At the time of the Centennial, electricity was used almost exclusively for telegraphic communication. By 1893 new inventions, as wonderful as Morse's own, had overlaid even that invention. A single wire now sufficed to carry several messages at once and in different directions. Rapidity of transmission was another miracle. During the electrical exposition in New York City, May, 1896, Hon. Chauncey M. Depew dictated a message which was sent round the world and back in fifty minutes. It read:

"God creates, nature treasures, science utilizes electrical power for the grandeur of nations and the peace of the world." These words travelled from London to Lisbon, thence to Suez, Aden, Bombay, Madras, Singapore, Hong-Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, and Tokio, returning by the same route to New York, a total distance of over 27,500 miles.



Interior of the Power House at Niagara Falls.

Self-winding and self-regulating clocks came into vogue, being automatically adjusted through the Western Union telegraph lines, so that at noon each day the correct time was instantly communicated to their hands from the national observatory. Another invaluable use of the telegraph was its service to the Weather Bureau, established in 1870. By means of simultaneous reports from a tract of territory 3,000 miles long by 1,500 wide, this bureau was enabled to make its forecasts indispensable to every prudent farmer, traveller, or mariner.

The three great latter-day applications of electrical force were the telephone, the electric light, and the electric motor. In 1876, almost simultaneously with its discovery by other investigators, Alexander Graham Bell exhibited an electric transmitter of the human voice. By the addition of the Edison carbon transmitter the same year the novelty was assured swift success. In 1893 the Bell Telephone Company owned 307,748 miles of wire, an amount increased by rival companies' property to 444,750. Estimates gave for that year nearly 14,000 "exchanges," 250,000 subscribers, and 2,000,000 daily conversations. New York and Chicago were placed on speaking terms only three or four days before "Columbus Day." All the chief cities were soon connected by telephone.

At the Philadelphia Exposition arc electric lamps were the latest wonder, and not till two years later did Edison render the incandescent lamp available.

The use of electricity for the development of power as well as of light, unknown in the Centennial year, was in the Columbian year neither a scientific nor a practical novelty. On the contrary, it was fast supplanting horses upon street railways, and making city systems nuclei for far-stretching suburban and interurban lines. Street railways mounted steep hills inaccessible before save by the clumsy system of cables. Even steam locomotives upon great railways gave place in some instances to motors. Horseless carriages and pedalless bicycles were clearly in prospect.

It was found that by the use of copper wiring electric power could be carried great distances. A line twenty-five miles long bore from the American River Falls, at Folsom, California, to Sacramento, a current which the city found ample for traction, light, and power. Niagara Falls was harnessed to colossal generators, whose product was transmitted to neighboring cities and manufactories. Loss en route was at first considerable, but cunning devices lessened it each year.

Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla were conspicuously identified with these astonishing applications of electric energy. Edison, first a newsboy, then (like Andrew Carnegie) a telegraph operator, without school or book training in physics, rose step by step to the repute of working miracles on notification. Tesla, a native of Servia, who happened, upon migrating to the United States, to find employment with Edison, was totally unlike his master. He was a highly educated scientist, herein at a great advantage. He was, in opposition to Edison, peculiarly the champion of high tension alternating current distribution. He aimed to dispense so far as possible with the generation of heat, pressing the ether waves directly into the service of man.



Thomas Alva Edison. Copyright by W. A. Dickson.



Nikola Tesla.

The bicycle developed incredible popularity in the '90's. Through all the panic of 1893 bicycle makers prospered. It was estimated in 1896 that no less than $100,000,000 had been spent in the United States upon cycling. A clumsy prototype of the "wheel" was known in 1868, but the first bicycle proper, a wheel breast-high, with cranks and pedals connected with a small trailing wheel by a curved backbone and surmounted by a saddle, was exhibited at the Centennial. Two years later this kind of wheel began to be manufactured in America, and soon, in spite of its perils, or perhaps in part because of them, bicycle riding was a favorite sport among experts. In 1889 a new type was introduced, known as the "safety." Its two wheels were of the same size, with saddle between them, upon a suitable frame, the pedals propelling the rear wheel through a chain and sprocket gearing. An old invention, that of inflated or pneumatic tires of rubber, coupled with more hygienic saddles, gave great impetus to cycling sport. The fad dwindled, but the bicycle remained in general use as a convenience and even as a necessity.



Bicycle Parade, New York. Fancy Costume Division.



Hatchery Room of the Fish Commission Building at Washington, D. C., showing the hatchery jars in operation.

The Fish Commission, created by the Government in 1870, proved an important agency in promoting the great industries of fishing and fish culture. At the World's Fair it appeared that the fishing business had made progress greater than many others which were much more obtrusively displayed, though the fishtrap, the fyke net, and the fishing steamer had all been introduced within a generation.

In no realm did invention and the application of science mean more for the country's weal than in agriculture. Each State had its agricultural college and experiment station, mainly supported by United States funds provided under the Morrill Acts. Soils, crops, animal breeds, methods of tillage, dairying, and breeding were scientifically examined. Forestry became a great interest. Intensive agriculture spread. By early ploughing and incessant use of cultivators keeping the surface soil a mulch, arid tracts were rendered to a great extent independent of both rainfall and irrigation. Improved machinery made possible the farming of vast areas with few hands. The gig horse hoe rendered weeding work almost a pleasure. A good reaper with binder attachment, changing horses once, harvested twenty acres a day. The best threshers bagged from 1,000 to 2,500 bushels daily. One farmer sowed and reaped 200 acres of wheat one season without hiring a day's work.

Woman's position at the Fair was prominent and gratifying. How her touch lent refinement and taste was observed both in the Woman's Building, the first of its kind, and in other departments of the Exposition. Power of organization was noticeably exemplified in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. This body originated in the temperance crusade of 1873 and the following year, when a State Temperance Association was formed in Ohio, leading shortly to the rise of a national union.

Related to this movement in elevated moral aims, as well as in the prominent part it assigned to women, was the Salvation Army. In 1861 William Booth, an English Methodist preacher, resigned his charge and devoted himself to the redemption of London's grossest proletariat. Deeming themselves not wanted in the churches, his converts set up a separate and more militant organization. In 1879 the Army invaded America, landing at Philadelphia, where, as in the Old Country and in other American cities, pitiable sin and wretchedness grovelled in obscurity. In 1894 there were in the United States 539 corps and 1,953 officers, and in the whole world 3,200 corps and 10,788 officers. Without proposing any programme of social or political reform, and without announcing any manifesto of human rights, the Salvationists uplifted hordes of the fallen, while drawing to the lowliest the notice, sympathy, and help of the middle classes and the rich. Army discipline was rigidly maintained. The soldiers were sworn to wear the uniform, to obey their officers, to abstain from drink, tobacco, and worldly amusements, to live in simplicity and economy, to earn their living, and of their earnings always to give something to advance the Kingdom. The officers could not marry or become engaged without the consent of the Army authorities, for their spouses must be capable of cooperating with them. They could receive no presents, not even food, except in cases of necessity. An officer must have experienced "full salvation"—that is, must endeavor to be living free from every known sin. Except as to pay, the Army placed women on an absolute equality with men, a policy which greatly furthered its usefulness.



William Booth. From a photograph by Rockwood, New York.

The peculiar uniform worn by the Salvation soldiers, always sufficing to identify them, called attention to a fact never obvious till about 1890—the relative uniformity in the costumes of all fairly dressed Americans whether men or women. The wide circulation of fashion plates and pictorial papers accounted for this. About this time cuts came to be a feature even of newspapers, a custom on which the more conservative sheets at first frowned, though soon adopting it themselves.



CHAPTER VII.

MR. CLEVELAND AGAIN PRESIDENT

[1893-1895]

In the special session beginning August 7, 1893, a Democratic Congress met under a Democratic President for the first time since 1859. The results were disappointing. Divided, leaderless, in large part at bitter variance with the Administration, the Democrats trooped to their overthrow two years later.

During his second Administration Mr. Cleveland considerably extended the merit system in the civil service. Candidates for consulships were subjected to (non-competitive) examination. Public opinion commended these moves, as it did the President's prompt signing of the Anti-Lottery Bill, introduced in Congress when it was learned that the expatriated Louisiana Lottery from its seat under Honduras jurisdiction was operating in the United States through the express companies. The bill prohibiting this abuse was passed at three in the morning on the last day of the Congressional session, and received the President's signature barely five minutes before the Congress expired.



Grover Cleveland. From a photograph by Alexander Black.

At the opening of the Special Session, in August, 1893, the President demanded the repeal of that clause in the Sherman law of 1890 requiring the Government to make heavy monthly purchases of silver. The suspension in India of the free coinage of silver the preceding June had precipitated a disastrous monetary panic in the United States. Gold was hoarded and exported, vast sums being drained from the Treasury. Credits were refused, values shrivelled, business was palsied, labor idle. It was this situation which led the President to convoke Congress in special session.

