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CHAPTER XXXV

POLITICS SINCE 1880

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536. Candidates in 1880. The campaign of 1880 was opened by the meeting of the Republican national convention at Chicago, where a long and desperate effort was made to nominate General Grant for a third term. But James Abram Garfield and Chester A. Arthur were finally chosen. The platform called for national aid to state education, for protection to American labor, for the suppression of polygamy in Utah, for "a thorough, radical, and complete" reform of the civil service, and for no more land grants to railroads or corporations. The Greenback-Labor party nominated James R. Weaver and B. J. Chambers, and declared

1. That all money should be issued by the government and not by banking corporations.

2. That the public domain must be kept for actual settlers and not given to railroads.

3. That Congress must regulate commerce between the states, and secure fair, moderate, and uniform rates for passengers and freight.

Next came the Prohibition party convention, and the nomination of Neal Dow and A. M. Thompson.

Last of all was the Democratic convention, which nominated General Winfield S. Hancock and William H. English. The platform called for

1. Honest money, consisting of gold and silver and paper convertible into coin on demand.

2. A tariff for revenue only.

3. Public lands for actual settlers.

537. Election and Death of Garfield.

The campaign was re

markable for many reasons:

1. Every presidential elector was chosen by popular vote. This had never before happened in our country.

2. Every electoral vote was counted as it was cast. This had never occurred before.

3. For the first time since 1844 there was no agitation of a Southern question.

4. All parties agreed in calling for anti-Chinese legislation.

Garfield and Arthur were elected, and inaugurated on March 4, 1881. But on July 2, 1881, as Garfield stood in a railway station at Washington, a disappointed office

seeker came up behind and shot him in the back. A long and painful illness followed, till he died on September 19, 1881.

538. Presidential Succession.

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The death of Garfield and the succession of Arthur to the presidential office left the country in a peculiar situation. An act of Congress passed in 1792 provided that if both the presidency and vice presidency were vacant at the same time, the President pro tempore of the Senate, or if there were none, the Speaker of the House of Representatives,

James A. Garfield

should act as President, till a new one was elected. But in September, 1881, there was neither a President pro tempore of the Senate nor a Speaker of the House of Representatives, as the Forty-sixth Congress ceased to exist on March 4, and the Forty-seventh was not to meet till December. Had Arthur died or been killed, there would therefore have been no President. It was not likely that such a condition would happen again; but attention was called to the necessity of providing for succession to the presidency, and in 1886 a new law was enacted.

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Chester A. Arthur

Now, should the presidency and vice presidency both become vacant, the presidency passes to members of the Cabinet in the order of the establishment of their departments, beginning with the Secretary of State. Should he die, be impeached and removed, or become disabled, it would go to the Secretary of the Treasury, and then, if necessary, to the Secretary of War, the Attorney-general, the Postmaster-general, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Interior.

539. Party Pledges redeemed. Since the Republican party was in power, a redemption of the pledges in their platform (p. 462) was necessary, and three laws of great importance were enacted. One, the Edmunds law (1882), was intended to suppress polygamy in Utah and the neighboring territories. Another (1882) stopped the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. The third, the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883), was designed to secure appointment to public office on the ground of fitness, and not for political service.

540. Corporations. These measures were all good enough in their way; but they left untouched grievances which the workingmen and a great part of the people felt were unbearable. That the development of the wealth and resources of our country is chiefly due to great corporations and great capitalists is strictly true. But that many of them abused the power their wealth gave them cannot be denied. They were accused of buying legislatures, securing special privileges, fixing prices to suit themselves, importing foreign laborers under contract in order to depress wages, and favoring some customers more than others.

541. The Anti-monopoly and Labor Parties. - Out of this condition of affairs grew the Anti-monopoly party, which held a convention in 1884 and demanded that the Federal government should regulate commerce between the states; that it should therefore control the railroads and the telegraphs; that Congress should enact an interstate commerce law; and that the importation of foreign laborers under contract should be made illegal.

This platform was so fully in accordance with the views of the Greenback or National party, that Benjamin F. Butler, the candidate of the Anti-monopolists, was endorsed and so practically united the two parties.

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542. The Republican and Democratic Parties. The Republicans nominated James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, and the Democrats Stephen Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks. The Prohibitionists put up John P. St. John and William Daniel. The nomination of Blaine was the signal for the revolt of a wing of the Republicans, which took the name of Independents, and received the nickname of 'Mugwumps." The revolt was serious in its consequences, and after the most exciting contest since 1876, Cleveland was elected.

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Grover Cleveland

543. Public Measures adopted during 1885-1889. Widely as the parties differed on many questions, Democrats, Republicans, and Nationalists agreed in demanding certain reform measures which were now carried out. In 1885 an AntiContract-Labor law was enacted, forbidding any person, company, or corporation to bring any aliens into the United States under contract to perform labor or service. In 1887 came the Interstate Commerce Act, placing the railroads under the supervision of commissioners whose duty it is to see that all charges for the transportation of passengers and freight are "reasonable and just," and that no special rates, rebates, drawbacks, or unjust discriminations are made for one shipper over another. In 1888 a second Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited the return of any Chinese laborer who had once left the country. That same year a Department of Labor was established and put in charge of a commissioner. His duty is to "diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with labor."

544. Political Issues since 1888. Thus by the end of Mr. Cleveland's first term many of the demands of the working

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men had been granted, and laws enacted for their relief. These issues disposed of, a new set arose, and after 1888 financial questions took the place of labor issues.

545. The Surplus and the Tariff. These financial problems were brought up by the condition of the public debt. For twenty years past the debt had been rapidly growing less and less, till on December 1, 1887, it was $1,665,000,000, a reduction of more than $1,100,000,000 in twenty-one years. By that time every bond of the United States that could be called in and paid at its face value had been canceled. As all the other bonds fell due, some in 1891 and others in 1907, the government must either buy them at high rates, or suffer them to run. If it suffered them to run, a great surplus would pile up in the Treasury. Thus on December 1, 1887, after every possible debt of the government was met, there was a surplus of $50,000,000. Six months later (June 1, 1888) the sum had increased to $103,000,000.

Unless this was to go on, and the money of the country be locked up in the Treasury, one of three things must be done:

1. More bonds must be bought at high rates.

2. Or the revenue must be reduced by reducing taxation.

3. Or the surplus must be distributed among the states as in 1837, or spent.

546. The Mills Tariff Bill.. Each plan had its advocates. But the Democrats, who controlled the House of Representatives, attempted to solve the problem by cutting down the revenue, and passed a tariff bill, called the Mills Bill, after its chief author, Mr. R. Q. Mills of Texas. The Republicans declared it was a free-trade measure and defeated it in the Senate.

547. The Campaign of 1888; Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President. In the party platforms of 1888 we find, therefore, that three issues are prominent: (1) taxation, (2) tariff reform, (3) the surplus. The Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman, and demanded frugality in

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