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U. S. HISTORY: POLITICS AND THE 1890S — Transcript

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0:00hello and welcome to history
0:031120 United States history since
0:061865 this is lecture six politics in the
0:101890s the rise and demise of
0:14populism in this lecture we're going to
0:18explore the rise of populism in
0:23general but we're also going to more
0:25carefully look at the rise and demise of
0:30the populist party or as it was
0:34otherwise known as The People's
0:40Party there are some things to keep in
0:43mind during the lecture some key
0:47considerations one of the things I want
0:49you to consider is how
0:52modernity was
0:54contested by the
0:56populace in the 1890s
1:00and what I mean by modernity is what
1:03does it mean to be
1:07modern are the banks the
1:11corporations the moneyed interest in the
1:15East
1:16modern and are the populace then not
1:21modern or backward behind the times
1:25or are the populace in fact
1:32modern and the book The populist Vision
1:36by Charles Postell I highly recommend he
1:39does an excellent job making the case
1:41that the populists were indeed a modern
1:46party a modern people they were
1:48Visionaries
1:50of basically the future of the United
1:53States so keep that in mind how
1:56modernity is contested even when you
1:58look at the images the depictions of the
2:00East the depictions of
2:02populace another thing I want you to
2:04keep in mind
2:05is understanding the difference between
2:09big p populism and Little P
2:13populism big p populism which we're
2:17going to focus on mainly in the second
2:19half of the lecture refers to the
2:22populist party
2:25that
2:28political or organization at the top of
2:31the food chain whereas Little P populism
2:34refers to the ideology of populism or
2:38populism in general as it functioned for
2:41everybody
2:42involved okay populism as an idea a
2:46political idea a social idea versus big
2:49p populism which is the actual political
2:52party the political
2:55organization
2:56finally there is that why do we care
3:01aspect of History what's the Legacy
3:03what's the significance of the populist
3:06of the populist party why are we going
3:09to spend a lecture on them so I want you
3:10to think about the important
3:13legacies especially when we go through
3:15the Omaha platform of 1892 and we
3:18consider the things the populist party
3:22wanted and
3:24promoted so keep those things in mind as
3:27we move through the lecture
3:32I'd like to start off by making some
3:34general comments about the political
3:36system in the United States in the 1890s
3:39or at least after the Civil
3:42War in United States history there have
3:45been five major systems of party
3:47competition dating back to the
3:511790s infighting in the Washington
3:53administration leads to the first two
3:56full-fledged political parties the
3:59Federalist and the jeffersonians
4:01otherwise known as the Democratic
4:04Republicans and they were a product of
4:06the democratic political
4:09system most of the time there has been a
4:12majority party and a minority
4:14party the majority party would win
4:17control of both houses of
4:19Congress there has always been intense
4:24partisanship this is not a new idea
4:31and this was especially true when
4:33parties were relatively balanced in
4:36terms of support and the two parties
4:38were relatively balanced in the late
4:4019th
4:42century
4:45from the really from
4:481854
4:50when the Republican Party established
4:53itself to the election of 1896 almost
4:56the same number of Voters identified
4:58themselves as Democrats as
5:00Republicans so there's this kind of
5:02intense partisanship where the parties
5:04are evenly divided every election is
5:08contested and then it's also important
5:10to note that there is extraordinary
5:11voter
5:14turnout 75 to
5:1782% extremely
5:20high most recently at least the election
5:24of 2008 where we consider extremely high
5:26voter turnout was only 62% that means
5:29the
5:30percentage of eligible voters that
5:32actually come out to
5:35vote and
5:37voters tend to be regionally oriented
5:40for instance the South belong to the
5:45Democrats but there's another element at
5:47work here in the politics of the
5:51postbellum the post Civil War World and
5:54people did not see parties the same way
5:56we do
5:57today in the late 19 Century your
6:00political party identified your
6:03world meaning people viewed everything
6:05Through The Eyes of their party
6:07republicans espoused Big Business
6:09Financial support the Democrats were
6:13supposedly in favor of ordinary
6:17Americans but what this means is that
6:19voters would never cross over and vote
6:21for the other
6:22party and also they would never split
6:25their ticket they took party
