Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Parties, Presidential Elections, and Regulatory Choice – A Party System Perspective
- 2 Swing States, Business Mugwumps, and the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
- 3 The Progressive Party Vote and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914
- 4 Progressive Republicans and the “Death Sentence” for Public Utility Holding Companies During America's Second New Deal
- 5 Conclusion: Parties and the American Regulatory State
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Swing States, Business Mugwumps, and the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Parties, Presidential Elections, and Regulatory Choice – A Party System Perspective
- 2 Swing States, Business Mugwumps, and the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
- 3 The Progressive Party Vote and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914
- 4 Progressive Republicans and the “Death Sentence” for Public Utility Holding Companies During America's Second New Deal
- 5 Conclusion: Parties and the American Regulatory State
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
For more than twelve years past the balance of power in the State of New York has been held by a large unattached vote, which belongs to neither political organization. We have in the State, probably 600,000 voters who will vote for the Democratic party nominee whom you may nominate. We have about 580,000 voters who will vote the Republican ticket under any and all circumstances. Now, outside of both these organizations there are a hundred thousand men in the State of New York who do not care a snap of their finger whether the Republican party or the Democratic party, as such, shall carry the election. They vote in every election according to the issues and the candidates presented. These men absolutely hold the control of the politics of New York in their hands. They are the balance of power. You must have their votes or you cannot win.
Excerpt from address seconding the nomination of Grover, Cleveland for 1884 Democratic presidential nominee[The contrasting approaches of Samuel S. Cox and Abraham Hewitt on the subject of railroad regulation] disclose the conflicting tendencies at work in the bosom of the Democratic party. Mr. Cox may, we suppose, without disrespect be regarded as representing the unthinking mass of the party… His speeches … seem to express… the feeling of the rank and file of his party … That feeling is that the railways are grinding monopolies, and that they can be regulated in the minutest particular by congress. … […]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Presidents, Parties, and the StateA Party System Perspective on Democratic Regulatory Choice, 1884–1936, pp. 36 - 122Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000