USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. V > Part 20
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The Democratic national convention of 1888 (St. Louis, June 5-7) renominated President Cleveland unanimously and named Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, for Vice-President. Their Republican opponents were Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, and Levi P. Morton, of New York. Cleveland's attitude on the tariff, which
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was strongly endorsed by the Democratic convention, and the convincing proofs generally that the Democracy was altogether committed to popular ideas in resistance to political control by the "interests," caused a decided manifestation in Harrison's favor by those powerful influences of concentrated wealth actuated by deter- mination to own the government and use it for the sup- pression of all liberal tendencies, that to the present day have been the main reliance of the Republican party- or rather, as already remarked, have constituted the whole of the real Republican party. Previously to the campaign of 1888 the ancient southern issue had been the main basis of Republican appeal, but the devotion of the Republicans to the special interests had long been well understood, and particularly in the contests of 1880 and 1884. Not until after President Cleve- land's tariff message of 1887, however, did the auto- cratic powers of special interest assume active charge of the operations.
By the lavish and corrupt use of money collected from the beneficiaries of protection, their congeners, and their admiring friends among the great public- those ever eager to follow the lead of powerful wealth as quite the correct and "refined" thing to do, and more- over the most convenient as disposing of the trouble of independent thinking,-the doubtful States were car- ried for Harrison. This was the campaign of the "Blocks of five" in Indiana. It was the first of the Republican "Fat-frying" campaigns. In New York there were local complications on the liquor question, which were turned to Harrison's advantage by the
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means of sacrificing the Republican State ticket; but his plurality was only 13,000.
The Electoral vote stood: Harrison, 233; Cleve- land, 168. Popular vote-Cleveland, 5,540,050; Harrison, 5,444,337; Clinton B. Fisk (Prohibition) 250,125; Alson J. Streeter (Union Labor), 146,897. Scattering votes were cast for smaller parties. The northern States that went for Cleveland were Connec- ticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, and West Virginia.
Under Harrison, with both houses Republican from 1889 to 1891, policies were pursued that gave great offense to the country. As has always since been the case when the controlling directors of the genuine Republican party have come to power, temporary elec- tion success was interpreted to mean license to "go the limit." Civil service reform was treated with con- tempt and the former practices were revived; a new despotic Force act, intended to stir up race troubles, passed the House to the accompaniment of violent expressions of detestation of the southern whites ; Speaker Reed established in the House of Representa- tives his oppressive rules against the minority; there were vast wasteful expenditures, so that for the first time the country had a billion dollar Congress ; and the high protective Mckinley Tariff law was put into effect (October, 1890). In consequence the Democrats secured an immense majority in the House at the Congressional elections of 1890, and further Republican partisan legislation was made impossible for the rest of Harrison's term.
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The radical silver movement meantime gained marked development. In this period the doctrine of silver was decidedly under Republican patronage. The President and the Republican leaders in Congress feared the silver vote-but at the same time wished to escape responsibility. That was impossible because of the strength and insistence of the silver people; and the Sherman law, ordering the purchase of 54,000,000 ounces of the metal annually and the issue of treasury notes against the bullion, was passed by the Republican Senate and House and signed by the President (July, 1890).
In 1892 Cleveland was for the third time nominated by the Democracy, the national convention assembling in Chicago on June 20; Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, was nominated for Vice-President. The Republicans were again led by Harrison, and their Vice-Presidential candidate was Whitelaw Reid, of New York.
