United States Depression Diplomacy and the Brazilian Revolution, 1893-1894

HE PANIC OF 1893, which soon turned into a full scale depression, had many well-known effects on the American domestic scene. Less well known is the influence it exerted on the making of American foreign policy during the second Cleveland Administration. Secretary of State Walter Quintin Gresham had learned from his service as a Federal Judge to fear economic depressions, for he knew that they led to bitter laborcapital relations. He saw in the business decline which followed the 1893 panic "symptoms of revolution."1 Gresham was able to use his position as formulator of American foreign policy to combat these symptoms. The Brazilian Revolution, which broke out in September, 1893, became one of the new Secretary's most difficult problems. Though it has since faded in importance in American diplomatic history, at the time this rebellion was front page news. Mrs. Gresham later recalled in the biography of her husband that "we heard much about it at the time," and "almost daily the Brazilian minister, Salvador de Mendonga called at our apartments. "2 The United States was particularly interested in the Brazilian situation because it had signed a reciprocity agreement with the newly-formed Brazilian Republic on February 5, 1891. This agreement became "the most important application of reciprocity which actually took place under the McKinley tariff.' '3 The treaty had, however, received a bad recep