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The analyst of the career of a public figure functioning under a system of representative government finds that the problem of statesmanship is pecul- iarly complicated. The hazards in leadership often seem to conspire to punish statesmanship, confronting public figures with dire alternatives which subsequent biographers must not fail to weigh on the scales of the possible and probable. As McKinley bluntly explained when pushing a compromise to end a silver stalemate in the house of representatives: "We cannot have ideal legislation. It is not possible. Practical men do not NOTES ARE ON PAGES 341-343 |
264 OHIO HISTORY
expect it. Practical statesmen can only
strive for it, and secure the best
which is attainable."1
Successful politicians are not gods, but
mortals, growing from the earth
of their native heath, nurtured by the
ingredients of that soil. Firmly rooted
in it, they can bend like trees, before
stormy political winds sweeping over
the land of their constituency,
accommodating themselves to uncertain shifts
in direction and force. Toughened by
their practice in adaptation, such
men may wax in strength through the
years, negotiating the climb up the
political Mount Olympus. A few reach the
top. Such an one was William
McKinley.
A fair understanding of the record made
on an important political issue
by a highly successful officeholder
tests the mettle of the historian. One
must evaluate triple peculiarities:
those of the issue, the region, and the
person. In the relationship of the
twenty-fifth president of the United
States to the currency problem of his
era,2 there stand revealed three par-
ticularly dynamic factors: the peculiar
potency of the currency issue in
United States politics between 1860 and
1900; the irregular pattern of
political behavior then in Ohio; and the
embodiment, in McKinley's person-
ality, of the disposition and skills
essential to a successful fusion of the
issue, the region, and a career.
The following narrative begins with
brief descriptions of the three most
dynamic factors pertinent to this subject,
and proceeds therefrom into the
emergent sequence of events.
The peculiar potency of the currency
problem in United States politics
between 1860 and 1900 arose chiefly from
the economic and social insta-
bility experienced by the populace.
America was establishing the basis
for unprecedented national productivity,
and demonstrating phenomenal
recuperative powers after adversity, but
the pace of change was so rapid,
and so frequently raised urgent
problems, that painful groping for answers
was a common experience. The nation was
demonstrating that under a
representative form of government
economic status is a political fact of
prime importance, making shifts in that
status a prime cause of political
instability.
Anyone born in 1840 and living into 1900
experienced in his adult life
three severe depressions (1857-59,
1873-78, 1893-98) and at least four
minor recessions (1881, 1884, 1888, and
1890). He was caught up in
the rushing current of an unprecedented
national expansion--in area, popu-
lation, and wealth--without a
correlative expansion in the circulating
medium needed to oil the economic
machinery.
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 265
Furthermore, the American was without
the protective services of a
central bank or other institution
expressly assigned the task of striving to
cushion ups and downs of the economy.
Whenever, for many complicated
reasons, the economic machinery lost
momentum, slowed down miserably,
and stripped its gears, innumerable
delicate parts got "out of whack."
Ambitious and solicitous tinkerers,
blessedly unaffrighted by the intricacy
of the mechanism, rushed to the rescue,
each with his own design of a new
monkey wrench. No conflict lacks its
appeal to pseudo science as well
as science.
Many of the repairmen concentrated their
endeavors on the currency
area of the mechanism--one of its most
delicate parts and nearly defense-
less against the well-meaning
self-confidence native to the American demo-
cratic tradition. Some daring
technicians sought to alter, or remove alto-
gether, that part of the machinery known
as the gold standard; decades
ahead of their time, they argued against
forcing a distressed national
economy to pay obeisance to that
imperious concept of international
respectability.
Less daring repairmen, remembering that
printing-press money had
helped to finance the Civil War,
proposed to fight depression with issues of
paper to be maintained "as good as
gold" by the fiat of their growing
country. The more timid, fearful of
"soft" money, counted on the same
fiat to maintain hard money--depreciated
silver--on a basis of "equality
with gold"; to these mechanics
"bimetallism" was the magic lubricant.
Perforce, the currency issue acquired
both national and international conno-
tations: of class conflict, of intra- and
inter-regional jealousies, of intra-
and inter-party rivalries, of
nationalism and isolationism.
The result was a melange of fantasy,
friction, and faction, challenging
the understanding and ingenuity of
everyone, especially persons subject
to the electorate. The enormously
difficult currency problem thus exer-
cised a peculiar potency to raise, and
wreck, political careers. This potency
warned William McKinley to keep at a
safe distance from the radioactive
issue. Ultimately, as will be seen, he
stationed himself safely behind a
shield fused of patriotism, bimetallism,
and the tariff.
The irregular pattern of political
behavior in Ohio rested upon an his-
toric, pre-Civil War, partisanship and
became aggravated by postwar eco-
nomic diversification. As in some other
midwestern states, strong agricul-
tural interests survived amid burgeoning
industrialization, with sharp
diversities in population movements,
occupations, and the momentum of
activity. Political unity within parties
was hard to come by, with personal
266 OHIO HISTORY
rivalries and rank inconsistency often
at a premium as devices for affecting
the balance of power in the party
machine. By the same token, statesman-
ship--the reconciliation of divergencies
for the overall good--was an
arduous endeavor, highly punishable.
Candidates had to thread a veritable
Minoan labyrinth. John Sherman and
William McKinley became the two
Ohio politicians who, Theseus-like, were
most successful in keeping hold
of a thread strong enough to lead them
safely through the maze.
Ohio furnished a sharp contrast to New
England's secure postwar hier-
archies of Republicanism, on local,
state, and national levels. McKinley's
own county, Stark, remained almost
constantly Democratic (as did Sher-
man's Richland County), and his
congressional district was so closely
fought that it was gerrymandered five
times out of the seven races he ran
for the house of representatives from
1876 to 1890. In his hair's breadth
contest of 1882 McKinley finally lost
out by eight votes. The Republicans
were the minority party in the lower
house in all but four of the more than
thirteen years he served in congress;
and, in those four, greenbackers and
silverites made their legislative
presence known.3
Ohio during the 1860-1900 era gave her
gubernatorial terms to Demo-
crats four times; her congressional
terms ran approximately forty-five
percent Democratic until the depression
beginning in 1893, a political
windfall for the Republicans which so
increased their longevity in the house
as to raise their forty-year average to
a shade above sixty percent. Her
senatorial terms went to Democrats five
times out of fifteen, with six of
the Republican victories won by Ohio's
other masterly middle-of-the-roader,
the Republican Nestor, John Sherman.
