Part 1156

North Central division. Ohio. 3,584,805 87,113 Indiana. 2,146,736 45,215 Illinois. 3,768,472 57,028 Michigan. 2,072,884 15,223 Wisconsin. 1,680,473 2,444 Minnesota. 1,296,159 3,683 Iowa. 1,901,086 10,685 Missouri. 2,528,458 150,184 North Dakota. 182,123 373 South Dakota. 327,290 541 Nebraska. 1,046,888 8,913 Kansas. 1,376,553 49,710

Total 21,911,927 431,112

South Central division. Kentucky. 1,590,462 268,071 Tennessee. 1,336,637 430,678 Alabama. 833,718 678,489 Mississippi. 544,851 742,559 Louisiana. 558,395 559,193 Texas. 1,745,935 488,171 Oklahoma. 58,826 2,973 Arkansas. 818,752 309,117

Total 7,487,576 3,479,251

Western division. Montana. 127,271 1,490 Wyoming. 59,275 922 Colorado. 404,468 6,215 New Mexico. 142,719 1,956 Arizona. 55,580 1,357 Utah. 205,899 588 Nevada. 39,084 242 Idaho. 82,018 201 Washington. 340,513 1,602 Oregon. 301,758 1,186 California. 1,111,672 11,322

Total 2,870,257 27,081

Grand Total. 54,983,890 7,470,040

{3584}

In addition the census shows 107,475 Chinese, 2,039 Japanese, and 58,806 civilized Indians, making a total of 62,622,250, as stated above.

Immigration in the preceding decade rose to 5,246,613 in the total arrivals, 1,462,839 being from the British Islands and 3,258,743 from other European countries. In the single year ending June 30, 1890, the immigrants arriving from Europe numbered 443,225 (273,104 males, 170,121 females), of whom 57,020 were from England; 53,024 from Ireland; 12,041 from Scotland: 92,427 from Germany; 22,062 from Hungary: 11,073 from Poland; 33,147 from Russia: 51,799 from Italy; 29,632 from Sweden; 11,370 from Norway; 9,366 from Denmark; 6,585 from France.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1890-1893. The Silver Bill and its effect. Financial Panic. Extra Session of Congress. Repeal of the Sherman Act.

"The act of July 14, 1890 [known as the Sherman Act], repealed the silver act of 1878, and so brought to a close the precise experiment tried under that measure. … But the new act … is even more remarkable than that of 1878. It is unique in monetary history. It provides that the Secretary of the Treasury shall purchase each month at the market price four and a half million ounces of silver bullion. In payment he shall issue Treasury notes of the United States, in denominations of between one dollar and one thousand dollars. These Treasury notes, unlike the old silver certificates, are a direct legal tender for all debts, public or private, unless a different medium is expressly stipulated in the contract. They differ from the silver certificates in another respect; they are redeemable either in gold or silver coin, at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury. The indirect process of redemption which, as we have seen, was applied to the silver certificates, is replaced for the new notes by direct redemption. The avowed object is to keep the silver money equal to gold, for it is declared to be 'the established policy of the United States to maintain the two metals at a parity with each other on the present legal ratio, or such ratio as may be provided by law.' The act of 1878 is repealed; but the coinage of two million ounces of silver into dollars is to be continued for a year (until July 1, 1891). Thereafter it is directed that only so many silver dollars shall be coined as may be needed for redeeming any Treasury notes presented for redemption. Practically, this means that the coinage shall cease; redemption in silver dollars will not be called for. The coinage of silver dollars accordingly was suspended by the Treasury on July 1, 1891; a change which was the occasion of some vociferous abuse and equally vociferous praise, but which in reality was of no consequence whatever. The monthly issues of the new Treasury notes vary, like those of the old silver certificates, with the price of silver. But the new issues vary directly with the price of silver, while, as we have seen, the old issues varied inversely with the price. The volume of Treasury notes issued is equal to the market price of four and one half million ounces of silver. If silver sells at $1. 20 an ounce, the monthly issue of notes will be $5,400,000; if at $1.00 an ounce, $4,500,000. For a month or two after the passage of the act, the price of silver advanced rapidly, and at its highest, in August, 1890, touched $1.21. But the rise proved to be but temporary. After September a steady decline set in, and continued almost without interruption through the rest of 1890, through 1891, and through 1892. The year 1891 opened with silver at a price of about $1.00 an ounce; by the close of the year the price had fallen to about 95 cents. In 1892 a still further and more marked decline set in, and by the close of the year the price had gone as low as 85 cents."

