CHAPTER XXXIV

WAR AND EXPANSION

GROVER CLEVELAND was inaugurated President for the second time on the 4th of March, 1893. The Cabinet was a personal rather than a political one; with two or three exceptions its members were in no sense party leaders. For secretary of state the President chose Walter Q. Gresham, a former member of the Cabinet of Arthur and a lifelong Republican until the campaign of 1892. John G. Carlisle of Kentucky became secretary of the treasury; Daniel S. Lamont, secretary of war; Richard Olney, attorney-general; William S. Bissell, postmaster-general; H. A. Herbert, secretary of the navy; Hoke Smith, secretary of the interior; and J. S. Morton, secretary of agriculture.

HAWAII, SILVER, AND THE WILSON TARIFF

The first important act after his inauguration was the withdrawal by Mr. Cleveland of a treaty to annex the Hawaiian Islands to the United States, which had been sent to the Senate by Mr. Harrison. Hawaii was a tiny independent monarchy in the Pacific Ocean some 2100 miles west of San Francisco, and the reigning queen was Liliuokalani. But the monarchy had long been tottering, and at length, in January, 1893, a party of revolutionists, chiefly Americans or the descendants of Americans, rose against the government, deposed the queen, and set up a provisional government with Sanford B. Dole as president. The cause of the uprising was an attempt of the queen to set aside the new constitution, adopted in 1887, and to restore the old one, by which the Americans and other foreigners residing on the islands would be deprived of their right to participate in the government. The revolution was approved by the minister from the United States, John L. Stevens, and through him Mr. Dole requested the United States to assume a protectorate over the islands. On the 1st of February the American flag was

raised over the government building at Honolulu. A treaty of annexation to the United States was drafted and sent by special messengers to Washington. Almost the entire American public, including President Harrison, favored annexing the islands in spite of the protests of the agents of the deposed queen, who had also reached Washington. Accordingly, on February 15 the President submitted the treaty to the Senate, but before that body could act he went out of office.1

Mr. Cleveland, who now became President, had ideas of his own. Without the slightest regard for public sentiment, he withdrew the treaty from the Senate and sent a commissioner to Honolulu to investigate, and, on learning the facts, he sent another minister to supersede Stevens and to haul down the American flag. Cleveland acted on the old American principle, as he claimed, that we have no right to assume the government over a people without their consent, and this he declared had not been obtained. He even offered to restore Queen Liliuokalani to her throne if she would promise amnesty to those who had dethroned her. But this she would not do; and the government, under President Dole, continued and became stronger, and Mr. Cleveland recognized the islands as a constitutional republic. At length, however (July 7, 1898), when the Cleveland administration had been succeeded by another, the Hawaiian Islands were formally annexed to the United States by a joint resolution of Congress, as in the case of Texas.2

Scarcely had this administration come in when the finances of the country became greatly disturbed. The conditions of panic had been accumulating for many months, and a panic now seemed ready to break upon the country. There were about five hundred million dollars in currency notes outstanding and redeemable in gold; but when once redeemed, they were not canceled. The law directed that they be reissued, and thus an endless chain prevented the government from protecting its gold reserve. In addition to this the government was obliged by the Sherman Silver law to purchase four and a half million ounces of silver per month and to pay for it in notes redeemable in gold. The gold reserve had almost reached the danger

1 The treaty provided among other things that the United States should assume the Hawaiian debt, some $3,250,000, should pay the deposed queen $20,000 a year, and allow the heiress-presumptive, Princess Koiulani, the lump sum of $150,000.

2 The Hawaiian group comprises about 6640 square miles. The population in 1896 was 109,000. As a naval station the islands are of great importance to the United States.

limit of a hundred million dollars. President Cleveland believed with the majority that the repeal of the Sherman law would help to relieve the situation, and for this purpose he called an extra session of Congress to meet on August 7, 1893.

Silver law.

But in Congress, especially in the Senate, there was great opposition to repeal. The House was dominated by the great states of the East, and in that body a motion to repeal the act was soon passed by a good majority composed of both parties. But in the Senate, where the sparsely settled mining states of the West had the same voting power as the populous states, the House bill was held up for many weeks. Meantime great commotion reigned throughout Repeal of the the country, and for once President Cleveland played the politician. He withheld the patronage from the opposing senators; he brought all the force of the presidential office to bear upon the matter in his determination to have the Sherman law repealed. And at last, on November 1, after a long and exciting session, the Senate yielded and the silver-purchasing clause of the act of 1890 was repealed; but further legislation, as recommended by the President for the purpose of maintaining the gold reserve, which had now fallen to $80,000,000, was not secured.

