Chapter 29A - People and Terms

Underwood Tariff

Underwood Tariff

This tariff provided for a substantial reduction of rates and enacted an unprecedented, graduated federal income tax. By 1917, revenue from the income tax surpassed receipts from the tariff, a gap that has since been vastly widened.

Federal Reserve Act

An act establishing twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks and a Federal Reserve Board, appointed by the president, to regulate banking and create stability on a national scale in the volatile banking sector. The law carried the nation through the financial crises of the First World War of 1914–1918.

Federal Trade Commission Act

A banner accomplishment of Woodrow Wilson’s administration, this law empowered a standing, presidentially appointed commission to investigate illegal business practices in interstate commerce like unlawful competition, false advertising, and mislabeling of goods.

Clayton Anti-Trust Act

Law extending the anti-trust protections of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and exempting labor unions and agricultural organizations from antimonopoly constraints. The act conferred long-overdue benefits on labor.

holding companies

Companies that own part or all of other companies’ stock in order to extend monopoly control. Often, a holding company does not produce goods or services of its own but only exists to control other companies. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 sought to clamp down on these companies when they obstructed competition.

Workingmen’s Compensation Act

Passed under Woodrow Wilson, this law granted assistance to federal civil-service employees during periods of disability. It was a precursor to labor-friendly legislation passed during the New Deal.

Adamson Act

This law established an eight-hour day for all employees on trains involved in interstate commerce, with extra pay for overtime. The first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies, it was upheld by the Supreme Court in Wilson v. New (1917).

Jones Act

Law according territorial status to the Philippines and promising independence as soon as a “stable government” could be established. The United States did not grant the Philippines independence until July 4, 1946.

Tampico Incident

An arrest of American sailors by the Mexican government that spurred Woodrow Wilson to dispatch the American navy to seize the port of Veracruz in April 1914. Although war was avoided, tensions grew between the United States and Mexico.

Central Powers

Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by Turkey and Bulgaria, made up this alliance against the Allies in World War I.

Allies

Great Britain, Russia, and France, later joined by Italy, Japan, and the United States, formed this alliance against the Central Powers in World War I.

U-boats

German submarines, named for the German Unterseeboot, or “undersea boat,” proved deadly for Allied ships in the war zone. U-boat attacks played an important role in drawing the United States into the First World War.

Lusitania

British passenger liner that sank after it was torpedoed by Germany on May 7, 1915. It ended the lives of 1198 people, including 128 Americans, and pushed the United States closer to war.

Zimmermann note

German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman had secretly proposed a German-Mexican alliance against the United States. When the note was intercepted and published in March 1917, it caused an uproar that made some Americans more willing to enter the war.

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson’s proposal to ensure peace after World War I, calling for an end to secret treaties, widespread arms reduction, national self-determination, and a new league of nations.

Committee on Public Information

A government office during World War I known popularly as the Creel Committee for its chairman George Creel, it was dedicated to winning everyday Americans’ support for the war effort. It regularly distributed prowar propaganda and sent out an army of “four-minute men” to rally crowds and deliver “patriotic pep.”

Espionage Act

A law prohibiting interference with the draft and other acts of national “disloyalty.” Together with the Sedition Act of 1918, which added penalties for abusing the government in writing, it created a climate that was unfriendly to civil liberties.

Schenck v. United States

A Supreme Court decision that upheld the Espionage and Sedition Acts, reasoning that freedom of speech could be curtailed when it posed a “clear and present danger” to the nation.

War Industries Board

Headed by Bernard Baruch, this federal agency coordinated industrial production during World War I, setting production quotas, allocating raw materials, and pushing companies to increase efficiency and eliminate waste. Under the economic mobilization of the War Industries Board, industrial production in the United States increased 20 percent during the war.

Louis D. Brandeis

A progressive-minded confidant of Woodrow Wilson, Brandeis was the litigator behind Muller v. Oregon. In 1916, Wilson made him the first Jewish American to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Victoriano Huerta

He was a Mexican military officer and President of Mexico, who was also leader of the violent revolution that took place in 1913. His rise to power caused many Mexicans to cross the border as well as angering the United States who saw him as a dictator.

Francisco (“Pancho”) Villa

A combination of bandit and Robin Hood, Villa emerged as a chief rival to Mexican president Carranza and tried to provoke the United States into war by going on a killing spree north of the border in New Mexico. President Wilson dispatched General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing in an attempt to capture Villa, but the expedition ended in defeat for American forces.

Arthur Zimmermann

German foreign secretary during World War I and author of the infamous "Zimmermann note," which proposed a German-Mexican alliance against the United States.

George Creel

The young, outspoken, and tactless journalist who was tapped to head the Committee on Public Information, also known as the Creel Committee, during World War I.

Eugene V. Debs

A tireless socialist leader who organized the American Railway Union in the Pullman Strike in 1894. Debs was later convicted under the World War I’s Espionage Act in 1918 and sentenced to ten years in a federal penitentiary. A frequent presidential candidate on the Socialist party ticket, in 1920 he won more than 900,000 votes campaigning for president from his prison cell.

William D. (“Big Bill”) Haywood

As a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Western Federation of Miners, and the Socialist Party of America, Haywood was one of the most feared American labor radicals. During World War I, he became a special target of anti-leftist legislation.

Herbert C. Hoover

A Quaker-humanitarian tapped to head the Food Administration during World War I. During the 1920s, he became the secretary of commerce, promoting economic modernization and responsible leadership by business to hold off further expansion of government power. Elected to the presidency in 1928 as a Republican, he soon faced the crisis of the Great Depression, which he tried to combat with the same voluntary efforts and restrained government action that had been his hallmark over the previous decade. He lost the election of 1932 to Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, who advocated a more activist role for the federal government.