7.2-Debates on Imperialism

The Era of “New Imperialism”

Economic Interests: The country’s growing industries were strong supporters of expanding U.S. economic interests around the world. Foreign countries offered both valuable raw materials, including minerals, oil, and rubber, and provided markets for products. Many in the Republican Party were closely allied with business leaders and therefore generally endorsed an imperialist policy. Like industrialists, farmers were eager to sell overseas. They saw the growing populations of cities, both in the Unites States and internationally, as potential markets for wheat, corn, and livestock.

Political and Military Power: Some people believed that the United States needed to compete with the imperialistic nations or it would be sidelined as a second-class power in world affairs. Chief among these was U.S. Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan. He shaped the debate over the need for naval bases with his book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890). He argued that a strong navy was crucial to a country’s ambitions of securing foreign markets and becoming a a world power. Mahan’s book was widely read by prominent American citizens as well as political leaders in Europe and Japan.

Social Fears: The Panic of 1893, the violence of labor management conflicts, and the perception that the country no longer had a frontier in the 1890s caused fear of increasing social turmoil. Overseas territories and adventures offered the country a possible safety value for dissatisfied urban workers and farmers.

Darwinism and Religion: Some saw expansion into the Caribbean, Central America, and the Pacific Ocean as an extension of the idea of manifest destiny that had long fostered westward expansion. In addition, they applied Darwin’s concept of the survival of the fittest not only to competition in business but also to competition among countries. Therefore, to demonstrate strength in the international arena, expansionists wanted to acquire territories overseas.

Popular Press: Newspaper and magazine editors found that they could increase circulation by printing adventure stories about distant places exotic to their readers. Stories in the popular press increased public interest and stimulated demands for a larger U.S. role in world affairs.

Opposition to Imperialism

Many people in the United States strongly opposed imperialism. They did so for a combination of reasons:

• They believed in self-determination. One of the founding principles of the Unites States was that people should govern themselves. They believed that this principle applied to people everywhere, not just in the United States. They felt that imperialism was morally wrong.

• They rejected imperialist racial theories. Some denied that Whites were biologically superior to people of Asia or Africa, and so Whites had no right to rule others. However, many Americans feared adding nonwhite people to the country.

• They supported isolationism. George Washington had advised the country to avoid involvement in foreign affairs. Anti-imperialists argued that this was still good advice.

• They opposed the expense of imperialism. Building a large navy and controlling foreign territories would cost more than they were worth.

7.3- The Spanish-American War

In the 1890s, American public opinion was being swept by a growing wave of jingoism—and intense form of nationalism calling for an aggressive foreign policy. Expansionists demanded that the United States take its place with the imperialist nations of Europe as a world power. Not everyone favored such a policy. Presidents Cleveland and McKinley were among many who thought military action abroad was both morally wrong and economically unsound. Nevertheless, specific events combined with background pressures led to overwhelming popular demand for war against Spain.

Causes of the War

A combination of jingoism, economic interests, and moral concerns made the United States more willing to go to war than it had been. These factors came together in 1898.

Cuban Revolt: Cuban nationalists fought but failed to overthrow Spanish colonial rule between 1869 and 1878. They renewed the struggle in 1895. Through sabotage and attacks on Cuban plantations, they hoped to either push Spain out or pull the Unites States in as an ally. In response, Spain sent autocratic General Valeriano Weyler and 100,000 troops to crush the revolt. Weyler forced civilians into camps, where tens of thousands died of starvation and disease. This action gained him the title of “the Butcher” in the U.S. press.

Yellow Press: Actively promoting war fever in the Unites States was “yellow journalism,” sensationalistic reporting that featured bold and lurid headlines of crime, disaster, and scandal. Among the most sensationalistic newspapers were Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolf Hearst’s New York Journal. These papers printed exaggerated and false accounts of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. Believing what they read daily in their newspapers, many Americans urged Congress and the president to intervene in Cuba for humanitarian reasons and put a stop to the atrocities and suffering.

De Lomé Letter (1898): One story that caused a storm of outrage was a Spanish diplomat’s letter that was leaked to the press and printed on the front page of Hearst’s Journal. Written by the Spanish minister to the United States, Dupuy de Lomé, the letter was highly critical of President McKinley. Many considered it an official Spanish insult against the U.S. national honor.

Sinking of the Maine: Less than one week after the de Lomé letter made headlines, a far more shocking event occurred. On February 15, 1898, the U.S. battleship USS Maine was at anchor in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, when it suddenly exploded, killing 260 Americans on board. The yellow press accused Spain of deliberately blowing up the ship. However, experts later concluded that the explosion was probably an accident.

McKinley’s War Message: Following the sinking of the USS Maine, President McKinley issued an ultimatum to Spain demanding that it agree to a ceasefire in Cuba. Spain agreed to this demand, but U.S. newspapers and a majority in Congress kept clamoring for war. McKinley yielded to the public pressure in April by sending a war message to Congress. He offered four reasons why the United States should support the Cuban rebels:

• “Put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries” in Cuba

• Protect the lives and property of U.S. citizens living in Cuba

• End “the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people”

• End “the constant menace to our peace” arising from disorder in Cuba

Teller Amendment: Responding to the president’s message, Congress passed a joint resolution on April 20, 1898, authorizing war. Part of the resolution, the Teller Amendment, declared that the United States had no intention of taking political control of Cuba and that, once peace was restored to the island, the Cuban people would control their own government.

Controversy over the Treaty of Peace

More controversial than the war itself was the peace treaty signed in Paris on December 10, 1898. It provided for (1) recognition of Cuban independence, (2) U.S. acquisition of two Spanish islands—Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and Guam in the Pacific, and (3) U.S. control of the Philippines in return for a $20 million payment to Spain. Since the avowed purpose of the U.S. war effort was to liberate Cuba, Americans accepted this provision of the treaty. However, many opposed taking over the Philippines, a large island nation, as a colony.

The Philippine Question: Controversy over the Philippine question took many months longer to resolve than the brief war with Spain. Opinion took many months longer to resolve than the brief war with Spain. Opinion both in Congress and with the public at large became sharply divided between imperialists who favored annexing the Philippines and anti-imperialist who opposed it. In the Senate, where a two-thirds vote was required to ratify the Treaty of Paris, anti-imperialists were determined to defeat the treaty because of its provision for acquiring the Philippines. Anti-imperialists argued that the United States would be taking possession of a heavily populated territory whose people were of a different race and culture. Such action, they thought, violated the principles of the Declaration of Independence by depriving Filipinos of the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Further, annexation would entangle the United States in the political conflicts of Asia. On February 6, 1899, the Treaty of Paris (including Philippine annexation) came to a vote in Congress. The treaty was approved 57 to 27, just one vote more than the two thirds majority required by the Constitution for ratification. The anti-imperialists fell just two votes short of defeating the treaty. The people of the Philippines were outraged that their hopes for national independence from Spain were now being denied by the United States. Filipino nationalist leader Emilio Aguinaldo had fought alongside U.S. troops during the Spanish-American War. Now he led bands of guerrilla fighters in a war against U.S. control. It took U.S. troops three years to defeat the insurrection. The conflict resulted in the deaths of about 5,000 people from the United States and several hundred thousand Filipinos—mostly civilians who died from diseases.

Other Results of the War

Imperialism remained a major issue in the United States even after ratification of the Treaty of Paris. The American Anti-Imperialist League led by William Jennings Bryan rallied opposition to further acts of expansion in the Pacific.

Insular Cases: One question concerned the constitutional rights of the Philippine people: Did the Constitution follow the flag? In other words, did the provisions of the U.S. Constitution apply to whatever territories fell under U.S. control, including the Philippines and Puerto Rico? Bryan and other anti-imperialists argued in the affirmative, while leading imperialists argued in the negative. The issue was resolved in favor of the imperialists in a series of Supreme Court cases (1901-1903) known as the Insular (island) Cases. The Court ruled that constitutional rights were not automatically extended to territorial possessions and that the power to decide whether or not to grant such rights belonged to Congress

Cuba and Platt Amendment (1901): Previously, the Teller Amendment to the war resolution of 1898 had guaranteed U.S. respect for Cuba’s sovereignty as an independent nation. Nevertheless, U.S. troops remained in Cuba from 1898 until 1901. In the latter year, Congress made withdrawal of troops conditional upon Cuba’s acceptance of terms included an amendment to an army appropriations bill—the Platt Amendment. Bitterly resented by Cuban nationalists, the Platt Amendment required Cuba to agree (1) to never sign a treaty with a foreign power that impaired its independence, (2) to permit the United States to intervene in Cuba’s affairs to preserve its independence and maintain law and order, and (3) to allow the U.S. to maintain naval bases in Cuba, including one permanent base at Guantanamo Bay.

Open Door Policy in China

Europeans were further impressed by U.S. involvement in global politics as a result of John Hay’s policies toward China. As McKinley’s secretary of state, Hay was alarmed that the Chinese empire, weakened by political corruption and failure to modernize, was falling under the control of various outside powers. In the 1890s, Russia, Japan, Great Britain, France, and Germany had all established spheres of influence in China, meaning that they could dominate trade and investment within their sphere and shut out competitors. To prevent the United States from losing access to the lucrative China trade, Hay dispatched a diplomatic note in 1899 to nations controlling spheres of influence. He asked them to accept the concept of an Open Door, by which all nations would have equal trading privileges in China. The replies to Hay’s note were evasive. However, because no nation rejected the concept, Hay declared that all had accepted the Open Door policy. The press hailed Hay’s initiative as a diplomatic triumph.