Though achieving the repeal on November 1st, after Congressional wrangles especially long and bitter in the Senate, President Cleveland, pursuing the policy of paying gold for all greenbacks presented at the Treasury, was unable, even by the sale of $50,000,000 in bonds, to keep the Treasury gold reserve up to the $100,000,000 figure. Both old greenbacks and Sherman law greenbacks, being redeemed in gold, reissued and again redeemed, were used by exchangers like an endless chain pump to pump the Treasury dry. In February, 1895, the reserve stood at the low figure of $41,340,181. None knew when the country might be forced to a silver basis. In consequence, business revived but slightly, if at all, after the repeal.

In its first regular session the same Congress enacted the Wilson Tariff. As it passed the House the bill provided for free sugar, wool, coal, lumber, and iron ore, besides reducing duties on many other articles.

It also taxed incomes exceeding $4,000 per annum. The Senate, except in the case of wool and lumber, abandoned the proposal of free raw materials, stiffened the rates named by the House, and preferred specific to ad valorem duties. Many believed, without proof, that improper influences had helped the Senate to shape its sugar schedule favorably to the great refiners. The President pronounced sugar a legitimate subject for taxation in spite of the "fear, quite likely exaggerated," that carrying out this principle might "indirectly and inordinately encourage a combination of sugar refining interests." In a letter read in the House, however, he upbraided as guilty of "party perfidy and dishonor" Democratic Senators who would abandon the principle of free raw materials. But nothing shook the senatorial will. What was in substance the Senate bill passed Congress, and the President permitted it to become a law without his signature.



William L. Wilson.

The Wilson law pleased no one. It violated the Democrats' plighted word apparently at the dictation of parties selfishly interested. The Supreme Court declared its income tax unconstitutional. The revenue from it was inadequate, and had to be eked out with new bond issues. These were alleged to be necessary to meet the greenback debt, but this need not have embarrassed the Government had it followed the French policy of occasionally paying in silver a small percentage of the demand notes presented. Borrowing gold abroad, moreover, tended to inflate prices here, stimulating imports, discouraging exports, increasing the exportation of gold to settle the unfavorable balance of trade, and so on in ceaseless round.

The Democratic management of foreign affairs was severely criticised. Our extradition treaty with Russia, a country supposed to pay little or no regard to personal rights, and our delay in demanding reparation from Spain for firing upon the Allianca, a United States passenger steamer, were quite generally condemned. There were those who thought that Cuban insurgents against the sovereignty of Spain might have received some manifestation of sympathy from our Government, and that we should not have permitted Great Britain to endanger the Monroe Doctrine by occupying Corinto in Nicaragua to enforce the payment of an indemnity.

The President offended many in dealing as he did with the Hawaiian Islands' problem. Most did not consider it the duty of this country to champion the cause of the native dynasty there, a course likely to subserve no enlightened interest. Whites, chiefly Americans, had come to own most of the land in the islands, while imported Asiatics and Portuguese competed sharply with the natives as laborers. Political power, even, was largely exercised by the whites, through whose influence the monarchy had been reduced to a constitutional form.



Princess (afterwards Queen) Liliuokalani.

In January, 1893, Queen Liliuokalani sought by a coup d'etat to reinvest her royal authority with its old absoluteness and to disfranchise non-naturalized whites. The American man-of-war Boston, lying in Honolulu harbor, at the request of American residents, landed marines for their protection. The American colony now initiated a counter revolution, declaring the monarchy abrogated and a provisional government established. Minister Stevens at once recognized the Provisional Government as de facto sovereign. Under protest the Queen yielded.



James H. Blount.

The new government formally placed itself under the protectorate of the United States, and the Stars and Stripes were hoisted over the Government Building. President Harrison disavowed the protectorate, though he did not withdraw the troops from Honolulu, regarding them as necessary to assure the lives and property of American citizens. Nor did he lower the flag. A treaty for the annexation of the islands was soon negotiated and submitted to the Senate.

The Cleveland Administration reversed this whole policy with a jolt. The treaty withdrawn, Mr. Cleveland despatched to Honolulu Hon. James H. Blount as a special commissioner, with "paramount authority," which he exercised by formally ending the protectorate, hauling down the flag, and embarking the garrison of marines. Mr. Blount soon superseded Mr. Stevens as minister. Meantime the Provisional Government had organized a force of twelve hundred soldiers, got control of the arms and ammunition in the islands, enacted drastic sedition laws, and suppressed disloyal newspapers.



Albert S. Willis.

So complete was its sway, and so relentless did the dethroned Queen threaten to be toward her enemies in case she recovered power, that Minister Albert S. Willis, on succeeding Mr. Blount, lost heart in the contemplated enterprise of restoring the monarchy. He found the Provisional Government and its supporters men of "high character and large commercial interests," while those of the Queen were quite out of sympathy with American interests or with good government for the islands. A large and influential section of Hawaiian public opinion was unanimous for annexation, even Prince Kunniakea, the last of the royal line, avowing himself an annexationist with heart, soul, and, if necessary, with rifle.

A farcical attempt at insurrection was followed by the arrest of the conspirators and of the ex-Queen, who thereupon, for herself and heirs, forever renounced the throne, gave allegiance to the Republic, counselled her former subjects to do likewise, and besought clemency. Her chief confederates were sentenced to death, but this was commuted to a heavy fine and long imprisonment. After the retirement of the Democracy from power in 1896 the annexation of the islands was promptly consummated.

Walter Q. Gresham, Secretary of State in the early part of Cleveland's second term, died in May, 1895, being succeeded by Richard Olney, transferred from the portfolio of Attorney General. In a day, Cleveland's foreign policy, hitherto so inert, became vigorous to the verge of rashness. Deeming the Monroe Doctrine endangered by Great Britain's apparently arbitrary encroachments on Venezuela in fixing the boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana, he insisted that the boundary dispute should be settled by arbitration.



Richard Olney.

The message in which the President took this ground shook the country like a declaration of war against Great Britain. American securities fell, the gold reserve dwindled. The President was, however, supported. Congress was found ready to aid the Administration by passing any measures necessary to preserve the national credit. In December, 1895, it unanimously authorized the appointment of a commission to decide upon the true boundary line between Venezuela and British Guiana, with the purpose of giving its report the full sanction and support of the United States. The dispute was finally submitted to a distinguished tribunal at Paris, ex-President Harrison, among others, appearing on behalf of the Venezuelan Republic. While Great Britain's claim was, in a measure, vindicated, this proceeding established a new and potent precedent in support both of the Monroe Doctrine and of international arbitration.

In 1894 a ten months' session of the famous Lexow legislative committee in New York City uncovered voluminous evidence of corrupt municipal government there. The police force habitually levied tribute for protection not only upon legitimate trade and industry, but upon illicit liquor-selling, gambling, prostitution, and crime. The chief credit for the exposures was due to Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, President of the New York City Society for the Prevention of Crime. A fusion of anti-Tammany elements carried the autumn elections of 1894 for a reform ticket nominated by a committee of seventy citizens and headed by William L. Strong as candidate for mayor. At the next election, however, the Tammany candidate, Van Wyck, became the first mayor of the new municipality known as Greater New York, in which had been merged as boroughs the metropolis itself, Brooklyn, and other near cities. As was revealed by the Mazet Committee, little change had occurred in Tammany's predatory spirit. In 1901, therefore, through an alliance similar to that which elected Mayor Strong, Greater New York chose as its mayor to succeed Van Wyck, Seth Low, who resigned the Presidency of Columbia University to become Fusion candidate for the position.



The Lexow Investigation. The scene in the Court Room after Creeden's confession, December 15, 1894.



Charles H. Parkhurst. Copyright by C. C. Langill.

A recrudescence of the old Know-Nothing spirit in a party known as the "A. P. A.," or "American Protective Association," marked these years. So early as 1875 politicians had noticed the existence of a secret anti-Catholic organization, the United American Mechanics, but it had a brief career. The A. P. A., organized soon after 1885, drew inspiration partly from the hostility of extreme Protestants to the Roman Catholic Church, and partly from the aversion felt by many toward the Irish. In 1894 the A. P. A., though its actual membership was never large, pretended to control 2,000,000 votes. Its subterranean methods estranged fair-minded people. Still more turned against it when its secret oath was exposed. The A. P. A. member promised (1) never to favor or aid the nomination, election, or appointment of a Roman Catholic to any political office, and (2) never to employ a Roman Catholic in any capacity if the services of a Protestant could be obtained. A. P. A. public utterances garbled history and disseminated clumsy falsehoods touching Catholics, which reacted against the order. The Association declined as swiftly as it rose. Chiefly affiliating with the Republicans, it received no substantial countenance from any political party.



William L. Strong.



CHAPTER VIII.

LABOR AND THE RAILWAYS

[1887-1902]

In March, 1894, bands of the unemployed in various parts of the West, styling themselves "Commonweal," or "Industrial Armies," started for Washington to demand government relief for "labor." "General" Coxey, of Ohio, led the van. "General" Kelly followed from Trans-Mississippi with a force at one time numbering 1,250. Smaller itinerant groups joined the above as they marched. For supplies the tattered pilgrims taxed the sympathies or the fears of people along their routes. Most of them were well-meaning, but their destitution prompted some small thefts. Even violence occasionally occurred, as in California, where a town marshal killed a Commonweal "general," and in the State of Washington, where two deputy marshals were wounded. The Commonwealers captured a few freight trains and forced them into service.



