These decisions in international law, coming from so exalted a source, were of world-wide significance. The verdict on the facts in the case had, however, more immediate interest for the two contestants.

The American case claimed damages for losses inflicted by fourteen cruisers and four tenders. The award allowed for only the Alabama with her tender, the Florida with her three tenders, and the Shenandoah during a part of her career. With regard to the Alabama the culpability of the British Government was so clearly shown that even the English arbitrator voted in favor of the American claim. The Florida was permitted to escape from Liverpool although Mr. Adams, the United States minister, repeatedly called the attention of the authorities to her notorious warlike character. The vessel was, furthermore, libelled at Nassau, a British colonial port, but the British officials allowed her to take in supplies and put to sea. The Shenandoah set sail from Liverpool with the connivance of the Government, received her armament at the Madeira Islands, and after a destructive career was welcomed at the British port of Melbourne, repaired in a government slip, and furnished with supplies and recruits. The award held Great Britain responsible only for her career after leaving Melbourne.

The American case further claimed damages for national expense in chasing the cruisers, and for the prospective earnings of the lost merchantmen, but these claims, along with those explicitly denounced as indirect, were rejected.

The tribunal awarded $15,500,000 damages in gold for the vessels and cargoes destroyed by the three cruisers and their tenders. Of this sum, about $2,000,000 was interest at six per cent. The only dissenting voice was that of the British member, who submitted a long and able, but somewhat spiteful, minority report.

The award naturally gave great satisfaction in the United States. The money compensation was in itself a source of considerable gratulation; but the fact that stiff-backed England had by a clearly impartial tribunal of the highest character been declared in the wrong was not the least pleasurable side of the result. American citizens should never forget the services, in this delicate and difficult matter, of Mr. Adams. By his great knowledge of law, his careful gathering of evidence, and his brave, sturdy and incessant, though apparently useless, remonstrances with the British authorities while the cruisers were building and their depredations going on, he established a case which could not be gainsaid. Hardly had he opened his portfolio at Geneva when the learned arbitrators saw that his suit must be allowed.

England promptly handed over to the United States the price of her sympathy with rebellion and slavery. The course of Congress in dealing with the award was not very creditable. For four years the money lay in the treasury vaults, piling up interest at five per cent. until it amounted to $20,000,000. A Court of Alabama Claims was then convened, where private claimants might press their suits. Insurance companies which could show that their losses on vessels destroyed by the cruisers exceeded the premiums received, were entitled to be paid the difference, with interest at four per cent.



CHAPTER III.

THE FISHERIES DISPUTE

[1783 ]

Our glance at the Treaty of Washington introduces us to an international complication which has been transmitted from the very birthday of the nation, and is, alas, still unsettled, spite of the earnest efforts to this end made since 1885. Article 3 of the treaty of 1783 was as follows: "It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank and on all the other banks of Newfoundland; also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and at all other places in the sea where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish; and also that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use [but not to dry or cure the same on that island]; and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America, and that the American fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled; but so soon as the same, or either of them, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement without a previous agreement for that purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground."

This provision conveyed to fishermen from the United States two valuable privileges—that of fishing in British waters, namely, within three miles of the British coast, and that of drying and curing fish, wherever caught, upon certain convenient parts of the British coast. They had, of course, like the men of all nations, apart from any treaty stipulation, the right to fish outside the three mile limit, but this would avail them nothing, under the then mode of conducting the industry, unless they could freely make harbor in case of storm, and also land to cure their catch before lading it for the homeward cruise. What worth these rights had will be clear if we remember that fishing had always been one of New England's foremost trades, and that the waters off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia had from, and probably before, Columbus's time been known as the richest fishing grounds of the globe.

[1812]

The commissioners at Ghent, who drew up the treaty ending the War of 1812, wrangled long over the question whether or not the war had nullified the just cited Article 3 of 1783. Unable to agree, they signed their treaty without deciding the question, leaving this for the future to settle as it might. Great Britain held that our former rights had lapsed by the war, and excluded our fishing vessels from the bays, harbors, and creeks named above. Several of our vessels were arrested on charge of trespass. The utmost tension still existed, in spite of the peace, especially as in the United States the view prevailed that our rights by the old treaty had outlived the war, notwithstanding the silence of the Ghent document.

[1818 ]

At length, in 1818, a new treaty was entered into upon the question, signed October 20th, ratified by England November 2d, and by the United States January 28, 1819. This instrument ignored our contention that Article 3 of the treaty of 1783 was of perpetual obligation, and restricted our right to fish in shore to the southern shores of the Magdalen Islands, the west and southwest coasts of Newfoundland from the Rameau Islands round to Quirpon Island, and the Labrador coast from Mount Joly northward. Only here could our fishermen fish within the three mile limit, and they could dry and cure only on the named parts of Labrador and Newfoundland, Magdalen Islands being now excluded from this use. Even on Labrador and Newfoundland the privilege of drying and curing was to be cut off by settlement, except as agreement should be made beforehand with the inhabitants.

But the fateful clause of this treaty was the following: "And the United States hereby renounce forever any liberty heretofore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof, to take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America not included within the above-mentioned limits: Provided, however, that the American fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbors for the purpose of shelter and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no other purposes whatever. But they shall be under such restrictions as may be necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing fish therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the privileges hereby reserved to them."

[1854-1870]

Troubles were soon as abundant as ever. The Canadians applied the word "bay" to all indentations of their coast, affecting entirely to exclude our fishermen from great bodies of water like Fundy, Chaleurs, and Miramichi, however far parts of these might be from shore. This was the famous "headland theory" for defining national waters. They also denied our right to navigate the Gut of Canso, which separates Cape Breton Island from Nova Scotia, thus forcing far out of their nearest course our ships bound for the permitted inshore fisheries. United States fishermen on their part persisted in exploiting the great bays, landed upon the Magdalen Islands, pushed through the Gut, and were none too careful at any point to find or heed the three mile line.

June 5, 1854, was signed a treaty of reciprocity between the United States and the British provinces, under which all the coasts of British North America were opened to our fishing vessels, in return for similar liberty to those of the provinces in all United States waters north of Cape May, latitude 36 degrees, the salmon and shad fisheries of each country being, however, reserved to itself. This arrangement was to continue ten years at least, and then to be terminable on a year's notice by either of the high contracting parties. Such notice having been given by the United States one year before, reciprocity in fishing privilege came to an end March 7, 1865. This, of course, renewed the wry and perplexing rules of the 1818 convention, with all the naturally consequent strife. The worst evils were, indeed, put off for a time, by a continuance to our vessels of the right to fish in provincial water on the payment of a small license fee. This favor was taken away in 1870, for the alleged reason that American captains failed to procure licenses, and in the course of this year many of our ships were seized and confiscated. New sternness had been imparted to the provincial policy by the Canadian Act of Confederation, valid from July I, 1867, which joined Ontario and Quebec with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, thus inspiring our neighbors to the north with a new sense of their strength and importance.

[1871-1886]

Now came the Treaty of Washington, 1871. Its Article 18 revived Article 1 of the 1854 Reciprocity Treaty, except that Canadians could now go so far south as the 39th parallel, and that two years' notice must precede abrogation. Article 21 ordained between the two countries free trade in fish-oil and in all salt-water fish. Both sides assumed that mere reciprocity would advantage the United States the more, so that by Article 22 a commission was provided for to award Canada a proper balance in money. By bungling diplomacy on our part the real power in this commission was swayed by M. Maurice Delfosse, Belgian minister at Washington, a gentleman certain to favor Great Britain at our expense. As a consequence, we were forced to pay for reciprocity to the round note of $5,500,000. The money was a trifle; but its exorbitant amount had the unhappy effect of prejudicing our people against the new arrangement. The result was that at the earliest possible moment, viz., July 1, 1883, our Government gave the notice necessary for its abrogation. This followed on July 1, 1885, in the very midst of the fishing season. A temporary diplomatic arrangement was effected, which continued to our fishermen for the remainder of 1885 the advantages of the recent treaty; but with the dawn of the new year, 1886, the old convention of 1818 came once more into operation.

So soon as the fishing season was opened the plan of the British Government was evident. It was to deny the fishing vessels all facilities not guaranteed by the treaty of 1818—that is, fishing vessels of the United States would be permitted to enter Canadian ports for shelter, repairs, wood, and water, and "for no other purposes whatever;" also to compel all such vessels strictly to conform to both customs and port laws. Circular letters of instruction, enjoining vigilance, were sent to all customs officers, and swift cruisers fitted out to look sharply after all fishing vessels from the States. On the other hand our fishermen were not, as a whole, disposed to conform to the existing regulations. The Treaty of Washington had been abrogated at their request, and now many, probably most, of them were inclined to exercise all the liberty possible in the Canadian waters. Least of all were they willing to submit to the British interpretation of the treaty of 1818.

