arrested and imprisoned with federal troops in possession of the field with their leader in jail the strikers gave up the battle defeated but not subdued. To cap the climax the Supreme Court of the United States the following year 1895 declared null and void the income tax law just enacted by Congress thus fanning the flames of populist discontent all over the west and south. The sound money battle of 1896 conservative men alarmed men of conservative thought and leaning in both parties were by this time thoroughly disturbed they looked upon the rise of populism and the growth of labor disputes as the signs of a revolutionary spirit indeed nothing short of a menace to American institutions and ideals the income tax of 1894 exclaimed the distinguished New York advocate Joseph H. Chote in an impassioned speech before the Supreme Court is communistic in its purposes and tendencies and is defended here upon principles as communistic, socialistic what shall I call them populistic as ever have been addressed to any political assembly in the world. Mr. Justice Field in the name of the court replied the present assault upon capital the beginning. It will be but the stepping stone to others larger and more sweeping till our political conditions will become a war of the poor against the rich. In declaring the income tax unconstitutional he believed that he was but averting greater evils lurking under its guise. As for free silver nearly all conservative men were united in calling it a measure of confiscation and repudiation an effort of the debtors to pay their obligations with money worth fifty cents on the dollar the climax of villainies openly defended a challenge to law order and honor. The Republicans come out for the gold standard. It was among the Republicans that this opinion was most widely shared and firmly held. It was they who picked up the gauge thrown down by the populists though a host of Democrats like Cleveland and Hill of New York also battled a growing populist defection in Democratic ranks. When the Republican National Convention assembled in 1896 the die was soon cast a declaration of opposition to free silver saved by international agreement was carried by a vote of eight to one. The Republican Party to use the vigorous language of Mr. Lodge arrayed itself against not only that organized failure the Democratic Party all the wandering forces of political chaos and social disorder in these bitter times when the forces of disorder are loose and the wreckers with their false lights gather at the shore to lure the ship of state upon the rocks yet it is due to historic truth to state that McKinley whom the Republicans nominated had voted in Congress for the free coinage of silver was widely known as a bimetalist and was only with difficulty persuaded to accept the unequivocal endorsement of the gold standard which was pressed upon him by his counselors. Having accepted it however he proved to be a valiant champion though his major interest was undoubtedly in the protective tariff to him nothing was more reprehensible than attempts to array class against class the classes against the masses section against section labor against capital the poor against the rich or interest against interest such was the language of his acceptance speech the whole program of populism he now viewed as a sudden, dangerous and revolutionary assault upon law and order the democratic convention at Chicago never save at the great disruption on the eve of the civil war did a democratic national convention display more feeling than at Chicago in 1996 from the opening prayer to the last motion before the house every act, every speech, every scene, every resolution evoked passions and sowed dissensions departing from long party custom it voted down in anger a proposal to praise the administration of the democratic president Cleveland when the platform with its radical planks including free silver was reported a veritable storm broke Senator Hill trembling with emotion protested against the departure from old tests of democratic allegiance against principles that must drive out the party men who had gone gray in its service against revolutionary unwise and unprecedented steps in the history of the party Senator Velas of Wisconsin in great fervor avowed that there was no difference in principle between the free coinage of silver the confiscation of one half of the credit of the nation for the benefit of debtors and communism itself a universal distribution of property in the triumph of that cause he saw the beginning of the overthrow of all law all justice all security and repose in the social order the crown of thorns speech the champions of free silver replied in strident tones they accused the gold advocates of being the aggressors who had assailed the labor and the homes of the people William Jennings Brian of Nebraska voiced their sentiments in a memorable oration he declared that their cause was as holy as the cause of liberty the cause of humanity he exclaimed that the contest was between the idle holders of idle capital and the toiling millions then he named those for whom he spoke the wage earner the country lawyer the small merchant, the farmer and the miner the man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer the attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation council in a great metropolis the merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York the farmer is as much a businessman who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain the miners who go a thousand feet into the earth or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs are as much businessman as the few financial magnets who in a back room cornered the money of the world it is for these that we speak we do not come as aggressors ours is not a war of conquest we are fighting in defense of our homes our families and our prosperity we have petitioned and our petitions have been scorned we have been treated and our entreaties have been disregarded we have begged and they have mocked when our calamity came we beg no longer we entreat no more we petition no more we defy them we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them you shall not press upon the brow of labor with thorns you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold brian nominated in all the history of national conventions never had an orator so completely swayed a multitude not even yancy in his memorable plea in the charleston convention