Coxey's army on the march to the Capitol steps at Washington.

Only Coxey's band reached Washington. On May Day, attempting to present their "petition-in-boots" on the steps of the Capitol, the leaders were jailed under local laws against treading on the grass and against displaying banners on the Capitol Grounds. On June 10th Coxey was released, having meantime been nominated for Congress, and in little over a month the remnant of his forces was shipped back toward the setting sun.

The same year, 1894, marked a far more widespread and formidable disorder, the A. R. U. Railway Strike. The American Railway Union claimed a membership of 100,000, and aspired to include all the 850,000 railroad workmen in North America. It had just emerged with prestige from a successful grapple with the Great Northern Railway, settled by arbitration.

The union's catholic ambitions led it to admit many employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company, between whom and their employers acute differences were arising. The company's landlordism of the town of Pullman and petty shop abuses stirred up irritation, and when Pullman workers were laid off or put upon short time and cut wages, the feeling deepened. They pointed out that rents for the houses they lived in were not reduced, that the company's dividends the preceding year had been fat, and that the accumulation of its undivided surplus was enormous. The company, on the other hand, was sensible of a slack demand for cars after the brisk business done in connection with World's Fair travel.



The town of Pullman.

The Pullman management refused the men's demand for the restoration of the wages schedule of June, 1893, but promised to investigate the abuses complained of, and engaged that no one serving on the laborer's committee of complaint should be prejudiced thereby. Immediately after this, however, three of the committee were laid off, and five-sixths of the other employees, apparently against the advice of A. R. U. leaders, determined upon a strike.



George M. Pullman.

Unmoved by solicitations from employees, from the Chicago Civic Federation, from Mayor Pingree of Detroit, indorsed by the mayors of over fifty other cities, the Pullman Company steadfastly refused to arbitrate or to entertain any communication from the union. "We have nothing to arbitrate" was the company's response to each appeal. A national convention of the A. R. U. unanimously voted that unless the Pullman Company sooner consented to arbitration the union should, on June 26th, everywhere cease handling Pullman cars.



Camp of the U. S. troops on the lake front, Chicago.



Burned cars in the C., B. & Q. yards at Hawthorne, Chicago.



Overturned box cars at crossing of railroad tracks at 39th street, Chicago.



Hazen S. Pingree.

At this turn of affairs the A. R. U. found itself confronted with a new antagonist, the Association of General Managers of the twenty-four railroads centering in Chicago, controlling an aggregate mileage of over 40,000, a capitalization of considerably over $2,000,000,000, and a total workingmen force of 220,000 or more. The last-named workers had their own grievances arising from wage cuts and black-listing by the Managers' Association. Such of them as were union men were the objects of peculiar hostility, which they reciprocated. Thus the Pullman boycott, sympathetic in its incipience, swiftly became a gigantic trial of issues between the associated railroad corporations and the union.

For a week law and order were preserved. On July 2d the Federal Court in Chicago issued an injunction forbidding A. R. U. men, among other things, to "induce" employees to strike. Next day federal troops appeared upon the scene. Thereupon, in contempt of the injunction, railroad laborers continued by fair means and foul to be persuaded from their work.

Disregarding the union leaders' appeal and defying regular soldiers, State troops, deputy marshals, and police, rabble mobs fell to destroying cars and tracks, burning and looting. The mobs were in large part composed of Chicago's semi-criminal proletariat, a mass quite distinct from the body of strikers.

The A. R. U. strike approached its climax about the 10th of July. Chicago and the Northwest were paralyzed. President Cleveland deemed it necessary to issue a riot proclamation. A week later Debs and his fellow-leaders were jailed for contempt of court, and soon after their following collapsed.

Governor Altgeld, of Illinois, protested against the presence of federal troops, denying federal authority to send force except upon his gubernatorial request, inasmuch as maintaining order was a purely State province, and declaring his official ignorance of disorder warranting federal intervention.



Gov. John P. Altgeld.

Mr. Cleveland answered, appealing to the Constitution, federal laws, and the grave nature of the situation. United States power, he said, may and must whenever necessary, with or without request from State authorities, remove obstruction of the mails, execute process of the federal courts, and put down conspiracies against commerce between the States.

During the Pullman troubles, the judicial department of the United States Government, no less prompt or bold than the Executive, extended the equity power of injunction a step farther than precedents went. After 1887 United States tribunals construed the Interstate Commerce Law as authorizing injunctions against abandonment of trains by engineers. Early in 1894 a United States Circuit judge inhibited Northern Pacific workmen from striking in a body. For contempt of his injunctions during the Pullman strike Judge Woods sentenced Debs to six months' imprisonment and other arch-strikers to three months each under the so-called Anti-Trust Law.



Eugene V. Debs.

As infringing the right of trial by jury this course of adjudication aroused protest even in conservative quarters. Later, opposition to "government by injunction" became a tenet of the more radical Democracy. A bill providing for jury trials in instances of contempt not committed in the presence of the court commanded support from members of both parties in the Fifty-eighth Congress. Federal decisions upheld workingmen's right, in the absence of an express contract, to strike at will, although emphatically affirming the legitimacy of enjoining violent interference with railroads, and of enforcing the injunction by punishing for contempt.

Federal injunctions subsequently went farther still, as in the miners' strike of 1902 during which Judge Jackson of the United States District Court for Northern West Virginia, enjoined miners' meetings, ordering the miners, in effect, to cease agitating or promoting the strike by any means whatever, no matter how peaceful. Speech intended to produce strikes the judge characterized as the abuse of free speech, properly restrainable by courts. Refusing to heed the injunction, several strike leaders were sentenced to jail for contempt, periods varying from sixty to ninety days.

Late in July, 1894, the President appointed a commission to investigate the Pullman strike. The report of this body, alluding to the Managers' Association as a usurpation of powers not obtainable directly by the corporations concerned, recommended governmental control over quasi-public corporations, and even hinted at ultimate government ownership. They counselled some measure of compulsory arbitration, urged that labor unions should become incorporated, so as to be responsible bodies, and suggested the licensing of railway employees. The Massachusetts State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration was favorably mentioned in this report, and became the model for several like boards in various States.

The labor question and other problems excluded from public thought a change in our dealings with our Indian wards that should not be overlooked. Up to 1887 the Indian village communities could, under the law, hold land only in common. Individual Indians could not, without abandoning their tribes, become citizens of the United States. Such a legal status could not but discourage Indians' emergence from barbarism.

A better method was hinted at in an old Act of the Massachusetts General Court, passed so early as October, 1652.

"It is therefore ordered and enacted by this Court and the authority thereof, that what landes any of the Indians, within this jurisdiction, have by possession or improvement, by subdueing of the same, they have just right thereunto accordinge to that Gen: 1: 28, Chap. 9:1, Psa: 115, 16." This old legislation further provided that any Indians who became civilized might acquire land by allotment in the white settlements on the same terms as the English.

In 1887, the so-called "General Allotment" or "Dawes" Act, empowered the President to allot in severalty a quarter section to each head of an Indian family and to each other adult Indian one eighth of a section, as well as to provide for orphaned children and minors, the land to be held in trust by the United States for twenty-five years. The act further constituted any allottee or civilized Indian a citizen of the United States, subject to the civil and criminal laws of the place of his residence.

The Dawes Act was later so amended as to allot one-eighth of a section or more, if the reservation were large enough, to each member of a tribe. The amended law also regulated the descent of Indian lands, and provided for leases thereof with the approval of the Indian Department. This last provision was in instances twisted by white men to their advantage and to the Indians' loss; but on the whole the new system gave eminent satisfaction and promise.



CHAPTER IX.

NEWEST DIXIE

[1895]

The reader of this history is already aware how forces and events after the Civil War gradually evolved a New South, unlike the contemporary North, and differing still more, if possible, from ante-bellum Dixie. By 1900 this interesting situation had become quite pronounced. The picture here given is but an enlargement of that presented earlier—few features new, but many of them more salient, and the whole effect more impressive.

Harmony and good feeling between the capital sections of our country continued to manifest itself in striking ways, as by the dedication of a Confederate monument at Chicago, the gathering of the Grand Army of the Republic at Louisville, Ky., and the cordial fraternizing of Gray and Blue at the consecration of the Chickamauga-Chat-tanooga Military Park, on the spot where had occurred, perhaps, the fiercest fighting which ever shook United States ground.



The Chickamauga National Military Park. Group of monuments on knoll southwest of Snodgrass Hill.