Complaints early reached Washington that the headland theory was being applied by the provincial customs officials to exclude our vessels from legitimate fishing places; but the Canadian Government denied that any such thing had been done by its authority, and evidently did not incline to push its old contention on this point. While the fishing schooner Marion Grimes, of Gloucester, Mass., was under detention at Shelburne, Nova Scotia, for an infraction of the customs rules, her captain having hoisted the United States flag, this was pulled down by order of the Canadian officer in temporary charge of her. The flag was again hoisted and again forcibly lowered. This act awakened great resentment in the United States, until it, too, was disavowed by the Governor-General in Council. The Sarah H. Prior lost at sea a valuable net, which a Canadian schooner picked up and wished to return. This was forbidden, and being permitted to purchase no other seine, the ship came home with a broken voyage and in debt. Captain Tupper, of the Jeannie Seaverns, having entered the harbor of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, for shelter, was denied permission to go and see his relatives near by or to receive them aboard his vessel. The water-tank of the schooner Mollie Adams having burst, her captain sought to buy two or three barrels to hold water for his crew on their homeward voyage of five hundred miles. His request was refused.

The same Mollie Adams found a Nova Scotia vessel in distress and rescued her crew. Captain Jacobs, of the Mollie, cared for the men several days, and finally, as no assistance of any sort was proffered by the Canadians, sent them home at his own expense. His aid to them delayed his homeward journey, and he was also caught in a harbor from which his vessel could pass only during very high water, which caused further delay. Owing to these incidents his supply of provisions ran low, yet he was denied permission to purchase anything, and as a result his homeward tour was made on half rations or less. Many other aggravating circumstances were connected with this case.

In quite a number of instances American masters were refused water, the only excuse being that they had not conformed to all the port or customs regulations. There can be no doubt that many fishing captains were quite too lax in this, presuming on the power of their nation and remembering the liberties enjoyed under reciprocity, while too forgetful of the stern letter of the treaty which the Canadians were executing against them. It was plain on the other hand that however wrongly Canadian subalterns may at times have acted, both the Canadian and the British Government intended to keep within the letter of the law, while forcing us to fish off their coasts at as great a disadvantage as possible.

The real source of the difficulty was well characterized by Mr. Phelps, our Minister to England. "It is to be found in the irritation that has taken place among a portion of the Canadian people on account of the termination by the United States Government of the treaty of Washington on the 1st of July, 1885, whereby fish imported from Canada into the United States, which so long as that treaty remained in force was admitted free, is now liable to the import duty provided by the general revenue laws; and the opinion appears to have gained ground in Canada that the United States may be driven, by harassing and annoying their fishermen, into the adoption of a new treaty, by which Canadian fish shall be admitted free."

In their efforts to carry out such a policy the treaty gave the Canadians a very great advantage. As Mr. Secretary Bayard insisted, it certainly trangressed usual international comity when our ships were refused needed pilots, or our hungry crews were forbidden to purchase food in Canadian ports; but our President and Senate had, in 1818, agreed that such cruelty should be legal. To ask for comity in the matter was to ask for the voidance of the treaty.

As little could we, agreeably to the treaty, presume, by use of home permits to "touch and trade," to turn a fishing vessel at will into a merchant vessel, as was often tried in order to evade the offensive restrictions, or demand the liberty of freighting fish home overland in bond. It would equally have amounted to a quashing of the treaty, had the British and Canadians interpreted it by the easy canon of Mr. Phelps: "The question is not what is the technical effect of the words, but what is the construction most consonant to the dignity, the just interests, and the friendly relations of the sovereign powers."

Interesting but also untenable was our Government's plea for freedom to purchase bait for deep-sea fishing. Of old, mackerel had been caught almost solely with hooks, by the "chumming" process. In 1850 the purse seine was introduced. Soon after 1870 its use became general, and entirely revolutionized the business of taking mackerel. Huge quantities of the fish could now be captured far out in the open sea, making fishing much more profitable near home, and greatly lessening the value to us of Canada's fishing-grounds. From these premises Mr. Bayard argued that the true intent of the 1818 agreement, which was to protect inshore fishing territory, would not be violated should we be allowed to buy bait in Canada. It was replied that the old treaty was meant to prevent our fishermen from making Canadian harbors in any way a base of operations.

"It was framed with the object of affording a complete and exclusive definition of the rights and liberties which the fishermen of the United States were thenceforward to enjoy in following their vocation, so far as those rights could be affected by facilities for access to the shores or waters of the British Provinces, or for intercourse with their people. It is therefore no undue expansion of the scope of that convention to interpret strictly those of its provisions by which such access is denied, except to vessels requiring it for the purposes specifically described. Such an undue expansion would, upon the other hand, certainly take place if, under cover of its provisions, or of any agreements relating to general commercial intercourse which may have since been made, permission were accorded to United States fishermen to resort habitually to the harbors of the Dominion, not for the sake of seeking safety for their vessels or of avoiding risk to human life, but in order to use those harbors as a general base of operations from which to prosecute and organize with greater advantage to themselves the industry in which they are engaged.

"Mr. Bayard suggests that the possession by a fishing vessel of a permit to 'touch and trade,' should give her a right to enter Canadian ports for other than the purposes named in the treaty, or, in other words, should give her perfect immunity from its provisions. This would amount to a practical repeal of the treaty, because it would enable a United States collector of customs, by issuing a license, originally only intended for purposes of domestic customs regulation, to give exemption from the treaty to every United States fishing vessel. The observation that similar vessels under the British flag have the right to enter the ports of the United States for the purchase of supplies loses its force when it is remembered that the convention of 1818 contained no restriction on British vessels, and no renunciation of any privileges in regard to them."

[1887]

For some weeks in the spring and summer of 1886, the fishery dispute greatly excited our country. Even threats of war with Canada were uttered in case its government should not recede from its aggravating position, and careful estimates made of the force we could throw across our northern border in three days. In May, 1886, Congress placed in the President's hands power to suspend commercial intercourse between the two countries. Later in the year a bill was introduced in the House cutting off all commercial relations with Canada by land or water. The Senate advanced a more moderate proposition, to limit the proposed arrest of traffic to water commerce and to Canadian vessels, also to leave its enforcement optional with the President. This became law on March 3, 1887. Under this legislation the President, on being assured that fishing masters or crews were treated in Canadian ports any less favorably than masters or crews of trading vessels from the most favored nations, could, "in his discretion, by proclamation to that effect, deny vessels, their masters and crews, of the British dominions of North America, any entrance into the waters, ports, or places of or within the United States."

[1888]

The President, however, did not think best at once to use this fearful power, likely enough to lead to war. He preferred to make another attempt at a peaceful settlement, through a new treaty. This had constantly been the wish of the British Government. Accordingly, later in the year 1887, a joint commission, consisting of Secretary Bayard, President Angell, of Michigan University, Hon. William L. Putnam, of Maine, on the part of the United States, and of Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, Sir Charles Tupper, of Canada, and Sir Lionel West, the British minister, on the part of Great Britain, met at Washington. The commission toiled nearly all winter, and passed to the President the result of its deliberations on February 16, 1888.

The treaty which it drafted was necessarily a compromise. Canada thought the British commissioners had yielded too much; many in the United States believed our commissioners to have done the same. The document, approved by the President, went to the Senate, where, after long debate, it was refused ratification, August 21st.

The commission had agreed upon a modus vivendi, to hold good, unless revoked by the Governor-General and Council of Canada, till February, 1890, under which our fishermen might obtain in Canadian ports, on payment of a license, the privileges of merchantmen. Many such licenses were taken out during the season of 1888, showing the advantages which they conveyed. Most of the fishing-masters, however, did not seek licenses and were averse to the new treaty, preferring the terms of 1818 to granting their rivals any further rights in our markets. Fresh fish, including frozen and slack-salted, was already free in our ports, competing sharply with our own catch. No one longer cared to fish inside, or, except in emergencies, to provision at Canadian towns. Convenient as would be the power to obtain bait near the fishing-grounds and to trans-ship fish home in bond, neither was indispensable. Cod are still caught with trawls and baited hooks. The best bait is squid, whose abundance upon the Banks is what causes the cod so to frequent them. The squid can be had freshest as well as cheapest from the peasantry of the Newfoundland and Nova Scotia coasts; but clams carried from home were found to do nearly as well. They would remain fresh better than squid, but got off the hooks more easily. Accordingly, few collisions occurred in 1888, and as the season of that year closed there was prospect that, even without a new convention, no necessity for American retaliation would arise.

