eight chapter eight the gilded age: the story of america’s sordid underbelly
TRANSCRIPT
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chapterEIGHTEIGHT
The Gilded Age:The Gilded Age:The story of America’s sordid underbelly
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GILDED AGEGILDED AGE• Book by Mark Twain
about 1870s– Term applied to post-
Civil War time period
• Description of poverty and corruption during time period of phenomenal industrial and economic growth
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LAISSEZ-FAIRELAISSEZ-FAIRE• The free market is best
left to its own devices – it is self-correcting.– Government should not
interfere.
• Market will be driven by everyone’s self-interest – not by brotherly kindness.– Yet it will work out for
everyone.
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CREDIT MOBILIERCREDIT MOBILIER• Credit Mobilier company charged
Union Pac $94 million for constructionthat cost at most $44 million.– Gov’t officials bribed w/ cheap CM stock– Made public during campaign of 1872
• Looked bad for Republicans– Speaker of House (Schuyler Colfax, later VP)– Representative (James Garfield, later Pres)
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SPOILSSPOILS SYSTEMSYSTEM11
• Political party gives jobs to supporters as a reward for working toward victory.
• Weak presidents from Lincoln to TR– Nice guys, inoffensive, from swing state (OH)– VP was only to balance the ticket
• Therefore, parties became vehicles for seeking office and dispensing patronage
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SPOILSSPOILS SYSTEMSYSTEM22
• Rutherford B. Hayes – 1st to buck trend– Morally upright (compare
to Grant’s admin)– Appoints qualified
independents– Fires unnecessary
employees• Including Republican
Chester A. Arthur
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SPOILSSPOILS SYSTEMSYSTEM33
• Rutherford B. Hayes– Many in own party are upset.
• Especially when he removedChester A. Arthur from hisposition as customs collector in NY
– No chance to run for President again– The party splits.
• Stalwarts: supported Grant & spoils system• Half-breeds: wanted to reform spoils system• (Independents: wanted to abolish spoils system)
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SPOILSSPOILS SYSTEMSYSTEM44
• Next election, 1880– Republicans eventually decide on
James A. Garfield, a half-breed– They name Chester A. Arthur,
a Stalwart as his VP candidate– (“Waving the bloody shirt”
brings down Dems)
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SPOILSSPOILS SYSTEMSYSTEM55
• James A. Garfield wins (barely).– By July, takes a vacation from office seekers.
(Half-breeds opposed the spoils system.)– In a train station, shot by Charles Guiteau.
• Guiteau proclaims upon his arrest,“I am a Stalwart!Arthur is now Presidentof the United States!”-------------------------------------------->
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SPOILSSPOILS SYSTEMSYSTEM66
• Chester A. Arthur – not what you expect– Prosecuted Star Route Frauds– Vetoed $18 million measure for rivers/harbors– Vetoed Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882– Allied himself w/ civil service reformers
• “Gentleman George” Pendleton• Pendleton Civil Service Act
– Independent commission established to evaluate the appropriateness of public officeholders
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IMMIGRATIONIMMIGRATION11
• 2 distinct waves
• Steerage, ghettos, tenements
• Political machines, bosses, graft– Dominated city politics– Tammany Hall &
Boss Tweed
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IMMIGRATIONIMMIGRATION22
• Reforms– How the Other Half Lives– Dumbbell tenements– Social gospel movement– Settlement movement
(Hull House)
• Other reactions– Nativism– Purity crusades