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A D o c u m e n t a r y R e a d e r

EDITED BY

WILLIAM A. LINK AND SUSANNAH J. LINK

THE

GILDED AGE AND

PROGRESSIVE ERA

EDITED BY

LINK AND

LINK

U n c o v e r i n g T h e P a s t D o c u m e n t a r y R e a d e r s i n A m e r i c a n H i s t o r y

“This treasure trove of documents is a terrifi c classroom resource. The Links chose carefully to achieve geographic, chronological, and thematic balance. The book’s organization represents all aspects of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and ties them together interpretatively. Professors will fi nd themselves assigning documents from the reader week after week. This is one of the most useful teaching books I’ve seen.”

Glenda Gilmore, Yale University

“Three cheers for William and Susannah Link, whose documentary reader offers interpretive structure and focus alongside its thoughtfully chosen collection of primary sources. This reader is authoritative while still compact, giving enough points of view to spark controversy without closing down conversation. It is the perfect companion to the US survey or more specialized courses in modern American history.”

Jane Dailey, University of Chicago

“Wisely selected fi rst-person accounts coupled with the editors’ trenchant introductions bring to life civics and society at the dawn of modern America. It is a valuable resource that will engage students.”

Andrew Haley, University of Southern Mississippi

Following the conclusion of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Progressive Era brought a wholesale restructuring of social and political institutions. The period from the 1870s through World War I was characterized by the nationalization of American life, the establishment of the United States as a global power, the refashioning of social relationships, and the reconstruction of the political system.

This volume gathers together documents that illustrate the variety of experiences and themes involved in the transformation of American political, economic, and social systems during this period, and presents the essential perspectives of race, class, gender, and culture. Situating the documents within their historical context, the book is divided into fi ve thematic sections: the American frontier after Reconstruction; the transformations that arrived with industrialization; the social and political crisis that gripped the United States at the end of the nineteenth century; reform; imperialism and war.

This collection enables readers to engage actively in historical interpretation and to understand the interplay between social and political forces in the period, exploring the experiences of people during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era from a variety of diverse perspectives.

William A. Link is Richard J. Milbauer Professor of History at the University of Florida. His publications include Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (2003) and Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern American Conservatism (2008).

Susannah J. Link is instructor in American history at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Cover image: ‘The Trust Giant’s Point of View’, cartoon by Horace Taylor showing John D. Rockefeller holding the White House and President McKinley in the palm of his hand, 1900. © Photos 12/Alamy.

Cover design by Simon Levy

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Uncovering the Past: Documentary Readers in American History Series Editors: Steven Lawson and Nancy Hewitt

The books in this series introduce students in American history courses to two important dimensions of historical analysis. They enable students to engage actively in historical interpretation, and they further students’ understanding of the interplay between social and political forces in historical developments.

Consisting of primary sources and an introductory essay, these readers are aimed at the major courses in the American history curriculum, as outlined further below. Each book in the series will be approximately 225–250 pages, including a 25–30‐page introduction addressing key issues and questions about the subject under consideration, a discussion of sources and method- ology, and a bibliography of suggested secondary readings.

Published

Paul G.E. Clemens The Colonial Era: A Documentary Reader

Sean Patrick Adams The Early American Republic: A Documentary Reader

Stanley Harrold The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Reader

Steven Mintz African American Voices: A Documentary Reader, 1619–1877

Robert P. Ingalls and David K. Johnson The United States Since 1945: A Documentary Reader

Camilla Townsend American Indian History: A Documentary Reader

Steven Mintz Mexican American Voices: A Documentary Reader

Brian Ward The 1960s: A Documentary Reader

Nancy Rosenbloom Women in American History Since 1880: A Documentary Reader

Jeremi Suri American Foreign Relations Since 1898: A Documentary Reader

Carol Faulkner Women in American History to 1880: A Documentary Reader

David Welky America Between the Wars, 1919–1941: A Documentary Reader

William A. Link and Susannah J. Link The Gilded Age and Progressive Era: A Documentary Reader

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The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

A Documentary Reader

Edited by William A. Link

and Susannah J. Link

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

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Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley‐Blackwell.

Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148–5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley‐blackwell .