This left only four terms for less-
skilled Republicans. Sherman tenaciously
kept a seat in the United States
Senate through two sixteen-year periods
(1861-77, 1881-97), broken only
by four years as secretary of the
treasury under President Hayes; but his
senatorial colleague from Ohio was
always a Democrat after bluff old Ben
Wade left the scene in 1869. Here indeed
was rigorous training making
for an acute sensitivity to partisan
potentials.4
Ohio's political irregularity was an
invitation to monetary enthusiasms;
but in such uncertainty precise
definitions were usually to be avoided like
the plague. Democrat or Republican,
Ohio's senators and representatives,
when traversing monetary ground, had
best walk on eggs. Thus, the
unending practice of vague
generalization became an ever-present fact of
McKinley's life, annoying opponents,
biographers, and historians, and (as
will be seen) fooling the platform
drafters in 1896.
Right John Sherman
268 OHIO HISTORY
McKinley, the individual, embodied the
disposition and skills essential
to a successful fusion: of the volatile
monetary issue, of Ohio's political
fickleness, and of his own career in
Republicanism. Rooted deeply in the
mid-Victorian mores of a middle-class,
midwest environment, he consist-
ently aimed always to keep within the
bounds of a middle position. His
ambition wore too gentle a guise to defeat
his advancement, making usually
for a comfortable feeling among most of
his associates.
He sought preferment through avoidance
of leadership: through caution,
ingrained indirection, passivity,
postponement, neutrality, temporizing, lis-
tening, earnest oratory, and (where moot
issues were involved) through
strategic silence or skillful use of a
maze of familiar-sounding, more-or-
less-sacrosanct verbiage. McKinley
possessed the inner strengths peculiar
to sincerely cherished mediocrity. His
native optimism could not be weak-
ened by doubts stirred in broad study of
vagrant monetary philosophies;
he learned "by ear" and
confined his reading almost exclusively to
newspapers.
McKinley attended a school of experience
with a comparatively light
monetary curriculum. He never had to
endure the bitter opprobrium of a
secretary of the treasury (such as
Sherman) commissioned to achieve
resumption of specie payments before
Americans could forget a long-
lasting depression. He never had to
direct the vast patronage of the treasury
department under a president (such as
Hayes) committed to cleansing the
Augean stables of corruption.
Altogether, this lucky politician enjoyed a
simple philosophy, undisturbed by any
very disquieting awareness of the
basic socio-economic problems of the
nation; surely, he thought, high protec-
tion could solve most economic problems,
including monetary issues. Thus,
McKinley need never be given to
following new paths, other than those
blazed by the emotions of his fellow
countrymen. To these emotions, within
the range of his basic principles and
his simple understanding, he conscien-
tiously sought to give heed. Of this, he
made a capital demonstration as he
threaded his way through the monetary
politics of his era.
McKinley sallied into politics early--in
1867, before the fledgling
lawyer was twenty-five years old. Ohio
decisions were typically uncertain,
and his experiences as a local
campaigner during the next nine years taught
him a great deal about monetary
politics. He helped get the governorship
for his Civil War commander, Rutherford
B. Hayes, in the hair-line contest
of 1867, bringing in Democratic Stark
County for Hayes. But the legis-
lature proved to be Democratic on joint
ballot by eight votes, ensuring that
Senator Sherman's next colleague would
be a Democrat, Allen G. Thurman.
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 269
One reason for the Democratic majority
at Columbus was the rise of
greenbackism.5 The flow of
debtor payments into the banks and into the
East was creating a currency scarcity,
aggravated by the treasury's policy
of greenback retirement preparatory to
resumption of specie payments on
a gold basis. Greenbackers demanded new
issues of greenbacks for retire-
ment of the bonded debt; they aimed to
decrease both the national debt
and interest charges on it, and to
increase both the supply of currency for
paying their own debts and the prices
paid to them. Radical Democrats
seized on this issue as one calculated
to restore their party to power and
pushed less-daring Democrats and
Republicans into various concessions
on it.
So McKinley began his lifetime
adjustments to the monetary issue during
his novitiate. The "rag baby"
proposition was coming to be called the
"Ohio Idea" because of its
strength in his home state. The formerly con-
servative Cincinnati Enquirer was
vociferously popularizing it, and out-
standing advocates of various greenback
solutions included Ohio's vigorous
ex-Republican Greenbacker, Samuel F.
Cary, and her less radical but very
prominent Democratic presidential
aspirant, "Gentleman" George H.
Pendleton. His moderate "Pendleton
Plan" for using greenbacks as a
means for achieving specie payments was
endorsed, January 8, 1868, by
the state Democratic convention; and a
month earlier both Ohio's senators
and all her congressmen but two had
helped to pass a law to suspend further
reduction of greenbacks.6 What
platforms would the national parties pro-
vide for use on Ohio hustings?
The Republicans officially denounced
"all forms of repudiation," gently
adding that the public debt should be
paid gradually, at an honestly reduced
interest rate, in good faith according
to the "letter" and "spirit" of the
laws; but several of their state
conventions and some leaders leaned on the
Pendleton Plan for support. The
Democrats officially endorsed it, declaring
that such public debt as was not
expressly issued as payable "in coin . . .
ought, in right and in justice," to
be paid in "lawful money"; but they
finally passed over Pendleton, to
nominate an embarrassing anti-Greenback
New Yorker, Horatio Seymour.7
Ohio's Republicans, fortified by Grant's
military popularity, cannily
sought votes on both sides of the monetary
fence. Their state platform
advocated war-bond redemption "in
the currency of the country which may
be a legal tender when the government
shall be prepared to redeem such
bonds." Senator Sherman cagily
pronounced that the government had the
right to redeem in "existing"
currency but not in a new issue emitted for
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the purpose. McKinley found an out by pitching his speeches on the great- ness of Grant as a military leader. Using Grant and such fluid propositions as these, Ohio's Republican campaigners lost only three of their current congressional seats (retaining thirteen of Ohio's total nineteen) but eight of their men won by majorities under 1,000 and Grant proved much stronger than his party. Within two weeks after Grant's inauguration, two Ohioans, Senator Sherman and Representative Robert C. Schenck shepherded through congress a bill endorsing payment of government bonds "in coin or its equivalent," and Grant signed it.8 McKinley and other Ohio faithful next bent their efforts to winning back their state legislature and reelecting Governor Hayes in 1869. While the Democratic state platform reiterated that bonds should be paid in green- backs, the Republicans omitted mention of greenbacks. McKinley's party |
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 271
felt confident of prosperity and he
accepted the dubious honor of nomination
for Stark County prosecuting attorney, a
place the Democrats usually held.
He won, surprisingly. So did Hayes; but
their party's control of the legis-
lature was somewhat diluted by
"Liberal Republican" members. During
the next winter national interest in the
currency sufficed to bring nearly
fifty variegated monetary measures into
the congressional hopper.
The state campaign of 1871 was hard
fought, but there was then less
political percentage in the greenback
issue (temporarily in abeyance) than
in the fact that the new legislature
would determine whether John Sherman
should win another term. Again the
Democrats officially endorsed the
Pendleton Plan and the Republicans
omitted it from their platform. The
Republicans won the legislature
narrowly, but were badly factionalized.