Boxer Rebellion (1900): As the 19th century ended, nationalism and xenophobia were on the rise in China. In 1900, a secret society of Chinese nationalists—the Society of Harmonious Fists, or Boxers—attacked foreign settlements and murdered dozens of Christian missionaries. To protect American lives and property, U.S. troops participated in an international force that marched into Peking and quickly rushed the rebellion of the Boxers. The countries forced China to pay a huge indemnity, which further weakened the imperial regime.

Theodore Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” Policy

In 1901, only a few months after being inaugurated president for a second time, McKinley was fatally shot by an anarchist. Succeeding him in office was the Republican vice president—the young expansionist and hero of the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt. Describing his foreign policy, the new president had once said it was his motto to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” The press therefore applied the label “big stick” to Roosevelt’s aggressive foreign policy. By acting boldly and decisively in a number of situation, Roosevelt attempted to build the reputation of the United States as a world power. Imperialists applauded his every move, but critics disliked breaking the tradition of nonentanglement in global politics.

The Panama Canal

As a result of the Spanish-American War, the new American empire stretched from Puerto Rico in the Caribbean to the Philippines in the Pacific. As a strategic necessity for holding on to these far-flung islands, the United States desired a canal through Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, building a canal would be difficult. The French had already failed to complete a canal through tropic jungles. And before the United States could even try, it needed to negotiate an agreement with the British to abrogate the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which stated that any canal in Central America was to be under joint British-U.S. control. With the new agreement, called the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, was signed in 1901. With the British agreement to let the United States build a canal alone, the young and activist President Roosevelt took charge.

Revolution in Panama: Roosevelt was eager to begin the construction of a canal through the narrow but rugged terrain of the isthmus of Panama. He was frustrated, however, by Colombia’s control of this isthmus and its refusal to agree to U.S. terms for digging the canal through its territory. Losing patience with Colombia’s demands of more money and sovereignty over the canal, Roosevelt orchestrated a revolt for Panama’s independence in 1903. With the support of the U.S. Navy, the rebellion succeeded immediately and almost without bloodshed. However, the new government of an independent Panama had to sign the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 granting the United States all rights over the 51 mile-long and 10 mile-wide Canal Zone as “if it were sovereign…in perpetuity” to keep U.S. protection. Years later, Roosevelt boasted, “I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate.”

Building the Canal: Started in 1904, the Panama Canal was completed in 1914. Hundreds of laborers lost their lives in the effort. The work was completed thanks in great measure to the skills of two Army colonels—George Goethals, the chief engineer of the canal, and Dr. William Gorgas, whose efforts eliminated the mosquitoes that spread deadly yellow fever.

The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

Another application of Roosevelt’s big stick diplomacy involved Latin American nations that were in deep financial trouble and could not pay their debts to European creditors. For example, in 1902, the British dispatched warships to Venezuela to force that country to pay its debts. In 1904, it appeared that European powers stood ready to intervene in Santo Domingo (the Dominican Republic) for the same reason. Rather than let Europeans intervene in Latin America—a blatant violation of the Monroe Doctrine—Roosevelt declared in December 1904 that the United States would intervene instead, whenever necessary. This policy became known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. It meant, for example, that the United States would send gunboats to a Latin American country that was delinquent in paying its debts. U.S. sailors and marines would then occupy the country’s major ports to manage the collection of customs taxes until European debts were satisfied. Over the next 20 years, U.S. presidents used the Roosevelt Corollary to justify sending U.S. forces into Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua. One long-term result of such interventions was poor U.S. relations with the entire region of Latin America.

Roosevelt and Asia

Russo-Japanese War: Imperialist rivalry between Russia and Japan led to war in 1904, a war Japan was winning. To end the conflict, Roosevelt arranged a diplomatic conference between the two foes at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1905. Although both Japan and Russia agreed to the Treaty of Portsmouth, Japanese nationalists blamed the United States for not giving their country all that they believed they deserved from Russia.

“Gentlemen’s Agreement”: A major clause of friction between Japan and the United States were laws in California that discriminated against Japanese Americans. San Francisco’s practice of requiring Japanese’s American children to attend segregated schools was considered a national insult in Japan. In 1908, President Roosevelt arranged a compromise by means of an informal understanding, or “gentlemen’s agreement.” The Japanese government secretly agreed to restrict the emigration of Japanese’s workers to the United States in return for Roosevelt’s persuading California to repeal its discriminatory laws.

Great White Fleet: To demonstrate U.S. naval power to Japan and other nations, Roosevelt sent a fleet of battleship on and around-the-world cruise (1907-1909). The great white ships made an impressive sight, and the Japanese government warmly welcomed their arrival in Tokyo Bay.

William Howard Taft and Dollar Diplomacy

Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, did not carry the same “big stick.” He adopted a foreign policy that was mildly expansionist but depended more on investors’ dollars than on navy’s battleships. His policy of promoting U.S. trade by supporting American enterprises abroad was known as “dollar diplomacy.”

Woodrow Wilson and Foreign Affairs

In his campaign for president in 1912, the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson promised a New Freedom for the country, part of which was a moral approach to foreign affairs. Wilson said he opposed imperialism and the big stick and dollar diplomacy policies of his Republican predecessors.

Wilson’s Moral Diplomacy

In his first term as president, Wilson had limited success applying a high moral standard to foreign relations. He and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan attempted to show that the United States respected other nations’ rights and supported the spread of democracy. Hoping to demonstrate that his presidency was opposed to self-interested imperialism, Wilson took steps to correct what he viewed as wrongful policies of the past.

7.4- The Progressives

Origins of Progressivism

As America entered the 20th century, the rapid and transforming changes of industrialization were unsettling for many. For decades, middle-class Americans had been alarmed by the power of big business cycles, the increasing gap between rich and poor, the violent conflict between labor and capital, and the dominance of corrupt political machines in cities. Most disturbing to minorities were the racist Jim Crow laws in the South that relegated African Americans to the status of second-class citizens. Crusaders for women’s suffrage added their voices to the call for greater democracy. The Progressive movement built on the work of populist reformers and union activists of the Gilded Age. However, it acquired additional national momentum with unexpected swearing into office of a young president, Theodore Roosevelt, in 1901. The Progressive era lasted through the presidencies of Republicans Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft and the first term of the Democrat Woodrow Wilson. U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 diverted public attention away from domestic issues and brought the era to an end. By then though, Congress and state legislatures had enacted major regulatory laws.

Who Were the Progressives?

A diverse group of reformers were loosely united in the Progressive movement. Protestant church leaders, African Americans, union leaders, and feminists each lobbied for different specific reforms. However, they shared some basic beliefs:

• Society badly needed changes to limit the power of big business, improve democracy, and strengthen social justice.

• Government, whether at the local, state, or federal level, was the proper agency for making these changes.

• Moderate reforms were usually better than radical ones.

Pragmatism: A revolution in thinking occurred at the same time as the Industrial Revolution. Charles Darwin, in his On the Origin of Species (1859), presented the concept of evolution by natural selection. Though Darwin was writing about the natural world, others applied his concepts to human society to justify accumulating great wealth and lapses-faire capitalism. Others challenged the prevailing philosophy of romantic transcendentalism with what became called pragmatism. In the early 20th century, William James and John Dewey, two leading American advocates of this new philosophy, argued that “truth” should be able to pass the public test of observable results in an open, democratic society. In a democracy, citizens and institutions should experiment with ideas and laws and test them in action until they found something that would produce a well-functioning democratic society. Progressive thinkers adopted the new philosophy of pragmatism because it enabled them to challenge fixed ideas and beliefs that stood in the way of reform. For example, they rejected the laissez-faire theory as impractical. The old standard of rugged individualism no longer seemed viable in a modern society dominated by complex business organizations.

Scientific Management: Another idea that gained widespread acceptance among Progressives came from the practical studies of Frederick W. Taylor. By using a stopwatch to time the tasks performed by factory workers, Taylor discovered ways of organizing people in the most efficient manner—the scientific management system, also known as Taylorism. Many Progressives believed that government too could be made more efficient if placed in the hands of experts and scientific managers. They objected to the corruption of political bosses partly because it was antidemocratic and partly because it was an inefficient way to run things.

The Muckrakers

Before the public could be roused to action, it first had to be well-informed about the scandalous realities of politics, factories, and slums. Publishers found that their middle-class readers were attracted to reports about corruption in business and politics. Investigative journalists created in-depth articles about child labor, corrupt political bosses and monopolistic business practices. President Theodore Roosevelt criticized writers who focused on negative stories as “muckrakers.” The term caught on.

Magazines: An Irish immigrant, Samuel Sidney McClure, founded McClure’s Magazine in 1893, which became a major success by running a series of muckraking articles by Lincoln Steffens (Tweed Days in St. Louis, 1902) and another series by Ida Tarbell (The History of the Standard Oil Company, also in 1902). Combining careful research with sensationalism, these articles set a standard for the deluge of muckraking that followed. Popular 10- and 15-cent magazines such as McClure’s, Collier’s, and Cosmopolitan competed fiercely to outdo their rivals with shocking exposes of political and economic corruption.

