Adam Taylor

                                                                                                            Per. 2 AP US History

                                                                                                            1-16-05

                                                                                                            8.1

The Gilded Age

            During the Gilded Age, the national government faced and solved a great deal of problems of political corruption. The main thing was that politicians were starting to look  for ways to get rich and join the Millionaires Club. They stopped looking and working for the well-being of the people who elected them to that office. Instead they looked to helping out the business that they had stock in, to boost that stock. Things would have to change and that is just what would happen, when policies such as the Civil Service reforms that were being put in place to combat the political corruption.

            While Rutherford B. Hayes was in office he pushed for a great deal of enforcement of Civil Service reform. He had main points that he wanted to get in place, and did get them into place. For starters no more nepotism, which was how a lot of government officials were getting their positions. They would get a friend, or a family member to get them into a government position to pay off a favor, a lot of times. Meaning a complete untrained, unqualified person was running things in the government. Thus leading to another part of the reforms. Political positions were now having new standards, to get hired the person had to pass qualification tests. They had to be fit, and trained in the fields relating to their job. So no more getting hired in return for a favor, but getting hired because you are qualified for the position.

             Another new policy was put into place, that said that people in political position had to act right   By this President Hayes meant that a person in a political position had to act for what the people want and do what they would like to have done. Not to act under the influence of the trusts, or under the idea that they could vote yes or no on something that would strengthen a trust they own stock in, do it because they accepted a bribe from some trust. So when a political went corrupt even in his private life, and was accepting bribes, or letting money corrupt him and change his mind to do what the trust wanted that politician would be removed. This would in turn start getting at members of the Congress that were dubbed to be members of the Millionaire Club, because so many of them were millionaires, because of their corrupted acts. Some how though President Hayes in his first year removed the least amount of people from government positions since John Quincy Adams. Nevertheless now, things were starting to shape up, and fly right, the right kind of people were being searched to do the jobs that once were filled by complete political corruption. 

            A new tool would be deployed to combat against the political corruption of the Gilded Age, the voters. The voters, also known as the people of America, were the ones that were suffering from the affects of the trusts getting bigger and stronger, due to the actions of corrupted government figures, that had somehow gotten to office. Well the people were feed up with it, and so voting started to become the way that they could combat the corruptness of the government. By getting people elected that they supported and knew would do what they wanted, and not what was in personal interest of wealth. This was a powerful tool because it would expose the corruption, and start putting a end to it. The people elected for example President Hayes, and he did what they wanted, started to put an end to the corruption. Put in policies that halted the corruption from even starting, and getting rid of the corruption was already in the government. The people would with the vote be the cause to the end of the wild political corruption in the Gilded Age.