Further to complicate the financial trials of the burdensome mid-nineties, the depletion of the gold reserve demanded immediate attention. During the closing months of President Harrison’s administration, in fact, the Secretary of the Treasury had ordered the preparation of plates for engraving an issue of bonds by which to borrow sufficient gold to replenish the redemption fund. By a personal appeal to New York bankers, however, he was able to exchange paper for gold and so keep the level above the one hundred million mark, and when Cleveland succeeded to the chair, the reserve was $100,982,410. In the meantime the scarcity of gold continued, and the combination of large expenditures and slender income severely embarrassed the government in its attempts to obtain a sufficient supply of gold to keep the reserve intact. The administration, indeed, was all but helpless. Paper presented for redemption in gold had to be paid out to meet expenses and was then turned in for gold again. Hence, as Cleveland ruefully reminded Congress, “we have an endless chain in operation constantly depleting the Treasury’s gold and never near a final rest.” On April 22, 1893, the reserve fell momentarily below $100,000,000 and later in the year it was apparent that the reduction was likely to become permanent. By January, 1894, the reserve was less than $70,000,000, while $450,000,000 in paper which might be presented for redemption were in actual circulation. Only one resource seemed available–borrowing gold. The treasury therefore sold bonds to the value of $50,000,000. Even this, however, did not remedy the ill. Bankers obtained gold to purchase bonds by presenting paper currency to the government for redemption. Relief was temporary. On the last day of May the reserve amounted to only $79,000,000; in November, to $59,000,000. Another issue of bonds was resorted to in November, but the results were not better than before. At the same time the Pullman strike during the summer months, the Wilson-Gorman tariff fiasco and an unfortunate harvest seemed to indicate that man and nature were determined to make 1894 a year of ill-omen.
By February, 1895, the treasury found itself confronted with a reserve of only $41,000,000. It seemed useless to attempt borrowing under the usual conditions, and Cleveland therefore resorted to a new device. A contract was made with J.P. Morgan and a group of bankers for the purchase of 3,500,000 ounces of gold to be paid for with United States four per cent. bonds. In order to protect the reserve from a renewed drain, the bankers agreed that at least half the gold should be obtained abroad, and they promised to exert all their influence to prevent withdrawals of gold from the treasury while the contract was being filled. The terms of the contract were favorable to the bankers, but the President defended the agreement on the ground that the promise to protect the reserve entitled the bankers to a favorable bargain. The fact, however, that the Morgan Company was able to market the bonds with the public and make a large profit, increased the demand that the administration sell directly to the people and make the profit itself. In January, 1896, occurred a fourth sale–to the public, this time–and 4,640 bids were received, for a total several times greater than the $100,000,000 called for. By this time, business conditions were improving, confidence was restored among the financial classes and gold again began to flow out of hiding and into the treasury. The endless chain was broken.
The denunciation which Cleveland received for the untoward monetary and industrial events of his administration was unusual even for American politics in the middle nineties. Such extreme silver men as Senator Stewart of Nevada declared that Cleveland’s second administration was probably the worst administration that ever occurred in this or any other country; that he was a bold and unscrupulous stock-jobber; that he deliberately caused the panic of 1893 and that he sent the Venezuela message in order to divert the attention of the people from the silver question. The New York _World_ described the transaction between the government and the Morgan Company as a “bunco” game, and charged that Cleveland had dishonest, dishonorable and immoral reasons for bringing about the transaction and that he did it for a “consideration.” Representative W.J. Bryan, who belonged to the President’s party and who ordinarily was chivalrous to his opponents, declared that Cleveland could no more escape unharmed from association with the Morgan syndicate than he could expect to escape asphyxiation if he locked himself up in a room and turned on the gas. The Democratic party, he thought, should feel toward its leader as a confiding ward would feel toward a guardian who had squandered a rich estate, or as a passenger would feel toward a trainman who opened a switch and precipitated a wreck.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The standard works, mentioned under Chapter V, by Dewey, Hepburn and Noyes continue valuable. The attitude of Hayes and of succeeding Presidents is found in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_; F.W. Taussig, _The Silver Situation in the United States_ (1892), is concise; _Political Science Quarterly_, III, 226, discusses the surplus revenue; _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, III, 436, on the direct tax; W.H. Glasson, _Federal Military Pensions_, has already been mentioned. W.J. Lauck, _Causes of the Panic of 1893_ (1907), lays the blame for the industrial distress of 1893 wholly on the silver law of 1890. On the gold reserve, consult Grover Cleveland, _Presidential Problems_; D.R. Dewey, _National Problems_ (1907); _Political Science Quarterly_, X, 573; and _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, XIII, 204. “The Silver Debate of 1890,” in _Journal of Political Economy_, I, 535, contains a detailed account of the discussion in Congress. W.J. Bryan, _First Battle_ (1897), should be consulted.
* * * * *
[1] According to the principle known as Gresham’s law, bad money tends to drive out good; or overvalued money to drive out undervalued money. If the face value of a coin is more than its worth as bullion, it is “overvalued.” Thus, if coins of equal face value, but of different bullion value, circulate side by side, there will be a tendency for the possessors of the coins to pass on the currency with the smaller bullion value and to withdraw the others for sale as bullion and for use in the arts.
[2] Above, p. 164.
[3] Above, pp. 238-240.
[4] The law remained in force about three years. During that interval nearly $156,000,000 worth of silver bullion was purchased with the new treasury notes. The government began retiring these notes in 1900.
[5] The call for the extra session, together with news of the suspension of free-coinage in India, sent the bullion price of silver down twenty-one cents per ounce in two weeks. The President was seriously handicapped at this time by a cancerous growth in the jaw, necessitating an operation, news of which was withheld from the public for fear of its ill effect on the financial situation. Cf. _Saturday Evening Post_, 22 Sept., 1917.
[6] Above, p. 274.
CHAPTER XVI
1896
The political situation in 1896, when the parties began to prepare for the presidential election, was more complex than it had been since 1860. The repeal, in 1893, of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver act had divided the Democrats into factions; the financial and industrial distress in the same year had been widely attributed to fear of Democratic misgovernment; the Wilson-Gorman tariff act of 1894 had discredited the party and aroused ill-feeling between the President and Congress; the Pullman strike and the use of the injunction had aroused bitterness in the labor element against the administration; the income tax decision of 1895 had done much to shake popular confidence in the Supreme Court; the Hawaiian and Venezuelan incidents had caused minor dissent in some quarters; and the bond sales had made Cleveland intensely unpopular in the West and South. The Democratic party was demoralized and leaderless. The Republicans were better off because they had been out of power during the years of dissension and panic, but they had been without a leader since the death of Blaine in 1893 and were far from united in regard to the most pressing issues. Indeed, the sectional differences in both parties, and the unexpected strength of the Populist movement caused no little anxiety among the political leaders. And finally, the volume and character of the currency was still undetermined. The Democrats had divided on the question. The Republicans were almost as little united; they had played politics in passing the Sherman silver act and three years later had assisted a President of the opposite party in accomplishing the repeal of its most important provision. From the standpoint of the silver supporters neither party organization was to be trusted. The outstanding political questions of 1896, therefore, were whether the supporters of silver could capture the machinery of one of the parties and whether the other unsettled issues could ride into the campaign on the strength of the financial agitation. The answers to these questions gave the campaign and election its peculiar significance.
The background of 1896 is to be found in the South and West, where the farmers’ alliances and the Populist party continued their success in arousing and directing the ambitions of the discontented classes. In 1892, it will be remembered, the Populists had cast more than a million ballots and had chosen twenty-two presidential electors, two senators, and eleven representatives. In 1894, at the time of the congressional election, they had increased their voting strength more than forty per cent., and had elected six senators and six members of the House, besides several hundreds of state officials. In the Senate it happened that the two great parties had been almost equally strong, after the election of 1894, so that the Populist group had held the balance of power. The insistence of the South and West that Congress do something further for silver had not lessened. A measure providing for the coinage of a portion of the silver bullion in the treasury had been defeated in 1894 only through the President’s veto. Indeed the only hope of the East and of the supporters of the gold standard was the unflinching determination of the head of a party to which the East and the gold supporters were, in the main opposed.
The growing enthusiasm for silver which was sweeping over the South and West and rapidly developing into something resembling frenzy was difficult for the more stolid East to comprehend. Not merely the politician, but the man on the street and in the store, the school-teacher, the farmer and the laborer, in those portions of the country, fell to discussing the virtues of silver as currency and the effect of a greater volume of circulating medium upon prices and prosperity. The two metals became personified in the minds of the people. Gold was the symbol of cruel, snobbish plutocracy; silver of upright democracy. Gold deserted the country in its hour of need; silver remained at home to minister to the wants of the people. Such arguments as those presented in _Coin’s Financial School_, published in 1894, brought financial policy within the circle of the emotions of its readers even if they did not satisfy the more critical student of monetary problems. This influential little volume, written by W.H. Harvey, acted as a hand-book of free coinage, cleverly setting forth the major arguments for the increased use of silver and bringing forward objections which were triumphantly demolished. Simple illustrations enforced the lessons taught by its pages: a wood-cut of a cripple with one leg indicated how handicapped the country was without the free coinage of two metals; in another, Senator Sherman and President Cleveland were depicted digging out the silver portion of the foundations of a house which had been erected on a stable basis of both gold and silver; in a third, western farmers were seen industriously stuffing fodder into a cow which capitalists were milking for the benefit of New York and New England.[1] With the enthusiasm and the sincerity of the early crusaders, the people assembled in ten thousand schoolhouses to debate the absorbing subject of the currency. Indeed the South and West had become convinced that the miseries inflicted upon mankind by war, pestilence and famine had been less “cruel, unpitying, and unrelenting than the persistent and remorseless exaction” which the contraction of the volume of the currency had made upon society. Low prices, the stagnation of industry, empty and idle stores, workshops and factories, the increase of crime and bankruptcy–all were laid at the door of the gold standard.
The East looked upon the rising in the West at first with amusement, and was quite ready to accept the diagnosis of a western newspaper man, quoted by Peck in his _Twenty Years of the Republic_:
What’s the matter with Kansas?
We all know; yet here we are at it again. We have an old moss-back Jacksonian who snorts and howls because there is a bath-tub in the State House. We are running that old jay for Governor…. We have raked the ash-heap of failure in the State and found an old human hoop-skirt who has failed as a business man, who has failed as an editor, who has failed as a preacher, and we are going to run him for Congressman-at-large…. Then we have discovered a kid without a law practice and have decided to run him for Attorney-General.
Later the East looked upon tendencies in the West with more concern: Roosevelt, although admitting the honesty of the Populists, characterized their ignorance as “abysmal”; others were more inclined to doubt their sincerity; their conventions were supposed to be made up of cranks and unsexed women; and their principles were looked upon as “wild and crazy notions.”
