A Brief History of the United States Part 48

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOG CABIN WITH SOD ROOF.]

THE RANCHES.--Stretching across the country from Montana and Dakota to Arizona lay the gra.s.s region, the great ranch country, where herds of cattle grazed and were driven to the railroads to be taken to market. In later years this became also the greatest sheep-raising and wool-producing region in the Union.

BUFFALOES AND INDIANS.--With the building of the railroads and the coming of the settlers the reckless slaughter of the buffalo and the crowding of the Indians began. [11] To-day the buffalo is as rare an animal in the West as in the East; and after many wars and treaties with the Indians, they now hold less than one hundredth of the land west of the Mississippi.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CUSTER'S FIGHT.]

MECHANICAL PROGRESS.--The period 1860 to 1880 was one of great mechanical and industrial progress. During this time dynamite and the barbed-wire fence were introduced; the compressed-air rock drill, the typewriter, the Westinghouse air brake, the Janney car coupler, the cable car, the trolley systems, the electric light, the search light, electric motors, the Bell telephone, the phonograph, the gas engine, and a host of other inventions and mechanical devices were invented. To satisfy the demands of trade and commerce, great works of engineering were undertaken, such as twenty years before could not have been attempted. The jetties constructed by James B.

Eads in the South Pa.s.s at the mouth of the Mississippi, to force that river to keep open its own channel; the steel-arch railroad bridge built by Eads across the Mississippi at St. Louis; the Roebling suspension bridges over the Ohio at Cincinnati and over the East River at New York; and the successful laying of the Atlantic cable (1866) by Cyrus W. Field, are a few of the great mechanical triumphs of this period.

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.--Industries once carried on in the household or in small factories were conducted on a large scale by great corporations. The machine for making tin cans made possible the canning industry. The self- binding harvester and reaper made possible the immense grain fields of the West. The production and refining of petroleum became an industry of great importance. The great flour mills of Minneapolis, the iron and steel mills of Pennsylvania, the packing houses of Chicago and Kansas City, and many other enterprises were the direct result of the use of machinery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STEEL MILL.]

RISE OF GREAT CORPORATIONS.--Trades and occupations, industries of all sorts, began to concentrate and combine, and large corporations took the place of individuals and small companies. In place of many little railroads there were now trunk lines. [12] In place of many little telegraph companies, express companies, and oil companies there were now a few large ones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SETTLED AREA IN 1880.]

IMMIGRATION.--This industrial development, in spite of machinery, could not have been so great were it not for the increase in population, wealth, the facilities of transportation, and the great number of workingmen.

These were largely immigrants, who came by hundreds of thousands year after year. From about 90,000 in 1862, the number who came each year rose to more than 450,000 in 1873; and then fell to less than 150,000 in 1878.

The population of the whole country in 1880 was 50,000,000, of whom more than 6,500,000 were of foreign birth.

SUMMARY

1. The discovery of gold and silver near the Rocky Mountains in 1858 and later brought to that region many thousand miners.

2. Their presence in that wild region made local government necessary, and by 1868 seven new territories were formed (Colorado, Dakota, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming), and one of them (Nevada, 1864) was admitted into the Union as a state.

3. Means of communication with California and the far West were improved.

First came the Pony Express, then the telegraph, and finally the railroad.

4. The construction of the railroad across the middle of the country was followed by the building of another near the northern border.

5. Railroad building, the Homestead Law, and the success of the Dakota wheat farms, led to the rapid development of the new Northwest.

6. Quite as noticeable is the mechanical and industrial progress of the country, the rise of great corporations, and the flood of immigrants that came to our sh.o.r.es each year.

FOOTNOTES

[1] For descriptions of the wild life in the new Northwest in the pioneer days read Langford's Vigilante Days and Ways.

[2] A large wagon with a white canvas top.

[3] A kind of heavy coach, so called because first manufactured at Concord, New Hamps.h.i.+re.

[4] When the war opened and Texas seceded, this route was abandoned, and after April, 1861, letters and pa.s.sengers went from St. Joseph by way of Salt Lake City to California.

[5] All letters had to be written on the thinnest paper, and no more than twenty pounds' weight was allowed in each of the two pouches. The trail was infested with "road agents" (robbers), and roving bands of Indians were ever ready to murder and scalp; but in summer and winter, by day and night, over the plains and over the mountains, these brave men made their dangerous rides, carrying no arms save a revolver and a knife. Each letter had to be inclosed in a ten-cent stamped envelope and have on it in addition for each half ounce five one-dollar stamps of the Pony Express Company. The story of the Pony Express is told in Henry _Inman's Great Salt Lake Trail_, Chap. viii.

[6] As the government had no post offices in the mining camps, the stage company became the postmasters, delivered the letters, and charged twenty- five cents for each. Sometimes the owner of a little store in a remote mountain camp would act as postmaster, and charge a high price for sending letters to or bringing them from the nearest stage station. One such used a barrel for the letter box, and sent the mail once a month. A hole was cut in the head of the barrel, and beside it was posted a notice which read: "This is a Post Office. Shove a quarter through the hole with your letter. We have no use for stamps as I carry the mail."

[7] The lighter articles went in wagons drawn by four or six horses or mules, the heavier in great wagons drawn by six and eight yoke of oxen, which made the trip to Denver in five weeks. The cost of provisions brought in this way was very great. Thus in 1865, in Helena, Montana, flour sold for $85 a sack of one hundred pounds. Potatoes cost fifty cents in gold a pound, and coal oil, at Virginia City, $10 in gold a gallon.

Board and lodgings rose in proportion, and it was not uncommon to see posted in the boarding houses such notices as this: "Board with bread at meals, $32; board without bread, $22." Read Hough's _The Way to the West_, pp. 200-221.

