Benjamin Harrison was born in 1833 in North Bend, Ohio. The grandson of the ninth U.S. president, William Henry Harrison (1773–1841;
served 1841), Benjamin Harrison became a lawyer and moved to
Indiana, where he volunteered in Republican Party campaigns.
Harrison fought in the American Civil War (1861–65) as a colonel.
When he returned home, he built a reputation as an excellent lawyer.
Harrison served in the U.S. Senate throughout most of the 1880s,
where he supported Native Americans and Civil War veterans. In the
1888 presidential campaign, he defended high tariffs (taxes imposed on
goods imported from other countries), conservation of wilderness lands,
and limited civil service reform. He broke from the traditional
Republican viewpoint in his opposition to the Chinese Exclusion Act of
1882, which ended Chinese immigration to the United States. (See
Asian Immigration.)
Harrison was the first candidate to participate in what became
known as “front porch speeches.” People would visit him at his home in
Indiana and listen to him speak from his front porch. This campaign
style encouraged citizens to think of Harrison as one of them, a regular
man with a regular home and family. These speeches were not as informal as they appeared; Harrison’s campaign managers carefully selected
which newspaper reporters and community members would attend. Harrison beat his opponent, President Grover Cleveland
(1837–1908; served 1885–89 and 1893–97). A Republican president
was back in office, and for the first time in years, the Republican Party
dominated both the executive branch and legislative branch of the federal government.
In the White House
Harrison was not a unique leader, but his administration was efficient
and productive. Some of the legislation that passed during his presidency
had a major impact on American business. Harrison supported the
McKinley Tariff of 1890, a law that raised tariff rates an average of 49.5
percent. The bill also gave the president expanded powers in the area of
foreign trade.
The American public hated giant corporations and big businesses
that took over the economy and forced consumers into paying high fees
and prices. Republicans and Democrats alike rallied together in the call
for reform of dishonest business practices such as monopolies.
(Monopolies are businesses that have total control over a certain sector
of the economy, including prices; in a monopoly, there is no competition.) As a result of this public outcry, the Harrison administration supported and passed the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. This act was the
first federal law to regulate big business. The Sherman Antitrust Act
made it a federal crime for businesses to form trusts (the concept of several companies banding together to form an organization that limits
competition by controlling the production and distribution of a product
or service). Although it had flaws, it was an important first step.
Another important piece of legislation passed during Harrison’s term
was the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. This bill had the U.S.
Treasury purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver at market price each
month. The silver was bought with treasury notes that could be redeemed in either gold or silver. Holders of these notes were so eager to
turn them in for gold (because they received more money per note that
way) that they nearly emptied the Treasury’s supply. The act increased
the production of silver, which sent silver prices down rather than up,
and that was the intent. The act was repealed in 1893, the year of the
worst economic decline the United States had ever experienced.
Historians point to several factors that contributed to the Panic of 1893,
including the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. In addition to the depletion of the nation’s gold reserves and the decrease in silver prices, railroads
went bankrupt and banks across the country began to fail. The result was
high unemployment and a severe shortage of money circulating in the
economy.
Harrison’s foreign policy Harrison was one of the most active presidents in the area of foreign diplomacy. He took the United States to the
brink of war with Chile over an incident involving American sailors who
were harmed in the port city of Valparaiso. After discussion between the
countries’ leaders, Chile apologized and paid the United States $75,000
for the incident.
In 1889, the president called the first modern Pan-American
Conference in Washington, D.C. Leaders from North, Central, and
South America attended the conference in an effort to develop military,
economic, social, political, and commercial cooperation between the
three Americas. Conference attendees developed treaties on how to resolve international conflicts and revised tariff levels. In addition, an organization that would eventually be known as the Pan-American Union
was established. The union offered technical and informational services
to the Americas and provided a safe place for official documents. By
forming various councils, the union took on the responsibility for furthering cooperative relations throughout the Americas. Its founding is
celebrated on Pan-American Day each year in April.
As successful as he was in other foreign endeavors, Harrison did not
achieve his goal where Hawaii was concerned. Harrison was in favor of
annexing (adding another U.S. territory) Hawaii, but he was unable to
convince the Senate to do so. Still, because of his efforts and because
Hawaii did eventually become part of the United States, modern historians credit Harrison and his administration for putting the United
States on its path to becoming an empire.
Harrison’s popularity wanes Harrison’s popularity among the public
took a severe blow on three national issues. The first was his support of
the McKinley Tariff. Millions of citizens lost trust in a president who
seemed to be siding more with big-business interests than with the average working man. The second issue involved the dissatisfaction of farmers—those hardest hit by the depression—in the South and West.
Harrison had done virtually nothing to improve the farmers’ situation,
so he lost their support. Finally, a series of violent labor strikes linked Harrison to monopoly industrialists and bankers. Voters did not feel represented in the White House.
Furthermore, Harrison passed a great deal of Republican legislation
in his first year in office. Because of the amount of money Congress
spent, it soon became known as the “Billion Dollar” Congress.
Harrison could not undo the damage his image had suffered. He had
never been known publicly as an overly friendly man, yet he put his family at the center of his life. (In fact, Harrison’s campaign activities in
1892 were very minimal due to the illness of first lady Caroline
Harrison. She died two weeks before the election.) Harrison’s tendency
to be a private man, coupled with the unpopular events throughout his
term, led him directly out of the White House. Grover Cleveland was reelected in the 1892 election. Upon learning of his defeat, Harrison told
his family he felt like he had been freed from prison. He died in 1901.