The politicos, 1865-1896

Retroactive Muckraking

This book covers US federal politics during the period 1865-1896. This was an exceptionally important phase of US history; one could describe the period as a revolutionary epoch, out of which a new regime and a new national self-consciousness emerged. Part of this was the complete hegemony of the industrial corporation, whose partisans took full advantage of the collapse of the South to seize control of the legal and fiduciary machinery of state.

At the time Josephson was a muckraker, and heavily influenced by Marxian historical theory, albeit not a Marxist. (The difference is that "Marxian historical theory" refers to a theory that incorporates Marx's economic and class determinism, but which may also incorporate other influences--such as Freud or Max Weber. "Marxist" implies a commitment to the creation of a socialist state through violent overthrow and liquidation of the bourgeois class dictatorship.) Hence, Josephson's 1938 evisceration of monopoly corporate hegemony over the USA was informed by universal historical theories, rather than the usual split between "US history" and "the history of everyone else." To an American reader, this makes for a jolt to the sensibilities. In the 1930's, universal historical theories were rare; it was common to equate "historicism" with Marxian or Spenglerian views. But while he might have approved of many of Marx's insights, Josephson was at heart dedicated to democratic precepts.

The book may be divided into four distinct, if overlapping, periods. The first, 1865-1872, is probably the weakest. This addresses the controversy over Reconstruction, and while Josephson did not share the well-nigh universal racism of white America in 1938, he appears to assume that everyone acting on behalf of the Radical plan for moral reconstruction of the South was motivated by naked greed or power lust. This is not, I think, a point of view that is either plausible, or compatible with W.E.B. DuBois' account (Black Reconstruction). While both DuBois and Josephson write from a radical left point of view, Josephson takes a position of selective cynicism about the motives of pro- and anti-Reconstruction; white power vigilante groups--of which the KKK is only one example--he regards as an inevitable reaction to Union occupation, like the resistence to colonial rule in Algeria. Another disturbing thing is that here, where his rhetoric is almost insufferably strident, the Union government faced few acceptable alternatives, and I think his idea is that the only acceptable alternative would have been the policies of Andrew Johnson. Partly this is because even the feeble measures the Union did take to forcibly liquidate slavery he regards as repressive, and he regards the impeachment proceedings as farcical and without merit.

This flaw nearly caused me to lose patience with the work, but the subsequent treatment of historical developments well redeems it. The period 1868-1880 is marked by the abrupt and energetic embrace of corruption by all levels and tendencies of American politics. Here, Josephson's writing style reminds one of Thomas Carlyle. He is snarky and heaps bathos on his subjects, but he never loses sight of the seriousness of the matter. One of the historical realities of the Grant & Hayes Administrations was that it was part of a huge Thermidorian Reaction, fueled by the amazing conquest of the North American continent. The Radical Republicans, Josephson regards as Pecksniffian do-gooders. While a modern reader would likely sympathize with the Radicals' determination to safeguard the revolutionary gains won through the Civil War, and their reliance on captive interests in order to get the needful votes or dollars, Josephson regards the mechanics of coalition-building with exaggerated disdain. Still, because he is rigorous and scholarly, his section on this era is revealing. The exceptional corruption, and its almost random character, are distinguishing features of the Grant and Hayes era. Success or failure in this period was the outcome of numerous passionate battles for control over blocs of politicians, especially in the all-powerful state legislatures. Naturally, the technology of converting votes into dollars was so rudimentary that any tycoon with a project could do it.

The third phase arrived AFTER the election of James A Garfield in 1880. The '76 elections had ended in a humiliating defeat for a breakway Republican faction, known as the "Reform Party." Hayes (s.77-81) had promised, unconvincingly, to end the egregious simony of civil service jobs. Garfield likewise had developed, at the time of his election, a superficial reputation as a reformist, although it was widely expected at the time that he, like Hayes before him, would exchange posts for favors to his nascent personal "machine." Instead, he was assassinated by a deranged fanatic of the "Stalwart" (entrenched patronage) Republicans. Civil service reform became a national obsession, just as the technology of machine politics became more efficient; hence, winning king-maker tycoons survived longer, were less random, paid out to far few people, and focused their attention on more generalized legislation rather than appropriations. The relationship between party bosses and tycoons became more equal, than before; the boss now had some special strengths to offer patron-tycoons. The third phase essentially lasted well past the cut-off date of the book. In it, Josephson sketches out the byzantine relationships among the party bosses, such as James G Blaine and Thomas Reed ("Half-Breed" GOP leaders), Roscoe Conkling ("Stalwart" GOP leader), Richard Olney (US Atty Gen.), and William C Whitney ("Bourbon" Democrat). This is vital in understanding the importance of personal relationships in shaping the trajectory of history; John G Carlisle, for example, was especially important in shaping the savage policies of monetary and police repression that opened the 2nd Cleveland term (1893-1897). An interesting observation is that many of these men were passionately committed to their causes, and seemed to regard the corruption in which they wallowed as a vital tool of warfare, even if it was a tool their side might have to be especially dependent upon.

The last chapter in Josephson's book details the rising power of Marcus "Mark" Hanna, the most powerful and efficient machine boss and political tycoon in US history. Hanna built up an inland empire based on shipping (Great Lakes), wholesaling, and trains. With the immense fortune, personal obsession, and forceful, unscrupulous personality, Hanna's great achievement was to raise an unprecedented $16 million for William McKinley's campaign, and then direct that to the upset defeat of Democratic opponent William Jennings Bryan (1896 presidential campaign).

The fourth and final phase of the book covers the period 1877-1896, when the Populist Movemetn developed its own machine politics in the South and West. Both were depression years for the overextended family farmers on isolated plots stretching from Washington State to Tennessee and Georgia. The Populist Movement arose in states which depended heavily on infusions of seasonal capital, such as farming, and which were geographically isolated, and therefore dependent on transit networks controlled by vast new corporations. Hence, farmers groups were obsessed with monetary policy and with antitrust or even nationalization of certain commerce. One group of Populists was narrowly obsessed with the "free" coinage of silver (i.e., allowing banks--which issued paper money--to do so on the basis of reserves in silver). Such a policy would create an unknown amount of inflation, and possibly lead to a monetarist stimulus of real growth--as paper money had during the then-recent Civil War. But to hard money dogmatics, it was out-and-out fraud. In the urban areas, conversely, the urban proletariat had struck material bottom, with unemployment hitting rates of 30% in the late '70's...