I posted this on Medium some time back. It is my “unified field theory” about how the Credit Mobilier scandal and Agrarian radicalism tie together. https://medium.com/@mitchellrb58/the-voice-of-the-railroad-siren-cc9cf5daccb5

No stranger to controversy, Frederick Douglass stirred a hornet’s nest in May, 1877.

In a lecture in Baltimore delivered on May 8, the abolitionist, former slave and ardent Republican who served as the Marshal for the District of Columbia had some harsh words for the nation’s capital.

The reports of his remarks that appeared in Washington-area newspapers made it appear that he had nothing good to say about the city. He pilloried its leading families as mediocrities. He declared that the city’s history was infamous — it “sided with treason against loyalty.” Drinking, gambling and dueling were widespread. “Freedom of speech and of the press was unknown, and its idol was slavery.”

“The people applauded Breckinridge in his treason,” Douglass declared, “stood between Andrew Johnson and impeachment, and in their midst was hatched the devilish plot that robbed Lincoln of his life.”

The modern reader is tempted to ask: “What’s the problem here?” Most if not all of Douglass’s assertions – even allowing for the likelihood that they were not accurately or fairly reported — were well-founded. Anyone who peruses the books about Washington written during the period will find confirmation of many of his statements.

Nevertheless, Washington’s leading lights were not amused.

“An Insulted City,” read the headline over the story in the National Republican on May 12. A lengthy list of prominent Washingtonians — almost 190 — demanded his dismissal from his post as marshal (the equivalent of sheriff).

“Few things have caused a deeper stir among the people of the District,” the Republican proclaimed. “The indignation was great, and Mr. Douglass was universally denounced.”

On its editorial page, the newspaper reached the apogee of high dudgeon. Calling him a “base ingrate,” the Republican declared its outrage at Douglass for daring to “throw mud at the whole community in which he has lived and prospered as he could nowhere else in this country.”

One Washingtonian, however, was not so easily offended.

Grace Greenwood (the pen name of Sara Jane Lippincott) was perhaps the most prominent of the small band of women who covered Congress in the years after the Civil War. In the 1870s her “Washington Notes” column ran in the New York Times, offering readers a distinctive perspective on the events and personalities that dominated Washington.

In an era when the blunderbuss was the journalist’s weapon of choice, Greenwood favored the rapier. And in her column published May 19, she unsheathed her weapon when Douglass came under attack.

Greenwood began by noting an irony: The speech had been delivered in Washington two years earlier and won accolades from the newspapers like the Republican that were now denouncing him. Reports of his remarks from Baltimore were inaccurate and distorted, Greenwood claimed — she had examined the manuscript and saw that Douglass balanced his criticism with “many magnificent tributes of admiration for the present and hopes for the future.”

She acknowledged that “some of his criticisms were severe and when massed together presented an ugly front.” Then she made her deadly thrust: “They betrayed,” she added, referring to Douglass’s criticisms, “ingratitude toward that class of people who owned him.”

She elaborated a bit later. “There’s no denying the fact that COLOR comes in here, and color’s everything.” Douglass, she said, was being scorned for saying things that whites — herself included — could say with near impunity.

Lippincott-aka-Greenwood was a one-woman publishing dynamo from the 1850s until the turn of the century. She wrote poetry, edited a popular children’s magazine and was an accomplished author. She got her start in Washington journalism in the early 1850s on the staff of the abolitionist National Era. She later toured Europe, gathering material for future writing projects. She toured the West and wrote about her experiences in Colorado and Yosemite.

Her work caught my eye as I was researching Congress and the King of Frauds. Greenwood, like the rest of Washington, watched the drama of Credit Mobilier unfold with intense interest.

Most of the coverage of the scandal portrayed the central figures in the affair as rogues, clowns or innocent victims of a partisan smear. There was a lot of truth in those portrayals but not a lot of nuance.

Greenwood took a different view. Instead of slamming the implicated congressmen as crooks, she needled them for incompetence without entirely ruling out the likelihood that they were up to no good.

