Fraud of the Century
Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden and the Stolen Election of 1876
As the sub-title of the book, "Fraud of the Century”, states, this book concerns the stolen election of 1876. This is a significant year in the history of the United States as well as the Rancho La Puente. Also significant are the years leading up to that fateful year.
President Grant’s administration was infamous for its scandals. The Whiskey Ring scandal involving the diversion of tax revenues and bribery of politicians caught President Grant’s private secretary, General Orville E. Babcock, although there was no direct evidence of Grant’s involvement. General Babcock was indicted, but acquitted. Secretary of War William W. Belknap was accused of illegal weapons sales and illicit kickbacks. He was impeached by the House, resigned and then acquitted by the Senate.
The election of 1876 occurred only eleven years after the end of America’s bloodiest war. The wounds were still very raw. The election was seen as the last battle of the Civil War, whereby Republicans won the Presidency and the Democrats won control of the South. As an omen to future violence, the Hamburg, South Carolina, massacre resulted in the murders of six Freedmen, indictments, but no prosecutions. Violence would continue through the Jim Crow era and Civil Rights era. The author stated that the scandal ridden Grant administration and Reconstruction played a large role in the campaign and the resolution of the election results. Lastly, the Hays administration would signal the end of the Reconstruction Era as Federal troops were pulled out of the South.
In the summer of 1876, an express train from New York City arrived in San Francisco less than four days after departing. The promise of the transcontinental railroad was being fulfilled. The beginning of the Gilded Age coincided with the explosion of the railroad and its affect on society. In May of 1876, the Centennial Exposition opened in Philadelphia as the nation celebrated its 100th birthday. The Exposition featured new consumer products such as, the telephone, the typewriter, bananas, Heinz Ketchup, Hires Root Beer and kudzu, an erosion control plant species that thrives in the South. Also Mark Twain, whose book, “The Gilded Age”, gave us the name for the era that would last for two more decades, published “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”.
The discovery of gold in Indian territory caused the federal government to offer to buy the land from the Native Americans. Many Native Americans refused and the Cavalry was sent to enforce the federal ruling. The Great Sioux War of 1876 included the famous Custer’s Last Stand and resulted in the federal government officially annexing Sioux land, including what is now Mount Rushmore, and permanently establishing reservations. This was the beginning of the end of the western frontier.
The Panic of 1873 was the nation’s most severe financial depression until the Great Depression of the 1930’s. There were several contributing factors to this depression, which caused financial havoc in Europe as well as the United States. These factors include an equine flu, fires in Chicago and Boston and over-speculation, especially in railroads following the Civil War. Another factor was the passage of the Coinage Act of 1873, which placed the nation firmly on the gold standard. The effect of this law was the devaluation of silver, causing banks, which were heavily invested in silver mines, to fail. The cascading effect of these failures reached Los Angeles and caused the Temple and Workman Bank to close temporarily (bank holiday). It re-opened with a loan from Elias “Lucky” Baldwin, but was doomed to fail given the harsh terms of the loan. Baldwin’s foreclosure of William Workman’s share of Rancho La Puente and other property was a proximate cause of William Workman’s suicide on May 17, 1876.