_F. W. Taussig, The Silver Situation in the United States, chapter 6._

"On June 5 [1893] President Cleveland publicly declared his purpose to call an extra session of Congress to meet in the first half of September for the consideration of the country's financial conditions, which seemed critical. On the 26th of June the authorities of India closed the mints in that empire to the free coinage of silver. The signs of a panic immediately multiplied and four days later appeared the president's proclamation summoning Congress to meet in extra session August 7. The call was based on the 'perilous condition in business circles,' which was declared to be largely the result of a 'financial policy … embodied in unwise laws, which must be executed until repealed by Congress.' The issue of this proclamation was the signal for much excitement among the Populists and in silver-producing circles. Silver conventions were held in Denver, July 11, and in Chicago, August 2, in which addresses were made and resolutions adopted denouncing with much energy any proposition to repeal the Sherman Act without some provision for the free coinage of silver, and claiming that the existing financial crisis was a deliberately devised scheme of British and American bankers, with President Cleveland as their ally, to bring about the exclusion of silver from use as money. The president's message, presented to the houses August 8, brought the question before Congress. The message embodied an exposition of what Mr. Cleveland considered the evils of the Sherman Act, concluding with an earnest recommendation that its purchase clause be immediately repealed. While still holding that tariff reform was imperatively demanded, the president considered that it should be postponed to action on the silver law. In Congress the silver men, without reference to party lines, took an attitude of energetic resistance to any project for unconditional repeal of the purchase clause."

_Political Science Quarterly, December, 1893._

In the House, the resistance was soon overcome by strong pressure of unmistakable public opinion, and the repeal was carried on the 28th of August. In the Senate the Silver faction proved so much stronger that it blocked the bill until the end of October, indifferent to the ruinous effect which this action was having on the business and the industries of the country. In September, while the fate of the bill remained in doubt, the "Banker's Magazine" reported that the doubt had "aggravated the money stringency, until it absolutely became impossible for the great majority of business men to obtain the necessary funds, or credit to transact their affairs. In this respect, probably, no panic within the memory of the present generation has been so severe; and yet, it has been the least violent for one so universal and protracted. But it is the collapse that follows an acute attack of disease, which leaves its victim prostrated, after the crisis has been passed, and which must precede ultimate recovery, by giving time to restore exhausted strength. … {3585} This was different from most panics this country has experienced, inasmuch as it was strictly an artificial one, caused by bad legislation, rather than general financial kite flying, while commercial affairs were seldom, if ever, on a sounder or safer basis, from the fact that they had, for a long time, been more free from speculation, with but few exceptions, than for years. Hence it has been the financial machinery by which commerce is transacted, rather than commerce itself, that has been deranged; and, for this reason, trade will revive much more rapidly when this artificial pressure is removed, than it has revived after former panics, which were either purely financial, or commercial, or both, as the result of wild speculation and general inflation of prices."

_H. A. Pierce, A Review of Finance and Business (Banker's Magazine, September, 1893)._

The repeal measure was finally carried in the Senate, becoming law by the President's signature November 1, when a slow recovery of business confidence began, much retarded and disturbed, however, by the uncertainty attending expected action of Congress on tariff and currency questions.

See, also, MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1848-1893.

ALSO IN: _L. R. Ehrich, The Question of Silver, page 23._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1892. Chinese Exclusion Act.