The Atlanta Exposition, opening on September 18, 1895, epitomized the Newest South. The touch of an electric button by President Cleveland's little daughter, Marian, at his home on Buzzard's Bay, Mass., opened the gates and set the machinery awhirl. Atlanta was a city of but 100,000, hardly more than 60,000 of them whites, yet her Fair not only excelled the Atlanta Exposition of 1881, that at Louisville in 1883, and the New Orleans World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition of 1884-5, all which were highly successful, but in many features outdid even the Centennial at Philadelphia. The Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition at Nashville, in 1897, was another revelation. Its total expenditures, fully covered by receipts, were $1,087,227.85; its total admissions 1,886,714. On J. W. Thomas Day the attendance was within a few of 100,000. The exhibits were ample, and many of them strikingly unique. Few, even at the South, believed that the Southern States could set forth such displays. The fact that this was possible so soon after a devastating war, which had left the section in abject poverty, was a speaking compliment to the land and to the energy of those developing it.

The progress of most Southern communities was extraordinary. Agriculture, still too backward in methods and variety, gradually improved, gaining marked impetus and direction from the agricultural colleges planted in the several States by the aid of United States funds conveyed under the "Morrill" acts. The abominable system of store credit kept the majority of farmers, black and white, in servitude, but was giving way, partly to regular bank credit—a great improvement—and partly to cash transactions.



A grove of oranges and palmettoes near Ormond, Florida.

Florida came to the front as a lavish producer of tropical fruits. Winter was rarely known there. If it paid a visit now and then the State's sugar industry made up for the losses which frost inflicted upon her orange crop. The rich South Carolina rice plantations bade fair to be left behind by the new rice belt in Louisiana and Texas, a strip averaging thirty miles in width and extending from the Mississippi to beyond the Brazos, 400 miles. Improved methods of rice farming had transformed this region, earlier almost a waste, into one of the most productive areas in the country, attracting to it settlers from various parts of the North and West, and even from Scandinavia. Dairying, fruit and cattle-raising and market-gardening for northern markets, other new lines of enterprise, created wealth for multitudes. King Cotton was not dethroned to make way for these rivals, but increased his domain each decade.

In 1880 the value of farm products at the South exceeded by more than $200,000,000 that of the manufactured products there. In 1900 the case was nearly reversed: manufactures outvaluing farm products by over $190,000,000. During this decade the persons engaged in agriculture at the South increased in number 36 per cent., but the wage-earners in manufacturing multiplied more than four times as much, viz., 157 per cent. Each of these rates at the South was larger than the corresponding rate for the country. The same decade the capital which the South had invested in manufacturing increased 348 per cent., that of the whole United States only 252 per cent. The increase in manufactured products value was for the South 220 per cent., for the whole country only 142 per cent. The increase in farm property value was for the South 92 per cent., for the country only 67 per cent. The increase in farm products value was for the South 92 per cent.; for the whole United States it was greater, viz., 133 per cent.

Land at the South was boundlessly rich in unexploited resources. More than half the country's standing timber grew there, much of it hard wood and yellow pine. Quantities of phosphate rock, limestone, and gypsum were to be dug, also salt, aluminum, mica, topaz, and gold. Especially in Texas, petroleum sought release from vast underground reservoirs. The farmer did not lack for rain, the manufacturer for water-power, or the merchant for water transportation to keep down railroad rates.

The white Southerner, of purest Saxon-Norman blood, had the vigorous and comely physique of that race. Nowhere else in the land were the generality of white men and women so fine-looking. Easy circumstances had enabled them to become gracious as well, with the dignified and pleasing manners characterizing Southern society before the Civil War. High intelligence was another racial trait. The administration of the various Industrial Expositions named in this chapter required and evinced business ability of the highest order. During the quarter century succeeding reconstruction popular education developed even more astonishingly at the South than in the North or the West. Nothing could surpass the avidity with which young Southern men and women sought and utilized intellectual opportunities.

With few exceptions Southerners had become intensely loyal to the national ideal, faithfully abiding the arbitrament of the war, which alone, to their mind—but at any rate, finally and forever—overthrew the old doctrine that the Union was a compact among States, with liberty to each to secede at will.

Straightforwardness and intensity of purpose marked the Southern temper. If a county or a city voted "dry," practically all the whites aided to see the mandate enforced. The liquor traffic was thus regulated more stringently and prohibited more widely and effectively at the South than in any other part of the country. Even the lynchings occurring from time to time in some quarters, while atrocious and frowned upon by the best people, seemed due in most cases less to disregard for the spirit of the law than to distrust of legal methods and machinery. Indications multiplied, moreover, that this damning blot on Southern civilization would ere long disappear.

The most aggravating and insoluble perplexity which tormented the Southern people lay in dealing with the colored race. Sections of the so-called black belts still weltered in unthrift and decay, as in the darkest reconstruction days. These belts were three in number. The first, about a hundred miles wide, reached from Virginia and the Carolinas through the Gulf States to the watershed of the State of Mississippi. The second bordered the Mississippi from Tennessee to just above New Orleans, and extended up the Red River into Arkansas and Texas. A third region of negro preponderance covered fifteen counties of southern Texas.

In these tracts and elsewhere white political supremacy was maintained, as it had been regained, by the forms of law when possible; if not, then in some other way. The wisest negro leaders dismissed, as for the present a dream, all thought of political as of social equality between whites and blacks. Swarms of the colored, resigned to political impotence, were prolific of defective, pauper, and criminal population. Education, book-education at least, did not seem to improve them; many believed that it positively injured them, producing cunning and vanity rather than seriousness. This was perhaps the rule, though there were many noble exceptions. In 1892, while the proportion of vicious negroes seemed to be increasing in cities and large towns, it was almost to a certainty decreasing in rural districts—improvement due in good part to enforced temperance.

A conference on the negro and the South opened at Montgomery May 8, 1900. Many able and fair-minded men participated, representing various attitudes, parties, and sections of the country. Limitation of the colored franchise, the proper sort of education for negroes, the evils of "social equality" agitation, and the causes and frequency of lynching were the main subjects discussed. The consensus of opinion seemed to be that for "the negro, on account of his inherent mental and emotional instability," acquirement of the franchise should be less easy than for whites. It was maintained that the industrially trained colored men became leaders among their people, commanding the respect of both races and acquiring much property, yet that ex-slaves, rather than the younger, educated set, formed the bulk of colored property-holders. Figures revealed among the colored population a frightful increase of illegitimacy and of flagrant crimes. It seemed that crimes against women, almost unknown before the war but now increasing at an alarming rate, proceeded not from ex-slaves, but from the smart new generation. Lynching for these offences was by some excused in that negroes would not assist in bringing colored perpetrators to justice, and in that a spectacular mode of punishment affected negroes more deeply than the slow process of law, even when this issued in conviction. The severer utterances at this conference may have been more or less biased; still, if, allowing for this, one considered the data available for forming a judgment, one was forced to feel that calm Southerners had apprehended the case better than Northern enthusiasts. Colored people as a class lacked devotion to principle, also initiative and endurance, whether mental or physical. Colored deputies, of whom there were many in various parts of the South, so long as they acted under white chiefs, were, like most colored soldiers, marvels of bravery, defying revolvers, bowie knives, and wounds, and fighting to the last gasp with no sign of flinching; but the black men who could be trusted as sheriffs-in-chief were extremely rare.

Whether the faults named were strictly hereditary or resulted rather from the long-continued ill education and environment of the race, none could certainly tell. As a matter of fact, however, few even among friendly critics longer regarded these faults as entirely eliminable. A well qualified and wholly unbiased judge of negro character gave it as emphatically his opinion that any autonomous community of colored people, no matter how highly educated or civilized, would relapse into barbarism in the course of two generations. This view was not rendered absurd by the existence of fairly well administered municipalities here and there with negro mayors. Many negroes were extremely bright and apt in imitation, also in all memoriter and linguistic work. The New Orleans Cotton Centennial and the Nashville Exposition each had its negro department. But it was distinctive of the Atlanta Fair that one of its buildings was entirely devoted to exhibits of negro handicraft. At once in range and in the quality of the objects which it embraced, the display was creditable to the race. Here and there, moreover, the race had produced a grand character. The most notable of the opening addresses at the Atlanta Fair was made by the colored educator, Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for negro youth.



Booker T. Washington.

His oration on this occasion directed attention to Mr. Washington not only as a remarkable negro, but as a remarkable man. Born poor as could be and fighting his way to an education against every conceivable obstacle, he had at the age of forty distinguished himself as a business organizer, as an educator, as a writer, and as, a public speaker. His modesty, discretion, and industry were phenomenal, at once constituting him a leader of his race and rendering his leadership valuable. He eschewed politics, avoided in everything the demagogue's ways, and never spoke ill of the whites, not even of Southern whites.

But, unfortunately, a great negro such as Washington stood like a mountain in a marsh, sporadic and solitary.



The Atlanta Exposition. Entrance to the Art Building.

Save in West Virginia, Florida, and the black belts the whites at the South increased more swiftly than the blacks. Certain of what Malthus called the "positive checks" upon population—viz., diseases, mainly syphilis, typhoid, and consumption—decimated the negroes everywhere. Colored population drifted from the country to cities, which probably accounted for the fact that in 1890 more negroes lived in the North than ever before. In the South itself, on the other hand, the movement of colored population was southward and westward, from the highlands to the lowlands, so that Kentucky, along with western Virginia, northeastern Mississippi, and rural parts of Maryland, North Alabama, and eastern Virginia, had, in 1890, fewer colored inhabitants than ten years previous.