Books: The most popular series of muckraking articles were usually collected and published as best-selling books. Articles on tenement life by Jacob Riis, one of the first photojournalists, were published as How the Other Half Lives (1890). Lincoln Steffens’ The Shame of the Cities (1904) also caused a sensation by describing in detail the corrupt deals that characterized big-city politics from Philadelphia to Minneapolis.

Political Reforms in Cities and States

Australian, or Secret, Ballot: Political parties could manipulate and intimidate voters by printing lists (or “tickets”) of party candidates and watching voters drop them into the ballot box on election day. In 1888, Massachusetts was the first state to adopt a system successfully tried in Australia of issuing ballots printed by the state and requiring voters to mark their choices secretly within a private booth. By 1910, all states had adopted the secret ballot.

Direct Primaries: In the late 19th century, Republicans and Democrats commonly nominated candidates for state and federal offices in state conventions controlled by party bosses. In 1903, the Progressive governor of Wisconsin, Robert La Follette, introduced a new system for bypassing politicians and placing the nominating process directly in the hands of the voters—the direct primary. By 1915, some form of the direct primary was used in every state. The system’s effectiveness in overthrowing boss rule was limited, as politicians devised ways of confusing the voters and splitting the anti-political machine vote. Since primaries were run for the parties rather than for the general population, some Southern states used White-only primaries to exclude African Americans from voting.

Direct Election of U.S. Senators: Under the original Constitution, U.S. senators had been chosen by the state legislatures rather than by direct vote of the people. Progressives believed this was a principal reason that the Senate had become a millionaires’ club dominated by business. Nevada in 1899 was the first state to give the voters the opportunity to elect U.S. senators directly. By 1912, a total of 30 states had adopted this reform, and in 1913, ratification of the 17th amendment required that all U.S. senators be elected by popular vote.

Initiative, Referendum, and Recall: If politicians in the state legislatures balked at obeying the “will of the people,” then Progressives proposed two methods for forcing them to act. Amendments to state constitutions offered voters (1) the initiative—a method by which voters could compel the legislature to consider a bill and (2) the referendum—a method that allowed citizens to vote on proposed laws printed on their ballots. A third Progressive measure, the recall, enabled voters to remove a corrupt or unsatisfactory politician from office by majority vote before that all official’s term had expired.

Municipal Reforms

Commissions and City Managers: New types of municipal government were another Progressive innovation. In 1900, Galveston, Texas, was the first city to adopt a commission plan of government, in which voters elected the heads of city departments (fire, police, and sanitation), not just the mayor. Ultimately proving itself more effective than the commission plan was a system first tried in Dayton, Ohio, in 1913. An elected city council there hired an expert manager to direct the work of the various departments of city government. By 1923, more than 300 cities had adopted the manager-council plan of municipal government.

State Reforms

Temperance and Prohibition: Whether or not to shut down saloons and prohibit the drinking of alcohol sharply divided reformers. While urban Progressives recognized that saloons were often the neighborhood headquarters of political machines, they generally had little sympathy for the temperance movement. Rural reformers, on the other hand, thought they could clean up morals and politics in one stroke by abolishing liquor. The drys (prohibitionists) were determined and well-organized. Among their leaders was Carrie Nation, whose blunt language and attack on taverns with a hatchet made her famous. By 1915, the drys had persuaded the legislatures of two-thirds of the states to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages. (18th amendment)

Child and Women Labor: Progressives were most outraged by the treatment of children by industry. Florence Kelley and the National Consumers’ League organized to pass state laws to protect women from working long hours. In Lochner v. New York the Supreme Court ruled against a state law limiting workers to a ten-hour workday. However, in Muller v. Oregon the high court ruled that the health of women needed special protection from long hours. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire (1911) in a New York City high-rise garment factory took 146 lives, mostly women. The tragedy sparked greater women’s activism and pushed states to pass laws to improve safety and working conditions in factories.

“Square Deal” for Labor: Presidents in the 19th century had consistently taken the side of owners in conflicts with labor (most notably Hayes in the railroad strike of 1877 and Cleveland in the Pullman strike of 1894). However, in the first economic crisis in his presidency, Roosevelt quickly demonstrated that he favored neither business nor labor but insisted on a “Square Deal” for both. Pennsylvania coal miners had been on strike through much of 1902. If the strike continued, many Americans feared that, without coal, they would freeze to death in winter. Roosevelt took the unusual step of trying to meditate the labor dispute by calling a union leader and mine owners to the White House. The owners’ stubborn refusal to compromise angered the president. To ensure the delivery of coal to consumers, he threatened to take over the mines with federal troops. The owners finally agreed to accept the findings of commission: a 10 percent wage increase and a nine-hour workday. However, the owners did not have to recognize the union. Voters seemed to approve of Roosevelt and his Square Deal. They elected him by a landslide in 1904.

Trust-Busting: Roosevelt further increased his popularity by being the first president since the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 to enforce that poorly written law. The trust he most wanted to bust was a combination of earlier cases, the Supreme Court in 1904 upheld Roosevelt’s action in breaking up the railroad monopoly. Roosevelt later directed his attorney general to take antitrust action against Standard Oil and more than 40 other large corporations. Roosevelt did make a distinction between breaking up “bad trusts”, which harmed the public and stifled competition, and regulating “good trusts”, which through efficiency and low prices dominated a market.

Consumer Protection: The Jungle, a muckraking book by Upton Sinclair, described in horrifying detail the conditions in the Chicago stockyards and meatpacking industry. The public outcry following the publication of Sinclair’s novel caused Congress to enact two regulatory laws in 1906: first, the Pure Food and Drug Act forbade the manufacture, sale, and transportation of adulterated or mislabeled food and drugs, and then the Meat Inspection Act provided that federal inspectors visit meatpacking plants to ensure that they met minimum standards of sanitation.

Conservation: As a lover of the wilderness and outdoor life, Roosevelt enthusiastically championed the cause of conservation. In fact, Roosevelt’s most original and lasting contribution in domestic policy may have been his efforts to protect the nation’s natural resources.

Taft’s Presidency

The good-natured William Howard Taft had served in Roosevelt’s cabinet as secretary of war. Honoring the two-term tradition, Roosevelt refused to seek reelection and picked Taft to be his successor. The Republican Party readily endorsed Taft as its nominee for president in 1908, and, as expected, defeated for a third time the Democrat’s campaigner, William Jennings Bryan.

Progressive Economic Policies: Taft built on many of Roosevelt’s accomplishments. As a trust-buster, Taft ordered the prosecution of almost twice the number of antitrust cases as his predecessor. However, among these cases was one against U.S. Steel, which included a merger approved by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. An angry Roosevelt viewed Taft’s action as a personal attack on his integrity. Two other Progressive measures were at least equal in importance to legislation enacted under Roosevelt. The Mann-Elkins Act of 1910 gave the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to suspend new railroad rates and to oversee telephone and telegraph companies. The 16th Amendment, ratified by the states in 1913, authorized the U.S. government to collect an income tax. Progressives heartily approved the new tax, which applied only to the wealthy.

Rise of the Socialist Party

A third party, the Socialists, emerged in the early 1900s to advocate for the working class. Unlike the Progressives, who called for moderate regulation, the Socialists called for public ownership of the railroads, utilities, and major industries such as oil and steel. One of the party’s founders, Eugene V. Deb’s, a former railway union leader, became a socialist while in jail for supporting the Pullman strike. Debs was the party’s candidate for president in five elections from 1900 to 1920 and gained up to a million votes in those campaigns. Eventually, some ideas championed by Debs and the Socialists were accepted: public ownership of utilities, worker’s compensation insurance, minimum wage laws, the eight-hour workday, and pensions for employees.

The Election of 1912

President Taft was nominated by the Republicans after his supporters excluded Theodore Roosevelt’s delegates from the party’s convention. Progressive Republicans met and nominated Roosevelt. Their party became known as the Bull Moose Party after one of Roosevelt’s nicknames. After lengthy balloting, Democrats united behind Woodrow Wilson, a political newcomer who had first been elected to office in 1910 as governor of New Jersey.

Campaign: The election came down to a battle between Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt‘s plan, called New Nationalism, included more government regulation of business and unions, more social welfare programs, and women’s suffrage. Wilson’s plan, called New Freedom, would limit both big business and big government, bring about reform by ending corruption, and revive competition by supporting small business. Wilson won less than a majority of the popular vote, but with the Republicans split, he won a landslide in the Electoral College, and the Democrats gained control of Congress. The overwhelming support for two Progressive presidential candidates proved that reformers had strong support. Roosevelt lost, but his New Nationalism had a lasting influence on later Democratic Party reforms such as the New Deal of the 1930s.

Woodrow Wilson’s Progressive Program

Like Roosevelt, Wilson believed that a president should actively lead Congress and, as necessary, appeal directly to the people to rally support for his legislative program. In his inaugural address in 1913, the Democratic president pledged again his commitment to a New Freedom. To bring back conditions of free and fair competition in the economy, Wilson attacked the “triple wall of privilege”: tariffs, banking, and trusts.

Tariff Reduction: Wasting no time to fulfill a campaign pledge, Wilson on the first day of his presidency called a special session of Congress to lower the tariff. Past presidents had always sent written messages to Congress, but Wilson broke this longstanding tradition by addressing Congress in person about the need for lower tariff rates to bring consumer prices down. Passage of the Underwood Tariff in 1913 substantially lowered tariffs for the first time in over 50 years. To compensate for the reduced tariff revenues, the Underwood bill included a graduated income tax with rates from 1 to 6 percent.