A bill "to absolutely prohibit the coming of Chinese persons into the United States," reported by Mr. Geary, of California, was passed by the House, April 4, 1892, yeas 179, nays 43, 107 not voting. In the Senate, a substitute, going little further than to continue the then existing laws for the regulation of Chinese immigration, was reported from the Committee on Foreign Relations and adopted. The two bills were referred to a Conference Committee, with the result that a compromise measure, slightly modified from the House bill, was passed by both branches of Congress, on the 3d and 4th of May, and signed by the President on the 5th. It continues former laws for ten years. It directs "that any Chinese person or person of Chinese descent when convicted and adjudged under any of said laws to be not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States," shall be removed to China, or to such other country as he may prove to be a subject or citizen of. It declares that any such person under arrest "shall be adjudged to be unlawfully within the United States, unless such person shall establish, by affirmative proof, … his lawful right to remain in the United States"; and that any such person "convicted and adjudged to be not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States shall be imprisoned at hard labor for a period of not exceeding one year, and thereafter removed from the United States, as hereinbefore provided." The act denies bail, on an application for a writ of habeas corpus, by a Chinese person seeking to land in the United States. It requires all Chinese laborers who were within the limits of the United States at the time of the passage of the act, and who were entitled to remain, to obtain certificates of residence, from district collectors of internal revenue, and orders the deportation of those who had failed to do so at the expiration of one year. This extraordinary measure of exclusion has been commonly known as the "Geary Act."

_E. McPherson, Hand-book of Politics, 1892._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1892. Settlement of the Alaskan Boundary.

A convention between the governments of the United States and Great Britain was entered into and ratifications exchanged in August, 1892, providing for a coincident or joint survey, "as may in practice be found most convenient," to determine the boundary line between Alaska and the Canadian provinces.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1892. Controversy with Chile. Warlike Presidential Message.

See (in Supplement) CHILE.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1892. First commissioning of a Papal Delegate.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1892.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1892. The Twenty-seventh Presidential Election.

Five parties presented candidates in the presidential election held November 8, 1892—namely: the Democratic, the Republican, the People's, or Populist, the Prohibitionist, and the Socialistic Labor. The nominees of the Democratic Party were Grover Cleveland, for President, and Adlai E. Stevenson, for Vice President; of the Republican Party, Benjamin Harrison and Whitelaw Reid, for President and Vice President, respectively; of the Populist Party, James B. Weaver and James G. Field; of the Prohibition Party, John Bidwell and James B. Cranfill; of the Socialistic Labor Party, Simon Wing and Charles H. Matchett. The dominant Issues in the canvass were the tariff question and the silver question. "The Democrats named no electoral tickets in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, and Wyoming, but voted for the people's party electors with the object of taking those States away from the Republicans. They put out an electoral ticket in Nevada, but still voted mostly for the Populist electors. In North Dakota also there was a partial fusion between the Democrats and the People's party, and in Minnesota a part of the Weaver electoral ticket was accepted by the Democrats. In Louisiana there was a fusion of the Republicans and the People's party, each nominating half of the 8 electors. In Alabama there was a fusion of some of the Republicans with the People's party. In Texas a Republican ticket called the Lily White was set up, which differed from the regular ticket. In Michigan a new electoral law, which was declared constitutional by the United States Supreme Court on October 17, 1892, provided for the separate election of a Presidential elector in each Congressional district, and in consequence the electoral vote of the State was divided. In Oregon the name of one of the four electors on the People's ticket was also placed on the Democratic ticket. … The total popular vote cast was reported as 12,154,542," of which Cleveland received 5,556,553; Harrison, 5,175,577; Weaver, 1,122,045; Bidwell 279,191; Wing, 21,191. The electoral votes of the States were cast as follows: Cleveland, 277; Harrison, 145; Weaver, 22; giving Cleveland a clear majority of 110.

_Appletons' Annual Cyclopœdia, 1892._

"The most striking feature of the elections was the great losses of the Republicans in the West. Illinois and Wisconsin went Democratic by large majorities, California and Ohio were very close, and Colorado, Idaho, Kansas and Nevada chose Populist electors. The Democrats carried all the Northern states generally regarded as doubtful, viz., Connecticut, New York and Indiana, but they nearly lost Delaware. {3586} An unusual incident of the result was the division of the electoral votes in several states, owing to the closeness of the popular vote. Thus in Ohio one Cleveland elector and in Oregon one Weaver elector was chosen, the others being Republican; and in California and North Dakota Mr. Harrison secured single votes in the same way. From the conditions of fusion between the Democrats and Populists in the last-named state, it resulted that one of her three electoral votes was given to each of the three candidates. In Michigan, under the district method of choosing electors recently established, Harrison got nine votes and Cleveland five."

