George’s AP US Survival Blog

I’ve decided to continue handwriting notes because the computer has way too many things that distract me from Facebook to IMs to email to News to interesting blogs and all that stuff that drifts you away from homework. If not all parts are here, I haven’t finished reading yet.

Total amount of parts: 2

Download Chapter 34 Notes Part 1

Download Chapter 34 Notes Part 2

Sorry, I haven’t been updating my notes. We were a bit behind and I just didn’t have the time to catch up. So I’m going to have to skip the notes pertaining to the Roaring 20s. Now I hand wrote my notes for the New Deal. I have the PDF of my scanned notes attached. Please excuse my handwriting. I never planned to hand write notes but that just turned out to be something that I did. So let’s see how it goes:

new_deal_notes_chapter33 PDF DOCUMENT

• Wilson was determined to keep America out of war but Germany had begun unrestricted submarine warfare. The war was at a stalemate and the Germans could not afford to take time to decide whether a ship was ok to sink or not ok.
• The Germans wanted to bring the British to her knees before the Americans entered the war.
• Wilson planned to break diplomatic relations with Germany.

War by Act of Germany

• Wilson asked Congress for a provision that would allow for the armament of merchant ships. The Senators tried a filibuster on this measure. Wilson denounced these men but it was quite obvious that there was still a strong voice of isolationism.
• Then there was a Zimmerman Note that was intercepted on March 1st, 1917. Basically it was a note from the Germans to by Arthur Zimmerman that discussed the possibility of a German-Mexican Alliance. The Mexicans would then get back the territories they lost to America (Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona).
• Russia was going through a revolution with a toppled the tsarist regimes.
• Of course there was the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.
• On April 2, 1917, Wilson asked for a declaration of war from Congress.
• What the British did to commerce was annoying but not necessarily destructive. The Germans were killing innocent people.

Wilson Idealism Enthroned

• Wilson commented that it was fearful to send America into a war that she originally had nothing to do with.
• No fewer than six senators and 50 representatives voted against war but it was hard to create any “war fervor”, especially in the Midwest that had no reason to fear submarines.
  • No there had to be something that would stir up some enthusiasm.
  • So he declared that the objective of the goal was to make the world safe for Democracy.
  • It was this that aroused the public opinion. America wasn’t selfish, America cared about the world and wanted to make it a safe place. The war was not a war to gain honor or prestige like the other countries.
• This worked…and it worked probably too well for now most of America was for the war and shouted for force. The public wanted to win the war, going against the “peace without victory” clause.

Wilson’s Fourteen Potent Points

• Wilson delivered the Fourteen Points Address on Jan. 8, 1918. He wanted to keep Russia in the war as well but it gave the Allied forces some new hope and morale.
• First five points (summarized):
  1. Abolition of secret treaties
  2. Freedom of the seas
  3. Removal of economic barriers
  4. Reduction of armament burden
  5. Adjustment on colonial claims
• The proposal delegitimized the old regimes and opened the road to independence for many.
• Other points gave the hope of independence to minorities.
• Wilson hoped that this would establish territorial sovereignty to all nations, not just the big ones.
• Of course, not everyone received the 14 points well, especially Republicans but you cannot please everybody.

Creel Manipulates Minds

• Committee on Public Information created in order to change public opinion about war.
• George Creel was the head of this Committee.
• This organization went out and spread words that would promote patriotism.
• The propaganda was spread through billboards, leaflets, and booklets.
• There were multiple “hang the Kaiser” movies too.
• But the plan wasn’t perfect and Wilson wasn’t perfect and things wouldn’t be so perfect, even with the propaganda.

Enforcing Loyalty and Stifling Dissent

• There were about 8 million Germans.
  • Most of the Germans were not belligerent to the US, they were loyal. But they still were mistreated by some Americans.
  • There was upmost hatred against German-Americans.
• Two acts were passed that reflected the German-phobia that spread. There was the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918.
  • Antiwar socialists and Industrial Workers of the World were jailed for their anti-war attitudes due to the Espionage Act.
  • Schenck v. United States ruled the act Constitutional because the freedom of speech could be revoked when such speech is a danger to the nation.

The Nation’s Factories Go to War

• America was not exactly in any shape to go into a global war.
• Wilson created the Council of National Defense in order to study the issues with mobilization of the economy.
• He launched a shipbuilding program and modestly beefed up the army.
• First of all though, America did not know how much steel and explosive powder she could produce singlehandedly.
• Second of all, there was a fear of big government controlling economy, even during wartime. Businessmen and democrats feared it.
• March 1918 – Wilson appointed Bernard Bauch to the War Industries Board as the head. Even so, this was a bit “eh” because the board did not have many controls that were prominent.

Workers in Wartime

• The government threatened unemployed men with the draft, an incentive to keep working and not go on strike.
• The National War Labor Board was given a role to settle any labor disputes that would be costly to the war effort.
  • It promised higher wages and an 8-hour work day. It did not guarantee the right to organize unions.
  • The AF of L, led by Samuel Gompers supported the war while other radical unions did not and were beaten and arrested if they protested.
  • For most, the labor situation was better. The AF of L grew in membership and real wages rose 20 percent.
• Even so, there was wartime inflation and some bloody strikes, especially in the steel industries.The steel Industry mercilessly refused to negotiate.
• Then the strike collapsed, setting back the union movement.
• Racial tension was present as the blacks came North to look for jobs and opportunity.

Suffering Until Suffrage

• Female workers also flooded into factories because the men were at war, leaving empty spots.
• However, the women in the progressive feminist movement were pacifists.
• The National Women’s party was formed by Alice Paul who used hunger strikes and marches to protest.
• The larger feminist movement by the National American Woman Suffrage Association supported the war. They justified the fighting by arguing that women should take part in the war effort in order to earn roles in shaping peace.
• Impressed by the support from women, Wilson endorsed woman suffrage as necessary for war.
• In 1920, The 19th Amendment would be passed to give all women the right to vote. \
  • A permanent Women’s Bureau emerged after the war to protect women in the workplace.
  • Congress passed the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act of 1921 which provided instruction (financed by government) in maternal and infant care.

Forging a War Economy

• Mobilization seemed to ride emotions rather than legislation. This was partially due to the fact that America was across the ocean, quite safe from all the fighting abroad.
• America had to feed herself and her allies. Herbert C. Hoover was appointed to be the head of the Food Administration since Hoover was a hero for his charitable drive to feed the starving people in Belgium.
• Hoover wanted to rely on voluntary compliance rather than a strict enforcement of a ration. He used propaganda asking for wheatless Wednesdays and meatless Mondays.
• Then there were the “victory gardens” where patriots planted vegetables in their backyards and vacant lots.
• Congress restricted the use of food to make alcoholic drinks.
  • Not only did this further the drive for prohibition but so did the fact that most of the breweries were run by people of German descent. Then in 1919 came the 18th Amendment that prohibited all alcoholic drinks.
• Hoover was highly successful in his voluntary approach. Farm production increased 25 percent, food exports tripled in volume. Then other agencies followed suit.
  • For example, The Fuel Administration, asked people to participate in “heatless Mondays” “lightless nights” and “gasless Sundays”.
  • The Treasury Department sponsored big parades in order to promote their Liberty Loan drives as a way to  raise money to fund the cost of the war.
  • Investment in war bonds was encouraged.
• However, there was still some government intervention such as when the railroads were nationalized due to traffic issues. Washington also wanted to get their hands on ships by seizing enemy merchant ships and constructed more ships. However, not as many ships were produced as was anticipated.

Making Plowboys into Doughboys

• America originally thought she would only have to send the navy over to back up the Allies but soon realized that the Allies were in deeper trouble. As a result, a draft was initiated.
  • It met strong opposition in Congress but narrowly passed.
  • Draft required all men 18-45 to be registered and they could not pay their way out. Men in critical industries were exempt though.
  • The army size increased to 4 million members and 11000 in the navy.
  • Women were admitted into the army for the first time and so were African Americans.
  • However, African Americans were in segregated units controlled by white men.
• Recruits needed training for 6 months in the US and 2 months overseas but there was no time and they were quickly sent in.