The campaign was fought on the tariff question, with special reference to the Mckinley law, which had now made its effects felt. Mr. Cleveland's ultimate object had been greatly misrepresented by the Republicans, and they had persistently accused him and the Demo- cratic party of free trade designs. In his letter of acceptance, while opposing the theory that revenue laws should be passed for the purpose of granting discrim- inating govermental aid to private ventures, he added : "We believe that the advantages of free raw materials should be accorded to our manufacturers, and we con- template a fair and careful distribution of necessary tariff burdens rather than the precipitation of free
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trade." During the canvass occurred the memorable Homestead strike, occasioned by the Carnegie com- pany's reduction of wages and refusal to recognize organized labor. The steel industry had been most carefully nurtured by the tariff; and its inability-or unwillingness-to maintain wages satisfactory to its employes and to live in peace with them was widely regarded as an object lesson of the purely one-sided operation of the protective system in its final reduc- tion-that is to say, as applied to the laborer at the discretion of its enriched corporate beneficiaries. The self-evident fact that the pampered interests would necessarily take care of themselves first, and probably exclusively, was brought home to the people.
Cleveland swept the country. Harrison was the worst beaten candidate since Greeley. In the north, Cleveland received all the Electoral votes of Connecti- cut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, West Virginia, and Wisconsin ; and also 8 of the 9 votes of California, 5 of the 14 of Michigan, 1 of the 3 of North Dakota, and 1 of the 23 of Ohio-total for Cleveland, 277; for Harrison, 145; for James B. Weaver (Populist), 22. Popular vote-Cleveland, 5,554,414; Harrison, 5,190,802; Weaver, 1,027,329; John Bidwell (Prohibi- tion), 271,028 ; Simon Wing (Socialist Labor), 21,164.
A significant feature was the formidable strength of the Populist party, an organization holding radical views and especially favoring the free and unlimited coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, and govern- ment ownership of monopolies. Its principal follow-
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ing was in the agricultural States of the west and south. Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, and Nevada were carried by its candidate, who also was voted for by one Elector in North Dakota and one in Oregon.
The election of 1892 gave the Democrats complete control of the government for the first time since 1859. Their majority in the Senate of the incoming Fifty- third Congress (1893-95) was, however, very slight -- only three over the combined vote of the Republicans and Populists. Two questions, silver and tariff, engrossed attention; and the action upon each can be correctly understood and appraised only by due appre- ciation of the interaction of the forces in a political situation so exceedingly close mathematically and so very tense on account of positively opposed views and aims, which, however, peculiarly lent themselves to accomodations between the elements, as invariably happens when one proposition can be played off against another.
President Cleveland, on economic grounds, was unalterably opposed, and always had been, to the silver movement. He uncompromisingly and determinedly took up the issue as made by the Republican adminis- tration of Harrison, and urged the repeal of the Sher- man Silver Purchase law, calling Congress to meet in special session in August, 1893. After a most bitter fight the repeal bill was passed by both houses, with an amendment to the effect that the government would endeavor to secure bimetallism by means of interna- tional agreement. A financial convulsion, superin- duced by the problems and uncertainties, had seized the
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country soon after his inauguration ; this has been mali- ciously called the "Cleveland panic"; it was really one of the inheritances from the preceding regime.
The tariff question came up in the regular session, which opened in December, 1893. It was complicated in Congress by the animosities engendered in the silver contest, the related matters as between members pri- marily concerned about silver and those primarily con- cerned about tariff, the activities of the "interests" and the reaction to Republicanism at some State elections in the fall of 1893, and the absence of unity, or rather the growing tendency toward cleavage, in the Demo- cratic party. The resulting measure-called the Wil- son bill for its author, William L. Wilson, of West Virginia, chairman of the Ways and Means committee of the House-was greatly changed in the Senate and loaded with a rider providing for an income tax. Cleveland declined to approve it, but permitted it to become a law without his signature. The Supreme Court, after a hesitant course, pronounced the income tax unconstitutional.
In December, 1895, the country was thrilled by the President's action in vigorously asserting the account- ability to the United States of the British government for violation of the Monroe doctrine in Venezuela. The matter related to territorial aggression in the inter- est of the British colony of Guiana, and all diplomatic efforts for settlement, particularly on the basis of arbi- tration, had failed. Accordingly the President notified Congress that the government's policy was to appoint a United States commission with power to fix the bound-
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ary, and to hold itself in readiness to accept the conse- quences if the result should prove unacceptable to Great Britain. "I am firm in my conviction," he said in his special message, "that while it is a grievous thing to contemplate the two great English-speaking people of the world as being otherwise than friendly competi- tors in the onward march of civilization, and strenuous and worthy rivals in all the arts of peace, there is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded a people's safety and greatness." The nation acclaimed the President's stand, and would have supported him to any extremity. Ultimately Great Britain acceded to arbitration, and the difficulty was amicably adjusted. The precedent established proved of the greatest pertinence and importance in stimulating the world movement, which before long began to develop, for maintaining peace by international arbitration and cooperation.