[1892]

This chapter shall close with a word touching the Alaska fisheries question, which, fortunately, had advanced a good step. In 1870 the United States leased the Pribylov, or Seal Islands off Alaska, to the Alaska Commercial Co. Pressed by this company, which naturally wished the completest possible monopoly of seal-fishing, our Government foolishly affected to treat the entire Behring Sea as a mare clausum, belonging to the United States. Several British craft engaged in taking seals were seized by United States vessels considerably more than three miles from land. Great Britain of course protesting, a treaty, ratified in March, 1892, submitted to arbitration the question between the two governments. Seven arbitrators sat, two from the United States, Justice Harlan and Senator Morgan, and one each from Canada, Great Britain, Sweden, France, and Italy. This Board decided against the American contention, denying the right of the United States to assume the protection of seals or any property in them outside the ordinary three-mile limit. Happy provisions were, however, made for a joint police of Behring Sea by the two nations, for an open and a closed fishing season, and for the careful licensing of sealing vessels.



CHAPTER IV.

THE SOUTH

[1886-1870]

It cannot be denied that the radical method of reconstruction resorted to by Congress occasioned dreadful evils. Among other things it ignored the natural prejudices of the whites, many of whom were as loyal as any citizens in the land. The South, subjected to a second conquest after having laid down its arms, felt outraged and grew sullen. To most people in that section, as well as to very many at the North, this dictation by Congress to acknowledged States in time of peace seemed high-handed and guilty usurpation. Northern Congressmen incessantly called slavery barbarism, and yet combined to transmute to-day into electors and law-makers those who but yesterday had been slaves. Black legislatures inevitably abused their power, becoming the instruments of base carpetbag leaders and rings in robbing white property-holders.



A Facsimile put in Evidence before the Congressional Committee. "[From the Independent Monitor, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, September 1, 1868.]" "A PROSPECTIVE SCENE IN THE CITY OF OAKS, 4TH OF MARCH, 1869." "Hang, curs, hang! * * * * * Their complexion is perfect gallows, Stand fast, good fate, to their hanging! * * * * * If they be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable." "The above cut represents the fate in store for those great pests of Southern society—the carpet-bagger and scalawag—if found in Dixie's land after the break of day on the 4th of March next."

Nor could any except doctrinaires or the stupid have expected that the whites would long submit to such a regime. If the South was to become again genuine part and parcel of this Union, it could not, nor would the North consent that it should, be permanently under bayonet rule; and so soon as bayonets were gone, fair means or foul would speedily remove the sceptre from colored hands. Precisely this happened. In State after State, the whites, without the slightest formal change of constitution or law, recovered their ancient ascendency. Where their aims could not be realized by persuasion or other mild means, resort was had to merciless intimidation and violence.

The Ku-Klux Klan, a great secret society, was organized for this rough business, numbering at first, among either its members or its abettors, citizens of the highest respectability. Its local lodges were called "dens," its members "ghouls," " Giants," "goblins," "titans," "furies," "dragons," and "hydras," were names of different classes among its officers. Usually the very existence of a "den" in the vicinity was sufficient to render every negro docile. If more was required, a half-dozen ghouls, making their nocturnal rounds in their hideous masks and uniforms, frightened all but the most hardy. Any who showed fight were whipped, maimed, or killed, treatment which extended on occasion to their "carpet-bag" and "scalawag" friends—these titles denoting respectively northern and southern men bold enough to take the negroes' side. The very violence of the order, which it at last turned against the old Southrons themselves, brought it into disrepute with its original instigators, who were not sorry when federal marshals, put up to it by President Grant, hunted den after den of the law-breakers to the death.

Yet, after all, one cannot see how the giant problem of resuscitating the South could, under the circumstances, have been solved more successfully. The plan proposed by President Johnson had sufficient trial to show that it must have led to ills worse than those actually experienced. A qualified colored suffrage would, as things then were, have been abused. It must be remembered that the war left in the South much less of white loyalty than it found, and Congress was certainly justified in insisting that the revived States should be placed on the most loyal basis possible.

Withal, considering the stupendous upheaval in southern society marked by the erection of bondmen into full citizens, dark days were few. Schools arose, partly from the application of a large fund left by Mr. George Peabody for that purpose, partly from the beneficence of the various religious denominations interested in the elevation of the blacks, and partly from provision by the southern States themselves. The ballot itself proved an educator, rough but thorough. The negro vote, now that it had become a fixed fact, was little by little courted by the jarring factions of whites, and hence protected. Political parties, particularly in state elections, more and more divided on other lines than that of color. The administration of President Cleveland taught the negro that even in National affairs he had nothing to fear from democratic dominance. And it was plainly to the freedman's infinite advantage, meanwhile, that he was fighting not to acquire status and rights, but for acquired status and rights guaranteed in the organic law of his State and the Nation.

[1875]

Among the white people loyalty to the old flag increased with the days. Of course none of them would ever confess regret at having drawn the sword, or cease to think of the lost cause with a sigh. At the same time a rational conviction settled down upon all its most thoughtful minds that in secession the South had been misguided. Universal was the admission that at least for the dominant race the death of slavery was a blessing. Northern people and intelligent immigrants from Europe thronged in. Coolly received at first, and in some cases maltreated if freely expressing opinions which traversed those prevalent in the section, in the end they were tolerated and even welcomed.

The multiplication of railways facilitated the acquaintance of southern with northern people far beyond what had been possible before the war. Travelling salesmen from the North penetrated the remotest hamlets at the South, inclined from every consideration to produce the most favorable impression possible. The selection of southerners for important national offices by Presidents Grant, Hayes, Arthur, and Cleveland, the election of the last-named, a Democrat, as President in 1884 and 1892, and the existence of a democratic majority in the House of Representatives almost constantly from 1874, all felicitously combined to beget in the people of the South a conviction that they were really and truly citizens of the Union again. The rise in several southern States of a strong republican organization among the whites wrought in the same direction. Nor must we overlook as another cementing influence the fraternizing of northern and southern soldiers in great reunions such as occurred at Gettysburg, Richmond, and Chickamauga.

[1890]

The South's material prosperity kept pace with her political advance. It had always been said that cotton was to be produced only by slave labor. Nothing could have been more false. The largest cotton crop under slavery, that of 1860, reached 4,669,770 bales. In 1871, 1876, and 1877 each, notwithstanding the economic chaos and the infinite destruction of capital occasioned by the war, those figures were almost equalled; in 1878 they were surpassed; in 1879 and 1880 each, over 5,000,000 bales were raised; in 1881, 1883, and 1886 each, over 6,000,000, the exact figure for the year last named being 6,550,215. In 1890, 7,472,511 bales were produced.

This cotton exhibit was sufficiently gratifying, yet the post-bellum crops might have been far larger had not much energy at the South been happily diverted into manufacturing channels. This was one of the most hopeful features of the New South. Nearly every department of industry in this kind was now pushed there at many points. Nashville became a great manufacturing and commercial city. It boasted one of the largest foundries in the country, and several flourishing cotton factories. Chattanooga, Birmingham, and Anniston were all thrifty with iron and steel industries, which rivalled the most prosperous ones at the North; nor were there wanting those who predicted that the region of those cities, viz., Southern Tennessee with Northern Georgia and Alabama, was speedily to become the centre of iron and steel production for the world.

The lumber trade of Chattanooga, particularly in the white woods, was said to be second only to Chicago's. The city also had a tannery believed to be the largest in the world, and more than one fully appointed Bessemer steel manufactory. These steel works and the tannery employed colored operatives almost alone, many of these exceedingly skilful. Birmingham was entirely a creation of the days since the war, yet it had in 1890 more than 26,000 inhabitants against 3,000 in 1880, and enjoyed marvellous prosperity, hindered only by speculation in land. Much of the marble in the mountains of Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia was finer than any elsewhere to be found in this country. The block of it which was forwarded from Alabama for the Washington monument, experts condemned for the purpose as certainly Italian, nor was it permitted a place in that structure till the Governor of the State and the Members of Congress therefrom had certified upon honor, and the quarry-masters made affidavit, that it came out of the Alabama hills. Atlanta had risen from the ashes in which the war left it, to be a city of over 65,000 people, with every manifestation of great industrial life and progress.