Fighting in France—Belatedly

• So the Germans were dead on at predicting when the US would enter the war. They were also dead on about the US having trouble moving troops when they landed.
• Americans did send troops to France but also deployed some into the Russian territory near Archangel.
• Russia underwent a revolution and was now under control by the Bolsheviks who did not want to deal with a “capitalist war”.
• Troops were sent into Russia to prevent Germany from getting extra arms and the Japanese from taking Siberia.

America Helps Hammer the “Hun”

• So the Germans were pushing at the western front and slowly inching their way to felling France.
• American troops came to reinforce at first. The German drive was losing steam by July 1918. The Americans were under French commander Foch.
• The Second Battle of the Marne marked the point where Germans began a withdrawal that would not be reversed.
• Of course, the Americans wanted their own role, not just a backup subordinate role so General John J. Pershing took a front northwestward from Switzerland.
  • This led to the Meuse-Argonne Offensive which led to 120000 casualties out of 1.2 million men.
• Germany was now in bad shape

Fourteen Points to Disarm Germany

• Germany was ready to surrender and they hoped to have some sympathy from Wilson with his 14 points.
• They stopped fighting at 11 AM on 11/11/1918.
• The US turned out to receive more aid from the Alllies with regards to supplies than the actual aid that the US gave.

Wilson Steps down from Olympus

• So after the war, Wilson was on a pedestal because he won the war. Internationally, he was well respected now. But now was his time to start tripping up a little.
• Wilson tried to use his success to promote a democratic Congress. Instead the people narrowly voted in the republican Congress.
  • Wilson lost some prestige after this for everybody else at Paris had a legislative majority except Wilson.
• Republicans were not happy with Wilson’s decision to go out to Europe to negotiate a peace. No other president had visited Europe before. Things got worse when he refused to put a single republican senator into his official peace delegation.

An Idealist Battles the Imperialistic in Parts

• Wilson was respected as an idealist but the leaders at Paris also wished to keep him under control for they feared that he might arouse the people into revolution.
• The Big Four at Paris
  • US – Woodrow Wilson
  • Italy – Vittorio Orlando
  • Britain – David Lloyd George
  • France – Georges Clemenceau
• Wilson’s primary goal was to get this “League of Nations” formed which would be sort of like a “world parliament”
  • First he had to make sure the other nations weren’t carving up land of the defeated just for land or vengeance.
  • He compromised with his Allies by suggesting that land would be given when the countries became trustees of the League of Nations.
  • Wilson managed to get the Allies to agree to drafting the League Covenant which would integrate into the treaty.

Hammering Out the Treaty

• Well, there was trouble in America, the Senate was quite rowdy under Senator Lodge and Senators Borah and Hiram Johnson.
• The Republican senators declared that they would not accept the League of Nations in its current form.
• This was a blow to Wilson for now he would have to beg the other members of the Big 4 for revisions, giving the others the Upper hand.
  • For example, France pursued the German Rhineland. Wilson had to compromise and let the Rhineland become under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years and then the countries would decide what to do. There was also a Security Treaty that was supposed to give France protection from Germany given by the US and British.
    • The US Senate then rejected the Security treaty, making France feel betrayed.
  • Japan disputed the Chinese territory of Shandong with Germans. They wanted control. Japan was already given Pacific Islands but Wilson opposed their control of Shandong.
    • Wilson was unable to move Japan. Japan threatened a walkout and the final compromise came down to Japan being allowed to keep her economic holdings in Shandong and would give it back to China at a later date.

The Peace Treaty That Bred a New War

• The treaty was finally completed in June 1919, leaving Germany feeling betrayed for the 14 points that were promised seemed to be thrown out with only 4 points left in.
• The Allies could not agree without compromise and there were some secret treaties thrown around so it was not totally Wilson’s fault.
• It was this strict treaty that would lead to Adolf Hitler’s speeches about betrayal and ultimately leading to his ascension and WWII.

The Domestic Parade of Prejudice

• And then the US public was also in an outrage. There were hun-haters that thought it wasn’t harsh enough and then some liberals that thought it was way too harsh. The Irish disliked the League of Nations because they had some bones to pick with the British.

Wilson’s Tour and Collapse

• Wilson had a little ray of hope left from people that still supported the League but yet the Senate tied it up.
• He went on to campaign for his league but the only part of the country that still respected him was the West where they elected Wilson.
• Then Wilson had a collapse due to stroke which left his left side paralyzed.

The rest of the chapter is better summed up in the Historical Viewpoints book. I have uploaded the summary here.

The Democrats felt that Woodrow Wilson was a viable candidate for their party to defeat the splintering split Republican Party.

The “Bull Moose” Campaign of 1912

• Wilson ran on the “New Freedom” program which called for stronger anti-trust legislation, banking reform, and lower tariffs.
• Roosevelt showed up on the Progressive Republican ticket.
• There was a pro-Roosevelt convention. Then Jane Addams led a religious revival meeting as she endorsed Roosevelt.
• Roosevelt said he felt as strong as a “bull moose”. Meanwhile, he and Taft set out to tear each other apart.
• Of course, a split Republican party pretty much gave the Democrats a solid victory.
  • Yes both favored a government that played an active role in social affairs but they disagreed on the strategy. Roosevelt favored Herbert Croly’s theories from The Promise of American Life. They favored consolidation of trusts and labor unions, powerful regulatory agencies in government.
  • Bull Moosers also wanted women’s suffrage and social welfare (Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal would make TR’s dreams come true)
  • Wilson’s New Freedom on the other hand wanted small enterprise, entrepreneurship, and unregulated, un-monopolized markets. Wilson was a democrat, so he believed that the market should run itself. He wanted to break up the trusts, not destroy them completely.
  • Roosevelt then got shot by a fanatic, delaying his speech and cooling off the fight for a bit.

Woodrow Wilson: Minority President

• So Wilson won handily, with Roosevelt in second (first time a third party candidate came close to success), and Taft in third.
  • Wilson still had only 41% of the popular vote.

Wilson: The Idealist in Politics

• Wilson himself sympathized with the confederates earlier but he was the first president from the south to enter into office since the Civil War.
• He believed the president should play a dynamic role.
• Wilson believed in fighting against wickedness and that was his ambition.
  • He was difficult to compromise with because he though “wrong is wrong” so there should be no dispute.

Wilson Tackles the Tariff

• In 1913, WW tried to break down the big tariff. He himself delivered an address to Congress and the House passed the Underwood Tariff Bill. The lobbyists tried to sway the Senate but Wilson told the people to hold their senators accountable. This public opinion allowed the Senate to pass the bill too.
• It greatly reduced the tariff but also introduced the Sixteenth Amendment which was the graduated income tax.
• Now the income tax generated way more revenue than the tariff.

Wilson Battles the Bankers

• So the big problem with the Civil War National Banking system was that there was no elastic currency that could be fed to the banks in case of an emergency.
• Republican senator Aldrich was sent out to investigate and came back recommending a large “Bank of the United States”.
• Congressman Arsene Pujo backed the House committee findings.
• Louis D. Brandeis wrote Other People’s Money and How Bankers Use It to fuel the fire for a national bank.
• Federal Reserve Act created a Federal Reserve Board to oversee the federal reserve system that we have today with regional banks. The board was allowed to issue “Federal Reserve Notes” backed by paper. These are the same notes you see today on your dollar bills.

The President Tames the Trusts

• Congress passed the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914
  • This act allowed the president to create/appoint a commission that would stamp out monopolies and oversee the industries that were in interstate commerce.
• The Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 banning price discrimination and interlocking directorates. It increase the list of practices that the government found objectionable.
  • This act also gave laborers encouragement because it excluded the Unions and Agricultural organizations from being flagged for being a hindrance to trade.