But it was too late to avert the coming panic. The business of the country was unsettled, and the industrial depression that followed, covering several years, was one of the most disastrous in our history. Many for political purposes, and others through sheer ignorance, blamed the Democratic party entirely for the "hard times," and in this the Democrats suffered only what they had heaped upon the Republicans twenty years before. The panic of 1893, which had been gathering for many months before Cleveland's term began, was the resultant of many convergent forces the financial conditions, the hoarding of gold by the people, the uncertainty about silver, overproduction, and of others which elude the pen of the economist.

At such a moment it was doubtless unwise for the Democrats to attempt a revision of the tariff; but on the tariff issue they had carried the election, and they were prompt to carry out their pledges. Mr. William L. Wilson of West Virginia, chairman of the committee of ways and means, brought a tariff bill into the House early in the regular session. This became known as the Wilson bill. It passed the House in February, 1894, and went to the Senate. The bill placed raw materials for the most part on the free list, as

THE WORLD'S FAIR AT CHICAGO

881

Wilson Tariff law, 1894.

also coal and sugar, and made many of the duties ad valorem instead of specific. In the Senate the bill was subjected to drastic treatment. A few Democrats, led by Senator Gorman, determined to change the bill, and so great were the alterations made that it could scarcely be recognized as the same that had passed the House. Henceforth it was called the Wilson-Gorman Tariff. The Senate took coal and iron from the free list, placed a schedule of duties on sugar, and raised them on many other things; it also changed ad valorem to specific duties. The House bill had reduced the average duties of the McKinley Tariff, which had been about 50 per cent, to about 35 per cent; but the Senate bill raised them to about 37 per cent. The House reluc

tantly accepted the Senate bill because no better was attainable, and it was sent to the President on August 13, 1894. Mr. Cleveland was so displeased with the Senate changes that he refused to sign the measure; but, believing it an improvement over the McKinley bill, he could not veto it, and it became a law without his signature.

This tariff measure carried with it a provision for an income tax, which, however, was pronounced unconstitutional the following May by the United States Supreme Court.1

THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION

Four hundred years had passed since the discovery of the New World by Columbus. In that period the transformation had been the most remarkable in history, and it was fitting now that the one great nation of the Western Hemisphere, with its vast wealth and its boundless resources, take the lead in celebrating the discovery of Columbus. It was decided that the celebration take the form of a gigantic exposition, and the prize was awarded to Chicago; but as it was found impossible to make adequate preparation for holding the fair on the anniversary of the discovery by Columbus, the following year, 1893, was chosen in its stead. The site chosen was Jackson Park, an unimproved pleasure ground on the lake front near Chicago. The ground was intersected with marshy inlets and lagoons; but these were transformed by the hand of art into canals and lakelets bounded by walks and lawns, until the park presented the beauty of a fairy land. The cost of pre

The

expense of the exposition was enormous.

1 This was a reversal of a former decision in favor of the income tax.

Cost of buildings.

paring the grounds and erecting the buildings aggregated nearly $20,000,000, raised chiefly by the citizens of Chicago, by a five-million loan by the city, and by a gift of the government of nearly two millions in the form of half dollars, coined for the purpose with a special design. The government expended also $2,250,000 for a building of its own, foreign countries expended some six millions, and the several states over seven millions. Thus the grand total reached thirty-five mil lions, and if to this be added the expense of private exhibitors, the cost of the great exposition footed up the enormous total of nearly $40,000,000.

No attempt can be made to describe the buildings of the "White City," as the exposition came to be called. Most of them were composed of an iron framework covered with "staff," a composition that resembles white marble. The principal buildings, grouped around the Court of Honor, with its glittering lake, its stately colonades, and its luxuriant foliage, presented a scene of splendor and magnificence that led the beholder to feel that he was in dreamland.

The largest of the buildings, covering forty-four acres, was devoted to manufactures and liberal arts. The government building, with its octagonal gilded dome was probably the most ornate and impressive of them all. Around these were grouped the agricultural building, the woman's building, machinery hall, buildings devoted to art, fisheries, mining, transportation, electricity, and others. The art building, Ionic in style, was probably the most perfect in grace of design on the grounds, and the treasures within it represented the choicest of public and private collections in Europe and America. In the building devoted to the work of women was exhibited, as never before, the great part that woman has played in the growth of modern civilization.

The exhibits of the great fair were bewildering in their attractiveness and their numbers. Never before in the world's history had such a collection of the products of art, science, and manufactures been made. It seemed that nothing was wanting of the best that the world could give from every nation and every clime. The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 had appealed chiefly to the artistic and the sentimental; the World's Columbian Exposition, while equally artistic and far more extensive, aimed chiefly to show the progress of the human race during the preceding four hundred years. For example, in the transportation building were exhibited