Got your attention, didn't I?
This has to be one of the funniest name for any figure in American history. This even surpasses "Old Fuss N' Feathers" (Gen. Winfield Scott), "Ten Cents a day Jimmy" (Buchanan) and even "Queen Victoria in Riding Breeches" (Hayes).
Ol' Silver Dick was a Congressman who wanted to help silver miners and 'the common man' after the United States went on a gold standard in 1873. This declared that the only metal that US Dollars could be redeemed for was gold.
While this helped to bring the United States in line with the rest of the world in terms of the stability of its currency, it decimated the silver mining industry and the miners and other people that owned large amounts of silver coins. It also contracted the money supply, effectively making it more expensive for farmers and small business owners to repay their debts.
While "Silver Dick" Bland and many in congress were for having both a gold and silver standard, Hayes was squarely on the side of one gold standard since he rightly assumed that adding to the money supply would cause inflation and be harmful to contracts negotiated on the basis of the gold standard. By around the turn of the twentieth century, Hayes would get his way, but America had a two metal standard for the next 25 years or so.
Now isn't this whole economics lesson more interesting when there's a guy named "Silver Dick"?
12/13/10
12/1/10
Ohio: The Crucible of Mediocre Presidents
Just as in it's desire for quantity over quality in food, so it seems my fellow Ohioans have a similar outlook on presidents.
Like so many inoffensive, cheese covered dishes that are pumped out of the upscale casual chain restaurants that dot Ohio's landscape, it was doing the same with presidents during the 1800's and early 20th century.
Rutherford B. Hayes was perhaps the most average among the average company of his state's presidents. He stood in the middle of a line up that includes William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Howard "The fat man that got stuck in a bathtub" Taft.
It's ironic that Ohioans occupy a full half of the list of assassinated presidents, with both Garfield and Harrison having been killed in office. The other two, JFK and Abraham Lincoln were certainly more controversial figures in their time, both serving during war times and periods of great internal conflict.
Love them or hate them, or more likely feel ambivalent about them, no one can deny that the state of Ohio put together a pretty impressive line up of leading citizens, at least based on quantity.
Like so many inoffensive, cheese covered dishes that are pumped out of the upscale casual chain restaurants that dot Ohio's landscape, it was doing the same with presidents during the 1800's and early 20th century.
Rutherford B. Hayes was perhaps the most average among the average company of his state's presidents. He stood in the middle of a line up that includes William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Howard "The fat man that got stuck in a bathtub" Taft.
It's ironic that Ohioans occupy a full half of the list of assassinated presidents, with both Garfield and Harrison having been killed in office. The other two, JFK and Abraham Lincoln were certainly more controversial figures in their time, both serving during war times and periods of great internal conflict.
Love them or hate them, or more likely feel ambivalent about them, no one can deny that the state of Ohio put together a pretty impressive line up of leading citizens, at least based on quantity.
11/7/10
Rutherford B. Hayes: 'Rutherfraud' B. Hayes
The country was bitterly divided and experienced a controversial election where the winner won by one electoral vote even though they lost the popular vote. An electoral commission decided along party lines of Democrat and Republican to disavow enough of electoral votes of the popular winner to confirm the Republican candidate.
Allegations of rampant voter fraud and intimidation flew and the country was ready to tear itself apart. The opposing party was portrayed in all media outlets as traitorous and tyrannical and one scandal after another rocked congress and the presidency.
Does this sound familiar? If it does, it's not Bush V. Gore, it's Hayes V. Tilden in the election of 1876.
This election occurred at a time when the North was taking a much more aggressive stance towards the former confederate democrats that ran the South and the nation was united on paper, but divided in reality.
Samuel Tilden, the favored Democrat in the presidential election of 1876 had 250,000 more votes than Hayes but lost the electoral vote.
To put that figure in perspective, think of how controversial the Bush Gore race was when Gore had 500,000 more popular votes than Bush but the population of the country was 10 times as high as it was in 1876. That would be the equivalent of Gore losing the electoral vote but winning the popular vote by a margin of 2.5 million votes.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
10/31/10
Ulysees S. Grant: Scandals
Grant's presidency is known for being scandal plagued. This is both impressive since he served in one of the more corrupt periods of American history and inexplicable since we're used to hearing about trysts in the men's room or salacious letter to Penthouse type tales of young pages.
