Cinco de Mayo

[KingSweden24]

"...Barings' fall brought with it the end of the easy credit of the 1880s across the Latin world. Brazil's economic bubble popped; Chile's nascent industrial revolution, fueled by saltpeter sales, suddenly found the spigot nearly dry; the cash crop heavy economy of Argentina plunged into depression, leading to a successful revolutionary uprising against the government by year's end, led by Leandro Alem and his Civic Union against the corrupt conservative government, with many soldiers eagerly joining the Revolution of 1890 in Buenos Aires [1]. Though Latin America would bounce back - cash crops and commodities desired in Europe were still lucrative, after all - the crash fundamentally changed the approach of governments and industry to lending, to dealing with public discontent, and began to breed even more radical revolutionary elements across the continent. For many, it was the case, that the crises of the 1890s were as much a liberal failure as a conservative hacendado one; the only answer was even more control devolved from capital to the people, perhaps even under the red banner of socialism..."

- The Lion in Latin America: Britain's Role in the Spanish New World

[1] The Revolution of the Park obviously having a very different end than OTL

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the distressed ironworker who shot at Custer in Cleveland, Eustace Miller, was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment rather than hung, ostensibly at the President's request. Nevertheless, having seen a visit to the city nearly turn into a riot by the unemployed and narrowly dodging a bullet fired at close range haunted Custer. These were supposed to be his people, the common working men and women of the industrial Midwest. Custer promptly returned to Washington and rode on his own horse everywhere he went in the city from then on, to prove that "the old soldier ain't licked yet." However, it was not lost on anyone that he often had accompaniment when he went riding, especially when Libby came along, typically three or four armed men also on horseback, with double-holster revolvers on their belts like Western gunslingers and sometimes even a rifle laid across their laps. At first, they were old veterans of Custer's "Wolverines," former cavalrymen who had served with him nearly 30 years prior or in the Indian Wars, as desperate for employment as others. Later, the small contingent of Wolverines who became the President's personal bodyguard included men of the rugged frontier, recruited for their infamy in the West. Congress was alarmed - the President had militarized the White House, they claimed, what with "a Praetorian Guard" at his disposal. After Cleveland, Custer would not leave Washington for six months, even when Congress was out of session; the crisis deepened and still he stayed, generally within the White House, as much as he could. Liberal publications mocked him as a coward hiding behind his guns, derisively asking "Where is the People's President?" It only furthered deepened his poor relationship with Hill, who took the opportunity to barnstorm the country to campaign for skittish Democrats as the 1890 elections loomed. Only in September did Custer finally reemerge from his isolation, now with between twelve to sixteen Wolverines with him at all times, paying the men out of his personal funds and book royalties to the point that Libby was worried his paranoia of assassination would bankrupt them..."

- The Wolverine in the White House: The Presidency of George Armstrong Custer at 100

 

[KingSweden24]

"...having left the reservation, David Black Cloud found poverty with the crash of 1890. Being a Native made it even harder for him to pursue work, and he lived on the streets of New York for many months, refused even a cot in a boarding house. But by autumn, his situation had improved, if only somewhat; he was working as a conductor on the railroad from Philadelphia to Washington, becoming ever more intrigued by the city's grand marble monuments. He was able to feed himself, clothe himself, and perhaps most importantly, buy a gun. Black Cloud feared for his life and wanted to defend himself, but in his diaries - written in English, but speaking of a desire to instead write in the Sioux language that was barely a memory from his dead mother reciting it to him as a boy - he also expressed a desire to kill, to earn some revenge for the hideous Missoula Massacre that had taken his mother and elder sisters when he was only a boy. The exact time of when Black Cloud began to ponder killing a prominent government figure is unclear, but it did not take long for him to set his sights on one in particular: the Butcher of Missoula himself, President George Armstrong Custer..."

- What Once Was Ours: The Legacy of the Indigenous Americans (University of Dakota, 2001)

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

Paranoid Custer?