As the drama of the scandal reached its zenith, the Times carried a column from Greenwood in which she offered brief but vivid pen portraits of the major players. Here are two examples:

Rep. Luke Potter Poland: He is a fine looking man, always dressed in careful elegance, in a style somewhat old-fashioned, and is erect and stately, with hair as white as the snow of his Vermont hills, or as his own judicial ermine. I suspect, from his tone and manner, that he was once a Methodist minister of the best type, but that, in some hour of weakness, this ornament of the American pulpit let go of the saving doctrine of the “perseverance of the saints,” and backslid into the American Congress.

Rep. Ben Butler: Mr. Butler’s forte certainly does not lie in the sentimental or pathetic — not in appeal, but in attack. But though he springs on his prey with the strength of a tiger, he sometimes tortures it with the small malice of a cat.

While her column was observational rather than partisan or ideological, there was no doubt where she stood on the issues of the day. In a speech in Philadelphia in 1864 she described herself as a “rabid Unionist and a rabbider abolitionist, a woman’s rights woman and a dark-complexioned Republican,” according to an account in the Big Blue Union of Marysville, Kan. She said she believed in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation. Her eclectic group of heroes included Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, John Brown and Ben Butler.

So perhaps it was not surprising that she came to Douglass’s defense. On May 20, he responded with a gracious note of thanks — reprinted in the January 1951 edition of the Journal of Negro History.

“I have just read your able and sparkling letter in the New York Times of Saturday,” Douglass wrote. “You have done many services with your facile pen, guided by justice and enlightened liberality during the past thirty years, but you have never come to the rescue more chivalrously and effectively and I may add, when your help was more needed than in the present instance.”

Douglass said the column took the wind out of his critics’ sails. “Of course my accusers will rail on for yet a while longer, but the force of their charges is now broken and spent.”

The rapier had triumphed over the blunderbuss.

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Books by Robert B. Mitchell

The member of Congress at the center of the Credit Mobilier affair left Washington with his reputation in tatters. But in his home town, he was treated like a hero.

The winter and early spring of 1873 had been difficult for Oakes Ames, the Republican lawmaker from Massachusetts who sale of stock in a Union Pacific construction subsidiary lay at the heart of the scandal that defined the Gilded Age.

A House committee investigating the sale of Credit Mobilier stock concluded that Ames and Rep. James Brooks, D-N.Y., should be expelled from Congress. The House balked at imposing the most extreme sanction at its disposal but nonetheless voted to censure the pair instead — even as it let all the members who bought the stock from Ames off the hook.

As the report of the committee led by Rep. Luke Potter Poland was read to the House, the normally stoic Ames could be seen sobbing on the House floor. Several days later, he “brightened up at once” when the House voted against expulsion.

The mood swing is telling. When censure by one’s colleagues is grounds for cheer, it’s a sure sign that things have been tough.

But the trials of Ames’s final days in the capital concluded when Congress — which had created another political problem for itself by passing a generous, retroactive pay raise — adjourned. He did not run for re-election, so he would not be returning to Capitol Hill.

And when Ames came back to Easton, Mass., his friends and neighbors rolled out the red carpet.

On March 13, the New York Times reported, Ames was the guest of honor at a banquet held in the local elementary school — described by the Times as a “pretentious building on a high hill …. one of several monuments of Oakes’s and his brother Oliver’s munificence.”

It was an evening of honorifics, tributes and speeches. A brass band welcomed Ames and a “great crowd” turned out for the event.

“Certainly,” the Times reported, “Oakes Ames is respected by his neighbors and constituents.”

In the press, Ames was derided as “Hoax Ames” and the scandal caused by his sale of Credit Mobilier dubbed the “King of Frauds.” At the banquet he was hailed as “that noblest work of God, an honest man.” Ames, it was said, had “passed through the fiery ordeal, and come out brighter and purer.”

Ames did not enjoy speaking in public and usually avoided it. When he defended his conduct regarding Credit Mobilier to the House, his remarks were read by the House clerk.

But in front of his home town friends he pulled a sheaf of papers from his coat pocket and offered — for the first time — a defense of his conduct in his own voice.

“I am not in the habit of speech-making, as you all well know,” Ames said, according to the Times. But the Credit Mobilier affair required some response. Ames dismissed the scandal nothing more than the sale of stock worth $16,000 to 11 members of Congress — transactions conducted “at the same price I paid for it, and at the same price I sold the same stock to others.”

