The Progressive Era, 1900– 1916

116. Manuel Gamio on a Mexican- American Family and American Freedom (ca. 1926)

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   Massive immigration to the United States occurred in the early twentieth century. The majority of newcomers came from southern and eastern Europe, while approximately one million Mexicans entered the country between 1900 and 1930. Like their forefathers, the newcomers imagined the United States as a land of liberty, where everyone might worship as they liked, experience economic opportunity, and be free of the repressive social hierarchies of their native countries.

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   Manuel Gamio, a sociologist, conducted interviews with Mexican-American immigrants in Los Angeles during the 1920s. This passage from his report on the Santella family, who are better wealthy and "whiter" than other Mexican immigrants, exposes the intergenerational tensions that American freedom has instilled in immigrant families.

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The following information about the Santella family was collected through conversation with them and observation over a lengthy period of time. Mr. Santella, his wife, and their seven children, five girls and two boys, immigrated to the United States in 1915, during the height of the Mexican revolution. They settled in San Antonio, Texas. They lived well in a property rented to them on San Pedro Street because they are a well-to-do family. 4. Line 9 - 15:

I understand that they own a number of properties in Mexico City, including the family's private mansion, which, according to the image I have in front of me, is a gorgeous colonial style building. On San Pedro Street, the Mexican colony's wealthiest class lives, or rather, a number of the wealthier members who form a sort of "high society" in the middle of the Mexican colony's vast majority of working-class residents.

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   With the exception of the father and mother, after five years in San Antonio, all members of the family spoke English and had adopted American habits. The eldest of the young women married a young American jewelry store manager. Two years later, the youngest married the American's brother. This second man worked at the same jewelry store. These marriages appear to have displeased the father, as he frequently remarked at the time that these young men did not "belong to society." The brother who traveled to Europe returned to San Antonio, Texas, and eventually to Los Angeles, California, where he married a young American woman.

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   The second male member of the family is obsessed with radios and spends his time selling and buying them, installing them, and so on, but he does nothing to aid the family and is supported by his father. The artist has had a lot of success during his time in Los Angeles because he is the director of the symphonic orchestra at the "Figueroa" theatre, which is located in one of the city's colonies. He has also made various adaptations of music for the stage and cinema, as well as composed other pieces, all of which have earned him a considerable level of recognition and a good place among Los Angeles' artistic elements.

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   Before we proceed, it is important to note that this family is white because the father's grandparents were French and the mother's grandparents were Spaniards. Two of the sisters are blondes, while the rest are brunettes, and the brothers are dark. Tired of living in San Antonio and having to constantly fly between Mexico and the United States, the father chose to return to Mexico permanently in order to be able to watch over his interests there, allowing his wife to choose where she would rather live. The mother and her unmarried daughter Son opted to move to Los Angeles, where they now reside. They dwell in an apartment on South Bronson Street, which leads to Hollywood. Their relations are largely with Americans. The family owns a Buick automobile, which the young ladies run.

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   As a result, the father lives in Mexico City, where the rest of the family only pays visits. The mother lives with her son and three unmarried daughters. The married son lives in a house facing the family, while the two married daughters reside in San Antonio, Texas. The daughters claim that they had worked as extras in movies as Spanish types against their parents' wishes in Los Angeles at various occasions. The mother claims she enjoys living in the United States because of the comfort, calm, and lack of danger for her girls.

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   She is free to go to the grocery store, clothing store, or wherever she wants and buy anything she wants without anyone paying attention to her. She lives her life as she wishes and without as many social obligations as she did in Mexico, where she had to follow such and such a custom, have a large number of servants, and always have to meet a large number of social criteria, which plagued her greatly. She claims, however, that she dislikes American conventions concerning the liberty and behavior of young women in our country, [the] habits and ways of being by which her daughters have been inspired and which deeply bother her.

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On the other hand, she admires this country for the strides it has made, and she claims that she only visits Mexico. And now that her daughters have married, she feels forced to reside here in order to assist them in any way she can, and it just so happens that the climate of Los Angeles is really excellent for her. The youngest of the daughters was in high school in San Antonio and then pursued her studies in Los Angeles, but shortly after being here, she began seeing a young Englishman who is now her fiancé and she will marry him in a few months. 5. Line 14 - 23:

She dropped out of school as a result of this, and in order to be self-sufficient and earn money for her clothes and other desires, she opted to go to work over her father and mother's opposition. She is currently a doctor's secretary. She greets patients who come to his clinic, answers phone calls, and handles her boss's correspondence because she knows shorthand and typewriting. She earns $20.00 per week for this work, which she uses to buy dresses, shoes, and other accessories. According to her mother and sisters, this seventeen-year-old girl is the most Americanized of all.