6:27identification very seriously
6:30they voted for Democrats down the line
6:32or Republicans down the
6:33line and if your father was a
6:37Democrat you would if if your father was
6:40a Democrat you would be a Democrat and
6:42you know same holds true for
6:45Republicans the really the only thing
6:47that would shift Party Loyalty would be
6:50a major economic catastrophe a
6:57depression this still holds true to
7:03there's a trism in American politics and
7:05that is that if there is an
7:08economic depression or a large recession
7:11the party in power will be voted out of
7:15power when Barack Obama ran against John
7:17McCain in
7:192008 McCain's fate was
7:22sealed when the economy took a major
7:25downturn during the campaign
7:38most of the issues that people debated
7:41that people cared about were local
7:44issues they were not National
7:46issues issues were likely to be decided
7:50on the city or county or state
7:54level examples of these issues were
7:57School issues education issues
8:00welfare
8:01issues economy issues jobs
8:05issues the federal government really
8:07only handled two things in terms of
8:10domestic
8:12policy the federal government handled
8:14the
8:15Tariff the Tariff issue was one that the
8:18parties were clearly divided
8:20on Republicans were for a high
8:23protective tariff they want to keep
8:25competing foreign Goods out of the
8:27marketplace this was Central to the
8:30Republican
8:31philosophy of course this helps us
8:34producers but it hurts us consumers
8:38because higher prices result from less
8:41competition Democrats advocated a low
8:44Revenue generating
8:48tariff now tariff Revenue at the time
8:51was the principal revenue of the federal
8:54government on average 60% of federal
8:56revenues came from tariffs
9:00so you'd want to encourage trade at
9:03least that's what Democrats believe to
9:05raise
9:09revenues the second thing that divided
9:12the two parties at the national
9:14level was how the federal government
9:17dealt with monetary policy meaning what
9:20kind of currency would it be paper would
9:23it be backed by gold would it be backed
9:25by
9:27silver this would be a big issue isue
9:29during the
9:311896 presidential
9:34campaign so these are really the only
9:36two
9:37issues that divide the parties as
9:42well so not much to choose
9:46from up to 1892 it is fair to say that
9:50Americans are governed by the ideology
9:52of capitalism by L fair by social
9:56Darwinism by the Puritan ethic all
9:59things we've talked about and this meant
10:02that the role of government was very
10:04restrictive beyond the
10:07Tariff
10:09Beyond monetary
10:12policy the government really had no
10:15other economic involvement there was not
10:19much regulation if
10:25any but things begin to change in 18
10:311992 and it begins
10:34with an emerging third party the
10:38populace or the People's
10:41Party Democrats find it impossible to
10:44move away from L fair so a third party
10:47develops and is the result of distressed
10:52Farmers the party reflects the
10:55aspiration of these
10:56Farmers particularly in the
11:00Midwest even more focused west of
11:06Illinois the party was bankrolled to a
11:09large degree by silver mining interests
11:11out west because the party
11:15espoused the silver
11:18standard meaning not only having money
11:20based on gold but also having money or
11:24currency based on the amount of silver
11:27available
11:36and Farmers faced one simple
11:40problem they produced too
11:46much they overproduce grain they
11:49overproduce cotton they overproduce beef
11:52they overproduce corn they overproduce
11:54pork and so on and so
11:57on and what this meant that that there
12:00were a surplus of farm Commodities and a
12:03deflation of prices lower
12:07prices so that 6 million new Farms plus
12:10that new technology that we talked about
12:12plus this fertilizer this increased use
12:14of fertilizer meant increased
12:18production between
12:201870 and
12:22[Music]
12:231892 there was a
12:2565% increase in production commodities
12:30worldwide that is a staggering
12:33increase this production increase drove
12:36Farm prices down by 20%
12:41worldwide so in order to make up that
12:45difference in prices in order to make
12:47more money a farmer has to produce more
12:50to keep up which then in turn drives
12:53prices down more so it's kind of a
12:55vicious cycle
13:00now from the farmers
13:03perspective they fa two major
13:07crisis the first was an identity
13:11crisis because the perception of the
13:13American Farmer was
13:16changing from the Jeffersonian Era to
13:19the Civil War Farmers had been placed on
13:22a pedestal they were considered to be
13:24the backbone of the US
13:27economy they were what made democracy
13:30exist it was Jefferson's yman