Between 1870 and 1880, although the population of Mobile decreased, that of Charleston rose about 1-1/5 per cent., that of Savannah about 5-1/4 per cent., that of New Orleans about thirteen per cent., that of Richmond about twenty-six per cent. Between 1880 and 1890 Mobile advanced about 6-1/2 per cent., Charleston almost 10 per cent., Savannah over 40 per cent., New Orleans over 12 per cent., and Richmond exactly 28 per cent.

It would be misleading to suppose the progress in welfare indicated by these and the foregoing statements to be true of every district at the South. The merely agricultural regions were still far behind. Methods of tilling the soil were the same as prevailed forty years earlier, and it was not unlikely that the colored people, who for the most part had the immediate charge of this work, prosecuted it, as yet, with less skill than did overseers and planters before slavery was done away. Yet in 1890 the farm valuation of the South was found to exceed its highest ante-bellum figure and almost to equal one-fifth of the entire farm valuation of the country.

To the general backwardness of southern agriculture there was one quite striking exception. The State of Florida underwent after the war a most astounding transition for the better. Her total railway mileage of 416 miles when the war ended had grown to 2,470 miles by 1890. The farm valuation was, in 1880, $20,500,000. The population in 1890 exceeded that of 1880 by almost 50 per cent. Steamboats were upon every coast and river. This was due not alone to the State's popularity as a winter sanitarium for northern people. Florida was also the early market-garden for the North. Its oranges largely supplied the trade, and were much sought for their excellent quality. The State was excessively rich in the finest ornamental woods, which were rapidly finding their way into the market. Nearly all the crops of the temperate zone and the fruits of the torrid flourished here with the utmost luxuriance, many of them being natives, others taking to the soil with a greater friendliness than they displayed for that whence they were transplanted. The State bade fair to rival Louisiana in the production of sugar, and South Carolina in that of rice, as well as one day to supply the entire American demand for cocoanuts. The mulberry was indigenous to every part of this new Eden, which promised to become at no late date an immense producer of raw silk. Cattle fed and fattened everywhere without shelter, in winter as in summer.



The Mouth of the Miami River, Florida

The future of the colored race no one could predict with certainty. After the census of 1870, which reduced the percentage of our African population from 14.13, the figure in 1860, to 12.7, many rushed to the conclusion that these people might, in no long time, vanish from our land. The census of 1880 dispelled this fancy, raising the percentage to 13.12. That of 1890 lowered it again to 11.93. Previously to 1870 the race had been constantly decreasing in fecundity, but it was possible that the better conditions afforded by freedom had changed this. Even should the decrease go on, the colored people bade fair to be at least eight or ten per cent. of our total population in 1900. As a matter of fact the proportion was in 1900 11.6 per cent. These decreasing proportions did not, of course, necessarily imply any positive decadence in the black race, as they might be accounted for by greater prolificacy or vitality on the part of the whites, or in part by immigration. The subject will be resumed in Chapter IX. of Period VI.



CHAPTER V.

THE WEST

[1890]

Aside from West Virginia, made during the war from the loyal part of Virginia, the new States created between 1860 and 1900 were Kansas, 1861; Nevada, 1864; Nebraska, 1867; Colorado, 1876; North Dakota, 1889; South Dakota, 1889; Montana, 1889; Washington, 1889; Idaho, 1890; Wyoming, 1890; and Utah, 1896. The whole number of States had thus become forty-five. We had also, in the year 1896, three organized territories, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, the last carved out of Indian Territory in the year 1890. Alaska was as yet a partially organized territory, having no territorial legislature, and being under the laws of the United States and of the State of Oregon. It was purchased by the United States from Russia in 1867, for the sum of $7,200,000. It remained without any organization until the act of May 17, 1884, which gave it a governor, a district court, an attorney, a marshal, and commissioners.



The Site of Chicago.

The value to our Union of this new acquisition, with its 531,409 square miles and a coast-line longer than that upon our Atlantic and Gulf coasts together, was at first doubtful, and continued so till gold was found on the Yukon and at Cape Nome. Clearly, however, the money had not been thrown away. Governor Swineford, appointed over the Territory in 1885, declared that throughout Southern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands the climate was moderate, even in winter; and he gave records of thermometrical observations which seemed to prove this. He further maintained that, in the parts named, all our hardier plants and crops grew to maturity in summer, and attained extraordinary luxuriance. In 1890, 4,298 white people had homes in Alaska, besides 1,823 mixed, 23,531 Indians, and 2,288 Mongolians, a total population of 32,052.

The Alaska Commercial Company paid the United States $55,000 yearly for its monopoly of the Alaska seal-fur trade. The product of this business was about $2,500,000 each year. An official report made to our Government stated that in the year 1880, $2,181,832 worth of Alaska furs found sale in London alone. Coal had been discovered in various places. So had beautiful white marble. Gold-bearing ledges were numerous, and the only one of these yet broached, that on Douglas Island, had certainly yielded well. The mill connected with it, working only the equivalent of two-thirds time, turned out during its first twelve months a little over $750,000 worth of gold bullion. For the year 1889, according to imperfect returns, the product from this remote patch of our national domain was as follows: Seal fisheries, $314,925, a falling off of over 80 per cent. in nine years; other fisheries, $1,059,365, an increase of about 100 per cent. for the same period; 43,762 troy ounces of gold and 9,219 troy ounces of silver. In 1890 there were ten manufacturing establishments, whose product amounted to $58,440.

After 1860 there was a steady filling up of the Pacific coast, and an equally continual extension of population to the west on the east side of the Rockies. All Iowa was in cultivation, and all Minnesota but the extreme northwest corner. In fifteen years the rate of interest went down in Iowa from ten to seven or eight per cent., in Michigan from ten to six or seven per cent. Chicago, from being only a borrower of money, grew to be an immense lender for enterprises in the West. Settlement in Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas rolled westward with strength and rapidity. Some of the finest new towns in these States were well toward their far western border.



An Ohio River Flat-Boat.

The construction of the five great Pacific railway lines, the Northern, the Union, the Santa Fe, the Southern, and the Great Northern, with their various branches, brought into valuable employ infinite reaches of fertile land previously as good as desert. Texas made most remarkable advance both in square miles occupied and in density of population, brought about by great extension of railway mileage, and of cattle, sheep, and wheat culture. Large patches of the Dakotas, Montana, and Idaho filled with settlers. Colorado became a giant in production, the rush of population thither in consequence of very extensive and rich mineral discoveries having been a stampede almost like that of 1849-50 to California. Every hill was black with miners. The growth of New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada, considering their natural wealth, was slow, owing in part to Indian hostilities. New Mexico fell from rank 37 in 1870 to rank 43 in 1890. Tucson, Ariz., according to the best figures, fell between 1880 and 1887, from 10,000 to 7,500 inhabitants. In material things Utah prospered greatly under the thrift, economy, and hard work of the Mormons. Here mining and speculation were less rigidly pressed, and more energy devoted to agricultural pursuits.



An Irrigated Orange Grove at Riverside, California.

In California, a smaller proportion than formerly of all industry was now applied to mining, a larger to agriculture and cattle-raising. Southern California became the competitor of Florida as a winter residence. Oregon and Washington vied with Minnesota for the world-medal in wheat culture. Over the infinite pasture lands at both feet of the Rocky Mountains roamed herds of bullocks destined to feed distant cities in America and in Europe. It was foreseen that many of these lands would in the course of time be ploughed, and by the aid of irrigation turned into corn-fields, wheat-fields, and market-gardens, a process which in New Mexico had already gone far. Even the tract inclosed by the parallels 31 and 45 degrees and the meridians 100 and 120 degrees, which long seemed destined for perpetual sterility, spite of the many enterprises conceived, and the others, like the scheme of the Colorado River Irrigation Company, initiated for redeeming it, grew valuable when it was believed that the National Government would undertake to irrigate there. Crops in that region grew bountifully under irrigation, and permanent water-supplies could easily be created. Natural woodland existed there only near the few streams, and of the scanty trees which grew scarcely a single variety of hard wood was found; but the state and national afforestation of vast tracts bade fair to change this. The region comprised in the States and Territories named was not only the richest precious-metal field in America, but one of the very richest on the globe.

The picture we have presented is too glowing for the year 1893-94, during which great depression afflicted the whole West; but this was only temporary. Recovery was indicated by the success of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha, in 1898. There were 2,600,000 admissions. The total cash receipts were $1,761,364, and the stockholders in the enterprise were paid dollar for dollar.