of 1860 when with grave and moving eloquence he espoused the southern cause against the impending fates the delegates after hearing Mr. brian until they could cheer no more tore the standards from the floor and gathered around the nebraska delegation to renew the deafening applause the platform as reported was carried by a vote of two to one and the young orator from the west hailed as america's tiberias gracas was nominated as the democratic candidate for president the south and west had triumphed over the east the division was sectional admittedly sectional the old combination of power which calhoun had so anxiously labored to build up a century earlier the gold democrats were repudiated in terms which were clear to all a few unable to endure the thought of voting the republican ticket held a convention at indianapolis where with the sanction of cleveland they nominated candidates of their own and endorsed the gold standard in a forlorn hope the democratic platform it was to the call from chicago that the democrats gave heed and the republicans made answer the platform on which mr brian stood unlike most party manifestos was explicit in its language and its appeal it denounced the practice of allowing national banks to issue notes intended to circulate as money on the ground that it was in derogation of the constitution recalling jackson's famous attack on the bank in 1832 it declared that tariff duties should be laid for the purpose of revenue calhoun's doctrine in demanding the free coinage of silver it recurred to the practice abandoned in 1873 the income tax came next on the program the platform alleged that the law of 1894 passed by a democratic congress was in strict pursuance to the uniform decisions of the supreme court for nearly a hundred years and then hinted that the decision annulling the law might be reversed by the same body as it may hereafter be constituted the appeal to labor voiced by mr brian in his crown of thorns speech was reinforced in the platform as labor creates the wealth of the country ran one plank we demand the passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect it in all its rights referring to the recent pullman strike the passions of which had not yet died away the platform denounced arbitrary interference by federal authorities in local affairs as a violation of the constitution of the united states and a crime against free institutions a special objection was lodged against government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of oppression by which federal judges in contempt of the laws of states and rights of citizens became at once legislators, judges and executioners the remedy advanced was a federal law assuring trial by jury in all cases of contempt in labor disputes having made this declaration of faith the democrats with mr brian at the head raised their standard of battle the heated campaign the campaign which ensued outrivaled in the range of its educational activities and the bitterness of its tone all other political conflicts in american history not accepting the fateful struggle of 1860 immense sums of money were contributed to the funds of both parties railway banking and other corporations gave generously to the republicans the silver miners less lavishly but with the same anxiety supported the democrats the country was flooded with pamphlets posters and handbills every public forum from the great auditoriums of the cities to the red school houses on the countryside was occupied by the opposing forces mr brian took the stump himself visiting all parts of the country in special trains and addressing literally millions of people in the open air mr mckinley chose the older and more formal plan he received delegations at his home in canton and discussed the issues of the campaign from his front porch leaving to an army of well organized orators the task of reaching the people in their home towns parades processions and monster demonstrations filled the land with politics whole states were pulled in advance by the republicans and the doubtful voters personally visited by men equipped with arguments and literature manufacturers frightened at the possibility of disordered public credit announced that they would close their doors if the democrats won the election men were dismissed from public and private places on account of their political views one eminent college president being forced out for advocating free silver the language employed by impassioned and embittered speakers on both sides roused the public frenzy once more showing the lengths to which men could go in personal and political abuse the republican victory the verdict of the nation was decisive mckinley received 271 of the 447 electoral votes and 7,111,000 popular votes as against bryans 6,509,000 the congressional elections were equally positive although on account of the composition of the senate the holdover democrats and populists still enjoyed a power out of proportion to their strength as measured at the polls even as it was the republicans got full control of both houses a dominion of the entire government which they were to hold for 14 years until the second half of mr. taff's administration when they lost possession of the house of representatives the yoke of indecision was broken the party of sound finance and protective tariffs set out upon its lease of power with untroubled assurance republican measures and results the gold standard and the tariff yet strange as it may seem the republicans did not at once enact the legislation making the gold dollar the standard for national currency not until 1900 did they take that positive step in his first inaugural president mckinley as if still uncertain in his own mind or fearing a revival of the contest just closed place the tariff not the money question in the forefront the people have decided he said that such legislation should be had as well give ample protection and encouragement to the industries and development of our country protection for american industries therefore he urged the task before congress with adequate revenue secured but not until then we can enter upon changes in our fiscal laws as the republicans had only 46 of the 90 senators and at least 4 of them were known advocates of free silver the discretion exercised by the president in selecting the tariff for congressional debate was the better part of valor congress gave he to the warning under the direction of nelson p dingley whose name was