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117. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics (1898)

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   During the Progressive Era, the working woman— immigrant and native, working category and professional— grew to become a symbol of girl emancipation. The developing quantity of youthful ladies who favored a life- long career, wrote Charlotte Perkins Gilman in her influential e book Women and Economics presented proof of a “spirit of personal in dependence” that pointed to a coming transformation of both economic and family life. In the home, Gilman argued, ladies experienced no longer achievement but oppression, and the housewife used to be an unproductive parasite, little more than a servant to her husband and children. By condemning ladies to a life of domestic drudgery, prevailing gender norms made them incapable of contributing to society or taking part in freedom in any meaningful experience of the word. Gilman devised plans for communal nurseries, cafeterias, and laundries to assist free married female from “house service.” Her writings had a strong impact on the first generation of twentieth- century feminists.

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   It is not motherhood that keeps the housewife on her feet from dawn until dark; it is residence service, now not infant service. Women work longer and more difficult than most men, and not entirely in maternal duties. The savage mother consists of the burdens and does all menial provider for the tribe. The peasant mom toils in the fields, and the workingman’s spouse in the home. Many mothers, even now, are wage earners for the family, as properly as bearers of it. And the girls who are now not so occupied, the girls who belong to wealthy men, here perhaps is the exhaustive devotion to maternity which is supposed to justify an admitted monetary dependence. But we do not locate it even amongst these. Women of ease and wealth grant for their youth higher care than the poor woman can; but they do now not spend greater time upon it themselves, nor more care and effort. They have different occupation.

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   The mother's labor has always been an important component in human life. She is an excellent worker, but her employment does not have a significant impact on her financial situation. Her living, everything she receives — food, clothing, ornaments, amusements, luxuries — has nothing to do with her ability to earn wealth, her domestic duties, or her motherhood. These things are only relevant to the man she marries, the man on whom she relies, in terms of how much he has and how much he is ready to offer her.

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   A truer spirit is the growing desire of young ladies to be independent, to have their own career, at least for a while, and the growing opposition of numerous women to the pitiful asking for money, to the beggary of their position. Fathers are increasingly giving their daughters, and husbands are giving their wives, a set allowance, a separate bank account, and something that is entirely their own. The sense of personal freedom in today's women is undeniable proof that a shift has occurred. For a time, the introduction of technology, which took away so many industries from the home, deprived woman of any economic importance; yet she eventually arose and followed her lost wheel and loom to their new location, the mill.

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   There is barely one business in the country now that does not employ some women. Women work outside the home for pay all over America, according to the most recent census, with three million of them. This is such an obvious fact that it affects so many people in so many different ways that it is constantly and widely discussed. Without delving into its immediate advantages or disadvantages from an industrial standpoint, it is simply mentioned as indisputable confirmation of the profound transformation in the economic status of women that is upon us. She is forming new relationships in front of our eyes from year to year, but we have failed to see all social realities from a personal standpoint. As well as appreciate the nature of change.

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   The increasing individualization of democratic life affects both our daughters and our sons. Girls do not all enjoy sewing, and many do not know how. Instead of being a calming process, sitting sewing together would produce varying degrees of restlessness, disgust, and tense aggravation. And, in terms of reading aloud, it is not always simple to find a book that a well-educated family of modern daughters and their mother would all enjoy reading together. As the race becomes more specialized and differentiated, the simple lines of relation in home life draw less energy, while the more complicated lines of relation in social life draw more force; and this is a completely natural and desirable process for women as well as for men.

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   Women's economic independence necessitates a shift in their home and family relationships. However, if the change is for the benefit of the individual and race, we should not be concerned. It does not include a change in the marriage relationship except for the removal of the aspect of economic dependency, nor does it involve a change in the mother-child relationship except for the improvement of it. However, it does involve the exercise of human faculties in women, in social service and exchange rather than exclusively in domestic service. This will, of course, need the introduction of a different way of life than what already exists. It will make the current way of feeding the planet with millions of private servants and raising children unworkable.