These confusing data explain why few were rash enough to prophesy the fate of the American negro. Such predictions as were heard, were, in the main, little hopeful. Colonization abroad was no resource. In 1895 the International Immigration Society shipped 300 negroes to Liberia, and in 1897 the Central Labor Union of New York 311 more, but no movement of the kind could be set going. In fact, the one certainty touching the American negroes' future was that they would remain in the United States.

From 1870 to 1880 the percentage of negroes to the total population had increased, but a century had reduced this ratio from 19.3 per cent. to 12 per cent. The climatic area where black men had any advantage over white in the struggle for life was less than eight per cent. of the country. White laborers competed more and more sharply. The paternal affection of the old slave-holding generation toward negroes was not inherited by the makers of the New South.

There was one hopeful force at work—Booker Washington at Tuskegee, in the very heart of the Alabama black belt. His personality, his example, his ideas were inspiring. He bade his race to expect improvement in its condition not from any political party nor from Northern benevolence, but from its own advance in industry and character. His great and successful college at Tuskegee, with an enrolment of 1,231 students in 1889, gave much impetus to industrial education among the blacks, turning in that direction educational interest and energy which had previously found vent to too great an extent, relatively, in providing negro students with mere literary training. The Slater-Armstrong Memorial Trades' Building, dedicated January 10, 1890, was erected and finished by the students practically alone. At least three-fourths of those receiving instruction at this school pursued, after leaving, the industries learned there.

The color line had ceased to be sectional. In 1900 mobs in New York City and Akron, Ohio, baited black citizens with barbarity little less than that of the worst Southern lynchings. Texas courts the same year affirmed negroes' right to serve as jurymen. After 1900 one noticed in several Southern States a tendency to oust negroes from official connection even with the Republican party, each State organization affecting to be "Lily-White." The Administration seemed to favor this movement by appointing liberal Democrats at the South to federal offices, allying such, in a way, with the Republican cause. This helped make President Roosevelt popular at the South, spite of the criticism with which the press there greeted his entertainment of Booker T. Washington at the White House. When he visited the Exposition at Charleston, December, 1901-May, 1902, he was enthusiastically received.



CHAPTER X.

THE MEN AND THE ISSUE IN 1896

[1890-1896]

Early in 1896 it became clear that the dominant issue of the presidential campaign would be the resumption by the United States of silver-dollar free coinage. Agitation for this, hushed only for a moment by the passage of the Bland Act, had been going on ever since demonetization in 1873. The fall in prices, which the new output of gold had not yet begun to arrest; the money stringency since 1893; the insecure, bond-supplied gold reserve, and the repeal of the silver-purchase clause in the Sherman Act combined to produce a wish for increase in the nation's hard-money supply. Had the climax of fervor synchronized with an election day, a free-coinage President might have been elected.

Only the Populists were a unit in favoring free coinage. Recent Republican and Democratic platforms had been phrased with Delphic genius to suit the East and West at once. The best known statesmen of both parties had "wobbled" upon the question. The Republican party contained a large element favorable to silver, while the Democratic President, at least, had boldly and steadfastly exerted himself to establish the gold standard.



Senator Teller of Colorado.

Realignment of forces begot queer alliances between party foes, lasting bitterness between party fellows. Even the Prohibitionists, who held the first convention, were riven into "narrow-gauge" and "broad-gauge," the latter in a rump convention incorporating a free-coinage plank into their creed. If the Republicans kept their ranks closed better than the Democrats, this was largely due to the prominence they gave to protection, attacked by the Wilson-Gorman Act.



Senator Cannon.

Their convention sat at St. Louis, June 16th. It was an eminently business-like body, even its enthusiasm and applause wearing the air of discipline. In making the platform, powerful efforts for a catch-as-catch-could declaration upon the silver question succumbed to New England's and New York's demand for an unequivocal statement. The party "opposed the free coinage of silver except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world." . . . "Until such agreement can be obtained, the existing gold standard must be preserved." Senator Teller, of Colorado, moved a substitute favoring "the free, unrestricted, and independent coinage of gold and silver at our mints at the ratio of 16 parts of silver to 1 of gold." It was at once tabled by a vote of 818-1/2 to 105-1/2. The rest of the platform having been adopted, Senator Cannon, of Utah, read a protest against the money plank, which recited the evils of falling prices as discouraging industry and threatening perpetual servitude of American producers to consumers in creditor nations.

Then occurred a dramatic scene, the first important bolt from a Republican convention since 1872. "Accepting the present fiat of the convention as the present purpose of the party," Teller shook hands with the chairman, and, tears streaming down his face, left the convention, accompanied by Cannon and twenty other delegates, among them two entire State delegations. Senators Mantle, of Montana, and Brown, of Utah, though remaining, protested against the convention's financial utterance.

The Republican platform lauded protection and reciprocity, favored annexing the Hawaiian Islands, and the building, ownership, and operation of the Nicaragua Canal by the United States. It reasserted the Monroe Doctrine "in its full extent," expressed sympathy for Cuban patriots, and bespoke United States influence and good offices to give Cuba peace and independence.



Garret A. Hobart, Vice-President. Copyright,1899, by Pack Bros., N. Y.

The first ballot, by a majority of over two-thirds, nominated for the presidency William McKinley, Jr., of Ohio, the nomination being at once made unanimous. Garret A. Hobart, of New Jersey, was nominated for Vice-President.

William McKinley, Jr., was born at Niles, Ohio, January 29, 1843, of Scotch-Irish stock. In 1860 he entered Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa., but ill health compelled him to leave. He taught school. For a time he was a postal clerk at Poland, Ohio. At the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted as a private in Company E, 23d Ohio Infantry, the regiment with which William S. Rosecrans, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Stanley Matthews were connected. Successive promotions attended his gallant and exemplary services. He shared every engagement in which his regiment took part, was never absent on sick leave, and had only one short furlough. A month before the assassination of President Lincoln McKinley was commissioned a major by brevet.

After the war Major McKinley studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1867, settling in Canton, Ohio. In 1876 he made his debut in Congress, where he served with credit till 1890, when, owing partly to a gerrymander and partly to the unpopular McKinley Bill, he was defeated by the narrow margin of 300 votes. As Governor of Ohio and as a public speaker visiting every part of the country, McKinley was more and more frequently mentioned in connection with the presidency.

The nomination was a happy one. No other could have done so much to unite the party. Not only had Mr. McKinley's political career been honorable, he had the genius of manly affability, drawing people to him instead of antagonizing them. Republicans who could not support the platform, in numbers gave fealty to the candidate as a true man, devoted to their protective tenets, and a "friend of silver."

The Democratic convention sat at Chicago July 7th to 10th. Though Administration and Eastern Democratic leaders had long been working to stem free coinage sentiment, this seemed rather to increase. By July 1st, in thirty-three of the fifty States and Territories, Democratic platforms had declared for free coinage. The first test of strength in the convention overruled the National Committee's choice of David B. Hill for temporary chairman, electing Senator Daniel, of Virginia, by nearly a two-thirds vote. The silver side was then added to by unseating and seating.

Hot fights took place over planks which the minority thought unjust to the Administration or revolutionary. The income-tax plank drew the heaviest fire, but was nailed to the platform in spite of this. It attacked the Supreme Court for reversing precedents in order to declare that tax unconstitutional, and suggested the possibility of another reversal by the same court "as it may hereafter be constituted."

The platform assailed "government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of oppression, by which federal judges in contempt of the laws of the States and the rights of citizens become at once legislators, judges, and executioners."

Attention having been called to the demonetization of silver in 1873 and to the consequent fall of prices and the growing onerousness of debts and fixed charges, gold monometallism was indicted as the cause "which had locked fast the prosperity of an industrial people in the paralysis of hard times" and brought the United States into financial servitude to London. Demand was therefore made for "the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation." Practically the entire management of the Treasury under Mr. Cleveland was condemned.



The McKinley-Hobart Parade Passing the Reviewing Stand, New York, October 31, 1896.

The platform being read, Hill, of New York, Vilas, of Wisconsin, and ex-Governor Russell, of Massachusetts, spoke. William J. Bryan, of Nebraska, was called upon to reply. In doing so he made the memorable "cross of gold" speech, which more than aught else determined his nomination. In a musical but penetrating voice, that chained the attention of all listeners, he sketched the growth of the free-silver belief and prophesied its triumph. While, shortly before, the Democratic cause was desperate, now McKinley, famed for his resemblance to Napoleon, and nominated on the anniversary of Waterloo, seemed already to hear the waves lashing the lonely shores of St. Helena. The gold standard, he said, not any "threat" of silver, disturbed business. The wage-worker, the farmer, and the miner were as truly business men as "the few financial magnates who in a dark room corner the money of the world." "We answer the demand for the gold standard by saying, 'You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!'"



Bryan Speaking from the Rear End of a Train.

