The USA in the Time of Grover Cleveland
1893-1897
By Mike Donovan
Grover Cleveland Mrs. Fran Cleveland
Cleveland defeats Harrison in the re-match, 277-145 - He won the most votes three times in a row - VP Adlai Stevenson (grandfather of two time nominee for President in the 1950’s of same name) - Baby Esther - Just Say No to Hawaii - The Dems return - James B. Weaver of the People’s Party (Populist) won 22 Electoral votes in 92. John Bidwell of the Prohibitionist Party proved that America loves booze with his weak showing.
Popular vote 1892-------------Cleveland D) 5,555,000 46%
Pres. Harrison R) 5,182,000 43%
J.B. Weaver Pop) 1.029,000 8.5%
John Bidwell Pro) 264,000 2.2%
Because this was the second consecutive contest between the two, the Cleveland-Harrison battle of 92 was not very stimulating for most political observers.
Cleveland got Van Burened when the Panic of 93 struck the country shortly after his inauguration. Then came the worst depression since the Civil War, the Panic of 93. Harrison may have won the Election of 1892 after all, even though he got the least popular votes, the reversal of the Election of 1888. The party that won the Election of 1892 was doomed in 1896. As Long John Silver warned his opponents, “Them’s that die will be the lucky ones!”
Cleveland’s second cabinet;
Secretary of State-------------------Walter Q. Gresham—1893-1895
Richard Olney---------1895-1897
Secretary of War-------------------David S. Lamont------1893-1897
Secretary of Treasury-------------John G. Carlisle-------1893-1897
Attorney General------------------Richard Olney--------1893-1895
James Harmon--------1895-1897
There may have been little to choose between Republican and Democrat platforms in the years between Johnson and the turn of the century, as is generally asserted by historians.
But in terms of expansionist foreign policy, these were years when the battle lines were evolving for a political struggle between the selectively isolationist libs and the interventionists rednecks, a battle that is still under way today. Cleveland was, on the bell curve of his time, the Carter/Dukakis/Mondale/Kucinich liberal on the subject of U.S. expansion. Cleveland’s rejection of Hawaii annexation was possibly the most significant event of his administrations. Grover did not wish to see ‘manifest destiny’ applied to the entire globe. To Cleve (James Harmon always called him ‘Cleve’) Hawaii was “manifest larceny.”
EVENTS
ELECTION 0F 1892
COLUMBIA EXPO IN CHICAGO 1893
LIZZIE BORDEN 1893
DURYEA CARS
WILSON GORMAN TARIFF 1894
HAWAII ANNEXATION REJECTED
SHERMAN SILVER ACT REPEALED
COXEY’S ARMY
PULLMAN STRIKE 1894
PANIC OF 1893
INCOME TAX DEFEATED
VENEZUELA BOUNDARY DISPUTE
ELECTION OF 1892
After his defeat at the hands of Harrison, Cleveland had retired quietly to New York City to practice law. Grover's return to private life was “like a stone being tossed into a river,” cracked one critic, “a little plunk and then, nothing.” But Cleveland was nevertheless the obvious choice for the Democratic Party in 1892. He had, after all, polled the most votes in the last two national elections.
If Cleveland were to seek a second term as president he would have to face a challenger from his home state of New York. He would also have to face a serious challenge from a third party of the agrarian left. The “People’s Party” was the big story of the 1892 race, even though it finished a distant third. This collection of iconoclastic agrarian groups that had done so surprisingly well in 1890 had finally decided on an official national name. They came to life in a dazzling Omaha Nebraska convention in 1892 where they nominated Jimmy Weaver, and adopted the name the “People’s Party.” But it was popularly known as the Populist Party.
The 8% People's Party showing was exceptionally strong for a third party. 8% was a warning of American discontent. 8% is an attention-getter. The upper gentry had better watch their step and share the wealth a little, or at least lay off the whip. The Populist showing in 1892 was a shot across the bow.
The Populist base consisted primarily of relatively contented farmers who only joined the cause on the silver issue, caring not a hoot about most of the leftist demands, such as the income tax or the government ownership of the railroads. The true believers were suddenly a minority fringe in their own party gone mainstream. Many Populists were hoping for much more catholic support, and were frustrated that the party never caught on with the urban workers or the middle class.
The Populist leaders wanted to create a movement based on grand left principles. But people are more selfish than that. They vote for whatever party can help them right now. Intellectual leaders have the free time to think and feel deep thoughts about philosophy and national direction, but the farmers and laborers are too tired at the end of the day to care. They certainly were in 1892. A Populist newspaper said it best about their typical constituent, “He is brutalized both morally and physically. He has no ideas, only propensities, he has no beliefs, only instincts.”
Whenever I’ve had a job that was physical work, I usually lost
interest in my political books.
Essentially the People’s Party was the first to exploit the ‘I hate both candidates’ vote. (Ross Perot did it twice in the 1990’s. I can’t recall the name of his Party. No one can. It was all about him.)
Cleveland’s margin of victory in 1892 was not large, but compared to the photo finishes of 1876, 80, 84, and 88, 92 was a solid win. The previous four were razor thin or a minority win.
The campaign of 1892 began early, by 1892 standards. New York Governor David Hill was on unfriendly terms with the ex-president and hoped by a clever political trick to make himself the nominee. Hill arranged for an extremely early state convention for President in New York State.
Hill and his supporters met to choose electors for president on February 22. The national convention would not come until June 21. This was an unprecedented early time for this event. The idea was to win New York before Cleveland knew what had happened and then the rest of the country would take its cue and begin a movement for Hill.
The trick backfired. This “snap convention” created factions of “snappers” who supported Hill and “anti-snappers” who backed Grover Cleveland. The fact the the nation had these nicknames proved the transparency the DH's scheme, and its doom to failure. The event was so obviously slimy that the rest of the country rolled off the Hill, and instead supported Cleveland all the more. Cleveland was nominated handily at the June 21 Democratic Convention in Chicago despite a strong effort there by David Hill.
The Dems advocated a lowering of the tariff and limiting it to revenue only, not to protect American industries. The Democrats condemned President Harrison's big Republican tariffs. The D Party also came out against the free coinage of silver, thus winning influential friends in the banker’s world of the east where the gold standard was standard.
Currency was a red hot issue as usual. At this time the currency shortage was such that there was less than 23 dollars per person in the country. The Populists were advocating an increase of over 100% to at least 50 dollars per person.
To the outsider the Populists won a big victory. But the Populists considered 8% a shocking let-down. They were a serious left-wing movement, well organized, financed and led. Even the 15 men they sent to the Congress (five senators) and three governors did not compensate for broken dreams. The populists had really thought they had a serious chance and they certainly had momentum. Many historians emphasize the exiting showing of the Populists in 92 at face value but the sharper ones see the bigger point, that the Populists, the leftists, were not going to take over this country. The dream was over. The closest they would ever come again was in 1968 and then the 4 million hippies did not have a serious political Party to grow behind. The Populists in 1892 had every left wing crusader for a hundred different causes all unified at last in one great political party. This was the day of liberal jubilee. The left was going to win. They lost.
The Populists were popular. But voters tend to be more conservative on Election Day in private than they were for the previous 364 days. Many people enjoyed some of the Populist ideas but stopped short of voting these People in.
The Populist Party 1892 was a far more progressive collection than the main parties who ruled in the so-called Progressive Era of 1900-1913. While Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson were progressive relative to the era, they were really conservatives who watered down the ideas of the progressives and put in compromise versions of leftist ideas, thus destroying the power of the left. Today’s most popular term for this steal and dilute strategy is called “Co-opting,” The Populists never had control of the era named after them. But their large voting bloc was a makeweight in every close election and they had to be appeased. Labor rights were not always won because their cause was completely just or that a rich merchant had seen the light. Labor rights sometimes were won because the rads in the factories could swing a close election and they were organized.
