Louisiana State University - HIST 2055

Chapter 22 Gilded Age Politics and Agrarian Revolt

TRUE/FALSE

1)During the Gilded Age, voter turnout was significantly higher than it is today.

2. Through the Gilded Age, the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.

3. Politics in the late nineteenth century was dominated by a series of strong presidents.

4. Benjamin Harrison was assassinated by a deranged office seeker.

5. James Garfield was the first southerner to be elected president since the Civil War.

6. Mugwumps tended to oppose civil service reform.

7. Grover Cleveland was known as “the continental liar from the state of Maine.”

8. The Grand Army of the Republic was an organization of Union veterans.

9. When first created, the ICC was too weak to regulate the railroads effectively.

10. As president, Benjamin Harrison supported generous pensions for veterans.

11. Farmers were generally hurt by the high tariff.

12. One of the biggest problems farmers faced was falling commodity prices, caused in part by overpro- duction.

13. The Farmers’ Alliances were strongest in the Midwest and Northeast.

14. The Farmers’ Alliances accepted female and black members.

15. The Grange was the leading farm organization through the 1890s.

16. In 1896, the Republican party supported the gold standard.

17. After his defeat in 1896, William Jennings Bryan’s proposals were largely forgotten.

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. The one issue on which there were clear-cut divisions between Democrats and Republicans in the Gil- ded Age was:
   1. immigration
   2. civil service reform
   3. the regulation of big business
   4. the tariff
   5. health care

2. People living during the Gilded Age expected what type of support from the federal government?
   1. significant
   2. less in East, more in West
   3. moderate
   4. less in West, more in East
   5. very little

3. Which of the following would most likely have been a Gilded Age Republican?
   1. a southern white
   2. a Jewish immigrant
   3. a prohibitionist
   4. an atheist
   5. a Catholic

4. Which of the following would most likely have been a Gilded Age Democrat?
   1. a New England Protestant
   2. an Irish immigrant
   3. a nativist
   4. an African American
   5. a Union veteran

5. In Munn v. Illinois, the Supreme Court upheld:
   1. labor unions’ right to organize
   2. the philosophy that corporations were artificial people
   3. the right of state and local governments to regulate industry essential to the public welfare
   4. the anarchist right to form protest political parties
   5. the right of railroads to set their own rates

6. The Stalwarts:
   1. were a faction in the Democratic party
   2. generally favored a lenient southern policy
   3. were led by Roscoe Conkling
   4. were also known as the Half-Breeds
   5. had opposed Ulysses S. Grant

7. Which of the following best describes Rutherford B. Hayes and civil service reform?
   1. Hayes was able to get several civil service reform bills through Congress.
   2. Hayes was against civil service reform, but Congress passed several bills over his vetoes.
   3. Hayes was against civil service reform, but he signed several bills for political expediency.
   4. Hayes was unable to get civil service legislation through Congress, but he set up his own rules for merit appointments.
   5. His actions on civil service reform earned him the nickname “His Fraudulenc”

8. Chester A. Arthur:
   1. was elected to the presidency with less than half of the popular vote
   2. was the first president since Lincoln to die in office
   3. was elected to the presidency despite untrue rumors concerning gambling debts circulated by the Democrats just before the election
   4. was connected with the New York Customhouse corruption before he became president
   5. chose James A. Garfield, a stalwart, as his vice president

9. The “mongrel tariff” of 1883:
   1. raised the average duty on imports by about 5 percent, less of an increase than President Arthur supported
   2. was called the mongrel tariff because it called for different rates for different commodities
   3. raised the average duty on imports by about 25 percent, almost exactly what President Ar-

thur wanted

1. 4. lowered the average duty on imports by about 25 percent, almost exactly what President Arthur wanted
   5. was named for Senator Charles Mongrel

10. The Pendleton Civil Service Act:
    1. provided for appointment to a number of government jobs on the basis of competitive ex- ams
    2. was signed into law by James Garfield
    3. was vetoed as “an unconstitutional intrusion of government into the private sphere” by Benjamin Harrison
    4. set up the first racial quotas for government service jobs
    5. provided for appointments only in the postal service

11. During the campaign for the presidential election of 1884, many prominent Republican leaders and supporters left the party because:
    1. they would not vote for a woman as vice president
    2. the Mugwumps had gained power within the party
    3. letters were discovered linking candidate James G. Blaine to the railroads
    4. the party refused to take a firm stand on the tariff
    5. they would not vote for Grant to serve a third term

12. Grover Cleveland:
    1. had a strictly limited view of government’s role
    2. said that “just as the people support the government, so should the government support the people”
    3. refused to fire federal workers on partisan grounds
    4. pushed through bills to help drought-stricken farmers
    5. supported 100 percent of pensions for veterans

13. The Interstate Commerce Commission:
    1. was created to regulate railroads
    2. was passed over Cleveland’s veto
    3. was overturned by the Supreme Court in Wabash Railroad v. United States
    4. was the result of a fight between dairies in Illinois and farmers in Wisconsin
    5. proved strong when tested in the courts