Sixteen members of the Resolutions Committee presented a minority report criticising majority declarations. As a substitute for the silver plank they offered a declaration similar to that of the Republican convention. In a further plank they commended the Administration. The substitute money plank was lost 301 to 628, and the resolution of endorsement 357 to 564. No delegates withdrew, but a more formidable bolt than shook the Republican convention here expressed itself silently. In the subsequent proceedings 162 delegates, including all of New York's 72, 45 of New England's 77, 18 of New Jersey's 20, and 19 of Wisconsin's 24 took no part whatever.

Before Bryan spoke, a majority of the silver delegates probably favored Hon. Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, father of the Bland Act, as the presidential candidate, but the first balloting showed a change. Upon the fifth ballot Bryan received 500 votes, a number which changes before the result was announced increased to the required two-thirds. Arthur Sewall, of Maine, was the nominee for Vice-President.

Mr. Bryan, then barely thirty-six, was the youngest man ever nominated for the presidency. He was born in Salem, Ill., March 19, 1860. His father was a man of note, having served eight years in the Illinois Senate, and afterwards upon the circuit bench. Young Bryan passed his youth on his father's farm, near Salem, and at Illinois College, Jacksonville, where he graduated in 1881 with oratorical honors. Having read law in Chicago, and in 1887 been admitted to the bar, he removed to Lincoln, Neb., and began practising law.

Mr. Bryan was inclined to politics, and his singular power on the platform drew attention to him as an available candidate. In 1890 he was elected to Congress as a Democrat. He served two terms, declining a third nomination. In 1894 he became editor of the Omaha World-Herald, but later resumed the practice of law.

In Nebraska, as in some other Western States, Republicans so outnumbered Democrats that Populist aid was indispensable in any State or congressional contest. In 1892 it had been eagerly courted on Cleveland's behalf. Bryan had helped in consummating fusion between Populism and Democracy in Nebraska. This occasioned the unjust charge that he was no Democrat. The allegation gained credence when the Populist national convention at St. Louis placed him at the head of its ticket, refusing at the same time to accept Sewall, choosing instead a typical Southern Populist, Thomas Watson, of Georgia.



Arthur Sewall.

To Southern Populists Democrats were more execrable than Republicans. Westerners of that faith were jealous of Sewall as an Eastern man and rich. Too close union with Democracy threatened Populism with extinction. Rightly divining that their leaders wished such a "merger," the Populist rank and file insisted on nominating their candidate for the vice-presidency first. Bryan was made head of the ticket next day. The silver Republicans acclaimed the whole Democratic ticket, Sewall as well as Bryan.



Ex-Senator Palmer.

The Democratic opponents of the "Chicago Democracy" determined to place in the field a "National" or "Gold" Democratic ticket. A convention for this purpose met in Indianapolis, September 3d. The Indianapolis Democrats lauded the gold standard and a non-governmental currency as historic Democratic doctrines, endorsed the Administration, and assailed the Chicago income-tax plank. Ex-Senator Palmer, of Illinois, and Simon E. Buckner, of Kentucky, were nominated to run upon this platform, Gold Democrats who could not in conscience vote for a Republican here found their refuge.

Parties were now seriously mixed. Thousands of Western Republicans declared for Bryan; as many or more Eastern Democrats for McKinley. Party newspapers bolted. In Detroit the Republican Journal supported Bryan, the Democratic Free Press came out against him. Not a few from both sides "took to the woods"; while many, to be "regular," laid inconvenient convictions on the table.



Simon E. Buckner.

The campaign was fierce beyond parallel. Neither candidate's character could be assailed, but the motives governing many of their followers were. Catchwords like "gold bug" and "popocrat" flew back and forth. The question-begging phrase "sound money"—both parties professed to wish "sound money"—did effective partisan service. Neither party's deepest principles were much discussed. Many gold people assumed as beyond controversy that free coinage would drive gold from the country and wreck public credit. Advocates of silver too little heeded the consequences which the mere fear of those evils must entail, impatiently classing such as mentioned them among bond-servants to the money power.

So great was the fear of free silver in financial circles, corporations voted money to the huge Republican campaign fund. The opposition could tap no such mine. Never before had a national campaign seen the Democratic party so abandoned by Democrats of wealth, or with so slender a purse.

Nor was this the worst. Had Mr. Bryan been able through the campaign to maintain the passionate eloquence of his Chicago speech, or the lucid logic of that with which at Madison Square Garden he opened the campaign, he would still not have succeeded in sustaining "more hard money" ardor at its mid-summer pitch. His eloquence, indeed, in good degree continued, but the level of his argument sank. Instead of championing the cause of producers, whether rich or poor, against mere money-changers, which he might have done with telling effect, he more and more fell to the tone of one speaking simply against all the rich, an attitude which repelled multitudes who possessed neither wealth nor much sympathy for the wealthy.

Save for one short trip to Cleveland the Republican candidate did not, during the campaign, leave Canton, though from his doorstep he spoke to visiting hordes. His opponent, in the course of the most remarkable campaigning tour ever made by a candidate, preached free coinage to millions. The immense number of his addresses; their effectiveness, notwithstanding the slender preparation possible for most of them severally; the abstract nature of his subject when argued on its merits, as it usually was by him; and the strain of his incessant journeys evinced a power in the man which was the amazement of everyone.

Spite of all this, as election day drew near, the feeling rose that it post-dated by at least two months all possibility of a Democratic victory. Republicans' limitless resources, steady discipline, and ceaseless work told day by day. They polled, of the popular vote, 7,104,244; the combined Bryan forces, 6,506,853; the Gold Democracy, 134,652; the Prohibitionists, 144,606; and the Socialists, 36,416.



CHAPTER XI.

MR. McKINLEY'S ADMINISTRATION

[1897-1899]

The Nestor of the original McKinley Cabinet was John Sherman, who left his Senate seat to the swiftly rising Hanna that he himself might devote his eminent but failing powers to the Secretaryship of State. Upon the outbreak of the Spanish War he was succeeded by William R. Day, who had been Assistant Secretary. In 1898 Day in turn resigned, when Ambassador John Hay was called to the place from the Court of St. James. The Treasury went to Lyman J. Gage, a distinguished Illinois banker. Mr. Gage was a Democrat, and this appointment was doubtless meant as a recognition of the Gold Democracy's aid in the campaign. General Russell A. Alger, of Michigan, took charge of the War Department, holding it till July 19, 1899, after which Elihu Root was installed. Postmaster-General James A. Gary, of Maryland, resigned the same month with Sherman, giving place to Charles Emory Smith, of the Philadelphia Press. The Navy portfolio fell to John D. Long, of Massachusetts; that of the Interior to Cornelius N. Bliss, of New York; that of Agriculture to James Wilson, of Iowa. In December, 1898, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, of Missouri, succeeded Bliss.



John Sherman.



Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the Treasury.



John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy.



Cornelius N. Bliss, Secretary of the Interior.



Russell A. Alger, Secretary of War.

Fortunately for the new Chief Magistrate, who had been announced as the "advance agent of prosperity," the year 1897 brought a revival of business. This was due in part to the end, at least for the time, of political suspense and agitation, in part to the confidence which capitalists felt in the new Administration.

The money stringency, too, now began to abate. The annual output of the world's gold mines, which had for some years been increasing, appeared to have terminated the fall of general prices, prevalent almost incessantly since 1873. Moreover, continued increase seemed assured, not only by the invention of new processes, which made it lucrative to work tailings and worn-out mines, but also by the discovery of several rich auriferous tracts hitherto unknown.



James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture.



Postmaster-General Gary. From a copyrighted photo by Clinedinst.

The valley of the Yukon, in Alaska and the adjacent British territory, had long been known to contain gold, but none suspected there a bonanza like the South African Rand. In the six months' night of 1896-1897 an old squaw-man made an unprecedented strike upon the Klondike (Thron-Duick or Tondak) River, 2,000 miles up the Yukon. By spring all his neighbors had staked rich claims. Next July $2,000,000 worth of gold came south by one shipment, precipitating a rush to the inhospitable mining regions hardly second to the California migration of 1849.

Latter-day Argonauts, not dismayed by the untold dangers and hardships in store, toiled up the Yukon, or, swarming over the precipitous Chilcoot Pass, braved, too often at cost of life, the boiling rapids to be passed in descending the Upper Yukon to the gold fields. Later the easier and well-wooded White Pass was found, traversed, at length, by a railroad. In October, 1898, the Cape Nome coast, north of the Yukon mouth, uncovered its riches, whereupon treasure-seekers turned thither their attention, even from the Yukon.

Little lawlessness pestered the gold settlements. The Dominion promptly despatched to Dawson a body of her famous mounted police. Our Government, more tardily, made its authority felt from St. Michaels, near the Yukon mouth, all the way to the Canadian border. On June 6, 1900, Alaska was constituted a civil and judicial district, with a governor, whose functions were those of a territorial governor. When necessary the miners themselves formed tribunals and meted out a rough-and-ready justice.



Rush of Miners to the Yukon. The City of Caches at the Summit of Chilcoot Pass.

The rush of miners to the middle Yukon gold region, which, together with certain ports and waters on the way thither, were claimed by both the United States and Great Britain, made acute the question of the true boundary between Alaskan and British territory.