The city of San Francisco had 500 inhabitants in 1840, 34,776 in 1850, 56,802 in 1860, 149,473 in 1870, 233,959 in 1880, 298,997 in 1890. This progress may be taken as in some sense an index to that of the West as a whole, far more so than the apparently spasmodic increase in some of California's smaller centres. Los Angeles mounted from a population of 5,728 in 1870, and of 11,183 in 1880, to one of 50,395 in 1890. Oakland had but 10,500 in 1870. Ten years later the figure was 34,555; and in 1890 it was 48,682. Stockton leaped from 10,287 in 1880 to 14,424 in 1890. In 1858 Denver was uninhabited. In 1870 it numbered 4,759 souls; in 1880, 35,629; in 1890, 106,713. Portland, Oregon, had in 1890, 46,000 inhabitants; in 1900, 90,000. In the decade 1880-90 Wyoming grew from 20,789 to 60,705.

The growth and prosperity of this great western section of our country become apparent from an inspection of the following table, compiled from authentic sources:

Population. Property valuation. $ STATES. 1870. 1890. 1880. 1890. California 560,247 1,208,130 1,343,000,000 2,533,733,627 Colorado 39,864 412,198 240,000,000 1,145,712,267 Dakota, Total 14 181 118,000 000 Dakota, North 182,719 337,006,506 Dakota, South 328,808 425,141,299 Idaho 14,999 84,335 29,000,000 207,896,591 Kansas 364,399 1,427,096 760,000,000 1,799,343,501 Minnesota 439,706 1,301,826 792,000,000 1,691,851,927 Montana 20,595 132,159 40,000,000 453,135,209 Nebraska 122,993 1,058,910 385,000,000 1,275,685,514 Nevada 42,491 45,761 156,000,000 l80,323,668 New Mexico 91,874 153,593 49,000,000 231,459,897 Oregon 90,923 313,767 154,000,000 590,396,194 Texas 818,579 2,235,523 825,000,000 2,105,576,766 Utah 86,786 207,905 114,000,000 349,411,234 Washington 23,955 349,390 62,000,000 760,698,726 Wyoming 9,118 60,705 54,000,000 169,773,710 TERRITORIES Alaska 32,052 Arizona 9,658 59,620 41,000,000 188,800,976

Value of Farms. $ STATES. 1880. 1890. California 262,051,262 697,116,630 Colorado 25,109,223 85,035,180 Dakota, Total 22 401 084 Dakota, North 75,310,805 Dakota, South 107,466,335 Idaho 2,832,890 17,431,560 Kansas 235,178,936 559,726,046 Minnesota 193,724,260 340,059,470 Montana 3,284,504 25,512,340 Nebraska 105,932,541 402,353,913 Nevada 5,408,325 12,339,410 New Mexico 5,514,399 8,140,800 Oregon 56,906,575 115,819,200 Texas 170,468,886 399,971,289 Utah 14,015,178 28,402,780 Washington 13,844,224 88,461,660 Wyoming 835,895 14,460,880 TERRITORIES Alaska Arizona 1,127,946 7,222,230

Rail Mileage Periodicals Gold Troy Oz. Silver Troy Oz. 1885. 1890. 1880 1893 1880 1889 1880 1889. California 3,044 4,356 364 639 829,677 608,382 890,158 1,062,578 Colorado 2,884 4,176 90 298 130,608 187,881 12,800,120 18,375,551 Dakotas, 2877 66 159,920 54,770 North Dakota 2,003 139 South Dakota 2,470 269 149,538 104,672 Idaho 944 8 58 71,578 95,983 359,309 3,137,508 Kansas 4,441 8,306 349 759 Minnesota 4,331 5,379 224 558 Montana 1,047 2,181 18 90 87,354 151,861 2,246,938 13,511,455 Nebraska 2,988 5,300 189 645 Nevada 945 924 37 26 236,469 169,617 9,614,561 4,696,605 New Mexico 1,195 1,324 18 59 2,387 39,457 303,455 1,251,124 Oregon 1,181 1,433 74 194 53,101 46,648 21,496 17,851 Texas 6,687 8,630 279 678 330 323,438 829,438 Utah 1,085 1,085 24 71 14,105 23,591 3,668,566 7,005,193 Washington 736 1,774 29 253 6,569 9,005 789 23,464 Wyoming 617 941 10 43 838 711 TERRITORIES Alaska 4 238 43,762 39 9,219 Arizona 906 1,096 17 35 10,254 44,029 1,738,921 1,812,961



The Irrigating Reservoir at Walnut Grove, Arizona, showing the Artificial Lake partly filled.

We shall be pardoned for recurring again to Minnesota. So recently as 1838, where St. Paul and Minneapolis now stand, the former with a population in 1890 of 133,156, the latter with one of 164,738, not a white man's abode had risen. There were then but three cabins between St. Paul and Prairie du Chien, a distance of 300 miles down the Mississippi. Summit Avenue, St. Paul, was, in 1890, the finest street in America, if not on the globe. West St. Paul, in 1880 a hamlet of a few huts, had by 1890 20,000 to 30,000 people, with street-cars, large business blocks, fine houses and stores. The pioneer railway in Minnesota was laid in 1862, from St. Paul to St. Anthony, the first shovelful of earth being lifted by a citizen of St. Paul, who probably lived to see his State gridironed with 5,379 miles of track; his own firm constructing over 1,100 miles in the single year 1887. Minneapolis in 1887 turned out 5,000,000 barrels of flour, an average of 100,000 barrels a week.

Duluth had in 1880 but 3,740 people. In 1890, 33,115. The cause of Duluth's advantage is obvious upon a glance at the map. It is by water no farther from Lake Erie than Chicago is, while it is some hundreds of miles nearer the great wheat-field. It is itself the very gate of this—the gate of Minnesota—which in 1869 brought forth 18,000,000 bushels; in 1886, 50,000,000 bushels. To this enormous yield, that of the Dakotas, about the same, had now to be added, the one as the other finding its way out to the hungry world largely through Duluth.

The caravans of people necessary to populate these immense western ranges were to a very great extent immigrants from Europe. The census of 1880 gave us 6,679,043 inhabitants of foreign nativity. We have no figures for the exact proportion of the total immigration into the country which found its home in the West, yet a glimpse at the total from year to year is interesting at this point. The falling off in and after 1893 is particularly noticeable. Immigrants arrived as follows:

In 1868 282,189 1869 352,768 1870 387,203 1871 321,350 1872 404,806 1873 459,803 1874 313,339 1875 227,498 1876 169,986 1877 141,857 1878 138,469 1879 177,826 1880 457,257 1881 669,431 1882 788,992 1883 603,322 1884 518,592 1885 395,346 1886 334,203 1890 455,302 1891 560,319 1892 579,663 1893 439,730 1894 285,631.



CHAPTER VI.

THE EXPOSITION OF 1876

[1876]

It was fitting that the one hundredth anniversary of a great industrial nation should be celebrated by a World's Fair. Such a plan was first publicly proposed for the United States in 1870, by an association of Philadelphia citizens. It was adopted by Congress in the following year, when an act was passed creating a Centennial Commission, to consist of a delegate and an alternate from each State and Territory. The commission organized for the great and difficult work before them by choosing General J. R. Hawley, of Connecticut, president, and by appointing an executive committee, a board of directors, and heads of various administrative bureaus.

The Government declined to assume the financial responsibility of the enterprise, but in 1872 Congress appointed a Centennial Board of Finance with power to raise a capital stock of $10,000,000. Shares to the amount of $2,400,000 were soon sold to private citizens. Philadelphia appropriated $1,500,000, and Pennsylvania $1,000,000. In 1876 Congress made a loan to the Board of $1,500,000. Thus the great problem of a financial basis for the enterprise was solved.



At the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876.

The first thought had been to make the exposition exclusively national, but subsequent deliberation made it seem best to widen the plan so that the arts and industries of the entire world should be represented. President Grant formally proclaimed the Exhibition in 1873, and in the following year foreign governments were invited to participate. Thirty-three cordially responded.

Meanwhile, the commission was pushing preparations. Philadelphia, the birth-place of the nation, was rightly chosen as the place for this unique memorial of that event. In the beautiful and spacious Fairmount Park, on the high bank of the Schuylkill River, an area of 285 acres was inclosed, and here five main buildings were soon rising rapidly as by magic. Besides these, there were at the time of opening, smaller structures to the number of 175, filling every available space.

On May 10th the Exposition was opened with appropriate exercises, in the presence of 100,000 people. Wagner had composed a Centennial March for the occasion. Whittier's Centennial Hymn was sung by a chorus of 1,000 voices. The restored South chanted the praises of the Union in the words of Sidney Lanier, the Georgia poet. President Grant, in a short speech, then declared the International Exhibition open. A procession of dignitaries moved to Machinery Hall, where the President of the United States and Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, set in motion the great Corliss engine, and with the whirr of spindle and clatter of machinery the world's seventh great fair began.

