Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/679

1879] New economic conditions. 647 the judicial protection which the negroes might derive from the three constitutional amendments and a number of almost useless statutes. The financial policy proclaimed in 1869 and 1870 had fared better, specie payment having been- finally resumed, and the worst inflationist schemes defeated. By 1879 the two parties had settled into an equi- librium ; and, while the organisations remained firm and party feeling high, people in the North were beginning to tire of the dismal Southern question, and to show a willingness to divide on the new issues. The war problems were ready to be shelved so soon as parties and leaders could readjust themselves to altered political sentiment. After the period of reaction came a series of peculiarly barren years, during which many observers, both European and American, agreed that political life in the Republic was in a fatally diseased condition, the reason being that the parties created in the Reconstruction period and based on practically dead issues continued to struggle for office and to command support, without regard to the actual questions of the day. In reality, however, these years saw not only the end of the old issues but the beginning of new ones, and prepared the way for a return in the near future to healthier political activity. As in the preceding decade, economic interests dominated private and public life. These years began with a recovery from the long depression after 1873 ; railroad building again became almost a craze ; immigration poured into the West; and the grain crop and grain exports became the gauge of prosperity over a large part of the country. Manufactures also continued their expansion. After several years of abnormal profits from large grain crops in America and short harvests in Europe, the tide turned; and the price of wheat sank rapidly, so that by 1884 the agricultural States were again depressed. Simultaneously the growth of speculation resulted in a brisk panic on the New York Stock Exchange in the spring of 1884, which did not, however, produce results comparable to those of 1873. On the whole these were years of prosperity; and throughout them financial and industrial questions occupied the public mind to the exclusion of old issues. Under such conditions the Southern whites continued undisturbed their task of destroying the traces of Reconstruction. The political life of the South centred in one feature a burning hatred of the Repub- lican party, and the determination to prevent any recurrence of " carpet- bag " government. In fact, social as well as political life became based on the one idea of white supremacy. When once the negro governments were overthrown, violence was laid aside for systematic trickery and fraud. " Gerrymandering " was reduced to a science, as in the famous "Shoe-string" district of Mississippi or the "Dumb-bell" of South Carolina, where negro counties were grouped together for representative purposes. "Ballot-stuffing" and every variety of imposture upon an