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It is a sad fact that the vast majority of our children are raised and educated by domestic servants, usually their mothers, but domestic employees by trade. To become a producer, a player in the global economy, a woman's current status as a private servant must inevitably intervene. She may still be a house mistress in the sense of owning and directing her home, but she may not be a housekeeper or house servant and may be anything else. Her role as a mother will also change. Mother in the sense of bearer of noble children, she will be, as the nearest and dearest, the one most revered and best loved; but mother in the sense of exclusive individual nursery-maid & nursery mistress, she may not be & be anything else.

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118. John A. Ryan, A Living Wage (1912)

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   The ideals of "industrial freedom" and "industrial democracy," which had entered the political language during the Gilded Age, moved to the center of political debate during the Progressive era. They had numerous connotations, including raising the overall standard of living and working conditions, as well as allowing employees to participate in economic decision making through powerful unions. In whatever form, these terms challenged traditional definitions of freedom as well as the concept of private property inviolability. Progressives felt that the government had the right to expand liberty by regulating economic activities in the public interest.

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John A. Ryan, a Roman Catholic priest and professor at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., was a leading social justice champion of the time. Pope Leo XIII urged Catholics to engage in social activism on behalf of industrial workers in 1891. Ryan became a strong proponent of the idea that all people had a fundamental right to a "living wage," which would allow everyone to share in the benefits of contemporary technology. His article on the subject popularized the concept and impacted legislation establishing minimum wage levels during the Progressive era and the New Deal. During the 1930s, Ryan became so close to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that he was dubbed the "Right Reverend New Dealer."

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   The right to a Living Wage stems from the right to live off the earth's wealth. The latter is recognized by most states and emphasized by Christianity. It is obvious when one considers man's nature and his relationship to the land. It supersedes and limits the right to private property. That is, a good living. Its rational foundation is the sanctity of the individual. Men do not have natural rights to equal amounts of things because they are unequal in terms of individual wants and productive abilities. Neither do they have the right to equal satisfaction of all of their wants.

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   A man's inherent rights are as numerous and varied as the liberties, opportunities, and assets essential for the reasonable maintenance and development of his personality. They can all be reduced to the right to reasonable external liberty of activity. Some of them, such as the right to exist and the right to marry, are original and primary, inhering in all persons regardless of condition; others are derived and secondary, induced and defined by the specific circumstances of specific people. The right to a Living Wage belongs to the latter group. It is not a unique and universal right, because receiving wages implies a type of industrial organization known as the wage system, which has not always existed and is not necessary for human welfare.

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   Even today, millions of men earn their living in ways other than wages, and so have no legal right to salaries of any form or size. The right to a Living Wage is unmistakably a derived right, assessed and defined by existing social and industrial institutions. Private property is morally justifiable because it is the best way for man to exercise his natural right to use material nature's gifts for the development of his personality. As a result, it is only a means, and its scope is determined and limited by the objective it promotes, which serves as its entire justification.

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   Every individual's private right must be interpreted in accordance with the common rights of others. As a result, a man's claim to a surplus loaf, which he has by virtue of private ownership, does not exonerate him of the crime of injustice when he withholds it from his starving neighbor. So much for the right to subsistence, or even a meager living. A decent livelihood is defined as the amount of requirements and comforts of life that is consistent with a human being's dignity. It bears no exact relation to the customary standard of living that may predominate within any social or industrial class, but rather reflects the bare minimum of conditions that the average individual of a given age or sex must have in order to live as a human being should live in reasonable comfort. He requires food, clothing, and shelter.

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   He must have the opportunity to develop all of his talents, physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, within fair limitations. The State bears the responsibility of paying the laborer a living wage. In a negative sense, liberty is the absence of restraint; in a positive sense, it is the ability to act and enjoy oneself. In the absence of State action, there are insurmountable barriers to true and practical liberty. [Such law] would ensure a greater degree of liberty and greater economic opportunities... The government has both the right and the obligation to require all employers to pay a Living Wage.

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119. The Industrial Workers of the World and the Free Speech Fights (1909)

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   The American Federation of Labor, the most important union of the Progressive Era, primarily represented the most privileged American workers—skilled industrial and craft laborers, nearly all of whom were white, male, and native born. In 1905, a group of unionists who were dissatisfied with the AFL's exclusionary practices founded the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), with the goal of mobilizing the immigrant manufacturing labor force, migratory timber and agricultural workers, women, blacks, and even the reviled Chinese.

