Tammany Hall is a notable example of this type of organization. Not surprisingly, almost nothing was accomplished on the federal level. (2).

First, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 sought to prohibit business monopolies as “conspiracies in restraint of trade,” but it was seldom enforced during the first decade of its existence. Politics and Corruption. Second, he declared that party leaders could have no official say in political appointments, although Conkling sought to continue his influence. Further undermining their efficacy was a Congress comprising mostly politicians operating on the principle of political patronage.  The Gilded Age faced a lot of political corruption. To counter the Democrats’ re-nomination of Cleveland, the Republican Party turned to Benjamin Harrison, grandson of former president William Henry Harrison. During this little slice of history, American politicians – especially presidents – took a backseat. This defense of working Americans as critical to the prosperity of the country resonated with his listeners, as did his passionate ending when he stated, “Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard 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.’”. Initially, Stalwarts favored Grant’s return to the White House, while Half-Breeds promoted their leader, James Blaine. Despite several personal charges against him for having fathered a child out of wedlock, Cleveland managed to hold on for a close victory with a margin of less than thirty thousand votes. Guiteau shot the president from behind and continued to shoot until police grabbed him and hauled him away. In addition to the cycle of overproduction, tariffs were a serious problem for farmers. In a single year, from 1893 to 1894, unemployment estimates increased from 3 percent to nearly 19 percent of all working-class Americans. Fearful of his ability to end the economic depression with such a vital piece of the economy at a standstill, President Cleveland turned to his attorney general for the answer.

While farmers had their own challenges, including that of geography and diverse needs among different types of famers, they believed this model to be useful to their cause. Two presidents won the Electoral College without a popular majority. The presidency was virtually powerless, the names of Gilded Age presidents nearly unknown: We Will Write a Custom Essay SpecificallyFor You For Only $13.90/page! Benjamin Danson, a high school social studies teacher in the Rose Tree Media School District of Pennsylvania who created the lesson for the Fall 2011 issue of Pennsylvania Legacies, will showcase these documents and suggest how teachers can use them in the classroom to explore essential questions about the multiple causations of a historical event, the role of analysis in historical construction, and how individuals and interest groups help government shape policy. Unfortunately, the Pendleton Act had an unintended side effect; the political parties now had to find another source of income, since they could no longer count on donations from wealthy job seekers. Cleveland was, however, a notable reform president in terms of business regulation and tariffs. (2). (2). Overproduction of crops occurred in part due to the westward expansion of homestead farms and in part because industrialization led to new farm tools that dramatically increased crop yields. What was the result of this political malaise? Led by Tom Watson, the Colored Alliance, which was founded in Texas but quickly spread throughout the Old South, counted over one million members. Farmers, who still composed the largest percentage of the U.S. population, faced mounting debts as agricultural prices spiraled downward. Some of Harrison’s policies were intended to offer relief to average Americans struggling with high costs and low wages, but remained largely ineffective. Eugene V. Debs, head of the American Railway Union, led the strike. The Gilded Age of the late 1800s is not typically recalled as an age of reform, though the Pendleton Civil Service Act was signed into law in 1883. From the original one hundred protesters, the march grew five hundred strong as others joined along the route to the nation’s capital. Tammany Hall reached the height of its corruption under the guidance of Boss Tweed, beginning in 1872. One of the first efforts to organize farmers came in 1867 with Oliver Hudson Kelly’s creation of the Patrons of Husbandry, more popularly known as the Grange.

The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, who begins in spring and toils all summer, and who by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain; … We come to speak of this broader class of business men. Amid a growing national depression where Americans truly recognized the importance of a strong leader with sound economic policies, McKinley garnered nearly two million more votes than his Republican predecessor Benjamin Harrison. Gilded Age Politics: Political Machines & Civil Service Reform. First, he adopted a new patronage rule, which held that a person appointed to an office could be dismissed only in the interest of efficient government operation but not for overtly political reasons. It also prevents most civil service employees from being fired based on their political views. The machine politics of the cities, specifically Tammany Hall in New York, illustrate the kind of corrupt, but effective, local and national politics that dominated the era. However, problems associated with the tremendous economic growth during this time continued to mount. In addition, farmers faced the task of cultivating arid western soils and selling crops in an increasingly global commodities market, while workers in urban industries suffered long hours and hazardous conditions at stagnant wages. Fearing the latter, President Grover Cleveland signed the act’s repeal in 1893. Refresh your memory of the ‘Forgotten Presidents’ of the Gilded Age, and learn how Civil Service Reform might have cleaned up the federal government, but not the cities and states.

They contended with economic hardships born out of rapidly declining farm prices, prohibitively high tariffs on items they needed to purchase, and foreign competition. In 1890, Dr. Charles Macune, who led the Southern Alliance, which was based in Texas and had over 100,000 members by 1886, urged the creation of a national alliance between his organization, the Northwest Alliance, and the Colored Alliance, the largest African American organization in the United States. The more they produced, the lower prices dropped. Guiteau was convicted and hanged in the summer of 1882. Choose from 500 different sets of politics in the gilded age reform flashcards on Quizlet. As the final presidential election of the nineteenth century unfolded, all signs pointed to a possible Populist victory. At the heart of each president’s administration was the protection of the spoils system, that is, the power of the president to practice widespread political patronage.