8. Formation of a "National Labor-Reform Party."
The idea of a new party with such principles was so heartily approved,
that a national convention met at Columbus, O., in 1872, denounced
Chinese labor, demanded taxation of government bonds, and nominated
David Davis and Joel Parker. When they declined, O'Conor was nominated.
%504. Anti-Chinese Movement.%—The demand in the Labor platform for the exclusion of Chinese makes it necessary to say a word concerning "Mongolian labor."
Chinamen were attracted to our shore by the discovery of gold in California, but received little attention till 1852, when the governor in a message reminded the legislature that the Chinese came not as freemen, but were sent by foreign capitalists under contract; that they were the absolute slaves of these masters; that the gold they dug out of our soil was sent to China; that they could not become citizens; and that they worked for wages so low that no American could compete with them.
The legislature promptly acted, and repeatedly attempted to stop their immigration by taxing them. But the Supreme Court declared such taxation illegal, whereupon, the state having gone as far as it could, an appeal was made to Congress. That body was deaf to all entreaties; but the President through Anson Burlingame in 1868 secured some new articles to the old Chinese treaty of 1858. Henceforth it was to be a penal offense to take Chinamen to the United States without their free consent. This was not enough, and in order to force Congress to act, the question was made a political issue.
%505. The Prohibition Party.%—The temperance cause in the United States dates back to 1810. But it was not till Maine passed a law forbidding the sale of liquor, in 1851, and her example was followed by Vermont and Rhode Island in 1852, by Connecticut in 1854, and by New York, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Iowa, in 1855, that prohibition became an issue. The war turned the thoughts of people to other things. But after the war, prohibition parties began to appear in several states, and in 1869 steps were taken to unite and found a national party. In that year, the Grand Lodges of Good Templars held a convention at Oswego, N.Y., and by these men a call was issued for a national convention of prohibitionists to form a political party. The delegates thus summoned met at Chicago in September, 1869, and there founded the "National Prohibition Reform party." The first national nominating convention was held at Columbus, O., in 1872, when James Black of Pennsylvania was nominated for President, and John Russell of Michigan for Vice President.
%506. Campaign of 1872.%—At the beginning of the campaign there were thus seven presidential candidates before the people. But some refused to run, and others had no chance, so that the contest was really between General Grant and Horace Greeley, who was caricatured unmercifully. The benevolent face of the great editor, spectacled, and fringed with a snow-white beard, appeared on fans, on posters, on showcards, where, as a setting sun, it might be seen going down behind the western hills. "Go west," his famous advice to young men, became the slang phrase of the hour. He was defeated, for Grant carried thirty-one states, and Greeley six.
In many respects this was a most interesting election. For the first time in our history the freedmen voted for presidential electors. For the first time since 1860 the people of all the states took part in the election of a President of the United States, while the number of candidates, Labor, Prohibition, Liberal Republican, Democratic, and Republican, showed that the old issues which caused the war or were caused by the war were dead or dying, and that new ones were coming forward.
%507. Panic of 1873.%—Now, all these things, the immense expansion of the railroads, and the great outlay necessary for rebuilding Chicago, much of which had been burned in 1871, and Boston, which suffered from a great fire in 1872, absorbed money and made it difficult to get. Just in the midst of the stringency a quarrel arose between the farmers and the railroads in the West, and made matters worse. It stopped the sale of railroad bonds, and crippled the enterprises that depended on such sale for funds. It impaired the credit of bankers concerned in railroad building, and in September, 1873, a run on them for deposits began till one of them, Jay Cooke & Co., failed, and at once a panic swept over the business world. Country depositors demanded their money; the country banks therefore withdrew their deposits with the city banks, which in turn called in their loans, and industry of every kind stopped. In 1873 there were 5000 failures, and in 1874 there were 5800. Hours of labor were reduced, wages were cut down, workingmen were discharged by thousands.
%508. The Inflation Bill.%—In hope of relieving this distress by making money easier to get, a demand was now made that Congress should issue more greenbacks. To this Congress, in 1874, responded by passing the "Inflation Bill," declaring that there should be $400,000,000 in greenbacks, no more, no less. As the limit fixed in 1868 was $356,000,000, the bill tended to "inflate" or add to the paper currency $44,000,000. Grant vetoed the bill.