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   But it was the IWW's fight for free expression that drew the most attention. Because there were no union rooms, its organizers relied on songs, street theater, impromptu organizing meetings, and street corner gatherings to disseminate their message and gain support. Officials in Los Angeles, Spokane, Denver, and more than a dozen other cities banned or prohibited outdoor meetings in response to IWW operations. To gain public support, the IWW crammed jails with members who disobeyed local law by speaking out in public. The IWW eventually compelled municipal government to relent in nearly all of the free-speech battles. "Whether they agree or disagree with its methods or intentions," one journalist said, "all lovers of liberty everywhere owe a debt to this group for... [keeping] the embers of liberty alight."

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   Spokane's working class is embroiled in a titanic war, one of the most important local class struggles. It is a battle for more than just free expression. Its purpose is to protect the free press and labor's right to organize. The writers of the allied press newspapers have systematically and unethically lied about us. Only through the Socialist and labor press can we hope to reach the general public's ear. The I.W.W. started the struggle, and it is currently actively battling, particularly by going to jail. However, the values for which we he A.F. of L. [American Federation of Labor] Central Labor Council.

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[Note: I have changed the format of the notes, from here on the notes will be written per page. Previously, the notes were written per lines of every page].

At I.W.W. Spokane, it consists of "floaters" that drift east to west from the harvest field to the logging camp. They are men who have no families and fearlessly advocate for their rights, but are not the "home guards" with steady jobs, so they are the sort of prey recruiters make.

An attractive sign of short hours and high wages usually earned in far-flung fields, these leeches lure floaters to buy jobs, pay exorbitant prices, and then travel thousands of miles out of nowhere. will also ship Workers do not find the jobs expected and find jobs lasting several days before being fired to make way for the next "simple brand". Since its inception in the Northwest, I.W.W. has waged a determined and unrelenting battle against the employment shark, which has severely impacted their business. I was.

"I think it's all down to the recruitment agency," he said, sure. Head. "I.W.W. must go," shark commanded last winter, and the city council happily passed an ordinance banning all street gatherings within fire-blocks. This was effectively a suppression of free speech. From holding street meetings in the only district where workers gather.

In August the council reversed its decision to allow religious groups to speak in the streets, openly acknowledging their discrimination against I.W.W. With members of the I.W.W. organization adrift, they've decided the fall is the perfect time for the final confrontation Return to town with a 'stake' to survive the winter. About three weeks ago, Fellow tested his case while his worker Thompson was talking on the street.

At his Nov. 2 trial, Judge Mann ruled that the August Ordinance was unconstitutional. He delivered a brilliant speech that the right to free speech was "God-given" and "non-negotiable," but the inherent consistency of legal light made it difficult to ordinance is currently in vogue..

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Afterwards, members of the world's industrial workers took to the streets to speak. They were all arrested and, to their surprise, the next morning were charged with disorderly conduct under a different ordinance. looks like the authorities few had the courage to oppose ordinances banning freedom of expression.

From that point on, every day by World Industrial Workers, Socialists, W.M. [Western Miners Federation] men. November 3rd, I.W.W. Headquarters. Ambushed by Police Chief Sullivan and his gang. They were Industrial Workers editor James Wilson, local organizer James P. Thompson, local secretary C. L. Filiño, and A. E. Cousins, co-editor, Criminal Conspiracy. E.J. Foote, deputy editor of Industrial Worker magazine, was arrested outside his law firm the next day. The police's idea was probably to capture the "leader". Because they are ignorant enough to believe that they can neutralize a large organization by taking a few men.

However, the arrest of these men is serious as they are charged with crimes against the state and require five years in prison. The city's prison conditions are beyond description. Suffice it to say that the boys were huddled in his 6-by-8 cell, called the Headlock, from 28 to 30 at a time. The steam turned on at full speed until the men nearly collapsed from exhaustion. Some have been known to faint before being removed.

They were then placed in ice-cold solitary confinement, and as a result of this inhumane treatment, some are now in such danger that they fear they will die. After this preliminary punishment they were ordered to work in Cologne, and when they refused they were given a meal of bread and water, which many of the boys refused with astonishing courage rice field.

This is what the capitalist press derided as a "hunger strike." By majority he was sentenced to 30 days in prison. A $100 fine and a 30-day fee were imposed on anyone who repeatedly committed the gruesome crime of calling him a "colleague" on a street corner.

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This trial provided additional evidence to our much-debated accusation that the U.S. justice system is a farce. Work colleague Little was asked by a judge what he was if he gets arrested He replied, "Reading the Declaration of Independence." "For 30 days," said the judge. A next colleague read an excerpt from his The Industrial Worker, and to him he said 30 days.

