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stoutfellow) wrote2006-05-28 05:09 pm
stoutfellow) wrote2006-05-28 05:09 pm
"The Reckless Decade"
The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s, by H. W. Brands, is an absolutely fascinating history of a remarkable (and, in some respects, very familiar-looking) period in USAn history. Brands weaves together multiple strands of story into a gorgeous tapestry; it's well worth reading, in my judgement. Topics range from the closing of the frontier to the rise of the giant trusts and from urban poverty to rural revolt, paying attention as well to questions of race, the Free Silver movement, and the decade-ending rush to imperialism.
The first chapter begins with the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, setting up a discussion of the "closing of the frontier" thesis. Of course, that story begins with Frederick Jackson Turner, but Brands also traces its development in the writings of, for example, Henry Adams. Adams pessimistically foresaw the country as being doomed to slide into a calcified aristocracy such as (in his view) held Europe in perpetual thrall.
Brands shifts ground, then, to the technologically inspired optimism displayed by the Columbian Exhibition of 1893. This allows him to describe the duel between Edison and Westinghouse over the choice between direct and alternating current, making the issues and the personalities clear; it also sets the stage for the rise of the true titans of industry, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and above all J. P. Morgan. Brands presents the intricate dance among the three, ending with the former two subsiding into semi-retirement and the third standing pre-eminent in the country. (The Panic of 1893 gets considerable discussion, including Morgan's role in helping the government stave off default. Morgan comes off a good deal better than does President Cleveland, who is presented as a bit of a ditherer and a bit of a financial ignoramus.)
Brands then turns, in the third chapter, to the lot of the urban poor. He discusses muckrakers such as Jacob Riis, reformers like Jane Addams, and machine politicos of the stripe of "Bathhouse John" Coughlin and Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna, the lords of Chicago's First Ward. (That brings to my mind the 1980s-era Chicago aldermen "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak and - inevitably - "Slow Eddie" Burke...) Brands does not ignore the genuine services the city machines provided, but doesn't, either, gloss over the corruption of the era. He also includes some of the rationalizations some machine politicians offered for their behavior, distinguishing "honest graft" from "dishonest graft".
The fourth chapter turns to the labor movement, describing the career of Eugene Debs, the Pullman strike, and the bloody events at Homestead, PA, before presenting the bizarre episode of Coxey's Army. The fifth covers the Populist movement - or rather movements, as the Northern and Southern populists arose in distinctly different ways and their attempted marriage was never particularly successful. Attention is briefly paid, as well, to the struggle within Southern populism over race. (Tom Watson of Georgia is memorably quoted: "The white people of the South will never support the Republican Party. This much is certain. The black people of the South will never support the Democratic Party. This is equally certain... The two races can never act together permanently, harmoniously, beneficially, till each race demonstrates to the other a readiness to leave old party affiliations and to form new ones..." Watson's view was, shall we say, not a popular one.) Returning to the Northern movement, Brands mordantly discusses the Free Silver movement: "Because the silver case was as much a matter of faith as of logic, its adherents were often judged to be cranks and lunatics. Some of them were."
Chapter six covers the racial question in more detail, paying most attention (naturally enough) to the contrasting approaches of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois. (I'd been vaguely familiar with the matter, having heard that it was somewhat analogous to the relationship between Dr. King and Malcolm X; on closer examination, this is misleading, as King and Malcolm were both, it seems to me, much closer to DuBois in methods and goals than either was to Washington.) Both leaders are sympathetically considered, but Brands presents a case that Washington and his allies mishandled the events leading up to Plessy vs. Fergusson, actually smoothing the path for the subsequent Jim Crow legislation. (The story is a complex one, and deserves close attention.)
