The Gilded Age

Gilded Age Politics

The 1870s and 1880s are often referred to as the Gilded Age. It is a name given

by Mark Twain as a comment on the conspicuous consumption of the wealthy

classes. Everything in their world was gilded as in covered with false glitter.

The Gilded Age had a dark side. In these years, politics were quite possibly the

most corrupt they have ever been. Local, state, and national politics all had their

scandals.

Bribes, vote buying, and intimidation were common. In fact, they were accepted

ways of doing business for politicians.

Political machines had sprung up in major cities. The influx of immigrants into

the cities and the rise of industrialization mean that more native-born Americans as

well were moving into the cities. And these are not nicely planned out cities - this

sudden influx of people strained and nearly broke city services. New streets, new

buildings, new sewer lines all had to be built and quickly. How would these

things get done? And who would decide which areas got services first? With so

much new building going on, if something went wrong with your sewer system,

who could you go to and make sure you could get it repaired? These were all

things that people turned to the political machines to help with.

However, the machines could not have survived without the immigrants from

Europe. Imagine if you an immigrant right off the boat. You don’t speak the

language, you may know of some people from your village that live in the city, but

your family is not there. What you might come across is a man who comes up to

you, he speaks your language, he tells you where you can get lodging, he tells you

where you can get a job. Maybe he even takes you and shows you the

neighborhood where other immigrants from your country have decided to live.

And, in exchange for doing these things for you, all he asks is that you attend some

workshops that will teach you how to qualify to become an American citizen, and

then when you are a citizen that you vote for “his” man. This is how political

machines worked on their most basic level. They DID fulfill a need. They did

provide a type of social work, if you will, for new immigrants that the government

wasn’t doing, but it was something that was needed. Immigrants such as the one

described proved very loyal to the political machines that helped them out when

they arrived and who, it must be remembered, continued to help them throughout

their lives.

Now, these machines were not altruistic. When their men were elected, it meant

they could dispense patronage that is give jobs to their friends and those who they

owed. It also meant they had access to city funds which they did not always use

judiciously.

One of the most famous was Tammany Hall in New York City. Tammany was in

effect the Democratic Party in NYC at that time. In the 1860s, it was run by

William Marcy Tweed, and he literally towered over most people. At a time when

most men were under 5'7" and slender, Tweed by six feet tall and nearly three

hundred pounds. Tweed decided to build a new New York City Courthouse. It

was projected to cost $250,000. However, it ran severely over budget. The

furniture, carpets and curtains for the building ended up costing alone $5.5

MILLION DOLLARS. Three tables and forty chairs for a room cost $180,000.

A plasterer was hired who charged $500,000 - 130,000 for two days work alone.

And then he charged one MILLION DOLLARS FOR REPAIR WORK ON THE

SAME PLASTER. And he was paid it!! This three-story building ended up

costing more than $13 million. To put these into other terms, this courthouse cost

four times as much as the British Houses of Parliament and nearly twice as much

as the purchase price of ALASKA!

This was all too much even for people accustomed to corruption. Tweed was

arrested, posted bail, fled the country, was found in Europe, and was brought back

to the U.S. He died in prison.

Even this did not derail Tammany Hall. It continued to dominate NYC politics

for decades. A later head of the group, George Washington Plunkitt, explained in

a newspaper interview that there were plenty of ways for people to get rich and do

the public work of office, and that everybody won that way.

The presidential administration that set the stage for more corruption was Ulysses

S. Grant - the hero of the Civil War. He elected president in 1868 and re-elected

in 1872. He proved to be a very ineffectual president. He also had a talent for

surrounding himself with unscrupulous people. Members of his cabinet accepted

bribes and even his personal secretary took bribes. Though there has never been

any evidence that Grant was personally involved in any fraud, his reputation as a

president took a severe beating. So, pretty much everywhere you looked, you

could find corruption.

In national politics, you may think the politicians were not dealing with real,

important issues. The big political arguments at this time were over the tariff, the

currency, and civil service reform.

There was little major legislation that came out of Rutherford B. Hayes’

presidency. In part due to the manner of his election. He was referred to as “His

Fradulence.”

Many hoped that some reform might occur under the presidency of James Garfield

who was elected in 1880. Reform came but not in the way people had expected.

