To revert, however to the due order of our tale. It was on January 17, 1893, that Secretary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle, without any new legislative authority, offered to sell $50,000,000 Government bonds already mentioned. If issued during the Silver-repeal fight when Gorman proposed his compromise, and if Carlisle had made it clear very early that as many such issues for gold would be made as were needed to keep the trading public safeguarded against any monetary-business cramping caused by the governmental policy affecting the tariff, a minimum rather than something approaching a maximum of disturbance would have followed. In better spirits because of the issuance of the $50,000,000 Government bonds for gold, the business world worked along. The House had passed the Tariff Bill early in February by a big majority. Business soon looked up decidedly. But the Seigniorage Bill was adopted in March. President Cleveland, that sturdy upholder of the Nation's credit, vetoed it. He knew that any new moral obligation to keep at a parity with gold dollars worth in themselves less than one hundred cents in gold would materially shake domestic and foreign credit.
The veto had a deservedly splendid effect upon all our trading interests. This was increased by the failure of the House to override the President's veto of the Seigniorage Bill. But the Senate had not acted on the Tariff Bill. Business dwindled and there occurred strikes and other widespread labor troubles, especially in the bituminous coal trade. In many parts of the country the militia, and in Chicago United States troops, had to be employed to maintain order. Call money was a drug on the market. The net gold in the Treasury was very low. The Tariff Bill dragged its weary length along. President Cleveland and Chairman William L. Wilson of the Ways and Means Committee of the House insisted that the bill would produce sufficient revenue for the expenses of the Government. Senator Gorman and others in the United States Senate insisted to the contrary and demanded that the tariff on sugar should be kept at a high figure. A bitter controversy ensued. Finally, on August 13th, the House accepted the Senate Tariff Bill. It was time for some affirmative action, for among other threatening conditions the net gold in the Treasury had fallen to the lowest figure since resumption of specie payments in 1879.
Business began to revive. The issue of $50,000,000 Government bonds for gold to replenish the Treasury stock was a very stimulating influence. The improvement dated virtually from the agreement in February between the Government and the Morgan-Belmont Syndicate to prevent the export of gold. In June, 1895, the Government gold was thus brought up to a round $100,000,000 for the first time since December, 1894. But notwithstanding the fact that the business outlook was decidedly better, the inevitable disturbances to business following a general change in the tariff, unsettled political conditions in Europe and the selling of American securities owned abroad, the shortage of the American cotton crop, President Cleveland's Venezuela message, which many persons thought might bring on war with England, and another decline in the Treasury free gold, again shook business confidence.
Improvement, however, was stimulated by a remarkable increase in the supply of money in our balance of trade and by the virtual settlement of the Venezuelan question. The business situation was steadily clearing. The ills from the panic of 1893-4 were well behind us. The Spanish-American war proved to be harmless to us financially, while it tended to show that National neighborliness could be exercised in a splendidly unselfish way. By our treaty of peace with Spain on December 10, 1898, an additional emphasis was given to the revival of trade. During 1899 a great rush to speculate brought the pinches in money inevitable in those pre-Reserve Bank days, but could not stop the general broadening of business interests although the industrial situation was unsatisfactory in spots. Indeed, the succeeding year was to witness severe industrial trouble destined to cause a general set-back in business. The situation cleared considerably when the November elections of 1900 showed the country to be safe from the Bryan silver policy.
Big business interests took hold of market conditions. Huge combinations of trade interests became the order of the day. The United States Steel trust was the vastest and was the transcendent achievement of J. Pierpont Morgan. The Stock Exchange was wild with speculation. The collapse came there in the famous decline of the 9th of May, 1901, precipitated by the Northern Pacific corner. In a month the market was tranquil again. The shooting of President McKinley produced great financial nervousness. The over-trading abroad, especially in Germany, was influencing us and all the rest of the world, which had not yet recovered from the vast financial cost of the English Boer War.
The ever increasing closeness of business relations the world over—their virtual solidarity, in fact—was being illustrated again with us. A chief example was trouble in the copper groups following a slackened world demand for their products.
Overtrading was doing its usual work. This induced loss of business courage in many quarters, or shall I say a realization that nowhere in the American business system was there any arrangement empowered so to marshal the competent strength of financial America that large and overwhelming disturbances should become impossible in business generally. Indeed, the Government forces seemed to tend contrariwise to big business practices. They took virtually their first step in "trust-busting" when they tried to break up the Northern Securities Company, which had been concocted to handle the celebrated Northern Pacific case. Labor troubles supervened. Many great speculative stock campaigns collapsed. The banks yielded to the imperative need to reduce credits. The year 1902 had almost experienced a widespread panic: but the marshaling of great private resources had restored confidence temporarily, and it closed in peace.
PANIC OF 1903.—Then came the real beginning of the protracted "trust busting" campaign. Business took fright, for it believed it was to be bullied rather than soundly regulated. Great failures oh the Stock Exchange were its sure indications. Fear and distrust was upon all the American business world. Industries languished. Money was easy because less and less employed in trade. The great captains of industrial finance, however, patched up troubles and differences here and there and, availing themselves of the plentiful supply of money, soon had a notable speculation at work. Gradually the country took heart again and business experienced a revival.
It was thought that President Roosevelt, elected in November, 1904, would help bring about discrimination between "good" trusts and "bad" trusts, and whose "trust" is bad! But "trust busting" became an even more popular and political pursuit. Indeed, the abuses practised by many of them had created a situation regarding which the question was becoming in the popular mind simply this, "Shall trustdom rule the people or the people rule the trusts?" The sound control of both before the Constitution of their country must be the happy solution.
The Bill of May 9th of the House of Representatives, giving the Interstate Commerce Commission power to fix railroad rates, was ominous, and little noticed by the general business world; but some noticed and acted. The Senate had not voted; nor did they realize what rate-regulation implied to railroad balance sheets and so to the Stock Exchange. Some interest was selling securities. The business public was awakening to the fact that legislators, legislation, the people, and the law were hot after the business methods of many organizers. Fear, founded on a tardy awakening to facts, declared itself, but spasmodically, for now and again the great captains of finance and industry were trying to save the situation. They successfully aided whatever of momentum there was in general business. But Congressional activity as to any combinations in restraint of trade was unabated. It called upon the President for such information as the Interstate Commerce Commission might have as to a combination in restraint of trade between the Pennsylvania Railroad and certain lines allied with it.