Chester Alan Arthur: The Life of a Gilded Age Politician & President192

Arthur’s greatest success was in cutting the surplus, although it was a modest reduction, maintaining the protectionist tariff system, achieving civil service reform, and rebuilding the navy. Like every president he did disappoint and he carefully crafted his politics to achieve his ends. The years of Arthur’s administration were ones of great changes. Industrial growth and consolidation led to massive economic changes. Companies were no longer local entities, but now competed in the international marketplace. Single companies took over entire industries. John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and John P. Morgan ushered in the era of the trust. In North Carolina, James Duke began mass producing cigarettes, the first significant step on the way to a national economy based on consumption.