14. Which one of the following was a Democrat?
    1. Chester A. Arthur
    2. James G. Blaine
    3. James Garfield
    4. Winfield Scott Hancock

1. 5. William McKinley

15. Benjamin Harrison was elected president:
    1. in a campaign waged mainly on the issue of currency reform
    2. even though he received fewer popular votes than the loser, Grover Cleveland
    3. despite publication of the “Mulligan letters” linking him to the railroads
    4. in the only Gilded Age campaign not marred by dirty tricks and personal attacks on the candidates
    5. even though he acknowledged that he would do away with pensions

16. Which one of the following was named the father of an illegitimate child?
    1. Chester A. Arthur
    2. Grover Cleveland
    3. James Garfield
    4. John Sherman
    5. Benjamin Harrison

17. Who said, “I am now in my last year of the Presidency . . . and look forward to its close as a schoolboy longs for the coming vacation”?
    1. Grover Cleveland
    2. Chester Arthur
    3. Rutherford B. Hayes
    4. Andrew Johnson
    5. James Blaine

18. Which of the following was NOT a factor in the decline of commodity prices during the Gilded Age?
    1. Much new land had been brought into cultivation, increasing production.
    2. Innovations in transportation brought American farmers more into competition with farm- ers around the world.
    3. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act decreased the amount of silver purchased by the govern- ment and therefore caused deflation and lower prices.
    4. Debt-ridden farmers produced more than the market would support at good prices.
    5. Tariffs on imported goods put less cash into the hands of foreign buyers.

19. Passage of the “Granger laws”:
    1. laid a foundation for stronger legislation to follow
    2. proved very effective in the short term
    3. split the Grange Alliance
    4. helped the urban workers of the Northeast
    5. helped the commodities industry in Chicago to take further advantage of farmers

20. Mugwumps were centered in:
    1. large cities and major universities
    2. the agricultural colleges
    3. the Far West and major universities
    4. the Midwest and small colleges
    5. the land grant colleges

21. The Independent National party:
    1. was more commonly known as the Greenback party
    2. won five states in the presidential election of 1888
    3. drew most of its support from nativists in New England
    4. appealed mainly to immigrant voters in the Northeast
    5. felt that the immigration of Catholics had ruined America

22. The “subtreasury plan”:
    1. promoted deflation by withdrawing silver certificates from circulation
    2. was passed by Congress in 1890
    3. allowed farmers to secure low-interest government loans
    4. called for the FDIC
    5. said that the National Bank could pull supplemental cash from private banks

23. Mary Elizabeth Lease:
    1. founded the Patrons of Husbandry (the Grange)
    2. advised farmers to obtain their goals “with the ballot if possible, but if not that way then with the bayonet”
    3. was the presidential candidate of the Greenback party in 1892
    4. wrote the 1892 Omaha platform for the People’s party
    5. was the lone female leader in the Stalwart movement

24. Sockless Jerry Simpson:
    1. was secretary of agriculture under Harrison
    2. was the economist whose books influenced passage of the Bland-Allison Act and the Sher- man Silver Purchase Act
    3. was a leading Union veteran and, for a time, pension commissioner
    4. was a Kansas Alliance leader
    5. walked from Oregon to Washington, D.C., in the name of free silver

25. All the following were included in the 1892 Omaha platform of the People’s party EXCEPT:
    1. graduated income tax
    2. increasing the amount of currency in circulation

1. 3. nationalizing the railroads
   4. implementing the subtreasury plan
   5. halting the free and unlimited coinage of silver

26. In the presidential election of 1892, the Populist candidate:
    1. won
    2. came in second
    3. did best in the Northeast
    4. won twenty-two electoral votes
    5. was also the candidate for the Democrats

27. One of the causes of the 1893 depression was failure of:
    1. the stock market
    2. a British bank
    3. the commodity price index
    4. housing starts in 1891 and 1892
    5. President Cleveland to regulate the railroads

28. “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!” This statement was made by:
    1. William Jennings Bryan
    2. William McKinley
    3. Grover Cleveland
    4. Thomas E. Watson
    5. William Henry Harrison

29. In the presidential election of 1896, all of the following may be applied to William Jennings Bryan EXCEPT that he:
    1. was the candidate of the Populist party
    2. carried most of the states in the West and the South
    3. could not win the votes of urban workers in the Northeast
    4. advocated the social gospel and the expansion of federal powers
    5. won after gaining the support of Theodore Roosevelt

30. By 1890, all of the following led to inflation of the currency EXCEPT:
    1. discovery of gold in the Yukon
    2. the Gold Standard Act
    3. discovery of gold in South Africa
    4. the Sherman Silver Purchase Act
    5. discovery of gold in Alaska

31. When Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner labeled the post–Civil War era the “Gilded Age,” they implied that it was characterized by:
    1. widespread greed and corruption
    2. the practical elimination of poverty
    3. massive appreciation of art and culture
    4. a real absence of political division
    5. such widespread diffusion of wealth that more people had access to real gold