The Populists had dreams of an interracial agrarian south but voter fraud by southern rednecks helped keep their vote total low down there. The South was also not fond Weaver’s credential as a Union General, so sometimes this military hero business can backfire. Just ask John Kerry.
1892 Welcome Back Cleveland
The Populists carried four states in 1892, one of the strongest third party showings in US history.
PANIC OF 1893
The warning signs of an economic collapse were present during Harrison’s administration. A key financial institution failed in England, but a bumper agricultural crop at home in 1891 fended off disaster here.
In 1892 the disease of “overtrading” continued unabated. Corporations continued to sell more stock in companies than the companies were worth, presuming that with more profits, the risk defying gamblers at large could be both utilized and satisfied.
Just a few days before Cleveland was inaugurated the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad went bankrupt. The stock market began to collapse, but had just enough strength left to hang on so that Cleveland could be stuck holding the bag when the bottom fell out.
After Cleveland took office more railroads went off the tracks. The Santa Fe, the Union Pacific and the Erie all went bankrupt at about the same time.
The event that finally burst the dam was the collapse of the National Cordage Company. The Panic of 1893 was on. The NCC had only last year paid a dividend of %100 to all of its stockholders. Now it was selling it’s stock at %10 of it’s face value. This 190% reversal of the then famous Cordage Company was the signal to all stock and land speculators to sell now and get out of the game. Obviously when everyone is determined to sell, no one can sell at a profit. The economy was toast, and it was falling onto the floor butter-side down.
When the dice rolled 7-out and the investors lost their chips, a devastating economic depression swept the country. New Years Eve of 1893 was a night of fake smiles. When 1894 began there were 500 banks and 1,500 businesses already in the graveyard. The depression that followed lasted all the way through 1897. This time there would be no weather miracle to save the day. In fact instead of fending off depression as the weather had done in 1891, this time it made it worse. A return to dry weather in 1894 in the borderline prairie farmlands (after several years of unusual western rainfall had lulled farmers into thinking this trend permanent) caused crop failure and resultant farm foreclosures on a large scale.
Some historians estimate that the Panic and aftermath of 1893 was five times worse than the Panic of 1873. But it should be added that the one in 1873 hit the banking cities of the east hardest but hardly affected the west whereas the Panic of 1893 hit the west and the south primarily while the cities in the east suffered but did not fall over.
LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AXE
The crime of the century (after Booth) was committed allegedly by one Miss Lizze Borden of Fall River Mass in the spring of 1893. The young woman was indicted by a grand jury for killing her father and her stepmother with an axe.
To this day our culture can't shake off the folklore poem that we know by heart, at least here in New England,
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her father 40 whacks
And when she saw what she had done
She gave her mother 41
A lot of people still think she was convicted of murder, but in the eyes of justice, Lizzie Borden was innocent. Elizabeth Borden was acquitted.
NO SILVER LINING 1893-4
Late in 1893 Cleveland led the successful repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. The financial crisis was due to many more things than the silver problem but Cleveland can be forgiven for blaming it on the only issue on which he could take action, and that was the silver issue.
Too much silver was driving down the value of the silver dollar and that of course meant that silver was driving down the value of the US Dollar, period. By one estimate in August of 1893 the silver dollar only had 57 cents worth of silver in it. Other nations wanted their American bills paid in gold only for two reasons. Their economies were based on the singular gold standard and they knew the depreciated value of the silver US dollar.
Cleveland addressed the Congress on August 7 1893 and warned the nation that we were on our way to ‘silver monometallism’, which would demote the USA out of the pantheon of giant economic powers. The House of Representatives passed the repeal of the Sherman purchase Act by the end of the month. The Senate took longer, passing the repeal on October 30 by a vote of 43 to 32. No less than 23 Republicans supported Dem Cleveland’s measure and 19 Democrats voted against him. The powerful Senator Vorhees of Indiana had to be bribed with a lot of federal jobs for his pals in his state in order to get his support. Cleveland took a lot of heat for violating the spirit of Civil Service reform, but Vorhees was the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and had to be wooed at any cost. Cleveland had to spend all of his political capital to get the silver out of his hair.
The repeal of the silver act did not cure the America’s financial panic but it did have one clear benefit. Europe saw the USA returning to the gold standard and Europe was pleased. Confidence in buying American stocks and bonds was restored in London, Paris and Zurich.
Cleveland and the repeal were then blamed for the Panic of 1873 even though the Panic came before the repeal. Repeal of the Sherman act did little to stop the shrinkage of the gold supply and increased the problem of a lack of currency in general to do business with. The repeal further divided the already traditionally divided Democratic Party. The west and the south were furious with the party over silver and tariffs. In the east Dems demanded an even stricter adherence to the gold standard than the moderate Cleveland was promoting. Cleveland had divided the party into two factions, neither of which were happy with him.
FORD'S THEATER TAKES MORE VICTIMS
The preservation of Ford's Theater is an atrocity of decency. It is a tribute to Booth, not Lincoln. Why should tourists line up to see the place where the President was killed by a scum of the South? This encourages deranged fame-seekers to commit similar dastardly deeds. A lot of assassins are fame seekers who have no other way to become big shots. Many don't even hate their victims and have no political cause. If I were King I would tear down Ford's Theater and build a basketball and tennis court open till midnight.
On June 9 1893 Ford's Theater took 22 more victims. A large portion of the the front of the building crashed in. 22 innocent civilians now belonged to the ages.
DURYEA CAR
The Ford company used to have a TV commercial that asked,
“Have you driven the best build American cars? Have you driven a Ford?”
To which I responded,
“Yes. No.”
In 1892 there were no American built cars. There were a handful in France, and they were first and that's why a chassis is pronounced with a silent s at the end.
In 1893 the United States got in the game. Charles and Frank Duryea deserve a household name in American history but I'll bet not one in 25 know the name and what it means to history.
Like the later Wright Brothers, the Duryea Brothers were bicycle makers who expanded into the arena of advanced invention. They designed an American automobile. On September 10 1893 'Frank's Camaro' made a successful test drive on the streets of Springfield Mass. The 11 mile opening drive lasted till evening and the last hour was guided by gaslight lamps, which reminds me of the Gaslight Pub gig I did in Springfield in 1983, a night I'd rather forget.
Two years later the first automobile race was held at Chicago. 26 cars drove to Evanston Illinois and back to Chicago to win a $2,000 prize. The winner was Charles Duryea in his “DC,” the Duryea Camaro (a car brand name later stolen by Peter Chevrolet.)
In May of 1896 Hank Wells spent a night in a Philadelphia jail for hitting a pedestrian with his brand new Duryea Camaro and breaking the guy's leg. It was the first serious auto accident in American history. Today 50,000 people die in car crashes annually, almost the population of Chicago in 1895. I personally know three comedians who have died in automobile accidents, and about 80 alcoholic comedians who should have by now, but have a lucky star
GOLD DIGGER PIERPONT MORGAN 1895
It had long been accepted that the nation needed a foundation of at least 100 million dollars in solid gold to operate. When the gold supply dipped below that figure and continued to plummet, the Buffalo hangman had a little private panic of 1893 of his own. By the beginning of 1895 the S gold supply dropped to 42 million dollars.
On February 7, 1895 the President and a few close advisors met with millionaire banker J. Pierpont Morgan to discuss plans to stop the yellow bleeding. JP suggested that the government buy a hundred million dollars worth of gold with bonds under a law passed way back in 1862. Sure, that law was passed under the emergency of war, but this crisis was legitimate too. So why not? The plan was approved. The millionaire banker began buying all the gold he could all over the world and then loaned the gold to the United States government in exchange for US bonds redeemable at about 4%. The scheme worked and the flow of gold out of the country was halted at long last. The gold standard was saved and retained. Signs began to appear that the nation was rising from the depths of the depression of the 1890’s. J.P. Morgan had proved himself a national hero!