Chapter seven focuses on the revolt of the Silver Democrats and the meteoric rise of William Jennings Bryan. The 1896 presidential campaign, both before and after the nominations of Bryan and McKinley, deserves (and probably has) book-length treatment somewhere. Much as industry had been, electioneering became rationalized, on a national level, in the hands of the Republican Mark Hanna; Bryan, on the other hand, foreshadowed other aspects of twentieth-century campaigning with his coast-to-coast railroad campaign. The characters of the presidential opponents are presented with loving detail, the complexity of the McKinley-Hanna relationship being mirrored by the complexity of Bryan himself.
The final chapter deals with the end-of-century rush to war. The intricacies of the Hawaiian situation are detailed, and the internal struggle within the Republican Party and the country as a whole over the possibility of war with Spain. The triumphalism of the pro-war party - Beveridge, Lodge, Roosevelt, and the rest - is set against the fears of the anti-imperialists, such as (my hero) Carl Schurz, and the way in which the aftermath of the Spanish-American War belied both positions is discussed; and the book closes with an evaluation of the significance of the '90s. This entails, among other things, a look at the Roosevelt administration, including (and things have come full circle) his clashes with the tycoons. (One scene describes Roosevelt laying down the law to steel company officials, who finally accede when Mark Hanna and - of all people - J. P. Morgan assure them that TR meant exactly what he said.)
As I said, it's a fascinating read. Brands draws certain obvious parallels - and less obvious differences - between the 1890s and 1990s; in the decade-plus since the book was published, more parallels, and more differences, have come to light. The book left me deeply thoughtful, and that is as it should be.
The first chapter begins with the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, setting up a discussion of the "closing of the frontier" thesis. Of course, that story begins with Frederick Jackson Turner, but Brands also traces its development in the writings of, for example, Henry Adams. Adams pessimistically foresaw the country as being doomed to slide into a calcified aristocracy such as (in his view) held Europe in perpetual thrall.
Brands shifts ground, then, to the technologically inspired optimism displayed by the Columbian Exhibition of 1893. This allows him to describe the duel between Edison and Westinghouse over the choice between direct and alternating current, making the issues and the personalities clear; it also sets the stage for the rise of the true titans of industry, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and above all J. P. Morgan. Brands presents the intricate dance among the three, ending with the former two subsiding into semi-retirement and the third standing pre-eminent in the country. (The Panic of 1893 gets considerable discussion, including Morgan's role in helping the government stave off default. Morgan comes off a good deal better than does President Cleveland, who is presented as a bit of a ditherer and a bit of a financial ignoramus.)
Brands then turns, in the third chapter, to the lot of the urban poor. He discusses muckrakers such as Jacob Riis, reformers like Jane Addams, and machine politicos of the stripe of "Bathhouse John" Coughlin and Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna, the lords of Chicago's First Ward. (That brings to my mind the 1980s-era Chicago aldermen "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak and - inevitably - "Slow Eddie" Burke...) Brands does not ignore the genuine services the city machines provided, but doesn't, either, gloss over the corruption of the era. He also includes some of the rationalizations some machine politicians offered for their behavior, distinguishing "honest graft" from "dishonest graft".
The fourth chapter turns to the labor movement, describing the career of Eugene Debs, the Pullman strike, and the bloody events at Homestead, PA, before presenting the bizarre episode of Coxey's Army. The fifth covers the Populist movement - or rather movements, as the Northern and Southern populists arose in distinctly different ways and their attempted marriage was never particularly successful. Attention is briefly paid, as well, to the struggle within Southern populism over race. (Tom Watson of Georgia is memorably quoted: "The white people of the South will never support the Republican Party. This much is certain. The black people of the South will never support the Democratic Party. This is equally certain... The two races can never act together permanently, harmoniously, beneficially, till each race demonstrates to the other a readiness to leave old party affiliations and to form new ones..." Watson's view was, shall we say, not a popular one.) Returning to the Northern movement, Brands mordantly discusses the Free Silver movement: "Because the silver case was as much a matter of faith as of logic, its adherents were often judged to be cranks and lunatics. Some of them were."