Wilsonian Progressivism at High Tide

• Federal Farm Loan Act -  low interest credit to farmers
• Warehouse Act of 1916 – authorized loans based on security of staple crops
• La Follette Seamen’s Act of 1915 – reg’d decent treatment and living wage on American ships but this ended up crippling the marine merchants because of rising shipping costs.
• Workingmen’s Compensation Act of 1916 – granted assistance to federal civil-service employees during unstable times.
  • Wilson also passed a law restricting child labor on interstate commerce
• Adamson Act – 8 hour work day for all employees doing work on trains in interstate commerce

New Directions in Foreign Policy

• Unlike Taft and Roosevelt, Wilson was not an imperialist and did not trust Wall Street. Dollar diplomacy and the Big Stick Policy stopped with Wilson.
  • He quickly announced that the American government would no longer provide any special help to Latin America and China.
  • Bankers pulled out of the six-nation loan to China.
• Wilson also got Congress to repeal the Panama Canal Tolls Act of 1912 which originally exempted the US from tolls when passing through canal.
• Jones Act of 1916 granted the Filipinos territorial status and promised independence as soon as a “stable government” could be established.
• The California legislature was looking for ways to get rid of Japanese settlers and came up with an ordinance that prohibited the Japanese from owning property.
• Wilson sent William Jennings Bryan out to the California legislature to get them to soften up.
• Political turmoil in Haiti led Wilson to go back on his anti-imperialist words.
  • Wilson sent in the US marines in order to protect American lives and property.
  • The treaty with Haiti at the end provided the US with the power to supervise the finances and police. He repeated the process with the Dominican Republic.
  • To increase American influence, Wilson purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark.

Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico

• Mexico was rich…but the Mexicans were poor. So they finally revolted and things got pretty bad when the new revolutionary president was murdered. Then General Victoriano Huerta, an Indian, came and took the president’s seat.
• Due to the turmoil, Mexicans began to flee across to America, settling in the Southwestern states.
• Americans in Mexico (or those that had property in Mexico) were suffering and they cried out for intervention…war basically, especially journalists like William Randolph Hearst,  who had a ranch bigger than Rhode Island in Mexico.
• Wilson stood firm and did not budge but he also did not recognize the new government in Mexico as legit.
• American arms did enter into Rival countries of Mexico and Huerta wasn’t incredibly pleased with that and he threatened military action.
• Then there was trouble in April 1914 when a group of American sailors was arrested and then freed at the Port of Tampico. The Mexicans apologized but did not want to give the US 21 guns asked for by the American admiral.
• Wilson wanted a declaration of war but didn’t wait for one, instead he sent the Navy to take over Vera Cruz.
• But Argentina, Brazil, and Chile came in to calm Wilson down and get both sides to agree to mediation.
• Soon after Huerta collapsed and his rival, Venustiano Carranza, took over.
• US – Mexico relations grew very sour.
• “Pancho” Villa, rival to Carranza, wanted to provoke a war between the US and Mexico. He did this by killing innocent Americans.
• General John J. Pershing was sent in to blast out the Villistas, he was successful but Villa got away. The US troops left in 1917, January in order to prepare for a possible German threat.

Thunder Across the Sea

• War was imminent in Europe after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne in Austria-Hungary. The alliances, Triple Entente and Triple Alliances dragged most of Europe into a war.
• America would not be involved in the war between Central Powers: Germany Austria-Hungary, and later Turkey and Bulgaria, and the Allies: Great Britain, Russia, Italy; until quite later.

Precarious Neutrality

• Both sides wanted to woo the US into joining the war. The Allies, especially the British, would cable stories about German brutality to the US. The Central powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary would rely on German and Austrian immigrants to support the Central powers.
• Most Americans were anti-German because they feared Kaiser Wilhelm II’s autocracy. 
• It didn’t help the Central powers that it was discovered in a German operative’s briefcase, documents for planning to sabotage American factories with violence. But Americans did not want war.

American Earns Blood Money

• America was on the verge of recession but thanks to the war orders from France and Britain, the market stabilized.
• Bankers like J.P. Morgan took advantage and pumped $2.3 billion into the Allies during the Neutrality period.
• The central powers were angry but the US did not violate any neutrality laws; Germany could trade with the US, it was just that they were boxed in by land and the British Navy wouldn’t let them first by blockading and then forcing American ships to land only in British Ports.
• Then came the German U-Boats which began doing their dirty work in 1915.
• The sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania made Americans angry for there were American passengers on that ship. The Germans justified the sinking by saying the ship carried some small arms and ammo.
• Wilson refused to go to war, even when the east cried out for it. He sent notes to Germany hoping that warnings would stop the sinking of passenger ships. Eventually, the Germans agreed to comply and not sink any unarmed ship without warning after another sinking occurred on the Arabic
• Then in March 1916, the Germans resumed this behavior and sunk the Sussex steamer. Wilson sent an ultimatum, threatening to break diplomatic relations. Germans complied but stuck in a line that said Americans must stop the “illegal” British blockade. Wilson accepted the pledge by the Germans to stop sinking ships but rejected the string that Germany tried to sneak in.

Wilson Wins Re-election in 1916

• Roosevelt did not want to split the Republican party so he did not run, ending the progressive party.
• The Republicans chose Charles Evans Hughes for their party. The Republicans condemned the Democrat tariff, the trustbusting, and Wilson’s unwillingness to make a solid decision on Germany and Mexico.
• Hughes was a guy that told people what they wanted to here, not what he really wanted to do. It also did not help when Roosevelt condemned him as another Wilson, just missing a shave.
• Wilson ran on the platform of “He kept us out of war”. He did win because of this but the people that elected him would soon be disappointed.

Immigrants flooded America to the point where 1/7th of the population was foreign born and 13 million more immigrants would come before WWI.

A group of people dedicated to reform was formed in this era call the Progressives.

• The Progressives were against evils such as monopoly, corruption, inefficiency and social injustice.
• The slogan used by the diverse group of Progressives was “Strengthen the State” and they strongly believed at heart that government should be an agency of welfare.

Progressive Roots

• The Progressive movement takes its roots from the Populists and the Greenback Labor Party in a sense that the common goal was to lead a movement that helped the less fortunate people.
• They believed that the "hands off” individualist ideals were outdated for a world of machines.
• Individualism let a smaller group of industrialists get richer and the rest of the society get poorer. There would be a loss in social mobility.
• William Jennings Bryan, Altgeld and the Populists had already condemned the trusts as corrupt and wrong.
• Henry Demarest Lloyd charged into the Std. Oil Co. with his book Wealth Against Commonwealth.
• Thorstein Veblen attacked the rich with his Theory of the Leisure Class by labeling them as  “predatory wealth” and “conspicuous consumption”.
  • The new rich class was using wasteful business practices only to get money and not for productive “industry”.
• Jacob A. Riis, New York Sun, wrote How the Other Half Lives to condemn the conditions of the “slums”. This book eventually influenced Theodore Roosevelt.
• Theodore Dreiser condemned profiteers in The Financier and The Titan.
• Socialists began to increase in power.
• There was also a religious based progressivism demanding better housing and living conditions for the urban poor. Feminists also added suffrage to the issue. 

Raking Muck with the Muckrakers

• Magazines also jumped on the bandwagon of exposing the evils of the upper class.
• Examples were: McClure’s Cosmopolitan, Collier’s and Everybody’s.
• Theodore Roosevelt thought they went too far and called these editors and writers “muckrakers” in 1906.
• Of course, the scorning and reprimanding from the president only increased the popularity of such magazines.
• Lincoln Steffens – published “The Shame of Cities” in McClure’s as a series of articles that took a jab at the corruption between big business and local governments.
• Ida M. Tarbell also wrote a series condemning the Standard Oil Company, revealing their practices. Her father had been ruined by the oil interests.
• The magazines would check their material carefully for the fear of legal issues.
• Thomas W Lawson who was once a speculator revealed the corruption of his accomplices in his Frenzied Finance. This was a great risk that made him a lot of enemies and he died poor.
• David G. Phillips – “The Treason of the Senate” – 1906 – Cosmopolitan – said the senators were representing the trusts rather than the people (about 75% of the 90 senators were representing trusts). Later he was shot by a deranged man
• Ray Stannard Baker -  Following the Color Line – showed that the minorities, such as the blacks, were at a disadvantage because there was not any social reform to benefit them. He was for social reform.
• John Spargo – The Bitter Cry of the Children -  against child labor
• Dr. Harvey W. Wiley – Collier – against the doping of “drugs” that were said to be cures for some ailments but actually just water and alcohol. Against false advertising.