The right of William A. Link and Susannah J. Link to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data

The Gilded Age and Progressive Era : a documentary reader / edited by William A. Link and Susannah J. Link. p. cm. – (Uncovering the past : documentary readers in American history ; 12) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4443-3138-7 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4443-3139-4 (paperback) 1. United States–History–1865-1921–Sources. 2. United States–Politics and government–1865-1933–Sources. 3. United States–Social conditions–1865-1918–Sources. 4. Progressivism (United States politics)–Sources. I. Link, William A. II. Link, Susannah J. E661.G455 2012 973.8–dc23

2011034658

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Set in 10/12.5pt Sabon by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India

1 2012

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The Debate about World War I 307

decided whether it would submit to military despotism and an endless armed peace—if peace it could be called—or whether they would put down the menace of German militarism and inaugurate the United States of the World.

We of the colored race have no ordinary interest in the outcome. That which the German power represents today spells death to the aspirations of Negroes and all darker races for equality, freedom and democracy. Let us not hesitate. Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks shoulder to shoulder with our own white fellow citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy. We make no ordinary sacrifice, but we make it gladly and willingly with our eyes lifted to the hills.

November 1918

It was a tremendous speech that Woodrow Wilson made in New York City, September 27, 1918. On one point alone was its meaning vague to us of the darker world, who listened with bated breath. Listen to these words:

“Shall the military power of any nation or group of nations be suffered to determine the fortunes of peoples over whom they have no right to rule, except the right of force?

“Shall strong nations be free to wrong nations and make them subject to their purpose and interest?

“Shall peoples be ruled and dominated, even in their own internal affairs, by arbitrary and irresponsible force, or by their own will and choice?

“Shall there be a common standard of right and privilege for all peoples and nations, or shall the strong do as they will and the weak suffer without redress?

Is it possible that these flaming arrows were not aimed at the Vardamans in Mississippi as well as at Huns in Europe? Is it thinkable that President Wilson did not have clearly in mind Kamerun as well as Serbia? It is neither possible or thinkable if English is English and Justice is Justice, and with this true, Mr. Wilson’s speech is one of the half dozen significant utterances of human history.

2 Eugene V. Debs, The Canton, Ohio, Anti‐War Speech, 1918 2

Eugene Debs (1855–1926) was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and worked in the railroad industry as a boilerman. Subsequently, he became involved in union organizing in the conservative railway brotherhoods, but he eventually

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308 The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

helped to organize a more radical group, the American Railway Union, in 1893. Debs became involved in the famous Pullman strike in the Chicago area in 1894, and he was sent to jail for ignoring a court order requiring the unions to return to work. Debs subsequently helped to organize the Socialist Party of America, and he ran as its presidential candidate five times between 1900 and 1920.

Debs, like most other Socialists, opposed American intervention in World War I, and here he denounced the Wilson administration’s prosecutions of Socialists for their antiwar activities. In this famous speech, at the state convention of the Socialist party in Canton, Ohio, Debs connected the war with forces of international capitalism. Because of this speech, he was prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917 and was sentenced to ten years in federal prison. He served time in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta from April 1919 to December 1921 – and ran for president from prison, attracting nearly a million votes – when President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence.

Comrades, friends and fellow‐workers, for this very cordial greeting, this very hearty reception, I thank you all with the fullest appreciation of your interest in and your devotion to the cause for which I am to speak to you this afternoon. . . .

I realize that, in speaking to you this afternoon, there are certain limitations placed upon the right of free speech. I must be exceedingly careful, prudent, as to what I say, and even more careful and prudent as to how I say it. I may not be able to say all I think; but I am not going to say anything that I do not think. I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets. They may put those boys in jail—and some of the rest of us in jail—but they cannot put the Socialist movement in jail. Those prison bars separate their bodies from ours, but their souls are here this afternoon. They are simply paying the penalty that all men have paid in all the ages of history for standing erect, and for seeking to pave the way to better conditions for mankind. . . .

They who have been reading the capitalist newspapers realize what a capacity they have for lying. We have been reading them lately. They know all about the Socialist Party—the Socialist movement, except what is true. Only the other day they took an article that I had written and most of you have read it—most of you members of the party, at least—and they made it appear that I had undergone a marvelous transformation. I had suddenly become changed—had in fact come to my senses; I had ceased to be a wicked Socialist, and had become a respectable Socialist, a patriotic Socialist—as if I had ever been anything else.

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The Debate about World War I 309

What was the purpose of this deliberate misrepresentation? It is so self‐ evident that it suggests itself. The purpose was to sow the seeds of dissension in our ranks; to have it appear that we were divided among ourselves; that we were pitted against each other, to our mutual undoing. But Socialists were not born yesterday. They know how to read capitalist newspapers; and to believe exactly the opposite of what they read. . . .

