party confined its activities to a less complicated program. They agreed only in their common condemnation of the two great parties as strongholds of monopoly, indifferent at heart, in spite of the pious declarations of their platforms, to the interests of the laboring class. The presence of these labor parties in the campaign of 1888 was a witness to the industrial unrest of the middle eighties, which Professor John R. Commons calls the period of "the Great Upheaval." In 1885, according to an article in the North American Review by Terence V. Powderly, Grand Master of the Knights of Labor, the army of the unemployed had reached two million men. Strikes of unprecedented extent, if less violent than those of 1877, vexed the country, increasing from 645 in 1885 to 1411 in 1886, affecting 9861 establishments and involving some 500,000 workers. An outstanding example was the strike on the Gould system of railroads in the southwest, conducted by the ruffianly Martin Irons of St. Louis, the district assistant chairman of the Knights of Labor.1

Moreover, the enormous flood of immigration in the early years of the decade (see page 95, note) had brought to America a new element in the social conflict in the person of the desperate anarchist advocating "direct action" by violence and assassination. Herr Johann Most, a German anarchist driven out of his own country and out of England, came to New York in 1882, singing the praises of the assassins of Czar Alexander II, and was enthusiastically received by a mass meeting at Cooper Union. The next year the social revolutionists and anarchists of Chicago formed the International Working People's Associa

crat) and Theodore Roosevelt (Republican), polling 68,110 votes to 90,552 for Hewitt and 60,435 for Roosevelt. The size of George's vote was rather a protest against "the shocking contrast between monstrous wealth and debasing want," which was attracting the attention of increasing thousands of Americans, than an indication of confidence in the particular form of relief proposed by the singletaxers. Shortly afterwards (1888) Edward Bellamy published a utopian romance entitled "Looking Backward," which portrayed the happy social and economic condition of the country in the year 2000 under a régime of state socialism.

1 See the article by Professor F. W. Taussig in the Quarterly Journal of Economics for January, 1887.

tion, the precursor of the present Industrial Workers of the World (the "I. W. W."). Their membership was largely recruited from the nations of continental Europe, and but one of the eight anarchist newspapers in Chicago was published in the English language.

A terrible example of the propaganda of these anarchists was furnished by the Haymarket riot in Chicago on the evening of May 4, 1886, which grew out of a strike of forty thousand laborers for the eight-hour day. On May 3 the police had used their revolvers in dispersing a crowd assembled to attack the "scab" workers as they emerged from the McCormick Reaper works. The anarchists distributed flyers headed "Revenge! Working men to arms!" They called a meeting at Haymarket Square for the next evening to protest against "the atrocious acts of the police." In the midst of a violent speech by an English anarchist a squad of one hundred and eighty policemen marched to the square, and the captain ordered the meeting to disperse. The reply was the explosion of a dynamite bomb thrown into the midst of the squad, killing patrolman Degan instantly and fatally wounding seven others. The police, with magnificent courage, closed their ranks and dispersed the rioters. Eight of the anarchists were tried for the murder of Degan, and seven of them condemned to death. The sentences of two of these were commuted to imprisonment for life. Of the five under death sentence one (Lingg) committed suicide in his cell, and the other four (Engel, Fischer, Spies, and Parsons) were hanged on November 11, 1887, while a crowd of anarchists around the scaffold sang the "Marseillaise." The strikes of 1885 and 1886, capped by the horror at Chicago, weakened the power of the Knights of Labor, who were a numerous but amorphous and ill-managed organization. Their place was taken by the American Federation of Labor, a far more conservative and orderly body, comprised of the organized unions of the more skilled trades.

The severe labor troubles induced President Cleveland to send to Congress (April 22, 1886) a special message on the subject, in which he spoke of the worth of labor, cited the

provision of the Constitution authorizing the national government to protect the states against domestic violence, and recommended a commission of three members to serve as a tribunal in labor disputes. Congress did not act on the matter, but several of the states (Massachusetts, New York, Iowa, Kansas) created labor boards in 1886 and 1887.

