s. history us history us history - Embassy of the United States

CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORMOUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORYprolific womb of governmentalinjustice we breed the two greatclasses — tramps and millionaires.The pragmatic portion of theirplatform called for the nationalizationof the railroads; a low tariff;loans secured by non-perishablecrops stored in government-ownedwarehouses; and, most explosively,currency inflation through Treasurypurchase and the unlimited coinageof silver at the “traditional” ratioof 16 ounces of silver to one ounceof gold.The Populists showed impressivestrength in the West and South, andtheir candidate for president polledmore than a million votes. Butthe currency question soon overshadowedall other issues. Agrarianspokesmen, convinced that theirtroubles stemmed from a shortageof money in circulation, argued thatincreasing the volume of moneywould indirectly raise prices forfarm products and drive up industrialwages, thus allowing debts to bepaid with inflated currency. Conservativegroups and the financial classes,on the other hand, respondedthat the 16:1 price ratio was nearlytwice the market price for silver. Apolicy of unlimited purchase woulddenude the U.S. Treasury of all itsgold holdings, sharply devalue thedollar, and destroy the purchasingpower of the working and middleclasses. Only the gold standard, theysaid, offered stability.The financial panic of 1893heightened the tension of this debate.Bank failures abounded in theSouth and Midwest; unemploymentsoared and crop prices fell badly.The crisis and President GroverCleveland’s defense of the gold standardsharply divided the DemocraticParty. Democrats who were silversupporters went over to the Populistsas the presidential elections of1896 neared.The Democratic convention thatyear was swayed by one of the mostfamous speeches in U.S. politicalhistory. Pleading with the conventionnot to “crucify mankind ona cross of gold,” William JenningsBryan, the young Nebraskan championof silver, won the Democrats’presidential nomination. The Populistsalso endorsed Bryan.In the epic contest that followed,Bryan carried almost all the Southernand Western states. But he lostthe more populated, industrialNorth and East — and the election— to Republican candidate WilliamMcKinley.The following year the country’sfinances began to improve, in partowing to the discovery of gold inAlaska and the Yukon. This provideda basis for a conservativeexpansion of the money supply. In1898 the Spanish-American Wardrew the nation’s attention furtherfrom Populist issues. Populism andthe silver issue were dead. Many ofthe movement’s other reform ideas,however, lived on.THE STRUGGLES OF LABORThe life of a 19th-century Americanindustrial worker was hard.Even in good times wages were low,hours long, and working conditionshazardous. Little of the wealth thatthe growth of the nation had generatedwent to its workers. Moreover,women and children made up a highpercentage of the work force in someindustries and often received but afraction of the wages a man couldearn. Periodic economic crises sweptthe nation, further eroding industrialwages and producing high levels ofunemployment.At the same time, technologicalimprovements, which added somuch to the nation’s productivity,continually reduced the demand forskilled labor. Yet the unskilled laborpool was constantly growing, as unprecedentednumbers of immigrants— 18 million between 1880 and1910 — entered the country, eagerfor work.Before 1874, when Massachusettspassed the nation’s first legislationlimiting the number of hours womenand child factory workers couldperform to 10 hours a day, virtuallyno labor legislation existed in thecountry. It was not until the 1930sthat the federal government wouldbecome actively involved. Untilthen, the field was left to the stateand local authorities, few of whomwere as responsive to the workers asthey were to wealthy industrialists.The laissez-faire capitalism thatdominated the second half of the19th century and fostered hugeconcentrations of wealth and powerwas backed by a judiciary that timeand again ruled against those whochallenged the system. In this, theywere merely following the prevailingphilosophy of the times. Drawing ona simplified understanding of Darwinianscience, many social thinkersbelieved that both the growthof large business at the expense ofsmall enterprise and the wealth ofa few alongside the poverty of manywas “survival of the fittest,” and anunavoidable by-product of progress.American workers, especially theskilled among them, appear to havelived at least as well as their counterpartsin industrial Europe. Still,the social costs were high. As late asthe year 1900, the United States hadthe highest job-related fatality rateof any industrialized nation in theworld. Most industrial workers stillworked a 10-hour day (12 hours inthe steel industry), yet earned lessthan the minimum deemed necessaryfor a decent life. The number ofchildren in the work force doubledbetween 1870 and 1900.The first major effort to organizeworkers’ groups on a nationwidebasis appeared with the NobleOrder of the Knights of Labor in1869. Originally a secret, ritualisticsociety organized by Philadelphiagarment workers and advocating acooperative program, it was opento all workers, including AfricanAmericans, women, and farmers.The Knights grew slowly until itsrailway workers’ unit won a strike192193