Political Progressivism

• Progressives were mainly middle class men and women.
  • These people felt that they were squeezed from the bottom and the top.
  • The bottom would include labor unions/poor immigrants, and the top would include big business.
• There were two goals of the progressives
  • Use state power to curb the trusts
  • Stem the socialist threat by improving the common person’s conditions
• Progressives were not typically divided amongst party lines and there were from all levels of government. It was not a minority reform movement like the Populists.
• First, the Progressives had to regain power that the people lost to “special interests”.
  • Direct primary elections to eliminate the influence of “bosses”.
  • They wanted the voters or the people to be able to propose legislation rather than having the bosses lobby.
  • Progressives also suggested the referendum which was a way for the people to finally approve the ballot after legislation, especially legislation that was rammed through by lobbyists and big business.
  • Corrupt-practices acts which limited the amount of money candidates could spend for elections.
    • No huge gifts from corporations
  • Secret ballots were also a reform requested by the progressives.
• One of the top priorities was to allow direct elections of senators.
• The 17th amendment was proposed to allow direct elections.
  • There was some opposition from senators that were fine with the status quo but eventually realized that the state legislatures were allowing direct elections and felt it was wise to appease the voices of the people.
  • As a result the 17th amendment was approved in 1913.
• Women suffrage also regained powerful support from the progressives.
  • Some states already enfranchised women, the suffragists depended highly on support from them.
  • They cried out about “Votes for women” and “Taxation without Representation”. Evens so, nationwide female suffrage would not come until 10 years later.

Progressivism in the Cities and States

• The most support for the progressive movement came from the cities.
• Galveston, Texas set an example by creating an expert-staffed commission that oversaw and managed city affairs.
• There was also a city-manager system where the manager would not be subject to politics. Instead, the city-manager was appointed and could be fired just like any other job.
• Urban reformers also attacked the slumlords, juvenile delinquency, and other things that were messed up in the cities.
• Wisconsin saw a lot of reform too. Robert M. La Follete was a overbearing crusader. By fighting his way up to the governor’s seat, he was able to take control from the big corporations and give it back to the people.
• Follette also regulated public utilities.
• Hiram W. Johnson, elected governor of California in 1910, made strides in loosening the grips of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
• Charles Evans Hughes of New York was a reformist republican governor that investigated the unfair practices of gas, insurance, and coal trusts.

Progressive Women

• Women were a powerful part of the progressive crusade.
  • The was mainly due to the settlement house movement. Women could neither vote nor could they hold public office so the the only means of being exposed to public life was the settlement house.
  • That open door led to the exposure of the problems that were plaguing urban life.
  • The women organized through literary clubs that set aside the books for social issues.
  • Women defended their crusade as an extension to their traditional role in their house so they were concerned about keeping children out of mills and sweatshops, ventilation problems that led to tuberculosis, and gaining pensions for mothers with dependent children.
  • Women voiced their opinions through organizations such as Women’s Trade Union League and the National Consumers League as well as new organizations such as the Children’s Bureau and Women’s Bureau
• There was also a crusade to fix the factory conditions led by Florence Kelley.
  • She took over the National Consumers League which called for female consumers to pressure for laws that protected women and children in the workplace.
• Muller v. Oregon was a landmark case. Attorney Louis D. Brandeis persuaded the Supreme Court into declaring laws protecting women workers constitutional because women had “weaker bodies”…
  • Unfortunately, this also closed some doors for women because of the “weaker bodies” argument but at least the employers didn’t have absolute authority over the workplace anymore.
• Now the American welfare state was more focused on women and children rather than everybody (unlike Europe).
• Lochner v New York struck down a law that established a 10-hour work day for bakers. But the 10-hour law for factories was eventually upheld by the Court.
• But the laws were worthless if nobody was there to enforce them.
  • This was especially noticeable in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in NY which was basically a human incinerator when it caught fire. Everybody was either trapped inside and burned or they died by jumping out the windows. The lone fire escape was overcrowded, the rooms were overcrowded, the fire door was locked.
  • This public outcry led to stronger laws regulating hours and conditions.
• Of course, the saloons were also something the progressives disliked for they believed that drunkenness led to things like prostitution and other plagues of the cities.
• Women’s Christian Temperance Union was a group founded by Frances E. Willard. She would fall to her knees in saloons in prayer. That persuaded women to join into the progressive movement against alcohol. Her group allied with the Anti-Saloon League.
• Some places passed dry laws which restricted or prohibited the transport, sale, etc. of alcohol.
• This led up to the 18th Amendment in 1919.

TR’s Square Deal for Labor

• Roosevelt himself was intrigued by the progressive movement.
• He initiated the “Square Deal” which comprised of three C’s: control of corporations, consumer protection, and conservation of natural resources.
• In 1902, there was a Coal Mine Strike in Pennsylvania. The majority of the workers there were immigrant workers exploited for their labor in an unsafe environment.
  • They demanded a 20 percent pay raise and a 9 hour working day.
  • The mine owners were confident that the public would react against this strike.
  • George F. Baer,  spokesman for the mine owners, said the workers would be taken care of not by the labor agitator but by the Christian men.
  • Coal supplied dwindled and factories, schools, and other public facilities were forced to shut down or be in the cold.
  • So the big man decided enough was enough and summoned the mine owners and the representatives of the miners.
    • TR was angry at the stupidity and temper of the mine owners that he felt like grabbing one and throwing him out the window.
  • The big man finally decided that if the mine owners were not going to cooperate, then he’d send the army in and take over the mines. This was the first time the president used troops against the capital rather than the labor force.
    • With that threat, the owners submitted to arbitration. The miners got a 10 percent pay raise and a 9 hour work day although their union was not officially recognized as a bargaining party.
• TR urged Congress to create the important cabinet departments of Labor and Commerce which occurred in 1903.
• The Bureau of Corporations was created and authorized to probe businesses that engaged in Interstate Commerce.

TR Corrals the Corporations

• The original Interstate Commerce Commission failed to adequately address the problems created by big railroad companies. The companies would simply appeal a decision to federal courts which took almost 10 years.
• TR decided to take matters into his own hands by passing the Elkins Act which was used to curb the rebates. Heavy fines could be imposed on both the railroad for issuing rebates and the shipper for accepting the rebate.
• The Hepburn Act of 1906 restricted the act of bribery using free passes. The commission could also nullify current rates and then set new ones if there was any complaint from shippers.
• When it came to trusts, TR realized that there would not be a total elimination of trusts because there were “good trusts” and “bad trusts”. The good ones had public consciences and the bad ones were just in it for the money. He was not going to smash all trusts just because of public outcry against them but he knew he had to do something with the bad trusts.
• In 1902, Roosevelt attacked the Northern Securities Company, a railroad holding company founded by J. P. Morgan and James J. Hill.
• The Northern Securities Company appealed up to the Supreme Court which upheld the antitrust suit led by Roosevelt in 1904.
  • So the Northern Securities Company was forced to dissolve and this angered big business but gave TR a reputation as a trust smasher.
  • 40 other companies witnessed the big stick as Roosevelt filed suit against them. The beef trust was declared illegal, and eventually sugar, fertilizer, and harvesters trusts.
• TR didn’t bust trusts because he thought they were bad. He did not do it because it was popular amongst the progressives. He did it to prove that government was bigger than big business.
• He believed in regulation rather than destruction.
• It wasn’t TR that did most of the trust busting, that as actually the job of Taft.
• Roosevelt made some trusts healthier and allowed JP Morgan to have US Steel absorb the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company.
  • TR was quite mad when Taft launched a lawsuit against US. Steel in 1911.

Caring For the Consumer

• In 1906, American meat was being shut out of European Markets because of fear that some of the meat was tainted.
• Canned products were also risky.
• Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle.  He went to the meat-packing centers with the intention to expose the working conditions of the laborers. Instead, he found the places to be very unsanitary to the point that people, including Roosevelt, stopped eating meat.
• There was a special investigating commission sent to Chicago to investigate the situation and gave an even more cold-blooded report of details such as poisoned rats, rope ends, splinters, and other debris scooped up and canned as ham.
• So obviously something needed to be done, especially if you once loved steak. TR passed the Meat Inspection Act  in 1906 forcing inspection of meat going across state lines.
• Initially, big meatpackers resisted but later found it advantageous to have an official government sticker on the meat going out.
• There was also the Food and Drug Act of 1906 that required accurate labeling of foods and drugs to prevent mislabeling.