_Political Science Quarterly, June, 1893._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1893. Abandonment of Polygamy by the Mormons.

See UTAH: A. D. 1882-1893.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1893. Revolution in the Hawaiian Islands and proposed annexation.

See HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1894. The Wilson Tariff Act.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1894.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1894. The Strike at Pullman. The Coxey Movement.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1894.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1894-1895. Provision for the admission of Utah as a State.

On the 17th of July, 1894, the President, by his signature, gave effect to a bill which provides for the admission of Utah to the Union as a State. The admission, however, cannot become a completed fact before the later part of the year 1895, since the bill provides for the holding of a convention in March, 1895, to frame a constitution for the proposed new State, and for submitting such constitution to the people at the election in November, 1895.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1895. The Status of Civil-service Reform. Commissioner Roosevelt's Review.

"In 1883 the civil service law was established at Washington, and in the larger post-offices and custom-houses throughout the country, taking in a total of some 14,000 employees. The great extensions since have all taken place during the last six years, a period which happens to include my own term of service with the Commission, so that I write of them at first hand. In 1889 the railway mail service was added, in 1893 all the free delivery post-offices, and in 1894 all the smaller custom-houses and the internal revenue service. Other important but smaller extensions have been made, and the larger offices have grown, so that now about 50,000 employees are under the protection of the law. There are, of course, and there always must be in a body so large, individual cases where the law is evaded, or even violated; and as yet we do not touch the question of promotions and reductions. But, speaking broadly, and with due allowance for such comparatively slight exceptions, these 50,000 places are now taken out of the political arena. They can no longer be scrambled for in a struggle as ignoble and brutal as the strife of pirates over plunder; they no longer serve as a vast bribery chest with which to debauch the voters of the country. Those holding them no longer keep their political life by the frail tenure of service to the party boss and the party machine; they stand as American citizens, and are allowed the privilege of earning their own bread without molestation so long as they faithfully serve the public. The classified service, the service in which the merit system is applied, has grown fast. It is true that the outside service where the spoils theories are still applied in all their original nakedness, has grown only less fast. The number of offices under the government has increased very rapidly during the last twenty years; but the growth of the classified service has been even more rapid, so that a constantly increasing percentage of the whole is withdrawn from the degrading grasp of the spoils system. Now, something like a quarter of all the offices under the federal government in point of numbers, representing nearly a half in point of salaries, has been put upon the basis of decency and merit. This has been done by the action of successive Presidents under the law of 1883, without the necessity of action by Congress. There still remain some things that can be done without further legislation. For instance, the labor force in the navy yards was put on a merit basis, and removed from the domain of politics, under Secretary Tracy. This was done merely by order of the Secretary of the Navy, which order could have been reversed by his successor, Secretary Herbert. Instead of reversing it, however, Secretary Herbert has zealously lived up to its requirements, and has withstood all pressure for the weakening of the system in the interests of the local party machines and bosses. It is unsafe to trust to always having Secretaries of the Navy like Messrs. Tracy and Herbert. The Civil Service Commission should be given supervision over the laborers who come under the direction of Cabinet officers. Indeed, all the laboring force and all the employees of the District of Columbia employed by the federal government should be put under the Commission. When this has been done, and when a few other comparatively slight extensions have been made, all that can be accomplished by the unaided action of the executive will have been accomplished. Congress must then itself act by passing some such bill as that of Senator Lodge in reference to fourth-class postmasters; by passing some bill in reference to the consular service on the outlines of that suggested by Senator Morgan (but giving power to the Civil Service Commission itself in the matter); and then by providing that all postmasters and similar officers shall hold office during good behavior, including as well those nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate as those appointed by the President alone. Of all the offices under the federal government, not one in a hundred can properly be called political."

_T. Roosevelt, The Present Status of Civil Service Reform (Atlantic, February, 1895)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1895. President Cleveland's Special Message on the condition of the National Finances.