[8] Every other section in a strip of land twenty miles wide along the entire length of the railroad. The government had always been liberal in granting land to aid in the construction of roads, ca.n.a.ls, and railroads, and between 1827 and 1860 had given away for such purposes 215,000,000 acres. Had these acres been in one great tract it would have been seven times as large as Pennsylvania. In 1862 Congress also added to its grants for educational purposes (p. 301) by giving to each state from 90,000 to 990,000 acres of public land in aid of a college for teaching agriculture and the mechanical arts.

[9] For conditions on which land could be secured before this, see p. 302.

[10] The history of the railroads across the continent is told in Cy.

Warman's _Story of the Railroad_; for the Northern Pacific, read pp.

179-196.

[11] White men eager for land invaded the Indian reservations; acts of violence were frequent, and shameful frauds were perpetrated by the agents of the government. The Indians, in retaliation, killed settlers and ran off horses, mules, and cattle. There were uprisings of the Sioux in Minnesota (1862) and in Montana (1866); but the worst offenders were the Apaches of Arizona, and against them General Crook waged war in 1872.

Toward the close of 1872 the Modocs left their reservation in Oregon, took refuge in the Lava Beds in northern California, and defied the troops sent to drive them back. General Canby and several others were treacherously murdered at a conference (1873), and a war of several months' duration followed before the Modocs were forced to surrender. In 1874 the Cheyennes (she-enz'), enraged at the slaughter of the buffaloes by the whites, made cattle raids, and more fighting ensued. An attempt to remove the Sioux to a new reservation led to yet another war in 1876, in which Lieutenant- Colonel Custer and his force of 262 men were ma.s.sacred in Montana. Read Longfellow's poem _The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face_.

[12] Thus (1869) the New York Central (from Albany to Buffalo) and the Hudson River (from New York to Albany) were combined and formed one railroad under one management from New York to Buffalo.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

A QUARTER CENTURY OF STRUGGLE OVER INDUSTRIAL QUESTIONS, 1872 TO 1897

THE NATIONAL LABOR PARTY.--The changed industrial conditions of the period 1860-80 affected politics, and after 1868 the questions which divided parties became more and more industrial and financial. The rise of the national labor party and its demands shows this very strongly. Ever since 1829 the workingman had been in politics in some of the states, and had secured many reforms. But no national labor congress was held till 1865, after which like congresses were held each year till 1870, when a national convention was called to form a "National Labor-Reform Party."

The demands of the party thus formed (1872) were for taxation of government bonds (p. 387); repeal of the national banking system (p. 382); an eight-hour working day; exclusion of the Chinese; [1] and no land grants to corporations (p. 398). At every presidential election since this time, nominations have been made by one or more labor parties.

THE PROHIBITION PARTY.--Another party which first nominated presidential candidates in 1872 was that of the Prohibitionists. After much agitation of temperance reform, [2] efforts were made to prohibit the sale of liquor entirely, and between 1851 and 1855 eight states adopted prohibitory laws.

Then the movement subsided for a while, but in 1869 it began again and in that year the National Prohibition Reform party was founded. In 1872 its platform called for the suppression of the sale of intoxicating liquor, and for a long series of other reforms. Every four years since that time the Prohibition party has named its candidates.

GRANT REFLECTED.--In 1872 no great importance was attached to either of these parties (the Labor and the Prohibition). The contest lay between General Grant, the Republican candidate for President, and Horace Greeley, [3] the Liberal Republican nominee (p. 390), who was supported also by most of the Democrats. Grant was elected by a large majority.

THE PANIC OF 1873.--Scarcely had Grant been reinaugurated when a serious panic swept over the country. The period since the war had been one of great prosperity, wild speculation, and extraordinary industrial development. Since 1869 some 24,000 miles of railroad had been built. But in the midst of all this prosperity, the city of Chicago was almost destroyed by fire (1871), [4] and the next year a large part of the city of Boston was burned. This led to a demand for money to rebuild them. Many speculative enterprises failed. The railroads that were being built ahead of population, in order to open up new lands, could not sell their bonds, and when a banker who was backing one of the railroads failed, the panic started. Thousands of business men failed, and the wages of workingmen were cut down.

THE SPECIE PAYMENT ACT.--The cry was then raised for more money, and (in 1874) Congress attempted to increase, or "inflate," the amount of greenbacks in circulation from $356,000,000 to $400,000,000. Grant vetoed the bill. What shall be done with the currency? then became the question of the hour. Paper money was still circulating at less than its face value as measured in coin. To make it worth face value, Congress (1875) decided to resume specie payment; that is, the fractional currency was to be called in and redeemed in 10, 25, and 50 cent silver pieces; and after January 1, 1879, all greenbacks were to be redeemed in specie.

POLITICAL PARTIES IN 1876. [5]--This policy of resumption of specie payment did not please everybody. A Greenback party was formed, which called for the repeal of the Specie Payment Act and for the issue of more greenbacks. That the presidential election would be close was certain, and this certainty did much to lead the Democratic and Republican parties to take up some of the demands of the Prohibition, Liberal Republican, and Labor parties. Thus both the Democratic and Republican parties called for no more land grants to corporations, and for the exclusion of the Chinese.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEMORIAL HALL, PHILADELPHIA.]

THE ELECTION OF 1876.--The Republican candidate for President was Rutherford B. Hayes; [6] the Democratic candidate was Samuel J. Tilden.

The admission of Colorado in August, 1876, made thirty-eight states, casting 369 electoral votes. A candidate to be elected therefore needed at least 185 electoral votes. So close was the contest that the election of Hayes was claimed by exactly 185 votes. This number included the votes of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon, in each of which a dispute was raging as to whether Republican or Democratic electors were chosen.

Both sets claimed to have been elected, and both met and voted.