They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self‐governing people. This is too much, even for a joke. But it is not a subject for levity; it is an exceedingly serious matter.

To whom do the Wall Street Junkers 3 in our country marry their daughters? After they have wrung their countless millions from your sweat, your agony and your life’s blood, in a time of war as in a time of peace, they invest these untold millions in the purchase of titles of broken‐down aristocrats, such as princes, dukes, counts and other parasites and no‐accounts. Would they be satisfied to wed their daughters to honest workingmen? To real democrats? Oh, no! They scour the markets of Europe for vampires who are titled and nothing else. And they swap their millions for the titles, so that matrimony with them becomes literally a matter of money.

These are the gentry who are today wrapped up in the American flag, who shout their claim from the housetops that they are the only patriots, and who have their magnifying glasses in hand, scanning the country for evidence of disloyalty, eager to apply the brand of treason to the men who dare to even whisper their opposition to Junker rule in the United Sates. No wonder Sam Johnson declared that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes, for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people.

They would have you believe that the Socialist Party consists in the main of disloyalists and traitors. It is true in a sense not at all to their discredit. We frankly admit that we are disloyalists and traitors to the real traitors of this nation . . . .

Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the

3 The Junkers were the Prussian landed aristocracy who dominated Germany’s social, political, and military leadership.

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310 The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and noth- ing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose— especially their lives.

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.

And here let me emphasize the fact—and it cannot be repeated too often— that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace.

They are continually talking about your patriotic duty. It is not their but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided differ- ence. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches.

And now for all of us to do our duty! The clarion call is ringing in our ears and we cannot falter without being convicted of treason to ourselves and to our great cause. . . .

Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be con- cerned about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.

Yes, in good time we are going to sweep into power in this nation and throughout the world. We are going to destroy all enslaving and degrading capitalist institutions and re‐create them as free and humanizing institu- tions. The world is daily changing before our eyes. The sun of capitalism is setting; the sun of socialism is rising. It is our duty to build the new nation and the free republic. We need industrial and social builders. We Socialists are the builders of the beautiful world that is to be. We are all pledged to do our part. We are inviting—aye challenging you this afternoon in the name of your own manhood and womanhood to join us and do your part.

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The Debate about World War I 311

In due time the hour will strike and this great cause triumphant—the greatest in history—will proclaim the emancipation of the working class and the brotherhood of all mankind.

3 Espionage Act, 1917 4

The Espionage Act, along with an amendment passed in 1918 and often called the Sedition Act, was passed by Congress and signed by Woodrow Wilson as a response to widespread fears in the United States that alleged traitors and anarchists were trying to sabotage the government during World War I. The portion of the law that places rigid restrictions on freedom of speech led to strenuous objection by people concerned about civil liberty. During the discussion of the bill in Congress, Representative Martin Madden of Illinois noted that, “while we are fighting to establish the democracy of the world, we ought not to do the thing that will establish autocracy in America.” A number of important Supreme Court cases resulted from this law and the Sedition Act : Schenck v . United States, Frohwerk v . United States, Debs v . United States, and Abrams v . United States. In each of these cases, the Supreme Court upheld the law. In Schenck, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the unanimous opinion, which included the doctrine of “a clear and present danger.” This doctrine restricted speech that might cause widespread panic, unless there was an immediate danger, as in yelling “Fire!” in a movie theater. In Abrams, Holmes, in a famous dissent, clarified this doctrine when he wrote, “Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech .’”

The law was used especially often against Socialists, such as Eugene Debs, and in western states where the International Workers of the World were active. Because the law could be enforced at the discretion of US attorneys, it was applied unevenly throughout the country. Convicted under the law for making a speech that allegedly restricted military recruiting, Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison (although his sentence was commuted by Warren G. Harding after five years) and ran for president in 1920 from prison. The poet, e.e. cummings, was convicted and served three months of military detention for saying openly that he did not hate Germans. Albert S. Burleson, the postmaster general, used the law as justification for censoring the mail if a local postmaster believed that it constituted antiwar propaganda.

4 “Session I, Chapter 30,” Statutes at Large of the United States of America: from April, 1917, to March, 1919 , Concurrent Resolutions of the Two Houses of Congress and Recent Treaties, Conventions, and Executive Proclamations Amendment to the Constitution , Vol. XL, Part I (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919), pp. 217–19.

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