No, not really.
Morgan made seven million in profit from loaning the gold to the United States and for this J. Pierpont is still slammed by almost all the modern historians. JP is less respected by liberal history than a gas station owner charging 700% for fuel during a hurricane.
Morgan’s percentage was not exorbitant by any banking standards then or now and he had no selfish need to make the investment.
The neo-left pundits, none of whom had to live through the Panic and depression of the 1890’s still consider this incident one of the blackest stains on the history of the planet. The first tenet of the leftist faith is that all rich people are evil and their actions are to be judged accordingly (unless of course it is the case of a rich and charming Democrat running for President, that’s different.) J.P. Morgan’s name is now synonymous with slimy greed so there is little chance his golden deed will ever be given any credit for saving the US economy when it was possibly the only thing that could have.
Morgan later recalled the White House meeting with Cleveland and Onley on February 7. He said Cleveland was upset that the banker had him over a barrel and paced about the room complaining that Morgan was forcing him to do what he did not want to do. Cleveland knew the kind of criticism he would get from the left, although he probably did not imagine that it would get worse with the passage of a hundred years.
Interestingly, Cleveland’s account of the meeting is kinder to Morgan than Morgan’s own account. Writing in 1907 Cleveland was hardly seething with resentment towards the vilified baron of big business,
“I found that I was in negotiation with a man of large business comprehension and of remarkable knowledge and prescience. In an hour or two of the preliminary discussion I saw he had a clear comprehension of what I wanted and what was needed, and that, with lightning rapidity, he had reached a conclusion as to the best way to meet the situation. I saw too, that with him, it was not merely a matter of business but of clear-sighted, far seeing patriotism. He was not looking for a personal bargain, but sat there, a great patriotic banker, concerting with me and my advisors measures to avert peril, determined to do his best in a severe and trying crisis.”
INCOME TAX IDEA REVIVED AND SQUASHED
The Sherman repeal also included a provision for a revival of the federal income tax. The Lincoln North had imposed an internal income tax during the Civil War justified by extenuating circumstances, but this time the tax was to down on the people in times of peace.
There wasn’t a war on this time. There was, however, a Panic. The government surplus was a memory, the currency was in crisis, and Uncle Sam needed the dough.
The proposed new tax would only affect those making over $4,000 a year at a rate of a mere 2% of their incomes. Critics charged (and I would have joined them) that this smacked of radical socialism. They claimed that this was the beginning of an assault by the poor against the rich. Why should the rich be punished for their success and the poor rewarded for being poor? If we were going to live with a tax, shouldn’t it apply equally to everybody?
The legality of any income tax was one issue. Why only the rich should have to pay was another. If success were to be punished then the concept of free enterprise and capitalism comes with a stinging caveat. Uncle Sam was going to stab Horatio Alger in the back.
The Sherman income tax never made it past the blueprint stage. The Supreme Court case of Pollack v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust Co. ruled the federal income tax unconstitutional. The wicked tax did not reappear to ruin our lives until 1913.
WILSON GORHAM TARIFF 1894
Cleveland ran for re-election on a pledge to reduce the sky-high tariffs, (import taxes on foreigners trying to sell us stuff.)
After he was sworn in again it was the same old story. The tariff reduction is sent to Congress in the form of a genuinely progressive bill. Then exemptions are tacked on repeatedly until in practice the new tariff is a pathetic excuse for reduction. The Tariff bill drafted by Congressmen Willie Wilson of West Virginia and Artie Gorman of Maryland was such a case.
Cleveland saw what happened to his tariff reductions and was so angry that he declined to sign. The fake tariff reduction Bill was passed without his autograph. SGC denounced it as a betrayal to the party and its principles. Wilson/Gorman was supposed to supplant the old excessive McKinley Tariff of 1890, but in reality it was the same situation under a new title. Grover wrote to a pal that the “livery of Democratic reform has been stolen and worn in the service of Republican protection.”
MID TERM ELECTIONS 1894
When the team starts losing, blame the manager.
The voters blamed the Democrats. The Elephant fell from the tower of power in the mid term elections of 1894. The Dems lost a staggering 130 seats in Congress in a single election. Only in the South did the Party retain any Congressional strength.
GAR GRAB
One of the causes of the depression was the wild increase in pension handouts to Civil War veterans. The demands of the Grand Army of the Republic, with the acquiescence of Ben Harrison, had expanded the dole roll from 676,000 in 1884 to 970,000 in 1893. The pension price tag on a desperate government wallet rose from 81 to 135 million dollars.
135 million for pensions, many of them shamelessly undeserved (one Washington clerk got a military pension for claiming he had watched the Battle of Bull Run) was a steep burden for Uncle Sam, especially at a time of financial crisis.
135 mil is only the yearly salary of a big businessman today, but this was of course an impressive amount in 1893 when you could buy a team of horses, a farm and a sailing ship for a nickel.
CLEVELAND’S SECRET OPERATION
This isn’t the story of a clandestine political group, but a medical condition of Mr. Cleveland that was kept secret from the public. In June 1893 when he examined his mouth he found that he had a huge malignant ulcer in the top left quadrant of his mouth.
A secret operation was scheduled aboard a yacht in New York Harbor. It was kept secret from fear that the delicate state of confidence in the national economy could be worsened by news of a serious illness of the President. If the public thought that Cleveland might die it could alter the political atmosphere. Cleveland was a sound gold man but his VP Stevenson had a bit of the silver bug. There could be new fighting between the silver and gold factions and a general disruption in national confidence under an ill president.
On July 1 1893 a team of dentists and doctors performed major surgery on the President’s mouth as the temporary hospital-yacht Oneida puttered slowly up and down the East River. Cleveland’s upper left jaw was extracted along with a few teeth. It was a close call. If the operation had failed in the slightest, the president would have emerged with an obvious deformity. One of his eyeballs would have clearly dropped low in the socket. But Cleveland survived with all the scars invisible to the public. No one knew that three quarters of Cleveland’s second term was conducted with three quarters of a mouth.
Such secrecy is unthinkable in today’s media hound atmosphere. President Bush the junior got a pretzel caught in his throat a couple of years ago and the country never heard the end of it. Insensitive stand-up comedians even made jokes about the incident. (Okay, I did too, but only did the bit twice in Las Vegas and then put it away. “Kick em when they’re down!”, that’s the scared motto of stand-up.)
WHITE CITY/COLUMBIAN EXPO 1893
The USA wanted to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus discovering of America, so a great expo was built in the city of Chicago in 1892. This “Columbian Expo” opened in 1893. It was the city of tomorrow that the visitor could walk through today. The CE was a celebration of every new invention at a time when monumental inventions were appearing at a dazzling pace. In a time when very few people had access to these new inventions and of those few, fewer still could afford them, the expo offered a world where every building was filled with the cutting edge of new technology.
The isolated city was glamorous, large and ornate. People traveled to visit the expo from all over the country. The CE was a great success even though it opened at the onset of the Panic and depression of 1893. It was America’s summer resort from May to October of 1893.
The Columbian Expo was a temporary, disposable fake city, made of the plaster of Paris. The material was popularly known as ‘staff.’ By the time the fair was closing in later 1893, the ‘White City’ that was the Columbian Expo was already beginning to deteriorate and crumble. It closed its time-sensitive doors not a moment too soon. The Columbian Expo of 1893 was the Disneyworld of its time but more serious in its purpose. It was built to stimulate, evaluate and demonstrate progress. It didn't exist only to entertain.
Some historians still criticize the architecture of the fair as though that is important.
REAL CITIES
Real US cities had a long way to go to catch up with the futuristic plaster city of Chicago in 1893.
