1893 - Commerce

Commerce

President Cleveland says in his inaugural address March 4, "Manifestly nothing is more vital in our supremacy as a nation and to the beneficent purposes of our Government than a sound and stable currency. Its exposure to degradation should at once arouse to activity the most enlightened statesmanship, and the danger of depreciation in the purchasing power of the wages paid to toil should furnish the strongest incentive to prompt and conservative precaution. In dealing with our present embarrassing situation as related to this subject we will be wise if we temper our confidence and faith in our national strength and resources with the frank concession that even these will not permit us to defy with impunity the inexorable laws of finance and trade."

The U.S. Treasury suspends its issue of gold certificates April 15 as gold reserves fall below the legal minimum of $100 million.

Wall Street stock prices take a sudden drop May 5; the market collapses in a panic June 27; 600 banks close their doors; more than 15,000 business firms fail; and 74 railroads go into receivership in a recession that will continue for 4 more years. Overbuilding of railroads and related bankruptcies have dragged down the market and the U.S. economy. Recession worsens as European investors withdraw funds. The average U.S. worker earns $9.42 per week, and immigrants often receive less than $1 per day. Millions of unemployed workers roam the streets, begging for help, and abandoned children are often left to live by their wits.

The World's Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago's Jackson Park in May to celebrate the discovery of America 400 years ago and attracts visitors from all over the world to see what material progress the city has made since the great fire of 1871. Some 2,000 people arrive in the rain on opening day to see the wonders that await them on the 700-acre lakefront fairgrounds, built on former marshland in the city's South Side. After the exposition closes at the end of October, San Francisco Chronicle publisher Michel de Young has many of its attractions moved to Golden Gate Park for a Midwinter Fair.

Economic conditions force U.S. railroads to reduce their orders for sleeping cars; the Pullman Palace Car Company reduces wages by one-fourth, obliging workers to labor for almost nothing while charging them full rents in company housing at Pullman, Illinois, and charging inflated prices at company food store (see 1881). George M. Pullman and his executives continue to draw full salaries (see strike, 1894).

The American Railway Union is founded by Terre Haute, Indiana-born socialist Eugene V. (Victor) Debs, 38, and others. Debs has been national secretary of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (see 1894).

Kelly's Industrial Army sets off for Washington, D.C., to demand a program of public works to relieve the economic depression. Led by the diminutive "General" Charles T. Kelly, ridiculed by many as a bunch of shiftless tramps and a threat to public order, the 1,500-man "army" of unemployed workers from California travels for the most part via boxcar and receives some support from sympathizers along the way (see Coxey, 1894).

The newly elected governor of Illinois frees three of the men convicted of conspiracy in Chicago's 1886 Haymarket riot, saying that the anarchists were denied a fair trial. The first Democrat to be elected governor since the Civil War, German-born politician John Peter Altgeld, 45, is the author of an 1884 book on the penal system that argued that the poor have little equality before the law; he has acted at the urging of Chicago lawyer Clarence (Seward) Darrow, 35, and his action produces a storm of criticism (see Haywood case, 1907).

Lithuanian-born anarchist Emma Goldman, 24, makes a speech in New York's Union Square August 21 urging striking clockmakers to steal bread if they cannot afford to buy food for their families in the economic depression. There is little practical difference, she says, between the cruelties of a U.S. plutocracy and those of czarist Russia. Police arrest her for inciting to riot, and she is sentenced to 1 year's imprisonment (see 1901). Influenced by the writings and lectures of Johann Most, Goldman will define anarchism as "the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence and are therefore wrong and harmful."

A trade agreement between Britain and China supplements the Sikkim-Tibet Convention of 1890, but the Tibetans will ignore the trade regulations and impose illegal tariffs on the small flow of goods entering their country from India (see politics, 1904).

A worker loading a cart in the De Beers mine at Jagersfontein, Orange Free State discovers a blue-white diamond weighing about 995 carats. The largest such gemstone found to date, it will be called the Excelsior and remain uncut until 1905 (see Cullinan Diamond, 1905).

Congress repeals the 1890 Sherman Silver Purchase Act October 31; the United States returns to the gold standard that will be retained until April 1933. New York banker J. P. Morgan has worked with President Cleveland to restore the gold standard and thereby encourage European investment in America following the June 27 Wall Street panic (see 1895). Silver prices collapse, bankrupting silver barons such as Colorado's Horace "Hod" Tabor (see everyday life, 1883).

Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines is created by oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, who has loaned the Merritt brothers $420,000 to develop the Mesabi iron mines of Minnesota and build a railroad to Duluth (see 1892). The sharp fall of prices on Wall Street has put financial pressure on Rockefeller, he has called the loan on short notice, Leonidas Merritt and his brothers have been obliged to forfeit their properties to Rockefeller for $500,000, and Leonidas will be unable in 1897 to give a congressional committee any clear statement of exactly how or when the transfer was made (his brother Louis will take advantage of Rockefeller's offer to let him buy back the holdings at the price paid plus interest, and Louis will become rich as the properties appreciate in value). Rockefeller's $29.4 million company leases the properties to Henry Clay Frick of the Carnegie-Phipps mill at Homestead, Pennsylvania (see 1892; Carnegie, Oliver, 1896).

Hugo Stinnes GmbH is founded by German industrialist Stinnes, 23, whose family has been operating coal mines since 1808, built a shipping line to carry coal up the Rhine, and created a trading house to sell the goods brought back by the ships. Enlarging on the empire started by his grandfather Mathias Stinnes, young Hugo will acquire interests in steel making and in the Ruhr Valley's power, gas, and water utilities, integrating his interests until he controls the entire cycle from raw materials to distribution (see 1916).

Philadelphia banker-philanthropist Anthony J. Drexel dies at Carlsbad, Bohemia, June 30 at age 66; utopian socialist Victor-Prosper Considérant at Paris December 27 at age 85.