Benjamin Harrison

This article is about the President. For the Angband member, see Angband (game)

Presidency

Harrison was elected President of the United States in 1888. In the Presidential election, Harrison received 100,000 fewer popular votes than Cleveland, but carried the Electoral College 233 to 168. Although Harrison had made no political bargains, his supporters had given innumerable pledges upon his behalf. When Boss Matt Quay of Pennsylvania heard that Harrison ascribed his narrow victory to Providence, Quay exclaimed that Harrison would never know "how close a number of men were compelled to approach...the penitentiary to make him President." He was inaugurated on March 4, 1889, and served until March 3, 1893. Harrison was also known as the "centennial president" because his inauguration was the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington.

Related Topics:
1888 - Electoral College - Matt Quay - Pennsylvania - March 4 - 1889 - March 3 - 1893 - George Washington

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Harrison was proud of the vigorous foreign policy which he helped shape. The first Pan-American Congress met in Washington, D.C. in 1889, establishing an information center which later became the Pan American Union. At the end of his administration, Harrison submitted to the Senate a treaty to annex Hawaii; to his disappointment, President Cleveland later withdrew it.

Related Topics:
Pan-American Congress - Washington, D.C. - Pan American Union - Hawaii

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Substantial appropriation bills were signed by Harrison for internal improvements, naval expansion, and subsidies for steamship lines. For the first time except in war, Congress appropriated a billion dollars. When critics attacked "the billion-dollar Congress," Speaker Thomas B. Reed replied, "This is a billion-dollar country." President Harrison also signed the Sherman Antitrust Act "to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies," the first Federal act attempting to regulate trusts.

Related Topics:
Subsidies - Steamship - The billion-dollar Congress - Thomas B. Reed - Sherman Antitrust Act - Trade - Commerce - Monopolies - Trusts

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The most perplexing domestic problem Harrison faced was the tariff issue. The high tariff rates in effect had created a surplus of money in the Treasury. Low-tariff advocates argued that the surplus was hurting business. Republican leaders in Congress successfully met the challenge. Representative William McKinley and Senator Nelson W. Aldrich framed a still higher tariff bill; some rates were intentionally prohibitive.

Related Topics:
Tariff - William McKinley - Nelson W. Aldrich

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Harrison tried to make the tariff more acceptable by writing in reciprocity provisions. To cope with the Treasury surplus, the tariff was removed from imported raw sugar; sugar growers within the United States were given two cents a pound bounty on their production.

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Long before the end of the Harrison Administration, the Treasury surplus had evaporated, and prosperity seemed about to disappear as well. Congressional elections in 1890 went stingingly against the Republicans, and party leaders decided to abandon President Harrison although he had cooperated with Congress on party legislation. Nevertheless, his party renominated him in 1892, but he was defeated by Cleveland.

Related Topics:
1890 - 1892

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He served as an attorney for the Republic of Venezuela in the boundary dispute between Venezuela and the United Kingdom in 1900.

Related Topics:
Venezuela - United Kingdom - 1900

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After he left office, Harrison returned to Indianapolis, and married the widowed Mrs. Mary Dimmick in 1896 and fathered another daughter. Harrison developed the flu and a bad cold in February of 1901. Despite doses of antibiotics and steam vapor inhalation. Harrison's condition only worsened. Benjamin Harrison VI finally passed away from influenza and pneumonia on Wednesday, March 13, 1901 and is interred in Crown Hill Cemetery. The Benjamin Harrison Law School in Indianapolis, Indiana, was named in his honor. In 1944 Indiana University acquired the school and renamed it Indiana University School of Law Indianapolis.

Related Topics:
Mary Dimmick - 1896 - Influenza - Pneumonia - March 13 - 1901 - Crown Hill Cemetery - Benjamin Harrison Law School - Indianapolis - Indiana - 1944 - Indiana University - Indiana University School of Law Indianapolis

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Cabinet

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Supreme Court Appointments

Harrison appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

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• David Josiah Brewer - 1890
• Henry Billings Brown - 1891
• George Shiras, Jr. - 1892
• Howell Edmunds Jackson - 1893

Significant Events

• Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
• Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890)
• McKinley Tariff (1890)
• Ocala Demands (1890)
• Wounded Knee Massacre (1890)

States Admitted to the Union

• North Dakota – November 2, 1889
• South Dakota – November 2, 1889
• Montana – November 8, 1889
• Washington – November 11, 1889
• Idaho – July 3, 1890
• Wyoming – July 10, 1890