Assassination attempt?

Bitter Native American who wants revenge?

Oh man, there is some historical poetic irony in all of this if Custer, as President, still ends up being killed by a Native American.

 

[KingSweden24]

"...seven years on, the Hot Summer was back - and nowhere was it worse than in Belgium, where ever-radicalized socialists who had been smarting under the crackdowns of the 1883 uprising and the emotional response to Leopold II's assassination two years prior erupted over spiking unemployment, shuttered banks and rumors of Brussels' wealthy hoarding money and food as the price of imports rose on the docks of Antwerp. The King's response was ruthless - the Garde Civique was unleashed on the rioters with bludgeons and rifles, tearing through crowds on horseback. Dozens were killed and "Bloody Brussels" intensified, with the socialists retreating en masse to the Jubelpark and fortifying their position with refuse and timber. Several ambushed the Gardes and after killing them stole their weapons, climbing atop the unfinished Arc de Cinquantenaire - still only wood with stone bases - to give themselves a position to fire upon the approaching Garde Civique and Belgian Army, tearing down the Belgian flag from its top for good measure and raising the red banner of revolution.

The events of Bloody Brussels polarized Belgian society as much across class as it did across language - the Francophile King gave an order to liquidate a mostly Walloon uprising, with primarily Flemish soldiers. But despite the actions, in which the Jubelpark was taken back with heavy casualties on both sides, and dozens arrested and hung over the next few days, Leopold III still looked south rather than inwards for his inspiration, still in hoc to his Francophilia in arts and education, thus leaving a wedge between himself and his Flemish subjects in the poorer north. The crackdown thus endeared him only to two bases of support - conservative rural Walloons, who detested socialists, and the aristocracy. But even there, Leopold III did not have full loyalty; even within his family, his position remained ever precarious. Despite having four children by Queen Marie Anne - the younger three all boys - Leopold lived in perpetual fear that his more popular cousin Baudouin or his respected uncle Philippe would use their connections in the government and popularity on the street to depose him, and their frequent critiques of his heavy-handed response during Bloody Brussels, his ever-escalating demands of the Congo Free State's economy or his desires to build upon his father's grandiose construction schemes only deepened his paranoia. It came to the point that he brusquely ignored them at the baptism of his newborn son Philippe and steered his namesake heir, Leopold the Duke of Brabant, away from his relatives when he tried to greet them; he also angrily forbade his sister Clementine from marrying Baudouin, as she had wished (though Baudouin was said not to have reciprocated her affections) and his condolences to the Count of Flanders and cousin upon the death from that year's terrible flu outbreak of Princess Henriette - Philippe's eldest daughter - were curt and perfunctory to the point of being brusque. They were not taken well amongst any of Philippe's other children [1]..."

- Belgique Rouge

[1] So Baudouin, who died of the Russian flu while visiting the sick Henriette, lives, while she dies, IOW, but still doesn't marry Clementine. Also, super minor retcon, but Philippe's daughter Josephine Marie doesn't die in infancy, so of his OTL kids, only Henriette has died.

 

[KingSweden24]

"...tragedy came to Madrid late in 1890 when Queen Antonia succumbed to the flu outbreak that struck every member of the royal family, and nearly claimed Prince Gilly as well. Leopold was devastated; his beloved wife taken from him far too early. For years, the King would be thoroughly morose, often slouching in private audiences rather than his straight-backed and noble posture he had previously been known for. The woman who had been his wife since she was but sixteen years of age was gone, and he was alone. It would take years for his sons to console him and help him ease his misery..."

- The German on the Spanish Throne: The Reign of Leopold I

 

[KingSweden24]

"...in an age before interventionist, stimulatory government spending had been mainstreamed beyond naval shipbuilding, there was little the Smith government could do. Angry mobs of unemployed roamed and were easily persuaded by opponents of the Tories; riots over food prices and shuttered factories erupted all the way into the fall. The minority government that sustained the Cabinet finally collapsed into infighting, and even Smith seemed resigned to his impending fate as the newly-returned Joseph Chamberlain barnstormed the country giving speeches and parties even more radical than the Liberals distributed literature..."

