9 - 1883: Democrats return to office
How Capitalists Rule/9
The Republocrats: Part 9
1883: Democrats return to office
By Vince Copeland
Imperialism takes a hand
Just as the constant, almost cyclical, corruption of capitalist democracy with the resultant wailings about reform were such a big factor in national politics by 1884, so was the advent of the imperialists and soon-to-be imperialists.
The corruption of individual officials was now being replaced by the corruption of the whole democratic process: the infusion of such large amounts of money that the parties were ultimately to lose what little independence they had. This was accompanied by the intervention of the imperialists in the government, and sometimes even by their personal participation in politics.
True, they did not have the unruffled monopoly of office that the early "statesmen" had in the days of mass chattel slavery. Then the white as well as the Black masses were generally voteless.
There were enough sincere and idealistic people around, even in the ruling class itself, to nourish the appearance of genuine reform elements and purveyors of "honest" government. Such a one, to some degree and within the narrow boundaries of his very conservative political outlook, was Grover Cleveland (president in 1885-89 and 1893-97).
The thrifty hangman from Buffalo
Cleveland showed himself to be a loyal public servant at an early time. A lawyer who became mayor of Buffalo and also sheriff of Erie County, he saved the county money by personally performing the services of hangman.
Chauncey Depew, political messenger of the Vanderbilts and later the Morgans, offered him the job of general counsel for the New York Central railroad. This would have been at least as beneficial to the railroad as to Cleveland, because the railroads were in bad repute by now and needed more credibility.
But, amid some publicity, Cleveland refused the offer. The always alert Rockefeller team got word of this and began to push him for office in the Democratic Party.
John D. Rockefeller himself was a rock-ribbed Republican, although never a Radical. But one of his leading partners, Oliver Payne, whose father was in Congress, was the Standard Oil corporation's pipeline to the Democratic Party. It was Payne, or his close friend and brother-in-law, William Whitney, who contacted Cleveland and began to groom him, first for governor of New York and then for president.
Cleveland was the author of the then-famous phrase, "A public office is a public trust." He would not countenance any open stealing by government officials. But he occupied himself with issuing more vetoes than any other president before or since. Most of his vetoes struck down pensions for various Union Army veterans.
This was supposed to help bring about unity in the country and make the Confederate veterans feel better. Whatever else it did, it cut down some of the power of the Republican bosses by taking away patronage, but it also showed how firmly reaction was in the saddle.
The real commanders move closer
The Morgans and the Rockefellers were now playing a key role in the presidential elections. They were beginning to tell presidents what to do much more directly than they had done in the case of the Lincoln administration, for instance. Not that Lincoln lacked the services of some of the most corrupt political and financial elements. But his period was marked by the revolutionary ascendancy of the middle class, and that slowed down the financial cliques from complete control of the country.
The first Cleveland administration of 1885-89 tells us a great deal about the attitude of big business to the two parties. Do Cleveland's actions bear out the thesis of some historians that even as early as 1872 both Democratic and Republican parties were already in the lap of Wall Street? Do they go even further and show that Wall Street itself had begun to drop all pretense and take over in its own name? Or was it a mixed bag with a few important stumbles on the road to all-out control?
Ferdinand Lundberg said flatly: "The two administrations of Democratic Grover Cleveland (1885-89, 1893-97) were more tightly interlocked with the community of expanding wealth, both in personnel and general policy, than any which preceded." ("America's Sixty Families," p. 59.) And that is saying a mouthful!
Cleveland himself said: "No harm shall come to any business interest as the result of administration policy as long as I am president. A transfer of executive control from one party to another does not mean any serious disturbance of existing conditions."
How did Democratic Cleveland make it in the first place? First, he now had the "solid South" behind him--that is, all the electoral votes of the Southern states--as a result of the deal of 1877. His election campaign fund was $1.4 million compared to Republican James G. Blaine's $1.3 million. And the cry for reform in government was getting ever louder.
Once in office, Cleveland made some important and very revealing appointments, especially to the Supreme Court. Through most of the 19th century, a fair number of banker and railroad representatives were appointed to that body. But Cleveland, a railroad lawyer himself, named some even more powerful railroad people to the court.
The wealth and power of the railroad corporations, it should be interpolated here, was growing at a constantly increasing rate. There were no trucks, no planes, no automobiles. All long-distance and most short-distance travel and shipment were controlled by the railroads, which took full advantage of their monopoly.
