United States Governmental Issues During The Late

19Th Century Essay, Research Paper

Thesis: Although the American Government failed to take effective actions to solve the major concerns of the late 19th century, many attempts were taken to solve such controversal conflicts. The young divided nation that had just reconstructed itself from the debts of a civil war now stood as a whole to deal with even more domestic issues. Problems concerning civil service, regulation of railraods, Native Americans, expansion and overgrowing of big businesses, and immigration were the issues that grouped american individuals seperately according to their views on each issue.

Although the American Government failed to take effective actions to solve the major

concerns of the late 19th century, many attempts were taken to solve such controversal conflicts. The young divided nation that had just reconstructed itself from the debts of a civil war now stood as a whole to deal with even more domestic issues. Problems concerning civil service, regulation of railraods, Native Americans, expansion and overgrowing of big businesses, and immigration were the issues that grouped american individuals seperately according to their views on each issue.

In 1881, shortly after President Garfield’s inauguration, a derange office seekser shot a fatal bullet in the President’s back. This event once again shocked the americans, who were once horrified by the assasination of former President Lincoln in1865. Following this event, bitter americans coerced the federal government to reform its policy of hiring governmental officials. In respond to the public’s outrage over the cause of this assasination, Congress was pushed to remove certain government jobs from the control of party patronage. They passed the new act known as the Pendleton Act of 1881, which set up the Civil Service Commission declaring that federal employees were to be hired on basis of merit. This new law was applied to 10% of federal employees at that time; presently it effected more than 90% of governmental employees. When Harrison was elected President a few years after the Pendelton Act, he followed Congress’s earlier tradition of reforming the civil service system to earn his fellow citizens’ support. On dealing with the issues of veterans, he passed the Pension Act of 1890, which provided that all widows of veterans, and veterans incapable of manual labor may receive a pension. This was a reformation of former President Cleveland’s policy that only veterans directly wounded in battle may receive a pension. Although these new Acts granted more democracy towards part of the working class, it failed to submit to the majority of the working class. As the depression worsened and the number of jobless people grew, the nation feared class war between capital and labor. They were especially alarmed by Coxey’s Army, a march to Washington by thousands of the unemployed led by Populist Joacod A. Coxey. Coxey demanded that the government spend half a billion dollars on public works programs to create jobs. Coxey himself and other protest leaders were arrested, while the rest of the “army” had to leave for home. The arrest of Coxey proved that the government is not at all sympathetic towards the majority of the unemployed working class. The number of jobless americans grew more everyday, for space available for jobs could not match the mass number of immigrants pouring into America every hour.

The population of the United states more than tripled in the last half of the 19th century, resulting in 76.2 million people by the time the new century arrived. Out of these, 16.2 million belonged to the class of the unemployed immigrants. the year 1882 shocked the americans when it was calculated that over 2000 Europeans immigrants were received by the united states per day. In an attempt to decrease the mass immigration number, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1892, prohibiting immigrants from China. Even so, immigrants from European countries continued to accumulate. The General Immigration Act was another attempt to regulate the various immigrants. This act refuse to admit to the United States prostitutes, alcoholics, and insanes. However, America was unable to put this act into effect, for it was hard to determine what disguises those europeans had taken. As a result of the government’s failure to restrict its own population, millions of immigrants were granted jobs that otherwise would’ve been offerred to its native inhabitants. This in addition to the government’s failure to regulate big businesses result in more than thousands of unemployed citizens.

As a result of the mass expansion of railroads, communication became very effective, which in turn helped companies tremendously in transporting its goods, communicating with each other, and advertising its products. The building of railroads required steel and coal, thus these two industries also flourished. Immediately succeeding these profitable companies were petroleum, oil, sugar, leather, and much much more. Big companies work together to organize pools and trusts, both were some aspect of private promises to keep the same price so that both companies could flourish. Trusts and pools of big businesses limit competition, which then resulted in ridiculously high prices for the consumers. In an attempt to control big businesses, government passed the Sherman Act in 1890 that prohibit combinations of companies