- When Barings Went Bankrupt: Understanding the Worst Financial Crisis in British History

 

[KingSweden24]

1890 United Kingdom general election

All 652 seats in Parliament up; 327 needed for a majority

Results

TOTAL (652):

Liberals: 337 (+69)
Conservatives: 224 (-69)
Irish Parliamentary: 81 (-6)
Independent Labour: 5 (+5)
Social Democratic Federation: 5 (+1)

--

Great Britain (551):

Liberals: 329 (+61)
Conservatives: 212 (-67)
Independent Labour: 5 (+5)
Social Democratic Federation: 5 (+1)

Ireland (101):

Liberals: 8 (+8)
Conservatives: 12 (-2)
IPP: 81 (-6)

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the 1890 elections were a watershed triumph; the return of a Liberal majority government after an interregnum of five years of a weak, passive Tory minority. Almost as soon as it was clear that the Liberal sweep extended not just beyond England but to Scotland and Wales (where the Tories were locked out again, like in 1878) but also Ireland, where the Liberals clawed back lost boroughs from the IPP, the infighting began. On the left flank of the party, Chamberlain and Dilke used their "shopkeeper accountants" at the NLF to calculate that in many boroughs, the SDF and candidates running as independents under a "Labour" banner had siphoned enough working class votes to keep the Tories from falling further, and in others the SDF-Labour split had been just enough to eek Liberals over the line (to say nothing of the SDF and Labour cannibalizing votes from each other, potentially growing their own Parliamentary bloc). The October elections were also used by the right flank of the party to suggest that it was really their leadership that had propelled the win. With the two wings of the Liberals staring one another down, though, Queen Victoria's choice was clear - Lord Spencer was recommended by Smith as the next Prime Minister, and despite her reservations about the political implications of appointing a peer to head a government in her name, the Queen nevertheless invited the Red Earl to Buckingham Palace on October 17 to kiss hands when her more politically astute son Arthur pointed out to her that Spencer was perhaps the only man who carried the respect of every corner of the Liberal Party.

The profound irony of a Tory government led from the Commons being replaced by a Liberal government led from the Lords was not lost on the British street, either, and the new government seemed hamstrung by its aristocratic appearance from the beginning (it is no accident that the Earl of Spencer remains the last peer to head a British government to this day). Nevertheless, despite a lukewarm reaction in Liberal-friendly press, Spencer set about appointing a government. Less egotistic and perhaps more astute than Harcourt before him, Spencer made sure to keep Chamberlain in the fold, appointing him Colonial Secretary after being enraptured by tales of his travels around the world. To the Foreign Office he appointed the Earl of Kimberley, and as Home Secretary he elevated Frederick Cavendish, all to keep Lord Hartington happy and sated (as for Hartington, within months his father would pass and he would be named the Earl of Devonshire - a fortuitous event, as it would allow Spencer to dispatch him to be Viceroy of India, and get him out of Westminster where he could have caused him trouble). As Chancellor, he gave the NLF another win, what with Charles Dilke given the appointment. Lord Ripon became Lord President, Harcourt - still leader of the Commons - returned to Cabinet as Secretary of War, and as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he named the Earl of Rosebery to serve alongside Chief Secretary Henry Campbell-Bannerman. It was a Cabinet of mixed personalities, a blend of peers and MPs, of Radicals and Old Whigs. Spencer thought he had created a good mix that would represent all corners of the party; but even Chamberlain could predict frictions on the horizon, many of them to be caused by him..."