13:34Republic this agricultural Republic
13:37where owning your own land represented
13:43Liberty but there was a challenge to
13:45this established identity from the
13:47urbanized industrialized
13:51East Farmers from the west and south
13:54begin to regard the east as the
13:57enemy and in the East far farmers were
13:59being referred to as Rubes and Country
14:03bumpkins political cartoons depicted
14:05Farmers as childlike idiots and torn
14:08overalls they had dumb looks on their
14:10faces and grass in their
14:12mouths and Farmers begin to lash out at
14:15these new images they produced their own
14:18books and political cartoons depicting
14:20easterners as fat cats and robber
14:23barons they also produced anti-urban
14:26noveles which were widely read
14:29they all contain the same plot patterns
14:32a young farmer leaves the farm for the
14:35city but he comes back for
14:39Redemption but farmers will not rise up
14:43politically for this crisis alone this
14:45identity
14:46crisis the second
14:48crisis is
14:52economic Farmers know that their
14:54economic woses are based on their own
14:57overproduction along with the emerging
14:59of foreign
15:00competition like wheat from western
15:03Canada and cotton from India and Egypt
15:06and beef from Brazil and
15:09Argentina however they tended to take a
15:13collective view that Eastern Urban
15:17monopolies were behind the decreasing
15:24prices so they blame the railroads they
15:28blame the grain elevator operators they
15:30blame the banks they blame
15:35Congress railroads had a monopoly on
15:38freight rates which seemed unfair to
15:41people in the
15:43West for instance the average shipping
15:46rates in
15:481889 from Pittsburgh to Chicago 69 cents
15:53per ton per mile from Chicago to Sue
15:56City 87 cents a ton a mile from Sous
16:01City to eastern Montana
16:03$159 a ton a
16:06mile you can see from these rates the
16:09further
16:10west you move along the Rail lines the
16:14more costly it is to ship your product
16:18it's almost double well it's more than
16:21double to
16:22ship from Sous City to eastern Montana
16:26than it is to ship from Pittsburgh to to
16:29Chicago and Farmers felt that this was
16:31price
16:33manipulation they felt that they were
16:35paying to subsidize Eastern freight
16:38costs and this process of passing the
16:41cost on to the farmers was known as
16:47deadheading really you had to run a
16:50third or half empty trains out west to
16:53these less populated areas and that's
16:55why it was more
16:57expensive all also what infuriated
17:00farmers are that railroads own the best
17:02land in the west they were given this
17:04land in exchange for building the
17:07Transcontinental Railroad we talked
17:08about this exchange this legislation
17:11with the Pacific Railway act in
17:131862 so farmers felt like railroads had
17:16too much control over some State and
17:18territorial legislatures as
17:21well for instance the state of North
17:23Dakota or the territory of
17:26Montana they also blamed grain elevator
17:30operators often monopolies
17:33owned by the
17:37railroads they would limit the
17:39construction of grain elevators they had
17:42to be 140 miles
17:44apart so grain operators had full
17:47control over the prices
17:53charged and the long distances traveled
17:55making it even more expensive
17:59to send your goods to
18:04Market
18:06also populists blame the
18:09banks and Banks were notorious in US
18:12history because they could get you in
18:13two ways the first through debt and
18:17foreclosure it seemed to the farmers
18:19like Banks lived on the misery of the
18:21people who
18:23failed interest rates were 35 to 50%
18:30which made one bad
18:32year A tragedy it one bad year made it
18:36impossible to
18:38repay the second way they could get you
18:42was through a bank failure and the bank
18:44failure rate was extremely high
18:47especially in the west and south in the
18:49late 1880s and
18:511890s so farmers who had deposits in
18:54Banks lost
18:56everything they were mostly homeown but
18:59Farmers blamed the East that the East
19:02controlled the
19:06banks also as I mentioned populists
19:10Farmers agricultural interests blamed
19:13Congress especially the Senate the
19:16Senate was known as the rich man's club
19:19and Farmers had lost faith in
19:25Washington the result of these two
19:28identity
19:32crises or these two crises one identity
19:35one economic is that the farmers begin
19:38to
19:40organize first they organize in
19:43Gres these kinds of self-improvement
19:46clubs where they get together and
19:48discuss common problems from crops to
19:53politics they're kind of Social Clubs
19:56just to get all of these people that
19:57live great distances apart to socialize
20:00a little more but out of these Gres they
20:03form Grange cooperatives where they pool