Chapter six covers the racial question in more detail, paying most attention (naturally enough) to the contrasting approaches of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois. (I'd been vaguely familiar with the matter, having heard that it was somewhat analogous to the relationship between Dr. King and Malcolm X; on closer examination, this is misleading, as King and Malcolm were both, it seems to me, much closer to DuBois in methods and goals than either was to Washington.) Both leaders are sympathetically considered, but Brands presents a case that Washington and his allies mishandled the events leading up to Plessy vs. Fergusson, actually smoothing the path for the subsequent Jim Crow legislation. (The story is a complex one, and deserves close attention.)
Chapter seven focuses on the revolt of the Silver Democrats and the meteoric rise of William Jennings Bryan. The 1896 presidential campaign, both before and after the nominations of Bryan and McKinley, deserves (and probably has) book-length treatment somewhere. Much as industry had been, electioneering became rationalized, on a national level, in the hands of the Republican Mark Hanna; Bryan, on the other hand, foreshadowed other aspects of twentieth-century campaigning with his coast-to-coast railroad campaign. The characters of the presidential opponents are presented with loving detail, the complexity of the McKinley-Hanna relationship being mirrored by the complexity of Bryan himself.
The final chapter deals with the end-of-century rush to war. The intricacies of the Hawaiian situation are detailed, and the internal struggle within the Republican Party and the country as a whole over the possibility of war with Spain. The triumphalism of the pro-war party - Beveridge, Lodge, Roosevelt, and the rest - is set against the fears of the anti-imperialists, such as (my hero) Carl Schurz, and the way in which the aftermath of the Spanish-American War belied both positions is discussed; and the book closes with an evaluation of the significance of the '90s. This entails, among other things, a look at the Roosevelt administration, including (and things have come full circle) his clashes with the tycoons. (One scene describes Roosevelt laying down the law to steel company officials, who finally accede when Mark Hanna and - of all people - J. P. Morgan assure them that TR meant exactly what he said.)
As I said, it's a fascinating read. Brands draws certain obvious parallels - and less obvious differences - between the 1890s and 1990s; in the decade-plus since the book was published, more parallels, and more differences, have come to light. The book left me deeply thoughtful, and that is as it should be.
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Sounds like an interesting book. And oh, speaking of: I must return yours that I borrowed; it was every bit as good as you recommended, and I will be buying my own copy after all.
~ Sunlizzard, Oklahoman during her formative years
no subject
Fixed.
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By the way, I've got a bit of a theory knocking around in my brain, vis a vis All the Shah's Men: Where was Donald Rumsfield when this was going down, or in its fairly immediate aftermath? Because, like, is what we're up to in Iraq now (and in the past decade or so) some sort of twisty-headed attempt to undo the wrong we did then? Or to take out a truly Bad Guy, to make up for having mucked up the government of a more-than-probably Good Guy?
And the Brits, in whose lap most of the "Then" falls, are they so adamantly our allies in Iraq for much the same reason? "We buggered it up so bad last time we stirred it up in the region, maybe this time we can do something good and right..."?
I have to wonder, I really do. Because there's STILL something swimming just beneath the murky surface of this thing. There just... IS. (And it's not oil. Or not just oil.)
~ SL
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no subject
Iraq was chosen for a specific reason, I think, even if Our Leaders tried to (or had to, diplomacy-wise) give covering reasons for it. Iraq seemed ripe for it: Take down an abhorred and brutal dictator whom the entire "neighborhood" hated (and so would not come to his rescue or otherwise interfere), and on this newly cleaned slate, write a democracy. Sure, that simplifies. But does it explain? Does it fit? Is this the unspoken pressure that I sense? And if it is, who knew the Mossadegh coup, and was it the trigger?
Bush-41 was head of the CIA for some years. If he had no personal memory of it, there was certainly institutional memory floating around. Though I'd put this more at the feet of Rummy than Daddy, which is why I questioned where/when Rumsfield was, still....
Tie? Link? Tipping point? I just wonder, that's all.
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