- Chamberlain's Britain

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Malta's status as an island, which defended it in many ways, exacerbated the flu pandemic that struck it; small and dense, the flu spread rapidly. Why exactly Malta had one of the worst outbreaks of all of Europe is unclear, or why the second wave came so soon upon the heels of the first. Whatever was the case, the flu took Pope Leo XIII that autumn, leaving the Church headless and suddenly reeling as France and Austria pressured the cardinals to return to Rome even more aggressively. A schism was emerging within the Roman Curia and the "Maltese Court" regarding accepting the Leonine Compromise and moving forward, and the threat of dueling conclaves being called was a live one as Catholicism mourned the death of the diplomatic, forward-thinking Leo..."

- Cross and Crown: The Legacy of the Papacy in the Time of the Nation State

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the hotbed of labor activism in the United States had shifted, perhaps perplexingly, from the industrial centers that had powered the Strikeout Summer to the West. Even as the Panic of 1890 put thousands out of work and led to one of the sharpest and deepest (but counterintuitively also shortest) depressions in American history, the Knights of Labor found that persuasive organizing by skill and trade by the AFL was outflanking them on the right and more radical outfits in the cities were hitting them from the left. Where they still commanded rapt attention, though, was across the West - there, state militias and city police forces were much weaker, and employers had to rely on Pinkertons to enforce order. Mining and lumber camps became the new breeding ground for an ever-radical KoL; wildcat strikes erupted across Colorado in July of 1890, followed by the "Red Autumn" in Nevada, New Mexico, and the Montana and Idaho territories. The "Silver Strikes," "Lumber Lockouts" and "Coal Closures" grabbed the attention of the nascent Western press, both in condemnation and support. That the strikers barred Chinese strikebreakers from entering the mines, often with lethal violence, further endeared them to the fiercely nativist Western street. The increasingly violent strikes, in which Pinkertons, hired mercenaries and state militiamen openly brawled with miners and sometimes got in massive shootouts, came to define the rugged West of the 1890s depression and drew little but muted condemnation from Washington, where President Custer was increasingly leery of doing anything that might agitate his working class base in the face of the growing influence of the People's Party of James Weaver and even some socialists organizing in Pennsylvania and Ohio factories..."

- Brothers in Arms: Trade Unionism in the United States

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the Conclave Crisis erupted when a conclave was called in Rome just as the Maltese Court began to gather at Malta to hold their own conclave. The crisis seemed at first so severe that it could result in the election of dueling popes, who would excommunicate one another, render one an Antipope and perhaps even cause another schism. Such fears quieted fast as the Roman Conclave acted swiftly to elect Cardinal Mariano Rampolla [1] on only the second ballot; news arrived quickly in Malta that the new Pius X gave his first prayer as Pope facing into St Peters rather than at the crowd gathered outside, a crowd featuring a substantial number of Italian soldiers. The Roman Question thus remained unsettled, the Leonine Compromise unendorsed. Pius X declared in a papal nuncio that "no Pope should deign it necessary to stay in exile in a place such as Malta; if we shall be denied Rome, it shall not be by our choice. I shall stay in Rome, a prisoner of the Vatican. The Bishop of Rome shall never abandon his seat." It was precisely the kind of aggressive language conservative Cardinals who refused to budge on the Leonine Compromise had hoped to hear; nevertheless, it still marked a huge win for France, Austria and Britain, who had finally ended the Exile of Malta and now could pressure Italy and the Church more directly as the issue circled exclusively around Rome itself..."