Most if not all US cities were not planned, they just happened. There was usually a sorry lack of green in the center, just utilitarian buildings packed together and growing every day. Some influential persons took a step back and began building parks and monuments, especially Fred Olmstead who designed Central Park in New York. Olmstead worked in many cities. I've used Fred's park system many thousands of times.
The Muddy River, which separates Boston from Brookline was bolstered and beautified at the same time in an ingenious Olmstead plan. A roadway flanked by elevated green parkland was built up along both sides of the river, serving as a dyke and a park at the same time.
It is disturbing to read however, that the rich often funded parks and monuments in the inner cities in order to reduce the unrest among the poor. The parks were meant to put a lid on revolutionary unrest. The rich philanthropists improved conditions to protect themselves, not just to help the poor or to improve their cities. A little green and some water fountains to soothe the savage proletarian beast.
The cities in these Cleveland 2 years were growing at a fantastic pace, pumped up by a mass influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. Not only that, there was also a tremendous turnover of population within the population. People left the cities almost as often as people moved in. Most of them headed west to the wide-open spaces. The populations of most major eastern cities were turning over three times every ten years.
The cities had grown beyond their capacity to absorb the population comfortably. The crowded slum became a way of life for millions of immigrants. The people managed to get by by life was full of problems. Plumbing was rare. Crime was seldom under control. Rats, noise and bad smells abounded. When horse-pulled trolleys began to improve transportation, they left behind a severe manure problem. Buildings weren't structurally safe. Conditions in factories were often inhuman.
HENRY STREET BLUES
One of the most famous blues songs of the 1950's was The Henry Street Blues, about a man in poverty at the turn of the century.
The real Henry Street was an organization founded in 1893 to help the poor in New York City. It was the Hull House of New York. Henry Street Settlement was operated by the heroic Lillian D. Ward, a nurse who had seen poor people who couldn't find medical treatment and decided to do something about it.
BOOKWORMS - MAHAN/DEMAREST/COIN’S FINANCIAL
One of the most influential books ever published was 1890's The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1663-1783, by A.T. Mahan of the United States Navy. The book changed strategic naval thinking all over the world. Bismark read it. Kaiser Wilhelm II later “devoured it.” Presidents and admirals still read it. John F. Kennedy said it had influenced him. The book's importance is always cited. What is less often stated is that part of the reason it was such a success is that it was so well written.
In 1894 a short and inexpensive little book by a Mr. Bill Harvey had a major influence on national economic thinking. Harvey was a silverite in the first degree and his book, Coin’s Financial School ‘went gold.’ It was a million seller. The book’s narrator, a certain ‘Professor Coin’ blamed the depression on the gold standard and favored unlimited coinage of silver. To Harvey and most Populists, gold was the root of all evil and all evil was in the east. The popularity of the Harvey essay gave a tremendous boost to the Populist cause, and undoubtedly helped elect some of their winning candidates in the elections.
1894 saw another famous American book published, Wealth Against Commonwealth, by Poindexter P. Demarest. The former Chicago Tribune editor was distraught with the abuses of big business and his book was an early example of both Progressivism and muckraking. WAC’s sales success portended these future trends. Demarest centered his attacks on the monopoly of the Standard Oil Company. Later on, Ida Tarbell’s book would rip Rocky’s world much worse than Demarest.
RACE RELATIONS – JIM CROW
Cleveland may have been a Democratic liberal in foreign policy, but in race relations and business principles, he was far to the right. He did no more for the blacks in his second term than he had in his first. In fact, things were far worse for them during his second.
In the 1870’s and 1880’s both the Democratic conservatives and the Radical Republicans courted the black vote. The 90’s would be different. When the Dems realized they were never going to win the hearts of those they had earlier enslaved they resorted to another tactic, overt disenfranchisement of black people by manipulating the law.
Each southern state had its own system, but the bottom line was that through intimidation, clever discriminatory laws and the open (not secret) ballot, the black man in the South was virtually stripped of the vote by the turn of the 20th Century. The Radical Republicans had been right all along. The South could not be trusted to keep its pledge to respect the civil rights of blacks in the South after the Federal troops withdrew in 1877. The substitute teacher took over the South and what happened is bad.
There was an important reason why the Southern white had stepped up the oppression of the black in spite of the ‘progressivism’ that was supposedly the signature of the times. Since the Civil War a new generation of young black adults had grown up that did not know the passive acquiescence of white supremacy that had been forced on the generation of slaves. These blacks were a little more of the troublemaking variety and were ready to stand up for their rights.
So, they had to be taught a lesson. These upstart negroes needed a little Preston Brooks treatment; and they got it.
The Klan did its thing and the Southern lawmakers backed it up. Vicious sneaky laws were passed that just happened to disqualify blacks from voting. If 90% of the blacks in a county had green houses, then laws were passed in that county that anyone with a green house could not vote. The blacks were rarely mentioned by name, but the arrow always found the bulls eye, black and dead center. What’s worse, every Supreme Court decision seemed to be validating every principle of this Jim Crow discriminatory legislation.
Meanwhile, at ground level, oppression was revived and maintained by that tried and true technique, threats and violence. Almost 200 blacks were lynched (hanged without a trial by a bloodthirsty unthinking racist mob) annually in the South during the 1890’s.
RACE RIOT IN BEEVILLE TX
Just recently in 1999 a riot broke out in the Beeville Texas Correctional facility. One guard was killed. Race rioting was evidently part of the local tradition. Beeville, Texas had already been famous for a riot a hundred plus years earlier.
In 1894 African American laborers were competing with the Mexican Americans for jobs. The friction between these groups became serious in August. The blacks attacked the Mexicans in a night or two of terror, beating some up and breaking into others homes and threatening them to leave town if they wanted to keep their light brown skin. It was blacks giving the Ku Klux treatment to the Mexicans, proving that people are people.
CLEVELAND AGAINST HAWAII
Cleveland rejected the treaty of Annexation that would have added Hawaii to the national domain. He felt that such “thuggish imperialist action” (he didn't use those exact words) dishonored the US. The treaty of annexation had been sent to the Senate under President Benny Harrison but did not come up for a decision until the Grover Cleveland, took office. Cleveland could hang a man and smoke a cigar doing it, (as he proved in Buffalo)but he had a conscience about taking Hawaii from the Hawaiians.
What Cleveland did do was recognize the new national Government in Hawaii, the so-called 'Outlanders.' Most of the major powers also recognized the “Outlander Government.” The outlanders had taken over with US backing back in January. Cleveland took over in April and avoided a decision on Hawaii by giving the issue to Congress, which failed to act.
Congress and public opinion was generally in favor of annexation. But both Congress and public opinion also took a calm attitude towards the whole thing. Everyone correctly presumed that after the next Presidential election, a conservative president would annex Hawaii. Cleve the lib was the only stumbling block and the panic of 1893 was kicking in and it seemed certain from 1894 that Mr. Cleveland would not win re-election.
(People also wondered of Cleveland could run for re-election without dishonoring our two-term tradition. But did that rule apply to consecutive terms only?)
LABOR PROBLEMS/PULLMAN STRIKE 1894
One of the few spectacular events of the Cleveland II era was the Pullman Palace Car Company strike of 1894. In July of that summer the rail-yards of Chicago billowed with the fires of sabotage and anarchy.
George M. Pullman, like Carnegie talked a good liberal game with labor but in practice was an old fashioned tycoon. George had invented the luxurious sleeping compartment railroad car that the rich loved and enjoyed. But the poor built them and they were not happy with ‘the man.’ “Pullman can pull this!” screamed one worker.
Pullman had built a city near Chicago to house his nearly 6,000 workers that built the Palace Company cars. The labor army lived a self-contained life in his little city, named “Pullman” of course. Pulltown had its own parks and lakes and churches. Pullmantown even had its own company library; but the shelves did not include anything on the subject of fairness. Pullman workers had to pay rent to the company they produced for in order to live on Pullman factory land. Worse, their rent was 20% higher than people paid for similar housing conditions on the outside.
