Photo of Benjamin Harrison. Source: Library of Congress

This article is a part of our series From Lighthouses to Electric Chargers: A Presidential Series on Transportation Innovations 

In 1888, a former U.S. senator from Indiana, Benjamin Harrison, defeated the incumbent president, Grover Cleveland, the same man he would lose to four years later. The election was one of only five times in U.S. history when the winner of the Electoral College did not align with the popular vote. Most recently, this occurred with the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016.  

Harrison, a Republican, might have won the popular vote if Southern Democrats had not been suppressing the Black vote by changing voter registration laws and instituting poll taxes. At the time, Blacks were mostly Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln. 

Tariffs were the main election issue in the 1888 election. Republicans had supported high tariffs on imported foreign goods to encourage industrialization and raise revenue. The Democrats represented more agrarian interests and promoted lower tariffs and cheaper imports. Benjamin Harrison was not an advocate for free trade; instead, he supported what was considered a populist position, advocating for higher tariffs that were popular with factory owners and their workers.  

Map depicting 1888 electoral votes for each candidate. Harrison in red and Cleveland in blue.

Harrison tried to pass civil rights legislation. As senator and president, he supported federal funding for public education, specifically in the South. While the literacy rate for White people born in the U.S. was about 94 percent in 1890, most Black Americans were unable to read or write. The disparity was greatest in the South. For example, only 30 percent of Blacks in Georgia were literate and the percentage was even lower in Louisiana. 

Harrison also endorsed a bill that would have empowered the federal government to regulate elections to the U.S. House of Representatives, as a way to overcome the poll taxes and literacy tests that were suppressing Black voters in the South. He also supported legislation that would have prohibited private individuals and businesses from discriminating against Black Americans. But, he was unable to get necessary Congressional support for any of these education and civil rights initiatives.  

Maritime transportation

On the transportation front, Harrison designated Ellis Island in New York as the first federal immigration station. Prior to 1890, individual states, rather than the federal government, regulated immigration into the country. Ellis Island became the entrance way for a majority of the immigrants entering the U.S. over the next 60 years, processing upwards of 12 million people. 

Photo of Ellis Island Immigrant Station in the 1890s.

Thanks to steamships, the number of immigrants was soaring. In 1870, the population of the U.S. had been less than 39 million people. But over the next 30 years, the nation welcomed nearly 12 million immigrants and the population increased to more than 76 million. Immigrants often settled near ports of entry in communities established by previous settlers from their homelands. However, many found their way inland attracted by jobs and land for farming.  

The steamship had made transportation to America faster, safer, more reliable and less expensive. The number of deaths aboard ships plummeted because voyage time dropped from a minimum of five or six weeks to less than two weeks. Shorter trips also encouraged families to leave from many more European countries (such as Italy) and motivated young men to migrate to America on a temporary basis. 

During his presidency, Harrison advocated for the creation of a Central American canal in Nicaragua because it would facilitate the movement of goods and people between the east and west coasts, as well as open new trade routes, develop new fishing industries, and reduce transportation costs. Sailing time from New York to San Francisco was expected to be ten days shorter by a Nicaragua Canal than a Panama Canal. 

Map by Kaidor showing various Nicaragua Canal routes proposed over the centuries along with the Panama Canal.

However, Harrison’s efforts to secure a canal concession in Nicaragua faced significant challenges. His respect for Nicaragua’s sovereignty, and the complexities of negotiating such an ambitious project meant that an agreement could not be finalized. While the Nicaraguan Canal was initially seen as a preferable option, its higher cost and geological risks led to a shift in focus. Nine years after Harrison left office, the U.S. ultimately acquired the rights to the Panama Canal project from a French company. 

Railroad safety

Harrison also perhaps had a bigger impact on railroad safety than any other President. In the late 1880s, railroading was a dangerous job. Coupling, or joining two cars together, involved one man holding a steel ring the size of a large watermelon between two cars as they slowly backed towards each other, until they were so close that a second man could drive a steel pin through the frame of each car and through the coupler. Each year, almost one in 20 trainmen working in coupling cars lost a finger or a limb, and around one in 600 lost their life. The makers of artificial limbs took out newspaper advertisements aimed at the railroad industry, for it was that notorious at maiming.

Life was even worse for railroad brakemen, because the brakes on every car save the locomotive had to be manually activated on top of the car. Brakemen would climb to the top, turn the brakewheel, then run down the top of car to turn the next car’s wheel, and the next, at speed, in the elements, while dodging low-hanging obstructions. Needless to say, the death rate for brakemen was high.

The Supreme Court had held, in an 1886 decision, that regulation of interstate railroad rates “must be, if established at all, of a general and national character, and cannot be safely and wisely remitted to local rules and local regulations.” This broke a legislative logjam and led to Congressional enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, regulating railroad rates and service – but not safety. (The railroads had also figured out that, if regulation was inevitable, it would be better to deal with one regulator than many, an attitude that has also shown up in other fields of interstate commerce.)

Meanwhile, just after the 1886 court decision, the New York Board of Railroad Commissioners noted, “…Congress has already prescribed rules for the inspection of hulls and boilers of steamships, for the examination of engineers as to their competency…and for many similar things to insure the safety of travel by water. It would seem that the same power could and should be exercised to insure safety in the operation of railroads.”

By 1888, the annual convention of state railroad commissioners had unanimously petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to find out what could be done to federally regulate railroad car coupling and braking systems. In December 1889 President Harrison asked Congress in his first annual address for a law to improve rail safety appliances, saying “It is a reproach to our civilization that any class of American workmen should in the pursuit of a necessary and useful vocation be subjected to a peril of life and limb as great as that of a soldier in time of war.”

Harrison reiterated this request in his second annual message, but despite numerous bills being introduced in Congress, with his Republican party in the majority, nothing was done. He asked again in December 1891, again drawing an analogy with earlier maritime safety regulation: “The Government is spending nearly $1,000,000 annually to save the lives of shipwrecked seamen; every steam vessel is rigidly inspected and required to adopt the most approved safety appliances. All this is good. But how shall we excuse the lack of interest and effort in behalf of this army of brave young men who in our land commerce are being sacrificed every year by the continued use of antiquated and dangerous appliances?”

The following summer, in 1892, both the Republican and Democratic party platforms called for Congressional legislation to protect rail worker safety. By July 1892, the House had passed a bill requiring automatic car couplers and air brakes, and the House report cited the unanimous support of the state railroad commissioners and a fiscal year 1889 death total of over 2,000 rail workers killed and 20,000 injured. The Senate came along with a similar version of the bill in February 1893, and President Harrison was able to sign the Safety Appliance Act into law on March 2, 1893, his last full day in office.

That law provided that, after a five-year transition period, all trains engaged in interstate commerce had to have power brakes on enough cars to stop a train, all-automatic couplers, and grab bars for brakemen. The Safety Appliance Act (and two clarifying enforcement acts) did more than anything else, before or since, to make railroading a safe occupation. (The automatic couplers and Westinghouse air brakes mandated in 1893 are still in use today, generally speaking.)

Conclusion

President Benjamin Harrison’s tenure was marked by contrasts. His election, secured through a strategy emphasizing metropolitan support and industrial protection, did not align with the popular vote and was marred by voter suppression. His presidency included efforts to safeguard civil rights, though these were largely unsuccessful, and with the notable exception of railroad safety, his transportation policies lacked significant impact. While his efforts had moments of promise, they often fell short of delivering meaningful change, earning him the title of an unpopular populist. 

Edward Huynh is pursuing a master’s degree in urban planning from San Jose State University, and he is interested in transportation planning and community development.