given to the bill a tariff measure levying the highest rates yet laid in the history of american imports was prepared and driven through the house of representatives the opposition encountered in the senate especially from the west was overcome by concessions in favor of that section but the duties on sugar tin steel lumber hemp and in fact all of the essential commodities handled by combinations and trusts were materially raised growth of combinations the years that followed the enactment of the dingley law were whatever the cause the most prosperous the country had witnessed for many a decade industries of every kind were soon running full blast labor was employed commerce spread more swiftly than ever to the markets of the world coincident with this progress was the organization of the greatest combinations and trusts the world had yet seen in 1899 the smelters formed a trust with a capital of 65 million dollars in the same year the standard oil company with a capital of over 100 millions took the place of the old trust and the copper trust was incorporated under the laws of new jersey its par value capital being fixed shortly afterward at $175 million a year later the national sugar refining company of new jersey started with a capital of 90 million dollars adopting the policy of issuing to the stockholders no public statement of its earnings or financial condition before another 12 month had lapsed all previous corporate financing was reduced to small proportions by the flotation of the united states steel corporation the capital of more than a billion dollars an enterprise set in motion by the famous morgan banking house of new york in nearly all these gigantic undertakings the same great leaders in finance were more or less intimately associated to use the language of an eminent authority they are all allied and intertwined by their various mutual interests for instance the pennsylvania railroad interests are on the one hand allied with the vanderbelts and on the other with the rockefellers the vanderbills are closely allied with the morgan group viewed as a whole we find the dominating influence in the trusts to be made up of a network of large and small capitalists many allied to one another by ties of more or less importance but all being appendages to or parts of the greater groups which are themselves dependent on an allied with the two mammoth or rockefeller or modern groups these two mammoth groups jointly constitute the heart of the business and commercial life of the nation such was the picture of triumphant business enterprise drawn by a financier within a few years after the memorable campaign of 1896 america had become one of the first workshops of the world it was by virtue of the closely knit organization of its business and finance one of the most powerful and energetic leaders in the struggle of the giants for the business of the earth the capital of the steel corporation alone was more than 10 times the total national debt which the apostles of calamity in the days of washington and hamilton declared the nation could never pay american industry filling domestic markets to overflowing was ready for new worlds to conquer references jwb tosig tariff history of the united states jl lochlin bimetalism in the united states ab heppern history of coinage and the currency in the united states e r a saligman the income tax s j buck the granger movement harvard studies f h dixon state railroad control h r mayer government regulation of railway rates w z rippley editor trusts pools and corporations r t e lie monopolies and trusts jb clark the control of trusts questions one what proof have we that the political parties were not clearly divided over issues between 1865 and 1896 two why is a fall in prices a loss to farmers and a gain to holders of fixed investments three explain the theory that the quantity of money determines the prices of commodities four why was it difficult if not impossible to keep gold and silver at a parity five what special conditions favored a fall in silver between 1870 and 1896 six describe some of the measures taken to raise the value of silver seven explain the relation between the tariff and the income tax in 1894 eight how did it happen that the farmers led in regulating railway rates nine give the terms of the sherman and the sherman and the sherman give the terms of the sherman antitrust act what was its immediate effect ten name some of the minor parties enumerate the reforms they advocated eleven briefly describe the experiments of the farmers in politics twelve how did industrial conditions increase unrest thirteen why were conservative men disturbed in the early nineties fourteen explain the republican position in 1896 fifteen give mr. bryan's doctrines in 1896 enumerate the chief features of the democratic platform sixteen what were the leading measures adopted by the republicans after their victory in 1896 research topics greenbacks and resumption dewey financial history of the united states sixth edition sections 122 through 125 154 and 378 mcdonald documentary source book of american history pages 446 566 heart american history told by contemporaries volume 4 pages 531 through 533 roads history of the united states volume 8 pages 97 through 101 demonetization and coinage of silver dewey financial history sections 170 through 173 186 189 194 mcdonald pages 174 573 593 595 heart contemporaries volume 4 pages 529 through 531 roads history volume 8 pages 93 through 97 free silver and the campaign of 1896 dewey problems american nation series pages 220 through 237 314 through 328 heart contemporaries volume 4 pages 533 through 538 tariff revision dewey financial history sections 167 180 181 187 196 heart contemporaries volume 4 pages 518 through 525 roads history volume 8 pages 168 through 179 346 through 351 418 through 422 federal regulation of railways dewey national problems pages 91 through 111 mcdonald documentary source book pages 581 through 590 heart contemporaries volume 4 pages 521 through 523 roads history volume 8 pages 288 through 292 the rise in regulation of trusts dewey national problems pages 188 through 202 mcdonald documentary source book pages 591 through 593 the grangers and populism paxson the new nation riverside series pages 20 through 37 177 through 191 208 through 223 general analysis general analysis of domestic problems syllabus in history New York state 1920 pages 137 through 142 end of chapter 19 recording by Anthony Wilson