Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901)

E

2

Election Campaign

The Republicans made a high tariff (taxes on imports) the most important issue in the campaign. Import tariffs raised money for the government and protected U.S. businesses from foreign competition by increasing the cost of importing those goods. Industries in Northern urban areas and banking interests tended to favor high tariffs because they helped domestic businesses; agricultural areas in the West and the South tended to oppose them because they made it harder for people to buy cheap foreign goods such as clothing (see Tariffs, United States). Republicans received from the supporters of high tariffs generous campaign contributions, which were used to publicize the alleged evils of Cleveland's low-tariff stand. A strong appeal was made for the veterans' vote, based on Harrison's war record and his votes in favor of pensions for veterans. Cleveland, on the other hand, had not fought in the Civil War and had consistently vetoed pension bills, claiming they would encourage massive fraud. Furthermore, he had offended many Union veterans by returning captured Confederate battle flags to the South.

E

3

Murchison Letter

At the end of October, as the election neared, Harrison won a number of votes through a hoax known as the Murchison Letter. This was a letter to Lionel Sackville-West, British ambassador to the United States, signed by Charles F. Murchison, who claimed to be a former British subject and now a naturalized American. The Murchison Letter asked for Sackville-West's views on the coming election, and the ambassador wrote a reply hinting that Britain would gain by Cleveland's reelection. Murchison was in reality a California Republican, named George A. Osgoodby, and the Republicans used the British ambassador's letter to damage Cleveland. President Cleveland at once demanded Sackville-West's recall, but Cleveland lost a good many votes, especially among Irish Americans opposed to a candidate allegedly favorable to Britain.

The vigorous Republican campaign, aided by Harrison's historic name, brought victory over Cleveland by 233 electoral votes to 168. However, Harrison found himself a minority president, receiving 100,000 fewer popular votes than Cleveland.

IV

President of the United States

President Harrison chose a Cabinet of little-known men except for Blaine, whom he appointed secretary of state. Besieged by office seekers, Harrison displeased both reformers of government employment (civil service) and those who favored the old spoils system, under which winning politicians gave government jobs to the loyal party members who had helped them get elected. Although his appointments were excellent, including future U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) and William Howard Taft (1909-1913) as civil service commissioner and solicitor general, respectively, many state political bosses, such as Matt Quay of Pennsylvania, Tom Platt of New York, Jim Clarkson of Iowa, were offended and determined to prevent Harrison's renomination in 1892. Throughout his administration, Harrison struggled with party leaders seeking rewards.

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A

Domestic Affairs

The Republicans pleased Civil War veterans in 1890 with the passage of the Dependent Pension Act. The act granted pensions to disabled Union veterans even if they weren't injured in the war, and provided allowances of varying amounts to children, dependent parents, and widows of veterans. By 1893 annual appropriations for pensions had increased from $81 million to $135 million.

Harrison in 1890 signed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which declared combinations of businesses that restrained trade or commerce to be illegal and authorized the federal government to take action against such combinations, called trusts.

In the same year the president also approved the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, hoping to help the silver mining industry (see Bimetallism).The act required the Treasury to purchase 127,575 kg (281,250 lb) of silver each month and to issue in payment Treasury notes redeemable in gold or silver. Issuing currency backed by silver was supposed to cause inflation, so it would help farmers in the West and South by making it easier for them to pay off debt. Before the year's end, Harrison had approved the high import tariff sponsored by U.S. Representative and future U.S. President William McKinley of Ohio. This protectionist act, while it added a number of items to the free import list, increased tariffs on other imports to a record-breaking average of about 48 percent. Harrison himself wrote into the bill the only provision that was at all popular. It empowered the president to stop the import of tax-free items if he thought that the exporting country was not treating U.S. goods the same way. Nevertheless, tariff reformers and Democrats held Harrison responsible for the much criticized McKinley tariff.

The congressional elections of 1890 dealt a blow to Harrison's image. A Democratic landslide cost the Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

B

Foreign Affairs

Harrison strongly supported the program of Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy to build armor-clad ships, and watched for opportunities to acquire far-flung naval bases. Toward this end the president approved the action of the American minister at Honolulu, John L. Stevens, in supporting an American-led revolution against Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii. She had ascended the throne in 1891 after Hawaiian-born white businessmen had forced her brother to accept a new constitution. Stevens supported a revolution in 1893 when Liliuokalani disregarded that constitution because she opposed the growing influence of American-owned industries on the islands (see Hawaii). A treaty negotiated with the revolutionary Hawaiian government provided for annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the United States. Harrison sent the treaty to the Senate, but his term expired before a vote was taken. To his great regret his successor, President Cleveland, immediately withdrew the treaty, claiming that the behavior of the American minister was dishonorable.

Harrison displayed similar vigor in other foreign affairs. He approved Blaine's sponsorship of the Pan-American Congress of Latin American republics (see Pan-American Conferences)in Washington in 1889 and 1890. These conferences were held to discuss common problems. Action was taken toward settlement by arbitration of the Bering Sea controversy, a dispute between the United States and Britain about seal fishing rights. The administration also resolved a dispute with Germany over control of what would become American Samoa. A Chilean crisis, provoked by an attack on American sailors, led Harrison to have Blaine send Chile a letter threatening to terminate diplomatic relations. The Chilean foreign minister apologized, and Chile was forced to pay $75,000.

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