- Cross and Crown: The Legacy of the Papacy in the Time of the Nation State

[1] IOTL blocked by Franz Joseph I at the 1903 Conclave

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the only thing, indeed, that broke Leopold's attention from his mourning was the shockingly large defeat of the National Liberals under Martos to Zorilla's Radicals, who though just shy of a majority were plainly the largest party in the Cortes and could rely on a smattering of smaller parties ranging from regionalist to quixotic and independents who were effectively catspaws of local caciques unimpressed with any of the three major parties. That the National Liberals and Canovas' Conservatives could not easily defeat Zorilla's government appalled Leopold; he was an ardent democrat but drew the line at the winks the Radicals gave to outright cantonalists and antimonarchists, and in his diaries wrote of his fears that burgeoning unemployment (though Spain rebounded from the Panic of 1890 faster than most other European economies) and increased political radicalism would either overthrow his monarchy, lead to a coup that ended democracy, or in some shape or form return the civil wars of his early reign twenty years prior. "Under the captaincy of Ruiz Zorilla, the ship of state sails into stormy waters," he wrote on the day the new Radical government was inaugurated in Madrid..."

- The German on the Spanish Throne: The Reign of Leopold I

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the Fassett Committee's report, published mere weeks before New Yorkers headed to the polls, was devastating to Tammany; even moreso than the Tweed Ring investigation pursued in the press, the Fassett Committee's work demonstrated that the machine's hold over New York Democratic politics, particularly at city hall, had perhaps only tightened over the last two decades rather than loosened. Boss Croker was humiliated, and the revelations also cast aspersions on the Upstate machine run by now-Vice President Hill, who in Washington was busy applying his knack for canny patronage to the organs of the federal bureaucracy. Just as Democrats winced and prepared for a drubbing at the polls, the machine that held together their devices in the state was suffering a severe body blow. And not only that, but with a gubernatorial election a year away, it made the humble and modest chairman of said Committee, Jacob Sloat Fassett, a household name..." [1]

- Tammany: The First Machine

[1] And what a name that is, damn

 

[KingSweden24]

"...perhaps it was their long uninterrupted rule, the ever-growing ossification of Tory grandees, the need to puff their chests ideologically within Orange Lodge circles, but Ottawa's full-throated endorsement of the Public Schools Act in Manitoba only deepened the resentment of French Canadians towards the national government. In abolishing all denominational schools (though public schools, in theory nonsectarian, heavily leaned on Protestant teachings so far as to have teachers lead classes in prayer) and ending French as a co-official language, the Manitoba government seemed to be deliberately sticking its thumb in the eye of the Franco population only five years after the bitter end of the North-West Rebellion and Riel's controversial hanging. That they were doing so in the schools seemed to many Francophones a declaration of war, that the Orangemen now sought to indoctrinate their children with the English language and to turn them against the Church. The battle lines between Anglo and Franco Canada were drawn not at the border of Ontario and Quebec but in the vast prairies of Manitoba..."

- One Party, One Nation: Canada's 19th Century Tory Dynasty

(This was indeed how the Schools Question erupted IOTL Canada as well, only here the Tories are more than a tad bit more aggressive in their anti-Catholicism)

 

[KingSweden24]

"...it was the first time since he had taken power that something had gone truly wrong for France. His uninterrupted streak of foreign policy triumphs and over a decade of strong economic growth after the mildest experience with the Great Depression in all of Europe had left Napoleon woefully unprepared. Competing advice from various ministers was for the first time not a benefit but a hindrance; his initial reaction was to acquiesce to a protectionist tariff to defend French industry from cheap American exports, as Europe's crisis deepened. This would indeed be a minor salve, but it severely undercut many of the financiers and investors who had already suffered on the Bourse, for the first time creating a wedge between Emperor and establishment. That it was but a year earlier that decadent celebrations had occurred in the shadow of Eiffel's tower now seemed like a distant memory; a severe second wave of the Russian flu coming back through Paris led the Emperor to flee to Corsica with his family to stay safe at the estate that had just been built in his honor there, causing something new: genuine criticism of the Emperor (though soft by the standards of nations with a freer press) in once-laudatory media. The whole affair threw Napoleon into a deep depression, one that was not unlike the one that nearly consumed him during Marie-Pilar's miscarriage a decade prior, and he spent his winter at the Bonaparte estate near Ajaccio in utter misery, leaving his cabinet largely alone to handle the fallout of the Panic to their own devices, a move he would later come to regret..."