Weeks and months of inspection were necessary to grasp the Exhibition as a whole and in detail, but an imaginary stroll through the grounds will give the reader some general idea of it.

Entering through one of the 106 gates, the sight-seer naturally turned his eye first toward the colossal Main Building. A parallelogram in form, 1,880 feet long by 460 wide, and 70 high, it covered twenty acres. At the centre and ends were projecting wings, large buildings in themselves. In the middle and at the four corners rose towers. In spite of its size the building seemed light and almost graceful. Its brick sub-structure, seven feet high, stood upon massive masonry foundations. The rest of the building was mainly glass and iron. The iron trusses of the roof rested upon 672 slender iron pillars. This hall had been erected in a year, at a cost of $1,700,000.

In the Main Building manufactures were exhibited, also products of the mine, along with various other evidences of the condition of science and education. The broad aisles ran the whole length of the interior, flanked on either side by exhibits. More than one-third of the space was reserved for the United States, the rest being divided in varying proportions among foreign countries. The products of all climates, tribes, and times were here crowded together under one roof. The mighty states of Great Britain, France, and Germany exhibited the work of their myriad roaring looms side by side with the wares of the Hawaiian Islands and the little Orange Free State. Here were the furs of Russia with other articles from the frozen North; there the flashing diamonds of Brazil and the rich shawls and waving plumes of India. At a step one passed from old Egypt to the latest-born South American republic. Chinese conservatism and Yankee enterprise confronted each other across the aisle. All civilized nations but Greece were represented—more than ever before took part in an international fair.

From the novelty of the foreign display the American visitor returned proudly to the display made by his own land. Textiles, metal work, arms and tools, musical instruments, watches, carriages, cutlery, books, and furniture—a bewildering array of all things useful and ornamental—made Americans realize as never before the wealth, intelligence, and enterprise of their native country and the proud station she had taken among the nations of earth.

Machinery Hall came next to the Main Building in size. Of plain architecture, built of wood, with iron ties, 1,402 feet by 360, it covered, with an annex, about thirteen acres. Here, with infinite clatter and roar, thousands of iron slaves worked their master's will. Three-fourths of the space was taken up with American machines. Visitors from the foremost foreign nations marvelled at the ingenuity of the Yankee mind here displayed. Great Britain led the foreign nations in the size and number of articles exhibited. Canada, France, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, and other countries sent ingenious or powerful machines.

But as a Titan, towering above all these and all others, stood the great Corliss engine, built by George H. Corliss, of Providence, R. I., one of the most remarkable mechanicians and inventors of the century. A modern Samson, dumb as well as blind, its massive limbs of shining steel moved with voiceless grace and utmost apparent ease, driving the miles of shafting and the thousands of connected machines. The cylinders were forty inches in diameter; the piston stroke, ten feet. The great walking-beams, nine feet wide in the centre, weighed eleven tons each. The massive fly-wheel, thirty feet in diameter, and weighing fifty-six tons, made thirty-six revolutions a minute. The whole engine, with the strength of 1,400 horses, weighed 700 tons.

Agricultural Hall, built of wood and glass in the form of a nave with three transepts, covered ten acres. The display it contained of agricultural products and implements was the largest ever made. Here the United States stood forth far in advance of all sister nations. Specimens of the rich and deep prairie soil excited the wonder and envy of tillers of impoverished European lands. The great West, with its monster steam-ploughs and threshing machines, placed before the eye the farming methods of a race of giants. The choice and delicate fruits of sunny lands mingled with the hardy cereals of Canada and Russia.

Memorial Hall, a beautiful permanent building of granite, erected by Pennsylvania and Philadelphia at a cost of $1,500,000, was given up to art. This was on the whole the poorest feature of the Exposition. America had few works of the first order to show. Foreign nations, with the exception of England, feared to send their choicest art products across the ocean. France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands, with some other countries, were all represented. Italy, besides paintings, sent many pieces of sculpture. England contributed a noble lot of paintings, including works by Gainsborough and Reynolds. In spite of all, the collection was the largest and most notable ever seen in this country, and throngs crowded the galleries.

Horticultural Hall, built of iron and glass in the Moorish style of the twelfth century, also a permanent structure, was erected by Philadelphia. Here, one walked amid the glories of tropical vegetation. Palm, orange, lemon, camphor, and india-rubber trees rose on every hand. The cactus of the desert, rare English flowering plants, strange growths from islands of the sea, here flourished each in its peculiar soil and climate. Outside the building were beds of hardy flowering plants covering twenty-five acres. Besides these five main structures, the United States Building, where the working of the various administrative departments of the Government was shown, attracted thousands of visitors daily. A Woman's Pavilion contained products of female industry and skill. A narrow-gauge railway ran in great loops from building to building.

Twenty-six States erected buildings of their own. These served mainly as headquarters, but two or three contained large exhibits of state products. Thirty or more buildings were put up by private enterprise to illustrate various manufacturing and industrial processes. Before the close of the Exposition more than two hundred buildings stood within the enclosure. Several foreign Governments erected small structures of various sorts.

Through the summer months, in spite of the unusual heat that season, thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the country found their way to this shrine of the world's progress. The quiet old Quaker city was moved with unwonted life. Amidst the crowds of new-comers its citizens became strangers in their own streets.

On July 4th, simple but impressive ceremonies were held in the public square at the rear of Independence Hall. On temporary platforms sat 5,000 distinguished guests, and a chorus of 1,200 singers. The square and the neighboring streets were filled with a dense throng. Richard Henry Lee, grandson of the mover of the Declaration of Independence, came to the front with the original document in his hands. At sight of that yellow and wrinkled paper, the vast audience burst forth into prolonged cheering. Mr. Lee then read the Declaration. The recitation of an ode by Bayard Taylor and the delivery of an oration by Hon. William M. Evarts were the other main features of the exercises.

Through the early fall the interest in the Exposition spread farther and farther over the land, and the attendance steadily increased. On September 28th, Pennsylvania day, 275,000 persons passed through the gates. During October, the visitors numbered over 2,500,000. From May 10th to November 10th, the total admissions were 9,900,000; 8,000,000 admission fees were collected, amounting to $3,800,000. The fair was brought to an end on November 10th. After brief closing exercises, President Grant gave the signal to stop the Corliss engine. The giant slowly came to a standstill, the hum of the machinery died away, and the International Exhibition of 1876 was closed.

The Centennial Exposition was not a complete financial success. After returning the United States loan of $1,500,000, the stockholders could not be paid in full. The attendance was, however, larger in the aggregate than at any previous international exhibition, except that of Paris in 1867. The admissions there reached 10,200,000, but the gates were open fifty-one days longer than at Philadelphia. At Vienna, in 1873, there were but 7,255,000 admissions in 186 days against 159 days at Philadelphia.

The larger and more important results of this exposition cannot be measured with precision. A thousand silent influences were set at work upon our social, intellectual, and political life, which operated in secret for years afterward. The most obvious, and perhaps the most important, effect was the broadening of sympathies and mental outlook. Visitors to Philadelphia got something of the benefit of foreign travel. Local prejudices were broken down. New ideas of life and civilization were planted in hitherto sterile minds. The plodding Eastern farmer caught something of the Westerner's dash and swing. North and South, East and West, drew nearer together. A narrow patriotism caught glimpses of a great and noble world without.

These influences touched the most careless observer. Special classes derived each a peculiar benefit. Mechanical invention was stimulated. Art received an impetus which can never cease to be felt. To our household art, especially, came much quickening from the sight of England's beautiful display of home decorations.

The Exposition exalted the United States in the eyes of her foreign guests. Many were amazed at such proofs of the wealth, intelligence, and progressive spirit of the great republic. A correspondent of the London Times wrote, in 1876: "The American invents as the Greek sculptured and the Italian painted; it is genius." We may hope that the exhibits were educators to Europe as well as to America.

Lastly, the American returned from the great fair with an opinion of his own country which, if more sober and just than he had previously entertained, was not less proud but far prouder. The Nation laid aside its holiday attire, and, despite manifest defects and dangers in our national life, settled down to another century of work with increased pride in its past and stronger confidence for its future.



CHAPTER VII.