Earth Control

• Americans depleted natural resources as if they were unlimited. As a result this pollution and wasting of resources soon came under the radar of far-visioned leaders. Something had to be done.
• The first attempt was the Desert Land Act of 1877. This sold cheap land in the desert provided that the person buying it irrigate it within 3 years.
• The more successful act was the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 which authorized the president to set aside public forests as national parks or reserves. 46 million trees were rescued from loggers.
• The Carey Act of 1894 gave states land if they irrigated it.
• This was the first time a president every cared about conservation, even though he himself liked to hunt a lot. But then again, hunters care about conservation too. If the environment is gone, the animals are gone too.
• The Newlands Act of 1902 authorized the government to collect money from sale of the dry desert lands and use it to fund irrigation projects.
  • The cost of reclamation was repaid by settlers that now had good land to work with.
  • This led to the creation of dams such as the Roosevelt Dam in 1911.
• Jack London’s Call of the Wild sparked the youth to form the Boy Scouts of America, the largest youth organization. The Sierra Club – 1913 – dedicated to preserving the western landscape.
• But then in 1913, a dam was built in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of Yosemite National Park. This was a setback for the preservationists.
  • This also led to divisions among the conservationists as some were preservationists and some were just interested in protecting the resources but not necessarily the wilderness. Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt’s chief Forester said “wilderness was waste”.
  • Roosevelt wanted to take a “multiple-use resource management” approach that nationalized the conservationist movement.
    • Big companies found ways to take advantage of the conservationist movement, pushing the little guys out.

The “Roosevelt Panic” of 1907

• So Mr. Roosevelt was a loved president and won the 1904 elections handily.
• The Republicans were quite fearful though, describing Roosevelt as unpredictable as a rattlesnake.
• Roosevelt called for more regulations and worker protections. However, he said he wasn’t going to run for a third term a bit too early and that depleted some of his power.
• Then suddenly in 1907, Wall Street went down the drain and there were bank runs, suicides, and indictments of speculators.
• But as all panics do, this one taught America a lesson.
  • The currency was short and there needed to be a more elastic currency that could be rushed out to the banks when they are needed.
  • The major problem was banks couldn’t get the cash when there was an emergency.
  • The Aldrich-Vreeland Act of 1908 authorized national banks to give emergency currency backed by collateral.

The Rough Rider Thunders Out

• Roosevelt could have run for a third term and run but he decided to keep his promise.
• Roosevelt sought William H. Taft, his war secretary, to be his successor.
• The democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan for the 3rd time.
• Bryan claimed that Roosevelt had stolen some Bryanite policies but the people were happy with the status quo left by Roosevelt and voted Taft into office.
• Socialists even showed up for this election scoring 420,793 votes for Eugene V. Debs, the hero of the Pullman strike.
• Roosevelt was noted as the first president that tried to keep the rising capitalism under control so it would prosper into maturity.
• Roosevelt contributed some important things that went on after his legacy.
  • He increased power and prestige of the presidential office.
  • He helped shape the progressive movement with his square deal.
  • Finally, he let America know that they were not the only country in the world and there had to be some responsibilities that America must assume.

Taft: A Round Peg in a Square Hole

• There was one problem with Taft, popular as he was. Taft was too passive, he was not assertive or even aggressive like TR. He was passive toward Congress and did not judge public opinion very well.
• He was a mild progressive but was someone that preferred status quo to change.

The Dollar Goes Abroad as a Diplomat

• Taft’s “dollar diplomacy” encouraged people on Wall Street to turn to markets overseas such as East Asian markets. This would in turn give America a stronghold in foreign affairs because investors from rival powers would be anchored into American investments.
• Manchuria was one area that Taft had in mind. Japan and Russia were now enemies of America and it would be inevitable that they would try to close the Open Door to American merchants.
• Secretary of State Philander C. Knox proposed a group of American and foreign buyers to purchase the Manchurian railroads and turn them over to China. Japan and Russia caught onto the plan and flatly rejected it for they knew it was an attempt to undermine their dominant position.
• The Caribbean was also a trouble spot and Washington told the Wall Street bankers to pump the money into Honduras and Haiti so they would not turn to foreign loans and bonds. It would be dangerous and a violation of the Monroe Doctrine if foreign countries held stakes in the Caribbean.
• There were also revolutionary outbreaks that resulted in the sending of US troops into the Caribbean.

Taft the Trustbuster

• Taft brought 90 suits against trusts.
• In 1911, the Supreme Court ruled that the Std. Oil Co. was to be dissolved but also ruled that only trusts that “unreasonably” restrained trade were illegal.
• Then Taft wanted to sue the US Steel Corporation which was Roosevelt’s baby. That didn’t fly too well with Mr. Roosevelt. Stay tuned for a smackdown.

Taft Splits the Republican Party

• Taft tried to reduce tariffs but by the time the bill rammed through the Senate, hides, sea moss, and canary seed, were the only items on the duty-free list.
• Taft signed the Payne-Aldrich Bill in 1901 and even declared it the best legislation passed by the Republicans. Progressives were not amused.
• Taft was a dedicated conservationist. He established the Bureau of Mines as a way to control mineral resources, rescue western coal lands from exploitation and protected the water-power sites from private development. Then came the Ballinger-Pinchot quarrel that was a bigger setback.
• Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger opened public lands in Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska.
• Gifford Pinchot, chief of the Agriculture Department’s Division of Forestry criticized Ballinger for this.
• Taft fired Pinchot causing a split in the Republican party between the Rooseveltians (conservationists) and the Taftians.
• Roosevelt then came back with the “New Nationalism” doctrine which called for government to increase power in order to remedy economic and social abuses.
• The democrats won many seat as a result in the 1910 mid-term elections.
• Then in Milwaukee, Socialist Victor L. Berger won a seat but was later denied it in 1919 due to a red scare.

The Taft-Roosevelt Rupture

• The split became a revolt. in 1911, the Progressive Republican League was formed naming Senator La Follett of Wisconsin
• Roosevelt decide to run again, he just could not bear Taft any longer. He claimed that his promise pertained to 3 consecutive terms, not 3 split terms.
• At the convention, there was much uprising and Rooseveltians were 100 votes short. They then attacked the validity of 250 Taftian delegates. As most of these disputes were decided in favor of Taft. The Rooseveltians then refused to vote and cost Roosevelt the nomination. Roosevelt was not done yet though and decided to come in as the third party.

—end of chapter—

Incomplete

So after the Civil War, nobody cared about international affairs. Reconstruction and the panics of the gilded age brought internal turmoil that had to be dealt with first. Now that the Gilded Age was over, it was time to focus on the world again.

America Turns Outward

• The Americans realized that their overproduction would cause America’s economy to suffer if it wasn’t dealt with. They needed foreign markets to relieve the pressure from the overproduction, especially in farming and manufacturing.
• Of course, writing also was a big influence on the fervor for foreign involvement. Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst described the foreign exploits as some adventure.
• Rev. Josiah Strong wrote Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis discussed Anglo-Saxon supremacy and the need to spread religion to the “backward” peoples.
• Teddy Roosevelt begged to differ for he thought that social Darwinism would obviously declare Americans the fittest for survival. The rest of the world was hopeless or unselected.
• At this point, imperialism was the cool thing to do. The Europeans carved up Africa and the Japanese, Germans, and Russians took advantage of faltering China.
• Then came another idea, yes we’re all full of ideas aren’t we? Alfred Thayer Mahan…excuse me…Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote a book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, about how controlling the sea pretty much showed how manly the country was. So now Americans wanted a stronger Navy and to build a canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
• James G. Blaine’s Big Sister policy was basically trying to woo Latin American countries to stand behind American leadership and open their markets to the US market.
  • He managed to get somewhere at the Pan-American Conference when he brought his plan up.
• The Americans nearly got into a fight with the Germans when they tried to take the Samoan Islands.
  • It was agreed that the islands will be split. German Samoa is now independent. American Samoa is still under US control to this day.
• The lynching of 11 Italians in New Orleans caused great tension to build between the US and Italy until the US agreed to pay compensation.
• When two Americans were killed at the Chilean port of Valparaiso, war was nearly inevitable until Chile offered to pay an indemnity.
• The US tangled up with Canada when they disputed over seal hunting near the Pribilof Islands. Arbitration resolved this conflict.
• So as you can see, Americans were dead serious about risking war to expand their empire.
• Of course, there was also this Anti-British sentiment developing again and when the British had that border dispute with Venezuela (mainly because gold was discovered and the British thought British Guiana was bigger) Grover Cleveland issued a statement to the British, reiterating the Monroe Doctrine. Secretary of State Olney was also telling the British that the Americans now controlled the Western Hemisphere.
• The British were not amused. Even so, Cleveland sent a message to Congress telling them to prepare for war if the British refused to accept the correct boundaries for British Guiana.
• Britain had other stuff on their hands though such as threats from Germany’s Wilhelm and Dutch-descendant Boers in South Africa.
  • So the ordeal was settled by arbitration and the British and Americans reconciled in the Great Rapprochement.

