The adherence of Hayes to the gold standard and resumption drove from his side another body of Republicans. He had now lost the reformers and the spoilsmen, the radical Republicans and the inflationists, and no one hoped or believed that he would recall his pledge for a single term and be renominated in 1880 to succeed himself. The disintegration of his party was as complete as the collapse of its issues. On no subject, between 1876 and 1880, was it possible to bring before the public a distinctive party issue. The uncertainties of the campaign of 1876 were increased during the next four years. Both parties had ceased to represent either policies or the people. The office-holders were in no sense the leaders of their communities. Industry, social life, education, and religion had parted company with politics since the decline of the Union issue, and unless a new political alignment could be found there was a prospect of continued rivalry for offices alone. Yet men were beginning to realize that a new period of growth had begun during the Hayes Administration, and that American institutions, formulated before the Civil War, had ceased to meet industrial needs. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE J.F. Rhodes terminates his great history with the election of 1876, and although he has promised sometime to continue it, he has as yet published only a few scattered essays upon the later period. A.M. Gibson, _A Political Crime_ (1885), is a contemporary and partisan account of the electoral contest; P.L. Haworth, _The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election_ (1906), is a recent work of critical scholarship; E. Stanwood may be relied upon for platforms, tables of votes, and other formal details, in his _History of the Presidency_. _The Writings and Speeches of S.J. Tilden_ (2 vols., ed. by J. Bigelow, 1885) are useful, as are the Blaine books: J.G. Blaine, _Twenty Years of Congress_, E. Stanwood, _James Gillespie Blaine_ (1905, in American Statesmen Series); G. Hamilton (pseud. for M.A. Dodge), _James G. Blaine_ (1895, a domestic biography); and the spicy _Letters of Mrs. James G. Blaine_ (edited by H.S.B. Beale, 2 vols., 1908). Other useful biographies or memoirs exist for R.P. Bland, Roscoe Conkling, Robert G. Ingersoll, O.H. Platt, T.C. Platt, John Sherman, and Carl Schurz, etc. CHAPTER VI BUSINESS AND POLITICS