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Food Prices, Democratic Political Gains, and Legislation, 1911–1914

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Inflation Decade, 1910—1920

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Abstract

Although historians have recognized to some extent the role that rising prices played in Democratic and insurgent Republican successes in 1910, few have followed the pervasive influence that the high-cost-of-living issue exerted in the ongoing partisan and interest-group contests of the late Progressive era. The underlying interest-group differences were not clear-cut, of course. The 1910 meat boycotts drew both working-class and middle-class support. Farmers resisted seeing themselves as prosperous producers, complaining of their costs and losses, and as consumers farmers bought merchandise ranging from dry goods and flour to wagons and kerosene. But no politician seeking to appeal nationwide could ignore the general pattern. Farm commodity prices were up, and farm spokesmen harbored dire suspicions that city folk wanted farmers to overproduce and bring back cheap food.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Lewis Gould’s and Paul Kleppner’s political narratives are exceptions, as is Ballard Campbell’s recommendation to integrate macroeconomic fluctuations with “the flowering of progressive policy development.” Lewis L. Gould, Reform and Regulation: American Politics from Roosevelt to Wilson, 3rd ed. (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1996); Paul Kleppner, Continuity and Change in Electoral Politics, 1893–1928 (New York: Greenwood, 1987); Ballard Campbell, “Economic Causes of Progressivism,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 4 (January 2005): 8.

  2. 2.

    Roger W. Babson, “What the King of Italy Is Doing to Reduce Our Cost of Living,” Saturday Evening Post 185 (Mar. 15, 1913): 28; Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Committee, The Democratic Text-Book, 1912 (New York: The committees, 1912), 66 (quotation); “Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce Favors an International Commission on the Cost of Living,” with Irving Fisher to Pres. Taft, Jan. 15, 1912, ser. 6, sec. 1893, reel 423, Taft Papers; V.R. Berghan, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973), 145–160; George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England (1935; New York: Capricorn Books, 1961), 214–233; “Making War on the Middleman and the High Cost of Living,” Current Literature 52 (March 1912): 289 (2nd quotation).

  3. 3.

    “Falling Prices,” LD 41 (Nov. 26, 1910): 968; L. Ethan Ellis, Reciprocity 1911: A Study in Canadian-American Relations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939), 33–45, 65; William Howard Taft to Nelson W. Aldrich, Jan. 29, 1911, series 8, vol. 22, p. 283, reel 505, Taft Papers.

  4. 4.

    United States Tariff Commission, Reciprocity with Canada: A Study of the Arrangement of 1911 (GPO, 1920), 68–69; James Wilson to Legislative Committee of the National Grange, Feb. 9, 1911, file 543, reel 398, Taft Papers; Ellis, Reciprocity, 101.

  5. 5.

    Reciprocity file, box 28, General Correspondence of the Secretary of Agriculture, RG 16, NARA; Ellis, Reciprocity, 83–84; Wilson to Legislative Committee, Feb. 9, 1911 (quotation).

  6. 6.

    Frank P. Baum to R.M. La Follette, July 24, 1911, box 77 (quotation); letters in boxes 72, 77, 113, 114, Series J, La Follette Family Collection, Library of Congress.

  7. 7.

    G.C. White, “The Proposed Agreement as Viewed by the Farmer,” JPE 19 (1911): 569 (quotation); Philip C. Buta, “Michigan Newspapers and the Canadian Reciprocity Agreement of 1911,” Michigan Academician 27 (1995): 531–550; CR, May 6, 1911, 1035–40 (quotations, 1038, 1039).

  8. 8.

    Ellis, Reciprocity, 120, 131, 184.

  9. 9.

    Charles C. Batchelder, “The Character and Powers of Government Regulation Machinery,” JPE 20 (1912): 375 (first quotation); “Politics and the Cost of Living,” Independent 72 (May 9, 1912): 1022 (second quotation); Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1939), 664–676.

  10. 10.

