Populist Outline

4.      Living precariously on a fixed wage, the factory workers had no reason to favor inflation, which was the heart of the Bryanites’ program

G.     The Bryan-McKinley battle

1.      the Bryan-McKinley battle heralded that the advent of a new era in American politics

2.      At first glance of the election seemed to be the age-old story of the underprivileged many against the privileged few, of the inducted backcountry against the wealthier seaboard, of the country against the city, of the agrarian is against the industrialists, of Main Street against Wall Street, of the nobodies against the somebody’s

3.      Yet when Bryan made his evangelical appeal to all those supposed foes in the existing social order, not enough of them banded together to form a political majority

4.      The outcome was instead a resounding victory for big business, the big cities, middle-class values, and financial conservatism

5.      Brian’s defeat marked the last serious effort to win the White House with most of the agrarian votes

6.      The future of presidential politics when not on the farms, with their dwindling population, but in the mushrooming cities, with their growing hordes of first the arriving immigrants

H.     the Republican victory

1.      though smashing Republican victory of 1896 also heralded a Republican grip on the White House for 16 consecutive years — indeed, for all but eight of the next dirty six years

2.      McKinley’s election and thus imparted a new character to the American political system

3.      The long reign of Republican political dominance that it ushered in was accompanied by diminishing voter participation in elections, the weakening of party organizations, and the fading away of issues like the money question and civil service reform, which came to be replaced by concern for industrial regulation and the welfare of labor

4.      Scholars have dubbed this new political era of the period of the “fourth party system”

IV. Republican Stand-pattism Enthroned

A.     Background

1.      an eminently “save” McKinley took the inaugural oath in 1897

2.      With his impeccable white vest, he seemed never to perspire, even an oppressively muggy Washington

3.      Though a main considerable ability, he was an ear to the ground politician who seldom got far out of line with majority opinion

4.      His cautious, conservative nature calls him to shy away from the flaming banner of reform

5.      Business was given a free rein, and the trusts, which had trusted him in 1996, were allowed to develop more mighty muscles without serious restraints

B.     tariffs

1.      almost as soon as McKinley took office, but tariff issue, which had played second fiddle to silver in the “battle of 96,” quickly forced itself to the fore

2.      The current Wilson-Gorman law was not raising enough revenue to cover the annual treasure deficits in the Republican trusts thought that they had purchased the rights to additional tariff protection by their lush contributions to Hanna’s war chest

3.      In due course the Dingley Tariff Bill was jammed through the House in 1897, under the pounding gavel of the rethroned the “Czar” Reed

4.      The proposed a new rates were high, but not high enough to satisfy the paunchy lobbyists, who once again descended upon us and it

5.      Over 850 amendments were tacked onto the overburdened bill

6.      The resulting piece of patchwork finally established the average rates at 46.5%, substantially higher than a Democratic Wilson — Gorman act of 1894 and in some categories even higher than McKinley act of 1890

C.     prosperity

1.      prosperity, long lurking around the corner, began to return with a rush in 1897, the first year of McKinley’s term

2.      The depression of 1893 had run its course, and farm prices rose

3.      Paint Thursday midwestern bonds blossomed in the new colors, and the wheels of industry resumed their hum

4.      Republican politicians, like crowing roosters believing they close to the sun to rise, claimed credit for attracting the sunlight of prosperity

5.      With the return of prosperity, their money issue that had overshadowed politics since the Civil War gradually faded away

6.      The Gold Standard Act of 1900, passed over a last-ditch silvite opposition, provided that the paper currency be redeemed freely in gold

7.      Nature and science gradually provided an inflation that the that the “gold bug” East had fought so frantically to prevent

8.      Electrifying discoveries of new gold deposits in Canada’s fabled Klondike, as well as in Alaska, South Africa, and Australia, brought huge quantities of gold on to world markets, as did the perfecting of the cheap cyanide process for extracting gold from low-grade ore

9.      Moderate inflation of thus took care of the currency needs of an explosively expanding nation, as its circulatory system greatly improved

10.  The tide of “Silver heresy” rapidly in receded, and the “Popocratic” fish were left gasping high and dry on a golden sandy beach

Populism

Brian Wallace