Sherman had a near miss, winning by only
two votes on joint ballot. This
escape from defeat was enviously
explained by Congressman James A.
Garfield, who claimed that Sherman had
the regular habit of being "very
conservative for 5 years and then
fiercely radical for one."9
Quietly observant and listening,
McKinley returned to private legal prac-
tice that fall. Before he again sought
public office (in 1876) he saw
abundant evidence of monetary hazards to
Ohio candidates. Her repre-
sentatives in Washington were moved to
introduce bills of varied hues of
monetary doctrine, while they won and
lost their Ohio campaigns by narrow
squeaks, eschewing platform consistency.
After the depression descended
in 1873, twelve of their twenty house
members voted for a permanent increase
of greenbacks up to $400,000,000; but
neither Ohio senator, Sherman or
Thurman, voted for it, and Grant vetoed
it.10 Nine Ohio congressmen voted
against the historic act of 1875 which
specified ultimate contraction of legal
tender notes to $300,000,000 and
resumption of specie payments by
January 1, 1879.11
Protest against contraction flamed high
in Ohio in the summer of 1875,
for reasons besides agricultural
distress, alarming both the major parties.
Newcomers to the Ohio Democracy were
employing greenbackism to gain
party influence; and over-extended
investors in Ohio's iron, coal, railroads,
and growing heavy industry saw ruin in
deflation.12 The party abandoned a
recent tolerance of resumption and distaste
for irredeemable currency.
Uttering dire warnings of disaster from
resumption, their boldest element
got a platform demanding repeal of the
offensive law, displacement of bank
notes by greenbacks, and maintenance of
a volume of currency "equal to
the wants of trade." This was a
little too much for Democratic Senator
Allen Thurman; he occasionally assured
the voters that his party neither
opposed resumption nor demanded
inflation.
272 OHIO HISTORY
The Republicans adopted a gradualism the
Democrats recently had advo-
cated; they declared for a financial
policy which should "ultimately equalize
the purchasing capacity of the coin and
paper dollar . . . without unneces-
sary shock to business and
trade"--an implication of postponement useful
with disaffected audiences. Also they
found it better to place their emphasis
on the horrors of inflation rather than
the beatitudes of resumption. They
employed moral appeals: irredeemable
currency was "unsound," a viola-
tion of a "pledge." After
using these tactics to soften the impact of Hayes's
bolder defense of resumption, and after
fervid oratory from Carl Schurz,
imported to remind the Germans of the
dire evils of inflation, McKinley and
other ardent campaigners won in 1875 a
third term for ex-Governor Hayes,
but narrowly.13
McKinley knew that the currency issue
was splitting his party. William
D. Kelley, an outstanding protectionist
whom Pennsylvania Republicans
established in congress in 1861 (and who
was destined to occupy that seat
until death ousted him in 1890), had
been converted to greenbacks in 1866;
in 1875 he had been invited into Ohio's
hard-hit iron and mining districts
to campaign as a Republican opponent of
resumption and national banks.
Sagely accepting party double-talk as a
plain fact of political life,
McKinley decided that Hayes's candidacy
for the presidency in 1876 was
a good time for him to run for congress.
He easily balanced resumption on
one shoulder and bimetallism on the
other, trying out the tariff as a "minor
issue";14 and the Ohio
state Republican committee was equally dextrous,
balancing Hayes with Kelley, especially
as Youngstown steel manufacturers
liked Kelley's protectionism. As Kelley
jocularly reminded his fellow
representatives, Republicans and
Democrats, it was "a very convenient
thing" for his party to be able to
send him, a Republican greenbacker, a
"convertible bond man," into
greenback districts of Ohio, Indiana, and
Pennsylvania. With becoming gratitude
Hayes and Congressman Charles
Foster--but not Garfield, an unswerving
hard-money man--had endorsed
Kelley's own candidacy in appropriate
quarters of Pennsylvania.15
While the national Republican platform
of 1876 endorsed "continuous
and steady progress to specie
payment," the point was rather a quiet aside
in a clamorous waving of the bloody
shirt.16 Despite, or perhaps because
of the existence of a Greenback party,
Ohio Republicans managed to give
to Hayes a presidential majority of
6,636 votes, and to their slate--includ-
ing McKinley of Stark--twelve of the
twenty congressional seats. The
ultimate seating of Hayes, and his
selection of Sherman as secretary of
the treasury, opened the senatorship to
an ex-Democratic supporter of
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Hayes, Stanley Matthews, who in monetary matters proved left of center-- counting McKinley as center, Sherman as right of center, and Hayes with Garfield as farther right. Amidst the clamor over the depression, greenbacks, and the rigged elec- tion returns, Ohio's legislators found surcease in silver. The majority of her congressmen regardless of party but lacking Garfield, voted December 13, 1876, for free coinage,17 and her state legislators proceeded in 1877 to pass a resolution favoring silver remonetization. The freshman congress- man from the Democratic county of Stark stood up and was counted for silver coinage within twenty-one days after he took his seat; and by March 1, 1878, resumptionist McKinley had gone on record for currency expan- sion thrice, and against it once. Together with all Ohio's congressmen except Garfield (who was absent and unpaired), he supported the latest Bland bill |
274 OHIO HISTORY
for free coinage, November 5, 1877.18
But he promptly thereafter voted
against repeal of the 1875 resumption
clause.19
His coupling of free silver with specie
resumption came easily to
McKinley that November. His home-town
newspaper said that silver would
"strongly aid" resumption
because two metals would be used; silver
remonetization therefore was not
inflationary and, besides, it signalized
defeat of "eastern money
sharks" and "European money lenders." The
Canton Repository lauded his type of ambivalence and deplored different
angles adopted by such seasoned
politicians as Garfield, Hayes, Matthews,
and Sherman.20
As the winter wore on McKinley continued
to learn by ear, listening
while for three exciting months senate,
house, administration, and nation
argued over free coinage. Secretary of
the Treasury Sherman noted that
commerce was favorable and gold was
accumulating in the treasury, but
under the silver uncertainty he avoided
bond sales, "awaiting events without
any committals whatever."21
Back in Columbus the assembly noted that an
1877 declaration for free coinage had
passed with only three nays in their
house and one in their senate, and they
reiterated that "common honesty,
true financial wisdom, and justice to
the taxpayers of this country, demand
the immediate restoration of the silver
dollar to its former rank, as a legal
tender for all debts, public and
private."
