CHAPTER XVIII THE REËLECTION OF CLEVELAND, 1892 THE national convention of the People's Party met in Omaha in July, 1892, to nominate a candidate around whom it might be possible to rally the discontented forces of agriculture and industry. The business depression still continued and added every month new converts to the farmers' cause. Men were less important than principles in the convention, which finally nominated James B. Weaver, of Iowa, as its candidate after considering the possibility of Republican dissenters like Judge Walter Q. Gresham, of Indiana, or silver advocates like Senator William M. Stewart, of Nevada. The Populist platform, based upon discontent among the "plain people," recited a long list of grievances, "in the The Popumidst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, list platform political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the legislature, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling-places to prevent universal intimidation or bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled; public opinion silenced; business prostrated; our homes covered with mortgages; labor impoverished; and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes of tramps and millionaries." The demonetization of silver stood at the head of the grievances which the Populists declared their intention to correct. "A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized . . . and the supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers, bankrupt enterprise, and enslave industry." They demanded monetary reforms including "free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of sixteen to one," an increase in the circulating medium to the amount of fifty dollars per capita, a national currency to be lent by the Government at two per cent, and a graduated income tax, as well as postal savings banks. A second group of demands declared for the Government ownership of railroads, telegraph and telephone. A third group demanded the suppression of alien ownership of land, and appealed to the single-tax followers of Henry George by asserting that land "is the heritage of the people, and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes." In an addendum to the platform the party expressed its belief in the Australian ballot, reduction of taxation, liberal pensions, an eight-hour day, the initiative and referendum, a single term for the President, and the direct election of United States Senators. It condemned protection, national subsidies to private corporations in any form, and Pinkerton detectives. Tom Watson, one of its vigorous Southern supporters, characterized the demands as "Not a Revolt, It is a Revolution." istration While the farmers' movement was crystallizing into the People's Party the Administration of Benjamin Harrison was running a lukewarm course. Its crushing The Harridefeat in the Congressional elections of 1890 dis- son Admincouraged the hopes of Republican success in 1892. The Democratic Fifty-Second Congress chose Charles F. Crisp, of Georgia, as its Speaker in 1891 with a Republican minority supporting Reed, and with Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia, securing votes of eight Farmers' Alliance members. A few days before the Fifty-Second Congress met, a threat of war startled the United States. In Chile, where Blaine had sent as Minister his Irish supporter, Patrick Egan, a revolution took place in the summer of 1891. The open sympathy of Egan with Balmaceda, who like himself was anti-English in his views, and who was overturned by the revolt, made the American Minister persona non grata with the new Government. On October 16 a group of American seamen ashore at Valparaiso were attacked, and in the course of the ensuing correspondence a note from the new Foreign Secretary was offensive to the American Government. A sharp discussion with the new Government, of which Montt was installed as President in December, led to an unexpected ultimatum delivered by Harrison and transmitted to Congress January 25, 1892. An apology was On the same peremptorily demanded under threat of war. day a voluntary disavowal was received in the State Department and was being decoded while Congress listened to the ultimatum. The episode was unimportant save as to its possible consequences, and was probably induced by Egan's unfitness for his office. It served to attract attention to the ease with which the President might drag the nation into war and the inadequacy of existing means with which to fight. A diplomatic breach with Italy in which the United States was the offender occurred earlier in 1891, following an exasperating controversy in which Italian immigrants were arrayed against the New Orleans police. A group of Italians, under suspicion of murder in New Orleans, but acquitted by the local police authorities, were lynched by a mob on March 14. Popular feeling ran high because of the belief that the lynched Italians were the guiding spirits of a secret society that had sought to terrify the New Orleans police by murder and assault. The Italian Minister, Fava, denounced the local authorities as "recreant to their duty" for their failure to safeguard the prisoners, and asserted the right "to demand and obtain the punishment of the murderers and an indemnity for the victims." This demand was made in brusque fashion under threat of severance of diplomatic relations and Fava was withdrawn from Washington when the United States was unable to give instant compliance. Blaine wrote to Governor Nicholls, of Louisiana, that "the Government of the United States must give to the subjects of friendly powers a security which it demands for our own citizens when temporarily under a foreign jurisdiction." The responsibility was easier to admit than it was to obtain redress, or punishment of the guilty. No machinery existed by which the United States Government could compel the State to punish the guilty or to bear the burden of its share of the international duties of the National Government. Harrison decried the brusque manner of the Italian Government, but forgot the latter when Chile became the offender. The matter was ultimately patched up under the precedent afforded by the Lopez riot of 1851. The President maintained that foreigners were entitled to no better protection than that afforded to American citizens, but Congress, upon his recommendation and out of sympathy with the persons injured, indemnified their heirs. The relations between the President and Secretary Blaine attracted increasing attention as the convention of 1892 drew near. In a letter written in February Blaine stated that he was not a candidate, but his loyal friends continued to hope that he would yield and insisted upon the need for a more popular nominee than Harrison. The unusual success of Harrison on the stump was in sharp contrast to his unpopularity in his own office. In his personal relationships with the party leaders his manners were irritating. He offended reformers by appointing to office a long list of Republican editors, party hacks, and personal associates. The leading party workers were not conciliated, for they got too little. The wave of ballot reform sweeping over the country was changing the conditions under which campaigns should be fought. The Civil Service Commission was allowed to grow in influence and Harrison appointed Theodore Roosevelt as one of the Commissioners and upheld him in a vigorous and well-advertised fight to save the civil service. Blaine curtly resigned from the Cabinet three days before the Republican Convention assembled and gave hope to his supporters that he would accept a nomination. The Republican Convention The Republican Convention at Minneapolis was under the influence of anti-Blaine men who had no enthusiasm for the alternative. "B. Harrison would be dead to start with," wrote Speaker Reed, who was himself a minor candidate. There was nearly as much support for William McKinley as there was for Blaine, but their combined strength did not prevent the renomination of Harrison on the first ballot. In spite of its defeat in 1890, the Republican Party reaffirmed "the American doctrine of protection.... We believe that all articles which cannot be produced in the United States, except luxuries, should be admitted free of duty, and that on all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home." The party demanded bimetallism, but insisted that "every dollar, paper or coin, issued by the Government, shall be as good as any other." Whitelaw Reid was nominated as Vice President. Blaine The retirement of Blaine from Harrison's Cabinet closed his public career. Death had broken up his family within Death of the few months preceding, and his own ill-health terminated his life a few months later. Through his whole public career he had been within reach of the largest success without ever grasping it. He began in a generation whose standards of political practice were those of the business and society to which they belonged. He allowed himself to be placed in positions which could never be explained when a changing code of public ethics became operative in his later life. His gift of leadership and his vision of a harmonious western hemisphere were sufficiently marked to enhance the tragedy of his failure to deserve and win the greatest rewards in public life. Grover Cleveland left the White House in 1889 and took |