We are the "noble" newspaper whose Declaration of Independence was deemed too exciting for Spokane. Case studies show how "fair" courts are. A woman appeared in the city's infamous spa town across the street from City Hall and believed to be operating under police protection. And she complained against a black soldier who was charged with disorderly conduct.

The case continued. The next case was I.W.W. speaker. The judge asked, without preamble, "Have you spoken in the street?" One of our best speakers, staff member Knust, was brutally beaten by the police and is currently in the hospital.Ms Frenet, one of our female members was also beaten by the police. Several A man in prison has a black eye and bruises. The men have broken jaws, but these men were in no such condition when they were arrested. Those who had completed their sentences were divided into three groups. One in the city jail, another in his old abandoned and partially destroyed schoolhouse, and a third group in Fort Wright, guarded by black soldiers.

This The riots are not covered by major local newspapers. It could harm the Washington Hydropower government. The usual lie that agitators are ignorant foreigners, vagrants and vagrants is the order of the day. Assuming most of those arrested are foreigners, there are 115 foreigners and he is 136 Americans. What must be done would be almost untrustworthy to American citizens. Most boys have money. They're not what you would call 'wanderers', but don't lose credibility with it, but don't bring money to jail. They believe in not seducing cops. They are intelligent, cold workers fighting for the rights of their class.

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The situation was so serious that L. AF, the Socialist Party and the I.W.W. went before the City Council to demand the abolition of the current ordinance and the passage of an ordinance providing for orderly meetings at reasonable times. All of these committees fully supported freedom of expression and had excellent discussions before the Council.

Two gentlemen came up to us. One was a veteran soldier in his seventies who had a strong prejudice against I.W.W. He is the other president of Fidelity National Bank of Spokane. But these two he was perhaps more important than his 12,500 citizens, collectively represented by the three commissions. We were flatly dismissed and a motion was passed to take no further action against the current ordinance pending motions from the mayor and police chief.

The mayor, based on this endorsement by a group of old cowards who had made up their minds years ago, called the deputy governor for the militia. However, his request was denied, and the sitting governor reportedly said he saw no disturbance. Perhaps they understand that each member in turn takes over as editor-in-chief before our paper is suppressed. The organization is growing by leaps and bounds. Every day, men go to prison from all directions so that their organization can survive.

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120. Margaret Sanger on “Free Motherhood,” from Woman and the New Race (1920)

It was in the years leading up to World War I that the word "feminism" first appeared in political parlance. It stated that the pursuit of free sexual expression and reproductive opportunities, as well as traditional demands such as the right to vote and greater economic opportunities for women, are essential to women's emancipation.

The law prohibited not only the sale of contraceptives, but also the dissemination of information about them. Margaret Sanger, one of her 11 children born into a working-class Irish-American family, has, more than anyone else, put the issue of birth control at the center of the new feminism. She began openly promoting her birth control pills in her own magazine, The Woman Rebel. In 1916, Sanger opened a clinic in a working-class neighborhood of Brooklyn.

He distributed contraceptives to poor Jewish and Italian women and was sentenced to one month in prison. Just as the IWW fights over free speech, Sanger's experience shows how the law imposes severe restrictions on the freedom of speech of Americans. The most widespread social development of our time is the rebellion of women against sexual bondage. The main force reshaping the world is free motherhood.

Apart from this power, modern politicians' sophisticated international agenda is thin and superficial. Diplomats can form national leagues And while nations may pledge maximum power to maintain it, and politicians may dream of rebuilding the world out of alliances, hegemony, and spheres of influence, explosive Women, who continue to create population, keep those promises the proverbial piece of paper; or, by controlling childbirth, motherhood can be elevated to the level of spontaneous, intelligent functioning to remake the world. When the world is remade in this way, it will exceed the dreams of politicians, reformers and revolutionaries.

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Most women from working-class families do not have accurate and reliable knowledge of contraceptive methods, and as a result bear children so quickly that women, their families, and their ranks are overwhelmed. from these figures, many of the burdens borne by society in general are increasing. They also caused misery, disease, harsh living conditions, and general misery for workers. Women in this class are the biggest victims of all.

Not only do they endure material hardships and deprivations along with their entire family, but even worse with their mothers. Men and children are the first to consume insufficient amounts of food. Men's working hours are usually limited by law or by trade unions, so it is men and children who get the rest, if any. It is the women who starve first, the most inappropriately dressed women who, like millions of women, are not forced to go to the factory to silence her husband's supplements.