    Byron W. Holt to William Sulzer, April 22, 1912, in International Inquiry into the Causes of the High Cost of Living throughout the World, 62nd Cong., 2nd sess., House Report 77 (GPO, 1912), 3; Irving Fisher to William Howard Taft, Sept. 13, 1912, series 6, sec. 1893, reel 423, Taft Papers.

  11. 11.

    HSCam, Cc1; Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Labor, Retail Prices 1890 to June, 1912, Bulletin 106 (GPO, 1912), 8, 14, 23; “Taft Sees Hope of Cheaper Food,” NYT, Oct. 20, 1912, 5.

  12. 12.

    “Coal Strike Ended,” NYT, May 19, 1912, 1; A.W. Ferrin, “An International Investigation of the High Cost of Living,” Moody’s Magazine 13 (March 1912): 216; Fourth National Conservation Congress, Addresses, Indianapolis, October 1–4, 1912 (Indianapolis: National Conservation Congress, 1912), 71; “Making War on the Middleman,” 290 (Shank quotations); Peter R. Shergold, Working-Class Life: The “American Standard” in Comparative Perspective, 1899–1913 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982), 103.

  13. 13.

    Republican National Committee, Republican Campaign Text-Book, 1912 (Philadelphia: Dunlap Printing, 1912), 2, 17 (quotation), 15–65, 81–98, 123–133; National Party Platforms, 1840–1968, comp. Kirk H. Porter and Donald Bruce Johnson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970), 184–85.

  14. 14.

    National Party Platforms, 188–190 (quotations 188, 189).

  15. 15.

    Democratic National Committee, Democratic Text-Book, 1912, 4 (first quotation), 169 (2nd quotation), 86–97, 113–18, 149–165; “Speech of Acceptance,” August 7, 1912, in A Crossroads of Freedom: The 1912 Campaign Speeches of Woodrow Wilson, ed. John Wells Davidson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956), 25–26 (3rd quotation 26); Lewis L. Gould, Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern American Politics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 110; “The Trusts and the Candidates,” LD 45 (Nov. 2, 1912): 770 (4th quotation).

  16. 16.

    “Address at the New York State Fair,” Sept. 12, 1912, in Davidson, Crossroads, 139–140 (first quotation 139); “Address at Pueblo, Colorado,” Oct. 7, 1912, in ibid., 356 (second quotation). Figure 6.1: “On Their Way,” Literary Digest 45 (Nov. 2, 1912): 771. Wilson’s body mass index was 23.5, compared to 30.2 for Roosevelt and 42.3 for Taft. “The Presidents by Height and BMI,” http://home.comcast.net/~sharonday7/Presidents/AS060303.htm, accessed 11/30/2004.

  17. 17.

    Theodore Roosevelt, “Limitation of Governmental Power,” Sept. 14, 1912, in idem, Social Justice and Popular Rule (New York: Scribner’s, 1926), 311 (first quotation); Roosevelt, “A Confession of Faith,” Aug. 6, 1912, in ibid., 276, 280 (2nd quotation), 289–290.

  18. 18.

    Roosevelt, “Confession of Faith,” 287 (first quotation), 288–89; Amos R.E. Pinchot, History of the Progressive Party, 1912–1916, ed. Helene Maxwell Hooker (New York: New York University Press, 1958), 201 (quotation), 228; National Party Platforms, 177–78 (3rd quotation); Theodore Roosevelt, “Progressive Democracy: The High Cost of Living,” Outlook 102 (Oct. 5, 1912): 248 (4th quotation), 249 (5th quotation).

  19. 19.

    John Allen Gable, The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1978), 131–143.

  20. 20.

    HSCam, Eb261–263.

  21. 21.

    Significance levels beyond .01 and n = 1785. Former Confederate states omitted. Sources: See Chap. 4, note 46.

  22. 22.

    Republican significance levels beyond .01, Democratic just beyond .05.

  23. 23.

    David R. Mayhew, Electoral Realignments: A Critique of an American Genre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 1–4, 128–29.

  24. 24.

    David Brady and David Epstein, “Intraparty Preferences, Heterogeneity, and the Origins of the Modern Congress: Progressive Reformers in the House and Senate, 1890–1920,” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 13 (Apr. 1997): 33.