The silver forces were in control of the Democratic national convention of 1896 (Chicago, July 7-11), which nominated William J. Bryan, of Nebraska, for President, and Arthur Sewall, of Maine, for Vice-Pres- ident, and declared for "the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation." Bryan was endorsed by the Populists, who, however, named for Vice-President a candidate of their own, Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia. A National Silver party convention endorsed both Bryan and
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Sewall. The Gold Democrats, taking the name of the National Democratic party, met at Indianapolis and nominated John M. Palmer, of Illinois, and Simon B. Buckner, of Kentucky.
William McKinley, of Ohio, and Garrett A. Hobart, of New Jersey, were the Republican nominees. A silver faction in the Republican national convention, headed by Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado, bolted on account of the party's attitude for a single gold standard.
Upon the issue of the campaign Mckinley was not a little embarrassed by his record in Congress. He had voted for the Bland-Allison bill in 1878, and also had advocated the Sherman bill of 1890 on the ground that it was the next best thing to free coinage. "We can- not," he said, "have free coinage now, except in the manner as provided in the bill. To defeat this bill means to defeat all silver legislation and to leave us with two millions a month only, when by passing this bill we would have four and a half millions a month of treasury notes as good as gold." The political sit- uation, however, had radically changed, and Mckinley was a faithful representative of his party.
Bryan received 176 Electoral and 6,467,946 popular votes, being successful in the eleven southern States and in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, and having one Elector in California and one in Kentucky. He carried twenty-two States; Mr. Mckinley carried twenty-three, counting Cali- fornia and Kentucky. McKinley's Electoral vote was
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271, and popular vote 7,035,638. Popular votes cast for other candidates were: Palmer (Gold Democrat), 131,529; Levering (Prohibition), 141,676; Matchett (Socialist Labor), 36,454; Bentley (Nationalist), 13,968.
At the next three Presidential elections (1900, 1904, and 1908) the Democratic and Republican candidates, and the Electoral and popular votes, were as follows:
1900
Democratic .- Convention met in Kansas City, July 4-6. President, William J. Bryan; Vice-President, Adlai E. Stevenson. Both candidates were endorsed by the Populists and the Silver Republicans.
Republican .- President, William Mckinley; Vice- President, Theodore Roosevelt, of New York.
Electoral vote .- McKinley, 292; Bryan, 155 (Col- orado, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada, in addition to the south) .
Popular vote .- McKinley, 7,219,530; Bryan, 6,358,- 071; Woolley (Prohibition), 209,166; Debs (Social- ist), 94,768; Barker (non-fusion Populist), 50,232; and scattering.
· 1904
Democratic .- Convention met in St. Louis, July 6-9. President, Alton B. Parker, of New York; Vice-Presi- dent, Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia.
Republican .- President, Theodore Roosevelt; Vice- President, Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana.
Electoral vote .- Roosevelt, 336; Parker, 140 (the south, with Kentucky and 7 of the 8 in Maryland).
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Popular vote .- Roosevelt, 7,628,834 ; Parker, 5,084,491 ; Debs (Socialist), 402,460; Swallow (Prohi- bition), 259,257; Watson (Populist), 114,753; Cor- rigan (Socialist Labor), 33,724.
1908
Democratic .- Convention met in Denver, July 7-10. President, William J. Bryan; Vice-President, John W. Kern, of Indiana.
Republican .- President, William H. Taft, of Ohio; Vice-President, James S. Sherman, of New York.
