The financial panic of 1893
injustice we breed the two great
heightened the tension of this de-
classes — tramps and millionaires. bate . Bank failures abounded in the South and Midwest; unemployment
The pragmatic portion of their soared and crop prices fell badly .
platform called for the national- The crisis and President Grover
ization of the railroads; a low tar- Cleveland’s defense of the gold stan-
iff; loans secured by non-perishable dard sharply divided the Democrat-
crops stored in government-owned ic Party . Democrats who were silver
warehouses; and, most explosively, supporters went over to the Popu-
currency inflation through Treasury lists as the presidential elections of
purchase and the unlimited coin- 1896 neared .
age of silver at the “traditional” ratio
The Democratic convention that
of 16 ounces of silver to one ounce year was swayed by one of the most
of gold .
famous speeches in U .S . political
The Populists showed impres- history . Pleading with the conven-
sive strength in the West and South, tion not to “crucify mankind on a
and their candidate for president cross of gold,” William Jennings
polled more than a million votes . Bryan, the young Nebraskan cham-
But the currency question soon over- pion of silver, won the Democrats’
shadowed all other issues . Agrar- presidential nomination . The Popu-
ian spokesmen, convinced that their lists also endorsed Bryan .
troubles stemmed from a shortage
In the epic contest that followed,
of money in circulation, argued Bryan carried almost all the South-
that increasing the volume of mon- ern and Western states . But he lost
ey would indirectly raise prices for the more populated, industrial
farm products and drive up indus- North and East — and the election
trial wages, thus allowing debts to — to Republican candidate William
be paid with inflated currency . Con- McKinley .
servative groups and the financial
The following year the country’s
classes, on the other hand, respond- finances began to improve, in part
ed that the 16:1 price ratio was nearly owing to the discovery of gold in
twice the market price for silver . A Alaska and the Yukon . This pro-
policy of unlimited purchase would vided a basis for a conservative
denude the U .S . Treasury of all its expansion of the money supply . In
gold holdings, sharply devalue the 1898 the Spanish-American War
dollar, and destroy the purchasing drew the nation’s attention further
power of the working and middle from Populist issues . Populism and
classes . Only the gold standard, they the silver issue were dead . Many of
said, offered stability .
the movement’s other reform ideas,
however, lived on .
192
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
THE STRUGGLES OF LABOR
19th century and fostered huge con-
T
centrations of wealth and power was
he life of a 19th-century Ameri- backed by a judiciary that time and
can industrial worker was hard . again ruled against those who chal-
Even in good times wages were low, lenged the system . In this, they were
hours long, and working conditions merely following the prevailing phi-
hazardous . Little of the wealth that losophy of the times . Drawing on a
the growth of the nation had gener- simplified understanding of Dar-
ated went to its workers . Moreover, winian science, many social think-
women and children made up a high ers believed that both the growth of
percentage of the work force in some large business at the expense of small
industries and often received but a enterprise and the wealth of a few
fraction of the wages a man could alongside the poverty of many was
earn . Periodic economic crises swept “survival of the fittest,” and an un-
the nation, further eroding industri- avoidable by-product of progress .
al wages and producing high levels
American workers, especially the
of unemployment .
skilled among them, appear to have
At the same time, technologi- lived at least as well as their coun-
cal improvements, which added so terparts in industrial Europe . Still,
much to the nation’s productivity, the social costs were high . As late
continually reduced the demand for as the year 1900, the United States
skilled labor . Yet the unskilled labor had the highest job-related fatality
pool was constantly growing, as un- rate of any industrialized nation in
precedented numbers of immigrants the world . Most industrial workers
— 18 million between 1880 and 1910 still worked a 10-hour day (12 hours
— entered the country, eager for in the steel industry), yet earned less
work .
than the minimum deemed neces-
Before 1874, when Massachusetts sary for a decent life . The number of
passed the nation’s first legislation children in the work force doubled
limiting the number of hours wom- between 1870 and 1900 .
en and child factory workers could
The first major effort to orga-
perform to 10 hours a day, virtually nize workers’ groups on a nation-
no labor legislation existed in the wide basis appeared with the Noble
country . It was not until the 1930s Order of the Knights of Labor in
that the federal government would 1869 . Originally a secret, ritualistic
become actively involved . Until society organized by Philadelphia
then, the field was left to the state garment workers and advocating a
and local authorities, few of whom cooperative program, it was open
were as responsive to the workers as to all workers, including African
they were to wealthy industrialists .
Americans, women, and farmers .
The laissez-faire capitalism that The Knights grew slowly until its
dominated the second half of the railway workers’ unit won a strike
193