Banking Reform: Wilson then focused on the banking system and the money supply. He was persuaded that the gold standard was inflexible and that banks, rather than serving the public interests were too much influenced by stock speculators on Wall Street. He proposed a national banking system with 12 district banks supervised by a Federal Reserve Board appointed by the president. Congress approved his idea and passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1914. The Federal Reserve was designed to provide stability and flexibility to the U.S. financial system by regulating interest rates and the capital reserves required of banks.

Additional Economic Reforms: Wilson initially was opposed to any legislation that seemed to favor special interests, such as farmers or unions. However, he shifted his position to support a variety of laws and new agencies:

• The Federal Trade Commission was to protect consumers by investigating and taking action against any “unfair trade practice” in any industry except banking and transportation.

• The Clayton Antitrust Act strengthened the Sherman Antitrust Act’s power to break up monopolies. Most important for organized labor, the new law contained a clause exempting unions from being prosecuted as trusts.

• The Federal Farm Loan Act created 12 regional federal farm loan banks established to provide farm loans at low interest rates.

• The Child Labor Act, long favored by settlement house workers and labor unions alike, was enacted in 1916. It prohibited the shipment in interstate commerce of products manufactured by children under 14 years old. However, a conservative Supreme Court found this act to be unconstitutional.

The Campaign for Women’s Suffrage

Carrie Chapman Catt, an energetic reformer from Iowa, became the new president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1900. Catt argued for the vote as a broadening of democracy that would empower women, thus enabling them to more actively care for their families in an industrial society. At first, Catt continued NAWSA’s drive to win votes for women at the state level before changing strategies and seeking a suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Nineteenth Amendment (1900): The dedicated efforts of women on the home front in World War I finally persuaded a two-thirds majority in Congress to support a women’s suffrage amendment. Its ratification as the 19th Amendment in 1920 guaranteed women’s right to one in all elections at the local, state, and national levels. Following the victory of her cause, Carrie Chapman Catt organized the League of Women Voters, a civic organizations dedicated to keeping voters informed about candidates and issues.

Other Issues: In addition to winning the right to vote, Progressive women worked on other issues. Margaret Sanger advocated birth control education, especially among the poor. Over time, the movement developed into the Planned Parenthood organization.

7.5- WWI: Military and Diplomacy

Neutrality

President Wilson’s first response to the outbreak of the European war was a declaration of U.S. neutrality, in the tradition of noninvolvement started by Washington and Jefferson. He called upon the American people to support his policy by not taking sides. However, Wilson found it difficult—if not impossible—to both steer a neutral course that favored neither the Allied powers (Great Britain, France, and Russia) nor the Central powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire of Turkey) and still protected U.S. trading rights. During a relatively short period (1914-1919), the United States and its people rapidly moved through a wide range of roles: first as a contended neutral country, next as a country waging war for peace, then as a victorious world power, and finally as an alienated and isolationist nation.

Freedom of the Seas: In WWI, the trouble for the United States arose as belligerent powers tried to stop supplies from reaching a foe. Having a stronger navy, Great Britain was the first to declare a naval blockade against Germany. Britain mined the North Sea and seized ships—including U.S. ships— attempting to run the blockade. Wilson protested British seizure of U.S. ships as violating a neutral nation’s right to freedom of the seas.

Submarine Warfare: Germany’s one hope for challenging British power at sea lay with a new naval weapon, the submarine. In February 1915, Germany answered the British blockade by announcing a blockade of its own and warned that ships attempting to enter the “war zone” risked being sunk on sight by German submarines.

Lusitania Crisis: The first major crisis challenging U.S. neutrality occurred on May 7, 1915, when German torpedoes hit and sank a British passenger liner, the Lusitania. Most of the passengers drowned, including 128 Americans. In response, Wilson sent Germany a strongly worded diplomatic message warning that Germany would be held to “strict accountability” if it continued its policy of sinking unarmed ships. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan objected to this message as too warlike and resigned from the president’s cabinet.

Other Sinkings: In August 1915, two more Americans lost their lives at sea as the result of a German submarine attack on another passenger ship, the Arabic. This time, Wilson’s note of protest prevailed upon the German government to pledge that no unarmed passenger ships would be sunk without warning, which would allow time for passengers to get into lifeboats. Germany kept its word until March 1916, when a German torpedo struck an unarmed merchant ship, the Sussex, injuring several American passengers. Wilson threatened to cut off U.S. diplomatic relations with Germany—a step preparatory to war. Once again, rather than risk U.S. entry into the war on the British side, Germany backed down. Its reply to the president, known as the Sussex pledge, promised to not sink merchant or passenger ships without giving due warning. For the remainder of 1916, Germany was true to its word.

The Election of 1916

President Wilson was well aware that, as a Democrat, he had won election to the presidency in 1912 only because of the split in Republican ranks between Taft conservatives and Roosevelt Progressives. Despite his own Progressive record, Wilson’s chances for reelection did not seem strong after Theodore Roosevelt declined the Progressive Party’s nomination for president in 1916 and rejoined the Republicans. Charles Evan’s Hughes, a Supreme Court justice and former governor of New York, became the presidential candidate of a reunited Republican Party.

“He Kept Us Out of War”: The Democrats adopted as their campaign slogan “He kept us out of war.” The peace sentiment in the country, Wilson’s record of Progressive leadership, and Hughes’ weakness as a candidate combined to give the president the victory in an extremely close election. Democratic strength in the South and West overcame Republican power in the East.

Immediate Causes of War

Wilson still hesitated, but a series of events in March 1917, as well as the president’s hopes for arranging a permanent peace in Europe, convinced him that U.S. participation in the war was now unavoidable.

Zimmerman Telegram: On March 1, U.S. newspapers carried the shocking news of a secret offer made by Germany to Mexico. Intercepted by British intelligence, a telegram to Mexico from the German foreign minister, Arthur Zimmerman, proposed that Mexico ally itself with Germany in return for Germany’s pledge to help Mexico recover lost territories: Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Mexico never considered accepting the offer. However, the Zimmerman Telegram aroused the nationalist anger of the American people and convinced Wilson that Germany fully expected a war with the United States.

Russian Revolution: Applying the principle of moral diplomacy, Wilson wanted the war to be fought for a worthy purpose: the triumph of democracy. It bothered him that one of the allies was Russia, a nation governed by an autocratic czar. The barrier to U.S. participation was suddenly removed on March 15, when Russian revolutionaries overthrew the czar’s government and proclaimed a republic.

Fighting the War

By the time the first U.S. troops shipped overseas in late 1917, millions of European soldiers on both sides had already died in three years of fighting. The Allies hoped that fresh troops would be enough to bring victory. The conflict’s trench warfare was made more deadly in the industrial age by heavy artillery, machine guns, poison gas, tanks, and airplanes. A second revolution in Russia by Bolsheviks (or Communists) took that nation out of the war. With no Eastern Front to divide its forces, Germany concentrated on one all-out push to break through Allied lines in France.

American Expeditionary Force

The AEF was commanded by General John J. Pershing. The first U.S. troops to see action were used to plug weaknesses in the French and British lines. But by the summer of 1918, as American forces arrived by the hundreds of thousands, the AEF assumed independent responsibility for one segment of the Western Front.

Last German Offensive: Enough U.S. troops were in place in spring 1918 to hold the line against the last ferocious assault by German forces. At Chateau-Thierry on the Marne River, Americans stopped the German advance and struck back with a successful counterattack at Belleau Wood.

Drive to Victory: In August, September, and October, an Allied offensive along the Meuse River and through the Argonne Forest succeeded in driving an exhausted German army backward toward the German border. U.S. troops participated in this drive at St. Mihiel—the southern sector of the Allied line. On November 11, 1918, the Germans signed an armistice in which they agreed to surrender their arms, give up much of their navy, and evacuate occupied territory.

The Fourteen Points

Several of the president’s Fourteen Points related to specific territorial questions. For example, Wilson called on Germany to return the regions of Alsace and Lorraine to France and to evacuate Belgium in the west and Romania and Serbia in the east. Of greater significance were the broad principles for securing a lasting peace:

• Recognition of freedom of the seas

• And end to the practice of making secret treaties

• Reduction of national armaments

• An “impartial adjustment of all colonial claims”

• Self-determination for the various nationalities

• Removal of trade barriers

• “A general association of nation…for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike”

The last point was the one that Wilson valued the most. The international peace association that he envisioned would soon be named the League of Nations.

The Treaty of Versailles

The peace conference following the armistice took place in the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, beginning in January 1919. Every nation that had fought on the Allied side in the war was represented. No U.S. president had ever traveled abroad to attend a diplomatic conference, but President Wilson decided that his personal participation at Versailles was vital to defending his Fourteen Points. Republicans criticized him for being accompanied to Paris by several Democrats but only one Republican, whose advice was never sought.

The Big Four: Other heads of state at Versailles made it clear that their nations wanted both revenge against Germany and compensation in the form of indemnities and territory. They did not share Wilson’s idealism, which called for peace without victory. David Lloyd George of Great Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy met with Wilson almost daily as the Big Four. After months of argument, the president reluctantly agreed to compromise on most of his Fourteen Points. He insisted, however, that the other delegations accept his plan for a League of Nations.

