Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President
To critics, U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) was an aloof, inept politician, but this revisionist biography limns a pragmatic reformer, supporter of civil rights and precursor of the Progressive movement. As a Cincinnati lawyer, Hayes defended runaway slaves; as a crusading antislavery Civil War colonel, he served bravely and was wounded five times. Three-time Republican governor of Ohio, Hayes secured his state's ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the vote to all races. President Hayes has been accused of brutally crushing the Great Strike of 1877, but Hoogenboom, professor of history at the City University of New York, argues that he called out federal troops against striking railway workers only at the behest of state and local authorities. Hayes's abandonment of Reconstruction by withdrawing troops from the South ended a failed policy that had unwittingly polarized politics along racial lines, in Hoogenboom's assessment. Despite Hayes's commitment to equality for all Americans, one is left with the impression that his administration was, at best, merely efficient. Photos.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.