One of Cleveland's appointments was Melville W. Fuller, a railroad lawyer with no judicial background. He was made Chief Justice, and may be the best example of Cleveland's honest prejudice in favor of big money.
Fuller was a Democrat, but leaders in both parties supported him. Robert T. Lincoln (yes, the son of Abraham), was president of the Pullman Company of Chicago. A Republican, of course, he was nevertheless an extremely active sponsor of Fuller. Besides representing some of the biggest railroads, Fuller had been general counsel for at least a dozen big banks, including the First National of Chicago.
The attorney general in Cleveland's first administration was Richard Olney, a director of several railroads, who later became an openly imperialist secretary of state.
The Republican campaign fund in 1884 was estimated at $1.1 million. The Democratic slush was only $355,000. The Republican Rockefellers were giving heavily, but as befits these more modern capitalists, the Rockefeller partners were playing the other side of the political street and giving heavily to the Democrats, too.
A boss for Cleveland
The power behind the throne in both Cleveland administrations was generally recognized to be William Whitney, very wealthy in his own right but also intermarried with the Standard Oil Paynes. Of course, he was never called a "boss," but rather a "Warwick," a "king-maker" and other such gladsome epithets.
Whitney, the Rockefeller Democrat, was a big-navy man like Theodore Roosevelt, who would be elected a few years later as a Morgan Republican. Accordingly, Whitney got himself appointed secretary of the navy in Cleveland's first Cabinet and proceeded to enlarge the U.S. Navy along European lines.
This was one of the earliest direct Wall Street appointments to the Cabinet. It was still considered improper if not venal for the richest of the big rich to serve directly in government. But Whitney got away with it and opened the door for others to do the same.
Why did Whitney want a big navy? No country on earth was about to attack the United States. In fact, some of the European powers were just waiting for one of their number to make that mistake so they could proceed to trounce it. The big-navy idea was obviously an aggressive one, to project U.S. power abroad.
And why should U.S. power be projected around the world? To facilitate the business of the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Whitneys and the small pack of super-capitalists who were emerging at this time.
Gearing up for imperialism
The fact that the imperialist onslaught began in the reign of the Democratic Party should not be surprising. Most of the wars of the 20th century have been conducted under the aegis of the Democrats and at a time when they have had the reputation of being the more liberal of the two major parties.
On the other hand, the Democrats later emerged--for a short time--as the anti-imperialist party in the 1900 election. But the Whitney-Rockefeller connection was so strong in 1884-1897 that it raises still another question about the mechanics of party government in the United States.
Maneuvering one party against the other
How much of the struggle between the parties was really over principle or program by that time and how much was a manipulation by big business, pushing one party to the forefront on an issue in order to reduce the influence of the other for a time?
Aside from the fact that the capitalists wanted a hedge in one party as against the other, the alternative of the Democrats at this particular time gave big money a stick with which to beat the Republicans.
In 1884, Blaine, the standard-bearer for the Republicans, left much to be desired from the point of view of honest statesmanship. That would have been all right for capital if all his dishonesty were turned against the masses of the people and the only beneficiaries were big capital and "clean government." But such was not entirely the case with Blaine. For one thing, he couldn't help one railroad company consistently without hurting another.
Cleveland, on the other hand, was not exactly a shining role model in his private life. He had fathered a child out of wedlock, and was found to be sending periodic checks for its support. The joke going around was that Cleveland, who showed such virtue in public life, should go to the White House while Blaine, who was allegedly impeccable in private life, should be retired to grace the family home where his personal virtues could shine.
Besides all this, Blaine still represented the tail end of a certain independence the Republican Party had inherited from its revolutionary origins. At the same time, the Republicans were by then more identified with Wall Street. There was a tendency for many of the class-conscious millions to vote Democratic in the hope that this would curb big money in its drive to whip everybody into line. This tendency was growing alongside the concept of reform and clean government, and even surpassing it.
The Democrats had inherited the anti-Wall Street feeling of the Liberal Republicans of 1872 as well as the "solid (Democratic) South."
With the double-deal of 1876-77, the capitalist class lost the Southern states (for three-quarters of a century!) from the Republican column. This gave the Democrats a definite edge in presidential politics--one that could only be overcome with lopsided infusions of campaign money for the Republicans. Big capital could well afford these infusions, but its lavish political spending tended to give the show away and reveal too clearly the tinsel character of the new democracy.
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(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21 St., New York, NY 10010; "workers@cdp!igc.org".)
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