Peace Terms: When the peace conference adjourned in June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles included the following terms:

1. To punish Germany, Germany was disarmed and stripped of its colonies in Asia and Africa. It was also forced to admit guilt for the war, accept French occupation of the Rhineland for 15 years, and pay a huge sum of money in reparations to Great Britain and France.

2. To apply the principle of self-determination, territories once controlled by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia were taken by the Allies; independence was granted to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland; and the new nations of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were established.

3. To maintain peace, signers of the treaty joined an international peacekeeping organization, the League of Nations, Article X of the covenant (charter) of the League called on each member nation to stand ready to protect the independence and territorial integrity of other nations.

7.6- WWI: Homefront

Mobilization

Industry and Labor: The Wilson administration, with Progressive efficiency, created hundreds of temporary wartime agencies and commissions staffed by experts from business and government. Th legacy of this mobilization of the domestic economy under governmental leadership proved significant in the New Deal programs during Great Depression in the 1930s. For example:

• Bernard Baruch, a Wall Street broker, volunteered to use his extensive contacts in industry to help win the war. Under his direction, the War Industries Board set production priorities and established centralized control over raw materials and prices.

• Herbert Hoover, a distinguished engineer, took charge of the Food Administration, which encouraged American households to eat less meat and bread so that more food could be shipped abroad for the French and British troops. The conservation drive paid off. In two years, U.S. shipment of food overseas tripled.

• Harry Garfield volunteered to head the Fuel Administration, which directed efforts to save coal. Nonessential factories were closed, and daylight saving time went into effect for the first time.

• Treasury Secretary William McAdoo headed the Railroad Administration which took public control of the railroads to coordinate traffic and promote standardized railroad equipment.

• Former President William Howard Taft helped arbitrate disputes between workers and employees as head of the National War Labor Board. Labor won concessions during the war that had earlier been denied. Wages rose, the eight-hour work day became more common, and union membership increased.

Civil Liberties

Limits on Immigration: More generally, the Barred Zone Act (the Immigration Act of 1917) prohibited anyone residing in a region from the Middle East to southeast Asia from entering the United States. It also included a literacy test designed to prevent immigration from southern and eastern Europe. This act set the stage for sharp restrictions on immigration in the 1920s.

Espionage and Sedition Acts: A number of socialists and pacifists bravely criticized the government’s war policy even as Congress passed laws restricting free speech. The Espionage Act (1917) provided for imprisonment of up to 20 years for person who tried to incite rebellion in the armed forces or obstructed the draft. The Sedition Act (1918) went much further by prohibiting anyone from making “disloyal” or “abusive” remarks about the U.S. government. Approximately 2,000 people were prosecuted under these laws, half of whom were convicted and jailed. Among them was the Socialist leader Eugene Debs, who was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for speaking against the war.

Schenck v. United States (1919): The Supreme Court upheld the consitutionality of the Espionage Acts in a case involving a man who had been imprisoned for distributing pamphlets against the draft. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes concluded that the right to free speech could be limited when it represented a “clear and public danger” to public safety.

Armed Forces

Selective Service Act (1917): To meet this need, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker devised a “selective service” system to conscript (draft) men into the military. He wanted a democratic method run by local boards for ensuring that all groups in the population would be called into service. The government required all men between 21 and 30 (and later between 18 and 45) to register for possible induction into the military. Under the Selective Service Act, about 2.8 million men were eventually called by lottery, in addition to the almost 2 million who volunteered to serve. About half of all those in uniform made it to the Western Front.

Effects on American Society

The Great Migration: The largest movement of people consisted of African Americans who migrated north in the Great Migration (a term also used for 17th century movement of Puritans). At the close of the 19th century, about 90 percent of African Americans lived in southern states. This internal migration began in earnest between 1910 and 1930 when about 1 million people traveled north to seek jobs in the cities. Motivating their decision to leave the south were (1) deteriorating race relations marked by segregation and racial violence, (2) destruction of their cotton crops by the boll weevil, and (3) limited economic opportunities. In the face of these problems, job in northern factories were a tremendous attraction.

Postwar Problems

The Red Scare: In 1919, the country suffered from a volatile combination of unhappiness with the peace process, fears of communism fueled by the Communist takeover in Russia, and worries about labor unrest at home. The anti-German hysteria of the war years turned quickly into anti-Communist hysteria known as the Red Scare. These anti-Communist fears also fueled xenophobia that resulted in restrictions on immigration in the 1920s.

Palmer Raids: A series of unexplained bombings caused Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to establish a special office under J. Edgar Hoover to gather information on radicals. Palmer also ordered mass arrests of anarchists, socialists, and labor agitators. From November 1919, through January 1920, more than 6,000 people were arrested based on limited criminal evidence. Most of the suspects were foreign born, and 500 of them, including the outspoken radical Emma Goldman, were deported. The scare faded almost as quickly as it arose. Palmer warned of huge riots on May Day 1920, but they never took place. His loss of credibility, coupled with rising concerns about civil liberties, cause the hysteria to recede.

Strikes of 1919: The first major strike of 1919 was in Seattle in February. Some 60,000 unionists joined shipyard workers in a peaceful strike for higher pay. Troops were called out, but there was no violence. In September, Boston police went on strike to protest the firing of a few officers who tried to unionize. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge sent in the National Guard to break the strike. Also in September, workers for the U.S. Steel Corporation struck. State and federal troops were called out, and after considerable violence and the death of 18 workers, the strike was broken in January 1920.

7.7- 1920s: Innovations in Communication & Technology

Causes of Economic Prosperity

Increased Productivity: Companies made greater use of research, expanding their use of Frederick W. Taylor’s time-and-motion studies and principles of scientific management. The manufacturing process was made more efficient by the adoption of improved methods of mass production. In 1914, Henry Ford had perfected a system for manufacturing automobiles by means of an assembly line. Instead of losing time moving around a factory as in the past, Ford’s workers remained at one place all day and performed the same simple operation over and over again at rapid speed. In the 1920s, most major industries adopted the assembly line and realized major gains in worker productivity.

Government Policy: Government at all levels in the 1920s favored the growth of big business by offering corporate tax cuts and doing almost nothing to enforce the antitrust laws of the Progressive Era. Large tax cuts for higher-income Americans also contributed to the imbalance in incomes and increased speculation in markets. The Federal Reserve contributed to the overheated economic boom through low interest rates and relaxed regulation of banks. Then, it began tightening the money supply as the economy began got decline—precisely the wrong time, according to economists today.

Consumer Economy: Adding electricity in their home enabled millions of Americans to purchase the new consumer appliances of the decade—refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines. Automobiles became more affordable and sold by millions, making the horse-and-buggy era a thing of the past. Advertising expanded as businesses found they could increase consumers’ demand for new products by appealing to desires for status and popularity. Stores increased sales of the new appliances and automobiles by allowing customers to buy on credit. Later, as consumers faced more “easy monthly payments” than they could afford, they curtailed buying, contributed to the collapse of the economic boom. Chain stores, such as Woolworth’s and A & P, proliferated. Their greater variety of products were attractively displayed and often proved lower than the neighborhood stores, which they threatened to displace.

Labor Unions Struggle

Wages rose during the 1920s, but membership in unions declined 20 percent, partly because most companies insisted on an “open shop” (keeping job open to nonunion workers). Some companies also began to practice welfare capitalism—voluntarily offering their employees improved benefits and higher wages in order to reduce their interest in organizing unions. In the South, companies used police, state militia, and local mobs to violently resist efforts to unionize the textile industry. In an era that so strongly favored business, strikes usually failed. The United Mine Workers, led by John L. Lewis, suffered setbacks in a series of violent and ultimately unsuccessful strikes in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Conservative courts routinely issued injunctions against strikes and nullified labor laws aimed at protecting workers’ welfare.

Technology and Culture

Architecture and Industrial Design: The fusion of art and technology during the 1920s and 1930s created a new profession of industrial designers. Influenced by Art Deco and streamlining styles, they created functional products from toasters to locomotives that had aesthetic appeal. Many skyscrapers, such as the Chrysler and Empire State buildings in New York, were built in the Art Deco style, which captured modernist simplification of forms while using machine age materials.

Mass Media: Newspapers had once been the only medium of mass communication and entertainment. In the 1920s, a new medium—the radio— suddenly appeared. The first commercial radio station went on the air in 1920 and broadcast music to just a few thousand listeners. By 1930, there were more than 800 stations broadcasting to 10 million radios—about a third of all U.S. homes. The organization of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1924 and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1927 provided networks of radio stations that enabled people from coast to coast to listen to the same programs: news broadcasts, sporting events, soap operas, quiz shows, and comedies. They also provided national exposure to regional cultures. For example, the National Barn Dance show, later renamed the Grand Ole Opry, featured music from the southeastern United States, a style that evolved into today’s country music.

Popular Music: High school and college youth rebelled against their elders’ culture by dancing to jazz music. Brough north by African Americans musicians, jazz became a symbol of the “new” and “modern” culture of cities. Like radio, phonographs made this new style of music available to a huge (and youthful) public. Other forms of music that spread in popularity were blues, classical, and “American standards” by composers such as Irving Berlin.

7.8- 1920s: Political and Cultural Controversies

Religion, Science, and Politics

Modernism: A range of influences, including the changing role of women, the Social Gospel movement, and scientific knowledge, caused large numbers of Protestants to define their faith in new ways. Modernists took a historical and critical view of certain passages in the Bible and believed they could accept Darwin’s theory of evolution without abandoning their religious faith.

