◄ Mark Twain
The spoils system, or the practice of giving government positions to political supporters, was the accepted way of staffing federal offices. However, there were demands for reform. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner give their view of the situation in The Gilded Age.
“Unless you can get the ear of a Senator … and persuade him to use his ‘influence’ in your behalf, you cannot get an employment of the most trivial nature in Washington. Mere merit, fitness and capability, are useless baggage to you without ‘influence.’ … It would be an odd circumstance to see a girl get employment … merely because she was worthy and a competent, and a good citizen of a free country that ‘treats all persons alike.’”
—from The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
Reading Skill: Identify Main Ideas As you read, describe the issues that dominated national politics in the 1870s and 1880s.
Why It Matters While Congress enacted many major reforms during Reconstruction, it passed very few measures between 1877 and 1900. Instead, inaction and political corruption characterized the political scene during the Gilded Age. This raised questions whether or not democracy could succeed in a time dominated by large and powerful industrial corporations and men of great wealth. Section Focus Question: Why did the political structure change during the Gilded Age?
Party loyalties were so evenly divided that no faction or group gained control for any period of time. Only twice between 1877 and 1897 did either the Republicans or Democrats gain control of the White House and both houses of Congress at the same time. Furthermore, neither held control for more than two years in a row. This made it very difficult to pass new laws. Most of the elections were very close as well, allowing those who lost to block new legislation until they got back in power.
In comparison to Lincoln, the Presidents of the Gilded Age appeared particularly weak. They won by slim margins and seemed to lack integrity. Rutherford B. Hayes owed his election in 1876 to a secret deal. Benjamin Harrison became only the second President in history to lose the popular vote but win the electoral college vote.