Party Games : Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics.
Title:
Party Games : Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics.
Author:
Summers, Mark Wahlgren.
ISBN:
9780807863756
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (368 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface. The Dog That Didn't Bark at Night -- Notes -- Part I. Our Friend the Enemy -- 1. A Typical Year -- Notes -- 2. What Else Could He Have Put into H--l? -- Notes -- 3. Politics Is Only War without the Bayonets -- Notes -- 4. The Demon Lovers -- Notes -- Part II. Party Tricks -- 5. The Press of Public Business -- Notes -- 6. The Best Majority Money Can Buy -- Notes -- 7. An Eye on the Maine Chance -- Notes -- 8. Anything, Lord, but Milwaukee!: Malapportionment and Gerrymandering -- Notes -- Part III. Policy-The Golden Rule? -- 9. Purse'n'All Influence -- Notes -- 10. The (Round) House of Legislation -- Notes -- 11. Class Warfare, Mainstream-Party Style -- Notes -- Part IV. Rounding off the Two and a Half Party System -- 12. The Treason of the Ineffectuals -- Notes -- 13. A Little Knight Music -- Notes -- 14. The Fix Is In -- Notes -- 15. Dishing the Pops -- Notes -- Coda. Parties to a Conspiracy -- Notes -- Notes -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Index -- A-B -- C-E -- F-G -- H-L -- M-N -- O-R -- S-V -- W-Y.
Abstract:
Much of late-nineteenth-century American politics was parade and pageant. Voters crowded the polls, and their votes made a real difference on policy. In Party Games, Mark Wahlgren Summers tells the full story and admires much of the political carnival, but he adds a cautionary note about the dark recesses: vote-buying, election-rigging, blackguarding, news suppression, and violence. Summers also points out that hardball politics and third-party challenges helped make the parties more responsive. Ballyhoo did not replace government action. In order to maintain power, major parties not only rigged the system but also gave dissidents part of what they wanted. The persistence of a two-party system, Summers concludes, resulted from its adaptability, as well as its ruthlessness. Even the reform of political abuses was shaped to fit the needs of the real owners of the political system--the politicians themselves.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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