Fundamentalism: Protestant preacher, mostly in rural areas, condemned the modernists and taught that every word in the Bible was true literally. A key fundamentalist doctrine was that creationism (the belief that God had created the universe in seven days, as stated in the Bible) explained the origin of all life. Fundamentalists blamed modernists for causing a decline in morals.

Fundamentalism and Science

More than any other single event, a much-publicized trial in Tennessee focused the debate between religious fundamentalists in the rural South and modernists of the northern cities. Tennessee, like several other southern states, outlawed the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in public schools. To challenge the constitutionality of these laws, the American Civil Liberties Union persuaded a Tennessee biology teacher, John Scopes, to teach the theory of evolution to his high school class. For doing so, Scopes was arrested and tried in 1925.

The Trial: The entire nation followed the Scopes trial both in newspapers and by radio. Defending Scopes was a famous lawyer from Chicago, Clarence Darrow. Representing the fundamentalists was three-time Democratic candidate for president William Jennings Bryan, who testified as an expert on the Bible. The courtroom clash between Darrow and Bryan dramatized that the debate on evolution symbolized a battle between two opposing views of the world.

Aftermath: As expected, Scopes was convicted, but the conviction was overturned on a technicality. Laws banning the teaching of evolution remained on the books for years, although they were rarely enforced. The northern press asserted that Darrow and modernists had thoroughly discredited fundamentalism. However, to this day, questions about the relationship between religion and public schools remain controversial and unresolved.

Prohibition

Another controversy that helped define the 1920s concerned people’s conflicting attitudes toward the 18th Amendment. Wartime concerns to conserve grain and maintain a sober workforce moved Congress to pass this amendment, which strictly prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, including liquors, wines, and beers. It was ratified in 1919. The adoption of the Prohibition amendment and a federal law enforcing it (the Volstead Act, 1919) were the culmination of many decades of crusading by temperance forces.

Defying the Law: Prohibition did not stop people from drinking alcohol either in public places or at home. Especially in the cities, it became fashionable to defy the law by going to clubs or bars known as speakeasies, where bootleg liquor was sold. City police and judges were paid to look the other way. Even elected officials such as President Harding served alcoholic drinks to guests. Liquors, beers, and wines were readily available from bootleggers who smuggled them in their garages or basements. Rival groups of gangsters, including a Chicago gang headed by Al Capone, fought for control of the lucrative bootlegging trade. Organized crime became big business. The millions made from the sale of illegal booze allowed the gangs to expand other illegal activities: prostitution, gambling, and narcotics.

Political Discord and Repeal: Most Republicans publicly supported the “noble experiment” of Prohibition (although in private, many politicians drank). Democrats were divided on the issue, with southerners supporting it and northern city politicians calling for repeal. Supporters of the 18th Amendment pointed to declines in alcoholism and alcohol-related deaths. However, support weakened in the face of growing public resentment and clear evidence of increased criminal activity. With the coming of the Great Depression, economic arguments for repeal were added to the others. In 1922, the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment, was ratified, and millions celebrated the new year by toasting the end of Prohibition.

Opposition to Immigration

The world war had interrupted the flow of immigrants to the United States, but as soon as the war ended, immigration shot upward. More than a million foreigners entered the country between 1919 and 1921. Like the immigrants of the prewar period, the new arrivals were mainly Catholics and Jews from eastern and southern Europe. Once again, nativist prejudices of native-born Protestants were aroused. Workers feared competition for jobs. Isolationists wanted minimal contact with Europe and feared that immigrants might foment revolution. In response to public demands for restrictive legislation, Congress acted quickly.

Quota Laws: Congress passed two laws that severely limited immigration by setting quotas based on nationality. The first quota act of 1921 limited immigration to 3 percent of the number of foreign-born persons from a given nation counted in the 1910 Census (a maximum of 357,000). To reduce the number of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, Congress passed a second quota act in 1924 that set quotas of 2 percent based on the Census of 1890 (before the arrival of most of the “new” immigrants). Although there were quotas for all European and Asian nationalities, the law chiefly restricted those groups considered “undesirable” by the nativists. By 1927, the quotas for all Asians and eastern and southern Europeans had been limited to 150,000 with all Japanese immigrants barred. With these acts, the traditional United States policy of unlimited immigration ended. Canadians and Latin Americans were exempt from restrictions. Almost 500,000 Mexicans migrated legally to the Southwest during the 1920s.

Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: Although liberal American artists and intellectuals were few in number, they loudly protested against racist and nativist prejudices. They rallied to the support of two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who in 1921 had been convicted in a Massachusetts court of committing a robbery and murder. Liberals protested that the two men had not received a fair trial and that they had been accused, convicted, and sentenced to die because they were poor Italians and anarchists. After six years of appeals and national and international debates over the conduct of their trial, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in 1927.

Ku Klux Klan

The most extreme expression of nativism in the 1920s was the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. Unlike the original Klan of the 1860s and 1870s, the new Klan founded in 1915 was as strong in the Midwest as in the South. The Klan attracted new members because of the popular silent film Birth of a Nation, which portrayed the KKK during Reconstruction as the heroes, and the White backlash to the race riots of 1919. The new Klan used modern advertising techniques to grow 5 million members by 1925. It drew most of its support from lower-middle-class White Protestants in small cities and towns. This revival of the KKK directed hostility not only against African Americans but also against Catholics, Jews, foreigners, and suspected Communists.

Tactics: The Klan employed various methods for terrorizing and intimidating anyone targeted as “un-American”. Dressed in white hoods to disguise their identity, Klan members would burn crosses and apply vigilante justice, punishing victims with whips, tar and feathers, and lynching. The overwhelming number of those killed were African American men. In its heyday in the early 1920s, the Klan developed strong political influence. In Indiana and Texas, its support became crucial for candidates hoping to win elections to state and local offices.

Arts and Literature

Scorning religion as hypocritical and bitterly condemning the sacrifices of wartime as fraud perpetrated by money interests were two dominant themes afoot the leading writers of the postwar decade. This disillusionment caused the writer Gertrude Stein to call these writers a “lost generation.” The novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis; the poems of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot; and the plays of Eugene O’Neill expressed disillusionment with the ideals of an earlier time and with the materialism of business-oriented culture. Fitzgerald and O’Neill took to a life of drinking, while Eliot and Hemingway expressed their unhappiness by moving into exile in Europe.

Women, Family, and Education

Women at Home: The traditional separation of labor between men and women continued into the 1920s. Most middle-class women expected to spend their lives as homemakers and mothers. The introduction into the home of such labor-saving devices as the washing machine and vacuum cleaner eased but did not substantially change the daily routines of the homemaker.

Women in the Labor Force: Participation of women in the workforce remained about the same as before the war. Employed women usually lived in the cities; were limited to certain categories of jobs as clerks, nurses, teacher, and domestics; and received lower wages than men.

Divorce: As a result of women’s suffrage, state lawmakers were now forced to listen to feminists, who demanded changes in the divorce laws to permit women to escape abusive and incompatible husbands. Liberalized divorce laws were one reason that one in six marriages end in divorce by 1930–a significant increase over the one-in-eight ratio in 1920.

Education: Widespread belief in the value of education, together with economic prosperity, stimulated more state governments to enact compulsory school laws. Universal high school education became the new American goal. By the end of the 1920s, the proportion of high school graduates had doubled to over 25 percent of school-age young adults.

African American Cultural Renaissance

By 1930, almost 20 percent of African Americans lived in the North, as migration from the South continued. In the North, African Americas still faced discrimination in housing and jobs, but they found at least some improvement in their earnings and material standard of living. The largest African American community developed in the Harlem section of New York City. With a population of almost 200,000 by 1930, Harlem became famous in the 1920s for its concentration of talented actors, artists, musicians, and writers. Because of their artistic achievements, this period is known as the “Harlem Renaissance.”

Marcus Garvey: In 2916, the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was brought to Harlem from Jamaica by a charismatic immigrant, Marcus Garvey. Garvey advocated individual and racial pride for African Americans and developed political ideas of Black nationalism. Building on W.E.B. DuBois’ pride in Black culture, Garvey established an organization for Black separatism, economic self-sufficiency, and a back-to-Africa movement. Garvey’s sale of stock in the Black Star Steamship line led to federal charges of fraud. In 1925, he was tried, convicted, and jailed. Later, he was deported to Jamaica, and his movement collapsed.

The Presidency of Warren Harding

Warren Harding has been a newspaper publisher in Ohio before entering politics. He was handsome and well liked among the Republican political cronies with whom he regularly played poker. His abilities as a leader, however, were less than presidential. When the Republican National Convention of 1920 deadlocked, the party bosses decided “in a smoke-filled room” to deliver the nomination to Harding as a compromise choice.

A Few Good Choices: Harding recognized his limitations and hoped to make up for them by appointing able men to his cabinet. His appointed the former presidential candidate and Supreme Court justice Charles Evan’s Hughes to be secretary of state, the greatly admired former mining engineer and Food Administration leader Herbert Hoover to be secretary of commerce, and the Pittsburgh industrialist and millionaire Andrew Mellon to be secretary of the treasury. When the Chief Justice’s seat on the Supreme Court became vacant, Harding filled it by appointing former President William Howard Taft.

