_A Political Crime_ (1885), is a contemporary and partisan
account of the electoral contest; P.L. Haworth, _The Hayes-Tilden
Disputed Presidential Election_ (1906), is a recent work of critical
scholarship; E. Stanwood may be relied upon for platforms, tables of
votes, and other formal details, in his _History of the Presidency_.
_The Writings and Speeches of S.J. Tilden_ (2 vols., ed. by J. Bigelow,
1885) are useful, as are the Blaine books: J.G. Blaine, _Twenty Years of
Congress_, E. Stanwood, _James Gillespie Blaine_ (1905, in American
Statesmen Series); G. Hamilton (pseud. for M.A. Dodge), _James G.
Blaine_ (1895, a domestic biography); and the spicy _Letters of Mrs.
James G. Blaine_ (edited by H.S.B. Beale, 2 vols., 1908). Other useful
biographies or memoirs exist for R.P. Bland, Roscoe Conkling, Robert G.
Ingersoll, O.H. Platt, T.C. Platt, John Sherman, and Carl Schurz, etc.

CHAPTER VI

BUSINESS AND POLITICS

A great commercial revival, affecting the whole United States, began
during the Administration of Hayes. Ingersoll had predicted it, in
defining his candidate in 1876, when he declared: "The Republicans of
the United States demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption,
when they come, must come together; that when they come, they will come
hand in hand through the golden harvest-fields; hand in hand by the
whirling spindles and the turning wheels; hand in hand past the open
furnace doors; hand in hand by the flaming forges; hand in hand by the
chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless
sons of toil." In every section and in every occupation commerce revived
during 1878 and 1879. Manufactures began to invade the South;
mining-booms gave new life to the camps of the Far West; the wheat-lands
of the Northwest, reached by the "Granger" railroads and cultivated by
great power machines, produced a new type of bonanza farming; in the
Southwest and on the plains great droves of cattle produced a new type
of cattle king; and the factory towns of the East began again to grow.
Connecting the various sections, the railroads played a new part, and
built more miles of track in the next ten years than in any decade
before or since. The whole country awoke as from an anaesthetic, tested
its muscles to find that they were stronger than ever, and set to work
again.

The silent evidence of the United States Treasury testifies to the
prosperity of the next ten years. The average