Nevertheless, she is a woman who has to work 24 hours a day income. She, too, is the first to suffer health and despair from working long hours. Stress caused by frequent births of babies and, in many cases, near-constant breastfeeding. There is no eight-hour work law for her to protect her mother from overwork and housework. There are no laws protecting them from disease, pregnancy or reproductive diseases. In fact, little thought was given to the protection of mothers in working families.

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The fundamental freedom of the world is the freedom of women. No free race comes from a slave mother. A woman in bondage cannot choose to give her son or her daughters the degree of her bondage. A woman who does not own and control her own body cannot set herself free. I can't say that. A woman cannot call herself free until she can make a conscious choice whether she wants to be a mother or not. Not much changes when some women name themselves.

They are free because they make their own living, but some profess their freedom because they go against the conventions of sexual relations. You get freedoms that matter little in respect. A free choice to mate or not, to become a mother or not. She obtains at least food, clothing, and housing without submitting to her spouse's charity, but even though she earns her own living, her inner libido does not develop.

Than all these appearances to make this development, she has yet to face and resolve the issue of motherhood. For so-called "free" women who choose their partners against convention, freedom is above all a matter of character and boldness. . Even if she achieves unlimited mate choice, she can still be enslaved by her fertility. More likely to enslave her than a woman lucky enough to marry, most of all, this morality hinders The immersion of femininity in motherhood.

She opposes the transformation of women into mechanical motherhood and the birth of a new race. The female role was that of the incubator and beyond. She gave birth to hatched breeds. She gave her children little of what she was allowed to give, but she gave little of herself or her personality.

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The essential function of voluntary motherhood is to choose one's own mate, to determine the timing of reproduction, and to strictly regulate the number of offspring. Natural affection on his part, rather than a choice dictated by economic or social advantage, will help him take a better fatherly role towards his children.

Her exercising the right to decide how many children she will have and when they will give her the time she needs to develop abilities other than fertility. She will bring her interests, talents and ambitions into the game. She will become a complete person.

A free femininity transforms from her desires into a free and happy motherhood, motherhood that does not overwhelm a woman, but enriches herself because she is not overwhelmed. Therefore, when we proclaim the need to make the female spirit completely and absolutely free, it is of course not directed to the rights of women, not even of mothers, but is the right to be a child of all children in the world. . .

For the miracle of the free woman is that in her freedom she becomes the mother of her race and opens her heart to a good feeling for humanity.

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121. Mary Church Terrell, “What It Means to Be Colored in the Capital of the United States” (1906)

The daughter of slaves, Mary Church Terrell was born in 1863, the year of the Emancipation Proclamation, and became one of the nation's most prominent black women. As a high school teacher in Washington, D.C., who lost her job after getting married due to local laws prohibiting married women from teaching, she later served on the city's board of education and later became a teacher. one of the founders of the NAACP.

At the age of 86, she led a protest campaign that, in 1953, eventually led to the elimination of discrimination by restaurants in the city. In 1906, Terrell gave a speech to a women's club in Washington. In which she described some of the forms of prejudice and humiliation faced by African-Americans in the nation's capital everyday items. But despite the many reforms of the Progressive Era, the ties of segregation grew tighter during these years.

Washington, D.C. It is known as the "paradise of black people". Is this tribute given to the nation's capital with bitter irony by a member of the disabled race as he revisits some of his own persecutions and rebuffs, or is it awarded right after the war by a former slave for the first time in life saw people of color walking around like free men, minus the warden and his whip, history does not speak.

It would certainly be hard to find a worse misnomer for Washington than "Colored's Paradise" if a trivial consideration of honesty is to determine appropriateness of a name. I have resided in Washington for fifteen years, and although it was not a paradise for people of color when I first set foot on these shores, it has since done its best to create give us unbearable conditions. As a woman of color, I could walk into Washington any night, as a stranger in a foreign country, and walk for miles without finding a place to rest my head.

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Unless I know any colored people living here, or meet a random acquaintance who can recommend a colored inn, I'll have to wander all night. Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese and representatives of any other black race can find hotel rooms if they can afford it. Only people of color are evicted from hotels in the national capital like a leper.

As a woman of color, I can walk from the Capitol to the White House, hungry and have plenty of money to buy a meal, without looking for a restaurant where I'm allowed to have a bite to eat, if it's common sense. back and forth. white people, unless I want to sit behind the screen. As a woman of color, I cannot visit the tomb of the Father of this Country, which exists precisely because of the love of freedom in the human heart and represents equal opportunity for all.

