American History 1800-1900

The year is 1874 and as chief advisor to President Grant , I have my work cut out for me . It is well known among the Washington crowd that success has not come easily to Grant regarding anything outside of the military He drinks too much , has bouts of melancholy and is too trusting . How he became to trust Gould and Fisk as they tried to corner the gold market is something that has caused every one of his staffers to shake their heads . The people gave us a second term but I cant help

but feel that that it was based on his war record during the Civil War and not anything that he has done while in office . There is a downturn on Wall Street that has the financial district in New York in a panic , the differences between rich and poor are getting greater than ever , the South is resisting and the North is getting tired of Reconstruction and children are forced to work 60 hours a week when they should be in school . It has become my responsibility , because frankly , I do not see President Grant doing this on his own , in turning this administration around quickly in the time that we have left or else this administration will go down as one of the worst in American history (Tolson , 2007

There is a problem in this country concerning urbanization . The cities are becoming increasingly crowded . This is especially true in both Chicago and to an alarming degree , New York City . The financial downturn which is now being called the Panic of 1873 , has stretched out into 1874 and there is no sign that it will slow down (Burns , 1999 ) Some experts including J .P . Morgan , say that this could last for another year or two Factories are shutting down and at the same time , there seems to be no shortage or immigrants coming into the country by way of New York City New York City has a population of over one million people and there seems to be no room for it to grow (Burns 1999 ) There is a great deal of the cities population within both Chicago and New York that are very poor and living on the brink or starvation . I have suggested to President Grant that New York and Chicago be encouraged to form more aid societies since the ones already in place are overwhelmed with the number of applicants for their services . This seems to be an uphill battle at this time since it is the belief among the rich and upper middle class that one is poor solely because of their choices that they made in life coupled with the Darwinian belief that it is nature 's way of breeding out the poor and indigent . The suggestion towards government intervention is laughed at and the politicians do not seem interested in doing anything about it . The lone exception would be Tammany Hall in New York City and its leader William Tweed...