It gets worse. Pullman pulled down the worker’s wages three times in less than two years for a collective total of a full -25%. At the same time it was pleading hard times, Pullman was making a fine profit, doling out $2.8 million in dividends to its stockholders in the year 1894.
Labor had taken enough. The Pullmanites decided to join the ARU, the American Railway Union. The leader of the ARU was Genie Debs the labor giant who had founded it a year earlier. Their slogan was “Are U Ready?”
The Pullman workers went to see the boss to ask for if not a raise, if not a pay cut restoration, at least a mere pledge to not raise the rent any further; for their effort to even try and negotiate the delegates were fired. On May 11, 1894 the Pullman strike began.
Mr. Debs upped the ante and called for a nationwide boycott by the ARU of all Pullman railway cars. The Pullman cause had gone national.
Labor was not the only ones who knew that it was important to organize. The GMA, the General Managers Association consisted of 24 railroad corporations. GMA came to rescue on the side of Pullman and saw to it that workers who refused to service Pullman cars were fired.
Until now, only the Pullman Illinois workers were formally on strike while the rest of the ARU was giving tacit support. But now with these fresh firings the ARU went out on strike nationwide on 6.26.94. The nation’s commerce inside the seashores came to a virtual standstill.
Trains were blocked from entering the Chicago area. Governor Altgeld called out the state militia to secure safe passage of all trains in the state. John P. Altgeld was already famous for pardoning some of the Haymarket rioters of 1876 and he was considered a liberal’s liberal by the standards of 1894. He stuck to his principles when he made it clear and public that he was not using the state troopers to take the side of big business and break the strike, but was only implementing a state of law and order in a chaotic crisis. This was not the answer that the White House wanted to hear.
The Attorney General was Richard Onley, a conservative’s conservative, and it could be argued that the Pullman strike between capitol and labor was fought by proxy between these two men. Olney had been a lawyer/advocate for the railroads and a prominent member of the GMA. Richard Olney told President Cleveland to send in federal troops to restore the supremacy of big business over the rights of organized labor. Oh, sorry. I meant to write ‘to restore order.’
Grover the good pointed out that the Constitution prohibited the use of federal troops in a state without a request from that states’ governor. Onley countered that trains carried federal mail across state lines so Cleveland was free to go over the liberal head of the Illinois governor. Cleveland was convinced and told the press that if it took the entire United States Army to deliver a single post card to Chicago he would employ it for that purpose. Olney in his capacity as AG told the circuit fed court at Chicago to order an injunction against Debs and the ARU demanding an end to the strike. Dick had the audacity to also invoke the Sherman Anti-Trust Act against labor when he knew full well the purpose of the act was to protect labor against the abuses of big business. He cited the strike as a conspiracy in restraint of trade knowing full well that it was conspiracies in restrain of trade by big business that had created Sherm. It was an insidious twist of reform into a vehicle for repression.
The strikers were cornered. If the injunction were obeyed, all would be defeat. If the injunction were defied, the angry laborers would face federal troops and appear as unpatriotic as the moonshiners of the Whiskey Rebellion 100 years earlier.
The injunction was served on 7.2.94 and the ARU dutifully ignored it. The workers stopped trains from entering Chicago and 2,000 federal troops were sent into Altgeld’s Illinois over Altgeld’s objections. The troops arrived on the Fourth of July just in time to see the fireworks. The strikers damaged or destroyed scores of railroad cars and property. The fires brightened the evening skies over Chicago causing $7 million in damages. 10 people were killed in the fighting. President Cleveland warned the strikers that he would send in more troops until the situation was in control and soon the violence subsided. Genie Debs was arrested on July 10 and charged with obstructing the mail. He refused bail and went to jail voluntarily. By July 21 the troops had left Chicago and the strike was over.
The history books today refer to this affair as the Pullman Strike but contemporaries called it the “Chicago Railway Strike.” Teachers and students today generally agree that the strikers were the good guys and the federal troops the bad guys unwittingly upholding the whip of capitol over labor. But those who lived through it overwhelmingly supported Cleveland for his action. The US House of Representatives and the Senate passed resolutions overwhelmingly supporting Cleveland for his actions in Chicago. The US Supreme Court followed up with a unified decision that the President had done the legally and morally correct thing.
Cleveland in fact went to his grave believing that the proudest moment of his presidency was the Chicago Railway Strike. William Howard Taft later thanked Grover for his actions in 1894, writing that Cleveland’s action set a legal precedent that prevented labor from creating sabotage and anarchy every time it did not get what it wanted.
The strike did have one benefit for the left. It gave fame to the name and person of Eugene Debs a man of whom plenty more will be heard.
MARX AND LABOR
The labor class under the guru bore Karl Marx insisted that they were the ones that ‘produced the wealth’ while the big barons made all the money. True, the big boss men were total jerks about sharing the profits and were murderers when they callously failed to improve safety conditions in the name of more profits. But did not the people who created the factories also help to ‘produce the wealth?’ The laborers did not walk up to an empty lot and begin to churn out railroad ties, cigars and garments. The evil big businessmen produced the machines and factories through which labor produced wealth. The product was a combined effort. Both sides produced the wealth. The labor end did not receive a fair share from their labor, that is a true charge. The working conditions were appalling and unacceptable to any thinking person looking back today, true. The list of offenses to decency and to God committed by the capitalists against their workers is a long one, yes. But did the laborers produce the wealth all by themselves while the capitalists smoked cigars and laughed and did nothing? No. That is a false charge that leftist jerks buy into in order to satisfy their desire to rebel and hate in general. If they didn’t hate the capitalists they would hate their parents or their neighbors instead. The secret motivation to radicals on all sides is a personal desire to express their anger against something. Politics is a substitute outlet for their personal psychological tornadoes.
The left historians stress that the Horatio Alger story was a naïve myth. They point out that most rich men in the Algiers era in reality started out in the middle class or better, and the Ragged Dick (the hero of Alger’s first novel back in 67) image was and perhaps still is a cruel candy apple being dangled before the oppressed masses only to be yanked away when reality calls.
On the other hand the idea that people could rise from low poverty to a respectable level within the lower to middle class was a very real and attainable prospect for any American in Cleveland’s second term or today. Compared to the conditions in the old country, this was a modified version of Horatio Algiers that was well worth the effort. It is not far from the modest story of my own life. I was poor and often unemployed as a teen-ager, but have made a steady middle class income for the past 25 years, and I have been able to do a job that I absolutely love the entire time. I actually enjoy going to work!
COXEY’S ARMY - MAY 1894
The Depression of the 90’s inspired many Populist schemes for saving the nations finances. 1894 was the worst year of the depression. That year a Massillon, Ohio businessman and populist ‘crackpot’ leader named Jake Coxey proposed a plan in the form of a ‘good-roads bill’. The government was to create a massive public works program with a half billion worth of newly issued greenback currency. This would put the unemployed to work. It was FDR economics when Delano was in diapers. Local municipalities would also float endless bonds to the government in exchange for these same greenbacks with which to build more roads and dams at the local level and put more people to work. Coxey was so fixed on the idea of paper currency that he named his son Legal Tender Coxey. His eccentric personality helped attract many followers in the lower class but hurt his ability to sell his ideas to the upper class.
When the Federal government ignored his plan he said that he was going to put boots on his petition. He began organizing a 100,000 unemployed-man march from Ohio to Washington to demand that his plan (which would pay millions of workers a whopping $1.50 a day) be adopted.
The groundswell of marchers never materialized but with the power of the daily newspaper, Coxey’s Army of 500 was still big news when it reached D.C. on May 1, 1894.