20:06their money they pool their resources
20:09because they can save money buying in
20:10bulk from the
20:14factory and I'll give you two
20:19examples a
20:20Reaper would cost a farmer
20:23$275 in Omaha but if they bought it
20:26directly from the factory in Chicago
20:29that Reaper would only cost
20:33$175 a farm wagon might cost a farmer
20:37$150 in Omaha but only $90 in
20:42Chicago this is where companies like
20:44Montgomery
20:46Wards which you guys probably aren't
20:49even familiar with anymore but it was a
20:51exclusively catalog company got their
20:57start some Grangers banded together and
21:00got
21:01political they pressured state
21:03legislatures to enact Granger laws in
21:06the
21:081870s for instance in Indiana and
21:10Illinois laws regulated grain elevators
21:13and railroads to bring cost
21:16down however this never becomes a
21:18national movement and it was not
21:20effective railroads found
21:23loopholes but these laws are symbolic
21:27because you do at least have some
21:28government intervention at the state
21:36level by the 1880s you begin to see
21:40activism further west and in the
21:43South cotton Farmers become active with
21:46wheat and corn
21:48farmers and you begin to see the
21:50formation of organizations called
21:54alliances so we're moving from Grangers
21:57to alliances
21:59and three
22:02regional alliances evolve the Northern
22:05Alliance the southern
22:07Alliance and of course because we're in
22:09a age of massive discrimination and
22:12segregation the colored
22:17Alliance now there is a large Alliance
22:20meeting in St Louis in 1889 with an
22:22attempt to meld together the northern
22:24and southern
22:26alliances they failed toer merge but
22:29their ideas remain and carry in to the
22:331890s and in 1890 the alliances merged
22:36to create a national Farm party called
22:40The People's Party or the populace
22:48party in 1892 efforts to
22:51organize culminate in the First National
22:54Convention of the populist party held in
22:58in Omaha Nebraska at 20th in Bat
23:06downtown this convention nominated James
23:09B Weaver as their presidential
23:12candidate and it was a unique convention
23:15because it was composed of a lot of
23:17political amateurs and a lot of farmers
23:20came it's estimated that 10,000 Farmers
23:23came to the convention and there were
23:251,300
23:27delegates it was held in a large
23:29Auditorium
23:30downtown the farmers sang hymns they
23:33prayed it was a religiously oriented
23:37group mostly
23:40Protestant now it may have been hard for
23:42some to take them seriously especially
23:45in the East because there were no
23:47professional politicians with
23:49them but they put together a truly
23:52remarkable political
23:54platform a kind of package to remedy
23:58their there
24:00ills and I guess you could say a truly
24:03modern and Forward Thinking political
24:08platform especially when you consider
24:11the direction the United States went in
24:14in the early 20th
24:18century so let's talk about this Omaha
24:23platform as it is
24:25known and I linked you to the text of
24:29the platform under course
24:34materials you will be responsible from
24:37the Omaha platform on your quiz for this
24:43lecture now one of the main
24:45significances of the Omaha platform as a
24:48whole is that the document breaks the
24:51silence on government activism it wants
24:54government to enter the economy to solve
24:57econ EIC and social problems it's the
25:01first serious challenge to L fair at the
25:06national level and it advocated many
25:09things that eventually become federal
25:12law now some don't but many do so here
25:17are some of the things that it advocated
25:19it advocated Federal ownership of
25:23railroads the populists argued that
25:25railroads were too important too
25:27powerful too to be run for profit by
25:30private
25:31capitalists and they wanted these
25:33railroads to give land back to the
25:34federal
25:36government
25:38second the populace advocated vigorous
25:41Federal Regulation of Corporations and
25:45Banks they
25:47wanted the Sherman Antitrust Act to be
25:50used as it was intended to be used with
25:52Vigor to break up monopolies that
25:54controlled at least
25:5650% of the US
26:00market third the populace advocated for
26:03a significant lowering of the Tariff
26:06even lower than the
26:10Democrats fourth the populist called for
26:13a graduated federal income tax to offset
26:17the loss of income from this lower
26:20tariff they are the first people to call
26:23for an income tax after the Civil War
26:29they also push for Democratic
26:33reforms they want a federally mandated
26:36secret ballot also called the Australian
26:40ballot some states had this but some
26:43don't some still voted by
26:47voice they want government by