  25. 25.

    H. Parker Willis, “The Tariff of 1913: II,” JPE 22 (Feb. 1914): 122; Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The New Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), 182–194; James Holt, Congressional Insurgents and the Party System, 1909–1916 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 89; Robert M. La Follette, La Follette’s Autobiography (Madison: La Follette Co., 1913), 708.

  26. 26.

    Link, Wilson, 182, 194; H. Parker Willis, “The Tariff of 1913: I,” JPE 22 (Jan. 1914): 7–27; F.W. Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States, 8th ed. (New York: Putnam’s, 1931), 425–29, 440–43.

  27. 27.

    John D. Buenker, The Income Tax and the Progressive Era (New York: Garland, 1985), 103–5, 155–56, 298, 317, 336–37, 377–382, 403–5.

  28. 28.

    Willis, “Tariff of 1913: II,” 123 (first quotation), 124; CR, Jan. 17, 1914, 1834–37 (quotations 1837); HSCam, Cc1.

  29. 29.

    Meltzer, 1: 72.

  30. 30.

    Roger Lowenstein, America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve (New York: Penguin, 2015), 13–14, 79, 93–95, 122–23, 147–48; Meltzer, 1: 66.

  31. 31.

    Lowenstein, America’s Bank, 181–89, 202–214.

  32. 32.

    CR, June 23, 1913, 2143; Lowenstein, America’s Bank, 217, 230–251.

  33. 33.

    Meltzer 1: 73–75; U.S. Statutes at Large 38 (1913–1915): 252–271.

  34. 34.

    U.S. Statutes at Large 38 (1913–1915): 263–64.

  35. 35.

    Meltzer, 1: 68–69, 134, 262, 265.

  36. 36.

    Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Currency … December 6, 1915 (GPO, 1916), 111–12; Theodore H. Price, “The Amended Federal Reserve Law—Inflation Versus Credit Expansion,” Outlook 116 (July 25, 1917): 477–78.

  37. 37.

    U.S. Statutes at Large 38 (1913–1915): 270–71; George J. Seay, “Completing the Reform of Our Banking System,” Annals 63 (Jan. 1916): 145–153.

  38. 38.

    Meltzer, 1: 78; [Federal Reserve System], Banking and Monetary Statistics, 1914–1941 (GPO, 1943), 16–17.

  39. 39.

    Henry Parker Willis, “The Federal Reserve Act,” AER 4 (March 1914): 21; Robert L. Hetzel, The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 12 (2nd quotation); Bernard Shull, The Fourth Branch: The Federal Reserve’s Unlikely Rise to Power and Influence (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005), 59 (3rd quotation); Meltzer, 1: 56; E.R.A. Seligman to Woodrow Wilson, Sept. 13, 1913, quoted in Michael A. Bernstein, A Perilous Progress: Economists and Public Purpose in Twentieth Century America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 49.

  40. 40.

    Henry Parker Willis, The Federal Reserve System: Legislation, Organization and Operation (New York: Ronald Press, 1923), 1554–1573, 1585 (first quotation), 1605 (2nd quotation); John R. Commons, “The Stabilization of Prices and Business,” AER 15 (Mar. 15, 1925): 43.

  41. 41.

    U.S. Statutes at Large 91 (1977): 1387; U.S. Statutes at Large 38 (1913–1915): 265.

  42. 42.

    “Root Sees Peril in Money Bill,” NYT, Dec. 14, 1913, 1–2; CR, Dec. 18, 1913, 1116.

  43. 43.

    Lowenstein, America’s Bank, 249; Carter Glass, speech, Dec. 22, 1913, in CR, vol. 51, part 17, Appendix, 564; “How Much Is a Dollar from the Past Worth Today?” MeasuringWorth, 2020, www.measuringworth.com, accessed June 18, 2020; Christopher W. Shaw, Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019), 50–64, 102–3; Willis, Federal Reserve System, 1630–31, 1660–61, 1691.

  44. 44.

    Wesley C. Mitchell, “Prices and Reconstruction,” AER 10, supplement (March 1920): 138–39.