Domestic Policy: Harding did little more than sign into law the measures adopted by the Republican Congress. He approved (1) a reduction in the income tax, (2) an increase in tariff rates under the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act of 1922, and (3) the establishment of the Bureau of the Budget, with procedures for all government expenditures to be placed in a single budget for Congress to review and vote on.

Scandals and Death: Harding’s postwar presidency was marked by scandals and corruption similar to those that had occurred under an earlier postwar president, Ulysses S. Grant. Having appointed some excellent officials, Harding also selected a number of incompetent and dishonest men to fill important positions, including Secretary of Interior Albert B. Fall and Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty. In 1924, Congress discovered that Fall had accepted bribes for granting oil leases near Teapot Dome, Wyoming. Daugherty also took bribes for agreeing not to prosecute certain criminal suspects. However, in August 1923, shortly after these scandals were uncovered publicly, Harding died of a heart attack in California after traveling to Alaska. He was never implicated in any of the scandals.

The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge

Harding’s vice president and successor, Calvin Coolidge, had won popularity in 1919 as the Massachusetts governor who broke the Boston police strike. He was a man of few words who richly deserved the nickname “Silent Cal.” Coolidge once explained why silence was good politics. “If you don’t say anything”, he said, “you won’t be called on to repeat it.” Also unanswerable was the president’s sage comment “When more and more people thrown out of work, unemployment results.” Coolidge summarized both his presidency and his era in the phrase “The business of America is business.”

The Election of 1924: After less than a year in office, Coolidge was the overwhelming choice of the Republican Party as their presidential nominee in 1924. The Democrats nominated a conservative lawyer from West Virginia, John W. Davis, and tried to make an issue of the Teapot Dome scandal. Unhappy with conservative dominance of both parties, liberals formed a new Progressive Party led by its presidential candidate, Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. Coolidge won the election easily, but the Progressive ticket did extremely well of a third party in a conservative era. La Follette received nearly 5 million votes, chiefly from discontented farmers and laborers.

Vetoes and Inaction: Coolidge believed in limited government that stood aside while business conducted its own affairs. Little was accomplished in the White House except keeping a close watch on the budget. Cutting spending to the bone, Coolidge vetoed even the acts of the Republican majority in Congress. He would not allow bonuses for WWI veterans and vetoed a bill to help farmers as crop prices fell.

7.9- The Great Depression

Causes of the 1929 Crash

Wall Street Crash: The ever-rising stock prices had become both a symbol and a source of wealth during the prosperous 1920s. A “boom” was in full force both in the United States and in the world economy in the late 1920s. On the stock exchange on Wall Street in New York City, stock prices had kept going up and up for 18 months, from March 1928 to September 1929. On September 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average of major stocks had reached an all-time high of 381. An average investor who bought $1,000 worth of such stocks at the time of Hoover’s election (November 1928) would have doubled his or her money in less than a year. Millions of people did invest in the boom marker of 1928–and millions lost their money in October 1929, when it collapsed.

Black Thursday and Black Tuesday: Although stock prices had fluctuated greatly for several weeks preceding the crash, the true panic did not begin until a Thursday in late October. On this Black Thursday—October 24, 1929–there was an unprecedented volume of selling on Wall Street, and stock prices plunged. The next day, hoping to stave off disaster by stabilizing prices, a group of bankers bought millions of dollars of stocks. The strategy worked for only one business day, Friday. The selling frenzy resumed on Monday. On Black Tuesday, October 29, the bottom fell out, as millions of panicky investors ordered their brokers to sell—but almost no buyers could be found. Prices on Wall Street steadily decreased. By late November, the Dow Jones index had fallen from its September high of 381 to 198. Three years later, stock prices would finally hit bottom at 41, less than one ninth of their peak value.

Underlying Causes of the Great Depression

Stock Market Speculation: Many people in all economic classes believed that they could get rich by “playing the market.” Instead of investing money in order to share in the earnings of a company, people were speculating that the price of a stock would go up and that they could sell it for a quick profit. Buying on margin allowed people to borrow most of the cost of the stock, making down payments as low as 10 percent. Investors depended on the price of the stock increasing so that they could repay the loan. When stock prices dropped, the market collapsed, and many lost everything they had borrowed and invested.

Government Policies: During the 1920s, the government had complete faith in business and did little to control or regulate it. Congress enacted high tariffs that protected U.S. industries but hurt farmers and international trade. Some economists have concentrated blame on the Federal Reserve for its tight money policies, as hundreds of banks failed. Instead of trying to stabilize banks, the money supply, and prices, the Federal Reserve tried to preserve the gold standard. Without depositors’ insurance, people panicked and sought to get their money out of the banks, which caused more bank failures.

Effects of the Great Depression

The pervasive impact of the Great Depression is evident in several statistics:

• The U.S. Gross National Product—the value of all goods and services produced by the nation in one year—dropped from $104 billion to $56 billion in just four years (1929-1932).

• The nation’s income declined by over 50 percent.

• Approximately 20 percent of all banks closed, wiping out 10 million savings accounts.

• The money supply contracted by 30 percent.

• By 1933, the number of unemployment had reached 13 million people, or 25 percent of the workforce, not including farmers.

Social Effects: The social efforts of the depression were felt by all classes. Those who had never fully shared in the prosperity of the 1920s, such as farmers and African Americans, had increased difficulties. Poverty and homelessness increased, as did the stress of families, as people searched for work. People continued to move from rural to urban areas, hoping that jobs would be plentiful in cities. Mortgage foreclosures and evictions became commonplace. The homeless traveled in box cars and lived in shantytowns, named “Hoovervilles”, in mock honor of their president.

President Hoover’s Policies

At the time of the stock market crash, nobody could foresee how long the downward slide would last. President Hoover was wrong—but hardly alone—in thinking that prosperity would soon return. The president believed the nation could get though the difficult times if the people took his advice about exercising voluntary action and restraint. Hoover urged businesses not to cut wages, unions not to strike, and private charities to increase their efforts for the needy and jobless. Until the summer of 1930, he hesitated to ask Congress for legislative action on the economy, afraid that government assistance to individuals would destroy their self-reliance.

Responding to a Worldwide Depression

Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930): In June 1930, the president signed into law a schedule of tariff rates that was the highest in history. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff passed by the Republican Congress set tax increases ranging from 31 percent to 49 percent on foreign imports. In retaliation for the U.S. tariff, European countries enacted higher tariffs of their own against U.S. goods. International trade was already declining because economic activity was slowing down in most countries, and the higher tariffs made the decline even sharper. Economies around the world sank further into depression.

Debt Moratorium: By 1931, conditions became so bad both Europe and the United States that the Dawes Plan for collecting war debts could no longer continue. Hoover therefore proposed a moratorium (suspension) on the payment of international debts. Britain and Germany readily accepted, but France balked. The international economy suffered from massive loan defaults, and banks on both sides of the Atlantic scrambled to meet the demands of the many depositors withdrawing their money.

Domestic Programs: Too Little, Too Late

Federal Farm Board: The Farm Board was actually created in 1929, before the stock market crash, but its powers were later enlarged to meet the economic crisis. The board was authorized to help farmers stabilize prices by temporarily holding surplus grain and cotton in storage. The program, however, was far too modest to handle to continued overproduction of farm goods.

Reconstruction and Finance Corporation (RFC): This federally funded, government-owned corporation was created by Congress early in 1932 as a measure for propping up faltering railroads, banks, life insurance companies, and other financial institutions. It marked an attempt by the federal government to become more active in financial markets. The president reasoned that emergency loans from the RFC would help to stabilize these key businesses. The benefits would then “trickle down”to smaller businesses and ultimately bring recovery. Democrats scoffed at this measure, saying it would help only the rich.

Despair and Protest

Bonus March: Also in the desperate summer of 1932, a thousand unemployed World War I veterans marched to Washington, d.c., to demand immediate payment of the bonuses promised them at a later date (1945). They were eventually joined by thousands of other veterans who brought their wives and children and camped in improvised shacks near the Capitol. Congress failed to pass the bonus bill they sought. After two veterans were killed in a clash with police, General Douglas MacArthur, the army’s chief of staff, used tanks and tear gas to destroy the shantytown and drive the veterans from Washington. The incident caused many Americans to regard Hoover as heartless and uncaring.

7.10- The New Deal

The Election of 1932

Democrats: At their convention, the Democrats nominated New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt for president and Speaker of the House John Nance Garner of Texas for vice president. As a candidate, Roosevelt pledged a “new deal” for the American people, the repeal of Prohibition, aid for the unemployed, and cuts in government spending.

Results: In voters’ minds, the only real issue was the depression, and whether Hoover or Roosevelt could do a better job of ending the hard times. Almost 60 percent of them concluded that it was time for a change. The Roosevelt-Garner ticket carried all but sic states, Republican strongholds in the Northeast. Desperate for change, many Socialists deserted their candidate, Norman Thomas, to support Roosevelt. Not only was the new president a Democrat but both houses of Congress had large Democratic majorities.

Franklin D. Roosevelt as President

The new president was a distant cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt and was married to Theodore’s niece, Eleanor. More than any other president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt—popularly known by his initials, FDR— expanded the size of the federal government, altered its scope of operations, and greatly enlarged presidential powers. He would dominate the nation and the government for an unprecedented stretch of time, 12 years and two months. FDR became one of the most influential world leaders of the 20th century.