In fact it was no simple task to distinguish between the legitimate grievances and ambitions of the westerners, and their eccentricities and errors. Nor was this difficulty lessened by the reputation with which some of the proponents of silver were justly or unjustly credited. “Sockless Jerry” Simpson and Mrs. Lease were among them–the Mrs. Lease to whom was ascribed the remark “Kansas had better stop raising corn and begin raising hell!”[2] Benjamin R. Tillman was another–a rough, forceful character, leader of the poor whites and small farmers of South Carolina, organizer of the “wool hats” against the “silk hats” and the “kid gloves”–Governor of the state and later member of the federal Senate. Although a Democrat, he was thoroughly at odds with Cleveland, and publicly declared it was his ambition to stick his pitchfork into the President’s sides.[3] Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, had the disadvantage of having been one of the earliest of the silver supporters, since he had initiated the bill which resulted in the Bland-Allison act, and was looked upon in the East as a thorough-going, free-silver radical. Governor Altgeld, of Illinois, leader of the Democrats of that state from 1892 to 1896, was a successful lawyer who was looked upon by his friends as a liberal-minded humanitarian, the friend of
The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor,
whose sympathies with the laboring classes had given him the support of the reformers and the wage earners. But his pardon of the Haymarket anarchists and his attitude during the Pullman strike had led the East to regard him as a dangerous revolutionist and an enemy to society.[4]
The free-silver movement nevertheless continued to gather momentum. For some years influential silver advocates had been associated in the Bimetallic League, an organization which supported the free coinage of both gold and silver. Among its members were prominent Democrats, Republicans and Populists, especially from the western states, and some of the foremost labor leaders. At one of its meetings in 1893 it was determined to invite every labor and industrial organization in the country to send delegates. A few experts, even in the East, gave some scientific support to the argument for the greater use of silver. Eastern Republicans like Senator Henry Cabot Lodge proposed free coinage of both metals by an international agreement, which, they thought, might be brought about through threats of tariff discrimination against nations refusing to adhere to the arrangement. A silver convention in Nebraska in 1894 was attended by a thousand delegates. From the point of view of party harmony the subject was a nuisance. Democratic state conventions were badly divided. Thirty of them adopted resolutions distinctly favorable to free coinage and fourteen opposed. Ten of the latter committed themselves definitely to the gold standard. The fourteen included all the northeastern states, together with Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Such gold Democrats as President Cleveland sought to stem the tide, but Cleveland’s control over his followers was rapidly dwindling, and it seemed likely that the silver element of the party might reach out to seize the organization and displace the former leaders.
The Republican professional politicians were as ignorant of technical monetary problems as the Democrats, and moreover did not wish to risk popular disapproval in any section by utterances which might be offensive to that part of the country. The first Republican state convention during 1896 was that in Ohio. Its financial plank was awaited with interest, because of the early date of the meeting and because its proceedings were in the hands of friends of the most prominent candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. The convention dodged the issue by demanding that all our currency be “sound as the Government and as untarnished as its honor,” and that both metals be used as currency and kept at parity by legislative restrictions. The New York _Tribune_ thought that this could mean nothing but a gold standard; the _Times_ was fearful that it would lead to silver; the _Springfield Republican_ condemned it as “chock full of double-dealing.” Its ambiguity, however, was in line with the purposes and ambitions of two men who were actively preparing for the campaign of 1896–Marcus A. Hanna and Major William McKinley.
Marcus A. Hanna, or “Mark” Hanna as he was universally known, was an Ohioan, born in 1837.[5] As a young man he entered upon a business career in Cleveland, first in a wholesale grocery company, later in a coal and iron firm and finally in a variety of industrial and commercial enterprises which his energy and ability opened to him. The expansion of industrial America after the Civil War was coincident with the greater part of Hanna’s career and he was a typical product of that period in his political, economic and social philosophy. After he had attained a degree of business success he became actively interested in politics and took a prominent part in placing Joseph B. Foraker in the governor’s chair in Ohio in 1885. Strained relations between the two turned Hanna’s attention to the fortunes of John Sherman. When it became apparent in 1888 that the presidential campaign would turn upon President Cleveland’s tariff principles, Hanna, who looked upon the protective tariff as synonymous with industrial expansion and even of industrial safety, threw his weight upon the side of Sherman, who was again seeking the Republican nomination. The failure of Sherman was a blow to Hanna, but it called to his attention the pleasing personality of a more prominent protectionist, William McKinley. He was an important agent in McKinley’s successful campaign for the governorship of Ohio in 1891. Two years later the Governor met serious financial reverses, and again Hanna proved to be a firm friend. Aided by other men of means he rescued McKinley from bankruptcy. Between the two there sprang up a mutual admiration of unusual strength, and finally, in 1894-1895, Hanna withdrew from his business enterprises in order to devote his entire time to the political fortunes of his friend.
Mark Hanna had extraordinary capacity for leadership. Sociable, open-handed, full of energy, direct, aggressive, shrewd, daring, a hard fighter, a loyal friend, an organizer and a man of his word, he was essentially a man of action. In politics he was practical and straight-forward. He wanted results, not reforms, and results meant accepting the prevailing methods and using them. When he wished a street-railway franchise in Cleveland, he bought enough influence with the city government to get what he wanted, as others of his day did. He was a strict party man; good government and safety to industry, he believed, were dependent upon Republican control. Patriotism therefore demanded his utmost energy in getting Republicans elected. In political campaigns his counsel, his energy and his money were always available. A protective customs tariff, a “sound” currency system and a free hand in the conduct of business were the things which he most desired from the government.
William McKinley would have been a formidable competitor for the presidential nomination in 1896 even without the assistance of his rugged friend. His personality was attractive, in a pleasing, soothing, tactful, ingratiating way. His military career had been honorable even if not famous. For most of the time from 1877 to 1891 he had been a member of the House of Representatives, becoming identified particularly with the high protective tariff and acting as sponsor for the McKinley act of 1890. After being defeated for re-election, just subsequent to the passage of the tariff law, he had become Governor of Ohio for two terms. The panic of 1893 and the ill-fated Wilson-Gorman tariff act during the time when he was Governor caused the tide of popular favor to swing away from the Democrats; McKinley, as the apostle of protection, appeared in a more favorable light; and his partisans began to press him forward as the logical nominee for 1896 and as “the advance agent of Prosperity.” The fact that his home was in a populous state in the Middle West was also in his favor, because the Republicans had frequently chosen their candidate from this debatable ground rather than from the Northeast, where success was to be had without a struggle.
Hanna’s first care upon determining to devote himself to the interests of McKinley was to keep the candidate before the people as the one man who could rescue the nation from industrial depression. To that end he widely circulated the Cleveland _Leader_, a strong McKinley organ, for eighteen months at his own expense; he rented a house in Georgia, entertained Governor McKinley there and brought numbers of southern politicians to meet the candidate; and experienced political workers were sent all over the country and especially to the South to prepare the way for the election of delegates to the nominating convention. Hanna himself went to the East to discover on what terms the support of some of the states in that section could be obtained. On his return he reported that aid would be assured by a guarantee that the patronage of the administration would go to certain powerful politicians; Hanna thought the bargain a desirable one, but the candidate objected and Hanna acquiesced. The campaign of publicity and of personal canvass for delegates and influence continued. First and last, it is estimated, Hanna contributed over $100,000 for this purpose, urging his assistants always to use funds only for legitimate ends, although promising McKinley partisans who aided in the work that they would be “consulted” in the disposition of patronage.
Two difficulties stood in the way of completely ensuring the choice of McKinley as the candidate by the convention. Several states had “favorite sons” whom they would be sure to present, and if so many of these should appear as to prevent McKinley’s nomination on the first ballot or at least on an early one, there might be a stampede to an unknown man–a “dark horse”–and then Hanna’s ambitions would be frustrated. Thomas B. Reed of Maine was an especial source of anxiety as he possessed considerable strength throughout New England. To guard against such a danger, Hanna sedulously cultivated the popular demand for Governor McKinley and also fought in the state conventions for delegates even against favorite sons. A crucial state was Illinois, where Senator Cullom was powerful. The Senator says that a representative of McKinley offered him “all sorts of inducements” to withdraw, but McKinley’s biographer mentions no such attempt at a bargain. Eventually Cullom made the fight and was defeated, and from then on, the nomination of McKinley seemed sure unless he should be tripped by the currency issue.
The silver question was the second obstacle in the way of success. Not only was the party divided, but McKinley’s record on the subject was far from consistent. He had voted for the Bland free-silver bill in 1877, for the Bland-Allison act in 1878 and for the passage of that act over President Hayes’s veto. In 1890 he had urged the passage of the Sherman silver purchase law, intimating that he would support a free coinage measure if it were possible to pass it. Hardly more than a year later he was campaigning for the governorship of Ohio, and there he denounced the free coinage of silver and advocated international bimetallism. In 1896 McKinley feared that a definite public utterance on the one side or the other of the question would widen the division in the party, prevent his nomination and lose the election. Hence the ambiguous currency plank in the Ohio state convention and hence, also, the refusal of the candidate to commit himself openly. Nevertheless he commissioned a friend to go to the East and explain his attitude privately to certain leaders and prominent business men, urging them not to force a declaration for gold before the convention met. In this way, he thought, the currency issue might be subordinated, the tariff emphasized and the party held together. In this state of uncertainty the currency situation was allowed to rest until the convention met at St. Louis on June 16.
The platform adopted was, for the most part, of the usual sort. It urged popular attention to the matchless achievements of thirty years of Republican rule and contrasted that period of “unequalled success and prosperity” with the “unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and disaster” of Democratic government; it promised the “most ample protection” to the products of mine, field and factory; generous pensions, American control of Hawaii, a Nicaragua canal, the Monroe doctrine, restricted immigration and the arbitration of labor disputes affecting interstate commerce received the support of the party.
It was the currency plank, however, that differentiated the platform of 1896 from that of other campaigns. Many Republican leaders and business men, particularly in the East, were disposed to call for a definite party statement in favor of a gold standard and had reached the point where they could not be put off by the usual meaningless straddle. Thomas C. Platt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Joseph B. Foraker, Charles W. Fairbanks and other party chiefs were among them. Hanna was ready to declare for gold after he had been assured of the nomination of his candidate. McKinley was willing to stand for gold, although he preferred not to mention that word in the plank and hoped to make the contest on the tariff. Moreover so many silver delegates had already been elected to the Democratic convention, which was soon to be held, that a definite utterance from that party seemed a certainty. The Prohibitionists had already divided into halves over the dominant issue. It was almost imperative, therefore, for the Republican convention to be more explicit than it had hitherto ventured to be. As leader after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution. If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank to gather force, although holding the discussion as far as possible under cover, and kept McKinley from making a definite statement. Then at the last minute, when the McKinley delegates were numerous enough to ensure the nomination of the Major and when it was too late for the silver forces to agree upon an opposition candidate, Hanna gave way to the pressure for gold and agreed to the plank which he had always favored.[6]
Despite the canny management of Hanna a defection took place over the decision on the currency issue. As soon as the platform was read, Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado, moved to replace the gold plank by one advocating the free coinage of silver. The earnestness with which Teller urged the adoption of the substitute was an indication of the sincerity of the western wing of the party. He had been a strict Republican since the formation of the party in the mid-fifties, yet he now found himself forced to accept a policy which he believed to be pernicious or break the political bonds which had held him for forty years. The majority of the convention, however, was determined to adopt the gold plank and overwhelmingly defeated the Teller amendment, whereupon the Senator and thirty-three other silver supporters solemnly withdrew from the hall.