- The Eaglet Takes Flight: The Reign of Napoleon IV 1874-1905

 

[KingSweden24]

1890 United States elections

1890 Senate elections

Despite the collapse of Democrats in many Eastern states, they held on in key Western states other than Oregon, where the Liberals earned a narrow majority after a surge of People's Party ballots split tickets in enough legislative seats to allow them to oust Senator James H. Slater. In Indiana, the hard work of the Indiana Liberal Party after the defeat of favorite son Harrison two years prior paid off as the legislature flipped and Harrison was appointed to the Senate as a consolation as Senate Democratic Chair Daniel Voorhees was ousted. The biggest shock was in the Plains, though; Populist candidates made massive gains in battered farm states, flipping the Iowa legislature thanks in large part to a lazy Liberal state party and defeating Senate Liberal Chair William Allison on the fourth ballot with Democratic support to power party leader James Weaver into the Senate; this marks the first time in US history that both parties lost their Senate leaders in the same election cycle, and the only time it was due to defeat rather than retirement or retirement AND defeat. The Populist surge led to razor-thin reelections in the narrowly Liberal legislatures of Kansas, Colorado and Dakota for former Acting President John Ingalls, Senator Thomas M. Bowen and new Dakota Senator Gilbert Pierce respectively, and David Armstrong of Missouri, already in poor health, retired and a supermajority of Democrats and Populists powered the sympathetic Richard P. Bland into Missouri's Class 3 seat after a long tenure in the House where he had been a vocal supporter of farm activism.

CA: William Rosecrans (D) Re-Elected
CO: Thomas M. Bowen (L) Re-Elected
CT: Orville Platt (L) Re-Elected
DE (special): Georgy Gray (D) ELECTED
DK: Gilbert Pierce (L) Re-Elected
IL: Richard Oglesby (R) Re-Elected
IN: Daniel Voorhees (D) DEFEATED; Benjamin Harrison (L) ELECTED (L+1)
IA: William Allison (L) DEFEATED; James B. Weaver (P) ELECTED (P+1)
KS: John Ingalls (L) Re-Elected
MD: Ephraim Wilson (D) Re-Elected [1]
MO: David H. Armstrong (D) Retired; Richard P. Bland (D) ELECTED
NV: John P. Jones (D) Re-Elected
NH: Henry Blair (L) Re-Elected
NY: Warner Miller (L) Re-Elected
OH: James A. Garfield (L) Re-Elected
OR: James H. Slater (D) DEFEATED; James H. Mitchell (L) ELECTED (L+2)
PA: J. Donald Cameron (L) Re-Elected
VT: Justin Morrill (L) Re-Elected
WA: Eugene Semple (D)
WI: Thaddeus Pound (L) Re-Elected

1890 House elections

Elections to the House were an absolute bloodbath for the incumbent Democrats, who lost a total of 71 seats, nearly 40% of their caucus, in one of the biggest drubbings in American history before or since. They lost in the Midwest, they lost on the Plains, they lost in the West, and they even barely held on in what were thought to be safe districts in urban centers or border states. A particularly prominent embarrassment came in previously dyed-wool Democratic West Virginia, where they lost three of the state's 6 Congressional districts, the Governorship and the State Senate for the first time since statehood. The elections saw Liberals gain a healthy majority with 182 seats after picking up 45 in total (25% of their new caucus was in newly captured seats, and nearly half the Liberal caucus were freshman as many of the "old guard" retired; the "Class of '90" would be regarded as a banner group of future leaders for decades to come).

The real shocker of the election, though, was the surge of James B. Weaver's People's Party, which had united the Grangers and most of United Labor under a single anti-monopolistic banner for the first time, tying farmers outraged at railroad price gouging together with industrial factory laborers for the first time, with the backdrop of the Panic of 1890 a bloody flag to rally against. The People's Party picked up 26 seats, holding the 11 districts in factory towns and urban centers already brought to the party by the ULP and sweeping up district after district in states like Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, Iowa and Colorado, districts that were previously primarily held by stunned Liberals, and even making some dent in Democratic bastions like California. They ended up with 37 seats in the 52nd Congress - what would be a high-water mark for a third party for decades.