Electoral vote .- Taft, 321; Bryan, 162 (the south, with Colorado, Kentucky, 6 of the 8 in Maryland, Nebraska, Nevada, and Oklahoma).
Popular vote .- Taft, 7,679,006; Bryan, 6,409,106; Debs (Socialist), 420,820; Chafin (Prohibition), 252,683; Hisgen (Independence), 83,562; Watson (Populist), 28,831 ; Gillhaus (Socialist Labor), 13,825.
Mr. Bryan's leadership of the Democracy, commenc- ing with the Presidential campaign of 1896, identified the party with advanced political ideas and convictions that had come to be strongly held at the west but were not acceptable to the leading influences in the great eastern centers of population. These ideas and con- victions were representative of the sympathies and aspirations of people who were not concerned about maintaining the fixed course and circumscribed arrangements of things political agreeably to old patterns, but who favored a decided amplitude with vigorous action accordingly. The great eloquence, tireless energy, ability, integrity, and sincerity of Mr.
WILLIAM F. SHEEHAN
William F. Sheehan, lawyer; born at Buffalo, N. Y., Novem- ber 6, 1859; admitted to the bar, 1880; member of state assembly, 1884-1891; speaker in 1891 and minority leader for 5 years; elected lieutenant governor in 1891 and served for three years; chairman of the democratic state committee; cau- cus candidate for United States senator, 1911; delegate consti- tutional convention, 1915; died at Buffalo, N. Y., March 14, 1917.
MORGAN J. O'BRIEN
Morgan J. O'Brien, born in New York City, April 28, 1852; attended public schools; graduated from Fordham college, 1872, and from the College of St. Francis Xavier, 1874; Columbia college law school, 1876; corporation counsel, New York City, 1886-1887; elected justice of the supreme court 1887; reelected 1901; presiding justice appellate division, 1st department ; retired from the bench, November 1906; delegate to constitu- tioral convention, 1915.
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Bryan secured and held for him a most devoted follow- ing. His second nomination, in 1900, was unanimous ; and it was a significant evidence of the progressive spirit of his cause that among the convention delegates on that occasion were women. In 1904 he was not a candidate for the nomination, but retained his eminence as a party champion. His third nomination, by the convention of 1908, was made on the first ballot, 8921/2 of the 1,008 delegates voting for him.
The silver attitude taken by the Democratic party in 1896 was reaffirmed in 1900. Financial questions in American politics have occasionally involved exciting popular agitations, which have operated sometimes against the Democrats, sometimes against the Repub- licans. In 1874 the general dissatisfaction with financial conditions was one of the chief reasons for the crushing Republican defeat at the Congressional elec- tions; in 1896 and after the Democrats suffered from the unsuccessful silver movement. On the other hand, no great and responsible party has ever permitted itself to prosecute a merely schismatic course in relation to the delicate subject of the country's finances-a subject which, indeed, never should divide parties for any longer time than is absolutely necessary to reach a con- clusive settlement. The issue most vital to the Whigs was at one period that of their dear United States Bank ; but when the final decision was registered they patri- otically ended the discussion. At the election of 1900 the silver question was settled unfavorably to Mr. Bryan's views, and the Democratic party at its next convention accepted the result in concord with its
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Presidential nominee, Judge Parker, who said: “I regard the gold standard as firmly and irrevocably established." It belongs to the nature of a powerful party, measuring up to its responsibilities and emulat- ing the greatness and generosity of the country, to accept results-subject, of course, to conclusive evidence of the people's mature determination.
While on this topic it would be ungracious not to observe that the Republican party likewise has done itself honor by accepting results. It accepted the result about government at the south-very reluctantly, it is true, yet with completeness. It accepted the results of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth amendments. Even on the money question (which it has always regarded as its specialty), it has lately accepted a result-that of the Democracy's splendid reconstruction of the nation's banking and currency system under the Federal Reserve law of the first Wilson administration, a measure enacted after dismal Republican failure to accomplish urgently needed reforms.