The way was now clear for the nomination of a candidate. Thomas B. Reed, Senator Quay and other favorite sons received but scant support, and McKinley was nominated by an overwhelming majority on the first ballot. Garrett A. Hobart, a lawyer and business man whose reputation was confined to New Jersey, his home state, was nominated for the vice-presidency. The platform and the candidate were generally hailed with favor in the East. To be sure, critical newspapers were inclined to look askance upon McKinley’s past. The New York _Evening Post_, for example, favored a gold standard but decried the candidate’s “absence of settled convictions about leading questions of the day, and his want of clear knowledge on any subject.” Yet on the whole, the platform and the candidate were popular, and, in view of the serious factional disputes among the Democrats, the Republicans seemed likely to make good their boast that victory would be so easy that they could nominate and elect a “rag baby” if they chose. The redoubtable Hanna was appointed chairman of the National Republican Committee, from which office he was to direct the campaign. McKinley still believed that the contest would be of the old-fashioned sort and that it would turn on the tariff, despite the platform utterance of the party. And so it might have proved had it not been for an important change of purpose and leadership in the opposition.
The friends of free silver coinage went to the Democratic convention at Chicago on July 7 with the same determination to get a definite statement on the currency question that had characterized the eastern leaders at the Republican convention. Without the loss of a moment they wrested the control of the organization from the former leaders by defeating Senator Hill of New York, a gold Democrat, for the temporary chairmanship and electing Senator Daniel of Virginia, a recognized proponent of free silver. Hill’s support came mainly from the Northeast; Daniel’s, from the West and South. Senator White of California, a representative of the silver wing, was then chosen permanent chairman and the convention was ready for the contest over the platform. While it awaited that document, however, it listened to several favorite leaders, of whom Senator Tillman and Governor Altgeld of Illinois were the best known. From the sentiments expressed by these men it was clear that the radical Democrats believed that they were speaking for the masses of the people and that they were bent upon making far-reaching changes both in the organization and the creed of the party.
A disquieting feature was a degree of turbulence beyond that which usually characterizes our nominating conventions. The official proceedings record the following, for example, while Senator Tillman was addressing the delegates:
I hope that when this vast assembly shall have dispersed to its home the many thousands of my fellow-citizens who are here will carry hence a different opinion of the pitchfork man from South Carolina to that which they now hold. I come to you from the South–from the home of secession–from that State where the leaders of–(the balance of the sentence of the speaker was drowned by hisses). Mr. Tillman (resuming): There are only three things in the world that can hiss–a goose, a serpent, and a man….
In the last three or four or five years the Western people have come to realize that the condition of the South and the condition of the West are identical. Hence we find to-day that the Democratic party of the West is here almost in solid phalanx appealing to the South, and the South has responded–to come to their help…. Some of my friends from the South and elsewhere have said that this is not a sectional issue. I say it is a sectional issue. (Long prolonged hissing.)
At length, the platform was presented. It was a summary of the complaints against the East which had been forming in the West and South ever since the days of the Greenbackers and the “Ohio idea.” It recognized first that the money question was paramount to all others; laid hard times at the door of the gold standard, which it denounced as a British policy; and demanded the free coinage of both metals at the existing legal ratio, under which sixteen parts of silver by weight were declared equivalent to one part of gold in minting coins. Nor would the party wait for the consent of any other nation. It opposed the issuance of interest-bearing bonds in time of peace, condemned the bond transactions of the Cleveland administration and denounced the national bank-note system. The McKinley tariff was declared a prolific breeder of trusts which enriched the few at the expense of the many. The plank concerning the income tax, which had so recently been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, excited much condemnation among Republicans and conservative Democrats, who denounced it as an attack on the Court. It noted that the Court had uniformly sustained income taxes for nearly a hundred years and declared it to be the duty of Congress
to use all the constitutional power which remains after that decision, or which may come from its reversal by the court as it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burdens of taxation may be equally and impartially laid, to the end that wealth may bear its due proportion of the expenses of the government.
The reaction of the party on the labor disputes of recent years and especially the Pullman strike was clearly in evidence. Arbitration of such controversies was called for; “interference” by federal authorities in local affairs was condemned; government by injunction was objected to; and the passage of such laws was demanded as would protect all the interests of the laboring classes.
A minority of the platform committee now presented the opposing point of view. It objected to many of the planks; complained that some were ill-considered, others revolutionary; and offered two amendments, one advocating the gold standard, the other expressing commendation of Cleveland’s administration. The contest was then on. Tillman excoriated Cleveland and declared that the East held the West and South in economic bondage; Hill denounced the currency, income tax and Supreme Court planks as furiously as any Republican could have wished. The currency plank, he thought, was unwise, that on the income tax unnecessary, that on the Court assailed the supreme tribunal, and the entire program was “revolutionary.”
As yet, nobody had quite expressed the feelings of the convention. Tillman was too crude; Hill had no remedy for long-standing ills. At this juncture William J. Bryan stepped upon the platform. He was a young man–only thirty-six years of age–and known but slightly as a representative from Nebraska who possessed many of the arts and abilities of an orator. Bryan began with a modest and tactful declaration that his opposition to the gold wing of the party was based solely on principles and not at all on personalities. The convention had met, he insisted, not to debate but to register a judgment already rendered by the people. Old leaders had been cast aside because they had refused to express the desires of those whom they aspired to lead. Briefly he outlined the reply of the radicals to the objections made by Hill and the gold wing to the proposed platform. The conservatives, Bryan declared, had complained that free silver coinage would disturb business:
We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day–who begins in the spring and toils all summer–and who by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak for this broader class of business men.
The time was at hand, Bryan insisted, when the currency issue must be squarely met:
We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, 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.
The radical wing of the Democracy had now found its orator. Every word was driven straight to the hearts of the sympathetic hearers. The income tax law had been constitutional, Bryan complained, until one of the judges of the Supreme Court had changed his mind; the tariff was less important than the currency because “protection has slain its thousands, the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands.” Fundamentally, he insisted, the contest was between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling masses who produce the capital:
If they come to meet us on that issue we can present the history of our nation. More than that; we can tell them that they will search the pages of history in vain to find a single instance where the common people of any land have ever declared themselves in favor of the gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed investments have declared for a gold standard, but not where the masses have….
You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country….
Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
The frenzy of approval which this brief speech aroused was proof that the West and South had found a herald. Whether wisely or not, the radicals acclaimed their leader and the party was embarked upon a program that made the campaign of 1896 a memorable one. Without further ado, the amendments of the conservatives were voted down–the vote being sectional, as before. Proposals that changes in the monetary standard should not apply to existing contracts and that if free coinage should not effect a parity between gold and silver at a ratio of 16 to 1 within a year, it should be suspended, were both voted down without so much as a division. The platform was then adopted by an overwhelming majority and radical democracy had the bit in its teeth. In the East the platform was viewed with amazement. The New York _World_, a Democratic newspaper, expressed the opinion that the only doubt about the election would be the size of McKinley’s victory. The Republican _Tribune_ thought that the party was afflicted with “lunacy”; that it had become the “avowed champion of the right of pillage, riot and trainwrecking”; that the platform was an anarchist manifesto and a “call to every criminal seeking a chance for outrage.”
Before Bryan’s speech it had been impossible to foretell who the party candidate for the presidency would be, although the veteran free silver leader, Richard P. Bland, had been looked upon as a logical choice in case his well-known principles should become those of the convention. After the speech, however, it was clear that Bryan embodied the feelings of many of his colleagues and on the fifth ballot he was chosen as the candidate. The vice-presidential choice was Arthur Sewall, of Maine, a shipbuilder and banker who believed in the free coinage of silver.
The gold Democrats were now in a quandary. Many of them had refrained from voting at all in the convention after the silver element had gained control. Strict partisans, however, adopted the position of Senator Hill who was asked after the convention whether he was a Democrat still. “Yes,” he is said to have retorted, “I am a Democrat still–very still.” Some frankly turned toward the Republican party, while others organized the National Democratic party and adopted a traditional Democratic platform, with a gold plank. After considering the possibility of nominating President Cleveland for a third term, the party chose John M. Palmer for the presidency and Simon B. Buckner for the vice-presidency. Soon after the Democratic convention, the People’s party and the Silver party met in St. Louis. Both nominated Bryan for the presidency, and thereafter the Democrats and the Populists made common cause.
At the opening of the campaign, then, it was evident that class and sectional hatreds would enter largely into the contest. The Populists and the radical Democrats felt that they were fighting the battle of the masses against “plutocracy”–the subtle and corrupting control of public affairs by the possessors of great fortunes; they thought that they saw arrayed against them the forces of wealth and the corporations, seeking to enslave them. The conservative Democrats and the gold Republicans saw in their opponents an organized attempt to carry out a program of dishonesty and socialism. The one side believed that the creditor class desired to scale debts upward; the other, that the debtor class wished to scale them down. The radicals believed that the Supreme Court was in the control of the wealthy; the conservatives, that their opponents sought to assail the highest tribunal in the land. The peculiar circumstances preceding the year 1896, however, focussed attention on the monetary standard rather than upon the other demands of the Populist-Democratic fusion.
Each candidate adopted a plan of campaign that was suited to his individual situation. Bryan was relatively unknown and he therefore decided to appeal directly to the people, where his powers as a speaker would have great effect. The usual “notification” meeting was held in Madison Square Garden, in New York City, so as to carry the cause into the heart of “the enemy’s country.” During the few months of the campaign the Democratic candidate travelled 18,000 miles, made 600 speeches and addressed nearly five million people. The effect was immediate. The forces of social unrest, hitherto silent in great measure, were becoming vocal and nobody could measure their extent. McKinley had prophesied that thirty days after the Republican convention nothing would be heard about the currency. When the thirty days had passed, on the contrary, scarcely anything was heard except that very question. Whatever his personal wishes, McKinley must meet the problem face to face, and in alarm, Hanna and the Republican campaign leaders put forth unparalleled efforts to save the party from defeat.
The share of McKinley in these efforts was a novel one. Instead of going upon the stump, he remained at his home in Canton, Ohio. A constant stream of visiting delegations of supporters from all points of the compass came to hear him speak from his front porch. Some of the delegations came spontaneously; the visits of others were prearranged; but in all cases the speeches delivered were looked over beforehand with great care. The candidate memorized or read his own remarks and carefully revised those which the spokesman of the visitors planned to offer. In this way, any such untoward incident as the Burchard affair was avoided and the accounts of the front-porch speeches which went out through the press contained nothing which would injure the chances for success. The effectiveness of the plan was attested on all sides.