Spurning the Hawaiian Pear

• Hawaii was used as a popular stopping point for shippers, sailors, and whalers.
• Missionaries then came over and eventually spurred Hawaii into becoming a sugar producing island.
• The US wanted hands off of Hawaii so they issued stern warnings and secured a treaty with the native government to use Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
• Eventually the Japanese and Chinese Immigrants outnumbered the Native Hawaiians and Whites. They were there to work the sugar plantations. Americans were worried that Japan might come and try to avenge the harsh treatment of the Japanese. McKinley’s tariffs also hurt the sugar business and that gave a push for the annexation of Hawaii as American territory.
• There was one problem, Queen Liliuokalani decided that the natives could run the island themselves, without American help.
  • A revolt was led by the whites and this was successful
  • The annexation treaty could not be punched through before Harrison’s term expired and Grover Cleveland thought the whites had wronged Queen Liliuokalani and took the treaty back.

Cubans Rise in Revolt

• Cubans were angry at their Spanish oppressors and tried to overthrow them by the scorched-earth policy. So they pretty much burned their sugar cane and their own land. Personally, I would have picked some for consumption and burned all the rest. I guess the Cubans were already on enough of a sugar high, they didn’t need any more sugar.
• Now the Americans were not so interested in Cuba because the inhabitants had attempted to purge the land out of anything useful. Still, like I did for the 43rd Super Bowl, the Americans rooted for the underdogs.
• The Americans had a $50 million dollar business investment and a $100 million trade stake on Cuba and were not interested in losing it. Also it was believed that the country that controlled Cuba controlled the Gulf of Mexico.
• And then the last straw was when Spanish General Weyler “nickname: butcher” killed many civilians by herding them into re-concentration camps where unsanitary conditions killed them.
• Hearst and Pulitzer used their yellow journalism to spread propaganda about the atrocities in Cuba. As always, they told half the story, just enough for the Americans to go “WHAT!? THEM SPANAIRDS!!!!”
• And they also publicized a private letter between the Spanish minister in Washington D.C., Dupuy de Lome, which was an insult to William McKinley. So now that the Spaniards have done just about everything to anger the Americans, it was time for war and the Maine was sent on a “friendly visit” but stationed to evacuated Americans should some violence flare up.
  • The Maine mysteriously exploded, yellow journalism provided the rest of the story.
  • It was later found out that the explosion was a pure tragic accident but Americans were wooed by the yellow journalism, not the facts.
• McKinley didn’t quite want to go to war but he also wanted Cuba. Bending to public pressure, he sent his war message to Congress. War was declared but there was also a Teller Amendment that stated the Americans would give Cubans freedom after kicking Spain out. Europeans simply laughed at that idea.

Dewey’s May Victory at Manila

• Great job Navy Secretary John D. Long, you took a leave from office and let Teddy Roosevelt take over.
  • So Roosevelt told George Dewey, commander of the American Aslatic Squadron at Hong Kong, to go to the Philippines should war break out.
  • McKinley confirmed Roosevelt’s message, even though nobody could really see what Spanish Philippines had to do with Cuba. The Spanish fleet was soon destroyed…but what about the land forts in Manila? What about them German warships coming in.
  • Then the reinforcements came in and captured Manila on Aug. 13, 1893 along with part Chinese leader – Emilio Aguinado, leader of Filipino insurgents.
  • Then Hawaii was quickly annexed before anybody else could snatch it up.

The Confused Invasion of Cuba

• Spain sent some warships that forced fearful vacationing Americans way but were soon blockaded by American warships.
• General Shafter’s ill equipped troops did not advance. Instead it was the “Rough Riders” or cowboys, ex-convicts, and ex polo players, came in to Cuba, commanded by Colonel Leonard Wood.
• After El Caney and Kettle Hill, the war was pretty much near end as the American army surrounded Santiago and the Spanish fleet was chased into the American fleet.
• Americans also advanced to Cuba and an armistice with Spain was signed on Aug 12, 1898.

America’s Course (Curse?) Of Empire

• Americans also captured Guam because the Spaniards had no telegraph to alert them of a war going on.
• Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the US for war costs and Cuba was freed.
• However, the Philippines were a bigger problem, McKinley did not want to return them to Spain but saw it irresponsible to just simply sail away. But they were also hard to control for it was an ethnically diverse island.
• Eventually, the fervor to christianize/civilize the islands and the businessmen looking for profits gave way to annexation.
  • Americans paid Spain $20 million for the islands because they were captured a day after the armistice was signed and could not be claimed from war victory.
  • There was a lot of protest from Americans that thought annexing an island of too much diversity was dishonorable to American commitments to self-determination and anti-Colonialism. William James was a professor that led this. Speaker of the House Thomas Reed resigned in protest.
  • The pro-annexation people thought it would be irresponsible just to abandon the islands.
  • Anti Imperialist League was formed to try and debunk the McKinley Admin’s Imperialistic moves. Professors, presidents of universities and novelists (Mark Twain) and even the tycoons like Carnegie and labor leader Samuel Gompers.
  • Anti Imperialists had these arguments
    • Filipinos wanted freedom, it would be hypocritical to be a nation that adopted the Dec. of Ind.
    • Despotism overseas may cause despotism at home.
    • Annexation would put the US in East Asian dominion.
    • Imperialism wasn’t profitable.
• Unfortunately for the Anti-Imperialists, the treaty punched through the Senate with one vote…America was an empire now.

Puerto Rico and Cuba

• Is it a state? Is it a territory? It was hard to decide on the fate of Puerto Rico.
• the Foraker Act of 1900 granted Puerto Rico a limited degree of popular government.
• U.S citizenship was granted to Puerto Ricans in 1917 but there wasn’t total self rule yet. Some Puerto Ricans wanted independence despite the improvements brought by the American government.
• Others moved to NYC and added to the melting pot.
• So there was a second problem, did the laws, rights and the Constitution apply to all the newly acquired territory? According to a split Supreme Court in the Insular Cases decided that the flag trumped the constitution and that the people were not going to receive all American rights.
• Cuba was also a big deal. General Leonard Wood, a rough rider, led the military government into great improvements in government, finance, education, agriculture, and public health.
• The biggest was the eradication of yellow fever, caused by the stegomyia mosquito.
• The US withdrew from Cuba in 1902 because of the Teller Amendment.
• However, to try and reduce the fear of a country like Germany taking over, the Americans had the Cubans write the Platt Amendment into their Constitution.
• The Cubans were not to make any treaties that would compromise their independence.
• The Cubans were not to take on debt more than their resources.
• US Troops could intervene at any time.
• Two coaling stations, then reduced to just Guantanamo Bay were to be given up.
• The amendment was revoked in 1934 but the US still controls Guantanamo Bay until this day.

New Horizons in Two Hemispheres

• The Spanish-American War, a signal of coming out, was a short 113 day war.
• The Americans were more respected by the Europeans.
• Secretary of War Elihu Root created the general staff for the army and founded the War College in Washington.
• The Spanish-American war also removed bad blood between the Northerners and the Southerners.
• Even so, the far reaching empire would be hard to take care of. The Philippines would be a defenseless island that would eventually be taken advantage of by the Japanese.