32. Rutherford B. Hayes never had a serious chance of a second term as president due to:
    1. the series of scandals that plagued his administration
    2. the controversy over his election in 1876
    3. his failure to reduce tariff rates significantly
    4. his suppression of the railroad strike of 1877
    5. the suggestion of an extramarital affair

33. As president, Chester Arthur proved to be:
    1. a staunch opponent of civil service reform
    2. a tool of the Stalwart faction of the Republican party
    3. a loyal friend to organized labor
    4. surprisingly competent and independent
    5. a tool of southern Democrats

34. A reference in the 1884 presidential campaign to “rum, Romanism, and rebellion”:
    1. was especially offensive to Protestant Americans
    2. may have cost the Populists the election
    3. was attributed to the leader of a women’s temperance group
    4. hurt candidate James Blaine
    5. killed Cleveland’s chances

35. Grover Cleveland showed political courage when he vetoed legislation favored by:
    1. conservationists
    2. Union veterans
    3. federal employees
    4. Indian rights activists
    5. southern Democrats

36. President Cleveland’s most dramatic challenge to the power of special interests focused on:
    1. institutional racism
    2. education
    3. the meatpacking industry
    4. the railroads

1. 5. tariff reform

37. Which of the following groups did NOT support increased coinage of silver?
    1. farmers
    2. debtors
    3. Republicans
    4. Western silver-mining interests
    5. Populists

38. The Farmers’ Alliances:
    1. had millions of members, mostly in the Northeast
    2. urged Congress to adopt the gold standard
    3. helped establish the Populist party
    4. excluded African Americans and women
    5. helped organize the Republican resistance in the 1890s

39. Following the 1893 depression, Coxey’s Army:
    1. tried to overthrow the government
    2. organized a massive protest march down Wall Street
    3. demanded government jobs for the unemployed
    4. carried Cleveland into the White House
    5. was led by a poor, broken farmer from Iowa

40. In the 1896 campaign, William Jennings Bryan:
    1. spoke and campaigned all over the country
    2. tried to de-emphasize his platform’s demand for free silver
    3. promised to continue the policies of Grover Cleveland
    4. refused to mix politics and religion
    5. ran what journalists called a “front-porch campaign”

41. Alliance meetings and Populist rallies often occurred:
    1. in football and baseball stadiums
    2. in churches
    3. in secret
    4. in the offices of city “ring” bosses
    5. the years following the upheavals of 1896

42. William “Boss” Tweed controlled:

1. 1. the Populist party
   2. Chicago’s South Side
   3. the Greenback party
   4. Kansas City
   5. Tammany Hall

43. Voter turnout during the Gilded Age was commonly:
    1. about 50 percent
    2. between 70 and 80 percent
    3. around 15 percent of eligible voters
    4. less than 25 percent
    5. between 80 and 90 percent

44. The McKinley Tariff of 1890:
    1. abolished taxes on sugar coming out of Hawaii
    2. was, oddly, championed by McKinley’s rival, Grover Cleveland
    3. raised duties on manufactured goods
    4. was called “the America Stamp Act” by Britain
    5. lowered duties on manufactured goods

45. To fend off Cleveland’s efforts to reduce the tariff,    gave the Republicans over $3 million in the election of 1888.
    1. farmers
    2. business owners
    3. shipping companies
    4. Irish political bosses
    5. prohibitionists

46. With the Murchison letter, a California Republican used a lie to suggest a link between:
    1. anarchist miners and the Populist party
    2. the Democrats and the Imperial Valley cotton growers
    3. Bryan and the Canadian fisheries debate
    4. Cleveland and British free traders
    5. Harrison and the New York media

47. In the election of 1888, Cleveland won the popular vote, but         won the Electoral College and thus the presidency.
    1. Benjamin Harrison
    2. Ulysses S. Grant
    3. William Jennings Bryan
    4. William McKinley

1. 5. James A. Garfield

48. The Mulligan letters tied former Speaker of the House James Blaine to:
    1. Gerald Mulligan, the infamous sports bookie
    2. the powerful Maine shipbuilding lobby
    3. the bribes of rich railroad barons
    4. Rutherford Hayes and the Compromise of 1877
    5. Tammany Hall

49. In the depression of 1893, unemployment hovered around:
    1. 20 percent
    2. every industry, particularly construction
    3. 50 percent
    4. as high as 75 percent in New York
    5. manufacturing jobs, but not the service sector

50. In the election of 1896, who found it easier to identify with McKinley’s “full dinner pail” pledge than with Bryan’s free-silver panacea?
    1. African Americans
    2. white southern farmers
    3. urban wage laborers
    4. domestic workers
    5. farmers

51 MATCHING

Match each description with the item below.

1. 1. was the Populist presidential candidate in 1892
   2. cowrote The Gilded Age
   3. founded the Grange
   4. elected to two nonconsecutive terms as president
   5. devised the subtreasury plan
   6. was McKinley’s campaign manager
   7. was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1896
   8. was Garfield’s vice president