The Fate of Coming Years
The Fate of Coming Years
The spring of 1896 was a period of discontent for Theodore Roosevelt and for the whole nation. Roosevelt was unhappy with the way his political career was going. He spent six years at the Civil Service Commission and eighteen months on the New York City police board, and was impatient and uncertain. All over the country, farmers were up in arms against the railroad rates they paid to ship their grain, a malaise which gave birth to a loose-knit society of cattle farmers and ranchers called the Grangers (National Grange of the Patrons of Animal Husbandry). Although rates dropped in the 1880s, the railroads retained their iconic status, and the farmers once again grew restless due to a severe downturn in agricultural prices in the early 1890s. In 1894, a labor strike that began in Pullman, Illinois, erupted nationwide. But it was the presidential election of 1896 that would showcase Roosevelt's classist social conservatism. William McKinley won as president and the Republican Party emerged with majority status for the first time in twenty years.
Keywords: farmers, Theodore Roosevelt, Civil Service Commission, New York City, Grangers, railroads, labor strike, presidential election, William McKinley, Republican Party
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