In addition, extraordinary attempts were put forth to instruct the people on various aspects of the currency question. A small army was organized to distribute literature and address rallies; 120,000,000 documents were distributed from the Chicago and New York headquarters; newspapers were supplied with especially prepared matter; posters and buttons were scattered by the carload. At the dinner-table, on the street corner, in the railroad train, in store, office and shop, the people gave themselves over to a heated discussion of the merits of gold and silver as currency and to the feasibility of free coinage at a ratio of 16 to 1. The amount of money which these efforts required was unusually large. Business men and banking institutions, especially in New York, contributed liberally. The Standard Oil Company gave $250,000; large life insurance companies helped freely, although the fact was well concealed at the time. Business men were fearful that Bryan’s election would mean a great shrinkage in the value of their properties. Many feared that the Democrats would assail the Supreme Court and that their leader would surround himself with advisors of a reckless and revolutionary character. Funds therefore poured into the Republican war-chest to an amount estimated at three and a half million dollars.
Before the close of the campaign a feeling akin to terror swept over the East; contracts were made contingent upon the election of McKinley; employees were paid on the Saturday night before election day and notified that they need not return to work in the event of Democratic success. Although caution and good manners characterized the utterances of the two candidates, their supporters were hardly so restrained. The following, for example, is typical of the editorial utterances of the New York _Tribune_:
Let us begin with the Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” The Bryan campaign from beginning to end has been marked with such a flood of blasphemy, of taking God’s name in vain, as this country, at least, has never known before. “Thou shalt not steal.” The very foundation of the Bryan platform is wholesale theft. “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” In what day have Bryan and his followers failed to utter lies, libels and forgeries? “Thou shalt not covet.” Why, almost every appeal made by Bryan, or for him, has been addressed directly to the covetousness, the envy, and all the unhallowed passions of human nature. A vote for Bryan is a vote for the abrogation of those four Commandments.
At the close of the campaign _The Nation_ sagely observed, “Probably no man in civil life has succeeded in inspiring so much terror, without taking life, as Bryan.”
The result of the election was decisive. McKinley and a Republican House of Representatives were elected, and the choice of a Republican Senate assured. The successful candidate received seven million votes–a half million more than his competitor. All the more densely populated states, together with the large cities–where the greatest accumulations of capital had taken place–were carried by the Republicans. Not a state north of the Potomac-Ohio line and east of the Mississippi was Democratic, and even Kentucky, by a narrow margin, and West Virginia crowded their way into the Republican column. On the other hand Bryan’s hold on the South and West was almost equally strong. Never before had any presidential candidate received so great a vote and not for twenty years did a Democratic candidate surpass it. Moreover, although the Democratic vote on the Atlantic seaboard was less than that received by Cleveland in 1892, Bryan’s support in the Middle West showed considerable gains over the earlier year, while Kansas, Nebraska and all the mining states except California were carried by the silver cause. On the whole the election seemed to indicate that the voters of the country, after unusual study of the issues of the campaign, clearly distrusted the free-silver program, but that class and sectional discontent had reached large proportions.
[Illustration:
The Presidential Election of 1896–the shaded states gave Bryan pluralities]
The political results of the election of 1896 were important. It definitely fixed the attitude of the Republican party on the currency question; it gave the party control of the executive chair and of Congress at an important time; and it ensured the domination of the propertied classes and the _laissez faire_ philosophy in the party organization. On the other hand, the Democratic party had incurred the suspicion and hostility of the East, with hardly a compensating increase of strength in the West; its principles had become radical for that day and had abruptly changed from those of previous years; its membership included more of the discontented classes than before; and its leadership had been snatched from the hands of an experienced and conservative leader and placed in the care of an untried radical. It remained to be seen whether the victors would attempt to study and meet the complaints of the farmer and the wage earner; whether the new Republican leaders would be able to preserve the _laissez faire_ attitude toward the railroads and the corporations; and whether the forces of dissent represented in Populism and radical Democracy had received a death blow or only a rebuff.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Peck contains one of the most illuminating accounts of the rising in the West, together with the campaign of 1896. H. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912), is one of the few critical biographies of leaders who have lived since the Civil War. W.J. Bryan, _The First Battle_ (1897), is indispensable; C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916), is uncritical and eulogistic, but makes important material available; C.A. Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914), contains a good chapter; W.H. Harvey, _Coin’s Financial School_ (1894), is mentioned in the text; Carl Becker’s clever essay in _Turner Essays in American History_ (1910), throws light on Kansas psychology; S.J. Buck, _Agrarian Crusade_ (1920), is excellent. Consult also D.R. Dewey, _National Problems_ (1907); J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems_ (1914); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, X, 269; and F.E. Haynes, _Third Party Movements_ (1916). The files of _The Nation_, and the New York _Tribune_ and _Sun_ well portray eastern opinion. The references to the rise of the populist movement under Chap. XII are also of service.
* * * * *
[1] I have drawn at this point upon Peck, _Twenty Years of the Republic_, 453-456.
[2] Peck, 451-453.
[3] For brief accounts of Tillman, see Leupp, _National Miniatures_, 117; N.Y. _Times_, July 4, 1918; N.Y. _Evening Post_, July 3, 1918.
[4] Cf. Whitlock, _Forty Years of It_, 64 ff.; Altgeld, _Live Questions_ and _The Cost of Something for Nothing_.
[5] In connection with the following pages, consult Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_, one of the few satisfactory biographies of this period.
[6] As finally adopted, the gold plank asserted: “We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver, except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard must be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained at parity with gold, and we favor all measures designed to maintain inviolably the obligations of the United States and all our money, whether coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the most enlightened nations of the earth.” Several leaders claimed to have been the real author of the gold plank. It seems more nearly true that many men came to the convention prepared to insist on a definite statement and that each thought himself the originator of the party policy.
CHAPTER XVII
REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
The ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of William McKinley on March 4, 1897, were typical of the care-taking generalship of Mark Hanna. The details of policing the crowds had been foreseen and attended to; the usual military review was effectively carried out to the last particular; “the Republican party was coming back to power as the party of organization, of discipline, of unquestioning obedience to leadership.”[1]
The political capacity, the characteristics and the philosophy of the new President were sufficiently representative of the forces which were to control American affairs for the next few years to make them matters of some interest. McKinley was a traditional politician in the better sense of the word. As an executive he was patient, calm, modest, wary. Ordinarily he committed himself to a project only after long consideration, and with careful propriety he avoided entangling political bargains. His engaging personality, his consummate tact and his thorough knowledge of the temper and traditions of Congress enabled him to lead that body, where Cleveland failed to drive it. As a speaker he seldom rose above an ordinary plane, but he was simple and sincere. His messages to Congress breathed an atmosphere of serenity and of deferential reliance upon the wise and judicious action of the legislative branch. Their smug and genial tone formed a sharp contrast with his predecessor’s anxious demands for multifarious reforms; while Cleveland inveighed against narrow partisanship and selfish aims, McKinley benignantly observed: “The public questions which now most engross us are lifted far above either partisanship, prejudice, or former sectional differences.”
The political philosophy of McKinley typified that of his party. The possibilities which he saw in protective tariffs, which occupied the foremost position among his principles, were well set forth in his message to Congress on March 15, 1897. Additional duties should be levied on foreign importation, he asserted,
to preserve the home market, so far as possible, to our own producers; to revive and increase manufactures; to relieve and encourage agriculture; to increase our domestic and foreign commerce; to aid and develop mining and building; and to render to labor in every field of useful occupation the liberal wages and adequate rewards to which skill and industry are justly entitled.
Like most American presidents, McKinley was a peace-lover, pleasantly disposed toward the arbitration of international difficulties and prepared to welcome any attempt to further that method of preserving the peace of the world. His conception of the presidential office differed somewhat sharply at several points from that of his predecessor. Like Cleveland he looked upon himself as peculiarly the representative of the people, but he was far less likely either to lead public opinion or to attempt to hasten the people to adopt a position which he had himself taken. This fact lay at the bottom of the complaints of his critics that he always had his “ear to the ground” in order that he might be prepared to go with the majority. On the other hand, although he was aware of constitutional limitation upon the functions of the executive, he was not so continually hampered by the strict constructionist view of the powers of the federal government as Cleveland had been. McKinley’s attitude toward Congress was far more sagacious than Cleveland’s. He distributed the usual patronage with skill; he approached Congressmen individually with the utmost tact; he appointed them to serve on commissions and boards of arbitration, and later, when matters upon which the commissions had been engaged came before Congress in the form of treaties or legislation, these men found themselves in a position to lead in the adoption of the principles which the President desired. All this indicated an ability to “touch elbows” with Congress that has rarely been exceeded. When coupled with the organizing power of Hanna, the harmonizing sagacity of the President soon brought about a notable degree of party solidarity. As a political organization, the Republican party reached a climax.
McKinley was hardly an idealist, and distinctly not a reformer. Although sensitive to pressure from the reform element, he was not ahead of ordinary public opinion on matters of economic and political betterment. Leaders in federal railroad regulation found the President cold toward projects to strengthen the Interstate Commerce law; the Sherman Anti-trust Act was scarcely enforced at all during McKinley’s administration, and the parts of his messages which relate to the regulation of industry are vague and lacking in purpose. One searches these documents in vain for any indication that the Republican leader had either vigorous sympathy with the economic and social unrest which had made the year 1896 so momentous or even any thorough understanding of it. Even if he had possessed both sympathy and understanding, however, it is doubtful whether he could have made real progress in the direction of economic legislation and the enforcement of the acts regulating railroads and industry, in view of his long-continued and close affiliation with business leaders of the Mark Hanna type and his deep obligation to them at the time of his financial embarrassments in 1893.
McKinley’s cabinet was composed of men whose advanced age and conservative characteristics indicated that his advisers would commend themselves to the business world and would instinctively avoid all those radical proposals that were coming to be known as “Bryanism.” The dean of the cabinet in age and experience as well as in reputation and ability was John Sherman, who was now almost seventy-four years of age and had been occupying a position of dignity and honor in the Senate. Two reasons have been given for his appointment to the post of Secretary of State. In the first place, important diplomatic affairs were on hand, in the settlement of which his long experience as a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations would be of obvious advantage. The second reason was the ambition of Hanna to enter the Senate. Since Sherman and Hanna were both from Ohio, it was possible to call the former to the cabinet and rely upon the Governor of the state to appoint the latter to the Senate. The propriety of this course of action depended somewhat on the question of Sherman’s physical condition. Rumor declared that he was suffering from mental decay, due to his age, but McKinley believed the rumor to be baseless, summoned him to the cabinet, and Hanna was subsequently appointed to the Senate. When Sherman took up the duties of his office it appeared that the rumor had been all too true, and a serious lapse of memory on his part in a diplomatic matter forced his immediate replacement by William R. Day. Somewhat more than a year later Day retired and John Hay assumed the position. Many critics have asserted that McKinley was aware of the precise condition of Sherman and that he made the choice despite this knowledge, but it now seems likely that he was guilty only of bad judgment and carelessness in failing to inform himself about Sherman’s infirmities. Another error of judgment was made in the choice of Russell A. Alger as Secretary of War. Alger failed to convince popular opinion that he was an effective officer and he resigned in 1899. As in the case of Sherman, McKinley then somewhat retrieved his mistake by appointing a successor of undoubted ability, in the person of Elihu Root.[2] It thus came about that the political and economic theories which had been characteristic of the leaders of both parties during the seventies and eighties, but more particularly of the Republican party, were again in the ascendancy. The President and his cabinet were uniformly men who had grown up during the heyday of _laissez faire_, and Hanna, who would inevitably be regarded as the mouthpiece of the administration in the Senate, was the embodiment of that philosophy.