“Little Brown Brothers” in the Philippines

• The Filipinos thought they would receive independence like the Cubans but were in for quite the surprise when the Americans decided to stay.
• This led to an insurrection starting Feb 4, 1899. There was guerilla warfare and the “water cure” was developed by the Americans, forcing water down a victim’s throat until they talked or died.
• Future pres. William H Taft tried to befriend his “little brown brothers”. But McKinley did not progress far. He poured all this money at the islands but the inhabitants wanted independence. It would not be until July 4th, 1946 that they would get independence. Still, Filipinos emigrated to the US.

Hinging The Open Door in China

• China was also being carved up by the Europeans and the Americans were worried that a monopoly of the Chinese markets would be established.
• Secretary of State John Hay sent the Open Door Notes urging the European countries to respect certain Chinese rights and the ideal of fair competition.
• At first, Europeans scoffed but eventually all agreed to it.
• Boxer Rebellion occurred because China did not want to be a doormat. This resulted in killings of thousands of foreigners.
• Multinational rescue forces arrived to stop the rebellion.
• Treaty of Wanghia – 1844 – American troops were sent to China to keep the Open Door open.
• The Chinese were given an indemnity of $333 Million and $24.5 million was to go to the US. Later $18 million was remitted to support Chinese students in the US.
• Hay also said that China’s land integrity should be respected. Eventually all these would be incorporated into the Nine Power Treaty of 1922

Imperialism or Bryanism in 1900?

• McKinley and Roosevelt ran on the same ticket – Republicans
• Democrats chose William Jennings Bryan.
• McKinley won by a wider margin than in 1896.

TR: Brandisher of the Big Stick

• McKinley was killed by an anarchist and Roosevelt took the seat of President.
• Roosevelt was an educated man and also believed in imperialism, military, and naval preparedness.
• His most famous quote was “Speak softly and carry a big stick, [and] you will go far.”
• He was an extrovert.
• TR believed that the president should lead boldly and he did not appreciate much of the checks and balances. He wanted to lead. He thought he could do anything as long as the constitution did not say he could not do it.

Building the Panama Canal

• TR’s first proposal was to build that canal in the isthmus between N. America and S. America.
• There was one problem, the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Britain said that the US agreed not to control any isthmus route. Even so, the British had tons of other problems and decided to allow the US to build a canal with the Paunceforte Treaty in 1901.
• Originally the place of construction would have been Nicaragua but the French Canal Company wanted in on this so they dropped the price of its holdings from $109 million to $40 million, courtesy to Philippe Bunau-Varilla.
• Congress then decided on the Panama Route but now the Colombians were unwilling to accept $10 Million for the 6 mile wide zone.
• So Bunau-Varilla and the US worked together on an uprising on November 3, 1903. This earned him the Prime minister position.
• Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty gave the US a 10 mile wide zone for the same price.
• Of course, US-Latin American relations were not so cool anymore.
• Project was completed in 1914 by Colonel George Washington Goethals.

TR’s Perversion of Monroe’s Doctrine

• Europe was fed up with unpaid debts in Latin America that they came to collect the money, some by violence.
• Roosevelt was fearful that those creditors would remain in the hemisphere.
• Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine – in the event of any financial problems, the US would intervene and pay off the debts in order to keep the Europeans out.
• Of course Roosevelt used this to occupy the Latin American region whenever he wanted including when there was a Cuban Revolt.

Roosevelt on the World Stage

• Japan and Russia were at war over Port Arthur and Japan secretly asked Roosevelt to negotiate a peace.
• It ended up being a peace that satisfied nobody.
• Japan was forced to give up indemnity demand and Russian gave up Sakhalin Island, but got Korea.
• Even so, Roosevelt turned once friendly nations to enemies.

Japanese Laborers in California

• Japanese came to California as immigrants.
• San Francisco’s school board tried to segregate Asians into a different school. The Japanese were angry and threatened war so Roosevelt used his big stick to force the Board of Education to repeal this act by the “Gentleman’s Agreement”.
• Tokyo agreed to withhold passports so immigration would be stopped.
• TR also sent the Great White Fleet to sail around the world as a way to impress the Japanese. There was a warm reception in Japan and the Root-Takahira agreement was signed pledging that both sides would respect each other’s territorial possessions.

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Population continued to grow, living conditions continued to deteriorate.

The Bloody Shirt Elects Grant

• All the fighting between the Republicans in Congress and Andrew Johnson caused people to distrust the “professional politicians”. As a result, the old idea that a good general would make a good president showed up and Grant was elected into office.
• Republicans originally ran on a platform of continued reconstruction of the south but Grant’s slogan was “Let us have peace”.
• Democrats could only agree that they did not want military reconstruction and not on anything else. It was a fight between the rich and the poor, the rich wanted their bonds redeemed in gold but the poor wanted the greenbacks to be redeemed (Ohio Idea). This struggle was what brought the democrats to their knees this election.
• Midwestern delegates had no candidate but disliked the Ohio Idea so that dashed all hopes of a unified Democratic party.
• Then Republicans decided to “wave the bloody shirt” and reintroduce the horrors of the Civil War effectively pushing the Republicans and Grant into victory. He also won from votes from former slaves. However, there was no support from the south and the Republicans would be in trouble.

Era of Good Stealings

• Jim Fisk and Jay Gould were the conspirators. They worked on President Grant to trick him into not releasing any gold from the treasury.
• Black Friday Sept 24, 1869. These two bought up gold until the price was ridiculous. Of course that failed when the treasury released more gold and they were found out.
• Burly “Boss” Tweed in NYC used bribery, graft, and fraud to steal about $200 million from the city. Eventually he was found out by the New York Times and Thomas Nast (who drew multiple cartoons to ridicule Tweed). Tweed died in prison

A Carnival of Corruption

• Grant got bribed.
• Credit Mobilier scandal – railroad insiders from the Union Pacific created this corporation and then hired themselves at inflated pay
• The company bribed several congressmen with stock to prevent them from intervening and also paid the vice president.
• Then there was the Whiskey Ring that involved whiskey producers that dodged excise taxes. Grant wanted to punish everyone involved until he realized that his secretary was involved. Grant wrote a statement to exonerate his secretary.
• Secretary of War William Belknap was forced to resign for accepting bribes from Indian Reservations.

The Liberal Republican Revolt of 1872

• Liberal Republicans wanted to reform the republican party from the corruption but lost their chance by nominating Horace Greeley who was not very good in this political judgments.
• The democrats also backed Horace Greeley. Greeley was the one that called the democrats traitors though. But yet Greeley pleased the democrats when he called for clasping of hands across the “bloody chasm”.
• Regular republicans stuck with Grant and condemned Greeley as a atheist, communist, vegetarian, and cosigner of the Jefferson Davis bail bond.
• So Grant won again but the regular republicans were more cautious for they saw that the liberal republicans broke away only because of corruption and they sought to remove that corruption.
• Acts passed:
  • General Amnesty Act- removed disabilities from all but 500 former Confederate Leaders.
  • Reduction of high civil war tariffs
  • Mild civil-service reform

Depression, Deflation, and Inflation

• Panic of 1873
• Causes: Overproduction, over speculation
• Loans went unpaid after profits that were speculated were not met, this is quite similar to current times.
• Debtors wanted inflationary policies.
• Greenbacks were paper money that had been issued during the war, they were pretty much worthless pieces of paper with little financial backing.
• Because people wanted hard money, the greenback eventually disappeared from circulation but now the debtors were wanting the greenback back.
• More money meant cheap money meaning its was easier to pay debts with it.
• Of course, creditors wanted deflation. They wanted to get their money’s worth from the loan, not cheap worthless paper.
• The “hard money” people confused Grant and persuaded him to stop a bill that would allow more printing of paper money.
• Resumption Act of 1875 – called for more withdrawal of Greenbacks from circulation and also government redemption of all paper currency with gold at face value starting 1879.
• So now the debtors looked to another metal, silver. The treasury maintained that silver was worth 1/16th of what the same amount of gold was worth.
• Silver miners were angry about this and decided to stop offering this metal to the federal mint.
• So the government stopped making silver dollars, problem solved?
• Then new silver discoveries were made, the price of silver came tumbling down and then people started begging for the gov’t to start coining silver again, all an effort to try to inflate things.
• Grant held his deflationary stance and did things really start to deflate.
• But the greenbacks that the people still had were now close to their face value from the deflation and removal of greenbacks from circulation. Redemption Day for the greenbacks to gold didn’t quite work out as expected for people would rather carry paper than gold in their pockets and nobody really redeemed anything for gold.
• But the Republican’s hard money plan backfired for it created a Democratic House of Rep and the Greenback Labor party.

