Education played a large part in the result, and economic opinion believes that the better cause prevailed. But cool analysis had less effect than emotion and self-interest at the time. The lowest point of depression had been reached during 1894, while the harvests of 1895 and 1896 were larger and more profitable than had been known for several years. Free silver was a hard-times movement that weakened in the face of better crops. "Give us good times," said Reed to Richard Watson Gilder, "and all will come out right." Inflation was not to be desired by the citizen who had in hand the funds to pay his debts. When he became solvent he could understand the theories of sound finance. It is probable that nature as well as gold was a potent aid to Hanna in procuring the result.
William McKinley was advertised as the "Advance Agent of Prosperity," and before he was inaugurated in March, 1897, prosperity was in sight. His election had destroyed all fear that the currency would be upset by legislative act, while the liquidation after the panic of 1893 had nearly run its course. Business was reviving, crops were improving, and the luckless farmers of the Western plains had abandoned their farms or learned how to use them. After 1896 the financial danger was not silver but gold inflation. In that year great mines were opened in Alaska, drawing heavy immigration to the valley of the Yukon and, a little later, to the beach at Nome. Other discoveries increased the gold output and flooded the world with the more precious metal. By 1900 prices were rising instead of falling, and public interest was turned upon the high cost of living rather than the low prices of the previous period. The average annual output of gold for the fifteen years ending in 1896 was $132,000,000. For the fifteen years beginning in 1896, it was $337,000,000. The election of McKinley was in name a victory for the Republican party, but was in reality one for sound money. The organization upon which he stood was an amalgamation of creditors and manufacturers, reënforced by gold-standard men of all parties. Without the aid of the last element he could hardly have been elected, on this or any other issue. When he took office the Republican party had control in both houses of Congress, had been elected on a money issue, but had a permanent organization based upon the tariff propaganda. Before his inauguration, Hanna declared that the election was a mandate for a new protective tariff, and one of McKinley's earliest official acts was to summon Congress to meet in special session, to fulfill that mandate, on March 15, 1897.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The most popular document in the free-silver propaganda was W.H. Harvey, Coin's Financial School (c. 1894). This was replied to by Horace White, Coin's Financial Fool; or the Artful Dodger Exposed (c. 1896); and the same author, in Money and Banking (4th ed., 1911), discusses the economics of free silver. The best economic arguments for free silver came from the pens of Francis A. Walker and E. Benjamin Andrews. The Reports of the International Monetary Conferences (at Paris, 1867 and 1881, and at Brussels, 1892) are useful upon the attempt to establish a currency ratio by international agreement. There is no good biography of William McKinley, although the external facts of his career may be obtained in the Annual Cyclopædia, and in Who's Who in America (a biennial publication which, since its first issue in 1899-1900, has been the standard source of biographical data concerning living Americans). These may be strengthened by D. Magie, Life of Garrett A. Hobart (1910). The best biography of the period is H. Croly, Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1912), which gives an illuminating survey of Republican politics, although based on only the public printed materials and personal recollections. The opposition may be studied in W.J. Bryan, The First Battle (1896). The platforms, as always, are in Stanwood, and there are useful narratives in Dewey, Latané, Andrews, and Peck. From this period the Outlook (January, 1897), and the Independent (July, 1898), take on a modern magazine form and are to be added to the list of valuable newspaper files, while the Literary Digest begins to play the part carried by Niles's Register in the early part of the century. They may generally be trusted as intelligent, honest, and reasonably independent. The Venezuelan affair, besides stimulating diplomatic correspondence (q.v., in Foreign Relations Reports), led to the writing of W.F. Reddaway, The Monroe Doctrine (1898), which is still one of the most judicious discussions of the topic. J.B. Henderson, American Diplomatic Questions (1901), is useful also.
CHAPTER XV
The mission of Populism did not end when free silver had been driven like a wedge into all the parties. Its more fundamental reforms outlasted both the hard times and the recovery from them. Although obscured by the shadow of the larger controversy, the reforms had been stated with conviction. The Populist party was not permitted to bring the reformation that it promised, but it stimulated within the parties in power a "counter-reformation," that was already under way. This counter-reformation was largely within the Republican ranks because that party dominated in every branch of the National Government for fourteen years after 1897, but it was essentially non-partisan. It derived its advocates from the generation that had been educated since the Civil War, and many of its leaders bore the imprint of democratic higher education. It derived its materials from historical, economic, and sociological study of the forces of American society.
Practical politics in America was at its lowest level in the thirty years after the Civil War. The United States was politically fatigued after the years of contest and turned eagerly to the business speculations that opened in every direction. Offices were left to those who chose to run them, while public scrutiny of public acts was materially reduced. The men in charge, unwatched in their business, used it often for personal advantage, and were aided in this by the character of both the electoral machinery and the electorate. A multitude of offices had to be kept filled in every State and city by voters who could know little of the candidates and who accepted the recommendation implied in the party name. Control of the nominations meant control of the elections, and was within reach of those who were persistent in attending caucuses and conventions and were not too scrupulous in manipulating them. The laws against bribery at the polls did not touch corruption at the primaries. The cities, rapidly growing through manufactures and immigration, were full of voters who could be trained to support the "bosses" who befriended them.
The American "boss" made his appearance in the cities about 1870. His power was based upon his personal influence with voters of the lower and more numerous class. Gaining control of party machinery he dictated nominations and policies, and used the government, as the exposures of the Tweed Ring showed, to enrich his friends and to perpetuate his power. Caring little for party principle, he made a close alliance with the new business that continually needed new laws,—building laws, transportation laws, terminal rights, or franchises. From these allies came the funds for managing elections, and, too often, for direct bribery, although this last was necessary only rarely.