EIGHT chapter EIGHT The Gilded Age: The story of America’s sordid underbelly

GILDED 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

LAISSEZ-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.

CREDIT MOBILIER Credit Mobilier company charged Union Pac $94 million for construction that 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)

SPOILS SYSTEM 1 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

SPOILS SYSTEM 2 Rutherford B. Hayes – 1 st to buck trend –Morally upright (compare to Grant’s admin) –Appoints qualified independents –Fires unnecessary employees Including Republican Chester A. Arthur

SPOILS SYSTEM 3 Rutherford B. Hayes –Many in own party are upset. Especially when he removed Chester A. Arthur from his position 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)

SPOILS SYSTEM 4 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)

SPOILS SYSTEM 5 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 President of the United States!” >

SPOILS SYSTEM 6 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

IMMIGRATION 1 2 distinct waves Steerage, ghettos, tenements Political machines, bosses, graft –Dominated city politics –Tammany Hall & Boss Tweed

IMMIGRATION 2 Reforms –How the Other Half Lives –Dumbbell tenements –Social gospel movement –Settlement movement (Hull House) Other reactions –Nativism –Purity crusades