Pallid Politics

• Republicans/democrats had relatively same ideas when it came to tariffs and civil service reform but the fact that they had different names made them quite competitive.
• But the underlying reason was that both parties came from different backgrounds. The Republicans traced their foundation back to the Puritans while the Democrats traced their foundation to religions that were less strict on human weakness.
• Democrats were in the South while Republicans were more industrial.
• Conklingites- civil jobs for votes
• Half-breeds or Blainites
• party stalemate

Hayes-Tilden Standoff 1878

• The House persuaded Grant to not run for a third term for it stuck the two-term tradition into his face.
• Republicans chose Rutherford B Hayes (three term governor of Ohio).
• Samuel J. Tilden was for the Democrats
• This election became disputed for three states, S. Carolina, Louisiana and Florida gave two sets of returns for opposing parties. Now who should count the votes? A republican would count the republican returns and the democrats would count the democrat returns.
• Oregon also had an ineligible elector for he held a postmaster’s position (a governmental official).

The Compromise of 1877

• Electoral Count Act
  • set up an electoral commission of 15 men selected from Senate, House, and the Supreme court.
• Electoral commission elected to take the republican returns (there were 8 republicans and 7 democrats present).
• The angry democrats threatened a filibuster.
• The actual compromise prevented this deadlock. The democrats would accept Hayes as the new president in return for the removal of troops in Louisiana and South Carolina.
• The republicans also agreed to fund a bill that would help construct the southern line of the transcontinental railroad.
• Even though the Republicans totally did not uphold the railroad subsidy promise, they did avoid a major dispute.
• Should things have been held off for more then three days, the nation would have no president to swear in. Good thing the situation was resolved.
• Reconstruction was basically halted and the Republican’s stance for racial equality was ended.
• Civil Rights Act was pronounced unconstitutional and the 14th amendment was interpreted as only protecting the freedmen from governmental discrimination but not preventing individuals from violating civil rights.

Jim Crow South

• Suppression of the blacks
• Former slaves now at mercy of former masters who were now creditors and landlords.
• Merchants would manipulate the sharecropper system and keep the poor farmers in debt.
• Southern democrats passed Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, literacy tests (sample test: http://kpearson.project.tcnj.edu/interactive/imm_files/test.html)
• Separate but equal (Plessy Vs. Ferguson)
• Lynchings were increased due to the strict enforcement of the southern code of conduct. Another reconstruction would have to take place to resolve the racial inequalities of the south.

Class Conflicts and Ethnic Clashes

• Employee wages were cut for railroad workers in 1877 and the workers retaliated by striking. Hayes sent in troops to quell the anger and the strike ended up failing. 100 people died in the process.
• And there was animosity between the Chinese and the Irish. The Chinese were here to look for gold and lay railroad track, once the gold was gone and the railroad was finished, they either went back to China or stayed in the US. Those that stayed in the US faced really tough times.
• Denis Kearney was the Irish ringleader attracted followers to abuse the Chinese people savagely by shearing off their pigtails and even murdering them.
• Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882 to prevent further immigration of the Chinese.
• Exclusionists tried to get rid of Chinese citizenship but U.S. vs Wong Kim led to a decision based on the 14th amendment that made it unconstitutional to strip the Chinese of their citizenship rights.

Garfield and Arthur

• James A Garfield and Chester A Arthur ran on the “waving the bloody shirt” campaign to narrowly defeat democratic General Winfield Scott.
• But Garfield’s office had a lot of animosity between Secretary of State James G. Blaine and Senator Roscue Conkling.
• A mentally deranged office seeker, Charles J. Guiteau shot James A. Garfield in the back at the train station. Garfield died 11 weeks later.
• Guiteau’s defense tried to use insanity as a way to protect Guiteau but the fact that he asked the people that benefited from the assassination to donate to his defense fund obviously doesn’t make him entirely insane.
• The benefit of the assassination (even though it was tragic) was that the spoils system obviously had to be reformed.
• Arthur surprised his critics by prosecuting fraud cases and ignoring anything related to “Stalwart”
• Pendelton Act- Compulsory campaign contributions from federal employees illegal. Established Civil Service Commission made appointments for federal jobs on the bases of competitive exams.
• Politicians were forced to look for jobs elsewhere after the Pendelton Act.
• Pendelton Act separated politics and patronage.

The Blaine-Cleveland Mudslinger

• James G. Blaine chosen as candidate
• “Mulligan letters” written by Blaine to a Boston businessman involving a corrupt deal with federal favors to the southern railroads.
• Mugwumps – people that left the Republicans for Democrats due to disgust towards Blaine.
• Democrats – Grover Cleveland
  • Found by Republicans to have had affair with Buffalo widow who had an illegitimate son.
• Cleveland won

“Old Grover” Takes Over

• Cleveland was an advocate of the laissez-faire economy.
• Vetoed a bill that would provide seeds for drought-ravaged farmers.

Cleveland Battles For Lower Tariff

• A lower tariff would lower prices for consumers and provide less protection to monopolies.
• Cleveland’s administration had an embarrassing surplus of $145 Million dollars.
• Democrats unhappy because Cleveland was rushing in with this tariff thing. Republicans saw this as an opportunity to come back.
• Cleveland was re-nominated by the democrats because they saw no other choice. Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison (related to William Henry Harrison)
• Harrison won the election but Cleveland was the more popular candidate.

Billion Dollar Congress

• Thomas B. Reed – speaker of the house, very feisty.
• He counted those who refused to respond to roll call (but were there).
• Appropriated $1 billion for things like veterans pensions and silver purchasing.
• McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 increased the tariffs to record highs.
• This tariff angered farmers.
• New Congress had more democrats as a result during midterm elections.

The Drumbeat of Discontent

• Formation of the People’s Party or Populists
  • mostly agriculture areas
• Demanded inflation using unlimited coinage of silver at rates of 16 ounces of silver to one ounce of gold.
  • also wanted a graduated income tax
  • government ownership of railroads, telegraph, and telephone
  • direct election of US senators
  • one-term limit on the presidency
  • adoption of initiative and referendum to allow ordinary people to initiate the legislative process
  • shorter workday
  • immigration restrictions
• Populists chose General James B. Weaver.
• Nationwide strikes were occurring at the same time
• Violence at a steel plant in Pittsburgh resulted in a vicious struggle. Troops were sent in and the uprising was crushed.
• But of course the poor farmers would not allow the Populists to stir up anything big in the election although the Populists did get quite a few votes.
• Populists were looking forward to black support but the south prevented that with the harsh literacy tests and poll taxes.
• Tom Watson promoted the interracial appeals of the Populists but his efforts were futile.
• Populists then became divided.

Cleveland and Depression

• Grover Cleveland re-elected.
• Same guy, but the country was now in crisis, the worst recession of the 19th century.
  • overbuilding
  • speculation
  • labor disorders
  • agricultural depression
• Gold reserve below $100 million due to paper notes being issued for gold redemption
• Cleveland suffered from a growth on the roof of his mouth and it was speculated that he might die if the surgeon didn’t do a great job
• Repealed Sherman silver purchase act which divided democrats
• Gold was still declining from the treasury
• J.P Morgan gave gov’t a loan of gold from foreign markets to help the situation.

Cleveland Breeds Backlash

• Condemned because of government reliance on Wall Street
• Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 was supposed to undo the high tariff from McKinley but was loaded with special interests that did little to help. It included a new income tax of 2 percent on income above $4000 which was later struck down as unconstitutional.
• Pretty much this was an ouster for the democrats and was an advantage for the republicans.