Chapter Overview

The Populist Party was perhaps the most dramatic example of the late-nineteenth-century politics of discontent, threatening the established order by trying to form a biracial coalition of poor farmers. It and the reaction to it underscored the deeper problems of America. The political system seemed oblivious to the stresses of social change, but agitators refused to allow politics as usual.

The Politics of Paralysis

Politics was grinding into a dangerous paralysis, as evenly divided Democrats and Republicans fought to win elections. Improved party organization, rigid voter loyalty, and broad ideological similarities left neither party in command. Democrats, centered in the South and supported too by immigrant political machines in the industrial North, believed in states rights and limited government. Strongest in northern cities and among business leaders and the middle class, Republicans favored industrial development.

Democrats attracted adherents of Catholicism and other formalistic religions who appreciated a hands-off government. Republicans were often old-stock mainstream Protestants who favored a politics of morality, social discipline, and energetic government. More zealous reformers often fashioned their own political instruments, whether for temperance, women's suffrage, monetary change, or farm issues.

Congress focused on the well-worn issues of regional conflict, patronage, tariffs, and currency. In many instances these tapped into strong symbolic values. The presidency fell into the hands of a near-anonymous run of caretakers. What ferment and innovation existed came from the states and cities.

The Revolt of the Farmers

No one seemed to have the interests of farmers much in mind, so they took matters into their own hands.

A host of problems beset farmers; most fundamentally they were shackled to debt. In response farmers organized, first in local chapters or "granges." In the 1870s they succeeded in enacting state "Granger laws" regulating shippers and processors, and later convinced Congress to create a federal Interstate Commerce Commission (1887). In 1892 the Farmers' Alliances founded a new People's or Populist Party. The frustrations of farmers now had a national political outlet; modest success in the 1892 elections showed that many Americans were alienated from the two major parties.

The New Realignment

A depression beginning in 1893 deepened discontent across the nation. Strikes, protests, and masses of unemployed workers were evidences of the strain. The presidential election of 1896 brought about a decisive political realignment. The Republicans staunchly supported gold as the nation's monetary standard. The Democrats were split; their northern wing favored gold and the southern and western wings favored the coinage of silver as a way to relieve the depression by increasing the supply of money.

Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan. Populists, who favored silver, faced a quandary. If they nominated Bryan (and thereby fused with the Democrats), they risked losing their political identity. If they nominated anyone else, they risked splitting the vote of silverites and losing the election to the pro-gold Republicans. In the end they nominated Bryan, who lost the election.

The Republicans finally broke the politics of paralysis with a powerful coalition centered in northern industrial cities and the Far West.

African-Americans found themselves the victims of a rising tide of racism. Segregation and disfranchisement undercut black political and social progress. In response, African-American leaders split over whether to follow a policy of accommodating white discrimination or fighting it in the courts. In the end most followed the path of accommodation.

Well organized, using modern techniques of publicity and management, and relying on an executive with a national agenda, the Republicans oversaw economic recovery. At the dawn of the new century, divisions of race and class still split the nation but confidence reigned as William McKinley guided the country toward a promising future of prosperity at home and empire abroad.

Visions of Empire

Business efforts provide only a partial explanation of why the United States, after a century as a continental nation, suddenly moved to expand its reach into overseas territories. American imperialism came from the convergence of many influences, cultural and religious as well as economic, political, and military.

Europeans had practiced imperialism long before Americans took it up. With the maturing of technology and global networks of transportation and trade, the scramble for overseas dominions accelerated. Americans preferred indirect control through the spread of American products, ideas, and influence.

The appeal of such ideas rested on the American belief that their civilization was exceptional or superior. Part of that sense of superiority came from the passion to spread the Christian gospel with its presumed civilizing effects: It was the "white man's burden" to civilize less-developed peoples. In addition, many in the business community believed that expansion would provide new markets for surplus products, thereby lifting the material well-being of foreign peoples while cushioning the blows of boom-and-bust cycles.

Stirrings of Empire

In the cases of Canada and Mexico, most imperialists concluded that trade was better than annexation. In the Pacific, the United States gained control of part of the Samoan group. A failed attempt to acquire Hawaii in 1893 was followed by conflict with Britain over Venezuela in 1895. The United States was on the verge of imperialism in some form.

The Imperial Moment

Unrest in Cuba led to war with Spain. A series of incidents, peaking with the sinking of the battleship Maine, stirred a war fever President McKinley could not resist. In less than four months of fighting the United States vanquished Spain, liberated Cuba, and took possession of the Philippines.

Sharp debate preceded the United States' decision to make the Philippines a colony. In many ways imperialists and anti-imperialists made similar arguments but drew quite opposite conclusions.

The acquisition of the Philippines was related to American desires for markets in China. To keep European powers from closing China to American trade, Secretary of State John Hay sent two "Open Door" notes that asserted American interest not only in keeping China's markets open but also in preserving China's sovereignty.