William L. Ketchersid

The Gilded Age Presidency Reconsidered William L. Ketchersid

The Gilded Age Presidency Reconsidered is are visionist account in which the author examines the leadership of Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester Arthur, and Grover Cleveland in dealing with Civil service reform, economic problems such as the tariff, and civil rights in the South. This work is limited to domestic affairs only, since the author believes that is the area in which these president accomplished much needed change. The work challenges the traditional view that Congress dominated these weak chief executives who hardly protested its actions. Nothing could be farther from reality. By taking the actions they did, these presidents not only helped solve immediate problems for the nation, but they also paved the way for a significant growth of the president as a leader of the nation in the years ahead. Without the foundations of these daring men, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson would have encountered many more difficulties in expanding the scope of presidential power in the early twentieth century.