184 a short history of the united states
for President, and James G. Field of Virginia for Vice President. Their
platform called for the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of
sixteen to one, government ownership of all transportation and com-
munication facilities, a graduated income tax, the direct election of
senators, adoption of a secret ballot, a shorter day for industrial workers,
and the right to effect legislation through initiative and referendum
procedures.
The cruel social and economic injustices that developed at the close
of the nineteenth century not only forced ordinary people to band to-
gether to form the People’s Party but, a few years later, initiate the
Progressive movement. A wide spectrum of people in all sections of the
country now shouted their demand for better working conditions in-
volving hours and wages, woman and child labor laws, and strict codes
to protect the health and safety of workers in factories. These economic
demands emphasized the fact that the United States had become a na-
tion divided by class on the basis of wealth.
In the presidential election of 1892 the Democrats once more put
forward Grover Cleveland for President and Adlai Stevenson of Illi-
nois for Vice President while the Republicans nominated Harrison for
a second term, along with Whitelaw Reid of New York. There were
also a Socialist ticket and a Prohibition ticket in this election. But
Cleveland won over 5. 5 million popular and 277 electoral votes to Har-
rison’s 5 million popular and 145 electoral votes. The Populist candi-
date, Weaver, garnered over a million pop ular and 22 electoral votes.
His party also won eight seats in the House of Representatives. And
for the first time since the Civil War, the Democratic Party controlled
both houses of Congress and the presidency.
But no sooner had the Democrats taken over the government than a
financial panic hit the country, and it hit hard. Triggered by a run on
gold reserves by the British banking house of Baring Brothers in un-
loading American securities, by the McKinley Tariff, which reduced
U.S. revenues; and by the depletion of the government’s surplus through
the many pensions awarded to Civil War veterans, widows, and or-
phans by the Harrison administration, the Panic struck in May 1893 ,
when the stock market crashed. Five hundred banks collapsed, hun-
dreds of businesses failed, and unemployment soared. By the end of the
year the gold reserve had plunged to $ 80 million.