52nd United States Congress

Senate: 34L-23D -1P

President of the Senate: David B. Hill (D-NY)
Senate President pro tempore: James Ingalls (L-KS)
Chairman of Senate Liberal Conference: Justin Morrill (L-VT)
Chairman of Senate Democratic Conference: John R. McPherson (D-NJ)

California
1. George Hearst (D) (1881-)
3. William Rosecrans (D) (1885-)

Colorado

2. Henry M. Teller (L) (1876-)
3. Thomas M. Bowen (L) (1885-)

Connecticut
1. Joseph R. Hawley (L) (1881-)
3. Orville Platt (L) (1879-)

Dakota

2. Richard Pettigrew (L) (1888 - )
3. Gilbert Pierce (L) (1888 - )

Delaware
1. George Gray (D) (1889-)
2. Eli Saulsbury (D) (1871-)

Illinois
2. Shelby Moore Collum (L) (1881-)
3. Richard J. Oglesby (L) (1873-)

Indiana
1. David Turpie (D) (1887-)
3. Benjamin Harrison (L) (1891-)

Iowa
2. Samuel Kirkwood (L) (1877-)
3. James B. Weaver (P) (1891-)

Kansas
2. John St. John (L) (1883-)
3. John Ingalls (L) (1873-)

Maine
1. Eugene Hale (L) (1881-)
2. William P. Frye (L) (1881-)

Maryland
1. William Pinkney Whyte (D) (1869-)
3. George Washington Covington (D) (1891-) [1]

Massachusetts
1. Henry Dawes (L) (1875-)
2. George Frisbie Hoar (L) (1877-)

Michigan
1. William C. Maybury (D) (1887-)
2. Byron G. Stout (D) (1865-)

Minnesota
1. Cushman Davis (L) (1887-)
2. William Washburn (L) (1889-)

Missouri
1. Francis Cockrell (D) (1875-)
3. Richard P. Bland (D) (1891-)

Nebraska
1. Charles Van Wyck (L) (1881-)
2. Charles Manderson (L) (1883-)

Nevada
1. James Graham Fair (D) (1881-)
3. John P. Jones (D) (1873-)

New Hampshire
2. William Chandler (L) (1889-)
3. Henry Blair (L) (1873-)

New Jersey
1. William McAdoo (D) (1887-)
2. John R. McPherson (D) (1871-)

New Mexico

1. Antonio Joseph (D) (1887-)
2. Francisco A. Manzanares (D) (1889-)

New York
1. Perry Belmont (D) (1887-)
3. Warner Miller (L) (1885-)

Ohio
1. Benjamin Butterworth (L) (1887-)
3. James A. Garfield (L) (1885-)

Oregon
2. La Fayette Grover (D) (1871-)
3. James H. Mitchell (L) (1891-)

Pennsylvania
1. John I. Mitchell (L) (1881-)
3. J. Donald Cameron (L) (1879-)

Rhode Island
1. William Sprague (L) (1863-)
2. Jonathan Chace (L) (1885-)

Vermont
1. Redfield Procter (L) (1881-)
3. Justin Smith Morrill (L) (1867-)

Washington

2. George Turner (D) (1889-)
3. Eugene Semple (D) (1888 - )

West Virginia
1. Joseph Sprigg (D) (1869-)
2. John E. Kenna (D) (1883-)

Wisconsin
1. Philetus Sawyer (L) (1881-)
3. Thaddeus Pound (L) (1881-)

House: 182L-110D-37P

Speaker of the House: Thomas Brackett Reed (L-ME)
House Democratic Caucus Chair: Archibald Bliss (D-NY)
House Populist Caucus Chair: Jerry Simpson (P-KS)

[1] Died shortly before the new Congress started, though, which is why he doesn't show up on the Senate list.