McKinley’s experience with the distribution of the offices emphasized the progress that had been made since civil service reform had been inaugurated. One of the steps which President Cleveland had taken during his last administration, it will be remembered, was to increase the number of positions under control of the Civil Service Commission. The immediate result, of course, was to increase the demand for places in the unclassified service. John Hay picturesquely described the situation in the State Department a few years later:
All other branches of the Civil Service are so rigidly provided for that the foreign service is like the topmost rock which you sometimes see in old pictures of the Deluge. The pressure for a place in it is almost indescribable.
Both in his inaugural address and in his message to Congress on December 6, 1897, McKinley expressed his approval of the prevailing system, but suggested the possibility of exempting some positions then in the classified service. President Cleveland had, indeed, admitted to the Civil Service Commission that a few modifications might be necessary. The Senate promptly ordered an investigation and discovered 10,000 places which it believed could be withdrawn, but because of other events further action was delayed. In 1899 the President returned to the subject and promulgated an order authorizing the withdrawal of certain positions from competitive examination and the transfer of others from the Commission to the Secretary of War–a total of somewhat less than 5,000 changes.[3] It appeared, in view of the circumstances under which the change had occurred, that a retrograde step had been taken, and McKinley received the condemnation of the reformers.
The first legislation undertaken by the administration was that relating to the tariff. The election of 1896, to be sure, had been fought out on the silver issue, but it was not deemed feasible to proceed at once to legislation on the subject, because of the strong silver contingent within the party. Several other considerations combined to draw attention away from the currency question and toward the tariff. The Wilson-Gorman Act of 1894 had been passed under circumstances that had caused the Democratic President himself to express his shame and disappointment; the period of industrial depression following the panic of 1893 had been attributed so widely to Democratic tariff legislation that a Republican tariff act could be hailed as a harbinger of prosperity; and the annual deficit which had continued since 1893 indicated a genuine need of greater revenue, if the current scale of expenditures was to be continued. The President and the party leaders in Congress were men who were prominently identified with the protective system, and it was not likely that the business interests which profited from protection, which believed in its beneficent operation, and which had contributed generously to the Republican war-chest would remain inactive in the presence of an opportunity to revise the tariff.
Immediately after his succession to office, therefore, McKinley called a special session of Congress to legislate upon the chosen subject. His message urged an increase in revenue to be brought about by high import duties which, he suggested, should be so levied as to be advantageous to commerce, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, building and labor. The projected bill was already in hand. Republican success in the election had insured the return of Thomas B. Reed to the speaker’s chair and Nelson Dingley to the Committee on Ways and Means. The latter was as devoted to the high-tariff cause as the Speaker and the President, and had laboriously constructed a bill which was distinctly protective. The legislative history of the Tariff Act of 1897–more commonly known as the Dingley act–was in several respects much like that of similar measures of earlier years. Its passage through the House was expedited by the masterful personality and vigorous tactics of the Speaker–a process which consumed less than a fortnight. In the Senate, bargain and delay ruled procedure; a few of the silver Republicans held the balance of power and demanded a _quid pro quo_ for their support; and the Secretary of the Wool Manufacturers’ Association preserved a suggestively close connection with the Finance Committee which had charge of the bill. After amending the House draft in 872 particulars, the Senate entrusted its interests to the usual conference committee, and there, as had happened before, the rates were in many cases raised above those desired by either the Senate or the House. The bill became law in July, 1897.
The Dingley act added little to the settlement of the tariff problem. The ordinary consumer was as little able as before to present his demands effectively and at the time and place at which the rates were really determined. The requirements of the silver Republicans were met by the imposition of high duties on wool. For one reason or another, duties were restored or raised upon hides, silks and linens, although those on cotton goods were slightly lowered. The duty on sugar was retained at a point favorable to the trust. In brief, then, the Act of 1897 was aggressively protectionist. An abortive section of the act empowered the President to conclude treaties providing for reductions, as great as twenty per cent., in return for commercial concessions from other countries. Such reciprocity arrangements, however, must be made within two years of the passage of the law and might not remain in force more than five years, and each treaty must be ratified by the Senate. The President was favorable to reciprocal adjustments and several were arranged but were uniformly rejected in the Senate.
Business was prosperous after the enactment of the Dingley tariff and little agitation for a change was observable for a decade. Prosperity, being world wide, was doubtless not due in its entirety to the American tariff, yet the coincidence of protection and good times gave the Dingley act a pleasant reputation. For many years enthusiastic stump speakers placed the beneficence of Providence and the tariff of 1897 on an equality as causes of American well-being.
The President’s first message to Congress had extended congratulations upon the fact that peace and good will with all the nations of the earth continued unbroken. Nevertheless it was necessary for him to devote much attention to the relations between Spain and its most valuable American possession–the island of Cuba.
American interest in Cuba was by no means of recent growth. The situation of the island–dominating the narrowest point of the waterway between the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico–insured the importance of Cuba as a strategic position. The traditional attitude of Spain toward her colony had been one of exploitation, a policy which was sure to be looked upon with suspicion by a nation which had itself revolted from oppression. Riots and rebellions in the island, having their origin in Spain’s colonial policy, had long engaged American sympathy and attention. American statesmen–Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Clay and Webster–had pondered upon the wisest and most advantageous disposition of Cuba. In 1859 the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations had even concluded that “The ultimate acquisition of Cuba may be considered a fixed purpose of the United States.” From 1868 to 1878 the “Ten Years’ War” between Cuba and Spain had raised American feeling to a high pitch. The struggle was characterized by a barbarity that rivalled mediaeval warfare; islanders who escaped to the United States sent ships to Cuba laden with arms and men; American trade rights were interfered with and American citizens seized by the Spaniards and shot; the _Virginius_ was captured–a ship carrying the American flag–and many of her crew were executed. Indignation meetings were held, the navy was put in order and war was in sight. Cautious diplomatic negotiations delayed hostilities, however, and subsequently exhaustion caused the restoration of peace between Spain and her distracted colony.
With the recurrence of insurrection in 1895, interest in the United States was renewed, and this time circumstances combined to bring about a climax in American relations with Spain. On both sides the contest between Spain and her colony was carried on with unutterable cruelty. The island leader, Maximo Gomez, conducted guerrilla warfare, devastating the country, destroying plantation buildings and forcing laborers to cease work, in order to exhaust the enemy or to bring about American intervention. Spanish procedure was even more barbaric. A “reconcentration” order, promulgated by Valeriano Weyler, Governor-general of the island and General-in-chief of the army, compelled the rural population to herd together in the garrisoned towns. Their buildings were then burned and their cattle driven away or killed; hygienic precautions were disregarded and the people themselves were insufficiently clothed and fed. The extermination of the inhabitants proceeded so rapidly as to promise complete devastation in a short time.
President Cleveland had been deeply affected by the Cuban situation. His last annual message to Congress had noted the $30,000,000 to $50,000,000 of American capital invested in the island, the volume of trade amounting yearly to $100,000,000, the use of American soil by Cubans and Cuban sympathizers for raising funds and purchasing equipment, and the stream of claims for damages done to American property in Cuba. In spite of his well-known disinclination to share in the internal affairs of other peoples, he had voiced a suggestive warning that American patience could not be maintained indefinitely.
The succession of McKinley seemed likely to result in a change in the attitude of America toward the Cuban problem. He was more responsive to public opinion than his predecessor had been, public opinion was more and more coming to favor intervention, and his party had committed itself in its platform to Cuban independence through American action. Moreover, two events early in 1898 greatly irritated the United States.
On February 9 a New York newspaper published a letter written by Señor Enríque Dupuy de Lôme, Spanish minister to the United States, to a personal friend in Havana. It referred to President McKinley as a “would-be politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party.” It further revealed the intention of the Minister to carry on a propaganda among senators in the interest of a commercial treaty. On all sides it was seen that the usefulness of Señor de Lôme was at an end and his government immediately recalled him. On February 15 the whole world was shocked by the destruction of the United States battleship _Maine_ in Havana harbor, with the loss of 260 officers and men. News of the disaster was accompanied by the appeal of Captain Sigsby, commander of the vessel, that popular judgment of the causes of the disaster be suspended until a court of inquiry could investigate and report. Nevertheless on March 9, Congress placed $50,000,000 at the President’s disposal for the purposes of national defence and the navy prepared for a conflict that seemed inevitable. Both the Spanish and American authorities conducted examinations. The American court reported that the ship had been destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which had caused the partial explosion of two or more of her magazines. No evidence could be found which would fix the responsibility on any individual. The Spanish court came to the conclusion that the catastrophe was due solely to an explosion of the ship’s magazines. American opinion naturally supported the findings of the American court, and feeling ran high; newspapers demanded war; “Remember the _Maine_” summarized much of popular discussion.[4]
Under such circumstances, diplomatic negotiations looking toward peace were difficult, and resulted only in disagreements and delay. Accordingly on April 11 the President laid before Congress a succinct account of Cuban affairs and earnestly called for forcible intervention. The grounds for this action he found in the sufferings of the people of Cuba, the injuries to Americans and to American property and trade, and the menace to American peace which was entailed by continuous conflict at our very threshold.[5] The transfer of the Cuban question from the hands of the President to those of Congress was equivalent to a decision in favor of war. On April 19 the Senate and House resolved that the people of Cuba were and ought to be independent, demanded that Spain withdraw from the island and directed the President to use the force of the nation to achieve the results desired. The approval of the Executive on the following day completed the severance of peaceful relations with Spain. At daylight on April 22 Admiral Sampson and his fleet were crossing the narrows between Florida and Cuba, on the way to establish a blockade of the greater part of the island. Within three days more, Commodore George Dewey, who was in command of a fleet at Hong-Kong, had been instructed to proceed at once to the Philippine Islands and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet there. On April 25 Congress formally declared war upon the kingdom of Spain.
It was not by mere chance, of course, that Admiral Sampson and Commodore Dewey were prepared to act with such celerity. Authorities in the Navy Department had long felt that a collision with Spain was inevitable and had been preparing for such an eventuality. With as little publicity as possible the Department completed and commissioned ships that were already under construction; it hastened the repair of vessels which were in any way defective; it ordered target practice and fleet manoeuvres; and it prepared plans for the conduct of a naval war. Commanders of squadrons were instructed to keep in service men whose terms of enlistment were about to expire; supplies of ammunition were procured and shipped to points where they would be needed; the _Oregon_, which had been stationed on the Pacific coast, was ordered to return to Key West by way of the Straits of Magellan and so began a voyage whose closing days were watched with interest by a whole nation. A Northern Patrol Squadron was organized to guard New England; a Flying Squadron was assembled at Hampton Roads for service on the Atlantic coast or abroad; and a formidable array gathered at Key West under Rear-Admiral Sampson for duty in the West Indies. Foreign shipyards were scoured for vessels in process of building and several were purchased, completed and renamed for American service. Greater additions were made through the purchase of merchantmen and their transformation into auxiliary cruisers, gunboats and colliers. In these ways the attempt was made, with some success, to improvise a navy on the eve of war.
