Deck 20: Politics and Expansion in an Industrializing Age, 1877-1900

Question 1

"Machine politics" was

A) a form of urban politics where local politicians, known as bosses, dominated urban areas.
B) a form of urban politics where the boss of an unofficial political organization controlled a particular party or faction in office.
C) a social theory in which all interest groups in society meshed together like the parts of a machine.
D) a derisive term given to voting machines when urban reformers first introduced them.
E) a form of urban politics influenced by the ideas of reformers.

Answer 1

a form of urban politics where local politicians, known as bosses, dominated urban areas.

Question 2

Who became famous for the "Cross of Gold" speech in the 1896 presidential election?

A) William Jennings Bryan
B) Theodore Roosevelt
C) William McKinley
D) Eugene V. Debs

Answer 2

William Jennings Bryan

Question 3

Which of the following statements accurately describes voter participation during the late nineteenth century?

A) It was generally very high-usually from 80 percent up to 95 percent.
B) It was generally low because the major political parties were not discussing real issues.
C) It varied from election to election-sometimes very high, sometimes very low.
D) It was very high on the local level but very low on the national level.
E) It was very high on the national level but very low on the local level.

Answer 3

It was generally very high-usually from 80 percent up to 95 percent.

Question 4

Which statement below concerning the farmers' alliance movement is true?

A) The movement was restricted to the agrarian South, because agriculture was prosperous elsewhere.
B) The movement initially advocated farmers' cooperatives and eventually turned to politics.
C) They wanted was never able to build a large membership.
D) The movement failed to win many supporters because of its virulent racism.
E) They wanted limited itself to a social and educational role and attempted to remain as non-controversial as possible to gain maximum support in Congress.

Question 5

Grover Cleveland proposed a reduction of the tariff rates because

A) he thought that the government had no right to meddle in the economy.
B) he believed that lower tariffs would encourage the growth of industry in the United States.
C) the tariff was feeding a large and growing federal budget surplus.
D) the tariff worked to the disadvantage of small farmers.
E) the farm lobby had been a major contributor to his presidential campaign.

Question 6

Which of the following functions was not typically performed by political bosses and precinct captains?

A) They delivered votes at election time.
B) They ran settlement houses.
C) They served as informal welfare agents for the needy.
D) They protected the troubled in the neighborhood.
E) They dispensed patronage jobs, contracts, and other political favors.

Question 7

What happened to James Garfield's presidency?

A) Historians consider it the only successful presidency in the late 19th century.
B) It never really got started since he was assassinated soon after coming to office.
C) He supervised the greatest civil service reform in American history.
D) He annexed Hawaii.
E) He proved a weak president and even lost the support of his own Republican party.

Question 8

What happened in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War?

A) Filipino resistance fighters fought a protracted and bloody guerrilla war against United States rule.
B) American agricultural producers, hoping to establish a tariff against Filipino products, engineered quick independence for the former Spanish colony.
C) Filipino patriots petitioned the United States Congress for annexation and statehood.
D) The United States imposed military rule and announced that self-government could not be granted until the Philippines had achieved economic self-sufficiency.
E) Civil war erupted between nationalist paramilitary groups and Spanish landowners.

Question 9

What did the Pendleton Act do?

A) It established a civil-service commission.
B) It required the use of silver as well as gold to back paper currency.
C) It started the policy of having separate but equal facilities for blacks and whites.
D) It raised tariff rates.
E) It gave Congress the power to investigate and oversee railroad activities.

Question 10

How did William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer change the newspaper industry?

A) They set the precedent for accurately reporting stories in their respective newspapers
B) They competed for readers by writing sensationalized stories that captured the reader's attention.
C) They reformed the newspaper business by eliminating corruption.
D) They introduced new printing techniques that eliminated the yellow color of newspapers.
E) They no longer permitted their papers to represent one specific political party, and instead, focused on providing unbiased reporting.

Question 11

Which of the following is associated with the administration of Benjamin Harrison?

A) A record-high tariff
B) The decision to cease government purchases of silver
C) Government attacks on entrenched economic interests
D) The decline of political activism in the agrarian South and West
E) The worst economic depression in the nineteenth century

Question 12

What two issues dominated national politics in the 1870s and 1880s?

A) The money supply and civil-service reform
B) civil-service reform and working conditions in factories
C) the money supply and urban slums
D) civil-service reform and imperialism
E) imperial expansion and immigration

Question 13

What did the civil-service reformers of the late 1870s and early 1880s want?

A) a government bureaucracy that would help free immigrants from poverty.
B) a professional civil service based on merit and staffed by gentlemen.
C) a federal law that would appoint Roscoe Conkling director of government personnel.
D) laws that would help to sustain the dignity of the federal civil service.
E) individual contributions to a political campaign capped at $500.

Question 14

Which of the following was a goal of the Greenback Party?

A) ending agricultural subsidies
B) restrictions on labor unions
C) an expanded money supply
D) American annexation of Samoa
E) high protective tariffs

Question 15

Where was the Democratic party strongest in the late 19th century?

