Chapter 20: Political Realignment in the 1890s Flashcards
“Doubtful” States
Elections depended on these states because political parties were split between north and south.
New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
ICC
Interstate Commerce Commission
Made to investigate and oversee railroad activities.
Bland-Alison Silver Purchase Act
Vetoed by President Hayes, but passed over him in congress.
- Mixed silver into gold coinage (16:1)
- made repaying debts easier
- hurt big business because it was worth less
Pendleton Act
Passed during the Arthur Administration.
- Reformed civil service
- Hired based off of merit and qualifications
- Civil Service Commission
Sherman Antitrust Act
- 1st federal attempt to regulate big business
- outlawed the trust, but was vague and didn’t really help because people are weasels.
“Billion Dollar Congress”
Name the Democrats gave the Republicans because they were spending so much money on railroads and big businesses. Turned the people against them/
National Farmers Alliance and Industrial Union
- promised a unified action to solve agricultural problems
- solicited members at Granges
- Farmers were joining the alliance at a rate of 1,000 a week
Farmers’ Alliances
1) Northwestern Alliance
- Was smaller than the southern half
- Was more social and economic that their other half, and less secretive
2) Southern Alliance
- Started in Texas in 1875
- Farmers were fed up with crop liens, sharecropping, and depleted lands
- Effective organization
- A separate Colored Farmers’ National Alliance was made because racism
Ocala Demands
Farmers’ Alliances met in Ocala, Florida, and accepted the following demands:
- “sub-treasury system” that would allow farmers to store their goods in government warehouses as a loan
- Free coinage of silver
- End to protective tariffs and national banks
- A federal income tax
- The direct election of senators by voters instead of state legislatures
- Tighter regulation of railroad companies
Populist Party
The People’s Party
Was able to elect 4 congressmen and 1 senator.
James B. Weaver was their leader.
Panic 1893
- The economy had expanded too fast
- Railroads had over built, gambling on future growth
- Companies had outgrown their markets
- Farms and businesses had borrowed heavily for expansion
- Investment in railroads and construction dropped sharply
- Scared, people sold their stock shares for gold, which depleted the government’s gold reserve
Coxey’s Army
- 300 strong under “General” Jacob S. Coxey
- Wanted to get the jobless to work on roads
- Wanted congress to pass the Coxey Good Roads Bill that would authorize the printing of $500 million to finance road construction
- Marched to Washington - “petition in boots”
- Other armies sprang up and marched on Washington to persuade the government to provide jobs in irrigation
- Police were everywhere to block approaches on the capital
- Coxey got to the Capitol but couldn’t do anything because the police clubbed him and sentenced him to 20 days in prison
Pullman Strike
- one of the largest strikes in US history
- Began a few days after Coxey’s arrest
- Pullman Palace Car Company’s employees (who lived in a company town outside Chicago) struck to protest wage cuts, high rents, and layoffs
- made an antilabor weapon (injunction)
Eugene V, Debs
American Railway Union (under Eugene V. Debs) joined the strike by refusing to handle trains that carried Pullman sleeping cars
United Mine Workers
- sparked by wage reductions
- virtually all midwestern and PA miners quit working and cities faced blackouts and factories closed
- violence from the “new” minors made the public associate strike with riot
