[lbo-talk] Re: Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth Reading butNotfor the Reasons the Critics Have in Mind

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Wed Oct 11 21:23:44 PDT 2006


On 10/11/06, John Mage <jmage at panix.com> wrote:
> Yoshie argues that a major problem for any social
> democratic potential in the Omaha platform was that:
>
> > The platform included opposition to immigration...
>
> I'd suggest that a fatal conflict between farmers and workers in domestic
> industry was created by the Omaha platform in its primary demand:
> "1. We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the
> present legal ratio of l6 to 1."
<snip>
> ome particularly obnoxious expenses were fixed and
> would not inflate at all - mortgage payments above all.
>
> But workers employed in domestic industry, transportation and
> construction would lose. Many of their expenses for food (at that time a
> much larger portion of the workers' budgets) were for
> products that were also exported (breadstuffs, meat) and whose price
> would inflate quickly toward world market rates. And few workers
> employed in domestic industry at that time owned their homes, and so
> most would not get the debtors benefit from inflation.
<snip>
> It was still then well remembered that during the great inflation of the
> civil war that wages in industry rose far slower than agricultural (and
> even most industrial) commodities; that is, that real wages fell, and
> fell sharply. The civil war was over only 27 years before 1892.

If workers had thought like that and voted for William McKinley on account of their fear of a decline in real wages, that would have meant workers resisted the money illusion (i.e., the tendency to accept a decline in real wages but resist cuts in money wages). Is that true?

Besides, workers could have thought: depression and unemployment (exceeding 25% in some cities during the depression that began in 1893) aggravated by Grover Cleveland's tight monetary policy, to be continued by the sound money policy that McKinley advocated, was worse than inflation that William Jennings Bryan's free silver policy would cause.

Aside from the question of immigrant workers, against whom the Populist, Democratic, and Republican Parties were, alas, solidly united -- a long-term, still unresolved problem for the Left -- there were other problems, both for the short term -- the 1896 elections -- and the long term.

Division While some free silver Republicans voted for Bryan, there were more divisions among the Populists and Democrats. Some Gold Democrats voted for McKinley, and others nominated and voted for their own candidate John Palmer; free silver Democrats were divided between those who wanted Populist support and those who were wary of it; Populists were divided between fusion Populists and middle-of-the-road (i.e., anti-fusion) Populists; and fusion Populists were divided between those who supported the Bryan-Sewall ticket and those who wanted the Bryan-Watson ticket.

Fusion The Populists who expected Bryan to choose Watson for running mate were disappointed. Moreover, the Democrats incorporated only the currency plank from the Populist platform. Thus the plank that would have appealed to workers the most -- "In times of great industrial depression idle labor should be employed on public works as far as practicable" -- and might have cemented an alliance of farmers and workers got left out of the campaign.

Lynching Only the Republicans included a statement against lynching in the party platform: "We proclaim our unqualified condemnation of the uncivilized and barbarous practices well known as lynching and killing of human beings, suspected or charged with crime, without process of law." The Populists made only a weak statement against disfranchisement, appealing to "State Legislatures" (!) to effect redress: "the People's party condemn the wholesale system of disfrachisement adopted in some of the States as unrepublican and undemocratic, and we declare it to be the duty of the several State Legislatures to take such action as will secure a full, free and fair ballot and honest count." Fusion meant acquiescence to Jim Crow.

Tariffs The Democrats were for free trade:

<blockquote>We hold that tariff duties should be levied for purposes of revenue, such duties to be so adjusted as to operate equally throughout the country and not discriminate between class or section, and that taxation should be limited by the needs of the Government honestly and economically administered. We denounce, as disturbing to business, the Republican threat to restore the McKinley law, which has been twice condemned by the people in national elections, and which, enacted under the false plea of protection to home industry, proved a prolific breeder of trusts and monopolies, enriched the few at the expense of the many, restricted trade and deprived the producers of the great American staples of access to their natural markets. Until the money question is settled we are opposed to any agitation for further changes in our tariff laws, except such as are necessary to meet the deficit in revenue caused by the adverse decision of the Supreme Court on the income tax.</blockquote>

The Republicans were for protective tariffs, sounding like today's protectionist Democrats:

<blockquote>This true American policy taxes foreign products and encourages home industry; it puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures the American market for the American producer; it upholds the American standard of wages for the American workingman; it puts the factory by the side of the farm, and makes the American farmer less dependent on foreign demand and prices; it diffuses general thrift and founds the strength of all on the strength of each. In its reasonable application it is just, far and impartial, equally opposed to foreign control and domestic monopoly, to sectional discrimination and individual favoritism.

We denounce the present Democratic tariff as sectional, injurious to the public credit and destructive to business enterprise. We demand such an equitable tariff on foreign imports which come into competition with American products, as will not only furnish adequate revenue for the necessary expenses of the Government, but will protect American labor from degradation to the wage level of other lands.</blockquote>

That must have won some workers' votes for the Republican Party, especially if they were already won over to protectionist thinking on the immigration front.

P.S.

This couldn't have been a big issue, at least for farmers and workers in that year, but the Republicans were really long on foreign policy and even waxed indignant against the Turkish massacre of Armenians!

<blockquote>Foreign Relations. Our foreign policy should be at all times firm, vigorous and dignified, and all our interests in the Western hemisphere carefully watched and guarded. The Hawaiian Islands should be controlled by the United States, and no foreign Power should be permitted to interfere with them; the Nicaragua Canal should be built, owned, and operated by the United States, and, by the purchase of the Danish Islands, we should secure a propert and much-needed naval station in the West Indies.

The massacres in Armenia have aroused the deep sympathy and just indignation of the American people, and we believe that the United States should exercise all the influence it can properly exert to bring these atrocities to an end. In Turkey, American residents have been exposed to the gravest dangers, and American property destroyed. There, and everywhere, American citizens and American property must be absolutely protected at all hazards and at any cost.

We reassert the Monroe Doctrine in its full extent, and we reaffirm the right of the United States to give the doctrine effect by responding to the appeals of any American State for friendly intervention in case of European encroachment. We have not interfered, and shall not interfere, with the existing possessions of any European Power in this hemisphere, but those possessions must not, on any pretext, be extended. We hopefully look forward to the eventual withdrawal of the European Powers from this hemisphere, and to the ultimate union of all the English-speaking part of the continent by the free consent of its inhabitants.

Suffering Cuba.
>From the hour of achieving their own independence, the people of the
United States have regarded with sympathy the struggles of other American peoples to free themselves from European domination. We watch with deep and abiding interest the heroic battle of the Cuban patriots against cruelty and oppression, and our best hopes go out for the full success of their determined contest for liberty. The Government of Spain, having lost control of Cuba, and being unable to protect the property or lives of resident American citizens, or to comply with its treaty obligations, we believe that the Government of the United States should actively use its influence and good offices to restore peace and give independence to the island.</blockquote>

Then as now, the Democrats were also committed to the Monroe Doctrine.

All three parties expressed sympathies for the Cubans. The Populists didn't think enough about the nature of America's relation to the rest of the world to distinguish themselves from the other two on foreign policy at that time.

Reference 1896, <http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/1896home.html>. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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