180 a short history of the united states
As corruption mounted and monopolies abounded, the electorate
became more vocal in their demands for governmental action. The
farmers constantly complained about railroad abuses, such as discrimi-
natory rates and rebates. Their alliances threatened retaliation at the
polls, and their complaints eventually resulted in a congressional probe
that finally produced federal regulation of interstate commerce. In 1887
Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which prohibited
discriminatory rates by railroads, rebates, and a higher charge for a
short haul than for a longer one. Railroads were required to post their
rates and not change them without giving advance notice. The act also
established a fi ve-member Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC),
the nation’s first regulatory agency. Still, the cleverness of railroad law-
yers in fi nding loopholes in the law, combined with the skill of lobby-
ists and the favorable decisions toward railroads by the Supreme Court,
all but rendered the ICC powerless in its attempts to curb abuses.
Manufacturers not only sided with the railroads but employed lob-
byists and contributed to political campaigns to win greater protection
of their products from foreign competition. And Republicans responded
favorably. Year after year the tariff rates were raised, bringing the gov-
ernment greater revenue and a mounting surplus that encouraged larger
pork barrels. President Cleveland pleaded for tariff reduction, but he
succeeded only in alienating some members of his own party, especially
those from Pennsylvania. What he did achieve was a new record in the
number of vetoes he issued, a total of 414 , mostly dealing with pen-
sions, at least a fourth of which were probably fraudulent. All of Cleve-
land’s predeces sors vetoed only 205 bills. He more than doubled that
number.
Cleveland’s position on the tariff and his vetoes provided the Re-
publicans with adequate ammunition to attack his record of four years
and bring about his defeat in the presidential election of 1888. The Re-
publicans put forward Benjamin Harrison of Indiana (the grandson of
William Henry Harrison) and Levi P. Morton of New York. Cleve-
land lost a great many pop ular votes when a letter by the British minis-
ter to the United States, Sir Lionel Sackville-West, advised a naturalized
Englishman (a California Republican, as it turned out) to vote for
Cleveland. The letter was subsequently published. This apparent for-
eign intrusion into American affairs outraged many voters, especially