Chapter 24 - Politics of the Gilded Age

This was what some people called the Magna Carta of civil-service reform. It prohibited, at least on paper, financial assessments on jobholders. It created a merit system of making appointments to government jobs on the basis of aptitude rather than who you know, or the spoils system. It set up a Civil Service Commission, chaired with administering open competitive examinations to applicants for posts in the classified service. The people were forced, under this law, to take an exam before being hired to a governmental job position.

A half-breed was a republican political machine, headed by James G. Blane c1869. The half-breeds pushed republican ideals and were almost a separate group that existed within the party.

Grand Army of the Republic, this was an organization formed by the Union veterans at the end of the American Civil War in 1866. Its main goal was to aid fellow veteran's families, and to try to obtain pension increases. In 1890, they had over 400,000 members. They also adopted Memorial Day in 1868. The Republican party was influenced by them greatly until 1900.

When Congress stopped the coinage of the silver dollar against the will of the farmers and westerners who wanted unlimited coinage of silver. With no silver coming into the federal government, no silver money could be produced. The whole event happened in 1873. Westerners from silver-mining states joined with debtors in demanding a return to the " Dollar of Our Daddies." This demand was essentially a call for inflation, which was solved by contraction (reduction of the greenbacks) and the Treasury's accumulation of gold.

In 1875 Whiskey manufacturers had to pay a heavy excise tax. Most avoided the tax, and soon tax collectors came to get their money. The collectors were bribed by the distillers. The Whiskey Ring had robbed the treasury of millions in excise-tax revenues. The scandal reached as high as the personal secretary to President Grant.