As soon as the march reached the Capitol grounds Coxey and several of his friends were arrested for stepping on the grass. Coxey’s Army then got the worst of some scattered fighting with the police. Coxey was escorted unceremoniously to the borders of the District of Columbia and told to go back to Massillon. Later that year new units of Coxey’s army left other cities and marched to the Washington, where they were treated similarly. The demonstrations were generally peaceful but there were 50 people with reported injuries, 50 casualties in Coxey’s Army.
Coxey’s Army had little direct impact but was a subtle reminder to the nation of the simmering threat of class warfare. The rich had resented the brazenly titled “Industrial Armies” that had crossed the continent in Coxey’s cause. If a mild-mannered gang like Coxey’s Army was close to confronting the government physically, what powder kegs existed in the lower classes?
CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT
In Harrison's time an intellectual society formed along the Western New York state region known as 'Chautauqua.' People flocked to the lakes region, took classes, heard lectures by famous Americans, made new friends, exchanged intellectual ideas and took the train back home.
The Chautauqua Utopia had started small but continued to grow. It became so popular that a home version of the courses offered there was sold in book form to the public nationwide. By the time of Cleveland’s inaugural, more than a hundred thousand people were ‘enrolled’ at Chautauqua from some other location. The entire operation was a national craze and became known as ‘The Chautauqua Movement.’
With all the stress on the negative, which is the mark of most American History books, it is a joy to read about Chautauqua. I wish I could go back in time and spend a day there. I lived in western New York near a Finger Lake and have a pretty good idea of the look, smell and feel of the region. I just have to fill in the characters and I am there.
Chautauqua grew and prospered steadily. The celebrity brains that lectured there grew in number and prestige. Mark Twain enjoyed several high-profile visits with pay. Eight former Presidents lectured at Chautauqua. The most beloved writers and progressive intellectuals preached there, including William James the great psychologist and Liz Cady Stanton. It peaked in the last two decades of the 19th century. Americans people jumped happily off trains or steamed in from the Great Lakes. They partied for a week plus one with the big famous names in the world at a gorgeous place in beautiful weather. While they were at it they were gaining a crash education. What was not to like about Chautauqua?
There was no Disneyland or Six Flags in 1874. There was not even a Coney Island yet (though that was soon to come.) Chautauqua was our first amusement park and we got it right the first time then blew it. I wish we had something to match it today. Now all amusement parks and resorts are designed for kids and anti-intellectual adults.
In addition to home study courses, the ‘Chautauqua Idea’ manifested itself in traveling lecture troupes bringing Chautauqua to the people. Chautauqua societies formed their own chapters in various cities imitating the program and its ideals. According to one historian though, the ‘intellectual standards in these programs were … in general .. very low, for they reflected the prevailing tastes of the American people.’
VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY DISPUTE 1894-5
Between the middle of December 1894 and the middle of January 1895 American were feeling gloomy. The probability of a major war was hanging heavy across the nation. Who was the new enemy, was it Germany or Mexico perhaps? No. America and Great Britain were on a collision course for war, and over of all things, a jungle boundary in South America between Venezuela and Guyana!
At issue was the Monroe Doctrine. Cleveland shocked his enemies and friends alike with his bellicose conduct during the crisis. In fact Grover's
truculence created the crisis in the first place. Cleveland’s foreign policy had been conciliatory and passive in the previous years in office. Some would even call it pacifist. It still seems inexplicable that GC would take us to war with England over a secondary issue while turning his nose up at a chance to acquire Hawaii at little or no cost.
The origins of the Venezuela/British Guyana dispute go back to 1840. The two states could not settle on a boundary in the undesirable bug- riddled jungle so England sent a surveyor named Bob Schomburgk to map out a fair division. The Schomburgk line was presented to the Venezuelan government which quickly rejected it. The matter lingered until 1884 when Venezuela at long last agreed to the Schomburgk line. But this time Britain decided that the offer was no longer valid. It seems that several gold fields had been found in the disputed region, and nothing brings out the selfish evil streak in human nature like gold.
Venezuela sought protection in the shadow of its big brother the United States. Uncle Sam was usually hated, but now it was convenient for the South American nephew to embrace the bad uncle. Venezuela proposed to Britain that the entire matter be submitted to the United States for fair arbitration. Great Britain agreed to this, provided that as a precondition to negotiations British Guyana was granted virtually all the territory it was seeking. The insane negotiating position of Britain was 'Give me all that I want, then we can begin negotiations.' (North Vietnam would employ this preposterous formula for ten years against the US in the 1960’s and 70’s.)
Cleveland became president for the first time during this stage of the crisis and offered the services of the USA to settle this mess. The offer produced no results. Venezuela in 1887 broke off diplomatic relations with Great Britain knowing it could hide under the protective umbrella of the Monroe Doctrine if England tried to take over the entire country by force.
When he returned to the White House for his second term Cleveland became more aggressive in his proposal to England that the matter be settled by US arbitration. But Mr. Cleveland did not have the support of his Secretary of State Gresham.
The grim reaper then made his political presence felt by taking Gresham to the other side. The new Secretary of State Rich Olney was in line with Cleveland’s thinking and then some. On July 20 1895 Onley delivered a rather hostile note to London that virtually demanded that England submit to American arbitration under the principle that the Monroe Doctrine was at issue here and that “MoDoc” had the authority of being a “doctrine of American public law”. The feisty note reminded Britain that America under the rules of the Monroe Doctrine was supreme in this hemisphere and that our ‘fiat is law’ here. The British Prime Minister/Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury counted to ten and took four months to respond on November 26 1895 saying that the Monroe Doctrine was not something Great Britain had ever taken seriously and that it had never been recognized by any international law.
Cleveland and Olney were steamed. The President decided to take the dispute out of the diplomatic arena and into the public. He would tell the American people directly what was going on. On December 17, 1895 Cleveland addressed a special message to the US Congress in which he pretty much laid out an ultimatum that he knew fully well could mean war and acted as if he was not the least bit concerned about that. The President stated that the United States was going to appoint a commission to settle the boundary dispute, and that furthermore and more importantly, if Britain did not respect the decision of the commission, the USA would take this as an act of ‘willful aggression’ against our country. “In making these recommendations,” he added, “I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow.” To which the macho men of the 1880’s US Congress gave Grover Cleveland a sustained ovation.
Many liberal intellectuals were horrified. Was this a ploy to win the next election? Cleveland had already established a reputation for weakness in foreign policy. Was he now showboating on this one foreign policy issue to counter that image? Many thought so. But most of the country supported him instinctually with their hearts if not their heads. Young Theodore Roosevelt was so happy with the impending war that he wrote to a close political friend “I rather hope that the fight will come soon. The clamor of the peace faction has convinced me that this country needs a war.” Teddy was a sick man.
The British press reacted by giving us a few rounds of abuse, but the British government was more cautious for a number of reasons. First of all the wiser statesmen were genuinely enjoying the gradual improvement in relations between the two countries over recent decades. No one capable of doing five chin-ups could remember the War of 1812 personally and the cultural and economic and political ties between the two nations was deep and genuine, and not something anyone over on the Island wanted to toss away in the name of a jungle border dispute in South America.
The realpolitik reasons for Britain’s decision to let slide the Cleveland peacock-strutting war baiting were more important than simple affection for the old colonies. The rivalry between the United Kingdom and Germany for European, colonial, and military supremacy was clearly headed for a showdown. England could not afford a war with the USA when one was already brewing with Germany. Britain had political conflicts with Germany in Africa and Europe, and as a bonus was facing a showdown with Russia in Asia, where the Russian bear was threatening the Queen in the Kashmir region. America was an important financial and trading partner, and it would be folly to defy all the great states of the world on separate fronts. Britain had no strong allies other than the United States at this time. It could not afford to turn it’s one ally into yet another enemy.