The Democratic brethren among them,
being in the majority, made it a
personal matter, sending notice to every
Ohioan at the national capitol "that
President Hayes and Secretary John
Sherman, in their opposition to the
restoration of the silver dollar, do not
represent the views of, nor the wishes
of the people of the State."22
The majority expressed their own wishes by
electing to the senate Pendleton of
greenback fame. There would be no
Ohio Republican in the senate for the
next two years to grease the ways for
McKinley projects there.23
Over in Washington, Stanley Matthews was
pressing through the senate
a resolution declaring that it did not
violate public faith nor derogate
creditor rights to make government bonds
payable, principal and interest,
"at the option of the
government" in silver dollars.24 Secretary Sherman
was insisting that, until the government
was ready to redeem greenbacks
"in coin," holders of them
should be allowed to convert them into four
percent bonds at par;25 but
he was opposed to free coinage.
As this was the decade when the house
was the branch most addicted to
currency expansion, it was the senate
which here provided a remedy. Con-
veniently attaching the name of a
midwestern senator to a mild substitute
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 275
for Bland's unlimited coinage, the
senate sent back to the house the famous
(or infamous, depending on viewpoint)
Bland-Allison bill, carefully tailored
to obtain a two-thirds vote in both
houses. It met part way three different
clamors: the popular demand for currency
expansion, the mine owners'
demand for a market, and the
conservatives' demand for recognition that
America's international repute was involved.
The government was to spend monthly no
less than $2,000,000 and no
more than $4,000,000 for bullion bought
at the market price (then about
ninety cents for the content of a
dollar); it was to coin it into silver dollars
which were to be "legal tender"
and which could be exchanged at the treas-
ury for "silver certificates"
in denominations of no less than ten dollars;
the Hayes administration must call an
international bimetallic conference.
This compromise got the votes of both
senators, McKinley, and sixteen of
the other Ohio representatives,
including Garfield. The other three repre-
sentatives were not rewarded with long
terms in the house.26
Would the president from Ohio accept it
or veto it? Secretary Sherman
was dubious about a veto. He suggested
to Hayes that the minimum pur-
chase of $2,000,000 worth at the market
price, with the government pocket-
ing the difference between actual cost
and the stamped value, should remove
"all serious objections,"
especially "in view of the strong public sentiment
in favor of free coinage." But
Hayes's sense of moral values was aroused;
he was not so sure that even the minimum
could be kept at par with gold;
"the nation must not have a stain
on its honor." He vetoed, and house and
senate promptly overrode that veto. The Repository
explained the desertion
of Hayes by his friends from Ohio:
"It was not that they loved Hayes less
but that they loved tranquility
more."27
But what about McKinley? What had
happened to the thirty-four-year-old
resumptionist of 1875? In truth, he was
putting on a pair of mismated
monetary shoes which he wore comfortably
on his stroll through politics
over the next twenty years. One foot
wore a shoe of continued opposition
to currency expansion through emission
of paper unbacked by metal. The
1875 Schurz type of argument had
convinced him of the rightness of that
opposition--of that kind of support for
resumption. Its advocates bore the
aura of fortitude; as McKinley modestly
explained in referring to Garfield's
insistence on resumption, "No act
of his life required higher courage."28
The other shoe was half-soled with
silver.
McKinley found in silver expansion of
the currency the moral, patriotic,
and "sound" policy to adopt.
Morally, a wrong needed righting. Like
millions of Americans then and
recurrently since, he tended to accept the
276 OHIO HISTORY
"Crime of '73" doctrine which
able inflationists and mine owners endlessly
dinned into receptive ears.29 The
doctrine argued that silver had been
"unjustly deprived" of its
"rightful place" in the American bimetallic
system when the mint act of 1873
"secretly" and through "wicked machina-
tions by a British agent of London
bankers" had failed to include the silver
dollar in the list of pieces authorized
for coinage.
Herein McKinley parted from Garfield,
Hayes, Sherman, and others who
pointed out that the act was long
debated, the silver dollar was not then in
use, and the supposed "agent"
was himself an internationally known
bimetallist. McKinley thought it
"unjust" that rich advocates of gold should
keep from the poor the use of silver--a
conviction reinforced by impolitic
comments from gold spokesmen.
Patriotically, McKinley must resent any
masterminding by British cred-
itor interests. Furthermore, United
States use of bimetallism was an his-
torical custom hallowed by the
constitution and by Hamilton's projection
of it in 1792. McKinley's faith in it
was not undermined by the fact that
under American experience with bimetallism,
silver and gold had chased
each other in and out of circulation as
one or the other metal reached a
market value above the current coinage
ratio.30 Our great democracy must
hold to its priniciples. Also to an
ambitious congressman who was by way
of becoming engrossed in
"protection" as a sure solution of domestic prob-
lems, American-produced silver merited
that "recognition" which limited
coinage provided. Congress must "do
something for silver."
McKinley found limited silver coinage,
at the approximate ratio of
sixteen to one, "sound" for
many reasons. The metal had been valued in
the marketplace above that ratio for
eighteen years. Silver did not carry
the deep stain of
"inflationary" greenbacks. The resumption act specified
"coin," not gold, affording
silver high respectability and opening avenues
of further use. Besides common folk,
some notable economists, statesmen,
and reputable journals were arguing that
gold, alone, had demonstrated its
inadequacy as a monetary base. The
European powers deserting bimetal-
lism of late must shortly cooperate with
the United States in restoring it;
their economic need for an international
bimetallic agreement was being
preached by bimetallic leagues
(maintained by minority intelligentsia) in
England, France, and Germany.
Meanwhile, McKinley and many other
resumptionists believed that our
United States could keep a limited
volume of silver legal tenders "as good
as gold." All United States money,
"the money of the poor no less than
the rich," must be "as good as
gold," of course. Certainly for McKinley
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 277
and many other congressmen of his type
of personality, limited economic
grasp, schizophrenic constituency, and
conservative Republicanism, a modi-
cum of silver legal tender acquired a
validity which suited the convenience
and satisfied the conscience.
The McKinley who had voted, November 5,
1877, for Bland's free coinage
bill had vanished three months
later--never more to return. He had become
a limited bimetallist. The breed
aggravated Bland and his ilk, because
McKinley and his ilk would not agree
that the United States could open her
mints to the silver of the world
"without waiting for any other nation on
earth." The breed confounded the
gold standard advocates because it did
just enough for bimetallism to hang
silver like a Damocles sword over the
heads of the president and the
secretary of the treasury.
The breed never "ran true"; it
fathered all sorts and conditions of men,
bipartisan, erratic in everything
except unwillingness to stop "doing some-
thing for silver." Through fifteen
years, to the infinite annoyance of five
successive presidents, it held the
balance of power in America's monetary
politics and diplomacy. McKinley
remained faithful to the main tenet of
this group through these years, as
representative, as governor, and, later
for a brief space, as candidate for the
presidential nomination.
During this period of comparative
consistency, McKinley's monetary
tread could proceed at a measured pace,
until 1889, when he quickened it
sharply for a few months prior to his
defeat for reelection to the house of
representatives. His monetary
experience between April of 1878 and Decem-
ber of 1889 therefore requires only
summary treatment.