26:50petition they felt us voters should have
26:53a
26:54say about what kind of laws that they
26:57lived under they felt that the state
26:59legislatures were corrupt that they were
27:01too easily controlled by business so the
27:04idea was to petition to get laws on the
27:06ballot and to use suffrage to determine
27:08which laws were
27:11adopted also they want to use the same
27:14process to get rid of laws the process
27:17called initiative and referendum is what
27:20takes
27:27shape they want to get rid of the direct
27:30election of
27:33senators since the Constitutional system
27:36began senators were elected by state
27:40legislatur that was the way the
27:42Constitution was set up because the
27:44founders were worried about giving too
27:46much power to individual
27:48voters the populist called for an
27:50amendment to the
27:52Constitution for the direct election of
27:54senators and eventually the 17th
27:56amendment is passed in 19
28:0713 populace in order to attract Urban
28:11workers to their party to their cause
28:13called for a federally mandated 8 hour
28:17workday hoping to gain those Urban
28:20workers
28:21support and they also advocated for
28:24overtime pay for anything over eight
28:26hours
28:29they pushed for a sub treasury plan they
28:32wanted the federal government to build
28:34warehouses toore grain that way Farmers
28:38could rent space to store grain instead
28:40of selling
28:42it usually all farm Commodities are
28:45Harvest at the same time so the lowest
28:47price for Commodities is at Harvest time
28:50they want to this sub Treasury System so
28:53they can bring their Commodities onto
28:55the market at different times
29:03they wanted free coinage of silver or
29:06free silver unlimited
29:10coinage which would dramatically
29:12increase the amount of money in
29:14circulation causing inflation and
29:16raising Farm
29:18prices they wanted as much as $30 coin
29:21in silver to every $1 in
29:24gold or just coin all silver produced in
29:28us
29:29mines to release it into e the economy
29:32creating this
29:35inflation inflation is also good for
29:38debtors they understood that the debts
29:40would be cheaper to pay off with
29:43inflation now they were right in one way
29:45there certainly was not enough money in
29:47circulation to fully service the
29:51economy the period of the 1880s and
29:531890s is a period of deflation
29:59now the populace wouldn't have had much
30:02impact on the national level if the
30:04economy had stayed
30:07sound Weaver received a lot of votes in
30:10silver mining states he did okay in the
30:12Midwest and the South he won a million
30:15popular votes and 22 electoral votes
30:19which is pretty good for a third
30:23party it would be the events of 1893
30:28and the subsequent years that would
30:30boost the populace
30:35appeal in March of 1893 the same month
30:39that Grover Cleveland is inaugurated
30:41president he's the only president to
30:43hold office in two non-consecutive
30:46terms you get a panic on Wall Street the
30:511893 Panic or Panic of
30:541893 it involves several major
30:56Investment Banking houses
30:58which led to a large sell off of stocks
31:01and a collapse of confidence in the
31:06economy historians point to a few causes
31:11of the
31:12depression like over
31:15production Farmers produced too much
31:17railroads built too many miles of track
31:20the demand for steel slowed there was
31:22over production of coal and other
31:25resources also there was undercon
31:28consumption the economy is
31:30consumer-driven and if spending stops
31:32the economy quits
31:35growing wages and farm prices were so
31:38low that large segments of consumers
31:40could not buy much they didn't have
31:42disposable
31:44income they spent most of their money on
31:47Necessities like food and
31:49shelter so the economy was fragile
31:52because of these two things and it falls
31:54apart when investors get nervous
31:58by the end of 1894 8,000 businesses go
32:02bankrupt most railroads went into
32:06bankruptcy unemployment reached as high
32:08as
32:1020% and many banks folded they closed
32:15their doors and you'll have to remember
32:17at this time there is no Federal Deposit
32:20Insurance Corporation no
32:23FDIC when a Bank closed you lost your
32:26money
32:28this shrunk purchasing power and
32:31accentuated the
32:33problem and the Cleveland Administration
32:35was powerless to do anything it was
32:38committed to the old L Fair
32:43economics they
32:45believed like most that the Depression
32:47was part of the natural economic cycle
32:51and there was nothing the government
32:52could do because it was a natural
32:54process so the policy of the Cleveland
32:57Administration was to wait it
32:59out and indeed Cleveland followed this
33:07policy as the depression worsened the