The campaign of 1888 was waged almost entirely on the tariff issue. The disgusting personal abuse of the candidates, which had disgraced the campaign of 1884, was absent. Cleveland's administration, futile as it had been from the point of view of the accomplishment of his program, had at least proved that the presence of a Democrat in the White House did not mean the rule of the Southern brigadier general, the ruin of the country's industries, or the wreck of the national government. The Pendleton Act having stopped the flow of campaign funds from officeholders, recourse was had to the great corporations, whose liberal contributions to the party of avowed high-tariff principles were an offset to the natural advantage which the party in power possesses in the conduct of a presidential campaign. The manufacturers who had amassed fortunes under the protective tariff were, to use the expression of a Pennsylvania politician, "put under the fire to have the fat fried out of them." The Republicans also succeeded to a remarkable degree in making the tariff a patriotic issue. Helped by Blaine's cable from Paris and the persistent misrepresentation of Cleveland as a free trader, they revived Clay's doctrine of the tariff as a part of an "American system" and branded Cleveland as the "British candidate."1 The Republicans concentrated their

1 This contention was fortified by a clever trick played toward the end of the campaign. A certain Mr. Osgoodby of Pomona, California, wrote a letter to the British minister at Washington, Lord Sackville-West, representing himself as "Mr. Murchison," a naturalized Englishman, who was in doubt as to whether he should vote for Cleveland or for Harrison. The extraordinarily stupid minister fell into the trap, and replied in favor of Cleveland. The Republicans printed the Sackville-West letter as a campaign document and won thousands of votes by it, especially among the Irish. Secretary Bayard handed the British minister his passports for this breach of diplomatic conduct, but it was too late to repair the damage done.

efforts on the two doubtful states of Indiana and New York (which had both gone for Cleveland in 1884) and, by a liberal use of money in the former state and a combination of political circumstances in the latter,' were successful in carrying both. Besides the solid South, Cleveland carried only Connecticut and New Jersey. The electoral vote was 233 for Harrison to 168 for Cleveland.

General W. A. Bragg, in nominating Cleveland at the convention of 1884, had said, "We love him for the enemies he has made." Cleveland had continued to make enemies of the politicians. But the approval of his rugged honesty and indomitable courage by the rank and file of the people was shown by a popular plurality of more than 100,000 votes over Harrison in the election of 1888. Grover Cleveland was still the choice of the American voters when he left the White House to practice law in New York City.

THE REPUBLICAN LEGISLATION OF 1890

On Monday, December 2, 1889, for the first time in fifteen years, a Congress assembled which had in both Houses a clear majority in support of the administration. The majority was slim, to be sure (47 Republicans and 37 Democrats in the Senate; 166 Republicans and 159 Democrats in the House), but it assured the Republicans the Speakership of the House and the chairmanship and majority representation in the committees. It meant also a break in the deadlock which had paralyzed

1 Governor Hill of New York was not friendly to Cleveland. As Hill carried the state in 1888 against his Republican opponent for the governorship, Senator Miller, by a majority of 18,481, while Cleveland lost the state to his Republican opponent for the presidency by a majority of 12,096, the cry was raised that by a "corrupt bargain" votes for the Harrison electors had been exchanged for gubernatorial votes for Hill. Banners inscribed "Harrison and Hill" were actually displayed in the streets of New York. But Cleveland himself in 1906 exonerated Hill from the charge of treachery to the national ticket. It is almost certain that the defeat of Miller was due to the liquor interests in the state. Hill had won the support of these interests by vetoing the high-license Crosby bill. The influence of the large manufacturers of New York was also cast against Cleveland on account of his tariff policy.

legislation since the close of the Grant administration. More laws were enacted in the first session of the Fifty-first Congress (1889-1890) than in any other Congress since the Civil War. This was not due to any conspicuous gift of leadership in the White House. Benjamin Harrison was the type of president by whom the phrase "the Chief Executive" is taken very literally. His duty as he saw it was to carry out the legislation of Congress, and not to urge action upon that body (beyond the mild formalities of the annual message on the state of the Union). He heeded the counsel which John Sherman had given him in a letter written shortly after the election: "The President should touch elbows with Congress. He should have no policy distinct from that of his party. And this is better represented in Congress than in the Executive."

Even had President Harrison been prompted by political principle to assume an aggressive leadership, he would have been thwarted by certain personal characteristics. For with all his splendid equipment for public service-legal eminence, intense patriotism, clear vision, unflagging industry, unblemished reputation-he totally lacked that power of personal appeal which conciliates opposition and kindles support into the ardor of devotion. He was dignified to the point of frigidity. His cold steel-gray eyes never lighted with humor or softened with sympathy in official intercourse. It was said that he could address an audience of ten thousand men in a stirring speech and send them all away his friends; but if the same ten thousand met him in private, they would go away every man his enemy. One could no more write the history of the administration of a Cleveland, a Roosevelt, or a Wilson without placing these men in the center of the stage than one could write the tragedy of Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark left out; yet one can tell the story of the years 1889-1893 with scarcely more than the incidental mention of the name of President Harrison. Blaine in the Cabinet, Sherman in the Senate, Reed and McKinley in the House, were cast for the conspicuous rôles.

The two last-mentioned men had entered Congress together in the autumn of 1877, Thomas B. Reed representing the