HIST 1312 1st Edition Lecture 10 Outline of Last Lecture I Rutherford B Hayes A End of Reconstruction II James Garfield A Political Reform Begins B Assassination III Chester Arthur A Pendleton Civil Service Act B Beginning of Modern Navy IV Election of 1884 A James B Blaine B Mugwups C Grover Cleveland Outline of Current Lecture I Cleveland s 1st Term A G A R veteran s pensions B Land Reforms C Tariff of 1888 II Election of 1888 A Cleveland vs Harrison III Harrison A Veterans Pensions B Sherman Silver Purchase Act C Sherman Anti Trust Act IV U S vs E C Knight Company A McKinley Tariff B National Lands V Election of 1892 A Harrison vs Cleveland VI Cleveland s 2nd Term A Panic of 1893 B Repeal of Sherman Silver Purchase Act C Pullman Strike These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute VII Coin s Financial School A J P Morgan Current Lecture l A In Grover Cleveland s first term there is a surplus in the treasury Veterans believe they deserve a pension So Congress passed a bill that gave them a pension however Cleveland believed instead of giving it to one special interest group like the veterans he should give money back to the tax payers in the form of a tax cut So he vetoed the bill which angered many veterans B Cleveland instructed his Secretary of Interior to go after people who illegally sold or bought land Railroad companies lose assets and the people who got free land from the Homestead Act who didn t fulfill the requirements had their land taken away People who sold this land to lumber and mining companies had the land taken away from those companies as well because it was illegal to sell it to these companies C In 1888 Cleveland wanted to lower the tax rates for the poor However the government raises taxes up to 65 Cleveland was so upset that he didn t sign or veto this bill he let it sit on his desk so by default it became law ll A In the election of 1888 many people were angry at Cleveland so Benjamin Harrison a Republican won office Harrison does things very differently than Cleveland lll A When Harrison gets in office he tells Congress to give him the veteran bill again and he passes it so veterans now get a 10 pension which wasn t much but they were happy to get anything at all B Harrison also makes a deal with mining companies called the Sherman Silver Purchase Act because they re bringing in a lot of silver and they agree to give it to the government People think this will benefit them because they think the government will coin this silver in their currency However the government doesn t do this because it would ruin their currency C The Sherman Anti Trust Act outlawed monopolies People thought they were going to go after big businesses with this law and with more jobs more wages However the government didn t define what a monopoly was the Supreme Court decided lV The E C Knight Company controlled 98 of the sugar made The Supreme Court ruled that 98 was not a monopoly because it still had competitors They said that to be a monopoly a company had to control 100 A The McKinley Tariff raised taxes again up to 68 in 1890 even though they just had a tax raise in 1888 Harrison raised taxes just because he wanted to not because he had a good reason there was still a surplus of silver B During Harrison s term he set some large pieces of land aside which later became the national parks V A In the election of 1892 Harrison and Cleveland ran against each other again However there was a third party the Populist Party This party had the farmers miners and laborers William Jennings Bryan was the Populist candidate but he did not get enough votes to win but many Populist members are elected to Congress In this election Cleveland begs for another chance and people are angrier at Harrison so Cleveland wins a second term Vl A Cleveland s second term was from 1893 to 1897 and he got elected right when the Panic of 1893 occurred This panic lasts for the duration of his term This panic started with railroads who were scamming the system They didn t finish their railways and were getting money from the government every year They got investors to buy big shares giving them dividends instead of building the railroad When this crashes banks who invested in these companies get hit too and they have to lay off workers B Cleveland eventually ends up repealing the Sherman Silver Purchase Act this affects miners and America s surplus disappears C Before he repealed this act he used it on the Pullman Strike George Pullman makes train cars like mini suits for rich people on the go When this panic occurs he asks his costumers to buy his cars at the cost they re made without getting profit for himself so his workers can keep working However most people don t so he has to lay off 1 3 rd of his work force The remainder of his workers get a pay cut but they live in his houses and buy from his stores so they ask for lower rent but he says no so they protest These workers are Members of the American Railway Union who called a sympathy strike for everyone else to strike as well The country needs railroad workers so Cleveland breaks up this strike by saying they re being a monopoly Vll A Harvard students write a pamphlet called Coin s Financial School saying if the government had 100 million they wouldn t be bankrupt The government only sold 5 million so they ask J P organ to buy the other 45 million He buys it with greenbacks and makes 36 million Then he trades this in for gold The government asks again if he can buy the rest in gold and let the bonds mature this time Morgan did this and after he let his bonds mature he got a lot of money back