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A Decade of Transformation: Maryland, 1880-1890
By Julia K. Lehnert
The decade from 1880 to 1890 was a period of economic, political and social transformation in Maryland. These transformations were intimately interconnected, and changes or shifts in one area generally followed upon and/or sparked changes or shifts in another area.
Maryland's state government struggled--sometimes reluctantly and only in response to intense lobbying on the part of reformers--to respond to these changes, and, in turn, nearly all sectors of the state government were affected by them directly or indirectly. Specifically, during this decade the responsibilities of the Comptroller's Office continued to expand beyond those envisioned by the members of the Constitutional Convention of 1851 who established the office as a check on the power of the State Treasurer and a means to ensure wise spending by the state. (Karen Dunaway, "Why did the framers of Maryland's Constitution of 1851 establish the office of comptroller?," March 2001) This brief history will examine the wide-ranging changes that took place in Maryland's economy, political system and society during the 1880s, and the role of the Comptroller's Office in the state governmental apparatus during that decade, with specific focus on the tenure of Comptroller J. Frank Turner (1884-1888).
Economy
On the surface, the 1880s appeared to be a generally calm and prosperous time, sandwiched between the serious depressions of 1873 and 1893 and witnessing only a mild recession in 1882. Below the surface, however, significant economic shifts were taking place throughout the state that would affect nearly the entire citizenry of Maryland and the running of the state's government.
In the early 1880s, the state was still feeling the lingering effects of the depression of 1873. Suffering from the severe business decline, Maryland's two largest transportation lines, the B & O Railroad and the C & O Canal, had engaged in a vicious rate war from 1875 to 1878 as each desperately sought to control coal transportation from Western Maryland to market. The combination of national depression, drastic rate cuts and labor unrest--and in the case of the canal, natural disasters--had left both organizations in dire financial straits. Unfortunately, the Maryland State government was heavily invested in both entities, part of its earlier attempt to promote "works of internal improvement" in the state, and the ruinous competition between the two lines did not improve the state's financial holdings. In fact, the the state entered the 1880s mired in the running of these two entities, and would spend the next several decades struggling to extricate itself from these investments. (John R. Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1953): 58-61.)
The effects of the depression were also felt disproportionately by Maryland's farm community. Agriculture, which had been the primary sector of the economy historically, declined over the decade of the 1880s and the state's struggling farmers especially resented the continuing high tariffs on manufactured goods designed to promote domestic manufacturing. Meanwhile, the state experienced rapid industrialization, especially in Baltimore City. Manufacturing, both the growth of existing industries (e.g., canning, men's clothing) and the development of new ones (e.g., fertilizer, iron and steel), kept the state as a whole and Baltimore City particularly in close competition with the larger Eastern seaboard states and Northeastern cities. (Bruchey, Eleanor, "The Industrialization of Maryland, 1860-1914," in Walsh, Richard and William Lloyd Fox, eds., Maryland: A History (Annapolis, MD: Hall of Records Commission, 1983), 397-398, 402-405.)
Maryland's oyster industry in particular experienced a dramatic boom during the 1880s. The decade saw record oyster harvests on the Chesapeake Bay; during the peak year of 1884, 15 million bushels of oysters were harvested. Moreover, local prices for oysters skyrocketed with the tremendous demand created by the foreign market. Fantastic profits sparked keen and too often deadly competition among watermen; in the 1880s, an all-out "oyster war" broke out between Maryland and Virginia oystermen, particularly over the oyster beds of the Pocomoke and Tangier Sounds. Later in the decade, as the Bay's oyster beds became depleted by overharvesting and failure to reseed and oyster harvests declined, dredgers (both Maryland and Virginia pirates) began to invade the river waters reserved to the oyster tongers and the war flared up anew. The state's Oyster Navy, originally chartered by the General Assembly in 1868 but never adequately funded by that body, battled--with uneven effort and effectiveness--to bring law and order to bay waters during the decade. (Wennersten, John R., The Oyster Wars of Chesapeake Bay, (Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1981): 37-55, 137)
Political System
Politically, the 1880s proved to be the calm before the storm in Maryland. Although the "Old Guard" Democratic Party machine undoubtedly ruled the state during the decade, the 1880s were marked by the rise of the "Reformers" or "Fusionists," a group of Democrats who allied themselves with Republicans in an effort to release the state's (and Baltimore City's) government from the Old Guard's grip.
Building upon his position as President of the C & O Canal from 1872 to 1882, Arthur Pue Gorman rose to head the statewide Democratic Party machine in Maryland, in partnership with Baltimore City's Democratic Party boss, Isaac Freeman Rasin. In 1881, after serving more than ten years in the Maryland General Assembly, Gorman was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he devoted himself to the rebuilding of the national Democratic Party. Gorman reached perhaps the height of his power in 1884, when he successfully managed Grover Cleveland's presidential campaign, bringing the Democrats to the White House for the first time in thirty years and bringing higher visibility and a slice of federal patronage to Maryland for the first time in as many years.(Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman, 364-369.)
