1872

 

College football begins to “take hold.” A five-game season includes teams from Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers, Stevens Tech and Yale.

 

Final standings show Princeton and Yale tied for the championship at 1-0. Rutgers finishes 1-1-1. Columbia plays in four of five games, finishing 1-2-1. Stevens Tech goes 0-1.

A Yale football team of this era.

 

*

 

The common carp begins to take hold, as well. As the National Parks Service explains, the fish had been farmed for many years in Germany. The move to bring the species to America began in the early 1800s; but it took off in the 1870s.

 

Julius A. Poppe was one of the most successful, expanding a stock of five common carp imported from Germany in 1872 into a thriving California farm by 1876. Fielding orders from throughout the country, he actively began to lobby for national cultivation of the hearty fish:

There ought to be one person in every county who would raise choice carp as stock fish to sell to others to fatten for their own tables. It would be a cheap but sumptuous food and at the same time very convenient, as they are ready to be eaten at all times of the year.

 

Faced with such public pressure to make carp more widely available and the worrisome decline of native fish stocks after a century of intense exploitation, the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries began an intensive effort of carp cultivation in 1877. Subsequent efforts by state Fish Commissions had introduced the carp to many area waters by 1883, and the fish’s remarkable ability to live and reproduce in most every water condition allowed it to quickly infiltrate others.

 

*

“One would suppose him a leper.”

In Congress, Rep. Joseph Hayne Rainey, rises to speak, after a white colleague expresses his opposition to integrated schools. 

Rep. Rainey responded in remarks on the treatment of the former slaves and now their children: 

Now, since he is no longer a slave, one would suppose him a leper, to hear the objections expressed against his equality before the law. Sir, this is the remnant of the old pro-slavery spirit, which must eventually give place to more humane and elevating ideas. Schools have been mixed in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and other States, and no detriment has occurred. Why this fear of competition with a negro? All they ask for is an equal chance in life, with equal advantages, and they will prove themselves to be worthy American citizens.

 

He later objected to a bill to prohibit Chinese laborers from working on a federally funded project in San Francisco, explaining: 

They come here and are willing to work and assist in the development of the country. I say that the Chinaman, the Indian, the negro, and the white man should all occupy an equal footing under this Government; should be accorded equal right to make their livelihood and establish their manhood.

Anti-Chinese immigrant sentiment ran strong during this era.

 *

“A charge of bribery of members is the gravest that can be made.”

September 4: The website for the history of the U.S. House of Representatives writes: 

On this date, the New York Sun exposed the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Crédit Mobilier was a sham construction company chartered to build the Union Pacific Railroad by financing it with unmarketable bonds. It also provided a mechanism to dispense the immense profits from building the railroad to the board of directors and its shareholders. A few years earlier, one of the chief participants, Representative Oakes Ames of Massachusetts, had sold shares at bargain rates to roughly a dozen high-ranking House colleagues, including Schuyler Colfax, then-Speaker of the House (who, by 1872, was the sitting Vice President), in order to secure political clout to benefit the company. Most of the Members got rid of their stock quickly, nullifying the large returns they could have received. However, Representative James Brooks of New York (who also a government director for the Union Pacific) profited from a large block of shares. 

 

Speaker James G. Blaine of Maine notes: “A charge of bribery of members is the gravest that can be made in a legislative body. It seems to me…that this charge demands prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation.” 

A special committee is created to look into the scandal. Both Ames and Brooks were ultimately recommended for expulsion, but the two men were not ousted. As Benjamin Andrews explains, “Shadows of varying density fell upon many prominent politicians and darkened their subsequent careers.” (IV, 224)

 

* 

Horace Greeley runs for president in a contest against incumbent Ulysses S. Grant. Andrews writes, 

Speaking for years through the New York Tribune, Mr. Greeley had won, in a remarkable degree, the respect and even the affection of the country. His offer to give bail for Jefferson Davis in his imprisonment, and his stanch advocacy of mercy to all who had engaged in secession, so soon as they had grounded arms, made him hosts of friends even in the South. He took the stump himself, making the tour of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and crowds of Republicans came to see and hear their former champion. (IV, 205)

* 

With Grant up for reelection, even Republicans were less than enthusiastic. Said one: 

Pitiful as it is to be compelled to choose one of two evidently unfit persons for the highest office in the nation, our preference would be for General Grant…though of proved incapacity in civil government, he is still believed to be honest, cautious and steady, with a reserve of intellectual power and moral purpose which, in any coming crisis of our affairs, might be an invaluable aid to the country.

 

The president was, admitted the same writer, “barren of ideas.” (11/73)