33:11appeal of the populace
33:14grew people wanted the government to
33:17step in and provide some
33:20assistance in Wasing excuse me in
33:231894 coxy's Army marched on Washington
33:26DC trying to convince Congress to
33:29allocate money for
33:32jobs many Americans found free silver to
33:35be an attractive idea because they felt
33:38that free silver could regenerate
33:40economic
33:41prosperity and populism being to
33:46grow at the peak of the depression in
33:491895 you could sense a crisis at work
33:53there were many violent strikes in fact
33:551894 is the worst year in US history for
33:59strikes there were 1,400 major work
34:02stoppages and many were
34:04violent the Pullman Strike in Chicago
34:08evidenced this
34:09violence where the federal government
34:11stepped
34:14in all of these strikes suggested that
34:18business and government were at war with
34:21labor Congress enacted an income tax in
34:24the midst of the
34:26depression it really looked looked to
34:28many like the nation would go down in
34:31flames this was a true
34:38crisis all of this context all of these
34:41events lead us to the seminal election
34:45of
34:461896 a very important election in United
34:50States
34:51history because it
34:53realigned party identity
34:58it realigned the
35:01electorate really up until the Great
35:05Depression after the election of 1896
35:08the majority of Americans would identify
35:11themselves with the Republican party and
35:13the Republican Party would dominate
35:15until the Great
35:16Depression when the
35:19depression realigns politics
35:22again and places the Democrats in
35:26power but another huge outcome another
35:30huge Legacy and significance of the
35:33election of
35:351896 is that the Democratic party
35:39becomes the party of government
35:42intervention they will Co-op the
35:44populace and their ideas and from that
35:47point on they will push for government
35:50intervention government regulation when
35:54needed no longer will they aspire to lot
35:57sa Fair
35:58so those are the two significances I
36:01wanted to mention off the bat I'll
36:03mention again after we get
36:07through so obviously I'm trying to
36:09emphasize
36:10them so let's talk then about this
36:14election because Grover Cleveland would
36:17not adapt members of the democratic
36:20party rejected his
36:25leadership new young Democrats from the
36:29west and the South called for new
36:31leadership they were attracted by free
36:33silver they hoped it would provide an
36:35answer to the
36:40depression the Democratic Convention
36:43comes in July of
36:451896 delegates were committed to
36:47Bringing Cleveland down they nominated
36:50William Jennings Bryan a young powerful
36:54oror of local Origins
37:01he gave his famous free silver speech at
37:04the
37:06convention called the cross of gold
37:08speech saying that working people should
37:11not be crucified on a cross of
37:15gold after this speech Brian became a
37:20sensation he was easily
37:23nominated he was the youngest man at 36
37:26ever to be nominated by either major
37:29party you have to be 35 to run for
37:33president he was the most important
37:36Democrat of his
37:38generation he leads the party from 1896
37:42to
37:431912 16
37:48years along with the nomination of Brian
37:50delegates adopted most of the Omaha
37:54platform except
37:58they called for government regulation of
37:59the railroads instead of ownership and
38:02they did not call for a sub treasury
38:07plan this was a dramatic turnaround for
38:12the Democrats and it was catastrophic
38:15for the
38:17populace they needed the two main
38:19parties to stay rigidly L fair in order
38:23to gain ground to keep their momentum
38:27they had planned to nominate Brian
38:29because he was the foremost spokesman
38:31for free silver and when the Democrats
38:34nominated Brian it left the populace
38:36with a horrible
38:39choice they met two weeks after the
38:41Democrats if they nominated another
38:44candidate it would split votes so they
38:47did The Honorable thing and they
38:48nominated Brian as
38:50well to try and stay independent they
38:53nominated their own vice presidential
38:55candidate but really they lost their
38:58political
38:59importance they would become either
39:01fusionists or non-
39:03fusionists fusionists are those
39:05populists that fused with the Democratic
39:08party non fusionists obviously then are
39:11those that did
39:15not the Republicans nominated William
39:18McKinley from Ohio who was a fiscal
39:23conservative in fact he had authored the
39:26highest protective t Shi in United
39:28States history to that
39:31dat so the 1896 election featured
39:34William McKinley versus William Jennings
39:37Bryan McKinley had almost all of the
39:42advantages really three major ones that