The people of the country had scarcely become accustomed to the thought that war with Spain had actually come to pass when word was received in Washington of the exploit of Commodore Dewey in the Philippine Islands. Attention for the moment was focussed on the Far East, and the press dilated upon the first test of the new American Navy.
The story of the test proved to have points of interest and importance. When Commodore Dewey received the orders already mentioned, on April 25, he finished immediately the preparations for conflict which had been initiated and turned his flagship, the _Olympia_, in the direction of Manila. His available force consisted of four protected cruisers, two gunboats, a revenue cutter, a collier and a supply ship. The city of Manila is on Manila Bay, a body of water twenty miles or more wide, and is reached only through a narrow entrance. Dewey judged that the channel was too deep to be mined successfully except by trained experts and that both contact and electrical mines would deteriorate so rapidly in tropical waters as to be effective only for a short time. He therefore decided to steam through the channel at night, disregarding the mines, and to attack the Spanish fleet which lay within. The plans worked out even better than he had hoped. With all lights masked and the crews at the guns, the squadron moved silently through the passage with no other opposition than three shots from a single battery. Once within the Bay Dewey steamed slowly toward the city of Manila and then back to a fortified point, Cavite, where he found his quarry arranged in an irregular crescent and awaiting the conflict. Oblivious of the hasty and inaccurate fire from the batteries on shore, he deliberately moved to a position within two and a half miles of the Spanish ships and said to the Captain of the _Olympia_, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.”
[Illustration:
The Philippines]
Three times westward and twice eastward the American squadron ran slowly back and forth, using the port and starboard batteries in turn, and in a short time the shore batteries and the Spanish fleet were masses of ruins. Of the American forces, only eight were injured, and they only slightly, while 167 of the Spanish were killed and 214 wounded. News of the victory was as unexpected as it was welcome in the United States. President McKinley appointed Dewey an acting Rear-Admiral and on all sides discussion began of the situation and possibilities of the Philippines.
In the meantime, the position of the American squadron was far from secure. To be sure, all resistance from the batteries in and around Manila was quickly suppressed by a threat to destroy the city; nevertheless Admiral Dewey was in command of too slight a force to enable him to occupy both the town and its environs. He accordingly notified Washington that more troops were necessary if it were intended to seize and retain Manila, and expeditionary forces were despatched, the first of which arrived on June 30. Indeed it was high time that assistance be forthcoming, for new possibilities of conflict had appeared in the presence of a powerful force of German warships.
As soon as the defeat of the Spanish squadron had been effected, Admiral Dewey established a blockade of Manila Bay and, according to custom, the war vessels of interested nations went thither to observe the effectiveness of the blockade and to care for the well-being of their nationals. Among the early arrivals were the British, the French and the Japanese, all of whom observed the formalities of the situation and reported to the American Admiral before venturing into the harbor. The Germans, however, omitted the proprieties until sharply reminded by a shot across the bow of the _Cormoran_. By mid-June five German men-of-war under command of Vice Admiral von Diedrichs were in the Bay–a force nearly if not quite the match of the American squadron. When the Germans continued their disregard of the regulations controlling the blockade, indicating a potential if not an actual hostility, it became necessary for Admiral Dewey to have done with the Teutonic peril at once. He sent a verbal message to von Diedrichs which effectually ended all controversy. Admiral Dewey has not disclosed the exact phraseology of the message, nor did he send a record of it to the Navy Department. A newspaper correspondent who was acting as one of the Admiral’s aides asserted that the protest was against von Diedrich’s disregard of the usual courtesies of naval intercourse and that it closed with the words, “if he wants a fight he can have it right now.” The disclosure by Captain Edward Chichester, in command of the English force, that he had orders to comply with Admiral Dewey’s restrictions and that his sympathies were with the Americans, together with the arrival of the expeditionary force, assured American supremacy and a peaceful blockade. On August 13 a joint movement of the naval forces and the infantry under General Wesley Merritt resulted in the speedy surrender of the city of Manila. The Americans were now in control of the capital of the Philippine Islands and would, perforce, face the question of the ultimate disposition of the archipelago in case of the eventual defeat of Spain. In the meanwhile, popular attention turned toward stirring events which were taking place in the Caribbean Sea.
On April 28–a week after Admiral Sampson started for Cuba–the Spanish Admiral Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands. His force was a considerable one; his goal was unknown, although naturally believed to be some point in the Spanish West Indies. On the assumption that this hypothesis was a correct one, Sampson patrolled the northern coast of Cuba, extending his movement as far as Porto Rico, and scouts were placed out beyond Guadeloupe and Martinique. The entire nation anxiously awaited the outcome of the impending encounter.
[Illustration:
The Spanish-American War in the West Indies]
On May 19 Cervera slipped into Santiago, a town on the eastern end of Cuba which had rail connection with Havana, the capital of the island. Commodore W.S. Schley who was in command of a squadron on the southern coast soon received information of the enemy’s whereabouts and established a blockade of the city, while Sampson hastened to the scene and assumed command of operations. The American force now included four first-class battleships, one second-class battleship and two cruisers. They were arranged in semi-circular formation facing the harbor, and at night powerful search-lights were kept directed upon the channel which Admiral Cervera must take in case of an attempt to escape. The main part of Santiago Bay is between four and five miles long and is reached through a narrow entrance channel. Elevated positions at the mouth of the channel rendered the vigorous defence of the harbor a matter of some ease. Early in the progress of the blockade the Americans attempted to sink a collier across the entrance, but fortunately, as it turned out, this daring project failed, and Admiral Sampson settled down to await developments.
It was apparent that the capture of Santiago, and the destruction of the fleet could be brought about only through a joint movement of the army and navy. Hitherto the war had been entirely on the sea. Nevertheless over 200,000 volunteers had been called for, in addition to somewhat over 50,000 regular troops and the “Rough Riders”–the last a regiment of volunteer cavalry which had been raised by Colonel Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt and which was largely composed of cowboys, ranchmen, Indians and athletes from eastern colleges. The regulars, together with a few volunteers and the Rough Riders, were sent to Tampa, Florida, while most of the volunteers were trained at Chicamauga Park, in Georgia. It had been expected that the important military operations would take place around Havana and for that reason the officer commanding the army, General Nelson A. Miles, with most of the regular troops, were retained for the larger service. The command of the expedition to Santiago fell to General William E. Shafter. Sixteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven officers and men set sail from Tampa on June 14 and began to disembark eight days later at Daiquiri, sixteen miles to the east of Santiago.
Advancing from this point General Lawton, commanding a division of infantry, moved parallel to the shore and seized Siboney. General Wheeler, a former Confederate who was now in command of the cavalry, met and defeated a Spanish force at Las Guasimas. Further advance met difficulties that were more serious. On the left of the American line was San Juan Hill, an eminence which commanded the country toward the east; on the right was El Caney, a fortified village held by a small force of Spaniards. The country between the two points was a jungle, the roads hardly better than trails, where troops frequently had to go in single file. The fight at El Caney was severe, the enemy being well-entrenched, well-armed and protected by wire entanglements and block houses, and General Lawton suffered a loss of more than 400 killed and wounded before driving the Spaniards out of their position. San Juan Hill was still more stubbornly defended, and an American advance was impeded by the heat, the tropical growth and the uneven character of the country. Under these circumstances officers became separated from their men and victory was gained through the determination and resourcefulness of the individual. The Spaniards then fell back upon Santiago.
[Illustration:
Campaign about Santiago]
The continued success of the Americans compelled the Spanish authorities to make an immediate decision in regard to the fleet. To remain in the harbor seemed to mean being encircled and starved; to go out through the narrow channel seemed to lead to sure destruction. Yet the latter venture appealed to the commander-in-chief of Cuba, Captain-General Blanco, as the more honorable one and on July 2 orders were sent to Admiral Cervera to make the attempt. Early next morning, while Admiral Sampson was away at a conference with General Shafter, lookouts on the American battleships descried the _Infanta Maria Teresa_ feeling her way out of the harbor, followed by the remainder of the Spanish fleet, three armored cruisers and two torpedo-boat destroyers. The Americans instantly closed in, directing their fire first against the _Teresa_ and later against the rest of the fleet as they tried to follow their leader out to safety. Once out of the harbor the entire Spanish fleet dashed headlong toward the west, parallel to the coast, while the Americans kept pace, pouring a gruelling fire from every available gun. The Spaniards returned the fire and thus “the action resolved itself into a series of magnificent duels between powerful ironclads.” One by one the enemy’s vessels were sunk or forced to run ashore–the _Cristobal Colon_ last, at two o’clock in the afternoon. The Spanish losses, besides the fleet, were 323 killed and 151 wounded; the Americans lost one killed and one wounded. The city of Santiago, deprived of its fleet, found itself in a desperate plight and surrendered on July 16. Shortly afterwards General Miles led an expedition into Porto Rico, but operations were soon brought to a close because of the suspension of hostilities, and from a military point of view the importance of the campaign was negligible.
The succession of overwhelming defeats drove home to Spain the futility of further conflict. The despatch of American troops to the Philippines and to Porto Rico, moreover, indicated that Spain would soon suffer other losses. Hence the Spanish government, acting through Jules Cambon, the French ambassador to the United States, sought terms for the settlement of the war. The President’s reply of July 30 made the following stipulations: Spain to relinquish and evacuate Cuba and to cede Porto Rico and one of the Ladrone Islands; the United States to occupy the city and bay of Manila, pending the conclusion of peace and the determination of the final disposition of the Philippines. Spain wished to restrict negotiations to the Cuban question, but was forced to accept the conditions laid down by the victor. A preliminary agreement or protocol was therefore signed, which provided for a conference at Paris concerning peace terms.
The uniform success of the American arms could not obscure the popular belief that the Department of War had been guilty of many shortcomings. It will doubtless be always a subject for dispute as to whether the major portion of the blame is to be laid at the door of the traditional American disinclination to be prepared for warfare, or upon Secretary Alger and his immediate advisors. That the conduct of the military affairs was inexpert, however, is admitted on all sides. The facilities for taking care of the troops at Tampa were inadequate. When transports reached Tampa to take the troops to Santiago, officers wildly scrambled to get their men on board. The Rough Riders, for example, made their way into a transport intended for two other regiments, one of regulars and the other of volunteers, with the result that the volunteers and half of the regulars were left on shore. The clothing supplied for the Cuban campaign was better suited to a cold climate than to summer in the tropics. The health of the troops during the Santiago campaign was such that the general officers expressed the opinion that the army must immediately be removed from Cuba or suffer severe and unnecessary losses from malarial fever. When the men were removed, however, they were taken to Montauk Point on Long Island, where the climate was too cool and bracing. Unsanitary conditions in the training camps within the borders of the United States were the cause of fatalities estimated at several times the number killed in battle. A controversy over the quality of the beef supplied to the troops led to an executive commission of investigation. Both unnecessary and unfortunate was the Sampson-Schley controversy, which originated in a difference of opinion about the proportion of credit which each of these officers should have for the success of Santiago and which was continued in charges that the latter had made serious mistakes in the conduct of his share of the operations. Subsequently a Court of Inquiry investigated the accusations and made a decision which did not completely satisfy either side.