Finally concerning finances, let it be remarked that there was a panic in 1907 to add to those other memor- able monetary results of Republican rule, the Silver law panic of 1893 and the panic of 1873.
The elimination of the silver issue from politics after the year 1900 in no way affected the Democratic party's advanced position (except to accentuate it by simpli- fication) in relation to new questions concerning labor ; the treatment of favored business aggregations in the respects of their pretensions and operations ; economic and social matters touching the lives of the people;
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humane legislation; and participation of the citizens more directly in party affairs and governmental action.
Following the famous times of the Republican return in 1897, the enactment of the Dingley tariff, and the joyous pursuit of "simple politics" (so simple as to be practically automatic) under the domination of those mighty bosses, Marcus A. Hanna, Thomas C. Platt, Matthew S. Quay, and Joseph G. Cannon, there came into the Republican party and the government a new master and a new order. Theodore Roosevelt, con- stitutional successor of the murdered Mckinley (1901), and afterward President by his "own right" (1905), embarked upon an aggressive leadership, with the result that all direction and power were soon concen- trated in his person. As long as he continued in office the Republican organization fully retained its com- pactness and discipline, for there was no disputing authority with him, and as an exceedingly wise and discriminating politician he ruled without repelling the old bosses, who indeed discovered no reason for dissatisfaction in such respects of detail as most sub- stantially interested themselves. On immediate admin- istrative matters and the large concerns of policy, how- ever, they were not consulted, but only told,-to the great and always increasing entertainment and appro- bation of the country. Forward looking, his sympathies with the public at large, intimately understanding that the great and haughty "interests" had had enough and more than enough at the hands of the govern- ment and the Republican party, and well recognizing the onward sweep of progressive sentiment in harmony
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with the spirit and demands of the Democracy, Presi- dent Roosevelt initiated a course of decided action against the corporations that were violating the laws, and by that daring departure from his party's treasured traditions, as well as by many utterances of pith and proceedings of moment in the direction of liberalizing its character and deeds, gained enthusiastic popular support. The defeat in 1904 of the Democracy's splen- did candidate, Judge Parker, was the natural result of Roosevelt's established position of leadership along the unique lines of Republicanism that he had marked out and that he expected the party to follow; and the same may be said of the defeat of Bryan in 1908 by Taft, who was Roosevelt's chosen heir. Both the 1904 and 1908 results were tributes to Roosevelt personally -- nothing else.
"The great fact of the Taft administration," says an able historian,1 "was the failure of the President, of the Republican majority in Congress, and of the Repub- lican party at large to rise to the situation by giving the country the progressive legislation which it demanded. The people could not make up their minds to like a rubber-tired administration." It will live in history as the Standpat administration. From an early day of its succession to the strenuous Roosevelt regime, the forces of autocracy and privilege saw and embraced their opportunity to resume power; and since that day not once has their strangle hold upon the Republican
1Frederick Austin Ogg, National Progress, 1907-1917; vol. 27 of The American Nation series.
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party been relaxed. The enactment of the Payne- Aldrich higher tariff law (1909) ; the failure to give the country any financial reform measure; the arrogant attitude and transactions of the Cannon oligarchy in the House; the feebleness of the government's acts in matters under the Anti-Trust law and the final aban- donment of prosecutions ; the reactionary course as to conservation ; and the conspicuous evidences of Stand- pat contempt and loathing for all progressiveism, caused the great "Insurgent" action by liberal Repub- lican members in Congress and culminated in the catastrophic defeat of the party at the country-wide elections of 1910, notwithstanding efforts by Roose- velt himself to stem the Democratic tide in several States-notably (but successlessly) in his home State of New York, and in Ohio as against Governor Judson Harmon. In the House of Representatives a Republi- can majority of 47 was changed to a Democratic majority of 66, and the Democrats made a net gain of 19 votes in the Senate.
And Woodrow Wilson and Thomas R. Marshall were elected by the Democracy as Governors in the States, respectively, of New Jersey and Indiana.
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