History of the United States

by John Clark Ridpath

10. The last week of May, 1889, was memorable in the history of our country for the destruction of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. That city lay at the junction of a stream, known as the South Fork, with the Conemaugh River. Several miles up the South Fork some wealthy fishermen had constructed a dam and a reservoir, where the waters had accumulated in an immense volume. The level of the lake was high above the valley and the city. During the last days of May heavy rains fell, and the country was inundated. On the afternoon of the 31st of the month, the dam which held the lake in place was burst asunder, and the deluge of waters poured suddenly down the valley. Everything was swept away by the flood. Johnstown, a manufacturing city, was totally wrecked, and thrown in an indescribable mass against the aqueduct of the Pennsylvania Railway below the town. Here the ruins caught fire, and the wild shrieks of hundreds of miserable victims were heard above the roar of the deluge and the conflagration. The heart of the nation responded quickly to the sufferings of the people, and millions of dollars in money and supplies were poured into the Conemaugh valley to relieve the destitution of those who survived the calamity.

The McKinley Bill.

11. The work of the fifty-first Congress was marked with much partisan bitterness and excitement. The first question which occupied the attention of the body was the revision of the tariff. On this question the political parties were strongly opposed to each other. The policy of the Republican party, though the platform of 1888 had declared for a revision of the tariff, was favorable to the perpetuation of the protective system as a part of the permanent policy of the Government. The Democrats favored a great reduction in the existing rates of duties, and the ultimate adoption of the principle of free trade. What was known as the McKinley Bill was introduced into Congress, and finally adopted, by which the Republican policy was incorporated as a part of the governmental system. The average rate of import duties was raised from about forty-seven per cent. to more than fifty-three per cent.; but in a few instances the existing duties were abolished, and in the case of raw sugar a bounty to the producers was provided instead.

Counting a Quorum.

12. Early in the session a serious difficulty arose in the House of Representatives between the Democrats and the Speaker, Thomas B. Reed, of Maine. The Republican majority in the House was not large, and the minority were easily able in matters of party legislation to break the quorum by refusing to vote. In order to counteract this policy, a new system of rules was reported empowering the Speaker to count the minority as present whether voting or not, and thus to compel a quorum. These rules were violently resisted by the Democrats, and Speaker Reed was denounced by his opponents as an unjust officer. It was under the provision of the new rule that nearly all of the party measures of the fifty-first Congress were adopted.

The Force Bill.

13. One of the most important of these was the attempt to pass through Congress what was known as the Force Bill, by which it was proposed to transfer the control of the Congressional elections in the States of the Union, from State to National authority. This measure provoked the strongest opposition, part of which arose within the Republican party. In the Senate certain Republicans refused to support the bill, and it was finally laid aside for the consideration of other business.

Free Coinage of Silver.

14. A third measure was the attempt to restore silver to a perfect equality with gold in the coinage of the country. Since 1874 there had been an increasing difference in the purchasing power of the two money metals of the country. That is, the purchasing power of gold had, in the last fifteen years, risen about fifteen per cent., while the purchasing power of silver had fallen about five per cent. in the markets of the world. One class of theorists, assuming that gold is the only invariable standard of values, insisted that this difference in the purchasing power of the two metals had risen wholly from a depreciation in the price of silver; while the opposing class argued that the difference had arisen most largely from an increase in the purchasing power of gold, and that equal legislation and equal favor shown to the two money metals would bring them to par, the one with the other, and keep them in that relation in the markets of the world.