In which is not required to sit in the Jim Crow section of an electric car departing downtown between the Capitol and the White House. If I refused to be subjected to such humiliation, I would be sent to jail and fined for violating Virginia law. As a woman of color, I can walk into more than one white church in Washington without receiving the welcome that as a human being I have a right to expect in God's sanctuary.

Unless I am willing to engage in some trivial work, where the wages for my services will be very small, there is no way for me to earn an honest living, if I'm not a registered nurse or seamstress or if I can't get a job as a teacher in public schools, this is extremely difficult to do.

Whatever my intellectual property may be or do I need the services of a authority, if I try to get into some of the many jobs in which my white sisters are allowed, the door closes in my face. From a theater in Washington, I was completely excluded. At rest, some seats are reserved for people of color and it's nearly impossible to get others.

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If I was gifted in the arts, no prestigious art school would accept me. With the exception of Catholic University, there is not a single white university in the nation's capital that accepts people of color. A few years ago, Columbian Law School accepted students of color, but out of respect for white students in the South The authorities decided to exclude them altogether.

Some time ago, a young woman who caught the attention of the literary world with a collection of her short stories responded to an advertisement in a Washington newspaper asking for the services of a speed writer. Trained signer and a typewriter for proficient writing. Candidates are required to submit samples of their work and answer a few questions about their experience and pace before appearing in person.

Received a letter from the company stating that his references and experience were most satisfactory had been submitted and asked him to call. When she introduced herself, the man she was aiming for was a little suspicious of her racial origins, so he asked whether color or white. When she confessed the truth, the merchant expressed. Deeply regret that he could not take advantage of the service of such a competent person, but frankly admitted that hiring a woman of color in his establishment in any other position than a lower position is simply impossible.

Not only are women of color unable to get any work in Washington stores, departments, and the like except in the lower ranks, and such positions are, of course, very few, but even when they are customers, they are often treated impolitely by staff and employees. The owner himself, although white and colored teachers report to the same educational boards, and the system for children of both races is thought to be homogeneous, stereotypes against teachers of color in Public schools manifest themselves in a variety of ways.

From 1870 to 1900, there was a colored superintendent in charge of colored schools. Meanwhile, the directors of the cooking, sewing, physical culture, craft training, music and arts departments are all people of color.

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Six years ago, a change was opened. Superintendent of color was removed by law, and leadership positions were, without exception, taken from teachers of color and given to whites. Now, no matter how competent or preeminent the teachers of color in our public schools, they know they can never rise to the position of principal, can never hope as an assistant and receive a meager salary as a result, unless the current plan is drastically changed.

And so I could go on quoting example after example to show the various ways our people have died on the altar of prejudice in the capital of the United States and It is nearly impossible to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of their success. A white man in the United States, no matter how sympathetic and generous-minded, could not realize what life would mean to him if the motive of his endeavor was suddenly taken away.

The lack of incentive to make an effort, which is the terrible shadow we live under, can be the cause of the downfall and destruction of so many young people of color. And certainly nowhere in the world does oppression and mistreatment on the basis of color alone seem more repulsive and repulsive than in the capital of the United States, because of the gap between the principles on which this government is founded. Established, which he still claims to believe, and which are practiced daily under the protection of the flag, yawning wide and deep.

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122. Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom (1912)

The 1912 presidential election, contested by President William Howard Taft, former President Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs, sparked a national debate over the relationship between political and economic freedom in the age of big enterprise. The argument over the role of the federal government in ensuring economic freedom centered on Wilson, the Democratic candidate, and Roosevelt, running as the standard-bearer of the upstart Progressive Party.

Both agreed that stronger government intervention was necessary to protect individual liberty, but they disagreed on the hazards of expanding government authority and the inevitability of economic concentration. Wilson dubbed his strategy the New Freedom.

He saw the federal government strengthening antitrust rules, safeguarding employees' right to unionize, and actively boosting small firms. Wilson was terrified of both big government and corporate power. He predicted that companies were just as prone to corrupt government as they were to be managed by it, which proved to be incredibly correct.

You have a political party and a group of social reformers in this new party [the Progressive Party]. Will the political party included inside it be useful to social reformers? I do not believe I am erroneous in identifying the political component of that platform that decides how the government will stand in relation to the major issues on which its freedom depends.