The Gorman-Raisin machine maintained control in Maryland through shifting alliances with local Democratic leaders, liberal patronage for party regulars, and, when necessary, election fraud. While the "Old Guard" retained its political power through these tactics, this method of government failed to address the mounting problems of a state undergoing rapid change. Industrialization and its attendant ills, boom-bust business cycles, rapid population growth and a population shift from rural to urban areas starkly revealed the inadequate public services of the state. Industrialization and urbanization not only bred poverty, sweatshops, slums and child labor, but a need for paved roads, sewers, schools and hospitals. The Old Guard machine, geared to maintaining and expanding its sphere of influence, was ill-equipped to meet these changing needs of the state. (Crooks, James B., "Maryland Progressivism," in Walsh and Fox, eds., Maryland: A History, 591-592).
Foreshadowing the themes of the Progressive Age, a group of local reformers sought to wrest control of Maryland State and Baltimore City government from the Gorman-Raisin faction by campaigning on a platform of honesty and efficiency in government. Throughout the decade, the Reformers battled with the Old Guard in each election, waging a war of words on the campaign stump and in the newspapers and challenging Old Guard voter registration lists in the courts.(Brugger, Robert J., Maryland: A Middle Temperament (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988); 395-400.)
During the decade the commercial competition between the B & O and C & O spilled over into the political arena. Gorman used the legislative means at his disposal to wring concessions from the B & O management that gave the C & O a better competitive position. In return, John K. Cowen, the general counsel of the B & O, battled the Old Guard machine by bringing the railroad into the political fray in support of the Reformers.(Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman, 56-63.)
Helped by the relative prosperity of the time, the entrenched Gorman-Raisin machine managed to keep a lid on the simmering discontent during the 1880s, but the reform forces could not be contained indefinitely. Initially, the Reformers enjoyed only modest electoral victories, primarily the Baltimore City Sheriff and several Baltimore City Council positions. But their momentum eventually grew into a full-fleged upset during the 1890s that brought many changes to state politics.
Society
The economic and political transformations discussed above reverberated throughout Maryland's social structure. Maryland experienced a dramatic increase in population over the decade of the 1880s as a result of both natural increase and immigration. Demographically, the population shifted from a primarily rural one in 1880 to a majority urban one in 1890, as a labor force displaced by the decline of agriculture and supplemented by foreign immigration followed the demand for workers to support the state's burgeoning manufacturing and industrial sectors.(Bruchey, "Industrialization of Maryland," in Walsh and Fox, eds., Maryland: A History, 396-397.)
With the rise of industry, the affluent moved away from the cities and their places were taken by factory workers. Unskilled and often uneducated workers crowded into inner city slums and tenement housing or factory barracks near processing plants, living in squalor and risking their lives with brutal machinery. In the aftermath of the B & O strike and riots of the late 1870s, workers continued their organizing attempts, and the Knights of Labor made significant gains early in the decade among the factory workers of Baltimore and the coal miners of Western Maryland. But the increased hiring of women and children at the lowest wages and the use of immigrants as strike-breakers undermined the K of L, and the use of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act against unions kept labor organizations weak and disorganized during these formative years. In rural areas, farmers struggling to make a profit in the changing economy joined forces in the National Grange, which was especially strong on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The organizing activities of the laborers and farmers provided ample evidence of the strong undercurrents of social and economic discontent in Maryland during the 1880s, and eventually exploded into the populist movements of the 1890s that brought significant reforms to the state.(Brugger, Maryland: A Middle Temperament, 345-348.)
Meanwhile, the oyster boom sparked a mad scramble for crews to work the dredgers, which was difficult, back-breaking work. As the word spread among local workers and labor became scarce, dredger captains and their agents took to combing the docks of Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York for newly-arrived immigrants to man the boats, promising high wages and fine working conditions. In times of desperation, agents simply kidnapped potential crewmen. On board ship, the crew members suffered from exposure and severe overwork, were generally held captive during the dredging season to prevent them from jumping ship, and were often cheated out of their season's wages before finally being released. Many died or were murdered, their bodies dumped overboard or buried in shallow graves along the shore. The gruesome murder of a German immigrant in 1884 brought these shameful conditions to public awareness, and brought the Maryland German Society and Baltimore's Hibernian Society into a prolonged stuggle with oystermen to protect German and Irish immigrants on the Bay.(Wennersten, Oyster Wars, 55-61.)
The Comptroller's Office
Although slow to respond to Maryland's economic, political and societal changes, the state's governmental apparatus eventually did lumber into action to meet the new circumstances. Because it was one of the highest ranking positions in the state government, the Comptroller's office found its role and responsibilities expanding to meet new challenges and opportunities.