A) South
B) Upper Midwest
C) New England
D) West Coast
E) Great Plains

Question 16

Which of the following groups is properly paired with its position on limiting or expanding the money supply?

A) Urban workers: limit, because it would increase their buying power by making each dollar worth more
B) Bankers: limit, because it would create economic stability
C) Southern and western farmers: restrict, because they wanted to make it easier to pay off their debts
D) Creditors: expand, because then there would be more money to lend.
E) None of these choices

Question 17

Why did the federal government during the late nineteenth century tend to ignore the social consequences of industrialization?

A) Local party bosses refused federal government assistance.
B) Congressmen believed only the president had the constitutional authority to regulate societal issues.
C) Americans believed that volunteer Christian organizations should take care of societal problems.
D) Most American leaders, regardless of party, believed in the laissez-faire doctrine and did not support a large governmental role in the economy.
E) Most leaders believed in communism's focus on individual decision making and not government directed policy.

Question 18

Why was the 1892 election significant to U.S. history?

A) Theodore Roosevelt won his first presidential term.
B) The Populist Party showed it was a potential threat to the Republican and Democratic Parties
C) The election led to the end of Reconstruction
D) Black Americans voted in a presidential election for the first time
E) Southerners voted for the Republican Party in their largest numbers since before the Civil War

Question 19

What was the Grange (the Patrons of Husbandry)?

A) an organization that provided mail-order brides to bachelor farmers.
B) a group of feminists who sought equality for husbands and wives.
C) a fraternal organization of the Dutch descendants of New Netherland "patroons."
D) a "men's liberation" group that sought to liberate American males from matriarchal bondage.
E) an organization of farmers.

Question 20

Which of the following statements is not true concerning the 1884 presidential campaign?

A) Mugwumps bolted from the Republican party.
B) Cleveland admitted he had fathered an illegitimate child.
C) A clergyman denounced Democrats as the party of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion."
D) The Republicans nominated a candidate who "wallowed in spoils like a rhinoceros in an African pool."
E) The Democrats nominated a candidate who had soiled his reputation as governor of New York by supporting Tammany Hall, the corrupt New York City political machine.

Question 21

What did Southern Alliance leader Charles Macune argue?

A) The federal government was to establish a series of branch banks to hold federal deposits and help to control the money supply.
B) Late-nineteenth-century American capitalists attempted to corner all the silver that was held outside the federal treasury.
C) Farmers should be able to store crops in government warehouses and then borrow against those crops until prices rose.
D) Farmers should "raise less corn and more hell."
E) The federal government should provide special agricultural loans from a fund created out of grain excise taxes.

Question 22

In the 1892 election, what happened to the Populist party?

A) It became the first "third party" in American history to win the presidency.
B) It received over one million votes across the nation.
C) It won by a large margin in New England and the traditionally Republican farm regions of the Midwest.
D) It swept every state of the former Confederacy.
E) It failed to elect its candidate for president, but received more votes than the Republican candidate.

Question 23

What did the "separate but equal" doctrine mean?

A) Although the executive and legislative branches had separate powers and responsibilities, the two branches were constitutionally equal in importance.
B) Southern schools were segregated, but they had similar buildings, equivalent equipment, and equally qualified and equally paid teachers.
C) As long as facilities were equivalent, they did not have to be integrated.
D) The northern and southern approaches to race relations were completely different, but as far as blacks were concerned they amounted to the same thing.
E) Labor and capital had different goals and different world views, but they were all equal under the law.

Question 24

Which was not a reason why American confidence in the gold standard weakened in the 1890s?

A) British investors had sold millions of dollars' worth of stock in American railroads and converted their dollars to gold, draining U.S. gold reserves.
B) Vast quantities of gold were flowing into the country from newly-opened mines in the Klondike.
C) Congress's lavish veterans' benefits had reduced government resources
D) Tariff revenues were dropping because of the high McKinley Tariff
E) The government had to pay for its monthly silver purchases with treasury certificates redeemable for either silver or gold, further drained gold reserves

Question 25

In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that

A) grandfather clauses restricting voting were unconstitutional.
B) states could not regulate interstate railroad rates.
C) the First Amendment did not protect a person's right to join hate groups.
D) separate but equal facilities for the different races were constitutional.
E) racial profiling violated the Constitution.

Question 26

In the 1896 election, which area was a center of William McKinley's political support?

A) Southeast.
B) Southwest.
C) Sparsely settled Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states.
D) Urban areas
E) Atlantic seaboard.

Question 27

Which of the following was not one of the approaches the United States used in dealing with Cuba in the years after the Spanish-American War?

A) keeping American troops in Cuba for a number of years.
B) improving public health, education, and sanitation on the island.
C) asserting the right to intervene in Cuba when it was necessary.
D) establishing a permanent naval base on the island.
E) cancelling most American investments in the island.

Question 28

Where did the United States and Germany almost have a naval clash in the late 19th century?

A) Falkland Islands
B) Samoan Islands
C) Hawaii
D) Panama
E) Canary Islands

Question 29

What event triggered the Panic of 1893?