Republican party managers, in the
nation and in Ohio, hoped that the
Bland-Allison act had put the silver
issue in a deep coma; and intermittent
upward trends in business occasionally
provided a subdued lullaby. But
the few free-coinage diehards, from
both parties, strove to make enough
noise to waken the sleeper and had
their decibels magnified at times by at
least four helpful amplifiers. The
comparatively mild recessions of 1881,
1884, and 1888 encouraged popular yearnings
for currency expansion and
some businessmen complained that they
were constricted.
Also, Democratic party managers were
not deaf, powerless, or asleep;
holding control of the house from 1875
to 1881 and from 1883 to 1889
(and near control of the senate
1881-83) they exploited silver at such
times and in such places as it had
appeal. A fourth group was those silver-
mine owners who looked somewhat askance
at Bland-Kelley-Warner bills
to admit foreign bullion to the United
States mints, but cooperated with
bullion speculators in rousements. They
were disappointed at the failure of
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 279
the minimum Bland-Allison purchases to
sustain the bullion market; through
free coinage oratory congress might
again be aroused to "do something
for silver."
Congress found the various types of
silver lobbyists infiltrating the nation.
As McKinley's colleague on the banking
and currency committee, Congress-
man Edwin H. Conger of Iowa, reminded
the house: "You cannot point
to a single locality where free-coinage
resolutions have been adopted, nor
a single paper which has advocated the
free coinage of silver, except you
find in that locality the foot-prints of
the silver-bullion owner or his agents
or else the mark of the men who are
employed by them."31
Much of the monetary activity had little
effect before 1890. The amount
outstanding of greenbacks was frozen at
$346,681,016 on May 31, 1878;
but on December 17, following, Wall
Street dealt in greenbacks at par. A
concurrent resolution, fathered by
Ohio's inflationist Senator Matthews, had
declared that bonds issued under the
refunding act of July 14, 1870, and the
resumption act of January 14, 1875, were
payable in gold or silver, but "at
the option of the government," and
all the administrations were notorious
for their addiction to gold.32 Ohio
Republican candidates of 1878 had a
state platform opposing "further
agitation of the financial question," and
some of them vouchsafed that they should
be reelected because their party
had given the nation the greenback,
which should be worth "one hundred
cents on the dollar."
Garfield's victory over Sherman in the
race for the Republican presiden-
tial nomination in 1880 turned largely
on comparative warmth of person-
ality, but the delegates knew, also,
that Sherman was more vulnerable,
nationally, as a target for advocates of
cheap money. His enemies sometimes
spoke of bankrupts as
"Shermanized."
McKinley's bimetallic stance was
protected by a secret agent from Ohio,
and by Congressman Kelley of
Pennsylvania. S. Dana Horton, a multi-
lingual Ohioan committed to bimetallism
if maintained by international
agreement, functioned as secretary of
the international bimetallic conference
assembled at Paris in 1878 in accordance
with the Bland-Allison command,
and during the next decade managed to
obtain repeated employment on
confidential missions under Arthur and
Harrison.
Horton, and weightier confidential
agents sent by each administration
during the decade, tried to scare England,
France, and Germany into various
forms of recognition of silver as a
monetary metal, threatening that other-
wise congress would terminate purchase
of United States silver, its market
value would fall further, and their own
business relationships would suffer.
280 OHIO HISTORY
Unfortunately for the American
emissaries, Democratic and Republican
congresses gave them the lie. The
Europeans knew that the monetary
balance of power in the United States
lay with McKinley and his kind.33
Completely effective in blocking
cooperation from Germany was the high
chief of the free coinage men in the
Republican party. The ebullient Con-
gressman Kelley, traveling abroad and
sending back columns to the Phila-
delphia Times, secured a teatime invitation from the Iron Chancellor.
Bismarck asked Kelley what the United
States would do if European govern-
ments would not cooperate for international
bimetallism. Kelley promptly
assured him that congress in that case
would immediately establish free
coinage of silver throughout the United
States. Making matters still worse,
Kelley soon sent the Times a long
account of the confidences in the garden,
making Bismarck furious.34
The assassin's bullet soon relieved
Garfield of further challenge by the
silver issue, but McKinley and numerous
other politicians found it wise
to maintain ambivalent bimetallism
through the decade of the eighties.
They were counseled to this course of
action by the activities of particular
persons and groups.
Ohio's free coinage ranks were bolstered
by General Adoniram Judson
Warner, a Democrat who during his three
terms (1879-81 and 1883-87)
competed with Bland in the introduction
of free coinage bills. Only one of
these passed the house and none the
senate, before 1889. McKinley's
Republican confreres, and sometimes a
few Ohio Democrats, voted with him
against free coinage bills. But they
joined the Democrats in a unanimous
Ohio "no" against suspension
of limited silver coinage.35
McKinley became increasingly an intimate
associate in his party's mone-
tary finesse. Chairman of the
resolutions committee at both the 1884 and
1888 conventions, he presented to those
gatherings the proof of committee
skill. 36 In 1884 they could hedge
easily: "We have always recommended
the best money known to the civilized
world, and we urge that an effort be
made to unite all commercial nations in
the establishment of an international
standard which shall fix for all the
relative value of gold and silver coinage."
The Democrats also felt comfortable:
"We believe in honest money, the
gold and silver coinage of the
Constitution, and a circulating medium con-
vertible into such money without loss."37
But Cleveland had boldly demanded, in
his first inaugural, repeal of the
Bland-Allison silver purchase act, and
the late eighties brought drought to
the farmers, recession to business, and
demands for free coinage from the
Farmers' Alliances, Populists, and
Union-Labor groups. In this parlous
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 281
situation the unlucky Democracy in 1888
had to avoid mention of silver,
merely reaffirming "the platform
adopted by its representatives in the con-
vention of 1884." On the other
hand, McKinley and his fellow draftsmen
were free to spring to the attack. He
read to the convention these resounding
words: "The Republican party is in
favor of the use of both gold and silver
as money, and condemns the policy of the
Democratic administration in its
efforts to demonetize silver." It
was pleasant to twit the Democrats with
the fact that Cleveland blocked free
coinage.38
Whenever McKinley entered debate on the
currency he was likely to refer
to the need to keep the greenbacks
"sacred and at par"; he wished to protect
"the good financial name" of
the Republicans through maintaining a treasury
working balance above the $100,000,000
gold reserve which Sherman had
established to safeguard resumption.39
So went the decade, with the
international bimetallists and gold men
unable to halt limited silver coinage
and the free coinage men unable to
remove the limitations. McKinley and the
rest of the middle-of-the-roaders,
opposing both unlimited free coinage and
suspension of limited coinage, sat
tight. With the approach of 1890,
however, they found it necessary to
reaffirm their position in order to
protect their political status. At the same
time, in Ohio, interest was shifting
from the currency to the tariff, with both
parties enticing wool-growers, and the
iron and steel manufacturers, with
protective state planks. McKinley and
some other Republicans industriously
encouraged the shift, watchful lest
Democratic monetary propositions under-
mine the protective principle, which
they should reinforce.