On January 2, 1896 a British military force raided the Boer state in South Africa in a failed attempt to create pro-British revolution there. The next morning the German Kaiser sent a congratulatory telegram to the Boer president praising him and taking a number of verbal shots at the British along the way. But the Kaiser made a big mistake when he deliberately made the telegram public. When it was published in the UK the Kaiser’s note stirred the British public to heights of anger against Germany. The German leader had unwittingly secured the American flank for England. Suddenly the crisis over the Schomberg line was forgotten and all angry eyes in England were facing points east. London crowds cheered in Albert Hall when the band played Yankee Doodle after booing the same song a month ago. The dark war clouds between England and the USA had been replaced by sunshine through no good deeds of our own. All that remained now was for the statesmen to work out the details of a settlement.
On January 25, 1896 Chamberlain made a speech at Birmingham England which effectively turned the fire off completely from under the kettle, and one which is visionary in retrospect,
War between our two nations would be an absurdity
and a crime. The two nations are allied and more
closely allied in sentiment and in interest than any
other nations on the face of the earth. While I should
look with horror upon anything in the nature of a
fratricidal strife, I should look forward with pleasure
to the possibility of the Stars and Stripes and the
Union Jack floating together in defense of a common
cause sanctioned by humanity and justice.
Chamberlain traveled to the United States to help arrange a formal settlement. A treaty was signed in February of 1897 just before Cleveland left office which appointed a commission of five jurists to settle the matter. Two were from England, two from the United States and the neutral decisive fifth guy was a Mr. de Martens from Russia. The final line was agreed upon in 1899 and it was close enough to the original Schomburgk line to make the entire episode all the more sad and seemingly unnecessary.
Analyzing the episode overall it is safe to say that Cleveland almost took us to war needlessly with our best friend and one of the most powerful military nations on earth. Except for the vulnerability of their Canadian flank, Britain had a definite military superiority over a United States that had been protected for decades by its oceans and it’s isolationism, not by it’s military might, while Europe in the same period was armed to the teeth. If we had gone to war over this boundary a lot of Americans would have needlessly died over a vague principle espoused by a liberal who suddenly turned redneck for no explicable reason and who knows what troubles such a war would have created in its aftermath. A bitter enmity could have resulted that might have prevented the unity displayed by the two nations in the World Wars of the 20th Century, a unity so vital in obtaining victory in both. Furthermore, many scholars argued then and still believe that the Monroe Doctrine applied to invasion and seizure of territory by a European colonial power on American soil and certainly did not apply to a jungle boundary dispute between two states already established. Cleveland’s handling of the affair by this logic was the low point of his administrations.
The other view is that even if he did overreact, Cleveland’s tough guy stand on a boundary dispute served as a strong deterrent to any nation thinking of trying any shenanigans of any kind in our hemisphere for some time to come. In other words, if the mellow Cleveland would take us to war with our best friend over a boundary dispute deep in the jungle, what would the USA do in the case of an unfriendly country overtly seizing territory in some other location in our hemisphere with a less liberal president in power? The answer is obvious. When Cleveland strapped on his cowboy gun belt over a minor issue, it served as fair warning to the rest of the world. As illogical and wrong as he probably was, Cleveland had managed to put a clear threat of force into the Monroe Doctrine that had not been seen since Maximillian had been tossed out of Mexico.
Cleveland’s actions against England gave the Monroe Doctrine the very legitimacy that England mockingly claimed it lacked. England for one has never interfered in our hemisphere since the Venezuelan boundary dispute, and Krushchov got his taste of Cleveland in 1962.
If Great Britain had won the principle and disarmed the Monroe Doctrine in 1895, the trend of history might have continued on to make it a dead letter and Kennedy might not have had the license to do what he did in October of 1962.
Many general histories of the United States do not even mention the Venezuela boundary dispute, but they always make space for poets, architecture, life of the farmer, and the changes in recreation.
The Venezuela-Guyana border dispute has never been fully resolved to this day and in 1978 played a small role in American History. In the Jonestown tragedy of that year, 998 people, mostly Americans, committed mass suicide in the Guyana jungle on the orders of a megalomaniacal religious lunatic cult leader. They knowingly drank Flavor-aid laced with cyanide.
‘Reverend’ Jim Jones needed to escape the prying and increasingly suspicious eyes of US authorities so he sought foreign sanctuary for his American flock. The Guyanese government gave him permission to settle his cult in the nearly uninhabited jungle in far northwest corner of that South American nation. It was in the heart of the same contested territory that the US almost went to war with England over in 1895. The Guyanese government felt that the presence of Americans there would bolster its claim and also discourage Venezuela from settling the dispute with force. The plan lost its political value when they all drank the potion.
So there you have it, a Grover Cleveland-Jim Jones connection.
SINO-JAPANESE WAR 1894-1895
A major war took place in the Far East which had long term implications for America. The 1894-5 war between Japan and China planted the seeds of US participation in World War.
Both countries were considered powerful enough to resist colonialism. The west intimidated both countries to a point with “port-treaty imperialism.” European states forced China and Japan to open ports for trade on terms unfairly favorable to the west. This was much more true of China, where the European powers were carving it up like a turkey.
China lost all international respect when it lost the big war with little Japan. Now the west saw Japan as an ally worth courting, and China as a giant marshmallow worth eating. Little Japan utterly destroyed China in this war and a lot of pre-game show commentators would have predicted otherwise. China was still the great ancient empire and no one realized just how weak it was until the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5. China was a giant gentle panda bear and japan was a giant vicious polar bear. No contest. Panda-burgers for Tokyo.
The war was settled with the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April 1895. By its mean terms, China had to give Japan pretty much everything it wanted in China from now on short of surrendering the country to the Japanese Emperor. Japan won control of all the railroads in Manchuria. Japan was allowed to set up shop in a dozen major Chinese ports on terms insulting to Chinese suzerainty. Japanese police had power in many Manchurian towns and Chinese police had to sit back and concede local power. The entire Liaotang peninsula was ceded to Japan.
Shortly after the signing of 'Shimono' the west got together and told Japan that it really should return the Liaotang peninsula to China. That is, if Japan really wanted to get along with the big boys and get western alliances, it had to play ball. The message was, we don't mind that Japan had emerged as the only real strong power in the Pacific. In fact, we sort of like that. But we can't like that so much that we would allow Japan to become more powerful in the Far East than Europe is, and if Japan kept the Liaotang peninsula, that would be the situation.
So Japan gave back the Liaotang peninsula in order to stay in good with the west, even though it had won it fair and square in an unfair and unsquare war. The people of Japan were angry. How dare the old bullies from Europe take away a glorious prize from the battlefield. This resentment over the return of Liaotang to China festered in Japanese thinking for decades and contributed mightily to the tensions that eventually led to World War II.
PLESSY VS. FERGUSON 1896
The Supremely Racist Court of 1896 ruled in Plessy vs. Ferguson that states could legally allow segregated public facilities provided that the quality of such facilities were equal. The Court said that segregation did not imply any inequality between the races. It also ruled that ants are the largest mammals on earth.
Plessy vs. Ferguson marked the birth of the famous ‘separate, but equal’ formula.
Of course, in practice the public facilities for the blacks were seldom of equal quality from the highest government office down to the water fountain in the park. Fergie was a sad day in American history and a glorious one for Jim Crow, the Klan and Margaret Mitchell.
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM
On May 6, 1896 Cleveland signed a law that increased the number of civil service jobs requiring competitive examination to almost 90,000 or more than 40% of the civil service jobs in total.
The action came late in his term, which was the pattern for all the presidents of the era. They waited until the last hour to expand the list of classified positions.
The scam was simple. When you first get in the White House, take a huge list of jobs off the appointed list. You'll look like a big selfless crusading reformer both in and out of your own party.
Then when your term is about to expire, you expand the list of appointment jobs to numbers bigger than they ever were before you got in. The next president it stuck with your appointments.