  45. 45.

    “Mustn’t Fix Butter Prices,” NYT, April 28, 1914, 16; “Ends a Produce Trust,” NYT, July 18, 1914, 9; L.D.H. Weld, The Marketing of Farm Products (New York: Macmillan, 1916), 295–98, 306–8.

  46. 46.

    U.S. Statutes at Large 38 (1913–1915): 730–33.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., 719–721; Naomi R. Lamoreaux, The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895–1904 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 173; Link, Wilson, 442.

  48. 48.

    Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest (1914; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961), 83–84; Herbert Croly, Progressive Democracy (1914; New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 110–11; “A Speech … Accepting the Presidential Nomination,” WWPLink, 38: 129.

  49. 49.

    David B. Danbom, The Resisted Revolution: Urban America and the Industrialization of Agriculture (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1979), 72–73; CR, Jan. 19, 1914, 1917–1944; Grant W. McConnell, The Decline of Agrarian Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), 46.

  50. 50.

    Elizabeth Sanders, Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 309–311; David F. Houston, Eight Years with Wilson’s Cabinet, 1913 to 1920 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1926), 1: 205–6.

  51. 51.

    “Wilson Delves into High Cost of Living,” NYT, Sept. 29, 1913, 1; “High Prices Rouse Congress,” NYT, Nov. 27, 1913, 7.

  52. 52.

    Press Release for Feb. 25, 1914, Regarding BLS, Retail Prices of Food, 1890 to December, 1913, series 4, file 60, reel 192, WWPLC; Matt C. Ely to “Friend Joe” Tumulty, Feb. 14, 1914, series 14, file 48, reel 533, WWPLC; Ralph M. Easley to Joseph Tumulty, Feb. 21, 1914; J.W. Sullivan to William B. Wilson, Feb. 28, 1914, with Easley to Tumulty, April 7, 1914, all in series 4, file 60, reel 192, WWPLC; “Misrepresent the Facts,” NYT, March 2, 1914, 11.

  53. 53.

    “After True Food Cost,” Washington Post, March 7, 1914, 2.

  54. 54.

    BLS, Retail Prices, 1907 to December, 1914, Bulletin 156 (GPO, 1915), 5, 27–29, 40, 357–380.

  55. 55.

    Clippings in file 60, reel 192, WWPLC; G. Edward Nighthart to Mr. Houston, Aug. 12, 1914, box 267, Alphabetical General Correspondence, 1913–1922, RBurMar; Wilson to James C. McReynolds, Aug. 13, 1914, file 60, reel 192, WWPLC (2nd quotation); “High Food Fight Is Nation-Wide,” NYT, Aug. 14, 1914, 5; “Price Boosters Face Indictment,” Washington Evening Star, Aug. 24, 1914, in file 60, reel 192, WWPLC (3rd quotation).

  56. 56.

    BLS, Retail Prices, 1907 to December, 1914, 5; “The Case against Wilson,” North American Review 200 (Nov. 1914), 642–43; HSCam, Ba476; “Colonel Assails Wilson Policies,” NYT, July 1, 1914, 2.

  57. 57.

    HSCam, Eb298, Eb300, Eb303, Eb305; “The Verdict of the Nation,” NYT, Nov. 4, 1914, 6; Sanders, Roots of Reform, 361. Republican senators, appointed after the election of 1908, a Republican year, were more vulnerable than Republican representatives.

  58. 58.

    Republican gains from 1912 to 1914 are associated with percentage of the population that was urban (r = .190). Comparing 1910 and 1914, Progressive votes in 1914 render inference suspect. In 1779 nonsouthern counties, increases in Republican voting from 1910 to 1914 correlate positively with percentage urban (r = .166) and negatively with farms per capita (r = −.151). The only Democratic correlation statistically significant at .01 is between increase in Democratic votes and farms per capita (r = .109). For sources, see Chap. 4, note 46.

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    David I. Macleod

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Macleod, D.I. (2024). Food Prices, Democratic Political Gains, and Legislation, 1911–1914. In: Inflation Decade, 1910—1920. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55393-6_6

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