ECONOMIC POLITICS

[1887]

The enormous strides with which we paid off our war debt amazed the world. The debt had reached its highest point in August, 1865. At that date the figure was $2,844,649,626, or, for the interest-bearing part alone, $2,381,530,294, The total interest-bearing debt on April 30, 1888, was only $1,038,199,762. At the end of that fiscal year, June 30, 1888, the debt, less cash in the treasury, amounted to $1,165,584,656. Its items at this time were $222,207,050 in bonds at 4-1/2 per cent., payable in 1891; $714,315,450 in four per cent. bonds, payable in 1907; four per cent. refunding certificates amounting to $141,300; the three per cent. navy pension fund of $14,000,000, and the Pacific Railway six per cent. bonds, $64,623,512. Thus on June 30,1888, more than half of the largest total had been paid off, and the net debt, aside from the Pacific Railway bonds, which that corporation was to pay, having fallen to below a billion. The reduction proceeded for the entire twenty-three years between the first and last dates named, at an average rate of $62,906,975 yearly, or $5,225,581 each month, $174,186 each day, $7,258 each hour, and $120.47 each minute.

The interest-bearing legal tender notes were first paid off. Greenbacks, or non interest-bearing legal tenders were still, October 1, 1894, outstanding to the amount of $346,681,000; yet this division of the debt, too, had been vastly reduced, having stood at $433,160,569 on August 31, 1865.

To the bonded obligations of the country the policy of refunding was early applied, bonds of high rates being called in so soon as callable, and replaced by others bearing lower rates. The income of the Government was so immense that it proved unfortunate to have set so late a date as 1891 for the time at which the 4-1/2's could be paid off. To fix the date of maturity for the 4's in 1907 was, of course, worse still. The three per cents. of 1882, which supplanted earlier issues, were fortunately made payable at the Government's option, and on May 20, 1887, the Secretary of the Treasury issued a call for the last of them, amounting to $19,717,500, interest to cease with the first of the next July.

From this time there were no bonds subject to par payment at the discretion of the Government, and as revenues were vast the surplus began to pile up in the treasury. December 1, 1887, after every possible obligation of the Government had been provided for, $55,258,701 remained, a sum increased by the end of that fiscal year, namely, June 30, 1888, spite of considerable amounts in long bonds purchased at high rates, to $103,220,464, There was no method at once legal and economical for paying this out. The Secretary could of course buy 4's and 4-1/2's in the open market, and during 1888 this was to some extent done. Obviously, if entered upon in a large way, it must have greatly carried up the price of those bonds. The question how to limit the surplus, how to keep the money of the country from becoming locked up in the treasury and sub-treasuries of the United States, was thus a grave one, and entered hotly into the political campaign of the last-named year.

[1890]

On June 30, 1890, $109,015,750 in the 4-1/2 per cent. bonds, redeemable September 1, 1891, were still outstanding. By April 1, 1891, they had, by redemption or purchase, been reduced to $53,854,250, of which one-half in value was held by national banks, to sustain their circulation. To avoid contracting this circulation the Secretary of the Treasury permitted holders of these bonds to retain them and receive interest at two per cent. About $25,364,500 was so continued. Interest on the remainder ceased at their maturity, and nearly all were soon paid off. The bonds continued at two per cent. were all along quoted at par, though payable at the will of the Government, revealing a national credit never excelled in history. The national debt, less cash in the treasury, stood on July 1, 1894, after an increase during the previous fiscal year of $60,000,000, at $899,313,381.

The old tariff issue had emerged again soon after the end of the war. The Morrill tariff of 1861 about restored the rates of 1846, and even those rates had, on many things, been very decidedly increased during the war. Still further protective duties had been laid in the course of the war, called compensating duties, to offset the internal revenues which burdened manufacturers in various ways. After the war the internal taxes were nearly all swept away at the earliest possible moment, until, after July 1, 1883, only spirits, fermented liquors, tobacco, banks and bankers yielded internal revenue. Customs duties were also removed from nearly all so-called revenue articles, as spices, tea, and coffee, not produced in this country—the tax, therefore, not being of a protective nature. Slight reductions were, indeed, made in protective duties, first in 1872—replaced, however, almost entirely in 1875—and again in 1883. The act of 1883 lowered protection less than appeared, and its rates on woollens, high grade cottons, iron ore, steel, and a few other articles, were now made even higher than the same had previously borne. It will be seen that our policy during the years under survey was to limit national income sufficiently without lowering or removing any protective duties.

In the republican platform of 1888 this policy was explicitly avowed. At that time, as next to nothing could at present be done to pay off the national indebtedness, both parties had to admit that some measure was needed to lessen the revenue. The republican plan was to effect the reduction mainly by lowering or removing the remaining internal taxes, the democratic to secure the same result by changes in customs duties, cutting down rates and enlarging the free list. President Cleveland's message to Congress in December 1887, stated the issue with great clearness, and this issue was the main one which divided the two parties in the presidential election of the ensuing year.

Anticipating a little we may remark in this place that the Republicans, having acquired control of all three legislative branches of the Government, passed, in 1890, the McKinley Tariff Act, considerably raising rates, though somewhat enlarging the free list. It removed the duty from raw sugar, affixing a bounty to the production of sugar in the United States. But in 1892 the Democrats again acquired power, electing Mr. Cleveland and controlling the Senate. In 1894 they passed the Wilson-Senate Tariff Act, greatly reducing rates in general, and free-listing the important commodities of wool, salt, and lumber. Raw sugar was now taxed again, and the bounty upon its production abolished.

[1873]

The revenue question in this campaign was not a little complicated by the existence of numerous and powerful Trusts, which anti-protectionists believed to be fostered by our high tariff. The Trust System arose about 1876, and in the course of a few years almost every great enterprise in the land was carried on under the form of a trust. The principal corporations or men engaged in an industry would enter into combination, more or less informal, for the regulation of production and prices. Usually the result was an elevation of prices, and where the trust constituted a necessary monopoly this rise might be indefinitely perpetuated. High tariff as well as low tariff newspapers made great outcry against these monopolies. The latter urged that a reduced tariff, forcing these businesses more into competition with corresponding producers abroad, was the only thing needful to break their solidarity and consequent power. Advocates of high tariff denied this.

[1878]

The old silver dollar, "the Dollar of the Fathers," had, until 1873, never ceased to be full legal tender, although it had since 1853 been too valuable as compared with the gold dollar to circulate much. In 1873 a law was passed demonetizing it, and making gold the exclusive form of United States hard money. The new German Empire did the same this very year. There at once began a great apparent depreciation of silver in comparison with gold at the historic ratio. For a long time this change involved no decrease in the value or purchasing power of silver even in the form of bullion, but consisted rather in a rise of the value of gold.

In view of this, as all the Government bonds outstanding in 1873 had been made payable in coin, it was as good as universally believed in most sections of the Union that the demonetizing of silver, if persisted in, would work hardship to taxpayers in liquidating the national debt. A bill was therefore brought forward, and in 1878 passed, restoring to the silver dollar its full legal tender character. In this legislation, however, so great was the then disparity in value between gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, Congress did not venture to give back to the white metal the right of free coinage, but instead required the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase monthly not less than $2,000,000 worth of silver and coin it into dollars.

The act was disapproved by President Hayes, but immediately passed over his veto, February 28, 1878. The advocates of gold monometallism believed that the issue of these dollars would speedily drive gold from the country. Owing to the limitation of the new coinage no such effect was experienced, and the silver dollars, or the certificates representing them, floated at par with gold, which, indeed, far from leaving the country, was imported in vast amounts nearly every year. After 1880 the money in circulation in the United States was gold coin, silver coin gold certificates, greenbacks or United States notes, and the notes of the national banks. The so-called Sherman Law, of 1890, added a new category, the treasury notes issued in payment for silver bullion. It stopped the compulsory coinage of full-tender silver, though continuing and much increasing the purchase of silver bullion by the Government. The repeal of the purchase clause of this law, in 1893, put an end to the acquisition of silver by the United States.

[1879]

January 1, 1879, the next year after the silver bill was passed, the United States, under the Resumption Act of January 14, 1875, began again the payment, which had been suspended ever since 1862, of specie in liquidation of greenbacks. The possibility of this had been under discussion for some years, and was disbelieved in by many thoughtful financiers and public men. The credit of the momentous step was mostly due to John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury in the cabinet of President Hayes. He believed resumption to be as possible as it was important. By the sale of 4-1/2 per cent. bonds redeemable in 1891, he had accumulated before the appointed day $ 138,000,000 of coin, nearly all in gold, amounting to about forty per cent. of the greenbacks then outstanding.