The Annual Reports of the Comptroller's Office for the 1880s show a decade-long struggle to extricate the state from its ill-fated investments in "works of internal improvements." Of particular concern were the state's unproductive investments in canal operations, namely, the C & O Canal and the Susquehanna and Tide Water Canal. In 1884, the year Comptroller Turner took office, the State's claims (including bonds and unpaid interest) against the C & O Canal totalled more than $24.5 million, with another $1.4 million against the Susquehanna and Tide Water Canal. (Comptroller of the Treasury, Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Treasury Department for the Fiscal year Ended September 30, 1884 to the Governor of Maryland (Annapolis, MD: "Maryland Republican" Steam Press, 1884), 11.) Although Comptroller Turner tried to put the best possible face on the situation--welcoming the "active and energetic" new president of the C & O and hoping that the Pennsylvania and Reading Rail Road (the lessee of the Susquehanna and Tide Water Canal) would soon rebound from its financial difficulties--he did not foresee a speedy return to profitability for either entity. In fact, Turner struggled with the fate of both canals throughout his tenure as Comptroller, having to fend off the attempts of frustrated bondholders to force a sale of the C & O and engaging in ultimately fruitless negotiations with the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad to try to reach a settlement on defaulted interest payments on the Susquehanna and Tide Water. (Comptroller of the Treasury, Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Treasury Department for the Fiscal year Ended September 30, 1887 to the General Assembly of Maryland (Easton, MD: Easton Star Steam Press, 1888), p. 7-10.)
Turner and his fellow Comptrollers of the 1880s had much greater success in reducing the state's indebtedness during the decade. In particular, Turner worked diligently throughout his four-year tenure to refinance the debt by retiring maturing state bonds that carried a 6 percent interest and reissuing in their place bonds carrying a 3 1/2 percent interest, and he invested the additional funds in the Treasury in the state's general Sinking Funds. By reducing the debt and shoring up the sinking funds, Turner hoped to pave the way for the eventual elimination of direct taxes that had been levied on Maryland citizens specifically to pay the state's debts. (Comptroller of the Treasury, Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Treasury Department for the Fiscal year Ended September 30, 1886 to the Governor of Maryland (Annapolis, MD: Daily and Weekly Republican Steam Press, 1887), 20-21.) In another move that may have been politically as well as financially motivated, Turner, who was politically allied with Gorman, urged the General Assembly in his 1885 Annual Report to raise the tax rate on railroad property in the state to place a more proportionate tax burden on the railroads. Of the $46,489.76 in state taxes paid by the railroads that year, more than half was paid by the B & O Railroad, Gorman's staunch opponent and the entity that would shoulder the bulk of the tax burden if Turner's suggestion had been enacted.(Comptroller of the Treasury, Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Treasury Department for the Fiscal year Ended September 30, 1885 to the Governor of Maryland (Annapolis, MD: "Maryland Republican" Steam Press, 1885), 14-15, 31.)
The Comptroller also became embroiled in the Oyster Wars of the 1880s both in his role as the state's fiscal officer and as a member of the Board of Public Works having supervision over the state's Fisheries Fleet. As Commissioners of the State Fishery Force, members of the Board of Public Works had responsibility for maintaining the fleet, including authorizing repairs as necessary, writing contracts for new boats, ordering equipment for the boats, selling old boats, and periodically inspecting the fleet. Their responsibilities also extended to personnel actions including appointing a commander and deputy commanders, hearing charges brought against officers, and
hiring men to guard seized oyster boats. (Wilner, Alan M. The Maryland Board of Public Works: A History (Annapolis: The Hall of Records Commission, 1984), 66-68.) As Comptroller, Turner oversaw the necessary expenditures to carry out the state's duties, including the purchase of two new schooners for the fleet in 1884 and the annual payment of the officers and crew. (Comptroller, Annual Reports, 1884-1887.)
The Board's personnel responsibilities did not go unnoticed by the Democratic party bosses, and the Oyster Navy soon became a patronage plum. By the mid-1880s, a good many of the oyster police were interested only in the pay; many captains simply retreated when confronted by oyster pirates. With an ineffectual police force, the Bay's waters were largely left to the warring watermen until the Oyster Navy was revitalized by General Joseph Seth in 1888. (Wennersten, Oyster Wars, 50-51, 70.) Meanwhile, the cost of the police force was straining the state treasury. An act passed by the 1884 session of the General Assembly requiring the purchase of licenses for carrying oysters over state waters had contributed enough money to defray the costs of the Oyster Navy, but when that act was declared unconstitutional by the courts and license fees had to be refunded, the chronic underfunding of the Navy by the legislature began to show. Comptroller Turner repeatedly called for the legislature either to reduce the expensive police force or provide increased funds to pay for it. In response, the 1886 legislature passed a new Oyster Law retaining the previous police force but providing even lower revenues than under the old law, which Turner estimated would result in a shortfall of at least $20,000 per year. The Comptroller could only hope that "...the Board of Public Works will devise some plan by which the expenditures for the fiscal year 1887 shall be kept within current revenues from this source." (Comptroller, Annual Report 1886, 8.)
Thus the decade of the 1880s saw increasing fiscal responsibility and professionalism within the Comptroller's office at the same time the state's financial activities were becoming increasingly complex. In an uncertain economy, the Comptroller managed to reduce the state's debt, exchanging high-interest bearing state bonds for lower-interest bearing ones while increasing investments in the sinking funds designed to pay for the debt. As a member of the Board of Public Works, the Comptroller exercised increasing responsibility in the management of state properties and in the hiring and management of state personnel. While undoubtedly caught up in the political maneuverings of the period, the individuals holding the office during the 1880s appeared to discharge their duties with integrity and in the best interests of the state.
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