There were more than 10 scandals Grant's administration was implicated in.
Some of the main ones were:
The Whiskey Ring Scandal: Government agents received kickbacks for helping the liquor industry avoid millions in taxes.
I don't see a whole lot of difference between then and now, except instead of suitcases of money, certain industries such as banking, home building and firearms give billions in campaign contributions to politicians to keep them in office and in return, are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want.
Black Friday: Some businessmen and bankers conspired to corner the market on gold by buying up most of the supply in the country on the open market. They would all get rich if this plan worked, since the government was expected to buy back the government bonds it sold with gold and they held the majority of the supply.
To keep the regulators away and make sure the government didn't sell gold, they recruited Grant's idiot brother-in-law to get close to him and argue against a government sale of gold. (always the idiot brother in law in these things right?)
This doesn't seem that much worse than modern times, when many industries now exist whose lobbying dollars buy them virtual monopolies and the ability to write the very laws that regulate them (see: mining, insurance, banking).
There were many other scandals that revolved around nepotism, bribery or extortion, but again, they don't seem that much worse than what we have now.
In my opinion, the reason for all the scandals were best summed up by the following:
Grant was a George W. Bush type figure who was generally an honest man, but easily influenced by underlings that used his administration for their own selfish purposes. When it became obvious to all but him that the corruption was going on, he couldn't abandon his military code of protecting his troops and refused to acknowledge their wrongdoing (see: Donald Rumsfeld, Michael Brown)
Grant was not a career politician and was somewhat naive of the ways of Washington.
Grant was a big picture guy and focused all his efforts on the great issue of the times, the occupation of the southern states and potential war with Mexico at the expense of the housekeeping or audit functions he should have performed.
Grant had political enemies that made the Tea Party look like, well, a tea party. The south had enjoyed virtual business as usual under the Johnson administration, but Grant made it clear they actually lost the war.
All in all, I don't think that Grant was such a bad president, just that he lived in bad times. The rest of the world seemed to agree too, since after his presidency, he toured the world and everywhere was cheered by crowds as the great General and liberator of the black man.
There were more than 10 scandals Grant's administration was implicated in.
Some of the main ones were:
The Whiskey Ring Scandal: Government agents received kickbacks for helping the liquor industry avoid millions in taxes.
I don't see a whole lot of difference between then and now, except instead of suitcases of money, certain industries such as banking, home building and firearms give billions in campaign contributions to politicians to keep them in office and in return, are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want.
Black Friday: Some businessmen and bankers conspired to corner the market on gold by buying up most of the supply in the country on the open market. They would all get rich if this plan worked, since the government was expected to buy back the government bonds it sold with gold and they held the majority of the supply.
To keep the regulators away and make sure the government didn't sell gold, they recruited Grant's idiot brother-in-law to get close to him and argue against a government sale of gold. (always the idiot brother in law in these things right?)
This doesn't seem that much worse than modern times, when many industries now exist whose lobbying dollars buy them virtual monopolies and the ability to write the very laws that regulate them (see: mining, insurance, banking).
There were many other scandals that revolved around nepotism, bribery or extortion, but again, they don't seem that much worse than what we have now.
In my opinion, the reason for all the scandals were best summed up by the following:
Grant was a George W. Bush type figure who was generally an honest man, but easily influenced by underlings that used his administration for their own selfish purposes. When it became obvious to all but him that the corruption was going on, he couldn't abandon his military code of protecting his troops and refused to acknowledge their wrongdoing (see: Donald Rumsfeld, Michael Brown)
Grant was not a career politician and was somewhat naive of the ways of Washington.
Grant was a big picture guy and focused all his efforts on the great issue of the times, the occupation of the southern states and potential war with Mexico at the expense of the housekeeping or audit functions he should have performed.
Grant had political enemies that made the Tea Party look like, well, a tea party. The south had enjoyed virtual business as usual under the Johnson administration, but Grant made it clear they actually lost the war.
All in all, I don't think that Grant was such a bad president, just that he lived in bad times. The rest of the world seemed to agree too, since after his presidency, he toured the world and everywhere was cheered by crowds as the great General and liberator of the black man.
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