The conjunction of the 1888 recession
and President Cleveland's demand
for a lower tariff appeared a godsend.
Surely high protection must bring
prosperity (incidentally meeting the
party campaign pledge) and put a
quietus on silver. The first session of
the fifty-first congress seemed a golden
opportunity, with Republicans holding
the presidency, and senate and house
(narrowly), for the first time since
1875. They had a talented triumvirate
in the house, with determined McKinley
installed in the dying Kelley's
chairmanship of the ways and means
committee, with imperious Reed as
speaker, and with wily Joe Cannon as
third member of the committee on
rules; they cooperated with the Aldrich
leadership in the senate. As the
president had no important policies
differing from those of this Republican
machine, it could function as a unit,
drawing party lines tightly.
But McKinley et al must pay toll on the
legislative highway; the minority
had warned them the price would be high.40
Friction and filibustering had
re-proved their efficacy in the previous
session, and many agrarians were
282 OHIO HISTORY
dubious of high protection. The four new
states--Montana, North and South
Dakota, and Washington--hopefully but
uncertainly admitted in November
1889 for a senate Republican majority,
favored silver producers and allied
themselves with currency expansionists.
For such reasons, party irregularity
became more common in the 1889-91
congress than at any time since the
Liberal Republican era.41 Yet
the machine maneuverers managed to push
through four important measures in 1890:
the McKinley tariff and McKinley
customs administration laws, and the
Sherman silver purchase and Sherman
antitrust laws, not to mention the
back-scratching dependent pension act. It
was a great year for Ohio.
To devise a monetary compromise which
should grease the ways for high
protection required much maneuvering--at
the White House and both ends
of the capitol. President Harrison
invited the influential Francis G. New-
lands of Nevada, vice president of the
National Executive Silver Committee,
to confer with him and with the
Republican policy makers on a suitable
"compromise."42 They
concocted a plan to attract votes of members with
silver producer, and currency
expansionist, constituencies: bullion purchases
would be expanded to cover currently
calculated output, and would be paid
for by emissions of treasury notes, thus
amplifying the currency supply--
but avoiding free coinage at sixteen to
one.
A bill pieced together along these
lines, after hectic caucuses of senate and
house members, emerged as the April 23
caucus agreement.43 But it lan-
guished in the house while McKinley et
al pushed through the house version
of high protection as a party measure--a
job completed May 21. On June 5,
after heated disputation, McKinley was
able to get house consent to a special
rule limiting amendments and debate. He
said of the leadership, "We are
after practical results." The
Republicans were doing their duty by silver,
whereas Cleveland's party had neglected
it. "For four long years . . . a
single voice, a single man, elected to
execute the laws, not to make them,
commanded the majority on that side of
the House to be silent, and they
were silent." (Applause and
laughter on the Republican side.)44
Late on Saturday afternoon, June 7,
McKinley closed the debate with
remarks calculated to reassure diverse
factions and himself (if he had
doubts). He insisted that the bill was
"the best which is attainable." "We
cannot have ideal legislation," he
said. "It is not possible. Practical men
do not expect it."45 Representative
Horace F. Bartine of Nevada complained
that eastern Republicans did not show
proper gratitude for protection votes
of western Republicans.46 But
McKinley insisted that the bill was just--just
to silver producers as furnishing a
market for their annual product; to free
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 283
coinage men because they themselves
calculated that the new purchases
would raise silver's price toward parity
and then consummate free coinage;
to the guardians of "good
money" because the bullion was bought at its
market price and the silver certificates
were redeemable in gold and silver
coin and legal tender for all debts,
public and private. On that day a house
bill for limited silver coinage got
through, 135-119, with 73 paired or not
voting.47
Meanwhile, free coinage men had been
busy concocting a senate free
coinage bill, S. 2350, and collecting
fifteen Republican members to join
southern Democratic senators in amending
the house bill with a free coinage
requirement. This they accomplished June
17. Next, house silverites sought
house concurrence in the senate
amendment. But McKinley, Reed, and
Cannon were determined to get
nonconcurrence, so as to salvage their limited
coinage bill through a conference
committee. In their effort the triumvirate
overreached themselves, incurring a
majority vote against them June 21 on
their sleight-of-hand manipulation of
the record in the house journal of two
days earlier. As Cannon frankly
admitted, a majority can make the journal
"tell that which is untrue . . .
can do anything . . . can disregard the rules;
it did falsify the Journal." He
ridiculed Bland for protesting against "gag
law": "My friend is always
being gagged. Why, God knows a barrel of
ipecac would not gag him.
(Laughter.)"48
Over the ensuing weekend McKinley
recovered his self-assurance, if
indeed he ever had lost part of it, and
laughingly reminded the house of
his power, June 24. "The Republican
party having taken possession of the
Chamber again (laughter), bring this
bill back at once." He demanded
nonconcurrence, lest the United States
have to coin, free, the silver of the
entire world. His party through the past
thirty years had "given the country
the best monetary system known to the
financial world," and this measure
would "not interfere with future
international arrangements." He chose
this moment to reiterate his personal
allegiance to silver. "I would not
dishonor it; I would give it equal credit
and honor with gold. ... I would
utilize both metals as money and
discredit neither. I want the double stand-
ard, and I believe a conference will
accomplish these purposes . . . will
produce a bill satisfactory to our whole
people of every section and interest.49
Charges were rife of the pressure being
exerted for the senate free silver
measure. As Representative Abner Taylor
of Illinois complained, "it was
being pushed by the most disgraceful
lobby ever in the Capitol. Hardly a
corner outside of the hall of the House
could be turned without running
against some of them." Nevertheless
the house on June 25 voted 135-152
284 OHIO HISTORY
against the senate free coinage
amendment and then sent the bill to
conference.
What precisely happened in the
conference is unclear. Sherman, who
headed it, reported briefly on its
action in his Recollections four years later;
but he refused to tell the senate what
the conferees said to each other,
alleging that it would be a
"departure" from "gentlemanly propriety" to
disclose private conversation indicating
"the means by which we got
together." Their refusal aggravated
Senator John T. Morgan of Alabama,
who tartly reminded Sherman, "Oh,
Senators are not in that sense gentlemen
in the conference-room. They are
Senators." To which Sherman replied,
"But they are expected to be
gentlemen."50 (Herein Sherman divulged one
reason why the Congressional Record often
frustrates inquisitive historians
and biographers.)