One of the big issues during this era was the issue of civil service reform. That is

an end to the spoils system where friends gave jobs to friends once elected. One

incident in particular gave great momentum to this cause of civil service reform

and this was the assassination of President James Garfield. Garfield was killed by

a man named Charles Guiteau. We know a lot about Guiteau’s thinking because

he kept a diary throughout this period.

Originally, Charles Guiteau wrote a pamphlet in New York in support of James

Garfield as he was running for president against Hancock.

He gave a speech as well and felt that this speech was decisive in swaying people

to vote for Garfield in what turned out to be a close election.

The spoils system that we’ve already talked about was in operation, and Guiteau

felt he was owed a job for his help in getting Garfield elected. He went to

Washington, D.C. and actually met with Garfield. Guiteau explained that he

wanted the ambassadorship to France, but he would be willing to settle for being

consul to Paris. Garfield rather shoo-ed him out of the office not really planning

on giving him any type of job.

Guiteau proceeded to write letters over the next three months to both Garfield and

James G. Blaine, the senator from Maine, repeating his requests for a job in

France. Guiteau would repeatedly go to the White House and ask to see Garfield.

But would never make an appointment. While he was there, he would steal White

House stationery, so many of the letters he wrote Garfield were on Garfield’s own

White House stationery!

During this time, Guiteau saw a split occurring in the party that he didn’t like. He

blamed the president for it, so he decided he would assassinate the president.

He bought a gun and practiced shooting near the White House on the Potomac

River. No one ever bothered him while he did this. He heard that Mrs. Garfield

was leaving town on a trip, and he would go to the train station and kill the

president. When he got there, he decided not to because Mrs. Garfield didn’t look

well, and he feared that killing her husband would upset her more.

Guiteau went and visited the D.C. jail because he figured that whenever he did kill

the president, he would be taken there, and he wanted to see how the

accommodations were. He felt that it was a very excellent jail and that he felt he

could be comfortable there.

A day soon after, Guiteau wrote in his diary that he was going to kill the president

that day. He again went to the Congressional train station where he saw both Sen.

Blaine and Garfield talking, but he didn’t shoot because he was afraid a mob would

form. So, he hires a hack driver, like a taxi driver, to drive him to the station and

wait for him then drive him to the Congressional Cemetery from where Guiteau

planned to spring across the graveyard to the D.C. jail and turn himself in before a

mob could get to him.

So, finally he has this plan in place. He is driven to the station and he goes inside

to and shoots Garfield in the back. A policeman walks in as Guiteau starts to walk

away, and with everyone yelling that this man had just shot the president, the

policeman arrests him before he can turn himself in. Garfield died from his

wounds six weeks later.

Americans hated Guiteau for doing this. While he was in jail, two people took

shots at him, but didn’t hurt him. Guiteau felt he had done something good and

that a lot of people had benefited from Garfield’s death. And he thought these

people should thank him and contribute money to his defense expenses. Despite

this Guiteau was sentenced to die. A crowd of 4,000 people showed up to try and

watch his hanging. Only 250 were allowed in and some paid as much as $300 to

be able to watch the assassin hang.

Needless to say, disgruntled people who felt they were OWED jobs taking matters

into their own hands and their own weapons is not what people wanted.

Politicians and the general public saw civil service form as a way to stop this from

ever happening again. With civil service everyone who wanted a job took a test

for it. The best man gets the job.

With James Garfield’s assassination, Chester A. Arthur became president. Arthur

had been the collector at the New York Customs House and had been one of the

chief henchman of political boss Roscoe Conkling. Arthur had finally been

removed from his job by Hayes for corruption. This was now the president of the

U.S.

Surprisingly, Arthur proved to be a very capable president. He attacked kickback

schemes that benefited his old political cronies. He vetoed pork-barrel legislation.

And, he aligned himself with reformers on the civil service issue. In 1883 the

Pendleton Civil Service Act was passed with his support.

All of this didn’t endear Arthur to his Republican party leaders, and in the next

election 1884, the Republicans nominated James G. Blaine, a longtime senator

from Maine. The Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland. Cleveland did want

to see some reform happen. One of the most important things done in his

administration was the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission which

began the process of business regulation across state lines.

Now, in general there’s a lot of focus in history classes on what was happening in

the big cities in these eras like New York. The thing to remember is that

corruption and political machines didn’t only spring up in New York or

Philadelphia or Chicago. Political machines ran the major cities in Texas as well.