American History - Part 132 - Cleveland - Fights Tariff - loses election
Channel: ListenAndReadAlong
Date: 09/07/2013

Welcome to the MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
  President Cleveland believed that high tariffs hurt more Americans than they protected. High tariffs, he said, led to high prices on all products. He also opposed high tariffs because they brought in more money than the government needed. The extra money was kept in the public treasury. And this, Cleveland believed, slowed the American economy.
The president's Democratic Party united to support his policy of lowering tariffs. When the party held its presidential nominating convention in eighteen eighty-eight, delegates quickly re-nominated Cleveland.
Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of the ninth President of the United States, William Henry Harrison. Benjamin was a lawyer. He had been a General in the Union Army during America's Civil War of the eighteen sixties.
  After nominating Harrison, the Republicans approved a strong policy statement on the tariff question. The statement said:
"We fully support the American system of protection. President Cleveland and his party serve the interests of Europe. We would support the interests of America. We would see all other taxes ended before we surrender any part of the protective tariff system."
Benjamin Harrison's campaign was well-organized.
His campaign workers went to businessmen who had become rich because of high protective tariffs. They asked for support, and the businessmen gave millions of dollars to the campaign. The businessmen also put pressure on the people who worked for them. They warned workers that if Cleveland were re-elected, there might be no more jobs.
Republican Party leaders took an active part in the campaign of eighteen eighty-eight. They made speeches and led parades across the country. The party also printed millions of pamphlets that warned against what it called "Cleveland's free trade policies."
  Grover Cleveland's campaign was not well-organized. It started slowly. It did not raise much money. No effort was made to answer Republican attacks on the tariff issue. And the president himself refused to campaign. He said he had more important things to do.
The Democrats also failed to stop the Republicans from buying votes on election day. In Indiana, for example, men were paid fifteen dollars to vote for the Republican candidate. The Democrats bought votes, too. But they had less money to spend than the Republicans.
When the popular votes were counted, Cleveland had about one hundred thousand more than Harrison. But Harrison had more electoral votes. He won the election.

Grover Cleveland had mixed feelings about his defeat. He wanted to win, because he believed his policies were best for the country. He said he was not sorry that he had made tariffs the major issue in the campaign. "I do not regret it," he said. "It is better to be defeated battling for an honest idea, than to win by a cowardly trick."
When President Cleveland and his wife left the White House, Missus Cleveland said goodbye to the servants. She told one of them: "I want you to take good care of all the furniture and other things in the house. I want to find everything the same when we come back...four years from now."

Wanamaker and other party leaders criticized Harrison. They said they could not build a strong party organization without promising government jobs to voters.
So, President Harrison suspended the civil service laws that protected postal workers. Within a year, thirty thousand Democrats were removed from the department. Their jobs went to Republicans. The president then announced that the post office would, once again, be protected by the civil service laws.
Former President Cleveland had been troubled by the extra money in the federal treasury. This was tax money the government collected, but did not use. Most of the extra money came from high protective tariffs on imported products. Cleveland wanted to reduce the surplus by reducing the tariffs.
President Harrison decided to reduce the surplus, too. But he would do it by increasing government spending, not by cutting taxes. Congress agreed. It became the first Congress to spend one thousand million dollars.

Much of the money was spent on payments to men who had fought in the Union Army during the Civil War. These payments cost the government more than one hundred million dollars a year.
Congress also approved millions of dollars for government projects in the home states of important congressmen. This was called "pork barrel" spending. It paid for new roads, bridges, and government buildings -- for almost anything the congressmen wanted.
Congress reduced the surplus even more by approving money to build coastal defenses and to buy warships for the Navy.
The American Congress passed several historic pieces of legislation during Benjamin Harrison's administration: The Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act. And the McKinley Tariff.
That will be our story next week.