The members to whom he sold the stock made things worse by denying the transactions took place, which made the public assume “something criminal had taken place.” He took aim at the committee that investigated the affair — led by Luke Potter Poland of Vermont — and mocked its conclusion that “I had the extraordinary ability to give men a bribe without their knowing it, and to do they did not know what.”

“And that,” he concluded, “is the sum and substance of this whole Credit Mobilier investigation which has kept the country in a fever for the past six months.”

At that, according to the Times, the crowd erupted in cheers.

Ames was fortunate to bask in the friendship of his home town. Brooks, the New York Democrat who also faced possible expulsion for his (very different) role in the scandal, confined himself to writing bitter letters to the press about his treatment as he lay dying from what turned out to be stomach cancer.

But the scandal had taken its toll on Ames. The Times account notes that Ames was escorted to the banquet “leaning on the arm” of the master of ceremonies. Oakes’s son noted in late April that his father was beset by severe stomach pain. The normally robust former congressmen found the short walk from his home to the train station difficult to make.

On May 5, Ames suffered a stroke. Three days later he was dead. His family was at his beside when he passed.

Oakes Ames left a complex legacy. As a local shovel manufacturer, he provided jobs and income in his community. He and his brother Oliver, as the Times story noted, were generous benefactors to their community.

As a railroad financier, Ames became involved with the Union Pacific in 1865 and provided key financial support for the struggling transcontinental railroad. With his brother, Oliver, Ames persuaded “many men of capital … to embark in the enterprise,” the Poland committee acknowledged in its report.

But Ames is forever linked with the defining scandal of the Gilded Age through his sale of stock to his colleagues. It may not have been, as the New York Tribune declared, “the most serious mistake ever made by a public man in our history,” but it was bad enough. Stubbornly candid, Ames made no secret of his reasons for selling the stock. He wanted to cultivate support for the Union Pacific on Capitol Hill, and the valuable shares offered one way to do it. “I strove to use them,” he told Poland and his committee, “in a way I thought most advantageous in spreading our influence everywhere.”

Although the Tribune exaggerated the seriousness of Ames’s role in the scandal, it offered a balanced assessment of the man at the center of the Credit Mobilier affair.

“His friends and neighbors will not soon forget the industrious, large-hearted and large-handed man,” the Tribune wrote, “but the country will still longer remember the pitiful story of greed and falsehood in which he bore so prominent a part.”

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Books by Robert B. Mitchell are available at amazon.com

Apple’s renovation of the Carnegie library building in Washington D.C. is almost complete, according to The Washington Post. Last year I wrote about Carnegie’s library legacy — and the fact that some communities didn’t want his money — for the Post‘s Retropolis blog.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/04/09/andrew-carnegie-built-1700-public-libraries-but-some-towns-refused-the-steel-barons-money/

After a decade-long immersion in the Gilded Age (one that may continue for some time, it turns out), I’ve encountered a number of books that stand out as essential resources on the period. Some are by well-known authors (Michael Kazin, Karl Rove and Mark Wahlgren Summers). Others are rather obscure. All helped me as I grappled with the issues and personalities of the period.

This is not a complete list of recommended titles by any means but simply a compilation of works that have stood out for me (Kazin and Summers, it should be noted, were each kind enough to endorse my books on James B. Weaver and the Credit Mobilier scandal). I have not listed Richard White’s survey of the period, The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 for only one reason: I haven’t had time to read the 970-page opus!

A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. Michael Kazin. This sympathetic biography of the three-time Democratic presidential candidate is intended for modern secular progressives who might be inclined to dismiss him as H.L. Mencken did. The “Sage of Baltimore” called Bryan “a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without sense or dignity.”

Kazin effectively demolishes this bitter caricature without resorting to hagiography. He reminds readers that Bryan’s surprise capture of the Democratic presidential nomination in 1896 changed the party forever.

Garfield. Allan Peskin. This is a definitive biography of the Ohio congressman whose tenure as the 19th president was cut short by an assassin. Peskin offers a readable, thoroughly researched portrait. He is too quick to absolve Garfield of wrongdoing in Credit Mobilier but takes him to task for his role in another example of Gilded Age skulduggery involving the Grolier Paving scandal and the corrupt shenanigans of Boss Shepherd’s tenure at the head of the municipal government of Washington D.C. Recommended for anyone who wants to learn about a prominent Gilded Age figure.