In 1825 Great Britain and Russia, the latter then owning Alaska, agreed by treaty to separate their respective possessions by a line commencing at the southernmost point of Prince of Wales Island and running along Portland Channel to the continental coast at 56 degrees north latitude. North of that degree the boundary was to run along mountain summits parallel to the coast until it intersected the 141st meridian west longitude, which was then to be followed to the frozen ocean. In case any of the summits mentioned should be more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the line was to parallel the coast, and be never more than ten marine leagues therefrom.

When it became important to determine and mark the boundary in a more exact manner, Great Britain advanced two new claims; first, that the "Portland Channel" mentioned in the Russo-British treaty was not the channel now known by that name, but rather Behm Channel, next west, or Clarence Straits; and, secondly, that the ten-league limit should be measured from the outer rim of the archipelago skirting Alaska, and not from the mainland coast. If conceded, these claims would add to the Canadian Dominion about 29,000 square miles, including 100 miles of sea-coast, with harbors like Lynn Channel and Tahko Inlet, several islands, vast mining, fishery, and timber resources, as well as Juneau City, Revilla, and Fort Tongass, theretofore undisputably American.

In September, 1898, a joint high commission sat at Quebec and canvassed all moot matters between the two countries, among them that of the Alaska boundary. It adjourned, however, without settling the question, though a temporary and provisional understanding was reached and signed October 20, 1899.

The commissioners gave earnest attention to the sealing question, which had been plaguing the United States ever since the Paris arbitration tribunal upset Secretary Blaine's contention that Bering Sea was mare clausum. Upon that tribunal's decision the modus vivendi touching seals lapsed, and Canadians, with renewed and ruthless zeal, plied seal-killing upon the high seas. Dr. David S. Jordan, American delegate to the 1896-1897 Conference of Fur-Seal Experts, estimated that the American seal herd had shrunken 15 per cent. in 1896, and that a full third of that year's pups, orphaned by pelagic sealing, had starved. Reckoning from the beginning of the industry and in round numbers, he estimated that 400,000 breeding females had been slaughtered, that 300,000 pups had perished for want of nourishment, and that 400,000 unborn pups had died with their dams. This estimate disregarded the multitude of females lost after being speared or shot. Dr. Jordan predicted the not distant extinction of the fur-seal trade unless protective measures should be forthwith devised. British experts questioned some of his conclusions, but admitted the need of restriction upon pelagic sealing.

The McKinley Administration besought Great Britain for a suspension of seal-killing during 1897. After a delay of four months the Foreign Office replied that it was too late to stop the sealers that year. In a rather undiplomatic note, dated May 10, 1897, Secretary Sherman charged dilatory and evasive conduct upon this question. The retort was that the American Government was seeking to embarrass British subjects in pursuing lawful vocations.

Moved by Canada, Great Britain recanted her offer to join the United States, Russia, and Japan in a complete system of sealing regulations. The three countries last named thereupon agreed with each other to suspend pelagic sealing so long as expert opinion declared it necessary to the continued existence of the seals. The Canadians declined to consider suspension save on the condition that the owners of sealing vessels should receive compensation. In December, the same year (1897), our Government ordered confiscated and destroyed all sealskins brought to our ports not accompanied with invoices signed by the United States Consul at the place of exportation, certifying that they were not taken at sea. This cut off the Canadians' best market and so far diminished their activity; but pelagic sealing still continued, under the inefficient Paris regulations, and the herd went on diminishing.

That these Canadian controversies left so little sting, but were followed by closer and closer rapprochement between the United States and Great Britain, was fortunate in view of the failure of the Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty. This had been negotiated by Mr. Cleveland's able Secretary of State, Hon. Richard Olney, and represented the best ethical thought of both nations. President McKinley endorsed it, but it fell short of a two-thirds Senatorial vote.

On June 16, 1897, a treaty was signed annexing the Hawaiian Republic to the United States. The Government of Hawaii speedily ratified this, but it encountered in the United States Senate such buffets that after a year it was withdrawn, and a resolution to the same end introduced in both Houses. A majority in each chamber would annex, while the treaty method would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate. The resolution provided for the assumption by the United States of the Hawaiian debt up to $4,000,000. Our Chinese Exclusion Law was extended to the islands, and Chinese immigration thence to the continental republic prohibited. The joint resolution passed July 6, 1898, a majority of the Democrats and several Republicans, among these Speaker Reed, opposing. Shelby M. Cullom, John T. Morgan, Robert R. Hitt, Sanford B. Dole, and Walter F. Frear, made commissioners by its authority, drafted a territorial form of government, which became law April 30, 1900.

Pursuant to the platform pledge of his party President McKinley early in his term appointed Edward O. Wolcott, Adlai E. Stevenson, and Charles J. Paine special envoys to the Powers in the interest of international bi-metallism. The mission was mentioned with smiles by gold men and with sneers by silver men, yet the cordial cooperation of France made it for a time seem hopeful. The British Cabinet, too, were not ill-disposed, pointing out that while Great Britain herself must retain the gold standard, they earnestly wished a stable ratio between silver and gold on British India's account. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Chancellor of the Exchequer, had little doubt that if a solid international agreement could be reached India would reopen her mints to silver. But the Indian Council unanimously declined to do this. The Bank of England was at first disposed to accept silver as part of its reserve, a course which the law permitted; but a storm of protests from the "city banks" dismayed the directors into withdrawal. Lacking England's cooperation the mission, like its numerous predecessors, came to naught.

In Civil Service administration Mr. McKinley took one long and unfortunate step backward. The Republican platform, adopted after Mr. Cleveland's extension of the merit system, emphatically endorsed this, as did Mr. McKinley himself. Against extreme pressure, particularly in the War Department, the President bravely stood out till May 29, 1899. His order of that date withdrew from the classified service 4,000 or more positions, removed 3,500 from the class theretofore filled through competitive examination or an orderly practice of promotion, and placed 6,416 more under a system drafted by the Secretary of War. The order declared regular a large number of temporary appointments made without examination, besides rendering eligible, as emergency appointees, without examination, thousands who had served during the Spanish War.

Republicans pointed to the deficit under the Wilson Law with much the same concern manifested by President Cleveland in 1888 over the surplus. A new tariff law must be passed, and, if possible, before a new Congressional election. An extra session of Congress was therefore summoned for March 15, 1897. The Ways and Means Committee, which had been at work for three months, forthwith reported through Chairman Nelson Dingley the bill which bore his name. With equal promptness the Committee on Rules brought in a rule, at once adopted by the House, whereby the new bill, spite of Democratic pleas for time to examine, discuss, and propose amendments, reached the Senate the last day of March. More deliberation marked procedure in the Senate. This body passed the bill after toning up its schedules with some 870 amendments, most of which pleased the Conference Committee and became law. The Act was signed by the President July 24, 1897.



Nelson Dingley.

The Dingley Act was estimated by its author to advance the average rate from the 40 per cent. of the Wilson Bill to approximately 50 per cent., or a shade higher than the McKinley rate. As proportioned to consumption the tax imposed by it was probably heavier than that under either of its predecessors.



Warships in the Hudson River Celebrating the Dedication of Grant's Tomb, April 27, 1897.

Reciprocity, a feature of the McKinley Tariff Act, was suspended by the Wilson Act. The Republican platform of 1896 declared protection and reciprocity twin measures of Republican policy. Clauses graced the Dingley Act allowing reciprocity treaties to be made, "duly ratified" by the Senate and "approved" by Congress; yet, of the twins, protection proved stout and lusty, while the weaker sister languished. Under the third section of the Act some concessions were given and received, but the treaties negotiated under the fourth section, which involved lowering of strictly protective duties, met summary defeat when submitted to the Senate.



Grant's Tomb, Riverside Drive, New York. Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.

The granite mausoleum in Riverside Park, New York City, designed to receive the remains of General Grant, was completed in 1897, and upon the 27th of April, that year, formally presented to the city. Ten days previously the body had been removed thither from the brick tomb where it had reposed since August 8, 1885. Four massive granite piers, with rows of Doric columns between, supported the roof and the obtuse cone of the cupola, which rested upon a great circle of Ionic pillars. The interior was cruciform. In the centre was the crypt, where, upon a square platform, rested the red porphyry sarcophagus. From the mausoleum summit, 150 feet above, the eye swept the Hudson for miles up and down.

The presentation day procession was headed by the presidential party. The Governor of New York State, the Mayor of the city, and the United States diplomatic corps were prominent. Other distinguished guests attended, including Union and Confederate Veterans. The entire procession reached six miles. There were 53,500 participants, military and civil, and 160 bands of music. At the same time, in majestic column upon the Hudson, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Spain joined, with men-of-war, our North Atlantic squadron, saluting the President as he passed.

The exercises at the tomb were simple. Bishop Newman offered prayer. "America" was sung. President McKinley delivered an address of eulogy. General Horace Porter gave the mausoleum into the city's keeping, a trust which Mayor Strong in a few words accepted.



CHAPTER XII.