Despite these minor mistakes, however, the war increased the strength of the administration. The most lasting effects of the conflict on constitutional and political history demand detailed discussion at a later point, but the immediate results can be briefly stated.[6] The successful prosecution of a popular war, combined with widespread prosperity and the demoralization of the opposition party greatly heightened the prestige of the Republicans. McKinley appeared to have been in truth, the “advance agent of prosperity”; and his party obtained a dominating control of public policy.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
H. Croly, _Marcus A. Hanna_ (1912), and C.S. Olcott, _William McKinley_ (2 vols., 1916), discuss the politics of the period, subject to the limitations already mentioned. W.D. Foulke, _Fighting the Spoilsman_ (1919), describes the relation of the administration to the civil service; for the Dingley tariff, Stanwood, Tarbell and Taussig.
The literature on the Spanish war is extensive. Most detailed and reliable is F.E. Chadwick, _Relations of the United States and Spain_; I, _Diplomacy_, II, III, _The Spanish War_ (1909, 1911). J.H. Latané, _America as a World Power_ (1907), has several good chapters; H.E. Flack, _Spanish-American Diplomatic Relations Preceding the War of 1898_ (1906), and E.J. Benton, _International Law and Diplomacy of the Spanish-American War_ (1908), take up the diplomatic side. On naval preparations, J.D. Long, _New American Navy_ (2 vols., 1903), is by McKinley’s Secretary of the Navy; see also E.S. Maclay, _History of the United States Navy_ (rev. ed., 3 vols., 1901-1902). Good autobiographical accounts are: C.E. Clark, _My Fifty Years in the Navy_ (1917); George Dewey, _Autobiography_ (1913); Theodore Roosevelt, _Autobiography_; and W.S. Schley, _Forty-five Years under the Flag_ (1914). See also A.T. Mahan, _Lessons of the War with Spain_ (1899).
* * * * *
[1] Cf. Peck, 518.
[2] Other members of the cabinet were: Lyman J. Gage, Ill., Secretary of the Treasury; Joseph McKenna, Calif., Attorney-General; J.A. Gary, Md., Postmaster-General; J.D. Long, Mass., Secretary of the Navy, C.N. Bliss, Secretary of the Interior; James Wilson, Ia., Secretary of Agriculture.
[3] The National Civil Service Reform League estimated the changes at 10,000.
[4] In 1911 the wreck of the _Maine_ was raised and examined. The evidence found was such as to substantiate the findings of the American court of inquiry. _Scientific American_, January 27, 1912.
[5] It has commonly been felt among certain classes in the United States since 1898 that the business interests whose property and trade were mentioned by President McKinley had an undue share in bringing about the declaration of war. While it can not be doubted that the President was swayed more by business interests than most of our executives since the Civil War have been, yet it is also true that the sufferings of the Cubans aroused genuine sympathy in the United States. The President himself was anxious to delay war as long as possible.
[6] Below, Chap. XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII
IMPERIALISM
“The guns of Admiral Dewey did something more than destroy a Spanish fleet in the harbor of Manila. Their echo came back to us in a question new in the history of our government.” The new problem was Imperialism–was it wise policy and was it constitutional to annex and govern territories outside the limits of continental North America? In colonial problems the United States had had no experience; and if the Philippines, Cuba or Porto Rico were annexed, it would be necessary to administer the affairs of peoples whose languages, racial characteristics and forms of government were utterly strange. Such objections arose in the minds of many Americans as the conference assembled at Paris on October 1 to settle the terms of peace.[1]
The chief controversies between the Spanish and the American negotiators related to Cuba and the Philippines. The Spanish commissioners early proposed to transfer Cuba to the United States, the latter to turn it over to the Cuban people in due time. With the sovereignty of Cuba was to go the debt of the island. On the refusal of the Americans to accede to this, the Spanish commissioners urged the transfer of Cuba to the United States without any promise as to its future. Instructions from Washington both on possession and on debt, however, were explicit and in the end Spain had to relinquish all claim to Cuba and assume responsibility for its indebtedness. The proper disposition of the Philippines presented far greater difficulty. Not only was there a difference of opinion between the two groups of commissioners, but the American government was in doubt about the wisest course to pursue, and grave diversity of opinion existed among the people and in the peace commission itself. Moreover the capture of the city of Manila had taken place after the protocol had been signed and after hostilities had been ordered suspended, but before news of these facts had reached Admiral Dewey. The original instructions of President McKinley to the peace commissioners were to the effect that the outcome of the war had placed new duties and responsibilities on the United States, that the commercial opportunity which possession of the Philippines would present could not be overlooked and that the island of Luzon at least must be ceded. So little was known about the people and the possibilities of the islands that the American commission was compelled to go far afield to obtain information from writers and investigators in regard to questions of defence, the political capacity of the inhabitants, the danger that another nation might step in if the United States should evacuate, commercial prospects, and so on. President McKinley soon came to the opinion that the proper course was to take the entire archipelago. To give them back to Spain seemed “dishonorable”; to turn them over to our commercial rivals, France or Germany, seemed “bad business”; to leave them to themselves would be to leave them to “anarchy and misrule”; hence there was nothing to do but to take all of them and attempt to spread American civilization among the Filipino people. The American commissioners therefore demanded the Philippines, but realizing the defect in their case, since the conquest of Manila had taken place after the conclusion of the protocol, agreed to pay Spain $20,000,000. The Spanish commissioners thereupon yielded to necessity and reluctantly agreed.
As finally signed, the treaty of December 10, 1898, contained the following points: Spain agreed to relinquish Cuba, and the United States was to protect life and property during its occupancy of the island; Spain also ceded Porto Rico and the other Spanish West Indies, Guam in the Ladrones, and the Philippines on payment of $20,000,000; the United States agreed to return to Spain, at its own cost, all Spanish prisoners taken at the time of the capture of Manila; the civil and political rights of the inhabitants of the ceded territories were to be determined by Congress; and freedom of religion was guaranteed.
The reference of the treaty to the Senate for ratification elicited many divergences of opinion, the ablest opposition being presented by members of the President’s own party. In particular, the position taken by Senator Hoar, a rigid Republican and a close friend of President McKinley, made a strong impression. That there can be no just government without the consent of the governed, he asserted, was the central doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, the acquisition of foreign lands, he believed, would lead us into competition with European powers for territory, and thus tempt us away from the international policy which had been laid down by the “fathers” and followed by the nation ever since. Most of the Democrats held similar views, but some of them heeded the advice of Bryan, who urged that the treaty be ratified in order to end the war, and that the ultimate disposition of the new possessions be decided in the next presidential campaign. The point of view which seems to have prevailed with most Republicans was that the United States, being a sovereign nation, possessed power to acquire territory and to determine its future status, and that as a matter of expediency it was better to take the Philippines than to risk the dangers which lay in leaving them alone. Shortly before the final vote was taken, an insurrection broke out in the Philippines against American control, which may have influenced some senators to accept the President’s settlement. Even with this aid, however, ratification was brought about by the narrow margin of one vote more than the required two-thirds majority.[2]
Within the field of politics, the Republicans increased the advantage which they had gained in 1896. The congressional and state elections of 1893 continued their control of the House and strengthened it in the Senate; the world-wide prosperity which has already been mentioned and in which the United States shared, was in striking contrast with the business depression of the recent Democratic administration; discoveries of gold deposits in the Klondike and the improvement of methods of extracting the metal from the ore greatly increased the currency supply and assisted in raising the level of prices, thereby giving greater prosperity to the western farmer and lessening his complaints. The gold standard act of March 14, 1900, pleased the financial interests, for it fixed the standard of value, set the amount of the gold reserve at $150,000,000, and specified adequate means by which the Secretary of the Treasury could maintain other forms of money on a parity with the precious metal. Within the Republican organization, the President’s soothing personality and Hanna’s meticulous attention to the details of the party machinery continued undiminished the momentum which had been gathered. Defections on the imperialism issue, while affecting important party leaders, were numerically unimportant. Among the financial and industrial classes, therefore, confidence in President McKinley and his advisors was thoroughgoing. There was a strong bond of interest, moreover, between territorial expansion and industrial expansion, between Imperialism and the expansion of foreign markets. The primacy of business was assured.
The renomination of McKinley at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia, on June 19, 1900, was unanimous. The vice-presidency, contrary to tradition, occupied the center of interest. Several men of prominence were mentioned in this connection but the name which evoked most enthusiasm was that of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s career during the war with Spain had been a prominent factor in making him Governor of New York. As Governor he had shown energy and independence, especially in connection with measures for taxing street railway and other franchises, and had come into conflict with Senator Thomas C. Platt, the boss of the state. Senator Platt, therefore, desired to divert the vigorous Governor into the vice-presidency, an office which usually casts a “species of political oblivion” over its occupant. McKinley was opposed to the plan and so were Hanna and Roosevelt himself. The latter desired to put into effect further plans which he had made as Governor, and the attempt to shelve him aroused his fighting spirit. In the convention, however, sentiment in behalf of Roosevelt, especially from the West, was so strong as to over-rule both the administration and the wishes of the Governor. McKinley sent emphatic word that he was neither for nor against any man, but would accept the decision of the delegates. Hanna then withdrew his objections and Roosevelt was nominated without opposition.
The Republican platform emphasized the prosperity which had resulted from the accession of the party to power; it pointed out the danger which would ensue if the opposition were allowed to conduct public affairs; and it dwelt upon the growth of the export trade, and the beneficence of the Dingley tariff. An antitrust plank deprecated combinations designed to create monopolies, and promised legislation to prevent such abuses. Imperialism was briefly dismissed: “No other course was possible than to destroy Spain’s sovereignty throughout the West Indies and in the Philippine Islands. That course created our responsibility before the world … to provide for the maintenance of law and order, and for the establishment of good government and for the performance of international obligations.”
The dissension which had existed within the Democratic party since the second administration of Cleveland was still the important fact about the organization. Having been out of power, the party could take only the negative position of hostile criticism; there had been no reorganization and clarification of purposes, and no new leader had appeared who combined the personal prestige of Bryan with those qualities of conservatism and solidity which the East demanded, so that from the beginning there was no doubt that Bryan would again be the candidate and that he would take the lead in framing the platform. The convention met in Kansas City, on July 4. The platform placed most emphasis upon three issues. The first, which was declared the “paramount” one, was imperialism. The reasons given for opposing territorial expansion were mainly those brought forward by Senator Hoar at the time when the peace treaty was under discussion.