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the stunning rebuke in his first midterm election - the defeat of nearly half the Democratic House caucus, the further entrenchment of Liberal legislators in the states, the defeat of Democratic state legislatures only two years after he had helped power a Midwestern revolution, a party outflanking Democrats even further on the issues of common laborers seeing massive success - startled and shook Custer as telegram after telegram notified him of the rout. One of his favorite Senators, Daniel Voorhees, head of the Senate Conference, was out. Speaker Bliss barely survived his own reelection, just 300 votes shy of being the third sitting Speaker to be defeated in his home district. Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, all with Liberal legislatures. Michigan's was a close run thing, and elected a Liberal governor. Even Oregon - Oregon! - had turfed out a Democratic government thanks to split ballots. Democratic papers pointed blame at the President, to his further shock; his response was to hire ever-more Wolverines. His rage was reserved primarily for Theodore Roosevelt's column declaring, "When the President goes in hiding, the nation suffers. When the Democratic Party forgets that it represents the People, some other outfit will come to claim their banner." Libby suggested Custer leave Washington for the winter, at least until the new Congress was sworn in, due to his rapid weight loss and lack of sleep. Begrudgingly, Custer agreed to make arrangements to return to Monroe once Christmas was done with, desiring to host Washington society at the White House in what can best be described as a tone-deaf endeavor to prove that "the White Wolverine hides from no-one." So Libby set out to make preparations for the event, advertising it in Washington papers, to make sure that all knew that the President was still at the helm, regardless of what his critics claimed..."

- The Wolverine in the White House: The Presidency of George Armstrong Custer at 100

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the rise of the People's Party made James Weaver a national figure overnight, particularly for the way that his party's narrow win in Iowa, helped by a dissident wing of the Democratic Party, defeated the powerful and influential William Allison to power him to the Senate floor. Suddenly, agrarian activism and union organizing were not at loggerheads; indeed, they were under the same umbrella of fighting back against "the gilded forces on Wall Street and Capitol Hill," as Weaver declared. His leadership arrested the decline of the former ULP and revitalized the flagging Granger Movement, and his strategic partnership with sympathetic Democrats - a young lawyer named William Jennings Bryan was powered to victory in Nebraska largely thanks to Populist abstention from running a candidate in his Lancaster-based seat [1], a rare glimmer of success for Democrats in 1890 and a powerful proof positive by Populists - helped build alliances with many looking for a way to apply Jacksonian principles to the realities of an age of railroad trusts and corporations as powerful as states. The Populists had a powerful bloc in the House now, and though the Liberals had a firm majority, Weaver in the Senate and his counterpart Jerry Simpson in the House found their place as pressure points on their legislative priorities; and moreso, Weaver began to look to 1892, and the potential to see just how far the Populist movement could go with the electoral college..."

- For the People: Populism in 19th Century North America

[1] Lincoln not being a heroic martyr means that a lot of places named after him IOTL... won't be

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Stout's [1] campaign leaned into fears that exiting the federation debate would shut off New Zealand from trade with New South Wales or Victoria, and so despite the global depression reaching the island by the time the election rolled around, the Liberals clung narrowly to power, and Stout could thus contribute to debates across the Tasman Sea about the future of federation. Crucially, as a leading Liberal of his era, Stout was another strong voice against the centralism of another British Dominion, that of Canada, and his voice in the room gave Victoria and Western Australia crucial support in their debates with the gorilla in the room, New South Wales. Of course, trade and centralism were not the only sticking points - for the suffrage debate was looming, and about to be the biggest speedbump on the path to the Commonwealth..."

- Becoming Australia: The Federation Debate and Founding of the Commonwealth (University of Western Australia, 2001)

[1] NZ Liberal leader Robert Stout, that is