THE WAR WITH SPAIN

[1895-1898]

How early Cuban discontent with Spain's rule became vocal is not known. An incipient revolt in 1766 was ruthlessly put down. Though the "Ever Faithful Isle" did not rebel with the South American colonies under Bolivar, it was never at rest, as attested by the servile revolts of 1794 and 1844, the "Black Eagle" rebellion of 1829, and the ten-years' insurrection beginning in 1868. In 1894-1895, just as "Home Rule for Cuba" had become a burning issue in Spain, martial law was proclaimed in Havana, precipitating the last and successful revolution.

American interest in the island, material and otherwise, was great. The barbarity and devastation marking the wars made a strong appeal to our humane instincts; nor could Americans be indifferent to a neighboring people struggling to be free. The suppression of filibustering expeditions taxed our Treasury and our patience. Equally embarrassing were the operations of Cuban juntas from our ports. To solve the complex difficulty Presidents Polk, Buchanan, and Grant had each in his time vainly sought to purchase the island. The Virginius outrage during Grant's incumbency brought us to the very verge of war, prevented only by the almost desperate resistance of Secretary Hamilton Fish.



Governor-General Weyler.

When the final rebellion was under way the humane Governor-General Martinez Campos was succeeded by General Weyler, ordered to down the rebellion at all costs. Numberless buildings were burnt and plantations destroyed, the insurgents retaliating in kind. Non-combatants were huddled in concentration camps, where half their number perished. American citizens were imprisoned without trial. One, Dr. Ruiz, died under circumstances occasioning strong suspicions of foul play.

President Cleveland, while willing to mediate between Spain and the Cubans, preserved a neutral attitude, refusing to recognize the insurgents even as belligerents, though they possessed all rural Cuba save one province. Only when about to quit office did Mr. Cleveland hint at intervention.

Soon after McKinley's accession an anarchist shot Premier Canovas, when Sagasta, his Liberal successor, promised Cuba reform and home rule. Weyler was succeeded by Blanco, who revoked concentration, proclaimed amnesty, and set on foot an autonomist government. Americans were loosed from prison. Clara Barton, of the American Red Cross Society, hastened with supplies to the relief of the wretched reconcentrados, turned loose upon a waste. Spain, too, appropriated a large sum for reconcentrado relief, promising implements, seed, and other means for restoring ruined homes and plantations.



Copyright. 1898, by F. C. Hemment. U. S. Battleship Maine Entering the Harbor of Havana, January, 1898.

But the iron had entered the Cuban's soul. The belligerents rejected absolutely the offers of autonomy, demanding independence. The "pacificos" were no better off than before, and relations between the United States and Spain grew steadily more strained. Two incidents precipitated a crisis.

A letter by the Spanish Minister at Washington, Senor de Lome, was intercepted and published, holding President McKinley up as a time-serving politician. De Lome forestalled recall by resigning; yet his successor, Polo y Bernabe, could not fail to note on arriving in Washington a chill diplomatic atmosphere.



Wreck of U. S. Battleship Maine. Photograph by F. C. Hemment.

In January, 1898, the United States battleship Maine was on a friendly visit at Havana, where she was received with the greatest courtesy, being taken to her harbor berth by the Spanish government pilot. At 9.40 on the evening of February 15th, the harbor air was rent by a tremendous explosion. Where the Maine had been, only a low shapeless hump was distinguishable. The splendid vessel, with officers and crew on board to the number of 355, had sunk, a wreck. Of the 355, 253 never saw day.

Strong suspicions gained prevalence that this was a deed of Spanish treachery, or attributable, at the very least, to criminal indifference on the part of the authorities. Some alleged positive connivance by Spanish officials. War fever ran high. When, five days later, the Spanish cruiser Vizcaya visited New York City, it was thought well to accord her special protection. March, 9th, Congress placed in the President's hands $50,000,000 to be used for national defence. The 21st, a naval court of inquiry confirmed the view that the Maine disaster was due to the explosion of a submarine mine. War fever became a fire. "Remember the Maine" echoed up and down and across the land, the words uttered with deep earnestness.

The war spirit welded North and South, permeating the Democracy even more than the party in power. Democrats would have at once recognized the Cuban Republic. This was at first the attitude of the Senate, which, upon deliberation, wisely forbore. It, however, on April 20th, joined the House in declaring the people of Cuba free and independent, adding that Spain must forthwith relinquish her authority there. The President was authorized to use the nation's entire army, navy, and militia to enforce withdrawal. This was in effect a declaration of war. Minister Woodford, at Madrid, received his passports; as promptly Bernabe withdrew to Montreal. April 23d, 125,000 volunteers were called out. April 26th an increase of the regular army to some 62,000 was authorized. Soon came a call for 75,000 more volunteers. Responses from all the States flooded the War Department.

Bow of the Spanish Cruiser Almirante Oquendo. From a Photograph by F. C. Hemment. Copyright, 1898, by W. R. Hearst.



The Landing at Daiquiri. Transports in the Offing.



Captain Charles E. Clark.

Spain, ruled by a clique of privileged Catalonians, groaned under all the oppressiveness of militarism, with none of its power. Plagued by Carlism and anarchy at home, she was grappling, at tremendous outlay, with two rebellions abroad. Yet all her many parties cried for war. Popular subscriptions were taken to aid the impoverished treasury; reserves were called out; in Cuba, Blanco summoned all able-bodied men. The navy was supplemented by ships purchased wherever hands could be laid upon them.



After Deck on the Oregon, Showing Two 13-inch, Four 8-inch, and Two 6-inch Guns. Copyright. 1899. by Strohmeyer & Wyman.

Owing to the parsimony of Congress, our equipment for a large army, or even for our 25,000 regulars, if they were to go on a tropical campaign, was totally inadequate. Our artillery had no smokeless powder. Many infantry regiments came to camp armed with nothing but enthusiasm. No khaki cloth for uniforms was to be had in the country. Canvas had to be taken from that provided by the Post-Office Department for repairing mail bags. While the utmost possible at short notice was done with the just voted $50,000,000 defence fund, the comprehensive system of fortifications long before designed had hardly been begun. The navy had been treated least illiberally; still the construction budget had been so cut that only a few of the proposed vessels had been transferred from paper to the sea.



Blockhouse on San Juan Hill.

The United States navy which did exist was a noble one. Both its ships and their crews were as fine as any afloat. Had the Spanish navy been manned like ours the two would have been of about equal strength. Ours boasted the more battleships, but Spain had several new and first-rate armored cruisers, besides a flotilla of swift torpedo boats. The Spaniards were, however, poor gunners, clumsy sailors, awkward and careless mechanics; while American gunners had a deadly aim, and spared no skill or pains in the care or handling of their ships.

American superiority in these points was tellingly proved by the Oregon's unprecedented run from ocean to ocean. Before hostilities she was ordered from San Francisco, via Cape Horn to join the Atlantic squadron. The long, hard, swift trip was made without the break of a bar or the loosening of a bolt, a result which attracted expert notice abroad as attesting the very highest order of seamanship. Meantime war had commenced. It was feared that off Brazil Admiral Cervera would endeavor to intercept and destroy her; yet, with well-grounded confidence, Captain Clark expected in that event not only to save himself but to punish his assailants. He met no interference, however, and at the end of her unparalleled voyage his noble ship was without overhauling ready to join in the Santiago blockade and in destroying the Spanish fleet.



Admiral Cervera, Commander of the Spanish Squadron.

Admiral Cervera's departure westward from the Cape Verde Islands, and the subsequent discovery of his squadron in the harbor of Santiago, determined the Government to invest that city. The navy acted with promptitude. Commodore Schley first, then, in conjunction with him, his superior, Rear-Admiral Sampson, drew a tight line of war-vessels across the channel entrance.



Major-General William R. Shafter.

Unfortunately delayed by inadequate shipping facilities and the unsystematic consignment of supplies, also by the unfounded rumor of a Spanish cruiser and destroyer lying in wait, the army of 17,000, under Major-General William R. Shafter, landed with little opposition a short distance east of Santiago. The sickly season had begun. Moreover, it was as good as certain that, spite of all the miserable Cuban army could do, Santiago's 8,000 defenders would soon be increased from neighboring Spanish garrisons. So, notwithstanding his inadequate provision for sound, sick, or wounded and his weakness in artillery, Shafter pushed forward. His gallant little army brushed the enemy's intercepting outpost from Las Guasimas, tore him, amid red carnage, from his stubborn holds at El Caney and San Juan Ridge, and by July 3d had the city invested, save on the west. From this quarter, however, General Escario, with 3,600 men, had forced his way past our Cuban allies and joined his besieged compatriots in Santiago.



Troops in the Trenches, Facing Santiago.

The third of July opened, for the Americans, the darkest day of the war. Drenched by night, roasted by day, haversacks which had been cast aside for battle lost or purloined, supply trains stalled in the rear, fighting by day, by night digging trenches and rifle-pits—little wonder that many lost heart and urged withdrawal to some position nearer the American base. Shafter himself for a moment considered such a step. But General Wheeler, on the fighting line, set his face against it, as, upon reflection, did Shafter. A bold demand for surrender was sent to General Toral, commanding the city, while Admiral Sampson came to confer with Shafter for a naval assault.