The next president would continue the cycle beginning their new term by taking many of these jobs off the classified list, looking like a party loyalist, but at the end of their term increasing the classified list to a number even greater than that which had been handed to them by their predecessor. So overall the classified list kept increasing in the name of showboat reductions. Each president started with one step backwards and ended with two steps foreword.
UTAH STATEHOOD
In 1896 Utah entered the Union as a state. On most election nights, Utah is a red state.
BABY RUTH
It is hard to find a history book that does not mention the fun fact that the candy bar Baby Ruth was named after the daughter of President Cleveland. Historians maturely debunk the popular misconception that the bar was named after the wildly popular baseball player Babe Ruth.
But was the Baby Ruth really named after Ruth Cleveland? Certainly the company that made the chocolate bar insisted on this and Nestle still tells that story today.
Let’s look at the facts. Ruthie Cleveland was born in 1891 when Cleveland was not in office and she died young in 1904. The Baby Ruth candy bar was introduced in 1920. Is it logical that a baby-name candy bar would be named after a teenager that died tragically 16 years earlier or to honor President Cleveland 12 years after he passed away?
The New York Yankees purchased the contract of Babe Ruth in 1920. What a coincidence that a candy bar named Baby Ruth just happened to hit the streets of New York City that same year.
George Herman “Babe” Ruth may have had a big belly but it wasn’t big enough to swallow this story. The adult Mr. Ruth sued the candy company for using his name to sell candy bars. The company insisted that the candy bar had been named after Ruth Cleveland. The court ruled in favor of the company and called Ruth “a big baby” for filing the lawsuit.
You tell me whom the Baby Ruth was named after.
If the Baby Ruth was named after Ruth Cleveland, than the Reggie bar of the early 1980’s was named after the actor Reginald Owen.
CONCLUSION
Cleveland left office without any support from his Democratic Party. The silver issue had become the rallying flag around which the Democrats would operate for the next elections and Cleveland was a solid gold man.
AFTER OFFICE
Cleveland died on 6.24.08
Fran Cleveland lived until 1947.
There is always some uncertainty as to whether Cleveland should be considered our 22nd President only, or both our 22nd and 24th President. Two-consecutive terms presidents are only counted once, so why should Cleveland be counted twice? This affects the numbers of all the subsequent White House leaders. So McKinley can be considered our 25th or 24th President. George W. Bush is our 43rd or 42nd President. I always prefer to count Cleveland twice.
SOURCES
The American Pageant, by Thomas A. Bailey of Stanford c) 1961 D.C. Heath
Bailey is one of the best historians of all time. He writes for you, not for himself. He loves the Dems. Bailey is kind to Cleveland. I get the feeling that of Cleveland had been a Republican with the exact same record, Bailey would have taken out a few of his teeth (like he did to Grant.)
A Diplomatic History of the United States, by Samuel Flagg Bemis, c)1936 Henry Holt
The Flagg man feels that the Monroe Doctrine was sincerely violated by England in the Venezuelan boundary dispute and sides with Cleveland for his aggressive stance in the crisis. (James Ford Rhodes takes the opposite view and is unspeakably appalled at what Cleveland did in almost taking the USA to war over a minor issue.)
The Growth of the American Republic by Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager – c)1940 Oxford U.P.
This was a famous book in its time and they are great Ivy League historians. I just happen to think they aren't. Snooty and mean, yes.
History of a Free People, by Henry Bragdon and Samuel McCutchen – c) 1954 MacMillan
A rare case of a high school history teacher and a university professor collaborating on a history textbook. Bragdon taught at Phillips Screwdriver Academy in Exeter New Hampshire, McCutchen at NYU.
The time frame of this writing is as relevant as the past times they write about.
History of the United States, From Hayes to McKinley, 1877-1896, by James Ford Rhodes, c) 1919
This is a primary source for much of this chapter. Not only is it exquisitely detailed, the author is highly opinionated, a dazzling writer, and has just lived through the events he is writing about.
The March of Democracy: Vol II, From Civil War to World Power – c) 1933 Scribner
What kind of racist lunatics were in charge at Scribner in 1933 that they published this pro-Confederacy history of the United States for general readers? This history book is a must for all Klan members who can read. Unbelievable.
The National Experience, Part Two, A History of the United States Since 1865, by John M. Blum (Yale), Edmund S. Morgan (Yale), Willie Lee Rose (Johns Hopkins), Arthur M. Schlesinger (City University NY), Kenneth M. Stampp, and C. Vann Woodward – c) 1981 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich NY
A New American History, by W. W. Woodward – I don't like this guy but he's very readable.
Out of Many, A History of the American People, by John Mack Faragher (Yale); Mary Jo Buhle (Brown), Daniel Czitrom (Mount Holyoke); and Susan Armitage (Washington State), c)1994 – This is the Bible of PC outrageous liberal pseudo-history, although they don’t really turn up the lefty heat until the chapters covering the 20th century.
The Oxford History of the American People, by Samuel Eliot Morison – c) 1965
Harvard man Morison's chapter on “Arts Letters and Education in the late 19th Century” is so boring I almost hurled this 20 pound book into the roaring fireplace. I survived it and finished the entire 1,128 pages. Overall, fortunately SEM is very smooth and readable.
Pictorial History of American Presidents, by John and Alice Durant c) 1955
A Short History of American Democracy, by John D. Hicks – c) 1943 – I like this guy and he's very readable. A really fine historian from UC Berkley.
A Short History of the American Nation, by John A. Garraty – c) 1977 Harper & Row
He is the Columbia historian that puts down Chautauquan intellectual standards. Garraty is definitely a Columbia snob.
The United States, A History of the Republic, by Davidson/Lyttle – c) 1981
The United States: The History of a Republic, by Richard Hofstadter – Columbia, William Miller – Umass, and Daniel Aaron of Smith College – c) 1957 Prentice-Hall
Aaron taught at the all-female Smith College for 31 years. He's no fool.
The USA, The History of a Nation, Morris and Greenleaf, c) 1969
This school textbook is so polemical for the left that Howard Zinn might endorse it. The book is a reflection of the outrageous historical prejudice of the era. I have tried to be as fair as possible towards the left in describing the Pullman strike, but Morris and Greenleaf are so one-sided as to make me sigh in frustration. In describing the violence of the Chicago rail-yards in 1894 the authors make it seem as though the strikers were 100% innocent and that anything bad that labor did can be explained away with an excuse towel,
Some of the disorders were caused by the
ill-advised provocations of the many
ruffians among the 3,600 men who were
hurriedly sworn into service as armed
federal deputies. … Although the union
had no hand in provoking violence and
destruction, Debs was arrested together
with other union leaders.
“The union had no hand in provoking violence and destruction?” How can anyone have the moxie to even type that up? The first word of this excerpt is “some.” Obviously then many if not most of the disorders were not caused by these scapegoat ruffians. So who did cause those other disorders, the Apache Indians? What’s even sadder is the 1.3 million left-biased students in US university classrooms in 1970-71 nodding their heads thinking, ‘yes, some of the violence and destruction were not caused by labor but labor had absolutely no hand in the violence and destruction.’
Tying a shaky argument up with a solid one is slick writing. No one will deny that Debs was personally honorable and his arrest was not right. But that doesn’t mean that labor was innocent of crimes of violence. Putting the shaky and the solid into the same sentence makes it hard to challenge one without the other, thus unfairly validating the larger point.
This technique is like a group lobbying Congress for a specific improvement only to find that their wishes are attached to a Bill as a rider, while the Bill they have to support is completely inimical to their greater desires.
ON LINE
University of Texas online provides the basic story of the Beeville 1894 attacks on the Mexicans but what is PC disturbing is that the account still has to somehow blame whitey for a riot against Hispanics by Blacks.
“White employers increased the friction among the three groups, especially between blacks and Mexican Americans, by hiring more of the latter at lower wages as Mexican immigrants increased in numbers in the Beeville area in the 1890s.”
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