The freedom of the United States Government hinges on disentangling itself from those interests that have benefited, primarily benefited, by the government's patronage. Because the problem with the tariff isn't that it's been protective; in recent years, it's been far more than that.

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It has been one of the most massive systems of deliberate patronage ever devised. The major problem is that the protection ends where the patronage begins, and if you could sever the patronage, you would have removed most of the unpleasant aspects of the so-called protection. This patronage, this unique privilege, these advantages bestowed on some but not others, have served as the foundation for the vast combinations that have established control over the industries and enterprises of this country.

Because we forgot, in allowing a regime of free competition to last so long, that the competitors had ceased to be individuals or small groups of individuals. And it had become a competition between individuals or small groups on the one hand and enormous aggregations of individuals and capital on the other; and that, after that disparity in strength had been created in fact, competition, free competition, was out of the question. Moreover, that after that disparity in strength had been created in fact, competition, free competition, was out of the question.

That is warfare, not competition. And because we did not check free competition early enough, when pigmies entered the field against giants, we have created a situation in which the control of industry, and to a large extent the control of credit in this country, upon which industry feeds and in which all new enterprises must be rooted, is in the hands of a comparatively small and very compact body of men. These are the gentlemen who have acted in what we now expect to call "unreasonable combinations in restraint of trade" in certain instances, possibly more than have been demonstrated by legal proof.

They have gone beyond rationality in their pursuit of that power that makes competition virtually impossible. So, the test of our freedom for the next generation has arrived. Are we going to take away their power, or will we leave it with them? You can take it away from them if you restrict competition and make some of the things they've been doing impossible.

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If you legitimize and regulate monopoly, you leave it to them. And that is exactly what the new party's program offers. It proposes to begin where we are, without changing the established competition conditions, which are conditions that affect it. We shall say what these giants shall do and to what the pigmies shall submit, and we shall do so not by law, for if you read the plank in its candid statement for it is perfectly candid, you will find that it rejects regulation by law and proposes a commission with the discretion to engage in what the plank refers to as "constructive regulation."

It will establish its own rules as it goes. Its path will be determined by how it handles these titans. That, gentlemen, is really a legitimized continuation of the current order, with the alliance between the powerful interests and the government open rather than hidden.

The government has never provided liberty. The subjects of the government have always been the source of liberty. The history of liberty is one of struggle. The history of liberty is one of political power being limited rather than expanded. Do these gentlemen believe that we have identified a unique exception to the march of human history in 1912? Do they imagine that the entire character of persons in positions of authority has changed, that it is no longer a temptation? Above all, do they imagine that men are now bred great enough to be a Providence over the people over whom they preside?

[Theodore Roosevelt believes that] large business and the government can coexist peacefully. Now, I suggest that there is no avenue for social reform in that manner, and that people who expect for social reform through the instrumentality of that party should recognize that the platform itself provides evidence that it is not a functional tool. They do intend to help culture and mankind, but they cannot do so with that form of governance.

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123. R. G. Ashley, Unions and “The Cause of Liberty” (1910)

During the Progressive era, not all Americans supported the rising wave of worker unrest and demands for economic fairness. During a transit workers' strike in Philadelphia in 1910, one concerned citizen wrote a letter to the general manager of the city's Rapid Transit Company, urging him to hold firm against labor's demands. The struggle, he maintained, was for liberty itself.

Respectfully, Sir— I don't mean to impose my will on you in your Strike actions, but please accept my assurance that you will not accept an admission of the Union. That will be extremely damaging to the cause of liberty. It is just ludicrous for a group of boobies to band together and demand or coerce you to go against your own thoughts and adhere to their idiotic notions. I hope, as do many other good thinking, that you will hold fast on that point, that is, the acknowledgment of their satanic marriage, for the sake of your company's liberty to conduct its own business.

If the disgruntled employees are unable to comply with your or your company's demands, allow them to resign and provide other guys the opportunity to work who are prepared to be loyal to their employer.

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Another thing that would be acceptable to hear is that you would not yield to their demands for restoration to their prior runs and will not remove loyal individuals who have sacrificed their lives to prove their loyalty to your firm. Sensible people should feel that they owe a debt of gratitude to the P.R.T. Company for the wonderful convenience and accommodation that your Traction system provides to the public. On behalf of my entire family, I thank your company and send this letter to express our gratitude for the excellent service you provide for a nickel. May God grant you the strength to do what is right. Most sincerely YoursR.G. Ashley, as well as a slew of others.