Thuswise did the Sherman silver purchase
act reach the statute books
July 14, 1890, a testimonial to
ambivalent bimetallism. McKinley et al had
unwittingly guaranteed future trouble
for the nation's gold reserve. The
conference compromise required the
treasury to buy 4,500,000 ounces of
silver bullion monthly at the market price,
paying for it with treasury notes
redeemable in gold or silver coin at the
"discretion" of the secretary of the
treasury; but the act also declared it
to be United States policy to maintain
gold and silver on a parity, wording
which the treasury interpreted as a
virtual pledge to redeem in gold. The
potential strain on the treasury was
thought lessened, however, by the
stipulation (credited to Sherman) for
purchasing by ounces; it seemed
that if the price fell (which before long
it did) the treasury would save money.
The worried Sherman regretted the
4,500,000 ounce requirement, as
something above actual current
production; and he openly declared he
voted for the measure only to forestall
free coinage. As events transpired,
the act produced fresh issues of the
legal tender treasury notes amounting to
$24,000,000 in 1890, $53,000,000 in
1891, $47,000,000 in 1892, and
$24,000,000 in the first half of 1893.
But possibilities of gold strain roused
no concern in the breasts of the
drafters of the Ohio state Republican plat-
form in 1890. Endorsing the Harrison
administration, they added, "We
also fully approve the wise action of
the Republican members of both
houses of Congress in fulfilling the
pledges of the party in legislation upon
the coinage of silver," and upon
the tariff, pensions, and so forth.51 Not so
the majority of McKinley's constituents
that November. They unreasonably
rewarded his efforts with retirement.
McKinley's defeat was a blessing. It
helped to keep his path toward the
presidency relatively free of monetary
obstructions prior to 1896. Absence
|
from Washington following March 4, 1891, freed him from possible embar- rassments over house defeat of a sequence of free coinage bills and over congressional yielding in 1893 to Cleveland's adamant demand for repeal of the Sherman silver purchase act--a repeal obtained to stem the drain on the gold reserve. The 1892 Republican convention, of which McKinley was permanent chairman, adopted a monetary plank expressing perfectly his own ambivalent bimetallism: support of the use of gold and silver "with such restrictions" as would maintain their parity of value, and endorsement of an international conference to secure such parity worldwide.52 This satisfied at least a plurality of voters in Ohio, where free coinage groups were badly split, and Sherman decided a majority of both parties in the state opposed free coinage. McKinley, unburdened with any responsi- |
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 287
bility for devising concrete policy,
used cloudy monetary comments on the
stump, telling audiences that silver
must not be "discriminated against"; it
must have "justice." The
Republicans meanwhile were so vigorously build-
ing up protectionist sentiment that they
were able to turn the tables and
secure for McKinley handsome majorities
in the gubernatorial elections of
1891 and 1893. His second victory was
not unconnected with the well-
known fact of his own straightened
circumstances due to a depression mishap,
which identified him further with common
folk.53
By the close of his second governorship
(January 1896) McKinley's candi-
dacy for the presidential nomination had
been well launched by Mark Hanna,
helped by the expert vagueness of the
protege. Until he was very close to
convention time, he refused Hanna's
urging that he stand on the gold stand-
ard, firmly insisting that he stood on
his record. This policy won him
endorsement by western silverites and by
the Ohio Republican convention,
which in March obliged nicely with a
high-tariff-bimetallic platform. Also,
the policy gave Hanna a bargaining
weapon for the coming convention, where
he could fake reluctance to accept a
gold plank which, when consented to,
would afford eastern supporters of Reed
and other McKinley opponents a
solacing sense of quasi-victory,
assuaging defeat of their candidates.54
However, during the interval between January
and June, McKinley's
opponents made such capital of his
silver uncertainties that under a less
able tactician than Hanna the Canton
"sphinx" might have been covered by
sands shifting in favor of Reed of Maine
or Allison of Iowa.55 Actually, a
few publicists and economists had been
calling attention to the fact that world
gold production had been rising since
1887 and was likely to continue
(because of South African developments)
into a rising price level, which
would alleviate some of the distress that
free silver was claimed to cure.
There is no reason to suppose that
McKinley had studied these analyses, but
his faith in the tariff panacea, on
which he had hoped to run, and his earlier
success with bimetallic utterances
inspired his silence on money.
Immanence of the convention forced him
to take advice and exercise his
skill at shaded meanings.56 He
realized that he must endorse the existing
standard, which was gold. The right of
free and unlimited silver coinage
had ended in 1873 and the policy of limited
coinage, implemented under
the laws of 1878 and 1890, had been
discarded by the repeal of 1893.
Yet he, and many other Republican
fence-sitters, had repeatedly done
obeisance to "bimetallism."
Also, the magic word had aided repeal of the
Sherman purchase act, in a closing
clause of that measure calling on the
government for steady efforts to
establish "a safe system of bimetallism."
`
288 OHIO HISTORY
Many Republican candidates--even some in
the East--wanted to be able
to use the term in 1896.
Therefore, McKinley's plank as carried
to St. Louis in the pockets of
Hanna and Foraker, sought to make his
retreat from ambivalent bimetallism
as conciliatory as possible. He used
familiar verbiage: his party stood for
sound money, the fullest use of silver
consistent with parity with gold, and
an international bimetallic agreement to
maintain that parity. To these
mellifluous phrasings he added that his
party opposed free and unlimited
silver coinage because it had become
"the plain duty of the United States
to maintain our present standard."57
But what was the "present" standard?
The re-drafters at St. Louis insisted
on less conciliatory wording, although
not averse to some sweetening. So,
in the final version they based their
argument on honesty, domestic good
faith, and international repute. The
party stood for "sound money," every
dollar "as good as gold,"
unimpaired credit, and "inviolable obligations"
in line with "the most enlightened
nations of the earth." "We are therefore
opposed to the free coinage of silver,
except by international agreement with
the leading commercial nations of the
earth, which agreement we pledge
ourselves to promote, and until such
agreement can be obtained the existing
gold standard must be maintained."
The fat was in the fire--as that old
Republican Nestor from Colorado had
warned them it would be. Teller et al
walked out. But numerous less
intransigent Republicans with silver
producer or cheap money constitu-
encies stayed, clinging to an uncertain
future for international bimetallism
and for themselves. Among these, there
soon was some little rivalry for the
"credit" for inserting,
"which agreement we pledge ourselves to promote."58
But their credit rivalry was nothing
compared with ardent authorship of the
word "gold," claims highly
vocal after it began to appear that the word
was more of an asset than a liability.