A) The collapse of a railroad
B) The stock market crash
C) The abandonment of the gold standard
D) The adoption of free silver
E) A spiraling trade deficit

Question 30

What did Coxey's Army want?

A) another increase in veterans' benefits.
B) a $500 million public-works program funded with paper money.
C) a chance to go to Cuba to join the Rough Riders.
D) a gold standard to stabilize the economy.
E) an expansion of the convict-lease system to cover most basic government services.

Question 31

What did the Wilson-Gorman Tariff do?

A) It lowered some duties.
B) It made many concessions to protectionists.
C) It included a tax on income.
D) It became law without the president's signature.
E) All of these choices

Question 32

Which of the following was not a tool that southern states used to disfranchise blacks after Reconstruction?

A) Outright legal prohibitions
B) Literacy tests
C) Poll taxes
D) Grandfather clauses
E) Property requirements

Question 33

What impact did the McKinley Tariff have on tariff rates?

A) It lowered most rates.
B) It offset higher tariffs on some products with lower tariffs on others.
C) It raised tariffs to the highest levels in American history up until that time.
D) It kept tariff rates the same but introduced a national income tax.
E) It raised tariffs on agricultural products but lowered them on industrial ones.

Question 34

What was the main importance of the government's establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission?

A) It established the principle of federal government regulation of interstate transportation.
B) It allowed the federal government to set maximum railroad rates.
C) It limited the ability of railroads to form monopolies.
D) It ended the ability of states to regulate railroads within their boundaries.
E) It created the foundation for the interstate highway system.

Question 35

Which of the following statements does not apply to the late nineteenth century relationship between the southern agrarian protest movement and southern attitudes toward blacks?

A) Some Populists wanted to build an interracial movement and tried to defend the rights of blacks.
B) Most southern populists were anti-black.
C) The white elite tried to inflame agrarian racism and stimulate urban black sentiment against agrarian radicalism.
D) Some Populists denounced lynchings and the convict-lease system
E) The Populist movement was exclusively white because of exclusion provisions in their charters.

Question 36

What did Booker T. Washington argue?

A) that black Americans should leave the United States and return to Africa.
B) that black Americans should align themselves with the Democratic Party.
C) that black Americans should acquire useful skills and patiently accept their lot until racism faded.
D) that black Americans should launch a rebellion against white oppression.
E) None of these choices

Question 37

In late-nineteenth-century cases dealing with the rights of blacks, what did the Supreme Court decide?

A) The Fourteenth Amendment protected citizens from private acts of discrimination but not from governmental acts.
B) Racial segregation was constitutional as long as each race had equal facilities.
C) Poll taxes and literacy tests were illegal.
D) The civil-rights clauses of the Fifteenth Amendment were unconstitutional.
E) Racism in government programs was constitutional but not in private businesses.

Question 38

Which of the following was not a goal of the Populist and Farmer's Alliance movements?

A) nationalization the railroads.
B) an increased money supply.
C) a higher protective tariff.
D) direct election of U.S. senators.
E) a graduated income tax.

Question 39

Which of the following was not one of the reasons that many Americans in the 1880s and 1890s argued that the United States should take a more expansionist role in the world?

A) Many believed that for the United States to be a great nation, it had to have an empire.
B) Many believed that American economic health depended on finding overseas markets for American products.
C) Many believed that Americans had a mission to bring Christianity and civilization to the world's weaker races.
D) Many believed that a great nation had to have a great navy, and a great navy needed bases abroad.
E) Demographic studies indicated that if immigration continued at the current rate, the U.S. would run out of unoccupied land by 1910.

Question 40

What was the main issue in the 1896 presidential election?

A) Agrarian unrest
B) Free silver
C) Imperialism
D) Gridlock in Washington
E) Personal corruption

Question 41

The Teller Amendment asserted that the United States had

A) no interest in sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control of Cuba.
B) the right to arbitrate the Venezuelan boundary dispute.
C) the right to intervene in Cuban affairs to ensure Cuban stability.
D) as much right as any European nation to trade with China.
E) a responsibility to end the insurrection in the Philippines.

Question 42

Who wrote The Influence of Sea Power on History?

A) William Simms
B) Teddy Roosevelt
C) Oliver Perry
D) Alfred Thayer Mahan
E) William Farragut

Question 43

Why is the Currency Act of 1900 significant?

A) It committed the United States to the gold standard.
B) It marked the first time the United States developed a uniformed currency.
C) It prohibited the United States from running a deficit greater than 3 percent of the GNP.
D) It established the one dollar, five dollar, and ten dollar bills.
E) It increased the amount of silver in circulation by $5 million.

Question 44

Which of the following was ceded to the United States by Spain as a result of the Spanish-American War?

A) Hawaii
B) Cuba
C) Guam
D) Samoa
E) all of these choices

Question 45

Which of the following was not a reason for the strengthening of American ties to Hawaii in the late nineteenth century?

A) Missionary activity
B) Sugar plantation expansion
C) Relations with the Hawaiian throne
D) Naval activity
E) The election of William McKinley.