The New Deal Philosophy

The Three R’s: In his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in 1932, Roosevelt had said: “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” He had further promised in his campaign to help the “forgotten man at the bottom of the economic period.” During the early years of his presidency, it became clear that his New Deal programs were to serve three R’s: relief for people out pf work, recovery for business and the economy as a whole, and reform of American economic institutions.

Brain Trust and Other Advisers: In giving shape to his New Deal, President Roosevelt relied on a group of advisers who had assisted him while he was governor of New York. Louis Howe was to be his chief political adviser. For advice on economic matters, Roosevelt turned to a group of university professors, known as the Brain Trust.

The First Hundred Days

Bank Holiday: In early 1933, banks were failing at a frightening rate, as depositors flocked to withdraw funds. As many banks failed in 1933 as had failed in all the previous years of the depression. To restore confidence in those banks that were still solvent, the president ordered the banks closed for a bank holiday on March 6, 1933. He went on the radio to explain that the banks would be reopened after allowing enough time for the government to reorganize them on a sound basis. Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act on March 9, and the banks reopened on March 13.

Repeal of Prohibition: The new president kept a campaign promise to repeal Prohibition. He first had Congress pass the Beer-Wine Revenue Act, which legalized the sale of beer and wine, as a means of raising needed tax money. Later in 193, the ratification of the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, bringing Prohibition to an end.

Fireside Chats: Roosevelt went on the radio on March 2, 1933, to present the first of many fireside chats to the American people. The president assured his listeners that the banks which reopened after the bank holiday were safe. The public responded as hoped, and the money deposited in the reopened banks exceeded the money withdrawn.

Relief for the Unemployed: A number of programs created during the Hundred Days addressed the needs of the millions of unemployed workers. These plans created jobs with government stimulus dollars to provide both relief and to create more demand for goods and services. Roosevelt helped that this would create more jobs in the private sector.

• The Federal Emergency Relief Administration offered outright grants of federal money to states and local governments that were operating soup kitchens and other forms of relief for the jobless and homeless.

• The Public Works Administration allotted money to state and local governments for building roads, bridges, dams, and other public works. Such construction projects were a source of thousands of jobs.

• The Civilian Conservation Corps employed young men on projects on federal lands and paid their families small monthly sums.

• The Tennessee Valley Authority was a huge experiment in regional development and public planning. As a government corporation, it hired thousands of people in one of the nation’s poorest regions, the Tennessee Valley, to build dams, operate electric power plants, control flooding and erosion, and manufacture fertilizer. The TVA sold electricity to residents of the region at rates well below those previously charged by a private power company.

Financial Recovery and Reform Programs: As the final part of his New Deal, FDR persuaded Congress to enact the following measures:

• The Emergency Banking Relief Act authorized the government to examine the finances of banks closed during the bank holiday and reopen those judged to be sound.

• The Glass-Steagall Act increased regulation of the banks and limited how banks could invest customers’ money.

• The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation guaranteed individual bank deposits.

Industrial Recovery Program: The key measure in 1933 to combine immediate relief and log-term reform was the National Recovery Administration. The NRA was an attempt to guarantee reasonable profits for business and fair wages and hours for labor. With the antitrust laws temporarily suspended, the NRA could help each industry (such as steel, oil, and paper) set codes for wages, hours of work, levels of production, and prices of finished goods. The law creating the NRA also gave workers the right to organize and bargain collectively. The complex program operated with limited success for two years before the Supreme Court declared the NRA unconstitutional.

Other Programs of the First New Deal

• The Securities and Exchange Commission was created to regulate the stock market to place strict limits on the kind of speculative practices that had led to the Wall Street crash in 1929. The SEC also required full audits of, and financial disclosure by, corporations to protect investors from fraud and insider trading.

• The Federal Housing Administration gave both the building industry. and homeowners a boost by insuring bank loans for building, repairing, and purchasing houses. It provided many families their first chance to buy a home and build wealth that they could pass on to their children. However, the FHA used “redlining” to define neighborhoods where African Americans lived, and did not make loans in those areas. Nearly all FHA loans made during the first thirty years of the program went to White applicants.

The Second New Deal

Roosevelt’s first two years in office were largely focused on achieving one of the three R’s: recovery. Democratic victories in the congressional elections of 1934 gave the president the popular mandate he needed to seek another round of laws and programs. In the summer of 1935, he launched the second New Deal, which concentrated on the other two R’s: relief and reform. Harry Hopkins became even more prominent in Roosevelt’s administration with the creation in 1935 of a new and larger relief agency.

Works Progress Administration: Much bigger than the relief agencies of the first New Deal, the WPA spent billions of dollars between 1935 and 1940 to provide people with jobs. After its first year of operation under Hopkins, it employed 3.4 million men and women who had formerly been on the relief rolls of state and local governments. It paid them double the relief rate but less than the going wage for regular workers. Most WPA workers were put to work constructing new bridges, roads, airports, and public buildings. Unemployed artists, writers, actors, and photographers were paid by the WPA to paint murals, write histories, and perform in plays.

7.11- Interwar and Foreign Policy

Post WWI Agreements

Washington Conference (1921): Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes initiated talks on naval disarmament, hoping to stabilize the size of U.S. Navy relative to that of other powers and to resolve conflicts in the Pacific. Representatives to the Washington Conference came from Belgium, China, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Three agreements to relieve tensions resulted from the discussions:

• Five-Power Treaty: Nations with the five largest navies agreed to maintain the following ratio with respect to their largest warships, or battleships: the United States, 5; Great Britain, 5; Japan, 3; France, 1.67; Italy, 1.67. Britain and the United States also agreed not to fortify their possessions in. the Pacific, while no limit was placed on the Japanese.

• Four-Power Treaty: The United States, France, Great Britain, and Japan agreed to respect one another’s territory in the Pacific.

• Nine-Power Treaty: All nine nations represented at the conference agreed to respect the Open Door policy by guaranteeing the territorial integrity of China.

Kellogg-Briand Pact: American women took the lead in a peace movement committed to outlawing future wars. The movement achieved its greatest success in 1928 with the signing of a treaty arranged by U.S. Secretary of state Frank Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Brand. Almost all the nations in the world signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced the aggressive use of force to achieve national ends. this international agreement would prove ineffective, however, since it (1) permitted defensive wars and (2) failed to provide for taking action against violators of the agreement.

Good Neighbor Policy

In his first inaugural address in 1933, Roosevelt promised a “policy of the good neighbor” toward other nations of the Western Hemisphere. First, interventionism in support of dollar diplomacy no longer made economic sense, because U.S. businesses during the depression lacked the resources to invest in foreign operations. Second, the rise of militarist regimes in Germany and Italy promised Roosevelt to seek Latin America’s cooperation in defending the region from potential danger.

The Rise of Fascism and Militarism

The worldwide depression soon proved to have alarming repercussions for world politics. Combined with nationalist resentments after WWI, economic hardships gave rise to dictatorships in Italy in the 1920s and Japan and Germany in the 1930s. Eventually, in 1940, Japan, Italy, and Germany signed a treaty of alliance. Together, they became known as the Axis powers.

Italy: A new regime seized power in Italy in 1922. Benito Mussolini led Italy’s Fascist Party, which attracted dissatisfied war veterans, nationalists, and those afraid of rising communism. Dressed in black shirts, the Fascists marched on Rome and installed Mussolini in power as “I’ll Duce” (the Leader). Fascism—the idea that people should glorify their nation and their race through aggressive shows of force—became the dominant ideology in European dictatorships in the 1930s.

Germany: The Nazi Party was the German equivalent of Italy’s Fascist Party. It arose in the 1920s in reaction to deplorable economic conditions after the war and national resentments over the Treaty of Versailles. The Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, used bullying tactics against Jews as well as Fascist ideology to increase his popularity with disgruntled, unemployed German workers. Hitler seized the opportunity presented by the depression to play upon anti-Semitic hatreds. With his personal army of “brown shirts,” Hitler gained control of the German legislature in early 1933.

American Isolationists

Public opinion in the United States was also nationalistic but expressed itself in an opposite way from fascism and militarism. Disillusioned with the results of WWI, American isolationists wanted to make sure that the US would never again be drawn into foreign war. Japanese aggression in Manchuria and the rise of fascism in Italy a Germany only increased the determination of isolationists to avoid war at all costs. Isolationist sentiment was strongest in the Midwest and among Republicans.

Neutrality Acts: Isolationist senators and representatives in both parties held a majority in Congress through 1938. To ensure that U.S. policy would be strictly neutral if war broke out in Europe, Congress adopted a series of neutrality acts, which Roosevelt signed with some reluctance. Each law applied to belligerent nations, ones that the president proclaimed to be at war.

• The Neutrality Act of 1935 authorized the president to prohibit all arms shipments and to forbid U.S. citizens from travel on the ships of belligerents.

• The Neutrality Act of 1936 forbade the extension of loans and credits to belligerents.

• The Neutrality Act of 1937 forbade the shipment of arms to the opposing sides in the civil war in Spain.

America First Committee: In 1940, after WWII had begun in Asia and Europe, isolationists became alarmed by Roosevelt’s pro-British policies. To mobilize American public opinion against war, they formed the America First Committee and engaged speaker such as Charles Lindbergh to travel the country warning against reengaging in Europe’s troubles.

Prelude to Another War

7.12- WWII Mobilization

7.13- WWII Military

7.14- Postwar Diplomacy