39:45no one could have
39:46overcome the first was the
39:51economy people want to vote Democrats
39:54out of power because of the depression
40:00second virtually the entire press Corps
40:04endorsed
40:05McKinley now the Omaha World Herald
40:08endorsed Brian because previously he had
40:10been an editor he was a politician in
40:16Nebraska but newspapers said Brian was
40:19too young and too inexperienced he had
40:22only served one brief term in
40:26Congress but The crucial Advantage the
40:29biggest Advantage for McKinley and for
40:31the Republicans was quite simply
40:35money the 1896 election was the first
40:40big money
40:42election a concept that surely resonates
40:45with us
40:47today but the 1896 election is the first
40:50big money election because Brian scared
40:54Corporate America they saw him as a
40:57dangerous radical and a threat to
41:00capitalism so they donated to the
41:03Republicans in fact Rockefeller wrote a
41:06check for
41:10$300,000 this was as much as Brian
41:13raised all
41:16together Mark Hannah McKinley's campaign
41:19manager
41:21raised at minimum $3.5
41:25million although estimates reaches high
41:27is $7
41:30million but what that means is McKinley
41:33has between 10 and 20 times the money as
41:37William Jennings
41:41Bryant this infusion of money would
41:44dictate the
41:46campaign in fact Hannah had trouble
41:49spending all of the money for
41:51McKinley he paid Community leaders $25 a
41:55day to wear McKinley buttons
41:58and this is a time if you made a dollar
41:59a day you were doing pretty
42:02well McKinley ran what was called the
42:05front porch
42:07campaign where railroad
42:09cars would come to McKinley's front
42:13porch voters would be brought to him
42:16Hannah brought train loads of people to
42:18Canton Ohio to hear McKinley
42:21speak Hannah hires advertising companies
42:23to advertise McKinley he hires
42:26professional speech
42:28writers to make sure McKinley's speeches
42:31don't offend any one particular group so
42:36again this money is a significant
42:42Advantage Brian had to tour he had to
42:45travel and give
42:47speeches of course this might have been
42:50his one major advantage because he is
42:53known as one of the greatest orators in
42:56United States hist history he had the
42:59ability to get people charged
43:01up he held their attention he gave
43:05three-hour speeches at
43:07times one example is a speech he gave in
43:10Valentine Nebraska in an open field in
43:13July just imagine the humidity the
43:17heat he talked for 3 hours with no water
43:22and no one
43:24left Brian traveled 18,000 miles during
43:28four months of
43:29campaigning from the end of July to
43:31early
43:33November he traveled to 26 States and
43:36talked to 5 million
43:39Americans over four months he gave 600
43:43speeches that's an average of five
43:46speeches per
43:49day
43:56amazing of course Brian would ultimately
43:59fail McKinley would win the election by
44:03a significant margin in electoral votes
44:0561% to
44:0739 and a 3% margin in popular
44:13votes McKinley received 7.1 million to
44:18Brian 6 and A5
44:20million and as I mentioned before I
44:23started talking about the election these
44:25results are extremely significant this
44:27was a defining
44:28election Brian and his supporters change
44:31the direction of the democratic party it
44:33becomes the party of economic
44:35intervention of government
44:37involvement Brian would be the
44:40democrat's Presidential nominee three
44:43times of course this first time in 1896
44:46but also in 1900 and
44:501908 out of this election the Republican
44:52Party becomes the majority
44:54party and you get this card in partisan
44:57realignment or Readjustment of the
45:01electorate where the majority of
45:04Americans would vote Republican until
45:06the Great
45:09Depression one month after McKinley's
45:11election the economy began to rebound
45:14unemployment went down investment
45:17increased and by 1898 the economy is
45:21healthy and Republicans get credit for
45:23that
45:27now there are some reasons for this the
45:28business Community is relieved at
45:31McKinley's
45:32election they have more confidence and
45:35in 1898 gold is discovered in
45:40Alaska also a new process of refining
45:42gold is discovered where you can extract
45:46more gold from
45:50deposits finally there is the war with
45:54Spain which we'll talk about in the very
45:56near future
45:59so Republicans become the party
46:01associated with prosperity they get to
46:04take credit for the economy and as I
46:07said they will remain the majority party
46:10until
46:141932 thanks for your attention please
46:17remember to take the corresponding quiz
46:20which will cover this lecture
46:23and the 1892 Omaha PL

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