In office, President Hayes continued his sound money policies and fulfilled his Reconstruction promise by withdrawing all Federal troops from the South and restoring the vote to Civil War veterans. This also returned the vote to many Democrats who then gained control of the South and who went on to control the House and Senate in 1879.
Although Grant was receptive to a third term in 1880 and allowed his name to be placed in nomination, the Party’s nominee was James A. Garfield, the new Senator from Ohio and a former college president and Civil War major. Running with him was Chester A. Arthur of New York, and despite supposedly scandalous revelations about Garfield’s personal life, Republicans won, capturing both the House and the Senate.
Garfield was assassinated less than three months after his inauguration and Arthur succeeded him. Arthur’s Administration was responsible for the Pendleton Civil Service Act which established the merit system and eliminated much of the graft in Civil Service. It also concerned itself with the problems of labor and through the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Alien Contract Labor Act worked to restrict the importation of cheap foreign labor. The Bureau of Labor, predecessor of the Department of Labor, was established within the Interior Department.
By 1882, the Treasury surplus was $145,500,000; tariffs were reduced; and postage was cut down.
However, in 1883, with the end of Reconstruction and growth of Democrat strength in the South, the Democrats gained control of the House.
More than twenty years of Republican Presidents came to an end with the approach of the twentieth century and the election of 1884.
Although Arthur had been a creditable President, his independence had displeased some of the Party veterans and they turned instead to James G. Blaine of Maine for the Presidency and to John A. Logan of Illinois as Vice-President. Blaine had served in the House for many years. Republican reformers felt Blaine’s character to be tinged with past scandals and they left the Party to back the Democrat candidate Grover Cleveland.
The campaign was colorful. The independent Republicans came to be known as “Mugwumps,” and their supporters said the name was an Algonquin Indian word meaning chief or leader while the regular Republicans preferred the description of “a fellow with his mug on one side of the fence and his wump on the other.” Blaine and Logan used a Yankee Doodle parody to attract attention:
The bugle sounds the blast again,
And this is now the slogan:
Hurrah! for James G. Blaine, of Maine
And honest John A. Logan
Republicans discovered that bachelor Cleveland had acknowledged paternity of an illegitimate child and paraders marched down the street shouting “Ma, Ma! Where’s My Pa?” After the election, Democrats were able to answer: “Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!”
Perhaps the most famous quotation to come out of the campaign oratory was one attributed to Blaine but made instead by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Dickinson Burchard at a New York rally for Blaine. He said, “We are Republicans and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with a party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” The meeting was held in the early afternoon and by evening the Democrats and Mugwumps had distributed handbills with the quotation. At election time, a few days later, Blaine lost many Irish Catholic votes and the election. A change of fewer than 600 votes in New York State would have kept the Presidency for the Republicans. For the first time since Lincoln’s election almost a quarter of a century earlier, a Democrat had returned to the White House and they were still in control of the Senate.
In 1885, Theodore Roosevelt outlined the difference in the attitude of the two parties. “It comes from their composition. Throughout the North the bulk of the honesty and intelligence of the community is to be found in the Republican ranks. If the Republicans take a false step it is usually because the politicians have tricked them into it; while if the Democrats make a good move it is almost always merely because the astute party leaders have been able for a short time to dragoon their dense-witted followers into an appearance of deference to decent public sentiment.”
The Democrats could seemingly only fool the people for a while, if Roosevelt’s quotation was true, for in 1888 the Nation again voted in a Republican President. The Republican nominee was Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, a lawyer, Civil War general, Senator, and grandson of the old Whig President, William Henry Harrison. His running mate was Levi P. Morton, a New York banker and businessman. One of their campaign songs was:
Yes, Grandfather’s hat fits Ben - fits Ben;
He wears it with dignified grace,
Oh yes! So rally again and we’ll put Uncle Ben
Right back in his Grandfather’s place.
The Democrats, who again ran Cleveland, replied “Grandpa’s pants won’t fit Benny.”
During the Harrison Administration, appropriations exceeded $1 billion dollars and Speaker of the House Thomas B. Reed defended the budget by retorting, “This is a billion dollar country.” Secretary of State James G. Blaine presided over the first International Conference of American States which laid the basis of the Pan American movement. At home, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act which restricted the growth of monopolies.
The Harrison Administration was also responsible for the McKinley Tariff Act which was the highest and broadest at that time; this tariff so effectively shut off imports that exporting countries hit by the new duties would refuse to buy American farm surpluses. To prevent this, Blaine urged the inclusion of a reciprocity principle.
Blaine warned his Republicans colleagues that the McKinleyTariff “will protect the Republican Party only into speedy retirement.” His prediction came true in the election of 1892 when the Democrats again nominated and elected Cleveland; the tariff had been the main campaign issue.
Republicans worked to regain their losses and joined in repealing the Silver Purchase Act of 1890 whichthey had been persuaded previously to pass by the silver interests. By the end of the second Cleveland Administration, the Democrat Party had lost control of both houses of Congress.
The election of 1896 again centered around the question of sound money and pitted the author of the tariff, William McKinley of Ohio, against William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska. Bryan eloquently advocated the free and unlimited coinage of silver: “We will answer their demand for a gold standard,” he shouted, “by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!”
Despite the magnificent oratory, Bryan was defeated and as one conservative free-silverite said, “I am a Democrat still -- very still.”
McKinley called a special session of Congress which adopted a new and more popular protection tariff, and Congress placed the country on the gold standard in 1900.
The Spanish American War began in 1898 despite McKinley’s urgings for peace, but an American victory brought Cuba freedom and gave the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico to the United States. Hawaii was annexed by Congressional resolution in 1898 and Samoa in the next year. Secretary of State John Hay induced the other powers to adopt the “Open Door” policy for China, assuring access for all on equal terms.
McKinley ran again in 1900 with Teddy Roosevelt of New York. In September of 1901, Roosevelt became President after McKinley was assassinated.
Roosevelt became famous for his quotation, “speak softly and carry a big stick,” referring to foreign affairs. He negotiated treaties with Panama and Great Britain making possible the purchase of the Panama Canal and the resumption of its construction. He impressively displayed American military strength by sending the battleship fleet around the world and intervened to successfully bring a settlement of the Russo-Japanese War with the Treaty of Portsmouth (NH).
By the end of his second term, Teddy was known for his strong stand on conservation and for the establishment of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Forest Service. During his Administration, the Department of Commerce and Labor and the Food and Drug Administration were also created, and meat inspection and court proceedings against trusts were begun.
In 1908, Teddy Roosevelt bowed to the tradition of Republicans not seeking a third term and named as his choice of successor his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft. The Democrats, who had fared badly in 1904 with a rather colorless candidate, Judge Alton B. Parker, turned again to William Jennings Bryan whom Taft defeated.
Taft, as President, continued the prosecutions against monopolies begun under Roosevelt and fulfilled the pledge of tariff revision in the Republican platform. The tariff which resulted reduced some rates but there was general dissatisfaction with it, even among Republicans, and the Democrats captured control of the House in 1910.
Taft also strongly supported two Constitutional amendments -- the Sixteenth, authorizing a federal income tax, and the Seventeenth, providing for the direct election of Senators. He went one step further than Roosevelt and established a separate Department of Labor.
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