This precious convention "victory"
was claimed by some dozen voices rising
from New York to Wisconsin,
bequeathing an historical controversy to
the next half century. Of course
the efforts of no individual could be
completely separable from activities
of others.59
Gold was hard for McKinley to pronounce,
but by July he felt emboldened
to utter the word on his front porch and
early in August he thought the
silver craze would not go higher. His
acceptance speech, of August 26,
astutely coupled this "good
money" with the financial welfare of laborers,
producers, and common folk, no less than
businessmen and financiers. Again
he pledged promotion of international
bimetallism. Prosperity would return
|
with wise protection.60 In September some eastern campaigners found they now could drop mention of bimetallism. By November the well-heeled propaganda techniques of Hanna's cohorts, industrial blackmail, crop scarci- ties abroad, rising farm prices at home, and numerous other more subtle factors brought defeat of the free coinage forces and victory to McKinley."61 The president-elect nevertheless felt bound to "do something" for silver, and for those silver Republicans who had not left the party, especially as this might expedite delicate senate arrangements for tariff increases in the special session he was to convene. So Senators George F. Hoar of Massa- chusetts, William E. Chandler of New Hampshire, John H. Gear of Iowa, |
|
and Thomas H. Carter of Montana-a transcontinental aggregation-- arranged with McKinley for Senator Edward 0. Wolcott of Colorado to test the international bimetallic waters in Europe, looking to a plunge into them. They optimistically assured McKinley "the favorable feeling is great in France, is strong in Germany and is powerfully affecting leading statesmen in England."62 McKinley was happy to credit their news. Wolcott conferred through January and February in London, Berlin, and Paris (where reciprocal cooperation between bimetallism and duties on French exports to the United States was explored), and Chandler put through congress on March 3 an |
McKINLEY'S MONETARY PROBLEMS 291
appropriation of $100,000 for financing
United States participation in
another international bimetallic
conference, should the president find the
time propitious. The senator had assured
the incoming president that such
legislation would lessen the hazards for
tariff legislation.
The next day McKinley's inaugural
pledged that international bimetal-
lism would "have early and earnest
attention," and he recommended also
a United States bipartisan commission of
businessmen and politicians to
take monetary problems out of the
political arena.63 Mid-March found him
formulating, for use abroad,
instructions with "a certain vagueness," which
John Hay presumed was
"intentional," and one month later he appointed
Wolcott, Charles J. Paine (a Boston
capitalist), and ex-vice president
Adlai E. Stevenson as peripatetic
emissaries in search of a conference.
While they sought in vain, German and
French exporters found unpleasing
the tariff emerging at Washington. There
silver senators held the majority
in the senate finance committee, and
enjoyed enough power in the senate
as a whole to make things mildly unpleasant
for a less-well-assured man
than McKinley.
They unkindly taunted him with his
earlier pro-silver votes, questioned
his loyalty to the Wolcott mission, and
criticized his choice of the gold
standard advocate, Lyman J. Gage, as
secretary of the treasury. As
McKinley espoused bond payments in gold,
they pressed through the senate
a Teller resolution for redemption of
bonds "at the option of the Govern-
ment in silver dollars"--a
proposition supported by neither of Ohio's sena-
tors and by only six of her twenty-one
representatives, of whom but one
lasted in congress thereafter as long as
March 1903. Their high point of
1898 was a rider to the war revenue act
of June 13, directing the secretary
of the treasury to coin into standard
silver dollars all the bullion remaining
in the treasury from the Sherman silver
purchase act, at a rate of not less
than $1,500,000 monthly. But business
was too active to make this measure
inflationary.64
Unperturbed, McKinley pursued his even
way on the hustings that fall,
boasting of gold accumulations, and
denouncing "any demoralization of
our currency." He celebrated
November Republican winnings with an
annual message reiterating an 1897
request that United States notes, once
redeemed in gold, be paid out again only
for gold; and he bespoke immedi-
ate legislation to erect a gold trust
fund for redemption of greenbacks.65
Time was running out on bimetallism in
1899--thanks to South Africa,
Australia, the Yukon, a new cyanide
process for extracting gold, and heavy
farm exports to crop-disappointed
Europe. Gold production in 1898 had
292 OHIO HISTORY
been two and one-half times that of 1890
and congressional elections had
diluted Republican silver strength. Per
capita circulation was up and so
was the price level, slightly. McKinley
basked in the effulgence of what
he interpreted as protection prosperity;
the former bimetallist in the fall
of 1899 descanted to middlewestern
audiences on the favorable balance of
trade which "comes to us in
gold."66
So McKinley and Gage greeted the first
session of the fifty-sixth congress
with a clarion call: "to make
adequate provision to insure the maintenance
of the gold standard" congress
should enlarge the power and the mandate
to the secretary of the treasury to buy
gold with long and short term bonds,
at lower rates of interest, to forestall
any future drain on the gold supply;
thus, would the parity in value of gold
and silver coins be maintained.
Congress obliged. H.R. 1 got through the
house December 19. But nearly
three months elapsed before its
enactment into law, giving more time for
wandering silver sheep to seek the path
back to the Republican fold. Teller
grew less denunciatory than of yore, and
Wolcott reported that people out
West grew less pessimistic about life.67
Yet some concession to surviving
bimetallists must be made, and so the
act of March 14, 1900, carried a faint
odor of the bimetallism of McKinley's
political youth.
On the one hand, the law acknowledged
the long-existing fact that the gold
dollar was the standard unit of value.
All forms of United States money
must be maintained at parity with the
gold dollar; and to insure prompt
gold redemption of greenbacks and 1890
treasury notes, the treasury must
set apart a reserve fund of $150,000,000
in gold coin and bullion and the
redeemed notes must not be reissued
except for gold.
On the other hand, the law gave solemn
assurance that the legal tender
quality of any money coined or issued by
the United States was retained.
Also, "the provisions of this Act
are not intended to preclude the accomplish-
ment of international bimetallism
whenever conditions shall make it expe-
dient and practical to secure the same
by concurrent action of the leading
commercial nations of the world and at a
ratio which shall insure permanence
of relative value between gold and
silver."68
McKinley could sign this act without
qualms; and he could applaud the
1900 Republican plank, "We renew
our allegiance to the principle of the
gold standard and declare our confidence
in the wisdom of the legislation
of the Fifty-sixth Congress."69
On silver he had come full circle.
THE AUTHOR: Jeannette P. Nichols for-
merly was associate professor of history
and
chairman of the Graduate Group in
Economic
History at the University of
Pennsylvania, and
now is research associate in economic
history.
|
The analyst of the career of a public figure functioning under a system of representative government finds that the problem of statesmanship is pecul- iarly complicated. The hazards in leadership often seem to conspire to punish statesmanship, confronting public figures with dire alternatives which subsequent biographers must not fail to weigh on the scales of the possible and probable. As McKinley bluntly explained when pushing a compromise to end a silver stalemate in the house of representatives: "We cannot have ideal legislation. It is not possible. Practical men do not NOTES ARE ON PAGES 341-343 |