We declare again that all governments instituted among men derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; that any government not based upon the consent of the governed is a tyranny; and that to impose upon any people a government of force is to substitute the methods of imperialism for those of a republic.
The second issue, the evils of big business, received renewed attention, although an old complaint, because of the many industrial consolidations of the years immediately preceding. The “trusts” were condemned for appropriating the fruits of industry for the benefit of the few, and the Republican party was charged with fostering them in return for campaign subscriptions and political support. The Dingley act was denounced as a “trust-breeding” measure. The remedies proposed were severely definite in comparison with the vague plank which had been offered by the Republicans: they included publicity as to the affairs of corporations doing an interstate business; the prohibition of stock-watering and attempts at monopoly; and the use of all the constitutional powers of Congress over interstate commerce and the mails for the enactment of comprehensive and effective legislation. That the silver issue was mentioned was due to the insistence of Bryan, who believed that the stand which had been taken by the party in 1896 was a right one. Notwithstanding the objections of many influential leaders, therefore, a free silver plank was inserted, although in brief terms and in an inconspicuous place.
As a political contest, the campaign of 1900 lacked life in comparison with that of 1896. Interest in anti-imperialism was difficult to arouse, and waned visibly as the weeks wore on. Prosperity and the increased money supply sapped the strength of earlier discontent with the currency situation, so that the choice presented to the voters simmered down to imperialism and Bryan. A bit of vigor was infused into the campaign through the energetic speaking tours of Roosevelt and the Democratic leader. Hanna, as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, organized everything with his usual skill, and raised, his biographer tells us, $2,500,000 from the important business men of the country–one-fifth of it from two companies. The result of the election was the choice of McKinley, whose plurality over Bryan exceeded 860,000 in a total vote of less than 14,000,000; Bryan received less support than had been accorded him in 1896.
While imperialism as a political issue was being discussed and decided, the history of American control in Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines was rapidly being written. Economic conditions in the first of these islands at the time of the American occupation were little short of appalling. The streets, houses and public institutions were filthy and in disrepair; anarchy ruled, for lack of any stable and recognized government; and the people were half-clothed, homeless and starving. At noon on January 1, 1899, the Spanish flag was hauled down in Havana, the American flag was hoisted in its place, and representatives of the former government relinquished all rights to the sovereignty and public property of the island. General John R. Brooke, and later General Leonard Wood controlled affairs as military governors.
The first task was to feed the hungry, and care for the sick and dying. The customs service was revived under command of Colonel Tasker H. Bliss and began to supply needed revenue. The penal institutions were investigated–noisome holes in which were crowded wretched prisoners, many of whom had been incarcerated for no ascertainable reason. Education was reorganized, equipment provided, teachers found, and schools repaired or rebuilt. Most remarkable, was the work of sanitation. Heaps of rubbish were cleared away; houses washed and disinfected; sewers were opened and streets cleaned. Scientific investigation disclosed the fact that the mosquito disseminated the yellow fever and steps were taken to prevent the breeding of these pests. So successful were the efforts that in a few years the fever had become a thing of the past.
It was seen that the economic rehabilitation of Cuba must come about mainly through the production of sugar, and since the United States was the chief purchaser of the product, the tariff schedule was of vital importance. In 1901 Congress was urged to reduce the tariff on imports from Cuba, but the opposition was formidable. The American Beet Sugar Association complained that their industry, which had been recently established, would be ruined by allowing reductions to Cuban growers; the cane-sugar planters of Louisiana were allied with them; and the friends of protection feared the effect of any break in the tariff wall. On the other hand, the American Sugar Refining Company, popularly called the “Sugar Trust,” merely refined raw sugar and desired an increase in the supply. Lobbyists of all descriptions poured into Washington to influence committees and individuals, and General Leonard Wood, then the Governor of Cuba, even expended Cuban funds in the spread of literature favorable to a reciprocal reduction of duties. In the meantime, a reciprocity treaty was made and submitted to the Senate, where it hung fire for somewhat more than a year, and was finally ratified on December 16, 1903. It provided for the admission of Cuban products into the United States at a reduction of twenty per cent., and a reciprocal reduction on American goods entering Cuba of twenty-five to forty per cent.
The establishment of a policy in regard to permanent relations between the United States and Cuba was brought about in 1901-1902. When Congress had demanded the withdrawal of Spain from the island in 1898, its action had been accompanied by the Teller Resolution, disclaiming any intention of keeping Cuba and asserting a determination to leave the control of the island with its people. After the close of the war President McKinley and his closest advisors in Congress had determined that the pledge should be kept, and public sentiment had been in agreement with them. As soon, therefore, as American control was an established fact, plans were formulated for relinquishing Cuba to the people of the island. A constitutional convention was held, and a form of government, modelled on that of the United States, was framed and adopted on February 21, 1901.
While the Cuban convention was deliberating, it became apparent that the constitution would not include any statement of a policy in regard to future relations with the United States. The American Senate, therefore, under the leadership of Senator O.H. Platt, passed the so-called “Platt Amendment.” Its several provisions were as follows: the Cuban government shall never enter into agreements with other powers which tend to impair the independence of the island; it shall not contract public debts of such size that the ordinary revenues would be inadequate to pay interest charges and provide for a sinking fund; it shall permit the intervention of the United States when needed to preserve Cuban independence and the maintenance of an adequate government; and it shall sell or lease necessary coaling stations to the United States. When satisfied that the purpose of the Amendment was not to enable the United States to meddle in affairs in Cuba, but merely to secure Cuban independence and set forth a definite understanding between the two nations, the convention incorporated it in the final constitution. On May 20, 1902, the control of Cuba was formally relinquished to the people of the island, with the good wishes of the people of the United States. Only once since that time has the United States intervened. During the summer of 1906, an insurrection against the Cuban government took place during which the president of the Republic requested American assistance. A small army was despatched, which remained until March, 1909, when quiet was restored and an orderly election was held.
The task of the United States in Porto Rico was far simpler than in Cuba. The island was small; the people homogeneous, predominantly white, and well-disposed toward American occupation; and only slight damage had been done by the troops during the war because of the cessation of hostilities at the outset of the Porto Rican expedition. The development of a system of education, therefore, the improvement of roads and the betterment of health conditions through vaccination and the control of yellow fever presented a problem which was relatively simple.
On October 18, 1898, United States officials assumed control of the island, and until May 1, 1900, the government was in the hands of the War Department. On the latter date a civil government was established under the “Foraker Act,” an organic law or constitution passed by Congress on April 12, 1900. Under the provisions of the Act a governor was to be appointed by the President of the United States, to be the chief executive officer of the island. The people of Porto Rico were allowed a voice in the government through the power to elect the lower house of the legislature; but control by the United States was assured by giving the President authority to choose the members of the upper house, and by giving both the governor and Congress a veto on legislation passed by the island legislature. In the course of time the Porto Ricans desired larger self-government. This was granted by the act of March 2, 1917, which made the islanders citizens of the United States and gave them power to elect both houses of the legislature.[3]
The first difficulty met by the United States in the Philippines was an inheritance from Spanish rule. In 1896 the Filipinos, led by Aguinaldo, had risen against the government in order to secure more liberal treatment and to eliminate the influence of the Catholic friars from politics. The “embers of dissatisfaction” were still aglow when the American war intervened. Relations between the revolutionists and the United States forces became strained when the former were not allowed to cooperate with the Americans against the Spanish, and in February, 1899, open warfare followed. Not until July, 1902, was quiet restored, and during the process enough cruelties were practiced by American soldiers to make the anti-imperialists doubly fearful of military control.[4]
McKinley and his Secretary of War–at this time Elihu Root–desired to supplant military government with civil rule as quickly as possible and to this end the President appointed the first Philippine Commission on January 20, 1899, with Jacob G. Schurman, of Cornell University, as Chairman. It was instructed to investigate the situation in the islands and to recommend any action that seemed wise. The unsettled condition of affairs seriously hampered the work of the Commission but it gathered a fund of information which it later published. A second Commission was sent out in 1900, with Judge William H. Taft at the head. The instructions given to the Commission by President McKinley embodied an enlightened colonial policy, the core of which was that the government being established was “designed not for our satisfaction, or for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness, peace, and prosperity of the people of the Philippine Islands.” The Commission wielded such large powers that gradually the area controlled by the civil government increased at the expense of the military authorities, and by 1902 only the wild Moros were under military control.
By this time a definite form of government could be planned for, built upon the labors of the second Commission. The Philippine Act of July 1, 1902, provided for a governor appointed by the President, with the advice of the Senate, executive departments, and a legislature, the lower house of which was elected by the people. From the beginning the Filipinos, like the Porto Ricans, have desired a greater range of self-government, and in 1916 long steps were taken in the direction desired by them. The Jones act of that year materially increased the powers of the Philippine government and gave the Filipinos power to elect the upper as well as the lower house of the legislature. The passage of the law met with enthusiastic approval in the islands.
The purpose of American rule in the Philippines has been to fit the people for self-government, although opinions have differed as to how soon the final outcome could be brought about. An early and bothersome problem was found in the friars’ lands, which consisted of about 425,000 acres, for the most part in the vicinity of Manila. The possession of so great an area, together with the religious power and the considerable political authority which the friars exercised under Spanish rule, gave the Church a domination which might threaten trouble after the American occupation. The solution of the problem was found in the purchase of the lands for about $7,000,000 by the United States. Efforts have been made to introduce a complete system of education–physical and industrial, as well as academic–with such success that when the Jones bill was being discussed in Congress in 1916 it was asserted that every member of the Philippine legislature at that time was a college graduate. In 1917 the Filipino student body numbered 647,256, with 11,822 teachers. Political education has also been a part of the American idea. Elementary self-government was gradually introduced, starting in the more civilized local municipalities and provinces and confining the suffrage to the educated people, the official classes and property owners. The preservation of order has been more and more entrusted to a Philippine constabulary; civil service officers and school teachers have been increasingly chosen from the Filipinos; and the courts have been partly manned with native judges. Work in sanitation has followed the lines marked out in Cuba and Porto Rico. First and last over 10,000,000 vaccinations were performed before 1914; small-pox has been controlled; attention has been paid to the building of highways and railroads, water supply, the disposal of sewage and allied problems. The precise time, if ever, when independence should be granted to the Philippines is the one great question remaining.
The first attempt to revise the customs laws in the Philippines was made by the Commission during the governorship of William H. Taft. These schedules were revised in Washington in such a way as to discriminate against Philippine interests, but they had remained in force only a short time when Congress passed the act of March 8, 1902, allowing goods grown or produced in the Philippines to enter the United States under a twenty-five per cent. reduction. In 1909, the tariff makers were induced to relent to the extent of allowing the free importation of goods grown, produced or manufactured in the Philippines, except that only a specified annual amount of Philippine sugar and tobacco might be brought in. In 1913 the wall was entirely removed on all trade between the United States and the Philippines in articles made or grown in either of the two countries.
While Congress and the President were concerning themselves with the practical problems of military control, sanitation and the like, the Supreme Court was laboriously considering the less tangible but equally perplexing question of the constitutionality of the several acts which