The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters. Karl Rove. The Bryan-McKinley election of 1896 was one of the most consequential in American history, dividing Democrats and Republicans along lines that exist more or less to the present day. As a lifelong political operative, Rove offers insights into the election that another historian might miss. His obvious admiration of McKinley helps bring to life a political figure who has been overshadowed by his colorful successor, Teddy Roosevelt, and the loquacious Bryan.

A Short History of Reconstruction. Eric Foner. One of the most pernicious myths about the aftermath of the Civil War is that the failure of Reconstruction was due to the corruption of Republican carpetbaggers and their African-American allies. Historians including Kenneth Stampp have been chipping away at this notion for decades. Foner demolishes it. He is also very good on what he calls “Northern Reconstruction,” the industrialization that swept through the North and the attendant political consequences. Essential reading for any student of the period.

The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865-1879. Irwin Unger. This book won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1965, and it easy to see why. This is a thoroughly researched and illuminating guide to the financial and monetary policy debates that shaped the Gilded Age. Unger’s particular gift is that he has taken a potentially dull topic and written about with a clarity and grace that illuminates and informs.

Horace Greeley: Voice of the People. William Harlan Hale. The long-time editor of the New York Tribune figured prominently in the early days of the Gilded Age as the unlikely Democratic-Liberal Republican candidate for president in 1872. How one of the leading opponents of slavery and the Democratic Party got to this point is one of the subjects addressed in this readable — if long-forgotten — biography. Greeley was one of the most influential figures of the 19th century; as editor of the Tribune he shaped and informed opinion on the burgeoning sectional crisis and reached an audience of millions through publication of the Weekly Tribune, which circulated widely through the North.

The Era of Good Stealings. Mark Wahlgren Summers. This is the essential guide to the dizzying array of scandals, near scandals and scandalous personalities of the Gilded Age. Summers deftly takes the reader through Credit Mobilier, the Mulligan letters, the Whiskey Ring and the other events that led historian Vernon L. Parrington to dub the era “The Great Barbecue.” It is equally useful as a guide to the leading personalities of the era — not only Oakes Ames, the lawmaker at the center of the Credit Mobilier scandal, but Vice President Schuyler Colfax, House Speaker James G. Blaine of Maine, President Ulysses S. Grant and countless others.

The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865-1878. Mark Wahlgren Summers. Here Summers does for Gilded Age journalism what he did for the politics of the period. Advances in technology (printing presses), communications (the telegraph and inter-oceanic cable) and transportation (rail) gave newspapers the chance to report and disseminate news as never before. Newspapers evolved into profit-making businesses and editorial staffers began to move – in fits and starts – toward an independent approach to covering the events of the day. Summers tells the story of how this newfound power was used – in short, often irresponsibly. The press gallery at the U.S. Capitol seemed to have contained as many rogues as did the House and Senate. Wahlgren recounts this complex and important chapter in the history of journalism with verve and insight.

Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900. Jack Beatty. This is a carefully researched, searing indictment of Gilded Age politics and policy. Beatty thoroughly documents the accumulation of wealth, corruption and abuses of monopoly power that characterized the period. Many people laughingly wave off the Gilded Age as an era dominated by clownish, corrupt buccaneers. Beatty demands that we pay closer attention.

American Populism: A Social History, 1877-1898. Robert C. McMath Jr. The populism of Bryan and James B. Weaver was the culmination of decades of social protest and agitation. McMath carefully and clearly traces the roots of populism to the Greenback-Labor Party and related movements that burst on the scene in the decades after the war.

Grant. Ron Chernow. There is little left to say about this remarkable and important biography of the Civil War hero and 18th president. Chernow does not flinch from Grant’s struggles with alcoholism but makes an effective case for his military genius and committed opposition to slavery. Chernow’s treatment of Grant’s troubled presidency is fair and enlightening. He desperately fought to make Reconstruction a success but could not keep the taint of corruption from his administration. Nevertheless, Grant comes across as a profoundly decent and patriotic American. Chernow adds the firepower of his renown to the growing list of scholars who are rehabilitating the reputation of this important figure.

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Books by Robert B. Mitchell: