There was a lot that was ironic about Rutherford B. Hayes.
Hayes had a very liberal view of blacks for his time, wishing for them to have nearly equal rights as whites, the right to vote and believed that through education, they could be integrated into society. It seems strange then that he presided over the end of reconstruction in the South.
He probably would not have personally chosen this path but allowed it as a bargain with the south to win the disputed electoral votes needed to decide his controversial election. Hayes had to fully know that when the South ceased to be a country occupied by federal troops, it would return to its policy of pseudo slavery against blacks through share cropping and black codes.
Rutherford B. Hayes is remembered as a man that sent federal troops in to suppress a huge railroad strike, but privately wrote in his journal and talked to friends about how he wished the desperate people striking could gain the education they needed to enhance their station in life and not resort to rioting.
Hayes was against the inequality that the industrial revolution was creating but was firm against any government policy concerning increasing the money supply that could potentially help the masses of poor farmers in the Midwest and western states.
He was known as the corrupt bargainer who bargained his way into office, but he honored his pledge to serve only one term.
Best of all about Hayes, he helped found The Ohio State University when he served as governor of the state, you'd think that he'd be more popular in Ohio than he is for that alone!
12/13/10
Hayes: "Silver Dick" Bland
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"?
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"?
12/1/10
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.
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