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Lot 81
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James Garfield Personally Owned Book from The Salary Grab Act, 1874 Showing the Detailed Increases Sheparded in by Garfield- with his Personal Bookplate!
James Garfield Personally Owned Book from The Salary Grab Act, 1874 Showing the Detailed Increases Sheparded in by Garfield- with his Personal Bookplate!
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Description:

Garfield James

James Garfield Personally Owned Spectacular Book from The Salary Grab Act, 1874 Showing the Detailed Increases Sheparded in by Garfield- with his Personal Bookplate!

 

The Support of the Government, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1874. Treasury Department- Warrant Division Made by The Third Session of the Forty-Second Congress and on Account of Permanent and Indefinite Appropriations. 9.5" x 12"  highly decorative bound book. Quarter leather spine with leather corners, and paper boards with decorative faux marbled silk design, which repeats along the entire outer page block. James Garfield's personal bookplate affixed to the front paste down, and a second bookplate affixed to the front fly of Chas. F. Conant, chief of the warrants division. Near fine with slight rubbing.

 

Includes detailing accounting of the expenses and salaries of all governmental positions. Extremely apropos as the book was personally owned by Garfield who was responsible, as Appropriations Committee chairman, for shepherding the legislative appropriations bill called "Salary Grab Act" through the House; during the debate in February 1873. This "Act" would cause riots in the streets today, and even then caused public outcry. This unprecedented event is shown as pushing through 50% pay increases to all members of Congress in 1873, retroactively to 1871. And in addition doubled the salary of the President to $50,000 (which can be seen in this book as the Presidential salary).

 

Representative Benjamin Butler offered the increase as an amendment, and despite Garfield's opposition, it passed the House and eventually became law. The law was very popular in the House, as almost half the members were lame ducks, but the public was outraged, and many of Garfield's constituents blamed him, though he refused to accept the increase. In what was a bad year for Republicans, who lost control of the House for the first time since the Civil War, Garfield had his closest congressional election, winning with only 57 percent of the vote.

 

This bizarre legislative event is shown in more detail below:

On February 24, 1873, Butler attached a rider to an appropriations bill that gave all federal employees a substantial pay raise.  Salaries for civil servants were low compared to jobs in the private sector, and Congress had not increased its own salaries since 1866.  Moreover, President Ulysses S. Grant earned the same paycheck that President George Washington had, although it provided less buying power for the sitting president because of inflation.  Pay hikes for public officials traditionally prompt some complaints from the press and public, but this one set off a firestorm.  

 

The crux of the problem was that in passing the measure the 42nd Congress made it retroactive to the start of their term in office.  Adding to the furor was its inopportune timing.  Rumors and revelations of government scandals were pervasive, particularly concerning the Credit Mobilier affair, so the press and public tended to respond with cries of "corruption!"  Others charged the Republican-controlled Congress with hypocrisy since the Party's candidates had run on a platform of government economy the previous fall.

 

The House bandied the proposal back and forth, approving it, rescinding it, and approving it again.  Finally, the measure passed both houses in early March 1873 and the president signed it into law.  A volcano of vitriol spewed forth upon its supporters.  Voters wrote nasty letters, editors slammed the Salary Grab, state legislatures passed resolutions of censure, and local conventions called for resignations.  Even someone like Congressman James Garfield, who opposed the bill on the House floor and in the House-Senate conference committee, was subjected to abuse for signing the committee's report.  (He was also implicated in the Credit Mobilier scandal.) The focal point of condemnation was Congressman Butler, the law's sponsor and, to the horror of the party establishment, a candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Massachusetts.  Instead of retreating on the issue, Butler snapped back at critics, ardently defended the pay increase, contemptuously sent carping constituents 3-cent stamps as their share of the loot, and brazenly used the money (which his more timid colleagues had returned) for an ocean cruise.

 

In the fall, Butler lost the governor's race and the Republicans suffered substantial losses in the state elections of Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin.  Many issues were involved in the political turnaround, including the Panic of '73 that soon slid into a full-fledge economic depression.  The Salary Grab scandal, however, was a key topic of debate in all the campaigns and had clearly been one factor in the election results.  In December, congressmen fell over each other to introduce bills to repeal the salary increase, and both houses quickly passed such a measure.

 

****Oddly enough however, this book clearly shows that some or all of the "Salary Grab Act" was not rescinded, as the salary of the President in 1874 is listed as $50,000 with a reference to the appropriated: "act March 3, 1873," which was the salary mandated for the President in the "Salary Grab Act" So this book tells another story … 


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