As part of their 125th birthday observation Jerry Seib writes about the political links between today and 1889, the year The Wall Street Journal first printed a paper–at that time consisting of four pages. It makes for clearly the most interesting read in the morning papers. Since the WSJ is a pay site, and I really think this a great read, I post the entire article to read.
The country is narrowly divided between Democrats and Republicans, with a bright line separating red states and blue states. Rapid technological change is sowing economic unease. A wave of immigration adds to the unsettled feeling. Anger rises over income inequality, which is discussed in popular books. Put it all together and the result is a rising tide of populist sentiment.
A description of today’s political picture? Well, yes.
But that also happens to describe the political lay of the land that existed on July 8, 1889, the day The Wall Street Journal was born 125 years ago. In fact, the similarities between the situation then and now are uncanny.
Yet while the parallels are fascinating, they aren’t the most important part of this picture. More instructive is what unfolded in the decade or so that followed.
The two major parties—then as now the Democrats and the Republicans—adapted and evolved. A populist third party arose briefly, but the major parties found ways to absorb the sentiments fueling the populist tide without adopting its most extreme elements. The unrest of 1889 gave way to a remarkable period of economic and political reforms that left the political system changed but, ultimately, stronger and more stable.
Is that what lies ahead now? “Historians don’t believe history repeats itself,” says Michael Kazin, a history professor at Georgetown University who has written extensively about the politics of the late 19th century. Still, for those discouraged by today’s paralyzed politics, there may be heartening lessons in the way the system coped with similar discontents apparent on the day this newspaper was born.
The political divides of 1889 were well captured by the previous year’s presidential election. The country was so evenly split between the two parties that Democrat Grover Cleveland won the popular vote, but Republican Benjamin Harrison won the presidency by winning.
A map of the outcome of that election by state shows a red/blue divide just as stark as today’s—though, as Mr. Kazin notes, the geographic bases of the two parties have been “almost reversed” since. In 1888, the South was a solid blue bloc of Democratic states and the North a similarly monochromatic red bloc of Republican states.
Beneath the political divide coursed economic nervousness. The industrial revolution was bringing powerful and efficient machinery to factories, leaving many workers uneasy about their jobs. A giant wave of immigrants—an estimated 11 million from 1870 to 1899—was driving the economy forward but making established workers nervous, especially in the cities where migrants gathered.
Above all, suspicion and anger over the power of financial institutions and big businesses—particularly industrial conglomerates—was growing, and giving rise to populist sentiments. Indeed, a Populist Party was formed in 1891. It became powerful enough in just one year that in 1892 it won three governors’ races and reaped a million votes in the presidential election that brought the Democrats’ Grover Cleveland back to power.
But then both established parties began to adapt and co-opt the populist sentiment. In 1896, Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, a fiery foe of the gold standard and the financial interests supporting it. He lost, but his rise left the Populist Party little reason to exist separately. A progressive movement also took root in the Republican Party, propelled by politicians such as Wisconsin Gov. “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, and ultimately by the trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt, who became president upon the assassination of William McKinley in 1901.
A map of the outcome of that election by state shows a red/blue divide just as stark as today’s—though, as Mr. Kazin notes, the geographic bases of the two parties have been “almost reversed” since. In 1888, the South was a solid blue bloc of Democratic states and the North a similarly monochromatic red bloc of Republican states.
Beneath the political divide coursed economic nervousness. The industrial revolution was bringing powerful and efficient machinery to factories, leaving many workers uneasy about their jobs. A giant wave of immigrants—an estimated 11 million from 1870 to 1899—was driving the economy forward but making established workers nervous, especially in the cities where migrants gathered.
Above all, suspicion and anger over the power of financial institutions and big businesses—particularly industrial conglomerates—was growing, and giving rise to populist sentiments. Indeed, a Populist Party was formed in 1891. It became powerful enough in just one year that in 1892 it won three governors’ races and reaped a million votes in the presidential election that brought the Democrats’ Grover Cleveland back to power.
But then both established parties began to adapt and co-opt the populist sentiment. In 1896, Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, a fiery foe of the gold standard and the financial interests supporting it. He lost, but his rise left the Populist Party little reason to exist separately. A progressive movement also took root in the Republican Party, propelled by politicians such as Wisconsin Gov. “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, and ultimately by the trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt, who became president upon the assassination of William McKinley in 1901.
The populists’ most radical ideas—nationalizing banks, railroads and telegraph companies, for example—were discarded. But the movement helped spur a period of reforms, including ballot initiatives, secret ballots, direct election of senators and the adoption of a progressive income tax. Political ferment wasn’t over. Teddy Roosevelt broke away from the Republicans to form a progressive party in 1912. But the system worked; it responded to the most sensible of the sentiments at the grass roots.
It’s not hard to see the parallels with today. Technological change now matches the industrial revolution then in sowing unease among workers. The influx of immigrants in recent decades has become a flash point, just as it did then. And the tea-party movement bears at least some similarities to the Populist Party that was born a century and a quarter ago.
The question now is whether the two major parties can again absorb discontent with the system and turn it into sensible change. There are some positive signs. California, often a leader in such things, already has changed the way congressional districts are drawn and instituted new primary rules to break the two parties’ stranglehold on individual House districts, source of so much political paralysis.
Can the system turn political discontent into broader positive change? Today, we know this: It did so once before.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 