" Howells’s account of the necessary reforms amounted to a manifesto for Gilded Age liberalism: abolition of the tariff, civil service reform, return to the gold standard, curbing of democracy through limitations on suffrage, replacement of elected officials with appointed officials, and prevention of any extension of suffrage to women.95 "

― Richard White , The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896