Resumption proved easier than even he anticipated. The greenbacks had risen to par—the first time in seventeen years—December 18th, thirteen days before the date fixed for beginning gold payments, and when the day arrived only straggling applications for coin were made, less in amount than was asked for in greenbacks as interest by bondholders, who could have demanded coin. During the entire year only $11,456,536 in greenbacks were offered for redemption, while over $250,000,000 in them were paid out in coin obligations. It was found that people preferred paper to metal money, and had no wish for gold instead of notes when assured that the exchange could be made at their option. Notwithstanding our acceptance of greenbacks for customs—$109,467,456 during 1879—the treasury at the end of that year experienced a dearth of these and a plethora of coin, having actually to force debtors to receive hard money.

[1876-1877]

Such popularity of the greenbacks stimulated to fresh life the "fiat greenback" theory, long in vogue and very influential in many parts of the country. Its pith lay in the proposition that money requires in its material no intrinsic value, its worth and purchasing power coming entirely from the "fiat" of the government issuing it, so that paper money put forth by authority of a solvent and powerful government will be the peer of gold. This idea was the rallying point of the National Labor Greenback Party, organized at its Indianapolis convention, May 17, 1876, when Peter Cooper was put in nomination for President. At the subsequent presidential election in November, he received 82,640 votes. The next year his party polled 187,095 votes; in 1878, 1,000,365.

From the moment of its issue, there had been in the country many who went to the opposite extreme with reference to the greenback. They believed it unconstitutional and pernicious, a menace to the nation's credit and financial weal. The question came to the Supreme Court during the war, and this form of contracting debt on the part of the Government was then justified as a war measure. When the war was over the question whether the greenback's legal tender quality could still be maintained, also had to be passed upon by the court. The first decision was in the negative, but it was subsequently reversed. Still a third question was whether a man could be forced to take greenbacks in liquidation of debt after the resumption of specie payments. This was tried out in the famous case of Juilliard vs. Greenman, and the decision was, as on the other two occasions, in favor of the greenback. In spite of all this, however, the zeal for the fiat or non-promissory theory and practice of paper money almost totally died away after about 1880.

The most desperate and extensive strike that had yet occurred in this country was that of 1877, by the employees of the principal railway trunk lines, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the New York Central, and their western prolongations. At a preconcerted time junctions and other main points were seized. Freight traffic on the roads named was entirely suspended, and the passenger and mail service greatly impeded. When new employees sought to work, militia and United States troops had to be called out to preserve order. Baltimore and Pittsburgh were each the scene of a bloody riot. At the latter place, where the mob was immense and most furious, the militia were overcome and besieged in a roundhouse, which it was then attempted to burn by lighting oil cars and pushing them against it. Fortunately the soldiers escaped across the river. The torch was applied freely and with dreadful effect. Machine-shops, warehouses, and 2,000 freight-cars were pillaged or burnt. The loss of property was estimated at $10,000,000. In disturbances at Chicago nineteen were killed, at Baltimore nine, at Reading thirteen, and thrice as many wounded. One hundred thousand laborers were believed to have taken part in the movement, and at one time or another 6,000 or 7,000 miles of road were in their power. The agitation began on July 14th and was serious till the 27th, but had mostly died away by the end of the month, the laborers nearly all returning to their work.

Hosts of Pennsylvania miners went out along with the railroad men. The railway strike itself was largely sympathetic, the ten per cent. reduction in wages assigned as its cause applying to comparatively few. The next decade witnessed continual troubles of this sort, though rarely if in any case so serious, between wage-workers and their employers in nearly all industries. The worst ones befell the manufacturing portions of the country. Strikes and lock-outs were part of the news almost every day. The causes were various. One lay in the vast numbers of immigrants hither and the low, ignorant character of many of them—clay for the hand of the first unscrupulous demagogue.

Another cause was the wide and sedulous inculcation in this country of the communist and anarchist doctrines long prevalent in Europe. Influences concurrent with both these were the actual injustice and the proud, overbearing manner of many employers. Capital had been mismanaged and wasted. The war had brought unearned fortunes to many, sudden wealth to a much larger number, while the unexampled prosperity of the country raised up in a perfectly normal manner a wealthy class, the like of which, in number and power, our country had never known before. As therefore immigration along with much else multiplied the poor, the eternal, angry strife of wealth with poverty, of high with low, of classes with masses, crossed over from Europe and began on our shores.

The rise of trusts and gigantic corporations was connected with this struggle. Corporations worth nigh half a billion dollars apiece were able to buy or defy legislatures and make or break laws as they pleased; and as such corporations, instead of individuals, more and more became the employers of labor, not only did the old-time kindliness between help and hirers die out, but men the most cool and intelligent feared the new power as a menace to democracy. Strikes therefore commanded large public sympathy. Stock-watering and other vicious practices, involving the ruin of corporations themselves by the few holders of a majority of the shares, in order to re-purchase the property for next to nothing, contributed to this hostility; as did the presence in many great corporations of foreign capital and capitalists, and also the mutual favoritism of corporations, showing itself, for instance, in special freight rates to privileged concerns. Minor interests and individual employees, powerless against these Titan agencies by any of the old legal processes, resorted to counter organization.

The Patrons of Husbandry grew up in the West, with influence longer than the Order's nominal life, of which the often unwise "Granger" railroad legislation was one sign. In the East trades-unions secured rank development, and the Knights of Labor, intended as a sort of Union of them all, attained in 1887 a membership of a million. The manufacturers' "black list," to prevent any "agitator" laborer from securing work, was answered by the "boycott," to keep the products of obnoxious establishments from finding sale. Labor organizations, so strong, often tyrannized over their own members, and boycotting became a nuisance that had to be abated by law.

[1880]

Labor agitation had of late years become greatly easier owing to the extraordinarily increased percentage of our urban population. In 1790 only 3.3 per cent. of the people in the country lived in places of 8,000 inhabitants and upward, and so late as 1840 only 8.5 per cent. In 1850 the percentage was 12.5; in 1860, 16.1; in 1870, 20.9; in 1880, 22.5; and in 1890, 29.2. The year 1880 saw within our borders twenty cities each with a population of over 100,000; 286 each with over 8,000. In 1890 there were twenty-eight cities each having 100,000 inhabitants or more, and 448 having 8,000 or more. It was mostly manufacturing and mechanical industry which thus brought these hordes of human beings together.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE MARCH OF INDUSTRY

[1869]

We can give but little idea of the advance in industrial artifice and appliances of all kinds made in the United States in the two decades after the Civil War. Take it first in textile manufacturing. A century earlier one person in every family had to work incessantly at spinning and weaving to keep the whole of them in clothing. Now one day's work a year per person sufficed for this. The speed of spindles had risen since 1860 from 5,000 to 7,500 revolutions a minute. Looms had gone from 120 picks to 160, and one hand tended from 25 to 50 per cent. more work. The "slasher" dresser accomplished ten times more than the old machine, supplying 400 looms in place of forty, and requiring to manage it only one man and a boy instead of two men and ten girls. A generation earlier one operative made three yards an hour, now he made ten. In the twenty years under survey the annual production of cotton mills rose from two and one-half to three and one-half tons per hand. One man formerly tended forty spindles, now he tended sixty. In 1890 a single operative in America could make cotton cloth enough to supply 1,500 persons.



The American Line Steamship St. Louis, launched from the Cramps Docks, November 12. 1894. (554 feet long 11,000 tons, and 20,000 horse-power.)

The improvements in woollen, iron, and miscellaneous manufacturing had perhaps not been quite as great, but were remarkable notwithstanding. Power and automatic machinery were the order of the day. The Corliss engine got 23 per cent. more heat and energy from a given amount of coal than had ever been obtained before it was invented. Instead of the twenty-five days which the first transatlantic steamer required for the passage from America to England, many vessels now went from New York to Liverpool in considerably less than six days, or at an average rate of more than twenty miles an hour. The speed of passenger trains on the main railways had doubled. So had the weight of the freight-car load and the amount of freight which an engine could pull. The newest locomotives weighed nearly or quite one hundred tons each.

In 1869 a submarine cable was laid which joined the United States to the continent of Europe. It extended about 3,050 miles, from Duxbury, Mass., to Brest, France, via the Island of St. Pierre, south of Newfoundland. The company owning the cable was chartered by the waning empire of Louis Napoleon. In 1875 a new cable was stretched between the United States and Great Britain. It was called the United States Direct Cable, and at first operated in opposition to the original one. The rates for cable messages were greatly reduced in consequence. The price, once ten dollars a word, fell in anticipation of the competition to fifty cents, and to twenty-five after the competition actually began. The two Anglo-American lines were subsequently united.