Politics in a Gilded Age

1. Politics in a Gilded Age • “Gilded” means covered with a layer of gold, it also suggests that the glittering surface covers a core of little real value and is therefore deceptive. • This era was characterized by: • Economic expansion • Corporate Corruption • Oppression of workers (and minorities) • Political Corruption: • New York’s Tweed Ring (stole millions from city) • Credit Mobilier (railroads paid off Congress) • Whiskey Ring (defrauded millions from feds)

2. Was the Gilded Age political system effective in meeting its goals? • Probably not • Between 1876 and 1892 a political stalemate paralyzed the house, Senate • Presidents made little effort to mobilize public opinion or exert executive leadership • Federal Government did not deal with problems created by the economy’s rapid growth • Local and state governments regulated education, medical care, business, civil/criminal prosecutions

3. Federal Legislation • High Tariff (tax on imported goods and services) • Reduced Federal Spending • Withdrew greenbacks (paper money in circulation) • 1879-set the gold standard (which limited money in circulation to that which could be backed by gold in the US treasury • Put banks in control of issuing money • These policies favored big business and hurt Southern and Western farmers

4. Federal Reforms • 1883 Civil Service Act • 1887 Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) • 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act-Tried to prohibit the creation of monopolies

5. Freedom in the Gilded Age • Theory of Social Darwinism • 1859-Darwin’s Origins of Species • Theory of Natural Selection or survival of the fittest • Interpreted as: Evolution was a natural process in human society as in nature, and governments must not interfere • Deserving vs. Undeserving poor • Modern rich elite vs. primitive poor

6. William Graham Sumner • “Government existed only to protect the property of man and the honor of women, not to upset social arrangements decreed by nature.” p. 664 • Government would not end “laissez faire” until FDR came to office

7. Principle of Negative Freedom • Favored limited government and unrestrained free market • The principle of free labor, which originated as a celebration of the independent small producer in a society of broad equality and social harmony was translated into a defense of the unrestrained operations of the capitalist marketplace (p. 664) • 14th Amendment was reinterpreted to defend the “right to labor” instead of equality for former slaves • Lochner vs. New York voided state law that established a 10 hour day for bakers, said the law infringed on freedom of contract

8. Labor and the Republic • 1877-Great Railroad strike, put down by feds • Revealed worker solidarity • Close ties between Republican party and industrialists • Knights of Labor-800,000 members in 1886 • Strikes, boycotts, political actions, education, social actions • Membership rapidly grew in the next few decades • See textbook for authors that criticized big business and sympathized with laborers: Henry George, L. Gronlund, E. Bellamy • These works revealed a “wide spread consciousness that something is radically wrong with the present organization.” • How would it be possible to protect the freedom of both industrialists and workers?

9. Laissaz faire Economy • Under attack by: • Labor movements • Authors • Preachers • Anarchists • Strikes: • Haymarket Affair, 1886 • Homestead Strike, 1892 • Coxey’s Army, 1894 • Pullman Strike, 1894