Failure of Traditional Politics

• Republican and Democratic parties evenly matched, competitive
  
• 16 Republican, 14 Democratic states (including the "solid south")
  
• both parties anti-radical - failed to help farmers, blacks, labor
  
• Charles Guiteau shot Garfield July 2, 1881 - "I am a Stalwart"
  
• 1888 election B. Harrison def. G. Cleveland 233-268 (5.4m to 5.5m) and REp. won both houses of Congress - "Grand Old Party"
  

• Blaine's Half-Breeds allied with Garfield vs. Chet Arthur's Stalwarts
  
• big business, high tariff, spoils
  
• 1884 election - Cleveland def. Blaine by only 23,000 votes out of 10m
  
• Carl Schurz and Mugwumps defected from Republican party
  
• G. Cleveland public honesty but personal life tainted - 1876 illeg. son after affair with Maria Halpin - married 21-year-old Frances Folsom June 1886
  
• negative government, no leadership, vetoed 1887 Pension Bill, low tariff, gold standard
  
• "human iceberg" lost to high tariff B. Harrison 1888 in 1st "front porch" campaign, $3m raised by Republicans and John Wannamaker
  
• Congress controlled by "Czar" Thomas Reed - the "$ Billion" 51st Congress 1890-91 - Naval Act, Pension Act, Corp. James Tanner said "God bless the surplus" as commissioner of pensions
  
• Reed changed rules 1890 - ignored Dem. speakers - counted absent Democrats as present for quorum
  

• state and local issues more important than national
  
• Tammany Hall founded 1854 in New York City by Democrats to control local wards, help immigrants, deal with ethnocultural issues
  
• "Rum, Romanism, Rebellion - Democrats personal liberty vs. Republican piety
  
• George Washington Plunkitt was Irish boss of Tammany Hall
• Boss Richard Croker of Tammany Hall in NY opposed by Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper New York World after 1883
  

• labor violence - Pullman 1894 - E. Debs - socialism
  
• Depression 1893 - 20% unemployed - Jacob Coxey and 17 "armies"
  
• Simon Pingree "potato patches" in Detroit
  
• League for Protection of the Family - against child labor and for compulsory education
  
• Oliver Kelly and Grange 1867, then patrons of Husbandry 1873
  
• Granger laws against railroad - Munn vs. IL upheld state laws that set max. grain storage fees
  
• C.W. Macune and Farmers Alliance in Texas - 1875 Exchange
  
• Alliance won KA, NE, SD 1890, elected 44 to Congress
  
• Populist Party - 1890 Ocala Platform - subtreasury, income tax, direct election - 1st national movement ag. laissez faire
  
• Mary Lease of KA - 160 speeches in 1890 - raise "less corn and more hell"
  
• Sockless Jerry Simpson elected to Congress - only "princes wear silk socks"
  
• Ignatius Donnelly's novel Caesar's Column - anti-semitic - ignored urban industrial workers and immigrants
  
• Coin Harvey 1894 after Cleveland repealed Sherman Silver Purchase Act
  
• 1894 elections - 13 states went for silver, beginning of party realignment